Dancer Read online

  The skinheads shouted after me as I ran and ran down the promenade away from them. I stopped only when I could no longer hear their foul mouths. Then I leaned against the railing and tried to soothe the child who was screaming now, loud wrenching cries.

  At that moment I knew that I hated my husband Tom more than any other person I had ever met in my life.

  Two days later, when I got back to London, I found Tom dozing in a chair in our quarters with his hands in his lap. He looked wretched. His shirt was sloppy with stains and I could smell beer off his breath.

  I ignored him and began to change into my night clothes, sat on the edge of my bed to remove my tights. Tom woke groggily and looked around as if unsure of where he was. But then he straightened when he saw the grazed cut on my knee. He didn’t say a word, just went to the bathroom and came out with a damp tissue. He sat beside me on the bed and raised the edge of my nightdress and started to clean the cut. Little bits of the tissue tore off where the scab had begun to form.

  —What happened, love? he asked.

  I got into my bed and pulled the covers high, turned my face away. My knee stung from where he had tried to clean it.

  Later I could hear Tom rummaging in the bathroom cabinet and then the kitchen. He came back into the bedroom with what smelled like a poultice. I pretended to sleep while he lifted the covers and applied the pungent mixture to my knee. I remembered then something Monsieur had said to me just after his fiftieth birthday—he had seen a photograph of himself standing alone onstage after receiving a curtain call, looking tired, and he had murmured: Some day this hideous moment will be the sweetest memory.

  When he was finished, Tom pulled up the covers carefully and patted the edge of my bed. He said good night in a whisper, but I didn’t stir. I could hear him removing his shirt and taking off his shoes, then lying down on his bed. The odor of his socks began to mix with that of the poultice. I smiled then, thinking to myself that, no matter what, his socks would have to be washed.

  * * *

  Ronde de jambe par terre to see range of motion of joints. Severe restriction. Erratic rolling. Hop is acutely pronounced and bones are jammed. Left foot can hardly brush the floor. Acute pain when metatarsals are touched, even when foot is held at central shaft. Key is to move metatarsals like fan, twist from side to side, effleurage gently between rays. Drain blood blisters and immediately remove welt between second and third digit on left foot.

  BOOK FOUR

  RUSSIA • 1987

  November 5, 1987

  The thought of plane touching down next week. Landing on the ice, finally skidding to safety. He might be arrested on his stopover in Leningrad. Ilya says there will be no scheming, yet I am not sure. They could take him away for his seven years and who could stop them? I woke up perspiring. After breakfast I put on my coat and walked to the department store on Krassina. Everyone was walking around in the warmth. There were rumors of a shipment of toaster ovens but none came. In the afternoon Nuriya showed me the painting she has made for Rudik—crows along the Belaya and a single white seagull flying above the cliff. She wrapped the painting in butcher’s paper and said she would find a ribbon for it. She cannot contain her excitement, but at her age it is hardly surprising. Equal, I suppose, to my nervousness. Nuriya went to bed early and we could hear her tossing and turning. In Mother’s room I tried to tell her that Rudik will be coming in a few days. For a moment Mother’s eyes lit up with moisture as if to say: But how could that be? Then they fluttered closed again. How peaceful she looks when she sleeps and yet how terribly tortured when awake. The doctor has given her a couple more months. But what use is a couple of months when she has nothing to live for and no real body in which to live it out? Her mind continues to slip away. Ilya said perhaps Mother has stayed alive to see Rudik. Then he asked me if I am not old enough yet to forgive. Forgive? Does it matter? There is the simple reality that there is no soap and the handle of the toilet is broken.

  November 6

  There is much to do: darn the tablecloth, clean the window ledges, fix the table legs, let down the hem of Nuriya’s dress, boil Mother’s nightgown. Ilya was asked to do odd jobs at the Opera House. It is good news. More money.

  November 7

  Revolution Day. Blizzard across Ufa. The cold keeps us inside. The snow was three feet high in the graveyard and Ilya could not go out to prepare Father’s plot. A forty-eight-hour visa seems worse than allowing Rudik no time at all. The flights alone will take a whole day.

