Part Four
Curtain on a Changed World
Chapter 21
From Bordeaux to New York the ship took twelve days. Natalia’s last sea voyage had been physically uncomfortable and emotionally tense. Now she let her mind float away with the seagulls, let it sink beneath the turgid green-gray waters of the ocean. She didn’t want to feel. Since the journey took place at the ,start of the new year, 1916, it was too cold to stay on deck. Natalia enveloped her consciousness in the rolling motions of the ship and slept a great deal.
On January 12 she had her first glimpse of New York. The Statue of Liberty, immense and rigid, filled her with a sensation of powerlessness. This country would overwhelm her, she thought. Yet, once on land, she had to concede that New York was not altogether the barbaric hell she had imagined. Fifth Avenue was a majestic stretch of road bordered by stone mansions not unlike those of Paris, and the neat brownstones on the cross streets of Manhattan’s East Side showed restrained good grace, like London’s squares. The stores were enormous, filled with furs and jewelry, and the people always appeared briskly jovial and were forever in a hurry. Natalia thought: I can immerse myself in this city, in its bustle and its fanfare, and then I won’t have to think about myself.
The first week she did not have much time to think in any event. She rehearsed continuously for the two weeks’ worth of performances that were to be given at the Century Theatre on Central Park West. Then the troupe would travel to Boston and continue from there on a tour of sixteen cities. Finally, in April they would return to New York, this time to fulfill their engagement at the Metropolitan.
Natalia was disappointed. Once again, things seemed to have changed, and yet, at the same time, to have stayed the same. The ballets in which she was appearing were all familiar and the limited repertory saddened her. Yet for the most part, the dancers were new, and their work did not live up to the exceptional talents displayed by Karsavina and Nijinsky. Flore Revalles, a French opera singer whom Diaghilev had hired to add an exotic flavor á la Ida Rubinstein, did not exude the Moscow Jewess’s sensual flow. Miassin, whom his mentor had renamed Massine for simplicity, was competent, even inspired—but hardly the innovator that Fokine had been, with his poetic insights. It’s odd, she thought, but I wish Pierre were here. Somehow he would add a feral element that is missing in this uninspired group. New York is too conventional, and I feel trite in my old roles. Perhaps, after all, I have outlived my prime. Yet I know I could put together a wonderful new ballet.
Increasingly, she was relieved at the idea that Pierre was working in her house in Lausanne. There was something reassuring about his presence: He, at least, would keep the world, her world, from disappearing behind a cloud. They had helped each other, openly and behind the scenes, enough times over the years to have convinced her of his permanence. He was not the brilliant magician that Boris had been, or as complex a man. But he was living in her house, preventing it from collapsing, preventing her from collapsing. As a young woman she had been afraid of Pierre’s sexual power; now she felt impervious to it. She did not want another man, ever—sexually or emotionally. Pierre was simply a blood brother of sorts—her family, for who else was there?
She did not think much about Pierre, actually. At night, wracking dreams still possessed her, waking her just before an imaginary death. Once she dozed off in the early morning and touched the pillow next to her, gently, then frantically: the old familiar gesture. She sat up, her eyes distended with sorrow, and stared at the pillow. With a scream, she hurled it to the ground, her throat constricting with anguish. She did not cry. She washed, ate breakfast, and went to rehearsal.
Eventually New York cheered her. Its citizens had been disappointed by Nijinsky’s absence, but not as much as the Europeans had been. The American public, moralistic and prudish, found it easier to accept female dancers than tightly clad danseurs. Natalia, small, strong and infinitely graceful, a passionate Tahor and a palpitating Firebird, was feted.
“It’s essential that you go to the receptions,” Diaghilev admonished her with some asperity. “You are our star. In essence, you are today’s Ballets Russes. I need you among the bankers and stockbrokers, ma chère.”
