The Last Days of the Romanov Dancers Read online

  She sat straighter, forcing herself to look Maxim Ilyn full in the face, grimly pleased that her hands, folded against the tissue-soft silk of her skirt, did not tremble. He had a thick moustache and heavy aristocratic eyebrows that twitched under her gaze.

  The Empress Alexandra gestured for Maxim to take a seat near her. ‘We were just speaking of the war,’ she said, seeming unaware of the shift in the air around her.

  It was no surprise; the Tsarina, unlike her husband, frowned upon such arrangements. The men would have gone out of their way to disguise the true nature of this meeting from her. Valentina gritted her teeth, then released them, not wanting her companions to see the tension in her jaw.

  ‘I would be happy to join your conversation, but I’m afraid I don’t have much of worth to contribute,’ Maxim said. ‘I’m a man of art, and know very little about fighting and political intrigue. However, I’ve no doubt you’ll find me an excellent listener.’

  The Tsarina gave one of her rare laughs. ‘Then listen away, as we have plenty to discuss.’

  Valentina didn’t join in the renewed conversation. On the outside, she knew she was the picture of poise, her narrow shoulders straight and her pale features schooled; yet inside, her mind worked furiously. A fork had appeared in the path Mamma had so meticulously planned out for her. She should have seen it coming, but she’d become complacent and lazy with pride. Now she was left scrambling to decide what she should do.

  Dimitri was leaving her; that much was inescapable. Without him, her life would be empty of the hard-won wealth and security she had come to rely on. Should she refuse to take this Maxim Ilyn as her new protector, Valentina would be self-reliant—navigating company politics and winning influence in an echelon she wasn’t born to—for the first time in a life begun in dirt and poverty. Her stomach churned with her old companion, fear. She couldn’t go back to that. Not after so long. She’d rather join the men fighting at the front and be run through with a bayonet.

  Yet the other path … Valentina stared at Maxim Ilyn. She knew nothing about this man, except that he must be able to afford to maintain her current lifestyle, and was clearly interested in doing so. He was handsome—a fact that would make sharing his bed easier to tolerate. But was he generous with gifts? Did he know how to use his connections to manipulate the favours of the Romanovs and Valentina’s ranking within the ballet company?

  For the first time in a long while, Valentina wished Mamma was there to give her guidance. She would have sized up the situation in one sharp glance and told her exactly what to do. And if Valentina had doubted or questioned her, she would have boxed her ears until she did as she was told. But without Mamma, the thoughts running through her head made no more sense than the disjointed notes of an orchestra tuning up.

  ‘I hear the Ballets Russes have reformed,’ Maxim said, breaking into her train of thought. He was looking at her with his head cocked to one side, his fingers neatly steepled together. ‘Is that correct?’

  ‘I believe so.’ Valentina had little interest in the avant-garde company.

  ‘Do you think their reformation is likely to affect the Imperial Russian Ballet?’

  Valentina couldn’t tell if the man was hunting for information or just making conversation. She wished she knew, so she could give the response he wanted. As it was, she’d have to settle for sharing her own opinion.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. They haven’t performed in Russia once since their founding and I don’t see why they would start now. They seem to have established themselves as a touring company.’

  ‘It seems rather an exhausting life for an artist. Not much appeal in always moving from city to city, never establishing a home or their place in society. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  So that was it. He was trying to gauge the likelihood of her being tempted to join the travelling company. It was understandable—no protector would want to invest money in a woman only to have her darting between foreign countries—but Valentina almost snorted out loud at the thought of doing so. She had invested all her effort, given her body and spent years clawing her way to the top of Petrograd society. She would never run away from that.

  ‘I couldn’t imagine giving up the security of the Imperial Russian Ballet to spend more time on trains than on a stage. And no reliable pension at the end of years of hard work? No, thank you. It’s not for me.’

  Maxim sat back, his hands folded across his stomach, and Valentina knew she had answered correctly. Perhaps she could give this man what he wanted after all. But did she want to?

