The Lost Ballet
Page 13
Chapter 13 – Stirg Wants to Dance Too….On Their Graves
Nev had been trained in the toughest army in the world, so he knew about following orders. He knew he had to tell his boss what the fucks were up to, but he really didn’t want to. Just plain didn’t want to. He knew what he wanted out of life at this stage of the game, and going to war with the Junes was not it. He didn’t care if the Junes produced the world premiere of some dance show. He didn’t care if the show was done in Russia or America or on the dark side of the moon. He wouldn’t mind front row seats, up close and personal with the long legs of the ballerinas, but that was an aesthetic issue, not a political issue, which was Stirg’s problem. If the fucks had stolen an important item of Israel’s cultural heritage, things might be different. Might be. Maybe. In that case, Nev would consider retribution so as to attain a measure of social justice. But he couldn’t generate those feelings for Russia, no matter how many years he worked for his boss. Still, duty called. Damn that army training.
He didn’t tell Stirg the news that day. He wanted one more evening of peace and quiet, before the storm broke. One more evening, out on the dock…with Otis.
He told Stirg the next day, who then replied, “Explain this to me again. I don’t understand about the Junes, and what they’re doing. I don’t like these little feelings I’m getting, these inklings. You have that word in Hebrew? Can you explain things in a different way than you did before, about the Junes, and Mr. Stravinsky. About this thing they’re doing?”
Nev seriously had considered adding some barbiturates to his boss’s oatmeal that morning to soften the impact of the news. Sprinkled on the cereal with the non-sugar sweetener. He hadn’t done that, and now he was sorry, because steam was coming out of Stirg’s ears, and the guy didn’t even understand, yet, the whole reality of the situation. Stirg was boiling just on principle. Just because Nev had said the Junes were working on a project that involved Stravinsky. Igor, the Great. Igor, the Man. Igor, Mr. Ballet, himself. When God wanted to produce a ballet, he went to Igor for the music.
Slowly and carefully, maintaining a soft quality to his voice, Nev again laid out what he knew: desk from the Hermitage caper containing a lost musical score by the great one, modernist production of the ballet rather than classical, funded with blank check by the Russian billionaire traitor Gromstov, beautiful ballerinas, world premiere in Charleston rather than Saint Petersburg. And worst of all, behind this madness; behind this travesty; behind this immorality….are Roger and Gwen June. Nev painted the picture again, and ducked.
Stirg said, “You heard all this yesterday on the computer bug?”
“Yes, boss.”
“They have a piece of music by Mr. Stravinsky that no one else has, that they found in one of the things they stole from the Hermitage?”
“Yes, boss.”
“They’re going to make a ballet with this music, one year from now, funded by Gromstov, here in Charleston?”
“Yes, boss.”
“The music is going to be electronic, instead of played by an orchestra, and the show is going to be modern style, instead of old style?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Who’s in this other than the Junes and Gromstov?”
“Gromstov’s wife, Helstof, and the two gay guys from Saint Petersburg that helped them steal the stuff from there, and an American woman who used to be a ballet person, and her husband, an English guy who also was in ballet, and some woman whose name they never say, I don’t know who she is. She’s someone new. Oh, and maybe another American woman to make the ballet clothes, who was....”
Nev stopped there, catching himself almost saying....“on the Gromstov’s sailboat when we attacked it out near Fort Sumter, and ended up on the sandbar, me having gotten dumped on my tailbone, and you having gotten dumped on your head.”
Stirg said, “She was what?”
“Out on the boat in the harbor….that night.”
“Let me count them. Junes, Gromstovs, gay guys, dancers, and two other misfit women. That makes ten, right? So there are ten graves I’m going to dance on. One way or another, ten graves. You didn’t know I was a choreographer, did you Nev?”