The Four Winds of Heaven Page 23

  From that moment on, Ossip was unable to keep track of events. Once inside the Tagantsev palace, where the Countess herself greeted him with gentle courtesy, Volodia seized him by the arm and brought him into a group of young people. Ossip, who had not mixed with children in the early years of his life, had nevertheless observed them well, and now he was comfortable with others, a witty speaker. He knew what to expect of people, how to be with them. His school friends, Botkin, Sokolov, and Petri, were all present, as were many older fellows whom he did not know. But he hardly noticed them, for at a distance he had seen a vision of utter loveliness to which his eyes, magnetized, were riveted.

  She was almost as tall as he, her waist slim, her soft young bust round below a ruffled bateau neckline which revealed pink shoulders and exquisite long arms and tapering fingers. Her hips flowed with her long skirt, and around her neck she wore a collar of rubies and diamonds. Her gown was red, ruby red, as were her full, laughing lips below a tiny, uptilted nose. Even at a distance he could tell that her eyes were deep blue, rimmed with curling black lashes, and her cheeks were a glowing pink. Her hair was clearly as mischievous as she, for already this early in the evening tendrils were escaping from her diamond-studded pompadour at her forehead and her neck. Ossip stood, his eyes widened, marveling. And then the girl came running, with long, graceful steps, toward the group. “Volodia,” she exclaimed, “I have met all your friends but this one!” And she regarded Ossip, who stood dumbfounded.

  “This is—” the young host began. But the girl burst out laughing, and placed light fingers on Ossip’s arm: “No, let me guess! You are Ossip Davidovitch de Gunzburg. Why is it that I have not met you till now? I made my debut this year, you know. Volodia might have invited you! Instead Papa chose the dullest boys in Petersburg. Papa does not understand la jeunesse!”

  “Then,” Ossip stated, bowing, “you are Natalia Nicolaievna. I am most honored.”

  “I hope that you will not feel too honorable to twirl me in a spirited waltz!” she said gaily.

  “It would be dishonorable to do otherwise,” Ossip countered.

  Natalia brightened. “Volodia! Did Mama tell you who was to escort me to supper tonight? I should like to change him for Ossip Davidovitch. Could you speak to her about it? This is such a special night for us, my angel, and if there were a young girl who made your heart patter, I would do you the same favor. Is there one? You blush, Volodia.”

  Vassili Petri bowed to her. “I was to be your escort, Natalia Nicolaievna. But before my friend’s success, I shall step aside. Not for long, however,” he added.

  Volodia laughed. “I shall see if Mama agrees. You have the worst manners in the city, Natasha.” To himself, he thought: If only she could have come with Ossip… But he steeled his mind against the intrusive notion. Yet, as he moved toward his mother, he could not help seeing the gray eyes in front of him, the firm little chin, the fine black hair. I cannot put her out of my mind, he thought with frustration.

  It was to be a supper for thirty, of which only half were young people; afterward, more of Natalia and Volodia’s friends were to appear for the ball. Count Nicolai Tagantsev had made the rounds, pausing to be introduced to Ossip, and he had shaken his hand. He was a tall, massive, elegant man, and his handshake was warm. “You have brought joy into my son’s life,” he had told Ossip. Then he had gone to another group.

  Now the Countess inclined her head, and the Count took the arm of Princess Trepanova, the most important female guest, and began the march into the dining room. Every man found the lady he was to escort, and followed suit. Closing the ranks came the Countess with the guest of honor, her own cousin, General Prince Andrei Kurdukov; he was a handsome man, tall and strong, with auburn hair and whiskers, who had been pointed out before by Volodia. Prince Kurdukov looked every bit the part of a guest of honor: he was already in his prime, self-assured and successful. One could easily imagine him at Court. Ossip, somewhere in the middle of this procession which reminded him of the formation of a quadrille, felt Natasha’s fingers upon his sleeve, and his heart raced. She tilted her head at him, regarding him frankly, and he smiled. “No painter could capture your lively charms, Natalia Nicolaievna,” he murmured in spite of himself, and she laughed, a low, intimate ripple of music.

