Toward dawn Natalia awoke, her entire body distressed, kinks in her arms and legs. She had slept fitfully, dreaming of fires, storms, and men lurking in passageways, ready to kill her. Misery filled her. How impossible it was to live a simple life, to choose a safe existence with a man who demanded nothing of her. Damn Pierre, damn him! She had dreamed of him, too, dying of a knife wound, dripping blood in Boris’s salon, accusing her of murdering him. Natalia’s hair clung to her temples, and she got out of bed, nervous as a hunted doe. Ivan and the cook kept biscuits and apple cider in the pantry. Maybe some food would soothe her nerves, calm her down. If only Luba were awake…
She opened her door and went into the hallway. She wondered when Boris had returned home. She had imagined noises—probably another nightmare. She turned on a light, walked into the pantry, and found the biscuits, the cider. She placed her snack on a tray and carried it gingerly into the salon. There she hesitated: Something was wrong.
She looked around her, turning on more lights. A small stand on which Ivan stacked the art periodicals to which Boris subscribed had been knocked over. But Boris never got drunk; he could drink gallons of Dom Perignon or bottles of vodka, and they never even clouded his mind. She straightened the stand, rearranged the periodicals. A rectangular rug caught her eye, its corners turned under. She smoothed it down. What had Boris been up to?
Concerned now, she walked back into the corridor. Boris had left the light on in his bathroom. She turned it off carefully. There was a small candle in its holder and some matches on the table. She lit the candle: It would provide enough light to make sure everything was all right, but not enough to awaken or alarm Luba or Ivan, if they should hear her footsteps at this hour and stir in their sleep.
Natalia tiptoed to the door of Boris’s room. It stood slightly ajar. She thought: I can’t intrude, but if he’s ill, or if he needs me …She remembered stories of men who had suffered heart attacks in the night and been unable to call for help.
She gently pushed open the door and went in quietly, holding the candle. She could hear breathing, but it was odd, almost as though there were two people in the room, not one. She stiffened: But no, if he had wanted another woman, surely he would have gone to the woman’s residence and not humiliated her, Natalia, his maîtresse officielle, in front of the servants. A tremendous curiosity swept over her, quelling her scruples. She had to see! She lifted the candle, and looked at the bed.
As if sensing her presence, Boris awakened, sat upright, and blinked in the candle’s glow. At that moment horror overtook her, and she screamed, one loud, piercing shriek. The candle fell to the floor, and Boris, naked, jumped out of bed to retrieve it before it could start a fire. Pierre stirred, mumbled something, and rolled over. Boris held up the candle, and Natalia saw Pierre’s own nudity. She fell against the wall, her fingers groping behind her for support. Soft moans escaped from her parted lips.
Boris said, “Natalia—” and the urgency in his voice broke through her realization, pushed back the reeling pain, the elemental passion of her reaction. She jumped up, fiercely. Pierre had opened his eyes and sat staring at her and Boris in disbelief. She put her hands out before her face, as though to protect herself from both of them, and then she finally cried out:
“You have called me a whore? You? Filthy, filthy men, you have used me, used me, made a mockery of me, a mockery of the act of love—” She ran from the room, sobbing, slamming the door behind her. She ran into her own room and threw herself across the bed, shaking over and over with utter horror.
Wave after wave of disgust assailed her, pinning her down. She leaned over the edge of the bed and vomited bile. Some things could never be forgiven, or forgotten, even if in remembering them, she relived the end of an era in her life. She was vomiting up her youth, her naïve stupidity; they would never again be part of her.
Part Two
New Decor
Chapter 7
Long ago, as a child of ten, she had made the right decision, choosing dance. There was ecstasy in dance, and, unlike love, dance could not betray. And so she went to rehearsals, and sat stone-faced among her companions until it was time to take over the stage. Then she lived again, and for a while the agony that tore at her insides was transformed into a spiritual force, like the magic of worshiping God, or the martyrdom of the saints.
