Encore

by Monique Raphel High

  “You’re mad,” he said, gaping at her. “Quite mad.”

  She uttered a small laugh. “No,” she answered. “I’m saner than you are. You’re the greatest fool of them all, Pierre Riazhin. Don’t you see? Don’t you see at all that Boris is winning after all, you stupid man? A Kussov is going to enter your bed, is taking over your life. That’s what he wanted, more than anything else in the world! Can’t you hear him laughing at you from the grave? That’s what comes of playing games with a master, when you’re only an inept amateur.”

  When his hand reached the doorknob, she said, suddenly very cold: “If, however, you wake up to a life that doesn’t suit you, I shall expect better behavior out of you than I received. You will not flaunt your other women, Pierre—not to Galina! She will never be subjected to the same humiliation to which you submitted me, for it isn’t in her to overlook them. Don’t hurt her, Pierre. Don’t you dare hurt her.”

  When he left the room, her eyes were dry, and her lips were twisted into a grimace of complete disdain.

  Chapter 29

  You were right after all,” Natalia wrote on the back of one of her visiting cards to Stuart Markham, who had taken up residence at the Ritz. “The world is filled with toys that don’t work, beginning with myself.”

  In the wake of the disaster with Pierre she spent no time delving into the whys and wherefores. It was simply over, a part of her life had ended, the way it had when Boris and Arkady had died, leaving her alone. But now she was at the helm of her own ship, in spite of the terrible storm that threatened to drown her. This time she was at the peak of her career, whereas then she had been far removed from the world of dance which made her function.

  She threw herself into the creation of ballets with a new frenzy. She needed her work, hung onto it for sanity, to sustain her battered self-esteem. It was most difficult not to think of Galina. In her boudoir Natalia could not avoid the thoughts, the pain, the bitterness, the feeling of rebellion against what had happened. Galina! She had loved her, educated her, confided in her as in no one before or since. Once Boris had understood Natalia without words. Later it had been his niece. But then, Galina had not fully understood Natalia, for if she had, she would have known how very much, beneath the surface anger, Natalia had loved Pierre and needed him. No, Galina had stopped short of understanding. She had stopped short in order to feel justified in allowing what had happened to…happen.

  Galina had passed judgment on Natalia and blamed her, and then placed her own needs first because of Natalia’s mistakes.

  Galina came to see her one afternoon, and Chaillou said to Natalia, averting his eyes and coughing slightly: “The princess wishes to see you, Madame. What shall I tell her?”

  Natalia eyed him levelly and replied: “Tell her to go to hell and not to return. This isn’t her home any longer.”

  The old butler departed, his head wobbling like that of an ancient marionette. Natalia went to the window, parted the curtains, and looked out. Dressed in a tailored linen dress, Galina was emerging from the front stoop, her left hand over her face, the right across her breast. “Cry, then,” Natalia said sarcastically, but as soon as the tall figure disappeared behind a clump of maples, her own tears came and her face twisted with blind yearning—for her or for him, she was not certain.

  It was a strange adjustment. She wandered through the house, hating it for its emptiness, for the closets that held no remnants of his suits, none of her dresses. She searched for Galina’s creams, for Pierre’s pots of paint—and yet, deep inside, she knew that if she had found those small traces, she would have thrown them out of the window, would have sent them crashing to the floor. But still—not to have left her the slightest memento—something tangible to hate—that was the supreme insult on their part, and her frustration was nerve-rending and crimson in its vehemence.

  She realized that she could not continue this way, that she must somehow pull herself together. There was her work. But how to avoid him—or how, on the contrary, not to avoid him, to search his face for clues as to what he was feeling, hoping that he would be missing her, and yet, defying all the rules, also hoping that he would make Galina happy, because in spite of everything, Galina’s happiness mattered? Crazy, crazy thoughts. Natalia squeezed her hands together until the knuckles had gone very white, until the nails had gashed the soft skin. Damn her, damn them both!

