“The princess? You let her in?” Just as he had let Pierre in behind her back?
Chaillou simply turned his eyes to a speck of dirt on the floor. He had always held a soft place in his heart for Galina, ever since her arrival over three years before. Natalia took a deep breath, steadied herself, and said: “Very well, Chaillou. Where is she?”
“She…they...are in the parlor, Madame.”
I have to learn to control myself better, Natalia thought as she hastened away. In front of the servants…no pride…. And all for a chit of a girl who thinks she’s a woman!
She wound her way to the parlor door, which stood open. Natalia’s face whitened. Tamara was sitting on an ottoman, her head in Galina’s lap, and the older girl was saying, softly: “Nobody’s right and nobody’s wrong, my darling. In the grown-up world people don’t really lie. They see the same thing differently, sometimes. Nobody hurts another person on purpose. Nobody wanted to hurt you.”
“My mother doesn’t love me,” Tamara said.
“Yes. She loves you. She loves you and she needs you. Tamara, don’t take sides. It isn’t fair to anyone.”
“I don’t care! Mama doesn’t have time for me. You always had time. Oh, Galya—why can’t I live with you? I want to so much!”
Galina raised the child’s face with her index finger. “I want it, too. But I’ll come to see you. And someday you can come see us.”
“Don’t play the saint, Galina,” Natalia cut in sharply, entering the room. Galina reached for her purse and clutched it to her knees defensively, and Tamara jumped up and ran out, brushing past her mother on the way. Natalia did not sit down but remained, examining Galina, whose rigid, white face seemed frozen. She was trapped by the other woman’s brown eyes riveted on her.
“Why did you come here?” Natalia asked, her voice a low tremble.
Galina said nothing, but her eyes filled with tears, and her knuckles on the bag were white with tension. Finally she said: “I wanted to see you.”
“Is anything wrong?” For an instant, the briefest instant, Natalia’s face betrayed the old concern, and Galina’s lips parted, suddenly hopeful. Then the older woman looked away and reached for an enamel box on the coffee table. She sat down on the sofa and extracted a cigarette, then carefully lit it. The habit was still new and shocked her niece. Silently, Natalia took a puff and regarded Galina with expectation.
“I came to tell you something,” Galina said. Her eyes went to the carpet and remained there, abstracted. “We—Pierre and I—are going to Brussels next week. The banns…. You only have to live there six weeks.”
“So. You’re going to be married.”
“Yes.” Galina looked at Natalia then and stopped trembling. “I felt that you should know,” she added.
“Well. That was very brave of you, Galina.” Natalia could feel the pulse beating in her throat, heard a din in her ears, and she closed her eyes and brought the cigarette gratefully to her lips. Then a scarlet anguish rushed into her, and she sat up brusquely, her eyes widening. “Damn it, Galina,” she cried, “why couldn’t you have been this brave before? Why couldn’t you have told me in the beginning, when you first thought you were falling in love with him?”
“I thought that I would be able to handle it myself,” the girl said miserably.
“Yourself! Look what a mess you’ve made of things, handling them yourself!” Natalia felt tears coming and brushed them angrily aside. “Oh, God! If you felt you loved him that much, why didn’t you just sleep with him and leave his life alone? Like that little English dancer? She had him, I suppose he liked her well enough—but she didn’t break open his marriage. She had the courage to stay on the outside!”
“He didn’t want me that way,” Galina responded dully, numbed by Natalia’s vehemence.
“Don’t be so sure. Pierre’s a very sensual man, and I don’t think he’d turn any woman away from his bed if she were attractive. No—admit it, Galina—you were the one who wanted marriage. And Pierre, like any middle-aged fool, felt absurdly flattered by how much you cared for him. He didn’t consider his daughter, or—or me! Because Pierre did love me, Galina. And love like that doesn’t evaporate in one day.”
“You had your chance to make him happy,” the young woman said, and now tears streamed over her cheeks. “Don’t make me out the only bad one in this. You’re the one who made Pierre sneak behind the scenes to be with Tamara. Is that fair to her?”
