Strip Read online

  Strip

  Copyright © Andrew Binks, 2013.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, www.accesscopyright.ca, [email protected].

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  Nightwood Editions acknowledges financial support from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publisher’s Tax Credit.

  Typesetting & Cover Design: Carleton Wilson

  Cover photograph: Graham Davies

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Binks, Andrew, 1958–, author

  Strip / Andrew Binks.

  ISBN 978-0-88971-290-4 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-0-88971-302-4 (ebook)

  I. Title.

  PS8603.I56S87 2013 C813’.6 C2013-903131-6

  For Bernard and Hugo

  Mais tu restes muette, impassible, et, trop fière,

  Tu te plais à me voir, sombre et désespéré,

  Errer dans mon amour comme en un cimietière!

  —Émile Nelligan (1879–1941)

  from “Amour immaculé”

  One

  A dancer’s fingertips—etched with a language that is no longer decipherable—tickle space, trace its volume, press, pull, contract, constrict, until they touch, grasp, hold and balance, shift what is on and off balance. They retreat, release, flick, dab. At careless times they graze. Graze nipples. Trace filaments across the skin. They touch the sternum and search for the heart.

  A slammed door echoes up this stairwell from the floors below. Am I naked underneath this bedsheet? Is there bleeding? Blood. Reassuring. It means I still have a heart. They say it’s in our blood, this new disease. So far, they say, hundreds have died because of it. And my balls ache. My lip throbs. I taste the warm blood and my saliva mixed with something salty. There must be tears; I can barely see. There must be tears. If I had something in my stomach I would vomit. I remember Kent said our New Year’s resolution was to make 1983 our year. “Here’s to you and me in ’83,” he said. Helluva year it’s turning out to be.

  Everyone has a Daniel, and, with luck, you’ll have him early on, to break your heart to pieces and then get over it. Never make the same stupid goddamned mistake again. Funny how you can talk yourself into thinking the road less travelled will be a noble trip. I tripped on the road less travelled.

  I haven’t thought much about him recently, not his sharp chin or his Adam’s apple with the tiny cleft of stray whiskers that his razor couldn’t reach, or his long nose extending down from his forehead, making him look like the distant relative of the black and white television test-pattern Indian. He was superb and perfect, and he knew it. Someday someone might be inspired to stage a full-length ballet about nothing more than his eyebrows.

  In this stairwell, in this light, Daniel is no more than a flicker. Through him I have come to understand lust, désir. Through Kent—love, amour. Lust singes the hairs on your hand, and can just as easily bite them with frost. Lust can kill quickly. Love tears your world asunder, then leaves you to die on the battlefield. But if I have to blame anyone (that is, anyone other than myself) I would start with Daniel. I could blame Kharkov, too, who brought in Daniel as a guest répétiteur at the end of our tour.

  Montreal, our last stop on the homestretch of our first national tour as a big-league company. And 1982 was the Company’s year; we premiered the full-length Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet. We were exhausted and bloated from too much road food. The ballerinas were thick around their middles—even the anorexics were struggling—from endless health muffins and Caesar salads with house dressing hold-the-croutons-in-the-name-of-the-diet, and late-night post-performance carrot cake, or the great fatigue fighter, chocolate, in its many evil forms. Cigarettes were no longer keeping the addicts thin. We ignored our colds and our injuries—women taped their toes, wrapped their ankles, and rinsed the blood from their shoes. Men danced through pulled groins, shin splints and torn Achilles tendons. We were sick from drafty buses, drafty hotel rooms, drafty rehearsal halls and each other. A few sought refuge in chamomile tea, steamy showers and naps. In the midst of it all I, too, needed a pick-me-up.

  This malaise, this touring burnout didn’t stop me, or anyone else from trying to impress the arrogant fuck, Daniel Tremaine, Montreal’s ballet wunderkind, the teacher and choreographer you went to if you wanted to win a medal at a ballet competition. Deep in Place des Arts in the bright rehearsal hall, cavernous ceilings, mirrors for miles, Kharkov announced, “Monsieur Daniel Tremaine will be giving us company class while we are here in Montreal.” Giving us? (Kharkov only took class in December when he faked his way through Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker. Even then he usually just fumbled his way through barre.) Kharkov was nervous about impressing Montreal. Daniel would be his salvation. I looked around the studio. Some dropped their heads, pretending to limber their necks, others caught my eye. Some rewrapped their warm-up gear, leg warmers and sweaters, placing them strategically to hide the extra pounds.

  Daniel Tremaine, the legend. People had compared him to Nijinsky, said he was built more like a bird than a human. But it didn’t stop his very ethereal body from betraying him; as he rehearsed an understudy for Montreal’s Conservatoire’s production of Swan Lake in Glasgow, he tore his Achilles, badly. Therapy went well, but he fell on some stairs when wearing the cast, and ripped the healing, the muscle and the skin, even worse than the original injury. His dancing career went kaput, but it hasn’t stopped anybody from wanting a piece of his greatness.

