Exodus

At each performance of the “Nutcracker” here in America, I have one of the best seats in the house: off stage at stage left. I get to watch the dancers float in from off stage and then back off stage again. I get to watch the prince and Clara as they sit in their throne-like carriage. I get to watch the different curtains rise and fall, slide across the stage and back again. I get to watch the lights above the stage change colors to match the mood of each scene. It is always magical and I never get bored of it. I think only performing back in Moscow could possibly surpass it.

So why am I a backup dancer during the Bolshoi Ballet's tour of theaters and opera houses in America this season? Because sometimes it is nice to have a quiet and peaceful time, where I do not have to worry about having to be at every rehearsal. I can just enjoy what I see and hear. And, in the process, I get to visit such beautiful opera houses and theaters. A far better reward sometimes than the adoration of a happy audience.

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Here at the Metropolitan Opera House at the Lincoln Center in New York City, on a weekend afternoon, I watched the rehearsal flow from one scene to another. Sometimes a scene was repeated, to try to improve something that wasn't quite right in the director's eyes. Vasili Mikhailovitch isn't the easiest director to perform for, but he knows how to get the best out of his dancers.

“All right,” he calls. “Break for lunch. Be back on stage in thirty.”

The dancers divide up, some going to stage right, some going to stage left. As they pass by me, most of them smile and ask “How was it?” and I answer, “Beautiful. Just beautiful.” The rest ignore me, as if my being a backup dancer were something shameful and not worthy of their attention. What they forget, though, is that if at any time any of the dancers can't perform, the backup dancers have to take their place. Including the part of Clara.

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I was the substitute Clara last season when we performed at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. The lead dancer had a freak injury, landing at the wrong angle and injuring her left ankle. I could only imagine the pain she felt, but I didn't have to imagine the heartbroken look on her face as she was helped off stage. I was her primary understudy that season. I gave her a hug, which she seemed to appreciate. As I was already dressed as she was, when the director gestured to me, I quickly took her place. At the end of the performance, I helped her to return to the stage and quietly suggested she put most of her weight on me instead of on her good foot. We both curtsied as the audience stood and applauded.

Afterward, back in the dressing room, Tatyana laid on a couch, her leg and injured ankle lifted and placed on a pillow. Sitting on a chair nearby, I could see the tears on her cheeks.

“Of all the lousy luck,” she told me. “Just a few more scenes to go.”

“At least it is not broken, Tatyana,” I said. “I have heard that sprains heal faster than breaks.”

“And then I will need to get my left foot back in shape,” she said. “At least we are near the end of the tour. I will not have to miss as many performances as I would have had it happened back in Chicago or Washington, D.C.”

I looked down at my hands as they lay in my lap.

“What?” she asked. “You should be happy, Marga. You get to take my place instead of just standing at stage left and watching everything.”

“Actually I was enjoying being a backup,” I said. “There is less attention on you, fewer demands made of you. On the days when I'm not needed at rehearsal, I take the time to wander around whichever city we are in. Enjoying the Christmas lights. Listening to carolers. Window-shopping. It is so different here in America compared to Christmas back in Russia.”

“Maybe this will show the director what you're really made of,” Tatyana said. “I keep telling him and I am not sure that he believes me. He just says each time, 'She will never be like you. You are the star. You are one of the main reasons they come to see the performances.' You should have seen the look on his face after I fell.”

“I can imagine,” I said with a sigh. “He was probably thinking: 'This is a disaster. Now I will have to depend on Marga. Why have you done this to me, Tatyana? Why?' ”

“Vasili will survive,” she said. “His temper will cool again. Just dance like I have always seen you dance and he will happy.”

“I wish I had your level of confidence,” I said. “And I wish he would not call me that.”

“In his eyes, you will always be an ugly duckling,” she said. “But I have seen the swan in you. Not just in the 'Nutcracker', but also in 'Swan Lake' and 'Sleeping Beauty'. You just need to believe in yourself.”

I shrugged. “We need to get changed into our street clothes. I will help you get back to our hotel room.”

“You have always been so kind to me,” she said. “Like the sister I never had.”

“That is what friends are for,” I said. “Spasiba for being mine.”

“Na zdarovye,” she said. “Please do not ever change, Marga.”

“Likewise, Tatyana,” I said.

