I Was a Dancer by Jacques D'Amboise

Author:Jacques D'Amboise
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307595232
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-01T10:00:00+00:00

A bevy of ballerinas from NYCB and the Hamburg Ballet streamed in and out of my hospital room over the next days. Two teenage stunners from the Hamburg Ballet, Gaby Holtz and Dörte Rüter (think Miss Teen Universe, only better), informed me, with giggles, “On our way to class every morning, we walk by the spot where it happened. The blood’s still there!”

On leaving my bedside on September 5, Mel, the instigator, said he wanted Vicky and me to file a lawsuit against the city of Hamburg and the streetcar company, for assault.

Ten days after impact (September 9), the doctors let me out for a short walk. Instead I cabbed to the spot and back. Gaby and Dörte were right: almost a yard in diameter, a thick, Rorschach-like stain flourished, blackening the sidewalk. I fled back to my hospital bed.

About two weeks after Vicky had her teeth knocked out, September 14, she got new ones, and had healed enough to rejoin the company, then performing in Zurich.

On October 6, the company was scheduled to leave from Vienna for Moscow. Would I be healed enough to make the plane to Russia?? It was either be on that plane or go home. An old German friend, Max Niehaus, visited my bedside every day, and arranged for me to come to his apartment in Munich to convalesce. “It’s not so far from Vienna,” he assured me.

I was released on September 15 from the hospital, and after feasting at an auf Wiedersehen party with Gaby and Dörte, I grabbed a plane to Munich and ate everything offered on the flight. Meeting me on arrival, Max was dancing like a little boy with a new toy. Back at his apartment, I slurped down a repast he’d prepared that was big enough for six.

Max worshipped Balanchine. I met Max in Munich in 1953. A fan and a friend, he seemed ancient to me. Stooped, with a few wisps of white hair, rheumy eyes behind thick glasses, he had no chin. His little, pursed mouth perpetually seemed to have just sucked a lemon. When speaking, he commenced with a whining hum, “Hmmmmmm wie geht’s, Jacques?” His English accent was classic German Jew from the Borscht belt (though he wasn’t Jewish). He spoke several languages—French, Italian, Spanish, and a smattering of Greek. As were many Germans, he was also conversant in Dutch and Danish. In all his languages, he always hummed.

Max was a sophisticate whose knowledge and interests seemed to include everything there is—economics, political science, literature, and art. His interests were global. “Hmmmmmm, Jacques. You must go to Crete, hmmmmmm. When there, I learned all about art and life.” A liberal and virulently antireligious, he complained, “The nuns may have saved me from Hitler. They hid me in a convent, but made me go to Vespers, kneel, and say the Rosary at four o’clock in the morning.” He adored Voltaire and Nietzsche, but his crowning passion was dance—from ancient to avant-garde—and ballet in particular. Max used his

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