Ballerina

by Edward Stewart

  Anna let the word ‘hit' sink in. She sipped her ginger ale, giving Danny the chance to speak. If he’d said she was full of horse manure or defended his ballet or even changed the subject she would have backed off.

  But he chose to remain silent, and that choice told Anna everything she needed to know about Daniel Gillette.

  ‘I danced in Cage,’ Anna lied. ‘Nora Kaye knocked me down on the second night—everyone thought Jerry had changed the steps again. What a perfectionist that man is. Never satisfied till he has a hit:

  ‘I like Cage,’ Danny said. ‘I never thought of the resemblance.’

  ‘No big deal. Jerry’s brilliant his way, you’ll be brilliant your way. I agree with Steph. She has great respect for you. Great respect.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And she’s fond of you, which I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you, and she trusts you, and she doesn’t trust just anyone. Which is why I feel I can trust you too. I hope you won’t mind if I’m very open with you.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Anna stared down at her hands and her eye caught the troubled angle of his face. She felt an instant’s guilt. She fought it back but could not keep a slight quiver from her voice.

  ‘It’s Steph. She’s very depressed.’

  ‘She seemed okay last week.’

  ‘She’d die before she’d let anyone know. Especially you. But between you and me, she’s very discouraged with the company.’

  The bar light struck a soft glow from the boy’s hair. It seemed to Anna in that instant that if he looked at her or touched her a sudden pity would go out from her, paralyzing her.

  Instead he frowned.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘ Empire’s not giving her roles. Oh, I know, coryphée here, thirty-second solo there—but she’s better than that. You’ve seen her, you know. You chose her for Lacrymosa after all. You know she’s good.’

  ‘Yes, she’s good.’

  ‘I probably sound like a ballet mother, and God knows I am. The trouble is—Now don’t tell anyone, don’t you dare tell her I told you, can I trust you?’

  ‘You can trust me.’

  ‘She’s had an offer from another company—I’m sure you know the company I mean, frankly it’s the only one she’d consider, and she has an in because—not many people know it—but we happen to be very close to the director and he’s her godfather. Now she wants to make it on her own, and she hates to use a contact like that. But this director means business. Solos, principal roles—it’s all spelled out in the contract. And the pay’s higher and it’s a full year’s employment.’

  It was all a lie, but all that concerned Anna at the moment was whether or not the lie was believable. Yvette Blanchard had walked out of NBT two days ago, leaving a hole at the top. Even if Volmar moved all the girls up a notch, there was still a gap to fill. This was public knowledge, and it fitted with her invention, and she waited to see if it would convince Danny Gillette.

  ‘Is she going to accept?’

  ‘Could you blame her? I’m staying out of it, I’m not advising her yes or no. She’s grown up, she runs her own life. But I’d hate to see her give up Empire after all the work she’s put in—just because they won’t give her a solo.’

  Danny kept his eyes lowered and his shoulders hunched. He kept them that way a long time before he spoke. ‘She has a solo in my ballet.’

  ‘And your ballet’s going to be a knockout.’ Anna placed her hand over his and it lay there, firm and steady, as though she were guiding him in a finger pirouette. ‘But that’s like a featured solo. I’m talking about a principal. There’s no real female principal in Lacrymosa. It’s really an étude for two women. You handle them beautifully, but it’s a duet—you know what I mean?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

  ‘She needs a principal role, even if it’s in a small ballet. She needs the exposure, and she needs it now. Dancers don’t keep forever.’

  ‘When does the other company want her?’

  Anna did not answer. She wasn’t certain, afterward, what warned her not to look away from him. Some instinct flashed that this was the win-or-lose instant. The instinct told her to fasten her eyes on his and not let go. It was Danny whose eyes dropped, whose fingers twisted the peppermint-striped straw in his vodka tonic.

  ‘Oh, Danny, I want her to dance your ballet, I’m praying she’ll dance it. It’s such a sweet little role, and you understand her body. Frankly, whatever happens, I hope someday you’ll do a major role on her.’

