She found being ridiculous humiliating. She bathed for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, washing away the dirt, transforming herself into a pure angel twice a day. Because of the washing, she moved out of the ballet dorm and in with her aunt almost immediately. You can’t bathe for two hours a day in a dorm, and anyway she was afraid of being on her own while still so young. Her aunt and uncle loved her as if she were their own, and she even called her aunt Mama. Only they tried too hard to feed her, always pushing fish oil on her, and this irritated Mashenka. She struggled mightily over each extra bite.
Of course, Masha idolized the ballet, but not to the point of oblivion, not to the point that she could stand in a single line her entire life. And who said you could hang on in the first row? You’d be trampled there too. Proud but poor—that’s the only way for primas—your success is your applause, your seething blood, your power over the audience.
Mashenka seemed to wilt utterly. She walked around in a funk, and if you called out to her she didn’t call back. She was used to working hard, and she expected recognition for that, her teachers had praised her for that, and now everyone had betrayed her, she had no one to count on, and only she herself knew how special she was and that she definitely had not come into this world for the corps de ballet. The others, anyone who didn’t understand this, became her enemy. She threw the portraits of her idols in the garbage. Masha raked her aunt’s collection of porcelain ballerinas off the shelf and hid them under a pile of linens. Her aunt bit her tongue, but she wept all night with pity for the girl. She and her husband loved their niece very much, but they had not discerned her morbid pride and did not worship her great talent, so she found their consolation utterly banal. Masha’s aunt had herself been a musician. She taught at the conservatory and played violin in an orchestra. She’d never aspired to being a soloist, but then she wasn’t wracked by a passion like Masha’s, or perhaps she’d left it behind, somewhere in her past. This weakness stirred Masha’s contempt. What could you explain to a spineless jellyfish? That was why Masha was sweet and polite with her relatives but kept them at arm’s length. She danced in her corps de ballet and took sedatives after each performance to ward off hysterics—yes, after the performance, because the applause took the worst tolclass="underline" the harsh pounding of hundreds of palms that had nothing to do with her, the unlucky, persecuted ballerina…
The pills helped. Little by little she began making kopeks on the side writing about ballet and fashion for a magazine. Because she had a head, as well as legs up to her ears. Then suddenly things started going well for her, swimmingly, marvelously. She started getting invitations to receptions with stars, designers, and directors, but she wasn’t making enough money to dress for them. She couldn’t make that kind of money at the magazine, of course—there weren’t enough fees in the world for her to go to a dressmaker. Somehow certain fine gentlemen just approached her and suggested that she might do well to write a letter and expose the unsightly truth about their prima ballerina, and they also asked Masha to stop by the makeup room for a moment while the star was working onstage.
These services, which made trouble for their prima, fetched decent money. But Masha was willing even for free. This prima was a shrew, and she’d been seducing other women’s husbands! Her stage triumphs weren’t enough—no, she had to get her grubby paws on it all! They should be punished, people like that, which was why Masha had no regrets or remorse.
Also at that time she had an unusual romance, something she had waited for for a long time. Only she’d pictured it rather differently. She’d thought she would come down off her cloud for this love and allow him to kiss her knee, but the reality was otherwise. It didn’t matter, though. This happiness’s name was Vsevolod—Seva—and he was a somebody. He didn’t just have money and connections, he didn’t just have power, he had all three, and he was a celebrity in the city and beyond. He was respected—not that he blew his own horn. Seva could do a lot, a whole lot, almost anything, and it was he, a man like this, who was inspired at first glance, who immediately “got” Masha—that she was special, one of a kind—and he promised the world would soon know it too. You shouldn’t be so afraid of the corps de ballet. It’s a start, a jumping-off point, and with him she would become a golden girl, a sovereign over men’s minds, and looking at all this riffraff, these ballet stars, would be like looking at charwomen, at the staff, but Masha still had to select a field of endeavor.
Seva began taking her to serious gatherings and introducing her to the powerful of this world. He gave her some valuable stones, so she would look more confident. Masha calmed down and left the theater—and sat down to her books, feeling she lacked education. To distract her, Seva let her dabble in power—run charitable balls and various formal ceremonies. People sought her advice, flattered her, and she started feeling her lack of money, which she needed, of course, to keep up appearances. She wasn’t some errand girl who could feel comfortable in sweats with pimples on her nose. Since she and Seva still maintained separate households, she didn’t think she could ask him for money. And Seva seemed not to notice that creating an image—stylish, festive, elegant, and at the same time with the most maidenly innocence and a light transparency to her face— meant hard work, hard work every day. And money.
She’d not stopped writing since she discovered she had this talent. Her range of topics had expanded and now touched on business and politics, though all that was of little interest to her personally. But when Seva’s people suggested what might be good to write about, she did it without a second thought. She interviewed one public figure and they had a marvelous chat. A witty fellow, what was his name? Dima… true, he dressed kind of like a tramp. Then Seva told her to make an appointment with this Dima so they could go over the interview together. It could have been sent by e-mail, of course, but Dima didn’t refuse to meet. Why shouldn’t he hang out one more time with a girl like Masha? They set a time and place, and then Seva said, “Don’t go.” And she didn’t, of course, and Dima was accidentally run down right where they’d agreed to meet. And killed. Run over totally by accident. She didn’t know and had no desire to know these affairs of Seva’s. And that Dima shouldn’t have poked his nose where it didn’t belong… The main thing was, why? They were just making publicity for themselves, but they made it seem like they were so honest, fighters for justice… it was sickening… He took her by the arm then, and laughed: “You’re an odalisque, not a journalist…” And for a moment she actually wished he’d put his arms around her, but Masha paid no attention to that, or rather, she was able to pay no attention to that because she had an iron will and discipline.
She didn’t want to think about death. Later, someday later, she’d decide what she felt about it. Even when her mama died she hadn’t reflected on mortality. She simply forgot it all instantly, as if nothing had ever happened. That was when her distant relatives sent her to ballet school. The girl had been saying since she was five that she was going to be a ballerina, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it, and now her mother was gone, so why not? She boarded the train and was off, especially since her aunt, her mama’s sister, lived in magical Petersburg. And at school Masha had hard work to do, and she had to survive among strangers. And survive she did. She even pulled off that whole business with the corps de ballet. Only because heaven sent her a miracle. Sent her Seva—a gentle, smart, kind, courageous warrior who feared no enemy. And who believed in her.