Mikhail Baryshnikov Remembers His First Meeting With Joseph Brodsky in New York

"Joseph's appearance in my life meant guidance, in everything from simple everyday matters to bigger moral issues," Mikhail Baryshnikov recalls. That's Joseph Brodsky he's referring to, the Russian dissident poet thrown out of the Soviet Union two years before Baryshnikov escaped in the 70s. Their first encounter was at a dinner, and after, Baryshnikov recalls, it was more than the espressos that set his heart in motion. "I remember drinking so many espressos – something I wasn’t used to – that I couldn’t fall asleep afterwards because of the heartbeat." He continues:

Actually the heartbeat was not only due to the coffee. “I think we have a lot to talk about,” said Joseph. We did. We both came from Leningrad and had many friends, acquaintances and experiences in common. We talked about where I had lived during my 10 years in Leningrad, and Joseph knew every spot. He was fascinated by architecture – specifically the canals, arches, bridges and Italianate palaces of Leningrad refracted into abstraction by the ripples of the Neva River. I remember his eyebrows going up when I said my last apartment had been near the Hermitage, just across the Moika River from the house where Pushkin lived and died. He said, with an ironic grin: “And we left all that beauty…”

Joseph listened intently. He looked you directly in the eyes, almost like he was digging for truth in the gaze of the speaker. I suppose he was. I think he was wired that way – to watch people’s behaviour, sift it through his intellect and then fashion it into words. He must have gotten some good material that night because he had me trying out my then atrocious English on the Greek waiter who was equally challenged – a sort of linguistic free-for-all that Joseph seemed to relish.

Read more about Baryshnikov's brush with greatness, here.