Neither vehicle was to be seen in Ekaterina Petrovna’s neighborhood. There were smaller sledges and a few sorry-looking, battered carts pulled by even sorrier looking horses. On the pavements there was no room for a fashionable parade; they were filled with stooped vendors swathed in coarse coats and thick hats, selling a motley assortment of objects and food. They stomped their felt-booted feet on the ground in what had to be a vain attempt to stay warm, and shouted at Cécile and me, trying to entice us to buy something, shooting toothless grins and shaking their heads when we declined.
Ekaterina’s building must have been beautiful when first built. It had gracious lines and large windows and, so far as I could tell, had once been painted a charming shade of coral. Now the color looked drab, and many of the windows were broken and badly mended. Inside, we had to climb to the fourth floor to reach the dancer’s apartment.
When at last we reached the top, we stood, out of breath, in a narrow, dark corridor. There were gaslights at even intervals along the walls, but only two of them were lit. I knocked on the dancer’s door. A lanky young man wearing spectacles and dressed in an unremarkable suit opened it, inquiring as to our purpose. Speaking Russian, I introduced us and asked if Ekaterina Petrovna was home. He replied in French and told us to wait a moment, before closing the door and returning a few moments later to usher us into a large and surprisingly well-furnished flat. A bright Persian carpet covered the floor of the sitting room, where, on a long, leather sofa, sat a delicate young woman, with large, icy-blue eyes, golden hair, and skin so pale that it was almost translucent. She rose to her feet the moment she saw us.
“Forgive me for not coming to the door myself,” she said in flawless French. “I am not much for visitors today.”
“I offer my most sincere condolences for your loss,” I said.
“Thank you. Do take a seat, please,” she said, her voice soft. “This is my friend, Dmitri Dmitriyevich Ivchenko. He tells me you have come to speak about Irusya. You may call him Mitya and me Katenka. We know how difficult our names are for you Europeans.”
“I admit I have not entirely deciphered the system,” I said. Mitya crossed to a table in the corner of the room and poured four cups of tea from a large bronze samovar. He distributed them, each nestled in a gleaming silver podstakannik, the traditional Russian way to serve the steaming beverage. The clear glass allowed one to admire the tea’s color, and the elaborately decorated podstakannik, with its convenient handle, enabled one to drink without burning one’s hands.
“Do not bother to try,” Mitya said. “We do not expect you to master it.”
“What a beautifully furnished home,” Cécile said, making an exception of her rule that champagne was the only acceptable libation by sipping her tea.
“Unexpectedly so, oui?” Katenka said. “Do not think I suggest you are insulting me by saying this. I know this neighborhood is not desirable, but I prefer large rooms, and my salary at the theatre is not sufficient to fund reasonable space in more fashionable quarters.”
“Our great writer Dostoyevsky lived only a few blocks away,” Mitya said. “Katenka is proud to make her home here.”
“Mitya can make any circumstance seem more palatable,” Katenka said, giving him a small, but warm, smile. “It is his special talent. What brings you here? It cannot only be to express your condolences over poor Irusya’s death, although I assure you I am most appreciative of the gesture. She was my dearest friend from the time we were small girls.”
“Madame Zhdanova suggested that we speak with you,” I said. “I have been charged with the task of investigating Nemetseva’s death by a party who wishes to remain anonymous. I can imagine this seems strange—”
“No, not strange in the least,” Mitya said. “Why would a woman not make a good investigator?”
His question startled me, but pleasantly so. What a refreshing perspective! “Not strange that a woman would conduct an investigation, but strange that anyone is asking for an investigation separate from that being conducted officially.”
Mitya laughed. “You don’t know much about our judicial investigators, do you?”
“No, but I have been told that not everyone feels they can be relied upon,” I said. “It is not much different elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere they don’t send you to work in a Siberian mine when they don’t like your politics.”
“Mitya, this is not the time.” Katenka spoke with a firmness that surprised me. I suppose I must have expected a ballerina to be as light and quiet at home as she was on stage. Until now, she had confirmed my assumption.
He crossed his arms and leaned back against his chair. “Yes, yes. You are correct.”
“What help can I offer?” Katenka asked. Her voice was quiet again, and she looked like a delicate shell in danger of breaking.
“The more I know about Nemetseva, the more likely I will be able to identify people who might have wished her ill,” I said. “We have interviewed everyone at the theatre, where it is clear she was well loved. But no one can have had a life so perfectly full of bliss and happiness.”
“No, Irusya’s life was as complicated as anyone’s,” Katenka said. “You have seen her dance?” I nodded. “Then you know of her skills on the stage. Not just her dancing, but her ability to act. She knew that the fastest way to become a prima ballerina was to dance and to behave like one from the beginning, and she did just that. I remember on our first day of school, when we were only nine or ten years old, she already carried herself like a prima and treated everyone around her with gracious ease. She never seemed like she had something to prove. She knew how good she was.”
“People did not resent her talent?” I asked.
