Colum McCann - Dancer

“If and when Nureyev retires, it is obvious that his future as a choreographer is assured.” Dance magazine, December 1966. Ha! “He does not create solely for the body, he creates on it.”

Erik suggested that I am increasingly obsessed with Mother only because I am so far away. (As if he could talk, the ghost of that gray-haired Viking bitch still hanging over him.) After I slammed the car door and walked through the traffic it suddenly dawned on me that I knew none of the Copenhagen streets. I went back and sat instead in the front seat with the driver.

Later, crawling into bed, Hamlet (how he detests this nickname!) admitted his error. It is so difficult to drive him to anger, and yet he becomes voracious when ignored.

Boating on the lakes. Champagne. Fireworks. The Hamburg woman with the necklace: You are a Rimbaud of the steppes!

Mother’s exit visa application was turned down again, but this time the butchers asked her to sign a document refuting her desire to leave.

Erik waited at the airport, wearing glasses and a hat for disguise.

Within hours we were on the dance floor. A boy wore a white silk shirt and silver platform shoes. Ah yes, Piccadilly! I followed him outside.

The horse’s hooves chopped up the immaculate green park as the other guests played polo in the rain. Erik came up behind me and put his head on my shoulder, nibbled my ear.

At dinner (mousseline d’ecrivisse, poussin rôti aux herbes, salad, purée of celery) the Baron looked at us severely. I whispered to Erik that the Baron was certainly a fine horseman but probably unable to control his whip. Erik laughed so hard he spat his sherbet out on the tablecloth.

The hollow of his neck. We dozed.

A speedboat to Galli. Erik, Pablo, Jerome, Kenzu, Margot, Gillian, Claire and me. Margot spent the whole weekend on the phone to Tito. We decided to get an orchestra boated in from the mainland. They were a ragtag bunch and we dismissed them but paid handsomely to borrow their instruments. We took turns playing until four, then dragged the piano inside to save it from the dew. (Erik quoted Homer about the sirens. The champagne was flowing. Jerome suggested that I plug everyone’s ears with wax and tie myself to Erik’s mast!)

Pablo sat naked to play Shostakovich (badly) and his ass left a sweat stain on the piano stool.

Early in the morning Erik came to watch me swim. I made my way underwater to the rocks, surfaced and hid. He called my name and soon became frantic. He jumped up from the sand and began to scream for help. After five minutes he dived into the sea in his pajamas. How he hates the chill of the sea. He didn’t notice me until a few meters away, then in Danish called me a cunt.

I told him I had seen a bright star move in the darkness. He said it was obviously a satellite looking down on me, perhaps Russian. He was getting his revenge, but the thought was chilling.

In bed we read Flaubert’s letters from Egypt. Outside the sea crashed.

The pair of underpants hung on the bedpost. An exuberant flag.

The stewardess hardly seemed pleased when she told me to take my shoes down from the seat and I replied that it was a first-class cabin, would she prefer my foot somewhere else — up her enormous German ass for instance?

Jan. 6. New Year promise to Margot: I shall keep my mind free from attachments to everything but dance.

Valentina’s classes: her movements are like prayers in a church. One feels almost shy in her presence.

A bad class and the day was ruined. Then at performance the lights were too bright and I was looking down more than usual, away from the glare, and my feet tangled. Arthur, in his high pitch, said: We all have our nights. The glass narrowly missed his head.

(At times like these I hate myself. The idea of being a genius-madman is tiresome.)

At the gathering Bacon asked why dance? I retorted, Why paint? He dragged on his cigarette and said painting was the language he would give his soul if he could teach his soul to speak. Yes!

Each night he waits for the cue, stretches, meshes his fingers. Onstage, Margot unspools a length of chaînés, sweeps, descends and is still. He touches his left ear for good luck, waits a moment beyond the quietness, breaks the wings, takes flight, is released.

Music reaches into his muscles, the lights spin, he glares at the conductor, who corrects the tempo, and he continues, controlled at first, each move careful and precise, the pieces beginning to fit, his body elastic, three jetés en tournant, careful of the landing, he extends his line, beautiful movement ah cello go. The lights merge, the shirtfronts blur. A series of pirouettes. He is at ease, his body sculpted to the music, his shoulder searching the other shoulder, his right toe knowing the left knee, the height, the depth, the form, the control, the twist of his wrist, the bend of his elbow, the tilt of his neck, notes digging into his arteries, and he is in the air now, forcing the legs up beyond muscular memory, one last press of the thighs, an elongation, a loosening of human contour, he goes higher, and is skyheld.

The audience leans forward, necks craned, mouths open. He descends, lands and is off again towards her, the wind rushing past his ears, a blur of unbroken energy, to where she is waiting, headbent. He plants his feet before her, she accepts him, he lifts her upward, she is light, she is always light, he stays away from her ribs, bruised from rehearsal. A bead of sweat spins out from his hair. His face against her thigh, her hip, her stomach. Both of them burning away, they are one movement, a body nation. He allows her down, a gasp from the hall, they are alive — a French audience, the good ones are always French, even in Lebanon, New York, Buenos Aires, Vienna, London, they’re always French — and he can smell her perfume, her sweat, her approval, he moves stage left and off. She will control it now, her solo. Standing in the shadows, he regains his breath, tissues his face, dams the sweat, his chest rising and falling, begins to calm, ah yes this darkness an embrace.

He scuffs in the resin box for traction, waits as she receives her applause. Here it is now, take it, grasp it, explode!

He returns from the wings already in midair, moves through four cabrioles, keeping his line long until the sound catches up, an instant of conjunction, a flash of muscle and he sweeps the stage with his body, owning it, no limits. Eight perfect entrechats-dix, a thing of wonder, the audience silent now, no body anymore no thought no awareness this must be the moment the others call god as if all doors are open everywhere leading to all other open doors nothing but open doors forever no hinges no frames no jambs no edges no shadows this is my soul born weightless born timeless a clock spring broken, he is in flight, he could stay like this forever and he looks out into the haze of necklaces eyeglasses cufflinks shirtfronts and knows he owns them.

Afterwards in the dressing rooms there are exaggerated complaints to keep themselves going — you changed your perfume, you sweated too much, your chaînés were abysmal, you missed the cue, you stayed out too late, you pirouetted like a donkey, let’s do it better tomorrow — and they exit the stage doors together, arm in arm, laughing, smiling, the crowds waiting, flowers and shouts and invitations, they sign autographs and programs and shoes, but as they walk away the dance is still in their bodies and they search for the quiet point the still point where there is no time no space only pureness moving.

The crowd outside the Sydney Opera house was boisterous, charged. Some protesters were shouting about Vietnam. Margot and I sent in a dummy limousine and drove ourselves to the entrance instead. The crowd cheered when they realised it was us.