The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov Page 10

  He said this quite theatrically, as was his wont.

  I grasped his hand even as my heart fluttered dangerously, and said, “But how could I possibly say no? You’ve always mattered…”

  “Careful,” he warned. “We mustn’t get sentimental about what promises to be, after all, a nasty business.”

  The next day, with very little in the way of second thoughts, I kept my appointment with perdition.

  Huddled together by the washbasins of a dim, aromatic public loo near the Anichkoff Bridge, the stalwart remnant of the Abyssinians smoked cigarettes and observed the variety of men who came, did their business at the urinal trough, shook themselves dry, and left. Most paid us no attention, though now and again one would linger for a few minutes when finished, finally buttoning himself up in disappointment. One elderly gentleman, who had dawdled quite a long time, treated us to an exasperated sigh as he took his leave.

  My initial nervous excitement having faded, I began to wonder whether I might not have spent my time more profitably reading a book. I had only the vaguest idea, really, what Davide intended, and was no longer certain I wished any part of it. But then a decent-looking sort would happen through and my interest would return, only to be deflated by his brisk departure.

  The already dismal light was fast dwindling when a soldier entered, a handsome dark-haired fellow wearing the distinctive uniform of the Volhynian regiment. I was surprised when he stayed on, looking from time to time over his shoulder toward where we stood. “Finally lightning strikes,” Davide murmured. He flung his cigarette to the floor, crushed it, and sauntered over to the urinal trough. The soldier stood motionless, staring straight ahead. Davide unbuttoned his trousers. The soldier turned his head, looked down, then pivoted his body slightly toward Davide, who mirrored his movement. “You’re a lucky one today,” Davide said in a perfectly reasonable voice. “There’s two of us for you.”

  “Your friend’s quiet over there,” the soldier observed. “You sure he’s game?”

  “He’s not done this before, but he’ll quickly loosen up. Take my word for it. Let’s go along to the Baths, shall we? You’ll soon have ten rubles to spend however you like.”

  Out in the open air, the soldier seemed wary. “Perhaps you two should walk ahead,” he suggested.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Davide assured him. “We’re not your common types, by any means. You’ll be most satisfied.”

  “Walk ahead,” he insisted, and Davide and I complied. The baths lay just past Znamenskaya Square.

  The door was open; inside, seated on a stool, a bulky man with a large mustache, his meaty arms crossed over his chest, glared at us, then made a gesture as if shooing away flies.

  “Don’t fear. We’ll pay handsomely for the convenience,” Davide announced. “Old Wealth and New Wealth go hunting together. And we don’t need your catalog of beauties; as you can see, we’ve brought our own.” To me he confided sotto voce, “Though be well advised, there are two rather exquisite twin brothers from Kaluga to be had here at a modest price. If ever you’re interested.”

  Still impassive, the gatekeeper rented us soap and a towel and showed us to a room with a bench, a low wide bed, a washbasin. Davide ordered champagne, but before it even arrived he had begun caressing our soldier, who, when coaxed, gave his name as Kolya.

  He was not half so handsome as Oleg, but handsome enough, a rough-hewn specimen blessed with a strong jaw and desperate eyes. He said he came from a village west of Arkhangelsk, which explained the provincial accent.

  We stripped and, wrapped in towels, made our way across a slick floor to the pool. Steam rose from the surface of the oily water. Several big-bellied older men congregated at one end, smoking, tapping their ashes out onto the tiled edge of the pool. Otherwise, the pool was deserted. I love nothing more than a warm solitary bath in a tub. Now I squeamishly immersed myself in unhygienic communal waters. Davide and our soldier seemed unfazed, splashing water on each other, giggling like schoolboys, and at once I was back on the red clay banks of the Oredezh, watching two boys dismount their steeds to cavort in its pure waters. Oblivious to my presence, Davide and Kolya ceased their commotion and moved toward each other to embrace with almost ceremonial gravity. They did not kiss, but leaned their foreheads together, the soldier’s large hands kneading Davide’s thin buttocks. Slipping from his grasp, Davide took Kolya by the hand and led him from the pool. With a backward look he beckoned me to follow, but I hesitated as the two disappeared into our cubicle. I had as yet done nothing. I could put on my clothes, I could walk out of this dark place into the pale sunlight, I could yet look Father and Dr. Bekhetev in the eye.

