Encore (24 page)

Natalia stood up. “No, no,” she replied, her cheeks crimson and her breath short. “I think I'll go out, Luba. My friend, Lydia Markovna—I think I shall pay her a visit this evening.”

“Shall I lay out your dress?” Luba asked.

“No, I can take care of it. But Yuri can bring me in the troika. Serge Pavlovitch sent for the Count, didn't he, with his own carriage?”

When the maid had left, Natalia went to her closet and carefully selected a simple gown of gray silk, high-necked, with demurely puffed Bishop sleeves that entirely covered her arms. She hesitated near her jewel box, then deliberately did not open it. She pinned her hair into a simple pompadour with topknot, and tied a gray silk ribbon around it. She met Ivan in the hallway and had to accept the splendid white ermine cape which he held out to her. She could not have explained her preference for a simpler overcoat.

Yuri took her to Lydia's apartment, and she dismissed him at the door. He wanted to wait, as was his custom, but she said, “It's cold, Yuri, go home and rest. Lydia Markovna will send me back in a coach. I don't know how long I'll be, as His Excellency will not need me at home. You know how late those sessions last at Serge Pavlovitch's!”

Now she ran up the stairs to her former apartment and was let in by the old nurse Manya. Natalia kissed her. She went into the living room and watched Yuri drive away. Lydia appeared in a dressing gown, her black hair down her back. “So you've come to pay your dues. Fancy that!” her friend exclaimed.

Hastily, Natalia propelled Lydia into her bedroom. “I'm sorry,” she began, in an undertone. “I should like to stay tonight, but I can't. I need to find a coach …to go somewhere.”

“Oh.” Lydia's small black eyes widened, but she said, “I have a small carriage, which I drive myself. I could let you use it, if you'd like. One of your people could drive it back tomorrow.”

“That's kind of you, Lydiotchka. It would make sense, wouldn't it, to let me drive it home after my visit.”

“Yes. Well, it's downstairs. A modest affair compared with the Kussov
équipages.
Take good care of it, as it's the only one I can afford.”

Natalia gave her friend a wordless hug. Then she left, bypassing an incredulous Manya. The carriage, a simple two-seater, stood in back of the house, and she had little trouble hitching the single horse to it. It reminded her of her childhood on the farm. It was cold in the open air, while the covered troika had been warm. She drew her knees under Lydia's thick blanket, gritted her teeth, and headed toward Pierre's building. It had to be done, she had to see what had become of him. Her skin was numb with frost.

The light was on at his window. She was trembling with cold and hitched the horse to a lamppost, hoping it would not begin to snow. Yuri would have been appalled at her lack of care for the poor animal, but she had so little time! She ran up the stairs and then, in front of the door, a deathly stillness came over her. A lump rose in her throat. Resolutely, she knocked, and the sound was like a death knell. She clasped her hands together and waited, not thinking.

When he opened the door, she went inside without looking at him, without allowing him to speak first. A smell of dust and rancid oil assailed her nostrils, and she turned to him, surprised. His hair was disheveled, and there were circles under his dark eyes. His dressing gown hung loosely on him and appeared used and ill cared for. She stopped the question on her lips and instead walked into the room with the paintings. Motes of dust flew up at her entrance, and on the floor she saw an old canvas caked with paint, but only half finished. She wanted to cry out: Why have you turned this place into a sty, and yourself into a pig? But she bit her lower lip and hugged the ermine cape around her, shivering. The fire had gone out in an incredibly dirty hearth.

“Once, years ago, I offered you tea and you turned me down,” Pierre said. “Could I make some for you now?”

She shook her head. “No, I shall make it.” She went into the tiny cubicle that was the kitchen and gasped. Dirty dishes lay piled on the sides of the sink, on the counter, on the small round enamel stove, strangely empty. Angry tears came to her eyes. “My God, Pierre!” she cried. “What's happened to you?”

He shrugged, and she noticed that his strong shoulders seemed to have shrunk inside his dressing gown. She examined it and saw the initials
BVK
on one of the lapels. Boris's old bathrobe! “It doesn't matter, does it?” Pierre said. “You are the Countess Kussova, a soloist at the Imperial Ballet. You stand here in your fur coat and look at me with disdain, as one might look at a rat in a gutter. What do you care, Natalia?”

