Zoya (32 page)

“Yeah?” the woman in charge said, amused, “you a dancer?”

“I was.”

“With who?”

She swallowed hard, knowing she looked too prim in her simple black Chanel dress. She should have worn something brighter and more racy, but she had sold all her evening clothes long since, and all she had were the somber, warm dresses she had salvaged from her closets at Sutton Place, the ones she knew she might have use for in the freezing cold apartment.

“I danced with the Ballet Russe in Paris. I trained in Russia before that.”

“A ballerina, eh?” The thought seemed to amuse her beyond words, as Zoya stood quietly, her red hair pulled tightly back, her face without makeup. “Listen, lady, this ain't a retirement home for old ballerinas. This is Fitzhugh's Dance Hall!” She said it with fierce pride, and Zoya felt a sudden surge of fury.

“I'm twenty-five,” she lied, “and I used to be very good.”

“Yeah? At what? You ain't done nothing like this before, I'll bet.” That much was true, but she was willing to do anything to save her children. She remembered suddenly her audition for the Ballet Russe thirteen years before in Paris.

“Let me try … just once … I can learn … please …” Her eyes filled with tears in spite of
herself, as a small round man with a cigar walked past, glancing at her only briefly and then shouting at two men carrying scenery between them.

“Stupid jerks! You're gonna break that thing!” And then, in obvious annoyance he waved the cigar at the woman talking to Zoya. “Goddamn girls got the measles … can you beat that? I've got myself a bunch of old hoofers on my hands and they get sick like a bunch of goddamn kids … three of them out last week … seven more now … shit, what am I supposed to tell people paying good money to see the show? That they can watch a bunch of broads with spots waving their asses at them. I'd even do that if they'd come to goddamn work.” He waved the cigar at Zoya and then beyond her, as though she didn't exist, and to him, she didn't.

Without waiting for him to address her directly, she spoke up for herself, “I'd like to audition for a job as a dancer.” Her accent was slight now but still obvious, but neither of them recognized her as Russian. The woman had thought she was French, in her expensively cut black dress and her elegant airs. That was one thing they didn't need at Fitzhugh's Dance Hall.

“You a hoofer?” He turned to look at her appraisingly but he didn't seem impressed.

“Yes.” She decided to spare him the explanation.

“A ballerina,” the other woman spoke up with obvious disdain.

“You had the measles?” he asked her. That was far more important to him with ten dancers out sick, and God only knew how many exposed and due to come down with it in the ensuing weeks.

“Yes, I have,” she murmured as she prayed that she
could still dance. Maybe she'd forgotten everything. Maybe …

He shrugged, and stuck the dead cigar back into his face. “Let her show you her stuff, Maggie. If she can stand up and do anything, she can stay till the others come back.” He left them then and the woman named Maggie looked annoyed. The last thing they needed was some fancy-assed, pale-faced broad who thought she was too good for a burlesque show. But he had a point, with the others sick, they were in big trouble.

‘Okay,” she said reluctantly, and then shouted backstage. “Jimmy! Get your ass out here and play!” A black man with a broad smile appeared and looked at Zoya.

“Hi, baby, what you want me to play?” he asked her as he sat down at the piano. And she almost laughed in nervous terror. What could she say to him? Chopin? Debussy? Stravinsky?

“What do you usually play for an audition?” she asked him, and he smiled into her eyes. It was easy to see that she was high-class white folks fallen on bad times, and he felt sorry for her, with her big green eyes and wistful smile. She looked like a kid as she stood there, and he wondered if she'd ever danced before. He had heard of others like her who'd gone to work in nightclubs, doing acts they made up themselves, like Cobina Wright and Cobina Junior.

“Where you from?” Maggie was momentarily talking to someone else as they chatted. And Jimmy decided that he liked her.

She smiled openly at him, still praying that she wouldn't make a fool of herself, but even the risk of
that was worth it. “From Russia, a long time ago. I came here after the war.”

And then he lowered his voice and glanced nervously over his shoulder. “You ever danced before, baby? Tell me the truth, while Maggie ain't listenin’. You can tell Jimmy. I cain't help you if I don't know if you can dance.”

