Encore

by Monique Raphel High

  And then she saw Natalia, who was entering the room with her small, quick steps, the same agility of a doe in flight, the same lovely heart-shaped face that had bent over her as a child—the pale beauty that she remembered, the overwhelming brown velvet eyes. She stood up and Pierre saw that she was indeed tall, tall as befitted a Kussov. She threw her arms around his wife with a small cry, and tears streamed down her face as they rocked together back and forth. Then she and Natalia sat down side by side on the sofa, very close like schoolgirls, their fingers intertwined. Still he had not spoken. He felt as though he had intruded on a private scene—two Kussovs meeting—and yet he could do nothing to bridge the gap, to welcome Galina. Her sheer beauty had mesmerized him.

  Tamara’s entrance forced him to react. The little girl burst into the room, calling: “Papa! Mama!” and jumped into Pierre’s arms, her small, firm legs locking around his torso, her laughing face close to his, merry, boisterous.

  “Well, princess!” he ejaculated, and then, looking at Galina, he caught himself, suddenly foolish. “I don’t suppose we should call you that anymore,” he said to Tamara, coloring. “After all, we have a real princess living with us now.”

  But Galina’s blue eyes caught him, and she said: “Come now! We’re old friends by now, you know. Aren’t we, Tama? And besides”—and suddenly her eyes turned to slate, hard and old—“nobody cares anymore about old titles. Prince taxi drivers are just as eager for a tip as all the others.”

  “Nevertheless,” Natalia inserted with a sly grin, “Chaillou is delighted to have a princess under the roof. No one is a greater snob than he.”

  “The household misses the days when Natalia was a countess,” Pierre remarked, bitterness seeping into his tone.

  Galina blushed. “You must ignore Pierre when he turns sourpuss,” Natalia said gently, taking her hand. “You’ll become used to him in minutes. We both looked forward to your coming, dear.”

  “Yes, we did,” Pierre added with forced brightness. But still Galina could not bring herself to look at him. “Well,” he commented and sat down abruptly.

  “I don’t know what to call you,” Galina said in her low, tremulous voice. “It all seems so bizarre, really. All this—luxury—after years in the village, and then in Tbilis and Turkey. I didn’t know that you had remarried, Natalia. And I didn’t know it would be you,” she added lamely, finally regarding Pierre.

  Natalia’s lips worked, and she stroked Galina’s hand with a smooth, soothing gesture. She felt their mutual discomfort, and knew it was up to her to resolve it, to restore ease and flow. “Pierre was an old friend of your uncle,” she began, the words quiet in the hush that ensued. “Long ago, when he graduated from the Academy, he went to see your Uncle Boris—plain Boris, I should say, for you’re not a child anymore. Boris became his sponsor, his mentor, and introduced him to many men of influence that could help a young painter. That was around the time that I met both of them—Pierre and Boris. I met them separately, but we all knew one another, we all had common interests in the ballet, in the arts. When your uncle married me, we didn’t see much of Pierre any longer. Sometimes people go their different ways. It happens especially when they marry and form a home of their own. By odd coincidence, however, Pierre was living in Germany near where we went when I was expecting Arkady. When Boris enlisted in the Division Sauvage, and Arkady was ill and needed to see a doctor specialist in Lausanne, it was Pierre who helped me. He helped Arkady and me out of one of the most difficult situations I have ever found myself a part of—someday I shall tell you about it. But then, when Boris died, when Arkady died, when there was no one at all—Pierre reappeared. And I realized that being his wife was the only thing that made sense now—for the woman I’d become, and for the girl I’d been. I didn’t remarry because I’d forgotten Boris. Actually, I married Pierre for Pierre’s own sake, but also because he’d been Boris’s friend. Does this make sense to you, Galina?”

  Looking at them both on the couch, Pierre saw the same grave expression on their faces, the same tears in their eyes. He wanted to draw near them, to touch them. Galina was saying: “Yes, Natalia. I’m glad for you, that you found Pierre Grigorievitch.”

