Dancing in the Light (26 page)

Vassy loved his wild island. He led me along the jagged cliffs overlooking the churning waters beneath. He took his camera everywhere. And I took my Polaroid. He instructed me in light exposures, framing, and attitudes to assume in front of the camera. He was alternately delighted and harsh depending on the moods that seemed to surge through him.

Vassy jogged every morning. He seemed to need the insistent pain of runner’s strain in order to feel the reward of the rest of the day. Sometimes when he jogged, I would run with him so we could discuss whatever was interesting us at the moment. I would go as far as I could, then stop and walk fast, whereupon Vassy would jog in circles around me so we could continue talking. For a while there I thought
maybe he was training for some secret Olympics. But no, he really needed some kind of basic regimen to allow himself the reckless wonder of what he was feeling.

We walked and ran and talked through island fields of wheat, barley, and flowers. He even jogged in the muddy rain one morning.

Vassy was more and more certain that
Doctor’s Wife
would make a good film. I loved to watch him contemplate aloud the visual images he wished to achieve. His eyes were double cameras. They registered multidimensional images in one flash. And he
never
forgot a face. He never missed much of anything that went on around him. But he didn’t really perceive the subtleties and emotional depth in people around him unless it was a feeling he himself could identify with. Either that, or he couldn’t afford to heap more emotional entrées on his plate than were already there.

Eventually Vassy and I returned to Paris and our small cell. He arranged for me to see more of his films. He tried to translate the French subtitles and give me a quick rundown on the Russian nuances, but I found myself becoming more and more frustrated because I was realizing that a great deal of his artistic motivation had to do with rather complex intellectual symbolism. He wrote and directed his pictures, and, given the Soviet restrictions, most of them made a deep spiritual point. I couldn’t decipher the difference, though, between what he regarded as spiritual and what he regarded as religious. I wondered if he saw any significant difference.

As Vassy ran his films for me one after the other, I was struck by the purity of his romanticism. The relationships that he painted on the screen were storybook, yet etched with a tragedy that smacked of the old classics. The heroines were childishly playful and wistfully patient as they accepted the fate of adverse circumstances. The heroes were buffeted by events while gamely attempting to contribute to the
personalization of their own lives. Vassy seemed to be allergic to happy endings—as though each of his artful depictions of life was to remind the observer that destiny is cruel.

I didn’t really analyze his work in such a way as it unfolded before me, but I was conscious of two things. One, he had been deeply influenced by classic tragedies, and two, he seemed compelled to express a belief that, in the end, life was so romantically tragic that smiling through tears was not only attractively appealing to the audience, but
because
of that appeal, a positive workable solution to any given problem was not only not inspiring but could never be achieved. I wondered if Vassy’s “Russian” soul, which showed so clearly in his work, would be transmuted to his life. It bothered me, but I brushed it away from my mind because there was so much more to enjoy.

Easter came on a sparkling Sunday morning in Paris, and for me it was a Russian Easter. Vassy took me to a Russian Orthodox church where we stood, mingling and respectful, with hundreds of others as they lit candles and said silent prayers to the altar of Mary and Jesus.

As I stood in the midst of the reverent Russian throng, I saw eyes glance at me, then up at Vassy. What were they thinking to themselves? Some of them nodded to him, some smiled, some looked totally blank.

Periodically Vassy would lean down and whisper in my ear that so-and-so was a famous gypsy singer or someone else the ringleader of the dissident writers in Paris. There were old women who were friends of his mother’s, and colleagues with whom he had developed screenplays which, not surprisingly, had never been made. It seemed that the entire Russian community in Paris had come to the Easter service, which was somehow not really a service but more of a religious observance.

A boys’ choir sang continuously, accompanied
by an organ. No one sat. There were no pews. We stood and milled and stood and milled, each of us holding a candle and directing our attention to a gigantic altar dripping with lit and quivering candles. There seemed to be no organization or planned program. Instead, individuals participated in prayerful reverence as they saw fit.

