Encore (23 page)

Boris rose too and came across the room to his friend. They smiled at each other and opened their arms. Then, laughing, they hugged each other. “Co-director! That's not half bad for a ploy, Serge,” Boris said. He slapped his friend on the back. “Come by to see Natalia,” he added cordially, escorting the other to the door. “You flatter her by your presence. She's still a charming child at heart.”

“It's interesting how you find these rustic young geniuses,” Diaghilev remarked lightly. He slid his arms into the sleeves of his coat, which Ivan was holding out for him. Boris's expression did not change. Diaghilev shrugged lightly and said: “Goodbye, dear boy.”

The door closed on Diaghilev's back. Ivan unobtrusively disappeared. Boris slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand and ground his teeth together. He imagined Pierre standing before him, his large black eyes glowing in the firelight, his tense young thighs taut with nervous energy. He saw him sitting at Diaghilev's table, eagerly expounding ideas for settings, for costumes. But there had been the still life on the steps of the house of Avenue Bugeaud, the look that had passed between them. It did no good to go back, to reevaluate. Boris had never made it a habit to retrace his steps, and he was surely not going to do it now.

“Ivan!” he called. “I shall be going to Paris next week. Prepare my bags, will you?”

A
t the end
of the spring season Natalia was promoted to soloist of the first degree. She was twenty years old and beginning to shine among the ballerinas of the Mariinsky. Her career seemed to be steadily progressing. Boris thought: It was wise to have secured her as my wife. He began to plan for the summer season with Diaghilev.

In the midst of helping to create new ballets he took time to have his principal assets transferred to France. There were bad seeds in the wind, unrest in Russia, disquiet at Kaiser Wilhelm's court in Germany. Boris clearly remembered the small Revolution of 1905 and the disaster that had preceded it, the war with Japan. The French, he felt, were less likely to turn hysterical, and in that country the Kussov fortune might grow faster than here, where Tzar Nicholas paid no heed to his people's cries. Whether war came or another small revolt, the Russian economy would be the first to suffer.

When this transfer had been smoothly accomplished, Boris felt a wave of relief. He could resume his concentration on the finer things in life, the arts, the dance. The 1910 ballet season came upon the Kussovs as a small whirlwind. Natalia was enjoying herself. Diaghilev's dancers went from Germany to France, and in neither country did Marguerite appear. Everywhere Fokine's choreography was applauded and the ballerinas acclaimed. Both Karsavina and Natalia took turns partnering Nijinsky, whose ability to stay in the air like a magic bubble was already becoming a legend. Natalia was given the chance to demonstrate her own virtuosity as never before: She danced in a new production based on a vivid Russian folk tale,
The Firebird,
to unusual, strident, and dissonant music by a young composer, Igor Stravinsky, whom Diaghilev had discovered. The score was arresting, unsettling, and hinted at the supernatural in every phrase.

In her Firebird costume Natalia was, indeed, a plumed being endowed with magic powers. Her brown and white coloring had been transformed into a turquoise transparency, with jewels in her hair and threads of gold twisted into her locks. When she begged for her release from her captor Ivan, her entire being pulsated, throbbed, and the feathers danced with her in sweeping arabesques. The audience clapped and cheered, and the men stood up with excitement. That evening, in her Chinese lacquered boudoir, Natalia looked at herself in the mirror and wondered whether she would ever dance another role so perfect for her temperament as this magnificent Russian folk bird, proud, vulnerable, passionate, and graceful. She truly was the Firebird, where she had only played at being the Sugar Plum, Aspitchia, or Columbine.

The Firebird
pleased Diaghilev because it was his first full-length original ballet, but Natalia sensed that her unqualified success had irked him, wounding his pride and hurting his single-minded championship of Nijinsky. She was thoughtful as she combed out her long, silken hair, so fine on her shoulders. She “belonged” to Boris, and Nijinsky “belonged” to Serge Pavlovitch. Did neither of the two mentors realize that, in spite of their youth and lack of worldliness, the young dancers possessed souls and wills of their own? It was almost as if, in their odd rivalry, Boris and Diaghilev had wound up two mechanical dolls and pitted one against the other. Her friend Karsavina was independent, and suddenly Natalia envied her. She had a life of her own!

