The Four Winds of Heaven (81 page)

She went to work and was met by Albert Manuel in the hallway. “So?” he asked, tilting his eyebrows quizzically. Sonia cast down her lids, and her manager declared teasingly: “Mademoiselle, if you are not betrothed this evening, do not bother to show yourself here tomorrow. One does not pull a young woman thus by the nose as this man does with you.” He laughed and went into his own office.

He left her pensive. All this teasing was probably harmless, but she was no child of seventeen, who could be kept waiting. In their banter, Monsieur Manuel and her uncle had made her decision for her: this evening she would clinch her own destiny, once and for all, and put a stop to this emotional seesaw. She had no father to intercede on her behalf, and she was too mature to ask her uncle to do so, and too proud.

She was to sup with Mossia Zlatopolsky at Noel Peters, and then they were to see a play together,
The Chained Man.
Very well, she thought, I shall see whether or not this particular man feels bound or free—the title is appropriate. She clothed herself very carefully in a narrow gown of utmost simplicity, a pearl-pink shade which matched the faint tint on her cheeks. Unlike the ladies of her day, she never wore rouge, and now she appeared particularly fresh and youthful and delicate, like a long-stemmed tea rose. The gown had been her New Year's gift from Clara and Misha, and she had never worn it, reserving it for a special occasion. When she met Mossia Zlatopolsky at the door, she was pleased to see the obvious admiration in his blue-green eyes.

He selected a small, intimate table, and ordered the supper: oysters on the half shell, potage Dubarry, duckling in wine, and a bottle of fine Bordeaux for himself, as Sonia did not enjoy alcohol. A string quartet was playing in a corner of the room.

Mossia ate in silence. Suddenly, her spoon midway between the soup plate and her mouth, Sonia regarded him and spoke, her voice clear above the beating of her heart in her throat. “Do you know,” she asked, “that you are placing me in a compromising situation?”

“I?” he cried, his eyes widening.

“Yes,” she continued mercilessly, “you compromise my reputation. Since the first time that you have taken me out, alone or with my mother, there have been many occasions for you to speak. Yet you are silent, and now my friends have begun to ask why we are not engaged.” Her gray eyes fastened on his large face, which had paled. “I need to know,” she declared, leaning toward him, “whether the answer is ‘yes' or ‘no,' as to our future together.”

“But,” he asked in a low voice, “are you not afraid, after what I told you about my past, about my marriage?”

“No,” she replied.

Her eyes, large and candid, remained upon his face, unabashed. He opened his mouth, shook his head, shrugged his massive shoulders—and looked at her with such unsuppressed ecstasy that Sonia could no longer doubt his feelings. “By God, of course it's ‘yes'!” he exclaimed, taking her small hand and kissing it.

Sonia's lips parted and the blood rushed to her cheeks. She uttered a small cry of delighted laughter but she could not speak. The brilliant room seemed to whirl around her. Mossia motioned toward the waiter, who came at once. “Champagne!” he cried. “Champagne to toast my bride-to-be!” When the silver bucket was presented, Mossia said, “Forget the rest of the supper. Who can think of food?” But Sonia was still speechless with this magnificent joy that shook within her.

Then they became aware that the violinist had stopped by their table. After an elaborate bow, he began to play a gypsy song. Mossia laughed. “Do you know what this tune is?” he asked. “It's called ‘Have Pity, Have Pity, My Darling.' How do you think he guessed at my sentiments?”

But Sonia raised his large fingers to her dainty lips. She was very moved. “My own darling, there is nothing in you to pity,” she murmured. “Tell me, Mossia—was I really so frightening to you?”

“Perhaps more than you can imagine,” he replied. “But my mind was made up from the first. When Schneerson, Willner, and I took you to supper at Sirdar, after seeing
The Blue Bird,
I had an ulterior motive for taking you to that particular restaurant. After Lialia, my mother did not trust my taste, and remembered you only as a girl of fourteen in Kiev. She knew that I had decided to marry you, and since Yosif Persitz, my brother-in-law, was in Paris on business, she asked that he look you over and report back to her, in Nice. You had never met him, for he always lived in Moscow, but he came to Sirdar by prearrangement and watched us. He found you utterly charming, perfect for me. And it seems that Papa has been in love with you since our first meeting, and rued my wayward ignorance of you when you visited Kiev in 1912. But how was I to know that another would declare himself right away, so quickly? It was the wrong moment for us. I was too callow, you would not even have noticed me. But I loved you truly when you first came to plead for Fuchs in your modest little blue suit.”

“Yet you waited so long,” she chided him, tears in her eyes.

“I was certain you would refuse me.”

She could not resist then, and left her seat. She went to him and placed her arms about his neck, her laughter tumbling about him like joyous confetti. She kissed him. “You are a wonderful fool,” she told him. “I want all that is you: your earnest look, your intense love of life, your generosity and impulsiveness, your loathsome past, even your domineering Zionist sister! I want to give you babies, to wake with you in the mornings. How could you have doubted me?”

“We must go at once to Saint-Germain,” he interrupted her, “to tell your mother that I have ceased to bring you dishonor.”

He stood and circled her frailty with his strong arm.

S
onia de Gunzburg
sat at the outdoor cafe on the Champs Elysées, a string of the finest pearls around her neck, a matching pearl ring on the third finger of her left hand. “You would like him, Natalia Nicolaievna,” she declared, and her gray eyes sparkled with small lights like diamond chips. “He is like Volodia—strong and steady, and yet he feels most deeply. He is completely Russian, a man of simple virtues and also of simple vices.” She smiled. “You see, I already know him well.”

