Ballerina

by Edward Stewart

  ‘Owe her!’ Anna cried. ‘Why not just cut your throat and mail her the role in gift wrap? Honey, this is war and you’re entitled to use every weapon you can—short of sabotage.’

  Anna’s voice lingered on that word ‘sabotage,’ and a feeling of apprehension descended on Steph. She couldn’t shake it. Sleeping Beauty rehearsals left her drained and edgy: Volmar was always screaming—there were rumours that the orchestra was planning a walkout, so he had reason to scream; and Chris was always making suggestions, good suggestions, and Steph felt like a Judas; and Wally was the perfect gentleman partner and Sasha was the perfect gentleman partner prick.

  Not even an apology for not having phoned or written or spoken. Not even an acknowledgment that anything was the matter.

  Her head was throbbing from photos and headlines and gossip about Sasha up to all hours in discos with this woman and that woman and he had the nerve, the utter colossal nerve, to be utterly colossally perfect in every lift, in every supported turn and arabesque.

  The perfect prince.

  The perfect shit.

  She was in a cold fury by the time she got back to her dressing room, and it didn’t help to find her mother waiting for her.

  ‘Okay, young lady, I got a few things to talk over with you.’

  Anna snapped an Elizabeth Arden message pad out of her purse, flipped through phone numbers and tic-tac-toes, and stopped at a page of ballpoint scrawl. She stared at it and then at her daughter. She sighed. It was the this-hurts-me-more-than-it-does-you sigh.

  ‘Did I raise a dancer or an idiot?’

  Steph felt a rim of irritation rise in her chest. ‘Maybe I’m an idiot, but I’m a very tired idiot, so whatever you have to say, please say it fast.’

  ‘Tired? If you’d eat right maybe you’d have some strength. Look at Shura Danilova. When she was twice your age and then some she had more stamina than forty Olympic shot-putters—because she knew how to eat!’

  ‘I’m not Shura Danilova.’

  ‘To say the least. Honey, when you’re good, I tell you, right? When you stink, I tell you, right? The truth is the truth and if you can’t take the truth, then you don’t belong in ballet, right?’

  ‘If you say so, Mom.’

  Anna detected a whine and the last thing she was going to put up with at this juncture was whining. ‘I’m telling you facts, so don’t try to yes me. Two and two’s four no matter who says so.’

  ‘Mom, for all I care, two and two’s five if it’ll get you out of here any quicker.’

  Anna stared at this thing called a daughter. ‘Have you got a brain in your head or not?’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me, Mom?’

  ‘Okay, you haven’t got a brain in your head. You think people are going to go to the A & P for hamburger when Grand Union’s got filet mignon at the same price, that’s what you think.’

  ‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Your variation, that’s what I’m talking about. Colleen Neary can do five unsupported pirouettes in her sleep—so get off your keister! Suzanne Farrell’s got an extension from Lincoln Center to Tennessee. Now that’s an arabesque and that’s what people expect for their money, not some kid hanging off the rung of a fire escape. Honey, you got competition—and I don’t mean Chris, she’s so dizzy she’d bow to the backdrop. I mean when I was growing up and Millie Hayden walked onstage you could see those eyes move from the family circle. Even Nora Kaye doing Symphony in C had eyes, for Chrissake! You’re dancing for people who remember Fonteyn’s Rose Adagio! They can turn on their television sets and see Gelsey Kirkland, and frankly, after what I saw out there today, I wouldn’t blame them!’

  Steph was staring at her, hard and fixed. ‘You watched that rehearsal?’

  ‘Damned right.’

  A silence vibrated in the room. Anna could have sworn the reflection in the mirror trembled.

  ‘That was a closed rehearsal. You are not a member of this company.’

  ‘I happen to be your mother.’

  ‘You happen to be a pain in the ass. I take notes from Marius Volmar, not the exercise teacher at Elizabeth Arden’s.’

  Anna’s jaw dropped. A cold drizzle of shock glazed her. ‘You just watch your language, Miss Know-it-all.’