They were both standing now, staring at each other, bathed in tears. Natalia shook her head, threw up her hands—and stepped toward Galina. The young woman began to sob, almost hysterically now, and Natalia pressed her arms around her, held Galina’s head against her own neck, felt the other girl’s tears. Then she pushed her lightly away. “God, God,” she whispered. “Get out of here, Galina. Get out and get married and live happily ever after. But get out now …please.”
When she heard the front door closing, Natalia fell across the sofa and smothered her face in the bright cushions so that Chaillou and the other servants would not hear the shattering expression of her grief.
Natalia was tired after the première of The Blue Train. Dolin had performed remarkably well: “Beau Gosse,” the libretto had called him, “the handsome kid.” Now all of Parisian society would nickname him this. And he had managed to tell her, somewhat shyly, that he had no desire to encroach on her new profession: “I shall always be a dancer,” he’d said. “I can’t make ballets.”
Now Natalia sat alone in her dressing room, removing her makeup. She had danced the part of a tennis player in the production, and was still clothed in the short tunic outfit. There was a soft, discreet knock on the door, and rather irritably she said: “Yes, yes, come in!” She was seated at her makeup table removing the paint on her face and turned to look at her intruder. Her hand, holding a cotton wad, remained in midair. Pierre had slid into the small room, a strange figure whose black suit made the silver in his hair all the more startling. He was somewhat pale, holding a walking stick in both his hands and twirling it nervously.
“You came to the show?” she asked, amazement overcoming her other emotions. “But—why?”
“Out of habit, perhaps?” He seemed uncomfortable as he sat down, so she turned back to the vanity and applied cold cream to her cheeks. “You’re the best ballerina alive today,” he added.
“Damn it, Pierre! Couldn’t you have had the common decency not to show yourself? Everyone must have seen you come into this room!” Her brown eyes were blazing at him from the mirror. She was starting to tremble, and now she breathed once, twice to control herself. “Of course, our colleagues all think there’s something romantic about your situation, don’t they? I mean, here you’ve left one woman, whom they’ve all known for years, for that same woman’s young and well-born niece, the niece also of their onetime co-director. It’s made you quite the dashing figure of a modern Casanova, hasn’t it?”
He shifted uncomfortably on the chair, but without taking his eyes from her. Then he shrugged. “I didn’t want that,” he declared, a roughness in his throat. “It never had to come to that.”
She closed her hands together and turned slightly, raising her brows. “Oh? You mystify me.”
Color rose in his cheeks, and he stood up, clenching his fists to his thighs. “You made it all so easy!” he cried. “You never—you never fought, never fought for me, never asked me not to leave! It all seemed a confirmation of what I’d been thinking: that actually, I hadn’t meant all that much to you, that you could let me go with such …such a lack of passion. And if she loved me and you didn’t—”
The words hung in the moist, hot air between them. Then she said in a clear, crisp voice, applying a sterile wad of cotton to the tip of her nose: “You’d better go, Pierre. Galina tells me you’re leaving tomorrow for Brussels. I suppose she’s home packing and could use your help.”
“You’re not going to say anything to me about my wedding?” he asked, hovering near the door.
Her resolve broke then, and she whispered: “What more can possibly be said between us at this point, Pierre? I’m the woman who didn’t love you enough.”
Diaghilev’s London agent, Wollheim, wrote in his letter: “My dear Natalia, my discussions with Sir Oswald Stoll concerning the liquidation of the Ballet’s debt and the instigation of a new season this coming winter are stalling badly. For some reason with which I am not familiar, he has indicated that he would consider dealing with you. Can you come?”
She smiled. Boris would be amused, she thought: I am wanted as a diplomat in the affairs of Serge Pavlovitch. But Paris was beginning to drain her, and this would be a good way to clear the air between her and Diaghilev. If need be, she could make herself as indispensable to the Ballets Russes as her first husband had been. She could match wits with Diaghilev—or with Oswald Stoll.
In London she had lunch with Sir Oswald at the Savoy Grill. It was the first time she had seen him since her divorce, and she had dressed with casual elegance to demonstrate that she did not care what he might have learned about her rather sordid situation. She would appear free of stain, above it all. She wore a simple pleated skirt with a cowl-necked blouse and long gold chains: fashionably understated, and perfect for a British mind.
