Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (29 page)

She's really become quite spoiled, Senda realized. Why
haven't I noticed before?

'Surprise!'

Startled, Senda jerked as Schmarya burst into the library
with sudden fanfare.

'My God, you gave me a scare!' she reproved him gently as
he picked his way around the tables and bent down to kiss her
cheek.

Tamara tottered swiftly toward him, whooping: 'U
'
cle
Schmarya! U'cle Schmarya!'

'How's my favourite princess?' He scooped Tamara high in
the air and twirled her around like a madly flying bird, his lips
making the buzzing noises she adored so much. She flushed
with pleasure, squealed with delight.

Senda's eyes filled with tears. They usually did when she
heard their child calling him 'uncle' instead of 'poppa'. For
the thousandth time she cursed their decision of two years
before. It had been a mistake, she often thought. After fleeing the pogrom, they should have pretended to be husband and
wife, but when they had first joined the troupe of players it
had been easier on both their consciences not to have to lie too boldly. Of course, there had been no end of questions.
Even actors were not without curiosity. Why did they not get married? Especially since she was with child?

How could they have begun to explain?

It would have been easy enough to marry. Solomon was
dead, and marrying his brother would have brought no shame upon any of them. Indeed, under Jewish law Schmarya would
have been expected to marry her. But curiously enough, both
she and Schmarya shared the belief that it would somehow be
morally wrong to legalize and sanctify a union which had begun as the most dreadful of all sins. It was yet another
problem which on occasion had threatened to tear them apart,
and at the root of it all lay guilt: her guilt for disgracing her husband, his guilt for stealing his brother's wife, their com
bined guilt for having survived the pogrom.

Schmarya was saying, 'Hey! Senda! Why the morose face?'
He swept Tamara through the air, her arms spread like wings,
steered her toward a chair, and plopped her down in a smooth,
sweeping landing. Then he grinned, flashing Senda a triumphant sparkly smile. 'I've got wonderful news! Guess what?'

She reached for his hand. 'What?' She smiled.

'I've found us a theatre!' Excitedly, he crouched beside her
chair, his eyes glowing. 'Put on your best dress, lover, we're
going out on the town. We're all going to celebrate. But not
too formal, eh? No gowns tonight.' He laughed, obviously
pleased with himself.

Senda was too stunned to speak.

He'd found them a theatre?

Senda felt a thin cold knife slicing into her belly, and she
had to avert her gaze, staring down at
The Cherry Orchard
on
her lap so that he would not see her dismay.

'Where is . . . this theatre?' she finally managed to croak.

'Well, not in the best section of town, naturally. I mean, we
can't expect that. We just came here. It's across the river in
the Vyborg section; it's poor and industrial. We're certainly not going to become rich, but we'll have everything we need.
It's a
theatre,
Senda! I couldn't believe my luck. Some acquaintances of mine knew about it and steered me there.
We can rent it for a song. The last troupe which played there
put on socially significant plays. So will we. What do you
think?'

'And how did the last troupe fare?' she asked pointedly.

He ignored her. 'It seats two hundred and has an adequate
stage. Nothing fancy, and not much in the way of wings,
though . . .'

Suddenly she felt fearful. There were so many questions she'd avoided lately. Questions she'd adroitly sidestepped or
silenced before they reached her tongue. Questions such as:
Where were you last night? Questions whose answers she was
afraid to hear.

She sighed deeply. She had always tried to avoid making so-
called wifely noises, knowing how he hated them. But now she felt compelled to ask one of those questions, fear of the
answer aside.

'Just who are these acquaintances of yours? And where did
you meet them?'

'Can't tell you that, my love,' he said lightly. He jumped to his feet, tugged off his jacket, and flung it over his shoulder.
He stooped to plant another kiss on her unyielding cheek.
'I've got to go change. I can tell by your expression that you're
surprised. I would be too, in your shoes. Who can believe such
luck?' He laughed again.

She had to clear her throat in order to speak. 'Schmarya,'
she said shakily, no longer sure of herself, 'I have something
to tell you too.'

'Later,' he said breezily. 'Over dinner tonight.'

'No! It's important.'

