The Fortune Teller's Fate

by Audrey Berger Welz

  I opened the envelope and pulled out a thick sheet of folded stationery, with a tiny rearing horse next to Hervé’s name. He’d written in a vigorous scrawl in bold black ink:

  My dear Mme Petrovskaya,

  I regret that I won’t be able to see you at dinner tonight. Some urgent business has come up, which I can’t avoid attending to. Will you do me the honor of allowing me to escort you to the grand ball tomorrow night?

  Please also accept this small gift. These were given to me when I was just a lad, and at one time they brought me great luck. But I believe the greatest luck wears out in time if it’s not passed on. I hope they will be your companions on many a brilliant evening.

  Your admiring friend,

  Hervé

  At dinner that evening, I was vague and distracted; the gentleman seated next to me must have thought me a half-wit. The table was abuzz with anticipation of the grand ball the next evening. I eavesdropped on a mother and daughter across the table, deep in discussion of Empire gowns, corselet skirts, the exact length and shape of a modern train, and the merits of pale blue satin or banana-colored taffeta. I couldn’t decide whether I was more anxious to look through my own wardrobe or open the little parcel from Hervé. As soon as it was reasonably polite to do so, I excused myself from the table, saying I had a bit of a headache and didn’t want dessert.

  In my cabin, I decided my own choice of a gown would have to wait. The little parcel was too intriguing. I tore off the simple brown paper wrapping to find a box of playing cards, marked: “F. d’Alphonse Arnoult (Paris).”

  I drew the cards out and turned them over one by one, setting them down in rows on the bed. On their backs were a pastoral scene, with several horses standing in the shade of a small cluster of trees, others grazing in the distance. The aces were scenic, showing the stables or ménages of the great centers of classical equitation. I recognized the names from overhearing Lillya tell my mother. The ace of spades showed a grand white facade and was captioned “Cadre Noir, Saumur.” The king of hearts walked beside a dapple-gray mare teaching her to dance in place. The queen of diamonds wore a harlequin circus costume, doing a somersault on the back of a cantering horse. Then I turned over the queen of hearts, and I felt as if my own heart was going to jump out of my skin. On a snowy stallion balanced on his hind legs, his front feet in the air, sat a familiar figure in a tailored riding costume. The costume is deep red, not green; and the lady is sitting sidesaddle, rather than standing upright, I told myself. It’s clearly different. But still it took me back to that long-ago winter evening when I sat with Vladimir looking through a leather-bound album.

  ¯¯¯

  I didn’t decide what to wear to the ball until the next afternoon. Finally, I settled on a very simply cut gown of dark blue voile, its hemline long enough to pool on the ground behind me. Over it I wore an opera cloak of a deep peacock-green lace, hemmed with deep blue velvet. And last I pinned the small circle brooch with the emerald to the cloak. My mind had been on Lillya ever since seeing the ace of hearts.

  I rummaged through my trunk until I found a small square box wrapped in gold tissue paper. Lillya had pressed it into my hand the last time I saw her. “Open it when you go out on the town or do something special,” she’d said. A grand ball on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic had to qualify as special.

  I delicately tore off the tissue to reveal a box printed with a pattern of green fern leaves. Inside was a heavy cut-glass flask. On it, a small silver label was printed, “Parfum Fougère Royale, Houbigant.” I twisted the glass stopper, rubbed it against my wrist, and breathed in the heavy scent of sweet hay mixed with lavender and sage. I imagined myself in a sun-drenched meadow in Provence. Then I dabbed a bit on my finger and put the scent on the backs of my ears.

  Hervé came exactly on time. “You look lovely, Donatalia,” he said gravely when I opened the door. “I hope you’ll consent to dance with me.” Tonight, he seemed to have set his usual teasing, sardonic manner aside. “I’m certain you dance better than anyone else on the floor.” Suddenly I found a true smile upon my face. I couldn’t decide if by wearing it I was betraying myself.

  He took my arm and led me toward the staircase. I could already feel the warmth of the ballroom rising toward us. I paused to pull off my cloak with the brooch attached to it and I laid it over my arm.