“I was in the ballet when I was young. I haven't danced in eleven years,” she whispered back, grateful for his assistance.

“My, my, my …” He shook his head in distress. “The Fitzhugh ain't no ballet …” That was surely the understatement of the year, as two half-naked chorus girls wandered past them. “Look,” he said to her in conspiratorial tones, “I'm gonna play real slow, you just roll your eyes and smile, hop around a little bit, shake yo’ bum and show yo’ legs, and you gonna be just fine. You got a costume with you?” But he knew from the look in her eyes, that she didn't.

“I'm sorry, I …”

“Never mind.” And with that Maggie turned her attention to them again.

“You gonna sit on your fat black ass all day, Jimmy, or are we going to do an audition? Personally, I don't give a damn, but Charlie wants me to see her do her stuff.” She looked malevolently at Zoya, as she prayed that she wouldn't fail dismally. But she followed his suggestions as he played and Charlie, the director, wandered past again, muttering as he watched her. He wanted her to hurry up so he could audition two new comedians and a stripper.

“Shit. Just what I don't need here … a lady.” He said it like the ultimate insult,“… Shake your ass … there, that's it … let's see those legs …
more …” She hiked up her skirt as she blushed and continued to dance as Jimmy rooted for her. She had beautiful legs, and the grace that had come from thirteen years of dancing had never left her. “What are you for chrissake?” The short fat man bellowed at her as she blushed, “A virgin? People don't come here to pray. They come here to watch broads dance. You think you can do that without looking like you just been raped?”

“I'll try, sir … I'll do my best “

“Good. Then be back here tonight at eight o'clock.” Maggie stalked off in obvious disgust as he left, and Jimmy gave a cheer, and jumped up to give Zoya a hug.

“Hey, Mama! We did it!”

“I can't thank you enough,” she shook his hand and her
eyes
thanked him warmly. “I have two children, I … we …” She was suddenly fighting back tears, as the old black man watched her, “I need the job very badly …” The tears spilled onto her cheeks as she wiped them away with embarrassed relief, unable to speak for a moment.

“Don't you worry. You gonna do just fine. See you tonight.” He smiled and went back to the card game he'd been losing when Maggie called him.

Zoya walked all the way home to the apartment, and thought about what she'd done. Unlike her audition with the Ballet Russe years before, there was no feeling of victory and achievement. Just relief that she had a job and an overwhelming sense of embarrassment and degradation, but it was the only thing she could do, and it was at night, she wouldn't have to leave Sasha with people she didn't know. For the
moment, it seemed like the perfect job, except that it was so awful.

She explained to Nicholas that night that she had to go out. She didn't say why or where she was going. She didn't want to have to explain to him that she'd taken a job as a chorus girl. The echo of Charlie's words still rang in her ear … “shake your ass … let's see those legs … what are you? A virgin? …” To their way of thinking, she was. At almost thirty-one years of age, in spite of the hardships in her life, she had always been protected from people like him, and the people she was going to dance for.

“Where are you going, Mama?”

“Out for a little while.” She had already put Sasha to bed. “Don't stay up too late,” she admonished and kissed him, hugging him for a moment as though she were about to go to her own execution. “Go to bed in half an hour.”

“When will you be back?” He eyed her suspiciously from his bedroom door.

“Later.”

“Is something wrong, Mama?” He was a perceptive child, and he was learning early about the cruel turns of fate that could change the course of a lifetime in a single moment.

“No, nothing's wrong, sweetheart.” She smiled at him then. “I promise.” At least they would have a little money.

But she was in no way prepared for what it would be like, the crude jokes, the vulgar girls, the sleazy costumes, and the comedians who pinched her behind as she hurried past them. But when the music began, and the curtain went up, she did her best for
the jeering, laughing, excited crowd, and no one complained when she was out of step more than once. Unlike the Ballet Russe of long ago, here no one knew the difference. All they wanted to see was a good show of gams, and a bunch of pretty girls with most of their clothes off. There were sequins and beads, little satin shorts, and matching hats, and countless feather boas and huge headdresses. It was a cheap imitation of what the Ziegfeld girls wore, and more than once she silently bemoaned her fate at having been too short to be hired by the kindly Florenz Ziegfeld. Zoya gave her costumes back to the girl who had lent them to her, and she walked slowly home, with her stage makeup still on. She was even more shocked when a man scurrying past, offered her a nickel for “the best she could do for him,” in a nearby doorway. She ran the rest of the way home, with tears streaming down her face, thinking of the awful life that lay ahead of her at Fitzhugh's Dance Hall.

