Her eyes.
They took everything in. I felt like I always had this measured wariness about me when I was on the subway, this New-York-don’t-mess-with-me look, but Yrena was so fresh-faced and eager. I tried it on. I looked with excited eyes. I squinted. Everything went kind of pink. Or yellow-y. It was nice.
“Oh!” Yrena said, tugging at me as the car pulled into the 66th Street station. “Look! Lincoln Center!”
We were just a block away from the epicenter of New York City dance, theater, music, and opera.
“I would have loved to see Makarova dance,” Yrena went on. “I am going to go to the school that trained her when I get back. The Vaganova school.”
“I saw Suzanne Farrell a few weeks ago,” Maurice said.
“Oh! Suzanne Farrell!” Yrena said. “Was she dancing with d’Amboise?”
“Yeah,” Maurice said. “And what about Baryshnikov? Have you seen him?”
“Ach,” she said. “Baryshnikov is not so special.”
And then we all laughed because we all knew she was lying. We knew Baryshnikov was nothing to sneer at. We knew she was making a joke. Or maybe she had to say it. Maybe once you defected, you were proclaimed to be “not so special.”
Just as the bell rang to signal that the doors were about to close, I did something a little crazy. I jumped up and held them until the conductor had to open the doors again.
“Hey, you. Kid,” one of the cops said, starting to come up to me. “Don’t do that.”
But the doors were open now, and Maurice, Caleb, Caitlin, Callisto, and Yrena knew that the plan had changed and that I was now in charge. They followed me and we all went flying out the door together like a flock of birds. The doors closed and there we were on the platform, breathless and flushed. The train was leaving without us.
Then the new me’s resolve, with the new idea, faltered.
“What am I doing?” I groaned.
“You are being the most awesome American hostess to our friend Yrena on her last free night in the U.S. of A.,” Caitlin said, putting her arm around my shoulder and giving me an encouraging lift.
That made me smile, because I liked that she thought I’d done something cool.
“All I know is that a girl like Yrena can’t have lived in New York City for two years and never have seen Lincoln Center,” Maurice said.
“That would be a crime. I mean, if the shoe were on the other foot, I would want to go see the Kirov ballet, and I don’t even like ballet,” Callisto said.
“Or the Bolshoi!” Yrena said.
“Or if I couldn’t see them, I would want to at least see the building where they danced,” Caitlin said.
“Come on!” Caleb said. “Enough yapping. More moving along.” He led the way through the turnstile and up the stairs. We emerged on Broadway and it was dark and empty—and yet, as always, there was the bustle of the city. The taxis going here and there. People still walking around. But mostly it was empty. Mostly the city seemed like it was ours.
“It’s always alive, this city,” Yrena said. “That is what makes it beautiful.”
We walked toward the white marble of Lincoln Center. It never ceased to make me excited, seeing those three buildings and that fountain. I wanted to dance on those stages so badly that I could taste it.
“I am still crushed that I wasn’t accepted into the School of American Ballet,” Maurice said. “I have the wrong body type.”
“Yrena probably would have gotten in. She’s got the perfect Balanchine ballet body,” I said. “Tiny head, short torso, very long, lean legs, and delicate arms.”
We let Yrena run in front of us. She ran up the stairs and did leaps around the fountain.
“Oh, it is beautiful,” she said.
I was one hundred percent awake, because it was actually physically impossible to be exhausted or mad or cranky or frightened or freaked out when there was someone who was so happy in front of me. I just had to go with it.
“All right,” Yrena said. “I have seen it. Thank you. I am ready to go home.”
I could see that she had resigned herself to the fact that after this we were going back to the Bronx and that our American Night Out adventure was over.
But I wanted one more minute. I got that feeling. That feeling of how unfair everything in the world was.
I kicked the side of the fountain.
How dumb was it that Yrena had lived next door to me for two years, and because we were strangers, with governments that were enemies, we had never before taken a chance to say hello? A few hours together and it was obvious what we had missed out on. Even though we had been taught to fear, there was nothing to be afraid of.
Here we were, just a bunch of kids hanging out in America, getting along perfectly fine with no hint of discontent between us. And if we had been hanging out in front of the Kremlin, we’d have been just as happy and gotten along just as well.
We were warm. I wasn’t going to let the cold win.
“No. Wait. I want to show you something else,” I said.
Museums.
Central Park.
The Twin Towers.
The UN.
Coney Island.
The Statue of Liberty.
Lincoln Center.
Dancing.
I led us back behind the State Theater, over to the Clamshell. Whenever there was an outdoor performance, they would set up folding chairs. But now it was just an empty space with an open stage.
“Look,” I said. “Here’s your chance to perform at Lincoln Center.”
Yrena took a second. Then she carefully took off her sweater, dug into her bag, got something out, and then handed me the bag to hold. She made her way up to the stage. She sat on the stairs and pulled off her shoes and put on Gelsey Kirkland’s toe shoes—the ones from my room. They were her same size.
It didn’t even bother me that she had stolen something from my room. If I had thought about it, I would have given her a pair as a souvenir.
