Ballerina

by Edward Stewart

  As the lights dimmed for the final, romantic penché, Wally gazed yearningly into Steph’s eyes and said, ‘Hear about the mixed-up bank robber?’

  ‘I’ll kick you if you make me laugh.’

  ‘This mixed-up bank robber went into the bank and said, “Hands up, mother-stickers, this is a fuck-up.”’

  The curtain dropped smoothly and Steph kicked him before it came up again.

  ‘I’ll bite your ass,’ he muttered as they took their bow.

  ‘Try it.’

  The curtain came down and he bit her ass. ‘Jesus, next time rinse the Woolite out!’

  They took eight bows in all. Afterward Wally hugged her. ‘It’s a shit ballet but with you dancing it almost looked good.’

  ‘Thanks for getting me through it.’

  Other members of the company came up and congratulated Steph. Some of them had never spoken to her before. Volmar asked why she’d changed the steps. She was too tired even to apologize.

  ‘Mr Volmar, I didn’t change them. I didn’t know them to begin with.’

  He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘In that case you have talent.’

  At two o’clock Amsterdam time Steph placed a transatlantic call to her mother.

  ‘What’s the matter, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, Mom.’ Steph spoke in a near whisper.

  ‘I can’t hear you. Something’s wrong.’

  ‘It’s a satellite call. We have to talk one at a time.’

  ‘I am talking one at a time. What’s wrong, why the call?’

  Steph glanced across to the unmoving figure on the other side of the room. The hair was a spill of pale silver on the pillow, and in the light that filtered through the window shade the eyes seemed to be open, feeling out the upper surface of the room.

  ‘I danced Chris’s ballet tonight.’

  ‘Cantabile? That mess?’

  ‘They loved it, Mom. I got eight curtain calls.’

  Steph tried to tell the story. Her mother kept breaking in, machine-gunning questions: who partnered, did the conductor rush the retards as per usual? The two women’s voices kept colliding in mid-Atlantic, waves blanking one another out. Anna overrode.

  ‘What about that lighting gimmick at the end, does the State Opera have a decent lighting board? Did Volmar say anything?

  Steph reassured her mother on every point and Anna’s voice relaxed to an almost natural pitch. ‘I always said, a good dancer can put anything across. Send me the clippings. Special delivery. And insure them!’

  ‘If there are any, they’ll be in Dutch.’

  ‘Dancemagazine can translate. So can the Times.’

  ‘Mom, the New York Times isn’t going to be interested.’

  ‘You do the sending, let me do the interesting.’ Half-beat pause. ‘And what’s the matter with Chris, how come you went in for her?’

  The shadow on the other bed stirred. Steph cupped the receiver closer.

  ‘She’s a little tired, that’s all. Look, Mom, I can’t—’

  ‘Figures, the way she eats. Two nibbles of bee pollen and that’s breakfast. Breakfast is a dancer’s most important meal, and don’t you forget—’

  ‘This is costing money, Mom. I love you.’

  ‘I love you too. Don’t forget those clippings.’

  Steph hung up. Silence. Small black room. Chris was holding out her arms. The voice pleaded.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m ruining everything for you.’

  ‘Go to sleep,’ Steph said wearily.

  ‘I’m weak and I’m scared and I’m draining you.’

  ‘Please go to sleep.’

  ‘I don’t want to drain you, Steph—you’re my only friend. I’m trying so hard to be strong, please believe I’m trying.’

  ‘Please believe I’m tired,’ Steph snapped, wheeling on her.

  Chris bunched the bed sheet in fistfuls to her eyes.

  ‘You’re an adult!’ Steph exploded. ‘You’re not a baby! I’m not your nurse!’

  Chris began sobbing and Steph took a deep breath and went to her and put her arms around her.

  ‘I’m here, Chris,’ she soothed. ‘I’ll be here.’

  But she was only reassuring herself. In the secrecy of her heart she counted the minutes limping by. A cathedral bell chimed again. The sound died lingeringly. Then there were only the two of them, buried in the little black room, and Chris had gone to sleep in her arms.

