Olga breaks the silence. “Do you remember our father?” she asks Naomi.
The three sisters sit together in an antechamber at the mayor’s office, dressed in their wedding clothes, waiting for Mâitre Blum’s secretary to come collect them.
Naomi shakes her head. “Not really. I remember that he could always make me smile, even when I was sad. I remember being on a train once, with you and Mama. Papa couldn’t come with us. He made my dolly talk.”
“Is that all? Can’t you remember anything else?”
Naomi tries harder—and even wonders if she’s making this up, just to please Olga. “He wore glasses,” she says slowly, “like you. He loved reading.”
“But his face? What did he look like, Noni? You’re such a genius with faces.”
Naomi sighs. “When I try to see his face, all I see is the portrait.”
They’ve spent a lot of time, together and separately, looking at the framed sepia wedding portrait of their mother and father, a photo their uncle Daniel had given to them. It is the only photo of their father they have ever seen.
“I can’t remember anything before Saint Petersburg,” says Olga with a sigh. “When we saw Petrushka, I felt like I was remembering Kishinev—but it was my mind, I think, playing tricks on me.”
Naomi looks into Olga’s eyes but only sees a small reflection of herself in her sister’s glasses. “Mama says that, of all of us, you’re most like him.”
Baila sees an opportunity to contribute something to this conversation. “Our aunt says there’s no way of knowing if he was my father.”
“She didn’t!” says Naomi, at the same moment that Olga says, “That bitch!”
Naomi takes Baila by the shoulders and waits till Baila meets her gaze. “Get this straight, Babochka. Asher Danilov was father to all three of us.”
Baila, who hates her sisters’ nickname for her, pushes Naomi away. “What does it matter, who my father was? I never had a father for one single day of my life. I’m glad our aunt is marrying Mâitre Blum! I wish Mama would get married.”
“I think it’s important,” says Olga in her most maddeningly grown-up voice, “to help each other remember. To keep whatever memories we have alive.”
“Our lives are ahead of us,” says Baila. “What good is there in trying to remember what’s gone now?”
“How can you say that?” Naomi asks, just as she wonders why she and Olga are both so sentimental about a past they hardly even remember. Certainly, this nostalgia must be due to their mother’s influence, really, always going on and on about Kishinev and all its sights and smells and stories about their little home behind the shop with its ceramic stove and steaming samovar. About the antics of their uncle Lev, a person they’ve never met—who has entered the realm of myth for them, along with the grandparents and other relatives they never knew, and the father she can barely remember. Maybe, she speculates, this persistent preoccupation with the past is keeping their mother from getting on with her life.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” says Olga.
Baila, who struggles in school, often rails at God for having given Olga all the brains. “Did you just make that up?”
“I wish! It was written by an American named George Santayana.”
Naomi is accustomed to the scholarly nuggets her sister brings home from the library and introduces into their conversation whenever possible. She has found occasion to repeat some of the better lines, when the opportunity arose, in front of someone she wished to impress.
A rap at the door announces Mâitre Blum’s secretary, who pokes his head inside. “All ready, are you?”
“We’re ready, Eugène,” says Baila, reflexively—unthinkingly—making her eyes shine and looking even prettier than she had a moment ago.
Eugène sits on a chair across from them. “Aren’t you excited about the wedding—and the honeymoon? My goodness, Mademoiselle Baila, you must surely be excited to be going on the tour!”
Baila is excited but also filled with dread that she’s bound to disappoint her aunt, no matter how hard she works at her ballet lessons. What are the chances of rising to the top of the heap, after all? Her aunt had worked at being a dancer as if nothing else mattered to her—and still never managed to progress beyond demi-soloist, and that only two or three times in her entire career. And now her knees are nearly shot, and she’d be ready to throw herself off a rooftop if she hadn’t finally gotten Mâitre Blum to make good on his promise to marry her.
Olga sighs, thinking about how unfair it is, once again, that Baila is to get a treat that will be wasted on her. What will she even notice about South America? What an opportunity it would be, aboard the Avon, to observe at close hand—and write about—the inner workings of Europe’s most innovative dance company. “This is a marriage of convenience for everyone involved, wouldn’t you say?”
“You’re very cynical for one so young,” says Eugène, who gets a soft, nostalgic look in his eyes. “Your aunt was, and still is, a beautiful dancer.”
“Ask her sometime if she’s pleased with her career—or well content that it’s nearly over!”
“Over?” says Eugène. “How can you say it’s nearly over when she’s just been hired to go on tour with Diaghilev’s company?”
Olga suspects that Jeannette is only getting to go on the tour because the Ballets Russes is strapped for funds. Mâitre Blum will pay for their passage aboard the Avon, and Baila’s too. It wouldn’t have taken a good deal of persuasion to convince Baron de Gunzburg, who’s in charge of the tour, to hire Jeannette as a supernumerary dancer for Swan Lake and Schéhérazade. It was just too good a bargain to pass on, getting a competent dancer who would pay her own way.
“It will be an unparalleled opportunity for me, taking classes with the company,” says Baila, parroting her aunt’s words—and assuming what her sisters have come to regard as her ballerina pose, head held high and slightly to one side, shoulders squared.
Olga sighs again, thinking about how Baila will be seeing all the wonders of the world—and how little detail she’s bound to convey in her letters, no matter how many promises Olga extracts from her.
They hear raised voices from the other side of the door—angry voices. Eugène tries to smile reassuringly—but clearly something is wrong. And then Mâitre Blum and their mother burst in.
“Well,” says Sonya, pinning a lock of hair back in place. “It seems we’re to skip the wedding and go straight to the party.”
Blum appeals directly to Olga. “You’ll understand, I’m sure! I’ve found a publisher for Proust—and must see the whole thing through for him. I can’t possibly take two months off now.”
“Aren’t you marrying our aunt?” says Baila.
All eyes are on him—but Sonya answers, in a voice dripping with irony. “Destiny has called upon Mâitre Blum to devote all his energy and skills now to the service of high art.”
“But isn’t Auntie disappointed?” asks Naomi.
“She’s piping mad,” Sonya answers.
“But she’ll get over it,” says Blum, “when she realizes the importance of getting this book out into the world.”
All of them, in concert, roll their eyes.
“Please hear me out! I care about all of you—and I care deeply about Jeannette. Olga, you know what I’m saying, don’t you?”
“I think I do, René. Marcel Proust is, if I understand you correctly, a true artist. His work has come from that other-worldly, timeless place where all true art comes from. And as is the case for so many timeless and true works of art, the world into which it has emerged may not be ready or even capable of appreciating its value. And so you see it as your—” She pauses, searching for the right words. “As your sacred duty to shepherd his novel out into the light.”
Blum has the look of a proud and happy teacher. “Precisely, Olga! I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
“But what about the South American tour,” says Baila, “and my classes with the Ballets Russes?”
“I’m giving my ticket to your mother. The three of you will have a very wonderful time—and we’ll have a big celebration when you return!”
“And what’s to become of Olga and me, while they’re gone?” says Naomi.
“Why, you’ll carry on as before,” says Sonya. “You have your work with the Martines. And, Olga—you’ll have the unprecedented opportunity to hone your craft at the side of some of the most brilliant journalists in Paris today. Who will carefully and respectfully look after you.” The look she shoots at Blum is so menacing that he visibly cringes.
“Absolutely,” he says to Olga with what appears to be sincere enthusiasm. “Between Colette and my colleagues at Gil Blas, you will have the chance to develop your prodigious gifts to their fullest potential.”