Three Muses

By Martha Anne Toll

"...A meditation on history, music, the catastrophic inheritances of the Holocaust, and the so common, painful hiddenness of hope itself, THREE MUSES captivates the reader from the first page to the last." -Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize winning author of TINKERS and ENON

Three Muses is a love story that enthralls; a tale of Holocaust survival venturing through memory, trauma, and identity, while raising the curtain on the unforgiving discipline of ballet. In post-WWII New York, John Curtin suffers lasting damage from having been forced to sing for the concentration camp kommandant who murdered his family. John trains to be a psychiatrist, struggling to wrest his life from his terror of music and his past. Katya Symanova climbs the arduous path to Prima Ballerina of the New York State Ballet, becoming enmeshed in an abusive relationship with her choreographer, who makes Katya a star but controls her life. When John receives a ticket to attend a ballet featuring Katya Symanova, a spell is cast. As John and Katya follow circuitous paths to one another, fear and promise rise in equal measure. Three muses—Song, Discipline, and Memory—weave their way through love and loss, heartbreak and triumph, to leave readers of this prize-winning debut breathless.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Regal House Publishing
• Release date: Sep 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781646032570

Book preview

Praise for Three Muses

"Martha Anne Toll’s Three Muses is so surprisingly soulful. The surprise doesn’t lie in the existence of textured prose that explores dance, music, love and time in wholly different ways; it lies in how that textured prose actually creates a new time signature wholly dependent on practice and discipline. This is phenomenal writing. It just is."

–Kiese Makeba Laymon, bestselling author of Heavy, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays, and Long Division

"Martha Anne Toll’s three muses are those of song, discipline, and memory. In this beautiful, dark novel, she has choreographed the mysterious ways these forces push and pull and shape the lives of her characters—lives of terrible loss and precious if dismaying survival—through their dissonances, harmonies, deprivations and recoveries. A meditation on history, music, the catastrophic inheritances of the Holocaust, and the so common, painful hiddenness of hope itself, Three Muses captivates the reader from the first page to the last."

–Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Tinkers and Enon

"Three Muses is a tender, well-told story about how tragedies reverberate through the years and shape the course of two intersecting lives. This is a wonderful meditation on trauma and loss—and a love story in its own right.

–Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State and former editor (now contributing editor) at The Millions

"Three Muses is a hauntingly beautiful testament to the power of art and love. With exquisite craft, Toll writes about dance and music in sentences that sing. She is a writer to watch."

–Lara Prescott, New York Times bestselling author of The Secrets We Kept

"A grand generosity of spirit pervades this book, which weaves together threads of love, loss, memory and art. Martha Anne Toll’s Three Muses takes art seriously, delves deeply into the discipline and sacrifice it requires, and connects its transcendent power to the messy, quotidian world not just of artist and performers, but the audience as well… This is the rare book that looks behind the curtain with genuine empathy, insight and love."

–Philip Kennicott, Pulitzer Prize winning art and architecture critic for the Washington Post, and author of Counterpoint: A Memoir of Bach and Mourning

"Delving deep into the heart of the human experience, Toll has given us a capacious and deeply felt novel about trauma and ambition, art, passion, and the vagaries of memory. Three Muses is a love story that isn’t afraid to contend with difficult questions, a wise and compassionate meditation on beauty, loss, and the many invisible lives we might have lived."

–Michael David Lukas, author and winner of the National Jewish Book Award for the Last Watchman of Old Cairo: A Novel

"Three Muses is a beautiful story about art, love, and the generational traumas that lead to both for its central characters. Martha Anne Toll’s prose jumps off the page and kept me engrossed from start to finish."

–Sopan Deb, New York Times writer, author of Missed Translations: Meeting the Parents Who Raised Me and The Elm Tree

"Martha Anne Toll’s Three Muses follows two characters for whom, as children on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, art functions as both a means to salvation, and as a burden that can come close to feeling like a curse. Beautifully written, and vivid with detail and insight, this novel is brimming with moments of kindness and light that thread through tapestries of loss and pain."

–Moriel Rothman-Zecher, author of Sadness is a White Bird, Finalist, National Jewish Book Award & Dayton Literary Peace Prize

"Three Muses is a beautifully written, lyrical novel, a meditation on the way the past haunts and shapes us. Following Katya and John across decades and continents, Martha Anne Toll weaves a gorgeous story of love and survival.

–Jillian Cantor, USA Today bestselling author of Half Life

"Three Muses is a love story with a deep heart—powerful, resonant, and ultimately affirming—a dance of memory, grief and healing, and the saving grace of art."

