This time I was the shadow who was lurking, but I felt as if another set of eyes were staring from the bushes. However, Spade was about to perform, so I left to take my seat.
Vladimir went to greet Louie, the new lion tamer, and his son, Roman. They’d arrived at the circus just in time to see Spade’s first performance. But right after Vladimir left, there was another commotion by the horses: someone had set a trash can on fire. All the men who were supposed to be guarding the boy left him unattended and ran to get water, including Boris, for there was nothing scarier than a circus fire.
It later became clear that Billy—who was the distant cousin of circus owner Big Jim Baldwin—must have had an accomplice hiding in the bushes, and Billy was simply a decoy for something bigger. Someone wanted us frightened, but it was unclear other than that what they wanted. I wondered if it was Big Jim himself or maybe one of his men. Word had spread that he had recently hired a new horse trainer. But why? It made no sense, so I pushed the connecting dots out of my thoughts. By the time the men got back to where Billy had been, he’d vanished. All that was left were the ropes he had been tied up with.
What a day that was—the young horse thief, the mysterious eyes that continued to puzzle me, the arrival of Louie the lion tamer and his son Roman, and Spade’s first performance.
¯¯¯
That day burned itself into Roman’s mind as well, but it wasn’t because of the fire that broke out. Years later he would confess, “Spade’s act was all I could think about. That night I asked God for a favor, Donatella, but even then, I knew. I asked God if he would make that girl notice me.
“At the edge of the circus grounds where we were parked that first night, there was a huge wisteria vine attached to a tree. I sat under that tree thinking of Spade. For the rest of my life, whenever I smell wisteria, I see her.
“Even then, Donatella, I knew my world would revolve around her.”
However, no one could underestimate the special affinity shared between Spade and Emily.
Emily and Bess came to represent the heart of the circus. Emily’s display of kindness after receiving such cruelty, and Bess’s generosity of spirit and capacity for joy, made them favorites.
Sometimes, though, when I thought about life’s twists and turns, Vladimir’s, Emily’s, and my own, a question lingered: Could we adapt? Could we come to terms with all that we had been through and lost?
¯¯¯
News of Russia was getting uglier by the day. Which of our classmates and teachers had been blessed like Bess? Who was alive, and who might be dead?
I thought about the role I had come to play in the lives of the four queens and I prayed I was worthy and up to the challenges ahead of us all. For life, I’d learned along the way, wasn’t always fair.
Chapter 24
According to circus folks, there are five seasons: spring, circus, summer, fall, and winter. It was not an easy life, but it was exciting, and for a long time it helped to drive away much of my anxiety about what had happened to my father, my poor Russia, even the trauma I still carried in the difference between my legs. Polly and Joseph and his family kept up the farm in Savannah, sometimes so well that I almost forgot it was mine. I kept track of the prices of soybeans, cotton, and tobacco, and I met with a lawyer out of Atlanta to discuss the profits and how to spend them, but the Circus of the Queens was home. “Where else would my eccentric talents be so appreciated?” I laughed. Even the police had begun to seek me out for help. Me, an immigrant fortune-teller.
¯¯¯
March 1917
It was March 1917, and Vladimir and I had our ears glued to the radio. George, a bald handyman with a long gray beard that Ann Marie loved to braid, was thoroughly enamored by the invention of the radio. Praising the wonders of this new technology, he’d convinced Vladimir to buy the circus a boxy Clapp-Eastham Blitzen, which George kept along with his tools on his workbench in the train, lovingly maintaining it.
We visited George’s car every day that month. He would pull up an old metal chair with a threadbare pillow thrown on top and serve me hot coffee he had made on the fire outside.
“Miss Petrovskaya, sit down and drink this or you’ll get a chill,” he’d say. “You and Mr. Vronsky might be here for a while.” And we were, most days and nights, as he and Vladimir played with the signals until they found something worth listening to.