“They would have if she had ever let them see how fiercely competitive she was, but she was too smart for that. She wore a mask all the time, careful never to reveal what was churning beneath it.”
“Not even to you?” I knew better than to take everything she said as solid fact. She had just lost her dearest friend and was unlikely to say anything she thought might harm Nemetseva’s memory.
“I was apart from the others from the moment I first arrived at Theatre Street. I was never gregarious like Irusya, and, although I craved success as much as she, I had no skill in anything beyond dance. To become truly great, one must learn more than just technique and artistry. One must be able to charm choreographers and know how to work with them to best show off one’s talents. Every person in the theatre contributes to a prima’s success. Without their support, one can only go so far.”
“But how valuable can all that be?” I asked. “Surely the actual dancing matters more than anything.”
“Bien sûr,” Katenka said. “But it is far easier to join the ranks of the legendary if you can master the rest, too. That, I was never good at. I am uncomfortable putting myself forward.”
“Is that what drew Nemetseva to you?” Cécile asked.
“At first, she befriended me because she felt sorry for me. I was shy and unhappy outside of the rehearsal room. I had no talent for artifice, so she knew I was always candid with her. She didn’t have to pretend with me, because she trusted that I was her friend unconditionally. I didn’t want anything from her, and the only thing she ever asked of me was that I give her the trunk that had stood at the foot of my bed when we were in school. She liked the memory of it.”
“We saw you dance, too,” I said. “You come to life on stage, Katenka.”
“I know what you are implying, Lady Emily,” she said. “Irusya never felt threatened by me. There is room in the company for at least one more prima ballerina.”
“If she did not consider you a threat, did she consider anyone else in the company to be one?” I asked.
“No.” Katenka shook her head. “You have seen her talent for yourself. She had no need to worry on that count.”
“What about her personal life? Ballerinas have ardent admirers who sometimes want more than they ought.”
“Irusy
a could flirt all night, leave a gentleman with nothing more than a kiss on the cheek, and he would go away in a state of blissful rapture.”
“Surely not all gentlemen are so easily pacified,” Cécile said. “We need not bow to propriety here. I am well acquainted with the grand dukes and more Russian princes than I can count. Ballerinas are their preferred mistresses.”
Mitya stiffened at her words and his face darkened.
“Do not scold me, sir,” she continued. “I condone neither their actions nor their expectations, but it cannot be denied that there is a long tradition in the theatre of romantic encounters. It is not the case only in Russia. I could tell you scandalous things about the Paris Opera Ballet, but I shall spare us both the embarrassment. The dancers here in Petersburg are the best looked after in the world. They are healthy, if you understand my meaning.”
Mitya rose to his feet. “Madame!”
Cécile waved her hand. “I know, I know, it is something one ought not say aloud, and I shall speak of it no more.”
“We are concerned only with what happened to Nemetseva,” I said. “Were any of the gentlemen who sought her attentions disappointed to be rejected?”
“She did not reject all of them,” Mitya said, his countenance changing. “She was no angel.”
“I know that as well as anyone,” Katenka said, her tone sharp. “But she never toyed with anyone’s affections. She has been in love, she has been thwarted, and she has loved again. She has hurt and been hurt.”
“Whom did she hurt?”
“You must understand we were very sheltered at school. When at last we joined the company and were living on our own, we possessed what seemed to us unprecedented freedom. We still had very little time to ourselves. We take class and rehearse every day but Sunday, when we could do what we wanted. Irusya met a very charming count during the interval of a performance and started spending as much time as she could with him.”
“And it ended badly?” I asked.
“As you say,” Katenka said. “She was very inexperienced and thought herself immediately in love. But when, a few months later, she met an even more charming man, a grand duke…”
“She realized the count was not quite so fascinating,” Cécile said.
“Yes. She did not handle the situation as well as she would have today.”
“When did this happen?”
“Three years ago, I believe,” Katenka said. “I don’t remember exactly.”
“Not so long ago, then,” I said.
“It seems like another lifetime,” Katenka said. “So much happened so quickly, especially for Irusya. She started in the company as a coryphée right from school, instead of in the corps, and was promoted to principal within a few months.”
“And that is unusual?” Cécile asked.
“I entered the company at the same time as her, but in the corps and was only promoted to coryphée last month. My performance in Swan Lake was well received, and I am likely to be promoted to second soloist as a result, but there is still first soloist to reach before I could be a principal.”
“Irusya skipped ranks?” I asked.
“A different set of rules apply to those as talented as Irusya,” Katenka said. I detected no hint of bitterness in her voice. “It is because of those things of which I was just speaking. She could do anything, Irusya, and as a result, people would do anything for her.”
“Did you see her leave the theatre the night of her death?” I asked.
“No, nor did she mention anything about it to me. We shared a dressing room. That is, she shared hers with me. As a principal, she had her own, but she didn’t want me crammed in with the rest of the coryphées.”
“Did you see her during the second interval?”
