They emerged from the steam, gasping, and blundered towards the washroom where they let their damp towels fall to the floor and ran to stand on the duckboards while the maids ladled cold water from buckets over their bodies.
‘Does he know what they’ve chosen?’ Lydia took a meagre splash of water on her back before gesturing to the maid that she had had enough and turning around. She hated all cold in general but everyone said cold splashes improved the beauty of the bosom, so she endured longer rinsing for her front.
‘No! Aieeh! That’s freezing! No, all I know is that they’ve decided you shall have a debut performance before the summer, some time in May. I’m so proud of you, Lydia. It’s wonderful – there hasn’t been a debut for years. Doesn’t this prove what I’ve always said? You’re a real star.’
They moved to the wooden benches and lay down to be scrubbed. ‘Not too hard,’ Lydia ordered abruptly. ‘I hate having my skin scoured off. If I can’t have pretty dresses at least I’ve got a good complexion – until you stupid women spoil it.’
The next day she was called to the Director’s office to receive the great news. The role chosen to introduce her to the public of St Petersburg was a special pas de deux tucked away in the famous excitements of Paquita; it would be a little gem choreographed by Marius Petipa, the supreme genius of the company who had recently retired at almost ninety years of age. The title role was to be danced by La Kchessinskaya herself, whose return to the stage after the birth of her child had been as prompt as predicted.
Paquita was a long, elaborate classic with a vague Spanish scenario, calling for a huge corps drilled like guardsmen, successions of brilliant soloists, and costumes based on a wide traditional tutu decorated with black chenille net and pompoms. She would be able to show off her speed, strength and suppleness, to part her hair severely on one side in the prescribed style for all pseudo-Spanish pieces and pin a silk rose under her right ear. The music was easy stuff, circus tunes which she was well able to follow. Better still, her partner was to be Sergei Legat, Nikolai’s brother, one of the most popular men in the company with the public and his colleagues. Lydia was struck dumb with such favour.
‘Well, child?’ the Director inquired, peering at her with narrowed eyes. ‘Are you pleased?’
‘Oh! Monsieur le Directeur, do please forgive me,’ she almost whispered, ‘of course I’m pleased. Thank you all, so much.’ Still lost for words, she darted forwards, seized his hand from the desk and kissed it.
The elderly man recoiled with amusement and a distinct blush on his cheeks above his sparse brown whiskers. ‘Well, I believe you now, at any rate. I have sent a note to your parents to let them know the date, and to tell them that you will have one full day of leave after the exams to visit your family, and two half days after that so that you can go shopping with your mother. And don’t get so carried away that you let your mathematics disgrace you – your reports haven’t given us as much confidence as your dancing.’
There was no real reproof in his words. The ballet masters unanimously nominated Lydia Alexandrovna for rapid success; the school tutors reported that she had intelligence but no ambition beyond the stage and no weakness for ideas. All round, she was an ideal product of their labours – beautiful, gifted and delightfully traditional in her outlook.
Lydia assured him that she would work hard, rapidly muttering the insincere promises she had made her teachers every year, and dashed away to spread the great news. Not until the evening, when she sat with Olga stitching shoes after dinner, did the shadow of her home fall over her cheerfulness.
‘Where are you going to live next season?’ she asked, suddenly envious of the girl without parents who could make her own choice of home.
‘With my brothers and sister – Anatole and I have found a couple of rooms and with three of us in the corps de ballet we’ll have enough to live on and be able to have our dear Pierre with us.’ Olga’s gestures, always affected, were even more artificial when she skirted the subject of the orphanage where her youngest brother still lived. Pierre had weak lungs and the school had refused to accept him. ‘You’ll be going home, I suppose?’
‘Yes, I suppose so too. I don’t want to, Olya. I’m dreading it, to tell the truth.’
‘Because your father’s ill? But at least you have a father and you know him. Think of us – our bitch of a mother screwed around, lied to us all her life and now she’s dead we’ll never know who he was.’
