Are we so different now? she writes in her notebook.

  Someone from the audience whistles—someone who really knows how to whistle loudly. It’s an impressive sound. Olga makes a mental note to learn, by whatever means it takes, to whistle like that. And yet it’s horrible—she’s never witnessed such disrespectful behavior in a theater before.

  The ominous mood of the music is relentless. As those headache-inducing notes sound again and again on the basses and cellos, the dancers pull their elbows in at their waists and turn their feet inward. The movement is met with laughter from the audience.

  “Call a doctor!” someone yells from the darkness, followed by more, and even more raucous, laughter.

  One of the men standing in the ambulatory shouts out, “Show some respect, for God’s sake, for the artists!”

  As one, the dancers drop their heads to one side, their tilted faces propped on the backs of their hands.

  “Call a dentist!” yells a booming male voice from one of the boxes.

  Widespread laughter breaks out.

  “Call two dentists!” another joker yells.

  There are more ear-splitting whistles and even howls. More and more people, both men and women, are shouting insults so loudly that it’s becoming hard to hear the music. The orchestra keeps playing, though. Maestro Monteux seems impervious to the disruptions. With the courage of a soldier facing an onslaught of enemy fire, he continues to jab at the air with the tip of his baton—and the dancers keep moving, although it’s clear now that quite a few of them are close to tears.

  Suddenly, the house lights come up, shocking the crowd into silence. In the flash of illumination, Olga sees Diaghilev himself in the lighting booth. “I beg you,” he shouts. “Allow the show to proceed!”

  Someone near him calls out, “Listen first, you idiots! You can whistle later on!”

  Shamed by the lights, the audience quiets down. But when it’s dark again, there’s more laughter and more shouting and whistling. A woman rises from the boxes, her tiara askew. “How dare you!” she calls out in a quavering voice to one of the artist types standing adjacent to her seat. Another long-haired man says, “Shut your trap, you old bitch!”

  Olga hears a slap—and, if she’s not mistaken, she has just seen two gentlemen exchanging cards. The theater is awash in sounds of outrage and anguished calls for silence—and even so, the dancers keep dancing their dance of death and the orchestra keeps playing.

  A woman in the front rows gets up and looks behind her, pointing her furled umbrella at a man who has just been sitting there, watching the show. “Dirty Jew!” she yells, taking a swipe at him. There’s the sound then of fists hitting flesh, followed by screams.

  

  When the flute melody is played at the start, Sonya’s thoughts wander off to memories of everything she loved about Kishinev. Her brother Lev carrying her on his shoulders, pretending to be a horse, when she was a tiny girl, while he was still living at home. Walking hand in hand with her mother through the open market in the square, surrounded by the sights and smells of the countryside’s bounty—the vegetables with the dirt still clinging to their roots. The fragrant baskets of berries and apricots. The fresh-baked bread and the bundles of herbs. The feeling of falling asleep with her head cradled against the pillowy softness of her mother’s bosom, arms wrapped around her, her mother’s heartbeat in her ears.

  But when the flutes are drowned out by the low strings of the basses and cellos, sounding the same relentless, monotone notes over and over again, her thoughts take a darker turn. She recognizes those sounds. They are the sounds of hatred and fear. The sounds of a mob that’s hungry for flesh. For someone to blame.

  It goes on and on like this. She sees Jeannette on the stage—but it’s as if she’s looking at her across a chasm. As if her sister has once again been lost to her. Her own breathing is shallow and rapid. Her heart is racing and her hands feel numb.

  When someone shouts out, “Dirty Jew!” it’s altogether unclear to Sonya whether the shouting has come from the present or the past. Shouts and screams are erupting from all over the theater. Her chest starts hurting, just below her heart—a sharp pain that makes it hard to breathe.

  In the aural frenzy that follows, Sonya’s mind spills over with images of the pogrom as she has seen it again and again in countless nightmares. The anti-Semitic mob with their crowbars and cudgels. Asher, unarmed, but standing his ground in front of their shop. She hears the sickening sound of iron crashing into his flesh. She hears his bones breaking and sees his face bloodied and bruised again, as she saw it there, in the makeshift morgue. The flesh of his face swollen, his arms akimbo. His eyes—his dead eyes—still open.

  The pogrom is suddenly as vivid to her as if she and the children hadn’t been hidden safely away in the attic of the church while her husband was murdered and their home destroyed.

  She only realizes that her face is wet when Baila shakes her as if waking her from a dream. But she hasn’t been sleeping. “Mama!” Is it Baila’s voice, or is it her own voice, crying out?