I watched, fascinated by the uncontrolled yet peacefully milling throng. I remembered that Vassy had said the Russian people needed order, otherwise there would be chaos. Was this not true in a church? Was this the one place where all recognized the higher authority as God?

The ceremony continued. Vassy took my hand. Very tenderly he held it, gently entwining his fingers through mine. The choir and organ music reached a crescendo. I looked up at him. His moist eyes closed as though he were making a deep promise to himself. Somehow, that promise included me in the presence of what he called God. His eyes remained closed for a long while. When they opened, he leaned to my ear and said, “I have never taken a woman to church before.”

After a while, Vassy guided us out. His smile dazzling, he spoke in Russian to those who came to pay subtle homage to him on the steps of the church. He introduced me casually, as though the world should already know we were together. He stood tall with his hands in his pockets as he enjoyed the attention, until finally he said, “Now we nave Russian meal in place near here.”

When we entered the small restaurant, a blast of emotional Russian voices flooded my ears … just casual conversation over piroshkis, caviar, and vodka. The smell of pickles hung pungently in the air. Waiters shouted in French and Russian across tables packed with people and laughing children.

Vassy asked for a table for two. The waiter shouted something in Russian which obviously meant,
“Can’t you see there are no tables?” The waiter then recognized me and with a great flurry escorted us to a quickly evacuated table while Vassy straightened his shoulders into a preen again.

We sat down. Vassy surveyed the position of the table. Satisfied, he ordered half the menu. Immediately we were served iced vodka as the chef came out to pay his respects to me. Three waiters produced menus for me to autograph, which I cheerfully proceeded to do, asking Vassy how to write certain words in Russian. When I looked up into his face, his smile seemed a little forced. He became quiet while the flurry of activity continued and food arrived.

“You like Russian Easter?” said Vassy finally, stuffing his face as usual, which seemed always to be a cure for his woes.

“Yes, my honeybear,” I answered. “It was beautiful. I was marveling at how everybody seemed to know what to do in that church, how to obey, a kind of respectful order with each other.”

“It is real democracy,” he said with a certitude that he wanted me to be sure not to miss.

“And were there many dissidents there? All those writers and people, are they dissidents or defectors or what?”

“They are friends and they spend their lives discussing what to do about everything. No Russian wants to be defector or dissident. Sometimes they are forced.”

I sipped on my vodka while he chugalugged his.

“And you? Will you be a defector one day?”

“Myself? Never!” he said spiritedly. “It would be stupid thing for them to force me to defect. But I don’t believe that would happen. I try my best to stay as I am. I will work in West and prove that Soviet can be recognized everywhere in world. You will see.”

“Yes, Honeybear,” I said, feeling my heart turn
over at the impossible task Vassy had set for himself. Did he realize how hard-nosed and competitive movie making was in the West, whether it was Europe or America? Was he as hard-nosed and competitive himself?

That he was a brilliant filmmaker, there was no doubt. But there were brilliant
Western
filmmakers who couldn’t get work, much less an unknown Russian. I admired his undaunted courage even though I was very well aware of his probably unbridled ambition.

I suppose it was sometime during that Easter day that I felt myself decide to support the idea of working and living with Vassy in California. I liked the challenge of helping a Russian who I knew was a fine artist and with whom I also enjoyed loving and learning. As with most of my life, it was to be another adventure, and more—there was still the matter of our previous lives to explore.

So, sometime after the gargantuan meal had been consumed, I said, “Well, Honeybear, I’ll be leaving to return to California in a few days. Why don’t you come with me and stay in Malibu for a while? Maybe we can get something going with
Doctor’s Wife
and we could work together.”

He straightened up in his chair. “You are proposing that I live in your place in Malibu?”

“Why not?” I said. “See how you like it. You like the ocean?”

His sun-lit smile flooded his face. “Nif-Nif,” he said, “you are my sunshine. You are crazy. I am crazy. The world is crazy. I returned to Paris to live and find work here. Now I will return to States and find work there. I will fulfill my dream, God’s willing, with your help. You will see.”

