Russian Winter (5 page)

In fact the only jewelry she wore she had purchased just three years ago, her very first auction win: a garnet ring that, due to a minor flaw in the stone, had found no bidders. Drew was able to purchase it afterward with a bit of money left her by her grandmother. It remained her only ring, the garnet small and round-cut, propped up by short prongs on a band of white gold. Drew wore it on her right ring finger, as a reminder of Grandma Riitta, whom she still spoke to in her mind sometimes. She was the only one who had not been accusatory when Drew decided to leave her marriage. “You
kept growing, didn’t you? You grew up,” was all she had said, one of the last things she said to Drew, so that Drew knew she understood.

In her mind she still heard her grandmother’s voice sometimes. Though she recalled her accent clearly, the few Finnish words Drew knew were already fading. Drew’s mother, having come to America as a toddler, had always insisted on responding to her own mother in English. And so in these past years not only Grandma Riitta but an entire language had been lost to Drew.

Looking up from the garnet ring, Drew again read to herself. “Backdrop: History and Circumstance behind the Jewels.” That at least had a nice ring to it.

The way Nina Revskaya had denied, so vehemently, that the amber pendant might be hers, not to mention the fact that she and Grigori Solodin apparently did not speak to each other. Or acted as if they did not. Drew wondered what the connection between them might be—or rather, between those three amber pieces. With enough research, and some luck, she supposed, she might be able to figure it out.

Buoyed by the thought, Drew placed her fingers on the keyboard and began to type. “Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but in the case of Nina Revskaya”

Drew paused, waiting for inspiration…and pressed delete.

I
T HAD SNOWED
again, five more inches. That morning’s radio played a clip of Mayor Menino saying that though it was not yet February, Boston’s entire annual snow-removal budget had already been spent. As for today’s weather—the newscaster announced oddly gleefully—the high would be just two degrees, with a wind-chill factor of ten below.

Americans, always needing to know the exact temperature before deciding how hot or cold to feel. Grigori would have said it aloud;
entering the kitchen he felt—ridiculously, embarrassingly—the familiar disappointment of not finding Christine there sipping her decaffeinated coffee, simultaneously grading a batch of ESL exams and eating a portion of yogurt. She had been one of those people who woke easily and immediately, never needed time to warm to morning, to rub sleep from her eyes.

He poured himself a glass of tomato juice, took a cold gulp, and went to fetch the paper from the front step. Atop a narrow sidebar on the front page was a headline: “Intrigue at Auction House,” and in smaller print, “Mystery Donor Brings Rare Gem, Increased Interest.”

In his mind he heard Christine, so clearly:
I can’t help but dislike her
.

“Well, now,” Grigori had always said, whenever the topic of Nina Revskaya came up, “let’s not be too hard on her.” His instinct was always one of defense. He knew it took restraint for Christine not to simply do something about it herself. That was the main reason he had hesitated, all those years ago, when he first chose to confide in her about Nina Revskaya. Not lack of trust, or shyness, or embarrassment, so much as the knowledge that a woman like Christine would never be able to sit back and let things continue unresolved. A can-do, glass-half-full optimist, she had majored in education—that most idealistic of professions—and was considering a master’s in social work. At first Grigori told Christine only the substantiated facts, about his parents, about being an only child, adopted, growing up in Russia, then Norway, then France, and the final leap, in his late teens, to America. When he finally told her, back when he was twenty-five, after they had been together for a full six months, about the ballerina Revskaya, he first made Christine swear to him that she would not intervene, would not take any action, would let Grigori deal with things on his own, in his own way.

Not to mention the fact that you’re the only person who ever
took the time to translate Elsin’s poems into English.
And
got them published. I don’t see how she could be so apathetic about her own husband’s legacy
.

Ah, Chrissie—my advocate, I miss you.

Not so much as a thank-you
…

That his curiosity about Nina Revskaya’s life with her husband had transmutated into Grigori’s topic of scholarly expertise—the poetry of Viktor Elsin—was one of those rare happy outcomes born of personal obsession. Whenever the topic of Nina Revskaya’s reticence arose (not just with Christine, who knew the full story, but with anyone who inquired about Grigori’s translations and scholarship), Grigori had been able to say, without emotion, “It was a harsh time for her. You can imagine how she might not want to be reminded of…certain things. It could be like opening Pandora’s box, for her to look back at it all the way a scholar likes to. That kind of scrutiny.”

