The Silver Swan (7 page)

“I think it would be fun,” Mariana persisted. “I like it when you come to school.” She couldn’t remember the last time Pilar had made such a visit. Her friends’ mothers were always buzzing around the PTA office, working to raise money for some cause or charity at the expensive little private school, Wide World, which dearly held to its pretensions to a social conscience.

“I’m not particularly fond of the other mothers,” Pilar answered. “They wear full-length mink coats and insist their maids work twelve hours a day while they take taxis to school, raise money for protest marches and the Fresh Air Fund, and let their children go home alone every afternoon to household help.”

Mariana thought it might be nice to have a welcoming maid to greet her at the door and set out a snack. She was surprised by her mother’s contemptuous tone. “The maids are there,” Mariana clarified, “and some of them are really friendly. We’re not alone.”

The Feldmanns didn’t employ a maid. It was against her mother’s principles and they didn’t have the money for it. Payments on the purchase of the Swan still claimed their funds. Mariana often chose to visit her friends after school, dreading the return to her own silent apartment. But she couldn’t stay long because of her practice schedule. At home, with Pilar ever-present, she felt most alone. “Anyway, if you feel that way, why did you and Papa send me to Wide World?”

“I thought it would be truer to its principles. God knows what your father thought.”

“Did he visit it with you? Did you choose it together?”

“No. He didn’t have the time or interest.”

Mariana asked again, wistfully. “Well, anyway, I wish you’d work at the bazaar.”

Pilar lit a cigarette and took up her pencil again. “I’ll speak to your father about it if he calls. You know Saturdays are his busy teaching day and he needs me here.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mama.”

Mariana had heard Alexander speak with pride of her mother’s principles, of her work as founding director of a ballet school that fostered the talents of poor children, of her social work. To do this, she had given up her position in the corps of the New York City Ballet. Like her parents, Pilar had been ardently against social injustice and privilege. She had gone south in the early days of the civil rights movement and championed racial equity in the arts. She’d taught in settlement houses and clubs, in public schools in poor neighborhoods. Alexander told people how hard he’d had to struggle to capture her attention, so committed was she to her school and what he called “her Socialist ideals.” (This was not exactly true, Mariana later discovered; her mother, very much in love, had waited several years while Alexander made up his mind to marry her.)

“But Papa, why does she only stay home?” Mariana had once asked.

“Because she
has
to look after you,” he said, “and she
wants
to look after me. My career makes many demands on her. I
need her to be home when I return from tours and you need her to be home when I’m away on tours.” He looked as if this explained everything, and when she still seemed puzzled, he said with exasperation, “It was no longer suitable for her to be working with those people. I asked her to give it up when you were born. It just wasn’t practical anymore for her to have so many commitments that conflicted with my own schedule.”

Her mother’s anger washed over Mariana, the bystander, and scared her. She tried to understand how her mother could love her father so passionately and protectively, craving his attention and devoting her life to him, while at the same time resenting his success and raging at his absence. When Alexander returned, Pilar would always punish him, but he would slowly coax her back out of the darkness. Once, winking at Mariana, he confided, “She and Maxxi are the same in this; they have their pride. They must, with patience, be brought around.”

On the morning after Mariana returned from Boston, her doorbell rang and a delivery man handed her a bouquet of flowers. She ripped open the envelope. The note came from Claude:

She felt a rush of excitement that conflicted violently with the anguish she’d been feeling since her departure from Boston. Had she hoped to hear from Claude? Many years had passed since her last, and only serious, involvement with a man, Anton Pietovsky. It had not turned out as she hoped; he left her.

Removing the paper and ribbon from the bouquet, she admired the extravagance of the arrangement, the largesse of the gesture, and the scent of the fresh spring flowers. She did not even have a vase to hold so many blooms, but she brought her largest glass pitcher from the kitchen and pressed them in. Pietovsky had made such gifts — flowers awaited her in every greenroom, chocolates and champagne at her hotels, an ermine shawl to wrap around her gowns in winter, and on her thirtieth birthday, a diamond bracelet. He was a romantic. Perhaps Claude was too. Or maybe he just felt guilty.

She set the flowers on a table that still held a photo of herself with Anton and her father, a large framed black-and-white picture, taken in 1989. She had been seventeen and eager to meet the sensational Russian conductor, fifteen years her father’s junior, who had recently engaged Feldmann to play the Dvořák concerto under his baton, in Moscow. In the photo, Alexander, as usual, towers over the group; Pilar is behind the camera. Anton has his arm around Mariana, who has already emerged as a beauty, taller than he. They are
in New York at her parents’ apartment, just about to have a celebratory dinner party. Behind them, the table is set.

Mariana remembered the occasion vividly. Anton had been barely able to speak English, though his attempts were unselfconscious, voluble, and full of large gesticulation. When Mariana entered the dining room, she took note of the two empty bottles of Russian vodka on the table, making rings on the cloth. The two men had apparently been long engaged in drinking and talking music in Alexander’s studio. She looked at the conductor, whom she’d heard so much about, and found something quite appealing, something alive and endearing in the way he came toward her and kissed both her cheeks, called her Marushka as he held her head in his hands. Her father was beaming.

