Ballerina

by Edward Stewart

  With brandy, Volmar offered Havana cigars. They smoked.

  Volmar did not like to make a move till he was sure. He had studied the man and the Brussels situation for a week. Now he was sure.

  The waiter cleared away dessert plates. Throughout the city churchbells chimed midnight. Volmar leaned forward in his chair and Pierre Huygens waited for him finally to tip his hand.

  ‘Quite soon,’ Marius Volmar said, ‘I may be looking for a new home.’

  ‘A new home in Belgium?’ Pierre Huygens inquired cautiously.

  ‘Just a place for me and my family.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a family.’

  ‘A family of eighty-six.’

  ‘Ah—your dancers! You want to move your company to Belgium?’

  ‘I would like to create a Belgian company.’

  ‘But we have a Belgian company.’

  Volmar observed his guest. The face, taut and skeletal and hungry-eyed, had a papery look, like a ledger page itemizing twenty years of bureaucratic strain. ‘I would like to create a Belgian company that employs American guest artists.’

  ‘But we have a company.’

  ‘My Belgian company would not perform in Belgium. There would be no competition with your company.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Where would you perform?’

  ‘In America.’

  Pierre Huygens’ mind roamed over the mountain of paperwork that would be required. ‘You want to bring your Americans here and turn them into Belgians and take them back to America—why?’

  ‘It won’t be necessary to bring them here. All I’ll need is a Belgian charter for the company and a Belgian address for legality.’

  ‘May I ask why you want to do this?’

  ‘You’ve hear of our American musicians’ unions?’

  ‘You have good musicians.’

  ‘And many greedy unions. Our orchestra plans to strike. Its demands will bankrupt us.’

  Pierre Huygens shook his head in amazement. He had heard that American recording companies could no longer afford American orchestras, that the Boston Symphony worked for German marks and Dutch guilders. He was sorry for America and for the suicide of her soul.

  ‘There is only one way for us to survive as dancers in the United States,’ Marius Volmar said. ‘We get rid of the orchestra. We pay musicians on a performance basis. We perform as a foreign company on tour. As Belgians.’ Volmar pinned Pierre Huygens with his gaze. ‘How soon can you let me know?’

  Pierre Huygens stirred uncomfortably. He had eaten his mousse au café too quickly. He felt Marius Volmar fencing him in to a most premature, most unwise yes/no. The decision would require time; research; discussion with the Minister.

  ‘But surely there couldn’t be any immediate rush,’ Pierre Huygens said.

  ‘There is.’

  ‘But I saw in the Paris Herald Tribune, Bunin’s Corsaire is a sensation, the house is selling out. You’ve raised your prices, orchestra seats are being scalped for thirty dollars, no?’

  For an instant Volmar stared in openmouthed surprise. And then a curtain of frost dropped. ‘I don’t know about the scalping.’

  ‘But Bunin must help your situation considerably.’

  ‘Very little.’

  Pierre Huygens took up his cigar again. With deliberation, he tapped the dead tip into the ash tray. ‘I understand your situation, and I’m sure the Minister will sympathize. Nevertheless, it would help if we could make the proposal as attractive as possible.’

  ‘And what will attract the Minister?’

  ‘Aside from your very great prestige, Monsieur Volmar—which is the only consideration—it might speed the paperwork if Bunin could be persuaded to come to Belgium.’

  ‘Permanently?’

  ‘We could not dare hope that, no, we could not expect you to give up your most brilliant dancer. But perhaps if Bunin could be persuaded to dance one or two guest appearances with our National Ballet....’

  The weather had turned murderously cold as Volmar hurried back to his hotel. Anger thudded in him, sending his heart skipping like a soccer ball.

  His eye tried to pierce the scrim of drizzle and mist that blacked out the city. The news kiosks were dark, boarded up for the night. There was not a Paris Herald Tribune to be had in Brussels.

  He had to find one. He had to know.

  ‘What’s that in your wastebasket?’

  The night clerk regarded him in astonishment. ‘Monsieur?’

  ‘That Paris Herald Tribune—give it to me, please.’

  ‘But, monsieur, it’s old—and used—' Before handing the paper over the night clerk attempted to smooth out the wrinkles.