  But of course my clothes were folded neatly on the bench beside the bed Davide and Kolya had already mounted. I shut the door behind me and sat meekly as they hugged and fondled.

  When I reached out to touch Davide’s flank he said sharply, “Seryosha, no! Your turn’s next.”

  As if bitten, I retreated to the bench. I had not realized the extent to which my Abyssinian brother was truly depraved. I watched, first with considerable ardor, later with increasing melancholy as he yielded himself to our soldier’s brawn. Nothing had quite prepared me for the shock of that act—the raw exertion, the messiness.

  When our soldier had finished with Davide, who sprawled spent across the bed, he beckoned me over. I shook my head. If I had not had the courage to leave, even less had I the courage to venture forward.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Davide said. “You’ve already fallen into the lion’s den. You might as well enjoy your martyrdom while it lasts.”

  Given the circumstances his logic was, I suppose, impeccable. Soon enough Kolya had me on all fours and was using his lion’s tongue to thrilling effect.

  Once the sweet ordeal was over, Kolya drank champagne from the bottle as Davide and I dressed. We pooled our money, tipped him stupendously, and left him sitting naked, still supernaturally excited and unashamed, poor scoundrel, and looking rather cheerful. Outside on the wooden pavement Davide grinned and announced, “Well, I feel like quite the shriven sinner. And you?”

  But I did not know how I felt. Abjectly sorry, deliciously manhandled, rapturously fallen, defiantly unguilty, well-nigh shattered, I walked through the streets of an unchanged city a changed person, a traveler returned from a foreign and fantastical land. But unbeknownst to me, the city had changed in my brief absence as well. A great crowd thronged the square in front of Our Lady of Kazan. Many held tapers. Hymns were being sung. I was in such a daze of my own wonder that for a moment I imagined the assemblage somehow had something to do with Karsavina. Then I realized that strangers were embracing each other, soldiers were kissing civilians, well-heeled gentlemen were dancing with the meanest of droshky drivers. A very solid babushka threw her arms around me and, shaking with sobs, buried her head in my chest. I asked her what was wrong.

  “Wrong?” she said. “There’s nothing wrong. They’ve found Rasputin’s body drowned in the Neva, God be praised!”

  14

  SUCH WERE MY CONFUSIONS AND EXHILARATIONS as the annus horribilis 1917 began to emerge from its hibernal lair. Snow and cold were exceptionally abundant that winter; food and firewood were not. Nearly every day saw a procession through the streets of red banners bearing the slogan BREAD AND PEACE! By late February, an unnerving mix of panic and gloom pervaded the city.

  Davide and I had shared more expeditions into the dark continent he called “infernal Petrograd,” but I sensed that he had come to see my presence as a hindrance to his more daring investigations. I gleaned from various hints and asides that he had fallen in with a rowdy crowd of officers; I noted that of late his hands had begun to tremble, and that his gaze had turned strangely vacant.

  I had not realized how much I depended on my friends’ company till they began to abandon me. We were to be together as Abyssinians one last time. Forget the gathering storm of rumors and pamphlets: for months my St. Petersburg had been abuzz with the news t
hat the great director Meyerhold was staging Lermontov’s legendarily unstageable Masquerade, and that the male lead was to be undertaken by none other than Yuri Yurev. The arrival of an invitation, on Yurev’s stationery but in Genia’s hand, to the Alexandrinsky première brought my already considerable excitement to a fever pitch.

  My mother adamantly opposed my venturing out that February evening. Her attitude toward the developing crisis had recently swerved from indifference to near hysteria. Father did his best to assure her that the witches’ kettle had yet weeks before reaching a boil—if it ever did. “I wouldn’t worry, Lyova,” he said. “People will talk this revolution to death long before it ever comes to pass.”

  “Perhaps if you were to accompany him,” she said, but immediately regretted her words. “No, no, you must both remain here, where you’ll be safe.”

  Father replied that he had no intention of attending the performance, as the lead actor’s private life was the stuff of sordid rumor. Then he turned to me and said gently, “But I don’t suppose there’s any danger in your watching him from afar. He’s undeniably talented.”

