Dancer Page 16

  Iosif had grown angrier over the past months. Twice he had slapped me. Stupidly I caved into the desire to ridicule him and told him that he slapped like a member of the intelligentsia, so he had punched me, hard, knocked a tooth loose. Since then we had seldom talked.

  He was at the table, hunched over a bowl of soup, reading both newspapers, slurping his food with relish. He looked old to me, the bald spot at the top of his head illuminated in the globe of lamplight from above his head.

  From the bed I examined him, but after a while I became aware of a commotion outside the window, a distant and muffled shouting that seemed to intensify as I listened.

  There was another shout and a thud.

  I said to Iosif: What’s that?

  Go to sleep, woman, it’s just the hooligans playing soccer, he said.

  I put my face to the cool side of the pillow, but there was something about the texture of the shouting that disturbed me. I waited an hour, until Iosif had gone to bed on the couch, and then got up, went to the window, pulled aside the curtain, looked down. I was tired—I had been working on several translations—and had to blink many times before my eyes adjusted.

  Beyond the courtyard, out towards the soccer field, a few hooligans were clustered around mounds of freshly dug soil. There was some new construction going on, and the dirt was piled up like a series of small hillocks. The hooligans had found a couple of short white sticks and had shoved them into the ground as goalposts.

  A middle-aged man who looked like a war veteran—he wore an old military hat tilted at an angle—was trying to get at the sticks, but he was being pushed back by the teenagers. He was screaming at them, but, from my distance, I couldn’t make out his words. The hooligans were circling him and jabbing his chest, but he was holding his ground.

  All of a sudden the man broke through their ranks and pulled both the short white goalposts out of the ground, brandishing them as weapons. He backed away, swinging the posts. The hooligans watched. Once he was about five meters away the man rushed off, clutching the white posts to his chest. The teenagers didn’t bother following. Instead they laughed and went back to one of the piles of soil from the construction site. They picked through the dirt until they found a white ball and began kicking it.

  With a dreadful shiver, I realized that it was a skull.

  The floor seemed to sway. I grasped at the window ledge.

  The war veteran had, by then, turned around. He saw them passing the skull back and forth at their feet. I could not see his face. He dropped the sticks—they must have been armbones or legbones—and ran across the field once more, weighed down by his frame, his jacket, his hat, his sadness.

  Behind him, the bones lay crossed on the ground.

  The words of a song returned to me, the dead turning into a soaring flight of cranes. I trembled, wondering whether the bones were German or Russian and then I wondered if it even mattered, and then I thought of my small china dish hidden away and wrapped. Beneath the window frame I sat and curled up against the abandon of what we had become.

  I pulled the curtains together, watched Iosif snore. I was exhausted yet exhilarated, as if something terrible was dragging me down and at the same time shoving me forward. I wanted to wake Iosif, to say that we would survive, that we would get through this, we could transform, we could learn. I wanted him to do something soothing and kind for me, but I didn’t wake him, nor did he stir, and I knew then that the opportunity was lost. I was thirty-eight years old and leaving.

  I pulled the suitcase from under the bed and began packing: my clothes, my books, my dictionaries, the half-finished translations, the china saucer. I made enough noise for Iosif to waken but he didn’t. It seemed to me that the sleeping part of him knew what the waking half would feel.

  I thought about kissing him on the cheek, but instead I wrote him a note, quoting my father’s line about the stars being deeper than their darkness.

  By the time I had packed and was ready to leave, it was morning. Reefs of clouds had appeared in the sky. The hooligans had disappeared, but the military man was still in the field. He had a shovel in his hands now, and he was reinterring the bones and skull in an untouched part of the field. The sun was suspended between distant towers, and the apartment buildings on the horizon looked like children’s playing blocks. As if by design, a flock of birds rose and flapped small against the heavens. I walked down the stairs, not desiring the claustrophobia of the elevator. The day was already warm and humid. My suitcase was not heavy.

  In the field I passed the military man, who looked at the ground and then turned his back on me as if to say: Our wars are never over.

