Encore (17 page)

Even the upper echelons of the aristocracy did not reject her, as she had expected. The gentlemen passed her from arm to arm as one would an enchanting exotic pet, a rare jewel to be displayed. To be sure, some of the ladies scoffed about her position in Boris's life, the same ones who criticized Kchessinskaya. But for the most part, she was well accepted.

Furthermore, she was now one of the soloists at the Ballet, and she soon learned that artists were thought to have rules of their own, created by the unusual needs of their genius. Not everyone regarded her with such lack of moral prejudice, but Boris protected her from those who did not. Her main concern was: What am I doing in his life?

She had overheard her young maid, Luba, talking one morning with the French cook. “No, it's true!” the girl was saying. “Madame has never slept with His Excellency. I would have noticed if she had. There is never so much as a cufflink in her room, or a hairpin in his. Besides, they both have their scents. Madame's is attar of roses, and it's unmistakable. Her odor has never been mixed with his—in either room.”

“Hush now, Luba, and mind your business,” the cook had interposed.

But, of course, it was true. Boris treated her with consideration, even affection. Now there was a new expression in his eyes when he regarded her: Sometimes the old irony, so often tinged with cruelty, would mingle with a certain pleasure, or praise. He approved of her. He even liked her. He would casually leave a gilt-edged volume of Petrarch's poetry, bound in crumbling antique Moroccan leather, by her armchair, remarking that he had enjoyed it and perhaps she might, too. That was his way of indicating a new area for discovery. She had learned French during her rigid courses of instruction at the ballet school, but only in basic, cursory fashion. Now he had found her a pleasant middle-aged French widow to come to the flat and speak with her, suggesting reading to improve her fluency and general culture. She learned quickly, so that by the middle of the winter season she could hold conversations in French with their guests, most of whom spoke it in the manner common to the Russian aristocracy since the days of the Empress Catherine.

She was never bored with Boris—but she was baffled. At first she had tensely listened for his footstep by her door at night. But evidently he intended to respect his promise not to intrude as a man into her life. She was relieved. She still thought of Pierre and could not lie still remembering the night that she had spent in his arms, the joy, the sweet pain. She did not feel the same way about Boris. Her skin did not tingle when he drew near her, and she did not feel lightheaded and dizzy when he entered a room. She thought of Boris as a cool wind, a peaceful landscape that brought repose and loftiness to her existence.

Lydia often came to see her, and amusement glittered in her black eyes when Ivan bowed to Natalia and called her “Madame.” “Fancy that,” she would say. “Our Manya would look askance at us in this loveseat, with our tea glasses monogrammed with the Kussov
K.
Manya is shocked, Natalia. She wholeheartedly disapproves of this illicit arrangement of yours.” Natalia knew that such criticism was unavoidable. The enlightened members of St. Petersburg could afford to be more liberal, both in the matter of their own conduct and in accepting hers—but the middle classes and the peasants considered her no better than a whore. Katya practically never saw her now, except at the Ballet; her family had expressed such utter condemnation of Natalia's life that the young woman's own opinions had been shaken, to the point where she could not feel comfortable with Natalia. Natalia accepted this censure as inevitable. She had gained so much from Boris that the loss was minor in comparison.

He had set up a bank account in her name, “So that you will not feel under obligation to ask for every small thing,” he had explained. She had been touched by his consideration. In return, it did not occur to her to tell anyone the truth about their relations, even if this might have rehabilitated her reputation in certain circles. She was, then, for all intents and purposes, firmly established as Boris's companion—his mistress.

At the Mikhailovsky one evening they encountered his father, Count Vassily. He bowed over her hand, and said: “I have watched you at the Mariinsky, my dear. I am not a balletomane, but in you I saw the loveliness of which my son has spoken.” What did she see in his expression: approval? complicity with Boris? The old man was rather paternal. For a member of the old guard, he behaved decently and kindly.