She thought: Then
he
hadn't seen him in all these months. Boris is too fastidious to have permitted this squalor. She circled the small samovar with caution and peered at the coals in the tubular pipe, long grown cold. “When was the last time anyone cleaned this?” she asked. Without waiting for what she knew would be a stinging reply, she emptied the old water from the copper instrument and scrubbed its insides, soaking her delicate hands in the filthy liquid. She dried it with a cloth that she found on the counter, and said to Pierre: “We need some embers from the fire. Not that what you find will be very hot, but your stove is completely empty in here.”

There was a harsh, nagging edge to her voice, and she tried to repress it when he brought her two warm coals still tinged with red. She dropped them down the long pipe that served as a chimney for the samovar and filled it with hot water. She put the small iron teapot on top of the coal pipe to keep it warm. “We'll wait for this to boil,” she told him, and went into the sitting room that was also his studio. She knew she sounded pettish and matronly, like a country schoolteacher, but she could not help herself. She had expected anything but to have to perform cleaning chores in an abode of stench and grit. At least she could do this work without thinking, and for this she was grateful.

Now, they sat face to face. She removed her cape, and he looked at her dress without expression. “Come now, Countess!” he said. “No gems from your dear husband's coffers?”

She did not answer, but looked at him directly without flinching. “Why didn't you go to Berlin, and Paris, and Brussels?” she asked.

For the first time his black eyes flashed, and his hands became fists. “Because I wasn't asked!” he burst out. “The favorite has lost his appeal, isn't needed any longer. What did you think, Natalia? Your husband was bound to tire of me someday, only I never thought he would turn everyone else against me too! Diaghilev, Bakst, Benois—no one invites me to committee meetings anymore, and no one has commissioned any new paintings. I can't sell any of my work in Petersburg. The rich society ladies who were clamoring for Riazhin portraits suddenly have their afternoons full with other, more important, sittings. Bakst has turned Paris into a Persian harem with his settings for
Scheherazade,
while I—oh, never mind. Who is Riazhin, anyway?”

With a swift motion she rose and cried: “I cannot bear this self-pitying streak in you! We all suffer from occasional bad luck. Why must you blame Borya for it? He helped get you on your feet, didn't he?”

“Yes, and then he deftly knocked me down. He is a master at construction but also at destruction. Boris Vassilievitch! I hope he is happier than I am. He has systematically taken from me everything that was mine.”

“No,' she said softly. “You are wrong there. He has not, and never could, take your talent from you,'

In the kitchen her hands trembled when she placed the teapot under the faucet of the samovar to fill it with the now boiling water. She found two cups, some loose tea, sugar, and a lemon, which she sliced. She could not find any spoons, and instead put two forks on each saucer: They would have to do. She placed the teapot with its tea and hot water on a large dish, and crowded the cups and saucers around it. Then she carried it into the other room. Her face was pale and her eyes loomed enormous.

Pouring the tea, she said: “Pierre, I don't understand, not any of this. I'm sorry about your work. You're a great artist. Boris—”

“Boris can go to hell!” Suddenly Pierre regarded her with animosity: “Did he send you here?” he asked.

She laughed, a short, harsh sound that held no mirth. “No one knows I'm here,” she told him. She examined her hands, bit her lip. “Please, Pierre,” she said, “don't give up. It wouldn't be right. I was looking at the painting you gave me when I turned eighteen—and it's wonderful, full of life and fantasy. You mustn't give in to hopelessness, to living this way. Hasn't anybody at all been here to see you?”

A sudden vision of him in his opera clothes, black opera hat, and cane came to mind. She winced. Pity was a dreadful emotion. She was embarrassed for Pierre, for herself, and at the thought of the horse downstairs, shivering in the winter cold. What have I done? she thought, appalled.

“You have truly become his wife,” Pierre remarked then, and there was amazement in his voice. “You have forgotten all of it, all about us, and remembered only your splendid new life, your new position. Why, you are even loyal to him! If you think I betrayed you, surely what he did was less than honorable.”

“But he loved
you.
You said you loved
me
.”

“And of course you persist in not believing my explanations. What sort of love is that? And your marriage to him? Never even explained!”

Stiffly, she said: “I did not owe you any explanations.”

“Nor did I. You had left me long before, when you sent that note of refusal. Marriage did not mesh with your need to dance, to be an independent individual. Still, today you are a married woman. Logical, Natalia? Or merely money-hungry, like the rest of us? A better marriage may not necessarily mean a better man. Tell me, does he sleep with you?”

