“Yes. How did you know?” I asked.
“No one would come to me for anything else,” she said. “You do not recognize my name, do you?”
“I’m afraid not,” Colin said.
“I, too, was a great dancer, many years ago, but few people remember me now. I am old enough to recall Napoleon’s defeat in Russia, although I was only nine. It was the year I came to the Imperial Theatre School.”
“It is an honor to make your acquaintance,” Colin said. He placed his cup and saucer on a low table and rose from his seat, moving to stand in front of one of the watercolors. “Is this you?”
Agrippina Aleksandrovna smiled broadly and nodded. “It is. My costume for Zéphire et Flore. Is it not exquisite? We wore our skirts much longer than they do today.”
“You are beautiful,” I said, joining my husband. Her white skirts, layer upon layer of tulle, landed a few inches above the ankles, and delicate pale flowers decorated them and the bodice. On her head, she wore a wreath of matching blooms, and a pair of translucent wings peeked above her shoulders from the back.
“And I am en pointe,” she said. “I was one of the first at the Imperial Ballet to dance on my toes. Enough, though. What can I tell you about my friend? It is most upsetting to have lost her to such violence.”
“You were friends?” I asked. “I’m sorry, I did not know, and offer my most sincere condolences. We came hoping you might have seen something from your window the night of the murder.”
“I always watch the theatre,” she said. “Even there, I am largely forgot—the youngsters have no interest in our old ways. They have carried the art to new heights, wonderful heights, but they think I can offer them nothing. Nemetseva was different. She knew the history of ballet, and she sought me out when she was only eleven years old and still at school. She had just started dancing en pointe, and her teacher had told her class about my early mastery of the technique. She showed up unannounced at my door with a large bouquet of flowers and begged me to tell her stories from my days on stage. After that, she came every week. I coached her in all of her roles. She was an exceptional talent.”
“I am profoundly sorry for your loss,” Colin said. As always, his sensitivity struck me. His voice, deep and soothing, had an instant effect on the woman. “We—primarily my wife, actually—are here investigating her murder. An interested party fears the judicial investigators may not be able to solve the crime.”
“Your wife is a detective in her own right?” She narrowed her eyes and looked at me, scrutinizing. “This is excellent. But your posture, madame, leaves me aghast. Do not let yourself be corrupted by this modern love of the slouch. It is ugly.” She demonstrated and looked not only several inches shorter, but far less elegant than she had. “Now, with me.” She pulled her shoulders up and back, straightened her spine, and then lowered her shoulders, keeping her chest open. I did my best to follow. “Much improved.”
“I shall endeavor to remember your lesson,” I said, never before having considered my posture substandard. When my mother criticized me for slouching, it irritated me. This correction felt entirely different, perhaps because it did not disguise a general disappointment in my whole character.
“Very good. Now, on the night Irusya died, I was watching, as I always did. I no longer go to the theatre—I cannot manage the stairs anymore. But every night my Irusya danced, she would come to the stage door during the interval, open it, and wave to me. It was a ritual of hers. We dancers are often superstitious.”
“On that last night, was anything different?” I asked.
“The first interval was normal,” she said. “Of course, she hadn’t been on stage yet. But during the second, she was holding a cloak around her, which she never normally did.”
“Even though she was opening the door to catastrophically cold air?” Colin asked.
“You have never had a banya, have you, Monsieur Hargreaves? We Russians love the feeling of cold air against hot skin. But ordinarily she only poked her head out of the door and waved. She’d hardly have time to get cold. That night, she stepped all the way outside, with the cloak, but still in her dancing slippers, which alarmed me, as I feared they would be ruined by the snow.”
“What did she do then?” I asked.
“She did not wave to me. She never even glanced up at my window. I do not know where she went. As you can see, from my window one can see the stage door, but only just and nothing beyond. I waited for her to go back inside, but she didn’t, so I could only imagine that she had reentered the theatre through the lobby, which seemed most peculiar to me.”
“Did you see anyone else?” Colin asked.
“No, she was alone. I worried as I did not see her go back inside and, then, when she did not appear at the door during the next interval … She never waved to me again.” Her voice, already thin and dry, started to crack.
“Did you tell the investigator what you saw?” Colin asked.
“No, monsieur. They did not come to me. This shows you why your—what did you call him? An interested party?—needs you. Our judicial investigators often let the people down. I have heard scandalous stories about them manufacturing evidence, and, furthermore, everyone is terrified they will dig up some tenuous association with a person who holds unacceptable political beliefs and send you to a labor camp in Siberia when all you have done is try to be a helpful witness.”
“When did you last speak to Nemetseva?” I asked.
“The very afternoon she died. We had a light luncheon together. She did not like to eat much before a performance, but needed a little something.”
“Was she in good spirits?” Colin asked.
“Exceptionally,” she said. “She knew what an honor it was to be chosen to dance in Swan Lake.”
“Did she seem worried about anything?” I asked.
“Not at all, other than the usual nerves that come with debuting in a new role.”
“Can you think of anyone who would want to harm her?” I asked.
