Long hours pass and his euphoria abates. He is being pulled down, the comforter weighs on him like a current of rushing water. He succumbs, finally, does not fight; he closes his eyes and lets himself slip beneath the surface of consciousness to a different kind of wakefulness. He is focused and ready for something, and even before that something happens he knows what it will be and so he settles back to enjoy, at long last, his dance.
He has just lowered Kirsten to the floor, the orchestra is making the transition from their duet music to his solo, and Teodor makes his way gracefully across the grand stage to stand in position. He can see everything now, all those details that have escaped him for the seven decades since he actually danced it at the Berlin Staatsoper: he sees the Danish ballet master in the wings; he sees the grand chandelier, the spotlights, the gold filigree on the balcony seats; he sees the festive audience, bright with the news of war and redemption, even picks out Freddy in the crowd. Yes, there he is, in a first-tier balcony seat, the closest one to the stage, next to him a pretty young man, really a boy, looking peeved.
As he stands in that great, long moment of silence before pivoting out to the left, Teodor makes his decision. It is born from the Nazi officer’s announcement about Germany having attacked Poland that very day, and from the no jews signs on the Unter den Linden, and the looks and comments in the Adlon Hotel and maybe one hundred other resentments large and small tied in a bundle and thrown in with that other heavy bundle, the will and the desire to become a great dancer, the greatest; and since there are no bundles at all to tip the scales in the other direction, well, no decision really needed to be made; it is a fait accompli.
Yes, here it is at last, the juxtaposition of his Russian training on his acquired Danish style, the change from low leaps to high, dazzling ones, from single, slow pirouettes to frenzied turns, dozens of them. Take that! his body shouts. You are not superior, you are not wiser or stronger than we are, I’ll show you what perfection is! Yes, he can see it now, feel every move exactly as he performed it; and more, as if detached he can see their faces, individually, following him in awe as he explodes across the stage. The woman in the third row, her hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes. The man on an aisle practically leaping from his seat in excitement. And Freddy, gripping the railing, perfectly still and watching with a crazed intensity. Yes, here it all is, the dance that shot his life in a new direction, up to the perfect triple tour en l’air that ends without so much as a quiver.
And with the roar of ecstatic applause in his ears, Teodor Levin leaves the stage forever.