Thankfully it had just been a sprain for Tatyana last season, and not a break. A break can often end a dancer's career. Like a racehorse with a broken leg. You can recover from it, but the place where the break happened will never be as strong as it was before. The directors know this and won't dare risk it. Not even Vasili will.

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The lunch break ended and Tatyana and the rest of the dancers were back on stage. The magic they evoked was breathtaking. The music swirled around them and supported them, giving them the wings they needed to fly with, their slippers barely touching the stage.

After the rehearsal ends, Tatyana and I decided to visit Times Square. It was snowing outside now and we both loved the bright lights and crowds that made Times Square so special.

“If only we could be here on New Year's Eve,” Tatyana said. “We would in the middle of a huge crowd, chanting the countdown as the big ball of light descends, and then everyone cheers as the new year begins.”

“Maybe next year,” I suggested.

“You are quitting the Bolshoi?” she asked. “You really intend to? It is not just an idle threat?”

“I mean it,” I said. “I wanted to celebrate with one more season.”

“But you are still young,” she said.

I shook my head. “I am older than you are. By several years. I remember the day when you auditioned. You were so afraid that you would not be accepted. But I convinced Vasili that he would gain with a dancer like you. You had the grace and beauty I had never had. When you were made the primary dancer, I was so proud of you.”

“Even if it meant that you were relegated to being a backup,” Tatyana said.

“A small price to pay,” I said. “No ballerina dances forever. Our careers, even without an injury to end them prematurely, rarely last beyond the age of thirty. Maybe some continue on as choreographers or directors. But for the rest of us, it is the experience of dancing on stage that draws us, that makes us stay for as long as possible. My time with the Bolshoi would have come to an end soon enough. I did not want to wait until my performances grew worse and worse. I wanted to leave on a high note. And I fully intend to.”

We parted around a group of tourists watching a clown juggling and making jokes. In one of the nearby stores, we could see a group of children and their parents lined up to see Santa Claus (or St. Nikolai, as we call him in Russia).

It brought back memories of when I was a little girl. Before I went to ballet school. When I thought that I would be just another girl in Moscow. But my parents had seen me when I had improvised dances to the classical music on Radio Moscow. They had seen what I might be capable of long before I saw it myself. I had wanted to be a writer or a painter or a scientist. I did not think that I would spend the next twenty years as a ballerina.

“Marga?” Tatyana asked, bringing me back to the present.

I blinked. “Sorry. I was woolgathering. What did you say?”

“I asked if you were hungry,” she said. “We could find a place that serves New York Style pizza.”

“Sounds delicious,” I said. “Somehow pizza just does not taste as good back home.”

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We found a small pizza restaurant about two blocks away from Times Square. It was crowded, but there were still a few tables available. The pizza slices seemed absurdly large, but they were hot and delicious. What they called a large pizza here would seem huge back in Moscow.

“What do you think you might do after you retire?” Tatyana asked, after taking a sip of her Coke.

“Maybe go to university,” I said, “and learn the things I never got to learn.”

“Such as?” she asked.

“Writing, painting, and science, to name a few,” I said.

“Maybe you could combine them,” she suggested. “Write science fiction stories and then illustrate them yourself.”

“Would you read them if I did?” I asked.

Tatyana nodded.

“And you are not just saying that because we are best friends?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Do you think I would be permitted to, though?” I asked. “Moscow is not America, after all. The rules are quite different. Even after the fall of the Soviet Union. One would almost think that our president is doing his best to return our country to what it was before 1991.”

“He has not been an ardent supporter of glasnost or perestroika,” she said.

I snorted. “That is putting it quite mildly.”

“You might have to defect while we are here in America,” Tatyana went on.

I glanced at her. “Do you think I would be permitted asylum here?”

She shrugged. “It is possible. But you would have to ask the right people and see what they say.”

“The right people,” I repeated. “You mean the ones at the consulates and embassies.”

“Among others,” she said.

“Perhaps you could help me?” I asked.

Tatyana looked hesitant. “I am not sure that that would be a safe course of action. Especially now.” She nodded at a pair of men who had just entered the restaurant. They scanned the faces seated at the tables, then went to order their food and drink. She lowered her voice. “I do not think that those two are here to sight-see.”

I lowered my voice as well. “We did not speak of coming here when we were at the opera house. How could they possibly know that we would choose this restaurant instead of all the others in Manhattan?”

“As the KGB and GRU did, no doubt they have means of tracking people when necessary,” she said softly. “Perhaps they have had help from American agents in this city.”

