When We Danced on Water (6 page)

Finally Amatzia looked at his daughter. “I'm sure you understand how disappointed we are. About this
goy
,” he said, sputtering, unable to continue. Leah pursed and gnawed her lips but said nothing. Vivi shifted uncomfortably in her seat, crossed and uncrossed her legs. Would Martin comprehend, would he leave when he realized they had come? Vivi was not quite sure she did not prefer a confrontation.

At ten minutes past the hour, with little said and Vivi hoping that somehow Martin had miraculously gotten stuck in traffic or lost in Tel Aviv, the door creaked open and he burst into the room. His hair was freshly washed, wet even. He wore jeans and a creased cotton shirt, and sandals on his feet. Vivi felt a rush of love as he entered, and a huge smile blossomed on his face before he realized she was sitting with her parents.

A look of stupefaction and horror rose to Leah's face the moment she understood that this was Martin, the Martin who had stolen her daughter and sent her to prison. The Martin who, no doubt—it was there in their cozy smiles, in the heat they radiated, for everyone to see—was sleeping with her daughter, her precious Varda, her delicate rose. In one glance, Leah took in the whole picture, the six months of friendship and passion, before either Martin or Vivi, or poor Amatzia with his back to the door, could react. In that instant, Leah was out of her seat and at the door, her hands reaching for Martin's neck.

She threw herself at him. Martin, caught off guard, reeled backward and hit the door with Leah barreling into him. “Swine,” she shouted in Hebrew. “Pig! You vile filthy German goy, you barbarian!” She pushed herself far enough away from him to swing her fists at him. Martin let her hit him, protecting only his face. When she scratched him he caught her wrists and tried talking to her.

“Mrs. Berger,” he pleaded in Hebrew, “please …”

A guard pulled Leah off Martin. She continued screaming, and Amatzia was shouting, and the guards blew whistles and in the midst of it all, as the visitors were pushed from the room, Vivi and Martin stood silent, gazing at one another. But Martin disappeared from her vision, was removed from the room with all the other guests, before they could utter a single word to one another. Several of the other prisoners shouted at Vivi since her guests were the cause of the ruckus, but she did not care. On the way back to her cell she felt as though she had just solved a riddle, found the missing piece in a puzzle, but did not yet know what it was. She felt very still at the core of her being.

After her release from prison, Vivi returned to her base. She was efficient and capable as ever, but watchful now, guarded. She wondered who had informed on her. She no longer socialized with her fellow soldiers and spent as much time with Martin as possible. Her incarceration began to feel like a rite of passage, a solo trek into the desert from which she had emerged purified and silent. On weekends she returned only rarely to her parents' house in Haifa. No one ever mentioned Martin or prison.

In June Martin returned to Germany for summer courses and Vivi spent the last two months of her army service planning a dramatic escape from Israel as soon as possible after her release. Her army service ended the week before Rosh Hashanah. She went to synagogue with her parents and prayed for a good year.

Martin had sent her a ticket that would remove her to Germany during the ten days of repentance before Yom Kippur. She was relieved to think she would be gone by then, could not face the Kol Nidre service in which she would be asking God to cancel the oaths she had made during the past year just before flying to Berlin to live with her uncircumcised German Christian boyfriend in what had been, only forty years earlier, the all-time capital of Jew hatred.

On a Tuesday morning in mid-September, Vivi emptied her bank account, then returned home to pack a medium suitcase and a long, squat duffel bag full of clothing and shoes and—at the last minute, on her way out the door—a prayer book, left a note on the dining room table, and caught a bus to the airport. She was airborne before her parents even knew she was gone.

