Flight of the Swan (12 page)

“My sari in
Pharaoh’s Daughter
, for example, was made of twenty-four-karat gold lame. It was worth thousands of dollars. My headdress, an ibis with turquoise eyes, cost another thousand. I designed both of them myself, because I knew that if I did, Dandré couldn’t refuse me the money. We barely managed to raise it, and I had them made. Could you imagine what it would cost to dress all the girls like that? That was the secret of Serge Diaghilev: he had all the money in the world for his Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo; Prince Sergei Oblonsky and Prince Savya Mamontov’s pockets were at his disposal and they were bottomless oil wells. Our company is very different. We dance for the poor and for the everyday citizen, as well as for the rich. Considering our meager funding, our Ballets Russes have done wonders.”

And then there was Dandré, who was always a liability. Dandré’s passion for Madame had caused his downfall in Russia. Madame had just graduated from the Maryinsky when Dandré saw her dance for the first time. She was doing the ghost scene in
Giselle
at the Imperial Ballet Theater, and after Dandré saw her, he couldn’t get her out of his head. He couldn’t afford to keep her, but he set her up in a beautiful apartment in St. Petersburg and then began to get involved in illegal deals in order to pay her expenses. My mistress didn’t know any of this or she would never have permitted it. When she found out about it, it was too late. His petty thefts were discovered, and he was thrown in jail.

Madame immediately took out all her savings and had him released on bail. Then she gave him enough money so he could travel secretly to Helsinki on a fishing boat. She was still very young then, no more than twenty-four, and on her first ballet tour abroad. Dandré met her in Estonia and later made his way to England with the group. Madame helped him settle down in London. After that she could go back to Russia as many times as she wanted, but Dandré could never go back. He lost everything—his country, his estate, his relatives—all because of Madame. She couldn’t help feeling grateful.

“Now Dandré has a lover in New York, I’m sure of it, Masha,” she told me. “Every time he says he has to take a little side trip there for business, I know exactly where he goes. But I don’t mind. He’s a nobody, a commonplace impresario. I’m the one who’s famous: I can bask in the glory of my reputation.”

When Madame was young she had desperately needed someone like Dandré to help tide her over her difficulties. She was an orphan and he was like a father to her. Madame met him when she was seventeen. Dandré had a box at the Imperial Ballet Theater which he shared with a young friend, handsome Prince Kotschubei, who came to see the girl dance every night. She had recently begun an affair with Prince Kotschubei, but the prince was very young also, and he didn’t have independent means. So when Madame met Dandré at the Imperial Theater, she clung to him like a gull to a rock in midocean.

At intermission they invited her to come up to their box, and she sat between them and drank her almond juice like any other schoolgirl, since dancers couldn’t touch alcohol. But she was far from innocent. She had an erotic talent at an early age, an extraordinary sexual energy. “I danced naked for them, Masha,” she said guiltily, “my feet sliding over their naked bodies like soft, silk stars. I had the physical configuration of a child and hardly any pubic hair, my sex floated above my smooth legs like a delicate triangle of flesh, my breasts were twin moons, rising pale from my chest. During these extravagant, wild afternoons we made love untiringly on the prince’s bed, our limbs sprawled over his linen bedsheets, and I felt wonderfully loose and relaxed as I floated above both my lovers, light as a dragon-fly.

“Mother has never forgiven me for these intemperate meetings, Masha, when the Eleusinian spirit took hold of us. That’s why she never speaks to me, even though she follows me around the world like a shadow and I take good care of her. With all the playing and frolicking, I became pregnant and had to have an abortion. I was too young to bear children, and the abortion made me sterile. That’s why I can’t see a child walking down the street without wanting to hold it in my arms. Even now, years later, Mother kneels before her icons every night and prays to God that a bolt of lightning may strike Dandré dead when she remembers, although I have long since forgiven him.” I shushed her and told her to close her eyes and rest. But she persisted. The affair with Diamantino had stirred up dregs I would never have dreamed of.