  ‘Would she leave before we premiere?’

  ‘From the look of things—the way the other company’s pressuring—who knows? Danny, she’s going through hell. She doesn’t want to let you down. But he is her godfather and he’s offering a terrific chance. Maybe if she had something at Empire, a real principal role ... I’ll bet she’d stay.’

  A mother has an intuition about certain things. If there had been anything more Anna could have done for her little girl, she wouldn’t have hesitated. But in her heart she knew she’d done enough, exactly and precisely enough.

  ‘Don’t tell her I told you any of this. She’d hate me.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Danny said dully.

  ‘You’ll think of something. You’re a bright boy and she really likes you.’

  Anna kissed him on the cheek and she felt she was kissing a mannikin through a pane of glass.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll think of something.’

  Afterwards Danny walked.

  The air smelled of traffic. It was loud with the anger of brakes and horns but it was free of her voice, that terrible voice that had twisted him like a stick of liquorice. At least he could breathe again.

  His thoughts were an agony, an undigested lump bursting against his skull.

  He walked across Broadway and then over to Central Park West.

  He didn’t cross to the park side. He walked north past co-ops with names like ‘Majestic' on their awnings and uniformed doormen scowling in the doorways. His parents had friends in those buildings. Lester Croyden lived in one of those buildings. He thought of those friends, successful lawyers and doctors; he thought of Lester Croyden, of the dictatorship that old people wielded over young people in ballet, and his heels were snappy and irritable against the pavement.

  He wanted to scream. He exhaled, let the scream out silently, a bit at a time.

  The pressure in his head eased a little.

  Gradually it came to him that he was being a child, acting as though he were about to lose his life or his career or someone he loved. In fact he wasn’t going to lose any of those things.

  The air awakened him. He began to think logically.

  Sometimes, he saw, you couldn’t expect everything at once. Sometimes you had to make a choice.

  So be practical, he told himself. What do you lose if you change the ballet a little, make the female role a solo?

  You lose part of your ballet, you give up a little of the truth that went into it.

  Is that so bad?

  It hurts.

  What do you lose if you don’t change the ballet?

  You lose Steph. And if you lose her you lose the ballet anyway because you made it on her. That hurts worse. That hurts more than anything.

  The more he walked and thought the more clearly he saw the choice. Lose the whole ballet or lose part of it. Lose her completely or keep her completely.

  At the corner of Central Park West and Seventy-second Street he stopped and turned abruptly around.

  Keep her, you nut. Most definitely emphatically no-question-about-it keep her. Because she happens to be exactly right.

  And besides you’re in love with her.

  twenty-one

  Danny kept phoning, but he couldn’t reach Linda over the weekend. At rehearsal Monday he tried to let the guillotine down gently.

  ‘Linda, you don’t have to bother with that relevé.’

  ‘All I need’s a half-
beat preparation.’

  ‘Please. Don’t bother.’

  ‘I’ll get it. I just have to find my centre coming out of that turn.’

  ‘Linda, I’m cutting the part. There’s not going to be any Diana in the ballet.’

  Her face went white.

  He explained that he felt like an idiot. He should have seen his mistake at the very first run-through. He’d been bothered by the band shell performance but he hadn’t understood what the matter was. Then, in rehearsals, able to stand back and-watch, he’d understood: the ballet had to be a pas de trois, not a pas de quatre. The focus had to be Psyche or there was no unity.

  ‘Damn it, Danny, you’re wrong. It would have made a damned good pas de quatre.’ Deep breath; shoulders back. ‘Well, no sense holding up your rehearsal.’

  She grabbed her tote bag and tossed her toe shoes into it and left the studio without a wave or even a glance at the other dancers.

  Danny clapped his hands for attention. Carefully, with no emotion at all, he explained the changes.

  Linda was still in the dressing room when Steph went back to change.

  ‘Hats off. You’ve got yourself a beautiful little role.’

  ‘The ballet was perfect the way it was,’ Steph said. ‘I don’t see why he had to change everything around. Linda, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why be sorry? Go celebrate.’

