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  “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.

  Natalia stood up. “No, no,” she replied, her cheeks crimson and her breath short. “I think I’ll go out, Luba. My friend, Lydia Markovna—I think I shall pay her a visit this evening.”

  “Shall I lay out your dress?” Luba asked.

  “No, I can take care of it. But Yuri can bring me in the troika. Serge Pavlovitch sent for the Count, didn’t he, with his own carriage?”

  When the maid had left, Natalia went to her closet and carefully selected a simple gown of gray silk, high-necked, with demurely puffed Bishop sleeves that entirely covered her arms. She hesitated near her jewel box, then deliberately did not open it. She pinned her hair into a simple pompadour with topknot, and tied a gray silk ribbon around it. She met Ivan in the hallway and had to accept the splendid white ermine cape which he held out to her. She could not have explained her preference for a simpler overcoat.

  Yuri took her to Lydia’s apartment, and she dismissed him at the door. He wanted to wait, as was his custom, but she said, “It’s cold, Yuri, go home and rest. Lydia Markovna will send me back in a coach. I don’t know how long I’ll be, as His Excellency will not need me at home. You know how late those sessions last at Serge Pavlovitch’s!”

  Now she ran up the stairs to her former apartment and was let in by the old nurse Manya. Natalia kissed her. She went into the living room and watched Yuri drive away. Lydia appeared in a dressing gown, her black hair down her back. “So you’ve come to pay your dues. Fancy that!” her friend exclaimed.

  Hastily, Natalia propelled Lydia into her bedroom. “I’m sorry,” she began, in an undertone. “I should like to stay tonight, but I can’t. I need to find a coach …to go somewhere.”

  “Oh.” Lydia’s small black eyes widened, but she said, “I have a small carriage, which I drive myself. I could let you use it, if you’d like. One of your people could drive it back tomorrow.”

  “That’s kind of you, Lydiotchka. It would make sense, wouldn’t it, to let me drive it home after my visit.”

  “Yes. Well, it’s downstairs. A modest affair compared with the Kussov équipages. Take good care of it, as it’s the only one I can afford.”

  Natalia gave her friend a wordless hug. Then she left, bypassing an incredulous Manya. The carriage, a simple two-seater, stood in back of the house, and she had little trouble hitching the single horse to it. It reminded her of her childhood on the farm. It was cold in the open air, while the covered troika had been warm. She drew her knees under Lydia’s thick blanket, gritted her teeth, and headed toward Pierre’s building. It had to be done, she had to see what had become of him. Her skin was numb with frost.

  The light was on at his window. She was trembling with cold and hitched the horse to a lamppost, hoping it would not begin to snow. Yuri would have been appalled at her lack of care for the poor animal, but she had so little time! She ran up the stairs and then, in front of the door, a deathly stillness came over her. A lump rose in her throat. Resolutely, she knocked, and the sound was like a death knell. She clasped her hands together and waited, not thinking.

  When he opened the door, she went inside without looking at him, without allowi
ng him to speak first. A smell of dust and rancid oil assailed her nostrils, and she turned to him, surprised. His hair was disheveled, and there were circles under his dark eyes. His dressing gown hung loosely on him and appeared used and ill cared for. She stopped the question on her lips and instead walked into the room with the paintings. Motes of dust flew up at her entrance, and on the floor she saw an old canvas caked with paint, but only half finished. She wanted to cry out: Why have you turned this place into a sty, and yourself into a pig? But she bit her lower lip and hugged the ermine cape around her, shivering. The fire had gone out in an incredibly dirty hearth.

  “Once, years ago, I offered you tea and you turned me down,” Pierre said. “Could I make some for you now?”

  She shook her head. “No, I shall make it.” She went into the tiny cubicle that was the kitchen and gasped. Dirty dishes lay piled on the sides of the sink, on the counter, on the small round enamel stove, strangely empty. Angry tears came to her eyes. “My God, Pierre!” she cried. “What’s happened to you?”

