Encore (34 page)

“It seems strange not to have run into you before this,” he commented without greeting. His face was quick, the eyes sharp and black, the nostrils quivering. He was not a man of repose. Without preamble he added, “But now I must ask why you're still in Germany. Are you here by choice?”

“It's a long story, and I'm exhausted,” she replied, without looking at him.

He smiled. “You were never a conversationalist or particularly gracious, though I must say he tried hard enough to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. No offense, Natalia.”

“Your clichés don't bother me, Pierre. I'm sick to death of love and hate and forceful, violent emotions. I just want to go home and have a cup of tea and remove my boots from my swollen feet. Arkasha and I were nearly trampled by two hundred German bloodhounds, and I wish to God they
had
trampled me, because suddenly I've ceased to care. I'm too tired.”

His features softened. More gently he said: “You remind me of the way you looked waiting for me on my doorstep—tiny, breakable, and very sweaty.”

She covered Arkady with his small blanket and turned to look at Pierre. She started to laugh, although reluctantly. “I see,” she remarked ironically. “That's how a man speaks to a former love whose faded image no longer inhabits his heart. Your flattery soothes my aching soul.”

“Natalia,” he asked again, “why are you still here? Enemy aliens can be interned, you know. Or doesn't Boris care about that?”

She looked away. “Boris isn't here,” she replied shortly. “He …he's joined up with the Division Sauvage—Svetlov's Cossack outfit. I don't want to talk about it.”

Pierre's features twisted in disbelief. “Boris? A soldier? I can't believe it! Why, he's middle-aged!” He stared at her, at the small child. “But you—he's left you here, to fend for yourself in a land at war with Russia?”

“He wanted us to come back with him,” she said tersely. “But Arkasha's sick. I really don't know what's wrong, and I didn't want to take him on any complicated journeys. I was hoping that our physician would return—I had such faith in Dr. Fröhlich!” Her eyes filled with tears of despair, and all at once, pathetically, she began to cry. “But it was such a mistake! Fröhlich won't be back now, not with the military commandeering all the trains. I should have risked a journey as far as Switzerland. There's a specialist in Lausanne of whom I've been hearing—a Dr. Combes, who is even more well known than Fröhlich. He's a pioneer in children's diseases.”

Examining the baby, Pierre said in a stilted voice: “He's so like you, isn't he? Boris should never have abandoned him—abandoned you.”

“I'm afraid I won't fight you on this,” she whispered. “I'm so tired of being brave, and I'm not noble and good and heroic. I'm angry, and I hurt. You've no idea how much I resent Russia for joining the war.” She tried to smile and quizzically regarded Pierre a moment. “Well?” she queried. “And why aren't you doing your part for the Tzar and Mother Russia?”

“I don't think this war will last,” Pierre replied. “It's based on ridiculous premises. An archduke gets murdered, and the world is turned upside down. I was in The Hague—with Boris, in fact—in ‘07, and no one there wanted another war. I'm an artist, Natalia, not a fighter. I can't kill Germans just because they carry a different passport. Among them might be a Strauss or a Goethe. My heart's country is composed of creative people who do not waste their energies planning wars—or fighting in them. I'm not a hero, like your husband. And so I'm prepared to hole up here in the
Künstler Kolonie
until all this ends. They think I'm Swiss, anyway, so there's little danger to me personally. No one would think to check on my papers.”

“Then your life is the simplest of all,” she commented softly. “But then it always was, wasn't it? It never mattered to you how you achieved success, only that you obtained it. Perhaps you're right. What difference will it make a hundred years from now whether or not you were considered a coward by your compatriots? Posterity will only remember you for your great works. At best, you'd make a mediocre soldier, wouldn't you?”

“And at worst, a dead one,” he agreed. She had abruptly moved toward the carriage, her face turned away from him, the baby held against her chest. He helped her in, avoiding her eyes. But he could not remove his hand from the horse's flank. Even with this child of another man's lovemaking, he felt, deep inside, a surge of possession for her. She's miserable and doesn't want me, and he'd seduced her emotions in his customary underhanded manner—the manner of an evil genius who alchemizes gold for himself out of another man's lead. But still, inexplicably, she belongs to me. A wave of anger and need passed over him. For a moment he almost jumped astride Olga in order to keep Natalia with him, but he restrained himself and stood aside as she gathered up the reins and drove away.