  The guests did not go to the large table in the center of the room, but instead to the smaller one set against the wall. This was the zakouski, hors d’oeuvre table, laden with a large white fish, the traditional sig, which was boiled and cold; smoked mackerel; herring in wine sauce; fine slices of smoked salmon; stuffed green olives, marinated mushrooms, two kinds of caviar, one black and one gray, and tiny meatballs covered with tomato sauce. On both sides of the table were piles of small dishes and rows of silver forks and knives, and in silver baskets were the breads, white and rye, thinly sliced. Against the wall stood bottles of vodka, with liqueur glasses before them for the older gentlemen.

  “I am starved,” Natasha whispered.

  Ossip chose the most enticing delicacies for her and brought them to her on a plate. They stood together by the large window, eating and talking excitedly. He was hardly conscious of their friends around them, only of Natasha’s eyes and of her delightful dabbing with her napkin on her lower lip.

  After a while the Countess took the arm of her escort, and everyone followed to the large damasked table. Ossip found his name card, which Volodia had repositioned so that he would be seated to Natasha’s right. Near each principal plate was a smaller dish with a slice of white and a slice of black bread, to accompany the meal. Natasha picked up the orchid on her plate, and Ossip pinned it to her shoulder. In the center of the table was a large basket of red roses, flanked on both sides by crystal bowls, one filled with fruits and the other with sweets. Here and there upon the table were small bouquets of baby red roses, and at every third place setting was a French menu in the finest calligraphy.

  The first course was the soup, a clear consommé. Along with this, the servants passed a platter of pirojkis, fine pastries filled with meats and eggs. Ossip observed the customary silence, but he gazed surreptitiously at his companion, noting her aristocratic profile and her lovely hair. Then an enormous trout with hollandaise sauce was served to each of the gentlemen at the table, and it was their duty to help the ladies. Ossip served Natasha a dainty portion, wondering what would follow. It was a loin of veal with tiny sautéed potatoes, green beans, and a salad of beets and Belgian endives. The servants filled the glasses with Bordeaux wine.

  Ossip said, “You and Volodia have always been especially close, haven’t you?” and Natasha grew gay, extolling her brother:

  “I do not know if he will choose to enter the Senate, like Papa, and like our older brother, Nicolai,” she said. “Volodia is somewhat of a solid person, reliable, good, honest. But far more fun-loving than Papa and Kolya. I should be happy to marry a man like my brother someday. Oh, I am in love with my father—what young girl isn’t? But I have been sweet and proper for too long. I want more laughter and less gloom!”

  “Yes,” Ossip agreed. “My grandfather is a gloomy sort, too. And Papa—Papa is an idealist. I am not. I see life as it is, and do not waste time wishing it were more golden. We must adjust to reality.”

  They had been eating the vegetables, asparagus spears, and drinking Madeira wine. Now came a roast goose stuffed with chestnuts and surrounded by baked baby apples. “I cannot eat another bite,” Natasha murmured. “If I do, I shall split my corset on the dance floor, and you will be too embarrassed to dance with me again.”

  “Nothing in this universe would embarrass me that much.”

  The flat glasses were now filled with champagne, and when it had been downed by all the guests, dessert was brought in, a sumptuous bombe of chocolate and raspberry ices. Tiny wafer fingers filled with chocolate accompanied the bombe. Then the servants passed around the two crystal bowls, and the guests helped themselves to pears imported from France, Calville apples, and other exotic fruits and sweets. T
hey rinsed their fingertips in bowls of warm water with slices of lemon. When the Countess rose, the guests followed suit and, taking the arm of her escort, each lady came to the hostess and thanked her as she stood by her chair. Natasha kissed her mother, and cried: “You are a love, Mamatchka! Will you come watch us dance?” Ossip brought the Countess’s hand to his lips, bowing. The Countess watched them depart, an indulgent smile upon her face. There was a note of benign envy in her gaze as it followed Natasha. She was thinking: How lucky we are when we have youth…

  Natasha took Ossip into the drawing room, where, as the young lady of the house, it was her duty to pour the coffee, which was brought in at the same time as the liqueurs. The young people who had been invited only to the dance began to arrive. Ossip looked on as Volodia and his sister greeted these people, and suddenly he realized that he was jealously watching Natasha’s expression as she spoke to each young man who arrived. He felt himself sigh inwardly with relief when her lovely hand did not touch their arms, when after a slight cocking of her pretty head and a brief trill of laughter she would comb the room for him, and smile her warm engaging smile for him alone.