“A better question to ask is who benefitted from her demise. There is only one person whose position immediately improved: Ekaterina Petrovna. She acquitted herself well and danced beautifully when Petipa called for her to replace Irusya. But she never would have earned that role otherwise.”
“Weren’t she and Nemetseva friends?” I asked.
Agrippina Aleksandrovna shrugged dismissively. “Friends can sometimes be our worst enemies. They know our weakness and our vulnerabilities. And they know our habits as well. I do not accuse Ekaterina Petrovna of this barbaric act, but I do wonder at how conveniently things have worked out for her. She was promoted yesterday to principal dancer. No one expected she would ever reach that rank.”
“She is an extremely talented dancer, is she not?” Colin asked.
“Yes, but she has a difficult time summoning her passion. Her technique is perfect, her line gorgeous—Irusya brought her to me once, before their graduation performance, for coaching. When she fans her passion, she is a brilliant flame, but when it abandons her, she is cold. That she cannot reliably call on it is a terrible flaw. Perhaps now she has mastered it. It is possible. By all accounts, her performance was breathtaking. We shall see how she does from here.”
“Do you think Nemetseva somehow held her back?” I asked.
“Irusya was always her most enthusiastic supporter, but after they joined the company, she feared that her friend no longer believed herself capable of great dancing. A crisis of confidence, if you will. Did Irusya’s immediate success make things more difficult for her? Was she unable to dance without making comparisons to her friend? This you must ask her. No one else can know.”
“Did their friendship wane over the years?” I asked.
“Not so far as Irusya could tell,” she said. “It was she who insisted that Ekaterina Petrovna be her understudy for Swan Lake. Irusya did everything she could to forward her friend’s career.” She shrugged again. “Even die.”
Ekaterina Petro
vna
May 1897
Irusya did not allow Katenka to mire herself in painful regret. Both girls had been invited to join the company, their contracts starting on June 1, and their first performances as professionals would be during the summer season at Krasnoye Selo, in the country outside St. Petersburg. The theatre was neither large nor grand, but the dancers loved their time there, away from the city.
In the weeks between finishing their exams and needing to report for company class, Irusya and Katenka retired once again to Irusya’s family dacha. Lev, who wanted to be as close to Irusya as possible, arranged to visit a nearby friend, Dmitri Dmitriyevich Ivchenko. Mitya was not so handsome as Lev, but he was a smart, studious young man who seemed constantly at odds with his family, whose old-fashioned political views he abhorred.
Irusya and Lev circled each other cautiously at first. They had not spent much time together in the final weeks of Irusya’s schooling. She had been busy with preparations for her graduation performance and her exams. And he, after resigning his naval commission, had accepted a position at a bookstore on Nevsky Prospekt.
He would never have been allowed to leave the navy if his grandfather were still alive. Misfortune had struck after the old man died. Having lost their mother only a few months earlier, Lev and Katenka were shocked to discover the family had no money left. The apartment overlooking the Neva near the Admiralty had to be sold to pay their grandfather’s debts. Katenka’s salary in the corps de ballet was enough only for her to rent a modest flat in an undesirable neighborhood. She filled it with the pieces of family furniture they had not been forced to sell. Lev arranged to sleep in the back room at the bookstore, explaining that this would enable him to save money for the future.
A future, Katenka knew, he intended to share with Irusya.
“Do you still love my brother, even though he is an impoverished bookseller?” she asked her friend as they rowed in a small boat on Lake Ladoga.
“I love him all the more for it,” she said. “I did so adore his uniform, but he is even more handsome to me now. Noble poverty becomes him. Besides, it’s only temporary. He has grand plans of opening his own shop once he saves enough. And you know I am in no hurry to change my current arrangements.”
Irusya had taken a first-floor flat near the theatre, overlooking the narrow Moika River. Although her salary as a first soloist was nearly double Katenka’s, her parents, wanting to see her grandly settled, had purchased it for her. Over the summer, they were having it decorated, and Irusya had ordered suites of brand new furniture to fill the rooms.
“What does he think of your sumptuous accommodations?” Katenka asked.
“He finds them shockingly bourgeois,” Irusya said, pulling her oars. “I told him it’s a perfectly ordinary home for a prima ballerina, and he laughed, but I know he likes seeing me so well quartered.”
“He adores you,” Katenka said. Irusya did not reply, only looked to the horizon, her gaze unfocused. “Don’t go moody on me.” Katenka splashed water at her. Irusya returned the favor, and by the time they returned to the dock, where Lev and Mitya were waiting for them, both girls were soaked.
“What an appalling site you two are,” Lev said, helping Irusya out of the boat and shaking his head.
“No worse than you’ll be soon!” Irusya cried and pushed him into the lake. He bobbed up and down, laughing as he grabbed his hat before it could float away from him, and swam to the dock. Taking Irusya by the ankles, he pulled her in next to him. Katenka, still in the boat, looked to Mitya, who was wiping water from the lenses of his spectacles. After he returned them to his face, he steadied her as she stepped out of the boat.