So did Boris's sister. That is, for Liza, the youngest, lived in Moscow. Princess Nina Stassova invited her to tea and praised her great talent. When she thought that Natalia was out of earshot, she told Boris: “She is charming, absolutely charming. What a pity you can't marry her. I like her a lot more than I did Marguerite, for all her superior breeding.” Sometimes Princess Nina brought her small daughter, Galina, for a quick visit to Natalia—and Natalia knew that this was an unspoken sign of acceptance. A Stassov did not expose her three-year-old child to women of bad influence. Galina was tiny and golden, a fairy—and Natalia often thought with amazement that women s lives could be so different, her own devoted to her art while Nina was dedicated to her family. In a sense Natalia had exchanged Katya for Nina Stassova. For a person who had always relied on her own resources, an exchange of one friend for another was not a trauma but a nonchalant affair. Nina was a friendly acquaintance who wanted to like her because she loved Boris; whereas Katya had been dependent on Natalia. In actuality, neither of these women made a vital connection with Natalia's heart and soul.

I have but one real friend, Natalia pondered: Boris Kussov, a strange, essentially lonely man, whom I am afraid to try to reach. She felt compassion for him, as she had never felt toward another human being. Whatever he sought, he was not finding it. She would go to him in the study, and sit with him by the fire, not speaking. She knew he was unhappy, but there was nothing she could do. She wanted to say “Thank you,” or to cry out to him that she was there, another person, someone who cared. But she could not. Instead, she took his hand, and when his startled eyes flew to her face, she quickly kissed it, turning away—knowing that for this gesture he would deride her.

“What have we here,” he would say, “a romantic little
bayadère?
Come now,
Liebchen,
let us not become maudlin before the ripe old age of nineteen.”

“Say what you will, Boris,” she replied. She picked up Voltaire's
Candide
to resume her reading. Her face, small and austere, was as impenetrable to him, she realized, as his Grecian features remained closed to her. Theirs was a decidedly odd friendship—yet real, nevertheless.

With all her will power, she had blocked her small, persistent questions about Pierre. She never saw him; Boris never mentioned him, and she never asked. Yet many times when Boris left her to go to meetings of Diaghilev's committee of artists, she thought: Yes, he sees Pierre. Pierre and he could not have stopped seeing each other because of me. Pierre was central to Boris's life—what had happened to all that? Still, she did not ask. It was better to pretend to have forgotten. She sensed, too, that Boris would be very angry if she mentioned Pierre—he had certainly discouraged the slightest relationship between them in earlier times.

One of the aspects of her life with Boris that she most appreciated was their mutual respect for each other's privacy. If she kept the door to her boudoir open, it was a signal that he could come in and chat with her. He would frequently enter in his silk dressing gown, while she would already have donned hers, trimmed with Belgian lace and ruffles. Their lack of embarrassment seemed to indicate: We have gone beyond all this, haven't we? But he never intruded if the door was shut, and it would not have occurred to him to come into her bathroom during her nightly preparations. Neither did she ask him where he went alone. Presumably Ivan knew, but she was not even certain of that. Their comings and goings were clothed in courtesy and delicacy.

One afternoon, upon arriving at the Mariinsky for a rehearsal, she met Nicolai Legat, the
premier danseur
who led a class of soloists and sometimes choreographed, too. “Tell your coachman not to leave, Natalia,” he said to her. “We've reorganized this week's program, and Kyasht will be dancing Aurora this Sunday instead of you. Next week, you're to do
Giselle,
and I didn't think you ought to strain. Go home and rest. A day off won't hurt you.”

She inclined her head. How different life was from six months before, when an enforced rest had meant the possible end to her career! There were still many steps to go before becoming a
prima ballerina,
but the one from
coryphée
to second soloist was the crucial gap to bridge, the one most often missed by female dancers. She was not quite nineteen, but secure now at the Mariinsky—in part because of her talent and hard work; in part, too, because of Boris Kussov's patronage.

Yuri took her back to the boulevard in the warm carriage. It was winter again. Christmas was coming, with its bright memories of the Sugar Plum, her first triumph. It had been three years ago—more like an eon. She had matured in that time, firmed up. Even her face had acquired a sensitive beauty, or maybe it was only that Luba knew how to dress her hair in a more becoming fashion.