  At first the Riazhin scandal sent ripples of shock into the artists of the Ballet. Natalia went among them with her head held high, trying to smile. But everybody talked, whispered, wondered. Nobody knew how to behave. Smooth and debonaire, Diaghilev placed a hand on her arm and said: “Don’t worry, my dear. We have no Riazhin productions on the books for the winter season.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if you had,” Natalia countered dryly. “For me he simply doesn’t exist.”

  “He has burned all his bridges behind him, it appears,” the impresario said.

  “He’s a stupid man,” Natalia commented. But she wondered: Have they all turned against him because of me? Or is there more to it? Serge Pavlovitch has never liked me, and he does like Pierre.

  Tamara was beginning to be a problem. One day, retaliating after a punishment, she burst into tears and cried: “Oh, it’s your fault, I hate you. It’s all because of you that Papa and Galina have left us, that they don’t want to live with us anymore! They hate you, too!” Her words tore deeply into Natalia’s heart.

  That winter she took Tamara to Monte Carlo and set to work on a new ballet called Les Biches. It was a modern Sylphides, with no plot save that of flirtation among the idle, fashionable classes. Her young people teased and played in their pastel-colored outfits, gracefully belying the seriousness of life. Oh, Galina, Natalia thought bitterly, why didn’t you tease and play with the casual ease of your generation?

  Before leaving Paris she had signed the divorce agreement, which guaranteed her custody of her daughter against her promise not to contest the proceedings. She had heard that Pierre was renting a small apartment for Galina on the Île-St.-Louis so that she would be close to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and that he himself was living in a studio in Montpamasse. Ah, so he had not yet taken her as his official mistress, Natalia had thought. He had had no such compunctions where she herself had been concerned, in Lausanne. Then he had moved into her house, purchased with Boris’s money, and had fathered Tamara out of wedlock as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  Suddenly Natalia felt old, abused, emptied of all illusion and hope. Where had they all gone, the dreams and the promises that she had once held in the palm of her hand, promises fashioned by the optimism of youth and ambition? She had achieved stardom, had collected the bouquets and reappeared for endless curtain calls. But once she had wanted the unknowable glory of tomorrow. Now it was Galina who felt this way, Galina who wore Boris’s pearls around her neck, who wore Pierre’s love around her heart. Galina had also stolen from Natalia that marvelous quality of expectation. Rage shook Natalia—impotent rage. Life didn’t bring its promised gifts; instead, it robbed one even of the will to hope.

  She returned to Paris in the late spring, feeling aggravated and weary and hopeless. Chaillou had kept the house going beautifully, and all the vases had been filled with spring flowers. But the old butler too seemed sad, listless. I have tried, Natalia thought. I’ve worked and I’ve parented and I’ve entertained, but still the core of me is burned out, dry as bone or ashes.

  Chaillou brought her tea in the small parlor and her mail on a silver tray. Tucking her feet underneath her, she slit open the envelope from her lawyer. The final divorce was about to be pronounced. Could it be that almost a year had passed already? Natalia let the paper slip to the floor and held onto her china cup with shaking fingers. Ah well, old girl, you knew it was in the offing. But there was such a sense of the irrevocable, of the official now. What do I do? she thought. Where do I go?

  On the morning of the divorce hearing she dressed carefully, finally deciding o
n a tubular navy dress that displayed her slenderness and her appeal. It was not truly the color of mourning, but almost. She selected a broad-brimmed hat adorned with a large navy ribbon and set off. Think about something else, Natalia, she admonished herself. Don’t think about seeing him, what that may do to your precarious sanity. Don’t wonder if she’ll be there. Oh, damn, why didn’t I ask Stuart to come with me? Stuart may not love me anymore, but he cares, he’s my friend.

