He threw back his head and burst into peals of laughter. “I’ll remember that one, Natalia. Felled by the lethal barbs of a check. Touché! But truly, my darling, I’m going. If they don’t take me, so be it. I think they will. I’ve never been brave a day in my life and I may end up shaming the entire outfit—but there comes a moment when a man—a person—has to face his own sense of values. I like the German people well enough, but if Kaiser Willy sets his mind to it, he could convert the whole of Europe into a parade of Prussian soldiers. They’d take up too much space and wouldn’t leave enough for Natalia Oblonova and her mercurial feet.”
Only then did she begin to cry. She fell face down on the bed and sobbed aloud, like a very small girl. Helpless by her side, he could only stroke her heaving back, caress the soft brown curls on her neck. She sobbed until there were no tears left inside her, but still she sobbed, unable to stop. He removed her slippers and her silk robe, and pulled the covers over her. He turned the lights off and climbed beside her in the bed. She rolled over and said to him, at length: “Don’t ask me to understand what you’re doing, Boris. You're tearing the heart out of me! What you’re doing is so unlike you that I can’t think of anything to say.”
“I’d rather hoped you’d say something encouraging, Natalia,” he countered.
“You’re a goddamned hypocrite, Boris!” And then, in a whisper: “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow,” he answered quietly.
In the darkness she felt her body turn numb. “But perhaps there won’t be a war,” she said hopefully.
“There’ll be a war. Don’t hate me so, Natalia.”
Like a furtive young animal, her body inched over to the crook of his arm. “But I do,” she said. “It’s in my character, and I’m not one to change. I don’t believe in lying to send you to a glorious death. I want you here, with us. If you’re a fool, you’ll be one without my blessing. You never listen to my opinions, anyway. Goddamn you!”
“Don’t be afraid,” he murmured softly, circling her shoulders in a strong grip. “I’m frightened enough for two.”
But she could not answer. She was too engrossed in capturing the feel of his arm around her, his smell near her, the sound of his voice. She knew that she would never forget this night as long as there was a breath of life left inside her.
Chapter 16
On July 28, 1914, when Austria declared war on Serbia, with Russia, France, and Britain announcing war against Germany within the following week, Natalia did not feel as shaken as the Walters and the other inhabitants of Zwingenberg did. She simply thought: It has come, and now there is nothing to do but wait. So began a series of monotonous days, an endless procession. Already Boris seemed like a gilded image to her, highlighted in the rich colors of the Renaissance. She did not want to think of him as flesh and blood, for when she did, nauseous fear swept over her, preventing her from reasoning intelligently. She had received letters until the outbreak of the war, and thus knew that the Division Sauvage had indeed accepted him as an officer among its distinguished corps. Beyond that, Boris’s doings remained unknown. Natalia had never been exposed to anything military, apart from occasional encounters with the gentlemen of the Horse Guard, whose garrison in St. Petersburg stood on the same boulevard as the Kussov flat. She had never liked the swaggering officers, had found them pompous and largely useless.
Arkady turned six months old in September. Natalia knew then how right she had been not to leave the Darmstadt area. He was a beautiful child, ethereal and translucent, with brown eyes that encompassed most of his small white face. Gentle brown curls covered his head. He was tall, twenty-seven inches—an inheritance from his father. But he weighed only ten and a halt pounds, and his ribs showed pathetically. He simply did not eat enough, and at the age of four months had spent three weeks vomiting after every meal. He almost never lay still, even in Natalia’s arms, and he never smiled.
He was intelligent. He liked Frau Walter and looked up brightly if she came in, holding his small arms up for her to take him. But, once held, he was uncomfortable, and she had to put him down. “I’ve never seen a child like him,” the innkeeper’s wife said, shaking her head. “It’s as if he wants to shed his skin, like a little snake. As if being himself were painful.”
“I think it probably is, for him,” Natalia replied.
