The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov (18 page)

With a shiver I tried to imagine the presence of God, which was all at once not so difficult, as Hugh had sloped the plane into a perilous-feeling turn and to the right all was heaven's cerulean abyss, and to the left the mottled fundament of terra firma
.
Soon enough we righted ourselves, and my giddiness calmed. Enough of God's dazzling lure for one afternoon!

The flight of the Moth lasted fifteen minutes at most; then we were back on the solid ground that is, after all, our birthright. Staggering out of the cockpit, helped down by one of the muscular gardeners, I fell on impulse to my knees, and like my mother on her annual return to Vyra kissed gratefully the dark earth of Somerset while everyone else stared.

“You're hilarious,” Hugh told me. “But you did all right, didn't you?”

“Splendidly,” I spluttered. “I think I'm going to have a heart attack now. I can't thank you enough.”

“Isn't it marvelous? As a hobby you absolutely can't beat it.”

“Hobby?” I exclaimed. “I'd say—more like a vocation!”

“YOU SEE,” SAID MY UNCLE KONSTANTIN, SITTING erect on the sofa in his small London flat, “the abdication of the Tsar placed me in a very difficult position. Having held the Liberal view since long before the revolution that a change in the autocratic methods of the government was a necessity, I thus stood in complete sympathy with the new Provisional Government. However, almost immediately that government began to make the series of mistakes which would ensure its eventual collapse. Miliukov's ill-conceived call for the immediate repatriation of all Russian citizens who had fled persecution by the old regime, no matter what their political affinities, meant an influx of Bolsheviks at precisely that moment when the fragile new government could least afford their presence. I can't say precisely who allowed Lenin to return from Germany, or who authorized the release of Trotsky-Bronstein, but I warned Kerensky and Miliukov time and again: if you continue to allow this indiscriminate immigration, then you cut the branch upon which you are sitting. And we know too
well how they continued to cut, and how the branch came crashing down! They were men simply unfit for the task before them, Miliukov with his contempt for the uniformed generals and Kerensky with his
mania grandiosa
…”

Thus he would go on, till half a bottle of Madeira had vanished, rehearsing his litany of frustrations and disappointments. Volodya found all this intolerable, especially our uncle's dogged insistence that “under Lenin, most government posts were assumed by Jews concealed under Russian names.” After a few visits, I found myself calling on my uncle alone, as Volodya suddenly had other appointments to pursue. (The names Marianna, Paola, Nina come to mind.) I would have lapsed as well, had I not soon discovered there were other, more pleasurable aspects to my uncle Kostya.

He shared, for instance, my passion for the ballet, and regularly attended the London seasons of the Ballets Russes. He had known Diaghilev since the heady days of
Mir Isskustva;
though he distrusted the impresario's silken guile and naked ambitions, he nonetheless admired his accomplishment in general, and his having brought ballet to Britain in particular.

“The man's completely devoted to the world of art,” he told me. “His energy is boundless, as is his charm. Why, he could charm a dead man back to life. But if you get in his way, or oppose his will, then he'll destroy you without a moment's regret. No one's indispensable. Look at Nijinsky, look at Fokine. Now Massine's the apple of his eye, but we shall see. One must be very wary. Even
I
keep my distance, and I'm a highly trained diplomat!”

I told my uncle I should very much like to be introduced to the great man.

“He'll try to borrow money from you,” my uncle warned. “For the sake of your pocketbook, I intend to keep you far from his clutches!”

With his own diminished pocketbook my uncle was
wonderfully generous, and I soon was coming up to London with a regularity I could not otherwise have afforded. And what riches there were to be discovered:
Schéhérazade
,
L'Oiseau de Feu
,
Les Sylphides
. Perhaps most remarkable was
Parade
, which had had its Paris première two years earlier and was now gracing—or sullying, depending on one's point of view—the stage of the Empire Theatre. Nothing had prepared me for that brilliant little confection, which I first saw in November 1919: Picasso's astonishing cubist costumes; Satie's droll music with its clattering typewriters and aeroplane drones; Massine's clever choreographic commentary on gestures familiar from the circus and vaudeville. Massine himself danced the Chinese Conjuror, and in the role of the Little American Girl was none other than Karsavina, escaped from Russia and looking more beautiful than ever. Nothing like it had ever graced the Russian stage. The Abyssinians' long-cherished dream of seeing Diaghilev's troupe had at last become reality. Davide and Genia would have loved the inspired irreverence of
Parade
.

