by Judith Gould
'My God, I've never seen so many jewels,' she marvelled silently to herself, her free hand self-consciously touching her bare throat. The fact was, she had hardly ever seen any jewels, except in the towns and cities where they had played, and then they had been mostly modest and inexpensive—a thin band of gold on a finger or, more likely, gold on silver, and no stones more valuable than amethysts or topaz. She felt positively naked now, and how would she feel at the ball? She could only hope the silk camellias Madame Lamothe had sewn so strategically to her gown were adornment enough, though everyone, it seemed, wore masses of cut gems with total abandon. Why, the Princess actually wore three necklaces.
Despite the size of the Princess's stones, there was something else about her which set her apart from the other women. Perhaps it was her poise, or her fragile beauty, or the way the audience, which was already seated, eyed her covetously.
Then, with a mixture of bewilderment and shock, Senda realized that all the money in Russia could not cure Irina Danilov's hands. It was these which set her apart. They were hideously crippled claws, demonically obscene, although she didn't look old enough to suffer arthritis.
Only after the Princess was seated between the archbishop and the Prince did the other people in their party take their seats behind them.
Senda could hear the overture reaching its end. In fifteen or twenty seconds the curtain would rise, and she was about to let it fall back into place and hurry into the wings when instead of completing the overture, the orchestra prolonged it. There was a ripple of whispers and a rustling of clothing as the entire audience faced the still-empty box to the right, opposite that of the Danilovs. Senda eyed it curiously, wondering what was happening, but all she could see were four splendidly uniformed officers entering to inspect it, as though they were searching for something. Obviously satisfied, they stepped out again. Ever so smoothly, the orchestra switched from the overture of La Traviata to a regal anthem of pomp and grandeur.
The entire audience rose as one and faced the box.
Senda's mouth opened in astonishment.
Chin held high, diamonds ablaze, a regal woman swept into the box. She was dressed in white, and her creamy shoulders were bare. A magnificent jewel-encrusted tiara rose from her curls and a cascade of fine lace draped from it flowed down her back. She had about her an air of indefinable breeding and assurance, of a woman born to power.
Her escort followed behind. He stood five-feet-seven and was slim, with a handlebar moustache and clipped brown beard. His beautifully tailored dark blue uniform glittered with ribbons, medals, and gold: gold braid, gold epaulettes, gold belt, and gold collar. A red satin sash slashed importantly across his chest, but his expression was rather gentle and shy. As his gaze swept the curtained stage, Senda almost felt as if he had found the chink in the curtain and was looking straight at her.
In the recesses of her mind a flash of blinding intuition flared brilliantly, leaving her weak and reeling. She swiftly let the curtain fall back in place. In that one paralysing moment her heart had stopped beating, and she took a giant breath of air. She turned and beckoned to Schmarya. Quickly he drew up behind her, and she could feel his warm, comforting body pressing against hers. He peered out from behind the curtain.
Her hand poised on her fluttering breast, Senda looked questioningly at him. 'It isn't . . .?' She didn't dare complete the sentence.
Schmarya's bright blue eyes were dancing with a wild, dangerous fire. 'You will give the performance of your life tonight, Sendale,' he said dryly. 'It seems you are not only going to entertain the cream of Russian society, but our revered Czar and Czarina as well.'
If she noticed the sarcasm in his tone, she gave no indication. 'Oh, God,' she moaned, feeling herself shrinking inside her gown as she stared at him in dumbfounded bewilderment, the greasepaint making her stricken expression all the more grotesque. She was drenched in a sudden ice-cold sweat. Her legs felt as though they would buckle under her. She wanted to die on the spot.
The orchestra switched back to the last few notes of the overture. With a swift movement, Schmarya pulled her into the wings. The actors playing the Baron de Varville and Nanine hurried silently past them to their places onstage. Senda watched with growing dread as Nanine slipped into a chair, quickly placed some sewing in her lap, and busied herself. The baron took a seat in a bergère by the fireplace. The curtain rose slowly to expose the Paris boudoir of Marguerite Gautier. It was a set which looked very much like a real boudoir, even close up from the wings. The very real, very fine furnishings and carpets had come from rooms within the palace, and even the marble fireplace mantle was genuine. It had come from one of the storage rooms.