  I tried to take it in stride as Daniel stooped—all six-foot-three of him—the top of his head, his thinning crown, next to my crotch, correcting my line and adjusting my instep. Oh sure, I have been nervous to the core with each new coach, teacher and choreographer, but when he touched me that first time, it hit me like the February wind at the corner of Portage and Main; my breath was shallow, my heart frappéd inside my rib cage, my ears rang and my vision went dim. I squeezed the barre, inhaled and fought a sudden numbness in my thighs. Like I said, it is the kind of attraction that will eventually destroy you.

  He ignored me the rest of the class, thank God, but I couldn’t stop looking at those big hands that had touched me, the broad feet that had walked in my direction, the same feet that had danced all the great roles at so young an age on international stages, and at the way he flicked his famous wrists as he dreamily explained something into the air. I suppose that blasé, unimpressed look was how he got dancers to push themselves; the dancer’s ego is a frail and determined thing.

  After class, in the bright hallway, while the others wandered ahead, I sensed him behind me and though I wanted to flee, something inside shouted, Stop for God’s sakes! Linger! And I listened. Daniel Tremaine stopped me with a touch to my elbow. “You have a nice line,” he told me, then he dropped his voice, “but the Company is destroying your technique and your body.” Then he put his hand on my shoulder, looked into my eyes and smiled, daring me to be shocked, “You ’ave a nice ass,” he said.

  It seems my heart, as a muscle—pounding out beats and measures—is hardwired to that muscle between my legs. I had never felt so obvious. But I had never met a Daniel Tremaine. “Thank you.”

  “Would you like some private c
oaching?” But I couldn’t speak. “I mean here, after class?”

  Was I the only one who noticed the upper right corner of his mouth twist when he spoke English, and how it was met by a twitching at the corner of his right eye—as if it was painful to speak?

  The rest of the day I wandered the tight neighbourhoods of the plateau, narrow streets of walk-ups pressed in on top of each other, iron stairways extending to the street, all punctuated by small cafés. But any place I came across seemed empty unless I could imagine myself there with him. My mind dipped in and out of what a professional coaching session with this man would involve—Daniel Tremaine having his way, a million different ways, with me. Why me? Second soloist? And only then, to fill the ranks.

  After class the next morning, I lingered while he talked to his fawning fans—mostly Company members who would have killed for a coaching session—and a few notables such as the mayor and dance critics who were observing class. Daniel was a national treasure for Montreal. I continued to stretch until the room thinned out.

  “Why don’t we start with some jumps; I can see you are a jumper.” This was true, although being a good jumper means you have to work on the weaknesses, and it forced me to perfect my turns. So I started with simple changements, to get some real height and momentum—and to hopefully impress. He stood close and calmly placed his hands on my shoulders, pressing against my lift, a logical action, but then he told me to stop. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Changements?”

  “Your fifth position is forced.”

  “I’ve always done it that way.”

  “How are your knees?”

  “Tender, but…” One of Martha Graham’s principal dancers told us we would never have a day without pain until we stop dancing. I had lumped all of my aches and pains under this noble disclaimer.

  “You’re forcing your fifth.”

  “The Company likes it that way.”

  “Why?”

  I paused.

  “See, you have no idea. Do you think people in the audience are going to notice? No, of course not. It hurts me to watch. I mean, your jump is good enough to distract you or anyone else from your bad technique. Your knees must stay over your metatarsals. Does that not make sense?”

  I just stared at him. Of course he was right but it’s like smoking, you know it’s bad for you, but…

  “Are you listening to me? Stop staring. Your knees are made to bend forward, not sideways. Turnout originates from the hip. Why are you forcing your fifth? Jump, in first, and do not force it.”

  As I jumped he walked around me, placing his hand on my lower back, on my stomach, on my upper chest. “How does that feel?”

  I could have really told him, but all I said was, “Off balance.”

  “Of course. The rest of you will have to get used to doing it properly, not overcompensating. Soon it will be easy. Soon you’ll understand a sauté.”

  We worked on several sequences from corner to corner, a bit of “Bluebird” from Sleeping Beauty, but to do it properly would be another story. Daniel walked beside me as I moved, occasionally taking my hands and throwing them skyward. “Think of your landings. Think of the in-between.” But soon my legs turned to rubber. Why the hell were we doing a variation no one would ever give me a shot at?

  “I want you to think of all of this tonight, when you sleep. I want you to see your body rearranging itself, changing the foundations, shifting to its core. But don’t be mistaken, this won’t happen overnight.”

  I left Place des Arts and vowed to keep my mouth shut as far as Daniel Tremaine was concerned. I had a hot bath, a nap, strong tea and an early dinner and went for Company warm-up. All I could think about was his firm touch. I worried that my dancing would be sloppy, but I was light. I was nimble. I was fuelled by something unexpected. The evening flew.

  The next day, in class I became aware of others. They must have known about the coaching. I stayed at the back.