But as long as we could listen, we couldn’t get enough. It just didn’t stop. It started in our home city. The people were marching for bread. Mutinies and strikes followed, one after the other. In another month, Czar Nicholas would give up his throne, and no czar would ever again take his place. We knew another revolution would erupt; we just had no idea how many years it would last. Every time we spoke of Russia, our conversations came back to Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky.
My St. Petersburg was no longer mine. It even had a different name, Petrograd, and didn’t seem to belong to anyone. There had been so much fighting and so many changes in the government, but we certainly didn’t think events would unfold the way they did. Vladimir had family in Russia, and I still held out hope that I did, too. The damage the revolutionaries were inflicting sickened me, but so did all the hungry people.
To my mind, nobody was entirely in the right. So much of the bloodshed seemed senseless. The revolutionaries, like their enemies, sought power, and they too used their political platforms to achieve personal successes that they said were for the betterment of the people. The madness had depleted me, but I couldn’t separate myself from it.
The broadcasts stopped the first week of April, when America finally, reluctantly entered World War I, and the US government confiscated most radios. But somehow the silence then was even worse.
“There’s no going back,” I told Vladimir. Bella had insisted I join them for supper. She had made a thick, hearty stew with lots of potatoes, hoping to comfort us. On the side, she served us stuffed cabbage and beets, which she knew were my favorite.
Vladimir nodded. “There’s nothing left.” He grimaced ruefully and glanced over at Bella. “I don’t know how you put up with us.”
It was clear we both were suffering from our sadness, but we went through the motions that night, trying to please Bella, who had placed candles around the table and brought out the dishes her parents had sent her from Italy. The queens insisted Bella help them bake poppy seed cookies. It had been more than three years of not knowing, and although we continued our life in this new country, and many days were good, the war halfway around the world raged on in us as well. The fate of our country was strapped to our hearts, and we didn’t know how to cut it loose.
I tried in vain to find any news about my father. I knew it would be futile, but what had become of him, or of Mme Strachkov? There must be some record somewhere with their name on it. I knew my father had paid Mme Strachkov a good severance and she had intended on moving in with her sister, but I was disappointed that she hadn’t answered one letter I wrote to her. Then one day I received a note from an old neighbor who had heard I was still looking for news of my father, any news to give me closure.
“I want you to know that three other families and I live in what was once your home. Last I heard, your father was in the hospital, struggling with heart failure, but that was a long time ago.
“Rumor has it he made it out alive, but he never returned. Mme Strachkov visited him every day and tried to convince him to move into the house with her and her sister, but the day before he was to be released, Madame must not have been focused for she walked out in front of a horse and carriage going at a rather fast clip. It was too much sorrow for your father to take. I believe he walked out of the hospital a broken man. No one has heard from him since. However, in previous conversations, your father told me that he felt at peace, knowing you were safe.
“Your father was always very proud of you. He mentioned your broken leg. So sorry, but man
y of us have had to give up our dreams.”
The neighbor left no return address; he didn’t need to.
Finally, I knew that my father was as good as dead. I tucked the note under my pillow, lay down on my bed, and didn’t get up for days. I couldn’t stop thinking about my father, Mme Strachkov, about my old teachers and classmates, and about what had happened to Czar Nicolas and his family. All the visions of the past several years repeated themselves like a bad dream and wouldn’t stop. I tried blocking out my memories and imagined little soldiers in my brain stomping out what remained, but some just wouldn’t disappear. Like the night Vladimir and I danced at the Winter Palace, and I saw my first Fabergé egg; a once happy memory was now rooted in sadness.
In my dream, I was lifted in the air and then twirled and twirled. As I spun across the dance floor, I tried to look into my partner’s eyes, but instead I saw two sapphires: the Fabergé egg had become my partner. The speed of the dance became too much for the egg, and all its perfect jewels went flying off its sides and out to the protestors, who had only been begging for bread. When the egg realized it was bare and had not a ruby or a diamond left, it ran and joined the people. Obviously, my little trick didn’t work; my brain swallowed all the soldiers like quicksand, and I thought and thought until I made myself sick.
