A Day of Small Beginnings (30 page)

E
LLEN
L
INDEN HAD THE RADIO TUNED TO A JAZZ STATION WHEN
the call came, late in the afternoon on December 11, 1992. A sax was playing a pared-down version of “White Christmas.” Her
mother was on the line. From her frantic, disjointed telling, Ellen gathered that during the annual
Marbury v. Madison
lecture, her father had raised his hand to the back of his head and collapsed over his podium in front of a roomful of second-year law students. Forty minutes later, he was pronounced dead at Massachusetts General Hospital. The doctors said the heart
attack had been so massive it was unlikely Professor Linden had realized what was happening to him before he succumbed.

Only three weeks before, Ellen and her father had had their long telephone conversation about her career. It had begun with
an odd, unrelated event. Just after Ellen said hello, a crow had plummeted through the air shaft of her apartment building
on Ludlow Street. Its cries echoed off the brick walls and were carried away by cold gusts of wind.

She had pulled the cordless phone from her ear and listened for the bird’s call. Hearing none, she crossed the studio in two
or three quick steps, to see if it had indeed fallen five floors to its death. The wind rattled the chicken-wire windowpanes.
She’d craned her head downward, but in the blue gray light she could only make out shadows.

“What did you say, Dad?”

“I said, I don’t know why you’re taking his offer so seriously. This Pronaszko fellow isn’t promising anything more than a
performance of your work in a park.”

“It’s not a park, Dad. It’s an outdoor cultural festival that gets a lot of attention in Europe.” She looked out the window
again. No sign of the bird.

“Well, I think you should reconsider leaving New York City for almost three months. You’re just starting to get critical notice.”

His strategizing pleased her. Given his skepticism about her career, it was actually reassuring. She returned to untangling
the mess of laundered leotards and tights piled on her dresser drawer. The carved mahogany monstrosity dominated her studio
the way it had once dominated her grandpa Isaac and grandma Sadie’s bedroom. Ellen liked to say it was so
ungepotchket
it was beautiful. Her grandfather had always said that word to make her laugh.

“What kind of salary is he going to pay you?” her father asked.

She folded a leotard and laid it in the drawer. “Pronaszko said they’d cover my transportation and board. I think there’s
a per diem stipend too, like when I was with Gayle’s company. I’m not sure.”

“You’re not
sure
about the terms of the agreement? How can you be unsure about something that would control your circumstances halfway around
the world?”

She bit her lip, angry at him for pointing this out and embarrassed at her own lack of professionalism. “Dad, it’s not a big
deal. I just got the offer. I’ll work it out.”

She expected him to interject. When he didn’t, she reminded him that she didn’t have a lot of bargaining power in the first
place. “You know the market for dance choreographers. If the artistic director of a prominent company asks me to do a piece,
I pack my bags and go. End of story. And by the way, Eastern Europe is going to be the next new place. Everyone knows that.”

“I’ve never heard of this company.”

“Right. And if Professor Nathan Linden hasn’t heard of it, it doesn’t count?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying, Dad?” Now she was irritated that he presumed to know the subtleties of her field—who or what was
in, or out.

“With or without the salary, I don’t think their offer is significant enough to warrant so much of your time and effort. You
have that grant from the New York State Council on the Arts this fall. That is significant. You should be focusing on what
you’re going to do with it.”

The wind tore again through the narrow air shaft. She shivered as she crossed the room to make herself a cup of tea and to
consider what this conversation was about.

“Actually, Dad, I think you’ve seen Pronaszko’s work. He choreographed that piece for the Paul Taylor Company, with the dancers
swinging and hanging from ropes and pulleys in a huge black box. They had about fifty spotlights on them. We saw it about
a year ago at City Center, when you came down with Mom to visit Aunt Gertie. Remember? The one with the poems about shadows
and light and prison and freedom.”

“Vaguely. Oh, yes,” he said.

“I’ve liked his work for a long time. I’ve never seen his company, but I’ve heard they’re well trained. Solid technique makes
the choreographer look better, right?”

“I suppose.”

She poured a cup of tea and returned to the window, folding herself comfortably into the old armchair she’d re covered with
wads of fabric scraps. Nothing, she realized, not even her father, could minimize the simple, amazing fact that Konstantin
Pronaszko had chosen her as his summer choreographer in residence.

“I still don’t understand how you could have told him you were coming without discussing it with us first,” her father said.

Her skin prickled with anger. “Dad, I’m twenty six years old! Why are you giving me such a hard time? I’ve just been offered
an opportunity that could make my career, and you call it dancing in a
park?
Why would I hesitate for a second, much less turn it down?”

He sighed heavily. “I have my concerns about your going to that country. This matter needs more serious thought and discussion.
I don’t like the idea of your being there alone. I just don’t like it.”

Here we go again, she thought. She stretched her legs, admiring their length and taut muscles. Ever since his trip a year
and a half ago, he’d had some kind of mysterious
thing
about Poland. He’d never come out and say just what it was. He’d just drop snide remarks, like the one he’d made at the Lerners’
dinner party, that the Poles were too primitive to ever embrace a constitutional democracy. Their architecture was distasteful,
he’d said, and their cities dirty. He had a barrage of petty grievances against the people he’d met there.