“Our last venture was a disaster,” Stoll said, carefully dissecting a piece of châteaubriand. “Seizing the properties hardly helped me at all, my dear Madame Oblonova. Why should I consider another season? Diaghilev is a madman. He distrusts the carpenters and the costume makers, and he pays none of them for fear of being cheated. And so, in the end, it is my reputation that suffers—as well as my bank account.”
“I understand. But Serge Pavlovitch can deliver a good product. I believe he’s grown wiser these past few months. Still—he must be made to reimburse you. You can make him do so from the receipts of the new ballets. Another season with you would help considerably to reestablish the financial balance of the Ballets Russes.” She dabbed at her lower lip, took a swallow of wine, and said, smiling: “But Sir Oswald, I am not going to do business with you in secret this time. I shall not offer you money, which Diaghilev would discount at once if he knew of it. No. I shall act quite openly, and he will have to take notice. I shall offer you my house in Lausanne as collateral. If he fails to repay you for his previous debt, and if he cannot recuperate a new advance for this coming season—then by legal contract between you and me, you will seize my Swiss property. How does that suit you?”
“You are either extremely confident in Monsieur Diaghilev, or your devotion is beyond reason,” Stoll commented. He regarded Natalia with a level gaze. “But I cannot believe that you, Madame, ever lose sight of reason. Therefore let me tell you that your faith has convinced me.”
“My faith …and my house,” she added, raising her glass.
Then she thought, narrowing her eyes: Our lives are separate now for good, Pierre Riazhin—both in the professional and private sectors.
Chapter 30
Madame is practicing in the rehearsal room,” Chaillou announced in a tone of slight disdain. Stuart Markham smiled beneath his mustache. It was evident that to Chaillou the American writer, whose suits were always one year out of fashion, was not on a par with Count Boris Kussov (whom Chaillou had known only by reputation) and that flamboyant painter of the tout Paris, Natalia’s ex-husband, Pierre. To Chaillou their divorce had been tantamount to the Dreyfus Affair or the scandal caused in English circles by Alfred Douglas and Oscar Wilde: It was unspeakable and would never be lived down.
The rehearsal room, so elegantly named by Chaillou, was simply the converted master bedroom, which Natalia, with a dual objective in mind, had equipped with two barres and a floor that tilted upward like a ballet stage. She had needed a room in which to practice and choreograph, and now that Tamara’s dance lessons had increased in length and frequency, this need had seemed more urgent. She had also felt compelled to cleanse herself of Pierre, to rid the house of any last reminders of his previous presence there. And so the rehearsal room had come into being. Stuart now went there, oblivious to Chaillou’s shocked stare: Madame was practicing with Mademoiselle Tamara!
Through the open door Stuart saw Mademoiselle Pichenet at the piano, giving a less than inspired rendition of a Chopin nocturne. He stopped and watched. Tamara, black curls falling down her neck in childish disarray, was standing at the lower barre, her small body gracefully erect, the round buttocks firm, the waist already defined, her right arm extending out, the fingers relaxed. She was wearing a red leotard and red woolen leg warmers.
“All right now, tendu,” Natalia said. She stood in front of Tamara, and Stuart could see her face, its large, deep eyes gently on her daughter, her hair youthfully bobbed, her skin pale, almost anemic. There was something nakedly vulnerable about watching her when she was unaware, her brown leotard molded to her small, slender form like a second skin, more real than the first. The absurd black leg warmers made her appear bottom-heavy, a common pitfall of all dancers.
Natalia cocked her head to one side as Tamara pointed her right foot out, and Mademoiselle’s music started up again. Then the mother held up her hand, and the piano stopped. “Look now,” Natalia said. “Your turnout isn’t quite strong enough. Here”—and she went behind the child and took hold of her calf, repositioned it, and laid the small foot back on the hardwood planks. “All right?”