“Ah,” Pietovsky cried, pressing her against his wrinkled Russian peasant shirt, “now I have met beautiful daughter about so much I have heard. I give her one more hug.” He did. “You must, Sashinka, pour her some vodka before is gone. Is my gift,” he explained to Mariana, “straight from steppes.” Alexander poured the viscous liquid into a small glass and handed it to her.

“Now here is how is done,” Pietovsky explained, as he linked his arm with hers, holding his own glass, and threw the vodka down his throat. She smiled and tried to take a sip. “No, no sip,” he bellowed. “Whole thing.” She did it. Her eyes teared.

“Now we do again,” he insisted. “This time we toast each other, our friendship.” Mariana didn’t want any more vodka, but her father poured another glass and handed it to her. So once again she linked arms and, attempting more enthusiasm, tossed the vodka down as did the eager Pietovsky. While he
leaned against her side, he continued his conversation with Alexander about the great Russian cellist, Rostropovich. “Is amazing, Sasha, how he can remember every note first time he plays it. I test him a few times. He never fails. Is a great gift — such remembering. Do you have it?” he asked Mariana, turning to her.

“Yes, yes she does,” Alexander said with pride. Mariana looked at him quizzically. She had no such gift or photographic memory but understood that her father wanted to promote her talent.

“Good for you, darling,” the conductor said. “I like to test you too.” He smiled cheerfully and kissed her again. “You come play with my orchestra. After your papa.”

“I would be very honored, Maestro,” she replied. “If you think I’m ready …”

“No, I am not maestro — such nonsense. I am your Anton, your friend, your papa’s friend and your mama’s. We must drink to that.”

Pilar, appearing from the kitchen, whispered to Mariana, “I think you’ve had enough. Throw the next one over your shoulder at the wall.”

“Why don’t I just say no thank you?”

“Your father doesn’t want to offend the maestro. He feels very flattered to have him here. We can wash the wall later.” Mariana, watching Pilar place candles on the table, couldn’t believe her mother was encouraging her to throw liquor on the charcoal walls.

As they waited for other guests to arrive, the Russian drew her to the Steinway to expound on the piece she told him she was working on, Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. An accomplished pianist, he played the accompaniment and
sang the cello part from memory. He too had an extraordinary ability to retain music, so important to a conductor. Mariana felt charmed by his warmth and the eager attention he lavished upon her. Pilar was in the kitchen with the Russian cook they’d hired for the occasion, overseeing the menu. Alexander fussed at the bar, opening bottles and bringing ice. Mariana invited Pietovsky to sit with her on the couch while they talked about the cello repertoire and which pieces she felt she’d mastered. He leaned toward her and commented on the scent she was wearing. “Lilac,” she said, smiling, “my favorite.”

“Ah, this I won’t forget, I shall bring you lilac when you play for me.” He took her hand and stroked it. “What instrument are you playing?”

“A Vuillaume,” she answered, “a copy of my father’s cello.”

“I must hear you play. Bring the Vuillaume to my hotel. I shall be here for some days more.”

“If you telephone me, I’ll come,” she answered, arranging her dress and moving slightly farther away. She would ask her father if he thought it a good idea.

The doorbell rang and she rose to answer it. The guests began to arrive, mostly Russians, in Pietovsky’s honor — old friends of his. The party grew louder, full of bonhomie and laughter and Russian jokes Mariana didn’t understand but enjoyed in any case because it was such a pleasure to see her mother presiding over the table and looking happy. Always, Pietovsky stayed at Mariana’s side. He was lionized and toasted over and over again, asked about conditions in the Soviet Union now that the government was tumbling, questioned about whether he would now come to live in America with his wife, the famous Soviet actress, and their daughters.
My God, Mariana thought, for such a famous conductor, he is so friendly and without self-importance.

“Aha,” he answered this last question. “First I see if I want my wife so close.” Everyone laughed. He looked at Mariana, eyes twinkling. “I see beauty here all around me. Maybe is better if wife stays in Moscow.”

Mariana looked quickly at her father. He was watching her intently, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. To his old friend Zena Padrova, a well-known Russian cellist, Alexander called out, “Tell him, Zena, about how she plays the cello — what an artist she is, even at such a young age.”

Zena took control of the conversation, sparkling. “Anton, parents always brag about their children, but you must know, Mariana is already much greater talent than her father, or just as good as he was at her age. I think you will be amazed if she ever agrees to play for you.”

“Oh, she will,” Alexander answered on her behalf. “She is already playing all over the world.”

“Do you travel alone?” Pietovsky asked, surprised.

“Almost always,” Mariana answered, “but I’m met, of course, wherever I go.”

When the evening finally came to an end, the wall behind Mariana was streaked with vodka shots, although the other guests had been less wasteful. Pietovsky could hardly stand up, he’d had so much to drink. He slouched against the closet door with his eyes shut as Pilar produced his fur coat.