  Steph inhaled through clenched teeth. ‘Mom, you may have put twenty years into me—I’ve put my whole life into me. My career depends on getting this role. I’m fighting for it. I need every ounce of fight I have in me and I don’t need you picking fights and wearing me down.’

  ‘Picking fights—’ Amazement gusted through Anna. ‘I’m fighting your fights. I could have lost my job taking the afternoon off—but I took it off anyway—for you! Honey, I’m going to bat for you! You just listen to me and this time we’re going to hit a home run!’

  ‘Mom, every time you’ve gone to bat for me, the only thing you ever hit was me—smack in the face.’

  Anna was speechless. She clutched for some sort of twinkle, some sign that Steph was joking. But the girl was dead serious. A coldness sliced through Anna. Her hands were rigid and trembling.

  ‘If you can say that to your own mother—after all I’ve done for you—you’re crazy. You belong in an insane asylum. If you mean what you just said you belong in hell.’

  Steph’s eyes didn’t even flinch. ‘There’s a lot more I could say, Mom, but what’s the use? I’ll just say this, and just this once: don’t you dare ever come to one of my rehearsals again—in your life!’

  Anna began quivering. Spasms shot through her. She pressed a Kleenex to her face. Tears were coming out everywhere—eyes, mouth, nose. She sat shivering in the chair, a polka-dot dacron-polyester-wrapped lump of shock.

  ‘I love you, Mom.’ Arms went around Anna. A little warmth. Too little too late. ‘But you can be a hell of a nuisance.’

  ‘I was only trying.’ Anna stumbled to her feet.

  ‘I’m trying too, Mom. Harder than I’ve every tried in my life.’

  ‘Okay. Do it your way. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.’

  Steph smiled. ‘Mom, one thing I’d never say to you is, you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Okay. See you around.’ Anna fumbled from the room. Her mind scurried. She couldn’t lose the girl. Not now. Not yet. There had to be a way to hold on.

  Outside the dressing room it came to her: Marius. She’d phone Marius, cook him dinner, make love. Sure. Should have gone straight to him instead of Miss Know-it-all.

  Marius Volmar was a pro. He appreciated pros. He’d want to see Anna Lang’s notes.

  forty-three

  The first company class in May, Sasha did his barre next to Steph.

  ‘Hello, Stephanie.’

  ‘Hello, Sasha.’ She didn’t look at him. She pretended her tendu needed all her concentration.

  ‘How have you been?’ he asked.

  ‘Pretty busy.’

  ‘Like me. I am so busy I am a wreck.’

  ‘So I see in the papers.’

  ‘Do not believe papers. As bad here as in Soviet.’

  ‘I only look at the photographs.’

  ‘Awful photographs. Awful party. I hate big parties.’

  She wanted to say, ‘Then why do you go to them?’ He wouldn’t have heard. He had one leg in développé against the barre and his foot was practically in his ear.

  ‘You like big parties, Stephanie?’

  ‘Not especially.’

  ‘Little parties better, yes?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘If I give little party, you come?’

  She looked at him. His face was still ugly in the handsome way she remembered. The dimple and the misshapen nose and the deep shadowed eyes still made her heart trip. And she hated herself for it.

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘Tonight, after performance, I make dinner for you and me, all right?’

  She wanted to say, ‘Why the hell should I eat with you, you’ve ignored me all these weeks, you could at least have had the decenc
y to phone!’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Please, Stephanie—why can’t you?’

  ‘Because I’ve forgotten the address.’

  He was on the telephone when she arrived. He mouthed a ‘Hello' and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

  ‘Yes, darling, yes.’ He was talking into the phone but his eyes were on her and she had the feeling he was dividing his ‘darling.’ ‘We talk about it later, yes?’ He made a kissing sound and hung up. ‘Dorcas. She wants to be my mother, I let her be my mother.’

  He stood looking at her.

  ‘Is still raining?’

  ‘Pouring,’ she said.

  ‘Let me get towel and dry you.’

  ‘I’ll be okay if I can just get out of this.’

  He helped her out of the raincoat. His hands lingered gently on her. ‘Better I hang it over bathtub.’ He vanished a moment, and she heard the dog barking in the bathroom.