  November 8

  I watched Mother’s lips. It is an effort in mind-reading. Perhaps Ilya is correct that she has kept herself alive these last few years just for one more look at him. But you cannot cure three decades in a moment. The thought is pure stupidity. We have heard they are arranging a special room at the Rossiya Hotel. It is said that they have refrigerators which make ice cubes. Who would want them? In the afternoon the snow relented. A trip to the department store yielded no new nightdresses, but the second attempt to boil Mother’s was more successful. Deep in the cupboards I found an old gown with the faded imprint of tomato stains from the shingles. She has kept everything, even Rudik’s shoes. The toes are still scuffed and the backs are broken from the way he always stuffed his feet in.

  November 9

  Even the nursery rhyme in school today seemed to have implication: If you can’t find your way back, why did you leave in the first place? At the market we searched for sugar. Nuriya offered to barter the precious silver necklace we got for her fifteenth birthday. But still there was no sugar to be found. She cried. What is to be done? Ilya’s salary is two weeks in arrears. What can we use to sweeten the cakes? Perhaps there will be some miracle at the market—truckloads of sugar will arrive just in time, herring, sturgeon, and we will celebrate under a large white tent, drinking champagne to the music of an orchestra. Ha! Ilya has, at least, managed to find the parts for the bathroom plumbing.

  November 10

  There were teenagers behind the mosque wearing leather jackets. Their hair was untidy and they wore badges on their sleeves. Nuriya said she did not know them. One can imagine this sort of thing in Moscow or Leningrad, but here? People talk of another thaw, but do they not know that a thaw always brings a dirty stench?

  November 11

  Ilya says it takes great control not to tell anybody at the Opera House. The older workers have not dared speak Rudik’s name for years. And some of the dancers have only ever heard it spoken with viciousness. Ilya says the younger ones are dreadfully rebellious. If they found out they might try to greet him at the airport. Nuriya is counting the hours until his return. The days pass too slowly for her. She keeps changing outfits and looking in the mirror. She has a photograph of when Rudik was a teenager. I hope she will not be shocked when she sees him. The good news: Ilya found a half-kilo of sugar this evening and a shipment of beetroot came in from the countryside. All is not lost.

  November 12

  He has arrived then surely! Leningrad tonight, no flight out to Ufa until early morning, so there he must stay. We have waited for a call but there is nothing. Ilya keeps lifting the receiver to make sure there is a tone for the operator to put us through. I am convinced a call will come in the moments between Ilya lifting the receiver and setting it down. No sleep. Mother seems agitated, perhaps she understands what is happening. Surely it would have been worse not to tell her. If only she could speak. What cruel fate. We are full of questions. Is he traveling on his own? Will they say terrible things to him? Does he still have friends in Leningrad? Will they allow him to walk in the city? Will the newspapers report his visit? There is a rash on my arm, similar to Mother’s shingles. I am frightened beyond compare now, even the success of my banquet hardly matters. Ilya has finished the last repairs and he has found kumis for us to drink.

  November 12–13, morning

  The night turned slowly to day. The sky broke gray and the wind whipped outside. Snow piled up on the windscreen of the car provided to bring us to
the airport. The driver refused to enter our house, so Ilya took him a steaming cup of tea. He flicked the windscreen wipers in thanks. The driver’s face was red and shaven and stern. (He looked suspiciously like the man who used to pilot the Driving School car.) Nuriya fretted over her bitten fingernails. I allowed her to wear a dab of lipstick, she threatened a tantrum otherwise. We put on our coats. Mother slept through our preparations and then Milyausha arrived to look after her. I looked at Mother and wondered if she had any idea that her son was coming back more than twice as old as when he left. If he puts a foot wrong they will surely throw him in prison and he will have to live out the seven years.

  November 13

  The roses I had bought were beautiful but the air wilted them by the time we reached the airport. It was like holding money and watching it devalue. We were taken to a waiting room, a small gray box with three chairs, a window, a table, and a silver ashtray. Three officials waited with us. Their hard looks wilted the roses even more. I was flooded with the awareness that I had no need to apologize for what Rudik did in the past—they were not my actions. The officials seemed to relent under my gaze. They even offered Ilya a cigarette. The skies cleared and we mistook a flock of birds for the plane. My stomach clenched with nerves. The flock broke up north and south and moments later the plane broke through. It listed sideways and then our view of the runway was obscured. We were taken from the waiting room into the arrivals area. Twenty guards with machine guns were lined up against the walls. Nuriya whispered: Uncle Rudik.

