The Turning Read online

  The Rite of Spring, with its discord and primitive rhythms, was demanding. The brilliant colors of the setting made an almost garish background. The choreographer had captured the wild frenzy of the music, so by the end of the evening’s performance Vitaly had pulled a hamstring and Vera had twisted her knee. We were all exhausted and dreaded hearing the verdict of our director, who marched onto the stage the moment the curtain came down. If Madame was strict, Maxim Nikolayevich was a tyrant. The very sight of him made us cringe, yet any one of us would have given our life for him, for he was a genius. Now he began to shout, “You must all have been under the illusion that you were movie stars tonight. What smiles, what grimaces, what raised eyebrows and turned-up mouths. How often do I have to tell you—you do your acting with your arms and your feet. The emotion is in the music and in the dancing. Please, there is no need to make faces!”

  That evening I kept Vera company in the Chikovs’ apartment while she rubbed her poor knee with liniment. We drank the delicious cocoa and watched TV with her mother and father. I had heard from Grandfather that there were to be demonstrations all over the Soviet Union in support of Yeltsin. In the elections earlier in the month, Yeltsin had added to the ballot a question asking voters if they wanted to be able to vote directly for the president of Russia. Overwhelmingly they voted yes. For the first time the people of Russia would be able to elect their own president, and of course that would be Yeltsin. The demonstrations were meant to send a signal to Gorbachev that he was too slow in making the reforms he had promised. If he didn’t move faster toward democracy, Yeltsin was now in a position to pressure him. An angry Gorbachev immediately outlawed the demonstrations. We watched as a commentator on the official government TV station denounced the demonstration leaders as hooligans. But I knew my grandfather, who planned to lead Leningrad’s demonstration the next day, legal or illegal, was no hooligan.

  Vera’s father was furious with Yeltsin. “He is poking his nose into things that don’t concern him,” he said. “Let Yeltsin beware, or the army and the KGB will knock some sense into his thick head.” I suspected that Yeltsin’s reform of black market activities might be a threat to Vera’s father’s business, but I was drinking his cocoa and so I said nothing.

  Vera said, “What do those old men have to do with me?” She took my hand. “Come away and let’s talk of something more cheerful.” She gave me a wink.

  We sat in her bedroom and whispered about plans for defecting. “What if the Paris ballet doesn’t take us?” I asked.

  “Listen, Tanya,” Vera promised, “you will have no trouble at all finding an important place with the Paris ballet. They would be thrilled to have you. I will be lucky to get a place in the company, but I don’t care. I only want to leave this sinking boat that is Russia.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes I think it would be disloyal to leave.”

  “How could one person like yourself make any difference? Be realistic. Think what it would be like to walk into stores with the latest fashions instead of dresses that look like bags.”

  It wasn’t for fashion that I would leave Russia. “If I go, Vera, it will be because I want a chance to be the best dancer I can be.” I was still worried about the risk we would take. “What if someone discovers what we are doing? What if we are arrested?”

  “My papa says you wouldn’t believe what people get away with, and he should know. I’ve talked with someone who knew Nureyev. She told me how when he defected, everyone went out of their way to make him welcome. We have only to let the Paris ballet know we want to stay in their country. They will go to the authorities for us.”

  Vera was so convincing, it was hard not to believe her. She was like the ballet we had just danced, full of fire. As long as she was beside me, how could we not succeed?

  The next morning Vera was still complaining of her knee and limped into the rehearsal room with it bound so tightly, she had trouble with her pliés. Vitaly groaned during his lifts. Madame was cross and impatient. When I casually picked up a towel to mop the sweat from my neck, Marina screeched at me, “Keep your hands off my towel.”

  “I’d die before I touched your filthy towel,” I said, and threw it on the floor.

  “Enough!” Madame said. “You are like a room full of kindergartners. If you think such amateurs will be sent to France to represent the Soviet Union during this time of trouble, think again.” Madame knew the whole country was in an uproar over the demonstrations. The battle over politics might even put an end to our tour.

  At the lunch break Vera, Vitaly, and I huddled together with no appetite for our pelmeny. When Aidan joined us, she said, “Everyone is out of sorts. What is going on?”