Nicholas was sound asleep when she got back and she kissed him gently, her lipstick smearing his cheek as she cried, thinking how sweet he looked as he slept, and how much like his father. It wasn't possible that he was gone … that he had left her to this … if only he had known … if only … but it was too late for that. She tiptoed back into the living room where she slept, took her makeup off and changed into her nightgown. Gone the silks and satins and laces. She had to wear heavy flannel gowns against the bitter cold of the barely heated apartment.

And in the morning, she made Nicholas breakfast before he left for school. There was a glass of milk, a
slice of bread, and a single orange she had bought the day before, but he never complained. He only smiled at her and patted her hand, and hurried off to school, after kissing Sasha.

And that night she went back to the theater again, as she did for the next weeks until the dancers returned from their measles. But when they did, Charlie gruffly told her they'd keep her on, she had good legs, and she didn't give him any trouble. Jimmy bought her a beer to celebrate, purloined from his favorite speakeasy nearby. She thanked him and took a sip not to hurt his feelings. She didn't tell him that it was her thirty-first birthday.

He was always kind to her, the only friend she had there. The others had sensed instantly that she was “different.” They never shared their jokes with her, in fact they barely talked to her, as they told tales of their boyfriends, and the men who followed them backstage. More than one of them ran off with men who offered them a little money. It was what Charlie liked about her. She wasn't much fun to have around, but at least she was steady. They gave her a raise after the first year. She couldn't believe herself that she had stayed that long, but there was no way out, nowhere else to go, and no one who would pay her. She told Nicholas that she danced with a small ballet and she left the theater number with him in case anything happened. But she thanked God he never called her. And sensing that she was ashamed of what she did, he never asked to go to a performance. And for that, and all his little tendernesses toward her, she was always grateful. One night Sasha had woken up with a cough, and a fever, and Nicholas was waiting up for her, but he hadn't wanted to call her at the
theater and worry her. In every way, he was a help to her and an enormous comfort.

“Will we ever see our old friends again?” he asked her quietly one afternoon, as she cut his hair, and Sasha played with Sava.

“I don't know, sweetheart.” She'd had a letter from their nurse months before. She was happy with the Van Alens, and she had been full of tales of Barbara Hutton's debut the summer before, and Doris Duke's in Newport. It seemed ironic that she was still part of that world, and Zoya wasn't. But just as they had shunned her when she first arrived, convinced that she had been a dancer at the Folies-Bergdre, now she shunned them, knowing that she was at last what they had first thought, a chorus girl. She knew also that, having lost everything like so many others of their milieu, she was no longer of interest to them. The countess she had been, who had so impressed them once, was no more. She was no one now. Just a common dancer. The waters had closed over her. She was gone. Just like Clayton, and so many others. The only one she missed from time to time, was Serge Obolensky, and his coterie of noble Russians. But they couldn't possibly have understood what had become of her life, or why she did what she did. He was still married to Alice Astor.

Elsa Maxwell was writing a society column by then, and occasionally when Zoya read the newspapers, she read Cholly Knickerbocker's tales of the people she had known while she was married to Clayton. They all seemed so unreal to her now, almost as though she had never known them. There were stories of financial ruin, suicides, marriages, divorces. She was only grateful not to be listed among
them. She read also of Pavlova's death of pleurisy in The Hague. And in May, she took the children to see the opening of the Empire State Building. It was 1931 by then, and a beautiful May afternoon. Nicholas stared in awe at the imposing structure. They went up in the elevator and stood on the observation platform on the hundred and second floor, and even Zoya felt as though she were flying. It was the happiest afternoon they had spent in a long time, and they walked back to the apartment in the balmy spring air, as Sasha ran ahead of them laughing and playing. She was six years old by then, and had a beautiful head of strawberry-gold curls, and a face just like Clayton's.