‘It’s not that. Where they live isn’t my home. It’s just the dustbin we were thrown in when we lost all our money. I’ve hardly ever lived there. I can’t remember much about it, except it was a horrible place. Where we lived before was beautiful, I remember that …’ She paused with her needle in mid-air, trying to recall her life in the handsome red house where she had been born and which she counted as her real home. All that came back were impressions of deep, soft pillows with lace and ribbon borders, of sticky little cakes made with cream cheese, a sweet young nursemaid who tickled her, and her mother, a beautiful young woman with long auburn hair, opening a drawer in her dressing table filled with suede gloves the colour of doves’ wings and asking her help to choose a pair.
‘Oh, how sad. Poor Lydia. I always envied you for having a family, I never thought you might have troubles of your own on their account. Of course, your mother doesn’t visit you ever, does she? And you always have to board in the holidays. Forgive me, I’m so selfish …’ For all her sympathy, Olga was watching intently as Lydia stitched her shoes, hoping to discover a better way of doing it.
‘Oh, it’s not so bad. My mother has enough to do looking after my father, I expect.’ Lydia had indeed worked out a way to reinforce the instep, but she had no intention of giving away her secrets, especially not to Olga, whose major gifts seemed to be an exquisite line and a flirtatious way with critics. Casually, Lydia leaned towards the lamp, moving her hands out of Olga’s sight. ‘So tell me, what will you do about your clothes?’
‘Dream! Pray! Walk about naked, maybe? I can’t begin to think about it … wait a minute!’ She held up her hand as if for silence and stared ahead into the dark corner of the sewing room. ‘Oh! How horrible! Lydia, you mustn’t go, you mustn’t go home. I can see things, people being cut up. I can see a man with his head split like a muzzle in the butcher’s. It’s revolting, everything’s hanging out of it.’ Her delicate hands flew to her eyes to rub them, and her needle fell to the bare floor with a tiny noise. Lydia frowned, annoyed. Of all Olga’s pretensions, she found her clairvoyance the most irritating. ‘But there’s a man there, too. Yes, I can see him quite clearly. Fair hair and a high forehead. He’s not kind, but he does kind things. And this is the man, the one for you…’
‘Can you see the maths exam paper as well?’ Wrapping her shoes in their ribbons, Lydia put them away in her bag and pulled out a textbook.
‘You shouldn’t joke, I have the gift, you know I do. Oh God, where’s my needle?’
‘Don’t you have a vision of it lying in the crack between the floorboards?’
‘Oh, shut up. I can’t find it, lend me yours.’ Smiling, Lydia passed her felt needle book. ‘Seriously, Lyduchka, don’t go home on Sunday. Something terrible will happen if you go, I know it.’
‘Yes, and something terrible will happen if I don’t go. I’ll have no roof over my head.’
When Sunday came, her entire body was heavy with reluctance. She found she could barely remember what her mother looked like, nor when she had last visited. As Olga had remarked, she came to the school very seldom, although their old maidservant, Douniasha, had called often in her younger days. And Lydia had not been home for years. The older girls were not allowed holiday visits at all – a rule introduced, so school legend held, because a girl called Mad Ann had contracted a scandalous liaison with a Horse Guards officer during a trip to see her family.
This neglect was no mystery to Lydia. She knew that her poor mother was not worn to a shadow by her father’s illness, but because
she was so devoted to her younger child, a son, she hardly remembered that she had ever borne a daughter. While some families reluctantly dispatched their girls to Theatre Street, compelled by poverty to overcome their misgivings about the immorality of the theatre world, the Kusminskis had packed off Lydia Alexandrovna at the age of eight without a backward glance and turned towards their miraculous boy. She had rarely seen her brother in the intervening years, and remembered him as an infant in a sailor suit with a sulky expression and a piercing scream which he let loose when anything displeased him.
Everything had gone wrong for Lydia after the boy had been born. Her mother had given up hoping for another child, and his birth had been greeted as a miracle from heaven. Then her father’s business partner had cheated him, and he had fallen ill and seemingly lost his health for ever. They had passed from prosperity to poverty in no time, losing their home, friends and possessions one after the other, and then all the family turned to little Dima as their only hope, and Lydia became nothing more than a great insolent girl with an insatiable appetite, nothing but a burden on the household.
