My Sergei (33 page)

We were drinking champagne, and we were swimming in snow, because there was so much snow on the ground that winter. Hills
of it, almost like Lillehammer. The weather was beautiful, and at sunset the red sun painted the white snow a fiery pink with
its rays. It was so lovely. But it was also very sad, because I didn’t have my Seriozha around me. I was thinking, Why on
such a great day, in such gorgeous weather, is he not here?

My father had cut two Christmas trees from the forest, one for inside the dacha and one for outside on the steps. We put all
the gifts under the Christmas tree that was inside, and there were far too many this year for the Santa bag that my grandmother
had sewn, because all our guests had brought their gifts, too.

And that night, for the first time since 1988, we remembered the tradition of breaking the plate at midnight and making a
wish. Because there were twelve people, this time my mother dropped two plates. I was with Daria. We decided we would hide
one piece together and make the wish. Because she was so small, I thought everyone would give us some room once the plates
were broken, so her little hand could find a nice piece. But I was wrong. At the first stroke of midnight, my mother smashed
the plates, and everyone was like—vrooom! It was like a bunch of little kids scrambling for candy. We were nearly trampled
to death. Daria and I took the last broken piece of plate we could find and ran off to my parents’ bedroom. We hid this piece
under the wardrobe in the corner. I can’t tell you what I wished, or it will never come true. But this wish I made for Daria.

Our sauna in the country, my first New Year’s without Sergei.

After this wonderful New Year’s night, I flew home to Simsbury as soon as I could pack and make the arrangements. Home, that’s
now what Connecticut seemed like to me. And I decided it would be terrible—impossible, in fact—for me to come home without
Daria.

My parents were pretty upset by this, I think. Daria was the joy of their life now, and they were so used to having her with
them. They weren’t coming to Connecticut for another month, and they didn’t want Daria to be there alone with me. They were
still unsure about my frame of mind, whether I was strong enough to care for two people, instead of just one. But I didn’t
want to discuss it with them. I couldn’t do it any other way. I don’t know how I found the strength to say, “Mom, I’m going
to take her. This is my decision.” But I did. And I’ll always be happy I did.

A
few days after we’d returned to the States, Daria asked
me about Sergei for the first time since his death. She had just woken up, and instead of getting right out of bed and going
down to the playroom, as she usually did, she sat quietly by herself for a long while. Then she came into my bedroom and said,
“Mom, I miss Father. I want to see him.”

It was the first thing out of her mouth, so perhaps she’d had a dream about him. This was very, very hard for me. I held her
in my lap and said, “Dasha, remember what I told you? About how Dad isn’t coming back? How he died? Only when you sleep can
you see him, maybe, if you really, really try.” Then I put my face up close to hers and looked into her bright blue eyes,
which were Sergei’s eyes. “Can you see Father in my eyes?” I asked. She shook her head no. “I can see him in yours.”

We went to Ottawa later in the month, so Marina could create the program for me to skate at Sergei’s tribute, which was going
to be held in Hartford on February 27. Marina had already chosen the music. It was Gustav Mahler’s Symphony no. 5,
IV Adagietto.
I had always liked this music, which is sensitive and tender and also a little bit sad. Marina told me that Mahler wrote
this music when he was proposing to his wife; that, in fact, the music served as his proposal; that he gave it to her, and
she sat down at the piano and played it, and the music did his speaking for him. His wife immediately understood. Marina never
thought a couple could skate to it, however. She saw this music only as a skating solo.

When we first listened to it on the ice, she said to me, “I don’t know what to do.” Then we listened more, and the music told
us what to do. Marina said to me, “Imagine that you’re skating with Sergei for the last time.” Then, “Now you’ve lost him,
you’re missing him, you’re looking for him and can’t find him. You get on your knees and ask God why it happened. Your legs
feel broken, as if they have no strength. You cannot move. Everything inside you feels broken, too. You must ask God for some
help. You must tell God you understand that life goes on, and now you have to skate. You must thank Him for giving you Sergei
for half of your life, the most beautiful time in your life. This is about how all people can get up from their knees in the
face of adversity, can go forward, can have the strength to persevere. You can find someone to live for. You can have a life
of your own now.”

No one else in the world could have created this program for me. I was thinking afterward that Marina was a miracle that God
had given to Sergei and me. He took Sergei, but he left me Marina. She understood Sergei to his soul, and sometimes I think
that Marina knows me better than I know myself. Even if no one else understood this number, Sergei, Marina, and I would understand
it. It was easier for me to think of Marina and me performing it for him together. She had been having a very hard time with
her work, but for him she had summoned the strength to create this beautiful program.

It was very, very difficult for me to skate it, however. First it was strange to be skating alone, without Sergei’s hand to
hold me and take care of me. Something so simple as a layback spin is not an element we did in pairs, so it was the first
time I’d done one since I was eleven years old, and it hurt my back. Most important, to skate this number emotionally every
time is impossible. So it’s difficult to practice it right. The first time I performed it before a small audience of friends
and coaches in Ottawa, so we could get their reaction and see if I was strong enough to do it properly, I felt no power at
all. I had to think about every movement—now I’m doing this, now I’m doing this—and afterward I was exhausted. I was never
comfortable or relaxed. It became very clear to me that emotions can make your legs so weak you’re unable to jump, and that
I had to train harder if I was really going to perform.

After that little exhibition, I had to fly to New York to do an interview with CBS, since the network was airing the tribute.
I left Daria with Marina, so I was traveling by myself. I couldn’t remember traveling anywhere by myself before. Always it
was with Sergei, or my mom, or Debbie, or Daria. I was shy and a little afraid. Only now was I beginning to understand what
a trial it was to go through life alone. How unnatural it was. For solace I was keeping a journal, but the words that I wrote
on the paper weren’t the same words as I had in my head, because every moment my thoughts were different.

