Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (30 page)

She experiences an inner heat generated by the exertion of the ride. A faint shiver passes through her. And it is here in this secluded spot, as the light ebbs from the woods and the air around them cools, that something happens. She didn't mean it to happen. It takes her by surprise. But with her eyes half closed and her head to one side, she slides her arms around Dmitri's neck and surrenders to his kisses.

 

 

 

Restless, Igor plays solitaire. His fingers are quick with decision. Ripping a waxed card from the top of the deck, he snaps it down. The sound accents the hollowness he feels inside.

Outdoors, shadows drag across the lawn. Thin slices of cloud, like the cards seen edgeways, linger overhead. Coco and Dmitri have not yet returned. Already late in the afternoon, they have been gone for several hours now. Igor's leg shakes in agitation, making the table vibrate.

Eventually he hears the clatter of hooves grow louder as they approach the drive. Quickly he switches off the lights in the room. Wanting the controlling power of observation all to himself, he stands at an angle to the window, ensuring he remains out of sight.

The horses slow and two figures dismount. He sees Coco and Dmitri, their heads bent familiarly in conversation. As Piotr leads the horses off, they walk toward the house.

Igor stiffens. His fear enlarges in the dark. Hearing her thrilling laugh fill the hallway, he recollects himself. He resumes his game of solitaire as though he'd never broken off. Coco calls him from the hallway. He answers as casually as he is able. She follows his voice into the living room.

“Why are you sitting here in the dark?” Her tone is faintly mocking.

Affecting absentmindedness: “I can see.”

In mild admonishment, she switches on the lights. He turns to see her silhouette filled. Glowing with vigor from the ride, she looks marvelous in her tight-fitting gear. Her eyes are full of warm tones and her cheeks are touched with color. Still carrying the crop like a baton, she pushes back her hair.

Hurt once more into the knowledge of her loveliness, he asks, “How was your ride?”

“Good, thank you.” A small silence follows. “And you? How was your card game?”

“Good,” he says, slapping down another card, his attempt at nonchalance strained.

“I'm glad,” she says and promptly leaves, closing the door behind her.

Her sudden removal stuns him. He holds the next card frozen between his fingers. Then he flips it nervously around and around. He hears Dmitri say something funny, followed by Coco's whinnying laugh. This acts as a trigger. He smites the cards from the table, scattering them everywhere. Fists clenched, he rises abruptly from his chair. He paces around the room for several seconds, cursing in Russian under his breath. If the cat were there, he'd kick him. But he realizes after all how powerless he is in this situation. He can't very well accuse
her
of being unfaithful. Then, with mad fastidiousness, he gathers up the cards, packing them tightly into their box.

He goes to the outhouse where the birds still chatter away merrily in their cages. An outside light casts a glow around the shed. Entering, he is startled. For there, after weeks of training, he hears one of the larger parrots for the first time speak her name. He's been trying to get them to repeat it for so long, he'd almost given up. And one of them chooses to do it now. There it is again, clear and distinct, strident even. The sound of her name starts to echo, amplifying to a chant inside his head. He can't believe it. It's so awful, he almost laughs. He stares at the bird, which inclines its head and stares back at him self-importantly. The gods are cruel, he concludes.

One by one, he drapes the black cloths that Coco cut for him over the bars like shrouds. There's a sense of finality in the act, a kind of closure. The blackness stretches to cover the evening.

Slowly the birds grow silent in the dark.

 

 

 

The children adore Dmitri. Full of native energy and ideas for new games, he plays with them most afternoons. Theodore and Soulima are bewitched by his stories of bravery and adventure. They are transfixed in particular by his account of killing Rasputin. Rasputin, whom they have heard so much about.

“How did you do it?”

They ask him to tell the tale over and over. He obliges willingly: “And then Yusupov shot him again—pow!—and again—pow!—and still he wouldn't fall!” With each retelling, Rasputin's ability to recover from the bullets becomes more and more miraculous.