  She studied the room. He had furnished it in a way that looked modern and bright and expensively cosy. There were two chairs and an ottoman in gleaming dark leather and a king-sized bed set very low to the floor with a curving wrought-chrome headboard and a shaggy white spread that looked like fur but couldn’t have been, could it? There were hanging bookcases of records and books and tiny Eskimo sculptures and a full-length mirror with a border of theatrical make-up lights. The desk had bright enamel boxes to hold clutter neatly.

  She recognized a few pieces she had helped him pick. But most she didn’t recognize.

  He came back with a bath towel. ‘Tie this around your head. Your hair is wet.’

  ‘Then I’ll look like your Russian grandmother.’

  ‘She looked wonderful, you look wonderful.’

  ‘So do you, Sasha.’ She quietly dropped the towel on a chair. She was used to seeing him in skin-tight practice clothes or perspiring and stripped to the waist. Here he was casually dressed and bathed and groomed. It surprised her how young and fresh and handsome he looked.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.

  ‘Starved. Something smells good.’

  ‘Is very good.’

  He had a beautiful glass and chrome table but she saw they were not going to eat there. He had put two bright cushions by the fireplace. The tablecloth on the floor between them was set for dinner, with linen napkins in ivory rings. He had lit a small fire. The apartment smelled sweetly of pine.

  ‘Sit.’ He patted one of the cushions. ‘And take off shoes. This is your home.’

  She kicked off her shoes and sat. It didn’t feel like home but it felt good. He made scampering trips from kitchen to fireplace, refusing to let her help. The tablecloth filled with unrecognizable but delicious-looking cold hors d’oeuvres that turned out to be eggplant and minced salmon and calf s-foot jelly. There were tiny seasoned meat pastries and hot borscht with dollops of sour cream and chopped fresh dill. And two small glasses of clear liquid sitting in a silver dish of crushed ice.

  He told her the Russian name of everything. ‘Is traditional Russian meal.’

  ‘I can’t believe people eat this way in Russia.’

  ‘Is not whole meal—much more coming.’

  ‘But it’s a feast!’

  ‘Of course.’ He lifted a chilled shot glass. ‘To Stephanie and Sasha. To friends.’

  She stared at her shot glass. ‘Is it vodka?’

  ‘Of course is vodka.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t. It’s too strong for me.’

  ‘You do not want I should drink alone—is bad for health. You can drink one little toast, yes?’

  ‘All right. One little toast.’

  To a Russian, it turned out, one little toast meant tossing your head back and taking the whole shot in one swallow. She made the attempt. And felt like a flame swallower who’d seriously miscalculated.

  He brought out a little copper burner and worked like a boy scout trying to light it. In a copper frying pan he made thin little crêpes that he heaped with thick-lumped grey caviar—wasn’t that the most expensive kind?—and more sour cream and lemon and melted butter.

  ‘Sasha, I’m going to burst!’

  ‘Nobody burst till dessert.’

  The crêpes—blini—were delicious and she gobbled her way through four. And smiled. And found herself worrying about sex.

  Because there wasn’t a hint of it.

  She wondered if he found her cold or unfeminine or built too much like a boy. He talked about jealousies at the Kirov and the fruit juice machines at Hammacher Schlemmer. She didn’t know what to answer, how to meet his eyes. He kept filling her plate and her glass. She’d had so little experience at being seduced that she wasn’t even certain this was a seduction.

  Maybe he just thought she was one hell of an eating buddy.

  She fumbled with spoons and bite-sized cheese pastries and she even fumbled with words.

  ‘Stephanie.’ He slid his cushion nearer and her bare foot could feel the warmth of his. ‘Do you know how much I have missed you?’

  She looked at him. ‘No, Sasha. I honestly don’t.’

  ‘I did. Very, very much.’

  She inhaled and then she asked as casually as she could, ‘Why didn’t you phone?’

  ‘I did not want you should think me pest.’ He took her hand and held it tightly. ‘Did you miss me, Stephanie? Please tell truth.’

