The Sex Squad

by David Leddick

  I saw Claude Bessy, guest-starring with Ballet Theatre from the Paris Opéra. From her, I learned to feel the thrill of watching a dancer accomplish difficult steps she might not be able to do. The American style was to suggest that nothing was difficult. The French way was to suggest that these steps were very difficult but somehow you would conquer them. She was a star who used the excitement of a tightrope walker to get her audience out of their seats.

  When the legendary Alicia Markova, born Alice Marks, appeared in Giselle for Ballet Theatre, not a ballet student missed a performance, standing crushed together at the back of the theater in standing room. We all had heard that she had never taken class with other students. All her life she had had private classes. This made her into a kind of deity for us. She was also famous for her “spotting.” When we did a series of turns, we were taught to pick a “spot” to look at, hold it with our eyes as long as possible as we turned and then whip the head around to pick it up again immediately. In this way, you didn’t get dizzy. But Madame Markova didn’t do this. She had four little spots, perhaps the corners of the stage. And when she turned, her little head went bing, bing, bing, bing like a hen plucking at grain. This was exotica. We loved it. We tried it. Impossible.

  Ballet students are true students: for them, learning is everything. And like baseball fans, they are infatuated with the players. Markova had been trained by Enrico Cecchetti, teacher of Pavlova and Nijinsky. Cecchetti had left Russia with the famous Diaghilev company, which Markova had joined as a young girl in the 1920s. We were intrigued and wondered if her birdlike “spotting” was in the tradition of the Russian greats, or was it her own little London-born thing?

  Both Belle-Mère and I fell under the spell of ballet tradition. We read about the great Romantic ballerinas. Marie Taglioni, first to get up on pointe and drift about in the early La Sylphide. First to be respectable arid marry a count. Fanny Elssler, the sexy and less respectable ballerina specializing in Spanish dances. A peppy Austrian, she. Adorable little Carlotta Grisi, the Italian dancer who created Giselle. Choreographed for her by her lover, the dancer Jules Perrot, who sported a nifty pair of thighs if the old prints have it correctly. And the elegant Lucile Grahn. Danish. The most truly beautiful of the bunch.

  Mom and I just loved imagining all these ladies and their carryings-on in the 1830s and 1840s. One of our new dancer friends told us about Taglioni’s Jewel Case, an artwork created by Joseph Cornell and on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York: glass ice cubes fitted neatly into blue velvet cubicles in a small mahogany case. It was Cornell’s homage to the story that Taglioni was en route through the snow to dance for the Czar in St. Petersburg when stopped by bandits. They demanded her jewels and her maid remonstrated with them: “Don’t you know who this is? This is the great Taglioni.” The bandits agreed if she would dance for them they would return the jewels. Her maid readied her in her huge white tutu, her wreath of artificial flowers, her pearl bracelets, her tiny pink satin slippers with only a little crocheting across the ends of the toes to help her stay on pointe. The bandits built a huge fire and laid blankets on the ground. And she descended into the polar night. Under the stars, like diamonds in the navy-blue sky, she danced to get her own diamonds back.

  This was the world Belle-Mère longed to enter and the world she was dragging me into, willy-nilly. To be honest, I wasn’t hanging back very much.

  When we saw Alicia Markova, the last of the delicate, birdlike Romantic ballerinas, dance floating in a cloud of tulle skirt in the second act of Giselle, we could imagine we were at the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg seated not far from the imperial box. Her tutu seemed larger than others I’d seen and seemed to be always moving. I caught her catching it with her hands when she went through fourth position with her arms, so it seemed to be moving restlessly about her all the time. When she did a large leg movement, it rippled over her leg like a wave, only her little pink slipper protruding from the foam.

  Her dancing was a kind of moving textbook. When she did her little pas de chat, both feet disappeared under her tutu skirt and she seemed to be like a flower blowing in the wind. I knew one of her partners later and he said she would never prepare for a jump to help her partner. He had to lift her dead weight unaided. Everything she did had to look effortless or the magic of a Romantic ballerina was marred.

