The Lost Ballet

  Chapter 41 – At City Hall

  The Whosey counted down the days until Catherine’s arrival. They were about the same age, and it had been thirty years since his tête à tête with her. What was she like now? What was he like now? Was he really a gentleman, or an aging rocker, or what? He felt great, with the exception of his hearing, which wasn’t so good anymore, and he kept in shape. He watched his buddy McCartney, still performing around the world, who looks good, and still sings fabulously. And now he was in competition with him over a ballet composition. Will wonders never cease? He hoped the wonders would keep flowing with The Deneuve.

  The entire team went to the airport to meet the Gulfstream. Townshend hoped like hell she got off alone, and not with some thirty-something stud. His hopes were dashed. The plane’s door dropped down, the attendant lowered the steps, and two people emerged, a man and a woman. A half hour later, after customs, Catherine ran past the baggage carrousel and hugged Gwen. Then Roger. Then the Ps, Henric, Helstof, Selgey, Bart, and Gale. Gwen introduced her to the woman. Then Gwen got hugged by the guy, the stud hunk Jorgee, whom she had met on an escapade with Catherine in France. Gwen started to introduce Jorgee to the rest of the group, then, in a flash, remembered The Whosey, and decided to have a bit of fun at his expense. During the last week he had been easy to read during rehearsals. Gwen could see he hoped for a replay with Catherine. She reached through to the rear of the group, where one of the bad boys of rock was hiding, took hold of Townshend’s arm, and pulled him forward, face to face with The Deneuve. “Catherine, an old friend of yours.”

  Catherine stood looking at him for a few seconds, then stepped forward, took hold of the lapels of his Anderson and Shepard sport coat ($1,299), pulled him down to her, and kissed him, American style. All the others had gotten the Euro double peck thing (such a joke), but not The Whosey. He got the royal, Deneuvian, vravravroom treatment. All the way. When she finished rocking his world, she said, “Just like old times, eh?” And she smiled. Pater got on one side of him, Peter on the other, keeping him upright while the luggage came from below. Gwen had intended to introduce Jorgee as her boyfriend, and thus stick it to Townshend a little, but now, witnessing the fondness Catherine held for him, she didn’t have the heart. She said to everyone, “This is Jorgee, Catherine’s assistant and protector. He makes sure her stock of champagne always is full, he kicks paparazzi ass when they get out of line, and he wears men’s cologne better than anyone else.” Remembering Roger, she looked at him, said, “Other than you, of course, love.” She put her arm around Jorgee’s shoulders; well, halfway around, seeing as how his shoulders were, like, four feet wide; said, “What’s the name of Catherine’s cologne you were wearing when she introduced you to Anna, who was wearing OPIUM?”

  “THE SHIMMERER. That’s Catherine’s stuff.”

  “I remember Catherine saying she wondered what would happen if OPIUM met THE SHIMMERER, up close. Got mixed together, with some good old personal sweat. Did that ever happen, Jorgee?”

  He looked over to Catherine for guidance. He wasn’t English, and he wasn’t French, so sometimes he didn’t know exactly which code to follow in circumstances like these. She gave him the twist of the lips signal, locking the vault. He said, “Tell you later, Gwenny.”

  With the fun and games over, the group headed back to town. They reconvened at noon the next day in Washington Park, right behind Charleston City Hall. The Mayor had set the formidable machinery of his Office of Cultural Affairs in motion, and the small park was packed, with the crowd flowing out the ornamental iron gates into Broad Street. He opened the event with a spiel about how the opulent historical character of Charleston meshes with its wide range of cultural institutions and events. He talked about how thirty-six continuous years of hosting the international Spoleto Festival had established Charleston, along with New Orleans, as the cultural centers of the south. And he praised the Junes for their leadership in producing the premiere of a world class ballet production.

  The Senator’s wife spent her ten minutes talking about how her husband was a great supporter of the arts, and defending his attempts, as chairman of one of the Appropriations subcommittees, to zero out the budget for the National Endowment of the Arts, claiming that it’s funding of the children’s TV show Teletubbies was a brazen attempt to encourage sex among four year olds.

  Sanity was restored when the Mayor introduced Catherine as “the most beautiful woman in the world, and an honored visitor to the most beautiful city in the world”. The Mayor can lay it on. The catcalls that had emerged during the senator’s wife’s speech dissipated the instant Catherine rose from her chair and stepped onto the podium. The Mayor and the Senator’s wife both had spoken from behind the lectern, but Catherine eschewed it, choosing to stand in front of it, close to the crowd. She looked at the people in front, and then at the rows of cameras and microphones behind. She was in her element.

  News agencies and arts groups present included: AP, all the local stations both TV and radio, CNN, the New York Times dance critic, the Atlanta Journal, the San Francisco Examiner (the woman had tipped them off), Slate Magazine, Pointe Magazine, Dance Magazine, The Ballet Blog, Findingdulcinea.com, 4dancers.org, The Times of London (the geezer rock critic still loves The Who), the College of Charleston, and Le Monde (they track Deneuve wherever she goes around the world).

