The Four Winds of Heaven Page 27

  “Sir Galahad always was a fool,” he admitted. “But it was all for a worthy cause!” His eyes sought Natasha’s, which gleamed with unspilled tears. He sat, huddled under the white linen cloth, his hair matted, but there was a radiance in his face that made his ludicrous appearance seem almost noble. He held out his wet palm, and silently Natasha placed her slender fingers upon it. Sonia stared at them, her heart beating erratically. She opened her mouth but could not speak, and her embarrassment was so great that she turned her face aside.

  Volodia was rowing once more. “Don’t worry,” he told her gently, “he will not have time to catch cold. We shall tell my mother that the boat tipped and Ossip was caught off balance and fell out. All this is quite harmless, I assure you!”

  But her gray eyes met his and he fell silent. A strong pain gripped his heart, forcing him to look away. The oars dipped into the calm waters, dipped again. In the boat, the four young people sat wordlessly. Natasha’s hand remained inside Ossip’s, motionless. A soft breeze began to blow in the amber sunlight.

  “I don’t know,” Mathilde repeated, shaking her head. “Sixteen is very young, Irina... Do not forget that Nina is a full year older than Sonia.”

  “But Sonia is more mature,” Irina Markovna Tobias countered pettishly. She poured her friend a glassful of strong tea, and deposited a slice of lemon into it. “Come now... I shall not give a ball to introduce Nina into Petersburg society if you refuse to allow your own daughter to make her debut at my party!”

  “I suppose that since they are such good friends, Nina would miss Sonia,” Mathilde said.

  “No, it isn’t that, really. The ball will be one big bother, to tell you the truth, Mathilde. I would not go through with it merely for Nina. She’s such a plain little thing. But if it were known that Baroness David de Gunzburg’s daughter were also making a debut, then my efforts would seem more worthwhile. You would not mind? If Sonia came out at my ball, rather than at one of your own?”

  Mathilde sat still, shocked. “I do not mind if she comes out at your ball, Irina,” she replied. “She is actually too young, but you are right, she is poised for her age. It was Anna’s lack of involvement with my friends… However, one should not give a party for someone else’s child. Sonia would be honored to attend Nina’s ball—but it cannot be a ball in both their names. That would be improper, and I could not be a part of it.”

  “As long as she and Ossip attend, I shall be happy,” Irina Markovna said. She twinkled at her friend: “You needn’t come, if you don’t want to! Society these days is so permissive! Can you imagine what it would have been like, to be allowed to go to balls with one’s brother, instead of one’s Mama? Yet today the mothers do not want to bother entertaining one another, and the girls come with their brothers. Poor Nina! She has no brother.”

  “I am sorry, Irina,” Mathilde said gently. But she thought ironically: Now I see your need for Sonia! If my daughter comes out at the same time as yours, then you shall not have to trouble yourself to accompany her to future engagements! My son will serve as a suitable escort for both girls. She said, “David may not agree with me about Sonia. But I shall let you know next week.”

  “Yes. Be a lamb, and convince him,” Irina Markovna cooed. She plumped a cushion and reclined upon it, sighing with contentment. Mathilde thought: I shall let Sonia go! But for Nina’s sake, not yours. Nina needs a friend…

  Nina’s ball was to be in costume, and Tatiana de Gunzburg, who was fifteen, was red with rage. It was November 1906, and she stood in her aunt’s sitting room, her pretty hands on her round hips, her blue eyes flashing, her golden curls falling out of their knot. “It simply isn’t fair!” she cried, and real tears appeared on the edge of her long lashes.

  “It will be your turn next year, Tania,” Ossip said, smiling. He was amused. His mother and Johanna were finishing the last details of his costume, which was quite unusual. They had dripped candle wax in circles and polka dots and straight lines, all over the large silk trimmings of his oldest tuxedo, and over the back of his jacket. The hardened wax had formed a strange design, in different colors, from different candles. Johanna had cut the pant legs at midcalf and had sewn green lace ruffles at the edges. He wore white stockings and black patent leather dancing pumps, and in his green silk cravat knot was a crystal decanter stopper. His cufflinks had been concocted out of wine corks, and on his head sat a green straw basket, upside down, in which a friend of the family had sent candied figs for somebody’s birthday. Johanna stood on her tiptoes, pinning a hat brush with an ivory handle to the front of this inverted basket, “So that your hat will have its trim,” she announced.