It was freezing in the stairway. When Ivan admitted her, she indulged herself by letting her mantle drop to the floor in one long shudder, crying delightedly: “I know, you're not expecting me home so soon! But I can smell the fire in the salon. Is His Excellency in?” Before the surprised Ivan could reply with his customary deference, she ran in little leaps into the sitting room, calling: “Borya! I have a free afternoon!” The thought of Christmas had turned her back into the small girl she had never been, but could still become, at eighteen.

Suddenly the mirth vanished from her face. She became a pillar of marble, her lips parted, her heart racing beneath her blouse. Die now, something told her. Faint, do anything. But don't look, don't look.

Pierre was alone in the salon by the red and gold fire. When he heard her voice, he rose quickly, upsetting the portfolio of drawings which lay on his lap. He rose instinctively in a swift, savage motion, his face reddening. There was such an aura of danger around him that she was filled with fear, and for a panicked moment she considered calling Ivan. Instead, she entered the room, slowly, carefully. There was no escaping him, no escaping the questions that had nagged inside her—no escaping the knowledge that in spite of her pretense, Pierre continued to live and breathe in this world.

She walked up to him, but he drew back fiercely, as though afraid she would contaminate him by her proximity. The etchings lay scattered at his feet, ridiculously vulnerable on the Persian carpet. “You came to see Boris,” she said finally, to fill the electric air.

“I didn't know you would be here,” he said, looking away.

“Then I shall go to my room and have Ivan call Boris.”

“He isn't here!” Pierre cried. “D'you think I'd wait in this house if it weren't important?”

“Then, you never come here?” she asked.

“Never! The idea of you—of this place—it makes me ill to think of it, to think of you.”

Hardly daring to breathe, she whispered: “You hate me that much?”

He looked at her and for a moment said nothing. His eyes were like flaming orbs, surrounded by black lashes. “You can ask me such a question?” he said.

Tears stung her eyelids. “You ask, then, Pierre. Ask whatever you want. Do whatever you want. You can't kill me with questions.”

“I have only one question,' he said. “Why? I wanted to marry you. You wrote that there was no room in your life for a man. But he—he overcame that reticence, didn't he? I know all about you. The jewels he gives you could purchase my father's vineyard. You used to despise me for not breaking a friendship that was oppressive, my friendship with Boris. But you! When will this stop? When he has made you three illegitimate babies?”

“Don't!” she cried. “Stop, you don't know what you're saying. That isn't at all how it is between us.”

“Then you tell me. Is he a better lover? Is that the secret? What is it, Natalia, that has turned you into this man's whore? I want to know. God, how I want to know! You have killed me, both of you. But you, especially. At least he never knew how I truly felt about you. I never actually told him. It may have amused him to win, thinking it was an inconsequential game with me too—but I think he was friend enough that had he known for sure, he wouldn't have done it. But you? To do this? With him?”

“He's not my lover!” she exclaimed and burst into tears. “Ask him, if he's your friend! He—and I—we've never—”

“I don't believe you,” Pierre said. He sat down on the sofa, his hands trembling. He bowed his face into them, and horrible, muffled sounds came through his fingers—dreadful, inhuman sounds from the bottom of his gut, from the hollows of his chest. She was silenced, then bewitched by this open pain, this agony that wracked him in front of her eyes. She could not move. She could not go to him, touch him, undo what had been done.

“You shall please leave us, Natalia,” said a quiet voice at her back. It was the voice of normality, Boris's voice. Mutely, she nodded, relieved. He would take care of this, do something. She turned and fled to her room.

Presently Luba came in with a tray. “Camomille tea, Madame,” she said, pouring it. “It soothes the nerves. There now, let's get you into bed. Let's get your head up on those pillows.” But Natalia could not close her eyes.

Boris sat alone with Pierre. The dying fire provided the only light in the room, darkened early in the Petersburg winter. Pierre seemed oblivious of the older man, and Boris sat opposite him in a wing chair, his chin propped in the palm of one hand, staring at the weeping figure and thinking. His impatience showed in occasional twitches, the biting of his lower lip. At last he rose and went to the sideboard in the far corner of the room. From a bottle on a silver tray, he poured a thimbleful of white liquid into a small glass, then walked to the sofa.