I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [84]
ORDER OF THE GARTER
When Carrie and I announced our engagement, Balanchine pointed his finger at us: “You know, you have to marry, same day, Tanny and I. December 31.”
There was no doubt we would have a Catholic wedding, else the Boss would have choked. Carrie had to promise to baptize and raise our future children as Roman Catholics, and often had to rush from NYCB rehearsals to endure an hour of lessons in dogma from the priest. She recalls the composer Samuel Barber watching a run-through of Todd Bolender’s ballet Souvenirs. “He couldn’t believe that in the middle of the pas de deux, Todd was letting me leave!” “She’s going for a catechism lesson,” he whispered in Barber’s ear.
The church, St. Thomas More, was already booked for December 31, so we chose the next day, January 1. “Goody,” Tanny said, “it’s close enough.” Over the next decade, Tanny, Balanchine, Carrie, and I celebrated every New Year’s Eve together, with Balanchine raising his glass. “Special time,” he would sniff. “At midnight tonight, our day ends, your day begins.”
I bought a new suit, and wore a silver tie. Carrie’s wedding dress was a light rose color, and beneath her wedding dress she put on the ballet’s Order of the Garter.15 It adorned her left leg above the knee.
The ballet garter is waiting (image credit 8.11)
At various nuptials over the year, this pink symbol had been passed from dancer to dancer. Carrie thinks it began its odyssey June 13, 1951, at the wedding of San Francisco Ballet’s ballerina Patricia Johnston. About a year and a half later, the garter took up residence on the limb of a fellow dancer, Joan Vickers, till Joan passed it on to Sally Streets. Sally had danced with us in NYCB for several years, and after her wedding in October of 1955, she launched the rosy circlet cross-country to the East Coast, to nestle on Carrie’s lovely gam.
Our wedding took place between the matinee and evening performances of The Nutcracker, with the entire company in attendance. When the priest finally said, “I now pronounce you man and wife,” I grabbed Carrie’s hand and ran down the aisle. My brother John leaped to block us at the front door. “You forgot to kiss the bride, stupid!”
Wedding Day, St. Thomas More, 1956 (image credit 8.12)
That evening, we boarded a plane for Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Balanchine’s joke: he listed our names on the bulletin board to perform Nut-cracker that night.
A Honeymoon in Haiti
Leaving in midwinter and arriving a few hours later on a tropical island was like being smacked in the face. With the first breath of that hot, muggy, flower-scented atmosphere, our sinuses were swamped. Ears overflowed with sounds of clamoring birds, insects, and unknown creatures, all jabbering like a rambunctious family with a slew of children. When night fell, the atmosphere’s perfume doubled, and the cacophony intensified, with distant drums and chanting voices joining in.
On our first step out of the airport terminal in Port-au-Prince, a taxi driver with dark chocolate skin hooked us. “Monsieur, Madame, I am George, destined to be your driver!” A round-faced, pudgy man in his early thirties, sweet-speaking Haitian George was prescient, and he became our guide and driver for the next two weeks. George kept a photograph of his wife and son clipped to his taxi’s visor, and commented melodiously on every tree, building, and thoroughfare we passed on the way to our hotel.
The hotel room was high-ceilinged, with one tiny window, and cement walls sweating with condensation. A jail cell. On opening our suitcases, rice spilt onto the floor. Carrie’s sister, Marilyn, had sprinkled rice in the layers between our clothes; we even found grains in the toothpaste. Carrie couldn’t get over it. “When did she do it? When did she have time?” We laughed and collapsed, exhausted.
In the morning, Haitian George moved us out of our jail cell