This, then, summed up Natalia's problem: Her professional existence was dependent on Boris, but she had no life aside from her work. Boris had turned her into a magnificent plumed firebird, spoiled by his wealth and by the roles that he obtained for her. But she was a woman, and this fact stood between them as no other could. He owned her but did not possess her. It had been so long since a man had wanted her enough to try to possess both her body and her soul, to want her not for
what
she was but for
who
she was. Pierre had consumed her, and she had fought the demanding pressure of his ardor—but Boris lacked all ardor, and in her heart there was a dryness, a thirst—a vague longing. With unexpected ferocity, she posed the question that had been nagging her for an entire season: Whom had Pierre offended that he was still in Russia, that no one dared to voice his name aloud in the Ballets Russes?

Perhaps it's better this way, she thought, closing her eyes. With him in Russia I won't be reminded of him. When we are in the same city, that knowledge alone is enough to set me back, to make me remember. Onstage and at the rehearsals, at the lovely receptions where she was feted, Natalia could reduce the memories, crush them with the toe of her ballet slipper. But not alone, at night . . .

She was wretched in Brussels, envying Karsavina's freedom from the oppressions of patronage and jealous also of her colleague's happy marriage. A life of her own offstage! Perhaps her old friend Katya had been less stupid than she had once judged her to be.

During the next year Natalia seemed to acquire new color, a rose tone that gave her more beauty, more delicate reality than her previous paleness. Her arms and shoulders were rounder. There was little doubt now that she was a beautiful woman, no longer a frail young girl blending into the background. But she did not notice the appreciation in others' eyes. Her life had been spent training her body, and she still remembered the years on the farm when she had been the ugly daughter, ignored and deprecated. These memories still rankled within her. Her mother had finally written her, complimenting her on her brilliant marriage. The Gudrinskys were wondering when Natalia planned to come to the Crimea to show off her handsome count. They wanted to entertain the Kussovs at their family mansion if Natasha and Boris came during the summer hiatus. The entire community was agog with expectation—and Elena claimed she had always known her younger daughter was destined for glory. Natalia crumpled the letter into a small ball and felt the hot sting of humiliation. She dismissed her parents from her consciousness. On their Crimean farm they did not know that they had died for Natalia long ago. And so had the name Natasha. She would never again be that girl.

Back in the Russian capital Natalia was at once swept into a flurry of rehearsals. It was difficult to believe that Diaghilev was growing tired of Fokine's choreography and had told Boris that it was old-fashioned, with its emphasis on times gone by and romantic, colorful places. At the Imperial Theatres Natalia still danced mostly classical ballets, with perfect symmetry in the
corps de ballet
and herself on
pointe,
showing off her prowess. Boris had also told her that Serge Pavlovitch was eager to form his own company, instead of waiting for the summer when vacationing dancers of the Moscow and Mariinsky Theatres would be free. Diaghilev—and Boris, too—were always surprising her with their ambitious ideas.

Toward the end of January 1911, Natalia and Vaslav Nijinsky performed the lead roles in
Giselle.
Alexander Benois had confectioned a short tunic for the young man when he had danced Albrecht in Paris, and now, instead of a more concealing outfit, Nijinsky insisted on wearing this costume, without undergarments. Teliakovsky was away, but Krupensky, his assistant director, immediately registered his opposition. But Nijinsky was most stubborn: He would dance Albrecht only in his Parisian attire.

During the intermission Boris was on his way to visit the dowager empress with a box of sweets when he encountered Matilda Kchessinskaya in the corridor. She seemed particularly excited, her eyes sparkling. “What do you think of all this nudity?” she demanded.

“Whose nudity, my dear Mala?” he asked, suddenly wary.

“Why, Vaslav's, of course. Maria Feodorovna was very upset. I've just been in her box. As the Tzar's mother, she felt personally insulted by this unashamed display of ... male attributes. Placate her, will you, darling?”

“I will try. But something tells me you're up to mischief. And it isn't subduing the offended sensibilities of our honored dowager empress.”

Matilda Kchessinskaya kissed the tip of her finger and laid it lightly on Boris's cheek. “Silly man,” she said archly, moving away in the opposite direction. She left him strangely unsettled.

The following day Diaghilev informed Boris that Krupensky had asked Nijinsky to apologize for his indecent accoutrement, but that he, Serge Pavlovitch, had advised him to refuse and to stand by his artistic decision. Krupensky's response was immediate: He dismissed the young
danseur
from the Mariinsky. “And now,” Diaghilev said, smiling, “I can form a full-time company of dancers. Vaslav will not have to finish his five years of compulsory service in the Mariinsky.”

“And Matilda's role in all of this?” Boris demanded dryly.