  Eight-thirty

  I held my breath for surely the whole fifteen minutes it took for him to emerge through the sliding doors. How my heart skipped! Rudik wore a coat of a material I did not recognize, a colorful scarf, a dark beret. His grin reminded me of when he was young. One suitcase in his hand. He put the case carefully on the ground and stretched out his arms. How was it possible to ever hate him? Nuriya ran to meet him first. He lifted her in the air and swung her around. He kept his arm around her and came towards me, kissed me twice. A photographer came up behind us and bulbs flashed. Rudik whispered that the photographer was from Tass, that he would be accompanying us for the day. He said: Pay no attention to him, he’s a donkey. I laughed. I had Rudik back, the true Rudik, dearest brother, not the one they created with so many lies. He held my face, stared into my eyes and took the roses from me, said they were wonderful. Then he pulled off my headscarf and I felt the deep shame of my grayness. He kissed me and said I looked beautiful. On closer inspection he too looked worn, there were deep lines on his face and crow’s-feet around his eyes. He was a little thinner than I expected. He lifted Nuriya in the air again and clenched her tight and spun her and all seemed well. I am home, he said. He was accompanied by a large Spanish man, Emilio, who he said was a bodyguard and a medical person of some sort. He was a huge man but his hands were soft and his eyes kind. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail and tucked beneath his collar. Rudik met Ilya for the first time. You are welcome to Ufa, said Ilya. Rudik shot him a look but then smiled. There were also two French officials, hovering around, loath to leave Rudik’s side. How strange it was to hear Rudik speak French as if born to it, but when he turned to me he switched to Tatar. He wanted to go see Mother immediately, but I said she was still sleeping and the doctor had advised a short visit in order not to tire her. She is sleeping? he said. He looked at a beautiful wristwatch: But I have less than twelve hours.

  Nine-thirty

  The argument was settled by the officials who said it was necessary that he check into the Rossiya first. Nuriya, Ilya, and I accompanied him in the black ZIL, along with his bodyguard. We were squashed. For a moment I thought of apologizing to them that it was not a Western limousine, but I caught myself and felt a surge of anger. Rudik sat by the window, holding Nuriya’s hand. She told him about a book she was reading. He seemed interested and even questioned her on the plot. He looked down at his watch, then took it off abruptly and stuffed it into Nuriya’s hand. It was a double watch—it told the time also in a display of digital numbers. He said Nuriya should give it to a boyfriend. She blushed and looked at her father. Can I keep it for myself, Uncle Rudik? He said of course and she put her head on his shoulder. He looked out the window as we drove. Look, the streets are paved. Rudik didn’t recognize a lot of the places, but when he did he shouted things like: I climbed that fence when I was seven. We drove past the lake where he used to skate. He commented on the flags: Remember? he said. He had a pair of tiny earphones hanging around his neck and when I asked him about them he reached into his pocket for the tiniest recording machine I had ever seen. He put the earphones over my head, pressed a button, and Scriabin filled the air. Rudik promised to give me the machine before he left. He whispered that he needed it for the rest of the day, it blocked out the noise of the Tass photographer who kept asking him ridiculous questions. He patted the palm of my hand: I am so nervous, he said. Can you believe that I am nervous? His voice sounded different. I wondered what he was nervous about? Being arrested, seeing Mother, or just being here? He said: Everything seems smaller. Then he turned to Ilya and talked for a while about how the seat latches on the flight from Leningrad didn’t work. The tray, he said, kept falling in his lap.

  Ten-fifteen

  The ZIL pulled up outside the hotel. The French officials ran from their car to greet us and the bodyguard stayed close to Rudik. But Ilya seemed a little despondent. He said there were still things to do at home and maybe it was best if he left to prepare them. He said that he’d get a tram back and see us later. Rudik shook his hand a second time. We went upstairs to his room. It was enormous but there was no fridge. He threw the roses on the bed where they landed in a heap. He paced, looking behind window shades and even the picture frames. He unscrewed part of the phone. Then he shrugged and said something about his whole life being bugged, it didn’t matter whether it was the KGB or the CIA. Then he put his suitcase on the bed and opened it with a small key. It was not packed with his own clothes as I expected, but with the most unbelievable array of perfumes, scarves, jewelry boxes, brooches, all the most beautiful things. Nuriya grabbed his arm and put her face close to his shoulder. I was only allowed to bring one suitcase, he said, and they took their cut at the airport. Nuriya lay on the bed and touched everything. Rudik knew all about the perfumes, where they were made, who wore them, who designed them, the ingredients, and where they came from. This is what Jackie O wears, he said. He even had a bottle for Mother, a special gift from a lady in New York, wrapped in beautiful ribbons. A bottle of Chanel for me. Nuriya and I sprayed each other’s wrists. Then he clapped his hands for silence, took a small box from the suitcase, gave it to me. Inside was the most gorgeous necklace I have ever seen, diamonds and sapphires. An immediate thought: Where will I hide it? He instructed me to put it on and wear it with pride. It felt cool and heavy against my neck. Surely it had cost him dearly. He kissed both my cheeks, said it was good to see me.