When I was back in Moscow, Marina had written to me that with Sergei’s death, she said goodbye to her dream. I didn’t understand
what she meant at first. But perhaps with Marina, and others, their time with Sergei was like a dream. For me, however, this
dream was my everyday life, normal and real. Only now did I understand I had to say goodbye to not only my dream, but my happiness,
my normal life, which perhaps I didn’t appreciate enough.

People had been telling me ever since he died that it’s unbelievable what happened. But not to me. I believed it too much.
I watched it happen. I saw it and felt it. When Sergei died, it was like he passed right through me. I understood it with
every fiber in my being. From the very first words the doctor said when she told me that Sergei had died, I believed, not
with my ears, but with my heart.

And I continued to wonder, Why would God give me this man in the first place, then take him away? Did He want to show me how
difficult life is? How much the heart can hurt? I never thought I’d feel heartache like this. I’d read in books about heartache,
and never understood it. I thought it was just words on paper that the poets wrote. But now I well understand this feeling.
It’s physical pain, sharp pangs that I got every time I remembered things I should have told Sergei, but didn’t. Things I
could have done to show him that I loved him, but didn’t. In Russia, we have an expression:
Kamen na serdce.
Your heart feels like there’s a rock on it, it’s so heavy. And this described mine.

• • •

In our religion, once the fortieth day has passed after the death of a loved one, it is no longer necessary to think of them
all the time. More than that, it is no longer proper for you to do so, because it means that you’re holding onto them. You
have to release people. If God wants to take them away, then that is the road they must go down, and it is wrong for you to
try to interfere.

I had a dream in early February, just before Sergei’s birthday. He would have been twenty-nine. It was a very bad dream, very
scary. Sergei was so mad at me in this dream. He was in a hospital, and we all knew that he was going to die. But it was very
difficult for him to understand this. Someone was trying to explain it to him, maybe I was, and Sergei was shouting at me,
very angry. He was showing me that something disturbed him. He was telling me he was in a difficult situation, and I wasn’t
making it any easier.

It frightened me terribly. I was so scared after waking up. I told my mom about this dream, because I didn’t understand it.
She didn’t understand it either, but she told me that everything that happens brings some good with it. “There’s something
good in this dream,” she said. “Maybe you’ll find it.”

The next day I felt much better for having told my mother about the dream, and I was smiling all day. It was February 4, Sergei’s
birthday, and it was like he didn’t want me to be sad on his birthday. Before this dream, I’d blamed myself for his death,
but afterward, it was like Sergei had told me, “This is what I wanted, so leave me. Release me.”

I began thinking that it could have been worse. People look for comfort wherever they can find it, but who knows? No one knows
what might have happened in a couple of years. Maybe this was the easier way. Sergei only lived through the best years. He
never had to live through his worst ones. He never did anything bad to anyone. He never suffered, or caused suffering. So
I don’t know. Maybe it was all for the best.

The whole month leading up to his tribute night, I was extremely nervous. Not only was I skating by myself for the first time
since I was eleven, but I had to play the role of the hostess. Jay and Debbie had asked me who I wanted to skate in the show,
and I told them Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, Alexander Fadeev, Viktor Petrenko, and Oksana Baiul. Maybe Yuka Sato
would be nice, because Sergei had always admired her skating. I remember him watching her on television in the 1992 Olympics
and being very excited. Brian Boitano said that if there’s going to be a show, he’d like to skate in it. Marina’s thirteen-year-old
son, Fedor Andreev, to whom Sergei had always been like a brother, was included too. Plus the Stars on Ice cast—Scott and
Kristi and Kurt and Rosalynn and the rest—who were like family to us. Others were asking if they could skate in the show,
too—Brian Orser, Lloyd and Isabelle, Paul Martini and Barbara Underhill, Maia Usova and Alexander Zhulin, Artur Dmitriev
and his new partner. But we were too limited with time to invite everyone.

Sergei’s mom, Anna, also came. It was the first time she’d been out of Russia. Anna stayed with me and my parents in the condominium
in Simsbury, and it meant a great deal to me to have her there. Of course it was difficult, too. My parents hadn’t seen very
much of her over the years, and now we all lived together under the same roof for a couple of very emotional weeks. Even in
the best of circumstances, families have differences. It was tough. The only thing that particularly upset my parents was
that Anna was always crying, and it made Daria cry. Anna saw the pictures of Sergei all over the walls, on the tables, in
every room, and it made her cry. And dear Daria, with her little heart, came to her and asked, “Why are you crying, Grandmother?
Why do you cry?”

And Anna responded, “Why do I cry? Child, because my son has died. Why do I have to tell this to you?”

She would carry on about how she was talking to Sergei in her dreams, how he had worked too hard in this sport. She said some
things that were not easy to listen to. Anna was crazy with sadness. I don’t blame her for these words. But it was hell, at
times. It was hell.

When the other skaters arrived the day before the show, seeing all Sergei’s dear friends made me very relieved and happy.
I was particularly pleased that no one talked to me like a sick person, that they didn’t keep asking me how I was. We had
a press conference and a few interviews, then three or four hours to rehearse the two group numbers at the International Skating
Center in Simsbury. Afterward I was hosting a dinner. Everyone was so professional. Sandra Bezic and Michael Seibert, who
had created an opening procession to the
Moonlight
Sonata, were accustomed to working in a big group. But Marina wasn’t. She’d never done a group number before. And it was
Marina who choreographed the beautiful closing number, which was to the String Serenade from Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony.
Its meaning expressed exactly what the show was about: the celebration of a life.