The children are dazzled, too, by Dmitri's collection of medals. Ludmilla fingers the low relief of the czar on one side of a beribboned decoration.

“He awarded that to me personally . . .”

“What had you done?” Theo asks, a little awed.

“Oh, nothing really. I led a battalion of men against a German gun battery. We captured the position.”

“Were many killed?” Soulima asks.

“Yes, quite a few.”

After a pause in which the boys take this in, Dmitri becomes more animated. “Here, let me show you. If this spoon is the gun battery, and these knives represent the advancing battalion . . .”

Igor leaves the room before the rest of the cutlery is engaged. All
he
knows about the war is that the shells whistled over the trenches in E flat.

He is repelled by this ebullient new fellow, who seems to enchant everyone around him with his exaggerated gallantries and military grace. To Igor, he seems an oaf, a blustering buffoon. There were no books in his luggage, Igor noticed. Culturally impoverished, he has little interest in music or the arts. The man is intellectually empty, he decides. Yet something in his manner, he concedes, makes him compelling. At first he can't fathom what it is. Then he realizes. It is a kind of refined cruelty. Like a leopard he might kill you, but he would do it with great style.

Coco seems fatally taken by him. And Igor is shocked by the coltishness with which she acts in his company. Quickly he realizes he cannot compete with Dmitri's vigor. Rather, he must trust Coco's faithfulness and taste. He hopes nothing is going on between them, but the suspicion gnaws at his heart. Desolate at the thought of losing her, he yet senses her slipping away.

Later, at dinner, Igor feels humiliated. Suddenly vulnerable and insecure, he recognizes the selfsame intimacy—the brimming illicit smile, the hands brushing secretly, legs sliding one against the other under the dinner table—that he enjoyed during the months of the summer. His anguish deepens into despair. He only controls his emotion thanks to an immense effort of will.

Look at her! The way she pushes her hair up showily in front of Dmitri. The way she seeks his eye first for reassurance or to share a joke. That giddy coquettish habit she has of tipping her head to one side when she speaks to him. This is awful, he thinks. And yet there is more. The helplessly tender glances. The melting way she looks at him, chin resting upon her hand. Her equine snort at everything he says. Igor blanches. His heart shrinks. Her love for Dmitri announces itself from every angle. A chill enters his kidneys. It is more than he can bear.

Over the table, Dmitri waves his hands wildly in illustration of another heroic deed. Clumsily he knocks over a wineglass. The wine spills irremovably onto Igor's white trousers, leaving a vivid rubicund stain around the groin.

Igor jumps back as if he has been burned. He dabs haplessly at himself with a napkin. Dmitri apologizes, but something subtly scornful in his manner makes Igor irritated and suspicious.

He looks down at the darkening stain, as at a wound. He feels the dampness against his skin and a growing sensation of cold. And in the wildness of his imaginings he thinks he sees the emblem of his helplessness, the badge of his emasculation, reflected in this shapeless blot.

With Dmitri, Coco can be heedless and tender, demonstrative and bold. Moreover, she does not have to care who sees or hears her.

Catherine, meanwhile, experiences a fresh feeling of disgust for her husband. Igor is fine when Coco is away at the shop. But as soon as she returns he begins slavering like a lapdog. Catherine cannot resist a wry smile at the way things seem to be turning out. A feeling of sweet vengeance seeps deliciously into her veins. She has more color in her cheeks. She feels more self-possessed. A measure of strength returns to her, and she finds she has more time for the children, who respond with overdue embraces. She is even able to undertake a few short walks.

Igor begins to act more warmly toward her. He becomes openly affectionate. But perversely she grows cooler toward him. She can see what he is doing: hedging his bets, looking for succor, for someone to lick his wounds. Well, he can look elsewhere, Catherine thinks. To his annoyance, she makes it plain that she quite likes Dmitri. He's a breath of fresh air around the house. He's courteous and charming, she finds, and she enjoys speaking Russian to him. She discovers in him an unlikely ally. Besides, he's wonderful with the children. And he makes her laugh. The laughter sounds odd in her own ears. It's so long since she's heard it. Perhaps it gives her the confidence for what she wants to do next.

