Flight of the Swan Read Online Free Page A

meant? I had heard rumors that in her youth she had loved someone passionately, but that she had had to give him up. In fact, she remained faithful to her oath until we arrived in Puerto Rico. Here she underwent a metamorphosis.
    Most of the girls in the company had had unhappy love affairs, and they found consolation in Madame’s celibate example. She was pure as snow, unsullied by the mud of sex and betrayal. I, for one, was always on the lookout to fend off marauders, who were usually not too far away. The girls and I were constantly pampering her. We would brush her hair, rub Pond’s cold cream on her face, massage her feet. Once a woman has experienced the softness of another woman’s caresses, the delicate fingertips like silk buds on her skin—even if it’s an amitié en rose —how can she ever go back to loving a man? It was difficult to understand at the time.
    It was true that during our tours around the world Madame paid her dancers miserly salaries—our wages were a pittance, more crumbs than pay—but we didn’t mind. We knew why we were dancing and what we were dancing for . It didn’t have to be mentioned; it was taken for granted, like the tide that pours from the Black Sea into the Dardanelles every day at dawn.
    Madame’s dancers lived like birds, totally at the mercy of God’s will. We had to pay for our own hotel accommodations, our food, our taxis, even our toe shoes. The English and the French girls (there were both) wrote home constantly, asking their parents to send them money to survive. We Russians, of course, had no one to write to since our country had gone up in flames. Madame would become incensed when she was criticized for these things by her enemies. “The families should pay me , because now they can say their children were my pupils, and this will assure their prestige in the world,” she’d maintain. But none of it mattered to us. We would have danced for nothing if we could have remained by Madame’s side.

5
    T HE S.S. COURBELO WAS really a cattle boat headed for Panama which was detoured to Puerto Rico for repairs, and as soon as it began to roll from side to side, the mournful bellowing of the animals below deck began to echo through the ship. We spent a miserable night and everybody was depressed, but there was no getting away from the steers or from the stench of their manure, which seeped through the cracks in the hold. No one slept. Seeing that the journey to Puerto Rico was a short one and that we would only spend one night at sea, we hung our hammocks up on deck, and spent the night under a sky full of stars.
    As we approached the island the next morning, Madame came up on deck and stood near me. She put an arm around my shoulders and snuggled against me, then made the sign of the cross on my forehead. “Good morning, Masha! Have you had a glass of fresh milk yet? At least there’s plenty of it on board!” she said with a little laugh. That’s what I always liked about Madame. No matter how bad things were, she always saw the silver lining.
    I smiled back at her and admitted I had had a cup of café con leche in the galley a few minutes before. “The coffee is very good. I hear the Catholic pope only drinks Puerto Rican coffee in Rome,” I said to tease her, knowing how passionate she was about her Orthodox faith. I leaned on the rail and looked at the approaching coastline, a bare line of vegetation floating between two immense canvases of blue—navy-dark water beneath, a pale azure sky above—with not a cloud in sight. At this latitude sunlight was even stronger-than in Havana; it fell on the waves like liquid bronze, bathing our arms and faces. I was in good spirits. “What sun!” I cried, spreading my arms wide. “I wonder what our dancing will be like here, with a sun like this to warm us!” Madame kissed me on the cheek. I embraced her and didn’t say a word. Her kiss made everything I had endured worthwhile.
    As we neared the fortified city of San