Chapter 12

I
t is Sabbath dark outside, but Teo has no way of knowing so in his underground studio. Nelly will have prepared a good, special meal for them this evening, as if she were a regular Jewish housewife, with wine and challah bread and chicken soup, but he does not think about returning home, not yet. He sits, depleted, looking around the studio as though he has only just seen it for the first time. He catches sight of himself in the mirrors, first on one wall and then the next. He has spent a lifetime looking at himself in mirrors, but now, instead of his turnout or musculature or the angle of his head, it is his face that he notices. It is pinched, sagging, timeworn. Colorless. Even his brilliant eyes, blue and green, cannot salvage it. His shoulders sag and he sits hunched and humpbacked, something he has never, ever allowed himself to do—in front of another living soul, or even alone.

So he was right. The girl has been damaged by a man. How badly, he cannot say. Nor is he sure he wants to know. Why should he get involved in the sad, stale story of a woman half his age? Why, he asks himself, is he preoccupied with her at all? What about her makes him care? Still, he wonders if he has pushed too hard; some souls can take it, learn from it, but others are merely crushed. He has had dancers of all persuasions, seen them flourish or fail under his withering criticism. But he understands that what is good for a professional dancer may not be good for a fragile creature who has never, he sees clearly now, banished her demons to find fulfillment.

How can he tell her, without telling her, that he, too, was nearly crushed by a man? That his life took a turn, veered off to a new and less promising track, though as far as that is concerned he realizes one can never say which was better unless one has lived them both—and that is impossible. He has found success, he reasons, is recognized in his field, lauded even. And yet, this was not the path he had started out on. If only he had listened to the warnings, had stayed away from that performance in Berlin. And if in Berlin, if only he had not danced quite the way he did. But he was there. And he danced, spectacularly. So the rest unfolded as it had.

An image of himself suddenly crosses his mind. He was fourteen at the time, the war still three long years into the future, and he stood gazing into a mirror that threw back a reflection of himself and Valentina Ahmalitova at her elegant home in Warsaw. Teodor was not nervous in the least. In spite of her social position as wife of a Belgian diplomat, and her reputation as a former prima ballerina with the Ballets Russes, Madame Valentina was warm with him from the start. “Oh,” she exclaimed as she scrutinized his face just after he stepped into her home, “my first lover also had one green eye and one blue. I've always found that absolutely fascinating, and a sign of greatness.” In fact, he was testing her as much as she was testing him. He wanted to know what she knew, what she could teach him. He danced a little for her, a small, flashy routine, and she asked Teodor to do a few specific steps for her. And then they talked. Or at least Teodor did. He was so full of dance, so crammed full with ideas and thoughts and so appreciative of the fact that Madame Valentina understood much more than his last teacher had. He talked and talked, told her everything that was in his head about dance, and when he had finished Madame Valentina told him to report to her every day after school, that she would continue his training at no charge—she did not need money, she said, gesturing to the tall, arched windows of the magnificent studio that overlooked an English garden in the courtyard—but that Teodor would have to remain fully devoted to his art, would have to be willing to work very, very hard. She said she would give him some instruction but that mainly she would help him move what was in his head out into his body. They began the next afternoon.

“I danced for Diaghilev,” she told him with pride. “I partnered Nijinsky.” Teodor knew just barely enough about these legends of ballet to be impressed, but it was not until Madame showed him photographs, then pushed and pulled his body to emulate the great Nijinsky, that true comprehension began to awaken in him. “The arms,” she exclaimed, “look at their extraordinary lightness, Teodor, how they are suspended in air. Do not lift them from your shoulders; the power of your arms comes from your back.” At this point Madame would lift her own arms, gazing off to a far wall, oblivious to Teodor. When her gaze returned to him it often seemed as though she did not recall they were in the midst of a lesson, did not, in fact, recognize him for a long and confusing minute.

Often she would disappear into the library, reemerging with large and heavy art books filled with glossy reproductions. “Look, Teodor,” she would say, “look at Michaelangelo. Look at Raphael. This beautiful flow of lines, this grace, they are not achieved by avoiding strain, they are attained by
incorporating
the pain and struggle.” She would turn her full attention to Teodor, staring, gravely serious, into his eyes. “Do not run away, embrace the suffering.”

