Chapter 7 – Ballet in Charleston
The team had known each other for about a year, since the heist, and had developed a common perspective about a lot of things. The two Russian gay guys, the American and English ballet stars, the Russian billionaire couple, and the Charleston aristocrats had become friends. They had developed some complimentary perspectives on things that made their lives more interesting, and they found themselves in tune with each other a lot of the time. So it wasn’t surprising when Pater tried to call Gwen, and at the same time Roger tried to call Peter, and Helstof tried to call Bart, and Selgey tried to call Henric. There were four phone conversations happening at the exact same time, everyone wanting to know what they were going to do about the Stravinsky score. Actually, they all knew what they were going to do: They were going to put on a world class premiere of the ballet, right here in little ole Charleston - the hell with New York or London. The phone calls were just to stir things up, and everyone knew who the main players in the group were: the Gromstovs and Gwen. Henric and Helstof Gromstov were the money people, and Gwen was the nucleus of the atom around which the other team members, the little electrons, orbited. Everything always revolved around Gwen, because she’s the bomb.
Gwen was waiting for the phone call web to happen. She had intuition of a special order and knew not only that it would happen, but when it would happen, and how it would happen. When the calls did happen, she was ready, and the word went out: Be at The Hall for lunch, 2pm, catered by McCrady’s. And they all were there, on time, hungry for food, and hungry for action. When Gwen put out the word for a team meeting, it meant something was up. Usually, but not always, something good.
The first thing Peter and Pater looked for whenever they got together with Gwen was whether she was carrying her gun. Over the course of the last year, and especially when the war with Stirg was raging, their eyes had gotten practiced, and usually could detect the bulge under her silk jacket, just to the rear of her right hip. They looked now, and couldn’t see a bulge, which was good. They breathed a small sigh of relief. Evidently this was not a war council, thank God. They had been through a number of those recently. Let’s get on with the ballet thing, they thought, and so did everyone else. Henric and Helstof were into it, and of course, so were Selgey and Bart. Roger always was into his wife, because he loved her.
The seven electrons sat in the first row of the theater’s seats, while Gwen, the nucleus, sat on the edge of the stage, facing them. She said, “We all know why we’re here. I can feel it. You want it, and I want it. Right, Roger?”
He said, “Want what?” teasing her.
She ignored him, and looked at Henric, not saying anything. She didn’t have to.
He said, “What, what is it we want?”
He was not nearly as convincing a tease as Roger.
Gwen knew these two fools would play a game, and knew, anyway, that Helstof ruled the Gromstov roost. So she looked at her.
“We’re broke,” Helstof said. “Henric blew it all playing cards in Monaco. That is, what was left after the Brazilian woman got done with him.” So Helstof was in a teasing mood, too, loosening up all those high latitude Russian strings, joking around now in the warm Charleston sun. Gwen liked this. She said, “Ok, we know what we’re here for. The ballet. What to do with it, if anything. Who wants to start?”
Peter said, “The four of us have been working on the score that Richard and Anna wrote, the first draft they did before they left for France. We’ve been playing with that, working up the choreography. Well, they have,” pointing to Selgey and Bart. “We help. When Anna and Richard left, we kind of lost steam. Now we have this other thing. We have a lost score by Stravinsky, with story notes. It’s incredible. Somebody has to do something.” Pater squeezed his hand.
Bart, short for Bartholomew, said, “I’ve been around the world, doing ballet. China, Moscow, Berlin, Buenos Aires. I’ve been with women like Selgey, and choreographers like Martins and Robbins; Selgey was with Balanchine, when she started. We’ve pretty much done it all. And this Stravinsky thing, this new piece, this opportunity….it trumps everything. A lost ballet, by him, and we’ve got it. After a hundred years, sitting in that desk. We’ve got it, which is unbelievable. We must do something with it. That’s what I want.”
Gwen looked at Selgey, “This would be something completely different than dancing. It’s choreography, which is a different world. It would be such a challenge, which is why Bart and I said we would work with Richard and Anna, and the Ps, on a new piece. Now we have something truly great in front of us. An unbelievable challenge. This would cap a career in ballet, to make this a reality. To choreograph and produce a ballet. Yes, I’m in. I want this thing, whatever it will be.”
Gwen figured this would be the reaction, and knew Roger was interested. He had nothing of great interest on his plate, not after Stirg had stolen the Hermitage artifacts from the Charleston warehouse where Roger had them all stashed. All that stuff, gone in the night. Stirg had gotten his revenge. Roger was playing with his wine collection, and getting bored. He was in. From the joke Helstof had told about their money, Gwen knew they would finance the project; the project as it had been forming in Gwen’s mind over the last week. A major, world-class production of the Stravinsky piece. She looked at Henric, not fooling around. “Henric, how much are you good for? You’ve heard the others. We all want to do something with this opportunity that fell into our laps. You do to. We’re all thinking the same thing. Do the ballet. Do the production. Here in Charleston, with Selgey and Bart doing the choreography. We would figure out how to do the music, from the score. We have the story from Stravinsky’s notes. We can do this, but it will cost money. A whole lot of money.” The heads of all the electrons swiveled away from Gwen, and focused on Henric and Helstof.
Helstof said, “How much. How much do you think it would take?”
Gwen looked at Roger, and said, “I dragged him out of the wine cellar yesterday, and told him to figure it out. What’d you come up with, dear?”
Roger closed his eyes, visualizing the dozen or so sheets of yellow legal paper on which he had charted the costs of such an operation. The others thought of this venture in terms of a production, but Roger thought of it as an op. Like the Hermitage heist had been an op. He said, “For a world-class ballet, here, major operation, everything….$25 million.”
All the heads swiveled back to Henric, who said, “That’s all?”