“Pretty shallow stuff,” Uncle Kostya said once the tepid applause petered out. “
Épater les bourgeois
is what it's all about. This Cocteau who's behind it all is frightfully conceited, I gather. Some waggish reviewer wrote that while Cocteau is perfectly aware that the sets and costumes are by Picasso, and that the music is by Satie, he nonetheless wonders whether Picasso and Satie aren't by
him
. Dreadful fellow. I believe Serge Pavlovich has now distanced himself from that little charlatan.”

I told my uncle I had thought it all rather witty at the expense of things no one should take too seriously.

Uncle Kostya was nothing, however, if not serious. Father, an Anglophile himself, referred to him as “my Englished brother,” and indeed my uncle had so thoroughly absorbed a special type of English solemnity that he easily out-Englished the English, as so often happens to refugees who embrace too gratefully their refuge.

“I suppose the younger generation finds all sorts of fun in improbable places. At least we now know what the fuss is about. It can't be said we're behind the times any longer!” he allowed as we headed from the theater toward a cheap but very English restaurant off Leicester Square that he frequented now that his wealth was gone. (“And to think I used to dine regularly at the Savoy!” he would exclaim wistfully.)

We had scarcely tucked into our chops when, to my surprise, I saw Karsavina herself enter the humble dining room, in the company of Massine, Nemchinova, and other members of the troupe. They proceeded to a table in the corner. Only later did I learn how continually cash-strapped was the Ballets Russes, how it was all nothing more than a glorious sham, desperate magic cobbled together nightly before the financial abyss.

After several minutes of internal struggle, I laid aside my fork and knife, excused myself from my uncle's company, and made my way to the dancers' table.

“Pardon me,” I announced, blushing as I bowed. “I don't wish more than a moment of your time. Some years ago, in Saint P-P-P-P.”

Of course my curse chose that moment to descend on me. Everyone at the table stared. I had no choice but to abandon my intention of invoking those long-ago midnight rambles, the discreet Abyssinian Guard that had watched over their idol so attentively. Instead I said only, “Thank you. Thank you for having shown me I was alive.”

Karsavina looked at me politely, nonplussed by this stuttering, scarlet-faced stranger; then she held out her delicate hand, which I daringly raised to my lips and kissed, ever so reverently—for all the Left-Handed Abyssinians.

Still smiling a stage smile held past its natural span, she slowly withdrew her hand.

“You are very kind,” she told me. “I do not know precisely what you are talking about, but you are very kind.”

OF ALL MY PLEASANT YOUNG MEN AT CAMBRIDGE only Bobby de Calry—or to give his incomparable name in full, Count Robert Louis Magawly-Cerati de Calry—was to prove problematic. In his red shoes, Oxford bags, outrageous cravats, and fur gauntlet gloves he cut a remarkable figure even by the standards of my dashingly eccentric set. A trim mustache that would have made anyone else look à la mode on him seemed vaguely old-fashioned. There was a haunted cast to his blue-gray eyes. His eau de cologne—rumored to be made exclusively for him by Irfe, Prince Yussupov's Parisian
parfum-erie
—left a distinctive fragrance in his wake. How tantalizing it was to visit Volodya in his dreary rooms and detect traces of that scent lingering in the air. For Bobby and my brother had become, improbably, the best of friends.

“He's awfully amusing,” Volodya explained in that offhanded way he had acquired. “A pathetic fellow, perhaps, but remarkably droll and affable. Besides, all my Russian friends have been sent down, so I've dubbed Calry an honorary Russian. It's not
too far-fetched. His mother's Russian, and he speaks it a bit himself—astonishingly badly, if you must know.”