Their apartment was not far away from the school. On Sunday she set out early after Varvara Ivanova had warned her that there was to be a demonstration that day by some striking factory workers who planned to march through the city to petition the Tsar. The sacred right of every Russian to appeal directly to the Emperor for justice had been much invoked in recent years and columns of marchers with banners, placards and shouted slogans were a familiar sight. Lydia wondered if the queen toad’s concern was for her safety or her allegiance, since support for the workers was growing among the dancers and Mikhail Mikhailovich and his set were forever calling meetings to vote motions of sympathy.
She heard the crowd as soon as she bade the uniformed doorman good morning and stepped out into the street. They were singing hymns, the rich deep voices of the men resonating in the clear air above the rumble of thousands of feet in heavy boots shuffling slowly forward. As she began to skirt the impressive bulk of the Alexandrinsky Theatre her nostrils caught the sickly tang of incense.
Beside the theatre’s massive colonnade a group of twenty guardsmen were drawn up in four lines and waited at ease, their horses shaking their manes and watching the passing multitude with curiosity. Their officer, a fair-haired young man whose nose shone red with the cold, drew them to attention as Lydia passed and saluted her, calling out, ‘Good morning, Mademoiselle,’ in a ringing voice.
Alarmed, she looked behind her to be sure they were out of sight of the school before dropping him a curtsey and continuing onwards, her cheeks a little pink with the flush of flattery. Her way lay across the small park which separated the theatre from the road. Crisp new snow lay almost undisturbed over the shrubs, with only the little crosses of birds’feet tracking across the ornamental lawns.
Ahead the breadth of the Nevsky Prospekt was choked with a grey mass of people. The snow beneath their feet had been churned almost to slush. She paused, amazed at the uncountable number of men flowing slowly down the city’s main avenue, and even climbed on a bench to see how far in each direction the river of people extended. There was no visible end to the crowd, it seemed to go on for ever.
The men were bundled in their thick padded coats. Beneath their caps, padded or worn over scarves to keep out the cold, their grimy faces were calm. Many were stooped over, whether from toil, tiredness or in prayer she could not tell but such a number of bent backs gave the impression of pathetic supplication. Some had the beatific expression of men moved to ecstasy in church. When their eyes fell upon her a few of them made gestures of respect but most passed on with glazed looks as if they saw nothing. They moved as if in a trance, very slowly, almost shuffling, carrying placards demanding bread and justice in their hands, icons on their shoulders, or cheap print portraits of the Tsar decorated with paper flowers and fluttering ribbons. Here and there were small groups of priests, swinging censers and leading the singing.
Perplexed, Lydia walked along beside the crowd for a short distance and then returned. Her home lay on the far side of the road, and, peaceful as they were, she was afraid to plunge into the tightly packed mass and struggle across it; they would surely sweep her along with them. Every Russian had heard stories of crowds suddenly maddened by panic, trampling hundreds to death before they came to their senses.
‘Captain Orlov’s compliments, Mademoiselle.’ She heard horses behind her and turned to see an ensign and three guardsmen draw to a halt. ‘He is concerned for your safety. May we escort you across the Prospekt?’
‘Can you make them let us through?’ Lydia looked doubtfully at the river of petitioners.
‘Of course. They mean no trouble to anyone, Mademoiselle. You can see they’re harmless beasts. And they’re not drunk, not yet anyway. Which way are you going?’
‘Up to the Gribojedeva Canal. I only need to get across and then I’ll be fine.’
Still in doubt, she looked back towards the theatre where the rest of the guardsmen remained. The officer saluted her again and she inclined her head in acknowledgement, reflecting that if any of the school staff passed by and saw what was happening she would be punished for flirting, probably by the revocation of her famous debut. Best to move on at once. ‘Why – thank you, thank Captain Orlov, very much. You’re so kind. Shall we go?’
