The Turning (7 page)

“You say she is twelve and has no formal training. It’s much too late for her.”

“I’ve been trying to teach her for over a year, but whatever you decide, just think of her miserable life, Madame; think how much it would mean to her to have the chance to dance just this once for the great Pleshakova.”

Madame shrugged. “Well, nothing will come of it, but bring her by this afternoon.”

Natalia was so nervous when I gave her the news that at first she refused. “I couldn’t. She will laugh at my clumsiness.”

“Natalia, this is your one chance. Madame will be truthful, but I promise she won’t laugh.”

Mercifully, except for Aidan, Madame and I were the only ones in the rehearsal hall to witness the audition. Self-consciously Natalia warmed up at the barre. I explained to Aidan the little ballet I had devised for Natalia from
The Red Shoes
.

“Yes, yes, I know the story,” Aidan said, and began to play, nodding her head at Natalia. Natalia paused in the third position as if waiting for the lifting of some spell that would free her to dance. For a moment I was afraid she had been overcome with shyness and had panicked. She was staring at Aidan. I realized that never in her life had she heard music coming from a human being. At the shelter I played records, and when in her miserable life had someone taken her to a concert or a live performance of ballet? The music enchanted her, turning her into a statue.

Aidan changed the tempo of the music. It became more lively. Suddenly Natalia began to dance as if she had studied a secret language for years and now, at last, was allowed to speak it. There were
fouettés, échappés, jetés, battements frappés, demi-pliés
, and
relevés
. She was using every step I had ever taught her, many I recalled illustrating only once to show the variety of steps. The music had become her red slippers. As long as Aidan played, Natalia had to dance. I was both excited and a little envious. Though I knew I danced well, better than most, Natalia danced as if she were jumping from a tall diving board, with no thought to what might catch her.

When at last Aidan stopped, Natalia’s arms dropped and her feet came to rest in a perfect fifth position. I saw Madame hastily brush tears from her eyes. “I have a friend who is ballet mistress at the Bolshoi Ballet,” Madame said. “She will find a ballet school for you. I will call her at once. Tomorrow you will be on the train to Moscow.”

Natalia flung her arms around me. She then had the courage to do what none of us would have imagined doing. She threw her arms around Madame and danced her about. Madame only pretended to be displeased.

A week later I had a letter from Moscow. Natalia was in ballet school. Her spelling was like her dancing, wild and full of invention, but it was plain that she was in heaven. She wrote, “I O you my life.”

Spring settled on the city. Without coats and boots I felt light enough to float up into the clouds. The wooden boxes were removed from the statues in the Summer Garden, and the Roman emperors and voluptuous women were once again set free. It was the time of the white nights in our northern city—the long June evenings had arrived, when the sun seemed only to fade and never to set. I had seen little of Sasha, for we were practicing long hours on a new presentation of Ravel’s
Bolero
and Sasha, desperate for money for his grandmother, was working day and night at his icons. When at last I had a few hours off, I dragged Sasha from his apartment. “Come with me to the Hermitage,” I said. “You need some inspiration.” Though I had missed seeing Sasha, I knew that he was nearby; what would it be like when I was a thousand miles away?

Walking along the Prospekt, Sasha turned his face up to the sun, as if some cold thing within him needed warming. Though it was June, you could still see chunks of ice floating down the river from Lake Ladoga miles away. Our city is made up of many islands. With all its rivers and canals there is always danger of flooding from the spring melt. This year the Neva was keeping tidily to its banks.

Sasha said, “People walk through the city, hurrying to get somewhere, missing everything. Look there on the canal, a perfect reflection of the Church of the Resurrection.”

It was true. The church’s reflection, with its brightly colored domes, looked as real as the one that stood solidly on the ground.

“There are two cities, Tanya, one that can be touched and the city that is reflected in the canals and rivers. The city I like to paint is the one that is there one moment and gone the next with a ripple of water or a cloud passing by. The great thing about painting is that if you see something you like, you can make it your own to keep forever.”

“Unlike a dance,” I said.

“No, no,” Sasha reassured me. “I am learning to paint movement. I can capture a dance as well as a reflection.”

