The telegram from Princess Grace for the opening night. Quite daring: Merde! With love, G. Other greetings, the King of Norway, Princess Margaret, etc. Twenty different bouquets in the room. Out the window the rain seemed to shine in a dozen colors. The hotel doorbell rang—a bouquet from Margot to say everything is all right, she wished she were dancing.
All Italy was there. Yet the presence of fame does not compensate for the absences in my performances. The Raymonda pas de deux was, of course, abysmal without her, but even the solo was a bucket of shit. Afterwards Spoleto seemed to have lost its magic, and the thought of the hotel room was depressing. I canceled dinner, dismissed everyone, remained all night to repair the evening’s mistakes.
The stagehands found me in the morning, sleeping on their tarps. They brought me cappuccino and a corneto. I rehearsed again, found the temperament. On the second evening I danced with a fire in my hair.
Margot was waiting in the lobby. She held an envelope. Her face contained the story. The concierge lowered his eyes and pretended he was busy. The news had obviously arrived earlier in a telegram. I was convinced at first it was Tito. But with tears streaking her face, she said: It’s your father.
On the phone with Mother, she was too saddened for words. Later: Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerti 1 and 2, Sanderling and the Leningrad Philharmonic, taking me back to other days. Father’s shoes being polished and his face being shaved, his coat on a wire hanger, his dirty nails.
Erik canceled New York.
The only sadness: Father never once saw me dance.
I told Gillian and Erik there will be no rain or grief. We popped a bottle of champagne and toasted.
Reading the translation of Solzhenitsyn, there was a brief flicker of light on the page. The desire to resurrect Father was suddenly overwhelming. (Tamara’s letter sat in my pocket like a wound.)
Outside Café Filo in Milan a boy was singing an aria I had never heard before. Erik asked for the aria’s name, but the boy shrugged, said he didn’t know, kept unloading the bread. Then the boy caught a glimpse of my face and ran up the street after me, shouting my name. He handed me a fresh loaf. Erik fed the bread to the pigeons in the square, kicking at the birds as they crowded around his feet.
Margot’s generosity with everyone but herself is stunning. This of course is the ultimate in kindness. Given all the fuss with Tito she is terribly tired. Still she managed to arrange a parcel for Mother and Tamara. (The realization that there would be nothing anymore for Father was a shock.) She asked which color scarves would suit. I had forgotten for a moment how they looked in my mind, especially Mother. All my photographs are ancient.
Margot packed the box herself, to be carefully sent through the Finnish embassy.
* * *
On the table, between the window and the four-poster bed, stands a vase of white lilacs. The sea outside is a rare blue. Through the window, the wind is a cold fresh slap. Rudi has anticipated her desires: a view to the ocean, sheets laundered in lavender water, hot tea early in the morning, wildflowers on the tray. He has given Margot the east-facing room on the island since she is inclined to enjoy the dawn.
Yesterday afternoon, just for her, he flew a piano in all the way from the mainland. The helicopter broke the expanse of blue and circled the island twice, gauging the winds. Suspended by ropes and cables, the piano seemed to have a flight of its own. Soft padding was put on the tennis court so the piano would land gently. Seven islanders were hired to navigate it into place. Rudi himself took hold of one of the legs and Margot smiled momentarily at the thought of herself as the piano, held aloft. It was a crazed venture, the piano could have been brought by boat, but he wanted it instantly, wouldn’t listen to her. At first she had felt a thinness of emotion, such a waste, but then she was surprised by an acute wedge of ecstasy.
Rudi wore a sleeveless shirt. He was stronger even than the islanders. Their caps blew off in the wind from the helicopter rotors. Later he paid the men and dismissed them with a wave of his hand. He tuned the piano himself and sat to play until late in the night. Even when she had gone to bed Margot could hear the notes floating, high, sirenic. She thought that a life like this would be intolerable if constant and yet, precisely because it was unusual it was precious.
It frightens her to think that she is forty-five and he is just twenty-six, his life occurring so soon. Sometimes, in the way he moves, she thinks she can discern a whole history of Tatar arrogance. Other times—walking along the beach, choreographing a move, adjusting a lift—he is bent into submission, her experience towering over him.
Through the window she sees the piano in the middle of the tennis court, covered with a sheet of plastic that is coated with dew-drops. She will scold him later, mother him into bringing the piano indoors, but for now the view strikes her as fabulous, unresolved, the tennis net lying flaccid beneath the varnished legs.
Margot moves to the edge of the bed, where she stretches, gently at first, until her palms touch her feet, and then she reaches further with her fingers, to the soles, noting the calluses. She runs a tub of hot water. In the bath she sands her feet with a pumice stone, easily working with circular sweeps. She examines a mosquito bite on her instep, touches the small red welt, and then, out of the bath, she rubs herbal cream over her feet. They have been rehearsing together for a run in Paris and her toes ache from the temporary floor he has installed in the basement. She feels the gradual warmth of the lotion as she massages it from ankle to toe, repeating the stroke.