  He shrugged, and she noticed that his strong shoulders seemed to have shrunk inside his dressing gown. She examined it and saw the initials BVK on one of the lapels. Boris’s old bathrobe! “It doesn’t matter, does it?” Pierre said. “You are the Countess Kussova, a soloist at the Imperial Ballet. You stand here in your fur coat and look at me with disdain, as one might look at a rat in a gutter. What do you care, Natalia?”

  She thought: Then he hadn’t seen him in all these months. Boris is too fastidious to have permitted this squalor. She circled the small samovar with caution and peered at the coals in the tubular pipe, long grown cold. “When was the last time anyone cleaned this?” she asked. Without waiting for what she knew would be a stinging reply, she emptied the old water from the copper instrument and scrubbed its insides, soaking her delicate hands in the filthy liquid. She dried it with a cloth that she found on the counter, and said to Pierre: “We need some embers from the fire. Not that what you find will be very hot, but your stove is completely empty in here.”

  There was a harsh, nagging edge to her voice, and she tried to repress it when he brought her two warm coals still tinged with red. She dropped them down the long pipe that served as a chimney for the samovar and filled it with hot water. She put the small iron teapot on top of the coal pipe to keep it warm. “We’ll wait for this to boil,” she told him, and went into the sitting room that was also his studio. She knew she sounded pettish and matronly, like a country schoolteacher, but she could not help herself. She had expected anything but to have to perform cleaning chores in an abode of stench and grit. At least she could do this work without thinking, and for this she was grateful.

  Now, they sat face to face. She removed her cape, and he looked at her dress without expression. “Come now, Countess!” he said. “No gems from your dear husband’s coffers?”

  She did not answer, but looked at him directly without flinching. “Why didn’t you go to Berlin, and Paris, and Brussels?” she asked.

  For the first time his black eyes flashed, and his hands became fists. “Because I wasn’t asked!” he burst out. “The favorite has lost his appeal, isn’t needed any longer. What did you think, Natalia? Your husband was bound to tire of me someday, only I never thought he would turn everyone else against me too! Diaghilev, Bakst, Benois—no one invites me to committee meetings anymore, and no one has commissioned any new paintings. I can’t sell any of my work in Petersburg. The rich society ladies who were clamoring for Riazhin portraits suddenly have their afternoons full with other, more important, sittings. Bakst has turned Paris into a Persian harem with his settings for Scheherazade, while I—oh, never mind. Who is Riazhin, anyway?”

  With a swift motion she rose and cried: “I cannot bear this self-pitying streak in you! We all suffer from occasional bad luck. Why must you blame Borya for it? He helped get you on your feet, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, and then he deftly knocked me down. He is a master at construction but also at destruction. Boris Vassilievitch! I hope he is happier than I am. He has systematically taken from me everything that was mine.”

  “No,’ she said softly. “You are wrong there. He has not, and never could, take your talent from you,’

  In the kitchen her hands trembled when she placed the teapot under the faucet of the samovar to fill it with the now boiling water. She found two cups, some loose tea, sugar, and a lemon, which she sliced. She could not find any spoons, and instead put two forks on each saucer: They would have to do. She placed the teapot with its tea and hot water on a large dish, and crowded the cups and saucers around it. Then she carried it into the other room. Her face was pale and her eyes loomed enormous.

  Pouring the tea, she said: “Pierre, I don’t understand, not any of this. I’m sorry about your work. You’re a great artist. Boris—”

  “Boris can go to hell!” Suddenly Pierre regarded her with animosity: “Did he send you here?” he asked.

  She laughed, a short, harsh sound that held no mirth. “No one knows I’m here,” she told him. She examined her hands, bit her lip. “Please, Pierre,” she said, “don’t give up. It wouldn’t be right. I was looking at the painting you gave me when I turned eighteen—and it’s wonderful, full of life and fantasy. You mustn’t give in to hopelessness, to living this way. Hasn’t anybody at all been here to see you?”

