Colum McCann - Dancer

I had forgotten provisions, but there were a few leftovers in the room, potatoes and cucumbers. The stylus on the gramophone was worn down, yet it still managed a little scratch of Mozart.

Remembering Anna’s old trick, I dented the pillow. My prolonged wakefulness had in recent times become almost unbearable and so I was surprised upon waking in the morning, not at the fact that I was awake but at the novelty of having slept at all.

After four days of traveling, his mother arrives at the hotel where he is staying before his first performance in Moscow. Gray coat and headscarf. Exhausted, she goes to tiptoe and kisses him on the cheek. He takes her by the elbow, leads her past the heavy, velvet-colored armchairs; through the gauntlet of antique furniture. Her shoulder brushes lightly against the red drapes, and she recoils slightly. A chandelier casts light on the giant portraits of the Heroes of the Soviet Union. They enter the banquet room where, earlier, Premier Khrushchev gave a speech announcing the opening of the national student showcase.

At one end of the room, the remnants of the banquet are spread out on the table.

I danced at the reception, he says.

Where?

On the wooden platform down there. Nikita Sergeyevich saw me. He applauded. Who could believe it?

Look, she says.

Farida shuffles alongside the table: a splotch of beluga caviar on a starched white cloth; a plate with a touch of duck pâté rimed to it; the smell of sturgeon, herring, beef, truffles, wild mushrooms, cheeses; krendeli biscuits in their broken figures of eight; a single Black Sea oyster on a glistening tray. She lifts a slice of salted meat to her mouth, decides against it, moves on, noticing empty silver ice-buckets for champagne, crumbs on the floor, cigar ashes on the windowsill, cigarette butts, lemon wedges in empty glasses, bent and broken toothpicks, a display of red chrysanthemums in the center of the room.

Rudik? she says.

Yes?

She goes to the window, looks down at her boots, worn and salt-stained: Your father says he’s sorry he couldn’t be here.

Yes.

He wanted to be.

Yes.

That is all, she says.

Yes, Mother.

At the hotel exit a guard makes way for them as they step into the cold. He begins to skip down the street, the lining of his coat flapping. Farida smiles, quickens her step, feels a momentary lightness. Things spinning: snowflakes, boots, the chime of a distant clock. Watching people nearby, watching him, being watched.

Rudik! she says. Wait!

They spend the afternoon in his sister Tamara’s room close to Kolomenskoye Park. Tamara shares a room with a family of six. Her corner of the room is small, damp, filled with rubber plants, knickknacks, a fading print of a Tsiolkovsky, intricate rugs hung from nails. In piles on the floor she has arranged her books. The kitchen is dark and cramped. Recently her salary from the kindergarten has been curtailed and the shelves are empty. A heavy iron sits on the stove, beside the teakettle. No samovar. Down the corridor the toilet has overflowed, and the waft of it comes strong through the building.

Tamara makes tea and a fuss with a plate of biscuits.

This is like old times, she says.

She takes Rudi’s shoes and polishes them. Later she fingers his coat and asks him where he gets his clothes made. He shrugs.

The afternoon grows lengthy as the light slants through the windows.

I have something, says Rudi.

He reaches in his suit jacket pocket, leans across, and hands them tickets for the following night’s performance.

They’re good seats, he says, the best.

Mother and daughter scan the tickets.

More tea, he says to Tamara, and she immediately climbs to her feet.

The next evening, in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, Farida and Tamara sit nervously as the seats fill up around and behind them. They gaze at the tiered chandeliers, the ornate cornicework, the gold carvings on the stems of the lamps, the magnificent curtain with repeating designs, hammers and sickles. As the dance begins their hands are clenched tight in their laps, but soon the women are gripping each other, amazed to see Rudi, not just the dance, but what he has become, whole and full and fleshed, patrolling the stage, devouring space, graceful, angry.

His mother leans forward in her plush velvet seat, awed and slightly frightened. This is my flesh and blood, she thinks. This is what I have made.

Yes! Chistyakova review from Theater Moscow, volume 42, 1959. “A dancer with excellent natural gifts.” “Captivating us with the swiftness of his dance tempi.” Sasha: When at first you do succeed try not to look astonished. Ha! Yes! Advice on how to handle the crowd — stand tall, fill out all the space with one huge sweep of the arm. Like a farmer in the field, he says, with his very last swipe at the hay. Or, more to the point, an executioner at the neck! See film shot by Lenikowski(?) Labrakowski(?) Photographs for mother. New shoes. Wigs to get washed. Tailor the coat so it is short, up around the hips, give further length to me, oh shit I wish legs could grow! Access to special stores. Get leather bag with good strap if possible. Maybe sponge-soled shoes and narrow trousers, if possible. Tobacco for Father, heater that mother mentioned. Something for RosaMaria, jewelry box perhaps.

He is told to hold position as if position is a thing that can ever be held on a floor like this, a sheet at his feet. He is in fifth, arms above his head. Earlier in the morning he landed hard on his ankle and can feel the throb of it now. The studio is bright and airy, light drifting in confident packets through the small windows. The photographer has a cigarette which seems to cling to his lower lip. He smells of smoke and bromide. Also, the acrid whiff of the flashbulbs as they break with each emission of light. He has to change each bulb when it breaks, unscrewing it from beneath the white umbrella, using a padded glove. Rudi has already asked the photographer why he is bouncing flash light into the natural light — it seems to him to have no logic — but the photographer said: You do your trade, comrade, I do mine.

Rudi remains in position, his ankle pounding with pain, thinking that if he did his trade, if he really did his trade, the camera itself would not be able to catch him. There are other photographs on the back of the wall, ranged in careful order, dated and tagged. Dancers all, captured benignly and formlessly, even the great ones, Chaboukiani, Ulanova, Dudinskaya. The photographer has brought his ignorance to the job and there is nothing more Rudi would like than to break the air with movement in the second before the flash erupts, create a blur on the film. The photographer is using a Lomo which, because of its black weight, is propped on a tripod and what stupidity to smoke while taking a photograph, but Rudi needs the photo for the Kirov, so he breathes in the pain. He is surprised by the ache, that by remaining still his body is more violently active, so he concentrates his rage on the photographer, more precisely on the series of fat rolls at his neck. The flash causes Rudi to blink, leaving a single bright image on his retina.

And again! says the photographer as he unscrews the bulb, pauses a moment to put a lighter to the end of the cigarette which has extinguished itself.

No, says Rudi.

Pardon me?

No more, he says.

The photographer smiles nervously. One more, he says.

No. You’re an imbecile.

The photographer watches as Rudi descends the stairs, his black hat at an angle, shading one side of his face. At the bottom of the stairs Rudi bends, checks the swelling on his ankle and loosens the bandage minutely. Without looking back he waves at the photographer who is leaning over the banister, incredulous.