I was learning that there were no shortcuts in becoming a dancer. When I felt sorry for myself, I’d think of Anna Pavlova to whom classical ballet did not come easily. She was turned down the first time she applied to the Imperial Theatrical School. Her high arches and thin ankles made the work harder for her, and the other students teased her and called her “the Broom” and “little savage.” I’m certain, though, she had the last laugh when she was promoted to prima ballerina.
At home, I’d ask Madame to make me bergamot and citrus tea. Inhaling its fragrance, I’d remember the first day that I met Anna and the next morning, I’d get up and start all over again.
The classes continued and I improved, and over the years I found my place.
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“It’s as if she’s inhabited her mother’s body and made the dance steps her own.” Mme Strachkov spoke to my father as if I weren’t there, though I was standing right next to her in the lobby of my school. But still, there was truth in her words. Despite the changes in my body, I was developing an aesthetic and ease.
I had counted every step it took, every position, leap and spin that got me to this place. I’d finally been chosen as prima ballerina in a recital at the Imperial School of Ballet. How I wished my mother could have been there to see me!
It was spring, the air fresh and invigorating. Snow was dripping off the roofs of the buildings, forming puddles that my friends and I had leaped over, competing to see who could jump farthest without getting her feet wet. But now, here I was flanked by Mme Strachkov and my father, greeting a line of well-wishers, acting grown up.
I hardly heard Madame’s words—I’d just noticed Vladimir and some of his friends standing in line to pay their respects. He had grown into a young man: slim, with a decisive square chin, steel-blue eyes, and the same grin, only wider, that could make you think you were the only one in the world.
Vladimir was the boy every girl wanted as her boyfriend. His family was famous, and he was already becoming a bit of a celebrity himself. But I was too young for him to take seriously—he thought of me as the young daughter of his parents’ friends. Still, he had a kind, playful way of talking to me that made me feel special. We had something in common, too: both of our mothers had been celebrated in their own way, mine as a dancer and his as an equestrian.
“Congratulations,” he said when he reached me. “Now you’re in company with the best.” He was right. Russian ballet had finally surpassed the French. It was an exciting time. Prince Sergei had taken over as the director of the imperial theaters, and Anna Pavlova and Michel Fokine were international stars. Russia was training the best dancers in the world. Many of them came from our ballet academy. I was considered one of those dancers now, and the doors of the world were about to swing open for me.
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during those school years it seemed as if I was losing my father through no fault of his own. My thoughts revolved entirely around dance and dancers. And with the egotism of youth, I spent my time chattering about nothing else. It pains me now to think how little I noticed the slump in his shoulders and the shadows under his eyes.
As constant as the sun rotating the earth, I spent my days practicing perfect pliés while political unrest was lengthening across my country. Times were growing harder, and strikes among the factory’s workers became more frequent and strident.
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The new year of 1905 brought with it a revolution. On January 22, the czar’s army shot and killed five hundred protesters who were taking their grievances to the Winter Palace. In February, the grand duke was assassinated. By May, as the flowers in my mother’s little garden began to unfurl their silky petals, the gravity of the situation couldn’t be denied any longer.
My father was afraid for me. “Innocent people are getting hurt, even killed,” he argued. “I lost your mother. I have no intention of losing you to violence.” Then he reminded me of Grand Duke Sergei, who had recently been blown to bits by an assassin. I didn’t want to hear it; I was happy where I was. I would become a prima ballerina. My father listened patiently to me. I could stay through the summer, he said. But if things hadn’t settled down by then, I wouldn’t be going back to the Imperial Ballet School that fall. To protect me, he’d have to send me away. I’d be on an ocean liner instead, headed for the New World.
Chapter 7
En route to Hamburg
When I think back to those first days on the ship, I can still feel the rolling of the sea. I could barely keep food down, and the stale air in my cabin made me dizzy.
My father traveled with me on the first leg of the journey on a small passenger ship from St. Petersburg to Hamburg, where the great ocean liners set off for the New World. He said he had a supplier to meet there, but I think he just couldn’t bear to let go of me until the last possible moment.
I stayed in my cabin with a washcloth over my eyes for most of that first day, until my father came and knocked on the door. “Come walk on the deck, Donatalia,” he said. “The sea air will do you good.” I was an obedient daughter, so I went with him, but I stubbornly kept my eyes on the sea, refusing to look at him as he tried to tell me about the wonders of the SS Amerika. I knew he must have been working on this plan for months behind my back, and that sharpened my indignation. I couldn’t forgive him for tearing me away from my life in St. Petersburg, my friends, my dreams as a dancer.
“She’s a queen of the seas—a floating palace.” His voice sounded distant through the fog of nausea and resentment that clouded my mind. “There’s an à-la-carte restaurant made to look just like the Carlton, in Pall Mall—on a smaller scale, of course. From morning to midnight, you can order anything that takes your fancy. There’s even an electric passenger elevator—the first ever on a ship.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. The way I felt then, nothing a restaurant afloat could offer would ever tempt me. And what would I, a dancer in the prime of youth, want with an elevator?