  Eventually a compromise was reached: Volkov would convey me to and from the performance in the Benz.

  Save for the occasional Cossack patrol, the streets proved reassuringly deserted, the only hint of civic desperation being the long queues already forming in front of bakeries that would not open till dawn.

  To my surprise, Volkov addressed me, a liberty my parents strongly discouraged in our servants. “Only hours ago,” he told me hoarsely, “Nevsky was full to the brim with humanity. You wouldn’t have believed it. Such a clamor. Such a sea of red flags.” Then he fell silent, as if wishing me to ponder the import of his observation. But as he pulled into the square, the sight of dozens of black automobiles drawn up in rows provoked a further exclamation. “Like coffins!” he said in a tone of awe. “Like the rows of coffins after the Tsar’s coronation, when all those poor revelers died in the stampede in Khodinsky meadow, and His Majesty didn’t even cancel the Imperial Ball!”

  As recently as a month before, Volkov would never have dared utter such a potentially traitorous aside.

  Gaily dressed, my beloved Abyssinians stood on the steps waiting for me.

  “Thank God you’ve made it through safely,” Genia said breathlessly. “Meyerhold was shot at. Soldiers stopped Yuri and me, and weren’t going to allow us through, until the captain of the guard recognized Yuri and apologized. But I’m told a man has been killed at the far end of the square. That’s all I know. It happened before we arrived.”

  Davide, who had laughed nervously at Genia’s report, sat down on the steps and put his head in his hands.

  “He’s begun taking morphia,” Genia whispered in my ear. “The officers procure it from the doctors at the military hospitals.” He crouched beside our companion and put an arm around him. “It’s become quite epidemic, you know.”

  I hadn’t known, and was about to inquire further when, much to my surprise, Majesté emerged from the theater, looking extraordinary in ostrich feathers and mink. “Ah, my dears, I’ve been sent to chaperone. We must proceed immediately to our seats. All is about to begin.”

  As the opening night had been designated a benefit in Yurev’s honor, a special box was reserved for the actor’s entourage.

  “All eyes are upon us,” Majesté announced rather implausibly as we entered. The others in the box rose to be introduced. Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador, bowed gallantly, and as he did so, I was mortified to recognize in the man standing directly behind him none other than M. Tartuffe, introduced a moment later by the ambassador as his chargé d’affaires, M. Tristan LeJeune. This was a peril I had failed to anticipate. A glance from M. Tartuffe warned me to acknowledge nothing. Fortunately, I recognized no others from the pederast’s ball, though Grand Duke Nicolay was visible in the Imperial Box, along with Grand Dukes Mikhail and Boris. Neither the Tsar nor the Tsarina was present.

  Majesté, who had shed her mink to reveal a rather daring décolleté, settled herself and began to survey the theater with a pair of opera glasses she drew from between her padded bosoms. Apparently satisfied with the haute société she no longer traversed, Majesté whispered to us, “I’ve been told an ‘imperial surprise’ awaits the end of the performance. Imagine that, my children. Our Yuri’s sins are widely known, and especially displeasing to Her Majesty the Tsarina. It happened well before your time, mes petits, but let me tell you: it was no scantiness in the divine Nijinsky’s costume that caused the Imperial Ballet to fire him. No, no. It was pretty Vatza’s, shall we say, unusual relations with Diaghilev that reached the Tsarina’s ears. Of our Yuri’s predilections she is said to have complained, ‘Yurev is like the ocean, and mothers with sons must live in fear of oceans.’”

  The rise of the curtain interrupted Majesté’s revelations. The theater lights had not been turned down. Nothing separated us from the stage: the opulent, oversized set was the space of our own homes and palaces stretched to dreamlike proportions, lit by a thousand candles and backed by mirrors that reflected the dazzling audience back to its own dazzled self. Vases and pots and tubs of the most fragrant hothouse flowers—jasmine, camellia, gardenia—bloomed everywhere on that stage, sweetly corrupting the hall with their scent.

  Much has been written about the extraordinary production, at once fantastical and disquieting. Beneath the precisely scored patter of the dialogue (Meyerhold’s famous “biometrics”), Glazunov’s melodies slithered like black serpents beneath bloodred roses. As the murderous lover Arbenin, Yurev seemed to have distilled into a clear and bitter cordial those elements I had earlier remarked in his character—Byronic nonchalance, a slightly sinister corpulence combined with a weightless darkness where one imagined his soul should be.

