Neither did Nina know what a wave of hot whisper rolled over the room. She was assumed to be the monarch’s new plaything and caused due gossip. “Who is she?” asked each other financiers, lawyers, and big bureaucrats. Those who knew something enlightened those who knew nothing, but because little was known about Nina in the first place, fantastic versions began cropping up at once. “She seems to be a former model.” “Model? You are kidding!” “Look at the way she is dressed.”… “They say she used to be Aronovich’s mistress.” “Which makes her who – Darya Zhukova?” “Don’t be absurd, Zhukova is the wife.”… “This is all crap, she’s actually a stewardess. Mikhalych picked her up on a flight to London. Incidentally, one cabinet minister was chasing after her, too…”
It was Ariadna Petrovna who knew more than anyone about the subject, but the woman was drinking her coffee in silence, not interfering with the people’s talk.
The director’s table was occupied by Sinitsin and Marina. On a separate chair was a large plush lion which Samsonov’s subordinates had presented him with.
“Good evening,” Nina said in a worldly tone.
Sinitsin rose and kissed her hand gallantly. Marina turned away. Samsonov awkwardly, with a clatter, moved back a chair helping Nina to sit down.
“Gentlemen, allow me to congratulate you on the victory,” said the worldly lady Nina.
“Yes, Pavel Mikhailovich smote all his adversaries at one stroke,” responded Sinitsin. He gave Nina a pleasant smile while viewing her intently.
Samsonov poured out champagne. “Let’s drink to success! To the success that’s in store for us.”
Pavel Mikhailovich, Nina and Sinitsin joined their glasses. Marina did not touch hers.
By then, the official part of the party was over, and the popular presenter Maksim Khabalkin rolled out onto the stage. He captured everyone’s attention at once by showering his audience with jokes, sketches and parodies. Nina detested stage performers of the kind – she viewed their genre as low taste – and now she cast a concerned look at Samsonov. She feared that she might see her love roar with happy laughter at the trite jokes. To her relief, Samsonov did not laugh. He winced: “I hate those clowns. But you can’t do without them – people expect to be given this kind of trash.”
Samsonov had his eyes glued on Nina. He moved up closer to her, took her hand in his and said, leaning over so she could hear him over the noise, “Once again, Nina: thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”
“Not for ‘us’. For you, Pavel Mikhailovich,” Nina corrected him in her mind.
The presenter retreated, and dance music played.
“Will you dance with me, Gennadiy Viktorovich?” Marina asked Sinitsin.
The man rose at once, offered Marina his hand and led her out onto the dance floor. Marina looked totally ravishing.
They danced. Sinitsin led his partner masterfully, in every pose and movement displaying her beauty to best advantage and making it shine even brighter.
The guests admired the sight. Some other couples went out onto the floor, but around Marina a kind of no-dance zone set in – nobody dared to challenge such a beauty.
Nina plucked up her courage. “What about you, Pavel Mikhailovich? Will you dance with me?”
Samsonov was clearly embarrassed; it was the first time Nina saw him like that.
“I’d love to, Nina, but I don’t dance. I used to, but you see, I was always treading on my partner’s feet, so I made a vow not to dance any more.”
Seeing that the director was in no hurry to invite to dance his companion, another man approached her.
“May I have the pleasure?”
Nina accepted the invitation. She knew how to dance thanks to her mother, who, trying to foster all the proper female skills in her daughter, had signed her up once for a dance class. Nina had a good sense of rhythm, and she moved well, so dancing came easily to her, but as soon as she had mastered the skill, she left the class. The main reason was that in the group, there was one young man per three and a half girls. The guys abused their advantageous position and behaved like swines. Nina despised them, and she would not let anyone treat her like that.
Now those dance lessons did her good service. As it turned out, her legs and body had not forgotten anything, and she glided in a slow waltz with her partner.
“Let me introduce myself: Khalilov, of the lawyer firm Khalilov and Shwartz,” said the man. He was bald and sputtered as he spoke; otherwise, he was quite a dignified cavalier.
“Nice to meet you,” Nina replied, following the music easily.
“And you…?”
“Nina.”
“Nina who?”
“Just Nina.”
She was not going to appease the curiosity of mister Khalilov, even if he was the senior partner in Khalilov and Shwartz.
After Khalilov, Nina had another cavalier. “Vaganov, brokerage house. By the way, we have the second highest rating…” Then she was invited to dance again and again. All the men tried to worm out of Nina who she was, but she evaded their questions with an enigmatic smile. At this ball, she was a mystery princess, and she wanted it to last. Cinderella could wait.
Another man approached Nina, but he was not given a chance. Samsonov’s massive figure materialized behind his back.
“All right, that’s enough,” he said. “Nina, you are officially my lady here, and I lay claim to you.”
Nina was about to cry out that she would willingly give him that dance and her whole life, but she just laughed instead: “So, Pavel Mikhailovich, you’ve made up your mind to crush my feet after all? Does it qualify as an employment injury, I wonder?”
The man said, in an embarrassed but resolute tone: “I’ll do my best not to crush ‘em. But you, too, please try to…”
He did not finish his sentence because the music started to play. Pavel Mikhailovich drew Nina closer to himself. The room was full of observant people with tenacious memory. If they had doubted that Nina was worth paying attention to, their doubts would have been dispelled now. The fact was that Pavel Mikhailovich had never been seen dancing. Not once, not with anyone.
Determined to sacrifice her feet– suffer any pain from her man – Nina lifted her smiling face up to him. She did not have to suffer, though. The massive and clumsy Samsonov was really a bad dancer, but from the very first beats of the music, she felt connected to him. His right hand was on her waist; his left hand held – in a surprisingly delicate way – her fingers; and his eyes seemed to look directly into her soul. Nina could not say how it happened, but she knew in advance where he was going to step, and which way he was going to lead her. It was as if, on some deep level, the two of them had merged into a whole. Seeing that the dance was working out well, Samsonov grew more confident and led Nina more firmly, with large amplitude and unexpected variations. As it turned out, he loved dancing and knew how to dance, in his own way, – he simply had never before had a suitable partner.
All the guests watched them with bated breath, as if under a spell. Marina and Sinitsin had disappeared, and the other couples had retreated, too, so Samsonov and Nina had the dancing floor to themselves. The lighting technician even focused obligingly the floodlight on them.
When the music died away, and they stopped, there was loud applause.
Samsonov was clearly elated and confused.
“I don’t know what to say, Nina. I had never had such a… Stop it, will you?” He waved his hand, smiling, trying to quash the applause.
When they returned to the table, Sinitsin and Marina were gone. Nina’s heart was pounding like mad; she was in need of a break to quiet down.