Pierre sat at his easel, working on a small reproduction of Natalia and Arkady. He had made a sketch of them after returning to his cottage, and now he felt compelled to complete it as a painting. He was angry and rebellious. Until Boris and Natalia he had been a person in his own right, a true artist, but for the last nine years he had been emotionally entangled and artistically enslaved, incapable of leading an independent life. Now he could not function without thinking of his patrons, without their interfering in his life.

Of course, Natalia was right; he had only himself to blame. He had selected his obsession and allowed it to engulf him. He could have parted from Boris in the very beginning. But Boris had shown him a tray of delights, tokens of an irresistible life, and Pierre, although resenting the offering and the obligation it incurred, had not turned away. Boris had danced around him in elaborate courtship, and Pierre had watched, fascinated. He had hated Boris but eventually, he had been conquered by Boris's charm, his brilliance, his money, his connections, and his way of life. Pierre was not guilt-free.

And Natalia? He'd chosen her, as Boris had chosen him. He had selfishly wanted her for himself. He'd felt betrayed by her rejection of him, but Boris had given her understanding and acceptance, which he had not—ever. In the end she had stopped loving him, Pierre, to love the man who had truly known her. Boris and Natalia had both left him because he had never tried to understand them. It hadn't seemed important!

It was a bitter fact. Pierre set down his paintbrush and felt a knot in his throat, pain from behind his eyes. He was miserably alone and angry and could not work. An artist could not produce when his heart was trapped like a hermit in a cave. Somehow, he thought with self-deprecation, I have never loved anyone but Pierre Riazhin, and now no one else gives a damn about me.

The little baby. My God, what a heartrending sight, with his enormous brown eyes, his soft hair, his translucent and pathetic frailty! He was Natalia's child—and the child of Boris Kussov. Still, Pierre did not want the child to die. Something had to be done.

Pierre rose then and put on his jacket. He would have to try to set his house in order, come what may.

It had been one month since he had seen Natalia. Now, when he entered the inn in Zwingenberg, having discovered Natalia's whereabouts from some villagers, he could hardly think. His mind had given way to feelings of apprehension. Frau Walter seemed pleased that someone had come to visit “the
Gräfin”
and did not hesitate to show him the way to Natalia's rooms. He cleared his throat and asked: ‘The baby? Is he better?”

Frau Walter looked away, and Pierre felt his stomach sink. “Fräulein Bernhardt doesn't know what to do,” the innkeeper's wife said in a muted whisper. “I've never seen a child go through such pain. He's been vomiting for several days now and looks purplish blue in the face. I'm afraid even Dr. Fröhlich, bless his heart, would feel quite helpless. It would take one of the leading medical minds of the century to figure it out—and that's what
she
thinks, too.”

“He's that much worse?” Pierre asked in horror.

Frau Walter raised her brows and said nothing. They had arrived at the door to Natalia's rooms, and now the innkeeper knocked and called out:
“Gräfin!
There's a nice young man to see you, from Darmstadt.”

She turned the knob and he stood looking at Natalia, his lips parting. She was thinner than he'd ever seen her, and her face was haggard and colorless. She was wearing a housecoat and appeared disheveled, her hair falling haphazardly about her shoulders. The innkeeper had disappeared, and now Pierre took her hands, his heart in his throat. “You're not well?” he murmured, tenderness coursing through him like hot liquid.

“I'm all right. Come in, Pierre.” She did not seem surprised to see him, only weary, past caring. Pinpricks of anxiety shivered over him, and he did not know what to say.

Sitting down, she rested her head in her hands. Her voice muffled by her fingers, she said: “I've decided, Pierre. We're going to get out.”

“How, Natalia?”

