Encore (16 page)

Katya invited her to the summer house which her parents were renting in Imatra, just outside Petersburg in the Finnish countryside. There the air was cool, the breeze sang songs in the blue-green pines, and she felt momentary peace. But all the time she thought: He—they—are in Paris. Pierre is probably learning French, and visiting the château country with Boris. Oh, to be in the Loire Valley instead of Imatra! To listen to Boris, or to Serge Pavlovitch, discussing the poems of Verlaine, or the art of Vuillard, rather than hear Madame Balina extolling the virtues of cornstarch in kissel!

She lay in her little bed at night, while Katya slept across the room, and clasped her hands together. Come back, come back! was the refrain which echoed in her mind. Come back, take me into your lives, into your wonderful world, which you have shown me from a distance. I want to learn, to touch, to feel comfortable in other surroundings besides the theatre. She was stupefied at the unexpected turn of her thoughts and at their vehemence.

Then came the opening of the new season. Natalia no longer felt stabs of discomfort around Pavlova and other ballerinas. She was the youngest, the despicable beginner, and after new performances she was frequently greeted by a torrent of criticism. She was learning to sort through these volleys of words to discover what was valid and what was not. She no longer resented her admirers in the gallery. It was pleasant to receive ovations. But something was missing.

Katya, in the
corps,
was her protégée. They had been equals, and best friends in school, but one year in the real world had separated them. Katya was so naïve. Lydia Markovna Brailovskaya did not like her and told Natalia: ‘That girl is a simpering child. What do you see in her?” Natalia smiled, remembering that only a single year ago Lydia's own friends had wondered, too, why Lydia had put up with Natalia.

She watched out for Katya warily, nervously, for Katya was indeed a rosy-cheeked child. She saw the young man from the male
corps de ballet
who made eyes at Katya, who sent her bonbons and fresh fruit. His name was Grisha Marshak, and he had dark hair and blue eyes, like a doll's. She told Katya: “He's distracting you. If you want to become a
coryphée
, don't let him come to the house every night. He is stronger than you and does not seem to show the strain as you do. You need your rest.

“Boris Vassilievitch Kussov does not appear to drain your resources,” Katya replied stingingly. She resented Natalia's dislike of her beau and did not understand it.

“Boris Vassilievitch? I have hardly seen him since his return. Besides, he is only a friend, a sort of mentor, whereas Grisha loves you, doesn't he?”

“Yes,” Katya answered meekly, “he does. And I love him back. Is that such a crime?”

One day in October Katya came to Natalia, her face red and glowing, her eyes the color of fresh cornflowers. “Grisha has asked me to marry him!” she cried. “I have said yes, of course. He is so wonderful and will go far. And do you know, Natalia, General Teliakovsky told me today that I could become a
coryphée
next fall, if I work hard.”

“That's marvelous!” Natalia cried.

“But I told him I didn't want to. The
corps
is fine for me. I shall dance for a few years while Grisha gets started as a soloist, and then I shall have babies. That is what I really want to do.”

Katya's eyes pleaded for approval, for understanding. Hadn't Natalia always advocated the saying: “Live and let live?” Why was it so necessary for Katya Balina to emulate Natalia, to do exactly what she had done? Wasn't Katya allowed to live her own life with her own priorities? Why was Natashenka crying, then? Why did she behave as though she had been slapped in the face? “Oh, sweetie, sweetie,” Katya crooned, putting her arms around the other girl. “Are you sorry? Was there somebody you turned down and didn't tell me about?”

“Tell him,” Natalia repeated to Lydia, “that I am absolutely unable to receive him. He'll have to leave.” She was lying on her bed in her chemise, her hair in disarray on the pillow.

“But surely it would do you good—”

“No, it wouldn't.” She sighed, and closed her eyes. Lydia walked out of the room. Why? Natalia thought. Why had he come? Briefly there was a sharp pain in her chest, and she said to herself: But Pierre will never come. He is bad for me, an egotist who does not think I am as important as he. He wants a wife, not a dancer. Now she was being unfair to Count Boris, but that was too bad, because she was angry with everyone, including Boris Vassilievitch, whose friendship was so puzzling, who catered to Pierre because he thought that Pierre, not she, was the up-and-coming talent of St. Petersburg. She had never felt so confused and upset.