“These early bacchanals with Prince Kotschubei, Dandré, and myself were a great sin, and they were never repeated. We were all upset by what had happened and mended our ways from then on. Dandré and I were secretly married a few months later in the small Orthodox church of Ligovo, where my grandmother came from and where I was baptized as a child. But I didn’t want anyone to know of our marriage; I agreed to it just to keep Dandré happy. That’s why I gave you the marriage certificate right after the wedding, Masha, with strict instructions that you burn it. How could I belong to Dandré and at the same time give myself to my art? My duties as a dancer were sacred. As an instrument of God, my body had to be free. Just the same, for ten years Dandré and I have been faithful to each other, drawn together by the terrible secret we share: the sad memory of a child unable to give birth to a child.

“After my terrible sin I went about with a newspaper clipping in my handbag and took it out from time to time to read it. It’s the story of a woman in Russia, a poor peasant from Tilsit, who had fourteen children. She sat on the corner of the town square with her children all around her, and gave them away to people as they went by. Isn’t that unfair? When I would give my life for a single one.

“During all the years we’ve spent together, I’ve accepted Dandré’s attentions, but I never loved him. He’s too masculine. Everything about him is so big: his bear paws; his shoulders, wide as a stevedore’s; his penis, as overpowering as a judge’s mallet. I cringe when he lies down next to me in bed. He could easily crush my arms like the wings of a bird if he accidentally put his weight on them. I can’t let myself go; I can’t experience any womanly pleasure. But after I met him, I slept soundly every night, knowing Mother and I were financially secure. Now Dandré rarely presses me for anything. He still solves all my problems, but he’s content just to be near me, to have me kiss him on his bald pate or on the tip of his nose. But it’s not a good arrangement because I feel so empty. Is it sinful to want both?

“Our dancers are normal, middle-class young women from Russia, England, the United States; I’d do anything for them. They dream of Prince Charming every night, though they don’t tell me about it. But you’re different, Masha; you worry me the most. It makes me sad that you dislike men because of what you’ve had to suffer. I try to comfort you as much as I can so you won’t feel that way. My father didn’t beat me like yours did, but I never got to meet him—he left a void in my life. When I was a child, I used to dream about a dark, empty closet and that I was locked up inside it. My father was waiting for me there, squatting in the darkness. The dream terrorized me, but when I met Dandré I stopped having it. I’m grateful to him for that.”

Madame was getting drowsy and I thought she would stop talking, but her voice droned on, hovering like an insect above the pounding of the train.

“It’s amazing how much my life has changed since I met Diamantino. Every time I look at him, I blossom inside. His face has a softness about it I love; it’s so different from the stone-cast expression Dandré wears at all times. Diamantino is a poet and a musician. I love to dance for him, Masha, I know it’s difficult, but you must understand. His violin sets me free.

“I’m a melancholy person by nature; that’s why I wear this ring with a black opal on my index finger. It was a present an admirer from Australia gave me. The black opal is like the Russian soul, at the same time dark and radiant, with rays of light glowing from its mysterious depths. Before, when I looked into it, I thought love simply wasn’t in the cards for me. God had given me talent, professional success, beauty, and good health. To complain en ungrateful. Today I look into the shimmering black stone and Diamantino’s face emerges from its depths: dark and dangerous and fascinating; powerful as a magnet.

“I know you think Diamantino is too young for me, but I don’t agree. He’s very sensitive to other people’s feelings. He doesn’t dictate his opinions like Dandré; he asks you what you think. Diamantino and I are kindred souls, Masha. We both dream of the same things.

“Dandré, on the contrary, is like a blob of putty. You punch him and your fist goes in all the way and then you can’t pull it out. Dandré never risks anything, never gets excited about anything. God! How have I been able to bear him all these years?”

I was impressed by her confession, and only disagreed with one thing. I didn’t dislike men: Madame was, as usual, taking me for granted. But I didn’t have the heart to contradict her. I just took her in my arms and cradled her until she fell asleep.

T
HE GIRLS JUMPED OFF
the train and began jogging next to it, calling out to Madame to join them. She woke up in her seat, but was content just watching them. She couldn’t help feeling proud at how beautiful and strong they were. That morning they hadn’t had their exercise class, so they decided to race the train. Six amazons, their golden manes trailing in the wind, ponytails flicking from side to side, the muscles of their legs rippling under their short exercise tunics. The train was traveling slowly because there were cows crossing the rails, men pulling carts loaded with sugarcane stalks, barefoot children playing at every junction. The passengers, their heads sticking out the car windows, were all watching the crazy Russians, mouths agape at the spectacle.