  Ten-forty-five

  I suggested he rest before going to see Mother but he said: Why? Then he laughed: There will be plenty of time to sleep in hell. If he couldn’t go home yet he wanted to drive around the city and see more sights. In the hotel lobby there was another long argument about scheduling and itinerary, but eventually it was agreed—we would drive in a convoy for a few hours. We drove slowly in the snow. The Opera House was closed; our old house on Zentsov Street had been knocked down long ago; the hall on Karl Marx Street was locked up; and the road to the Tatar graveyard was impassable. We parked the car a hundred yards down the hill from the entrance. Rudik begged the driver to find him some snowshoes. The driver said he had nothing except what he wore on his feet. Rudik looked over the seat. Give me those. He thrust some dollars at the driver. Rudik’s feet were too small for the driver’s boots but Nuriya offered him her socks which he stuffed in. The bodyguard wanted to accompany him, but Rudik was angry: I’ll go on my own, Emilio. We watched from the car as Rudik negotiated the drifts and climbed the iron f
ence and disappeared over the hill. Only the tops of the graveyard trees appeared above the snow. We waited. Nobody said a word. The snow piled up on the windows. When Rudik finally returned—after trudging through the deep drifts—I could see that the sleeves of his coat were soaking wet, also the knees of his trousers. He said he had used a branch to clear some of the snow away from Father’s headstone. I was sure he must have fallen somehow. He said he had listened to hear the thud of trains across the Belaya but there was none. We drove away. The light was glorious. It bounced off the snow everywhere. The wild dogs near the factory stopped barking and for a moment everything was still.

  Twelve-fifteen

  The bodyguard fished in his pocket for a small bottle of pills and Rudik took three without water. He said he had a flu, that the medicine cleared his head. Nuriya said that she too felt a hint of cold, but Rudik refused to give her any pills, said they would be too strong for her. At the railway station he bought sunflower seeds. I haven’t tasted them in years. He ate two, spat out the shells, and threw the rest away. We passed Sergei and Anna’s old house and slowed down. I thought I might see Yulia at the airport in Leningrad, he said. Perhaps she is dead. I told him I knew nothing of her. He said that she used to send letters to him but they had dried up over the years.

  Twelve-thirty

  At our house two more officials were waiting. Ilya sat by the banquet table but rose to shake Rudik’s hand, their third handshake. Ilya looked into his eyes but Rudik was distracted. Too many people! He beat on his chest with his gloved fists and roared a terrible curse in Tatar. And then he began making a fuss with the French officials. He wanted to be left alone. I gathered up my courage and hushed him, then guided the officials out of the house. Rudik thanked me, said he was sorry for shouting, but they were nothing but donkeys, his whole life was surrounded by braying donkeys. He was terribly anxious to see Mother but first I had to explain to him all the difficulties, that she could not speak, that her eyesight was failing badly, that she might slip in and out of consciousness. He didn’t seem to be listening. Outside the house we could hear the French and Russian officials arguing. Rudik was afraid they would insist on coming back in so he took a chair and slid it under the door handle. He told his bodyguard to stay by the door. How nervous we all were. He took off his overcoat, his colored scarf, draped it on the hatrack and entered Mother’s room. She was sleeping. He pulled up a chair beside her, bent down, and kissed her. She didn’t stir. Rudik looked up at me, pleading, wondering what to do. I gave Mother some water and her tongue moved to her lips. He held a beautiful necklace to her throat. Mother shifted but did not open her eyes. Rudik mashed his hands together like he was suddenly seven years old again. He whispered to her urgently. Mother. It’s me. Rudik. I told him to give her time, that she would wake eventually, he must have patience.