Asked if he had requested Nina Revskaya’s help in his studies of her husband’s poetry, the phrase Grigori used was always, “Not in any detailed way.” If pressed he would add, “She knows that I’ve translated his work, yes, but…she hasn’t played any
active
role as the holder of Elsin’s literary archive.” In fact she claimed not to possess any of Viktor Elsin’s papers or personal matter. Grigori had decided to believe this to be the truth. After all, plenty of scholars faced such challenges. Not just biographers; any researcher with someone standing between him and his subject. It was part of the job description. And anyway, the poems themselves, and the truths they held, meant more to Grigori than any book he might produce about them or their author, more than any of the finicky papers he had published or the lectures he had presented at various conferences. And so Nina’s refusal to help when he approached her, years ago, as a scholar and professor—rather than as that young, innocent college student—he had not taken nearly so personally. Not like the first time. Standing there in the vestibule, waiting for her to come down…

As for the translations, they were enough, they would suffice. The poems themselves were enough to maintain his continued interest. At some point they might yield their own secrets, with or without the help of Nina Revskaya. In the meantime, Grigori was perfectly aware of how he came across: nothing atypical, just one of those petty, unbrilliant academics worrying away at some esoteric and ultimately meaningless subject.

The way it felt to press the bell on the intercom, like detonating a bomb…

Grigori closed his eyes. If only he knew the truth. Impossible ever to be fully himself until he knew his own history.

He sighed. The pendant was being sent to a lab. “To make sure it’s not copal or, you know, a reconstitution,” the young woman at Beller had said at their meeting. She had a pleasant, businesslike manner Grigori found calming. “This is really just pro forma,” she had assured him. “With rare mountings like these, we have little doubt it’s genuine amber. But Lenore always says that if two decades in the business have taught her anything, it’s that even the best collections can have something wrong with them.”

“Something wrong?” Grigori had felt a kind of panic.

“Something fake, or falsified. Anyone can be duped.”

Duped. Just recalling her words, Grigori couldn’t help wondering if he himself had somehow, for all these years, been fooled.

“Especially something of this era,” the woman had explained. “The Victorians loved remembrance jewelry, and amber with specimens was the ultimate. Demand really spiked—which is of course when imitations start to crop up. Again, though, it’s not that we’re
doubtful
the pendant is genuine amber. We just want to be able to state in the catalog that it’s been verified. With luck, the lab should even be able to confirm where the amber is from. The chemical makeup of Baltic amber is pretty specific.”

It was during that conversation that Grigori had for the first time
consciously viewed the pendant as a jewel with its very own private and organic past. A gemological creation of the natural world, nothing to do with human travails. Until that moment, he had simply considered it a clue.

In a way it had always tinged him with the shame of a fetishist—not necessarily because it was a woman’s jewelry, but for the significance he had placed on it, and the nearly unbearable weight of what he suspected yet could not prove. Only Christine had known all about it. Sitting beside her on the floor of the room he rented, years and years ago, in the big rickety house just over the river in Cambridge, Grigori had told her all he had managed to piece together, and showed her the few bits of evidence. When she first touched the amber, it was with a small stroking motion, almost as if the thing were alive. “It’s sort of eerie, isn’t it?” She took the pendant in her palm, felt the weight of it. And then: “Can I try it on?”

Why had this surprised him? It hadn’t occurred to him that anyone might ever actually wear it. Uneasily he said, “Sure,” sounding calm enough that Christine hadn’t noticed his hesitation. Leaning forward, she reached behind her head to lift her hair as Grigori draped the necklace and fiddled with the clasp, his hands grazing her neck. He could smell the soap she always used, rose-scented, from Chinatown. “Okay,” he said, and she turned around so that he could see the necklace.

It didn’t look right on her. Christine said so herself. “That’s why I only wear silver,” she had explained as she stood to examine herself in the long mirror attached to the bedroom door. “Gold doesn’t work with my coloring. Neither does amber, I guess.”

Grigori had gone to stand behind her, drawing his arms around her—already, somehow, not quite so jarred by the girl he loved wearing this old and mysterious object. Relief was what he felt, that Christine was so separate from that fraction of his world. In the long mirror he saw, with surprise, a young couple in love.

