Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (45 page)

'If you look closely at the bridge, angel cake,' Senda said
pointing, 'the woman in white with the big picture hat is the
Czarina, and the man in uniform beside her is the Czar. I think
those are the four young Grand Duchesses behind them.'

In unison, as though commanded by an unseen conductor,
the crowd of thousands upon thousands suddenly began to
sing the Imperial anthem, its lyrics set to the final rousing
crescendo of the
1812 Overture
by Tchaikovsky: '
God save the
Czar, Mighty and Powerful, Let him reign for our glory
. . .'

'Ooooh, Mama! It's so pretty! Do you know the words?
Can you sing it too?'

As the emotional crowd sang on and wept during the last three stanzas, Senda could only shake her head in disbelief. Her lips were tight and white, and her body was tensed, as though she was confronting some hidden horror.

'
For the confusion of our enemies
,' the crowd sang,
'
The
Orthodox Czar, God save the Czar
. . .
'

'God save their souls,' Senda murmured, and Inge glanced
at her sharply but said nothing.

Senda glanced out over the swelling crowds one last time.
It was too much. Praying for death and destruction, calling
upon God to help achieve it. It was ridiculous and dishearten
ing. If they wanted to pray for peace, that was one thing. But
war? There was no point in watching these fools beg for their
own destruction.

She went back inside, but the voices followed her. There
was no escaping their thunderous praise for the Czar, and
God, and Holy Russia.

Suddenly she began weeping, but not out of any surge of
patriotism. She wept for the foolish foibles of silly men.

That night, as the Russian Imperial banner flew alongside the
French tricolour and the Union Jack, a violent mob attacked
the German embassy in St. Petersburg. Suddenly anything
German in Russia was suspect and hated. When she heard the
news, Senda sat down with Inge and said quietly, 'You're
German, Inge. How do you feel about all this?'

Inge's cornflower-blue eyes lit up. 'They are behaving like
foolish children!'

Senda nodded. 'I quite agree. But
...
if you feel you have
to leave and go back to Germany . . .' She left the sentence
unfinished.

'Why should I want to do that?' Inge asked in surprise.

Senda shrugged. 'You were born in Germany. The Russians
are suddenly so rabidly anti-Teutonic. Perhaps you have
family or friends . . . I just thought . . .'

'I have no other family and my place is here with you,' Inge
declared loyally. 'I don't care if you're Russian or Swedish or
Japanese. Unless, of course . . .' She hesitated and studied
her hands. 'Unless you mind that I am German.'

Senda clasped Inge's hands warmly.
'Me
mind? Goodness
no! Inge, why should I? You're . . . well, you're Inge!'

And from that moment on, they were friends for life.

On the thirty-first of August, another tangible sign of Russian
loathing for all things German was proven when the capital's
name was officially changed from the German, St. Petersburg,
to the Slav, Petrograd.

For the next few days Inge was quiet, tight-lipped. When
she took Tamara to the park or along the quay, she avoided
speaking to anyone, other nannies included, lest someone
notice her German accent.

Always keenly aware of other people's sensitivity, Senda shrewdly spoke for Inge when she was with her. And since
Inge was suddenly afraid to even go out to do grocery shop
ping, Senda hired a day maid named Polenka to do such
chores; Polenka's husband, Dmitri, became Senda's chauf
feur. Vaslav had bought her a new car, but she soon stopped
using it. Gasoline had to be conserved, and although it was
easy enough for high-placed people to obtain it, and through
Vaslav her supply could have been endless, Senda preferred
to travel by horse-drawn coach. She also knew that flaunting
such luxuries might be asking for trouble in the long run.

At first, most Russians were convinced the war would have
a swift outcome in their favour. How could it be otherwise? they rationalized. Victory shimmered so tantalizingly near
that they felt they had but to reach out and pluck it. The
Russian Army was, after all, a colossus the like of which the
world had never before seen—the British press went so far as
to call it 'the Russian steamroller'.