Natasha said, “I am so pleased for you, Sofia Davidovna. You have suffered so, and deserve happiness. And I am glad that you compared him to Volodia—for my brother was very much in love with you, and would have sacrificed everything to become your husband.”

Sonia bit her lower lip, pensively. The light spring breeze kissed her cheeks and neck. Natasha sat opposite her, tall and graceful, wisps of black hair escaping at the nape of her slender neck. “Mossia would never want me to forget Volodia,” Sonia said softly.

“Not if he truly understands you, which is apparent,” Natasha replied. A sad smile painted itself over her lovely features. She said, “But I must forget Ossip, for I too understand him. He is a man who needs peace, which is one thing I cannot bring him. You must not tell him I am here, and a widow. Let him enjoy Japan with his new family. She deserves to try to make him happy. I have wrought sufficient havoc in his life. He is fragile, unlike you, Sofia Davidovna, and unlike myself. Do not blame her for her dominance of him: she is unsure of herself as his wife, as a Gunzburg. And if she loves him, she must know that Ossip will need guidance, that his own suffering has deprived him of a certain will. Forgive your brother, Sofia Davidovna.”

“You will not attend my wedding?” Sonia asked.

“No,” Natasha replied. “For many reasons.” She smiled at the pretty girl her brother had loved, whose father had been her own father's fiercest opponent. She saw a girl who had alternately hated and liked her, who had lost and won and lost as she had. But Sofia Davidovna de Gunzburg was winning again. Volodia would have wanted that, she thought fondly, and then she sighed. Her own exile was more bitter, and she would win no more. She had to disappear from the lives of the Gunzburgs, forever. She did not belong to them. Regarding Sonia, she thought: But we have all changed, we are in our thirties. We shall never see Russia again. It is silly, and weak, to want to cling to the past. For it was the past that destroyed the Romanovs, when the present might have saved their dynasty…

Natasha rose, and behind her Sonia could see the Etoile, where her great-grandfather, the patriarch Ossip, had built his magnificent Parisian house, where her mother Mathilde had been born. There was great beauty in the sight of the noble Russian Princess outlined against the Arc de Triomphe. Sonia stood, too, and embraced Natasha wordlessly. No, she would not tell her brother.

After Natasha Tagantseva Kurdukova walked away, Sonia remained in place, feeling the sunshine upon her bare arms. Suddenly she knew that she had been right, long ago, to have questioned God's purpose in taking Kolya's love away from her. She had not understood it then, but now she did. God had known that, nine years later, she would find greater, more lasting happiness with Mossia Zlatopolsky. While she had grieved and sickened, God had planned. He had taken care of her, his daughter. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed with her joy, a joy she felt with every fiber of her body. She did not need to struggle any more, to wrestle with survival. She could afford to grow soft contours, to laugh freely. For she knew that she was loved.

S
onia de Gunzburg
awakened on the day before her wedding with a calm feeling of plenitude. This was her last full day as an unmarried woman. She had never minded solitude and wondered sadly if she would miss it. She was marrying Mossia because she loved him, felt whole beside him; also because in many ways he represented all that she knew that she could never be: impulsive, generous to excess, a gambler. Still, she wondered. Her life had been as Sonia de Gunzburg, and it would be strange to become somebody's wife.

She did not want to speak with anyone that morning, wanting instead to be alone with her thoughts. This was one time in her life when she did not apologize for wishing to be selfish. Anna had arrived, and was staying in the house at Saint-Germain, along with Dalia and Riri. Now Sonia slipped noiselessly down the stairs and took the train into Paris.

First she had errands to take care of, going to various couturiers to try on items of a new wardrobe which Fanny Aronovna was purchasing for her as a wedding gift. At Dobbs on Avenue Victor Hugo there was a navy suit and several blouses; at Jeanne Lanvin a pink ball gown, its skirt composed of four floor-length pleats. Finally there was Worth, where she had her last fitting for her wedding gown. She departed carrying a large box in which lay a mantle of white velvet, trimmed with fur and lined with satin, for wearing to the synagogue. At a street corner Sonia undid the wrapping and removed the coat. It was sumptuous, a thing of true beauty, worthy... of St. Petersburg. Laughing, Sonia put the garment over her frail shoulders and walked off in the sunshine, a white princess among commoners, a snow queen among dribbles of rain. She felt good, wonderful in fact. And she was not ashamed. The Crimea was at last behind her.

Afterward, Sonia went to the temple for her ritual prenuptial bath. This was a ceremony which was important to Mossia's mother, and, strangely enough, to her own. At this crucial time Mathilde was holding onto rituals with ferocity. There was the bath, and also the matter of being married by the
Grand-Rabbin
of France. The
Grand-Rabbin
of Paris, a great friend of Sonia, would simply not do for her mother: for since Mathilde's own wedding, all the Gunzburg women had been married by a Chief Rabbi of France, and anyone else would mar tradition.

When she arrived for supper at the home of her Aunt Clara, Sonia had spent the entire day walking and thinking, and was elated in her own quiet way. She went to bed early. Misha and Clara had thought it made more sense to have her sleep at their city residence the night before the great day, rather than let her return to Saint-Germain. But this time, when she slipped between the familiar covers, she was once again the young niece, the guest, and not the hired governess.