I stopped and turned toward the railing, and for a while we both looked silently out over the leaden sea. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Catherine lives in a very good neighborhood. I think you’ll be happy there.” Catherine was the sister of an old family friend, and she’d invited me to stay with her in New York. She’d always been kind enough, but my image of her was hazy; she was a colorless woman, the kind who fades into the background.
“She’s looking forward to seeing you—I think she’s a little lonely. You can continue your studies there. I’ll wrap up my business affairs in St. Petersburg as soon as I can, and perhaps I’ll join you there next year.” He smiled tentatively, his eyes pleading for me to understand, to believe him. “We’ll find a place in the neighborhood and make a happy life for ourselves. There are plenty of business opportunities in New York. I’ve arranged for you to study with Olga Preobrajenska.”
Olga had trained under Marius Petipa before he retired—or was forced out for political reasons, as rumor had it in the halls of the Imperial School.
“I’m afraid, the way things are going, it’s too risky for you to return to Russia until things settle down.” Settle down? Despite my resentment, I almost smiled at that; my father was an incurable optimist. “But she spends time in Paris every summer. If you do well in your lessons, we’ll travel to Paris together next summer. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
I nodded. Although I was heartbroken to leave St. Petersburg—never again to visit my mother’s grave—and the Imperial Theatrical School, the idea that I might someday dance in Paris felt like a patch of blue sky among gray clouds.
I knew I wasn’t the only one leaving. Many other artists and aristocrats were leaving Russia at this time. There was a rumor that some of the dancers at the Imperial Ballet—Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Michel Fokine, and Tamara Karsavina among them—were thinking about striking. They were angry at the way Petipa had been treated; they wanted higher salaries,
a five-day workweek, and the right to choose their own company directors. Within the next few years, Anna, among others, would abandon the International Russian Ballet entirely.
I couldn’t admit it to myself, much less to my father, but I knew he was right to send me away. My beloved St. Petersburg had become a scary place. The anger and desperation of the farmers and factory workers had reached a boiling point. The strikes at my father’s textile factory were becoming more bitter and frequent. Poor Mme Strachkov, who had already lost her beloved cousin and was torn between our world and her family’s, was now too frightened to leave the house at all. Her wooden leg made her vulnerable, and she was afraid because she could not run.
But I didn’t want to hear the rumors of change. I could see nothing beyond my dreams, the dreams my mother had left and given me.
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The next morning, a knock on my cabin door woke me. “Come out, Donatalia! We’re steaming into Hamburg.”
The sun was just emerging from behind the clouds, casting light on the port’s warehouses and cranes. There were ships of all sizes and kinds.
“The third largest port in the world,” said a man with ginger sideburns, leaning on the rail next to us. “All of Europe comes here, to trade or to travel.” He pointed out what he called a “windjammer,” a tall ship with big square sails on its five masts, sailing out the harbor. “It’s on the way to Australia. In the spring it will circle back, all the way around Cape Horn.”
As we walked down the gangplank, I could feel the energy of this crossroads of Europe, with its throngs of merchants, seamen, poor immigrants, and wealthy travelers. We made our way out, crossing a little arched bridge over a canal, through the cobbled streets to the inn where we’d stay the night. There, we dined on minced steak and potatoes. A boisterous group of Swedish travelers lined the benches at the one next to ours. Well lubricated with good German beer, they began singing drinking songs. Their joyful spirit made our table seem even quieter. I simply listened silently to my father but had nothing to say.
As we climbed the worn wooden stairs to our rooms, I suddenly had an impulse to throw my arms around his neck, as I had as a child. But my resentment was still too strong. In the end, I only said, “Good night, Papa,” and closed the door behind me.
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In the morning, the innkeeper’s wife served us a hearty German breakfast before we made our way back to the port. I glanced over at my father, who looked tired and worried. I remembered that freezing spring day when I’d dragged him through Ostrovsky Square, heedless of the demonstrators. So much had changed. Suddenly, I had an impulse to reach for his hand. But then he looked up, his face cleared, and he pointed to a ship in the harbor. “Isn’t she amazing,” he said.
The Amerika was vast—more than an eighth of a mile long—a city on the water, with her four masts and two huge funnels, and her white decks stacked like a layer cake. The pier was abuzz with activities and family members embracing each other in teary or jovial goodbyes.
My father wanted to escort me to my cabin, but I wouldn’t let him. I knew I was being cruel, but I couldn’t help myself. “If I’m grown up enough to make this trip on my own, I might as well start practicing now,” I said. Then I looked up into his sad eyes and I let him hug me. I buried my face in his fine wool overcoat, which smelled of the sweet pipe tobacco he loved, and washed my face with tears.
A steward took my trunk for me, and I followed him up the gangplank. At the top, I asked him to take the trunk to my stateroom. I found an empty spot along the crowded railing of the passenger deck and looked for my father. He was easy to find in his formal black coat, white waistcoat, and dapper top hat, his face lifted toward me and his hand raised. I leaned over the railing as far as I could and waved at him.
