“Yes, he is a Parisian—and I do so love foreigners!” Tania cried.
Her Uncle David ignored her. “Jean was all the more lucky, for by 1905 new restrictions had been imposed, regulations that did not exist when I was in the Uhlans at Lomzha. I was, as the British say, an officer and a gentleman. So was your father, Tania. But Jean, because he is a Jew and would have served after the new ruling, could not have received a commission. Gino, as a second son, will have to be a simple soldier.”
Mathilde shivered. “He is still a child,” she said stiffly.
“And children are uninteresting,” Tania added, nodding conspiratorially at her aunt. “Let us talk of how we shall entertain Jean. Was he not to have visited us once before?”
“The pogrom curtailed his trip,” Mathilde said quietly, looking at Sonia as Tania blushed and bit her lip. “Now he is making up for lost time. At twenty-six he will fit right into your group of young people, although he is our first cousin—mine, and your father’s, and your Uncle Sasha’s. He is only three years older than Ossip.” Mathilde smiled at her daughter, hoping to see a spark of excitement light up her features. But Sonia’s expression did not change.
“Sonia is far too serious for a man like Jean,” Tania interposed. “He was my pet in Kiev. I wonder if he remembers me at all?”
“My love, you would clout the man that might forget you,” Ossip stated. His cousin threw an embroidered cushion at him, and he deftly avoided it by moving his head out of the way, and the cushion landed only inches away from the tea tray. Mathilde regarded her niece severely, and Tania looked away, playing with a ruby ring upon one of her slender fingers. “Poor Jean…” Ossip moaned.
Jean de Gunzburg, tall, elegant, his black hair waving and his blue eyes alert, was to divide his stay in the Russian capital between the homes of his two cousins, David and Sasha. He was warmly welcomed by Mathilde, but when he saw Sonia, his face became gentle with remembrance. “Jean,” she said, and held out her hands to him. He thought: She has become as lovely as a porcelain figurine, delicate and fine—but who has robbed her of her gaiety? He kissed her, as one would kiss a favored young sister. When he saw Ossip, who matched him in sartorial good taste, he could not help feeling the same letdown. Here was a young man, laughing, telling amusing stories, complimenting the ladies, yet without excitement, without life. What had taken the joy from these two beautiful young people?
Although the first part of his stay was to be with David and Mathilde, Rosa de Gunzburg gave a splendid dinner in his honor shortly after his arrival. He entered with his cousins, and there, on the threshold, stood Tatiana, her hair a mass of golden ringlets, her throat aglow with rubies, her gown crimson to match. He sucked in his breath.
“Well?” she cried, and pirouetted for him. “Have I changed?”
“You are a woman now,” Jean declared. He could not remove his eyes from her lush figure.
During dinner they sat side by side, and she spoke to him in small gulps, gazing at him over the rim of her champagne glass through half-closed eyes. He thought: She is spoiled and a damned nuisance. But he could not take his eyes from her. His own body felt alive with desire. A nineteen-year-old brat, and he with Mademoiselle Singer and Madeleine Hirsch each awaiting marriage proposals in Paris… He did not need an entanglement such as this, for he knew women like Tania. His mother, Henriette de Gunzburg, had been one of them—splendid to behold, avaricious in the extreme, and with only financial interest at heart. She had arrived in Paris an orphan from Vienna without benefit of dowry. His father, Baron Solomon de Gunzburg, had married her, wild with love. But once she had acquired his name and fortune, Henriette had abandoned him for a string of lovers. Jean de Gunzburg did not like his mother, and he admitted to himself that he did not like Tania either. He had not even liked her as a child, in Kiev. Why then did he have this sudden uncontrollable urge to crush her against him here and now, before all the guests in attendance?
During the days that followed, Jean discovered that Tania haunted his thoughts. David and Mathilde took him with their three children to the Mariinsky Theater, which was hung with blue and silver velvet, to hear Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, Sadko. They occupied a private box, with six chairs and a small hallway at the back, where their capes and boots were deposited, and where refreshments were served when ordered. When the first act was over, David handed Jean his opera glasses, and the young man looked around the theater, admiring the elegance of the ladies. All at once he saw Tania, a small tiara of pearls in her pompadour, her shoulders daringly bare, diamonds at the throat. He began to quiver.