She took him out each day, no matter what the weather, to give him fresh air. She spoke to him—about the ballet, about Paris, about St. Petersburg, about his father, about the little cousin he had never met, Galina. No one in Russia wrote to her for fear, she knew, of exposing her presence to the German authorities. She wished that someone—Nina Stassova, Lydia, Katya—would send her a long, newsy letter relating normal, everyday occurrences: about Galina, or the Imperial Ballet, or Katya’s two children. She needed something to reassure her that life outside the Division Sauvage and the prison that Zwingenberg had become was proceeding normally, that all was not as unreal as her own existence.
The Zwingenberg residents treated her with gentle vigilance. Fräulein Bernhardt had told someone that Natalia had been a dancer, and one day Frau Walter brought her a small girl from the village. “For you to teach the steps to,” the innkeeper said shyly. Natalia was startled, then delighted. This would provide a welcome break in her monotonous existence. Soon she was teaching three little peasant girls at a makeshift bane made from an old staircase banister that Hermann Walter had hooked to one of the walls in the front hall. She sat at the piano herself and poignantly missed Boris more than ever.
Arkady was the center of her life. He had surprised her at five months by saying “Mamamama” and now said it all the time. Perhaps it meant nothing and was only a gurgle that he repeated because it delighted her so. He could crawl, lazily, using only his left leg and dragging the other shamelessly behind him. Natalia had encouraged him by setting some colorful pages of a children s book two feet away from him, tempting him to reach them. Now he came after all sorts of lures, his small face squirming with the effort.
But there were no smiles, and many listless, exhausted days when he simply lay in the child’s bed that the Walters had found in their attic, hardly moving, constantly whimpering. Natalia sat next to him and wrung her hands.
One day Frau Walter came furtively into the suite and thrust an old periodical in front of Natalia. “We know who you are, Gråfin” she said. “You are the famous ballerina of the Ballets Russes, Natalia Oblonova!” She stared at her boarder with unconcealed wonder. Natalia had become as familiar to the Walters as their own daughter—but now the innkeeper’s wife looked at her as if for the first time.
Natalia examined the article. It contained sketches of herself, and of Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina. The text spoke of their combined effect on the artistic world of Europe. “We realized it was you when we read that the small one was married to an important count from St. Petersburg,” Frau Walter said.
But Natalia was biting her lower lip. “Please,” she asked, “don’t tell anyone about this. The more people learn who I am, the less chance Arkady and I shall have to escape internment.”
“Hermann and I would never speak,” Frau Walter retorted indignantly. “But it’s such a shame you can’t tell the girls’ mothers! Some day the little ones would be able to boast that the great Oblonova was their teacher!”
“When the war ends and everything is restored to normal, I promise to send them a pair of ballet slippers from Russia—and I will tell them then,” Natalia said with a smile.
But the talk with Frau Walter had made her nervous. If only Arkady would gain weight and start to feel well. If only Boris would return and take them out of this enemy nation. How absurd life was! At any moment Germany, which had lionized her, might declare her and her small son its enemy! The world was a topsy-turvy chaos, changing and churning. Europe was like the Russian Ballet, Natalia thought with a sudden start of amusement; one never knew when one country would suddenly turn against another, just as one could n
ever predict whether Fokine or Benois would decide to quit. racking Arkady into the small carriage, she would drive into the hills or into Darmstadt, to change their surroundings for the space of an afternoon. Zwingenberg still employed horse carriages, but in Darmstadt people sometimes stared at her. She thought: So be it. They are taking me for a Hausfrau from Zwingenberg who cannot afford a car. The carriage was hardy and inelegant, but it drove well and she could easily handle Olga, the mare. How funny to have a horse with a Russian name, she thought. If anyone gives us away, it will be Olga!
Not far from Steineckerstrasse one of several garrisons of German soldiers were quartered. One day in the middle of September Natalia suddenly realized that, without thinking, she had brought Olga to its place of exercise, a large square, larger than Place Vendôme in Paris, surrounded on three sides by barracks and administration buildings. The fourth side gave onto the street and was separated from it by a tall grilled gate with a large two-paneled door in its center. Through the bars Natalia could see the soldiers exercising in small groups of forty or fifty.