  Catherine wore a simple yellow dress, reaching just below her knee. All the hems were trimmed in narrow, parallel bands of green and burgundy. Her belt was gold silk, very narrow, and matched her Pomonisi pumps, also gold silk. Her broad brimmed hat was cream colored, around which ran the same bands of green and burgundy that graced her dress. On her right ring finger were four Tiffany bands, one with diamonds and emeralds, one with rubies and diamonds, one with diamonds and sapphires, and one entirely of yellow diamonds. Around her neck she wore the pearl necklace that Grace Kelly wore when she kissed Cary Grant for the first time in To Catch a Thief, outside her hotel room door. That was such a great kiss. Hitchcock gave the necklace to Catherine in 1966, when, after being introduced at a screening for Torn Curtain by Paul Newman, she had kissed him. He said anyone who would kiss an ugly old man like himself so soulfully, and was at least as beautiful as Grace Kelly, deserved her necklace, which he had kept after the filming of To Catch a Thief.

  Catherine removed her hat and shook out her dark blond hair. Alternately looking at the cameras and the people in front of them, speaking in a loud but mellifluous voice that carried through the park and out onto the street, she said, “In a few months the eyes of the art world will be on Charleston. You will have a great production of ballet, a form of fine art. Ballet mixes the two mediums that people around the world love most: music and movement of the human body. Something lost to the world for a hundred years has been found, and it will be shown here, first and best. It will be created in your beautiful town, Charleston, and it will be another event in a long history of cultural events to transpire here.” Deneuve paused, her left hand on her hip, her right arm raised above her head in as graceful a gesture as that of any ballerina on the stage. She snapped her fingers, sending a signal through the ornamental iron fence surrounding the park, to a group waiting in trucks at the curb. Waiters poured out of the trucks like ants from a kicked hive. Dressed in black and white, carrying ice chests and cardboard boxes, they filled the spaces between the people and the cameras and the podium. Out of the cardboard boxes came champagne flutes. Not cheap plastic ones, but real glass ones. Out of the ice chests came bottles of champagne, and the corks were popped. The manager of the waiters, in full sommelier regalia, stepped onto the podium carrying a silver tray, three glasses, and a bottle of Bollinger. He handed a glass to the Mayor, the Senator’s wife (a teetotaler) and Catherine, and filled each with the sparkling wine. The other waiters handed flutes to everyone in the crowd, including the reporters and crew. Fifty bottles of champagne were emptied, everyone kno
wing, intuitively, not to drink immediately, but to wait for Catherine, commanding this performance. Not counting the kids in the crowd, only two people refused to take a glass.

  With her golden glass in her left hand, and her right arm raised again above her head, she said, “Before we drink to us, to Charleston, to art and culture, to ballet, I will introduce the people behind the production of the lost ballet.” She stepped to the side of the podium so she could see the eleven people sitting on folding chairs behind it. “After you see the ballet, thank these people. Gwen and Roger June, impresarios.” They stepped onto the podium, getting kisses from Catherine. “Henric and Helstof Gromstov, benefactors.” They got the double kiss thing. “Selgey and Bartholomew, choreography.” Four glasses were heard breaking on the ground, two dropped by men upon seeing Selgey in a costume she had worn in Giselle, and two dropped by very attractive woman upon seeing Bart, front and center, in a pair of shimmering golden leotards. “Costumes by, GALE. Administration by….” Oh, merde, Catherine realized she didn’t know the woman’s name. God, what was her name? What had people been calling her? How had she been introduced the day before, at the airport? Merde. “Administration, by THE WOMAN.” Catherine gave her a full hug and kiss to distract the crowd from this oddity of an introduction. “Artistic advice and consultation by, Peter and Pater.” When they had heard Selgey was going in costume and Bart was going to wear leotards to the press conference, they were in a quandary. Should they wear ballet gear? Should they try to compete with Selgey and Bart? Should they go the other direction, and minimalize their appearance? They had consulted with Gwen, who suggested a tribute to old Charleston. So they stepped onto the podium dressed in matching seersucker suits, Peter in blue, Pater in rose, white suede oxfords on their feet, gold watch chains, Sam Sneed style golf hats made from the finest tan wicker material. Glasses in one hand, arms around each other’s shoulders, they bowed to the crowd in unison. Cheers went up in lieu of clapping, precluded by the glasses of champagne in everyone’s hands.

  One person remained sitting behind the podium, and Catherine now turned to him. Setting her glass on the lectern, she motioned him onto the podium with one hand, snapping her fingers again with the other. One of the waiters brought a small case to her, shaped like a miniature guitar. Townshend, dressed in a black Armani suit with a simple white silk Tshirt, stood next to her, shoulders touching and arms linked. Catherine said, “The Musical Director of the show, Pete Townshend.”