“We often run across the street to Dumas’, the French sweet shop, during the intermission, to buy boxes of sweetmeats for the ladies,” Ossip murmured to him. “Will you accompany me? I have just spotted Nina Mikhailovna Tobias, Sonia’s friend.”
“I have seen someone, too,” the young Frenchman said. They rose, bowed to Mathilde and Sonia, and dashed out with their top hats. When they had purchased their gifts, Ossip asked, “Shall I go with you? Or would you prefer to go alone?”
“Go to Nina Mikhailovna, Ossip,” Jean declared. He directed his footsteps toward the opposite side of the theater, where he had noticed Tania. He entered her box and heard gay laughter. She was surrounded by young men, and was holding five boxes of French sweets in her lap. He was about to leave, feeling foolish, but she had spotted him. She jumped up, upsetting the candies on the floor. “Jean!” she exclaimed, and ran to him in tiny doelike steps. “I hoped you would come. What have you brought me?”
“My heart,” he said lightly, and she cocked her head to one side and examined him shrewdly. Then she began to laugh.
“My Mama always told me that one cannot survive on love and rosewater,” she said. “I shall keep your heart, but now I am hungry. I prefer your bonbons!”
The bell sounded, and Jean turned red, feeling like a child caught in a foolish act. “It was nice to see you, Tania,” he said. Impulsively, he took one of her hands and raised it to his lips. “Tomorrow evening Sonia and Ossip have planned a drive. Would you join us?”
In answer, she merely fluttered her eyelashes. He left the box, his temples pounding, angry with himself for his reaction.
The following evening, in the snow, Jean de Gunzburg held little Tania’s hand as the troika glided over the Nevsky Prospect. And when Sonia and Ossip were engaged in a conversation of their own, she turned her pert face to him and offered him her lips, full and red. He kissed her quickly but with passion, and when the kiss was over he felt like a prisoner, and did not know whether to be happy or sad about this golden girl who was captivating his senses.
A week later, Rosa de Gunzburg said to Mathilde, “I shall not be able to ask Jean to stay with us. I think that he has fallen in love with Tania. If it’s true, he must declare himself before I can allow them to sleep under the same roof. It would be improper. Will you keep him?”
“Certainly,” Mathilde replied. “He is charming, and would make her a fine husband. But I do not think he would propose before speaking to his mother first.”
“I suppose not,” Rosa sighed. But her cheeks were abnormally red, and her raven eyes glimmered with unusual life.
Tania’s eyes were even brighter these days. She threw herself on Sonia’s bed one afternoon, sighing. “I am so afraid of losing him,” she whispered, and tears came to her eyes. “I love him so, my heart cannot bear our moments apart. Have you ever felt this way about anyone, Sonia? But no, of course you haven’t! If you had, we would have heard of it, would we not?”
Her cousin stiffened. “Yes,” she murmured, “you would have heard of it. But I am glad for you, Tania. Jean is trustworthy, and good, and already part of our family. You will be happy with him, always.”
Tania sat up abruptly and smiled at Sonia. “I have been a fool all my life!” she cried. “Wanting fortune, and glitter. Not reading the books I should. Being rude to you. You are an angel, Sonia, and now that I am happy, I want to share it with you! J
ean and I are going to be married, I am sure of it—and you will be my bridesmaid, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Sonia said. She placed her slender arms about her cousin and hugged her. Yet she felt a pang of unbearable pain, and she bit her lower lip to keep a sob from rising from her chest.
Toward the end of Jean’s visit, Mathilde and her daughter conferred.
“I am amazed at Tatiana,” Sonia said. “She has been transformed. Perhaps Ossip and I never really gave her a chance. Jean has been truly remarkable for her. Today, when she ripped her gown and Marfa repaired it during tea, Tania gave her several kopeks without having to be reminded, and she didn’t ask Aunt Rosa for the money. It is as though he has opened a dam, and goodness is flowing through her.”
“We must encourage them,” Mathilde agreed. “Let’s give a ball in Jean’s honor. All of Petersburg whispers of the oncoming engagement… and Jean has not yet attended a ball here.”
