What Disappears, page 11
Sonya’s dresser drawers were all pulled out, dumped onto the floor, the wood crushed, their contents mostly gone.
Everything that mattered to her, save her children, had been ruined or stolen.
Reaching underneath a pile of torn-up silk and a twist of yarn with two button eyes, little Naomi found and retrieved the dried magenta flower given to Sonya, so long ago, by Jascha. “Here, Mama,” she said, handing it to Sonya, who only sobbed harder.
Paris
1909
Tamara Karsavina tried to take a philosophical stance about Anna Pavlova’s ridiculously late arrival in Paris. Dancing in her idol’s place, Karsavina had won accolades throughout the company for the gracious way in which she’d stepped into the always tricky role of prima ballerina. The management was pleased with her. The press was already buzzing about her. And she did the work that needed to be done, working harder than she’d ever worked before, always striving to maintain an aura of kindness and good cheer.
All of this was accomplished under the most difficult circumstances—more than the usual share of last-minute changes, involving a slew of new choreography that needed to be mastered. Rehearsing in a theater that was under construction, sometimes being exiled to a rehearsal space under the eaves that was more fit for salamanders than dancers. Eating, when the dancers were given time to eat, on packing crates backstage. And yet, throughout all of it, she loved the camaraderie of her classmates from the Mariinsky School, which helped her make light of their backbiting, their occasional ill will, and the jealousy of the other dancers who envied her success.
Now that Pavlova has arrived, she will take back what was hers, and Karsavina’s triumph with the Ballets Russes will be nothing more than a glimmer in the dark sky, a star that burned brightly for a moment, only to disappear. With some trepidation, she knocks at the prima ballerina’s dressing-room door, the same room that she herself so lately occupied.
A woman’s voice, not Pavlova’s, answers, “Entrez!”
Packing trunks and hatboxes are piled one atop another, folded clothes are stacked and strewn everywhere. A slim, dark-haired woman stands with her back to the door, holding a petticoat up to the light before folding it neatly into an open trunk.
She turns and Karsavina bursts into astonished laughter. “It’s you!” she says in Russian, grabbing Sonya’s hands and pressing kisses on her cheeks—left, right, left.
“Tamara Platonovna!” Sonya is flattered that the dancer, so big a star now, remembers the sweet connection they made, the year before, in Saint Petersburg, when Karsavina was still a student at the Mariinsky School.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” says the dancer. “Do you live in Paris now?”
“I do. Madame Pavlova asked me to put some things in order for her, before she leaves.”
“She’s leaving?” Karsavina looks giddy with relief.
Sonya holds a finger up to her lips and glances out into the hallway, quietly closing the door behind her. “It’s because of you,” she says, her voice almost a whisper. “She’s very jealous of you. Regardless of what she says, that’s the reason why she’s leaving.”
“After such a small number of performances?” Karsavina’s face is suffused with happiness, although she’s doing her best to conceal it.
Smiling fondly at the ballerina, Sonya asks, “Do you still have that dress I made for you?”
“It is my favorite. I’ve worn it so much, it’s now in tatters. Every time someone complimented me, I have lied shamelessly, saying it was bought for me in Paris.” She pauses. “Should I have said that I got it from you?”
“Absolutely not, my dear. Not for a dress with the Paul Poiret label. Won’t you sit?” She lowers the lid of one of the packing cases, and they sit down, side by side. “I don’t want you to think I make a practice of stealing the work of other dressmakers,” says Sonya. “In fact, I’ve sewn that label into clothes I’ve made just three times—and not for profit, I can assure you. My motive was rather one of revenge.”
“Did Monsieur Poiret wrong you?”
“Grievously, I’m afraid.”
“You know, before we met,” says Karsavina, “I concocted an elaborate story to explain your presence in that little shop window on Zagorodny Prospekt—and the perpetually sad look in your beautiful eyes.”
