Leninsky Prospekt

Kirstein’s eyes flickered from her face to the critic’s and back again until Wentz bestirred himself to make introductions all around.

The critic preened and smoothed back his thick, oily hair. Then he remarked in sonorous, archly cultivated English, ‘I understand Mr Balanchine chooses to ignore the Soviet request to remove Prodigal Son from upcoming programmes. May we suppose he clings to this old-fashioned and narrow-minded religious narrative because it reveals something of personal importance about how he feels on returning to his own fatherland?’

Nina was struck by the suggestiveness of this question, but it was offered with numbing pomposity, and the agenda she recognized behind it warned her not to respond.

There was a silence.

At last, Kirstein, with a formal little bow of his head, a large, precise finger adjusting his eyeglasses, slowly said, ‘Fascinating question. I wouldn’t care to reply for Mr Balanchine. It’s a good ballet. Overly ingenious in places; deeply moving – the vulnerability of the son at the end, his shame finally covered by the father’s cloak. The father implacable. I’ve always felt pleased Mr Balanchine agreed to revive it. At one time he didn’t believe in reviving anything, only in moving forward. The past doesn’t appear to interest him; now is what interests him, now and what is still to come. The language of ballet is a breath, a memory, and soon looks out of fashion. There’s Prokofiev’s music, of course – a Russian who did return.’

This produced another silence. Nina bit her lip, sensing that Kirstein meant them all to reflect on Prokofiev’s artistic dehydration, his death, exhausted by official disapproval, on the exact same day as Stalin’s.

Kirstein added under his breath, almost as if turning it over in his mind, ‘One would have thought music and dance less susceptible to state control than literature, but perhaps not.’

Wentz, with uncharacteristic nervousness, ventured, ‘You’re a poet, aren’t you, sir?’

‘Not an important one,’ growled Kirstein, dismissing himself, ‘but I admire poetry. If I could read Russian, I’d like to read Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Derzhavin – do you recommend others?’

Nina felt moisture springing on her forehead, underneath her arms; she tried desperately to concentrate on what should come next in such a conversation. Who else belonged on this list? But none of the group seemed to find Kirstein’s remarks at all normal. Nobody answered him.

The critic gave a weird half smile, then said caustically, as if nobody had mentioned poetry at all, ‘The ballet seems to have a story, at least.’

Wentz burst out noisily, ‘Spectacular jumps, too, doesn’t it? That’s what I’ve heard.’

They all laughed with relief.

Kirstein indulged Wentz’s boyish enthusiasm. ‘Yes, in the beginning there are a few.’

The critic, sly-eyed, avoiding Nina’s gaze, remarked to Wentz under his breath, ‘Wait until you see the pas de deux with the Siren. Licensed carnality, staggering.’

Wentz winked at Nina. ‘So who’s the Siren? Is she here tonight?’ he asked and looked around optimistically.

Following his eyes, Nina caught sight of all their vivacious backs moving and trembling in the huge gilded mirror on the wall behind Wentz. For a moment, she watched their sparring, their sniffing, their strained mutual effort to please and be pleased, and then she saw that the mirror also reflected another mirror hanging on the wall immediately behind her. Their little group was endlessly repeated in smaller and smaller panes of glass as if through a crystal tunnel or a kaleidoscope. She could even see the entrance to the state dining room behind her to her left; if he looked, Wentz could probably see the entrance to the grand salon from the front hall, behind him and around the corner to his right.

It’s like a dance studio, Nina thought, perfect for watching and being watched. Two dancers loped past behind her, a man and a woman, like upright gazelles, exotic in colourful party clothes, their long hair decorative as plumes, their bodies musical, moody. They were talking excitedly, full of the brilliance of opening night. Nina studied the back of her own dress, its wide straps interlacing as a bow between her shoulder blades, emerald green in the underbrush of dark suits and drab Soviet evening wear; she opened her shoulders a little, loosened her arms, faced the critic, faced Kirstein, as they finally ceased to shake with willed pseudo-mirth.

Then she nervily started in, ‘Balanchine’s father died years ago, didn’t he? He must feel a little guilty about that. Or sad anyway.’

She felt eyes lock onto her, and went on defiantly, ‘After all, he never had a chance to say goodbye, did he? That leaves a wound that never really heals. But if he included Prodigal Son as a gesture to his fatherland – well, it’s only an act of courtesy. He doesn’t mean to apologize for anything he’s done. You can tell that simply by watching the way he walks. In his own life story, it’s the father who is ruined anyway, not the son. And it’s not as if he plans to stay here, is it? It would be sheer sentimentality to imagine otherwise.’ Her voice was clear, ringing, steady.

