Dancer

by Colum McCann

  at least thirty invitations arrive each week to his Lower East Side apartment, and even the postwoman—with her hard Harlem accent, her tough beauty—arranges her shift so her lunchtime coincides with bringing Victor his mail, she likes to sit with him in his bright kitchen, opening envelopes together, regarding and discarding, Victor honey you get more letters than Santa Claus! she says, and Victor smiles and replies, Ah yes, but that’s because I know where all the bad boys live

  and Victor, more interested in the maverick corners of the party, where he knows there’ll be a little outrage, breaks away from the hostess, kissing her hand as he leaves, and advances on a small group—an aging writer, a bored young artist, a fattening ballerina—who nod and smile as he sits on the floor beside a low glass table and says, Excuse me while I practice a little resurrection!, and from his pocket he produces a small bag, which he opens carefully, spilling the contents out on the glass, and then he chops out two lines with the blade of a tiny pocketknife, rolls a fifty-dollar bill, snorts the lines deeply, looks up at the ceiling, Gracias! and then doles out six more lines, places the rolled-up bill in the center of the table, Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! and the young artist immediately leans across to scoop up the first line, then the writer, then the ballerina, who is somewhat coy but manages to snort more than anyone else, while the party swells with chatter, the hostess looking over and saying, Oh that Victor! and soon most of the room is looking in his direction, such delicious notoriety, he stands on the metal edge of the table and takes a bow, his throat tingling with joy, the small immediate hammer of energy through his body, he is just about able to balance on the table, a grin splayed across his face, finally jumping down to the floor to a little round of applause, knowing he has loosened the party enough so the myth will continue on the strength of this display alone, although Victor wishes Rudi were here, for nobody in the world can make an entrance quite like Rudi, everything quickly tense with possibility, charged, electric, Rudi ratcheting up his volume so he is twice as loud as anyone else, the night Rudi suspended himself naked from a million-dollar chandelier, the party where Rudi shaved his genitals with Andy Warhol’s razor, Warhol later selling it to the highest bidder, the day Rudi prepared a meal for his friends and mixed a little semen into the hollandaise sauce and called it a secret Russian recipe, the gallery opening after which Rudi made love with three boys in a bathtub filled with lotion-slickened marbles

  everyone with a Rudi story and each one more outrageous than the next—and probably untrue—so that Rudi is a living myth, not unlike Victor, cared for and coddled and protected by the mythmakers, a life not lived with any reason in mind, just an obeyance to light, or the lack of it, like a seed swelling in its own husk, both of them needing constant motion, since if they stay in one place too long they will become rooted like the rest, so that sometimes Victor thinks he too is dancing, always tapping his foot or shaking his head from side to side, his fingers twirling the end of his black mustache—the reason I wear a mustache, gentlemen, is so I can smell last night’s sins!—and before you know it he has moved on, Victor ahead of himself, as if to say, Oh look at me over there, and no one can fill in the jigsaw, although there are rumors he learned all his movements from Rudi himself, that he sits in on rehearsal, watches constantly, which is another lie but one that Victor allows since it means people are talking about him, want to chat with him, own his recklessness for the night, and Victor obliges, half-listening but all the time watching the door until he sees the fur coats unfurled by the servants, hears the glasses clink, the excuses made, and Victor knows it is time to go, his rule, always be among the first to leave, down the stairs, not waiting for the elevator, and outside in the humid evening Victor follows a couple into their black limousine, the couple startled as he slides in behind them, chops out a line on the bar table, the woman is horrified, the man attempts cool, Good evening, are you on your way to the Nureyev? to which Victor winks, Of course not, ballet bores me to tears, and the man gives a smug grin, Ah yes, but this is modern dance, to which Victor responds, Still faggots and divas, aren’t they? and the man recoils, wondering what sort of creature has crawled into his life, what faggot, what diva, and Victor, magnanimous to the end, offers the lady the first line, but she stares at him, her husband also refusing though not without a small wince, so Victor snorts the coke himself, grins, puts some on a handheld mirror, and shunts himself along the leather seat, leans forward to offer it to the driver, who shakes his head in bemused thanks, no, and Victor slaps a palm theatrically to his head and cries, Oh! I’m so alone! but then he kicks off his shoes and puts his feet on the opposite seat, saying, But if you see Rudi; please say hi from me, which the man thinks is a joke and he gives an extended chuckle, causing Victor to stare him down, until the man is so uncomfortable that he says, This is our car you know, and Victor says, Of course it is! and then turns to the driver, Kind man! Drop me off in the Black Hills! and the driver, clueless, is finally directed to the Dakota apartments overlooking the park and the couple are stunned not so much by the famous address as by Victor, the aura, the taste he leaves in the air, and he passes the driver a ten-dollar bill, hops out, feeling the charge of cocaine through his body, jumped up, sprung, loaded, waves good-bye to the limousine, and he heads straight to the gold-plated entrance