  Somehow, that effortlessness made sense of the old ballet. She was so much like a spirit drifting about, you really believed she had come back from the dead to protect her lover. It made perfect sense for those moments she was on stage. Her lover, the impeccable, elegant, blond Erik Bruhn, made it easier to understand.

  This was our world, Belle-Mère’s and mine. Up to our necks in ballet classes, going to ballets, talking about ballet, and reading about ballet. We cared for nothing else. We soon developed the unshockability that goes with the world of dance. That a ballerina was the impresario’s mistress meant nothing. But if she didn’t have legs that were fully turned out or if she had arches that drooped, we were speechless–this was bad! Dance is the most ruthless of disciplines. One can claim to be an actor and never act, and if there is a performance, it is so hard to say if it’s good or bad. A singer can claim to sing, and much is forgiven because the voice develops late and perhaps this is an off-day. But a dancer must dance. There’s no faking it. Everyone can clearly see how well the steps are executed, how much emotion is expressed.

  If you say you dance, you have to dance. There are no two ways about it.

  Levoy Ping

  Even among all the famous names, exotic faces, whippet-slim bodies, and imperious manners, I still found time to be fascinated with a student in the professional class. He resembled some kind of rare bird. Not beautiful, but strange. Tall, with long arms and legs. Red hair stood up in a kind of plumage on top of his head. I don’t know how well he danced. Adequately, I suppose. But it was his persona that was so riveting. It was hard to watch anyone else when he was in class. Of course I knew his name. Everyone knew his name. Levoy Ping. He was already famous in the school for his remarks. One day while I was watching, Miss McRae said to a male dancer, “You have terrible hands.” As he passed Levoy Ping on his way to the back of the class, I heard Levoy say, not very quietly, “Perhaps you should wear gloves.”

  He was a protégé of Edna McRae. Because he had red hair, as she did? Because he made her laugh instead of trembling at her acid remarks? More likely because of his attitude. He told me later it was that of a geisha. “One must always try to be amusing and to be amused, and that requires hard work.”

  Belle-Mère was fascinated with him, too. She saw him passing through the reception area from time to time and asked me one day, “Who is that divine creature with the strawberry-blond hair?”

  I had never categorized Levoy Ping as a divine creature. I wasn’t ready to go that far. (Belle-Mère had been reading a lot of Evelyn Waugh at that time, which had had a big effect on her vocabulary.) I told her.

  She said, “What an unusual name.”

  To say the least.

  One evening, I had arrived early and Levoy was late for class and we passed in the doorway of the men’s dressing room. He looked at me in a manner I later came to associate with Dame Edith Evans and said, “What is your name?”

  Transfixed, I said, “Harry Potter.”

  Levoy said, “Hmmmmm,” and swept away, dragging a fortune in imaginary ermine behind him.

  Up until that time, I had imagined I was invisible. Who could have noticed me? What did I look like then? I have a few photos, and when I study them, the question still remains. To me, I looked very adolescent, and there is something vague about my whole appearance. Nice hair, but was it dark blond or light brown? A nicely proportioned body without a trace of any budding sensuality. Not much chin, and eyes that had an El Greco look. Sad and imploring for some kind of divine intervention. I know that at the time I was not at all sad and nothing could have been further from my mind than divine intervention. Some kind of ph
ysical intervention, maybe.

  Perhaps I caught Levoy’s attention because I didn’t come off the same assembly line as the other little ballet boys, trying to parlay a trim little rear end into a big career.

  Several nights later, as I was coming out of the school, he was waiting for me. He said, “I’m Levoy Ping and I thought you might like to have a cup of coffee with me.”

  “I don’t drink coffee,” I said.

  Levoy looked at me pityingly. “Do you drink Coca-Cola?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. My mind and mouth were thick with the surprise of having my usual home-school-ballet class-home trajectory interrupted.

  Levoy spoke more kindly. “Could this be one of those times?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, sure.”

  “Don’t ever say ‘sure,’ “ Levoy said. “It always sounds like an airline stewardess. Or a nurse.”