  * * *

  JUNE 1964

  Tamara,

  You will doubt it, but the news of Father’s passing hit me with the force of an ax and brought me to my knees. I was in Italy. They stupidly waited until after the show, and then they handed me the telegram, which was routed on from Paris, where it was sent by mistake. Hence the time it took for me to get in touch. Nothing else.

  I went out alone in the streets of Milan and could not help but recall him and, although you will not believe this, it was with fondness. It is true that I spent much of my life in difficulties with Father, yes, but I have also felt the opposite. To hold such conflicting emotions is indeed a possibility—even the cheapest choreographer will tell you that. So it wounds me deeply to hear the things you say.

  It is true that I danced the following night—but dance to me, as you know, is every emotion, not just celebration but death, futility and loneliness, too. Even love must pass through loneliness. So I danced him alive. When I went onstage I took flight and was released. You may choose not to believe this, but it is the truth.

  The stories you heard about me celebrating in nightclubs are absurd. The photograph of me spraying champagne inside the dressing room at La Scala was taken on another day, not on the night of Father’s death. Do not believe them when they lie. The notion is hideous. I am twenty-six years old. How could anyone possibly think I have become such an animal as to be dead to feeling? Am I frozen? Am I wood?

  The truth of it is that I bleed as much as anybody, probably even more so.

  You curse me, but I am, in fact, protecting you and of course Mother. You should be thankful. To be away from home is to be away from everything that made me. And to be away from everything that made me, when it dies, is my own death. Darkness touches darkness everywhere.

  Perhaps you will choose not to understand this.

  But you should listen to me when I tell you how devastated I was, especially for Mother, who is never more than a step away from my mind.

  You choose to say that my life is a circus now. Nothing is simple, Tamara, not even your attempts at simplification. Why did I do it? It was never my intention to leave, I could have stayed, but if you tread water long enough it is possible you might never learn to swim. I meant nothing by it. Politics is for fat men with cigars. It is not for me, I am a dancer, I live to dance. That is all.

  And you ask, with a snort, what is my life now? Yes I am fortunate. I have a house, contracts, masseur, managers, friends. I have danced on almost every continent. I had tea in the White House with President Kennedy before he was shot. Margot and I danced at the inauguration of Johnson. At the Vienna State Opera House we got eighty-nine curtain calls. The ovations often last a half hour. I am gloriously happy, but sometimes I wake in the mornings with an awful sense of it being over and never having meant that much. I have no desire to be served up as a sensation, a nine-day wonder. I go from country to country. I am a non-person where I became a person. I am stateless. So it is. And so it has always been, even I suppose since our days in Ufa. It is dance, and dance only, that keeps me alive.

  Goethe says: Such a price the gods exact for song, to become what we sing.

  Sometimes things fly across my mind with no real meaning or purpose that I can decipher. Do you remember the beer seller who used to operate her stall at the bottom of Krassina?
She had a face like a mule. She had just three beer mugs, and she used to shout at the men to hurry up and drink. She slid the abacus beads very precisely. You took me there one afternoon and you told me that you could tell the time of day by however much of her had disappeared. I did not understand until you showed me the shadow from the umbrella, how it used to slice her. At midday she was dark since the sun was high in the sky. By the end of the day all of her could be seen since the sun was so low. You were able to tell the time by her shadows.

  I will tell you this—I often envy the freedom that you had to marry Ilya. Yes, freedom. You must understand that I desire choice. And yet that choice is denied to me. My life is tied up in opera houses, hotel rooms, dining halls, luncheons, rehearsals. In any case I am indeed sorry that I missed your wedding celebrations. I have been to similar occasions in the West and have thought of you. You surely looked beautiful. Give my regards and congratulations to your new husband.

  Of course I do not care that he is a janitor, why should that disturb me? You should have more faith in me. Without janitors, without electricians, without plumbers, the world would surely be taking a shit in a bucket in the dark.