Jean was dazzled by the intricate figures of the mazurka and the cotillion. After he had fulfilled his social obligations to the other ladies, he monopolized Tania until the early morning hours. She is so lucky, Sonia thought. Ossip was slightly jealous, for his cousin Tania seemed to have virtually forgotten his existence, and had not once tossed a frivolous remark in his direction. Instead, she whispered to the young Frenchman, “I am hopelessly enthralled with you. Everybody knows it. Are you pleased with your conquest?”
Jean was taken aback. He stammered something, then looked at Tania’s small full figure, at her apricot complexion, and her blue eyes fringed with curling lashes. He was speechless. He felt her tremble in his arms. “I am more than pleased,” he murmured, beside himself with emotion. At twenty-six, he was an experienced man of the world, acccustomed to the demimondaines of Paris nightclubs. Yet the desire he felt for Tania overwhelmed his sense of reality.
Mathilde invited her niece to accompany her, Johanna de Mey, Sonia, Ossip, and Jean to the ballet, for before Jean’s departure he had to witness this wonderful Russian display of grace. In Paris, during the intermission at the opera, a group of twenty girls would execute a dance, but nobody bothered to watch them. Diaghilev, it was true, had made a successful tour in France, but his dancers had been clad in full costume, and Jean had heard that in St. Petersburg the Imperial troupe wore tutus.
At intermission, Jean took Tania aside. “I have a gift for you,” he said.
While she opened the elongated satin box he watched her, wetting his lips. She made an “o” with her red mouth, and removed a watch bracelet of blue enamel, with diamonds all around the face. “It was made by Fabergé, the Tzar’s jeweler,” he said softly. She threw her arms about his neck, and in the box her aunt, cousins, and Johanna de Mey watched her uninhibited display of enthusiasm. Tatiana showed them her present and exclaimed; “I have never received anything like it! I shall wear it always, Jean! Oh—I do love you!”
When he departed from St. Petersburg, Jean de Gunzburg carried away the memory of the small girl with the golden hair, waving to him from the station. During the long trip home, he could not rid himself of the restless passion which this memory evoked in him. He would have to speak to his mother, Baroness Henriette. Girls such as Tania, once awakened, never fade in their ardor, and he was certain that to possess such a girl for life would be like feasting upon delicacies until his dying day.
In St. Petersburg, girls came to Baron Alexander de Gunzburg’s sumptuous apartment to help Tania pass the time until Jean’s first letter arrived. And, in the meantime, Jean reached Paris and went to see his mother.
He saw his mother, and as he perfunctorily kissed her cheek, a chill pervaded him. He felt numb with dislike, then nauseated. To have considered a wife like her… How could he thus have taken leave of his senses? That evening he called upon Mademoiselle Singer, and brought her red roses.
When Mikhail de Gunzburg, his cousin who had moved to Paris after that terrible day in Kiev, asked him how his trip had been, Jean shrugged lightly and smiled. “I saw the ballet and rode in a troika, and kissed a pretty girl. What else is there to add, Misha? I am back, for good. And I am glad.”
After a while, the girls stopped asking Tatiana about the mail. She hurled the enamel watch against her mother’s china cabinet. The undercook retrieved it for herself, and wore it each Sunday, though it no longer kept time. Sonia, in her own bed, cried, thinking of broken things that could not be mended.
In the spring, Ossip was granted his diploma, and received his official post in his uncle’s bank. Nobody spoke of Jean, or of his visit, and Sasha and Rosa made a great fuss over Ossip’s future and his prospects. One evening, when the weather was balmy, Ossip knocked on his sister’s door, and found her reading and eating fruit. Biting into a plum, he announced; “You have won, Sonitchka! I am tired of this aimless existence. Tomorrow, I shall ask Nina Mikhailovna for her hand in marriage.”
“Oh, Ossip!” his sister cried. Then, reddening, she stammered, “But I am not the one who is supposed to win! In this you must think of yourself. Nina is my best friend, but anyone you choose would be my friend, too.”
“You did not always say that,” he commented tersely.
“It is useless to dredge up the past,” she flung back at him. “But if you really want Nina—then I am certain that you shall be happy.”
