12

The Imperial Ballet was no more, and with it had gone the financiers who had kept it in business. Many of the wealthy had fled Russia, taking their wealth with them; and those who remained were hoarding their possessions, or hiding them from possible confiscation by the new government. The pampered lives of dancers had thus changed dramatically. A glaring example of this was the ballerina Kshesinskaya’s lovely oriental-style home on Petrograd Side, near the banks of the Neva, which had been taken over by the Bolsheviks and made their headquarters. How awful it had been for her to watch all those crude, dirty men tramping on the expensive carpets, carelessly bumping and jostling her fine things.

Talia Sorokin had not lost nearly as much, materially. In fact, she was still living in her flat near the Marinsky Theater on the Moika Canal that she shared with several other dancers. Her mother and Anna Grigorov had frequently tried to get her to come back to their place. They worried because she was so near the center of town and much of the revolutionary activity. But their place was crowded already. Talia did not want to be yet another mouth to feed. And the dancers Talia lived with needed her to help pay the rent. No more were the days when they could live off the fat of wealthy patrons. The dancers had to scrape and claw to find food just like everyone else. Many, of course, had fled the country because even if they themselves were not part of it, their connections to the nobility were too strong for the new rulers—the Proletariat, as they had come to be called—to ignore. Talia had not reached such a level of notoriety to be forced into such a position. She did not have to flee.

Luckily, the Proletariat were Russians first, and they loved their ballet as much as the aristocrats. The tsar whom they despised and crushed had built for a fine people’s theater, Narodny Dom. There the common man could be entertained at reasonable prices, which the tsar subsidized from his personal purse. Talia had performed there a couple of times before the revolution, prior to joining the Ballet Russe. However, without financial backers such places of entertainment were now struggling terribly or had closed completely. Many performers had literally taken to the streets, dancing or singing or playing instruments, living off the handful of coins passersby tossed their way. The people still wanted, and perhaps even needed, to be entertained.

Talia had done her share of dancing on street corners, but recently a dozen other dancers, including herself, had formed an informal troupe that traveled around, performing in the various theaters in Petrograd. For music they had but a skeleton orchestra, a mere handful of musicians. There was no scenery except what was left at the theater, and often it did not go with the stories, but it proved to be better than nothing. They also had managed to pilfer a few costumes from the Imperial Ballet closets. They frequently played to large audiences, which did not reflect accordingly on their income. Often, after expenses were deducted and the remainder divided between them, Talia came away with but a ruble or two for a night’s work.

Talia was managing to survive, in body and mind, at least. Her heart was another matter. She still could not believe that Andrei was truly gone. It seemed just as it was when he was in Europe, that he was absent for a while, with hope for a reunion always present. Then she would remember that he was never going to return. He had died in an alley during a blizzard, all alone. Someone had probably carted off his body, and because Andrei had no papers—or so Daniel believed—he was no doubt buried in a common grave. His loved ones could not even have the comfort of a funeral service.

Talia still tried to conjure up hope, because Andrei’s body had never been recovered. Perhaps that was just her nature, but she could not give up hope entirely that he might have survived. She tried to ignore the huge unanswered question this hope produced—a question Daniel and even Yuri would attempt to confront her with. If Andrei had survived, why, after two months, had he stayed away? Daniel said that Andrei had finally come to terms with his anger toward Yuri and his sense of shame. He had come home ready to reconcile with his family. So, if he was alive, there could be no reason for him to stay away.

They meant well in trying to make her face reality and accept her loss. To do otherwise might easily drive her insane. She ought to just accept the fact that her dear Andrei was gone. But acceptance did not fill the huge abyss in her heart resulting from the loss, not only of the man she now realized she loved, but also her best and dearest friend. It did not keep her from seeing his face in every crowd or hearing his voice. How many times had she stopped in the street, certain her name had been called, or that she had caught a glimpse of his broad shoulders disappearing into a building or around a corner? How many times had she chased after these phantoms, only to be miserably disappointed?

Talia looked in the mirror before the dressing table where she sat. The face that stared back at her was thin and pale—more so than usual. Even the theatrical touches of rouge and eye makeup did little to help. Her thick, dark brown hair, pinned up on top of her head with wispy tendrils framing her face, only emphasized the pallor, and her long neck made her seem even thinner than she was. What a fitting look for the “White Swan” of Swan Lake, the part she would dance tonight at the Narodny Dom.

It was said that she danced the part nearly as well as Pavlova, with artistry and passion. She knew this had nothing to do with her abilities as a dancer but rather because she had found a part she could truly relate to—Odette, the princess consigned to the body of a swan because of an evil spell that can only be broken by love. Robbed of that love by the deception of the cruel sorcerer who thus imprisoned her, Odette’s only escape seemed to be death. It hardly mattered that Odette and her prince were finally united in death by the power of their love.

Even in her most optimistic moments, Talia did not expect such a bittersweet ending in her own life. She died a little every day, knowing that her love was never coming back to her.

It started raining just before Andrei and Rudy left for their evening of entertainment. Sonja tried to get them to call off the outing, but when Andrei insisted on going ahead, she thrust an umbrella into his hands instead. When he and Rudy were out in the street, Andrei glanced up just before opening up the umbrella. Sonja’s face was pressed against the windowpane watching her “Ivan” fly from the nest. He waved up at her and she waved back, but even through the stained, dirty pane, he saw that she did not smile.