  Steph thanked God there was only one more stop on the tour.

  thirty

  To celebrate NBT’s opening night at the State Opera in Copenhagen, the Danish Ballet hosted a party across the square in the grand reception room at the Hotel d’Angleterre. Rumour said it was the only decent company party between London and Bucharest and all the dancers swore it would be a blast.

  Steph was bored with the midnight affairs where you tried to make small talk with the same people you’d been seeing twenty-four hours a day for the last seven weeks. But she didn’t want to look standoffish just when the company was beginning to accept her. So she put in an appearance.

  She ducked the receiving line of Danish and American cultural officials and got caught in the drift of guests, a mix of dancers and bureaucrats and Danish balletomanes. Waiters circulated with foaming bottles of champagne. A piano and string trio played current American pop tunes as though they were of Merry Widow vintage, and half the Americans probably weren’t even aware what they were smiling at.

  Always starved after a performance, Steph searched for food. The buffet table was laden with whole smoke salmons and bowls of chilled grey caviar and great jellied oblongs of pâté. In the crush she bumped into Wally. He was trying to choose a canapé out of the variety as eye-boggling as a field of butterflies.

  ‘Why don’t you take a plateful?’ Steph suggested.

  ‘And why don’t you come over to the corner? One of the Danish corps girls has some incredible pot.’

  They went to an open window where a small group of dancers had struck comfortable poses against the blue silk curtains and matching Regency chairs.

  ‘Is it true,’ a Danish boy asked Steph, ‘that in New York they have sex bars?’

  ‘Is Jerome Robbins working with the Royal Ballet next year?’ a girl asked.

  The NBT members and their Danish counterparts dressed in the smart eccentricity of their profession, but Steph’s eye detected a certain national accent in clothes: Danish boys still wore blue jeans, and Danish girls hadn’t yet discovered lounging pyjamas.

  ‘Is Balanchine really coaching Baryshnikov in Apollo and Prodigal?’

  Just as Steph was running out of ‘don’t knows’ Wally passed her a joint. She pretended to take a drag.

  ‘What are these yellow things?’ Wally held out a canapé.

  ‘Custard,’ a girl said.

  ‘Custard on a sandwich?’

  ‘Why not? It’s Danish.’

  ‘It’s delicious.’

  ‘I think that you have the munchies.’

  ‘I’m going to get some more. Anyone else want some?’

  Steph went with him.

  ‘Where’s the basket case?’ he asked.

  Steph wished the dancers wouldn’t talk about Chris like that: at least not to her. It made her feel she had to choose between being Chris’s friend and being popular. ‘Chris is at the hotel. She was tired.’

  ‘Scared, you mean. Are you two gay?’

  ‘God, is that what people are saying?’

  ‘I just wondered why else you’d put up with her.’

  A shadow loomed out of the glitter. ‘Good evening,’ it interrupted. It was an old woman, short and slight and alone. She had a deeply hollowed face, white hair drawn back in a jewelled bun, and she wore a long gown of black satin that might have been in fashion in a hundred years ago.

  Wally’s eyes dilated. His voice shattered. ‘Good evening, Madame Tamarova.’

  Steph drew in a breath. Tamarova the legendary, this little old thing? Tamarova, star
of the Imperial Russian Ballet, dictator of the Royal Danish Ballet school? It didn’t seem possible.

  ‘Young man, who is your friend?’ the old lady demanded.

  ‘Ah—Madame Tamarova, this is Stephanie Lang.’

  ‘How do you do, Miss Lang. Are you enjoying Copenhagen?’

  ‘Very much, Madame,’ said Steph, mystified why Tamarova should seek her out.

  ‘You’ve seen the Little Harbour Miss—the Little Mermaid, I think you call her?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You must. Not because she’s great, but one must see the legends for oneself.’

  I’m seeing one now, Steph thought. She looks like someone’s grandmother.

  ‘And Tivoli,’ Tamarova went on. ‘You must see that. And the brewery tour. You wouldn’t think so, but it’s interesting. But beware. Carlsberg gives you free beer. Anything free is dangerous.’

  Wally stood on the periphery of the conversation, nervous and excluded by Tamarova’s back. His hands retreated into his pockets and suddenly he blurted, ‘Excuse me.’ And was gone.

