The Last Days of the Romanov Dancers

by Kerri Turner

  She cleared her throat, pretending the touch hadn’t happened, and said, ‘Tell me, what did you think of—’

  ‘No drink?’ Rasputin interrupted. The words died in Valentina’s mouth and she gave a half-shake of her head. ‘Maxim Sergeivich, why don’t you fetch the lady something to wet her lips?’

  The small crowd rippled with interest. Maxim’s face flushed an ugly purple, then quickly turned to white. His eyes narrowed, and he flicked Valentina an accusatory look as he turned to follow the monk’s instructions.

  She had tried her best, but somehow failed. Valentina knew she would pay later that night for Rasputin’s interest in her and his public dismissal of Maxim.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Maxim snarled. ‘Utterly ridiculous.’

  They were in Valentina’s room, where she was trying to undress. Her maid had only got as far as undoing her fastenings before Maxim had stormed in.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Valentina said for what must have been the hundredth time. She saw how the maid avoided her eyes as she stepped carefully out of her dress. The woman shook it out, then hung it up to brush down the skirt.

  ‘Making me look a fool—like a servant!—in front of so many,’ Maxim snapped. He kicked a nearby hatbox, not noticing how he made the maid jump—Valentina wasn’t sure if he even realised she was there—then threw himself into a chair, his legs splayed. His hands clutched the seat beneath him as though they wanted to break it.

  ‘No one could ever think you a fool,’ Valentina soothed, watching him in the mirror as she stepped into her silk chiffon nightgown.

  His body was shaking all over, but she knew he was embarrassed more than angry. The embarrassment was made worse by his inability to show any ill feeling towards the person who had caused his humiliation. The monk wouldn’t have meant any deliberate offence by ordering Maxim around; he’d simply treated him the way he treated everyone. But therein lay the problem: Maxim wasn’t everyone.

  Valentina gently pushed the maid away from the pink ribbons she was tying in bows and stepped over to Maxim. Kneeling on the floor in front of him, she rested her hands on his cheeks. They felt feverish.

  ‘You are right to be angry,’ she said. ‘But don’t you see? This is evidence of how well you’ve established my reputation with him. His rude behaviour was merely an attempt to emulate you and your admired position for a moment.’

  Her words were intended to be a salve, but Valentina saw Maxim’s nostrils flare, felt his jaw tighten under her palms. She quickly sat back on her heels, snatching her hands away. His breathing had become so loud she thought any staff walking by the closed door would hear him.

  ‘You dare to impugn Rasputin? The man who is responsible for furthering my career; and yours? My greatest ally in this city?’ He leaped up and started pacing the length of the room. ‘Damn it!’ he yelled suddenly, whirling around and slamming one fist into Valentina’s mirror. A crack spread across the glass.

  Valentina jumped back in fright, her hands pressed to her chest. She could feel her heart pounding underneath her skin. Maxim let his hand drop, not bothering to check it for scratches or cuts. He didn’t even shake it to rid it of the pain he must surely feel. It was as if he were completely unaware of what he’d done as he continued to pace.

  A piece of glass fell from the mirror, bounced off the dressing table and landed on the floor. Valentina stood frozen, unsure of what to do. Maxim, still pacing, stepped on the piece of glass, crushing it underneath the heel of his boot. The sound made him stop, and his eyes, which had been distant, regained their focus.

  He reached out, and Valentina thought he was going to caress her face. She was relieved; his temper was over. Instead, he grabbed her chin in a vice-like grip. His eyes met hers in a withering look, as though she’d displayed unbearable stupidity. She held her breath, expecting further violence, but a second later he released her and sauntered from the room.

  Valentina touched her chin with trembling fingers, then tiptoed to the door and closed it quietly. Turning, she saw that her maid stood with her back pressed against the wall, her face white. Trying not to show how unsettled she was, Valentina gestured for the woman to help her finish preparing for bed. Before them, the brown underside of the mirror was exposed where Maxim had broken the glass. Valentina stared at it as if she’d never seen such a thing before. The tiny piece marring an otherwise perfect surface disturbed her. She would not allow superstition to get the better of her, though; the mirror was not a symbol of her relationship with Maxim, merely evidence of a fiery temperament not unusual to artistic types.