“Oh, she had no idea that she'd be playing into my hands. You did such a fine job convincing her last year of my ill will toward her that she was trying to organize a faction against me. She thought getting Vaslav fired was a good first step. But I've been waiting for just such a chance! If this hadn't happened, he would not have been allowed to quit until May of next year.”

“The five-year prison term, indeed.” Boris stroked his mustache. “Natalia is still bound until then. No one will see fit to fire her, will they?”

“You could hire Matilda to plot something. Remember the
Egyptian Nights?
Perhaps you could revive her animosity toward Natalia. One never can tell.”

Boris shook his head. “How we do dig up the past, don't we, Serge? But it's the future that counts, isn't it?” There was a sharp edge to his tone. Then he shrugged. “Congratulations,
mon cher”
he added, inclining his head toward his crony. “Good work!”

They began to laugh together, but their rivalry remained a palpable presence between them, thick with memories.

On the eve of her birthday, in February, Natalia was alone. Boris had gone to a meeting at Diaghilev's flat to help plan the new season. Sitting down at her vanity, she felt depression settle heavily upon her. It was so strange how little Vaslav Nijinsky had been dismissed. Now his beloved mentor was forming a company with him at its base. She was glad for him. After all, if Kchessinskaya had made problems, if she had used the Benois attire to fabricate a reason for ridding herself of a rival in the public eye, the boy had been cruelly used. There was no more fantastic dancer than Nijinsky, with his ambiguous voluptuousness, his incredible leaps. If Serge Pavlovitch could turn the dismissal to the young man's advantage, then all the better.

She did not feel strongly about the real Nijinsky underneath the artist. He had an ego, yet he held himself apart from others so that no one truly knew him. She thought, with surprise: I don't seem to find fault with them anymore, these men “like Boris.” They possess different instincts from my own, but then, so does Katya, who has stopped dancing to have one child and then another. This is the world of artists: They do as they please, according to their own rules.

So why was she depressed? she wondered. It was frustrating to know that Vaslav Nijinsky, Diaghilev's “Vatza,” was going to travel and dance modern ballets while she remained at the Mariinsky, redoing the same Petipa classics and being kept in check by the
prima ballerinas.
But that was not the real reason for her lassitude. Nijinsky and the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev had brought to mind the strange triangle of her life with Pierre and Boris. She and Boris lived as man and wife in every way but one, and, as she did not want children, she could not complain. But what did Boris think about when he was alone? What thoughts haunted him? Once he had confided in her—but that was long ago. She suspected that what was for her a barren life imposed by the nature of their relations was not quite so barren for him, that sometimes when he dressed for the evening and did not invite her to accompany him, he was meeting someone with whom to alleviate the frustration. Was it Pierre, or had their relationship died long ago? Or, as the young painter had tried to tell her on the way to Catherine Hall, had it never really begun? But she had seen them! And if Pierre did not love Boris, did Boris still love Pierre?

These thoughts were like sores on her mind, and she told herself to stop, for every way she turned there was pain. But the fact remained that she was unhappy and that she could no longer hide behind her roles at the Mariinsky. Unwittingly Vaslav and Diaghilev had pointed out the unsuitable nature of her present screen. If she had to hide, let it be behind a nobler screen, a challenging screen. And that was no longer the Imperial Theatre's.

Tomorrow she would be twenty-one. Suddenly she rose, and went to the small room in the back corridor near the vast kitchen where the French cook was chatting with Luba, her maid. Crates of old belongings stood there gathering dust—old periodicals, clothes that were no longer fashionable. She sneezed and reminded herself to tell Ivan to have the place dusted. There it was, against the back wall, in its crude wrapping. She pulled it out and carried it back to her boudoir.

In privacy, she undid the strings and set it face up on the carpet. The woodland scene. Three years old now! He must have loved me then, he must have! she thought frantically. Where is he now, that we have not heard from him in so many months?

She closed her eyes and saw herself again in the Bois, walking beside him. She could have chosen to go with him then, to trust him. But she knew that, no matter what, she could not have left Boris to go with Pierre.

Luba knocked discreetly at the door, and Natalia hastily jammed the painting beneath the love seat. The maid entered and asked: “Will Her Excellency be wanting her supper now?”

Natalia stared at Luba, brought back to the present, to the silk texture of the boudoir walls, and the cocooned existence in which she had been ensconced for three years. All at once her longing, her restlessness, became untenable. Even as the maid blinked, wondering at her mistress's confusion, Natalia came to a resolution. She had to act now, before she lost her nerve, before Boris returned, before his presence once again imposed its elegant passivity over the elemental side of her nature.