“He’s annoyed at the way he was received,” her mother had confided in her. “He’d never admit it, but he feels insulted that
the Polish government hasn’t contacted him for advice. He’s even let the book drop. It’s not that Polish professor’s fault.
The man has tried again and again to solicit essays from Polish and American scholars. But your father doesn’t seem interested
in doing his part. He just gives him the runaround. I don’t understand it.”

It had gotten dark by the window. Ellen flicked on the Indonesian lamp beside her. The light glowed through its bark shade.
“Dad, don’t worry so much,” she said, knowing just how useless the admonition was. “If you’d just tell me what’s the problem
with Poland I’ll at least know what to expect.”

“Didn’t you think it would have been prudent to wait until you’d had a chance to ask me about Poland before you said you’d
go?” he said tensely.

“Why? You don’t answer me. Do you realize that every time I’ve asked you about Poland, you’ve turned it into a joke about
family ghosts coming out to haunt you? I’m not a kid.”

She felt around for a few ringlets at the top of her head and slowly wound them around her fingers. “Dad,” she said gently,
“this is really a great opportunity. I’m the first American and the first woman Pronaszko’s asked to produce an original work
for the Pronaszko Dance Theatre. I’ll be perfectly safe, and Pronaszko said Kraków’s a great city.”

Her father sighed. “I’d like you to take the train up to Cambridge.”

“Is that really necessary?”

He insisted it was.

“All right. I’ll come up on Friday.”

“Don’t you have windows to dress?”

She rolled her eyes. “Hey, don’t make fun. My dressing windows pays the rent. Besides, it’s a noble tradition among artists.”

“I know,” he said. “Merce Cunningham and Robert Rauschenberg did it too. If I’ve heard that once...”

“Right. And David Gordon.”

“Oh, yes, the one who used to be with the Judson Dance Theater. You see? I am capable of assimilating this information.”

She smiled at the shy way he had of making amends. To her, it revealed how painfully aware he was that he appeared pompous
and awkward.

“So, I’ll see you Friday?” he said.

“Okay. I’ll bring you a thick-sliced corn rye from Irv’s bakery. Just so it won’t be a total loss.”

They said their good-byes. Ellen turned to lower the bamboo window shade. Outside, nestled on the ledge, was the crow. Delighted,
she reached for the loaf of bread near the sink and tore off a piece. The bird cocked its head, as if surprised by the gift,
and with an abundant rustle of wings, flew off.

23

A
COLD WIND FLICKED AT
E
LLEN’S LONG CURLS AS SHE CLIMBED
the Harvard Square subway station stairs that Friday afternoon. In front of the Coop, a draft lifted the silk scarf from
around her shoulders and tossed it skyward. She plucked it from the air and hurried down Massachusetts Avenue to her parents’
house on Lancaster Street, followed all the way by swirling gusts and sunlight illuminating the copper cast of her hair.

She liked to kid her father that the house on Lancaster Street was his other child. That year, he’d fussed over the choice
of colors for the outside—the right shade of wine for the windows and the cream trim against the chocolate siding. He’d spent
months poring over paint samples, while the shrubs and flowers her mother planted spilled and sprouted in the front yard and
along the brick walk as if driven by some internal force to do their best at enhancing her father’s pride and joy.

He came to the glass storm door, looking pleased to see her, in his usual restrained way. He kissed her cheek and shook his
head doubtfully at the row of tiny beaded hoops ringing her left ear.

“Like them? I added a few new ones.” She laughed and hugged him hard. “Where’s Mom?”

He gave her his playful, mischievous look, the one from the corners of his eyes. “She went to Fresh Pond. Something special
for dinner, I think. Come on in.”

Ellen laid her embossed leather backpack on the foyer table and unbuttoned her coat. Her father lifted it from her shoulders,
as he always did.

“Your mother had a coat that flared from the waist like that, a calf-length aubergine wool,” he said. “Forty years ago.”

She smiled at his enjoyment of what he called her “opera getups.” He said that even in her lace trimmed jeans, she looked
dressed for the Met.

The sun poured through the oversized living room windows onto the little bronze Indian god Shiva—the Lord of Dance, her father
liked to remind her—who balanced, one legged and many armed, on the coffee table. She went in and sat in the Eames chair,
loving the thrill she still got from seeing his treasures—the giant turtle shell that leaned against the fireplace, the African
thumb pianos, the masks, the ancient ceramic pots, the rugs. Her father had brought each of them home with an elaborate acquisition
story. “Ellen’s legacy,” he called the collection.

She unlaced her high heeled boots and curled her feet under her, wondering what promise he was planning to extract from her
with this dutiful visit.

From the arched doorway, her father cleared his throat. “When you’re ready,” he said, “I’d like to talk to you upstairs in
my study.”

She did not protest that they hadn’t yet had lunch. A meal with him would be a lot more pleasant after they’d finished this
business about Poland.

The old wood creaked as they climbed the stairs. She brushed her hand over the Moroccan camel bag on the stair wall to release
the hint of its animal smell, then followed her father down the narrow hallway to the back of the house. Her heart beat with
anticipation and a slight sense of dread at having to take him on. Growing up in this house, there were times Ellen had so
wearied of her father’s insistence on discussion and analysis, she’d almost envied Tommy Brant down the street, whose father
resolved family conflicts simply, with a strap.