A strange fascination filled the young woman. These men were preparing to leave for the front, preparing to go into battle. She had no idea what Boris was doing, but a palpable anxiety came over her, and she thought: This is what he must be spending his time on! What did it matter that these were Germans and that her husband was a Russian? They were all soldiers in training. The fool, the fool! she cried to herself, hating him with renewed vehemence. She hitched Olga to a post, took Arkady in her arms, and walked to the grillwork. Some soldiers were marching in unison; others were learning to transfer their rifles from their right shoulders to their left. Some were jogging in a group. She saw a double column of men perform a quarter-turn at a sergeant’s shout and start off in a different direction. She was hypnotized by this movement, which reminded her in an odd way of a Petipa ballet, with its regroupings and symmetrical formations.
Standing there with the baby in her elegant loose topcoat, her graceful ballerina’s ankles exposed in their low kid boots, she resembled a youthful Madonna. One of the noncommissioned officers nudged another, and together they turned to Natalia and smiled. One of them saluted her. They were men, one and all, gallant and lustful. Again she thought, angrily: What difference does it make that they are on the “wrong” side? For she needed to prove Boris wrong, to punish him for what he had done. He’d admitted that it hadn’t been an excess of patriotism. Then what? Deep inside she knew there was a human instinct to fight that defied rational explanation, that had made men go to war through the ages, men as blithely disdainful of government as Boris.
She turned away, her heart beating erratically, and took the baby home. But the next day, lured by her obsessive anger at Boris, she returned. The gate was open, and she saw two generals’ cars passing through. Arkady’s brown eyes, like his mother’s, were mesmerized by the soldiers of the Exerzierplatz. So this is why little boys of every epoch have always been fascinated with toy soldiers, she said to herself. But there are no toy wars. She remembered the stilted toy soldier in The Nutcracker, dancing for the children at the Christmas party. What shall we be doing at Christmas, my Arkasha? For your father has gone off to become a toy soldier with a wooden heart. Wooden hearts don’t break, and it’s your mama who’s the fool.
“Mamama,” Arkady said, agitating his small hand. She looked up and saw a German officer coming toward her, with white-blond hair showing beneath his cap and ribbons decorating his broad chest. That’s it, they’ve found us out, and they’re going to intern us, she thought with dread. I should never have come here. She raised her head and met his blue eyes without flinching. We don’t cower in the Crimea, she thought. We die like Pavlova in The Dying Swan, and we remember to be humorous till the end, making silly smiles because we refuse to allow our fear to show. “Gnädige Frau,” the lieutenant said, clicking his heels and bowing. At least he was arresting them in the style befitting a prima ballerina.
She opened her mouth to acknowledge him, but no sound came. He ignored her confusion and said: “We are going to battle in a few weeks, and my men want to know if you will do us the honor of entering the Exerzierplatz and watching us. It would be breaking regulations, but when men are about to risk their lives, a pretty woman does much to encourage them.”
But I am your enemy! she wanted to answer. My husband is fighting your own people! My husband might kill one of your men, and one of your men might—“Of course,” she replied shortly, her body rigid, her arms wrapped tightly around Arkady.
It was one year now since Natalia had come to Germany, and her command of that language was adequate and well accented. Boris, of course, was fluent and had taught her himself. Frau Walter had taken over. Now Natalia felt infinitely grateful to them, for she could understand the lieutenant and could avoid detection if she made her replies quick and short. He said: “I am Lieutenant Heinrich Püder at your command, gnädige Frau.” She smiled but did not tell him her own name.
He returned to his men and she stood inside near some grill-work, suddenly awestruck. Once the threshold was crossed, it was bizarre to be so close to the soldiers. Some of the noncommissioned officers cried greetings to her, but after a few moments they resumed their duties and she and Arkady remained alone, watching. One group of men was learning a new movement and could not perform it in unison. The sergeant made them repeat it over and over until everyone had executed it to perfection. Natalia could not take her eyes off them.