“No, but I didn’t go to the dressing room.”
“Why do you think she left the theatre?” Cécile asked.
“I cannot imagine anything that would have caused her to do such a thing without telling anyone. Not in the middle of Swan Lake.” Sadness painted Katenka’s face, making her look decades beyond her true age.
“But she did leave,” I said.
“I cannot believe it was voluntary,” Katenka said. “That night was to be her greatest triumph. Nothing could have distracted her from that. Nothing.”
“No one has come forward with information that supports the idea that she left against her will.”
“Someone is lying. There can be no doubt of that.”
Ekaterina Petrovna
March 1897
Other than acquiring an astonishing command of the French language and becoming competent on the piano, skills she believed essential to every ballerina, Katenka did not much distinguish herself in the nondance classes she was required to take every afternoon. But whenever she thought about the wondrous exchange of energy that occurred in the theatre between audience and dancer, she was reminded of something mentioned in her literature class. If a writer could persuade a reader to suspend disbelief, to deliberately turn off any critical voice, then his work would succeed. Dancing was much the same. Having flawless technique and a pleasing line were essential, but it was something else that led the audience to silence their inner critics, and without achieving that, a dancer could never be sublime.
The night before their graduation performance, Katenka and Irusya, unable to sleep, escaped from their room and padded softly through the dark corridors of the school until they reached the small theatre it housed. Irusya had brought a lamp, but it did little to illuminate the space. It flickered between them as they sat on the stage and looked into the auditorium.
“We will never dance here again after tomorrow,” Katenka said. “It saddens me.”
“You are too sentimental,” Irusya said. “After tomorrow, we will join the company and dance at the Mariinsky. We shall never miss this tiny stage. But for now, dance with me, Katenka!”
For the next hour, the girls flew about in an energetic compilation of bits of choreography they knew. They even partnered each other in an improvised pas de deux. Finally, Irusya went to the front of the stage and commanded Katenka to take her place at an imaginary barre.
“We begin with pliés. Counts of two, starting in first position. Two demi, two grand, repeat in second, fourth, and fifth. Finish with port de bras forward, then back, then balance sous-sus.”
Laughing, Katenka complied while Irusya, looking very stern, counted and gave corrections. “Shoulders back, Ekaterina Petrovna, and watch your knees. Over the toes, please. Now, tendus from fifth…”
They continued like this until it was almost time to rise and have breakfast. A sleepless night ought to have harmed their performances that evening, but they both felt more invigorated than ever. In class that morning, their teacher complimented them both. He had never seen them so focused and precise. Both, he said, were destined for greatness. Just how much greatness would be determined in only a few hours.
January 1900
6
I left the hotel long before my first planned meeting with Prince Vasilii, wanting time to take a leisurely stroll along Nevsky Prospekt, the most famous boulevard in St. Petersburg. Winter in Russia made the season elsewhere seem the friendlier sister of an inclement spring day. Some years back, I made the acquaintance of an American writer, Isabel Hapgood, who had spent extensive time traveling in Russia. She stressed to me the critical importance of dressing appropriately for the weather. Even for a short trip, she said, it is worth the expense. I shall never forget the tone of condescension in her voice when she confided in me, “the horror inspired in anyone who is acquainted with the treacherous climate at the sight of tourists in inadequate coats.” The phrase treacherous climate stuck with me, and before leaving England I took the time to purchase what she had described as the requisite furs.
After taking approximately seven steps out of the warm lobby, I was determined to send Miss Hapgood a note of thanks for her excellent advice. The sky, a deep blue entirely different from the shades f
ound in Greece or the Côte d’Azur, had a hard edge to it, almost industrial in its beauty. Dense columns of smoke so thick they looked heavy sliced through its steely hue, and although sunlight dazzled on the snow, its rays offered no warmth. I buried my gloved hands deeper in my enormous fur mitt and turned the corner of Mikhaylovskaya ulitsa onto Nevsky Prospekt.
Some might consider this stretch of road comparable to the Champs-Élysées in Paris or Piccadilly in London, and although they would be correct in some measures, the comparison fails to capture the essential nature of not only Nevsky Prospekt but also St. Petersburg. The broad avenue, named for Alexander Nevsky, the thirteenth-century prince of Novgorod who drove off invading forces from the banks of the Neva (hence his name, Nevsky), stretches from the river to the monastery named for the prince. His military victories not only gained him political success but also led to his canonization by the Orthodox Church.
The stretch of pavement just north of the monastery was little more than an ordinary road, full of mundane shops with modest apartments above. Darker quarters spirated from side streets whose inhabitants had little interest in the European playgrounds created for aristocrats north of the Anichkov Bridge. Nicholas I said St. Petersburg is Russian, but St. Petersburg is not Russia, and I suspected these edgier areas to be more Russian. I had timed my departure so that I might explore a bit of this side of the city, but now ringing church bells signaled that I had dawdled nearly too long.
Death in St. Petersburg Page 5