Sonya blushes. “And what was that story?” She wonders whether the ballerina, so effusive and intuitive, might not have guessed what everyone else so far has mercifully failed to see.
“It seems so silly now. I’m ashamed to tell you—”
“But I want to hear!”
“I imagined that you had fallen in love with a Christian. And that your father cursed you and sent you away, forever to be exiled from your family as well as your religion.”
Sonya takes a deep breath, straightening her shoulders. “My father died when I was only ten years old, in the flu pandemic of 1890. He was a bit of a radical, and my family was only minimally observant, which did nothing to spare us, of course, in 1903.”
“Did you come from Kishinev then?”
“My husband, Asher, was murdered in the pogrom. My family’s business was destroyed. I had two young children and another on the way.”
Karsavina’s eyes well up. “Forgive me!”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I always enjoyed seeing you, in your student days, when you passed by my little shop window. After Asher died, my brother Daniel set me up in Saint Petersburg and introduced me to Pavlova.”
“Will you go with her when she leaves?”
“No. I intend to find my own path, here in Paris.”
Karsavina beams at her. “And have you met someone special here?”
Sonya smiles back at her but doesn’t answer the question. A great deal of gossip preceded Tamara Karsavina’s arrival in Paris. Apparently, Fokine, the company’s handsome young, and now-married, choreographer, had for years been hopelessly in love with the beautiful ballerina. Her mother prevented their marriage, holding out for someone with better financial prospects. Karsavina was wed, not long ago, to a middle-aged banker. But there are whispers everywhere that Fokine is still in love with her.
Sonya says, not unkindly, “I’ve heard you have a husband now.”
“Yes, I’m married now—and I’m doing my best to be a good wife.” She does her best to smile but gives herself away with a troubled sigh.
“Can you keep a secret?” asks Sonya.
“I hope so.” This perks the ballerina up again. “Of course, I can.”
“I traveled to Paris, at the beginning of 1903, thanks to my brother and also Pavlova, who wanted me to look at the fashions for her. But the real reason was because I wanted to find my sister—my twin sister—who was separated from me when both of us were put in an orphanage, briefly, during our infancy, while my father was in prison and my mother wasn’t able to support us on her own.”
“Did you find her?”
“Just two days ago. After six years of searching, always hoping to meet her. Never succeeding. And then, coming face to face with her—right here, in this doorway!”
Karsavina claps her hands in a mime of ecstatic applause. “That’s the most romantic story I’ve ever heard! How thrilling for the two of you, to find each other again.”
“It was thrilling for me. She didn’t know about me, you see. She still doesn’t, really. I don’t know what she thought, seeing me like that—a stranger who clearly looks just like her. She looked fairly horrified—and ran away.”
“But you’ve arranged to see her again? You know how to find her now? Who is she?”
“I only know that she was hired as an extra dancer for the company. She has a French name. I doubt she even knows she’s Russian—or that she’s Jewish. Monsieur Diaghilev has arranged for me to attend the performance tonight. And he assures me that she won’t leave the Ballets Russes before your run is through.”
“Sergei is usually right about such things.” Karsavina’s eyes and smile are so bright that it seems as if stage lights are always shining on her. “Your secret is safe with me!”
Sonya sees in the young dancer a potential friend and ally in this place that’s so far away from Russia, filled with people who can’t be trusted. She takes the ballerina’s hand in hers and looks into her eyes. “I have another secret,” she tells her. “One much deeper and darker.” She has an urgent desire to tell her all about Paul Poiret’s unforgivable perfidy. She’d sworn to herself she’d take the secret to her grave—and yet how it pressed against her heart now. What a relief it would be to have a friend to share the burden with her.