From that moment the questions that had once seemed to him so central became less urgent; life with Christine overtook those other mysteries, grew larger than the past, created a
new
past, a
new
history—with Christine, who knew him as no one else had, Christine, the place where his search had finally ended.

Ah, Chrissie.

Grigori gulped down the rest of the tomato juice. These past two years had been that much worse for the way that hole had reopened. Larger every day, it seemed, the wanting, the needing to find his way back, somehow.

He placed the empty glass in the sink. This was the moment when Christine would have looked at the clock, said Yikes, gotta go, and kissed him so that he tasted the coffee flavor of her tongue.

Fighting the thought, Grigori went to fetch his coat and gloves from the closet, and braced himself for the cold, cold day.

A
gain the phone was ringing. First it had been the
Herald
and the
Globe
, but now came the piggybackers: the
TAB
, the
Phoenix
, not to mention the local television and radio stations. All because of that second press release from Beller. You would think there was nothing else happening in all of Massachusetts. But of course that was Boston, its essence, everyone excited about what was really not much at all. Local reporters sniffing around for news…At first Nina simply applied that universal yet somehow disingenuous phrase: “No comment.” But it felt weak, wrong, and each time she said it, she felt less in control.

“Do you have any idea who the anonymous donor might be?”

“No comment.”

“Were you surprised to learn that someone else owned amber jewelry that matched your own?”

“No comment.”

After nearly a full day of this, Nina realized what a fool she had been not to turn the ringer off. When she found the little switch, she felt as she imagined a scientist might upon making a simple yet brilliant discovery. And so she had a day and a half of quiet—until Cynthia discovered the switch and made that sucking noise through her teeth that she always used to show disapproval, and turned it
back on. Then she scolded Nina with a long spiel about safety and the rules of her job at Senior Services. When the ringing started up, she scolded Nina again, for not having an answering machine.

It was the next day that Cynthia said, “You know, sugar, if you just give them one interview, I bet they’ll stop calling.”

“I have given quite sufficient interviews in my life.” The problem was, Nina knew, that she was “theirs.” Other once-famous dancers resided in New York, Paris, Majorca, but Nina was Boston’s very own grande dame of ballet. Yet she had no desire to speak to anyone, least of all some poor scribe from the
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
. These days she sometimes found herself talking too much, saying things she hadn’t even wanted to say. It was those tablets. They made her not just groggy but loose-tongued, caused her to chat with Cynthia for much longer than she had meant to. One day last week she had found herself in the middle of a detailed story about her studio in London before realizing that it was Cynthia, and not a friend, she was talking with.

“I’m just saying,” Cynthia went on, “as long as you don’t talk, they’ll keep calling. But you give them what they want, they’ll quiet down.” She must have seen that Nina was considering. “An exclusive,” Cynthia added, as if she worked in the industry and used such terms all the time.

That was how Nina came to talk to Channel 4 News. It was arranged in no time, simply by returning their call. When Cynthia heard that June Hennessey and her crew would be taping at the apartment the next evening, she assessed Nina with new appreciation and said, “Wait till Billy hears!” Apparently June Hennessey had been the
News 4 New England
entertainment reporter for decades and was something of a celebrity herself; Cynthia said she was the last person to have interviewed Rose Kennedy before she died. Nina would have raised an eyebrow, had her face not been so painfully stiff. “I suppose she plans to kill me off too.”

To her credit, Cynthia didn’t bother laughing. “Something tells me it would take more than that to do you in.”

The afternoon of the taping, Cynthia showed up wearing not her usual nurse-pajamas but sleek black pants, a form-fitting purple sweater, and lipstick of a cheery mauve color. Nina chose not to acknowledge her efforts, and to treat June Hennessey, the two cameramen, the slim, frowning producer, and the sound technician with similar indifference. Microphones and large freestanding lights were set up with some sort of reflective panel, and Nina’s face powdered and rouged, while the producer stood with his arms crossed, bossing everyone around. But all that mattered to Nina—seated on the divan where Cynthia had insisted on arranging her among a cluster of firm little velvet pillows—was that she had her answers ready. When June Hennessey, sitting next to her, asked, “Isn’t it surprising that the amber necklace that matches your set should also happen to be here in the U.S., and not back in Russia?” Nina barely paused.