  At this moment I am at the country house of a friend for three or four days. It is the first time, except for when I have been injured, that I have neither danced nor rehearsed in ten years. I need the space, since I have not taken a breath in a very long time. My friends are kind—they give me great companionship. Perhaps I have changed, but it is only for the good. I do not suffer fools gladly. Most of all, and most important, my dancing is transformed. I have built a great coliseum on the foundation of what I laid in Leningrad. The success with Fonteyn has been staggering. She has gone through some very trying times in recent years, not least since her husband was crippled. Yet Margot, when she dances, is a genius. I have seen her coming down the steps of her own house on pointe. She constantly amazes me, despite her age. When she is onstage nothing touches her, and together we are hand and glove. The world is our witness.

  Up to now I have worked relentlessly and the world has taken its toll, so it is time to briefly replenish. I am here to take stock.

  The land is generally flat, although we are in the hills. In some ways I am reminded of the landscape of Crimea. A friend of mine looks after me, cooking meals, taking calls, keeping the journalists away. When I hear phones ringing, I think of Mother. I hope she is strong. At times my anger is unstoppable. I would speak my outrage to the world except I know what would happen. If I spoke up she would be further marooned.

  And I will tell you immediately that what rumors you hear of me and other men are completely untrue. I have many friends—it is as simple as that. Do not believe those who try to derail me, miserable cockroaches.

  You should be proud of me, and if I could talk to you face-to-face you would certainly dismiss all the lies that are told in my name. I recall long evenings in Ufa, sunlight, factory horns, the dirty air. You see, I have not forgotten my homeland, but I will not be sentimental. There are secret police who still follow me, and I live in fear, but I will not let it affect me, I’ll live through it in order to say: I have lived through it.

  I do not regret anything. Regret is for simpletons.

  I dream sometimes of Mother and bringing her to the West, where she could live in comfort. (You too if you desire.) I have been in touch with politicians, but they say their hands are tied. I have employed lawyers to look into the possibility. They take the money, of course, but I fear it is useless. Bloodsuckers! We have to stand strong and not let fate be thrust upon us. As for Mother, I hope she is being strong. She once cut his fingernails in front of us, do you recall? He was embarrassed to be seen like this, having his nails cut, so he hurried her along, yes? She cut his finger and he wore a bandage for days. Then he hid the bandaged hand in his jacket pocket.

  Tamara, if these words reach you, tell Mother that I think of her endlessly. Inform her that her son dances to improve the world. And whisper my name to the grass where Father is.

  That is all.

  Rudik

  BOOK TWO

  1961–1971

  I desire this thinking body—

  This charred bony flesh

  Alive to its own span—

  To turn into a street, a country.

  —OSIP MANDELSTAM

  1

  Eleven hours of rehearsal, one hour of slow barre work. Impossible to achieve the correct phrasing. You must desire the patience of a stonecutter. Chisel away until everything fits. After dressing room nap, another hour rehearsal with Rosella. In performance nobody—nobody!—noticed, not even Françoise.

  Twenty encores, but so what, who cares? Remember: Perfection is the duty.

  In an interview Petit says there are certain things that defeat themselves if they are said. That dance is the only thing that can describe what is otherwise indescribable. Yes.

  The note from Grace Kelly hung from the lightbulb above the mirror.

  Edith Piaf was watching from the veranda. Jean Cocteau smiled from the shadows. Marlene Dietrich was stretched out on the divan. There was talk of Leonard Bernstein on his way from his hotel, perhaps even an appearance by Picasso. Someone began quoting lines from Proust. All for me!

  Walked back to the hotel with the bodyguards and heard a roadsweeper on the quays, humming Mozart. I thought that nothing will surprise me anymore, not even my dreams.

  The de La Rochefoucauld house—fifteen types of champagne, more caviar than ever seen before. Orchids on the tables. Gold candelabras. Everyone was whirling around, the room had no corners. The talk was of choreographers, critics, audiences, but it swung finally to philosophers, all Western, including Derrida, so they left me disadvantaged. There is much to catch up on. Otherwise they will buffoon me. My reply was based on Sasha’s idea that dance says what nothing else can.

