Page 605 - A Little Life: A Novel

heavily, unthinkingly across the court to lunge for a ball had come to mean
to them both.
Jude came to visit him in Paris at the end of April, and although Willem

had promised him that he wouldn’t do anything elaborate for his fiftieth
birthday, he had arranged a surprise dinner anyway, and in addition to JB
and Malcolm and Sophie, Richard and Elijah and Rhodes and Andy and
Black Henry Young and Harold and Julia had all come over, along with
Phaedra and Citizen, who had helped him with the planning. The next day
Jude had come to watch him on set, one of the very few times he had ever
done so. The scene they were working on that morning was one in which

Nureyev was trying to correct a young dancer’s cabriole, and after
instructing him again and again, finally demonstrates how to do it; but in an
earlier scene, one they hadn’t yet shot but that would directly precede this
one, he has just been diagnosed with HIV, and as he jumps, scissoring his
legs, he falls, and the studio goes quiet around him. The scene ended on his
face, a moment in which he had to convey Nureyev’s sudden recognition

that he understood how he would die and then, just a second later, his
decision to ignore that understanding.
They shot take after take of this scene, and after each take, Willem would
have to step away and wait until he could breathe normally again, and hair
and makeup would flutter around him, blotting the sweat from his face and
neck, and when he was ready, back to his mark he would step. By the time
the director was satisfied, he was panting but satisfied as well.

“Sorry,” he apologized, going over to Jude at last. “The tedium of
filmmaking.”
“No, Willem,” Jude said. “It was amazing. You were so beautiful out
there.” He looked tentative for a moment. “I almost couldn’t believe it was
you.”
He took Jude’s hand and clasped it in his, which he knew was the most

affection Jude would tolerate in public. But he never knew how Jude felt
about witnessing such displays of physicality. The previous spring, during
one of his breakups with Fredrik, JB had dated a principal in a well-known
modern dance company, and they had all gone to see his performance.
During Josiah’s solo, he had glanced over at Jude and had seen that he was
leaning forward slightly, resting his chin in his hand, and watching the stage
so intently that when Willem put his hand on his back, he startled. “Sorry,”

Willem had whispered. Later, in bed, Jude had been very quiet, and he had