  Vitaly said, “The country is going crazy. Yeltsin’s people are planning to demonstrate and Gorbachev is threatening to bring out the police to stop them. Stupid politicians are going to ruin our chance to go to Paris.”

  “No one can be so stupid as to want the old Stalin days back,” I said. Only a few years after my grandfather Georgi had served so bravely in the war, Stalin had sent him and Grandmother into exile for five years, and they were lucky; thousands and thousands of the heroes of the Siege of Leningrad had been executed by Stalin.

  Aidan said, “What was so bad about Stalin? When he was here, my family was thriving in Lithuania. Now I am back in Russia with nothing.”

  I was furious. “Your family might have been better off, but the whole country of Lithuania had been taken over by Stalin. The Lithuanians only want their freedom back.”

  Vera said, “Stop all the arguing. What do politics matter? All that matters is having the company go to Paris.”

  Some of the dancers had gone out to have lunch. They were returning, shedding their coats and hats and changing from boots into toe slippers. I saw Marina sidle up to Madame and hand her a newspaper. I thought nothing of it until at the end of the day Madame called me aside. Her smile was so pained, I thought either her chignon was pulled too tightly or I was having trouble again with my chassé en tournant, landing awkwardly after my tour en l’air. I had no idea that it was Grandfather Georgi who was giving her such a vexed look.

  “Tanya,” she said in a confidential voice, “we all admire your grandfather for his service to Leningrad, but if he continues to oppose Gorbachev, he will bring down the country, and that will be the end of the tour as well.” She held out Leningradskaya Pravda for me to see, and there on the front page of the newspaper was my grandfather with a big sign saying SUPPORT YELTSIN. I felt my face turn red.

  Madame said, “President Gorbachev has outlawed the rally. Let’s hope our director, Maxim Nikolayevich, does not learn who your grandfather is.” With that she stalked away. As I hurried out, I saw Marina laughing with some of the members of the corps.

  I was torn in two. I loved and admired Grandfather Georgi. He was the optimist in the family, always the cheerful one who could see the humorous side of anything. Though he recognized Russia’s problems, he believed they could be solved. Fighter that he was, he was always ready to risk his life to solve them.

  I thought about Grandfather all the way home. When I was a little girl, he would take me on picnics in the Summer Garden and to the wharves to see the ships come in. Every year on the first day of April I would go with Grandfather to see him and his friends shed their clothes down to their bathing trunks and jump into the Neva to go “walrusing,” splashing about among the chunks of ice. “The ice is from my Lake Ladoga,” he would say. Once he took me to see the monument to the heroic defenders of Leningrad. He told me of his dangerous work riding trucks during the Siege of Leningrad, a time when the Germans had surrounded the city and half a million people died of starvation. With bombs falling all around them, the trucks had rumbled across frozen Lake Ladoga to bring food into the city. Grandfather and I visited Memorial Hall to hear the beat of a metronome. During the siege if there was no news or no music on the radio, a metronome was played so that all would know that the city of Leningrad was s
till there. I wanted to tell Grandfather to stay out of the newspapers, but knowing him, I had little hope.

  At the apartment it was just as I knew it would be. The whole family, along with Aunt Marya, was sitting around the table arguing politics. Grandfather was excited after his day of demonstrating. “If we don’t allow Yeltsin to get rid of the collective farms and let people own their own land, we will have famine in this country,” Grandfather said. “What’s more, Yeltsin will end the coal miners’ strike. Gorbachev sits in his fancy country house, built for him by the government at the cost of millions of rubles, doing nothing.”

  Mama was tumbling slices of carrot and celery into the cabbage soup. “Papa,” she said, “the fight isn’t just between Yeltsin and Gorbachev. Today on the way home from the hotel I saw Communists carrying signs. They are against letting the people own their own land and businesses. They want to go back to the Stalinist days. One had a sign calling Yeltsin ‘tsarist riffraff.’”

  Grandfather gave one of his explosive laughs. “Tsarist riffraff! Who will take that seriously?”