I thought of all his sketches of the ballet and had to admit he was right. I was not sure, though, that even he could have caught Natalia’s dancing.

We walked across Palace Square, which is very famous for Bloody Sunday. A hundred years ago the tsar’s soldiers opened fire on people who had come to ask for a voice in the government. Even women and little children had been killed. Now there was always something cheerful going on in the square. Four students, dressed in mismatched evening clothes, were playing their string instruments. They fiddled away, hair tossing about, earnest expressions on their faces, looking as if they were in a great concert hall. A kettle was in front of them for coins. Sasha emptied his pockets. Nearby was a man with a trained bear cub on a chain. The cub looked like a stuffed toy. The man had a kettle as well, and this time I emptied my pockets.

In the middle of the square the Alexander column celebrated Russia’s victory over Napoleon. At the top of the column the golden angel watched over our city. Across the square was the Winter Palace, painted sea green and trimmed with white and gold. A row of statues looked down from the roof where during the Great Patriotic War my grandmother Yelena was a fire warden. The palace was now the Hermitage Museum.

At the Hermitage I asked Sasha to come with me to Aunt Marya’s office. Sasha liked her as much as I did and came willingly. “How I envy your aunt,” he said. “She has been to Paris and has wandered through the Louvre. What wouldn’t I give to see that museum. If I were rich, I would buy postcards of every painting that hangs there.”

I longed to tell Sasha that by the fall I would be settled in Paris and could send him all the postcards he wished from the Louvre, but I had pledged my vow of silence to Vera.

In Aunt Marya’s office there was an older man talking away to her. He was so short, he came only to Aunt Marya’s shoulder. The man had thick white hair, bright-blue eyes, and a mischievous grin that made him look half elf, half man. Aunt Marya kissed us and said, “The very two people I wanted to see. This is Mr. Brompton. He comes from England. He is here to find some paintings for his London gallery. When I heard he was looking for the work of young artists, I thought of you at once, Sasha. You must take him to see your work and give him the names of some of your fellow artists.”

Sasha was elated. “Gladly. When do you want to come, sir?”

“Now is as good a time as any,” Mr. Brompton said. He turned to Aunt Marya. “If you will allow me to come back later, I will hold you to your promise to show me through the museum.”

Sasha seemed overwhelmed by the sudden turn of events. He looked to me for support. “Tanya, you come too. It always cheers Grandmother to see you.” To Mr. Brompton he said, “My work isn’t in any gallery—it only hangs on the walls of our small room.”

Mr. Brompton gave Sasha a reassuring pat on the back. “A painting is a painting, never mind where it hangs. I have an eye for quality.”

Mr. Brompton had a car and a driver at his disposal, so much to our delight we were driven to Sasha’s apartment, Sasha in the front seat and me in back with Mr. Brompton. I stumbled along in English until we found we both spoke French. What a feeling of luxury to be driven down the Prospekt in a fancy car. I had visions of the Empress Alexandra and Tsar Nicholas making their way along the Prospekt in their golden coach.

Sasha hurried into the apartment and drew the curtain across his work area with its icons. I knew he was ashamed of spending so much time copying old work when he should have been creating his own pictures.

When I saw Sasha’s grandmother, my heart felt as cold as the lumps of ice in the Neva. Nadya Petrovna had grown thinner and paler, and now she nearly disappeared into the bedcovers. When I took her hand in mine, it was like holding a shadow.

Sasha introduced his grandmother to Mr. Brompton, who was extremely charming to her, bowing over her thin, trembling hand as if he might kiss it, but all the while his eyes were scanning the walls. “Ah, Sasha, I must have some of those ballet sketches and paintings you have done. I know I can sell them.” He looked more closely at me. “And here is the subject of many of them. Very charming. Pictures of the ballet always sell.” Sasha was beaming, hanging on the man’s every word.

Nadya Petrovna said, “Sasha, where are your manners? You must make some tea for our guests.”

While Sasha was busy with the kettle, I watched Mr. Brompton. All his attention was on the icon of St. Vladimir. He turned to Nadya Petrovna. “That is a very old one, is it not?”

“Oh, yes,” Nadya Petrovna said. “It has belonged to our family for many years and to a very special family before that.”