'Can't be as important as the theatre, can it?' His eyes
twinkled as he swaggered past the tables piled high with books.
'Especially not with your stage blood. No, I didn't think so.'
He was already at the door. She had watched his progress as
though in a dream. 'Now, go along and get changed. We'll
break the news to the others over the wine.'

She nodded numbly. 'All right,' she whispered tightly as the
door shut. She sighed deeply and pressed her forehead with her fingers. She'd been too startled, too shaken, to interrupt
and tell him about Princess Yussoupov and the others.

The afternoon seemed suddenly to have darkened, as if an
evil cloud obscured the sunshine. Which was ridiculous, of
course. There was no sun. Darkness had already fallen.

She slid out of the chair and went stiffly over to the window.
She wrung her tapered fingers nervously. The night shone
with moonlit clarity, throwing ghostly shadows of the palace's
onion domes and spires across the snow-sheathed park.

She shut her eyes in a mournful pain. Like it or not, she had
no choice but to upstage Schmarya's find. Steal his thunder.
Hers was the golden opportunity of a lifetime. If they didn't
seize upon it immediately, it was unlikely to come within reach
again.

And yet she couldn't shake the terrible feeling that just as
things between the two of them seemed to be on the mend,
her news would drive yet another stake, perhaps a fatal one,
into the heart of their already strained relationship.

Aloud she prayed, 'Not an ultimatum. Please, Schmarya,
don't make it an ultimatum.'

He exploded.

'Damn you!' Schmarya yelled, bringing his fist crashing
down on the plank table with such force that the crockery
danced and glasses fell on their sides. One of them rolled
off the table in the ensuing silence and crashed to the floor,
shattering upon impact. Everyone seated at the long rectangu
lar table jumped. 'Damn all of you!'

Senda's face flushed as she felt the eyes of the other diners
in the restaurant riveted on their table. In the shocked silence
she could have heard a pin drop.

'Please, Schmarya,' she begged softly. 'Everyone's watching. Can't we discuss this quietly, like adults?'

'You bitch!' he stormed, his face a bright crimson as his fury
built and brewed like a madly roiling cloud. His body trembled
with rage. 'You goddamn bitch! You couldn't tell me about
all this this afternoon?'

Her embarrassed gaze held his flashing, accusing eyes. 'I
wanted to
...
I
tried
to, but you were so geared up about the
theatre that you never gave me a chance!'

He laughed insanely, and she cringed. She had never seen him like this. '
You
never got the chance?' he bellowed. 'What about me?' He planted his splayed hands on the rough table
and leaned over it, towards her. 'How could you let me make
an ass of myself jabbering on and on in front of everybody
about the theatre I found and then break in, oh so
innocently'
—he proceeded to toss his head and mimic her sarcastically
in a high-pitched feminine voice—'Schmarya, I didn't
have a chance to tell you this before, but we've had some
offers . . .'

She shut her eyes against the hateful spray of his spittle.

'And you. And
you.
And
you!'
He focused his madly burn
ing eyes on each of the other members of the troupe in turn.
They sat there stiffly, wide-eyed with shock. 'When we joined
up with you, what were you doing? Playing
villages!
Who brought you to the towns and the cities? Who brought you
here?
Who always scouted ahead for theatres?'

There was silence.

'I'll tell you who brought you here!
Me!
I've had the vision
and courage to look ahead for you . . . you
spineless
second-
rate idiots! And what do I get for thanks?'

No one dared breathe.

'I'll tell you how you've thanked me! By deciding against me. All for this'—he pushed himself away from the table,
straightened, and primped with grotesque feminine gestures—
'this Princess Yussoupov!'

'Schmarya, this is nothing personal against you,' Alex, the
old troupe member, murmured, his gaze concentrated on the pine table. 'It's just that the Princess and all the other private
performances guarantee us the best chance.'

'Chance? For what?' Schmarya sneered. 'Fame? Fortune?
Is that what you want?'

Alex compressed his lips tightly, his cheekbones flexing. He would say no more. It was as impossible to break through
Schmarya's ramparts of rage as it would have been to knock
through the stone battlements of the Petropavlovsky Fortress
barehanded.