Corpse de Ballet (22 page)

“You must not leave me like that again,” Ruth now scolded Juliet. “A whole week! You deserted me! You have to stay today, and come tomorrow and the next day, too. I need you.”

“Obviously not,” she said, adding, “Hi,” in response to a smile and wave from Teri Malone, who passed them on her way out of the studio along with several other corps members.

“You have no idea how hard it was—”

“It's always hard, isn't it?”

Ruth frowned. “Don't punish me with my own accomplishment,” she said, abandoning the play for sympathy and reverting to the imperative mood so much more natural to her. “Any minute now, I'm going to come up against a wall again and you won't know how to help me, because you haven't been around. I'm getting to the part of the book where—”

She would have gone on arguing, but thankfully, Juliet noticed Patrick trying to get his boss's attention and was able to interrupt her. A woman Juliet dimly remembered as having something to do with costumes was with him; Ruth went to them and a vigorous round of note-consulting, headshaking, and note-making ensued.

“Fittings,” Ruth muttered to Juliet, returning at length when the conference was finished. “They weren't supposed to start till next week, but there's some snafu at the costume makers. A show being mounted for Broadway changed designers or something, and now we have to change
our
schedule.” Her resentment was bitter, wholehearted, and had the welcome effect of rerouting her thoughts from Juliet's alleged desertion and responsibilities. Soon, rehearsal recommenced and Juliet was able to fade first to the sidelines, then completely out of the room. In her own opinion, what Ruth had created without her was the most difficult part of the book to render in dance—the portion in which Pip's character only gradually changed. If Ruth could do that on her own, she could surely handle the rest. Whereas (as she sternly reminded herself)
London Quadrille
needed Angelica Kestrel-Haven.

Still, it was Saturday, and Juliet always gave herself Saturdays off. She lingered a while, gazing through the window in the door. After a time, Max Devijian materialized beside her.

He stood there, watching briefly and listening through the door to the piano accompaniment before remarking with surprising indiscretion, “That dissonant music would kill me to listen to over and over.” Remembering himself, he added swiftly, “Although I do think it captures the development of the story perfectly. It's really quite extraordinary.”

Juliet gave him a gently skeptical glance.

“Ow!” he added, peering through the window as Hart Hayden executed a brutal drop to the knees. “I'm amazed Victorine is allowing that move. Hart's cartilage is shot.”

“What do you mean?”

The executive director lowered his voice to a confidential murmur. “Don't tell anyone, but Hart Hayden will be forced to retire from performing after this season. The doctors say he can't afford another knee surgery. He won't dance again.”

“Jesus. How old is he?”

Max shrugged. “Thirty-three?” He did not sound especially sympathetic.

“And what will he do?”

“What do any of them do?”

The cynicism of this answer caused Juliet to turn at last and take a good, careful look at Max. His large eyes were circled in gray and the corners of his mouth slumped. He seemed to have aged five years. Juliet had never seen him so dejected—never seen him dejected in any degree.

“How is the Jansch doing now?” she asked. “Will you bring another star in to replace Anton Mohr?”

He shook his head. “Too late for this year. There isn't another Anton Mohr, anyway.”

“I guess you took quite a hit, public relations–wise,” Juliet said. For the first time since their acquaintance, she felt sorry for Max Devijian. Despite Gretchen Manning's valiant efforts at containment—and Detective Landis's cooperative discretion—Anton's death had wound up filling the scandal sheets and local TV and radio news for days on end. High culture, recreational drug use, antidepressants, giant egos, AIDS, anorexia: the facts and attendant fantasies were all too juicy to leave alone. Reporters had haunted the Jansch's building endlessly, badgering dancers and staff (and dozens of people coming and going from other premises in the building as well) for information, hints, quotes. Close-ups of Anton's splendid face and full-length shots of his glorious body found their way into national magazines, accompanied by the inevitable reminiscences of “close friends” and insights from nameless “sources familiar with the ballet world.” By the time bomb-making equipment was discovered in the basement of a transient hotel in midtown Manhattan, Ruth was ready to send a thank you note to the would-be terrorists for getting the media off her back.