“It is mysterious. But I am sure there are many instances of this. Matching sets of jewels—or anything, why not?—become separated, because of theft, or perhaps they ended up to be sold at commission shops, or…desperation, bribery…who knows?” The bright light from above the first cameraman hurt her eyes.

“Bribery,” June Hennessey said in a dramatic voice, and Nina knew she wanted more of that.

“In the Soviet Union, it was how much was done.”

June Hennessey gave a deliberate, knowing nod so that the second cameraman could be sure to catch her reaction. “You mentioned theft. Do you think the pendant was stolen?”

“It is very probable. The bracelet and earrings were handed down, you see, to me through my husband. They belonged to his family, but in the civil war many of their valuables were lost.” That very last bit, at least, was true.

“Such a tragic history.” June Hennessey arranged her face to look
stricken, and the second cameraman did something with his lens to zoom in. “Your husband lost his life, didn’t he—not in the revolution, but—”

“According to official records, yes.”

“Terrible, just terrible.” June Hennessey shook her head, the waves of her carefully set hair moving stiffly side to side. “And when you defected, these absolutely
gorgeous
jewels came with you.”

“They came with me from Russia, in a situation of great danger and hardship.” Nina could hear the light hum of the first cameraman’s lens moving in for a close-up.

“In a way they’re mementos, aren’t they?” June Hennesey’s brow rose into a hopeful expression. “Not only are they incredibly rare, and completely
gorgeous
, not to mention extremely valuable. But for you they have an emotional value, too. They were from your husband’s family, and when you lost your husband, the amber that he had passed down to you was all you had left of him.”

June Hennessey seemed thrilled with her own insight. In a small voice Nina said, “Yes. All I had left of my husband.”

I
N
1947
SHE
is twenty-one, and has been in the company three years. Five counting wartime, when she was one of the group that stayed to dance at the Filial; the rest of the Bolshoi had been evacuated to a town by the Volga. Back then Nina was one of just two new graduates hired for the corps—a dream come true, if not, perhaps, a surprise.

After all, Nina excelled from the moment she entered the ballet school, never questioned the grueling repetition, ten years of pliés and
relevés
and holding her buttocks tight. (“Imagine you’re gripping a tram ticket there,” the teacher said in the very first class, “and don’t ever let it drop!”) Ten years of chassés across a raked wooden floor dark with wet spots from the watering can, ten years of studio
windows steamed with sweat. Always some ache or pain. From that first year with the other little girls dressed all in white, having to curtsy each time an adult passed in the corridor, to the years of black leotards and pale tights (to reveal every shadow and line of the leg muscles), Nina has withstood the exacting comments of her ballet instructors, their constant minute corrections, the light, uncompromising touch of a fingertip here, there—shoulder back a bit more, chin tilted just so—and been buoyed by their approval, the glimpsed delight in their faces at her quick turns and jumps, asking her to demonstrate a
saut de basque
: “Nina, please show the class what I mean.” The very fact that they always remembered her name revealed that she had impressed them. Even as a small girl, with no family connections to pull strings for her, she was always selected for dance scenes in the Opera, or for the ballets with children’s roles—a mouse or a flower or a page. Meanwhile her muscles strengthened, tendons elongated, she grew lean, her spine supple, every movement imbued with poise and sense of space. But it was her devotion, her ambition, her strict self-discipline that set Nina apart. An intensity of concentration that could draw rivulets of sweat down her face, neck, arms, chest, no matter how seemingly simple an exercise. The tyranny of her own perfection, of wanting, always,
more
, of knowing the limits of her body even as she sought to push beyond them, her limbs trembling with fatigue. Always dancing full-out, her diagonals across the floor nearly sending her into the wall. Staying on after class until she learned to land her
tours jetés
without a sound, practicing triple pirouettes until her face turned a purplish red. Practicing her autograph, even—as if that too might ensure her future. By the war’s end she was a soloist.

Yet when she thinks of all the hurdles she has cleared, the sometimes humiliating classes, the sternly judged exams, the frustration of injuries (tender right kneecap, and a recurring corn between her fourth and little toes), it seems nothing short of miraculous that,
from the dusty courtyard of the building where she still lives with Mother, she has somehow, finally, arrived here: not just onstage but in this new life, a dancer, permitted—by her own doggedness and exacting training as much as by luck and the various whims of the universe—to do for a living the thing she loves most in the world.