  “No one will dance with you,” Tatiana said peevishly. But her blue eyes widened as she watched, admiring his supple body in its strange disguise.

  “Perhaps not,” he chuckled. He did not really care about this ball, and did not mind humoring Tania. He thought: If they only hadn’t spoiled her so, she would actually be beguiling. She had grown quite beautiful, though she was not Ossip’s type. Suddenly he was sad, remembering the ball at which he had met Natasha, who would of course not be present this evening. “I am going in order to please Sonia, and that is all,” he said out loud.

  “And do you have a name, you selfless man?” Tania demanded.

  In reply, he handed her a round green card engraved with the words “Knight Mare of Dread.” She burst into laughter. “Do break a few hearts,” she said. “That will help to eliminate the competition!”

  But he was lost in thought, and her words caught him off guard. “For whom?” he asked.

  Johanna stood back, surveying her work, and her sharp aquamarine eyes sought his. She said, sharply, “You are a child, Tatiana Alexandrovna. Your cousin does not take you seriously.” But she was still regarding Ossip. He has something on his mind, that one, she thought, and it has no bearing on that little minx. But she said nothing more, and her terse statement seemed to dismiss Tatiana, whose eyes began to flash with true hatred.

  Sonia’s outfit was not at all bizarre. She wore the traditional peasant garb of the Ukraine, which had been sewn for her by the servants of Mohilna. It was a holiday outfit, fancier than the everyday dress which Anna had often worn at home. As Sonia entered the room, her mother said, “You look charming, my love,” but she was thinking: When I was sixteen, I had already been betrothed.

  Sonia’s shirt was of white linen, embroidered in red and black above the puffy sleeves and in two strips down the front, as well as on the tight cuffs and the straight low collar. Instead of a skirt, she wore a plakhta, a square of woven red and black wool held together at the waist by a large pin, and opening slightly at the front. A woolen belt cinched her slim waist. Her black hair fell loosely about her dainty shoulders and was crowned by a braid of dried flowers, bluebells, daisies, pansies, and interwoven sprigs of wheat. Around her neck were eight rows of glass beads, each row a different color and a different size, tied at the back with multicolored ribbons that cascaded down her back to her knees. Her feet were encased in red moccasin boots adorned with a golden acorn on each foot. She sought Ossip’s eyes and read his approval.

  “Don’t be frightened, little one,” he said softly. “This is a grand occasion, for you are now a woman in the eyes of the world!” But he did not know that behind her apprehension and mingled with her excitement, was the wrenching pain of knowing that someone special would not be there, as he had been during the summer. She pushed the memory resolutely from her mind, as if it were a wisp of recalcitrant hair, and she said to her brother, “You will dance often with Nina?”

  “Naturally. She is to be my hostess,” he replied, amused.

  “He may even find better,” Johanna commented. “Your Nina is too unassuming for a splendid boy like Ossip.”

  “Nina is a lady, and does not promote herself in flamboyant ways,” Sonia stated coolly. She thought of Ossip, dripping water into the boat, holding Natasha’s hand as though they were married already. Nina, she said to hersel
f, and inwardly she smiled, a warm glow spreading through her.

  Soon it was time for Ossip and Sonia to leave for the ball, while a sulking Tania stayed behind. Ossip held his sister’s hand as they rode in the landau. His feelings toward her had gone through several rather drastic changes over the past months, for he had felt outraged at her apparent lack of enthusiasm for Natasha, but had also sensed her own despair. At that moment he loved her more than ever; she was beautiful, and he felt that once he announced his plans regarding Natasha, she would have to accept, and take the other girl into her heart. He was prepared to love everyone, for he was loved in return by Natalia Tagantseva herself.

  Nina Tobias greeted them with quiet joy. She was clothed as a Roman, in a piece of red cloth draped toga-fashion about her strong young body with its pleasant curves. Her brown hair rippled down her neck in coils, and a crown of laurel leaves sat upon them. Her hazel eyes gleamed like polished bronze, and her cheeks were red with anticipation. She did not know Ossip well, but when she saw him her eyelids fluttered shyly, and she accepted his compliments with warm graciousness.