“No!” she would shout as he stood poised to dance, “not at all like that. You do not dance from your
legs
,” she would say scornfully, as if he had suggested they perform a polka. “You dance from
here
.” She grabbed his pelvis tight with both hands so close to his penis that he blushed furiously. Noticing his embarrassment she cocked her head at him, squinting an eye. “Beautiful boy, you cannot be shy about using your body. This, Nijinsky understood only too well,” and she was silent again, lost in a private reverie.

The months passed, and though Madame Valentina could still be provoked to outbursts, she clearly enjoyed Teodor's progress. He could tell she thought he danced well, very well, and she kept him for longer and longer hours in the studio. She worked on his hands, his face, his neck. Hours and hours on his toes, his heels. “Nijinsky did not press his weight on his big toe, he used his entire foot to grip the floor.” She called Teodor a Petersburg dancer, her highest compliment, as he perfected long, high, suspended leaps and fiery pirouettes.

On a spring Sunday, nearly a year after she had begun teaching him, Madame asked Teodor to bring his parents for tea. In the studio, alone with Madame, Teodor felt only the awed respect of pupil with teacher, but in society he knew she was an aristocrat, descended from a long line of White Russian nobility with connections to the royal family, and married to an international dignitary. He in turn took it upon himself to ensure his parents would appear in their finest clothing and behave with the best of manners. He badgered them for days, his instructions insufferable, until finally his father threatened to cancel the entire appointment.

That Sunday, little Margot deposited at Mrs. Zabrinski's, the Levins arrived precisely at the appointed hour. The butler greeted them and ushered them into the receiving room, a small, circular chamber of singularly sedate elegance. Madame entered immediately.

“My dear
famille
Levin, how good of you to come.” She spoke to them in her usual mix of French, Russian and Polish, which Teodor understood completely but which confused his parents terribly. “Please join me for tea and biscuits.”

Oskar and Rosa, cowed by her formidable presence and the resplendent room, nodded.

When they were comfortably seated and had been served by the maid, Madame placed her teacup on the low table in front of them and leaned back in her chair.

“Mr. Levin, Mrs. Levin, you must already know about your son's enormous talent, and I hope you are proud of him. Teodor has a rare gift and I am grateful for the chance to help him realize it.”

Rosa gazed at Teodor and smiled. Oskar thanked Madame for her time and trouble. “And please allow us to present you with this token of our gratitude for all you have done.”

Rosa started, late to Oskar's cue. She fished a parcel from her handbag and placed it on the low table in front of Madame. “We have heard from Teodor that you and your husband are collectors of clocks, and we hope this small addition will suit you.”

“
Simplement magnifique
,” Madame exclaimed when she had disengaged the gold satin bow and wrapping paper from the clock. “Bertrand will also be thrilled.”

A silence fell on the small group. Madame looked from Rosa to Oskar to Teodor, then back to the clock. “Ah, my dears, such a lovely gift in such ugly times. I have begun to worry so about what is facing us in Europe.” She stood and moved to the courtyard doors and spoke to the silent garden beyond. “I have clear memories of the revolution in my country. Precisely twenty years ago it was when my family lost everything we had not managed to spirit out of Russia or hide. My parents never recovered from the shock, and both died far too young from worry.” She turned to face the room. “What are you doing to prepare yourselves?” she asked. “What are you doing so as not to be caught unawares?”

Teodor and Rosa turned to Oskar, who was staring at Madame. No one stirred and no one spoke.

“You are Jews,” Madame said, “and surely you are aware of what is happening in Germany right now. I can vouch for the Poles, they like the Jews even less than the Germans. So what are you doing to protect yourselves?”

Oskar cleared his throat but did not speak.

“I see,” said Madame, as her gaze dropped to the floor.

She returned to her armchair and sat facing the Levin family.