And so she went. Her slim body sheathed in simple evening gowns of graceful design, bands of material brought from the sides to the back of her skirt in the draped fashion that was popular, Natalia moved listlessly among New York’s elite. Their English baffled her. She had learned the language in London, and Boris had spoken in an impeccable Oxford accent, indistinguishable from that of the highest British aristocracy. The men of New York shook her hand vigorously and did not kiss it. But Natalia did not pass judgment on them. She merely thought: This is the place to forget an airy, lighter world in which I was vulnerable to life and love.
She felt more lonely than ever but did not want to break out of the loneliness, so the new dancers of the company found her aloof. When the Ballet was invited to the magnificent Vanderbilt mansion on Fifth Avenue for an important evening reception, she escaped to the vast window and peered curiously toward Central Park. Voices dimmed around her. She fingered the tassel of the draperies and thought: The park is beautiful. But I could never slip out of this mausoleum without arousing the anger of Serge Pavlovitch, who watches me like a hawk. She licked her lips and did not move. I shall not mingle, she said defiantly to herself. He can make me come, but he can’t force me to live a lie.
“You’re weary of us?” a man’s voice resounded in a low tone from behind her. Not wanting to turn around, she bowed her head, hoping he would tiptoe away and not intrude further. But he continued: “I have some champagne. Would you care to join me?”
She looked at him then and saw a man of some six feet, with brown hair rising like a crown over a wide brow. He had a square jaw, a firm straight nose, a rather large mouth, and a thick mustache. The eyes that probed her own from beneath thick brows were an unusual gold-green hue, an arresting color. Dressed in a rather shabby evening suit, the man appeared to be in his late thirties. Surprised, Natalia smiled. “You’re not what I expected,” she said. You’re not quite a gentleman, she thought.
In his right hand the man held a green bottle of Dom Pérignon, and between the fingers of his left hand were twisted two tall crystal glasses. When he smiled, he displayed large white teeth. “I’m Stuart Markham,” he told her. “Here—hold these, will you?” He handed her the coupes. The bottle had been uncorked, and as she held out the crystal, he poured bubbling yellow froth into it. Looking around him furtively, he laughed and deposited the bottle behind a table. “Cheers,” he said, moving with her to the window.
She sipped the champagne, and suddenly bitterness enveloped her, tightening over her throat. Champagne had been his drink. “I prefer cognac,” she said to the man and then wondered why she had spoken at all. He seemed content simply to watch the park below them, as she had been.
“And I prefer whiskey,” he countered. “But what’s to be found among these bloated, self-important money-makers? Madame, one imbibes champagne in Paris—the Vanderbilts would do no less in New York.”
“You don’t like them much,” Natalia commented with amusement. “Who are you? Why did you come?”
Stuart Markham nodded pensively. “A good question. I’m somebody’s dissipated younger brother, you see. I get taken along now and then, in an attempt to civilize me. You see, I’m a writer—a novelist. The other two boys in the family are an attorney and a dentist. Hardly the stuff of novels, I’d say. We don’t fit at all into one another’s lives. The attorney is about to run for political office—and I think that’s the most ridiculous profession of all. Kissing babies isn’t my idea of a good time.”
Tears suddenly rose to her eyes. She bit her lip and forced them down. “There,” he said. “I’ve already managed to bore you. I saw you today in The Firebird. Now you, gracious lady, are the stuff of novels. Or of poems. ‘Ode to a Ballerina’ by Stuart Markham. Not my usual style, but we’ll see!”
Stuart Markham raised his eyebrows quizzically but said nothing. They drank in silence. Then he said: “Look, let’s take a walk in the park, shall we? D’you have a warm coat?”
Before she could reply, he had begun to propel her toward a back door. They edged their way past one salon and into a hallway. At an open door he whispered: “Show me your coat,” and entered a well-lit room where wraps of every sort lay draped over chairs, on an enormous bed, and on hangers in a special armoire. Natalia found her sable, and Stuart helped her into it. “It makes you look like a ball of fur,” he remarked, pushing her softly in front of him down the corridor. There was a back staircase, and they descended on tiptoes. Natalia thought: I am doing what I want, and Serge Pavlovitch be damned! Then she wondered why she felt comfortable with this stranger.