She was wearing regular clothes, but when she stood center stage and took a position for an adagio, she looked like a swan.
She stood perfectly still. She took it in. And then she was off. She began to dance and twirl and leap and do magic. She twisted and sighed and I noticed that I was feeling a bit jealous—not of her foot technique, since mine was good, too. But her arms. Her arms were near perfect. After each fluid movement, they always fell into perfect place.
Callisto, Caitlin, and Caleb followed her lead. They took their hands and they clapped and slapped the stage, making a rhythm. They began to play in time to her dancing.
I was breathless.
And then she was done.
Why on earth would she want to quit if she could dance like that? I would never understand that. It made me want to dance more.
Maurice and I began to clap and throw fake flowers. Yrena curtsied deeply and pretended to gather the flowers in her hands, blowing kisses at the invisible-except-for-me-and-Maurice audience.
Then she waved us both over.
Maurice and I went straight to the stage, like we’d been hypnotized by the moment, by Yrena and her beautiful arms. We climbed up to her and she put her imaginary flowers down and she slid her arms around our waists, pulling us into an embrace. And then we peeled away and we all began to dance. Together.
And as we were dancing, Caleb, Caitlin, and Callisto began to use their voices to add to the percussion. It sounded eerie and ghostly and it blended in with the sounds of the city. It made for an arresting and haunting sound track. I was dancing. I was the stars and the moon and the sky. I was air.
I had been bitten by the evening and my heart went straight to my feet. I could feel it. I could feel myself being carried on the waves of music coming from Caitlin, Callisto, and Caleb. I could feel a string pulling me, Yrena, and Maurice together and apart.
My body was a complex equation. X was my soul. Y was Yrena. Sometimes Maurice divided or bisected us. I looped and bent and leapt, and whe
n I came together in sync on a landing with Yrena, something from that point on was different in me. I just moved. I poured myself into the moment. Fluid. Silent. Wordless. And Yrena was always there, receiving and reflecting everything I sent toward her. She matched me and I matched her. There was a selfish beauty to dancing alone, but when you opened up your heart and let it flow out to others, it seemed that for a brief moment you could share a soul. I did not need to think about where I would go next. Every step, bend, jump, and glide felt perfect.
We, all of us, three dancers, a musician, and an actor, came to a stop at the same moment, ending on the mournful note of Caitlin’s voice.
I had to remind myself that we were going home and that Yrena would be in the Soviet Union in a few days. I was blinking back tears because it was such an unfairly transcendent moment. I didn’t want it to end. I was afraid that I might not ever dance this freely or this well again.
“I am going to quit dancing,” Yrena said. “I don’t need to do it anymore.”
There was something so final in what she said. But there was no remorse. It was Yrena speaking her truth. She had such a gift, but what was the point of the gift if you did not have the passion?
I felt as though I was finally awake as a person. It was like I had just been born.
And I knew what the first step would be.
“Let’s go to that march tomorrow,” I said.
“But we cannot. My parents won’t let me go out once I get home,” Yrena said.
“So then I guess we can’t go back home yet,” I said.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should’ve gotten us home. But I didn’t.
I pointed us toward adventure.
The City Never Sleeps
“Okay, what’s the plan?” Caleb asked, rubbing his hands together with glee.
“The plan is to do everything,” I told him.
“We should definitely go to our house,” Caitlin said.
Caleb nodded. “Yeah, if only because taking the Staten Island Ferry is one of the best ways to see New York City.”
“Yeah! Come to Staten Island with us!” Callisto chimed in. “Spend the night at our house. Our parents are out of town.”
“Spend the night?” Yrena asked.
“Yeah, sleep over,” Caitlin said.
“Sleep over,” Yrena said dreamily. Callisto was nodding her head up and down: Yes. Yes. Yes. “Then we can go to the march tomorrow?”
“Can I come, too?” Maurice asked. “No one is at my house, and if I go back home now, I might oversleep.”
“Sure,” Callisto said before he was even finished.
“So where should we start?” Caleb asked.
“What about starting there?!” Maurice was pointing at a hot-dog cart, and we all agreed that Yrena needed to try one of everything. Hot dog. Pretzel. Warm chestnuts.
We were walking and Yrena was making faces as she tasted the different street foods. We stepped past Columbus Circle.
“Where are we going?” Caitlin asked.
“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” I asked.
“Practice,” Callisto said.
“Ha, ha,” Caitlin said.
“Let’s go by it and then head over to Fifth Avenue and look at the windows,” I said.
It was too bad that it wasn’t Christmastime. The window displays were something that I loved as a kid and I would have liked to share them with Yrena. But I was certain that the October window displays would be just as interesting to her.
“You girls are a lot different from what I thought you were like at school,” Maurice said.
I almost told him that I was probably exactly the way that he thought I was at school. Right now this was me being different. I was not myself right now. And I was enjoying it.
“Why do you always kind of hang back in class, Rose? You’re not that bad a dancer.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said. I knew where I stood in class. I didn’t want it pointed out to me.