The rise and fall of the waves outside is barely perceptible, a fine corduroy of foam lines turned red by the dawn. A few seabirds ricochet on the air currents and in the distance Margot sees a yacht, its yellow sails unfurling.
Her eyes stop suddenly on a rip in the landscape as an arm lunges from the sea. A flash of dryness in her throat. She holds her breath, but then another arm rises, complementing the first, and she exhales—it is simply Rudi swimming, his hair turned dark by the sea. She sits down on the bed, relaxes, begins to pull her right ankle high in the air, placing her foot behind her neck in a stretch, a morning ritual. She releases the foot, wiggles her toes, and pulls her left leg behind, adjusts herself on the bed and then brings both legs back simultaneously, her long hair over her ankles feeling cool.
Releasing the grip, she reaches across the bed to call Tito at the hospital, to tell him she misses him, she will soon return to take care of him, but the phone rings on, unanswered.
Loose from the stretch, Margot moves closer to the window.
She watches Rudi’s slow rise from the water, head first, then shoulders, then chest, his tiny waist, his penis large even after the chill of the water, his giant thighs, the tough calves, the michelangelo of him. She has seen him naked many times before, in his dressing room, unperturbed as a child getting ready for a bath, and she could make a map of his body if she desired. She has, in dancing, touched every part of him. His clavicle, his elbow, the lobe of his ear, his groin, the small of his back, his feet. Still, she raises her hand formally to her lips, as if to compensate for her lack of surprise.
His skin is glaringly white, almost translucent. The lines of his body are sharp, a scissored cutout, as far removed from Tito as she can imagine.
With a pang of pleasure she watches him walk from the beach towards the long grasses beyond the rocks, stepping through the growth barefoot. She hears the piano’s plastic cover tear against the wind and the quick run of Rudi’s fingers across the keys. Beneath the sheets, she feigns sleep as he comes in to wake her, carrying hot tea upon a tray, saying: You slept in, Margot, get up, it’s time for rehearsal. After he leaves, she smiles, not her stage smile, nothing regal or controlled, and then looks out to the sea once more, thinking that even if there was nothing else there will always be the memory.
* * *
Cosmopolitan: The world’s most beautiful man. One must confront the fact that the face will change and the body is vulnerable. But so what? Enjoy the moment. The world’s most beauti
ful man! When I’m seventy and sitting by the fire, I will take the photos out and weep, ha!
Somebody stuck the cover on my mirror and added devil’s horns. I wouldn’t mind but the bastards ruined my eyeliner pen—it is probably the fat cleaning bitch who left in tears yesterday.
The fans slept all night outside in the cold in Floral Street. Gillian made several flasks of hot soup and convinced me to go along with her—she said it was good publicity.
When we arrived there was a sort of hush, but then came a high-pitched scream which unleashed all the others. They ran forward, asked me to sign everything—umbrellas, purses, leg warmers, underwear. Gillian had, of course, arranged for a photographer to be there. Before I left one of the girls reached forward and tried to grab my crotch. (Perhaps I should wear the leg-warmers over my cock for protection!)
As a choreographer he steals liberally from everywhere, from the Greeks to Fokine to Shakespeare, etc. He says: In the end, after all, many hands touch the artist’s brush. Margot took his suggestions and remolded them beautifully, although at first I felt I was dragging a carcass across the floor.
Every hour she phones Tito. Imprisoned by him. (Now that he can fuck nobody else, he must fuck her, her life.)
The heart returns to Paris. There is some sort of sticky tar there. (Tell Claudette to furnish new apartment, find four-poster bed.)
The letter came, sealed with red wax. A momentary hesitation, perhaps it was a Soviet ploy. (You cannot put anything beyond them, acid on the envelopes, etc.) But the seal was Royal and the note was handwritten and it had been folded very carefully. I said to the housekeeper: Oh shit, not another letter from Her Majesty!
The new bodyguard (part-time) once protected Churchill. He told me he met Stalin at Yalta. Tried to explain that Stalin was very polite. (A train whistled in my mind, the hospital, watching from the trees as the old babushkas washed the soldiers—how many centuries ago now?)
Found the Derrida text in a secondhand stall along the Seine. Also found a treatise on Martha Graham at the same stall, what a coincidence. Both were water damaged and had their pages stuck together. I told Tennessee Williams about the books (he was drunk at the Desjeux party) and he said it was an obvious metaphor, though he didn’t explain why, perhaps couldn’t. His fingers and even his beard were stained with ink. He was astonished I’d read him in Russian. He put his head on my shoulder and said: Oh such a nice child.