Suddenly she froze. A long line of soldiers was marching straight toward her. They marched six abreast and had already drawn so close that there would be no time to run to the end of their row and avoid being crushed. Her face drained of color, and she held the baby in a viselike grip that made him cry out. She felt such panic that she could not even breathe. Where was Heinrich Püder?
Arkady had begun to scream, his small face reddening, his body jerking hysterically in her arms. Six uniformed men with rifles were bearing down on them. She could not think at all, feeling only an overpowering claustrophobia. Then a clipped German voice resounded clearly, and the row, like the Red Sea, parted in the center and marched on either side of her and the child, closing ranks behind her. She remained trembling until the column had gone by, cold sweat breaking out on her brow beneath the small blue hat.
Natalia did not wait to catch Lieutenant Püder’s eye. Her arms tightly wound around her son, she ran toward the gate, and out of the Exerzierplatz into the street. Panting, she stood by the post where she had hitched the mare Olga. She was alive! A blinding headache pounded in her head, as she quickly deposited the baby in the carriage.
“I am sorry that you were inconvenienced, gnädige Frau” a voice said behind her. She glimpsed the blond lieutenant catching up with her. Now she hated the German army, where before it had seemed composed of fools like the Russians, fools like Boris, playing at a ridiculous war. A jumble of emotions rose inside her, and she wheeled about, her cheekbones red.
“There isn’t a man around with any respect for human beings!” she burst out, the German words tumbling out of her, beyond recall. “A bunch of silly little boys in starched uniforms, playing with life! Go away, Lieutenant. Go away before your urge to destroy the earth contaminates my son!”
Heinrich Püder stood in total bewilderment, his jaw dropping. Then, shrugging, he turned and walked back toward the Exerzierplatz. Natalia leaned her head on the post, her breath short and uneven. Of course there is no God, she thought; what God would allow such waste to take place? Women would never have let the world come to this, never. Only the “strong sex,” with its absurd delusions of majesty, could cause such misery and confusion.
She was still standing there when someone stopped in front of her. Forced back to the present by this intrusive presence, she shook herself and opened her eyes. She blinked and held onto the post for support. In front of her, his black hair tousled, wearing a light overcoat and no hat, was Pierre Riazhin. Her skin tingled with goose bumps. Boris had s
aid—
“It seems strange not to have run into you before this,” he commented without greeting. His face was quick, the eyes sharp and black, the nostrils quivering. He was not a man of repose. Without preamble he added, “But now I must ask why you’re still in Germany. Are you here by choice?”
“It’s a long story, and I’m exhausted,” she replied, without looking at him.
He smiled. “You were never a conversationalist or particularly gracious, though I must say he tried hard enough to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. No offense, Natalia.”
“Your clichés don’t bother me, Pierre. I’m sick to death of love and hate and forceful, violent emotions. I just want to go home and have a cup of tea and remove my boots from my swollen feet. Arkasha and I were nearly trampled by two hundred German bloodhounds, and I wish to God they had trampled me, because suddenly I’ve ceased to care. I’m too tired.”
His features softened. More gently he said: “You remind me of the way you looked waiting for me on my doorstep—tiny, breakable, and very sweaty.”
She covered Arkady with his small blanket and turned to look at Pierre. She started to laugh, although reluctantly. “I see,” she remarked ironically. “That’s how a man speaks to a former love whose faded image no longer inhabits his heart. Your flattery soothes my aching soul.”
“Natalia,” he asked again, “why are you still here? Enemy aliens can be interned, you know. Or doesn’t Boris care about that?”
She looked away. “Boris isn’t here,” she replied shortly. “He …he’s joined up with the Division Sauvage—Svetlov’s Cossack outfit. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Pierre’s features twisted in disbelief. “Boris? A soldier? I can’t believe it! Why, he’s middle-aged!” He stared at her, at the small child. “But you—he’s left you here, to fend for yourself in a land at war with Russia?”
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