Strip Read Online Free PDF Page B

Not piggish. Coy, I guess.”
    â€œThen?”
    â€œI left. I mean what do you talk about with a Russian masochist whose English is limited?”
    â€œSounds like you’re up next for soloist.” So thrived Kharkov, and his habit of making appointments with the certainty of being thanked in a big way. Two of the principals had spent several years of their prime thanking him. Kharkov would find Peter delicious.
    Â 
    Later that morning my resolve was even greater. It was true: Daniel was showing me the way to my dreams, and reminding me not to sit back on the comfort of a Company contract. At the same time, I had fallen for him and all that goes along with it; it joined me to humanity, the universe and everything in between. Walls fell and I discovered a hidden energy. I became a greater dancer than I had ever dreamed of—jumped higher, turned faster, balanced longer. There was a completion to my technique. I believed in myself, one hundred percent, for the first time. In laymen’s terms, if I were a secretary I’d type faster, burn through the filing system; a house painter, I’d end up with the Sistine Chapel in fifteen shades of neon; a bricklayer, I’d redo the pyramids with a smart Egyptian faux finish. It all became so easy, so effortless. My body was rubber for those weeks—pliable, solid, tensile—all with very little sleep. Supernatural. My knees? No idea. Ask any dancer who has had time to be in love. I shone in Company class, stood in the front, flew across the stage, intimidated the soloists and principals. I couldn’t get enough of dance, or love. Did Daniel feel the same? I was too busy with all this to have any idea.
    At the height of it, I gave my notice and final bow to the Company’s repertoire. As Daniel said, “Why do they call it repertoire ? It’s been done, over and over and over: Tybalt, Romeo, The Nutcracker prince, any prince, anything dusted off and redone, from Ashton to Balanchine.” So I stepped out of the royal storybook, to become a finer dancer. I traded that rush of a curtain call—opening my arms wide enough to embrace three or four thousand people, and then seeing, when the house lights went up, the faces whose collective breath I’d sensed throughout the performance, all of them cheering, as they stood in one motion—for a promise of even greater praise. Someday they would clap for me alone as I stepped forward out of the line. It was time to remind myself of that dream once again. So many times since then, I have forgotten the dream.
    I vowed to excel and pay attention to my technique, establish a strong foundation and secure a long career, with Daniel’s help, not to mention his international connections. This was so much more than the limited choice I had become so used to. I had come so close to being satisfied as a big swan in a small lake.
    I met Kharkov in a makeshift office in Place des Arts, after company class, while I was still soaked and high from whatever it was that was forcing me to go beyond my limits. Kharkov was wearing a tailored Italian suit that he’d obviously picked up in Montreal. Everyone had been shopping their heads off before going back to Canada’s breadbasket. “It’s time to move on,” I said.
    Kharkov sat still, put his hand to his mouth. I could see the wheels turning. Finally he spoke. He told me I wasn’t serious. He threatened that if I paused now, all the young dancers nipping at my ankles would finally overtake me. ( You don’t cross Kharkov , was a Company mantra.) “You aren’t dancing well, you know. But I liked you. I think you know that.” As with all the dancers, I hated his grip on us. In a flash he could praise you or put you down, leave you a crumpled heap of fucked-up-ness if you cared—the humiliation and manipulation, his temper, his mood swings. Ballerinas would be in tears one moment and hugging him the next.