  After, I lingered again, and when the groupies had dissipated Daniel approached me. He rolled his eyes at the departing stragglers. “Did you think about what I told you?”

  I nodded, but my voice caught in my throat.

  “Good. Let’s learn a bit of Le Spectre de la Rose,” something the Company was planning as part of next season. Again, a long shot for me, or was it? He walked me through the first bit, showed me the choreography, miming everything on a small scale as if having a conversation with himself, complete with arm movements. Soon I was flying across the studio. We worked mostly on the entrance and the grand jeté, and the grand jeté en tournant, but he seemed more concerned with my arms. Then he took hold of my waist on each jump, lifting me beyond what I was capable of. As I focused on the ceiling I’m sure he was focused right bang on my crotch. This required the utmost concentration.

  Finally, I came to rest on terra firma. I searched his expression to decipher what he thought of my jumps. But I was preoccupied with the why of this. Why was he coaching me? Had Kharkov requested it? Was I due for another promotion? Or was it rather what I suspected—did he have, as my friend Rachelle liked to say, his compass pointing in my direction? I couldn’t tell.

  “Your legs are now throwing your arms off. You have to take risks now, and the arms have to go higher. Everything has to go up. Do you understand? You might as well be doing this with a walker. And for God’s sake, do something with your eyes; they’re absolutely blank. Look a little like you are enjoying it.” But I was terrified. And I wanted so much to enjoy it. To be coached by one of Canada’s great teachers, to imagine that one day “Bluebird” and Le Spectre de la Rose could be mine, was too much.

  “My back?”

  “Your everything.”

  I didn’t have the strength for what he wanted.

  “It will take a while to get your landings back. That’s all. You’ve lost your centre of gravity. Now go and change. I’ll wait.”

  I couldn’t imagine what he would wait for. My blank stare? My vapid smile? My rotten jumps? These two days had presented the opportunity of a lifetime. He could have been working with the principals.

  I washed layers of sweat, savoured the coolness of the water. I had a few hours to recover before our warm-up and performance. And I was keeping Daniel Tremaine waiting.

  I stepped out of the shower, a little less defeated, taking a solitary moment to survey my naked form in the mirror—something less likely to be criticized. There, in the mirror’s reflection, stood Daniel Tremaine. From his mouth tumbled the words, “Would you like to go for a coffee?” Dancer’s language for everything from a mini-debrief to mini-therapy to gossip to foreplay. “Tomorrow?”

  Wasn’t there a chorus line of principals cuing up for him? All I had to offer was me, second soloist. Every guy, even the straight ones, and all the women in the studio followed my eye line the next morning. It was impossible and against the laws of the universe: Daniel and John. They must have laughed, but I was grinning behind that blank stare. Romeo and Juliet were nothing compared to this.

  But, whatever else he may have been, Daniel Tremaine was a perfectionist, and did give two shits about my technique. I still believe that. No man had ever been as direct. When we went for that coffee on rue Saint-Denis (there are some perks to being a professional dancer: you have time off at odd hours of the day; you feel physical one hundred percent of the time; you can sit in a Montreal café with the famous Daniel Tremaine while the world buzzes around you; and you can dream), he told me more, in his killer kind of way. “If you want any kind of life as a dancer you must pay attention. You started late?”

  “I swam competitively until about five years ago.”

  “So you’re twenty?”

  “No. I’m going on twenty-two. Swimming was boring.”

  “The dancer’s friend.”

  “That’s true.” It had made me supple and strong, but I n
eeded more than endless hours of lengths at 5:30 a.m., five mornings a week, and in Edmonton winters. “But when I started dancing…”

  “It’s no use starting late only to finish early. So they’ve given you a job after five years of this.”

  “A bit longer, I danced and swam…”

  “Why second soloist?”

  “I was next in line.”

  “You should be further along. You get paid a little more than corps. So what? If you stay on this path you’ll be in a wheelchair by the time you are thirty, teaching little girls to point their toes for the rest of your life. You obviously have a gift. Don’t abuse it.” These were the first positive words I’d heard him say. “And don’t be arrogant. They always need males, especially in the Company. The prairies are a wasteland. Males don’t last there.”

  “They’re born there.”

  “The prairies are too limiting, too Russian. Maybe Vaganova will make you strong, but your muscles will bulge and your joints will turn to putty.”

  I bit my lip, while he sneered. “You’ll be bulky with t’ighs like the Winnipeg football team. What do you call them?”

  “The Blue Bombers.”

  “The Blue Bombers—there’ll be no difference, in their white tights and dance belts.”

  “Jockstraps.”

  The right corner of his mouth reached the far corner of his eye, as he stifled a laugh. “You must know tu es adorable.” He flicked at a bag of sugar, “But your knees, mon ami, won’t last.”

  “You’re telling me to give up on second soloist?”

  “The Company repertoire is tired and boring. Romeo and Juliet is their newest ballet in what, thirty years?

  “The Company’s expanding.”

  “Not if they want to tour.”