  “I’ll tell you who,” Father said. “The soldiers in the army who have been sent back from Poland and Hungary and all the other countries Russia occupied. Those soldiers have been kicked out of the army, and they have no jobs and no food. They want us to march back into Poland and Hungary so they can have their jobs back.”

  When I heard that, I was sure Vitaly’s father was one of those soldiers without jobs. “I’ll tell you who won’t have a job if her grandfather keeps getting his picture in the paper,” I said. I told them how Madame had taken me aside and showed me the article in Leningradskaya Pravda.

  Mama turned on Grandfather. “There, Papa, you see what all that demonstrating has done to our Tanya.”

  Grandfather reached for my hand and held it tightly. “Tanya, my dear, I would give up everything for you, even my life, but one thing I would not give up is freedom for this unhappy country. However, I will promise you that after this, the moment I see a camera I will go the other way.”

  And with that I had to be satisfied.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE RESCUE

  But Grandfather was Grandfather, and he was sure to be in the thick of any public event. A few days later Leningradskaya Pravda had an article about him, showing him and his friends jumping into the Neva for their annual “walrusing.” The paper identified Grandfather as one of the supporters of Yeltsin. I dreaded facing Madame. I could hardly drag myself along the streets. The snow had returned, an ugly April snow that melted into slush as soon as it hit the streets. When I entered the rehearsal hall, everyone grew quiet and I was sure they had been talking of me and my accursed family. I thought I might just as well give up the idea of joining the tour to Paris. If there was to be a tour, as the granddaughter of a thorn in President Gorbachev’s side I would be nothing but an embarrassment.

  Marina gave me a smug smile. Even Vera seemed to keep her distance from me. Madame’s expression was more austere than usual. It was Vitaly who said there was a rumor that our director, Maxim Nikolayevich, himself was coming in to rehearse us. I got into my leotard and toe shoes and began to busy myself at the barre doing battements dégagés as if my life depended on them. Maxim Nikolayevich stalked into the room wearing a sheepskin coat, a scarf that came down to his ankles, and the look of a man about to break down a door. He set us all to working until we were ready to drop. My ankles gave out, my toes hurt, my instep ached, and still Maxim Nikolayevich drove us, as if, should we let up even for a second, the whole world would end. When at last the rehearsal was over, I saw Madame walking toward me.

  “Tanya,” Madame said in her most severe voice, “Maxim Nikolayevich wishes to have a word with you.”

  I stood perfectly still, unable to move. I was sure that for the good of the troupe he would to ask me to leave. I tried to imagine how I would pass my days if I were thrown out of the troupe, but I could not. And then with a disappointment that stopped me in my tracks, I realized that if I could not go to Paris, there would be no chance to defect. Russian politics were going to ruin my dancing career. It was impossible to be a dedicated ballerina in such a country. I decided that if by some miracle I got to go to Paris, I would stay there.

  “Tanya,” Madame repeated, “pay attention. What is the matter with you? Maxim Nikolayevich has better things to do than wait for you. Go!”

  The other dancers pretended not to stare, but every one of them was watching me. I remembered my first lesson in ballet school, when I was six. How to hold my head. I made a little parade of one across the floor to the director. Maxim Nikolayevich was glowering at me.

  “Come into the office, Tatiana Ivanova.”

  The office was a cubbyhole filled with bound volumes of ballet scores, sheets of music, ballet magazines from around the world, and yellowing programs from past performances. On the walls were pictures of Russia’s two greatest ballerinas, Pierina Legnani and Mathilde Kschessinska. On the desk were empty cans of soda and a pair of old toe shoes.

  Maxim Nikolayevich frowned at me.

  “I had a call this morning from someone whose name I will not mention,” Maxim Nikolayevich said. “The caller had seen the article in Ballet magazine about you, mentioning your family. He also saw the article on your grandfather in Leningradskaya Pravda. He did not think it was in the best interests of the country to have you in the troupe. He was especially concerned at the thought that you might go on the tour and be seen as a representative of someone who sympathizes with your grandfather’s views. I believe he described them as ‘extreme views.’”

  How I had shown the magazine article around, how I had boasted about it. Now I saw where my pride had taken me. I cursed the day the magazine had come out.