  So we had coffee and Coca-Cola. I actually wanted a Dr Pepper but was too embarrassed to change my mind. I had almost never had a soft drink before, because Belle-Mère thought they were bad for the teeth. Levoy drew out of me how old I was, what I was studying at my very theatrical school, what ballets I had seen, and what I thought of various dancers. I, of course, asked him none of these things. I found him very profound and sophisticated and at no time noticed that he did not speak at all of himself but only of me.

  He had a very gracious manner, styled, he once told me, on Mrs. Calvin Coolidge–the only truly beautiful woman, in his opinion, to have ever been a president’s wife. (He admitted he had never seen Mrs. Grover Cleveland or Mary Todd Lincoln.)

  As we finished our drinks, he said, “How would you like to sleep with me?”

  I said, “Gee, I’m not tired, and besides, it’s only nine-thirty.”

  Levoy gave me a long, level look through his imaginary lorgnette. Then he said, “I’d like to meet your mother. I’ll see you home.”

  Belle-Mère was there when we got to our apartment. Which surprised me. Usually she wasn’t, because she took the class immediately after mine. I hadn’t seen her at the school and figured she was working overtime at her job checking results for a research company. One of the other older students had put her on to it. The company used part-time employees a lot, and you could come in when you wanted to and work as long as you wanted to. Which was perfect for dancers who went to class in the morning and might want to go to an audition from time to time. Belle-Mère said that almost everyone there was an aspiring actor or a novelist or someone in the arts. She loved mixing with all those people even if the work was incredibly boring and terribly paid. With the little bit of occasional alimony she got, it was enough to pay our rent and my school fees and buy food. Just.

  Miss McRae had given me a half-fee scholarship at the ballet school, which helped a lot. And on Saturdays I bagged groceries at the grocery store down on the corner.

  Belle-Mère was transfixed when I appeared at the door with Levoy. When I introduced them she said, “Levoy Ping. Levoy Ping. What an unusual name. Where are you from?”

  “Chillicothe.” Levoy said. “I’m one of the Pings of Chilli-cothe.”

  “And ‘Levoy’? Is that a family name?” Belle-Mère said. She wasn’t being funny.

  “In a way. My mother’s favorite brother was named LeRoy and his wife’s name is Yvonne. I’m a tribute to the two of them.”

  “How nice.”

  “Do you think so?” Levoy said. His voice gave no clue as to whether he thought so or not.

  “Wouldn’t you like to sit down?” asked Belle-Mère.

  “I’d like to sit down in the kitchen.” Levoy said.

  And so we did. Belle-Mère was pretty good herself at the “I’ll ask the questions and you’ll do the talking” technique. We found out Levoy lived alone with his capuchin monkey, Igor. He was twenty, had been studying ballet for two years, and was sure he could make it.

  “I’m famous for my legs and feet,” he said. “At least around Chicago. Look.”

  He sat down on the floor and, removing his shoes, showed us how he could point his toes in front of him until they curved over and touched the floor. Those were some arches, no mistake.

  Belle-Mère and Levoy got into a spirited discussion about ballet technique then and there. She asked him whether he pulled up or sat into his hip when he did pirouettes. (“Up, up, up” was his answer.) Was he really able to get his heels down when he did very rapid changements in first position? (“Almost” was the answer.) What did he think of her first position? she wanted to know. She pulled her skirt up very high, showing her garters, and put her heels together. “Quite good” was the answer, but don’t force the feet apart too much. It does no good, weakens the arches, and the audience can’t tell the difference.

  Belle-Mère wanted to see how it felt to be partnered, so Levoy lifted her onto one shoulder, hitting her head a little bit on the ceiling fixture. I sat on the straight-backed chair, by the kitchen table we had found in the street, and was quite surprised. Even more so when, suddenly, Belle-Mère plunged into a fish dive from Levoy’s shoulder, ending up with her chin an inch from the floor and one leg locked behind Levoy’s left shoulder.

  “Mother,” I said, “are you sure you should be doing this?”

  “Oh, lay off, Harry,” my mother said just as a loud rapping on the door stopped her from adding whatever she was planning to add.

  I opened the door. Mother and Levoy stood in the middle of the kitchen floor looking a little overheated and flustered. A very strict, very tall woman in black stood in the door. “Mrs. Potter,” she said, adding nothing.

