Encore (27 page)

Overlooking the blue-green bay of Monaco, Boris and Natalia stood on a high rock, the falling dust spreading about their shoulders like a magic cloak. A light breeze caressed her hair. “I think I like it best here,” she murmured softly. “It has the poetry of Italy and the grace of France. It is a hybrid town, in the hills. When we are old, Borya, you will have to build me a house here, with fruit trees in the garden and a terrace that faces the sea.”

“It seems almost like a miracle to hear you say that: “When we are old. Do you really think we shall grow old together?”

She turned her face to him, like a flower opening its velvet petals. “How else would it be?” she asked and placed her hands on his shoulders.

“I don't know, Natalia. A gust of wind could suddenly blow you down into the sea, or Sinbad the Sailor could send the Roc to collect you in its beak. You're very fragile, you know. Anything could happen!”

She laughed. “I'm as sturdy as an old farm horse. Look at me!” And she twirled around on the tips of her toes, her skirt billowing out around her. He thought, she is twenty-three, and I, thirty-eight: almost eight years of two lives that have meshed in and out like two recalcitrant threads, at length intertwining. Eight years, five of them under the same roof, two of them together as man and woman.

He fought the overpowering sentimentality that had suddenly seized him and attempted to laugh. But something in his throat blocked the sound. She was still dancing, round and round, her wide hat a halo surrounding the brown hair. But when he reached her, she stood still, and then, light as an evening breeze, she pretended to collapse in slow motion into his arms. She smelled of apricot and rosewater, fresh, unadulterated by confectioned perfumes.

Leaning his head into the crook of her shoulder, Boris said: “Natalia, we could make 1913 last forever, couldn't we?”

She blinked slowly. “But how?”

“We could make each other the gift of a child.”

She stiffened, and her eyes grew very wide. “I didn't know you wanted one,” she said, and her tone was distant suddenly, and a little hurt.

“I didn't know I wanted one either,” he replied. “But it's all right, I understand how you feel.”

She bit her lower lip, and said nothing. Then she murmured: “No, you don't know how I feel. It isn't that. It's ... I don't know how to put it. I feel silly and female, and ...”

He began to laugh and tilted her face up to him. “I suppose you're right,” he remarked. “I never did say the actual words, did I? I love you, Natalia. But you knew I felt it, didn't you?”

“I know you feel it now,” she answered, her voice trembling. “Before—I could not be sure. I thought—yes—but ...” She shook her head lamely and held out her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

Then, in the gathering darkness, she wound her willowy arms around his neck and fit the stem of her young body to the birch like firmness of his. Tomorrow he would laugh at the schoolboy romance, but there it was, the peace which had eluded him for a lifetime. It did not matter that he had spent years protecting himself against the pain, years storing up the memory of every slight aimed at him. There had been pain, and humiliation. For her too, years and years of them, of loneliness, distrust, and fear.

“I love you, Natalia,” he whispered into the softness of her hair. And then again, “I love you,” Yet, even as he said the words, the image of Pierre's strong limbs etched itself over his memory like a faded blueprint. His hands over his wife's hips tightened, his fingers trembled slightly, and he thought fiercely: Yes, we must have a child.

I
n May
1913 Nijinsky once again surprised the Parisian public. He had formed his own choreographic style, all linear planes, stark and savage. In
Games
he depicted a highly stylized confrontation between a boy and two girls, one of whom was Natalia. The boy had come upon the young women as he was searching for his tennis ball, which Bakst had designed as big as a grapefruit. The second ballet was
The Rite of Spring,
an elemental bacchanalia that hailed more from the days of the Druids than from those of civilized Attica. Natalia danced the frenzied, dervish like sacrificial virgin who at last expired from breathless exertion. At the end of this performance the gracious French public turned into a mob, screaming, standing in their seats, outraged, offended, and uplifted in turn.