She was so angry that she did not hear him until he was in the room, standing over her bed. She screamed and drew up the sheet. “Lydia!” she cried. He was laughing, as though he had caught a child hiding stolen sweets, when actually she was a full-grown woman in her chemise with unlaced corset stays, and her hair unpinned. “It's all right, don't blame Lydia,” he said. “I pushed past her. I had to see you, you know.”

He was dressed in a loose-fitting suit of dark blue serge, with a high, stiff collar and a four-in-hand. A sapphire gleamed at each wrist. He held a cane topped with a gold handle. He was certainly a man of the times, slender, graceful—and out of place in this room. “Boris Vassilievitch, I don't feel well,” she said. “Please let me be.”

Instead, he sat down nonchalantly on the edge of the bed and took her hand. “I am growing tired of calling for you here in this miserable apartment and finding that half the time you are gone, and the rest refusing to receive me. Are we not good friends?”

She was taken aback. His blue eyes shone intently on her, double sapphire rays. She crouched back on the pillow. “Friends,” she repeated. “Yes. But—”

“Something has been brewing in my mind. I like you, Natalia. I need artists around me. For some reason, they are necessary to my life. I myself have never been capable of creation. I can help you.”

She listened to the quiet, grave words, spoken not in his customary ironic voice but in a gentler, older one with which she was unfamiliar. Something stirred within her. She replied, softly, a little hoarsely, “Yes, I know. I know that about you.” She had a momentary glimpse into his life. “You have already helped me,” she added.

“But when I help you, it is I who benefit more. You are so young, so lovely, with so much glory in your future—”

“And so,” she said, “you wish to play a part in my destiny. But you know that you have already done much to enlarge my mind. What have I done for you in return? What can I do for you?”

He did not answer. He looked at her directly, scanning her face. She was oddly not embarrassed by her lack of appropriate attire. For some reason this man was familiar to her, someone who could read her thoughts. But was he a friend? “What is it?” she asked him.

“I should like to set you up in my home among beautiful works of art. I should like Ivan to serve you on my Meissen porcelain. I should like Yuri to take you anywhere you want to go in the landau or the victoria. Come home with me, Natalia.”

She was speechless. Her eyelids fluttered, her nostrils quivered. An absurd desire to laugh rose in her throat as when Pierre had offered her marriage. She coughed it down. “Boris Vassilievitch,” she asked, “are we back to the incident with the pearls? Or is this—is this—a proposal?”

He smiled, but not his usual, ironic half-smile. This one was rather wan and brought out the fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Not quite,” he said. “I am not asking for your hand in marriage, if that is what you mean. However, aside from that, I am asking for the same thing: For you to ‘come live with me, and be my love' as the English poet says.”

“We
are
back to the pearls!” she cried. Now she could no longer contain her amazement. “Boris Vassilievitch, this is silly. You do not love me. You do not love me at all, I know it! All the time you have been kind to me, you never once behaved as a man who is courting a woman but rather as the good friend you are, older, more learned, better traveled. You have guided me, teased me, helped me—but certainly not loved me. A woman does feel a man's love—or even his desire. No, you definitely do not desire me.”

“Desire is the last thing you want from me,” Boris retorted. “You do not want a man's love, either. You want space around you, and most men are not willing to give that to the woman for whom they care. I am different. To me, your beauty, your primary beauty, is your virtuosity. Also, your character. Oh, Natalia, I do not always like you. There are even times when I dislike you intensely. But I never stop admiring you. I admire you sufficiently to offer you the sort of life that I know you need: my care, my protection, my connections, my worldliness, without the restrictions another man might impose. You do not have to love me. I want you in my life, but I do not wish to
be
your life.”

“What you ask is for us to be lovers,” she said, “but without your marrying me and without my loving you. Yet what man wants a mistress who does not love him? I shan't grow to love you, Boris Vassilievitch. Yet you are quite right. I do not need a man in my life. I despise marriage. Why, then, should I allow myself to be openly kept, which means the same thing?”