There was another silence before the critic remarked appraisingly, ‘You are a psychologist, Mrs Davenport.’

Nina decided to accept this as a compliment despite feeling it was not intended to be one. ‘Thank you,’ she smiled.

‘As a young dancer, at the Maryinsky, Mr Balanchine enrolled at the Conservatory of Music just across the street from the theatre. So he studied piano and composing, too,’ said Kirstein, catching each of their eyes by turn and smoothly shifting the direction of the conversation, just as if he were a conductor bringing in the first violins, then the seconds, with a new, more predictable, more soothing theme. ‘What really intrigues him is the music,’ Kirstein continued, ‘that’s what Mr Balanchine’s trying to express.’

But Wentz bounded along in yet another direction. ‘Speaking of music, I guess you all know that Stravinsky is in Russia now, too? Chairman Khrushchev will receive him later this week to congratulate him on his eightieth birthday.’

And then Wentz abruptly reached between Nina and the critic, grabbing another grey-suited American, pulling him with his companions into their circle. ‘Tom, say hello. I’ve just been telling our friends that Stravinsky is here this week, too. It’s an incredible time for our two nations. Friendly, exciting. Don’t you think?’

Nina was smiling so hard that her cheeks were starting to ache, and she nodded and smiled some more as they were all now once again introduced.

Tom Phipps had arrived not long before the Davenports to help prepare for the September visit of the US Secretary of Agriculture. He was still here, working alongside the young assistant agricultural attaché at the embassy, Rodney Carlson. Carlson was dark, floppy-haired, skinny, and wore eyeglasses with frames so black and heavy that they threw his eyes into shadow.

With Phipps and Carlson was an upright, red-haired Russian, grey at the temples, balding, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky. Penkovsky said in good enough English that he was a member of the State Committee for the Coordination of Scientific Research Work.

The greetings were formal, superficial; Nina’s eyes drifted to the mirror again, and she had the half-conscious sense that someone else’s eyes flickered away. She scanned the reflected crowd, and for a moment she couldn’t help but see herself as the centre of something, her green dress washed like a bit of seaweed or like a splinter of bright broken glass by the rolling surge of partygoers. Her little circle seemed to spread and mingle indistinguishably with the next circle as a body leaned this way or that, talking, listening, in an endless shifting chain of energy, social appetite, interconnections all around the room. Then her eyes did meet someone else’s, pale, rimless, in a fleshy blur of face. She turned around, summoning a smile out of courtesy, but still she saw only broad backs behind her.

It made her feel wobbly, hot, once again desperate to sit down. And as she swayed a little on her stiletto heels, she noticed John all the way across the room, looking straight at her from his height, like a beacon, familiar, unobscured. She couldn’t read his expression, he was too far away. Nevertheless, she felt reassured, as if he had telegraphed encouragement, concern. He’s the one who’s entitled to have an eye on me, she thought.

John pressed towards her through the shifting, roaring rooms thinking, Nina’s in the thick of it, jeez. Surrounded by goddamned spooks. I’m positive Carlson’s one, attaching himself to that Russian technocrat, Penkovsky, pretending he’s not trying to. A pretty woman offers them such an easy excuse to congregate; why don’t they use somebody else’s wife for that, or a ballerina even.

Nearby he noticed Alex Davison, the fair-haired, full-lipped young air force attaché in his thick round eyeglasses framed with translucent flesh-pink plastic; he was chatting earnestly to two stalwart Russian bureaucrats, clean-shaven, arctic-eyed, featureless. Davison gestured enthusiastically towards the dining room and ballroom, inviting his Russian acquaintances to eat; he put an encouraging hand on a strapping back. How could the Russians resist? John wondered. But one of them shook his head, smiling, wagging two fingers towards the floor where he stood, as if to say, Meet me here.

So they’re not letting Penkovsky out of their sight anyway. None of them, John concluded.

He considered Wentz; he considered Phipps. Latching on to Balanchine’s impresario, as if they were actually interested in ballet. Lincoln Kirstein, thought John, there is one deep guy. Maybe too deep to plumb. Could he be one?

But Nina’s for real; she’s there for the beauty. He smiled with pleasure. She’ll be giving them all a load of her candour, including that Russian ballet know-it-all. If only we could all read Nina in Pravda tomorrow. I don’t want to miss this conversation, he thought. And she deserves to be rescued by now.