  Sonia had always loved to dance, and now, sparkling with vitality, she found herself besieged by admirers. There was another guest sporting the garb of the Ukrainian, but Sonia noted that her outfit was not genuine, but made in a city store. Her plakhta was of velvet squares, and her shirt of silk, and her boots had heels, which were not worn by peasant women. Sonia scoffed at her from afar, and was pleased at her own simplicity. But she did not distinguish the faces of her dancing partners, for she did not care about any of them. She was glad to be with young people, glad to be liked, glad to be waltzing. But she did not know how truly close she had come to her mother’s feelings upon Mathilde’s first ball, in Paris, in 1880. Mathilde had been betrothed, and so her admirers had not really sought her out. Sonia, for her part, was being sought out, but by the wrong young men. Their situation represented opposite sides of the coin.

  At midnight, it was time for supper, and the dancers moved to the dining room where numerous little tables had been arranged. Sonia found her brother, and Nina. She sat between them, and remarked, “Ninotchka, you are more lovely than a princess tonight! Is that not so, Ossip?” Her gray eyes rested eagerly upon her brother.

  “Indeed, my sister is right, Nina Mikhailovna,” he murmured, embarrassed by Sonia’s effusiveness. He was not accustomed to her in this mood, and attributed it to the thrill of her first ball. He smiled conspiratorially at the brown-haired girl with the rather flat nose and ruddy color, this pleasant girl with the good posture and amusing costume, which suited her sturdy nature. She reminded him somewhat of Volodia, solid, loyal, dependable. He decided that he liked her. “Sonia is not herself this evening,” he teased.

  “We are both novices at this,” Nina replied. “I love Sonia so. She brings kindness itself into the house with her.”

  “She can be hard, when she wants to be,” her brother countered.

  “Oh, Ossip!” Sonia protested. But she was not offended in the least. Ossip and Nina were smiling at each other, and she felt heady with anticipation. She bit into her marinated mushrooms with gusto.

  “How is it that I have not come to know you better?” Ossip was asking Nina. “I used to be on friendly terms with all my sister’s friends. Yet you are her favorite, and we hardly know each other.”

  “That would be remedied, if you were not so busy with your studies,” Sonia inserted between bites.

  “You are to pass your examinations this spring?” Nina questioned in her low, soft voice.

  “We hope so. I need a gold medal, Nina Mikhailovna. A Jew cannot enter the University unless he has a gold medal. One mark below ‘five,’ and my medal will be silver and I shall be done for.”

  “You will have your gold, I am certain,” Nina replied. Her hazel eyes rested on Ossip’s handsome features, so finely chiseled, and she shivered slightly. “And then?” Nina went on. “What will you do?”

  Ossip blushed. “I am not sure,” he answered with reserve. Then he added, more kindly, “The Faculty for Far Eastern Studies, perhaps. But enough about me! Your caviar is delectable, Nina Mikhailovna. I am spending a delightful evening. As for Sonia, I have rarely watched her consume so much food at one time. Have you?” He twinkled at his sister.

  “He is not always so unbearable,” Sonia said to Nina. “Sometimes he can be positively gallant. But not tonight!”

  “I find your brother charming,” Nina replied. And she blushed. “Charm runs in your family, Sonitchka. You have it, and Mathilde Yureyevna—”

  But it was time to return to the ballroom. A young man, dressed in violet silk as Henri III of France, bowed before Sonia, and she accepted his arm. Ossip turned to Nina. “I should appreciate another dance with you,” he declared.

  Demurely, Nina Tobias laid her hand upon his sleeve. When the piano struck up a frenzied mazurka, Ossip noticed her high color, and her beautiful eyes. She is most agreeable, he thought. At once he felt a sharp pang of loss. Agreeable, whereas Natasha was lovely, spirited, magnificent—and his own. How could one possibly compare a healthy apple to an exotic passion fruit? He looked into Nina Tobias’s eyes, and he saw kindness, gentleness, meekness. He smiled, inclining his head. But it was merely the smile of politeness.

  When the guests were preparing to leave, Sonia took her friend aside and asked, “Do you like my brother? I so wanted him to truly make your acquaintance!”

  Nina bowed her head, and nodded. “I like him very much,” she replied.

  “Really? You are not saying it to please me, Ninotchka?”

  “Oh, no!” her friend cried. Then, whispering, “He is heavenly. But do not humiliate me by telling him I think so. Perhaps someday he will notice me, on his own. I hope he shall.”