“I could get you a great deal of money for your icon,” Mr. Brompton said.

Sasha, walking in with the tea, overheard his remark. Before Sasha could say anything, Nadya Petrovna said, “Oh, I would never sell St. Vladimir. It would be like selling my own father. St. Vladimir is all that keeps me alive.”

I didn’t like the greedy look on the man’s face. “Isn’t it against the law to take old icons out of the country?” I asked.

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Brompton said, “but one can get around that. You only have to give a little money to the right person.” He gave a regretful look at the icon and then turned to Sasha. “Of course I can’t pay you for your paintings until my gallery sells them, which might take a little time.”

Sasha looked crestfallen, but he shrugged his shoulders. “No one has money for paintings in this country, so I may as well send them with you and hope for the best.”

“I’m sure I can manage a little advance to help you out,” Mr. Brompton said, and Sasha brightened.

After we had finished the tea, Mr. Brompton said a polite farewell to Nadya Petrovna, looked longingly again at the icon, and began to leave. Sasha said, “Wait a moment and I’ll walk down the stairway with you.” He turned to me. “Keep Grandmother company, Tanya. I’ll be only a moment.”

He was gone for some time, and when he returned his face was burning. He wouldn’t look at me or at Nadya Petrovna and only said, “I’ll call you in a few days, Tanya.”

That night Aunt Marya stopped by. As usual the family was sitting around the kitchen table drinking tea and arguing politics. Gorbachev was in Sweden receiving the Nobel Prize. Grandfather was furious. “A peace prize to a man who just months ago sent his tanks and soldiers to trample freedom in Lithuania.”

Grandmother said, “At least he allowed the wall to fall in Berlin.”

“Only because he was goaded into it,” Grandfather sneered. The American president, Ronald Reagan, had challenged, “President Gorbachev, take down that wall!”

Grandfather had been celebrating all week, for Yeltsin had been elected to the presidency of Russia. “At last we will see some action,” Grandfather said.

Aunt Marya was Grandfather’s older sister and never let an opportunity go by without reminding him of that. She said, “Don’t think, Georgi, that all our problems are solved. I have heard rumors everywhere that the Communist party leaders are furious with Yeltsin. They know he wants to dissolve the party and that would be the end of them.”

Mother gave Aunt Marya a cup of tea, and after taking a sip, Aunt Marya said, “I didn’t come here to argue politics with you, Georgi. I came to have a word with Tanya. I wanted to tell you, Tanya: I don’t trust that Mr. Brompton. I took him about the museum, where he had a greedy eye for everything he saw. I told him it was no longer like it was under Stalin, when our birthright was snatched from under us and some of our very best works of art were sold to the United States. I think you should warn Sasha to take care.”

“He wants some of Sasha’s paintings to sell in his gallery,” I said. “He is giving Sasha a small advance, but the rest of the money won’t come to Sasha until his work is sold.”

“Tell Sasha not to give him too much and certainly not his best things. I think he is here only to make a grab for our treasures, not to further the work of young Russian artists as he professes.”

It was a week later that Mama sent me with some jars of her strawberry jam to Sasha’s grandmother. Nadya Petrovna was sitting up in an armchair, a bright shawl around her shoulders, Kuzma chirping in his cage, the teakettle steaming, Sasha at his easel painting one of his icons. The moment I walked into the room, Sasha hastily covered up the icon. No one looks more guilty when he does something wrong than Sasha. His cheeks burn and he drops his eyes and will not look at you. I did not have to wait long to find out what was on his canvas. Before he could interrupt her, Nadya Petrovna said in her soft whispery voice, “My grandson is a saint. Just see what he is painting. A copy of the icon of St. Vladimir. He tells me a church has ordered it, and the church must be paying well, for Sasha has brought home some special medicine for me. Already I’m feeling better.” She eagerly tasted the jam I had brought, declaring it the best ever.

“Sasha,” I said, “what good luck. Tell me the name of the church.” A few of the churches that had been closed by the government were once again opening their doors.

“You have never heard of it,” he said quickly. “There’s no time for chatter. Come and help me get the laundry and bed linen together. I have a friend who has promised me the use of his washing machine for an hour if I come at once. Keep Grandmother company while I’m gone.”