When Boris had found her packing her bag that morning, he had said to her: “You are not thinking, Natalia. You are young, naive, inexperienced, and so you shut your mind to life as it really is. Running away from me will not help any of us. If you leave, where would you go? Back to Lydia? Do you realize how much harm such a move would do you? Petersburg would whisper, ‘He has thrown her out.’ You would be finished! But if you stay, I will help you—your career, your social standing. You know I will.”
“And Pierre?” she asked.
“For Pierre I can do a great deal, also. I have already done much to further Pierre’s dreams, to make them a reality. But if Pierre breaks off with me, he will find me a most powerful enemy. He still needs me. Do you think my friends would employ him or commission works from a man I reviled? There are other bright young painters—just as there are dozens of Oblonovas at the Ballet. Do not forget the incident with Kchessinskaya: She is a woman who knows exactly how to obtain what she wants out of life!”
Natalia had put down her clothes and examined him—elegant, trim, with chiseled features, golden hair, impeccable manners, and an ironic half-smile. “Obviously your threats have worked with Pierre,” she said, and then, tears rising to the surface, she turned away, her face twisting unattractively. “Because I know—I know he would not have done this otherwise! He enjoyed it too much with me to choose this sort of life of his own volition. You have manipulated both of us so that we can never be together again! I shall never have anything more to do with Pierre Riazhin. But—I do feel sorry for him.”
“Hysteria does not become you,” Boris said. “So you feel used. In life, little girl, people do make use of one another: It’s a basic fact of life. Few of us are born happy. We all die alone. In the meantime—well, we each must try to get a little bit of happiness where it’s possible, because there’s too little to go around. For every Natalia Oblonova there are more than one hundred Katya Balinas and Lydia Brailovskayas—and for each of them, one thousand girls rejected the first day at the examination. Perhaps you should feel guilty about having usurped their happiness.”
“But that was a just and open competition. You and Pierre waged some kind of game where I was the playing piece. I had already turned my back on Pierre. It was not necessary to use me this way. Why did you have to involve me at all?”
“Don’t cast the first stone,” Boris retorted dryly. “You have not exactly received nothing in return. Pierre was not the only reason for my coming to you. I won’t try to deny that he was certainly a part of it. But there was you. Someday, when you’re in a better mood, I’ll try to explain it to you. Now unpack, and grow up a little. I always took you for a realist, who knew that nothing in life is fair, that nothing is a gift. I admired you for that almost as much as I admired your genius onstage.”
She had stared at him, stunned by his lack of apology, by his bitterness, and by his sarcasm. So must the Medicis have been, and Machiavelli—ruthless, secure, mocking. One had to admire a person like Boris, who bent the rules and shaped the course of events. She thought: He is right, of course. What can I do? I need to dance, and if he wants to, he can ruin my career. It is my own fault for coming here in the first place—but it was Pierre’s fault for upsetting my life, for making impossible demands of me and forcing me into a corner. She turned her back on him and unpacked her clothes.
She took the pearls, the emeralds, the various fineries that he had given her, and wrapped them in tissue paper. She placed the package on his bed without a note. During the days that followed, she appeared at dinner but would not speak to him.
The disgust that she felt was so strong that, for the first f
ew nights, she could not sleep. Burned on her memory was the candle flame illuminating the two of them in the bed, nude. She had loved Pierre, been obsessed by him, given herself only once to a man—to him—and he had defiled her. No, she had to remember, remember it always, and never trust, never love again. She had learned this so well as a child on the farm. How could she have forgotten this lesson for even a single moment?
Pierre’s notes kept arriving, and she tore them to shreds and threw them fiercely into the fireplace. She would burn him out of her thoughts. She did not really understand about him and Boris, but if she were to ask Lydia, everything would come out, the shame of it, her own stupidity.
