“I don't know what she'll do about the boys,” he said honestly. “I may have to wait to see them until they're older.” The pain of it showed in his eyes, and Danina saw it with anguish for him. “And Madame Mark ova?” he asked her in return. That was almost as big a question, though somewhat simpler in his eyes, but not Danina's.
“I will talk to her when I go back to St. Petersburg,” she said, trying to still the fear she felt, or the sense that she was about to betray her. Madame Markova expected so much from her, had given so much to her, and she would be devastated if Danina left the ballet. But for her, everything had changed now. Her life belonged to Nikolai, and she could no longer ignore that.
Miraculously, what they had shared seemed to have gone unnoticed by everyone but the maids in her cottage, and remarkably they had been discreet about it thus far. No one in the Imperial family had ever commented on it to Nikolai, and even Alexei, who spent a great deal of time with them, had no sense that things had changed between them.
But in the last three weeks they shared, there was a kind of desperation to what they were both feeling. Such as it had been, as idyllic and perfect as the time was, it was about to end now. A new life was about to be entered into. And Danina was worried about it. If she left the ballet to be with him, where would she live, and who would support her? If he divorced Marie, would the scandal cost him his sacred place in the Imperial family? It was a great deal for them to consider and think of. But he had already promised that he would find her a place to live, and support her, though she didn't want to be a burden to him, and thought she should stay with the ballet until Marie left for England.
In the end, he decided to tell Marie after Danina left, so as to shield her from any reaction to the scandal it might cause at home or in the palace. And to both of them, it seemed the wisest decision. He would come to see her at the ballet as soon as he could, and tell her what had happened, and then they could make their plans from that moment onward. Besides, the ballet needed time to replace her. Although she had been ill for months, they were still counting on her for performances that summer and the following winter. It was possible, she had explained to him, that she might even have to wait until the end of the year to leave them, but he said he understood that. They would spend as much time together as they could, in spite of the demands on both of them, and the heavy training she would have to undertake now. But she was ready and strong again, and happier than she had ever been, with her love for him, and all that they had promised to each other.
But despite all the promises, their last week was an agony of sorrow. They spent every moment together that they could, and for the first time, the Czarina noticed how close they were, and agreed with what her husband had noticed earlier. She was almost certain Nikolai and Danina were in love with each other. The Czar was on leave again at the time, and she mentioned it to him.
“I don't blame him,” he said quietly to his wife late one night, as Nikolai and Danina were spending one of their last nights in the cottage. “She's very lovely.”
“Do you think he'll leave his wife for her?” The Czarina was beginning to wonder, and the Czar said he couldn't guess at other people's madness. “And if he does, will you mind?” she asked him, and the head of the Imperial family pondered the question, uncertain of his decision on the subject.
“It will depend how he does it. If it's done quietly, it shouldn't affect anything. If it becomes a terrible scandal that upsets everyone, we'll have to think about it.” It was a sensible conclusion, and the Czarina was relieved to hear it. She didn't want to lose Nikolai as Alexei's doctor. But she also wondered if Danina would leave the ballet. She was very young, had a lot invested in it, and she was their most famous prima. To the Czarina it seemed a little like leaving the convent, not easily done, and she was sure the ballet would do everything they could to keep her. It was going to be a difficult decision, if Danina chose to do it, and she felt sorry for her. She hoped things went well for both of them, if they decided to embark on a new life together. In the months that Danina had been there, they had all come to love her.
They gave a small dinner for her the night before she left, with the children and a few close friends present, both physicians, and a handful of people who had met and fallen in love with Danina, and she had tears in her eyes when she thanked them, and promised to return. The Czarina asked her to come and visit them at Livadia that summer, as she had done the year before with Madame Markova, and they promised to come and watch her perform as soon as she was dancing.
“I'll really teach you to swim this time,” Alexei promised and gave her a gift that she knew he hated to part with. It was a small jade Faberge frog that he loved because he thought it was so ugly. But he gave it to her, awkwardly wrapped in a drawing he had made her. The girls had each written her poems, and made lovely watercolors for her, and together they gave her a photograph of all of them, with Danina. She was still deeply touched when she and Nikolai went back to the cottage for their last night together.
“I can't bear to leave you tomorrow,” she said sadly, after they made love, and lay in each other's arms, talking until morning. She couldn't believe her stay here was over, even if they told each other a new life was beginning. That night when they came home from dinner, he had given her a gold locket on a chain, with a photograph of him in it. He looked so much like the Czar in the photograph that she wasn't even sure it was Nikolai at first, but it was, and she promised to wear it every moment when she wasn't dancing.
The last hours they shared were an agony for both of them, and they both cried when he put her on the train for the short trip she had to make to return to the ballet in St. Petersburg. She didn't want him to go back with her, for fear that Madame Markova would instantly see what had happened between them. She believed that her mentor had mystical powers and was all-seeing and all-knowing, but he had agreed not to go with her. He was going to speak to Marie that afternoon, and promised to let Danina know immediately what had happened.