  “Tell, me, Tatiana Ivanova, what do you think of your grandfather?”

  Ah, there it was. If I said I thought he was a fool to take the positions he did, if I denounced him as an enemy of the state, perhaps all would be well. “I love my grandfather,” I said. “I think he is a great hero.”

  Suddenly there was a smile on Maxim Nikolayevich’s face. How could that be? “My thoughts exactly,” he said. “I had the pleasure of telling the important man who called me that I was the one who decided who would dance with the troupe and who would go on tour. I have been accused of considering myself the greatest ballet director in Russia and perhaps the world. That is true on two counts. I think it and I am. I know perfectly well Gorbachev could be replaced, but they cannot replace me. Not a word of this to anyone. Now go back to your battements dégagés, and I want to see that working foot higher from the floor.” With that Maxim Nikolayevich swept his scarf about his neck and marched out of the office.

  When I returned to the rehearsal room, my face was burning. Vera came over and put her arm around me, but the others treated me as if I had a disease they might catch. At lunch the others kept their distance until they saw Vera and Vitaly settle next to me; then, one by one, they joined us. “What did the Great One have to say?” Vera asked.

  “Tell us!” Vitaly begged.

  “He criticized my battements dégagés,” I said. “He told me to bring my working foot higher.”

  They stared incredulously at me. “I don’t believe you,” Vera said.

  “I swear it’s true,” I said.

  The word must have gone around, and Marina looked daggers at me, for personal criticism from Maxim Nikolayevich was a hundred times better than praise from anyone else. It meant he had noticed you.

  I carried my little secret with me all day, forcing myself not to smile foolishly as I felt like doing. How I longed to tell someone. As I walked through the streets on my way to the children’s shelter, I didn’t see the slush or feel the cold. I could only say Maxim Nikolayevich’s name over and over to myself as if it were a charm that would protect me from any danger. There was still a chance that should the tour take off for Paris, I would be on the plane. Come summer I might be strolling down the Champs-Élysées.
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  I was still smiling when I reached the shelter. I was so caught up with my secret that at first I didn’t notice the troubled look on Uncle Fyodor’s face. “Natalia is gone. We’ve lost her.”

  “What happened?”

  “Her father has tracked her down. He turned up at the shelter, drunk, demanding that she go home with him. Natalia’s mother has left her husband—and why not? He has made her life a misery. The man played on Natalia’s sympathies, saying he was sick and had no one to care for him. He went down on his knees. He said he was all alone and had only a few weeks to live. He begged Natalia to come and take care of him. She went.”

  I was horrified. “Couldn’t you stop her?”

  Uncle Fyodor shook his head. “How could we? The man is her father.”

  “Do you think he is really sick?”

  “I believe it was all a sham, but what an actor that man would have made. I only wish we had someone in authority we could call on to help Natalia.”

  “Give me her address,” I said.

  Uncle Fyodor shook his head. “No, Tanya. I don’t want you going there. It’s a bad neighborhood and he is a dangerous man.”

  My pupils had little enthusiasm for their lessons, for they all missed Natalia; still I put them through their paces. Madame always told us there was no sorrow that could not be cured by work. As I left, Yulia pressed a piece of paper into my hand. She whispered, “Natalia and I shared a cupboard. I found a letter from her father there with a return address.” I reached for the letter and hid it in my purse. “Will you bring her back, Tanya?”

  “I’ll try,” I promised. When I was away from the shelter, I took out the letter. It was nothing more than a scrawl on a stained piece of paper. “Natalia, your papa needs you. I am dying.”

  There were some not-so-lovely parts of Leningrad. As I walked among tumbledown gray houses that gave off a hopeless feeling of poverty and despair, I felt I could enter any one of those houses and hear a sad story. The yards were bare and muddy, the only landscaping piles of trash. Skinny dogs pulled on their chains and growled, busy with protecting the little that was left to the families. Ragged children stood at the doorways or poked about in the mud with sticks. As I passed a house, a curtain would twitch at a window and a suspicious face peer out. Any stranger in that neighborhood would be regarded as an enemy. I had nearly lost my courage by the time I found the address.