Colum McCann - Dancer

Do you still translate?

On the odd occasion, I replied, but I’d rather not talk about it, I’d rather hear about you.

Oh everyone hears about me, they always get it wrong.

Even you?

Yes, even me. But I get it wrong on purpose, he said.

On purpose?

Of course, nobody knows me.

It was as if, between the two of us, we were playing a bizarre form of chess, that we were each trying to lose all our pieces, to get down to the final king, topple it over and say: Here, now, the board is yours, explain to me my loss.

Just then there was a deep thump and the electricity came on again and the room was pooled in bright light.

Turn them off please, said Rudi, I prefer candles.

Emilio’s hands lay in the center of the book.

Rudi said loudly: Medicine please.

Emilio closed the book, took out a bottle of pills from his pocket, threw it into Rudi’s lap. Rudi took four pills in quick succession. There was a mist of sweat on Rudi’s forehead but he wiped it away with a sweep of his hand. I wondered what it was that, on other days, Emilio found beneath Rudi’s skin.

And are you still dancing? I asked.

They will put me down dancing, he said.

I couldn’t help but believe him — one day they would exhume Rudi and find his bones set in an attitude of leap, or perhaps even a bow, rising up to say: Thank you, thank you, please allow me to do it once more. He had no idea what he would do if he ever retired, perhaps choreograph. He had made some movies in the West, but he said they were all nonsense, and besides he was not built for the camera, his was a stage body, he needed an audience.

An audience indeed, I thought.

Ah-ha! Rudi said suddenly.

He reached into his pocket, took out a wallet, and thrust it across the table at Kolya. There was no money in it but the wallet was beautiful, its edges trimmed in gold.

American snakeskin, he said.

Kolya stared at it: For me?

Rudi put his arms behind his head and nodded. For a brief moment the jealously of my youth returned. I wanted to take Rudi aside and tell him that there was no need to show off, that he was acting like a spoiled boy at a lifelong birthday party. But perhaps there was something deeper in the way he had given the wallet to my son. It occurred to me that Rudi wanted to be left with nothing, in the same way that he had left before. Kolya flipped through the empty wallet and Rudi slapped him playfully on the shoulder.

Watching them together slipped a knife between my ribs and hit my heart exactly.

Emilio continued his search in the book but after a few moments he began to doze. I went to the window. Outside, the dark brushed the city and the wind unleashed the snow. Down below three cars sat in the street. I pulled the curtain back further, saw a shadow and then a flash of light from a camera. A photographer. I turned away instinctively and closed the curtains.

How come they let you back?

Raisa Gorbachev, he said.

Have you met her?

He shook his head, no.

But she got you a visa?

He didn’t respond but then said curiously: We have always absorbed our own disintegration.

I didn’t know quite what to say, not sure if it was self-pity or pure nonsense. I almost laughed. But it was impossible to get angry at Rudi for becoming what he had become. Something about him released people from the world, tempted them out. Even Kolya had begun to move his chair closer. We poured a little more vodka and talked briefly then of my father’s gramophone; my mother’s lessons; the night Rudi arrived in Leningrad; his dances at the Kirov. He had seen RosaMaria once, he said, but had fallen out of contact with her. There was almost a second-handedness to our conversation, as if we had talked it all before, and yet that didn’t matter: what we lacked was made up for by the tenderness of his visit.

We silently toasted each other and then he flicked a look at his wrist as if he expected to see a watch there, but his arm was bare.

Emilio, he said loudly, what time is it?

The Spaniard awoke with a start: We should leave, he said, closing the book shut.

Just a few more minutes, said Rudi.

No, we really must leave.

A few more minutes! Rudi snapped.

Emilio waved his hands in the air, a gesture he had surely learned from Rudi: Okay, he said, but we’ll miss our plane.

He put the Cervantes book back in the space on the shelf. I had a vision of a day in the future, cold and rainy, when Kolya and I would take the book from the shelf and touch its pages to feel for a tiny bump.

Rudi sat back in the chair, perfectly calm, took a minute to become the focus of the room once again.

Then, without missing a beat, he stood up quickly: My drivers are downstairs. They’ll think I have defected again.

He pulled on his coat and spun on his heels: Can you believe it?

What?

After all these years, he said.

He carefully screwed the bottle top back on the vodka and stared at the table as if gathering strength for something to say. He stepped across, held my shoulders, bit his lip and whispered: You know, my own mother didn’t recognize me.

What?

She didn’t know who I was.

I recalled my father’s story about the workcamp and the bullet and how he said that we never escape ourselves. I considered telling Rudi the story, but he was already wrapped in his scarf, about to go.

Of course she recognized you, I said.

Why should she? he asked.

I wanted to come up with a perfect rejoinder, to bring him back to earth, to receive another thrilling smile, another surprise, but he was turning the handle. I went to hug him. He took my face in his hands, kissed me on each cheek.

Wait, I said.

I went to the cupboard and took out the china dish that had belonged to my mother. I opened the lid of the box. The dish felt cold and brittle. I handed it to him.

Your mother showed me this years ago, he said.

It’s yours.

I can’t take it.

Take it, I said. Please.

You should keep it for Kolya.

Kolya already has it.

Rudi blindsided me with a smile and took the dish in his hand.

Exits and entrances, he said.

Emilio thanked us for our hospitality and went downstairs to alert the drivers. Rudi followed slowly, his knees bothering him. I stood at the iron railing with Kolya and together we watched him go down.

So that’s him? said Kolya.

That’s him.

Not much, is he?

Oh, I’m not so sure, I said.

And as if on cue Rudi paused in the light on the third-floor stairwell, threw his scarf over his shoulder and performed a perfect pirouette on the concrete slab, the china dish clutched to his chest. He stepped slowly to the next landing, through the rubbish and broken bottles, stopped once again in the arc of light and his shoes sounded against the concrete as he spun a second time. No remorse. Kolya put his arm around my shoulder and I thought to myself: Let this joy extend itself into the morning.

In the lobby Rudi pirouetted one final time and then he was gone.

Lot 1088:Six pairs of Ballet Boots

Estimate: $2,300–3,000

Price: $44,648

Buyer: Mr. and Mrs. Albert Cohen

Lot 48:Costume for Swan Lake, Act III. Prince Siegfried, 1963

Estimate: $3,000–5,000

Price: $29,900

Buyer: Anonymous

Lot 147:Sir Joshua Reynolds: Portrait of George Townshend, Lord de Ferrars

Estimate: $350,000–450,000

Price: $772,500 (Record for the artist at auction)

Buyer: Private

Lot 1134:A French Walnut Refectory Table