  The younger generation, at Volodia’s command, went into the enormous ballroom. He said to Natasha, “I’m tonight’s master of ceremonies,” and when she cried, “But then, you won’t enjoy my friends!” he silenced her with a composed look. He thought: If she is not here, half the pleasure is gone, in any case. And it is amusing to invent orders for the cotillion. It is a challenge to the imagination. He had voluntarily replaced a young banker who was frequently chosen to direct the special movements of the dancers during the evening. There were many who hoped for this privilege.

  Ossip was a supple dancer, and he held Natasha with the ease of true grace. She was light, despite her tallness, and she exuded a fragrance of wisteria. They waltzed and they joined in the quadrille and they executed the Cracovienne and the elaborate Polonaise, and when other young men arrived to beg for dances Ossip stood perplexed, not knowing which of the many girls to invite, for he felt that it hardly mattered, that all would be equally dull compared to the vivacious Natasha.

  Between formal numbers Volodia would call out: “Large circle!” and everyone would hold hands. “Ladies’ circle, gentlemen’s circle!” he would say, and the girls would all hold hands inside the wider ring of young men. When he called out “Corbeille!” two youths would hold hands and lower their linked arms about a girl, and take several dancing steps with her imprisoned between them. Then his directions became more complex, and the younger people would laugh, attempting to follow his orders.

  At midnight the maître d’hôtel announced that a light supper was ready in the dining room. Natasha, the hostess, started this procession, demurely holding Ossip’s arm. There were small tables spread out about the room, the large one having been removed. Volodia and Natasha sat on either side of Ossip as they feasted on tea and cakes, while the servants aired out the ballroom for the spirited, breath-stopping mazurka.

  But now came the moment for the intricate figures of the cotillion. Volodia chose his sister for the first number, and she stood upon a chair, a lighted candle in her hand, and raised this hand high above her head while the young men massed about her, attempting to blow out the flame. The candlelight played over her features, which, to Ossip, seemed to emerge from a gypsy fairyland. When another young man succeeded in blowing out the candle and won the prize of dancing with Natasha, a profound dejection settled upon Ossip.

  When the ball came to a close, Volodia escorted his friend to the door, but Natasha followed, her blue eyes mournful. Her hand took hold of his forearm, and she whispered, “Come back, Ossip Davidovitch. It is not fair: my brother has you all to himself, and sees your family every day. Twins are supposed to share, are they not?”

  He found himself unable to answer. He took her hand, bowed over it, and brought it to his lips. Murmuring his good-byes, he exited, a caped black figure in the wind.

  “I do not give a damn about what Papa says,” Natasha said to her brother as they watched him depart. Volodia turned to her, startled. But her blue eyes were hard, and small flashes of fire illuminated them. “Come on,” she added with impatience, “let’s say good night to the rest of these cardboard figures!”

  When Ossip slipped into the Gunzburg apartment, he was amazed to find Sonia, clad in her woolen bathrobe, waiting in the drawing room. She had never greeted him after other soirees. She said softly, “I could not sleep. How was it? Was Volodia’s father polite to you? What is their home like?”

  Suddenly her brother grabbed her by the waist and twirled her into the air. “She is wonderful!” he sang. “Wonderful, wonderful! I have never encountered anyone like her, and I never shall! She is perfect, perfect!” And humming the notes of Strauss’s Waltz of the Blue Danube, he held her above the ground and began to dance.

  When her slippered feet touched the floor once more, Sonia suddenly burst into tears. She left her brother standing in the empty drawing room, bewilderment painted upon his face as she hurried to her bedroom and leaned against the door, sobbing aloud. She could not understand her own tearful display, and when it was over, she wiped her tears and went to bed. But she could not sleep. Next door, her brother Ossip too lay awake, but his was the insomnia of effervescence, while hers was uneasy restlessness. It would not have occurred to her to wonder whether the Tagantsev twins were asleep or not in their palace on the Quai Anglais.

