Chapter 3: What the Letter Said
Marcus turned the envelope over once in his hands.
His name was written on the front.
Not typed.
Written — in careful, old-fashioned handwriting that he had seen before but could not immediately place.
"Open it," Arthur said.
"In front of everyone?"
"You can step outside if you prefer." Arthur glanced at the twenty dancers standing frozen around them.
"But I think you already know what's inside."
Marcus looked at him.
Then he walked to the far end of the studio, near the windows.
Arthur followed.
The dancers didn't move.
Not one of them.
Marcus slid a single folded page from the envelope.
He read it.
Nobody could hear what was written.
But they could see Marcus's face.
His jaw tightened.
His eyes moved to the bottom of the page.
Then back to the top.
Then he stopped reading and simply stood there, holding the letter at his side.
"This is from my father," he said.
"Yes."
"My father wrote this to you."
"He did."
Marcus looked up.
"He told me you were d—" He stopped himself.
"He told me you had passed away.
Before I was born."
Arthur said nothing.
"He told me the man who created that variation died in a car accident in 1976." Marcus's voice was very controlled now.
The kind of controlled that takes effort.
"He told me that his greatest teacher — the man who shaped everything he knew about ballet — was gone.
That there was no one left from that era."
"And you believed him."
"He was my father."
Arthur sat down on the bench near the window.
Not because he was tired.
Because he wanted Marcus to have to look down at him when he said what came next.
"Your father and I were partners," Arthur said.
"For eleven years.
We built a company together.
We choreographed together.
We trained together in Paris, in London, in New York.
Everything your father became in this world — the reputation, the technique, the foundation of his career — we built it side by side."
Marcus set the letter on the bench beside him.
"I know about his career."
"Do you know about the contract?"
Marcus went still.
"In 1981," Arthur said, "your father and I were offered a residency.
The most important opportunity either of us had ever seen.
A five-year contract with one of the most respected companies in Europe.
Enough to establish both our names permanently." He paused.
"There was one condition.
The contract was for a single choreographer.
Not a partnership.
One name."
"He never told me about any contract."
"No.
He wouldn't have."
The young dancer near the mirrors — the one who had laughed the loudest — took one small step closer.
She stopped when the woman beside her grabbed her wrist.
"What happened?" Marcus asked.
"He took it," Arthur said simply.
"He submitted the application under his name alone.
He used our joint work — the variations, the compositions, the entire body of choreography we had created together — and he presented it as his own.
Sole author.
Sole choreographer." Arthur's hands rested quietly on his knees.
"I found out three days before the contract was signed."
"That's not—" Marcus stopped.
"Possible?" Arthur said.
"You've used that word twice today."
Marcus picked up the letter again.
He read the bottom of the page this time.
His lips pressed together.
"He's apologizing," Marcus said.
"He wrote that letter in 1993.
He mailed it to an address I hadn't lived at in years.
I only received it because a neighbor held it." Arthur looked at the envelope in Marcus's hand.
"I never replied.
I thought about it for a long time.
And then I put it in a drawer."
"Why come now?"
Arthur looked at him steadily.
"Because your father passed away four months ago.
And because you are teaching his techniques — our techniques — to every dancer in this room.
And you don't know which parts were his and which parts were mine."
The studio was absolutely silent.
Marcus set the letter down on the bench a second time.
This time he didn't pick it up again.
"What do you want?" he asked.
Arthur's answer was not what anyone in that room expected.
"I want to teach," he said.
May you like
"One class.
That's all I came for."
