Encore (3 page)

When they were hungry, Masha unfolded baskets of provisions, but Natalia tried to ignore her hunger pangs, for she did not want to owe the Gudrinskys for more than the barest necessities. At ten years of age, she had already learned pride, perhaps because her mother had been so blatantly devoid of it and her father's had been false. Each time the train stopped at a large station with a restaurant, Masha would descend to refill her teapot from the steaming samovar inside. At night, the controller would send away all but four passengers and would raise the backs of the wooden seats to form two upper bunks: Russians, no matter how poor, could not conceive of sleeping without lying down. Several times Masha made Natalia climb down, bringing all the baggage with her, too: They were changing trains. But Natalia learned that Russian trains paid scant attention to schedules: Sometimes, while the Gudrinsky staff was still waiting for its connecting train, night would fall, and they had to make do with benches in the waiting rooms for bunks.

Natalia was mostly silent. Slowly, the unkempt, unacknowledged child of the Crimea, Natasha “the goat” was being shed, and a clearer, more defined character was emerging: that of Natalia who wanted to win a place at the Imperial School of Ballet. She did not think this so impossible; maybe the baroness had begun this adventure as a lark, as a joke upon an unfortunate family unpopular in the town. But she, Natalia, had always felt that something would occur to free her from her sister's destiny. She was not beautiful, but she was intelligent, though unschooled, save in the crudest manner. Even the majesty of the Orthodox religion had been denied her, for her parents, disillusioned nonbelievers, had rarely made the effort to send her to the village Sunday school; it had been otherwise for Vera, in the hopes that the parish pope might help to make her more eligible for decent matrimony.

As a farm child, Natalia had seen death many times and was not frightened by it. She knew that death was acceptable. Far worse a commonplace existence, which was a denial of the divine side of man, of his humanity. She did not know then that money might have saved her, had she possessed it; for, as with love, she had never known money. Hence she must rely on herself. If she were to emerge with dignity, if she were to accept herself, she must do so alone, with whatever gifts might lie within her. At ten, she did not reason this out—but she knew it instinctively, with a keen sense of self-preservation.

Now, alone in the rehearsal room, covered with sweat, Natalia thought: I shall never bear a child, never. It destroyed my father, took his freedom from him and beggared him to the Gudrinskys. And love? How could I love a child when I despise the notion of living for someone else, as Katya's mother does, or as mine did with Vera? And a child should not grow up as I did; it costs too much in pain. I am afraid of joy, except the one pure joy of dance, this exhilaration brought on by embodying beauty with my own straining tendons. If I admit joy, then I shall admit pain with it.

Katya is a fool: She loves the governesses, she loves the boy who sends her notes during ballroom dancing class, she loves the babies in the parks. Yet while she loves, she laughs and is joyful. Why? What lies forever beyond me, who am intelligent but within easy reach for Katya, whose mind is simpler than mine? Why does she pray to God, while I know He does not exist?

Pink light flickered through a dismal cloud, and she stopped to watch it grow into a crimson flare. Daylight. Natalia quickly executed two
pliés
and cursed her poor turnout. She had chased away the ghosts, and now, golden and warm, she remembered her first glimpse of this school that she felt was hers. The architecture from the days of Tzarina Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, was simple and noble, with the Alexandrinsky dramatic theatre, topped with its three equestrian statues molded in bronze, bordering the Nevsky Prospect at the end. Theatre Street. A guard had let her and Masha pass into the Ballet School, and in the enormous rehearsal room—this very one!—she had seen more children than she had ever before imagined. One hundred fifty boys and two hundred girls had been lined up, the mothers and guardians standing against the walls to await the outcome. First, the doctor had examined her, then she had gone before the masters seated around a long table. A beautiful lady with dark hair had been there, and when Natalia had walked, jumped, and turned, this lady had exclaimed: “She's a single continuous line, isn't she?” Natalia had thought: I have failed. Later, she had learned that the lady was Matilda Kchessinskaya,
prima ballerina assoluta,
once the Tzar's mistress before his marriage and now the consort of his first cousin, the Grand Duke Andrei. The words spoken by this great lady had been complimentary, not critical.

During the grueling day, the children had taken a break and had tea. Sitting alone, not thinking, Natalia had felt a hand upon her arm. Alarmed, she jumped up, but it was only the blond-haired girl who had been behind her during the testing. “Hello,' she had said, and her voice was different, with an accent that jarred upon Natalia's ears. “I'm Katya. Ekaterina Nicolaievna Balina. And you? What's your name?”

“Natalia. Oblonova.”

Katya, a well-groomed child whose mother had trimmed her hair with care around the ears so that it curled gracefully, would not be put off. “You will be chosen,” she had said. “You're very good. Better than I.”

Natalia had known that was true. She had smiled for the first time. “You're not bad. But for you, dancing is not your life. For me—it means being able to stay here, being able to be a person, a real person….”

“I think dancing's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,” Katya said. “Have you seen many ballets?”

“I haven't seen any yet. In the Crimea I lived on a farm. But I want to learn. I'm not afraid of being tired, and my body wants to grow, to make beautiful shapes. In the country I used to run, and move, and stretch—and then I was happy.”