The play began with the ringing of a doorbell.
'I'm scared!' Senda whispered, turning to Schmarya. She clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. 'Schmarya, I can't go on. I can't.'
His voice was soft and sure, but the lines coursing from his nose to the sides of his mouth were tense. 'Of course you can. You know your lines backwards and forwards. You'll sail through them.'
'Someone is ringing,' the actor playing the Baron said loudly in his rich stage voice.
'I'm going to make an ass out of all of us.' Senda gave Schmarya a searching look and clung to him as if for dear life.
His face nuzzled into her hair. 'You'll be magnificent,' he assured her.
'No, I won't.' Her whisper was a squeak. 'Oh, God, why did I have to get myself into this mess?'
'So you have a little stage fright. Hey. What are you worried about? You'll knock 'em dead.' His strong fingers sought to soothe her.
'Schmarya . . .' Her fingers dug into his arms.
Onstage, de Varville was saying, 'God forbid.'
She grasped his arms even more fiercely, her body trembling.
'That's your cue!'
'I forgot my lines!' she hissed in a panic.
'Nanine, Nanine,' he said.
She gulped, nodded, and took a series of deep breaths. Her heart felt as though it would burst. 'Nanine! Nanine!' she called out from offstage, her voice sounding surprisingly strong even to her ears. In amazement, she looked at Schmarya.
He blew her a kiss. Then she felt him turning her around. His fingertips applied pressure to the small of her spine.
'Off you go, Marguerite,' he whispered softly.
She found herself propelled gracefully forward by his little push, for a moment blinded by the white glare of the footlights.
Off you go, Marguerite!
Schmarya had called her Marguerite!
I am Marguerite, she thought, and the stage floor suddenly seemed to tilt at a slight angle. The footlights receded into a blur, and the audience was forgotten. Almost without her knowing it, she wafted toward Nanine. 'Go, order supper, Nanine,' she sang out clearly. 'Olympe and Saint-Gaudens are coming! I met them at the opera!'
From the wings, Schmarya watched the beautiful, coquettish young woman. He stared entranced, then came to with a start. He swore to himself in disbelief. 'Well, I'll be damned!' he whispered aloud to himself. 'That isn't Senda. Hell, that's Marguerite Gautier!'
Reality became illusion.
And illusion reality.
The audience in the small baroque theatre sat shrouded in dark, spellbound silence, not daring to move and break the magical spell. From the moment Senda walked onstage, everyone from the Czar and Czarina down to the other players awaiting their cues could feel the electricity like invisible currents in the air. As the heart-wrenching story of Marguerite Gautier unfolded, each one of them felt transported from the theatre to a picture-window view of someone else's life, an eavesdropper privy to the most private moments of the tragic heroine.
Before the intermission the unanimous response was simply: a performance nothing short of miraculous.
Except for Senda, the other actors were seasoned troupers all—some had toured the provinces for more than a decade— but it was her bravura performance in the lead role which caused the sensation. She
shed her own skin and enveloped herself in the persona of the consumptive heroine, eliciting the finest performances ever from her usually jaded fellow players at the same time. She was titillating. Teasing. Fresh. Young. Doomed. She had the audience wrapped around her little finger, playing on their deepest, innermost, heartfelt emotions.
They cared for her.
They loved her.
There was an appealing vitality to her character which the audience only now realized they had missed during other performances of the play.
The curtain dropped. It was intermission.
'But she is fantastic!' the Princess whispered to her husband. 'Vaslav, wherever on earth did you find her?'
The tearjerking performance caused Countess Florinsky's eyes to water incessantly, and she was forever poking a handkerchief behind her new gold-rimmed glasses to dab at her eyes.