  ‘If he was going to cut someone, it should have been me—not you.’

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion. And obviously it’s not Danny’s opinion.’

  ‘I’ll never be able to do those balances the way you do.’

  ‘Cut them.’

  ‘I can’t cut Danny’s choreography.’

  ‘You seem to be managing so far.’

  Steph stared at her amazed. ‘You don’t think I asked him to cut your role!’

  ‘Want to know what I think? I think you’re a really fast learner.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Don’t tell me about not fair. Yesterday I had a role. Today I don’t. Yesterday I thought I had friends. Today I know I don’t.’

  ‘I never asked him to change a step! Linda—please—believe me!’

  ‘Believe you? No. Trust you? Never again. Hate you? With pleasure.’

  At the next Lacrymosa rehearsal Lester Croyden opened the studio door and stood looking in. A wordless moment of observation and then he was gone.

  The next day Ilonka Banska appeared in the doorway beside him. They came quietly into the studio, threw Danny don’t-mind-us-we’re-not-even-here glances, and took seats on wooden chairs against the mirror.

  Danny was directing Victor and Steph in their allegro. The floor beat with the rhythm of leaping feet.

  Ilonka sat motionless as a passenger braced against the swaying of a ship. She was diet-pale, exercise-thin, her hair a cropped spill of Magyar gold. Her violet eyes loomed wide and wet as two hungry mouths. She watched for several minutes, then turned quickly and whispered something to Lester Croyden. She kissed him, tiptoed with elaborate silence from the studio, and let the door slam.

  Lester waited till the end of the rehearsal. ‘I see you dropped one of your girls,’ he said.

  ‘It seemed to focus much better as a pas de trois,’ Danny said.

  ‘Much better. More dramatic. You’ve made a real starring role there. Reminds me of one of Tudor’s heroines....’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I keep thinking of Nora’s first Pillar. Too bad we haven’t got someone of Nora’s calibre to dance it.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, Steph’s perfect.’

  ‘She’s promising, yes.’

  ‘She is the role. I made it on her.’

  ‘Still, there’s something not quite right. Victor and David are such powerful performers. Stephanie’s soft by comparison.’ Lester Croyden’s eyes seemed to retract slightly in their sockets. ‘Ilonka thought her technique was weak. If anyone could handle this role, Ilonka could. And she hasn’t had a new vehicle in three seasons.’

  ‘Ilonka isn’t at all what I had in mind. It isn’t a display piece.’

  ‘I wonder....’ Lester Croyden spoke with maddening slowness, a man pretending to be in the grip of a sudden and new idea that was clearly a thought-out intention. ‘I wonder if we could persuade her to dance the premiere....’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Danny said quietly, firmly. ‘Steph’s done all the work.’

  ‘With Ilonka dancing we could schedule it six or seven times—give Stephanie a matinee or two.’

  ‘Isn’t it time an American dancer had a premiere in the company?’

  Like all the major companies, Empire received federal funds. Like all except Balanchine’s, it consistently threw lead roles to expensive imported stars. Danny would have expected Lester Croyden at least to pause and rebut the accusation.

  But he did not. His eyes were dreaming. His hand was on Danny’s elbow, congratulatory and conspiratorial. ‘I’ll talk to Ilonka. And, Danny—you’re lucky that an international star wants the role. You’ve proven that you’re talented. Now let’s see if you’re practical.’

  The next evening, backstage after performance, Danny asked Steph if she’d like to have a steak at his place—nothing fancy. It sounded very spur-of-the-moment and she tried not to let her acceptance seem too eager.

  She phoned the State Theater, left a message for Chris cancelling dinner, and took a taxi with Danny to an old converted brown-stone practically at Riverside Drive.

  He let her into the apartment. A marmalade cat came running to greet them.

  ‘The roommate,’ Danny said.

  ‘Hi, Geof.’ Steph crouched and petted the animal and it purred.