Karsavina slips her hand out of Sonya’s and stands up—then busies herself with smoothing the fabric of her skirt. She’s thinking about Diaghilev’s secret—the one that Dr. Bodkin explained to her, that day they drove out together to Versailles. The secret that has made her feel so uncomfortable ever since. How hard it is to reconcile her love and esteem for Diaghilev with this ghastly knowledge about his sexual habits! What a blockhead she’d been, almost willfully blind throughout her years at the Mariinsky School. Those boys she’d surprised in dark corners and closets, hastily pulling up their tights or wiping their mouths. She burns with humiliation now, knowing what she’s learned from Dr. Bodkin but still unable to make any sense of it. High society in Paris teems with such people, both male and female, it would seem, who lust for others of their own gender, in defiance of everything sanctioned by God. Bodkin says it’s love, nonetheless—they can’t help the way they are. They’re still as good and kind and worthy as others—and as vulnerable, maybe more so, to feeling hurt and rejected. They are also children of God.
She forces herself to smile again—and, in the same instant, wonders whether she’d been mistaken just now. There’s nothing about Sonya that reminds the ballerina of those other women, most of them wealthy, who’ve fallen in love with her—and whose attentions Diaghilev, irrespective of her feelings and always desperate for money for his enterprise, has begged her to encourage or, at least, not to discourage.
Sonya has no idea what it was that caused Karsavina to jump back as if burned. Nonetheless, she experiences a sense of relief that fate, or whatever it was, has kept her from so very nearly exposing her daughters, and especially Baila, to her shame. What if her words had reached Zaneta’s ears, at this most crucial and delicate time? Sonya would have sabotaged what she’s worked so hard—and sacrificed so much—to achieve.
What a fool she was, on the verge of blurting out her secret to someone she hardly knew! Most dancers were gossips. Why would Karsavina be any different, despite her endearing manner and innocent eyes? Friendship and trust have to be nurtured, slowly and carefully, over time—and no one but family, in the end, can really be trusted. She thought of Daniel. Sometimes, even members of one’s own family can’t be trusted.
Sonya sits up straighter, looking past the dancer at the dressing-room door. She still has a lot of work to get done. The last thing she wants is for Pavlova to find her closeted here with her rival. Sonya has no need of Karsavina’s friendship, now that she’s finally found her sister. Zaneta will be the friend and ally that Sonya has always longed for.
Jeannette, she corrects herself. She needs to remember now to use her sister’s French name, probably the only name she’s ever known: Jeannette. It’s pretty similar to Zaneta, a clever transliteration from Russian to French. Sonya wonders whether Jeannette will even remember the name she was given by their mother.
Karsavina, perhaps having second thoughts about whatever it was that offended her, looks contrite. She sits down again, and places her hand on Sonya’s shoulder. “I’ll keep an eye out for your sister, now that I know she’s dancing with us.” She looks with fondness into Sonya’s deep-set, mournful eyes, admiring, as she’d done from the first day they’d met, her porcelain skin. “I’m certain I can help find a way to bring the two of you together again.”
Sonya’s eldest daughters are united in their outrage that little Baila will get to go to the performance with their mother while they are to be left at home. Eleven-year-old Naomi says it’s unforgivable that Baila, who cares nothing about fashion, will be there among all the ladies in their finery, at the biggest social event of the season—Baila, who couldn’t describe someone’s dress or hat if her life depended on it. Who would pass over a designer frock from Louise Chéruit for one of the stray kittens that ate out of garbage cans in the Marais!
Nine-year-old Olga clears her throat then says in her perfect French, “But this would present an ideal opportunity for me, Mother, to make the acquaintance of a grande dame who might be in need of a mother’s helper.”
“You are my helper, Olga.”
“Don’t pretend that we don’t need the money.”
“Hush, my child. Remember your age, please. You sound more and more like an old woman every day.”
“I’m suffocating here, in this mean apartment, with these children!”
Both Sonya and Naomi are trying as hard as they can to suppress their laughter.
Sniffing, Sonya takes Olga’s face into her hands and looks into her near-sighted eyes, which so resemble Asher’s. In the six years since his death, Olga has grown to resemble him in so many ways. He would have been very proud, thinks Sonya, of this bookish, brilliant, and ridiculously precocious child. “It was an accident that Baila was invited to go this time, instead of one of you. But there will be other opportunities.”