The ensign, who under his gleaming braid and buttons was hardly older than she was, ordered the men forward and they approached the edge of the crowd. Calling out, ‘Make way now, let the lady pass!’ they stemmed the flow of the crowd and Lydia walked through them like Moses through the Red Sea, suffering nothing worse than the stink of thousands of unwashed bodies. The distant pavement seemed very far away, but she kept her eyes on the icy road and stepped out at a steady pace beside the horses. Quite a few of the men bowed as she passed or touched their forelocks, although they made no sound except the continuous singing. From the centre of the mass the hymns merged into a cacophony, one refrain running up against another because one group could barely hear the next along the column.
To her embarrassment the ensign insisted on accompanying her with his party as far as the canal side, where her route left the main street. ‘What will happen to them all?’ she asked, still overcome by the vastness of the crowd. ‘There are more people here than I could ever imagine in the world.’
‘Or me.’ The ensign regarded the ragged mass with a cheerful shrug. ‘They won’t be able to get to the Winter Palace – their leaders will be received, which is more than they deserve since this is an illegal demonstration, but there are barricades all around to turn them back. Then the officers up there will order them to disperse peacefully and they’ll go home having got cold and hungry for nothing.’ Young as she was, Lydia could tell that he was speaking from self-importance rather than experience.
‘Don’t they realize that?’
‘They haven’t the intelligence – and the strike leaders whip them up into hysteria so the few who can think don’t. But if they carry on in this church procession style there won’t be any trouble. Our company is part of the reserve, we’ve been posted all over the city just in case.’
‘Well, you can tell your captain I’m terribly grateful to him, I’d never have got through without you.’
‘I’m sure he’d want me to say that it was a great pleasure to be able to assist a lady, Mademoiselle.’
He saluted with a carefree flourish and prepared to part the crowd once more to return to his post, while Lydia, happy that she had behaved with the ideal modicum of coquetry, set off along the canal bank. The Gribojedeva, named after the playwright, was narrow and ran between high red granite embankments through the heart of the city. Even in summer its water was so still that it seemed dead. Now great baulks of timber were frozen in the ice, although here and there an intrepid party foraging for firewood had prised a log loose with crowbars, leaving jagged lumps to freeze over once more.
The motionless waterway ran in a straight li
ne to join a small river, interrupted by the gaudy pile of the Church of the Bleeding Saviour, an edifice in the traditional style built on the spot where the Tsar Alexander II had been assassinated. This tragedy had taken place in the year of her parents’marriage, and the church, a harshly coloured aberration in the street of gentle browns and russets, always struck Lydia as an ill omen. Halfway to it, on the same bank, was a flat-fronted dun building that was bare of ornamentation and obviously older than the larger constructions with art nouveau bas-reliefs which had sprung up around it. Lydia’s family were squeezed into the low-ceilinged rooms on the top floor.
She remembered that once they had lived on the opposite bank, in the fine red house which had been all theirs. When her father had fallen ill they had sold it, and moved over the still water to the rooms rented by the widow of one of his former business friends. The apartment was so badly arranged that the main room had only one window, and she was glad to have called it home for less than two years.
On the staircase her steps grew less and less brisk as she climbed. Wretched memories sprang out of every doorway, telling her that this was her true home, that the ordered and privileged world of the dance was a silly dream. The real Lydia was an ordinary chit of a girl who laid her head to sleep in a maid’s room under the roof, not the dazzling dancing nymph loaded with bouquets and votive poetry.
She remembered the family’s arrival, a sad caravanserai, grumbling men manoeuvring their furniture through the mean doorway. Her father, wrapped in a quilt, had been carried upstairs like a child. He had glanced into the dizzying depth of the stairwell and her mother had called out, ‘Shura, for heaven’s sake, take care – are you mad? Do you want to make this good man drop you?’ And he had whispered to Lydia as he was set gently down. ‘Next time I’ll be going down in a box, my dear. Maybe I’ll be still enough for her then.’
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