I wanted nothing.
He chose for me: a pair of diamond earrings much like the ones we had admired in the window the year before, when we had owned nothing but the river below a balcony and a sunbeam across a friend’s sheets and the exuberance of champagne drunk straight from the bottle after that first review had come out. I thanked him, and from then on I always wore them when I danced, but I often felt sad, as if, with the comforts of life advancing at us sleekly, softly, on velvet paws, something fierce and vital and young had been lost—though why that should be so, I did not know. We were still young then, even if we did not suspect it. Perhaps we believed that beauty or happiness had to be brief in order to live forever in one’s memory, like a dancer’s breathtaking leap, only one improbable second too long, lit, frozen, above the stage. Or it could have been simpler than that—perhaps he had merely fallen out of love. We had a new soloist that season; I saw him looking at her during rehearsals. I do not mean to say that what we had shared was not strong, my dear, only that geniuses are sometimes like that—they love their own fire, their own brilliance reflected in those around them, and there will always be someone whose mirror is brighter, or else newer and thus more given to reflections, than your own. Or at least, that was what Vaslav said, patting my hand as he consoled me, though he didn’t put it quite like that, of course. I hadn’t yet learned to be silent, you see.
I cried all winter, and in the spring I met a man from the city of my birth. He was old enough to be my father, his eyes were the light blue color of melting snows, and he made everything around me feel so solid and clear that I would sometimes forget the sadness I carried within me, curled up in the dusty wings of my soul like a once loved beast now eternally cold. Yet from time to time all through that summer, the summer of my queasiness, I would grow weary of my new, quiet contentment, and come to you in search of something else—something secret, something that frightened me, something that gave me joy. You stayed in hotels now, so we no longer had to borrow friends’ flats; the hotel rooms had scores of scores scattered everywhere, and expensive linens that did not feel cool against my skin, and, at times, silk things that did not belong to me, crumpled in out-of-the-way corners.
Whatever it was I searched for that summer, I never found it.
I do not remember exactly when I began to guess, but on that August day, after a particularly grueling practice, when I stood in the ancient church I liked to visit and looked down at the floor and saw my shoes filling with blood, I had known for a very long time. It was a bright afternoon. I remember the fractured sun falling all purple and green and blue on the stones around me, and the hollow drip-drip of blood on my sensible flat-heeled shoes, and a woman screaming next to me, and on my chest, the trembling projection of a vivid, sun-colored saint, and the knowledge, calm now, that I would not dance again—not here, not for you.
They took me to the hospital. My child was saved, and the man I had met in the spring got there fast, and, squeezing my hand so violently it hurt, kept repeating, “You should have told me, you should have told me—did you not know I would—did you think I wouldn’t—”
We were married in that church in the early fall. It was hardly ever used for ceremonies of the sort, but I had fame and Andrei had means and a special permission was granted. A week later, we left for his city, the city of my birth, his family home. The night before our departure, our suitcases packed, I escaped my own farewell party, and hurried along the foggy streets to a familiar hotel. As I splashed through its grand golden letters quivering on the wet sidewalk under my feet, I was hoping, hoping against hope, that it was not too late—but of course it was, and you were still not back from your two months touring on the other side of the ocean, and the concierge, peering into my face, instantly shed his icy tone and, his snowy gloves fluttering, his stare darting, asked for an autograph, and, changing my mind, I crumpled the letter I had written.
I walked back slowly through my dark, autumnal, beloved city, the invisible river lapping beside me, the mansions along its banks asleep save for the garret windows that glowed softly, secretly, with someone else’s happiness, and I thought, I will come back, I will come back soon, I will see you again; for, even though I understood it too late, I now knew it was possible, possible for the leaping dancer not to descend with the music every time. Back in my rooms, it was stuffy and merry, and Vaslav had become hysterical and Tamara’s Cloud escaped and we chased it meowing and squealing with laughter all up and down the stairwell until I was all out of breath and my husband begged me to rest and corks smashed into ceilings and no one noticed the look in my eyes and everyone promised to write.
The things we remember longest are not necessarily the most permanent or even the most meaningful, but they are often the brightest, and maybe that is why in the end they matter most. Forty-four years is a long time, my dear. When I heard of the concert, I thought, I will wait for the winter, and put on my earrings, and go.
I will still go, of course.
I do worry that you will not recognize me without them.
Perhaps it’s for the best, I do not know.
If only—if only I could forget my daughter’s face as she walked barefoot into my room.
PART FOUR
FALL
1
SEPTEMBER WAS SOAKED THROUGH, and the damp, rustling days soon began to smell of mildew. Some people claimed to find it a relief after the hazy heat of the summer, boiling in the city’s immense vat of concrete for weeks on end, but most complained. The man who had rented fold-out chairs for a handful of coins had not been seen since July, and the older women suffered; two or three even left the line for good, and one was taken away on a stretcher.
“Have you heard?” Emilia Khristianovna said one morning as Anna paused on the way to her place in line. It was raining again; when she lowered her voice to a whisper, Anna had to duck her head under the other woman’s umbrella to discern her words amidst the wet rush of the street. “They’re saying the man with the chairs was, you know, transferred. Someone saw him at dawn, getting into a car with tinted windows.”
“But why?” Anna asked, shifting; her own umbrella was leaking under her collar.
“Running an unauthorized business, I’m sure.” They were both silent for a moment, walled off by the rain from the rest of the glistening, shivering line. “Listen, Anna Andreyevna.” As the physics teacher looked away, her umbrella nudged the top of Anna’s head. “I meant to tell you, my schedule has changed, it will be difficult for me to spot you in the mornings like before. And they’re beginning to frown at our constant schedule-juggling, I’m worried that…”
Her voice trailed off. This close, Anna could see the pores in the woman’s kindly, anxious round face, the mole on her cheek, the plump lips chewing the unfinished sentence. Discomfited, she took a step away, dove back under her umbrella, receiving as she did so another rivulet of cold water down her neck.