“There will be only one Saison Russe,” sighs Naomi.
“I’ll try get some backstage passes from Madame Pavlova. You’ll be able to see the costumes and sets then, up close.” She’s thinking about the likelihood of finding Zaneta backstage, among the other dancers. Perhaps, in a way, it will be easier if she has all three of her daughters with her. How could their aunt possibly resist them?
“Oh, will you, Mother?” cries Naomi. “You’re an angel!”
Olga suddenly looks like a nine-year-old again, on the verge of tears.
Sonya hugs her. “I will watch everything very carefully tonight, my little wordsmith—and I promise to tell you every detail about all the people I’ve seen and heard, as soon as we get home. All the society gossip! All the outrageous things the artists do.” When Olga looks up at her hopefully, Sonya adds, “You and Naomi can wait up, if you want to.”
Baila tugs at her mother’s skirt, her eyes wide. “Will that lady be there tonight?” she asks in a whisper.
“Who, Mother? Who is she talking about?” both Naomi and Olga want to know.
Sonya touches the tip of Baila’s nose. “She will be on the stage tonight, but looking very different than when we saw her.”
Sonya assumes an expression that her children recognize and honor, one that says, Don’t speak to me now! A far-away, fierce look that always makes them afraid that she isn’t who they thought she was—and they might, at any moment, lose her altogether.
What wouldn’t she give, Sonya wonders, to have Zaneta in her life—that other self, that self outside herself, who will nonetheless understand her as no one else can? What wouldn’t she give, or give up, to feel as whole as she must have felt during those months that she and Zaneta existed side by side, both before and after they were born? Until they were so rudely ripped apart.
She has been dreading her thirtieth birthday. Now she won’t have to face it alone. Although she’s not even sure she believes in God, Sonya prays that Jeannette will be on stage that night, as Sergei Diaghilev promised.
Paris
1903
Paul insisted on the blindfold, once both he and Jeannette were ensconced inside the hired carriage. She knew by now not to argue with him when he wanted to involve her in one of his romantic escapades, which were always slightly mad but lots of fun.
“I know you’ll laugh at me,” she said as Paul tied a teal blue silk scarf over her eyes. “But I’ve left my corset behind, in the dressing-room. There was no one there to lace it for me—and your note was so urgent!”
“There is no need for Mme. Gaches-Sarraute’s instrument of torture,” he assured her, “where we are going today.”
Jeannette took a deep, unconstricted breath. It was a lovely feeling to be in street clothes, for once, without a corset. “But where are we going today, my love?” With her eyes covered, her sense of smell was suddenly keener. She thought she smelled food—and then, unmistakably, she heard the sound of a cork eased out, with expert care, from a bottle of champagne.
“Are you thirsty, after all your battements and pliés?” He placed her hand on the stem of what felt like a champagne glass.
The bubbles tickled her nose. “Both thirsty—and famished!”
She drank. Paul lifted her skirt and placed his hand on the smooth flesh of her inner thigh, just above the rolled-down top of her stocking—but no higher.
“I have wonderful news,” he said. He kept his hand where it was.
They hit a rut in the road that splashed champagne all down the front of her blouse. “Merde!”
“Don’t worry yourself. Here, let’s unwrap that beautiful body of yours.”
“Oh, Paul—for goodness’ sake!” But she enjoyed the feeling of his hands, with their slight electric charge, as he unbuttoned her buttons and slipped the blouse off her shoulders and down the length of her arms.
Paul was whistling, something he only did when he was in the best of moods. She heard the creaky sounds of a wicker hamper being opened—and suddenly the food smells were stronger. Paté and various types of cheese, including a ripe and unmistakable époisses, of which, she knew, Paul was particularly fond. Fresh, sweet apples. Grapes, if she wasn’t mistaken. Putting his hand over hers, he refilled her glass and then poured one for himself.