But as he stood on the platform, watching the train, they both felt their hearts breaking, and a chapter ending that they had cherished. She hung out the window for as long as she could, and saw him standing there, waving at her, his eyes locked in hers, her locket around her neck, as she felt it with trembling fingers. He had shouted to her that he loved her, as they pulled away, and had kissed her so many times in the cottage before they left that her lips were sore, and she had had to comb her hair again twice before she left him. They were like two children being torn from their parents, and it reminded her more than a little of when her father had taken her to the ballet to live. She was just as terrified now, possibly even more so.
Madame Markova was waiting for her in the station when she arrived in St. Petersburg. She seemed taller, and thinner, and looked more severe than ever. Danina thought she looked suddenly older, and she felt as though she had been gone forever. But Madame Markova kissed her warmly, and looked deeply pleased when she saw her. Despite what had happened to Danina while she was away, she had missed Madame Markova immensely.
“You look well, Danina. Happy and rested.”
“Thank you, Madame. Everyone was wonderful to me.”
“So I understood from your letters.” There was an edge to her voice, a toughness Danina had forgotten in her. It was what drove everyone well beyond their capabilities, to please her. But she was cool as they drove to the ballet in a taxi. And Danina tried to fill the void, by telling her about her adventures with the Imperial family, and the parties she'd been to. But she had the very clear sense that she had somehow displeased her mistress, and more than ever it made Danina long for the life she had left behind at Tsarskoe Selo. But she knew she had to return now to her obligations.
“When do I begin classes again?” Danina asked as she watched the familiar city roll past them.
“Tomorrow morning. I suggest you commence exercising this afternoon to prepare yourself. I assume you have done nothing to maintain yourself du
ring your convalescence?” Aside from Danina's few daily exercises, she had assumed correctly, and did not look pleased about it when Danina nodded.
“The doctor didn't think it wise, Madame,” was her only excuse. She did not even bother to mention the half hour of exercise she had done daily. She knew that to her ballet mistress, it would seem a negligible effort.
Madame Markova stared ahead in silence and said nothing, as the atmosphere grew thick between them.
She had been reassigned to her old room, and it filled Danina's heart with sadness when she saw the old building. Instead of feeling like a homecoming to her, it was only a reminder of how far she was now from Nikolai and their nights in the beloved cottage. She couldn't imagine spending a night without him, but she was going to have to. They both had long roads to travel separately until they could once again be together, hopefully forever.
She had thought of saying something to Madame Markova immediately about her plans, but she had decided to wait until she heard from Nikolai about the divorce and Marie's move to England. It all depended on how fast things were moving. And beneath the thin surface of her blouse, she felt the comfort of her locket.
Everyone was warming up, or rehearsing, or exercising, or in class when she arrived, and there was no one in the stark room she had left four months before. It looked strange to her now, and pitifully ugly as she changed into a leotard and ballet shoes, and hurried down the stairs to the studio she normally warmed up in. And when she got there, she saw Madame Mar-kova, sitting quietly in a corner, watching the others. Her presence made Danina feel slightly uncomfortable, but she got to work at the barre, and was stunned to discover how stiff she was, how awkward her movements, how unwilling her limbs were to do what they had been trained for.
“You have a lot of work to do, Danina,” Madame Markova said sternly, as Danina nodded. Her body had become her enemy in four brief months, and did none of the things she expected of it. And that night, when she went to bed, every muscle she had used for the first time in months was screaming at her. She could hardly sleep for the pain she felt everywhere, nor get up the next day, as she felt every muscle in her body tighten. The effect of the past four months of indolence and happiness had been brutal.
But no less so than the rigorous training she launched into at five o'clock that morning. She was in her first class at six, and worked until nine o'clock that night, and through most of it, Madame Markova watched her.
“Your gift was not given to waste,” she said harshly after the first class, and then warned her even more sharply that she would never get back what she had lost if she didn't push herself well beyond her limits. And then she added, “If you are not willing to pay for it with blood, Danina, you do not deserve it.” She was visibly furious at what Danina had lost in her months away from the ballet, and she reminded her unkindly that night that her place as their first prima was not simply something they owed her, but an honor she had to earn back if she intended to regain her position.
Danina was in tears when she went to bed that night, and again several times the following day, and finally at the end of the second day, exhausted beyond anything she had ever known, she sat down and wrote Nikolai a letter, telling him what she was going through and how much she missed him. More than she had ever thought possible when she left him.
The torture they put her through went on for days, and by the end of the first week, Danina was sorry she had ever returned to the ballet, particularly if she was leaving. What was the point, and what did she have to prove to them now, if she was going to return to Nikolai and stop dancing? But she felt she owed it to them to finish honorably, and even if it killed her, she was determined to do so. But at that point, dying from sheer exhaustion and endless pain seemed not only desirable, but likely.
It was at the end of the second week that Madame Markova called her into her office, and Danina wondered what it meant. In the past thirteen years, she had rarely been there, though others had been, and always emerged in tears, sometimes to leave the ballet within hours. Danina couldn't help wondering if this was to be her fate now. Madame Markova sat very still across the desk from her, and stared hard at her protegee before speaking.