  Sonia pressed her friend’s arm, and her gray eyes shone. “Of course he shall!” she declared. “He has excellent taste!”

  On the way home Sonia chattered, but her brother was mostly quiet. He kissed her lightly on the cheek, and listened to her with an amused expression. But his thoughts were not of the ball, or of Nina Tobias. They were not even of his sister’s debut.

  Anna’s letter was postmarked “Lausanne, Switzerland.”

  I have been lax in corresponding [she wrote her sister], but so much has happened. Dalia has given birth to a baby boy, whom she named “Reza” after her husband. We have taken to calling him “Riri,” and so he probably shall remain. I have never seen such beauty in a child—he is so fair, and so smooth, and I feel he is a miracle in our lives. Yes, he is partly mine, too, for Dalia has gone to work for the Persian Consulate, and I am taking care of the baby. We both attend a studio for artists, and take turns with Riri at home. Our life is simple; we subsist on my money and Dalia’s salary, and most of the friends we have made are fellow painters and sculptors. We have purchased a small house, so that the baby may have a garden. I shall send you the medallion for the New Year, and I am quite proud of it. Meanwhile, it makes me think of you.

  Do not worry, this year I shall see you. I am far less shy than I was, and have put the past in perspective. Or at least I keep attempting to do so; for I miss Vanya more than anyone on this earth will ever know, believe me: however, I cannot allow such thoughts to kill me. I have a life to live for myself, and also for that little being who needs me, ever so slightly: Dalia’s child. I am also trying my hand at new modes of painting: my most recent venture is the painting of glass. I do not think I am meant to join ranks with Leonardo and Michelangelo and Rosa Bonheur, and this realization has cost me a good deal of pride. But I am good at modest projects, and I cannot survive without my paint pots. Dalia and I have but a single servant, who does the heavy cleaning chores. We cook together and I have learned how to impose a yogurt crust upon Persian rice. You would be impressed by my prowess! But mostly I puree vegetables and fruits for Riri, and have become a veritable expert!

  Sonia thought: This isn’t Anna! Calm, happy, busy with a baby—where are the sour grapes
? She was bewildered, and then, pleased. Her sister was leading a life that she, Sonia, would find simplistic. A life devoid of waltzes, of plays at the Mariinsky Theater, of elegant furnishings. Sonia thought: Am I becoming as vapid and frivolous as Tania? She was angry with herself. A good life with intelligent, artistic friends: that was Anna’s existence, and it was a worthy one, befitting her sister’s straightforward, independent nature. Anna was truly made for the small, clean, uncomplicated charms of Switzerland. Russia, her mother country, had threatened to destroy her. But still…

  “We are Russian,” Sonia said to Ossip, “and now I know what bothered me about Anna’s new life. It is totally un-Russian—and Anna, with her angers and her passions and her idealism, was the most Russian of us all!”

  “Something of the old intensity has been burned out of her,” Ossip commented. “Yes, it is a shame. But she is happy this way, and that is more than she was here… Maybe her Russia was like a bad passion, the kind that can warp.”

  Sonia regarded him with a bemused expression. A bad passion! That’s Natasha, who is so wrong for you. Kind, gentle Nina will be a balm to you, my brother, as Lausanne is to Anna. Stubbornly, she refused to face her brother’s joy, which had sprung from the vibrancy of Natalia Tagantseva, and which had set him free from passivity for the first time in his life. She closed her heart to Natasha’s appreciation of her brother, an appreciation composed of true and total understanding. For she, Sonia, did not possess Natalia’s fine perception of Ossip’s needs and potentialities.

  Her own life was divided into two aspects, and revolved simultaneously around both. There was her overriding concern for Ossip, whom she watched constantly. And then there were the evenings toward which she found her whole self turning, like a sunflower seeking the light. Volodia had made it a practice to come twice a week after supper, to visit Ossip and play the piano with Sonia. The three would sit and chat, and then Sonia would bring the sheafs of music to Volodia, and together, animatedly, they would select their pieces for the evening. Ossip would sit behind them in the piano room for a while, and then, somewhat listlessly, would move into the sitting room to speak with his mother or to read a book while awaiting the reappearance of his friend and sister. Volodia and Sonia would be alone, their fingers dancing minuets on the black and ivory keys.