She looked at him, resembling her son in her pallor and ethereal fragility. “I don't know. I'll work it out somehow. But Arkasha needs to go to Switzerland. It's no longer a question of whether or not he can stand a train trip. There's no choice: If he doesn't get proper treatment from a specialist like Dr. Combes, he'll die. It's as simple as that.”

Her voice reverberated through him, its chilling matter-of-factness piercing through his emotions. He could not answer. She stood up listlessly. “I was such a fool,” she said softly, “not to have listened to reason months ago. But no, I was afraid of the voyage. Borya knew better.”

“If he did, then why didn't he stay here with you and force you both to leave with him?” Pierre cried out.

She looked at him coldly. “I wouldn't have gone,” she replied simply. “God knows he tried to make me.”

Pierre rose, and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Perhaps there's something I can do,” he said finally. “Give me a few days.”

She smiled weakly. “You don't have to, really. It was good of you to come, but we'll manage.”

“I know. But I'd like to help.”

Before she could reply, Pierre abruptly turned and left the room. An idea had formed, merging with the image of the child and the young mother as he had drawn them from memory. He had to try, even if nothing in his life could be changed by his effort. Love had to mean more than wanting to possess. He had to learn whether he really did love Natalia.

The Baroness von Baylen folded her hands in her lap with haughty impatience. “Pierre Grigorievitch,” she said, “you wrote me about a problem. I have come. If you think it was easy—I had to take the car all the way from Berlin because the trains have been commandeered by the military.”

“I know, Marguerite Stepanovna. I am most grateful.” “You have already placed me in a most precarious position. My husband is with the War Ministry. I am only a German by marriage and this house is in my name. I could have had you interned months ago, and should have. Now, if you make one wrong move, people here will learn that you are Russian, and it is I who shall be interned as a traitor to my adopted country. My husband does not know that you are still here. When war broke out, I told him that you had not returned from a vacation in Switzerland. I am risking everything in order to protect your safety. What has gone wrong?”

“Don't worry, everything here is all right. People have accepted me as a permanent fixture in the
Künstler Kolonie.
I come and go with nobody paying me the slightest attention.”

“At least that's a relief.” Marguerite bit her lower lip and rubbed her hands together. She looked around the room. “All this,” she murmured somewhat breathlessly, “for a few paintings a year.”

Pierre winced. He knew exactly why the baroness had not revealed his identity at the outbreak of hostilities. There was no friendship between them. Neither of them, in fact, possessed any friends. Marguerite was very lonely, and her sponsorship of Pierre was the only reason why Berliners sought her out. True, her husband had an old aristocratic name and was well placed at the War Ministry; but now she had become a
grande dame
in her own right, a patroness. Probably she does not even like my work, and certainly she doesn't understand it, he thought wryly. But she feels that she helped launch me among the German nobility. I am her new toy.

Yet, in spite of his bitterness, he felt sorry for her. She was like a rabbit, ferreting about for a sense of self that would forever elude her. She was spoiled and manipulative, but not very intelligent, and basically harmless. That a person like this had ever yearned for a life side by side with Boris Kussov… It seemed incredible. And yet, Pierre knew that after he had left Kiev in 1912, she had written to ask Countess Brianskaya details about him, and that Boris's patronage of him had of course been mentioned. Marguerite had made up her mind then: She had to have Riazhin, to take something that had once belonged to her ex-husband.

So you too, he thought, cannot let go of the Kussov mystique. Aloud he said: “I know what trouble you went to on my account, Marguerite Stepanovna. Sometime soon my work will reward you. I have already begun two large canvases for either side of your mantelpiece in Berlin. I hope you will like them.”

He stood up, and she followed him into his workroom, where he pointed to a magnificent landscape of hills and valleys in full summer bloom. She had been thrown off-balance by his change of topic; She blinked, swallowed, and touched her topknot. “Yes,” she said, “it's very pretty, Pierre Grigorievitch. The effect is overpowering—one can almost smell the flowers.”

He smiled. “Good. That's what I'd planned.” He made a gesture for her to return to the drawing room, and she acquiesced, preceding him through the door. Only when they were seated once more did he begin to speak about what was on his mind.