  From family friends in Zurich Anna had learned that a landscape artist of great repute, Herr Bader, was teaching his craft in the picturesque town of Darmstadt, in the German province of Hesse. “I plan to join his group of students,” she wrote her parents. “This will further my talents, and you need not worry, for the pupils are all of the very best families.” Mathilde winced upon reading this. She felt again as though her daughter, from afar, were throwing sarcasm in her face like vinegar on an open wound. But Anna was safe at last, and productive. “And perhaps she is finally coming to her senses,” Johanna reassured her gently.

  But there was no one to reassure Anna. The young woman was wracked by loneliness, greater loneliness than she had ever experienced before. For this time she had known love, and had been wrenched from Ivan before her relationship with him had fully blossomed. Within her family she had encountered moments of strangeness, of alienation—but not like the searing pain which she now felt at the thought of Ivan. She had loved him so! And her grandfather’s men had not even allowed her to say good-bye to him, to kiss his sweetness one last time before dragging her away. Sometimes she was afraid that the anger which consumed her, the sheer misery, would not let her continue living. She was grateful only to her art, for without it to sustain her interest in herself, she might have died.

  David had arranged for a bank in Zurich to add monthly installments to the account which he had had established there for her. And when Anna turned twenty-one, a trust fund formed by her Grandfather Horace was made available to her. She went to the bank and made plans for checks to be forwarded to her in Darmstadt. But just as she was preparing to leave Switzerland, strange signs of illness began to assail her.

  She would awaken in the morning, and before swallowing the slightest morsel, her stomach would turn. She felt dizzy at odd moments. One afternoon, in a tea room, she nearly fainted. It was at that instant that a young woman three or four years older than Anna came to her and helped her to the restroom. She was dark-haired with a deep beige complexion and enormous chocolate eyes. “I do not know what could be wrong with me,” Anna murmured helplessly, as the woman pressed a damp cloth to her temples. “I am not the sickly type… but lately…”

  The other smiled. “Perhaps this is a mystery to you, my dear, but not to me. I have only too recently suffered the same symptoms. Let me relieve your mind: you are merely expecting a happy event. It is your first time, is it not?”

  Mute horror took possession of Anna. She recoiled from the other woman and clutched the towel rack in panic. �
�It can’t be,” she whispered.

  “You are not pleased?” the young woman asked, a look of surprise on her face. “You must tell your husband. Where is he? I can telephone him to pick you up here—or perhaps you were waiting for him…”

  “No, no!” Anna cried wildly. She regarded the other woman, and noticed that she was extremely well dressed, but that below her breasts was a small, unconcealed bulge.

  “It is not so frightening,” the woman said gently. “For me, the scare lies not in birth, but in miscarriage. I have already lost one baby. This would be my second, had I carried the first to term. Switzerland has the best physicians, Madame. Madame… ?”

  “You do not understand,” Anna said. “It is not Madame. It is Mademoiselle. And there is no husband.”

  The dark woman cocked her head and appraised Anna. She took in her green suit trimmed with sable, which Mathilde had insisted upon ordering for Anna before her departure, the elegant black boots, the fiery hair coiled in the strange macaroon to the right of her face. She noticed the emerald brooch, the matching earrings, and the youth of this strange woman whom she had never seen before and who had told her such shocking facts. “My dear,” she said, “these are not matters to discuss in public. Let us go to my hotel. We shall order our tea there, and we can rest, together. Both of us need to take care of ourselves.”

  “But we are not acquainted,” Anna remarked in bewilderment.

  “My name is Dalia Hadjani. I am from Teheran, in Persia. I am here in Switzerland to have my baby, for my country is not as advanced in these matters as the Swiss. Actually, my physician is in Lausanne, but I have not met him yet. My husband made all the arrangements when he learned that I was expecting. We had already lost one child—and we wished so much for a successful birth this time. But first I wanted to visit Zurich, and some of the other parts of the country, during the early months—that is why I am here right now.” As she spoke, her voice soothing and rhythmic, she was helping Anna to her feet, and gently guiding her out of the restroom and to the door of the tea room, where she hailed a passing coach.