They had both been selected in the final analysis, along with six other girls. Then Katya had asked: “If you're from so far away, Natalia, where will you live the first year? You can't board at school, you know, until they accept you for the second year. Why don't you come and live with us? I have four brothers, and I'm the youngest. Mama won't mind—she loves children.”

Madame Balina had, indeed, not minded. Baroness Gudrinskaya, swept up by her own part in her protégée's good fortune, had made the arrangements with the Balins, the school, and the Oblonovs. Dmitri had been told that since his daughter's future was now assured, a family of moderate means had offered to board her the first year. In return, he was to send them produce from the farm every season. He had grumbled; but after all, as Elena made him understand, if Natalia had been turned down by the Ballet School and become apprentice to the baroness's seamstress, she might have proven unsuited for her work and returned home after a year or two. This way, the Tzar ensured eight years of bills, and a few sides of beef and fresh vegetables were well worth the bargain. Dmitri grunted and promptly forgot that he had ever fathered a second child. Vera's wardrobe increased by two tea dresses. And Natalia found herself with a friend, although she had never thought herself in need of one before. But perhaps this was the custom of St. Petersburg; for she quickly noticed that most of the girls talked in pairs, laughed in pairs, practiced in pairs. Katya Balina protected her from curious glances and from taunts of provincialism; for Katya was a Petersburg girl, and she generously bestowed her city upon her new friend.

N
atalia was finished
with her warm-up. She ran from the rehearsal room, aware that the bell was about to ring and that she must not be caught out of bed. She reached the dormitory in time, and slipped noiselessly onto her cot. A shiver of pleasure raced through her, and her skin tingled from the exercise. She closed her eyes. She envisioned the Mariinsky and herself in her Sugar Plum costume. And then, abruptly, she remembered the elegant blond man with the ironic smile whom she had encountered in the corridor the day of the rehearsal. What an odd expression on that princely face. “I don't like him,” she murmured, not realizing that she had spoken out loud.

“Who's that?” Katya demanded from the neighboring bed.

“A living statue with a top hat and scented hair,” Natalia replied.

Katya began to laugh.

T
he palace
of Count Vassily Arkadievitch Kussov stood on the French Quay among the embassies, a cream-colored structure of simple, flowing lines that always pleased Boris whenever he came up to its enormous oak door. His father had neither chosen nor furnished it; he was a sturdy, uncomplicated man, happiest in his summer residence near the town of Dunaburg, on the train line to Berlin. There he possessed a vast stretch of fertile land around a lake, shaded by pleasant Mount Cavallo, where he liked to hunt in the company of other hardy men like himself. His palace in the capital had been selected by his own father, Count Arkady Kussov, a man whose delicate tastes had skipped a generation and resurfaced in Boris. Count Vassily's wife, long-deceased, had added many treasures from France, Italy, and the Orient to the original furnishings. Boris resembled his exquisite late mother in looks and temperament, and his father's father in the eclectic nature of his interests.

The liveried Swiss doorman bowed and opened the doors for Boris, whose cloak of black seal was instantly removed by a discreet
maître d'hôtel.
“Is
my father waiting?” Boris asked pleasantly.

“Yes, Excellency. In his study.”

Boris nodded and rubbed his hands together to dispel the ungodly chill of a Russian winter. When the servant had departed, he stood hesitantly in the hallway, then could not resist the temptation to take a quick look around the salon. He fingered a sculpted lamp base of opaline, representing a Chinese woman with stiff headdress, and gazed lovingly at a small boulle secretary. He straightened his back and consulted the gold watch in his waistcoat pocket. He stepped away from the salon into a corridor illumined by a chandelier of shimmering Venetian crystal, and stopped by a door which was ajar. Crackling sounds of a fire reached his ears from inside the room. He knocked, paused, and said: “Papa?”

“Borya!” Now the younger man strode joyously across an Aubusson carpet of soft pastel hues. In front of a large mahogany desk stood a portly gentleman with hazel eyes beneath bushy brows, red bristles gleaming through darker sprouts. His fleshy nose curved toward a magnificent walrus mustache—in fact, he actually resembled a well-fed, elderly walrus still fighting to retain a grip on his prime. There was little gray mingling with the brown and red of his hair, and his paunch was hard, as if possessing an entity of its own. This was Vassily Kussov, whose intimate friendship with Tzar Alexander III had made him a familiar at the court of this now-deceased sovereign.

Boris embraced his father, and the two men sat down by the fire. “I hear much of your activities,” the older man commented, drawing on a briar pipe. “You and your artistic friends. When I do not see you, I can always rely on Grand Duke Vladimir to keep me apprised of all your doings. Not all, actually: only those with which he is acquainted as president of the Academy of Fine Arts.”

“Come now, Papa, you sound as though I have been neglecting you,” Boris chided gently.

“You don't come often enough to suit me, my son. A daughter is a mixed blessing. That, in fact, is one of the reasons I asked you here today. Nina is dutiful and attentive, but her court wedding to Prince Stassov has cost me a fortune.”

“But surely you have no objections, Papa? Nina already has a baby girl. And she lives so close by….”

“I was not made to be the father of a daughter and the grandfather of another girl. All this business wreaks havoc on my mind. I call Nina Galina and Galina Nina.”

“Surely you did not summon me to write you memory cards, did you, Papa?” Boris began to laugh, and got up to stoke the lazy fire. His father sat glaring at his back.