He grew tiresome and spilled a cocktail on my suit and I told him to kiss my ass. He replied with a grin that he’d be enchanted.
Claire brought a tape with Rostropovich scrawled in crude, spidery handwriting on the case. The Violin Concerto number 2, second movement, brought me to tears. Once, in Leningrad I stupidly told Yulia that I would allow Shostakovich to sit in the rain.
Smelled a plate of radishes in the kitchen at Lacotte’s. Was transported back. Had to leave, much to Lacotte’s displeasure. At the door he wagged his finger. Woke up dreaming of a white cloth being put over Mother’s face.
Perhaps Margot is correct when she says that I dance so much—too much—in order not to think of home.
Such difficulty in talking to anyone about Mother. When the facts are in order the mood is wrong. When the mood is correct the facts are in tatters. She worked in a weapons factory. She sold matrushka dolls. She was chased by a wolf. Sometimes, in the same interview, I forget exactly what I’ve said, so it becomes even more tangled in fantasies. For the Austrian journalist she somehow turned into a seamstress in the Ufa Opera House.
The times I hate myself the most inevitably collide with the times I dance badly. In darker moments I think perhaps my best performances were in the Kirov. (The phantom feel of Sizova’s hips against my hands.)
Erik ran into an acquaintance of Richter’s who told him that when Prokofiev died there were no flowers left for sale in Moscow. They had all been bought for Stalin’s funeral. Richter played at the funeral, then walked across Moscow to place a single pine branch on Prokofiev’s grave. (Beautiful, but is it true?)
Mister Nureyev, your movements seem to defy possibility.
Nothing is impossible.
For example, when following on from the sharp flourish of your ronde de jambe are you aware of your body?
No.
Why not?
Because I am far too busy dancing.
My desire to comfort the journalists is almost as strong as my desire to alienate them. Afterwards I can feel my heart ballooning with apology.
The true mind must be able to accept both criticism and praise, but in the Saturday Review he said I hold my hands too high in arabesque, that the movement looks bloated and uncontrolled. If I ever meet him again he will hold his balls too high in his throat and then we’ll see who looks bloated and uncontrolled.
As for Jacques, he is a typical L’Humanité shithead, another one of those socialist bastards with a vendetta. He said I was being too literal. But what does he want, my legs to deal in symbols, my cock to reel off metaphors? I would tell him to do something productive for his politics—commit suicide, perhaps—but the weight of his fat ass would probably bring the ceiling beam down to the floor.
In the pub in Vauxhall a picture of me was suspended from the staircase on a thin rope. I asked the bartender if it was Yesenin but he didn’t understand. At the counter there was a hush when Erik and I took our seats. The bartender asked me to sign the photo, which I did, across my chest, and everyone clapped.
All evening they expected some outrage, something Russian, something Nureyev. Smash glasses, kick bottles from the table. I drank four vodkas then took Erik’s arm. We could almost hear the place moan.
There was another death threat waiting at the hotel. The police said the note had been clipped from the headlines of a Soviet émigré paper. Who are these assholes? Can’t they understand that I am not their fucking puppet?
(Margot says to ignore them all, that the best way is to smile and be polite. Unleash it all onstage, she says. I haven’t the heart to tell her she’s talking rubbish. She, of all people, knows that everything I do is already sprayed with my blood.)
Secret wish: a house by the sea, children on the beach, a chamber orchestra on the rocks being soaked by the giant waves. I would sit in a deckchair, drink white wine, listen to Bach, grow old, though of course that too would become a bore.
Wisdom Defending Youth Against Love, Charles Meynier: $47,500.
In the beginning he presents himself to her without, at first, betraying his true feelings. He is acutely aware of how he must look at her, neither revealing nor unrevealing. He must play this game of emotional roulette, fastidious, until they break into each other and become the movement (ratchet up the pas de deux and extend the solo).
He must be reinvented, after all, otherwise the role is pure shit—he will be a cardboard figure, a cipher without vitality.
Conceive the role as a fantasy of the protagonist’s mind. In the end he must suffer agonizingly and, in full consciousness, be aware that all is lost.
A perfect rehearsal! We took an afternoon off.
He must remain in the wings long enough for everyone to feel uncomfortable and then he must burst from the other side of the world, frighten the mundane lives out of all who watch. For her, keep the tempo slow. She must arrive in cold at first. And then he must warm her into the dance. With every garment she takes off, it must look as if she is stepping into a future self. Finally she is spirited away from him, carried off, ghosts moving in diagonal lines, a moving vee. Light (moonlight) never quite touches the ground. Keep strings muted, do not allow the music to overwhelm.
“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 ca
r 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.