Strip (7 page)

Pride kept me from admitting that all Daniel wanted was my supple ass, and who knows for how long? Our survival instinct keeps us from such thoughts. In my room I drank my savings while I stared at that limestone wall. Lost sleep. Daniel had told me onc
e in the early stages that I was sentimental “in a good way,” spiritual too, and sensitive—meaning he believed he could pass judgement, meaning he was full of it, meaning I let him do so, meaning I was blinder than Alicia Alonso. Now I even recall on our last night in Hugues' living room, draped over the sedan, he had told Hugues he didn't really know where we were going. I pretended not to understand as I freely and stupidly blurted I was in love, in my
Le Spectre de la Rose
–tinted glasses.

 

After diluting my pride
with a gut-bloating six-pack and a few glasses of red wine, I made the call to Kharkov. Who knows? Maybe he'd think I could lure Daniel back to Winnipeg, and then he'd take me back no question.

Kharkov would not take my call, of course, but gave very specific instructions to his secretary Miss Friesen, a severe and uptight balletomane who got into ballet politics and mind games like a dirty shirt, and whose name provided no end of amusement for us more vengeful types. I was ready to grovel. “Can't I please speak with him?”

“Kharkov wanted me to pass along his regrets. I don't think it would make any difference. He has already signed on four very
strong
males—two from Texas and two of our apprentices. He has to start rehearsing them immediately for the coming season. I'm sorry.”

Miss Freezin' was still so full of it. She couldn't have been happier to take my call. Kharkov would use it as an example to the Company as he had in the past. He'd gloat, then they'd gloat, thinking they had landed in the biggest pot of ballet honey around, but it just wasn't the truth. The truth was that they had a job.

I called Rachelle after finishing all the wine. Her voice grounded me. “Hello prodigal son. We miss you like stinkweed. You're drunk. Are you with your hubby? Are you coming back?”

“That's optimistic.”

“Which one?”

“All of the above, although I am quite inebriated.”

“A little game of hide and seek?”

“Good news travels fast.”

“Never mind. Your big plunge has caused a wave of self-doubt. Three have taken offers to dance in Atlanta. You probably could have gone with them or negotiated something. And the empty spaces have all been filled in. It's all up-and-comers and new blood. Speaking of blood, Gordon and I are getting a divorce. Do you want an invitation to the un-wedding?”

“If I were married, we could have a double divorce.” It's funny how the memory of replacing the receiver of a phone into its cradle lasts longer than the feeling left by the call. I have this long internal list of post–hang-up-the-phone feelings. Someone tells you they are sick, someone accepts an offer, someone says goodbye, maybe for the very last time. That moment after stamps itself forever onto your consciousness. It could be filled with silence, or a clock ticking in an empty room, or the swirl of life still continuing around you in a train station or an airport. The echoed ring from the receiver being slammed down. In this instance it was the sight of gob and tears that dripped from my face onto the floor, as I had a drunken weep. I was still on the same patch of floor the next morning, shivering, when Hugues took pity and actually brought me a café au lait and wrapped me in a comforter.

September's cold, clear blue skies shone over everything: the city, the mountain—forcing everyone to be happy about good weather for sleeping, and a fresh start at school or work after their vacation. And me, hungover on a Monday morning with nothing to start. What now? Shop around? Find a small company? Which one? Les Ballets Jazz? Eddie Toussaint? I looked too desperate. I was dancing like a fucking broken nutcracker.

Things have been a little too stop-and-start recently for me to be a big believer in fate; doors slam in front of you or behind you. It ends up meaning the same thing. I wouldn't have described what happened next as luck, not then. In retrospect it brought a crazy dancer, Bertrand, into my life, to save me from my ennui, unclog the cogs and get the next part of my story unstuck. But it's not what it sounds like—not another man for my dance card. Yes, I found him attractive, but only because he was the only person I'd ever met who was as crazy and as cockeyed-optimistic—a truly nutty look in his eyes—as me.