“It’s not like you couldn’t be better—it’s just, you always come late. You’re not warmed-up properly. You concentrate so hard that you don’t feel it in your body. I can see that in class. So you just sort of do the minimum. That gets you by, but I think you could probably stand out in a better way.”
“But not great,” I said. “I could never be great. Like you. Or Yrena. Why bother trying if I’m not going to ever be great?”
“Not everyone is going to be great,” Maurice said. “And besides, none of us know what we are yet and that doesn’t mean you can’t be better than you are now by trying. I saw you up there with me and Yrena. You got it then.”
I was feeling exposed and vulnerable. I didn’t want to cry in front of Maurice on the first day of our maybe-friendship just because he was right that I didn’t try hard enough in dance class.
So I did something I never did.
I let it slide.
Caleb fell into pace with me but we didn’t say anything.
I almost thought we were breathing in and out at the same time. I wanted to ask him if he felt as I did, that something had happened to all of us on that stage, because there was an electricity between us. Like we were a unit. Like there was a thread between us.
“Wait,” Yrena said from up ahead. “What is this?” Then she stopped so short that Caleb and I nearly knocked into her.
Yrena was at a dead stop in front of an elaborate-looking doorway.
“Look, Russian bears!” she said.
The Russian Tea Room.
“Oh, I’ve heard of this place,” Caitlin said.
“This is a fancy place. Really fancy,” Callisto added.
“That’s right!” Yrena said. “I have been telling you, Russia is fancy.”
“But this is expensive fancy,” Caitlin said.
“Besides, it’s closed,” Caleb said. “It’s after one A.M.”
Yrena stepped up to the glass doors and peered inside. Then she began to knock.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Someone is in there,” she said. “I can see a light and people moving around.”
She knocked on the window a bit harder. Then she pulled her hair out of her ponytail and let it fall softly around her shoulders.
An older blond woman opened the door, and she and Yrena began to speak in Russian. The woman looked us all over and then opened the door up a bit farther and let us in.
When we walked in, Yrena seemed lighter on her feet.
“You all have shown me New York City,” she said. “I want to show you a little bit of Russia!”
Even though the place was clearly closed, there were still people sitting at tables. It was the post-theater crowd. Not the audience, but the performers.
“Isn’t that Betty Buckley and the cast of Cats?” Maurice whispered.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Look, that’s Athol Fugard,” Caleb said. “God. I loved Master Harold and the Boys.”
It was hard not to stare at them or at the decor. It was a restaurant that looked stuck in time—it was 1982, and yet in here it felt like it was the 1930s. Everyone’s eyes were as big as saucers as they took in all the gold and brocade.
“This place is crazy,” Callisto said.
“It smells all kinds of good in here,” Maurice said.
“Whatever it is they have cooking, it has to be delicious,” Caitlin said.
Maurice pointed at a picture of Nureyev in tights, doing an arabesque, his face serious and magnificent, his extension exquisite. Nureyev was looking right out of the frame, right at us from there on the wall, welcoming us.
Yrena was speaking to the blond woman again, and now instead of looking surly, the woman was laughing.
“What’d she say?” Caitlin asked.
“She says that she will take care of us.”
The hostess signaled one of the waiters and spoke in Russian to him. The waiter nodded and smiled and brought us to a nice cozy booth in the back. He pulled the table out to let us all in and t
hen slid the table back. We were completely hemmed in—no chance to dine and ditch from here. I sank deep into the lush seat.
It felt good to sit down. My muscles were tired. I knew tiredness and soreness from dancing, but this was different somehow. It felt like world-weariness. Or weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders-ness. I closed my eyes for just a second. I was just resting.
“You okay?” Caleb asked. Somehow he’d managed to get next to me again.
“Tired,” I said. “Worried.”
The waiter brought us ice water for the table, but no menus. Yrena hadn’t been lying when she’d said that they’d take care of us. When the waiter came back, it was with an ornate silver pot of coffee, which he poured into china cups for each of us. It was the most delicious coffee I’d ever tasted.
“Are you really quitting?” I asked.
“Yes,” Yrena said. “I will go home tomorrow and while I am facing my punishment, I will take the chance to tell them how I really feel.”
“How do you feel when you dance?” Maurice asked.
“As though I am a puppet,” Yrena said. “Or a show dog.”
“Sometimes I feel as though my body isn’t my own,” Maurice said. “But I never feel like a puppet.”
“I feel as though each muscle, each point that I hit, is like some complicated math problem that my body has to solve,” I said. “I love that. When I solve it, it’s as though the universe sings.”
“On the days where I let myself, yes,” Yrena said. “I have felt like that. I will miss those moments. But not the rest of it.”
“That’s how I feel about music,” Caleb said. “That’s why I went into the drama department.”
“When I dance, I feel as though my heart is bigger than my body,” I said. “And that I am giving it back to everyone who is alive.”
“You should dance like that in class,” Maurice said. “Why don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I freeze up. I get scared.”
“I saw you tonight,” Caleb said. “I don’t know that much about dance, but I know that you don’t have anything to be scared of.”
The waiter came back and put down a bunch of plates and some bowls of ice with tiny bowls of stuff inside of them—egg whites, egg yellows, onions.
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