  From time to time I permitted myself to glance over at Genia, who sat engrossed by the spectacle before him. What did he see as he gazed so intently at the stage that was no longer a stage, really, but our own unreal world? Of everyone in this audience, he alone had been chosen to enjoy awful intimacies with the actor who mesmerized and, truth be told, frightened us all. Yurev is like the ocean, and mothers with sons must live in fear of oceans. Wasn’t drowning the most gorgeous of deaths? As I watched his delicate profile, his upturned nose and long eyelashes, I pitied Genia, I envied him, I felt the current sweep him so far out into perilous waters that no one could any longer rescue him.

  Beside me, Davide had fallen asleep, or passed out, his head resting on Majesté’s bared shoulder.

  What I could not see, however, preoccupied me as much as what I could—namely, the presence of M. Tartuffe, whose coldly amused gaze I could feel taking liberties with the defenseless back of my neck. Once the performance was over and the applause began, how was I to escape without being accosted? At the same time, I entertained the feverish notion that should M. LeJeune speak to me afterward, I should be unable to resist, and would acquiesce in whatever wickedness he might propose.

  Thus my thoughts roiled as the climactic masked ball commenced. The stage filled with Harlequin and Columbine, Pulchinello and Pierrot, a host of masked men in fezzes and turbans, a wild tribe of women in harem garb. I suddenly sensed that the entire performance was a reenactment, for my benefit alone, of the infernal pederast’s ball. Indeed, I suspected in Yurev’s invitation of LeJeune to his box the laying of a deplorable trap for which I began to feel almost grateful.

  Scarcely had I stumbled upon that thought when, to music gone suddenly quiet and disquieted, the figure known as The Stranger strutted onstage. Clad in black domino and white mask, self-possessed and vile, he enticed the motley crowd into an increasingly lascivious orgy of pantomime. I conceived the tormenting notion that, were The Stranger to remove his mask, he would reveal himself as none other than M. Tartuffe, and it was all I could do to restrain myself from turning around in my seat to make certain that M. LeJeune had not vanished from our box and reappeared onstage. At the height of the frenzied musi
c and miming, Davide woke with a start, letting out an alarmed little cry, further taxing my nerves. Drawing two fingers across my brow, I discovered I was sweating.

  At once the music ceased. The Stranger turned, glaring at his foolish followers, freezing them instantly in their tracks. In a weirdly staccato voice he dispensed his famously ambiguous advice to Arbenin, and now his band of maskers swirled like irrepressible thoughts around the tormented husband, even so far as to hide him completely from our view.

  Then the end. The anguished atonement. The church bells and somber choir. From the audience, rapturous applause, that ponderous rhythmic Russian applause I have not heard in years and never expect to hear again. Bouquets of roses handed all around. Laurel wreaths bestowed. When Yurev came out for his bow, the audience rose as one. Then the solemn announcement from a red-liveried imperial deputy: Nikolay II, Tsar of all the Russias, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Poland, Tsar of Siberia, Tsar of Georgia, Grand Duke of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, and Finland, Prince of Samarkand, etc., etc., hereby bestowed upon his loyal and valued subject Yuri Yurievich Yurev a gold cigarette case emblazoned with a diamond-studded, double-headed imperial eagle.

  “Well, my dears, now what do you think of that? Isn’t there a fascinating moral here somewhere? Isn’t it a perfect coda to such a strange vision? Theater and life blend so seamlessly sometimes.” Majesté beamed at us, looking as proud as if he were Yurev’s own mother. “Come, Genia,” he cooed. “I am charged with escorting you directly to Yuri’s dressing room. He has his own surprise waiting for you there.”

  Genia smiled at us, frail and slight, as Majesté took him tenderly by the hand.

  But now I must face my own ordeal, and indeed, M. Tartuffe accosted me the first chance he saw. When I boldly met his eyes, the expression I saw there, cold and taunting, shocked me.

  “I’m truly gratified to see that mademoiselle made it home the other night without incident,” he murmured.