But as he set out across the floor, someone grabbed his elbow, pulled him back towards the ambassador.

Nina saw John stoop, turn away, move off. I’m handling it fine on my own, she told herself. Another hour or so. All I really need to do is hold up this dress. The dress can practically do it without me. But she longed to be near John.

Wentz drawled to Kirstein, ‘You’ll have to forgive these philistines. Rodney’s expertise is in fertilizers and corn production.’ Wentz’s accent seemed to Nina to grow more southern when he mentioned farming. ‘I may be the only one who’s done any homework. I know all about Stravinsky, our other Russian exile – who wrote the music for your third ballet tonight, Agon, hey? But you have to admit, it was pretty hard to make sense of that.’ And he gave a belly laugh, elbowing the Soviet critic in the ribs, acting the hillbilly.

This elicited a round of pedagogy from Kirstein, which was delivered with a thin pretence of caring whether it was understood. ‘I’m sure you know that Mr Stravinsky composed Agon partly by what’s called serial method – using a sequence of twelve tones – a new technique for him. And the choreography is also organized around the idea of twelve – twelve dancers, twelve movements, dividing into twos and threes and fours, duos, trios and quartets. The timings are exactly projected in minutes and seconds. It’s exquisitely made. Spare, undecorated.’

Wentz seemed positively buoyant at the news. ‘Well, isn’t that something! It sounds like rocket science on stage!’

Again, naïve enthusiasm won the day, and there was much laughter and more ribbing.

The Russian critic remarked, half-smirking, competitive, ‘We have our own Soviet ballet of the space age. Konstantin Sergeyev, of the Kirov, has made Distant Planet in honour of our hero Gagarin’s flight – and with Gagarin we truly were first, long before John Glenn. But, you see, our ballerinas are not trained to count bars in the way of the West – ours dance with the soul, with the spirit. Dance is not a science for us, mechanistic, nuclear; it is an art. It transcends the physical, from within, even.’

Nina thought that Penkovsky, with his fine, bulbous nose, the soft cleft in his chin, his pouting mouth, looked tense. Why couldn’t he, too, find rocket science amusing? His eyes were gentle, heavy-browed, hooded, but there seemed to be something the matter with them, some watering and redness, scum he kept wiping at, and for a moment Nina wondered if he was actually weeping. Really, Nina thought, Penkovksy seemed hardly able to stand still, as if his clothes itched, as if he might be in pain. He constantly glanced at Carlson, then glanced away, swivelling his whole head, even his shoulders, around behind his gaze, as if it were hard for him to see anything unless he looked directly at it.

A waiter passed and Wentz whirled around, lifting glasses from the tray. ‘Who can hold another vodka?’ Only the ballet critic accepted one, so Wentz drank the other himself, crying, ‘Vashe zdorovye!’ and lifting his glass.

With his eye resting coldly on the critic, Kirstein continued, ‘I believe Agon was inspired by some French Baroque dances. In fact, the dances are named on the score. So, as well as the ballistic feeling you have noted,’ he tipped his massive head towards Wentz, ‘there is also something from the Renaissance, and you can hear it perfectly clearly, a sound of clarions. Or sometimes you can almost imagine there is a lute playing. Picture a courtly tournament, with dancing rather than fighting. The dancers are the knights – competing, showing off. They have no regard for risk. They pretend it’s easy, daring each other into one-upmanship, brinksmanship.’

Wentz smiled bashfully. ‘You lost me there, sir. My goodness.’ Then he turned to Nina, who unexpectedly found his look rather too direct, fresh even, so that she dropped her eyes. ‘Maybe you understand that, Mrs Davenport, being a dancer yourself?’

Before she could reply, Penkovsky intoned in a tired voice, ‘Come now, Mr Wentz. To anyone who follows the relations of our two governments, that interesting analysis should sound perfectly familiar.’

His voice gave Nina a chill, he seemed to speak from a depth of unhappiness, rage even, intense, suppressed. As she studied him, he looked away, perspiring, sweeping his head and shoulders all around the party as if he were searching for something, some hole in his existence, some gap through which he might slip.

Across the room, the American ambassador was at last circulating among his guests. John Davenport was still at his side.

‘Your wife’s a real pro, Davenport. She’s turned herself out very attractively, and just look at her making friends for us. Good for her. That’s what it’s all about.’