“Well, I can't say it was the kind of press that funders like to see,” Max now agreed. After a pause, he asked with unusual candor, “You think this piece will go?”

Juliet blinked in surprise. “
Great Ex?
”

He nodded.

“You bet.”

He looked at her, meeting her blue eyes with his large brown ones. His were bleary and apprehensive.

“Of course you would,” he said. “She's your friend.”

“Even if she weren't. Didn't you like what you saw at the run-through? Ruth told me you said you were pleased.”

Max flinched. “I didn't want to alarm her, of course, but the truth is, I've found it a bit hard to remember it with any clarity,” he said.

Impatiently, “All right,” said Juliet, “but haven't you watched it at all since then?”

“I've poked my head in now and then.”

“Well, you ought to go in and sit down for a while. It's terrific. Take another look in there.”

On the other side of the door, Ruth was working out a spectacular spinning lift with Hart and Elektra. It started as Elektra fell backwards into Hart's arms, as if not deigning to look at him. He then lifted her by the hips and twirled her rather roughly around. After two revolutions, he sank down and knelt, bringing Elektra with him slowly to the floor, where she glided away while Hayden lay prostrate, reaching out to her retreating, insouciant back. The pair finished executing all this, then discussed with Ruth the difficulties they were having. From their gestures, Elektra apparently felt she was slipping out of Hart's grasp. Hart thought he might need to hitch her up higher and hold her more across the hips in order to keep his balance. How much strength it must take for Hart to balance Elektra's weight on his chest and abdomen as he sank gradually—gradually!—to the floor Juliet could hardly imagine, not to mention how Elektra maintained a rigid posture with legs straight before her and feet pointed precisely together. Dissected like this, the lift did seem no different than an acrobatic feat, a circus trick performed by athletes—equally difficult, equally amazing, but hardly a matter of aesthetics. Still, it was gorgeous to look at, or would be once the two got the details worked out. No wonder Martha Graham had called dancers “athletes of God.”

“One quarter of our entire budget this season is riding on Ruth Renswick's shoulders,” was all Max said, removing his gaze from the window and turning again to Juliet. “And I hear from our production manager that we'll probably need more, unless the set designer can simplify what he and Ruth had in mind. I can't dip into the endowment. I can't take it out of the other productions. And it's hard, you know, to go to the board or a donor and say, ‘Well, we lost our star, but don't worry, it'll still be fabulous. Just give us more money.'”

He sighed. Juliet hesitated. Then, “Max, I've never seen you like this,” she ventured. Generally, it was her policy to ask a question only if she really wanted to know the answer; but she was human, and Max seemed so wretched. “Are you all right?”

“Don't mind me.” He gave her a quick, sad smile. “My worries about
Great Ex
are a bit of a smoke screen anyhow. The truth is—” He broke off, then resumed, “Well, I might as well tell you. It will be public in a couple of weeks anyhow. Though I'd rather you not repeat it till it's announced.”

“Certainly. Till what's announced?” asked Juliet, at the same time marveling (as she often did) at the compulsion people feel to confide what they want kept quiet.

Max's voice dropped and he drew her away from the door as if someone might have an ear pressed to its other side.

“It's Greg,” he whispered. “He's leaving the company.”

“He is? And going where?”

Max leaned even closer, bending his head to hers. Juliet could see the individual strands of dark hair combed back from his receding hairline. “Washington. He's going to give away money for the government.”

“You mean the National Endowment?” Juliet whispered back.

“Can you imagine? Now
I
have to ask
him
for money.”

“But he—” Juliet's words faltered as her mind tried to move in several directions at once. “But has he been planning to leave for a while?” she asked finally.

Devijian shrugged. “He's been talking with them since before the summer rehearsals started, but he just made up his mind to accept last week.”

“You mean they just offered it to him last week?”