  Mother said, “Yes?”

  The woman went on. Her hair was piled on top of her head. She looked a little bit like Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz. Witchy but tall. And big. Big shoulders. “I’m your downstairs neighbor, Miss Afrodisian, and I must ask, what is going on up here? It’s almost eleven o’clock and we people who work must get our sleep.”

  “Hi, Afro,” Levoy said. They knew each other, evidently.

  “Levoy, what the hell are you doing here?” asked Miss Afrodisian as she strode into the room. Her voice slid down about an octave.

  “Hey, those are great-looking shoes,” Levoy said. Miss Afrodisian was wearing spike-heeled patent-leather pumps. (They looked very lethal.)

  “Actually, they’re very comfortable,” Miss Afrodisian said.

  “Could I try them on?” Levoy wanted to know.

  “Sure, why not?” She kicked them off, sitting down on one of our hard, straight-backed kitchen chairs. “Have you got anything around here to drink?” She directed this to Belle-Mère as the lady of the house. She hadn’t really noticed me.

  “Just some Scotch,” Mother said.

  “That sounds swell. Forget the ice. Just a little water.” She was the only one drinking. “Let’s go in the living room,” she said. We followed her, Levoy navigating very steadily in her shoes. “You have to press down with the ball of your foot,” he said to me. I was not planning to be next.

  Miss Afrodisian flopped into our sprung armchair and threw her legs over one arm. She watched Levoy as he marched around the room with the patent-leather pumps protruding from his sagging gray corduroy pants.

  “These are comfortable, Afro,” he said. Looking at her dangling feet he said, “You should have been a dancer.”

  Miss Afrodisian then told a story about a young woman who did tap dancing on one leg and classical ballet on the other and between the two of them she made a pretty good living. Mother and Levoy laughed a lot, and I joined in, although it didn’t seem to be much of a joke.

  Mother looked at me. “What are you laughing at?” she demanded.

  “I was only laughing because you were,” I said.

  “Good,” she said.

  “For God’s sake, Harry’s fifteen years old,” Levoy said.

  “I don’t care. When I was his age I was a virgin and I didn’t know anything,” Mother said.

  “When you were fifteen everyone
was a virgin. Excuse me. Not Loretta Young. That was before she was a virgin.” This from Miss Afrodisian, whose black dress had now slid up to show the tops of her black stockings and some kind of elaborate garters.

  “Pull down your dress, Afro, I can see your garter belt. I suppose you’re wearing a Merry Widow waist cincher, too? And I think it’s time you shaved your legs,” Levoy said.

  Mother said politely, “Would you like another drink?”

  “Why not?” Miss Afrodisian said merrily, getting to her feet and heading towards the kitchen, tugging down her dress and whatever she had on under it. We could hear the clink of the Scotch bottle against her glass. Her voice came through the kitchen door: “When you’re six feet two in black pumps, you might as well go all the way.”

  Mother tried to dampen down the hilarity that was in the air. “How do you two know each other?” she said, once Miss Afrodisian was back in the chair, legs waving.

  It seemed they had met not too long ago at a company where they pasted real clothes on Godey’s Ladies prints, which were then framed in shadow boxes.

  “I never heard of such a thing,” Belle-Mère said.

  “Not a lot of people are good at it,” Levoy said. “There’s a lot of little ruffles, pleats, and folds to make and then glue in place. And little bits of lace to put around bonnets and parasols. Afro was already working there, and we got along very well. We tried to make Godey’s Ladies look as slutty as possible.”

  “Oh, God. You couldn’t make them look too slutty. The guy that ran the place loved it,” Miss Afrodisian said. “I started pasting sequins on like hoop earrings. He loved that. Then I got the idea of pasting marabou feathers on instead of lace. Very sticky to do. He loved that, too.

  “Yeah. We went wild. Levoy had the idea of pasting legs and things from lingerie ads under the hoop skirts. They sold even more of that stuff,” Miss Afrodisian said. “Then some minister and his wife out in Indiana got some for wedding presents and the shit hit the fan. And we got canned.”