  the first time he came to the Dakota, years ago, the doormen in their uniforms and epaulets directed him to the service entrance and Victor caused a fuss, until Rudi got on the intercom and shouted at the doormen to let his guest up immediately, but the next day, when Victor visited a second time, the doormen nodded austerely and allowed him to pass, so he went straight to the service entrance, his head hanging low, baffling the doormen, part of Victor’s style, for, as Rudi says, remaining unknowable is the only true way to be known

  and when he arrives upstairs in Rudi’s apartment the preparations are under way, this is the first night of Rudi’s run in Lucifer and a surprise party will be given in the seven-room spread, the last place Rudi would expect it, and Victor has offered his services free of charge, to choreograph the evening, to bend the flowers so they bow from their vases, to place the bowl of caviar at the just-reachable centerspot, to change the wattage in the lightbulbs, to scatter the chairs so there’ll be no bunching, to smooth the creases in the velvet sofas, to adjust the drapes for the view to Central Park, to fold the napkins near the scented candles in the bathroom, to illuminate subtly the hand-painted Chinese wallpaper, all the etiquette of the evening, so the party will run like a drug or a dream or both, and Victor casts a quick look over the hired crew dressed in formal wear, then makes his way towards another group, the organizers, all society women, bejeweled, middle-aged, wealthy, powerful, reminiscent of beauty, skin tanned to tobacco color—oh what a row of elegant Lucky Strikes—and they are huddled, gravely going over arrangements, and when Victor breaks their ranks their faces change, both dislike and relief, the women are concerned, deeply so, since reputations are on the line, and it is exactly Victor’s insouciance they can never achieve, although they try to draw it from him, while he shouts to nobody in particular, Somebody please direct these beauties to the Valium! and the women laugh, but Victor knows they are not just laughing, their laughter has another intelligence, the women have just relinquished control, and they lean in to Victor, having become his foot soldiers—he must use them like royalty and pieces of shit at the very same time—so he directs them to the kitchen, where the fridge has been liberally stocked with champagne, bids them to make a pyramid of glasses for him, fills the glasses with a flourish, says, Let the bacchanalia begin! and the women are forced to clink glasses, to forget all the crimes of the past, who threw a bigger party, who sat closest to the orchestra pit, whose hand got kissed by Oscar de la Renta, none of it matters now that Victor is in charge and, using his power, he tells them how wonderful they look in their Halston dresses, their sparkling Tiffany jewelry, their perfect maquillage, I’d burn a thousand ships just to be around you! and the
n he instructs them to watch the hired help, keep an eye on the waiters, be vigilant with the silverware, and—leaning so close now that they can see the dark outline of Victor’s pupils—he seems as if he is about to reveal some fabulous secret, but pauses and says, Ladies! the banquet table is in serious need of a face-lift!

  when Victor first moved in Rudi’s circle he was surprised at the older women who crowded around, willing to do everything and anything, some of them even sporting boyish haircuts in the vague hope that Rudi would find them attractive, which he never did, but they continued to hope, although now that age is spoiling their bodies they are in search of a son to spoil instead, which makes Victor think of his own late mother, his one regret being that he wasn’t with her when she succumbed, in the depths of the Bronx, to a strange liver disease, Victor at the time being so broke that he was unable to take her back to Venezuela, until years later he was on a trip with Rudi and they stopped off in Caracas for an afternoon, took a taxi to the hills, and spread her ashes at the foot of Mount Avila, watched her dust scatter, and it was one of the few times Victor cried publicly, he sat on the ground, put his head to his knees, wept quietly, then let out a howl, stood up and bid her good-bye, and it had shocked Rudi—this brute intimacy of grief—and the following night Rudi dedicated his dance in Caracas to her memory, stumbling once, but rising again in an elegant rage, which Victor, at the back of the opera house, thought a beautiful replica of his mother’s life, the dance, the stumble, the anger, the applause, the encore, the curtain falling before she could limp to the wings