One evening in January, she was taking tea alone in the drawing room. Boris had not appeared for dinner, and she had preferred a light snack after her bath. She was weary, discouraged, defeated—tired of fighting her eternal round of bewilderment, anger, outrage, opposition, and resignation. Ivan came in bearing the silver card tray and told her that Serge Pavlovitch Diaghilev was waiting to see her. She sat up, and glanced at his scribble on the card. Her face was pale, her hair flowing down her back, her gown plain and comfortable. There was no time to prepare for this unexpected visitor. “Bring him in, Ivan,” she said, “and fetch us some caviar and smoked salmon.”
“Natalia Dmitrievna, forgive me for intruding,” Diaghilev said. There was something soothing about playing the well-defined role of a gracious hostess to this man. He was Boris’s friend. But hadn’t Lydia mentioned something scandalous about him, once long ago?
“It’s very simple so I’ll come right to the point,” he said, crossing his long legs and looking at her intently. “Do you recall our last conversation, months ago at the restaurant Medvyed? About Western Europe? Paris?”
He had a charming smile beneath the pencil-thin mustache. “Yes, of course,” she replied, intrigued in spite of herself. Laying a slice of salmon over a round of brown bread, Diaghilev said: “I am—we are—putting together a Russian Season of Ballet and Opera to be performed in Paris, in May. I have just begun to approach possible members of the troupe, singers and dancers. I am about to leave for Moscow to see whether Vera Karalli, Mordkin, and the Feodorovas would be interested—and I thought, why not first stop and see Natalia Dmitrievna? Or has Boris already discussed this with you?”
Her pulse began to race, and her heart thudded beneath her chemise. “Boris? No, he did not tell me about your plans. But, please elaborate, Serge Pavlovitch. How could I fail to be interested?”
“The French have responded favorably to our art and music. They wept last year when they heard Chaliapin and want to hear him again. Several of my friends—Boris at the forefront, naturally—have been pressing me to organize for dance what I did for painting and opera. I have interested Michel Fokine. If you come with us, you would dance in his Choþiniana, only this time you would have one of the three principal roles—and you would perform again in the Pavilion d’Armide pas de trois. Is the West still too far for you, Natalia Dmitrievna? Pavlova and Karsavina will not deem it too far for themselves!”
His eyes twinkled at her, and all at once she felt tears on her cheeks, laughter in her throat. Paris! To dance there, to dance Fokine’s ballets, to be among great ballerinas, keen intellects, beautiful palaces, awesome museums, and sunny boulevards bordered with white buildings. France! She gasped, and exclaimed: “Oh, Serge Pavlovitch, I would go with you if you were offering me the job of floor waterer—or of scene duster! I am truly, truly honored.” She knew she sounded silly and inexperienced, unworldly and childish.
Bowing over her hand, he said: “Well then, that’s settled. I shall discuss your contract with Boris after my return. And please do not talk of this with your colleagues. I shall have to approach most of them after Moscow.”
She remained in a daze, her pulse fluttering in her throat, her cheeks flushed. All at once she thought: But Boris and Pierre will be there. They will be together; and I? Yet to refuse because of this obscene business—to lose this opportunity after my years of training and dance—No, I shall not. I will go to Paris, and—what? She pushed away the tray of delicacies and fell against the soft velvet armchair, burying herself under several embroidered cushions and throw pillows, unable to think or move. One of the maids discreetly removed the tray and turned down the lights, but Natalia stayed hidden and withdrawn.
Hours later she heard a footstep and glanced up. It was cold; the fire had died. Boris stood in the hallway, looking into the room directly at her. She sat up and smoothed out her brown hair.
“Isn’t it time we talked?” he asked quietly. “Serge tells me he was here earlier. He thinks highly of your talent. Surely you realize you are precious to me, too.”
“So this, then, is your doing?” she cried. “He only brought me this offer because of you?”
Boris took off his evening cloak and folded his opera hat. “Do not demean your own worth by such stupid talk,” he said roughly. “He would have come regardless of me. But he would have come after Moscow, after he had obtained his most important stars. My contribution is slight—but yes, it’s there. Do not think me an absolute demon, Natalia. There is some good in me. One of the things I do best is to champion artists—but only if they are truly excellent, and worthy of me. As for Serge—he listens, and sifts through recommendations, and then he does exactly as he chooses. Each of us is our own man, just as you are your own woman.”