As with
Afternoon of a Faun,
the newspapers once again took sides for or against the young choreographer. Natalia lay in bed the following day, white with exhaustion. Certainly this was a momentous landmark in her life as a dancer, but she did not yet know how to interpret it. What had Boris said after
Afternoon of a Faun?
He had seemed to ask: “Can such a genius last in this world?” Surely Nijinsky was a genius, although intellectually he could hardly express himself. He was subliminal, surprising, and almost impossible to connect with as a person. Childlike, aloof, he did not encourage friendship. Yet beneath it all one felt a heart that did not know how to assert its needs.

Nijinsky was a phenomenon. He was Diaghilev's creature, yet ingenious enough to produce unique ballets. Still, without his patron lover, the sloe-eyed young man would have alienated the entire company. He did not know how to handle people, how to make them work for him toward a common goal. I would know, she found herself thinking, suddenly fierce. I would know, but nobody's asked
me
to plan a ballet.

All at once she knew that this was the direction she wanted her career to take. Entering the master bedroom, she confronted Boris, who had been reading at the table. Color had risen to her cheekbones, points of crimson fire. Her hand trembled on the doorknob, “I could compose a ballet,” she stated, her voice low and tense. “I could bring new ideas to the Ballets Russes!”

She could not tell whether he appeared surprised. He put the book aside with care, taking time to set the ribbon to mark his place, and then he looked up, his eyebrows quizzically arched. “An intriguing thought,” he commented dryly.

“Why not? Because I'm a woman? Isn't that unfair, Boris? For centuries women have been the backbone of ballet dancing. Yet never a choreographer among us!” Her brown eyes were flecked with golden dots of anger.

He shrugged lightly. “I'm not disagreeing. But Serge has been trying to bring out the male
danseur
—you know that. This is hardly the proper time to bring up the matter of fairness to women!”

“Then you won't talk to him?”

He looked away. “No, Natalia, I won't. But not because I don't believe in you. Because I have other plans.”

Her lips set, and she breathed deeply. “I see. At heart, then, you still agree with Diaghilev—with all that he is and stands for. I had thought differently.” She turned her back on him, slim and proud, and left the room. His mouth worked silently. He clenched and unclenched a fist—and then, abruptly, he slammed it down on the oak table with a vehemence that made the book slide to the very edge. His face glowed stark white with tension.

In mid-August, Natalia went on her first ocean cruise. The Ballet was leaving Europe for an initial foray into the unfamiliar continent of South America, and Serge Pavlovitch had left the running of the company to Boris, who was a better sailor—Diaghilev had a superstitious fear of the ocean—and whose taste for territorial variety exceeded his own. Dressed in a cream-colored linen suit, Boris looked resplendent when he came on deck of the S.S. Avon. The trip began with panache in Southampton. Boris had had baskets of fresh flowers delivered to all the ballerinas in their second-class deck.

He and Natalia shared a first-class cabin, paneled in rich wood, with a small bathroom adjoining it. He thought this a splendid arrangement and ordered champagne for those members of the company who, like themselves, were in first class. Karsavina had taken another ship that traveled faster. But Adolph Bolm; the
chef d'orchestre,
Rhené-Baton, and his wife; a
corps
dancer called Kovalevska, whose exalted status came from having been mistress to the Aga Khan in Monte Carlo; and Diaghilev's Polish secretary, Trubecki, and his own wife all appeared in the Kussov cabin to toast the voyage. Little, blond Romola de Pulszky came, too. “This is so exciting!” she cried. “But where is Vaslav Fomitch?” Nijinsky's absence did indeed stand out.

“He will join us at Cherbourg,” Boris replied easily. “He and Serge and Benois have been dreaming up a ballet to music from Bach. I suppose our young genius will be most absorbed in this project.”

In Cherbourg Vaslav Nijinsky came on board, and, several days later, the ritual of shipboard life truly began. But Natalia did not enjoy herself as she had expected to. Seated at supper, she bristled at Kovalevska's comments. She found Trubecki overly flowery, and Romola altogether unbearable. Boris raised his eyebrows at her, but she merely shook her head despondently. She felt tired, played out.