And a steamroller it was, albeit an ineffectual, outdated
one. During the war, fifteen and a half million men marched
on behalf of Holy Russia to fight her enemies. However, the
predicted swift victory proved elusive. Except for her sheer
numbers of seemingly limitless troops, Russia was not pre
pared for war.

For every Russian mile of railroad tracks, Germany had
ten.

Russian troops had to travel an average of eight hundred
miles to the front; German troops travelled no more than two
hundred miles. The Russian railroad system was in such a
shambles that on one occasion a troop train travelling from
Russia to the front took twenty-three days to get there.

German factories spewed out weapons and ammunition
around the clock. Russia was so short of ammunition that her
artillerymen were threatened with courts-martial if they fired
more than three rounds per day.

Last but not least, Russia was a behemoth which sprawled across two continents, reaching from the Baltic Sea in the east
to the Pacific Ocean at its westernmost border. Its very size
and geography made it impossible for the Allies to help. A
German blockade of Russian seaports proved swift, effective, and strangling: during the war, Russian imports dropped
ninty-five per cent, and exports ninety-eight per cent. In Great Britain, ports docked 2,200 ships a week, but due to the block
ade, Russian ports docked a mere 1,250 ships annually.

To make matters worse, Russian military commanders
hated and distrusted one another, and rations were scarce,
sometimes nonexistent.

Meanwhile, in Petrograd the rounds of sumptuous balls,
glittering nights at the opera, ballet, and theatre, and midnight
champagne suppers continued as they had while the city had
been called St. Petersburg. And Senda Bora danced and dined with the most noble of Petrograd's elite, while conquering role
after role on the stage of the hallowed Théâtre Français. Her admirers were legion, and her life of astounding luxury had
become taken for granted. She was now in Society with a capital 'S
'.
And to paraphrase the trite old phrase: Society
danced while Russia bled.

But Russia seemed to have an endless supply of fresh blood.

The battles and bloodshed dragged on.

Chapter
20

Despite the war, perhaps because of it, Senda's career sky
rocketed. Entertainment took people's minds off the serious
ness of countless battles won and lost and the terrible loss of
human life. For the next three years she basked in the adoring
public limelight; virtually overnight, she enjoyed that fickle
and most elusive celebrity status of being thrust to the upper
most of ivory towers and becoming a living, breathing legend.

With her beauty and talent she seduced audiences and critics
alike. Each of her performances received more lavish praise
than the last, and every time the curtain descended on the final
act of one of her plays, a contest between herself and her fans
ensued: they were determined she break all records for the
number of curtain calls.

During a matinee performance, when her hairdresser had
come down ill and stayed home, a long wave of her red hair
escaped her hat, and it was deemed a new style and suddenly
became all the rage.

When it was learned she had a daughter named Tamara,
the newspapers reported that six out of every seven newborn
girls christened in one week in Petrograd were named Tamara.

Everything Senda said or did was seized upon, dissected,
imitated. Madame Lamothe's cash register sang the happiest
tune it ever had because Senda's clothes were scrupulously
copied. So was her manner of walk and the way she held her
head. She even made a short silent film—
Romeo and Juliet
—
and thousands flocked to the cinema week after week to see
her flickering image captured on the silver screen. Because
the sole achievement of a stage actress could be measured
only by the duration of a live performance, it was the one accomplishment Senda felt would outlive her; indeed, at the
time it was considered a cinematic milestone, since most stage
actresses snubbed the screen. Seventy years later, it was still
a cult classic.

To her adoring public who flocked to her plays, she was to
Russia what Sarah Bernhardt had been to Europe and
America—the nation's foremost theatrical star and beauty, a national treasure, the brightest jewel in the glittering Czarist
crown.

But her life was too full for public appearances to play more
than a minor role. Inge was marvellous with Tamara, but the
child needed a mother, and Senda lavished time and love on
her daughter—time which was in shorter and shorter supply.
For every hour she spent onstage, a hundred hours were spent in rehearsal. When she was not rehearsing or acting or spend
ing evenings with Tamara and Inge or Vaslav, she was study
ing. The few hours she had left to herself were likely to be
Sunday afternoons, and these, as it turned out, became
legend.