  At the courthouse she mounted the steps, feeling caught up in something beyond her control, beyond her understanding. The May sunshine filtered through the dirty casement windows, but it was chilly inside the marble rooms. Am I in someone else’s ballet, dancing steps I don’t know? she wondered. She could feel panic swelling within her, pushing upward, upward. She went to the bench outside the hearing room and sat down, clutching her thin alligator bag. Her solicitor walked up, shook her hand—am I not pretty enough to him to kiss it?—and she stood up next to him, finding it difficult to breathe normally.

  She felt him before seeing him, as she had done so many times before during their life together. Life together: What a farce that had been! she thought with a sudden surge of hatred. She looked up then, her lips parted over her handsome, even teeth, a female animal provoked. He was mounting the steps alone, in a gray suit, his gold watch chain elegantly dangling from one vest pocket to the other. There were slight pouches beneath his dark eyes. He seemed ill at ease, like a boy in man’s clothing.

  When he caught her regarding him, he stood in position, his body awkwardly rigid. Suddenly, stupidly, tears began to form in her eyes, and she swallowed hard, seeking to dispel them before they could fall. Tamara’s father, her beloved father. Goddamn him to hell for all eternity.

  “Natalia,” he said stiffly, at length walking up to her.

  “Pierre.” Her eyes said, outraged: Leave me alone! What do you want?

  “Natalia.”The awkwardness persisted. He chewed on his lower lip, fumbled with his signet ring. She noticed that he was no longer wearing his wedding band and thought with quick, self-directed anger: But I, the fool, am still wearing mine!

  “Well?” she said sarcastically. “What is this message that ties your tongue in knots?”

  “I’m sorry,” he stammered, reddening. “That’s all, really, Natalia. I didn’t mean for it to be this way between us.”

  She shrugged and raised her eyebrows. “How else could it be? Did you hope for my blessing?”

  “Don’t. Don’t tease the wounds the way you always do. I just wanted to say—it’s sad, isn’t it, the death of a marriage?”

  “Tragic. So said Henry VIII when word reached him of the execution of Anne Boleyn. And so much for clichés. You were never good with words, my dear.”

  They were silent, her face alive with resentment, his with acute discomfort. At length he said, almost shyly: “Natalia, she misses you. I wanted you to know that. Sometimes she wakes up crying in the night—”

  An ironic light glinted in her eyes then, and they widened. “So the chaste interlude has come to an end,” she murmured, the corners of her mouth turning upward. “Bravo, mon cher. Virgins have always been your specialty, haven’t they? Beginning with me.”

  His face had become congested. “Shut up, Natalia!” he cried. “Don’t be vulgar! If you’re so curious, then I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you all about it, so that you won’t judge her this way when she doesn’t deserve it. She’s terribly lonely, Natalia, and she’s a mess of nerves because of you, thinking she’s the cause of your pain. She felt so guilty that she hasn’t been able to sleep, to function properly. And so I’ve spent a few nights in her living room, to be with her when she awakened, to make certain she was all right.”

  “How touching! I’m gratified that one of you still has a conscience. It’s also nice to know I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. And were you there to hold my hand, Pierre? Did you ever hold my hand? Do you remember the night of Tamara’s birth? Did you even feel the slightest twinge of guilt that time?”

  “Why bring this up now?”

  “Because you make me sick, that’s why,” she replied, placing her hands over her throat to contain her exploding hatred. She could feel the cords standing out on her neck, knew that she had started to sob, that more sobs were coming that seemed to scream out of her like a siren, a siren that continued even though she was certain she had shut her mouth. The solicitor was kneeling in front of her, holding her arms, and still she was shouting something, she couldn’t hear what—

  Pierre had disappeared into the hearing room, and the lawyer was repeating gently: “Come now, it’s our turn.”

  To make her life worse, Natalia ran into problems with Diaghilev. He had set to work rehearsing a new ballet, The Blue Train; his mind could not remain for long on a certain style, and now he appeared to chase each new trend, seizing on the modern to the detriment of substance. This was an acrobatic ballet to display the charms of his new lover, Anton Dolin—and so she was parodying the sports of the twenties, as she had parodied the party habits of its young generation in Les Biches. Diaghilev had commissioned one of his friends, the couturière Chanel, to make up the bathing costumes, since the action was taking place on the beach.

