"Kathe Koja - Pas de Deux" - читать интересную книгу автора (Koja Kathe)

dark skin, very dark eyes; severe, like a young Martha Graham. "The students we
have a full class load n o w "
"How many?" Fifty.
Fifty dancers, all much younger than she, all fierce, committed, ambitious. Toe
shoes and a shower, the smell of hand cream, the smell of warm bodies: glossy
floors and mirrors, mirrors everywhere, the harder gloss of the barre and no, a voice
like Adele's in her head, you cannot do this: "No," she said, rising, pushing out of
the chair so it almost tipped, so she almost fell. "No, I can't, I can't teach a class
right now."
"It's not a teaching position," sternly, "it's an assistant's "
Keep the shower room clean, keep the records, help them warm up, watch them
dance, no, oh no. "Oh no," as she walked home, hands at her sides, what were you
in for? Life: a lifer. Edward's number was still in her book, still written in black ink.
She could not keep both the studio and the flat: the futon, the dance magazines, her
unconnected telephone all moved downstairs, shoved in a corner, away from the
barre. Sometimes the toilet didn't flush. The young men never seemed to mind.
Adele's book lay beneath her pillow, Balanchine's face turned down like an
unwanted jack, prince of hearts, king of staves: and upturned black-and-white Adele,
pinched nose and constant stare, our lady of perpetual motion.


"You look awful," Edward said, stern as the young woman had been, there
behind her desk: there in the restaurant, staring at her. "Did you know that?
Completely haggard."
"Money," she said. "I need to borrow some money."
"You're in no position to pay it back."
"No," she said. "I'm not. Not now. But when I "
"You must be crazy," he said and ordered for them both, cream of leek and
tarragon soup, some kind of fish. White wine. The server looked at her strangely;
Adele could be heard to laugh, a little laugh inhuman, clockwork wound the wrong
way. "Where are you living now, in a Dumpster?"
She would not say; she would not show him. He wanted to fuck, afterward, after
dinner but she wouldn't do that either, arms crossed and mute and "Where's all this
from, anyway?" pushing back at the sheets, seemingly serene, not disappointed; his
erection looked smaller somehow, fat but weak like a toothless snake, like a worm.
The rooms were so warm, the bedroom as hot as a beating heart; the big bed still
looked like a galleon, sheets and hangings cherry red and "All this devotion," he
said. "Suffering for your art. You never gave much of a shit about ballet, about
dance when I knew you."
That's not true but she didn't say it, how explain anything to him? and ballet of
course brought up Adele: "You've never even read her book on Balanchine,"
scratching his testicles. "If you cared about dance at all, you would."
He was always a fool, advised Adele: find your prince and "I need the money
now," she said. "Tonight," and to her surprise he gave it to her, right then, in cash;
how rich he must be, to give so much so casually. Putting it into her hands, closing
her fingers around it and "Now suck me," he said. Standing there naked, his cock
begun at last to stir. "That's right, be a good girl, suck me off."
She said nothing.
"Or I'll take the money back."
The bills were warm, warm as the room around her, warm as his hand around her