He was passionate about dance, had a gorgeous big muscular ass and a generously loaded crotch. He was a tight package of male body odour and lean muscle ready to burst. I only mention these qualities because that is how he danced, with a suppressed energy, as if he and everything in his tights would explode in a second. His face was Depardieu before food—the meandering nose, slightly crooked teeth and wide jaw and a kind of indefinable handsome wild aura. He had studied at the Conservatoire for the summer and we exchanged glances and nods in the hall from time to time. I wondered if he was gay—he wasn't—and he probably wondered why the hell I was staring at his crotch. We shared a
pas de deux
partner, which is where our paths crossed, in repertoire class.

He seemed to be the only one left to impress, so I tried to hide my increasingly shitty attitude. My dancing sucked and as a result I'd put up a barrier protected by a severe pout, the kind that says I expect more from myself and have danced much better than this, and you can go fuck yourself.

His English was minimal, and most Francophones couldn't understand his backwoods French. We managed on a different level. I'd speak my proper French mixed with
Franglais
, and he would reply in his French or with halting, breathy English that made him sound like he needed oxygen. In
pas de deux
class he would mutter profanities under his breath. He could be so particular that you thought you'd met
the
most precious bitch. His criticism, if that's what it was, forced the girls to glare and huff and fold their arms. He always snapped back at temperamental ballerinas. They already hated themselves for any extra pounds or ounces gained, especially in the summer with ice cream and slushies on every corner. They'd take it out on the men, like we were the ones who had fucked up. If one had a tantrum, Bertrand would match it and not hesitate to knock her off her pointe. I found this bravado so refreshing.

But I didn't escape his sharp eye and tongue; one day he had a go at me. We were in the dressing room and I was towelling myself dry, wondering how I could make a quick exit without the administrator asking me to pay up. Bertrand interrupted this plan. He started scolding me while he stood naked in the shower (giving me a good solid excuse to pay attention). “Why do you bodder?” he searched for each word. “I am so sick of passionless dancers. What is it d'at you want?”

“I want to dance, to perform. I can't be in fucking class
pour le reste de ma vie
.”

“
Il faut choisir
. There is nothing 'ere for you. You come home wit' me tonight and we can talk.”

He was boarding at his brother's, a beautiful space, and not something any dancer I knew could probably ever afford. Every apartment in that city was huge and unusual, whereas out west, they were standard cookie cutter. After no food and a gallon of wine from the
dépanneur
across the street I felt I knew him. And we didn't sit; dancers drape or lie, or squat or scrunch cross-legged on the floor. We knead our feet, open our legs as wide as possible, to not miss a moment of stretching. I lay on my front like a frog on a specimen tray and drank wine while I worked on my turnout, letting gravity and inebriation pull my hips to the floor while my knees splayed in opposite directions.

I sensed Bertrand was a rare gentleman. I poured my heart out: “Have I made a mistake? Am I really that bad? Why won't they take me seriously?” I cried for my dancing (but crying for Daniel was likely a large part of that). I was messy, not the tight-assed Anglophone others had accused me of being. Not tonight. If he didn't think I was crazy then, he never would. When I was finished, it was his turn and he wouldn't shut up. I couldn't figure out what he was saying but it was something about a ballet company in Quebec City. He was rat-a-tatting his Lévis French. “You-stay-in-Montreal-and-train-at-da-Conservatoire-always-'oping-like-the-rest, or-come-dance-with-us-in-Quebec. The Conservatoire? Pah.”

That's what I figured he was saying. It's so much easier to comprehend a second language when you're drunk. He finished up with a question, looking at me in silence until I realized he had asked me something. “Why do you do it? Why are you 'ere?” he repeated. But I was numb by then. Why did I do it? I was starting to wonder. What was I in pursuit of? Fame? The perfect
fouetté
? The perfect body? Attention? Love from every one? Love from just one? How long could I go on blaming everyone else? I remember once upon a time it had felt so good.

That night we slept in Bertrand's older brother's big bed and he talked for another hour, face to the ceiling, eyes wide, before he fizzled. His solid body crawled across me to turn off the light. I could feel his warm red-wine breath. He knocked my alcoholic erection with that fat bulge he'd kept in his dance belt. Was this a last shot at getting me to dance with this Quebec company? He may have meant well, but my instincts told me not to touch. I'd seen him briefly with a woman at the Conservatoire, and something else said to wait, just a few more seconds, for Daniel and an answer. I so wanted to hold out for true love.