Without even thinking, she cried out: “Of course he sleeps with me, I am his wife!” Then, suddenly, she burst into tears. She stood up and sobbed for several minutes, then dried her tears like a child, with the back of her hand. She picked up her coat and put it on.

“It's you!” she cried. “You have killed it! Killed me, killed yourself, and killed Boris, too! You never loved me, you never loved him, and both of us were fools ever to care, to care so deeply for a sniveling little man such as you've become! How could you do it, Pierre?” Tears flowing down her cheeks, she added: “What a waste of our love.”

She left her teacup half empty on the little table. Small, dejected, yet suddenly aware of a liberating truth, Natalia walked toward the door and did not look back.

N
atalia was preparing
for the spring season of 1911. Boris had left her to accompany the newly formed “Ballets Russes de Serge de Diaghilev” to Monte Carlo while she finished off the season at the Mariinsky. In early May she would meet him in Rome, where she had never been, and then together they would proceed to Paris, and from there to London, where the Ballet was scheduled to perform at King George's Coronation Gala at Covent Garden.

In planning her wardrobe, Natalia called on Princess Stassova, Boris's sister. At twenty-eight, Nina Vassilievna Stassova was poised, thoughtful, gentle, and very close to her brother emotionally. They bore a striking resemblance, inherited from their mother, and Nina's daughter, Galina, carried it through to the next generation. She was a small golden butterfly, an engaging child.

Watching her, Natalia experienced a strange sensation. Truly the girl could have been Boris's own child, and, in an inexplicable way, this created a bond between them. Almost against her will, an idea began to form in Natalia's head, and one afternoon she asked tentatively: “Nina, has anyone ever painted Galina's portrait?”

Her sister-in-law shook her head. “Not yet,” she replied. “Why?”

Looking down at her fingernails, Natalia said: “I was just thinking. She's a striking beauty, and I know a man who could bring her spirit to life on canvas. He was once one of Boris's protégés. Someone told me that he's had a reversal of fortune, that his work hasn't been much in demand these days. But he's really very good.”

“I could have her painted for Andrei's birthday,” Nina suggested.

“I'm sure our friend would be grateful. But Nina, don't tell anyone about this. He'd be humiliated if he thought I'd recommended him—and Boris would be upset to learn that he's come upon hard times. It would be better for the artist's pride, and for Boris's peace of mind, if you pretended to remember his work from before, when he was popular. He was the man Boris took to Egypt—he designed the costumes for
Egyptian Nights:
Pierre Riazhin.”

“Ah, yes,” Nina assented. “I remember the name. I shall call on him within the week.”

When the tall Princess stepped into his messy sitting room, Pierre remained framed in the bedroom doorway, his shirt open at the neck, the blood pulsing in his throat. He could not help blinking. The woman and child were too much like Boris, and so were too hateful for words of politeness, or gallantry.

Nina ignored the clutter, the room's dust, grime, and sadness. Galina moved closer to her, her small nose wrinkling. “My husband and I have been searching for the proper portraitist to commit our daughter to canvas,” Nina offered gently. “I remember your vivid oils, Pierre Grigorievitch. I should like you to paint Galina.”

“I don't think so, Princess,” he replied harshly. “I don't paint children. They can't sit still.”

Nina smiled nervously, fingering the lace on her cuffs. The small girl stepped forward, right up to Pierre's thigh, and stopped abruptly, rearing her golden head. “You were rude to my mama,” she said in a high, clear voice. “I don't like you. Besides, I'll bet I can sit quietly better than you can!”

Stricken with embarrassment, Nina said nothing. She was thinking: Poor man, how bad luck makes one bitter sometimes! But still, at that moment she wanted to return home to her clean boudoir and her lady's maids. Then she looked at Pierre and found a curious expression on his dark face, which had appeared to her animalistic and harsh. He was staring down at the child in wonder. Now she thought: Why, that man is handsome, in a brutal sort of way! She felt a small thrill of fear and pleasure run up her spine. She was remembering. Hadn't there once been a famous painting, of a ballet—of a ballerina—years ago? By this man, Riazhin? The painting Boris had hung in his study—

But Galina was saying in her singsong voice: “Sit down so I can climb on your lap. You smell of resin, like the forest.”