During the short intermission, the curtain draping the Czar's box was drawn shut so that the royal couple might be afforded total privacy from prying eyes. Servants circulated with massive trays of champagne. The only talk among the glittering audience was of the performance.
'It is magic,' Princess Olga Alexandrovna was heard to declare.
'She should be at the Théâtre Français,' said Princess Marie Pavlovna.
'And to think it's in Russian,' Prince Golitsyn told Admiral Makarov. 'Quite novel, that, don't you think? I've only seen it in French before.'
Raves, raves.
Backstage in the wings, Senda dropped wearily into a chair between hulking props and painted backdrops. Someone pushed a glass of water at her and she sipped it gratefully. Schmarya solicitously sponged her sweating brow. 'I was right!' he crowed. 'You're knocking them dead!'
'I'm knocking myself dead,' she gasped, her breasts heaving. 'My throat's sore from all that coughing, and I'm emotionally exhausted.' She shut her eyes and let her head loll back. 'I hope I can continue like I've been doing.'
'Of course you can. You've gone through two acts. There are only two more, and they're a lot shorter.'
'And a lot tougher,' she reminded him, letting out a long, resonant sigh. She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. 'You think I'm all right?'
'All right?' He grinned. 'You're a damned marvel!'
She rolled her head sideways to face him and smiled her thanks.
'Mind you, I'm not sure whom I prefer, though,' he said pensively.
'What do you mean?'
'You, or Marguerite.'
'Bastard.' Restrainedly amused, she punched him playfully. Then she frowned and touched her throat in concern. 'My voice is starting to go. It's all the coughing I've had to do. Maybe I should ease up a little.'
They watched in silence as the set was rearranged for the third act. Then from the other side of the red puff curtain, the orchestra started up again. She tensed, her hands tightening on the arms of the chair.
'Sit tight. You still have a few minutes. Rest.'
'I can't.' She got up and began pacing nervously, fidgeting with her hands. Her face was screwed up in concentration. Schmarya stood silently back, letting her metamorphose into Marguerite.
Marguerite's prolonged death from consumption caused velvet-sheathed fingers to dab lace handkerchiefs at moist eyes. An occasional sniffle could be heard.
Senda, caught in the beam of the spotlight, stood with her arms at her sides. Slowly she lifted them and stared at her hands. Her eyes gleamed with an almost beatific light, and her voice held the hushed tones of a revelation. 'I'm not suffering anymore. It seems as though life were pouring into me.' She floated, wraithlike, across the stage. 'I am going to live! Ohhhh, how well I feel!' She swayed, tottered unsteadily, and crumpled so suddenly that the audience let out a communal gasp.
The actor on a chaise sprang up and ran to her, collapsing atop her. 'Marguerite!' he cried with rising terror. 'Marguerite! Marguerite!' Then he let out a scream, and with an immense effort tore his hands from her. He drew back, wild terror blazing in his eyes. 'She's dead!' he sobbed. He jumped up and ran over to the man and woman standing quietly off to the side. He sank down to his knees in front of them. 'My God, what's to become of me?' he cried.
The couple looked stoically down upon him. 'How she loved you, Armand,' the man who was standing said softly, shaking his head. 'Poor Marguerite.'
The tableau was frozen. Then the red puff curtain rippled swiftly down over the stage.
For a long moment the audience sat in stunned silence.
The applause, when it finally came, was spontaneous and deafening. It shook the small theatre, reverberating from the rococo walls. Slowly Senda lifted her garishly made-up face off the floor and looked up in wonderment as the first shout of 'Brava!', muffled by the thick curtain, stirred something deep within her drained emotions.
Dazed, she could only watch as the rest of the cast swiftly assembled in a row, hooking their arms together.
'Quick!' Schmarya hissed at her. He pulled her unceremoniously to her feet and shoved her into the centre of the row of performers. Arms to her left and right linked through hers.
She twisted her head around. 'What did you think?' she asked Schmarya.
He grinned. 'Just listen to them!'
