I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [70]
In Venice, one night after the curtain came down at the Teatro La Fenice, famished, I headed out with Osvaldo and company to eat. Yuri Bardyguine,7 our stage manager for the tour and Osvaldo’s boss, latched on to us. A kind of sophisticated, glib Russian survivalist who spoke half a dozen languages, Yuri addressed Giulio, Osvaldo, and Alfredo in machine-gun Italian. I had no idea what they were discussing. Suddenly, Osvaldo beckoning scooted off, leading us through several twisting passageways, over and around various canals, to a narrow cul de sac enclosed by a few three-story buildings. We stopped on the doorstep of the house with the red light. Blabbing nervously, “Hey! Where are we going to eat?” They’d answer, “Oh, senti! Un momento!” Abruptly, Yuri turned around and said to me, “Let’s just go in for a minute and take a look.”
We were greeted by the madam, a tough, flat-faced woman in her fifties, flouncing in a print frock, with a cigarette in her mouth and her hair dyed jet-black. She led us to a small sitting room decorated with faux Middle Eastern touches—its rug and curtains patterned in dark browns, deep reds, and blues. There was a table with a tasseled lamp, a long sofa, and several foldout chairs arranged in a semicircle facing a bare wall. “Pass-a-port.” Yuri produced his and told me, “Show her your passport.” Then the entire group fell into machine-gun Italian, with Yuri nodding in my direction. The madam, her anthracite eyes dancing, gestured for us to sit, and left the room.
Yuri announced, “For your education, it’s time, you’re eighteen.”
They didn’t come out all at once. First, one lady entered, probably the same age as the madam. For a moment, I thought they were sisters. As she paraded around, wearing shiny black high heels, black fishnet stockings and panties, and a pointy black bra, I couldn’t take my eyes off her stomach. A half a dozen jagged scars descended from her ribcage to disappear somewhere beneath those black panties. I imagined a consort of cesareans. She lingered just long enough to sit on Yuri’s lap and cadge a cigarette.
Next came a redhead about the same age as number one, her dyed hair a clump of dried straw. She wore red shoes, and I never saw anyone more bowlegged. My eyes didn’t venture any higher. The third was the youngest, in her teens or early twenties, with pale, white skin, but really fat, pregnant-fat. The mandatory blonde, she wore white shoes with thick, tall heels and white cotton knee socks adorned with a blue garter just below the right knee. This time my eyes worked their way up. A scant piece of see-through gauze, tied at the waist with a bow, in no way obstructing the view of her frilly, pink panties. Her belly rose like the moon in full from those panties. At the top of the moon rested a white half-bra, and you could see her maraschino-cherry nipples popping out. She was pretty, with pale blue eyes, a Kewpie-doll mouth, and a blue ribbon in her hair.
I was so ashamed … of us. My heart went out to the women. When each came out, I would act the gentleman, standing, nodding, and saying, “You are very lovely, mille grazie, signorina, mille grazie.”
During their varied entrances and exits, a gleeful Yuri would question, “Well, what about this one, Jacques? Hey, do you like this one?” Alternately blanching with fear, then blushing with shame, I squeaked out, “No, no, no, I don’t want to. I don’t want to.” Osvaldo, Giulio, and Alfredo tried to shrink into the sofa.
Moments after number three had been displayed, the madam reentered, accompanied by one and two. The room was crowded for the choice, with the women standing around the bare wall. “Come on, Jacques!” Yuri urged. “It won’t take long, we’ll wait for you!” I stood, bowed to the ladies, turned and faced Yuri, and announced, “I’ll find a trattoria myself.” My Italian buddies leaped to their feet, saying, “Oh no, no, we’ll all go,” and so we fled.
Later, I thought to myself, “Maybe when Yuri was a boy, his father, or brother, or some buddy took him to a whorehouse.” He must have felt