The scenery of unbroken ocean was restful, and the weather hot. She had lived in the Crimea and should not have minded the heat. She knew Boris wanted her with him, that his exultation would be marred if he knew of the unspoken struggle inside her. She could not help resenting his attitude about her career desires. It was galling to watch him on deck, in his elegant white suit, his face tanning lightly in the bright sun—galling that he always seemed to be holding court, equally with Nijinsky and Romola. An easy friendship appeared to be underway between him and the
danseur.
Irked, she thought: But Vaslav doesn't have a brain in his head! Why is Boris wasting his time? With devastating certainty she knew that she had become jealous of Nijinsky, envious of his preferred status in the Ballet—and that she was seeing her husband's gracious entertainment of him as fawning toward Diaghilev.

Hating herself, she joined the group and smiled politely at something Romola was saying. The Hungarian could not speak Russian, and Vaslav's French was less than adequate, and soon Natalia grew annoyed at Boris for intervening with careful, amusing translations. How the blond girl's eyes were sparkling! Doesn't she know, Natalia wondered with disdain, that Vaslav isn't interested in women? She caught herself and glanced covertly at her husband. People sometimes changed.

Later in the wood-paneled cabin Boris came behind her at the vanity, where she sat brushing her hair, and stilled the frantic pace of her up-and-down motions with his hand. Softly he caressed her neck, her shoulders, where all the tightness was concentrated. She turned slowly to face him, and, inexplicably, shook off his hand. Immediately her lips parted with surprise and shock at what she had done, and she cried out, “I'm sorry—” but the gesture had stunned him, and she could tell from his eyes that he was hurt to the quick. He did not answer her. Instead, his face became rigid, and he left the room. She was shaking, not understanding the tensions within herself.

After that the voyage was not the same. A delicate balance had been upset, and hostilities could no longer be kept hidden under a blanket of pretension. He knew then that she was harboring resentments and that they ran as deep as his own insecurities. Yet pride rose between them like an opaque screen, his pride and hers, evenly matched in their arrogant, useless strength. Each waited for the other to break down, and neither could be the first to do so.

Romola tried to befriend her, but Natalia rejected her overtures. There was something vaguely predatory about the beautiful young socialite from Budapest that irritated the dancer. Romola had attached herself to the Ballets Russes where she did not belong, either by craft or by nationality. She was flaunting her wealth by traveling with her maid and seemed charming only as a spoiled child can charm in the beginning. She asked endless questions about Nijinsky's roles, about Diaghilev, about Boris. Natalia had had her fill of them.

At times Boris would absent himself, and in her field of vision there remained Romola, with Kovalevska or Rhené-Baton, and now and then Nijinsky, when he was not practicing on deck to the admiring eyes of the passengers. Natalia practiced in her suite. Boris was ignoring her, and now she felt an overwhelming depression. It was up to her to bridge the gap, to make the first penitent move—but she could not. Something held her back.

She saw him with a young South American diplomat, a lithe, dark man in his middle twenties. Natalia did not like him. She felt repelled by the fluidity of the man's laughter, by his large black eyes that dominated a thin, rather delicate face. Later, in the evening, she said to Boris: “How can you stand him? He's like Swiss chocolate—too much richness turns the stomach!” Her husband stared at her, his eyes a slit of metal, and she felt chilled. But he merely shrugged and left her alone.

Boris climbed on deck, where a light wind had risen, and held the railing with both hands. He could feel something slipping away from him, and thought of Natalia, of the frozen anger in her face. All at once he could not swallow, and the sockets of his eyes started to sting. God almighty, no—

Somebody touched his sleeve, and gratefully, he turned around and saw the tan oval of Armando Valenzuela's face. Like himself, the young man was wearing a tuxedo with a ruffled cambric shirt. “Warm evening,” he said, and looked out into the darkness, framed in the golden light from the cabins behind them. Boris nodded but said nothing. He felt a ringing in his ears, a slight breathlessness, and he concentrated on the ocean waves churning beneath him.