'I can hear what they think,' she said a little breathlessly, her eyes bright with excitement. 'I asked for your—'
Swiftly Schmarya jumped back out of sight as the curtain rose again. The row of performers faced the audience and bowed together. The curtain began to descend again. Swiftly lifting her eyes, Senda stole a brief upward glance at the box the Czar and Czarina had been occupying. She could see nothing. The curtain was already tightly drawn across it. An odd disappointment came over her and she tightened the corners of her mouth. She hadn't been watching the box, so she had no idea if they'd even stayed to the end. That realization sobered her, tainted the triumph somewhat.
The applause remained steady.
In the wings, Schmarya quickly paired off the individual performers in couples, starting with the least important ones. Holding hands, they hurried onstage for their curtain calls, their order of appearance determined by the importance of the parts they had played. Senda and the actor playing Armand were last, and received the heaviest applause.
Then, turning on her prettiest smile from a repertory of dozens, Senda went out to take her solo curtain call. The mighty and the powerful, the titled aristocrats of Russia, not only applauded in a frenzy, but for once they dropped their stiff-upper-lip veneers and went wild. Shouts of 'Brava! Brava!' echoed from all corners. Finally the men in formal dress or dress uniforms and the ladies in gowns and jewels rose to their feet in unison to give her a standing ovation.
Standing there alone, bowing again and again, Senda felt the waves of their adulation rushing over her. When she finally danced back offstage and the curtain descended, the applause was no quieter. She had to come out again and again.
Her nerves quivered like fine-tuned antennas, and she felt more alive than she had ever felt. Her heart throbbed wildly, as though it would burst out of her body. Exaltation surged through her, more potent than any drug.
It was unbelievable. She had conquered them all. They were no longer just her audience. One and all, they had become her admirers.
They adored her; they worshipped her; in a period of two hours, she had totally seduced them and had become the toast of the town.
Finally the curtain rippled downward for the last time. Dazed, she waltzed dizzily toward a chair, her arms extended, and when she dropped into it she found little peace. The rest of the cast rushed toward her, mobbing around in a tight circle. Each of them heaped kudos upon her.
'You were marvellous!'
'If we'd only known you were so talented, we'd have given you starring roles long ago!'
'We'll probably be able to stay in this city for the rest of the season!'
Accolades and kisses, merriment and compliments abounded.
'Hey,' Schmarya finally said good-naturedly, 'I hate to have to break th
is up, but give the star some breathing space so she can unwind. She's got a ball to attend.'
Reluctantly the other cast members began to drift away.
Senda was in euphoria. She felt invincible, capable of doing everything she had never done before. Although the reception she'd received from the audience had been electrifying, the warm praise from her fellow actors meant even more. Much more.
But the most important thing now was going to the ball— with Schmarya. That, she knew in her heart, topped it all. Made everything worthwhile.
'Well?' Schmarya asked her after she'd washed off the greasepaint and rested awhile. 'What are you waiting for? Don't you want to go?'
They were alone in the dressing room. The others had long since gone. The little theatre was like a tomb. 'Go?' she asked. 'Where?'
'Where do you think?'
'Say it,' Senda said gently.
'Why?'
She smiled tolerantly. 'So I'll always remember that you asked me to the ball.'
Chapter 9
The gracious one-two-three, one-two-three strains of a waltz grew progressively louder the nearer they got to the ballroom. Despite the labyrinthrine succession of rooms and halls branching off in all directions, Senda was certain she could have found the ballroom without the liveried footman leading them, by simply following her ears and nose, heading in the direction of the music and the fragrant, flowery scents that drifted like incense in the air. The strains of the waltz drew her like a magnet.
Halls merged into progressive halls, salons opened into larger salons. Then, suddenly, all the massive rooms seemed inconsequential as the last door opened up the second-floor gallery of the cathedral-size ballroom. Senda drew to a halt to take it all in. She was bedazzled.
Dozens of guests milled about in the wide gallery which completely encircled the second floor of the ballroom like a wraparound balcony, the balustrade punctuated every four metres by Ionic columns soaring majestically from the dance floor to the inverted-coffin ceiling.
