Flight of the Swan Read Online Free Page B

Juan, the light became even stronger, refracted by the looming medieval walls and ramparts. Madame turned her face toward the sun’s rays and closed her eyes. I imagined she was thinking of St. Petersburg, remembering its relentless drizzle, the sharp golden steeple of the Admiralty piercing the slate-colored sky. “If only I could absorb this sunlight and take it with me when I leave!” Madame said. “Maybe that way I could get rid of the periodic depressions that visit me, when I feel lost in the St. Petersburg mist.”
    When the cattle boat docked at the busy port, Madame and Dandré disembarked together, ahead of everyone else. I watched them from the ship, leaning on the banister. Dandré was carrying Madame’s alligator nécessaire with her jewelry—her diamond necklace, her earrings and bracelets, and the czar’s Fabergé egg with the tiny diamond fish inside—his gift to her when she graduated from the Imperial Ballet School. Madame carried Poppy, her black-and-white American bull terrier, in her arms. Custine, the ballet master, and Smallens, the orchestra director, walked along smartly behind them, each holding a birdcage. Madame had been presented with two beautiful silver-gray nightingales in Santiago de Cuba before she left, and naturally she had brought them along. (“Look, Masha, darling, nightingales on these islands have whiskers, little black hairs on their beaks!” she pointed out to me gaily when she saw them.) Madame never traveled without her pets, and she wasn’t going to leave such wonderful gifts behind.
    On the wharf a magnificent, four-door Pierce-Arrow was waiting with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel. Madame was astonished; she wasn’t expecting anyone to pick her up. She asked who had sent the vehicle and the uniformed chauffeur bowed, whispered something in her ear, and then conferred with Dandré. Dandré signaled that it was fine, and they all got into the car and set off, riding rapidly up the cobblestones of Calle Tanca.
    The rest of the troupe—Lyubovna Fedorovna, Madame’s mother and lady-in-waiting; the electrician; the seamstress; the beautician with her hatbox full of wigs; and myself helping to carry the luggage—all trundled heavily up the hill on foot toward the Malatrassi Hotel, a narrow, four-story building which stood on Plaza de Armas, the town square. It was a second-class establishment next to the Alcaldia, the mayor’s house. Because of La Habana’s fiasco we couldn’t stay at a first-class hotel in San Juan. Everybody seethed, of course, and they all blamed Dandré. But although there were groans and complaints all around, nobody considered even for a minute going back to New York.
    Madame was always followed around on her ballet tours by a group of admirers who called themselves the Swooning Swans. In Australia, two young girls followed her train for thousands of kilometers, admiring her from a distance until they reached Sydney and then, too shy to introduce themselves, turned right around and went back to where they came from. There was a time when her followers, myself included, could have killed for a strip of Madame’s tulle skirt, for a ribbon from one of her silk slippers. We fought like cats over each little memento. When she danced the mad scene in Giselle , for example, and actually wrenched a handful of hair from her head, the girls searched around the stage for hours after the ballet was over, looking for the silky strands to preserve in their lockets as talismans. Fans waited at the theater entrance and pounced on her the minute she was out of the door. Eventually she realized that she needed protection from the Swooning Swans. That was when Mr. Dandré came in handy. The white lie of their marriage served as a very effective armor: thanks to Mr. Dandré, no one ever dared approach Madame beyond a certain point.

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    I NEVER DARED SPEAK to Madame in public or get too close. It was as if she radiated perfection, not only through the movements