–Sari Wilson, author of Girl Through Glass

"Martha Anne Toll’s Three Muses makes song out of the toughest things: the inevitability of grief, the difficult work of remembrance, the hard-won belief that our abandoners release us to ourselves… This is a wonder of a novel, intricate, involving, soulful, and full of awe at all the ways human beings manage to keep their love intact."

–Paul Lisicky, author of Later: My Life at the Edge of the World

"In Three Muses, Martha Anne Toll’s magnetic storytelling pushes past the limits of longing, memory, and identity to bring us into the fully realized world of her characters. Where the ravages of Nazi concentration camps through a child’s eyes are brought to life with as much vividness as the flowers and ballet of modern-day Paris, at its heart Three Muses is a dance through time. Fates intersect and love somehow finds a way…so too does a woman find her way back to herself."

–Morowa Yejide, author of Creatures of Passage and The Time of the Locust

"Martha Anne Toll’s moving and accomplished debut is transporting, lyrical, and deeply provocative. With a nod to the legendary work of George Balanchine, Three Muses excavates the legacy of trauma, the cost of secrecy, and the complex entanglements of art and survival."

–Amy Gottlieb, author of The Beautiful Possible

"What a lyrical, exquisite novel! Two people seeking love and not daring to give in to it: a Holocaust survivor, now a wistful young psychiatrist in search of his identity, and a prima ballerina who has given up her own to reach perfect beauty. From the public wards of the mentally troubled to the world of ballet barres and a Seder where the ghosts of the dead speak louder than the living, Three Muses is a haunting story of who we love and why."

–Stephanie Cowell, author of Claude and Camille: A Novel of Monet and The Boy in the Rain

"This gripping story renders humankind at its worst and most tender. Three Muses is so deeply engrossing that readers won’t want to emerge from the dream Toll has created."

–Michelle Brafman, author of Bertrand Court and Washing the Dead

"Martha Anne Toll has written a beautiful, gripping novel, Three Muses. It is a story that explores grief and sacrifice, longing and ambition, in the years and decades that follow World War II, at once a complex love story and a modern dance."

–Devi S. Laskar, author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues, winner of The Crook’s Corner Book Prize and the Asian/Pacific American Award in Literature

"If one had to choose, would it be art or would it be love? In an ambitious novel that travels from the Holocaust to the Paris Opéra, from the intimacy of a psychiatric session to the intimacy of a love affair between a renowned choreographer and his principal dancer, Three Muses wrestles not only with the weight of memory and trauma, but also with the nature of creativity, the value of art, and the power of desire to bruise and heal."

–Laura McBride, author of We are Called to Rise and In the Midnight Room

Three Muses

Martha Anne Toll

Regal House Publishing

Copyright © 2022 Martha Anne Toll. All rights reserved.

Published by

Regal House Publishing, LLC

Raleigh, NC 27605

All rights reserved

ISBN -13 (paperback): 9781646032563

ISBN -13 (epub): 9781646032570

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021949156

All efforts were made to determine the copyright holders and obtain their permissions in any circumstance where copyrighted material was used. The publisher apologizes if any errors were made during this process, or if any omissions occurred. If noted, please contact the publisher and all efforts will be made to incorporate permissions in future editions.

Cover design © by C. B. Royal

Regal House Publishing, LLC

https://regalhousepublishing.com

The following is a work of fiction created by the author. All names, individuals, characters, places, items, brands, events, etc. were either the product of the author or were used fictitiously. Any name, place, event, person, brand, or item, current or past, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Regal House Publishing.

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

In memory of my parents

Jean Barth Toll (1925-1999)

Seymour (Spence) Irving Toll (1925-2018)

Who gave me reading and writing and infinitely more

Introduction

Muse of Song: Music’s primal form.

Muse of Discipline: Rigor, practice, and preparation for prayer.

Muse of Memory: Transforming forgotten to feral quicker than an asp’s sting.

Paris

1963

He had no bearings in Paris. But the first morning, John awoke early, astonished to have left his dread on the other side of the Atlantic. He pictured it a sticky, lumpy mass sitting on Dr. Roth’s floor. Finally, something useful from Dr. Roth.

John felt calm, bathed in a pleasant sense of mystery. With only three days in Paris, he knew not to tether himself to the World Congress on Psychiatry and Mental Health. At dawn he started toward the Seine, righted by balanced, elegant architecture and the singsong of blue-coated shopkeepers splashing water to ensure a clean start to the day. Whatever he had expected, the city held not the faintest echo of his German past.