  The Whosey took a pure white ukulele out of the case and proceeded to sing, in his lovely lilting voice, the song he had played on synthe at The Hall some weeks earlier, “Blue Red and Gray”. “And so you see that I'm completely crazy, I even shun the south of France. The people on my hill, they say I'm lazy, but when they sleep I sing and dance. Some people have to have the sultry evenings, sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey. But I like every minute of the day.” Even the Senator’s wife smiled, genuinely.

  Catherine again motioned to the waiters, two of whom now carried forth a larger case that contained a small synthesizer they had rented for the occasion. In a minute it stood on four telescoping legs, and was hooked into the power and PA system of the podium. Townshend took off his coat, handed it to Catherine, and motioned to Selgey and Bart to join him. Now Catherine stepped behind the lectern, and, using the microphone for the first time, said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, you are the first people in history to hear the music of The Lost Ballet, by Igor Stravinsky, written one hundred years ago.”

  Selgey stood at his right and Bart stood at his left. Townshend’s hands flipped switches, and then it came. The introductory trumpets melding into a rhythm set by bass lines, against which Stravinsky had set a chorus of oboes. The sound flowed across the city park and reverberated off the rear wall of City Hall. As the melody and rhythm linked up to people’s senses, feet began to tap, and the kids in the crowd began to bob up and down. Selgey and Bart watched this, waiting for the music to take hold, as they knew it would. When they saw it was established in everyone’s mind, they began to dance, in place at first. Selgey’s costume included a flowing scarlet outer piece that reached to mid-thigh, covering a pure white two piece jump suit, with the top held up by a single shoulder strap, the bottom piece high at one hip and flowing loose and low at the other hip. She kept her left hand on Townshend’s shoulder and gracefully gesticulated with her right. Bart also wore an outer garment, a sky blue jacket with golden trim, sleeves to mid-forearm, one side coming to a point low at one hip and the other side cut in a V pointing upwards to his armpit. He kept his right hand on Townshend’s other shoulder. In place, their movements were slow, perfectly matched to the music coming from the podium speakers.

  Three minutes into his playing, Selgey glanced at Bart, who nodded. Simultaneously they shed their outer shells and stepped away from the synthe. Selgey’s midriff was bare; Bart was naked from the waist up, clothed in the shimmering gold leotards below. And they were off, dancing together through the aisles in the crowd, slowly but surely establishing a counterclockwise pattern around the podium. Instinctively the kids followed, then the less inhibited of the adults, and then everyone. The mass and momentum of the swirling circle of people increased, just as Stravinsky had imagined it. Townshend controlled the tempo of the music and the tempo of the crowd, each of whom watched Selgey and Bart come together and part, together and part, them keeping their arms above their heads like tour guides leading their groups through the crowd in Saint Peters Square.

  The Senator’s wife stood up and rotated in a circle, her eyes never leaving Bart’s frontal quarters. It felt like the old days for Townshend, commanding a crowd with his playing. The group made three complete circles around the podium, created a vortex of movement and music. Then Catherine motioned to Townshend to shut down the Stravinsky rhythms, which he did slowly and skillfully. As that happened, the motion of the crowd dissipated, and they looked at Catherine. Through the microphone she said, “The lost ballet is coming to life. You have heard it. Music and the dance is coming to Charleston, music and dancing never heard or seen before. This is for you. This is for everyone.”

  Townshend stepped away from the synthesizer, and the other team members stepped back onto the podium. The Mayor rose, along with the Senator’s wife, who sidled over and squeezed into the group next to a glistening Bart. She didn’t seem to mind the sweat. They all linked arms, over or under shoulders, and waved to the crowd. Then they turned to the rear of the podium and did the same thing for the people on that side of the park. The cameras kept rolling, and the reporters sliced through the crowd to the podium, where they virtually attacked Catherine and The Whosey for interviews. Jorgee stepped close to Catherine in case any of them got overly aggressive with her, the way the Italian press had a habit of doing. None of them approached the Mayor or the Senator’s wife. The rest of the team got out of there, happy to have been part of the PR session, and to see how well the production had been received.

  During the circular swirling of the crowd around the podium, just about everyone in the park had joined in the movement, with only a few people resisting the lure of the Stravinsky music. One was an old guy in a wheelchair, and his attendant, and there were three city employees who stood in the background with plastic garbage bags at the ready, their job being cleanup detail after the event. There was a small group of teenagers, two girls and four boys, all skinny and wearing raggedy clothes, possibly from playing games with meth, who thought Bart looked ridiculous, redolent in his muscles and gold leotards. The only others who had not joined the celebration movement were two men who stood on the bluestone sidewalk at Broad Street, just outside the ornamental iron fence, watching through the bars. One kept his hands in his pants pockets the entire time. The other held onto the bars, watching between two of them, the only grim faced look on the block. As the crowd dissipated, Stirg let go of the bars, letting his cramping hands drop to his sides. He tur
ned to Nev, and said, “The fucks.”