Natalia did not reply. Boris sat down on the loveseat, passing a weary hand over his brow and into his hair. As he closed his eyes and bowed his head, he looked like Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Watching him in a cold and detached manner, Natalia perceived his unhappiness and felt a mirror pang inside herself. She had recently suffered much and could recognize the same misery in another. But she did not know how to broach the subject with him. Neither of them was capable of laying bare his heart, for each had spent a lifetime guarding its secrets.
She was not sure whether she really wanted to bridge the anger and resentment between them; she did not know what could be forgiven. She cleared her throat. “My mother,” she murmured, “was an inconsequential woman who was worth neither love nor hatred, and not even contempt. My father did not love me. If he died now, I would not go to him, I would not grieve. Perhaps I would feel better if I could—but I am not a kind, gentle person. I don’t go back to the past.”
He was silent. “Why do you love Pierre?” she asked.
Boris raised his head to meet her grave young face, and for the first time he regarded her with candor, his intense blue eyes captivating her, holding her. He held his fine gloved hands in his lap with agonizing dignity. She was suddenly piercingly ashamed to have asked. “It doesn’t matter,” she said and looked away, embarrassed.
“No, of course it matters. You think I wanted you to find out. I may have wanted to keep you away from him—but not this way, Natalia. What is there to say? Perhaps that with you things might be different, that if I were ever to go to a woman, I could go to you, because of your infinite loveliness, your cleanness of spirit and demeanor, your honesty and courage, the way you face life without squeamishness or false pride. The rest—that he wanted you too—that is beside the point, isn’t it? Why do I love him? For the same reasons you once did. It is not something I can help. It’s there, and that’s it: I have to live with it.”
“It’s always been that way?”
He nodded. Somewhat startled, she thought: But he is not ashamed! As if reading her mind, he cut in somewhat sharply: “Come now, Natalia. You lived as you pleased and did not conform to the dictates of a society that you hardly respected. Why should the rules be different for me? I did not choose to be ‘that way,’ as you so quaintly put it. God, Natalia—sometimes I wonder whether the provincial air will ever be cleaned from your soul! No, I happen to prefer men to women. How it began, I don’t know. I have forced myself to make love to women at various times in my life—and I suppose I might find one that would please me
. I had entertained that hope—with you. But there is no shame in loving someone. Pain, yes. To want a person who may never return that love, to always feel shortchanged—that, my dear, is agony. It is far worse than to incur humiliation. Think of it that way: It helps, you know!” He smiled at her, shaking his head.
She rose and took a few steps toward him. He looked up, somewhat startled by her approach, and she stood over him uncertainly. Hesitantly, almost grudgingly, she extended both hands to him, and when he took them in his own, she whispered: “What’s to become of us? Can you tell me, Borya?”
He shook his head and stood up. She searched his face, anxiety welling up within her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and drew her gently to him, enveloping her frailty with his arms. “How to untie the knot,” he murmured. “No one can do it. But we’re all part of it, like strings of a cord, all meshed together.”
The months that followed became a changing kaleidoscope of events. An unspoken understanding had developed between Natalia and Boris. Natalia knew that somehow she belonged in his home, that he needed her; although there was still pain and anger, most of it was directed at Pierre. After all, Boris had never pretended to love her, and neither had she loved him. But Pierre was an altogether different matter, and she was adamant in her refusal to acknowledge his existence.
On February 22, 1909, the Grand-Duke Vladimir died. He had been a supporter of Diaghilev’s endeavors for many seasons, and his loss was felt as a sudden shock. One evening Boris burst into Natalia’s boudoir in a state of great agitation. “The Tzar has withdrawn our subsidy,” he announced. “Without the promised hundred thousand rubles, we may be finished before we start.”
She was sitting by her vanity brushing out her hair. “What happened?” she asked quietly. Boris did not usually share the problems of the committee with her; she knew he wanted her to dance without concerns. It was one of his ways of “taking care of her.”
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