  Sonya closes her eyes, trying to collect herself—but she winces every time she hears another shout, another slap, another insult. It’s harder and harder to breathe. She feels like she’s dying. She doesn’t dare to look at Jeannette on that stage, in that circle of red-clad, trembling girls, each one of them hoping not to be chosen as the one who will be murdered for the tribe, murdered so that spring will come again with its bounty.

  “Don’t choose my sister—not her!” she whispers, her eyes still closed, carried across the chasm of time to that moment so long ago—when hands reached down and plucked Zaneta out of the crib, and Sonya was left there alone and abandoned. A tiny child desperately crying, but no one heard her. No one came to comfort her.

  “Mama!” cries Baila.

  “We’ve got to get her out of here,” Naomi says.

  All around them, people are shouting and tearing at each other’s clothes. Women’s hats are torn off their heads and men’s beards are being pulled, even as the dancers keep dancing and the orchestra keeps playing. Monteux never once turns his head to look behind him but continues to wield his baton with his right hand, while with his left he turns the pages of the score. Nijinsky is visible in the wings, standing on a chair, shouting out his eccentric counts in Russian, “Fifteen! Sixteen! Seventeen!”

  “Good God,” Naomi says. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

  Paris

  1913

  Olga breaks the silence. “Do you remember our father?” she asks Naomi.

  The three sisters sit together in an antechamber at the mayor’s office, dressed in their wedding clothes, waiting for Mâitre Blum’s secretary to come collect them.

  Naomi shakes her head. “Not really. I remember that he could always make me smile, even when I was sad. I remember being on a train once, with you and Mama. Papa couldn’t come with us. He made my dolly talk.”

  “Is that all? Can’t you remember anything else?”

  Naomi tries harder—and even wonders if she’s making this up, just to please Olga. “He wore glasses,” she says slowly, “like you. He loved reading.”

  “But his face? What did he look like, Noni? You’re such a genius with faces.”

  Naomi sighs. “When I try to see his face, all I see is the portrait.”

  They’ve spent a lot of time, together and separately, looking at the framed sepia wedding portrait of their mother and father, a photo their uncle Daniel had given to them. It is the only photo of their father they have ever seen.

  “I can’t remember anything before Saint Petersburg,” says Olga with a sigh. “When we saw Petrushka, I felt like I was remembering Kishinev—but it was my mind, I think, playing tricks on me.”

  Naomi looks into Olga’s eyes but only sees a small reflection of herself in her sister’s glasses. “Mama says that, of all of us, you’re most like him.”

  Baila sees an opportunity to contribute something to this conversation. “Our aunt says there’s no way of knowing if he was my father.”

  “She didn’t!” says Naomi, at the same moment that Olga says, “That bitch!”

  Naomi takes Baila by the shoulders and waits till Baila meets her gaze. “Get this straight, Babochka. Asher Danilov was father to all three of us.”

  Baila, who hates her sisters’ nickname for her, pushes Naomi away. “What does it matter, who my father was? I never had a father for one single day of my life. I’m glad our aunt is marrying Mâitre Blum! I wish Mama would get married.”

  “I think it’s important,” says Olga in her most maddeningly grown-up voice, “to help each other remember. To keep whatever memories we have alive.”

  “Our lives are ahead of us,” says Baila. “What good is there in trying to remember what’s gone now?”

  “How can you say that?” Naomi asks, just as she wonders why she and Olga are both so sentimental about a past they hardly even remember. Certainly, this nostalgia must be due to their mother’s influence, really, always going on and on about Kishinev and all its sights and smells and stories about their little home behind the shop with its ceramic stove and steaming samovar. About the antics of their uncle Lev, a person they’ve never met—who has entered the realm of myth for them, along with the grandparents and other relatives they never knew, and the father she can barely remember. Maybe, she speculates, this persistent preoccupation with the past is keeping their mother from getting on with her life.

  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” says Olga.

  Baila, who struggles in school, often rails at God for having given Olga all the brains. “Did you just make that up?”

  “I wish! It was written by an American named George Santayana.”

  Naomi is accustomed to the scholarly nuggets her sister brings home from the library and introduces into their conversation whenever possible. She has found occasion to repeat some of the better lines, when the opportunity arose, in front of someone she wished to impress.

  A rap at the door announces Mâitre Blum’s secretary, who pokes his head inside. “All ready, are you?”

  “We’re ready, Eugène,” says Baila, reflexively—unthinkingly—making her eyes shine and looking even prettier than she had a moment ago.

  Eugène sits on a chair across from them. “Aren’t you excited about the wedding—and the honeymoon? My goodness, Mademoiselle Baila, you must surely be excited to be going on the tour!”