The thing about Vassy was he told you exactly what he was doing, ambition and all. I began to wonder then what the difference was between hard ambition and glorified, intense dreaming. Weren’t all of us propelled and motivated by visions and
desires that best fulfilled avenues for our own self-expression? If he was using me, so what? Didn’t each of us use the people in our lives to insure, through friendship, our own personal growth?

Vassy proceeded to get very drunk, drunker by far than the first night we had had dinner. I poured him into the front seat of his Mercedes and, through the complicated Parisian streets, somehow navigated us back to the cell. The Easter rabbits were waiting up for us, and I fell asleep wondering if the spiritual dimension we shared was the glue that actually held us together despite our obviously glaring differences.

Vassy woke with liver trouble, a bad headache, congested lungs, and a fierce determination to jog in the gardens despite it all. If the Russian army was built of men like him, it would be better to settle SALT II.

I jogged with him while he gave me a rundown of the paperwork involved in arranging for his U.S. visa and settling his affairs in Paris. He would have to see his lawyer and he wanted us to visit his Yugoslav friend Milanka, who had traced him to my house in Malibu the day after I met him.

“She knows me,” he said by way of a warning. “You will enjoy. I leave you there while I make business.”

That seemed fair enough. I could ask her lots of questions about him.

He jogged his five miles while I stretched on a park bench for three of them. Like a brass ring, Vassy grabbed me up at the end of his last mile and we jogged back to the cell, his liver, headache, and lungs either cleared up or shoved under, I couldn’t decide which.

We gobbled some garlic cheese and crackers and then splashed around with the Water Pik in the shower. He nuzzled the rabbits while I took another Polaroid picture of him. We dressed and left the cell looking as though Napoleon had just ransacked it.

Vassy ushered me into the spacious apartment
of his friend Milanka. She had a glint in her eye which meant our relationship was the most colorful subject of Slavic gossip she had had to talk about in a long time.

“I am not surprised at all,” she said in her deep, well-used voice. “You two are combustible combination. Much fire, much trouble. You are nice with her?” she demanded of Vassy in an accusatory manner, indicating that she had watched his behavior through many women.

Vassy stretched out on her couch, the daylight playing across his face. “Milanka,” he announced, “I have finally met the woman of my life. I do not know anything else. I will be myself.”

“And you?” said Milanka, not wasting a moment with small talk or tea before getting right to the point. “You love this man knowing what he is?”

Oh, my God, I thought. His checkered past has certainly been no secret. “Is he that bad, Milanka?” I asked.

“He is Russian,” she answered.

There it was again. Not because he was Vassy with his past trailing him like a grade-Z movie, but simply because he was Russian. What were all these people trying to tell me?

“You have been involved with a Russian before?” she demanded to know, with her hands squarely on her hips. “In love have you been involved with a Russian?”

“No,” I answered meekly, as though she had a right to know. “But I did have a short affair with a Yugoslav like you. It was fine, but he was too rough in bed.”

Milanka threw back her head and laughed. “She is good,” she said to Vassy. “She is good for you. No bullshit. She will not be one of your slaves. That will be your problem.” She turned to me. “All of his women have been slaves. He insists. You will see.”

I sat down beside Vassy. “Is that true?” I asked like Alice in Wonderland.

“That is correct,” he answered with no hesitation. “I like slaves. Women are slaves because they want to be. You are my equal. You will not be slave.”

“And you,” said Milanka to Vassy, “will have big trouble this time … big trouble … I am very happy. Now you would like a coffee?”

I nodded. Vassy nodded. A small boy of about two years toddled into the living room. He walked directly over to me and looked into my face. With no shyness or reluctance he climbed directly onto my lap, stood up, and laid his head on my shoulder. Milanka stared at him.

“This is my son,” she said in astonishment. “My smallest son. He doesn’t like strangers. He never is friendly. I don’t understand what he has just done.” She stopped a moment, looking at him closely.

“Dimitri,” she said, addressing him gently in Serbian, “what are you doing?”