“I smell of turpentine because I've been painting.” Pierre retorted, reddening. “And you can't sit on my lap. I'm full of oils.” But in his eyes there was a new lustre, a certain softness. He was not seeing Boris anymore, or thinking with hatred of Natalia. He was remembering his own childhood in the Caucasus. And Galina was not at all afraid.

Several weeks later Nina said to Natalia: “I wanted to ask a favor of you. Andrei will not be going away this summer. There's been a business crisis—nothing serious, only he can't leave the city for a few months. I should like to remain here with him, but there's Galina. We'd been planning to go to Switzerland this year, and Petersburg in summer is no place for a youngster.”

“Then I shall take her with me to Rome,” Natalia answered. “Don't give it another thought. Boris adores her and so do I. Will you come with me, Galina?”

The small girl's face became flushed with crimson, and her blue eyes shone suddenly. “Oh, Aunt Natalia!” she cried. “May I, really?”

“I can't thank you enough,” Nina was murmuring, wrapping her sister-in-law in a warm embrace. Natalia smelled the soft flowery scent of her hair, felt the slight moistness of her cheek, and thought with a sudden surge of panic: What have I done, bringing a child into my life? I'm going to Europe to dance, not to play house! But the words died in her throat.

During the voyage to Italy, Natalia wondered why she had panicked at the idea of taking a child along. Galina was easy to handle; besides, her governess, Fräulein Weisskopf, had helped with some of the more complex travel arrangements. Natalia admired her little niece's inbred refinement, her lack of wildness, and something painful stirred in Natalia's consciousness: She could not relive her own childhood through Galina's, for worlds stretched between the child she herself had been and this cherished, well-tended little princess. For an instant a preposterous thought flashed through her mind: If ever she were to bear Boris a son or daughter, her own heredity would show through and he would find this offspring wanting, not quite on a level with Galina. Natalia found this a jarring, painful thought.

Boris was awaiting them in Rome with the Ballets Russes. Once settled at the hotel, Natalia felt the city beckon to her in the splendor of its historic contrasts. Renaissance palaces of marble spread their ornate façades next to crumbling ruins from the days of Caesar. Such an easy comradeship bewildered and delighted her senses. She felt dwarfed by history, yet somehow part of it. Roman matrons and their bustling children congregated in bright daylight around the alabaster Fontana di Trevi, where one could throw coins to make wishes come true. In the moonlight Boris took her there and she threw in a Russian kopek. “What did you wish for?” he asked. But she shrugged; she didn't know what to wish for anymore.

The ballets they gave in Rome were fitting to the spirit of the city: the fairy-tale romance of
Le Pavilion d'Armide;
the graceful, soulful
Sylþhides;
and the lustful, violent Polovtsian Dances from
Prince Igor.
Natalia performed in the first two, in her usual roles. She felt that one danced to the Italians, and to their Royal Family, with one's heart rather than one's brain or one's feet. The Italians loved her, wanted to cherish her and protect her delicacy. She received a profusion of poetry from her admirers but did not laugh. Unsentimental by character, Natalia found the Italians lyrical in a way that touched her deeply.

In the golden sunshine Boris took her and little Galina to the churches and museums. Sometimes, in the afternoon, Galina and the Fräulein would play on the Pincio, a steep hill topped by a park, the Villa Borghese. Their hotel garden had potted orange and tangerine trees, and Natalia and the little girl ran down to pick the fruit, for neither of them had ever seen it growing on trees before. In Russia oranges were only to be found in baskets!

The Italian sojourn felt unreal to Natalia, tinged with pale rose and gold thread. Somehow performances seemed to be put on in slow motion. She awakened each morning to soft strains of a plaintive adagio that never left her brain. She felt at once very fluid and very slow, as though she had become a trickle of thick, golden honey. Only Galina forced her out of this mysterious trance, and then only for brief intervals, like intermissions. She thought of the Kingdom of Shades in
La Bayadère.

Perhaps it's the city's sheer beauty, she thought, picturing the vast enclave of the popes, the Vatican, and the stained-glass windows and mosaic floors of St. Peter's Cathedral. Or perhaps it's regret—I'm feeling old suddenly, without ever having been young. She glanced at Boris, who was regarding her with that shaded irony that saw through to her core. More and more frequently now, she found him examining her—undressing her emotions, she thought with swift, hot resentment and shame.