People on the island were easily amazed by us. They weren’t used to Russian women, who are often as brawny and strong as the men and capable of any physical feat. Everything here seemed minuscule to us, coming from the Russian steppes, where distances are measured in thousands of kilometers. It gave us a feeling of power and made us believe we could do anything.

As the train went through the poorer areas, urchins in rags ran alongside it, calling out to the girls to throw them pennies and sometimes hopping on the steps of the last car for short rides. A lone vendor was going up and down the aisle selling fish fritters—
empanadillas de chapín
—and goat cheese wrapped in plantain leaves. Madame promptly bought some of each and distributed them among the girls.

Madame dozed off, her head on my shoulder, and when she opened her eyes we had left the city behind and were picking up speed, riding out into the countryside. A breeze came up and dried the perspiration on our faces and necks. I racked my brain wondering how I could make her understand how important she was for me. I had sacrificed much more than she had because in leaving Russia I had betrayed the revolution. I was a member of the working class and I had everything before me—but Madame, in spite of being the daughter of a washerwoman, was identified with the nobility. She was a White Russian, and her solo
The Dying Swan
was the personification of the aristocrats’ agony.

I loved her and hated her for it. In Russia, the czar’s family is sacred; the czar is head of church and state. He is our paterfamilias and we love him almost as much as we love God. Even Nicholas we felt affection for, in spite of his weaknesses; the country blamed Alexandra, who was German, for the mass murders he committed. Madame, because she had met the czar personally, shared in the mystique of his family. This didn’t keep her from being democratic. As in the train, when she began to hand out tidbits to the dancers, and Nadja and Marina both curtseyed to her.

Diamantino returned and sat next to us in our compartment. If what he said was true, everything we saw belonged to the sugar barons. On the left a caravan of
mogotes
rose from the cane fields like a school of humpback whales. I had read about these exotic rock formations in some magazine; they also existed in the China Sea and were many millions of years old, among the oldest mountains in the world. The clouds above looked like lambs shedding fleece. On our right the sea stained the lower part of the sky a darker blue, like melted oil paint.

Five hours later the train neared the town of Arecibo. Several sugar mills appeared on the horizon, their funnels smoking like huge cigars. “That’s Dos Ríos over there,” Diamantino said, pointing to a red-brick building. “My godfather’s sugar mill.” Madame got up from her seat to get a better look. A large house with a gabled roof stood on the plain; it had a verandah and a wide, fanlike staircase leading up to the front door. Suddenly the train lurched and threw them off balance. Diamantino put out his hands to steady Madame and I heard him whisper: “I want you more than anything in the world; just the two of us, going deeper and deeper into the cool interior of the island.”

Arecibo’s train station was on a tongue of land overgrown with hyacinths on the far side of the Río de la Plata. The main street went along the coast; its houses all stood with their backs to the ocean and faced the narrow streets of the town, as if the islanders were afraid of the wide open space through which foreigners always reached them—first the Spaniards, then the British, the Dutch, and finally the Americans.

“Everybody out!” Diamantino cried as we reached the platform, and we clambered stiffly off the train. A few minutes later the engine whistled and started up again, going on toward Ponce. Our troupe walked to the center of town in a little caravan, the girls skipping ahead of Molinari, a dusty giant dressed in black who fanned himself with a piece of cardboard. Everyone was complaining about the heat. Grigoriev, the flute player, was perspiring so much and was so red in the face, he looked as though he were about to have a stroke. Juan Anduce and I carried heavy baskets full of costumes which Madame ordered us to balance on our heads.

I didn’t like it one bit that Diamantino had now become the leader of our group, and that even Molinari and Novikov were taking orders from him. Diamantino did everything: he checked the luggage to see that nothing was left behind on the train and directed the group toward the Hotel Las Baleares, on the main square. Most important, he never left Madame’s side, not even for a second. It was as if everything we had shared until then—our spiritual as well as our material adventures—had gone up in smoke. I was so angry at my mistress, I kicked the stones on the road and muttered under my breath. How could she be so blind? Didn’t she realize she was being used?