“I think it best we flee before we suffer the same fate,” he said, dropping her hand. He pulled a book out from under his jacket, no doubt placed there to protect it from any stray splashes, and walked to the end of the dock without so much as offering her his arm when she caught up with him. As they moved away from the water in the direction of the house, Katenka turned to look back. Lev and Irusya were floating happily next to each other, their hands clasped together.
“They are so happy together,” she said.
“This is bound to be their best time,” Mitya said. “I expect much will change now that you are both in the company. You are entering another world, a world far removed from that of a humble bookseller.”
“It’s the same world we’ve been in from the moment we started at the Imperial Theatre School.”
“No, you were like little fairies then, flitting between the glamour of the stage and the hard work of the classroom, never belonging entirely to either. Now, the stage will control you both.”
“What an odd thing to say.” Katenka frowned. “You make it sound quite dreadful.” She was doing her best to tease him, but Mitya never noticed her efforts at flirtation.
“I do not mean to denigrate your chosen path,” he said. “It is just a world apart from my own.”
“And what is that?” Katenka asked.
“My primary concern is the plight of the working class. Do you know how little money the average worker has to support his family?”
“Probably more than I. My salary is a scandal. I can’t even live near the theatre.”
“A terrible burden, I am sure. But can you afford food? Are your children starving?”
“You know perfectly well I have no children.” She never knew how to react when Mitya grew even more serious than usual and started talking about politics.
“That is hardly the point.” He stopped walking and turned to face her, taking both of her hands in his. She liked the feeling of them, strong and coarse, and his touch sent her heart racing. “Let me make it easier to understand. You receive a small salary, yes? Irusya’s is much bigger?”
“Yes, she has earned a higher rank in the company than I.”
“Is her role more important? Can ballets be performed without the corps?”
“No, but of course her roles are more important. There are fewer dancers capable of performing them. It does not trouble me that she is paid more.”
“Fair enough. But do not you, also, deserve to earn enough to live comfortably?”
“Yes, I suppose so, and I will, if I work hard enough to get promoted.”
“What about those who can’t earn enough, no matter how hard they work? Is their plight fair? Most of the residents of Petersburg are working themselves to the bone for a pittance while the bourgeoisie spend fortunes on a single evening’s entertainment. Is that fair?”
She shrugged. “No, but that is life. Some are more fortunate than others.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that wasn’t life? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone could live well? What if the bourgeoisie shared some of their wealth?”
Katenka laughed. “You are a dreamer, aren’t you? I wouldn’t have guessed. You always seem so serious, with your books and ideas, but now you are talking about fairy tales.” She looked down, blushing, then forced herself to meet his eyes. “I like you all the more for it.”
He dropped her hands. “You will never understand, Katenka. The dream of a better world is ours for the taking, if only we can find the courage to create it.” He turned on his heel and stalked up the path.
Katenka chided herself for saying the wrong thing. Lev spouted this sort of nonsense on occasion, but she ignored it, and he never forced her to listen. Perhaps Mitya was too serious. She liked him, but after this conversation, she would not feel a loss when he returned to Petersburg.
St. Petersburg,
1900
8
Finished with Agrippina Alexandrovna, we returned to our sledge and, snuggled under warm blankets, watched the snow fall as the driver steered us back to the hotel. The noble buildings on Nevsky Prospekt, newly dusted white, looked straight out of a fairy tale. When we reached the door to our rooms, Colin paused after putting the key in the lock. “I am very much looking forward to having you all to myself. We have two hours until we are
to meet Cécile downstairs for dinner, do we not?”
“Yes, but we have to dress,” I said.
“I can assist you with that.” He kissed me softly. “First, though, I shall have to remove your coat.” He took my muff, unfastened my coat, and then unlocked and opened the door. Inside, he slipped the coat from my shoulders. “After the coat, of course—”
Sebastian, in his full Cossack regalia, a ridiculously tall hat on his head, interrupted him. He was sitting on our settee, a spread of zakuski on the table in front of him, along with an icy bottle of vodka and three glasses.
“Please, please, no more! I ought not be subjected to such a scene! It is outrageous!”
“Outrageous?” Colin asked, stepping toward him, his dark eyes flashing. “Outrageous is you breaking into our room and violating our privacy. How dare you, sir?”
“Oh dear,” Sebastian said, draping his arms across the back of the settee. “It’s no wonder I can’t lure Kallista away from you. You’re a vision of manly strength when you’re angry. How am I to compete?” This question did not merit the courtesy of a reply. “At any rate, I am here to follow up on a request I made of your charming wife at Masha’s the other night.”
“I examined the police evidence myself,” I said. “They do not have the note you left Nemetseva.”
“How intriguing,” he drawled. “I shan’t be able to rest altogether easy until I can be certain of its fate. You will keep me abreast of any further developments, won’t you?”
“I suggest you abandon whatever delusions you may have about enlisting any more assistance from me or my wife,” Colin said. He removed his fur hat and ran his hand through his rumpled curls before flinging his overcoat onto a chair. “It would behoove you to leave the premises before you irritate me further.”
Death in St. Petersburg Page 7