“Then let me help you start. Get Teodor out of Poland. A dear friend from my Ballets Russes days is now teaching at the school of the Royal Danish Ballet. I would like to recommend Teodor for study there, both because he has the potential to become a star dancer and because the Danes treat their Jews far better than the Poles or the Germans, or most other Europeans. It will take a bit of wrangling, since the ballet school is open only to Danes, but my friend is quite resourceful and will surely manage to arrange matters. Teodor will be safe there, and free to develop his talent.” She stopped talking and watched the small family before her. “And I am willing to undertake the entire cost of his education.”

“Oh Madame, what an amazing, generous offer—”

“Yes, as my wife says, amazing and generous. But we cannot possibly accept such a large gift. We are already indebted to you for everything you have given Teodor but could not think of imposing …”

“Mr. Levin, I have no children. I lead a comfortable life. And I am an artist, a dancer who looks at your son and recognizes greatness. I do not wish to offend you by offering help, but you may well need your resources to reestablish yourselves abroad one day soon, and a ballet education might seem frightfully frivolous to you then. Teodor is fifteen, the only time life allows for taking chances and exploring the limits of what we can do. He will work hard, harder and more focused than he has ever done. He will learn about music and movement and he will learn even more about what he can and cannot accomplish in life. I beg you to give him this chance.”

Oskar shook his head slowly from side to side, thinking. Teodor sat in prudent, hopeful silence. Rosa interjected. “Perhaps we could talk about it at home?” she asked, looking first to her husband, then to Madame.

“Of course, dear. Discuss between yourselves. But I must be in touch with my friend in Copenhagen soon if we wish to enroll Teodor for the upcoming school year.”

“Thank you, Madame, thank you so much,” Rosa said excitedly. “We'll talk it over tonight.” She glanced at their gift clock on the table. It had cost them the equivalent of their maid's yearly wages, and she was now especially glad she had pushed Oskar to such extravagance. With a last look around she thanked Madame again and the family took its leave.

Months later, on the night before Teodor's departure, Rosa threw a grand party. Two brothers—a flautist and a violinist—were hired to accompany a neighbor, Mrs. Oestriker, on the piano. Oskar spent most of the day stringing colored lights across the salon, crisscrossing the wires and checking to see that all the bulbs lit up when plugged in. Rosa had devoted a week to baking her finest pastries, had spent a small fortune on exotic ingredients: coconut, butterscotch, white chocolate, dark rum. She pulled silver trays from every corner of the house and set Maria, the maid, to polishing them all, even twice and thrice, until their shine dazzled. On Saturday evening the trays were heavy with sweetmeats and Maria stood at attention in her starched uniform while Rosa and Oskar greeted the guests by the front door, she in an evening gown, a small string of pearls and diamonds around her neck and a tiny red rose tucked behind one ear, he in his most elegant suit, his shoes burnished to a black-mirrored glow. Rosa sparkled and laughed, she listened and chatted, and only once during the party did Teodor catch her glancing in his direction, a look of wistful resignation spread across her face like moonlight.

Madame Valentina stopped briefly at the party, en route to a diplomatic ball. She did not remove her stole, but chatted amiably with the hosts in the foyer. Before leaving she asked Teodor to step outside with her.

“There are still so many things to teach you, my young friend,” she said with a sigh. “And I fear I do not even know what they are. The Danes will teach you what they know to do well, the charming arm poses, the excellent stage manners, the fine passés and the superb pantomime. But this I must remind you: dance, always, with intelligence, by making your body interesting to look at whenever you are being watched. I'm not talking about a particular gesture or the angle of a line, the details we've spent so much time on. I'm talking about the whole of you, your body as a whole. Whatever anyone does to your style, remember to dance with intelligence, with your body and your mind and your soul. I know you can do this, Teodor. I know you will.” She cradled his face in her gloved hands and descended to the car. She did not look up at Teodor as the chauffeur closed the door behind her and drove off.