Colum McCann - Dancer

it was way back in ’68 when Victor was taken to the ballet by an elderly matron whom he was escorting, he sat in the best seats for Romeo and Juliet, bored at first, fidgeting in his pricey jacket, crossing and recrossing his legs, wondering how long it would last, how soon he could escape, but then something happened, Fonteyn gave Rudi one of those glances that seemed to change everything, Rudi lifted her, Fonteyn’s face was glorious in the light, and the two dancers seemed to melt into each other, and Victor realized this was more than ballet, more than theater, more than spectacle, it was a love affair, a public love affair where the lovers did not love each other beyond the stage, which made Victor want to rise from his seat and perform, not ballet, but to move his body wildly and freely, and it was painful to watch such beauty without being part of it, he resented the look on Rudi’s face, his energy, his control, so when the curtain fell Victor felt an inexplicable hatred, he wanted to go up to the stage and shove Rudi into the pit, but he stayed motionless, shocked that the world could reveal such surprises — this was ballet, ballet! for crying out loud! — and it made Victor wonder what else he was missing, what else was lacking in his life, and in the foyer afterwards while he waited in line to collect his escort’s fur coat, Victor felt flush with heat and cold so that he shivered and sweated simultaneously, he had to go out into the night air, where a great swell of girls in wide-bottomed jeans shouted, Rudi in the nudi! Rudi in the nudi! We want Rudi in the nudi! some of the fans clutching photos of Rudi to their chests, clamoring for position, hoping for autographs, and Victor had to abandon his aging escortee, he jumped into a taxi and went downtown to dance and forget, to a club on the eighth floor of an old factory, lights blazing, boys on drugs, famous actors sniffing rags soaked in ethyl chloride, the smell of poppers, men in front of mirrors with their eyes closed, wearing pirate shirts, headbands, winklepicker boots, whistles around their necks, the music so loud that some boys walked around with blood leaking from their eardrums, and Victor felt better after an hour, having come home to himself, sweat-soaked and mobbed by men who desired him, but later, when he sat sharing champagne with a wealthy fashion designer, Rudi suddenly joined the table— hey Rudi, this is Victor Pareci —and Victor felt a pit of despair in his stomach as Rudi looked at him, they detested each other immediately, they could see the cockiness but they could also see the doubt, that volatile mixture, fire and vacuum, both men knowing that they were similar, and their similarities galled them, having stepped out of the dirty shanties of the world into the drawing rooms of the rich, that they were the edge of a coin and no matter how many times the coin was flipped they would always remain the edge, that the rich didn’t understand this, but neither did the poor, and all this made their hatred palpable, and relief came only when they stepped away to opposite ends of the dance floor, but after a while they began dueling across the floor, seeing how many boys they could attract, and only Victor could live in a duel with Rudolf Nureyev, for this was Victor’s turf even though Victor was short and dark and unfashionably Venezuelan— short in stature, yes, but large everywhere else! — he had been worshiped on the floor long before he was worshiped in bed, his hip roll exaggerated so his legs seemed detached from his body, his shirt twisted and knotted to show off his flat dark stomach, and it became a strange war between them, beneath the revolving lights, the air heated, a great caisson of drums and guitar and voice, until there was a blackout, not even a fizzle of electricity but a sudden plunge into darkness, the other patrons thinking it might be part of the routine — often the lights were shut off so the men could have sex — but Victor waited out the blackout, wrung the sweat from the flaps of his shirt, feeling whole and complete and invulnerable in the dark, hearing the fumbling and laughing and thrusting all around, and Victor felt proud of his abstention, flushed with a sort of ascetic glory as the room filled with grunts and shrieks, until the lights came on again, blazing, riotous, and who was there across the floor but Rudi, still and majestic, and as the music jumped back into life they grinned at each other and recognized at that moment that they had somehow crossed a chasm, they were standing on the same side of the divide, knowing with a deep certainty that they would never touch each other, never fuck or suck or finger or rim, and certainly never kiss, and the realization was a balm, a salve, an unspoken pact, they had no need for each other’s bodies, but still they were inextricably tied, bound not by money or sex or work or fame but by their pasts and now, having met in a crosswind, they would duck out of it for shelter, and it was Victor who set out for the other side of the floor, staring at Rudi all the way, and the dancer put out his hand and they shook, laughed in unison, went to a table where they ordered a bottle