  Volmar snatched it from him. He found the review on the centre page, reprinted from an earlier New York Times. Words leapt out from the column of print, stabbing his eye:

  Bunin ... Bunin ... Bunin ... Corsaire pas de deux ... a virtuosity dazzling even to a generation grown jaded on the pyrotechnics of Nureyev and Baryshnikov ... a sheer riot of kinesis ... a Spectre de la Rose recalling Nijinsky....

  His stomach rolled over inside him like an unborn creature that was all claws.

  ‘When is the next flight to New York?’

  ‘Nine o’clock, monsieur—Sabena.’

  ‘Nothing earlier?’

  ‘Alas, no, monsieur.’

  ‘I’ll need a reservation. My name is Volmar, V-o-l-m-a-r. Initial M.’

  thirty-nine

  Volmar took a taxi from the airport straight to the theatre. He didn’t waste time waiting for the elevator but dashed up the fire stairs two steps at a leap.

  At stage level he could hear the piano thump-thumping. His stomach made a fist. He recognized the abominable drivel of Leon Minkus, Le Corsaire. He stood in the shadow of a wing, watched in disgust.

  There were three figures onstage: Sasha, stripped to the waist, sweaty and posturing; Lucinda Dalloway, packaged in wool and plastic wrap, lotus-positioned on the floor; and Frederick Branson, who ran a creditable company class, standing uselessly.

  Sasha was arguing: ‘Maybe would be better I put in double turn.’

  The dance master sighed. ‘We have turns in the air, turns on half pointe, barrel turns, turns on the knee—it’s a helluva lot of turns for one little variation.’

  ‘No problem. I can do it.’

  Volmar hurried down into the darkened orchestra. His eye picked out the row where Dorcas was sitting, hands and chin propped on the seat in front of her. She had bloomed into a producer-director: hair pulled back in a no-nonsense pony tail; instead of pearls, horn-rimmed glasses dangling around her neck on a dime-store chain; baggy sweater and—blue jeans.

  Volmar wondered if there was some boutique that pre-dirtied jeans.

  Dorcas stood, her voice raised and crisp as celery: ‘Freddy—why can’t we use both?’

  Freddy glanced from Sasha to Dorcas as though they’d caught him in a tug-of-war. ‘Both what, Dorcas?’

  ‘Both your choreography and Sasha’s.’

  His shoulders rose and fell in silent helplessness. ‘There’s not enough music. We have to make up our minds.’

  Dorcas was threading her way through seats, approaching the stage. ‘How many bars does Sasha need for the two turns?’

  ‘Four counts,’ Sasha said. ‘If I had eight I could sous-sus back up....’ He dropped into an extended kneeling position. Abruptly, like motion picture film reversed, energy bursting from nowhere, he corkscrewed up, did a double turn, and came to a knife-clean stop exactly on the beat.

  ‘I like it,’ Dorcas said. Then, to the accompanist, ‘What happens if you repeat the last eight counts?’

  ‘The musicians get overtime.’

  ‘Very funny. Will you just play it?’

  He played the phrase, repeating the final eight counts. Dorcas stood with her head cocked, like a hostess in the kitchen sniffing dinner.

  ‘That doesn’t sound any worse to me than the rest of it. What do you think, Freddy?’
<
br />   Freddy sighed. ‘The music doesn’t bother me. But there’s no logic to the movement. Why not sixteen and let him do a somersault?’

  ‘My, my, what a lot of wits we have here today. We’ll keep the extra eight. Someone remember to tell the conductor.’

  ‘It’s a hell of a lot of oompahs for those horns,’ the accompanist said. ‘Their lips will be ragged.’

  ‘They’re paid for oompahs and Blue Cross can pay for their lips. Okay, Freddy, what’s next?’

  ‘Lucinda’s variation.’

  Dorcas scowled. ‘I wish there was some way we could perk that up.’

  ‘How about thirty-two fouettés?’ Freddy didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm.

  ‘It’s not such a bad idea,’ Dorcas said. ‘But let’s save it for a last resort. Sasha, how do they handle that variation in the Kirov?’

  Sasha marked with his fingers, a grinning puppeteer. ‘Very nice little coupés jetés, getting faster and faster.’

  Dorcas shut her eyes a moment, visualizing, and nodded. ‘Do you remember enough to show Lucinda?’