The two men received their food and drink, then sat down two tables away from us, but closer to the restaurant's front doorway. They spoke quietly with each other, sometimes glancing in our direction.

“I have no desire to be poisoned,” I said softly.

“Nor do I,” Tatyana said softly. “Perhaps there is a back door out of this place.”

I stretched, and spoke at a normal volume, “I need to use the ladies room. What about you?”

She nodded. “I think I see where one is. Over there.” She gestured. As we had expected, her gesture was noticed.

We stood up and, with Tatyana in the lead, we headed for the ladies room. In the corner of my eye, I thought I could see the two men stand up and follow us at a discreet distance. Several employees came out of the kitchen as we passed it, hiding us from view.

“Now,” Tatyana whispered, and we broke into a run, passing the ladies room and heading down a hallway with old framed photos on the walls.

At the end of the hallway was an exit door. We tested the latch that unlocked the door. No alarm sounded. Tatyana pushed it open and I followed her outside.

We stood at the side of an alley perpendicular to ourselves. I spotted a metal rod and together Tatyana and I slid it into place, keeping the door from being opened from the inside. Vehicles passed both ends of the alley. Then one black sedan stopped at one end. Men exited from the sedan and headed towards us. The other end was still open, but for how long?

Knocking trash cans and whatever else we saw on the ground behind us, we ran down the alley away from the men. They increased their speed. One of them called to us, demanding that we stop. In Russian, though, not English.

We reached the open end of the alley. A sedan pulled up. Not black this time, but gray. I recognized it as Vasili's.

He quickly rolled down the driver's side window. “Get in! If you value your lives, get in! And keep your heads down!”

Tatyana got in the back first, followed by me. I shut the door behind me and we ducked our heads as low as possible.

From our position, we couldn't see if our pursuers had reached this end of the alley or not. Vasili didn't wait to see. He stepped on the gas pedal and the sedan joined the traffic on the street.

“How did you know where to find us?” I asked Vasili.

“Several Russian agents arrived soon after you both left the opera house,” he explained. “Asking about you both. I said I knew nothing of your plans. You could be anywhere in the city. Or perhaps you had gone back to the hotel. They complained about my lack of willingness to help, but instead of threatening me, as I had expected, they hurried back outside. I followed them and saw two sedans, both black. They split up, half in one sedan, half in the other. I ran for my sedan and followed them. They did not seem too concerned about pursuit, but they seemed to have some ideas about where you might have gone. Because when they reached Times Square, one continued across the square, while the other took a side street and disappeared from view. I followed the first one, and turned right when it did. I saw the other sedan park near a pizza restaurant and the men exited it and headed for the restaurant. The first sedan drove past the restaurant and parked at one end of an alley behind it. They were planning to trap you both, one way or the other. I decided to head for the other end of the alley, to keep them from blocking it as well. Then I saw you both running out of the alley.”

Vasili headed north through Manhattan as he spoke.

“But what would make them suddenly suspicious of us?” Tatyana asked. “We did nothing suspicious.”

“You do not know, then,” he said.

“About what?” she asked.

We passed a tall stone wall that went for many blocks. It reminded me of the Kremlin wall in Moscow, only this wall was grey, not red. What lay behind this wall, though? And why was Vasili putting himself at risk for our sake?

“Your father was found dead an hour ago, Tatyana,” he said. “It is possible that he was poisoned. This has not been proven yet, though.”

“How did you hear about it?” she asked.

“Because your mother called me soon after,” he said. “She was very worried about your safety.”

“Where did she call from?” she asked.

“She did not say,” Vasili said. “The call was very short. Maybe one minute, or two minutes at most. She said she would call back if she could. If she could not, I was to assume that either she could not safely do so, or that she was also dead.”

Though Tatyana and I had been best friends since she joined the Bolshoi Ballet, I confess that I had learned very little about her family. She almost never spoke about her parents and I had always respected that.

“We cannot go to either airport,” Vasili went on. “They would be watching every flight leaving from them. However, they might not be watching the train station. The train station is crowded, like many subway stations in Moscow. We might be able to hide among the crowds.”

“You cannot come with us,” Tatyana told him. “It is not safe. In any case, you must continue the rehearsals.”

“I asked Darya to take over for me,” he said. “She did not argue; she just nodded.”

“You did say you wanted to retire,” Tatyana reminded me.

“But not like this,” I said.