  She’s a child, still, thought Natalia with quick compassion: a child half the time and a woman old beyond her age the other half. Now she wants to trust, to belong. “You’re part of us, too,” Natalia said. “Don’t ever feel a burden, as you wrote in your letter. First of all, we love you. I loved your mother, I loved you. Pierre wanted to love you when he painted you. And then, let’s be fair: You’re Boris’s niece. Your place is here.”

  “Yes, it is,” Pierre said and was surprised that he meant it, that in his mind’s eye he could see her there, this little girl with the woman’s body, this pathetic little refugee with the bearing of an Olympian goddess. He was surprised above all by his acceptance of this reminder of Boris Kussov, of his appreciation for the heir of his nemesis, the thorn of his life. He lowered Tamara to the floor and went to them then, to the two women, and kneeling in front of them, placed their hands in his own palm, smiling.

  “As long as you don’t pretend to be our daughter, we’ll get along perfectly,” he said. “We’re much too young to be your parents, Galina! What are you, our step-niece? It doesn’t matter now, does it? You’re our friend.”

  “Thank you,” she replied and looked at him seriously, her eyes shining like jewels. He licked his lips and shook his head and started to laugh, all at once conscious of the tension in him.

  Then she laughed too, the woman-child, absurdly joining in. It’s a strange world, Natalia thought: We laugh at the wrong moments, when we’re feeling nervous. “I shall have to take you shopping, my friend,” she said to Galina. “For spring. You, and Tamara.”

  “That’s true, I have no clothes,” Galina replied with an embarrassed giggle.

  But Tamara did not agree. “I’m a child, Mama,” she said earnestly. “Galina’s a lady. You can’t take us both shopping at the same time!”

  “Oh yes, I can!” Natalia countered, and then she shivered, for her own voice had rung clear and forceful in the small room, surprising everyone by its intensity. She rose and took her daughter’s hand, and stood uncertainly by the sofa. “Come, Pierre,” she said gently. “We have to unpack, and Galina needs to regain her bearings in this strange household.”

  Chapter 26

  Pierre reveled in this new decade, the 1920s. He had felt uncomfortable in St. Petersburg, where Diaghilev’s intimates had tended to be highborn and admitted to court, thereby revealing to him his own lack of sophistication. He had been very young, with raw talent and tongue-tied emotionalism. Now, in his late thirties, he had acquired a certain polish—not of the perfect gentleman, or of Boris Kussov’s eclectic Renaissance prince, but rather a stylistic conscience that expressed itself primarily in his work but also in his dealings with other people. He had gained in stature. He felt totally at ease within his medium, knew where he was going and how far he could tempt fate into accepting new forms. Neither a Dadaist nor a cubist, he was able to maintain his own perspective, his own style, at all times and in each endeavor. Diaghilev had helped give him confidence. But now, at thirty-eight, Pierre had achieved self-integration such that he no longer needed the Ballets Russes to bolster his reputation. In the Europe of the twenties the works of Riazhin were as appreciated as those of Derain, Picasso, Utrillo, Modigliani. His contributions to the Ballets Russes were therefore less frequent, and his relationship with Diaghilev had reached that level of near-equality that characterized Serge Pavlovitch’s dealings with Larionov, Bakst, and Benois—when they were not on the outs with the impresario.

  Above all, he loved Parisian life. More and more, while Natalia worked in London on the new version of The Sleeping Beauty, renamed The Sleeping Princess, to be shown to the British that coming winter of 1921-22, Pierre took small trips to Paris to see his daughter and immerse himself in the artistic atmosphere there. His lack of formal education, which Nat
alia had obtained through the Imperial School of Ballet, no longer bothered him. Boris had given him a large enough base from which to build his own aesthetic. In fact, Pierre had said to Galina: ‘The problem with Boris was that he was too knowledgeable. There was no area of intellectual life with which he was not totally familiar. At his fingertips lay the wealth of the ages. How, then, could such a man ever hope to create, to form his own way through this morass of superlatives? I’m luckier—I know less and therefore can make up my own mind. There’s less clutter, and I feel less dwarfed by comparison with centuries of worthier artists.” Instead of the past, which Boris had revered, Pierre felt that today was what mattered—the changing world, the changing art, the changing morality.

