Leninsky Prospekt. Katherine Bucknell

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      October 9. Nina slipped into the Bolshoi through the stage door in Petrovka Street. The guard was a woman, stocky, formidable. As she lurched forward on her stool, studying Nina’s face, her neat, expensive suit, her Russian-language paperwork, her photograph and her name, then strained over the list of foreigners, outsiders, Nina felt from her a deep familiar chemistry: resentment reacting with benevolence. There on the threshold, the custodial instinct to keep Nina out was mingling with and giving way to a motherly instinct to take Nina in. Nina was moved so powerfully by this chemistry that she nearly spoke up with the truth, Yes, you’re right. You do know me. You watched over my other, girlish life, my years of training. I was one of the cosseted brood, a dancing bird in Cinderella, the Breadcrumb Fairy in Sleeping Beauty, a stick-legged hopeful at the yearly graduation show.

      But the fact is, Nina realized, my American identity works like a disguise, a mask. The guard could never recognize me now, in my American Embassy role, not without a great deal of persuading and explaining. And Nina didn’t ask for it, the recognition which she knew might feel warm if it were simple and wholehearted but which might feel painful if it were uncertain or even angry. Anyway, her name was on the list; she was expected.

      As she climbed the tiled stairs, sooty diamonds of red set with black and yellow, she thought she could hear piano music from the ballet room, a leaping yowl, all tempo and cowboy boot heels – ‘Red River Valley’, ‘Goodnight Ladies’ – starting, stopping. She crept up the half-flight and looked around the door, catching sight of attitudes at the barre: stretched, scattered bodies layered with wraps of wool at the ankle, below the hip; a curve of lower back exposed in the mottled shine of the wide, heavily framed mirror, studied, straightened; and one slender wreath of arms carried in front like an enormous platter of air, delicate, steel-bound, nowhere to put it down on the pale, rippling floorboards.

      An urgent, slim, black-clad woman pressed by her with a clipboard, approached a splay-footed girl who sat on a broken chair cracking away at the soles of her silky shoes. An old fear darted at Nina, that she herself would not be called. Silly, she thought, turning away.

      All along the pipe-slung hallways, there was a pressure of hurry and focus, brusque commands, hushed intensity. The atmosphere encased her like a uniform; she knew this discipline, felt beckoned, pulled in.

      Nobody noticed her as she emerged under the stairs to the prop room at the back of the enormous set-strewn stage. She crept past the lighting control board and the prompter’s station towards the dim revelation of the auditorium. She could just see the rows of polished dark wooden armchairs and the rising circles of creamy, gold-embossed boxes facing her, shabby-looking without their occupants, the red velvet seats worn and unevenly faded. Five or six people were sitting in the front row on the far side of the stage. Press, thought Nina.

      Near her, she heard a piping complaint. ‘The thing is Danny, it makes me feel like I’m going to land right on my face.’ Nina didn’t look around.

      Then came a low, reassuring reply. ‘What you need to realize is how well it makes you work. From the minute you come onstage, nothing is neutral. Even when you stand still on this raked floor, you’re in motion because you’re working against gravity all the time. It won’t let you be dead; it won’t let you give no energy. It’s very exciting. That practice stage upstairs has the same rake, you know. And you were fine. Take it slower for now. Think about footwork, but don’t overcompensate because at a certain point you have to just throw yourself into it. You’ll get so used to it, you won’t be able to land or take off on the flat stage when we get home, I promise you. Watch the boys jump. We all love it, because the rake launches us so high.’

      Still the needy whine continued, ‘I know it’s just confidence. But, God, when I have to go upstage, I’m completely exhausted.’

      ‘Yeah. Upstage is hard work. It’s because – well, upstage is up. But Mr B. will make all your big moves go downstage for you. Just wait.’ Then, ‘Look – he wants you back now. Go on.’

      And the small troubled figure swung herself around into the light, strode hip through hip across the stage, toe shoes knocking the steep wooden pitch with hollow defiance, head bowed to receive guidance. Nina realized it was Alice.

      Balanchine was like sparks popping at the dancers, gesture and flash, chin up, thin as a wraith, a few disjointed words, and then a conflagration of silent, hot scrutiny, his eyes energizing them. Even where she stood in the shadows at the side of the stage, Nina could feel his concentration wax when he fell silent, and she could feel the desire of the dancers to be seen by him, to be watched. She knew, as if by telepathy, that they moved only to elucidate some idea he wanted to convey through them, and she could tell by their hypnotized eyes, their somnolent obedience, that they moved in the way that he told them to move even if they didn’t understand what the idea was. She thought to herself, They just believe his idea will come to them through their bodies once their bodies have mastered it. And they let that happen, accept they are a vehicle. She wanted to make fun of it, itched at this informal exposure of such seriousness, but she couldn’t. She thought their willingness was sublime.

      She crept a little further downstage, and suddenly she was looking into the orchestra pit, another world of activity: slouching, slack-haired Soviet musicians leafing through scores, marking, counting bars, questioning the American conductors by means of interpreters, tapping on this or that passage with articulate fingers, heavy-nailed, nicotine-stained, emphatic. And Nina thought, What can they possibly make of it all, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, ‘On Top of Old Smokey’? She wanted them to like it, then felt her want to be absurd; they were professionals, after all. They would play it regardless. Nevertheless, she wondered.

      Now there was an uproar behind her, offstage. Nina heard Russian and English being shouted back and forth, with no resolution and, she sensed, no comprehension. Something beyond impatience had overtaken the stage workers; she detected defensive anger, loutish panic, Russians cursing one another, ‘Khvatit! Idit’e k chortu!’ That’s enough! Now you’ve really gotten to me! Go to hell! It was not their fault. They had no idea where the trucks were, it was not their job to know. Some higher authority was to blame. Nothing could be done now; it should not have been expected of them to begin with; they would take no responsibility. It was far too late.

      And an American voice, a woman, hoarse, definite, outrageous. ‘They’re deliberately sabotaging the tour. How could this happen by mistake? Everyone knows why we’re here! And we open tonight. They don’t want us? Fine. Who do they think we are doing this for? We never treated the Bolshoi like this in New York. This is crap.’

      Oh, great, Nina thought. And she glanced across at the little clutch of reporters from Izvestia, Literaturnaya Gazeta, the illustrated magazine Ogonyok, Radio Moscow, and even The New York Times. Their faces were turned towards the argument, but she couldn’t tell if they could hear.

      Someone grabbed her elbow, saying, ‘You’re the embassy person, can’t you find out where the damn scenery and costumes are? How can they lose truckloads of stuff? Sets, props, everything. One of our own stage managers is lost with it, too! We’re running out of goddamn time.’

      Nina spun around, certain there must be someone else here who should take charge of such a matter, the Special Officer for the Cultural Exchange Program, some big-voiced man. But she soon found herself inside a ring of burly, dirty Soviet stage hands, persuading a livid СКАЧАТЬ