  She could feel the director’s cold eyes on her during the rehearsals, and then the quick glances to her star, Dolin. With a start she thought: Of course! He wants Anton to take over my position. He has always wanted to turn his dancers into choreographers—the ones who slept with him, that is. She clenched her fists and took a deep breath to calm the angry feelings inside her.

  She did not have much time left before the première on June 20. But she had problems in her private life. Since the divorce, a terrible nervousness had beset her. She could not sleep and her stomach would not digest a single morsel. At odd times her hands would start to shake, and sometimes she could not control her speech and uttered choppy phrases of garbled words. She was plagued with blinding headaches. But with the inevitability of the oceans’ tides, deadlines pressed upon her. She did not care anymore whether the dancers and prop crew knew of her distress, whether they gossiped about it on their own. It only mattered that she continue to arrive on time at rehearsals so that Diaghilev would not have reason to smirk. This became her obsession: to keep up the facade for his sake, to protect her last remnant of self-respect. If she did not yield, it had to mean that she was not a failure.

  She was lying on her bed, a cold compress over her eyes, when the door creaked open and Tamara poked her head into the semi-darkness. She had grown into a very vivid girl of seven, leggy and well balanced, with her father’s proud carriage and his fine black eyes and tumbling black hair. Her complexion was swarthy but touched with a rich coral glow, and her full lips pouted above the small, delicate chin, the sole heritage from her mother. She was an intelligent girl but an obstinate one, who learned only when she wanted to, and only what interested her. Natalia saw in her daughter the same quick temper that Pierre had: With the least provocation, she could enter into a towering rage, the rage of the self-centered.

  That afternoon Tamara came in on tiptoe, and Natalia felt rather than heard her by the side of her bed. “Are you sick or sleeping?” the girl asked.

  “I’m all right.” Natalia sat up and took the girl’s hand and smiled.

  “No, you’re never ‘all right’ anymore. You’re either sick or busy, and Papa doesn’t come as often to visit anymore. I’m lonely with Mademoiselle.” The girl chewed sullenly on the inside of her mouth.

  Natalia felt a rush of blood to her face, a sudden thudding in her chest. She said carefully: “I didn’t know he’d ever come to visit you. Why didn’t you tell me, darling?”

  Tamara looked away, all at once embarrassed. “Because he asked me not to tell you. He told me it would cause all sorts of problems. But why? He’s my father!”

  Natalia’s free hand lay clenched in her lap, the nails digging into her palm. “I never sent your father away,” she said. “He’s th
e one who left and who broke up the family. I don’t think he should be allowed to come and go here as he pleases. It’s not his home anymore—and I’m not his wife.”

  “But I’m still his daughter! And I want to see him! Sometimes he only comes to pick me up, and we go for a drive, or out to tea or to a matinée at the Comédie Française. You’re not being fair! I don’t want to lose him!”

  Tamara’s voice had grown sharp with suppressed sobs, and now Natalia raised her hands to her temples and, shutting her eyes against the pain, cried: “I didn’t want to lose him either! Do you think he was being fair?”

  But Tamara was running from the room, and Natalia thought: What have I done? What damage have I now compounded in this little girl?

  A week before the première, Natalia came home early from a rehearsal. Perhaps, she thought, her hands trembling with this added despair, perhaps if I give her time, listen to her, try to talk with her…. But it had been so many years since she had been Tamara’s age. She simply did not remember how it felt to be seven and to feel betrayed by one’s parents. A deep, gnawing frustration permeated Natalia’s whole being.

  She was never mine to begin with but always Pierre’s, Natalia admitted, allowing Chaillou to remove her coat and handing him her little felt cloche. What use is it, she wondered dryly, to keep up with fashions when on the inside everything has been stripped? But the old maître d’hôtel was rubbing his chin, and murmuring: “She’s here, Madame. We…I couldn’t…”