  Dance with the balls. The brain follows the balls.

  Lots of nodding heads. Snickers behind their hands. I left them alone when really I should have stuck my tongue down their throats to pierce their empty hearts.

  Twenty-three years old. The constant (unrevealed) thought of being an impostor. But you cannot become a history of what you have left behind. No tea, no heirlooms, no weeping. No stale bread, soaked in vodka and tears. You must boot yourself down the boulevards of Paris in your white silk shirt!

  Mother was weeping uncontrollably on the telephone. Later during the night there was the thought of her at the wireless, turning white knobs: Warsaw, Luxembourg, Moscow, Prague, Kiev, Vilnius, Dresden, Minsk.

  Tamara said: You have betrayed us.

  Menuhin played Bach at the Salle Pleyel: the heart quickened and almost forgot everything.

  A bath. Honey in the tea. Rehearsal. The perfection is not so much in the performance as in the journey towards it. This is the joy. You must burn!

  Each corner, each sculpture, each painting takes the breath away. It is like walking through a history book that goes on forever, refuses to meet its own back cover. It is a marvel, a seventh wonder, almost as good as the Hermitage (although half the size and not quite the grandeur).

  Already the guards recognize me and one of them greeted me in pidgin Tatar. His family left generations ago. He was with the Impressionists, so I lingered.

  Claire took me along the Seine away from the museum. She gave me a pair of giant sunglasses for disguise then pulled the brim of my leather cap down. Four people immediately shouted, Nureyev!

  At a stall a bookseller was waving a signed copy of A Farewell to Arms. Only a few weeks dead and his books are selling at ridiculous prices. (Perhaps one should die in the middle of a dance, en l’air, have the performance auctioned, frozen, sold to the highest bidder.) Claire looked in her handbag, but the book seller said he didn’t have change. She bought it for almost one and a half times the price. She was curious that I was so appalled. Later she showed me the workings of the bank account—such foolishness.

  Rumors that they tortured Sasha, questioned X
enia, took Yulia and put her in a cell for a week. Surely this cannot be true.

  A new hairstyle in Paris: the Noureev. In Le Monde some vulture said it has appeared as quickly as the Berlin Wall, but as Cocteau explained, it is just their desire to commodify me. Oh, to have a mind like Cocteau’s. (He said that in a dream he was once trapped in an elevator listening to Symphony Divine.)

  The bearded Jew walked east through the Jardins de Luxembourg, his long overcoat swishing at his ankles. He had his hands behind his back, holding a prayer book. Then he sat on a bench under a tree and picked his teeth. He might have been thinking, Ah, Petersburg.

  Madame B. waited while the Algerian tailor measured. Then she bought the black velvet suit. She said I should take endless delight in new beginnings.

  In the apartment the maidservant made a disgusting drink of minted tea. I sipped it and immediately spat it back into the glass. Madame seemed delighted, as if she had found the elemental savage.

  She came to the divan, ran my suit lapel between her forefinger and thumb. I excused myself to the window. Down below, on the sidewalk, the men walked with their overcoats draped across their forearms and the women wore their hats as if something were alive on their heads. The traffic stalled. Bits of newspaper blew along the Seine.

  Madame was at the window, trying to shout down to me as I walked away along the quay.

  The wristwatches were all German handmade and they had no price tags. It was difficult to be nonchalant when Madame asked which one I wanted. She desires to smother me with her wealth, yet why should I say to a fountain that I am not going to drink from your water?

  Later Madame pointed out that, when nervous, I pull my shirtsleeves down over my knuckles. She said it was uncouth, the gesture of a peasant, but that time would fix it. She leaned back against the balcony railing, holding a long cigarette. Her chin tilted as if she had just said something very wise. I tugged at my sleeve again. She waved her cigarette in the air. Oh, non non non, Rudi, mon Dieu!