  and Victor steps mock-angrily out of the kitchen, clicking his fingers at the hired help in their bad tuxedos, ordering them to assemble, it is a thin line he walks, for although he likes them, empathizes with them, respects them even, he knows what he must say, and soon the help are assembled in the kitchen, all twelve of them, high hair and bracelets, tattoos hidden beneath their sleeves, and Victor doesn’t lean close but draws back for authority, speaking of the ladies, saying, Those bitches have us over a barrel, not a hint of a Venezuelan accent but still a sort of barrio bravado in his voice, as if this is the most important job they will ever do, and if they don’t do it properly he will fire them even before Rudi comes back, since he knows what they want, everyone wants it, just to be near Rudi, just to say they touched him, but for good measure Victor turns up the heat a few notches, takes a deep breath, looks them each in the eye, says that if the work is not done well he will take every last man and string him up from the ceiling by his puny little cock and beat him like a fat white piñata—you doubt me?—and then he’ll take every woman and thread the sleeve of his orange shirt through her orifices and swing her mercilessly over the trees into Central Park, where there’ll be a dozen black boys waiting to gang-bang her, and the hired help are suddenly wide-eyed, until Victor breaks the tension with a long laugh, which becomes gentle, kind, full of tenderness, and he says if they do well there’s an extra twenty-five bucks each, maybe even some nose candy, and now Victor is aware they are so thoroughly confused that he has them under his thumb, that the evening has firmly settled into place like a good carpentry job, the pegs snug, the legs squared off, thinking in fact that he has performed such a great job he might have time to dash into the park for fifteen minutes or so, make his way up towards the Rambles

  oh the Rambles! all the scraddlelegged boys strung out in silhouette! all the tramping of weeds! all the faces shoved into brambles! all the bandannas in back pockets! all the drugs fermenting in all the bodies! what a human candy store! all the horsewhips and cockrings and lubricants and other chewable delights! all the winding paths! the soil indented with the patterns of knees! the moon out behind a dozen different trees! Johnnie Ramon with his shadow long on the grass and oh so tautly bowed! yes! Victor and the Rambles know each other well, and not just for nature walks, once or twice he has even accompanied Rudi there, because Rudi sometimes likes the tough boys, the raucous ones, the hot tamales who come down from the Bronx and Harlem

  but instead of the Rambles Victor opts for an alternative dose of resurrection, ducks into the bathroom, cleans the top of the tank with pieces of wet tissue, chops out a line, snorts with great gusto, shakes his head and stomps one foot, and he is out once more, answering a sharp buzz from the intercom, saying, Send them up! and within moments the caterers are at the door with dozens of trays of food, some of which he guides to the kitchen and the rest he has lined up on the banquet table, all manner of delicacies, much of it Russian, sliced sturgeon, beluga caviar in chilled bowls, horsemeat pâté, krendeli, pirozhki, Black Sea oysters, meat salads, Stroganoff, the women beside him fussing and fretting, he calms them by taking just a tiny taste of the caviar on the tip of his finger, Good enough for a Queen! then spends the next hour checking on the work of his charges, the women watching the hired help, the hired help watching the women, coordinated now like a song, so that Victor can do the things he needs to do, tilting the paintings in the living room just the tiniest bit off angle, especially the Meynier, his own little joke, Wisdom Defending Youth Against Love, and he turns the divan from the window so that it will not be commandeered by some sad slouch, arranges the ashtrays at a distance from the fine couches, adjusts the dimmer on the lights, fans the tassels on the Persian rugs, lines up Beethoven on the stereo to be followed by James Brown—a little musical anarchy please!—all the time watching the clock, the evening descending to the smallest details, the folds in the napkins, the position of the candelabra, the angle of the piano, the temperature of the mushroom sauce, so that Victor becomes impatient, tapping his foot, trying to figure out at what stage the dance is, if Rudi is finished yet, how long the ovation will take, until the intercom buzzes and the first guests of the evening announce themselves, so Victor bows generously to the organizing ladies, allowing them their kudos, barks one final time at the bartender who has not polished the glasses to satisfaction, Beware, I will return! for that is another rule of Victor’s, never be first at a party, even if he’s in charge, and instead of taking the elevator down he walks the stairwell, briefly pensive, almost sad, Victor spending a moment alone with Victor, leaning his head against the mustard-colored wall, breathing deeply, feeling the relaxation seep into his body, down to his toes, time for a quiet cocktail, somewhere dark and anonymous, not a gay bar, not a club, and not a Rambles cocktail either! somewhere he can rest temporarily, save his energy for the remains of the evening, and he finds a seedy little joint on Seventy-fourth and Amsterdam, checks out the jukebox, wonders how Rudi will react to the invasion