Tamara nodded, and Natalia motioned for the governess to resume her playing. But at that moment Stuart decided to break the atmosphere and entered the room. He saw the startled, then suddenly joyful look on Natalia’s face, a quick flush in her cheekbones, and then the quiet grace of her steps to him, the small kiss on the cheek. “We didn’t hear you,” she said, smiling. She always conveyed an unspoken aura of intimacy, of having let him into a private circle, that had lately made his stomach contract at odd times.
Tamara’s face turned toward him, too, and he was once more confronted with the child’s vivid beauty, so dark, so alive. He read initial gladness followed by uncertainty, and then she too came to him, almost shyly. “Hello, Mr. Markham,” she said. “Did you see me dance?”
“Yes, I did,” he replied, mingling his fingers in the curls on her head, while Natalia watched, stabbed suddenly by the poignant memory of her own oft-repeated gesture with Pierre’s hair. “You’re very serious, aren’t you, Tam, about becoming a ballerina?” he asked.
The child’s features broke into a wide, toothy grin. “Oh, yes,” she said. “When I’m ten, I’m going to try out for the petits rats at the Opéra. But Mother says I must be very good. It’s almost as hard as when she went for her entrance exams at the Mariinsky!”
“That, Stu, is our favorite bedtime story,” Natalia said and laughed. “Now come along, Tamara. It’s tea time.”
“Do I have to take it alone in my room with Mademoiselle?” Tamara asked, flashing her mother a look of sullen rebelliousness. “Can’t I have it in the parlor with Mr. Markham?”
Natalia hesitated. “I don’t want any white mustaches,” she remarked. “And you were messy at lunch. But it’s all right,” she said, her voice catching. “Wash your hands and come.”
When Tamara had eagerly scampered out with her governess, Stuart took Natalia’s face in his hands and examined it, raising his brows. She laughed, shaking herself free. It was always this way: tentative, questing, unsure, sparring. Now he took her by the shoulders and did not let go. Slowly the laughter, the playfulness died away. Her white face seemed to recede, to close off. Her eyes gave off an unreadable glow. He pulled her toward him and she did not resist, but neither did she respond. Finally he dropped his hands to his sides and shook his head. Taking his hand, she whispered: “Don’t go away.”
“Not without my tea,” he retorted, squeezing the cold fingers. “And besides, Tam’s expecting me. For some reason the little ruffian likes me.”
“Both of us do,” Natalia answered quietly. Her fingers twitched slightly in his hand, and then she extricated
them and made a pretense of scratching her collarbone. She pushed open the door to the parlor and cried, suddenly very brightly: “My! This is wonderful. Look, Stu! Chaillou has made a new fire for us!”
“My, my, indeed. Miracles never cease in this household, do they?” he commented, his green-gold eyes twinkling, but though she colored somewhat, she did not acknowledge his remark. She concentrated with great seriousness on slicing a thick, marbled pound cake.
Tamara came in, dressed in a new, frilly outfit of lace and flounces, her black hair in ribbons. “Oh!” she exclaimed, throwing herself with a startling lack of grace stomach first on an ottoman. “My favorite! D’you like it too, Mr. Markham? Our cook makes it. It’s chocolate and rum-flavored.”
“I’m starved, too,” Natalia said. “Be careful this time, won’t you? Be a lady!”
She served her guest and her daughter, then sliced a thinner piece for herself. From beneath her eyelids she watched them, watched the warm colors of the room swirling around her. Tamara was saying to Stuart: “You know what’s nice? When you promise to come, you always do. Some grown-ups promise lots of things that never happen. If I did that, Mother would punish me. But who punishes a grown-up?”
“Some people think there is a special being called God, and that He punishes us all. I don’t really know, Tam. I suppose all unkind people are eventually punished by their own bad consciences. Something inside them doesn’t let them forget.”
“My papa and my friend Galina are going to have a baby,” Tamara declared. She spooned some cake onto her fork with abrupt belligerence, and the crumbs flew off her plate. Natalia did not say a word, but her eyes remained on her daughter’s face, watchful.
“Let’s all go ice skating tomorrow,” Stuart suggested. “What do you say, ladies?”
“Mama and I aren’t real ladies,” Tamara interposed. “We just pretend, don’t we?” She had said “Mama,” not the more distant, adult “Mother,” which she most often used.
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