Some days later in a willful act of strength and resolution, Catherine begins packing her things and announces she is leaving Garches. She is going to Biarritz with the children: on the strength, ostensibly, of its climate and superior schools. She calculates she has enough money saved to be able to rent a small place there. She no longer requires the charity of Mademoiselle Chanel. In fact, it has reached the point where she'd live in a hovel if it meant getting away from her.

Igor is outraged. “You can't do this to me!” he shouts, as she folds her clothes into her suitcase.

“I'm not doing it to you. I'm doing it for me and for the children.” Her voice, eroded by so much crying, has lowered a semitone, grown a grain or two huskier in recent weeks.

“But I want you to stay.”

“You do? Why?”

“Because . . .” He falters. “. . . you belong with me, here. And I need you.”

“And I needed you!” The use of the past tense stings him.

His whole frame shakes with fury. But, even in his anger, he is sensitive to the fact that others in the house may hear him. He proceeds in a fierce whisper: “You're my wife!”

Shrill, she doesn't care who hears her: “You should have thought of that before.”

A few weeks earlier, she had been desperate for him to come to her. She had begged for his affection, pleaded for his emotional support. He had not responded. He had failed her then. Why should she be loyal to him now?

“The fact is, we're still married. Nothing alters that. That's sacred.”

“You haven't acted as though you believe that!”

He fights a rising panic. “But what will you do?”

“I'll cope.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. But maybe it's what I need.” She flattens a dress into the case.

It's come as a relief almost, knowing she can expect nothing from him. She no longer aches for caresses that will not come. Strange to say, being dead to him has given her a kind of freedom.

“Have you thought it through?”

“Long and hard. I can't stand it any longer.”

A repressed hysterical note hovers in his voice. “Stand what?”

“Don't insult me, Igor.”

“But it's nearly over with Coco . . .”

“Nearly?” She stops her packing for a moment. “What do you want? Another week, another month, a year?”

“But it is. We're not right for each other.” He hears himself talking, but is oddly powerless to stop the words issuing from his mouth. What surprises him most is that he doesn't agree with anything he says.

“And what makes you think
we
are?”

“Haven't we proved it over the years?”

Resuming her folding: “I think the last few months have proved otherwise.”

“Why, though?”

It's as if a mist has risen between them. “Because if it's not Coco, then it will be somebody else.” She goes on, “And it just doesn't seem worth it anymore.”

“That's unfair.”

“Is it?”

“You're acting out of pride.”

“And about time, too!”

Igor feels a sudden admiration for his wife, for her resourcefulness and inner strength. From the beginning, he had been attracted by what was placid in her. Now he recognizes this stronger side to her character. It is as if he sees her anew. He makes to hug her. An act of reconciliation. But it's too late. She tolerates the gesture coldly, her face withdrawing from his. She continues pressing clothes into the open suitcase.

“And the children?” he goes on, more quietly this time.

“Yes?”

“Have you considered their welfare in all of this?”

“Absolutely. Why do you think I'm doing it?”

“But they're just getting used to their school. They won't want to start all over again.”

“I've thought of that,” she responds hotly.

“Don't you think it's worth us staying together for their sakes?”

Catherine ceases packing again and looks him straight in the eye. “You've got a nerve!” With a conviction that almost frightens him, she explodes, “When have you ever given them a thought in the last few months?”

Defiant: “But they're sensitive to such things. This will upset them.”

“They'll be even more upset if they stay much longer, given the musical beds that goes on around here. It's precisely for that reason I'm taking them away.” Her voice rises like the pitch of indignation in her cheeks. He makes to speak, but she doesn't allow him a chance to answer. “Don't you realize, Igor, they know? They might not say it, but deep inside they know what's been going on. They know that you don't love me. Only you could be so blind.”