  He had become accustomed to Galina’s presence in the house on the Avenue Bugeaud and had come to regard her as a part of the family. Or almost. There was still a strange aura that surrounded her for him, and which created a distance between them, unbridged by words. When he came to Paris, he would burst into the house, a whirlwind of gay energy, and sweep into Tamara’s room, uttering Georgian words of endearment that delighted the little girl. Often Galina would be there, quietly playing a game with the child. Pierre would become conscious of her presence, unobtrusive but not quite retiring, and he would feel before he saw those great eyes on him. Her habit of looking at him, frankly appraising him in her serious manner, disturbed him, although deep down he felt a flicker of pleasure. He was not certain why she regarded him this way, but after an initial resentment and defensiveness he had begun to feel flattered by the attention.

  When she looked at him from the corner of Tamara’s room, he would put the child down with self-consciousness, a red flush rising to his cheeks. “Ah, our little princess,” he would say in a bantering voice intended to dispel his own uneasiness, quick defiance kindling in his black eyes. Instead, what he wanted to say was: What’s there to stare at? He did not seem able to forget the fact that she belonged to one of the oldest aristocratic families of Russia; in her presence he could not help feeling plebeian, as though her being there cast the shadow of his humbler roots on his present standing. When he was prey to these emotions, he actually found himself disliking Galina. But he could not blame the girl for a problem that was not her fault—and something about her touched him, so that he expressed his insecurities only through veiled teasing. “We have a real princess living with us now, you understand,” he had murmured in jest to the painter Derain. “So I must watch my table manners.” Both Galina and Natalia found these jokes embarrassing, for different reasons.

  Natalia knew that when Pierre behaved like this around Galina, he was taking revenge on her uncle, Boris. She was ashamed for his sake. He was demeaning himself in everyone’s eyes by speaking this way. But to Galina, these references to her birth were a source of pain. Her family had died, horribly murdered, and the Stassov and Kussov names were now ridiculous reminders of how little the past had to do with the present. Calling attention to her being a princess only underscored the fact that she was penniless and poorly educated, a relic of a lost civilization, the last living member of an obsolete, extinct species. She did not understand why Pierre resented her or her family. But she did feel his insecurity, and after the hurt had worn off the first few times, she felt pity for him, and even wonder. Why wasn’t he completely at ease? After all, he was one of the foremost painters of the day, a great man—and, she was convinced, a true genius.

  Pierre spent only enough time with Galina to acquire an impression of her. When he was in Paris with Natalia, the young girl spent her time with his wife. Endless hours, he sometimes thought, with bewilderment and irritation. Natalia’s relationship with her niece had sprung up so suddenly that it had taken him aback. His wife had never had close female friends. Katya had been simpleminded, more of a burden than a confidante; and Lydia Brailovskaya had been a model, whose wry wit and worldliness Natalia had looked up to. Nina Stassova had been dear to her because of Boris, and because of her essential kindness—no one could have disliked Nina, not even Pierre himself when he most bitterly resented the Kussovs. But Galina had come into Natalia’s life and taken root there, like an edelweiss on a barren mountain slope.

  For Natalia, Galina had calmly opened the door and entered the room of her heart: a familiar and loved person from the beginning. The girl had come to them at fifteen. Quiet, steadfast, she nevertheless had impressed Natalia with her wisdom, the sort that can only come from life itself, from adaptation and resolution. The older woman was reminded of herself at that age—the age when she had first danced the Sugar Plum Fairy at the Mariinsky. Galina’s experiences in the Caucasus village, then with the tziganes in Tbilis and later in Constantinople, had matured her early, marking her with indelible scars. There had been no one to help her, no person on whom to rely. Natalia essentially understood what Galina must be feeling: She had felt the same way herself.

