stage. Her carriage was flawless, from the way she held her shoulders to the swell of her breasts to the pronounced lines of her jaw and cheekbone in profile, the beautifully scalloped ear and the pale jewel that glittered at the lobe of it—minimalist, everything about her a studied composition of the minimal. But she wasn’t an American girl—he would have bet on it.
Ten minutes into the performance—or perhaps it was longer than that, perhaps it was twenty—he began to fidget. He wanted to get up and leave—they were just going through the motions up on the stage, tired motions, dead motions, and nobody in the audience knew any better—but he had an even stronger impulse to stay and somehow attract this girl’s attention because he knew her, knew her just by looking at her, and he wanted more, much more, contact, recognition, a glance, a smile. “They’re lifeless,” he murmured, leaning into Albert, his friend’s startled face hanging there in the glow of the stage like a jack-o’-lantern on a wire. “They’re dead,” he said, just loudly enough so that she could hear—and she did hear, he could tell from her reaction though she never shifted her eyes from the stage—“dead and dancing to the dead.”
At the intermission—at the moment the applause died and before she could get up and wander off by herself—he leaned across Albert and said, “I couldn’t help but notice your response—you agree, don’t you? That Karsavina might just as well have stayed in London for all the inspiration she’s showing here today? That she’d rather be in London. Knitting. Or whatever she does there.”
She turned her face to him then, her eyes fastening on his. He couldn’t know what he was saying, couldn’t know how his comment during the dance had echoed one of the dicta of Gurdjieff, 6 her master, who had striven his whole life to awaken the race from the deadness of the material world and into the consciousness of the mystic truths that lay beyond it, or that she’d been one of Gurdjieff’s principal danseuses, or that she’d left Paris just three weeks earlier at his insistence after she’d nursed him through the worst of his injuries from the automobile accident that had nearly killed him, or how she’d chopped wood all afternoon every day so that he’d have enough fuel to keep warm through the blasts and contingencies of the winter—or even, on a more elemental level, that she agreed wholeheartedly with his assessment of Karsavina. “Yes,” she said, “you are absolutely right. This is a rote performance. An embarrassment.”
Her voice captivated him. Soft, rhythmic, the beat of the phrases a kind of music in itself, and what was her accent? Eastern European of some sort—Polish? Romanian? He said, “She’s married to a diplomat, isn’t she? Running a school now”—he’d gleaned this from the program and added, redundantly—“in London.”
“The Royal Academy of Dancing. She helped to found it.”
“Yes,” he said, talking past Albert’s flaming face, “yes, of course. But let me introduce myself—and my friend here, this is Albert Bleutick—”
She dropped her eyes a moment, then came back to him. “But you do not need an introduction,” she murmured, and he felt the blood charge through his veins as if a ligature had been loosened. “Certainly, this is the case, no? But I am Olga Milanoff, known to my friends”—and here she paused to let him consider the freight of nuances the association was meant to carry—“as Olgivanna.”
Somewhere, somehow, Albert got lost in the shuffle, and Frank couldn’t really recall when or where it had happened—on the way to the tea dance to which he’d invited her or after they’d got there? No matter. From the moment the three of them left the theater at intermission till they hustled out into the drenched streets looking for a cab, he could think of nothing but the excitement of the affair
Ten minutes into the performance—or perhaps it was longer than that, perhaps it was twenty—he began to fidget. He wanted to get up and leave—they were just going through the motions up on the stage, tired motions, dead motions, and nobody in the audience knew any better—but he had an even stronger impulse to stay and somehow attract this girl’s attention because he knew her, knew her just by looking at her, and he wanted more, much more, contact, recognition, a glance, a smile. “They’re lifeless,” he murmured, leaning into Albert, his friend’s startled face hanging there in the glow of the stage like a jack-o’-lantern on a wire. “They’re dead,” he said, just loudly enough so that she could hear—and she did hear, he could tell from her reaction though she never shifted her eyes from the stage—“dead and dancing to the dead.”
At the intermission—at the moment the applause died and before she could get up and wander off by herself—he leaned across Albert and said, “I couldn’t help but notice your response—you agree, don’t you? That Karsavina might just as well have stayed in London for all the inspiration she’s showing here today? That she’d rather be in London. Knitting. Or whatever she does there.”
She turned her face to him then, her eyes fastening on his. He couldn’t know what he was saying, couldn’t know how his comment during the dance had echoed one of the dicta of Gurdjieff, 6 her master, who had striven his whole life to awaken the race from the deadness of the material world and into the consciousness of the mystic truths that lay beyond it, or that she’d been one of Gurdjieff’s principal danseuses, or that she’d left Paris just three weeks earlier at his insistence after she’d nursed him through the worst of his injuries from the automobile accident that had nearly killed him, or how she’d chopped wood all afternoon every day so that he’d have enough fuel to keep warm through the blasts and contingencies of the winter—or even, on a more elemental level, that she agreed wholeheartedly with his assessment of Karsavina. “Yes,” she said, “you are absolutely right. This is a rote performance. An embarrassment.”
Her voice captivated him. Soft, rhythmic, the beat of the phrases a kind of music in itself, and what was her accent? Eastern European of some sort—Polish? Romanian? He said, “She’s married to a diplomat, isn’t she? Running a school now”—he’d gleaned this from the program and added, redundantly—“in London.”
“The Royal Academy of Dancing. She helped to found it.”
“Yes,” he said, talking past Albert’s flaming face, “yes, of course. But let me introduce myself—and my friend here, this is Albert Bleutick—”
She dropped her eyes a moment, then came back to him. “But you do not need an introduction,” she murmured, and he felt the blood charge through his veins as if a ligature had been loosened. “Certainly, this is the case, no? But I am Olga Milanoff, known to my friends”—and here she paused to let him consider the freight of nuances the association was meant to carry—“as Olgivanna.”
Somewhere, somehow, Albert got lost in the shuffle, and Frank couldn’t really recall when or where it had happened—on the way to the tea dance to which he’d invited her or after they’d got there? No matter. From the moment the three of them left the theater at intermission till they hustled out into the drenched streets looking for a cab, he could think of nothing but the excitement of the affair
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