of vodka and spent the hours talking, not about the world around them but the worlds they had come from, Ufa and Caracas, finding suddenly that they were talking about things they hadn’t talked about in years, the corrugated roofs, the factories, the forests, the smell of air at dusk— My street had a river of sewage running down the middle! My street wasn’t even a street! My street smelled like two wet dogs fucking! — and they could have been talking to mirrors, finding each other by finding themselves, the nightclub was forgotten, pure scenery, and they left at six in the morning, to the glare and envy of others, down the street for breakfast together at Clyde’s, Victor rolling his shoulders, Rudi clicking his heels, the sun struggling up full and red over the warehouses and abattoirs of Manhattan’s west side

and by the time Victor leaves the bar and returns to the Dakota, singing, Take me back to the Black Hills, the party is in full swing, he enters to a swirl of bodies — ambassadors balletomanes choreographers doctors engineers filmstars globetrotters highbrows image-makers junkies kingpins leeches millionaires nighthawks oddballs producers quacks royals sexsymbols thespians underlings vamps wall-crawlers xenophiles yesmen zealots — all hyped up on the show, or the rumor of the show, a huge crowd in the corner around Martha Graham, telling her how wonderful! how provocative! how imaginative! how daring! how nouveau! how marvelous! how utterly groundbreaking! a look on Graham’s face as if to say that if she swung a cat she would hit a hundred assholes, and Victor charges on, leaning over to kiss Margot Fonteyn, radiant, calm, precise, always friendly to Victor although she doesn’t quite understand him, a ghostly quality to her goodness, he tells her she looks Delicious! to which she grins as if pained by the ongoing overload of compliments, and Victor spins away and hails Jagger in the corner, pinned to the world by his lips, chatting with a blond woman whose hair seems to totter on her head, and next to him Roland Petit gesturing to a group of young dancers, and across from Petit towers Vitas Gerulaitis, the tennis player, energetic and expansive, with a group of gorgeous young men— Wash yourselves down, shouts Victor, and come to my tent! — then he nods and winks liberally at everyone who’s anyone, the Fords of the world, the Halstons, the Avedons, the Von Fürstenbergs, the Radziwills, the Guinnesses, the Allens, the Rubells, the Capotes, everyone, Victor flashing his high-wattage smile all around the apartment, but where the hell is Rudi? Victor casts his eyes quickly over the room, the designer rags and champagne glasses, where the hell is he? and he shakes more hands and air-kisses, all the time looking for Rudi, where the fuck is he? Victor has a tight sense of foreboding as he makes his way to the rear bedroom, where the party organizers are stationed outside like diplomats, talking seriously and guardedly, and Victor intuits the nature of the problem and barrels right through, although the women try to hold him back, to no success, and he snaps down on the gold-plated door handle, slams the door shut behind him, locks it, takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark room, and Victor says, Rudi? but there is no answer, and Victor says this time, Hey Rudi! with a thrust of anger, and he hears a rustle, then a shout, Get the fuck out! a bedroom slipper coming for Victor’s head, which he ducks, and then he spies a ball of disconsolate fury on the bed, Victor tries to figure what to do, where to stand, how to say things, but Rudi is suddenly off the bed and on his feet, screaming, They say to me well done? Well done? Shit! They talk shit! Well done is for steak! They fuck up the music! They fuck up the curtains! They fuck up everything! Don’t talk to me about well done! Leave me alone! This is the morgue! Get out! Who makes this party? I have never seen so ridiculous! Cunt! Out! and Victor receives the tirade with a concealed smile, but he knows it’s too early to laugh, he tries to look calm, not to reveal that his mind is whirling, going over all the endless permutations, the pulls and the sways of the evening, the quarrels, the ovations, the mistakes, the critiques, the depth of the manifold possible wounds, and in the end he says to Rudi, Yeah, I heard you were dreadful tonight, to which Rudi turns on him and screams What? and Victor shrugs, keeps tapping his feet on the floor, says, Well, Rudi, I heard you were a piece of shit tonight, I heard your performance was really bad, and Rudi says, Who said that? and Victor says, Everyone! and Rudi says, Everyone? and Victor replies Every-fucking-one, and Rudi twists his face savagely but doesn’t say a word, yet his mouth reveals the hint of a grin, so Victor knows it’s working, that the tide will turn, and he doesn’t even wait, he just unlocks the door, shuts it gently, goes back out to the party, whispers to the women organizers, No mortal wounds darlings! Back to battle stations! and then he sees a man emerging from a doorway with his hand to his nose and his jaw grinding in the familiar way and soon he and Victor are tucked away sharing liberal amounts of cocaine