  Yet there was another side to Galina, equally important but totally contrasting. She had been born an aristocrat, with centuries of breeding flowing through her veins. For the first eleven years of her life, years that Natalia had spent growing up like a weed on the Crimean farm, Galina had lived like a fairytale princess, reared by a German governess and surrounded by works of art, priceless and unique. She had seen the Ballet and spoke the flawless French and German of the Russian nobility. She could play the piano, not elaborately but the proper way, her knowledge of the instrument built on a sound foundation. All of Galina Stassova had been built on a sound base: a base of good taste, quality, and refinement. Life had come later, superimposing its harshness over this base, but never destroying it. More of Boris was in his niece than what had so obviously been stenciled on her oval face.

  Natalia did not feel disloyal when the thought came to her that, truly, Galina represented a perfect merging of herself and Boris. Had Arkady lived, he would have been like Galina: fine, intelligent, discriminating, with an awareness of life’s ironies and the ability to cope with them. Tamara, on the other hand, was a spoiled little plebeian. Natalia could not help noticing the difference, but it enabled her to love her more by understanding her better. Galina had come to them a lady born and bred, but without the advantages that Tamara took for granted. But Tamara would never be a lady. And neither shall I, her mother thought wryly.

  Pierre had discerned Galina’s innate breeding, and after his initial resentment he had come to be fascinated by it. The girl was so unassuming! She fit into the house like a bright, beautiful object, shy but observant, her mind always working. The few times he had truly engaged her in conversation beyond a humorous query here and there, he had found her intelligent, with a mind of her own, clear and curious. Once in a while she made a remark that startled him: an ironic comment that came unexpectedly into the conversation, a reflection on life that seemed too hard, too precise, for someone so young and so gentle. Galina usually reminded Pierre of Nina, her mother. But when the rare dry comments fell, he could not help but think of Boris.

  Pierre had begun to feel vaguely jealous of Galina. Natalia spent so much time with this girl, who, after all, was no direct relation. There was such an easy communication between them, whereas between him and Natalia there had always been an undercurrent of strife, even at the beginning. Galina was a little sister to Natalia, an older sister to Tamara. Natalia had hired a tutor to fill the gap in Galina’s education, which had come to such an abrupt halt in her eleventh year. A music master also came, and Natalia herself had begun to coach Galina in dance. In a sense, she was repaying a debt to Boris through the girl.

  And yet sometimes Pierre caught a flicker of amusement in Galina’s serious eyes. All at once he thought he understood her better than his wife did, and he was brought up short, and at the same time excited. Galina was indulging Natalia out of affection, but she was already beyond this, beyond adolescence. She was a woman who had lived through an inferno of her own, and who did not care whether it was Aristotle or Aristophanes who had written a play called The Fr
ogs. He looked at her and smiled. She did not know why, but it seemed to her then that a sympathy had sprung up between them, that they had found a piece of common ground.

  It had been so easy for Natalia, Tamara, and the servants. Galina’s role in their lives had defined itself. But between her and Pierre there was an unspoken barrier of the uncomfortable unknown. At thirty-one, Natalia could hardly have been Galina’s mother. But at thirty-eight, Pierre could definitely have been her father. She did not know how to treat him and did not feel at ease in this roleless position. Everyone else “belonged,” played a part. Yet in his own house he was an outsider—once again. He could not help feeling a surge of antipathy toward both Galina and Natalia: They were locking him out, not defining his place in their relationship. And yet he liked Galina, in a strange way. He might have resented some aspects of her presence, but not her presence itself.

  In August of 1921, just before Galina turned sixteen, Pierre felt that he could no longer bear the oppressive heat of London, where he had been working with Leon Bakst on The Sleeping Princess. Bakst, it seemed to him, had never recovered from the bitter aftermath of his quarrel with Diaghilev over the scenery for La Boutique Fantasque. He had become more sensitive, more irritable. Since Pierre had eventually taken over the commission for the Boutique decors, Bakst had been on edge with him, too. But Pierre was also annoyed because there was never any time to be alone with Natalia: Whenever they drove into the countryside, they would return to find Diaghilev in front of their suite at the Claridge, distraught over some problem or other. It had not seemed worth Pierre’s time to stay in the heat, caught between differing sets of ill humor. A short trip home was in order, a change of atmosphere.