I rolled away from him and stared into the dark and saw a kid, me, being shipped off on a bus for a bilingual exchange. It was
une échange bilingue
. French immersion. Two weeks with a French family and then a boy my age with us for two weeks. I went to a town, Bonneville, in rural Alberta. Big farms and warm wooden houses under a sky so big and clouds so high it could make you say your prayers even if you never went to church. I stayed with a French Canadian family who laughed together, took pride in everything—their food, their children—asked me lots of questions, worried over me, the English kid. They joked that I was one of them. Their son came into my room during the lightning and thunder after a prairie summer day to hold me and never say or think anything about it again. I remember the sheen of his hair. He came back, for his two weeks, to our empty bungalow in Strathcona. How different he must have found us. Our humourless hand folding and knuckle wringing, the television news at the dinner table, the stiff coughs and icy smiles. We caught each other's eyes across that vast dinner table, but we were strangers.

Fortunately my instincts were correct. In the morning the girlfriend I had seen him with, Louise, came by for coffee before class. Sex with a man had probably never crossed Bertrand's ballet-obsessed mind. Anyway, the fantasy of it has gotten me some alone-time mileage. And Louise was built for men more than for dance. She must have made him very happy—and he, her, if she didn't find him too much. “You stayed over? Even I don't get that privilege. Don't want to dishonour the brother's bed.” She put two
pain au chocolat
on the table. “Eat, eat,” she said, and we all tore bits off. “He's told you about Madame?”

“Madame?”

“It's her company. The one in Quebec.”

“He seems pretty excited about it.”

“Madame is a genius,” he blurted.

“What do you think of moving to Quebec City?”

“Really?”

“He won't shut up about you.”

“But…”

“You have potential. I mean you're being a bit sloppy right now, but we all have our phases. You were second soloist. We saw you with the Company.”

And I had seen her dance at the studio and, although she would never be part of a big company with a figure like hers (a woman's, not a ten-year-old anorexic boy's), she had a solid technique and strong natural instincts. For her to devote herself to this company in Quebec City, she must have been a believer.

“Wow, no one has said anything that nice since I got here. Shit, I'd be honoured.” I was intrigued by the idea of running away, but I still had to convince myself that Daniel had run absolutely cold, for peace of mind.

After our first
café
, Bertrand started up again. “Our company is what dance is all about—we honour the dance—we don't let anyt'ing pass—we are not sloppy like the Conservatoire—they don't understand how to find the dancer within a person—we are only five—with you, we will be six—you will be dancing all the time—doing what you were meant to do—the big companies they only want paper dolls who have never had a period in their lives—am I right, Louise?”

She rolled her eyes—another of her big assets—brown and dark, arched eyebrows. She was the kind of woman that made you say,
If only I were straight
… “You see? We do need another male.”

“We need a good male.” Bertrand slammed his hand on the table.

“'e's jealous.”

“Of whom?”

“You're jealous of Jean-Marc, Madame's pet,” she shouted back at him, as if jealous of his jealousy. She turned to me. “Madame would do anything for Jean-Marc.”

Jean-Marc, the other male dancer, was their bone of contention. Bertrand obsessed about Jean-Marc. And Louise was miffed by Bertrand's obsession.

“We need another male for our New York tour.”

“New York?” Music to my ears. Daniel would see.

Madame brought the rest of her little company to Montreal to see Le Ballet Naçional de Cuba at Place des Arts. The hall was filled with Montreal dancers from the Conservatoire, Eddie Toussaint, Les Ballets Jazz and any students who could afford it. I shared the row with Bertrand, Louise, Madame and the Quebec dancers. We waited for Alicia Alonso, the blind legend, to perform with lean, brown-skinned men who swirled around her, doubling as seeing-eye dogs. I closed my eyes, pretending to be meditating. Instead saw my young self in the audience one snowy Edmonton night.