Then, in the silence, Valenzuela's long fingers gripped the railing next to his own, and Boris's eyes landed on their delicate slenderness, on the tapered nails. He could not look away. It was as if the other's fingers had intruded on his mind and held it prisoner in a bizarre entrancement. Slowly, then, and with infinite grace, those sensual fingers moved, one inch, two inches, and closed over Boris's right hand. With a slight tremor, the older man turned to the younger, and their eyes met and locked. Boris licked his lips and murmured: “I don't know, Armando. I'm not sure.” He could not move his hand.

On August 31 Natalia was awakened by Kovalevska, who said: “I have the most wonderful news! Vaslav Fomitch has proposed to Romola—all through Boris Vassilievitch, of course, since the two young people do not speak the same language! Come on deck. We can see Rio!”

Aghast, Natalia dressed hurriedly and went above. She did not know what to believe, but Boris, looking oddly exultant, made a mock bow to her and approached. “Madame has deigned to join us?” he asked.

“Is it true? That Nijinsky is going to be married?”

“Yes, of course it's true. You weren't stupid enough to think that Romola was really interested in Adolph Bolm, were you? She's had her mind set on our Vaslav from the beginning. I guess the trip was ripe, shall we say?” He smiled ironically.

“Well, I am glad for them,” Natalia said dully. “But—Serge Pavlovitch? When Mavrin, his old lover, eloped with Feodorova in ‘09, he would not even pay him! Why have you encouraged something that is going to make Serge Pavlovitch fit to be tied? I don't understand!”

“No,” he remarked dryly, “you don't. But then you never do, Natalia. And in this case, more's the pity, as I was doing it all for you.” He turned away.

The view was magnificent, and seeing the Sugar Loaf Mountain soaring up in silent majesty, Natalia felt a lump in her throat. Such beauty—such feelings! Dawn lay over the harbor like a pink cushion upon which lay a perfect jewel. All at once, she felt a tearing pain in her stomach, and gasped, clutching the deck railing. Boris was speaking to the Trubeckis. She tried to call but could not catch her breath. Hot sweat broke out upon her brow. She collapsed on the wooden planks, her hands gripping her stomach, and the last thing she thought was: Am I dying?

Darkness closed over her, and one by one the shining flames of red died out over her closed eyes.

‘Tell me. What is wrong with my wife?” Boris asked the doctor.

They stood together outside the cabin door, and Boris, white and tense, could hardly breathe for the fear that had taken possession of him. “She's always been a strong girl,” he added lamely. Helplessness sat ill with him.

“Well, there's good and bad, of course,” the white-haired ship's doctor said. “You knew that she was pregnant?”

Something caught inside Boris's throat. For a moment he could not think at all. Cold beads of perspiration broke out on his palms, on his temples. “No,” he replied. “How long?”

“Only two months. But there is a problem. Some women, my dear Count, have difficulty keeping the fetus attached to the lining of the womb. Your wife nearly miscarried and was very lucky that she didn't. But, in order to have this baby, she will have to spend the next seven months in bed. Do you think you can arrange it?”

Boris shook his head and turned his palms out. “Good God,” he said. “What choice do we have?”

“I'm afraid you have none. I haven't mentioned it to her—she seemed frightened enough as it was. I think you should be the one to tell her.”

Boris nodded tersely. His mind was a jumble of conflicting thoughts. He was ill at ease in situations that he could not control or even define for himself. The doctor tactfully moved aside, and Boris entered, urgency propelling him forward.

Natalia looked up at him from the small bed, and he saw the terror in her large brown eyes. Coming to her, he cried out: “How could I not have seen it?”

There was a haunted expression in her eyes, on her parted lips. He took the small, cold hand and brought it to his cheek. “I don't know how to ask you to forgive me,” he murmured.