  She thought of the three women who had joined the company that year. Three younger bodies to add to her constantly evolving list of rivals, who could prove to be more talented than she was, and might come with their own protectors. This Maxim Ilyn had the ear of Rasputin; distasteful as the monk was, it was almost as good as having the ear of the Tsar himself. Better perhaps, with the Tsar distracted by the war. Yet it meant once again giving herself up to a man who would see her as a good to be traded when she was no longer valuable to him. And there was the risk that she would let her guard down and forget that every single day was a fight she mustn’t lose, the way she had with Dimitri.

  Unless … Valentina eyed Maxim Ilyn from under her eyelashes. His confident gaze rested on the Tsarina, only occasionally flickering to Valentina in an attempt to read her features. Perhaps this man could be of benefit to her not as a protector, but as a husband. It was not unheard of. Anna Pavlova had married Victor Dandré. It was rare, though, and wouldn’t be easy to accomplish. Maxim Ilyn wasn’t looking for a wife; he wanted the benefits of a woman without the limitations of permanent commitment. Still, Valentina knew men were notorious for not being able to help themselves when their hearts became involved. Was it too far a stretch from lust to love?

  Mamma would approve of such a plan. Valentina felt that old sensation of her mother’s eyes on her, and her skin tingled with the impression that here was a plan she must live up to. The thought made her shiver.

  Maxim Ilyn noticed, and his moustache twitched with curiosity. Valentina slid him a coy smile and saw his eyes darken. She recognised desire swimming in them. That was what she traded in, and a spark of confidence lit within her. This would be the last time she was traded from one protector to another as though she were disposable.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sunlight danced threateningly up and down the razor-sharp blade of the bayonet. It sliced through the air with an audible swoosh; the weapon flew a second and third time, and suddenly the sky was sprinkled with gold. The recruit holding the bayonet had split open a hay-filled dummy from navel to neck. The drilling officer bellowed his approval, and the line of men moved forward, past Luka and around the edges of the square to let another lot through.

  Luka realised he had been holding his breath, and slowly exhaled. On the other side of the square was the Mariinsky Theatre, his new home. Its elegant green walls and white trim provided an incongruous background to the carefully practised violence taking place before it. Each represented such different worlds; just like Luka and his brother. They had stood together in the grounds of St Petersburg’s Winter Palace—it had still been St Petersburg then, not the newly named Petrograd—when the Tsar made the proclamation of war. Luka had felt the ripple of fear skitter through his veins, and had clung to his brother’s shoulder as the crowd of thousands spontaneously broke into prayer. Was it really only ten weeks ago? So much had changed during that time. Luka’s long-held dreams had formed into a reality that afforded him exemption from conscription. And his brother had volunteered to fight.

  Luka knew Pyotr wasn’t among the practising troops. He’d already been sent to the Eastern Front. But he couldn’t stop staring at those needle-fine bayonets, each with unwritten names waiting on their blades. Names of men whose existence would cease on a battlefield somewhere far away, with only the dying groans of others for company. The German weapons would be just the same. Did his brother have one waiting for him?

/>   Luka shuddered and turned away. He couldn’t be late for his first class.

  He willed his feet to move fast, and being part of the well-trained body of a dancer, they obeyed. Within minutes, Luka was inside the Mariinsky Theatre—the home of the Imperial Russian Ballet. Only dancers from the associated Imperial Ballet School—a school which had been decreed by Empress Anna Ivanovna Romanovna—were accepted into the company. Being part of the Imperial Russian Ballet was to be part of a great heritage, connected to, and under the protection of, the Romanov family. Moscow had their Bolshoi Ballet, but they didn’t have that.

  Adjusting his grip on his leather bag, Luka walked to the dressing room. He hung his woollen coat on a hook, and slipped his hand into its pocket to caress the pair of gloves nestled there. They were tattered and ugly from years of being patched by his mother with mismatched scraps, and no longer fitted him, but the worn fabric gave him comfort. At the Imperial Ballet School he’d often touched them to remind him of his mother’s belief in his dancing, and to bring himself luck.