  Tamarova stepped closer. ‘I saw you tonight. You’re not bad.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me. It’s not a compliment.’

  Steph judged the woman to be eighty or more. The years had made cold black caverns of her eyes. Her gaze was dark and hard as onyx and the eyes seemed to say, We may not see much at our age—but what we do, we see through.

  ‘You’re not good in the corps. You don’t have the gift. To be corps, one must be like the others. If they are a beat late, you must be a beat late. If they do timid little bourrées, you cannot sweep with your arms. I am sorry to say, in the corps you look like a soloist.’

  ‘I try to fit in.’

  ‘You’ll never fit in. Don’t waste your time. You must aim at ballerina.’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘No. Many girls in this room dream of ballerina—but maybe three know how to aim at it. Volmar can help you.’

  ‘I wish he thought as well of me as you do.’

  ‘Trust him.’ Tamarova’s voice blazed with conviction. ‘Trust him four years, no more. He will give you bad roles. He will break down your confidence. He will destroy you. But he will rebuild you his way, and he will make you a principal. Be careful. If you stay too long, he will ruin you. Volmar is good for the feet, mediocre for the arms, disaster for the head. Do not become his mistress.’

  ‘He hasn’t asked me to.’

  ‘Volmar does not ask. Too bad you are not a man, he would leave you alone. But I think he is already playing games with you, yes? You are his type.’

  Setting his champagne glass down on a waiter’s tray, Marius Volmar happened to catch sight of her across the room.

  Her back was toward him, but he recognized her from the unmistakable tilt of her head. Proud people choose to carry their heads high, short people have to. Tamarova was both short and proud. Especially at parties she gave the impression of peering at a star forty-five degrees above the horizon, as though the last surviving prima ballerina of the Imperial Ballet had no friend or equal nearer earth.

  She was talking to Stephanie Lang. Perfect. Saved him the trouble of inventing a pretext to introduce them. He made his way through the guests.

  ‘I see you’ve met,’ he cut in.

  ‘Naturally we’ve met,’ Tamarova said. ‘I always like to see if your new faces have any brains behind them.’

  ‘And does she?’

  Usually Tamarova hid things well. But there was an excitement in her tonight that was very near the surface. It kept her fidgeting. Volmar was quite certain of the cause: she saw in Stephanie Lang what he did: the Aurora for whom Petipa created the dream pas seul.

  ‘Marius, your allegros are beginning to worry me. Why so fast? Are you trying to squeeze in everything before you die?’

  A wrenching change of subject, and typical of Tamarova’s autocratic ways. Volmar distrusted strength in others. Sometimes, when people like Tamarova gave their lives to one thing, it was because the one thing could not fight back. Volmar had been unable to decide about her. Determined, she was. But dedicated? In all the years of their friendship, he had never known for sure whether she was a ballerina or a bully.

  ‘Which allegro?’ he asked pleasantly.

  ‘Symphonic Études. I find it revolting. It’s like panic. Even the audience is relieved when it’s over.’

  Volmar answered in Russian. Steph listened quietly, feeling lost and at the same time lucky to be standing with the two greatest names in ballet. The party babbled on around them. She was aware of a ticking sound like a tiny bomb hidden at the end of Volmar’s gold watch chain.

  Tamarova returned abruptly to English. ‘Young lady, are they still serving champagne?’

  ‘I think so,’ Steph said.

  ‘Could I trouble you to bring me half a glass?’

  ‘I see you like her,’ Volmar said, alone with Tamarova.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You don’t fool me. You never bother to insult a dancer you don’t like.’

  ‘I think you fool yourself.’

  ‘I could tell you something about that girl that would interest you. She dances a fascinating solo. Only you and two other living people have seen it.’

  Tamarova had to tip her head far back in order for her gaze to meet his. ‘Why don’t we talk privately?’

  ‘Volontiers, chère amie.’

  Tamarova snatched his hand. She led him from the party through the lobby and into the elevator. The graceful brass cage slowly lifted them through layers of softening light, deepening silence. Volmar could scarcely keep his excitement from showing. Something in him was convinced that tonight, at last, he would see Tchaikovsky’s lost pages for the pas seul.