  Hervé touched the brooch and commented on the beauty of its simplicity. We were standing at the top of the grand, curving staircase that led to the ship’s ballroom, designed to make every entrance a grand one, so I merely smiled and thanked him.

  The merriment of the music could be heard where we stood, as could the rustle of the women’s satin gowns as they swirled with the beat. My feet were getting itchy, ready to move. Hervé leaned in closer and smelled the perfume on my neck. Then he drew back and gazed at me for a moment. If I hadn’t spent the last days with him, I would have thought it was a look of disgust. His face so intense, at first I thought he was in pain. Then, as if transfixed by reflex alone, surprising even himself, he took me by the waist and pulled me toward him, his mouth seeking mine.

  Suddenly everything was a blur. It seemed that he pushed me away, but perhaps it was I trying to free myself. Either way, I took a step back, but there was no floor, only space. The next thing I knew, I was tumbling down the stairs, my legs tangled in the train of my gown. I tried to curl into a ball to protect them. I was almost at the bottom when I heard a snap. My world went white with pain just as the grandfather clock chimed out the time.

  ¯¯¯

  For anyone else, it would have been a horrible inconvenience to break a leg, but for me, it was the end of my life as I knew it.

  “You’ll be fine in five months’ time,” the doctor said. “Your limp will be almost unnoticeable.” Then he set my leg on a board and strapped it in place. He brought me a used pair of crutches and told me the captain would make sure someone brought me my meals. “I’ll check in with you, but when we land, go to a bone doctor. I’m better with colds and fevers and upset stomachs.” And then he walked out.

  ¯¯¯

  A limp! He had no idea what those words meant. I would never dance again, at least not seriously. My career was finished before it had begun. I wept all night, hearing my mother’s voice: “You’ll trip and fall, and then what kind of dancer will you be?”

  I knew the answer. That small difference between my legs would change what I would do, who I would become, how I would look at myself. I wanted to jump off the deck, swim back to the start, and do it over again. But the ship just steamed on, and the clock kept ticking.

  Hervé seemed truly contrite, and guilty at the same time. It was a bit confusing. I wasn’t certain what to believe. He did all he could to help, constantly asking what he could fetch me and offering to escort me onto the promenade deck, where he’d arranged to have a deck chair reserved for me. Seeing how much he blamed himself, I tried not to blame him. In fact, it was myself I berated more bitterly. I knew I had gotten carried away in a fantasy I had created and I had acted like a foolish girl. But still I couldn’t help feeling a bit humiliated and angry. Why did he push me away?

  At times, I accepted his help—in fact, I needed it—and I held up my end of our stilted conversations at dinner, not wanting to make a fuss about changing our seating arrangement. But other than meals, I avoided him as much as I could while still being civilized.

  Sometimes I’d call the steward instead and he’d help me limp on my crutches to the deck, where I’d lean over the rail, watching the gulls gliding over the ship’s wake. They made me think of Chekhov’s play The Seagull. I remembered the night the play opened. I’d heard my parents coming in. “What a disaster!” My mother said to my father. “The audience didn’t understand Chekhov’s art. The way they booed Vera. They were so loud, she lost her voice!” But my mother did not follow the crowd, she loved the play, and she returned to see it again and again.<
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  A young girl lives all her life on the shore of a lake, she’d recite dreamily. She loves the lake as the gulls do, and is as happy and free as they. But like the seagull in the play, my mother had been broken, and now, so had I.

  Chapter 11

  New York Harbor

  When we passed the Statue of Liberty, everyone cheered. Propped up on my crutches, my leg throbbing, I turned my face away from Hervé so he wouldn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes.

  A steward had come to fetch my trunk earlier. When we reached the entrance to the New York Harbor, Hervé came to help me onto the main deck. He’d insisted on seeing me off the ship and making sure I met Catherine safely. Although I still felt awkward and uneasy in his presence, I had to admit I was glad for some support; I’d been anxious about getting off the ship on my crutches, even with a steward to carry my trunk. It had been some time since my feet had stepped foot on land.