¯¯¯
I’d been hearing Vladimir’s stealthy footsteps pacing past my tent at night, even more frequently than before Bella gave birth. Although it was getting chilly, I preferred being outdoors to staying in my stuffy sleeper car, but outside, I was more highly tuned to the sounds that surrounded me.
It was all too obvious that playing cards was no longer just a game to Vladimir but a way to relieve his pain. Worried, Boris and several of the men came to see me in my carriage. At first, they pretended to want readings, but they soon told the truth: they needed to warn Bella and me that Vladimir was gambling recklessly, but they didn’t feel comfortable saying anything more.
“I don’t know how to help him,” Bella confided several nights later, after dinner, as we nursed cups of coffee. Earlier we had gone for a ride on two of the circus’s quarter horses trying to blow off some steam.
Vladimir had gone out “to check on the elephants,” he said, though we both knew he’d be gone for a while. I had never seen Bella like this. Her skin had broken out in hives, she’d become so anxious. “I’m afraid Vladimir’s going to do something he’ll regret.”
Sadly, I had no advice to give. I could only offer her a paste of stinging nettle and coltsfoot to apply to her arms and advise her to use cold compresses. I was barely holding my own life together and certainly not in any position to pass along words of wisdom. Bella would have to deal with her husband by herself.
¯¯¯
For the first time in years, I felt as if I’d lost my anchor again, and I was drifting out to sea. With Vladimir lost in his drinking and cards, and Bella consumed with anxiety for him, I had no one to turn to.
As March turned to May, even the sweet sound of courting robins outside my tent struck tinny and flat on my ears. I knew I couldn’t stay any longer. I needed to find the earth underneath me again before I could start to help anyone else. The next morning, I packed my bags and went to say goodbye to Bella and the queens.
Bella didn’t say a word, only hugged me and then turned abruptly away and started wiping down the kitchen counter as if the task were urgent. I knew she was unhappy, but I also knew she understood. The girls looked confused, but I assured them I’d not be gone long. Ann Marie told me to enjoy myself and that she would miss me. Diamond wanted to know if she could borrow a book she had seen on my shelf about Greek mythology. Lucky asked if I would bring her back a book of poetry.
Only Spade seemed really distressed. “Please let me come with you, Aunt Donatella,” she said, clinging to my arm.
“Right now, I wouldn’t be good company,” I said. “But I’d like you to visit me in Savannah as soon as I’m ready.” I embraced her tightly, and then turned and left before I could change my mind.
¯¯¯
Savannah’s salty sea air felt like a soft slap across the face when I stepped out onto the platform. Polly was waving excitedly, and Ben, who tended the garden, when necessary was our butler, and was always our driver, stood stoically at her side. Still, I could see his mustache twitching upward as he tried to not show that he was excited, too.
I hadn’t been back in over a year. Counting on Joseph’s numbers and what the accountant in Atlanta had showed me, I believed rightfully so that the farm was healthy and didn’t need my input. However, I soon realized I needed it. I could see that Polly and I had both aged. I was no longer the girl she’d first met, and she was no longer a young woman; streaks of gray had come to look at home on her head, while her smile was still as wide and inviting as the front gate of the Butler mansion and as easy as its porch swing.
I was glued to the window of our restored Model B Ford all the way to the plantation, just like that lost, feverish girl of more than a decade before. In front of the house, Ben helped me out and then carried my bags in. I stood beside the car, looking up. I had forgotten how big the house was, but I hadn’t forgotten how much I’d loved its solid elegance, the Spanish moss in the live oaks, the rustling leaves of the willows, and the smell of rich, newly turned earth carried on the breeze.