And yet. Ricocheting bursts from small cars rushing through narrow streets and spent diesel mixed with the buttery scents of freshly baked pastries were familiar from his Mainz childhood. There were rows of honey-colored buildings, darkened by soot and age, punctuated by great wooden doors that opened onto flats where families lived—not in suburban houses separated by picket fences and clipped lawns, but around a courtyard in the city’s heart. He remembered Mutti’s wash hanging across the balcony, the whites flapping in tandem with those from the upstairs flats. (In America, they used clothes dryers.) And the Portiersfrau, taking a pause from sweeping to reach into her apron pocket for a hard candy when he came home from school. His name was Janko then, and Janko knew to keep the candy secret from Mutti.

Sweet memories blowing back. A cool spring had wafted into Paris, chestnut trees shimmering in fresh green leaves, the air crisp with possibility. Lovers scuffed the Seine’s sandy path, walking languidly home from trysts. The river thwack-thwacked against its banks; pigeons cooed in gratitude at breadcrumbs scattered by old women. John surprised himself by naming the city’s medley Music.

Dr. Leventhal was presenting at eleven, with John at his side to help with questions. It was a rare privilege that, as the senior psychiatric resident, John had been invited on the trip. A boondoggle, Dr. Leventhal called it. Wending his way back through neighborhood streets, John stopped at a café, seduced by the tinkle of silverware and clattering china. Over café crème, he recalled Ann as if she were a gauzy film image—lovely, naked—her smooth skin, her sumptuous breasts, black garters striping her thighs, exotic zebra markings to which he alone was privy. He wondered what it would be like to squire her to medical conferences, his arm around her waist, just as Leventhal did with his wife. Ann could awake next to him with that same smile she gave when offering coffee to medical residents in New York’s Beaumont Hospital Office of Psychiatry. She could sit across from John at dinner, lips gleaming with fresh red lipstick, her life joined with his in a brick colonial and a wide inviting bed to dissipate the memory of the awkward, narrow, closed davenport in her cramped apartment.

John arrived at the hotel, where Mrs. Leventhal—chic in lemon yellow—was holding forth to a knot of psychiatrists’ wives. …If Jackie Kennedy can storm Paris in a yellow suit, why can’t I? My husband should take a page from the president: ‘I’m the man who accompanied Lillian Leventhal to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.’ She looked up. John! she said, opening her black patent leather purse. Dr. Leventhal said to give this to you. She smiled and handed John a ticket. "We’ve been invited to dinner with the head of the French psychiatric society tonight, and we can’t turn him down. The New York State Ballet is dancing Three Muses—Boris Yanakov’s breakout work. I’m heartbroken, but duty calls."

Come all the way to Paris for the New York State Ballet? John asked, before he could think. He had eagerly anticipated his evening perambulations around the city. Confined to a theater? He wondered how to refuse.

There’s nothing like taking in a major cultural event with an audience full of Frenchmen, Mrs. Leventhal said, snapping shut her purse.

Most generous of you, he remembered to say as he put the ticket in his breast pocket.

John settled into a bench at the edge of the plaza. Dusk was gray-pink, backlighting the Opéra. Balletomanes were arriving—tuxedoed men with stylish women on their arms. It wasn’t just the evening gowns, or the way women draped their shawls. Their pacing and carriage were glamorous too. Each with a distinctive walk; together, a pageant. If he weren’t answerable to Dr. Leventhal, John would have disposed of Mrs. Leventhal’s ticket. He’d much rather spend the evening out here.

Inevitably, he went inside. He picked up a program and made his way to the first balcony. The orchestra warmed up as a chorus took their places in the side boxes.

The music began: slow, plangent tones paced to the speed of a man’s forward tread. The chorus entered—deep and serious and sad—as if their voices had taken the measure of John’s memory. The curtain lifted on a snow-covered mountain against an aqua sea, a scene to conjure myth. Dancers in blue and green leapt in unison, legs like arrows, arms overhead. They fell into lines fracturing like kaleidoscope patterns, or forms in opposing mirrors.

Overcome by jet lag, John dozed off. He was in his family’s Mainz living room: Mutti darning socks, Papa with his pipe—left thumb over the bowl, right poised to cock his silver lighter. Lopsided smoke rings meandered toward the ceiling. A few more puffs before the pipe hung limply from Papa’s mouth as he grew increasingly absorbed in the evening paper.

Rubbing his eyes, John slowly woke up. He knew the music. After dinner, when Janko’s schoolwork was finished and he was getting drowsy, Papa had played it on the gramophone. If Janko was lucky, he’d be permitted a few minutes to sit with the grown-ups before Mutti declared bedtime.