Stuart took her arm, and together they went past the two butlers by the door, which gave onto a side street. Outside a gust of wind lifted his hat off his head, and he clamped it back down over his brow. They found their way to Fifth Avenue and up several blocks before crossing the street. Only then did he speak again. “Coach ride or walk?” he asked.
“I’d rather walk. I’m a Russian, remember? This is nothing compared with our own winters. We have to stuff cotton between our inner and outer walls to prevent freezing inside our homes. This wind is a sweet balm, Mr. Markham.”
They entered Central Park. All at once, beneath the trees and the black sky scattered with its confetti stars, Natalia knew why she liked this man. He was neither condescending nor threatening to her, and he was of her own world: irritated by his brothers’ lives, yet clearly cultured, educated. They walked at a brisk pace to outdistance the wind, and, bending toward his beaver collar to be heard, she said: “Why haven’t I read anything by you yet?”
He laughed. “Fame doesn’t come easily, Madame Oblonova. I’ve published countless short stories about disenchanted young iconoclasts, and two novels. One was about the disillusioned upper classes of America, whose members don’t care to read about themselves. The second was a better book, and dealt with a more worthwhile subject. It was about a woman’s reaction when her husband kills himself. A grisly topic—but real.”
Natalia had stopped in her tracks, her eyes wide, one hand at her throat. “What’s wrong?” he asked, peering into her white face. “Did my story offend you? Death, you know, is part of life. Art that doesn’t have a life of its own can’t touch us at all.”
“It’s death that shouldn’t touch us,” she whispered. The wind blew a small twig across her cheek, and he brushed it away with the back of his hand. Tears filled her eyes. “Stop it,” she said. “Don’t talk anymore. I can’t listen to what you’re saying.”
“You haven’t read my book,” he countered gently. “There’s nothing further to say about it. I prefer that people read my work rather than listen to me describe it. I’m not that interesting. Let’s talk about you.”
“No! Let’s not talk.” Natalia did not look at him, but when he placed a firm hand under her elbow, she did not shake him off. They walked on the dark pathways in complete silence, but her pounding heart seemed ready to burst while her mind and body struggled to control it. She had once seen a teacup of bone china shatter from contact with too hot a liquid, and now she thought: That is what is happening to me!
Panic overflowed from inside her, and once again she stopped, pressing her hands to her thighs. Purple shapes danced on the backs of her velvet eyelids. A sound began in her chest and started to rise, but she stifled it, holding her lips tightly over her teeth in a white line. Stuart Markham put his hands on her shoulders and kept them there, firmly but without pressure. She thought: If he were Pierre, I’d run away; I’d never want to see him again! But then her lips parted, and a deep wail escaped from the pit of her stomach, a wail that became a sob.
Tears rushed from her eyes, splashing haphazardly over her cheeks, mingling with the fur of her collar. She started to fall, but Stuart caught her, steadied her, and folded strong arms around her shaking body. Against his large chest she screamed and sobbed, unable to regain her breath, blinded by the tears that had been released at last. She sensed that he had begun to walk with her, but she hardly felt her own legs, until he sat her down somewhere and she was dimly conscious that it was a park bench. Her face protected by the lapels of his coat, she wept and wept until she had cleansed the panic from her gut and could breathe again.
When at last she could speak, she looked into his eyes and asked: “What was her reaction? Your woman?”
Calmly he brushed strands of clammy hair from her face, his fingers lingering on her soaked cheeks. “My widow? At first she wants to die, too, because she can’t cope. With the guilt, you see. Who was he?” he added gently. “Your husband?”
Natalia nodded and felt fresh tears sting her eyelids. “He didn’t really commit suicide. But for me he did. It was a stupid war death, and I should never have let him go. He was almost forty years old!”
“What was he like?” Stuart Markham asked.