  She turned away, pulled a purse towards her and yanked out a wad of paper notes. ‘Here,’ she said, holding it out to the maid.

  The woman stared at her for a moment, then reached out her hand, just as Valentina knew she would. When her fingers closed around the money, Valentina didn’t let go.

  ‘If you tell anyone, any of the other staff, what happened, I will find out,’ she said. ‘You will not work in this house again. Nor any other of consequence.’

  The woman nodded her understanding, and Valentina let go of the money.

  It would not be the last time she paid for silence.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The audience was so quiet, Luka was sure he could have heard if a single person so much as shifted their weight. He took a deep breath and placed his hands on the satin-clad waist of his partner; then the orchestra’s music swelled, and they were dancing. Luka was buried behind two lines of men and women, but a spotlight was on him. No one else could see it, but he felt it surrounding his movements, the warmth of it showing everyone that one day they would know his name and recognise his dancing.

  Bracing his legs, he lifted his partner in the air, and his heart lifted too. When he placed her back down, it was a gift to the audience, his movements reaching out to them, inviting them to become a part of his glorious world. It wasn’t enough trying to draw the audience’s eyes to him. Luka wanted to know they were seeing the passion that ran through him with every movement. He wanted to be like Nijinsky, the star of the Ballets Russes, whose very name conjured an artistry that bordered on genius. He wanted what every one of the hundred and eighty men and women around him also wanted.

  In what must surely have been the blink of an eye, Luka was offstage again, trying to catch his breath in the darkened wings. His part was only that of a peasant in the corps de ballet, but he’d lost himself so thoroughly in the role that it was a shock to realise he was still Luka Zhirkov. Placing his hands on his knees, he took in one large mouthful of air and held it. He would be onstage again in just a few moments and his muscles tingled with the ecstasy and anticipation of it.

  Straightening, he raised his arms above his head to lengthen his spine. A group of corps women were in the wing before him, preparing to go onto the stage. The first took a step out, the rest rising to demi-pointe ready to follow.

  ‘Wait!’ Luka gasped, lurching forward and catching Xenia Nicholaievna’s arm.

  She looked at him in panic. It was her cue to go on, but Luka’s firm grip was preventing her from moving.

  ‘Your socks!’

  Xenia looked down and Luka saw her blanch underneath the heavy stage make-up. Over her pointe shoes were a pair of scarlet woollen socks, intended to keep her feet and ankles warm while not on stage. Luka let go of her; she bent to pull the socks off, then she was onstage, a step or two behind where she should be.

  Butterflies jostled in Luka’s stomach as he watched her catch up, but there was no time to dwell on the near disaster. The music was indicating the approach of his own re-entry to the stage, and he rushed to his wing, pushing past one or two men who glared at him for nearly being late.

  The rest of the ballet went without error, showcasing the perfection the Romanov dancers had come to be known for and which audiences expected from them. In one scene, when Luka was miming conversations with the other peasants and townspeople, he found himself near Xenia Nicholaievna. She took a few casual steps over
so they were beside each other.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, her face held in an exaggerated smile for the audience. ‘You saved me a month’s fine, I’m sure.’

  ‘Perhaps in future you should wear pale socks. Just in case,’ Luka whispered back.

  He thought he saw a real smile hovering underneath her stage one.

  The incident with the socks marked the beginning of a friendship between Luka and Xenia. She was able to show him a side of his home city he’d never been able to explore before, confined as he was by the rules of the ballet school or the poverty of his early life. On days when they weren’t performing, she directed him through the crowded stalls of the Jewish markets, or alongside the Neva River which was beginning to ice over, never nearing the palaces others might have thought more noteworthy.