One afternoon, near the Spanish Steps, the bright copper sun dappling the aged cobblestones, she turned to him and said: “Don't you ever feel it—the days weaving into one another, without any joy except from one's work? It's wonderful here—but the people are happy, and I'm not. I'm on the outside of a pane of glass, and they're all inside, celebrating.”

A little boy, nut-brown and agile, handed Boris a red carnation, which he exchanged for a lira. Boris placed it among the cluster of curls at the back of Natalia's head. They stood looking at each other, their shadows mingling on the pavement. If she had been afraid that he would laugh, his quietude surprised her. He touched her parted lips with the tips of his fingers, and her hand held them there for her to kiss. The touch, the kiss were as butterflies playing with the velvet petals of a pansy: gentle, hesitant, longing, and afraid. A breeze lifted a strand of her hair, the sunlight shone through his, yet they remained strangely intent upon each other, like glimmering statues.

After Italy came the Paris season, and then the first official visit to Great Britain. King George V was being crowned on June 22, and the night before, the Ballets Russes were to perform at Covent Garden. This was the first time that an entire Russian company had come to England; the British had hailed Kyasht, Karsavina, and Pavlova separately, when each of the great ballerinas had come to display her individual talent. These dancers had broken their country's noble tradition by performing in music halls, along with vaudeville acts and circus acrobats—and there they had been duly feted like their predecessor, the ballerina from Copenhagen, Adeline Genée.

The British responded to the Ballets Russes with their personal brand of restrained enthusiasm, and Natalia smiled to herself after the performance of Opening Night. The following day, Coronation Day, the critics praised her for her “eloquent grace.” There was no performance that day, June 22. Boris had driven back with her to Ashley Park, the lovely Cromwellian palace they had rented for their stay, after the celebrations had terminated the preceding night. In the old black Daimler that belonged to the owners of their mansion, the drive lasted only an hour; Brighton, the chauffeur, could make the vehicle glide more smoothly than a troika on ice.

Natalia awakened very early and, parting the curtains of her bedroom window, looked out onto the pasture to the right, where Galina and the indomitable Fräulein Weisskopf were strolling among the animals. The small girl stopped to crouch by a cluster of flowers and picked a long-stemmed weed bursting with yellow petals. She ran toward a young colt and, unafraid, stuck the mongrel bloom right underneath his quivering nostrils. Natalia smiled. There was something elemental in this scene that struck a chord in her own breast: The animal, the child, the flower—they were, somehow, “right.”

She laughed at the ridiculous sentiment and got dressed. Boris had evidently not yet risen, and there were no guests. Natalia sat alone at the long dark table, and two servants appeared, ready to serve breakfast. A double Bunsen burner stood at the opposite end of the table on which lay a platter of hot porridge, and another of fried fish. With impeccable style the young male servants dished out the hot food and set out the white bread with its soft crust, which to Natalia's robust Russian palate tasted strangely like rubber. Hiding her smile, she helped herself to the never-changing strawberry jam and orange marmalade. There was no fresh fruit, no fruit compote. Ivan would have been frankly aghast. “Will m'lady be wanting eggs?” the
maître d'hôtel
asked.

“No, thank you, Lacey. But if my husband comes down, please tell him I've gone for a walk.”

Since the advent of cars, the sole animals kept at Ashley, apart from the farm cattle and plow horses, were Galina's colt and two dogs. The smaller of the two, a Seidenpincher resembling a terrier, came running out to greet Natalia at the door. “Ah, Dreadnought!” she said. “Are you restless too?” Together they went out onto the vast, flower-bordered lawn, the frail young woman in her long blue linen dress, and the small brown dog with his fringe of bangs and fluffy tail. Dreadnought had fallen in love with Natalia the first day. Or perhaps he sensed that they would naturally wend their way to Galina. There had not been a child at Ashley for many decades.

Natalia and the dog walked first to the stables. There were no thoroughbreds there now, perhaps because the owners were too old to ride. The car was kept there instead, as well as the batteries and flat-wheel engine that made electricity for the large estate. Dreadnought was apparently old enough to remember other days, for he sniffed and yapped around the old Daimler with distaste. Natalia was as unfamiliar with house dogs as she was with children: in the Crimea she had known only mangy, functional farm dogs that helped with the animals in the pasture.

They strolled out into the cool silver sunshine. She felt a pervasive contentment seeping through her. The life of an English homesteader had the appeal of down-to-earth reality. She was tired of fighting the eternal questions within her, that unabated search for who she was and why.