  When we arrived on the main deck, the engines had fallen silent, and a cutter was approaching across the harbor. Ladders were lowered, and a number of officials climbed up onto the main deck. Hervé explained that they were medical examiners, to make sure we were healthy and didn’t have to be quarantined or, in the worst case, deported. He laughed at the look of panic that crossed my face.

  “Donatalia, don’t worry,” he said. “For first-class passengers, it’s the merest formality.” If he’d dared, he would have patted my back.

  “But what about my leg?” I asked, my voice shaking.

  “A lame steerage passenger is one thing—a young lady of good birth traveling first class is another entirely.” He spoke as if that should make me feel special, but it only made me feel bad. I’d heard stories of families being separated, sick children or lame old women deported back to their home countries alone. For the first time, I wondered if the student protestors in Ostrovsky Square and the strikers at my father’s factory might have been right. If this was how it was in America, where everyone spoke of equality, how bad had it been in my Russia? But I didn’t say anything. I knew Hervé would find the idea absurd.

  The ship picked up steam and started toward Manhattan again. Beside us, a family leaned over the railing their eyes wide as they watched the blocky skyline behind Battery Park draw nearer. I wished I could share their excitement. But although I was young, I felt old and misplaced.

  ¯¯¯

  At the pier, Hervé courteously escorted me off the ship, along with all the other first- and second-class passengers. When we reached solid ground, it seemed to sway under me. My crutch slid away uselessly, and only Hervé’s hand under my elbow stopped me from falling. “We’ll stand here awhile, Donatalia, until you get your land legs back again,” said Hervé. After the steward brought over my trunk, and a customs officer asked me a few questions about what was in it, Hervé helped me sit down on it.

  The steerage passengers were staggering off the ship now, carrying their own baggage and wearing tags with large numbers written on them. They were herded over to a separate waiting area. A big red-faced man with an eagle insignia called out numbers and loaded them onto a waiting barge in groups of thirty or so to be taken to Ellis Island. Watching a sweet-faced young boy clinging to his parents, his pretty older sister rubbing his head, I hoped that they would all have an easy journey through immigration and find a good life in this strange new land.

  ¯¯¯

  I barely remembered Catherine—she’d left Russia when I was a young girl—but still, from my father’s description, I picked her out easily enough, waving enthusiastically from the waiting crowd. She had kind, rather faded blue eyes and wiry, sandy hair under her broad-brimmed gray hat. I turned to introduce Hervé to her, but he’d melted away, and only my trunk was there, the smaller bag he’d been carrying for me sitting on top of it. I was surprised; he didn’t seem like the shy type. I opened my mouth to say something, but then closed it again. It seemed she hadn’t noticed him, and I didn’t feel like explaining who he was.

  I was surprised to hear that Catherine’s Russian accent was thicker than my own, since I had just left Russia. It seemed a little affected, as if she wanted everyone to know her origin. But I pushed this thought down. She was doing a kind deed, taking on an angry and hurt teenage girl. I was even more of a liability now, only able to walk on crutches—I wouldn’t even be able to run errands for her. Besides, she was the closest thing I had to a relative or friend in this country.

  She’d received a telegram from the ship telling her about my broken leg; I’d deliberately avoided any specifics about Hervé, and the telegram implied it was an innocent accident. “I’ve arranged for a bone specialist to meet us at the hospital, dear,” she said breathlessly. “Oh, and”—she produced a crumpled sheet of paper from somewhere in her voluminous blue-gray skirts—“here’s a telegram from your father.”

  I glanced at it:

  The world is big. There is much to explore. Remember you come from good blood.

  Stay strong!

  Your loving father

  I wanted to throw it away, I was still so angry with him for forcing me to leave. But seeing Catherine’s anxious glance, I murmured a few words of thanks and tried to look pleased.