The chorus sang with veneration, permeating the hall the way the smell of Mutti’s bubbling apple strudel filled her kitchen, or the first peaty drafts of Papa’s pipe suffused the living room. John was flooded with grief, the music a piercing shorthand for what was gone: all of them. Mutti, Papa, even little Max, who hadn’t been born until later. John had not thought about this music in decades, if ever. He recalled Papa starting the gramophone as Mutti settled into the horsehair sofa with her sewing kit. Janko was growing so fast, Mutti had to let out the hems of his trousers. The sewing kit was black walnut, the varnish on the edges smoothed from use. (It was from Janko’s grandmother.)

The orchestra moved with gravity and purpose, music as familiar as childhood. Now it was named. Mozart’s Requiem. Not only the people and the place, but this, too, had been stolen. John didn’t need to stay. Dr. and Mrs. Leventhal would understand. Searching for the quickest exit, John struggled to call up something—anything—to stanch his anguish. What value were his sessions with his training psychiatrist? Dr. Roth was useless.

None of the patrons around John budged; he would be imprisoned here until the end of the act. Making another effort, he took a deep breath to marshal his defenses.

And then.

A lone ballerina sheathed in white floated toward center stage. The audience greeted her with shouts of "Brava!" She was the Muse of Discipline. She cut through the whirling dancers with precision and exactitude. John had never seen anyone so exquisite. She was a reverie, an evocation of grace. Each fluttering arm motion dissipated his pain. Her dancing ordered the music, rendered it alluring. He strained left as she exited, as if by craning his neck he could follow her.

She spun in duo with the Muse of Song, summoning peace and beauty. Together, the two made harmony. Their playfulness lightened John’s mood. He glowed like a man feeling desire for the first time.

Intermission. What was her name? John riffled through his program. Katya Symanova, written in bold beneath a glossy headshot; her black hair parted down the middle, pulled back to accentuate an oval face. Her eyes were downcast.

She must be Russian.

He would stay.

Again, the hall grew dark and the curtain rose. John sat forward, heart pounding. Song and Discipline braided together, arms and legs intertwined, diving and floating like wind and water.

Lightning flashed. A third muse appeared, luminous in silver, her face masked. Muse of Memory: she was clearly the most powerful. The ballet was a psychological caprice, a revelatory dreamscape. Clever, John thought, the psychiatrist in him aroused. We can’t see Memory’s face. It’s my job to make her visible.

Memory billowed her silver cape and cast a spell. Song was hurt. The music turned funereal.

Memory waved her cape and cast a second spell. An old faun galloped out and captured Discipline. The two danced glued together, as if they would never separate.

The stage was shrouded in fog.

A third time, Memory waved her cape. Song and Discipline danced backward on their toes (how did they do that?), lost, passing each other without seeing.

John was entranced.

At the end, the audience rose in unison as if choreographed, cheering and raving. John opened his program and found Katya Symanova once more. She was magnificent, her long fingers supporting her chin. He imagined a story of struggle behind her dark eyes. Slowly, he stood to watch her curtsies. She stepped before the curtain and knelt—exquisite, transporting.

At last, the hall lights rose.

Knocked flat by a sylph, undone by mirage, John followed the crowd into the Parisian night. This onrush, for a woman who danced out of a storybook. She was polish. She was splendor.

John knew better. He was about to become a full-fledged psychiatrist. Wasn’t the crux of his profession to learn how to live in the present, to create reality from reality?

As he left the theater, he saw an old man standing sentry over a bucket with cut flowers. With a round of miming absent a common language, John purchased a bouquet of white roses, bound in crimson ribbon. He went in search of the Opéra’s stage door—blissful, expectant—offering up an entreaty that he was not crazy, that Katya Symanova would let him present flowers. He strained for the right phrase, a sentence to express a hint of what he felt.

The air was cool. John pulled up his collar, adjusted his scarf, and waited for the stage door to open. Clumps of dancers emerged, laughing and talking. What if she spoke only Russian, or her English was too poor to understand him? A few stragglers came out. What if he was at the wrong door? He was afraid to move, even given the dubious wisdom of his mission.

The door opened once again. Katya Symanova—John was sure it was she. Her black hair was up, covered in a blue chiffon scarf. She wore a black coat and black boots that extended her height. She stopped and adjusted the edges of the blue chiffon over each shoulder, then paused and turned behind her. When she looked forward again, she seemed distracted, as if she were looking for someone.

John approached, afraid to disrupt her reverie. For you, he said