“Because,” he explained, “I shall show you the world, and you do want that. I shall never prevent you from dancing but shall help you in any way I can. I shall shield you from that other force that frightens you, call it what you will—men, love. You can be honest with me, Natalia. I have felt your fear. Yet, around me you are not afraid, because you do not feel threatened. I shall not ask to share your bed. I know you would not want this. Just come and let us make a life for each other.”

For a moment she felt blinded and put a hand out to shield her eyes. Then she felt Boris placing his arms about her, holding her up. His arms were strong, calm. He smelled of spearmint and clean lime. To be free, free of her obsession with Pierre. To dance without fearing Kchessinskaya, or Pavlova's evil tongue. Was she so strong that she could resist Boris's proposal? And why should she? Who but Boris had ever gone out of his way for this child of the Crimea? To go from being despised, unwanted by her own parents, to becoming the acknowledged consort of a member of the Tzar's own court…. To live in beauty, without struggle. ... To see Paris. “But you?” she asked. “What would you receive from this arrangement?”

“A man can be born to great wealth and to an illustrious name,” he murmured into her hair. “But to be allied to loveliness and talent is the ultimate goal. Be my princess. To be sure, other men will envy me. Soon the name Oblonova will be famous.”

She shivered, remembering something else that Pierre had told her. Boris staked out his claims before anyone else even took notice: “No one else could lay claim to you afterward,” he had said. She thought of Pierre and their love—a useless love. What had Boris said? “You and Pierre Riazhin would be ridiculous together, with nothing to add to each other.”She sighed.

Laying her head wearily on his chest, she murmured, yielding: “So be it, Boris Vassilievitch. I shall go with you.”

Above her soft brown curls he smiled, and his sheer blue eyes shone like an azure banner in the sky. Pierre would not want her now, his little Sugar Plum. There would be no further trysts between them, no more late-night encounters. But Boris would be acquiring the most promising protégée of the Mariinsky stage. He had killed two birds with one stone, and perhaps this time he might put his own pain to sleep for a while. Of all his intimates, of course, his father would be the least surprised. Boris thought of the brown-eyed Madonna and touched Natalia's hair.

Natalia thought: I have changed, my life has changed. In many ways this was true. She had at first felt like an intruder in the vast apartment on the Boulevard of the Horse Guard. Ivan, the
maître d'hôtel,
was more polished than she, while the young chamber and scullery maids came from families like her own. All these servants had resided for years under Count Boris's expert command. They ran the flat according to the orders of the immaculate, intuitive Ivan. In the beginning Natalia had to find a place in this strange family. She had to be careful not to do anything to embarrass Boris.

She had her own bedroom and boudoir, and her own maidservant to comb her hair and set out her clothes—an entire new wardrobe, which had been made to order by the team of seamstresses employed by Princess Nina Stassova, Boris's beloved sister. “We shall hire you a seamstress of your own, by the by,” Boris had casually declared. But this is absurd! she had thought. I need no more than the few gowns I already own.

All her life she had earned whatever she possessed, and now, such luxury was placed at her disposal that she did not know how to react. Boris wanted her to wear the emerald tiara, and wanted to take her with him to select an Aubusson carpet of rose, violet, and cerulean blue for her boudoir. He insisted on inviting guests for lavish six-course suppers on Thursdays, to give her a day's rest after her performance on Wednesdays. The guest of honor sat at her left, and she was expected to be a gracious, intelligent hostess. Across the table from her sat Boris, regal and golden. Whenever she made a salient point or expressed a strong, witty opinion, he would smile, narrowing his eyes. This meant: Good, good. You are not disappointing me. You are doing your job well.

But, in effect, what was her job? She sometimes even wondered who she was. At the Ballet, she noticed a different attitude among the dancers. Tamara Karsavina and Olga Preobrajenskaya continued to be unswervingly kind, the former in a gentle, discreet manner, the latter, who was older, in a more protective way. Anna Pavlova observed Natalia covertly and often avoided her, but she was no longer rude. Natalia saw many of these women at social gatherings. She had even been invited to Kchessinskaya's palace, as Boris always had been in the past. Kchessinskaya never referred to their disagreement and was animated and agreeable with Natalia, in the vein of an older sister. After all, were they not both concubines of influential noblemen?