  it was way back in ’68 when Victor was taken to the ballet by an elderly matron whom he was escorting, he sat in the best seats for Romeo and Juliet, bored at first, fidgeting in his pricey jacket, crossing and recrossing his legs, wondering how long it would last, how soon he could escape, but then something happened, Fonteyn gave Rudi one of those glances that seemed to change everything, Rudi lifted her, Fonteyn’s face was glorious in the light, and the two dancers seemed to melt into each other, and Victor realized this was more than ballet, more than theater, more than spectacle, it was a love affair, a public love affair where the lovers did not love each other beyond the stage, which made Victor want to rise from his seat and perform, not ballet, but to move his body wildly and freely, and it was painful to watch such beauty without being part of it, he resented the look on Rudi’s face, his energy, his control, so when the curtain fell Victor felt an inexplicable hatred, he wanted to go up to the stage and shove Rudi into the pit, but he stayed motionless, shocked that the world could reveal such surprises—this was ballet, ballet! for crying out loud!—and it made Victor wonder what else he was missing, what else was lacking in his life, and in the foyer afterwards while he waited in line to collect his escort’s fur coat, Victor felt flush with heat and cold so that he shivered and sweated simultaneously, he had to go out into the night air, where a great swell of girls in wide-bottomed jeans shouted, Rudi in the nudi! Rudi in the nudi! We want Rudi in the nudi! some of
the fans clutching photos of Rudi to their chests, clamoring for position, hoping for autographs, and Victor had to abandon his aging escortee, he jumped into a taxi and went downtown to dance and forget, to a club on the eighth floor of an old factory, lights blazing, boys on drugs, famous actors sniffing rags soaked in ethyl chloride, the smell of poppers, men in front of mirrors with their eyes closed, wearing pirate shirts, headbands, winklepicker boots, whistles around their necks, the music so loud that some boys walked around with blood leaking from their eardrums, and Victor felt better after an hour, having come home to himself, sweat-soaked and mobbed by men who desired him, but later, when he sat sharing champagne with a wealthy fashion designer, Rudi suddenly joined the table—hey Rudi, this is Victor Pareci—and Victor felt a pit of despair in his stomach as Rudi looked at him, they detested each other immediately, they could see the cockiness but they could also see the doubt, that volatile mixture, fire and vacuum, both men knowing that they were similar, and their similarities galled them, having stepped out of the dirty shanties of the world into the drawing rooms of the rich, that they were the edge of a coin and no matter how many times the coin was flipped they would always remain the edge, that the rich didn’t understand this, but neither did the poor, and all this made their hatred palpable, and relief came only when they stepped away to opposite ends of the dance floor, but after a while they began dueling across the floor, seeing how many boys they could attract, and only Victor could live in a duel with Rudolf Nureyev, for this was Victor’s turf even though Victor was short and dark and unfashionably Venezuelan—short in stature, yes, but large everywhere else!—he had been worshiped on the floor long before he was worshiped in bed, his hip roll exaggerated so his legs seemed detached from his body, his shirt twisted and knotted to show off his flat dark stomach, and it became a strange war between them, beneath the revolving lights, the air heated, a great caisson of drums and guitar and voice, until there was a blackout, not even a fizzle of electricity but a sudden plunge into darkness, the other patrons thinking it might be part of the routine—often the lights were shut off so the men could have sex—but Victor waited out the blackout, wrung the sweat from the flaps of his shirt, feeling whole and complete and invulnerable in the dark, hearing the fumbling and laughing and thrusting all around, and Victor felt proud of his abstention, flushed with a sort of ascetic glory as the room filled with grunts and shrieks, until the lights came on again, blazing, riotous, and who was there across the floor but Rudi, still and majestic, and as the music jumped back into life they grinned at each other and recognized at that moment that they had somehow crossed a chasm, they were standing on the same side of the divide, knowing with a deep certainty that they would never touch each other, never fuck or suck or finger or rim, and certainly never kiss, and the realization was a balm, a salve, an unspoken pact, they had no need for each other’s bodies, but still they were inextricably tied, bound not by money or sex or work or fame but by their pasts and now, having met in a crosswind, they would duck out of it for shelter, and it was Victor who set out for the other side of the floor, staring at Rudi all the way, and the dancer put out his hand and they shook, laughed in unison, went to a table where they ordered a bottle of vodka and spent the hours talking, not about the world around them but the worlds they had come from, Ufa and Caracas, finding suddenly that they were talking about things they hadn’t talked about in years, the corrugated roofs, the factories, the forests, the smell of air at dusk—My street had a river of sewage running down the middle! My street wasn’t even a street! My street smelled like two wet dogs fucking!—and they could have been talking to mirrors, finding each other by finding themselves, the nightclub was forgotten, pure scenery, and they left at six in the morning, to the glare and envy of others, down the street for breakfast together at Clyde’s, Victor rolling his shoulders, Rudi clicking his heels, the sun struggling up full and red over the warehouses and abattoirs of Manhattan’s west side