  The sudden death of Luka’s mother when he was only eleven had removed the buffer that softened the relationship between father and son. Wanting Luka to leave the Imperial Ballet School and go to work with his brother instead, his father was not able to see his dance as anything more than a pointless frivolity indulged by a mother they’d both loved too much. That his dancing had now allowed Luka to join the ranks of those who would never need to worry about money, as well as providing him with a safe haven against conscription, had only caused resentment.

  Pyotr did not share their father’s anger. The older of the two brothers, he’d always taken a protective role towards Luka. That day at the Winter Palace, listening to the declaration of war, Pyotr had whispered to him, ‘You will reach the stage of the Mariinsky, and that will protect you, just as the school did. I can fight for our country knowing you are safe.’ Pyotr didn’t understand the ballet any more than their father did, but he had seen the rewards the school had given his younger brother, and wanted him to belong to that life—happy and unharmed.

  Luka saw that many of the men in the dressing room seemed to know one another; a product of having been with the company for years, he guessed, or dancing in the recent off-season charity benefit performance of Don Quixote that select members of the company had performed in front of the Tsarina and her daughters. They greeted one another with handshakes, trading stories of past performances and gossiping over which promotions they felt were undeserved. Luka slipped his feet into calfskin ballet slippers, which smelled faintly of birch bark oil from his bag, then padded in the direction of the studios with cotton-wool knees. The chatter was too much for his already over-stimulated mind. If he thought about this being his first ever day with the Imperial Russian Ballet, he would be sick. He needed to find a rehearsal room and exercise away his nerves, so that when the class began he wouldn’t look out of place among those who had earned the title of Romanov dancer.

  ‘Excusez-moi,’ he ventured, touching the sleeve of a well-dressed man who was dawdling in the hallway. Luka assumed he was a dancer on his way to the dressing room to change into his practice uniform, which was why he spoke in French, the language of the ballet.

  The man’s lip lifted in an expression of distaste underneath his burnt-umber moustache.

  Luka faltered. ‘Pardon. I was wondering … could you by any chance tell me which room the class of perfection is in?’

  One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Do I look like the kind of person who works here?’ Even before the disdain had finished dripping off his words, he was walking away.

  ‘Never mind him.’ Two other men, this time wearing practice uniforms identical to his own, joined Luka. The one who had spoken smiled, although the expression was cautious. ‘We get all sorts around here. Imperial hangers-on who don’t actually care for the ballet; balletomanes who’ll drive you crazy with how much they do care; fathers who think they can improve their child’s chances of getting into the company. Did you say you’re looking for the class of perfection?’

  Luka looked down to check the letter in his hand detailing his acceptance to the Imperial Russian Ballet, then nodded.

  ‘But you’re new, aren’t you?’ the second man asked. He sounded annoyed.

  ‘Yes, it’s my first day. I … is there something wrong?’

  The two men shared a glance loaded with meaning.

  ‘The class of perfection is by invitation only,’ the first speaker said. ‘There are people here who’ve spent years trying to get in.’

  They stared at Luka with obvious displeasure. It reminded him of the expressions of those who lived among the factories, his neighbours and friends, when he’d gained acceptance to the Imperial Ballet School all those years ago. They’d viewed him as something of a traitor who hadn’t known his place.

  Luka tried to think of a reply. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. With a shrug, one of the men pointed out the room he wanted and then they both took their leave. Luka was sure he heard mutters of rivalry as they made their way to a different studio. It seemed his first day as a Romanov dancer had begun.

  Ignoring the sensation of resentful eyes hot on his skin, Luka walked into the rehearsal room the men had indicated. The odour of stale sweat greeted him like an old acquaintance. He’d spent eight years training in a studio that smelled just the same: it was the aroma of hard work, and he felt his face settle into determined lines as he took a place at the barre.

