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 deputy stage manager to telephone the Palace of Congresses in the Kremlin, where the ballet was to move after the opening performances.
‘Maybe the trucks went there by mistake,’ she urged. ‘It’s perfectly understandable. And if they aren’t there, you better place a call to Vienna and find out how long ago they left after the last performance there. Or if you want, I’ll telephone the operator at the American Embassy,’ Nina sounded sweet-voiced, pliant, ‘and ask her to make the call to Austria.’
The stage manager was visibly pricked by Nina’s resourcefulness. He looked around at his crew; they were silent now, arms folded or linked behind their necks, with blank stares or eyes on the floor. He repeated Nina’s own remark that the mistake was perfectly understandable. He was no longer shouting, but he carefully refused to let her take charge. If the crisis was not entirely his responsibility, then maybe he could help to resolve it after all. He would go to the telephone. He raised both hands, wrists bent back, palms horizontal, signalling patience, and announced that the trucks would be found and that everyone should calm down.
As he turned to leave, a costume mistress demanded, ‘So what did he say? What have they done with it all?’
‘He’ll find out,’ Nina sighed, putting her hand on the woman’s plump, insistent forearm. ‘He will. The staff here is a little nervous.’ She half smiled, half grimaced, trying to explain. ‘They’re not sure what to expect, any more than any of you. Obviously, everyone is – excited – about tonight, but being excited isn’t a sensation they can necessarily enjoy. It’s – probably pretty scary. They have to be – suspicious. It’s habitual. They can’t help it. I wouldn’t assume anyone has lost things on purpose. Nobody would risk such a thing.’ She lowered her voice a little, hoping for sympathy. ‘The trouble is that even though he doesn’t speak English, he sensed he was being accused of that – of deliberate provocation – if you can forgive me for being so frank.’
The costume mistress bristled, but only slightly. ‘Well, we can’t dance without costumes. Maybe without scenery. There’s plenty of it around to borrow. But to come all this way – Mr B. will sew costumes himself if he has to. It won’t be the first time. But I can tell you, he has no time for that.’
‘Yes,’ Nina said. She couldn’t think of anything else to add. She understood both sides too well. Feebly she muttered, ‘Let’s hope the stage manager is efficient on the telephone. Time is obviously vital now.’
She thought of going to the embassy all the same, while they were waiting. But she pictured the chain of telephone calls that might result, and she decided it would only take longer if somebody had to field a diplomatic request; they wouldn’t be able to concentrate on finding the trucks. And of course, the fear ingredient would be increased, and then nobody would be able to concentrate at all. The whole system might seize up.
A man now broke in on her thoughts, gently haranguing, in a soft, nasal monotone that reminded Nina of the seen-it-all streets of Manhattan. ‘At least the kids have practice clothes. Half of the ballets, that’s about what they wear anyway. These bastards won’t even put up a black backdrop for me. Can you at least get them to do that?’
Nina held back another sigh. She looked him in the eye, saw tension and pleading there, pink-rimmed, overworked, with wrinkled dry skin around the edges. ‘I can try. But wait until the stage manager comes back. Give him a chance.’
And for this she got a friendly, silent tip-up of the chin. The man reached for a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. ‘I’ll take a break,’ he said, feeling the pack. ‘Don’t disappear on me.’
Nina wandered back to watch the dancers again. One of the ballerinas had a sore foot. Balanchine was waving his hands at her, scowling.
‘If that hurts, don’t do it. Like this.’
He stepped in close to the ballerina, assumed her posture, raised his eyebrows and half-closed his eyes in an expression of yearning nobility, then demonstrated a combination by which he seemed as if magically to glide backwards using only one foot. Afterwards, he looked at the ballerina, waiting, smouldering with the thrill of his solution. In the silence, she copied him.
‘So. Just so,’ he said, nodding fiercely. ‘It’s better for you. And first you rest.’
Then he clapped his hands three times, looked around the stage, and threw his eyes into the air, all the way to the back of the theatre. Behind him, dancers scurried, stood up, began to assemble. He rubbed his hands together, as if with appetite, and walked away.
The orchestra now began to play, and it seemed to Nina like a miracle that the dancers began to dance without Balanchine among them. She sensed him there, still, at the centre of their group.
For a while, she was lost, watching. Then, from nowhere, Alice was beside her whispering. ‘Luckily Mr B. can make it up as he goes along. Two of the kids got hit by a trolley car the day after we opened in Hamburg. Everything had to be changed.’
Nina looked around, stunned. ‘A trolley car?’
‘It was bad. But they’re going to be OK. Honestly. They both ache like hell.’ Then Alice ran her hands over her tightly smoothed-back dark hair and sighed. ‘It’s good for me, in a way, I’m getting lots of parts. I’ve never danced so much. But, God, I miss my little boy! He’s only one and a half. Have you got children?’
Nina