“Ahh, I have missed the sweet smell of our fresh tobacco,” I said to Polly. “Do you mind if I go for a walk on my own before I come in? I want to say hello to the land.” I hardly needed to say it. Polly was almost as intuitive as Irina; she could see I had come to Savannah to be alone. But sometimes, as she used to say, alone can be the busiest place. In truth, I wanted to say hello to Irina, too. I’d always thought she belonged more to the earth than to any space with walls and a floor.
I made my way along a rutted lane that ran between fields and woods behind the house, amazed and overwhelmed. I owned all of this! It hit me in a way it never had before. In one field the ground was freshly turned over, ready for planting our cotton. The velvety leaves of young tobacco unfurled in their long rows. My body seemed to be unfurling, too. I stood in the middle of the field, my face turned up, my eyes closed, feeling the warmth of the sun and the pull of the earth working its magic on me. Then I turned back toward the house.
I looked at the counters laden with “a few things”: a blackberry pie, three pecan tarts, a peach cobbler, and, of course my other favorite, bread pudding with bourbon. “Thank you, Polly. I think I’ll start with a piece of the blackberry pie and save the pudding for later.”
I had collected some fabric swatches in my travels and had seven of the most decorative made into aprons for Polly, remembering how she loved her aprons. As I pulled out each one and handed it to Polly, she named it with a day. “You look like a Friday—no, a Tuesday. This blue reminds me of the sea, so it has to be Sunday.” By the time she’d finished naming the aprons, I’d finished the pie.
Polly had kept her bedroom downstairs, even though on many occasions I had offered her the biggest one in the house. She said she had grown up with eight brothers and sisters sleeping in one room. “All that extra space would make me uncomfortable, and I would never get to sleep. Big houses like these scare me. I guess I like to get scared, but I have my limits, I have my limits.”
I’d told the Vronskys I would be gone for two weeks, but like the Russian Revolution, I stayed on. Once again, Savannah was the place where I could stop and breathe, the place where the scattered pieces of my life could be made whole again. Polly and Ben only wanted to please me. They respected my privacy and expected nothing in return. Spring turned to summer, and nothing told me to leave.
Chapter 25
I walked. I walked through fields, along lanes,
through piney woods and under oaks.
I walked until my head was empty and my feet were numb.
It was the only thing I kne
w to do.
I walked and walked for weeks, maybe months, until the spirit of Irina appeared.
I was hiking on a slippery trail near a stream when I tripped over a root and landed on top of one lone good-luck clover. Covered in mud, I didn’t feel so lucky. I started to cry, thinking about all the things that had gone wrong in my life. Then the wind started to blow. It picked up speed until the rustling of the leaves sounded like the percussion section in an orchestra. Through the steady brushing of the snare drum, I thought I heard Irina whisper to me. I couldn’t make out her words, but I felt her embrace. “I’m so sorry,” I found myself sobbing. “How can I be so ungrateful?” My heart seemed to split in two, all that I had been holding in for years seemed to burst out, and I poured out my troubles to the forest and the trees. When not a tear was left and I was thoroughly exhausted, I picked up the clover and asked it for help. Nothing happened. Then I asked for help again, only this time I got on one knee. Nothing again.
Desperate, I held the clover between my thumb and forefinger, and I asked God to let me witness grace in a physical form. “Give me something to believe,” I said to the clover. I stood up and wiped the dirt off my face. Out of nowhere, three hummingbirds appeared. They circled above my head as if it were a pot full of honeysuckle nectar. After showing off their tricks, they flew backward as only hummingbirds can. They flitted and fluttered from one flower to another, flirting with nature all the while.
Seconds seemed like minutes; each time the hummingbirds returned, they circled my head. Through the leaves on the trees, I heard a whisper once more, reminding me that the hummingbird is a symbol of energy. Then, as if the song of their wings had transformed me into a bird, I flew home as fast as I could.
I knew exactly what I was meant to do.
The Fortune Teller's Fate Page 14