  Luka enjoyed touring Petrograd with Xenia. She talked as they went, regaling him with stories of past performances or spats between company members. She made him laugh, and it was because of this that Luka didn’t notice the singing couple at first. Gradually, though, he became aware of the noise and turned to see a man and a woman with their arms wrapped around each other. ‘Oh, Maria, oh, Maria, how sweet is this world,’ they cried, laughing as they tried to match the length of their steps.

  Luka laughed too, then realised that Xenia was softly singing along. ‘Friends of yours?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘No. But I know where they’ve been.’ She gestured to a slightly ajar door across the road from him, from which a splinter of light and cigarette smoke emerged.

  The couple passed by with a wave, but as their voices faded Luka could still hear the song. It came from behind the door, muffled yet recognisable. Xenia beckoned for him to cross the road, and as he got closer he saw that above the door was a sign: ‘The Wandering Dog’. The voices inside sounded irresistibly joyful.

  Xenia pushed open the door and Luka followed her into a narrow hallway partitioned from a larger house. Even though it appeared to have the wiring for electric lights, it was dimly lit by gas lamps. Like many other places, the owners must have found it had become too expensive to run the electricity in recent months. Writing scrawled on the wall pointed towards some rickety wooden stairs leading down, and Xenia headed in that direction.

  As they reached the last step, Luka realised The Wandering Dog was a club. What was formerly a cellar had been converted into a crowded area scattered with chairs, tables and crates. A few people were lounging on the floor, their feet stretched up against the walls or curled underneath them. A man with a guitar—who Luka later learned was the host of the club—stood in the centre of the room, playing the song the couple had been singing. Some of the patrons were listening to him, while others went on with their loud conversations, but whenever he reached the chorus they all stopped what they were doing and joined in the refrain: ‘Oh, Maria, oh, Maria, how sweet is this world.’

  Xenia wound her way through the crowd, shrugging off her seal fur coat, stopping when she found a couple of spare crates for them to sit on. Luka followed, feeling as though he were being watched by the numerous photographs and paintings that hung on the walls: Tartaglia, Pantalone, Smeraldina, Brighella and Carlo Gozzi, all smiling or grimacing at him. The air was heavy with the scent of smoke and spilled drink; and the patrons—bohemian-looking women, soldiers recovering from injury, men who were too old or too rich to go to the front—were crammed so tightly together that it was impossible to move without brushing up against someone. It should have been claustrophobic, but instead it was intimate and comforting. It was the kind of place Luka knew Pyotr would have loved, were he here to share it.

  The host finished his song, and Luka clapped along with the rest. Having peeled her mittens off, Xenia procured two glasses of sbiten from somewhere, and handed one to Luka. There were a few minutes of indecipherable chatter, then a man with bandages just visible beneath his hat stood up from his seat and spoke loudly. He was reciting a poem. It was not one Luka recognised and he guessed the man had written it himself. As with the singer, not everyone bothered to listen. Those who did either nodded emphatically, or closed their eyes to take in the words. The soldier-poet finished, and there was another smattering of applause as he sat back down.

  ‘Xenia, what is this place? And how did you find it?’

  She laughed, lifting her sbiten high in a salute. ‘It’s my refuge when the world of the ballet gets too much for me.’

  He stared at her, looking for traces of the joke in her face. He found none. ‘How could it ever be too much? I want to live and breathe the Imperial Ballet. All I ever wanted was to get into the company, but now I’m there I find myself battling constant fear my contract won’t get renewed at the end of the season.’

  The idea that he might be allowed only a brief taste of all he had worked for, all he had dreamed of since childhood, gnawed at him, worry increasing with every exhilarating performance he gave, every mundane class he worked through.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be the end of the world,’ Xenia said. ‘There are other companies out there, you know. They might not bear the Romanov name, but they come with other things that might be even better.’

  Luka grinned at her. ‘Impossible.’

  ‘What about the Ballets Russes? If you left the imperialists and joined the innovators, you’d be taking a path that let you explore a thousand different countries and a thousand different theatres. You could be the next Nijinsky.’

  Luka shook his head and took another swig of his sbiten.