  Tamarova took him to her room. Volmar sniffed. A thin layer of the past lay, like faintly scented powder, over everything.

  ‘Charming,’ he remarked.

  ‘You don’t need to be kind,’ she said. ‘It’s comfortable, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s very—tsarist.’

  ‘A dancer must keep her stretch. Since I already have one foot in the grave, I keep the other in my cradle.’

  His eye roamed. She had made a museum of three walls: framed water-colour sketches for ballet sets, doubtless Benois and Bakst; autographed photos of the last generation of the Imperial Ballet; in a fan case over the door a red feather fan that she must have waved in the 1912 Don Quixote.

  Of the fourth wall she had made her little altar: a small table with a heavy lace cloth, a single candle burning behind a curved ivory shield, throwing a crescent of light up onto an icon of St Cyril. Beside the candle she had placed a little enamel box of blue and white panels.

  He recognized the box. His mother had had one, long ago. It was one of the Fabergé-designed boxes that Tsar Nicholas had filled with chocolates and given to the members of his ballet on his last birthday.

  Volmar wondered, wickedly, if Tamarova had ever unwrapped her candies.

  ‘Now what are you trying to tell me about that girl?’ she said.

  ‘You like her. Don’t deny it.’

  ‘She’s charming. The best sort of American girl.’

  ‘I’m not talking about her charm. You like her dancing.’

  Tamarova offered him a cigarette from a gold case with Cyrillic engraving. He accepted. They sat on a small sofa that looked as though it had shed many skins of pink satin upholstery.

  ‘What did I see her in?’ Tamarova asked. ‘There’s been so much dancing lately.’

  ‘You saw her in Valse Nobles, Alborado, Jeux d’Enfants.

  ‘Of course. Jeux d’Enfants. A delightful Pierrette. And her feet—so exact. She could make lace with those toes. But she’s overextended. It ruins the arabesques.’

  ‘Not Pierrette. The corps. Second from the right.’

  ‘A treasure like that you bury in the corps?’

  ‘One always buries treasure. Even nature puts gold un
derground. And your opera glasses were glued to her throughout the ballet.’

  ‘But I’m a trained prospector. The public is not.’

  ‘I’m not interested in the public’s reaction. Only in yours.’

  ‘I try to invent ways to delight you.’

  ‘And you do delight me. I think you’ll make something of her.’

  ‘She knows the solo.’

  Tamarova’s cigarette hesitated at her lips. ‘What solo?’

  ‘Sleeping Beauty. Act One. Aurora’s dream pas seul. The dance Petipa made for your mother that no one has ever danced.’

  ‘You’re mistaken. There’s no dream pas seul.’

  Volmar looked down at Tamarova. It seemed further down than in years past. She looked up at him, old and frail and furiously erect, as though straining for a higher position that was rightfully hers.

  ‘In all our years of friendship,’ Volmar said, ‘I’ve heard you lie more often than any other woman.’

  ‘I haven’t lied to you so very often.’

  ‘You tell only one lie. But you tell it over and over and over.’

  ‘Because you nag at me over and over and over. There is no dream pas seul.’

  ‘Then come to the theatre tomorrow. Stephanie Lang will dance it for you.’

  ‘How can she dance a dance that never existed?’

  ‘Lvovna taught it to her.’

  It was wicked of him to mention her lifelong rival, but the situation called for wickedness. A ghost of blush beat in her cheek. Her voice trembled indignantly.

  ‘Lvovna has made a career out of her photographic memory. Well, if those are photographs, I’ll tell you one thing: her camera wobbles badly.’

  ‘Then why don’t you come and correct the photograph?’

  ‘I’ll break her camera and expose the negative.’ Tamarova went to her altar and lifted the lace cloth. A key clicked. A drawer slid open. She turned, holding a small flat parcel almost the size of a phonograph record. ‘This is what you mean—and it’s no photograph.’

  She handed him the package. A dryness clogged Volmar’s throat. His heart was pounding. Good God, he thought, I’m not going to have an attack now!

  ‘Open it.’

  The pounding subsided. He broke the seal. It seemed as violent an act as the breaking down of a door. A dust of eighty years ago seemed to spill from the envelope, filling the room. He reached his fingers inside, into the past.