  ‘Of course. Lucinda darling.’ Sasha beckoned Dalloway up from her lotus position. ‘Just watch and follow. Music, please. And.’ With a delicacy amazing in a male dancer, and breath control amazing in a human body, Sasha demonstrated at tempo, calling out the steps. ‘Pas de chat, trois fois ... bourrée ... bourrée....’

  ‘Dorcas,’ Volmar whispered sharply. Fury hammered in him.

  Dorcas’ head jerked back, her attention shattered. She squinted in Volmar’s direction. ‘Why, Marius.’ Holding her note pad to her bosom, like a shield between him and her, she shifted weight away from him. ‘What are you doing back so soon?’

  ‘You know perfectly well.’

  ‘How was your trip—mission accomplished?’

  ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Can’t it wait ten minutes? We’re in the middle of—’

  ‘I can see what you’re in the middle of. Come to my office.’

  ‘Dorcas, you are a mediocrity.’

  ‘If that’s meant as an insult, try again.’

  ‘You are a pretentious, self-serving, self-deceiving second-rater.’

  She leaned over the desk, teeth bared. ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong, right. I have no pretensions when it comes to dance. I am serving this company, not my ego. I do not fool myself. I know I’m a second-rater, the same as half the people in this world, which is why I’m able to speak their language.’

  ‘And choreograph their ballets too?’

  ‘The audiences want Sasha. Do you realize what our ticket sales have been?’

  He was aware of a changed Dorcas, a woman drugged with new exhilaration. Enthusiasm and cockiness were pumping in her blood, working a chaotic and dangerous synergism.

  ‘We’re subscribed through next year! Marius, that has never before happened in the history of this company!’

  ‘And if people wanted pornography, you’d have sex shows on stage?’

  ‘Why are you scared of good honest bravura dancing?’

  ‘Because it’s bravura shit and it belongs in a stable.’

  ‘It pays for your elitist crap! If we programme ten minutes of Sasha dancing Le Corsaire—they’ll sit through two acts of anything! Happily! What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘We are a company—not a showcase for Soviet buffoons.’

  Dorcas’ fingers jabbed the air, enumerating. ‘ You did a Coppélia for Lucinda. You interpolated an adagio from Sylvia and a pas de deux from La Source. You gave Beverly a Dying Swan. You massacred Grigorovich last season so that Christine of yours could get through it—and might I remind you I didn’t even raise a whimper at Do I Hear a Waltz? Or at your choosing Stephanie for the premiere?’

  ‘That is all beside the point.’

  ‘No, Marius. It is the point. There’s a great sign above our door: Women only will be showcased here. Males not allowed. Well, now we’ve got a male and the public wants him. They want him more than they’ll ever want your Lucindas or Beverlys or Christines or Stephanies. And you are jealous.’

  The blindness of her accusation so astonished him that for a moment he couldn’t answer. ‘Of those cheap acrobatics?’

  ‘Of that man.’

  Now he began to see the depths of the charm Sasha had worked on her. ‘You’re infatuated with him.’

  ‘No more than you are with your ballerinas.’

  ‘He’s using you, Dorcas. He’s a Tartar shark with a baby mongoloid smile.’

  ‘And a very well-trained male body that people pay money to see. He’s saved us, Marius. Saved us.’

  ‘That vaudeville is salvation?’

  ‘Then go out there and give him something good. Give him your plotless ballets. Get Jerry to let you do Goldberg Variations. Ask Mr B. for Symphony in C. Anything. Just use him!’

  Volmar felt the warning onrush of anger, his heart tightening into a fist. He forced himself to be gentle and explanatory this one last time. ‘We are a company. We do not have stars. We do not leapfrog outsiders into principal roles over the heads of our own dancers.’

  ‘He is our own dancer. We have him under contract for three years.’

  ‘Perhaps in three years he’ll be ready.’

  ‘He’s ready now. He’s a natural prince and you know it and the public is dying to see him sink his teeth into a good prince role.’

  ‘We don’t do prince ballets.’

  ‘And what do you call Sleeping Beauty?’

  He had known, of course, what she was aiming at. He was still surprised. In the past she had pursued her aims with a certain timidity and deference. Now she had slipped out of character. He did not know this screaming, demanding harpy.