The whistle blew, steam billowed from the funnels, water churned white behind the ship, and the pier began to slide away. My father grew smaller and smaller. Suddenly I felt a stab of regret. All those hours walking on the ship, our dinner in Hamburg—I’d wasted the last time I had with him, trapped in my own resentment. Now he was only a speck on the pier, lost in the crowd, and we were both all alone in the world.
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When finally I turned away from the rail, my eyes were watering once more; I told myself it was the sting of the salt spray. A ship steward approached me and asked for my name. He ran his finger down a long list of names on the sheaf of paper he held. “We’re carrying over four hundred passengers in first class, miss,” he said, “not to speak of tourist class and steerage. Ah, here we are…on the bridge deck, miss. A very nice cabin.”
I followed him up a sweeping flight of steps, along a corridor, up some narrower stairs, and along a broad deck. At last he opened a door. “Here you are; that’s your trunk, right, miss? There’s a bell on the wall here—ring it anytime, for anything you need.”
I nodded and walked past him through the door. It was a lovely cabin. The bed was tucked into a little curtained alcove and made up with soft snowy sheets. There was a mahogany fold-up washstand with a mirror above it and a desk with stationery laid out and ready to use. A ship employee had already shaken out my clothes and hung them up.
As soon as I was alone, I sat down, dipped the pen on the desk in the inkwell, and pulled a piece of Amerika stationery toward me. “Cher Papa,” I wrote. It took me twice as long to write in French as it did in Russian, but I had nothing else to do. Father had warned me not to speak to strangers, so I didn’t intend to make any new friends. I’d study old French textbooks on the ship to pass the time and to prepare myself for this new destiny.
“I will do what you told me to do,” I wrote, “but I am already sad and lonely. There is no room to dance and move, and your laughter is already beginning to sound like a faint echo. I’d rather be home with you, practicing my routine and playing soccer with my poor dear Sasha. Please give him an apple and tell him I miss him!” These words passed a little time, but they didn’t nearly express the depth of my feelings. My Russia was fading away, more unreachable with each passing wave.
I wondered what Catherine might look like now. Certainly, she wouldn’t recognize me; I had been a little girl the last time she had seen me. I tried to think about my destiny and everything new that my father had arranged, but instead of looking forward, all I could do was look back.
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The light through my stateroom window was growing dim. For a moment, I thought about trying to find the dining room, or at least a saloon where I could ask for a cup of tea, but the vastness of the ship intimidated me, and I didn’t want to ask anyone for directions.
I rummaged through my trunk for my book of Russian fairy tales, the book my mother had bought me on the Nevsky Prospekt. Then I changed into a nightdress, curled up on my bed, pulled the cord to light the electric sconce on the alcove wall, and drew the curtains. I let the book fall open to the story of the Sea King and Vasilisa the Wise.
I read a few pages and fell asleep. In my dreams, I was alone in our sleigh, trotting along the Neva, past the skaters and the ice carvers, then up onto a soaring bridge of ice, just like the crystal bridge Vasilisa built for the Sea King in a single night.
Chapter 8
The Voyage
The sun was already high when I woke the next morning. My seasickness had passed; the Amerika was so huge that the ocean’s movement could hardly be felt. My appetite back, I rang the bell the steward had shown me, and within minutes a neatly dressed young lady knocked on the door. Of course she could bring me breakfast in my room, she said, handing me a menu printed in English and German. I knew just enough of both languages to get by, but the choices were bewildering: fried bananas, “Beefsteak à la Tatar,” calf’s liver with bacon and onions… In the end, I ordered potato pancakes with cranberries and Russian sardines. There’d be plenty of time to try American food later.
The day stretched before me like a featureless dese
rt. I wandered around the halls and decks aimlessly. On the ship’s main deck there was a giant grandfather clock. I spent hours staring at it. The pendulum had a hypnotic effect on me. Its monotonous swing back and forth seemed to outweigh my own impulses and thoughts; minutes were passing, it reminded me, and eventually my life would go someplace.
Finally, I made my way to an elegant ladies’ salon where everything was upholstered in pink. I ordered a hot tea to pass the time and warm me up, and perhaps take a bite out of my own attitude. Still, the minutes went slower than I ever expected they could. An hour felt like ten. I could see that the ship was beautiful, and I tried to admire it. But my eyes were not ready to open and my heart was not ready to take it all in.
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For the next few days I followed the same routine. When the ship stopped at Dover, I went on deck to get a glimpse of the famous white cliffs, but at Cherbourg I only looked out my window as the new passengers boarded. I had breakfast in my cabin every morning, then read or worked on my French exercises. When I tired of my room, I ventured out to the ladies’ saloon for a cup of tea or a sandwich, then walked the decks for exercise. I avoided the eyes of the other passengers strolling past me or lounging on deck chairs. I didn’t want to speak to anyone.
In the evenings, I ate a sandwich in my room and played solitaire. My father had given me a deck of cards printed in St. Petersburg as a parting gift. The famous Russian officer, author, and artist Nikolay Karazin designed them. I knew his name because my mother used to read his children’s book Cranes Flying South to me. I spent more time looking at the cards than playing. When I picked up the king of hearts, with his gentle face and royal scepter, I bit my lower lip and thought of my father.
The Fortune Teller's Fate Page 4