Now it is December. Winter darkness, like a candle blown out. All month a flu has stalked its way through the company, as always, just in time for the endless
Shchelkunchik
performances, half the corps shivering with fever, mucus flung from noses with each pirouette. Tonight all three principals are ill, and Nina at the last minute finds herself dancing the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy, holding forth well enough in the big adagio but still worrying the audience might begrudge this eleventh-hour switch.

Her pulse continues to rush after the heavy curtains have swung shut, and then she is back in the chilly dressing room she shares with Polina now that they have both been promoted to first soloist. Polina is Nina’s age, with freckled skin, spidery eyelashes, and a long, thin neck. Tonight she danced the part of the Snow Queen and has glitter all through her hair. Peeling off sweaty tights with trembling hands, trying to hurry, hoping the silk doesn’t snag. An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has requested two dancers for a reception tonight, and in the absence of any principals, Nina and Polina are to perform.

Only after company class this morning did the director explain: a foreign delegation; a Party official’s private residence; a car and escort to be sent for them…

“You of course understand what an honor this is, to entertain our leaders.”

Of course she is honored. While the top-tier dancers (and actors, writers, singers) often perform at government functions, not until this year has Nina been included in the lowest reaches of this category. Yet even now, as she quickly washes and powders herself, she
hears the implication in the director’s words: that it is her duty to perform, that both she and Polina are at the service of the state. If only she weren’t so tired, if only the hour weren’t so late. Already this week she has performed double her usual bill. Her pointe shoes, crusted with rosin, are starting to wear through.

“I’m so excited,” Polina is saying, stuffing pink tights and leg warmers into her drawstring bag. “I just wish I had something better to wear.”

“They’ll only see our costumes, anyway.” Changing into her one good dress, though, Nina too feels plain. Just last week her mother fixed her coat up for her—sewed a yard of braid to the cuffs and hem—yet the elbows are so worn, they shine. At the last minute, though, she has an idea.

“Well now, where did that come from?” Waiting in her own shiny-elbowed coat, Polina raises her overplucked eyebrows.

“Where do you think?” Across Nina’s shoulders is a fur, white and lush, taken from the costume stash. “I’m just borrowing it.” She rubs her chin against the animal’s small head as she and Polina, carrying the hangers with their costumes, and the drawstring bags with their shoehorns and leg warmers and rubbing alcohol, and the clutch purses with their perfume and lipstick, make their way outside, where their escort—a shivering, glum-looking man in a thick-shouldered coat—waits.

The snow has been coming down since afternoon, wet flakes beginning to turn icy. Polina keeps exclaiming about the weather as she and Nina are driven along in a long black ZiS limousine. This is the first time either of them has ridden in one. Only once has Nina been inside a private automobile—back before the war, when a friend’s cousin was visiting and took them for a drive in an old German Opel. Now Nina supposes the cousin must have gone off to the war, wonders, with that familiar, vaguely sick feeling in her chest, if he made it home or ended up in a steel box. Or maybe he is like the
beggars she sees on the streets, with stumps for limbs. Nina always stops to give them a few kopecks. In her mind she still hears the line—it comes from a poem—everyone knows:
better to return with an empty sleeve / than with an empty soul
.

They arrive at a handsome gray stone building (none of the usual peeling paint or sagging roofs) and soon are in a changing room yet again, pulling on silk tights and stiff tutus, stuffing thick butcher paper down into the toes of their pointe shoes, where the fabric is worn out. They will be performing variations from
Swan Lake
. Just a year ago Nina’s top roles were the dance of the six swans or of the four cygnets—but already this year she has danced one of the lead swans, and the act 1 pas de trois, and the Hungarian Bride in the third act. Still, she dreams of no longer being among the crush of girls in feathered headbands, the cramped queue starting at the front stage right corner and curling all the way backstage….

Tonight’s stage is a vast, twinkling ballroom, the rough wooden dance floor laid atop a marble one shiny as ice. Nina’s heart pounds so intensely surely everyone, seated at tables all around, can hear it. Her mouth has gone dry, her hands cold and clammy. She glimpses plates heaped with food, and circles of men in dark suits: people with official posts, executive powers. Her heart seems to be right between her ears. There are even a few women here, wives in long gowns. But now the pianist has begun to play, and the guests become a blur as Nina, her body moving as of its own will, begins to dance.