  The rest of the class filtered in slowly, hardly anyone speaking. Most had their eyes cast down, but it was impossible to miss the shrewd glances they threw at each other, sizing up their competition. Luka executed an entrechat quatre, then rested his hand gently on the barre. This was where he was at home, where he experienced magic. He didn’t need the mysticism of monks like the famous Grigori Rasputin. Whenever he danced, everything around him disappeared, and his emotions reached heights that simply weren’t possible in real life. Once a dancer had a taste of that, it became a drug they could not live without.

  The ballet master arrived, and the dancers assembled themselves into fifth position. They began a lengthy plié exercise. Luka forced himself not to look at the dancers around him; instead he focused on his own movements, pushing his knees out to the sides as he bent them, keeping his body in alignment, not too far forward, no bending at the waist. His arms swooped low, then through first position.

  As he moved his feet into second position, the door to the rehearsal room opened and a small figure with dark hair and a piece of lace tied around her forehead walked in. Luka caught his breath. At the Imperial Ballet School, anyone late to class was dismissed for the day, left to wallow in their shame and the knowledge that their classmates would be getting ahead of them. But this was not the school, and the woman was no ordinary dancer. It was Mathilde Kschessinska: prima ballerina assoluta, and the crown jewel of the company.

  With an apologetic wave and a grin at the ballet master, Mathilde took a place at the front of the barre, forcing the dancer who had been there to move elsewhere. She joined in the exercise, her small limbs moving in time with the tinkling piano music, sunlight glinting off the diamond earrings she wore.

  Pliés turned into battements tendus, which were followed by battements glissés, until they had gone through a full barre. There was a brief break to get some water, and for the women to switch from their soft flat ballet slippers into their pointe shoes. And then centre work began.

  It was here that Luka realised the class of perfection was something of a competition. As the exercises became more difficult, the dancers who were able to pulled ahead. None more so than Mathilde. When the ballet master asked for a double pirouette, she gave a triple. When told to balance, she held it at least a second longer than anyone else in the room.

  Luka tried to emulate her. His allegro had new height, and he pushed himself so hard that by the time the class came to an end he’d sweated through his practice uniform and his strong muscles w
ere quivering.

  ‘There’s still rehearsals to go after this,’ one of the other men chided him.

  Luka didn’t respond.

  Perhaps he should have paced himself—his first day would require more of him than the Imperial Ballet School ever had. But he had to prove himself; to show them all he belonged here. More than that, he wanted to cement the life his brother and mother had wanted for him. The life he wanted for himself. Luka would do anything it took to be allowed to dedicate his life to this exquisite, demanding art form he’d made his own.

  They were in their second hour of rehearsing scenes from Les Millions d’Arlequin. It was a ballet that offered more excitement for male dancers than many others, but so far Luka had done nothing but wait. The ballet master, Nikolai Legat, had been rehearsing a pas de deux between the Good Fairy and Harlequin, and had not called the corps to the stage. The desire to step out onto the vast expanse made Luka’s muscles quiver, his feet stroking out restless battements tendus on the ground.

  Many of the dancers had brought along knitting or drank cups of tea to keep themselves occupied. A few had gathered at the back of the stage to practise variations. Luka joined this group at first, hoping to show any watching eyes how eager he was to learn and perform. But the limited space allowed only the most restricted movements, and it quickly became more frustrating than standing still had been. Eventually he gave up and joined the other corps members in the wings. Sitting on the floor, he pulled back on his toes to stretch out his calf muscles. The familiar pain that answered was satisfying, and he smiled.

  Luka allowed his gaze to travel beyond the stage into the auditorium, Legat’s counting in French fading into the background. Even in the daytime, with the crystal chandelier and azure velvet chairs shrouded with drab tawny holland to keep the dust off, the interior of the Mariinsky Theatre was breathtaking. He half closed his eyes, dreaming about the day those sixteen hundred chairs might be filled with people there to watch Luka Zhirkov dance the roles made famous by men before him: love-sworn Prince Siegfried, disillusioned Prince Charming, hapless Don Quixote. And perhaps, one day, a role created just for him.