“No, a month ago almost. He's been toying with it all this time, if you can picture what that's been like for me. Trying to get better terms, I guess, although he claimed he wasn't sure if he wanted to go.” He shook his head. “God knows he's done a great job, but I don't think he was really happy here. He feels undervalued. I probably didn't stroke his ego enough.”

Max's tone was sardonic, but Juliet remembered his reputation for indifference to his subordinates and thought this likely enough.

At the same time, he was going on, “He's a dancer, he likes to be in the spotlight. Here, he had to put other people into the spotlight and stand back. Well, people will certainly kiss his ass when he starts handing out grants.”

There was in his voice a bitterness like that of a jilted lover. Juliet patted his arm mechanically. “When you say he decided last week,” she asked, trying to make the question seem natural, “do you mean before Anton died?”

He looked at her strangely (and small wonder, she reflected). “No. As a matter of fact, a day or two after. Why?”

“Oh, I just—I was just thinking, that's a lot of bad news for you at once. No wonder you're feeling low. But I'm sure you'll get a fine replacement.”

His gaze was bleak. “You have any suggestions?”

Juliet promised to think about it. Devijian reminded her to keep the news to herself and smiled a half-hearted smile.

“I guess it's not the end of the world,” he said.

“Not at all.”

“Just feels like it.” He smiled again and meandered away down the corridor, the set of his shoulders somehow a little less hopeless than when he had arrived.

*   *   *

That evening, Ruth and Juliet met for a bite at a café on Amsterdam Avenue. They sat at a table on the sidewalk, sipping Campari-and-sodas in the simmering twilight and watching dogs pee on a
NO PARKING
sign some few feet away. Roosting buses snored beside them, then roared away as the light at Eighty-first Street turned green; panhandlers thrust their arms over the cheerful striped-canvas barriers the café had set out to discourage panhandlers; giant teenaged boys lolloped by, thumping one another as their oversized jeans slipped indiscreetly from the pale flesh of their hips. Radios blared from cars, dwarfing the gabble of conversation. Lone men walking past leered at handsome young women; lone women fastened melancholy eyes on even passable young men. A husband strolling by sent Juliet a desperate S.O.S. over the heads of his wife and child.

“Nice to be out of doors,” Juliet remarked to Ruth, at the same time returning a glance she hoped would remind this man of his marriage vows. If she had ever believed in such a thing as innocent flirtation, Rob had changed her mind.

She lit a cigarette. The smell of the pavement (dirt, urine, spilled soft drinks, emulsifying garbage) mingled with the mists of exhaust from the avenue and the aromas of the dishes set before the café's customers to form a pungent, decadent bouquet. Juliet dragged deeply on the cigarette, leaned back, and sent her own smoky breath out to join the general tumult.

“Now you can't let anyone know you know this,” she began, and went on to repeat what Max had said that afternoon about Greg Fleetwood's impending departure.

“Jeez. Washington. What do you think made him decide to go?” Ruth asked.

“Exactly my question. Tell me if you find this too farfetched. We know Greg and Anton were lovers in Germany. We know Greg brought Anton to the Jansch. So could it be that Greg expected him, as his protégé, to continue to be his lover?”

Ruth blinked and shrugged. “Could,” she allowed.

“But instead, Anton dumped him. You can see why. In Germany, Anton was young and unproven, while Greg must have seemed immensely glamorous and powerful. But once he got over here, Anton was the star. Greg would suddenly look old to him, a has-been who expected Anton to be grateful to him. Which all by itself is not an attractive trait. So Anton took another lover, and another. A woman, a man—”

“Greg himself, on at least one occasion,” Ruth put in.

“Greg too,” agreed Juliet. “But maybe only that once. Ruth, does Greg have a romantic partner?”

“No. Not unless it's a deep secret, or a new development.”

“That's what I thought. So assuming there's no big significant other—and even if there were—a person as vain and arrogant as Greg Fleetwood would not take rejection lightly.”

Ruth was silent for some moments. Finally, “You're assuming a lot,” she said.

“Greg was the one who sent around that useless ‘malicious incident' flyer about the talcum powder. And he lied to you when he said he would tell Anton about it.”