The walk that evening was tiring for Andrei. He could not remember a time when he had been fit and robust, but he knew there must have been such a time, and for more reasons than one, he wished for its return. Since his coming to terms with his fear a few days previously, and the accompanying increase in his desire to learn his identity, he had been consciously, and sometimes strenuously, working at accelerating his recovery. When Sonja was gone, which was often since marketing consumed so much time, he exercised on the apartment stairs, walking up and down, sometimes even trying to run. His wound still caused him pain, but it was healing steadily since the infection had been stanched by powders Rudy had somehow obtained from a hospital. Andrei’s main problem now was loss of stamina, a problem he was determined to surmount.

When Rudy suggested they pause in their journey for a rest, Andrei gritted his teeth and shook his head. He knew the quest for his identity would be no task for an invalid. He had to get his strength back.

“By the way,” Andrei asked, trying to get his mind off his shaking legs, “when are you going to tell me our destination?”

“I wanted to make sure we’d come far enough so you wouldn’t want to turn back.”

“I thought this was going to be entertainment, something I’d enjoy. . . .”

“I hope so.” Rudy paused to run a finger across his glasses to clear the mist caused by the dampness the umbrella could not prevent. “Of course we have no idea what ‘Ivan’ would enjoy, do we?”

“No, but I’ll bet you have something interesting up your sleeve.”

Rudy smiled and they walked on. Crossing a bridge to the north side of the Neva, they eventually came to a large building of dull gray stone that had a vague Grecian look, except it was more severe than classical. Lettering on the front of the building identified it as Narodny Dom, the People’s House. Andrei knew the building, just as he knew other public places in Petrograd. He even knew what it would look like inside. He had been there before, but that was no great revelation, for this building was a theater and many Russians came here. As always, it was perplexing to Andrei how some things were so clear when other things—the very personal things—were so very blank.

“I’m surprised the place is still operating,” Andrei said casually.

“Well, people still want to be entertained. But it is not functioning in all its past glory, to be sure.”

“And what are they showing?”

“Swan Lake.”

“The ballet . . .”

Rudy smiled sheepishly. “You disapprove?”

“No, I think it is a good idea. The man I was probably liked the ballet. But I don’t see how coming here will help.”

“Don’t worry about that. Let’s just enjoy it. If it sparks something, fine. If not—well, nothing lost.”

Andrei wondered if it could be that simple. At least it was something tangible, the only real link that he had to his lost past—besides the Bolsheviks. But he was still a bit nervous about taking that route, although he knew he would, sooner or later.

With a shrug, he entered the building, closed the umbrella, and shook off the excess rain. There were quite a few people milling about the lobby, but only a short line at the ticket window where he and Rudy purchased tickets for a couple of kopecks, much less than the pre-revolution prices, a fact that was tucked in Andrei’s patchy memory.

Though there were two or three hundred in the audience, the theater was hardly full, and Rudy steered them to excellent seats ten rows from the front, in the center section. They sat down and had a fifteen-minute wait before the musicians filed into the orchestra’s box. There were only a half dozen of them, but they were dressed in evening attire, though a close look revealed that their cuffs were frayed and the knees and seats of their trousers were shiny and worn. Rather than being saddened by the rather pathetic showing, Andrei felt a strange pride in this display of the indomitable spirit of the Russian people. Perhaps he was indeed a revolutionary, if not a Bolshevik.

But politics aside, he was inspired on another level as well. He took out a sketchbook Sonja had found for him—he was afraid to ask how she had come by it or how much it had cost her—which he now carried with him always, along with the bits of charcoal that had been in his pockets. Before the stage lights were dimmed, he was able to make a drawing of the “orchestra.” Then the lights lowered and he was forced to tuck the sketchbook back into his inside coat pocket.

The opening scenes were hardly mesmerizing. The costumes were quite simple and the scenery was mediocre at best. Andrei reminded himself that the ballet had no doubt been hit as hard as anything by the revolution. The dancing was good, but it was not until the second act that he truly became caught up in the performance. That was when the White Swan came on the stage. He understood how the Prince Siegfried could fall so completely in love with her. The grace and beauty she emanated was only part of it. As the story progressed, one could tell this dancer somehow truly identified with Odette. Doomed to be lost forever in an evil spell, unable to grasp at love—the one thing that could save her.

In the end, as the swan was swallowed up in the lake formed by her mother’s tears, fated to die with her prince, Andrei watched transfixed. He leaned forward in his seat, his breath held, as if the scene were trying to pull him to it, as if the dancer herself were a magnet, a force powerful in its frailty and delicacy. Yet, seeming to mock the death scene, his heart was pounding so hard he felt the throbs echo in his ears. The dancer’s every movement only made it beat faster. He thought the sound of it could be heard all over the theater, like a drum. It seemed a sound such that could wake the dead.

But it did nothing to wake his dead memory. Andrei was left with only a disturbing sense that his reaction had been due to more than the quality of the performance. Yet the void in his mind had changed almost imperceptibly. It was no longer just an empty void. Now it was like a large empty room, with a light in it, and a hollow echo, but nothing else. It was waiting, expectantly, to be filled.