  ‘Want the grand tour?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Danny showed her two rooms and an efficiency kitchen. The kitchen fixtures were turn-of-the-century, age-spotted, otherwise immaculate. The rooms were cluttered, but the clutter was clean and cosy. She liked the place right away. She could see Danny was comfortable in it.

  She could see, too, that the invitation had been no spur-of-the-moment impulse. Before leaving for the theatre he had prepared a table: place settings for two, wineglasses, paper napkins furled in Japanese napkin rings, candles.

  He lit the candles. ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Starved.’

  ‘You relax. This takes two minutes.’

  He poured wine and put music on the phonograph: a piano concerto, Mozart or Haydn, her ear wasn’t sharp enough to tell the difference and probably never would be.

  He went through astonishingly few movements in the kitchen and produced two steaks, steamed green beans, rice and herbs that she suspected came prepackaged but was delicious anyway.

  They had dancers’ appetites and were so busy eating that she didn’t at first notice how little he was saying. When she glanced at him, upright and rigid in his chair, she sensed something wrong. She was aware of a clock ticking somewhere, a falsetto Big Ben chiming the quarter hour and then the half hour, and she began to feel uneasy.

  ‘Something the matter, Danny?’

  His eyes rested on her for a moment. ‘No, no. Everything’s fine. Just a little tired.’

  He had obviously thought the meal out, and she felt flattered. There were two cheeses at room temperature, delicious and runny, and fresh fruit, and thick black coffee from the Chemex.

  But no conversation.

  Afterwards he stood up, tall and white, and went to the sofa and lay down. She followed quickly and sat on the floor beside him.

  ‘Come on, Danny, what’s the big secret?’ She held her hand against his cheek, trying to get him to talk. ‘You cooked me a beautiful dinner. You acted like it was all very last-minute but you obviously planned it, so there must have been a reason.’

  ‘I just wanted to see you.’

  ‘You see me at work every day.’

  ‘That’s not the same. Work’s work.’

  ‘Is work bothering you?’

  ‘Maybe.
’

  ‘But why? You’re happy with the company. And God knows they’re happy with you.’

  ‘God knows.’

  ‘Is it something to do with your ballet?’

  And the truth began trickling out.

  ‘They want to change it,’ he said.

  ‘Change it how?’

  ‘Ilonka wants to dance your role.’

  She ought to have foreseen this. She tried to pretend it was all quite expected, which it wasn’t, and quite wonderful, which it was. ‘Danny—that’s terrific! She’ll be brilliant!’

  ‘No. I did the ballet for you. It is you. It has to be you.’

  ‘But with Ilonka the ballet will go on tour. You’ll get reviews—international reviews—you’ll go into the international repertory. Danny, people will know about you! It’s a break for you!’

  He was silent. She couldn’t fathom his reaction to Ilonka’s wanting the role. She felt happy for him and proud; he seemed angry, almost insulted.

  She said, ‘Oh, Danny, I’m touched you’d even think of me—but this is important, this is your career. You’ve got to let her dance it.’

  She waited for an answer and finally he said, ‘I can’t compromise any more. I’ve already compromised too much. There won’t be anything left if she gets her toe shoes around it.’

  But Steph wouldn’t let go. ‘There are compromises down and there are compromises up. You don’t need to be ashamed of a compromise up. Ever. Ilonka is the best.’

  He laughed a soft, strangely calm laugh. His hand slid across the purring cat. He closed his eyes and asked how old she was.

  Steph didn’t see what that had to do with anything. ‘Nineteen. Why?’

  He looked at her astonishment and envy, thinking: Time hasn’t started for her yet, she doesn’t know she’s finite. She probably doesn’t know anything is finite.

  ‘You have so much to learn.’

  ‘Not so much as you think, Danny. And maybe I know one or two things you don’t.’

  She knew dance meant more to him than she or any person could. She knew this from legends and rumours of the great choreographers. She knew it too by intuition. It was the way artists had to be and there was nothing wrong with it. The only wrong thing was when an artist put a person ahead of his art. She didn’t want Danny to have to blame her as her mother blamed her father. She wished she knew a way to tell him this.