  ‘Don’t be so quick to dismiss the compliment, malysh. I don’t give it lightly. Do you know how much I wish it were me with the talent to join the Ballets Russes? But it’s nothing more than a distant dream. However, you, my young friend, should think seriously of it. If nothing else, it may alleviate your fears about your contract renewal.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Luka replied. Truth be told, as much as he admired Nijinsky, he’d never imagined following the man’s footsteps into another company. The Imperial Russian Ballet had been the sole lifelong focus of Luka’s ambitions.

  ‘Another drink?’ Xenia asked, pushing her empty glass away.

  ‘Allow me this time.’

  ‘Not at all. I still owe you for saving me. I can’t think of anything worse than going onstage wearing those treacherous socks.’

  Luka’s smile faltered. ‘I can,’ he said softly. ‘Last week we were waiting in the wings to go on when one of the coryphées pushed us all back. He had tears streaming down his face and was utterly distraught. Apparently his contract wasn’t renewed, and he’d already been conscripted to the war.’

  Luka doubted he’d ever forget that moment. The man had been doubled over, his arms wrapped around himself as he choked, ‘I can’t go out there and dance as if everything is alright, as if everything is the same as ever.’ The orchestra’s notes had softened, preparing to switch from the overture to the melody that would open the performance, but no one noticed. A tear had escaped and was trickling down the coryphées’s cheek; Luka watched it, transfixed, his throat constricting so that it was hard to breathe. That tear seemed to hold everything he’d been afraid of; it was confirmation that all could go wrong in the blink of an eye and he would be powerless to stop it.

  ‘What happened?’ Xenia asked. ‘I don’t recall any of the performances being interrupted.’

  ‘No. One of the other dancers talked him into going on. The coryphée said, “I’ll die out there,” but the other dancer gestured to the stage and said, “Then you should live out there first.”’

  Xenia was silent. That was what they did as artists: they put aside their own emotions and realities, even when their hearts were breaking, and performed.

  Luka had followed the man on to the stage, leaving his own now heightened fears behind him, only to return when he entered the wings once more.

  And now he waited for his own letter from the Imperial Russian Ballet, not knowing if the news it contained would be good or bad.

  Luka pa
tted himself down, even though his practice uniform had no pockets. As he was getting changed for the day he’d realised that his lucky gloves were not where he’d expected them to be. True, he sometimes stashed them among his things in the theatre’s dressing room during a performance, so their luck was close by, but he usually returned them to his coat pocket afterwards. He tried to tell himself that they must be waiting for him in the theatre somewhere, that this wasn’t an omen about whether or not his contract would be renewed. But he couldn’t stop his hands from reaching for pockets that didn’t exist, and so didn’t see Xenia until she was almost on top of him.

  ‘Finally,’ she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the studios. ‘Come and see the noticeboard—the casting for La Belle au Bois Dormant is up.’

  ‘Did you get a role?’

  Xenia snorted. ‘Of course not. I’ve tried long enough to get the notice of the company to know that’s never going to happen.’

  He stopped, making her stop too. ‘Surely you haven’t given up?’ he asked her.

  ‘Give it long enough, Luka, and you’ll realise that your worst enemy here is yourself. Everyone has limitations, physical or otherwise, that hold them back; and eventually the hope of anything more becomes too much to live with. We’re Romanov dancers; we’re told our places. Trying to outmanoeuvre that is a game best left to those whose hearts can withstand the disappointment. Or those who have the talent to look at other options, such as the Ballets Russes.’

  Xenia smiled as she nudged him, but behind the smile Luka saw the exhaustion of years of hard work that hadn’t paid off in the way his friend had hoped. Her resigned tone made him wonder if one day he too would be telling a young dancer not to dream too much. Perhaps sooner rather than later if the letter he was waiting on from the company didn’t contain good news.

  ‘Anyway, let’s not be melancholy,’ Xenia said in a singsong voice, pulling him towards the noticeboard again. ‘Not when we have good news to celebrate.’