  ‘That man,’ Volmar said, ‘is not dancing Sleeping Beauty.’

  ‘I don’t believe you seriously mean what you’re saying.’

  ‘With every fibre of my soul.’

  ‘You’re insane.’

  ‘Furthermore, I am removing your Corsaires, your Don Q’s, and all your lovely little pas de deux. We are going back to our original schedule.’

  ‘That’s a grave mistake.’

  ‘Until my contract expires, I control the casting. I choose the repertoire.’

  ‘Marius, be reasonable. Sasha is a miracle. He’s a force of nature. He’s a tornado, a tidal wave—why don’t we just harness him? I know I had no right to tinker with the schedule and I’m sorry. But look at the box office—oh, God, just look. Marius, we could put him in anything. He could dance Beethoven quartets, Mexican hat dances, they’d still love him. Sasha is a chance for all of us!’

  ‘I’m not ripping down the building just because someone has found a pretty column for the façade. If you want to harness Sasha, go hire a Broadway theatre.’

  ‘Marius, if you let him dance Sleeping Beauty, we can pay off this year’s deficit. Just give him Sleeping Beauty. I won’t ask for anything else.’

  The voice was openly pleading. He had beaten back this flurry of independence. Close call. Only now did Volmar realize how hard his heart was pounding.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  She gazed at him a moment of long sorrow. He resolved he would be kind: he would forget they had ever humiliated themselves with this exchange. He waited for the words of apology that would close the matter.

  But her tone was oddly lacking in repentance. ‘In that case, Marius, I’ll talk to my lawyers.’

  She went.

  For a while Volmar was able to put her out of his mind. He was able to think of important matters—like the schedule she had so thoroughly botched. With scissors and Scotch tape and grease pencil he began repairing the abortion she had made of his season.

  But he couldn’t lock the back door of his thoughts. He kept seeing Dorcas, her face eaten with acid rage. Behind her he saw Sasha, all smile and twinkling feet. An electric jolt went through him. His heart gave a jump. He felt a stab of pain in his left arm and a nausea that was terrifying in its swiftness. He slapped his hands to
the desk top, gripped hard, held himself back from the sudden emptiness that loomed beneath.

  Hold on, he told himself. You shall not be scared by those two children. And yet for a long spiraling moment his hands refused to let go of the desk.

  Finally the moment passed. The emptiness slid away.

  He put his schedule away, slipped into the corridor, took his fear for a walk. It was five-thirty. Most of the dancers and stage hands were home having early suppers. The house was almost deserted.

  As he walked, he tried to think. He had to separate Dorcas and Sasha. He had to shatter the alliance. Exploit its inherent weaknesses. To do that he would have to know more.

  ‘Hello, Mr Volmar.’ A trio of girls from the corps slipped past, giving him wide berth, giggling nervously. Volmar was perfectly aware what his dancers thought of him. They were terrified by him; more than a few hated him. He was not a man who cared about being loved or hated.

  He cared about being obeyed.

  He glanced after the girls and thought what a pity it was he didn’t have a dancer friend, someone placed low in the company who could pass on garbage and gossip. Garbage and gossip, intuition told him, would have to be his weapons.

  ‘Evening, Mr Volmar.’ A man wearing dark glasses wheeled his double bass past. Volmar grunted. Musicians, like stage hands were swaggering adolescents who travelled in gangs called unions and periodically went on looting rampages called strikes. He did not so much as waste his breath on a ‘Hello’ to them.

  Two armloads of male unitards brushed past. ‘Hello, Mr Volmar.’

  It was Harry Burns, one of the men’s dressers. A tiny buzz went through Volmar’s head.

  ‘Well, Harry, have you been keeping an eye on things for me while I’ve been away?’

  Harry Burns stopped in surprise and almost dropped his unitards. ‘Pardon?’

  Volmar made a point of knowing a little about all his dancers and dressers, just enough to fill a two-by-four-inch mental filing card. Harry Burns had spent five years in the NBT corps, gone straight from that to twenty years in the dressing rooms. Seventeen years ago his lover, a promising Cuban dancer, had caught polio, pulled himself to a window, and thrown himself out. Since then Harry had blossomed into a loverless, gossiping lush.