  A sudden vision of him in his opera clothes, black opera hat, and cane came to mind. She winced. Pity was a dreadful emotion. She was embarrassed for Pierre, for herself, and at the thought of the horse downstairs, shivering in the winter cold. What have I done? she thought, appalled.

  “You have truly become his wife,” Pierre remarked then, and there was amazement in his voice. “You have forgotten all of it, all about us, and remembered only your splendid new life, your new position. Why, you are even loyal to him! If you think I betrayed you, surely what he did was less than honorable.”

  “But he loved you. You said you loved me.”

  “And of course you persist in not believing my explanations. What sort of love is that? And your marriage to him? Never even explained!”

  Stiffly, she said: “I did not owe you any explanations.”

  “Nor did I. You had left me long before, when you sent that note of refusal. Marriage did not mesh with your need to dance, to be an independent individual. Still, today you are a married woman. Logical, Natalia? Or merely money-hungry, like the rest of us? A better marriage may not necessarily mean a better man. Tell me, does he sleep with you?”

  Without even thinking, she cried out: “Of course he sleeps with me, I am his wife!” Then, suddenly, she burst into tears. She stood up and sobbed for several minutes, then dried her tears like a child, with the back of her hand. She picked up her coat and put it on.

  “It’s you!” she cried. “You have killed it! Killed me, killed yourself, and killed Boris, too! You never loved me, you never loved him, and both of us were fools ever to care, to care so deeply for a sniveling little man such as you’ve become! How could you do it, Pierre?” Tears flowing down her cheeks, she added: “What a waste of our love.”

  She left her teacup half empty on the little table. Small, dejected, yet suddenly aware of a liberating truth, Natalia walked toward the door and did not look back.

  Chapter 11

  Natalia was preparing for the spring season of 1911. Boris had left her to accompany the newly formed “Ballets Russes de Serge de Diaghilev” to Monte Carlo while she finished off the season at the Mariinsky. In early May she would meet him in Rome, where she had never been, and then together they would proceed to Paris, and from there to London, where the Ballet was scheduled to perform at King George’s Coronation Gala at Covent Garden.

  In planning her wardrobe, Natalia called on Princess Stassova, Boris’s sister. At twenty-eight, Nina Vassilievna Stassova was poised, thoughtful, gentle, and very close to her brother emotionally. They bore a striking resemblance, inherited from their mother, and Nina’s daughter,
Galina, carried it through to the next generation. She was a small golden butterfly, an engaging child.

  Watching her, Natalia experienced a strange sensation. Truly the girl could have been Boris’s own child, and, in an inexplicable way, this created a bond between them. Almost against her will, an idea began to form in Natalia’s head, and one afternoon she asked tentatively: “Nina, has anyone ever painted Galina’s portrait?”

  Her sister-in-law shook her head. “Not yet,” she replied. “Why?”

  Looking down at her fingernails, Natalia said: “I was just thinking. She’s a striking beauty, and I know a man who could bring her spirit to life on canvas. He was once one of Boris’s protégés. Someone told me that he’s had a reversal of fortune, that his work hasn’t been much in demand these days. But he’s really very good.”

  “I could have her painted for Andrei’s birthday,” Nina suggested.

  “I’m sure our friend would be grateful. But Nina, don’t tell anyone about this. He’d be humiliated if he thought I’d recommended him—and Boris would be upset to learn that he’s come upon hard times. It would be better for the artist’s pride, and for Boris’s peace of mind, if you pretended to remember his work from before, when he was popular. He was the man Boris took to Egypt—he designed the costumes for Egyptian Nights: Pierre Riazhin.”

  “Ah, yes,” Nina assented. “I remember the name. I shall call on him within the week.”

  When the tall Princess stepped into his messy sitting room, Pierre remained framed in the bedroom doorway, his shirt open at the neck, the blood pulsing in his throat. He could not help blinking. The woman and child were too much like Boris, and so were too hateful for words of politeness, or gallantry.