“Like no one else. Different people might tell you different things about him. I don’t care! Whatever he did, he did it brilliantly and with grandeur. He was supremely selfish, but it didn’t matter to me after a while. He hurt people, but only because they were weak and let him do it. He had no right to be a hero—it didn’t fit in the least into his way of life, into his morality. But then, I let him leave. It was my fault.”
“It wasn’t anybody’s fault. How could you have held onto a man like that? A strong, willful individual? It’s not the same as watching a man go to pieces in front of your eyes, without lifting a finger to help him. Natalia—may I call you Natalia?—you have to accept that he’s gone. Then you can learn to mourn him.”
“But it wasn’t only Boris!” she cried. “There was the baby first. Our baby died, Stuart—and I shall never learn to mourn for him because his life spanned too short a time! Who can grieve for an infant who could not speak, who could barely say, ‘Mamamama’?” She turned away and bent over, hugging her knees. Sobbing gasps escaped her. He touched the back of her neck, but she jerked up and confronted him. “Why are you doing this to me? You don’t know me, and you’re twisting a knife inside my heart. Why didn’t you leave me alone by the window?”
Tilting her face up with his hand, he murmured: “I’m not sorry. You were killing yourself. No wonder you don’t think you’re dancing up to your usual standards! There’s no soul left in you! A person has to let go of his dead, Natalia. Do you think you’re helping your husband, or your child, by throwing yourself on their funeral pyres? If your husband loved you, this kind of death-in-life would make him lose respect for you.”
“But I hated him so,” she said. “For dying. For going to war. For wanting me and loving me and making this defective baby with me. I was glad he died—or I would have left him.”
Stuart Markham shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t have. You loved him, and there’s no reason to stop loving him because he’s dead. You’ve forgiven him a lot—forgiven him for betrayals and God knows what else. Your husband didn’t plan to die, Natalia. Forgive him and forgive yourself.”
He handed her a clean linen handkerchief, and she pressed it to her eyes, cheeks, and mouth. “I don’t want to die with him,” she murmured.
“That would truly be cheating the public,” he said. Then he cupped her small, tear-streaked face in his two large hands and held it for several moments. He kissed her lips, softly, then more fully. “Do you want to stay alone tonight?” he asked her.
A shiver passing over her spine, Natalia simply shook her head no.
It isn’t just the deaths, Natalia thought: It’s the feeling of being part of a closed triangle, unable to break l
oose. She looked at Stuart Markham and was grateful. He had never known about the convoluted relationships in her life; he had not known Boris. Stuart Markham listened to her speak about her husband and accepted what she told him, without question. Natalia Oblonova had been married to a brilliant man, a complicated man, a patron of the arts throughout Europe—but beyond those facts he could add nothing to his own opinion. He could help her to begin the healing process because her past was not his past; none of his emotions was tied to her previous experience. I can be clean with him, she thought. Pierre is too involved, and so I could not bear him and had to run away. With Stuart, Boris and Arkady remain my own: I do not have to share my memories of them or edit my conceptions to conform with his outlook.
She was beginning to realize that her grief would not be exorcised until she allowed herself to truly explore its depths. There were so many hurts. To lose a man like Boris had brought to the surface myriad smaller pains. She could remember the good, the ineffably sweet, but also the insecurity, the lack of self-esteem that had characterized some of their earlier dealings. She said softly to Stuart: “The most difficult thing to accept is that I shall never learn whether he loved me most. If we had been able to continue to live together, perhaps I might have come to know. As it is, I think he loved me, but maybe he loved Pierre more. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. The point is that he did love me, and our baby.”
She had been spending most of her free time with the American writer. Ten days before, at the end of January, the Ballets Russes had finished their engagement at the Century Theatre in New York. Natalia had looked at Stuart and thought: I can’t leave again so soon; I can’t be alone with the pain. Impulsively, she had asked: “Why don’t you come with us on tour?”
Encore Page 41