“I can see what has happened to you, from the way you dance, from the way you are working. You don't need to tell me anything, Danina, if you do not choose to.” Danina had been planning to tell her everything, but not like this, not yet, not until she heard from Nikolai, and so far she hadn't, and she was worried about it. And at times, Madame Markova was right, her love for Nikolai was distracting her from dancing. She couldn't completely give her all to her dancing, as she once had. It was more something spiritual than something physical that had happened. But it amazed her that Madame Markova could see it.
“I'm not sure what you mean, Madame. I have been working very hard since I got back.” There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, she was not used to being reprimanded, or having her work belittled by her mentor. Madame Markova had always been so proud of her, and now it was obvious that she wasn't. The mistress of the ballet was furious with her.
“You have been working hard. But not hard enough. You are working without soul, without spirit. I have always told you that unless you are willing to give it every ounce of blood and soul and love and heart you have, you will be nothing. Don't bother dancing. Sell flowers on the street, clean toilets somewhere, you will be more useful. Nothing is worse than a dancer who gives nothing.”
“I am trying, Madame. I was away for a long time. I'm not yet as strong as I was.” The tears flowed down her cheeks as she said it, but Madame Markova showed no emotion other than disdain and anger. She looked as though she felt she had been cheated by Danina.
“It is your heart I am talking about. Your soul. Not your legs. Your legs will come back. Your heart will not, if you have left it somewhere else. You must make a choice, Danina. It is always a choice here. Unless you want to be like the others. You never were. You were different. You cannot have both. You cannot have a man, or men, and be a truly great prima. And no man is worth your career … no man is worth the ballet. In the end, they will always disappoint you. Just as you are disappointing me now, and cheating yourself. You have come back to me with nothing. You are a shell, a nobody, a little dancer in the corps de ballet. You are no longer a prima.” It was the crudest blow of all and almost broke Danina's heart to hear it.
“That's not true. I still have what I did before, I just need to work harder.”
“You have forgotten how to. You do not care anymore. Something has come into your life that you love more than ballet. I can see it, I can smell it. Your dancing is pathetic.” Just listening to her made Danina's skin crawl, and as she looked into the other woman's eyes, she knew that she had no secrets from her. “It's a man, isn't it? Who did you fall in love with? What man is worth this? Does he even want you? You are a fool if you sacrifice everything for him.”
There was a long moment of silence between them, while Danina weighed her words and how much to tell her. “He is a very good person,” she said finally, “and we love each other.”
“You are a whore now, like the others, the little cheap ones who dance and play, and to whom it means nothing. You should be dancing on the streets in Paris, not here at the Maryinsky. You don't belong here. I always told you, you cannot be like them if you truly want this. You must choose, Danina.”
“I can't give up my whole life forever, Madame, no matter how much I love dancing. I want to do the right thing, I want to be great, I want to be fair to you … but I also love him.”
“Then you should leave now. Don't waste my time, or that of your teachers. No one wants you here unless you are what you were before. Nothing less is worth it. You must choose, Danina. And if you choose him, you will be making the wrong decision. I guarantee it. He will never give you what we do. You will never feel about yourself as you do on the stage, knowing you have given a performance that no one will ever forget. That's who you were when you l
eft here. Now you're nothing more than a little dancer.”
She couldn't believe what she was hearing, except that the words were familiar. She had heard Madame Markova's point of view before. To her it was a sacred religion one sacrificed one's life for. She had, and she expected everyone else to do it. And Danina always had, but now she couldn't. She wanted her life to be more than just the perfect performance.
“Who is this man?” she asked finally. “Does it even matter?”
“It matters to me, Madame,” Danina said respectfully, still believing she could do both, finish well and honorably here, and go to Nikolai when he was ready for her.
“What does he want to do with you?”
“Marry me,” Danina said in a whisper, as Madame Markova looked disgusted.
“Then why are you here?” It was too complicated to explain and she really didn't want to.
“I wanted to finish properly with you, maybe even for the next year, if you want me, if I work hard enough and improve again.”
“Why bother?” And then her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she proved once again to Danina that she was as all-knowing as Danina had always thought her. “Is he already married?”
Again, another long silence between them as Danina did not answer.
“You're a bigger fool than I ever thought you. Worse than one of those little whores. Most of them get husbands at least, and fat, and babies. They are worth nothing. You are wasting your talent on a man who already has a wife. It makes me sick to think of what you are doing, and I don't want to know anything more about it. I want you to work now, Danina, as you used to, as you're capable of, as you owe me, and in two months, I want you to tell me that it is over, and you know that this is your life, and always will be. You must sacrifice everything for it, Danina … everything … and only then is it worth it, only then will you know true love. This is your love, your only love. This man is nonsense. He means nothing to you. He will only hurt you. I want to hear nothing more about this. Go back to work now,” she said, with a wave of dismissal that was so direct and so uncompromising that Danina immediately left her office and went back to class, trembling from what Madame Markova had said to her.
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