  ¯¯¯

  Catherine owned a house she called a brownstone. Although it was four stories tall, because of my leg she made up a room for me on the ground floor at the back of the house, overlooking a shady little garden. Every afternoon at five o’clock, just like the czar and her friends in Russia, Catherine served tea scented with bergamot, citrus, and flowers. She insisted that I join her, and at least once a week she invited another misplaced person like herself to eat biscuits and sip this delicacy with us.

  My favorite friend of Catherine’s was named Alexandra Katrina Teresa Borkavic. A tall, thin middle-aged woman who always wore a tweed suit with a high collar, she never went anywhere without a little dog she called Woof-Woof. I asked her one day how she came up with the name. Smiling at me, she pulled out a treat from her pocket and put it on his nose. He flipped it in the air and then let it fall on the floor. I thought he had made a mistake, but the second it landed he barked twice. After he had properly pronounced his name, he gobbled his treat down. “It was very easy. I just had to listen,” Alexandra said. I grew quite fond of this little dog.

  ¯¯¯

  Winter turned to spring, and spring became summer. Slowly my leg healed, and I was able to get around by myself. Still, I was sad and lonely.

  My only solace was the time I spent in a little trattoria a few blocks from Catherine’s house. The floor there was covered with little hexagonal tiles in an enchanting geometric pattern of diamonds, and dark-green stamped tin covered the high ceiling. It felt cool and tranquil inside, and the big fans spinning slowly overhead helped to wash away any unwanted thoughts. I liked listening to the animated babble of the family who ran the place, even though I couldn’t understand them. I knew the place was Italian, but to me it represented New York City and America. I would sit at a table at the front by a big window and wonder about the history of the people passing by. What had they been through to get here? Did they miss their families, too?

  Through the sweltering days and nights of a New York summer, I limped my way through Greenwich Village, first on crutches but eventually without, though I never seemed to gain my footing. The atmosphere on the Village streets was lively, almost like a carnival. The storefronts were small and quaint, and they seemed to go on forever. New York was so different from St. Petersburg. On every street corner, I could hear different accents and languages, people from all nations gathered here to pursue their dreams. But they only served to remind me that I’d never achieve mine.

  My leg was beginning to heal, but New York held no meaning for me now. I pushed thoughts of ballet out of my head; they only represented all that I would never do.

  Catherine tried to pull me out of the mourning I’d fallen into. She to
ok me to the Metropolitan Museum for beauty and culture. But still I felt trapped in a life I hadn’t chosen.

  Chapter 12

  August 1906

  One Saturday in August, Catherine interrupted my endless games of solitaire. “Put away those old cards, Donatalia,” she said brightly. “I’ve planned an expedition! After all, this week was your father’s fortieth birthday and he wouldn’t want to see you moping around the house on such a beautiful day.”

  “Wear your seersucker suit,” was all she said; she herself had dressed in a white shirtwaist with a long beige linen skirt and insisted we take parasols. We set out toward the subway station at Bleecker and Elm Street, much to my surprise; Catherine never took the subway herself and had advised me to avoid it. “It’s so crowded,” she said. “Men stand too close, and some of them might not be as respectful as I’d wish to a lady.” But apparently today she would make an exception.

  We took the train going south. I have to admit I felt a twinge of excitement, looking at all the different kinds of people on the train around us: Jewish men in dark suits and beards, stout German women, and wiry Italian teenagers. At the Canal Street stop, a Chinese couple got on, the woman carrying a bag full of strange-looking vegetables, along with a crowd of laughing, chattering girls. Catherine looked more and more anxious as the car filled up, and as we went through the long dark tunnel under the East River, she gripped my arm tightly.

  From Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn we took an elevated tram, and Catherine started to look as if she were enjoying herself. Finally, the tram pulled up at the end of the line. “Here we are—Coney Island!” she said and climbed down out of the tram.

  Catherine was looking around to get her bearings when an open car with rows of bench seats pulled up. The driver hopped out to pull down a ladder from the side, and more than a dozen teenage girls climbed down to the sidewalk. Their frazzled chaperone followed, herding them with motions of her parasol.