I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [114]
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 connections to publish a dance calendar, an eclectic collection of photographs of dancers from all over the world, which included birth dates and a little biography of each.
Throughout his life, Max showered me with friendship and gifts—Tanagra statues, sculptures, and several prints, including Renoir and Degas drawings, and, most treasured, a silver coin from the time of Alexander the Great, in pristine condition. Max attempted to write a book about me as the ultimate Balanchine dancer, and in the summer of 1963 submitted it to Lincoln, who hated it. Lincoln wrote me a letter that began:
Dear Jacques:
Mr. Niehaus’ manuscript can do you no harm; if it has pictures in it, it will probably sell enough copies not to do the publishers any harm, either.
The letter ended:
The manuscript is perfectly (and I mean flawlessly) awful. There is nothing more embarrassing than the obituary of a living person … I will write a short, hopeful and snappy foreword.
With love to you and Carrie,
Lincoln
Max had a wife, Gertrude. She would flit by like a shadow somewhere in their apartment. There was a son, too, Rolf, a solidly built, beefy teenager. Hefting beer barrels off a truck at his job was a piece of cake for him. He’d speak to me in avalanches of German, punctuated, every once in a while, with “Verstehen? Verstehen? [Do you understand?]” I’d nod vigorously and say, “Yah, yah!!” even though I had no idea what “Verstehen” meant. After a while, Rolf caught on that I didn’t understand a word he said, so he gave up. Max joked that he found it hard to believe Rolf was his son, as “he has no interest in anything to do with art. Maybe when I was in the convent, Gertrude … ?”
Max would be sitting outside my room at dawn, and, on hearing me stir, would rush to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. When I emerged, he’d be there to announce, “Hmmmmmm Frühstück [breakfast] waits!” The array of food was staggering—multitudes of sausages, pâtés, and varied cold cuts and cheeses. “Wurst is from Bavaria, Käse [cheese] from Alsace-Lorraine, and Senf [mustard]—three kinds.” Max loved strong cheeses—there was always a hint of Gorgonzola on his breath. A trio of hard-boiled eggs, each in a porcelain cup, accompanied four different kinds of bread, a slab of butter, and assorted condiments and jams. Teas, café au lait, espresso, and a pot of hot chocolate kept warm on trivets. A bowl of