  She looked down at their hands. A longing came over her. She wished the two of them could be as naked and close and trusting as those hands. She didn’t know how to answer. She knew what he wanted to hear but it frightened her to admit it.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ she said softly.

  ‘Say you missed me,’ he said. ‘Make me very happy.’

  She bit on her lips. He was crouched beside her cushion, fixing her another crêpe.

  ‘Sasha?’ she said through a full mouth.

  ‘Stephanie?’

  ‘I missed you.’

  His face broke into a grin. For an instant his hand rested very gently on the back of her neck. And then he got up and brought chilled cranberry pudding and baklava.

  ‘Russian, not Turkish.’

  And coffee.

  ‘Turkish, not Russian.’

  ‘Sasha,’ she groaned, ‘I couldn’t eat another mouthful!’ But she could. And did. And felt relaxed and warm with all the food and too much vodka in her.

  He put another log on the fire and then he went to the window and stood a moment looking out. He pulled a cord and Venetian blinds tumbled down in a clatter, blotting out the rain and the world. He turned off the lights and crossed the room. There was only the firelight. He was sitting on the bed staring at her.

  ‘Stephanie, do you not know I wish we should make love?’

  She didn’t answer.

  He took off his shirt. He was wearing a small silver cross. It caught the light and sparkled. It was Russian, with two cross-bars.

  Her head felt cloudy and warm. She went to him and touched a finger to the cross. ‘I thought you weren’t religious.’

  ‘Sometimes I am.’

  ‘When?’

  His hand went around her wrist. ‘Now.’

  She pulled back just a little bit.

  ‘Come to bed with me, Stephanie. Please.’

  ‘I have to go home. Chris is waiting.’

  ‘Am I such a silly, unimportant boy? I wait weeks for you. I cook beautiful meal for you. And now you leave me to run back to your little friend.’

  His hands crawled back into his lap. He looked terribly unhappy. She thought he might cry.

  ‘I never feel like such silly little boy in my life.’

  She hadn’t thought it would happen like this. She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over and kissed him very quickly. His eyes were watering.

  ‘What do I do wrong? Why you do not want me?’

  ‘I’ve heard about you, Sasha. We’ve all heard about you.’

  He blinked. ‘Terrible things?’

  ‘Nice things. Very, ver
y nice things.’ She placed a hand softly against his cheek.

  ‘And you do not want some nice things for yourself?’

  ‘Sasha, I like you very much and I’m drunk. If I don’t get out of here in thirty seconds I’m going to make a fool of myself.’

  ‘Stay. We both make fools of ourselves. Is nice.’

  Her mouth was dry and her blood was beating like wings in her ears. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘You virgin?’

  She smiled. ‘No.’

  ‘Then why scared?’

  ‘I’m scared....’ Out with it, Steph. ‘I’m scared you’ll only want me once.’

  He shook his head violently. ‘No, no—much, much more.’

  ‘Maybe not. You have other girls. You don’t know how I’ll be.’

  His face was serious. ‘I am not animal. I am very bad boy but when I am in love I am good.’

  ‘Would you be? With me?’

  His eyes were wide and brown and aching with vulnerability. She looked away.

  ‘Stephanie....’ He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘I will be so good with you, you will wish I was not.’

  ‘I’d never wish that.’

  ‘Enough of wishing.’

  He kissed her and pulled her down. She felt her heart skitter like a baby pigeon cupped within his hand. He was affectionate and murmuring and his arms were strong. She had never suspected such gentleness and consideration in him, such hunger in herself. He went slowly and sweetly with her, and afterwards, when she finally opened her eyes, he was looking at her.

  ‘Do I do what you want?’

  ‘Yes. You’re perfect.’

  He drew her to him again. It was one of those silent floating moments when everything makes sense and none of it matters.

  ‘I have to go home,’ she whispered. ‘It’s late.’

  She got up to dress. She went to the window and lifted the blinds to see if it was still raining. There were trees on his street and a taxi going by. The headlights made bright streaks on the wet pavement. She sighed.

  She saw Sasha’s reflection in the window. He was looking at himself in the mirror, one hand to his hair.

  ‘Come back,’ she heard him say.

  ‘It’s late. I can’t.’