I was quite pleased to know, in fact, as I had developed a terrific smash on the young man. For several weeks that fall he had hobbled about on crutches, having broken his leg while skiing at Chamonix. This mishap lent him an attractive air of vulnerability. No doubt he was spoiled, affected, naturally moody as well. Had I spoken to him early on—and how easy it would have been to remark casually on his cast—I would not have quietly worked myself into the infatuation that ensued. By the time I realized my mistake it was too late. An unspannable gulf seemed to separate us. Did he feel it as well? Our paths would cross. We would look at each other wordlessly. Something smoldering or disconcerting or hostile—it was impossible to know which—would pass between us, sealing our mutual silence. And all the while he was on free and easy terms with my brother. It was maddening.

“But what on earth do you two
do
together?” I asked Volodya.

“Well, like normal men our age, we mostly hunt girls.”

His eyes twinkled with what I could only interpret as cruel mirth while I hastened to assure him that Calry wasn't my type at all. Besides, I went on, I couldn't imagine Bobby would be the least bit interested in me.

“No,” Volodya agreed, “I can't imagine he would be. It would be perfectly useless to try to know him, if that's what you're conjuring. He's perfectly normal that way.”

 

I would see them on the tennis court, or gadding about in Bobby's powerful and illegal red Rover. (The Motor Proctors never seemed to catch him.) I would encounter them punting on the Cam beneath the horse chestnuts, my brother poling while his glamorous friend—now freed of his cast—trailed a hand in the indolent stream.

It seemed impossible Volodya had no clue as to either Bobby's history or proclivities. To me, and to many of my falcon-eyed set as well, it was all too clear that poor Bobby was mad about his Russian friend. Was Volodya simply basking in the adoration? He had begun to publish regularly under the fairy tale pseudonym “Sirin” in Father's new journal,
The Rudder
. Was he enjoying the first temptations of literary renown? Was that why he tolerated Bobby's slavish devotion?

Bobby seemed eager to do anything for his friend. He put himself and his Rover at Volodya's disposal. He had his maid take in Volodya's laundry. He stopped by in the mornings to make my brother tea, and took him out in the evenings to dinner. It was even said that Bobby regularly gave my brother his notes from the lectures Volodya never bothered to attend. That their relationship might be in any way reciprocal never occurred to me. I knew my brother too well.

All this made my jealous head throb.

It was in this disheveled state of mind that I went up to London in November to attend, with Uncle Kostya, the première of Diaghilev's much-anticipated
The Sleeping Princess.
Having recently dismissed Massine from the company, as Uncle Kostya had predicted, and thus finding himself without a choreographer, the ever-resourceful impresario had decided to revive Marius Petipa's 1890 masterpiece,
La Belle au Bois Dormant,
the very cornerstone of the “old school” Russian ballet that Diaghilev had so dramatically broken with. Stravinsky had rearranged and reorchestrated Tchaikovsky's music, and my parents' friend Léon Bakst had updated the costumes and sets.

I dressed especially well for the occasion in a secondhand dinner jacket borrowed from my brother (who had it from Rachmaninov), finishing my ensemble with a black opera cloak lined in scarlet silk I had recently purchased for a criminal sum of money. With a touch of Helena Rubinstein I deepened my
colorless lips; with a dab of lilac powder I cooled my cheeks. All of this my uncle noted, and none of it did he seem to mind.

“I hear Serge Pavlovich changed the name from
Sleeping Beauty
to
The Sleeping Princess
because he claims there are currently no beauties in his troupe,” he offered. For someone who, since his resignation from the Embassy, claimed to have foresworn all dinner parties, he managed to hear quite a bit about town. “Well, we shall see,” he went on. “He's risked everything on this venture, poor fellow.
Sleeping Beauty
was the first ballet he ever saw. It was one of the first I ever saw as well. The great Cecchetti danced the role of the evil Carabosse, and Brianza was the good Princess Aurora. I understand that Diaghilev has coaxed Brianza out of retirement to undertake Carabosse
.
A splendid symmetry, don't you think? Aren't all beauties fated, eventually, to become the witch?”

With such musings, we arrived at the Alhambra in Leicester Square. In the air was all the palpable excitement that surrounds a première, and a notable one at that. I scanned the audience in the hope of glimpsing Diaghilev—the unmistakable white streak in his ebony-black hair—but he was not in evidence.