But when Ossip returned home the following day, he encountered Nina with Sonia and Mathilde, in the sitting room. Irina Markovna Tobias, Nina’s mother, was sitting beside the girl in a rare moment of affection. Ossip regarded his sister, and saw her look of pain and embarrassment. He was mystified, and came into the room, smiling. He bowed over Irina Markovna’s bony hand, kissed his mother’s cheek, his sister’s forehead, and finally came to Nina, who sat blushing. Taking her hand in his, he declared; “You look very happy today, Nina Mikhailovna. And very lovely.”
“She has good reason,” his mother stated. “Ossip—Nina has come to us to announce her engagement, to Zenia Abelson. They are to be married this fall! Is that not wonderful news, darling?”
“Zenia Abelson? Why, I had no idea you even knew him!” Ossip burst out, turning pale. “Sonia never told me!”
“It was only a casual courtship, Ossip Davidovitch,” the young girl replied. “I am twenty-two, and ready for marriage. Zenia is a good man.”
“And that is enough to make you become Madame Abelson?” he cried, outraged.
“Ossip!” his mother interposed, blushing.
“If he were a prince, or a count, I could read your ambition!” the young man said bitterly. “But simply Zenia Abelson…”
“He will be a good, decent husband,” Nina replied, looking away. “And he truly loves me.” Her brown eyes, with their flecks of gold, fell upon his bright blue ones. Their eloquence shook him. He ran his fingers through his hair, scratched his chin, and then adjusted his cravat and bowed before her.
“Forgive me, Nina Mikhailovna,” he stated, his poise resumed. “I wish you all the luck, and all the love. You deserve more than some could offer, and I hope that Zenia will come to you with filled heart.”
“He came last week,” she said simply.
“He was most well timed,” Ossip replied.
Several evenings later, Ossip came to supper at his aunt and uncle’s house, and immediately noticed Tania’s absence. Rosa turned red. “She has not been well recently,” she said. “But perhaps if you would visit her… You might cheer her up. She needs good cheer, my dear.”
“I need it, too,” the young man stated. When they finished dessert, he made his way to the upper floor where Tatiana’s rooms were. It was warm but he could see a fire burning in the hearth of her sitting room. He knocked on the opened door, and heard her mournful reply. Then he saw her, lying on embroidered pillows near the fire, her blond hair in disarray, her unexpectedly drab gown wrinkled around her legs. “Tanitchka,” he murmured.
“I did not want to be seen,” she stated. But he moved toward her, and took a seat next to her upon the floo
r. She held her hands out toward the flames, and there were blue circles under her eyes. A surge of compassion flooded him. He took her frigid fingers in his warm hands and began to rub them.
“It’s no good, no good, Tanitchka,” he remonstrated gently. “No one is worth this self-destruction. Not you, sweetheart. For you are our bright bird, our peacock!”
But she shook her head. “Once,” she remarked in a dull voice. “I thought I loved you, Ossip.”
“And it was very nice, that pretense of love. I enjoyed the attention. But I knew it was not serious.”
“Was your heart ever broken, Ossip?” she queried.
He gazed deeply into her small pale face. “Yes,” he answered.
“And you have not loved since?”
“No,” he said, continuing to rub her fingers. “But then, I am a fool. I am afraid of life, afraid of hurts. Do not spend your days like me, Tania.”
She searched his face, and her eyes brightened slightly. “You all thought I was nothing but a selfish child,” she commented. “I am sure you were all correct in your estimation. Is that why he left me, Ossip?”
He shrugged. “Sweet, I do not know. In all honesty. Sometimes people think they feel one way, because of the magic of the occasion. Then they return to their natural habitat, and decide it was an illusion. I am certain that he did care, and that if he left, if he did this to you, it was only because he found himself lacking, and did not want you to feel cheated someday.”
They sat silently by the fire. Ossip suddenly turned to her, and she to him. He took her face in his hands, and kissed her lips. Her arms went round his neck and then dropped. He moved away. “It’s not right,” he murmured. “But it’s up to you. If you want me to marry you, I shall.”
She began to cry. “No,” she said. “We are both in love with other people, and we are too different. You are easy, I am driving. I would turn into a shrew, and you would grow more passive. Soon we would hate each other, always at odds. I need a dominating husband, and you need a girl who can live sufficiently for two, to bring you out of yourself. We are strange people, you and I.”
The Four Winds of Heaven Page 33