  Baila is excited but also filled with dread that she’s bound to disappoint her aunt, no matter how hard she works at her ballet lessons. What are the chances of rising to the top of the heap, after all? Her aunt had worked at being a dancer as if nothing else mattered to her—and still never managed to progress beyond demi-soloist, and that only two or three times in her entire career. And now her knees are nearly shot, and she’d be ready to throw herself off a rooftop if she hadn’t finally gotten Mâitre Blum to make good on his promise to marry her.

  Olga sighs, thinking about how unfair it is, once again, that Baila is to get a treat that will be wasted on her. What will she even notice about South America? What an opportunity it would be, aboard the Avon, to observe at close hand—and write about—the inner workings of Europe’s most innovative dance company. “This is a marriage of convenience for everyone involved, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You’re very cynical for one so young,” says Eugène, who gets a soft, nostalgic look in his eyes. “Your aunt was, and still is, a beautiful dancer.”

  “Ask her sometime if she’s pleased with her career—or well content that it’s nearly over!”

  “Over?” says Eugène. “How can you say it’s nearly over when she’s just been hired to go on tour with Diaghilev’s company?”

  Olga suspects that Jeannette is only getting to go on the tour because the Ballets Russes is strapped for funds. Mâitre Blum will pay for their passage aboard the Avon, and Baila’s too. It wouldn’t have taken a good deal of persuasion to convince Baron de Gunzburg, who’s in charge of the tour, to hire Jeannette as a supernumerary dancer for Swan Lake and Schéhérazade. It was just too good a bargain to pass on, getting a competent dancer who would pay her own way.

  “It will be an unparalleled opportunity for me, taking classes with the company,” says Baila, parroting her aunt’s words—and assuming what her sisters have come to regard as her ballerina pose, head held high and slightly to one side, shoulders squared.

  Olga sighs again, thinking about how Baila will be seeing all the wonders of the world—and how little detail she’s bound to convey in her letters, no matter how many promises Olga extracts from her.

  They hear raised voices from the other side of the door—angry voices. Eugène tries to smile reassuringly—but clearly something is wrong. And then Mâitre Blum and their mother burst in.

  “Well,” says Sonya, pinning a lock of hair back in place. “It seems we’re to skip the wedding and go straight to the party.”

  Blum appeals directly to Olga. “You’ll understand, I’m sure! I’ve found a publisher for Proust—and must see the whole thing through for him. I can’t possibly take two months off now.”

  “Aren’t you marrying our aunt?” says Baila.

  All eyes are on him—but Sonya answers, in a voice dripping with irony. “Destiny has called upon Mâitre Blum to devote all his energy and skills now to the service of high art.”

  “But isn’t Auntie disappointed?” asks Naomi.

  “She’s piping mad,” Sonya answers.

  “But she’ll get over it,” says Blum, “when she realizes the importance of getting this book out into the world.”

  All of them, in concert, roll their eyes.

  “Please hear me out! I care about all of you—and I care deeply about Jeannette. Olga, you know what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  “I think I do, René. Marcel Proust is, if I understand you correctly, a true artist. His work has come from that other-worldly, timeless place where all true art comes from. And as is the case for so many timeless and true works of art, the world into which it has emerged may not be ready or even capable of appreciating its value. And so you see it as your—” She pauses, searching for the right words. “As your sacred duty to shepherd his novel out into the light.”

  Blum has the look of a proud and happy teacher. “Precisely, Olga! I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  “But what about the South American tour,” says Baila, “and my classes with the Ballets Russes?”

  “I’m giving my ticket to your mother. The three of you will have a very wonderful time—and we’ll have a big celebration when you return!”

  “And what’s to become of Olga and me, while they’re gone?” says Naomi.

  “Why, you’ll carry on as before,” says Sonya. “You have your work with the Martines. And, Olga—you’ll have the unprecedented opportunity to hone your craft at the side of some of the most brilliant journalists in Paris today. Who will carefully and respectfully look after you.” The look she shoots at Blum is so menacing that he visibly cringes.

  “Absolutely,” he says to Olga with what appears to be sincere enthusiasm. “Between Colette and my colleagues at Gil Blas, you will have the chance to develop your prodigious gifts to their fullest potential.”

  Aboard the RMS Avon

  1913

  Baila can tell which of the passengers are part of the Ballets Russes and which are not, even though she has yet to be introduced to every member of the company. The dancers move effortlessly on deck, even when the Avon is rolling and pitching. Other passengers are thrown from side to side or lurch forward, grabbing on to any handholds that present themselves, whether architectural or human. Even those dancers who are seasick—and a lot of them are—make their way gracefully to the railings where, green of face, they vomit. If they’re smart or lucky, they’ve chosen the ship’s downwind side.

  Both Jeannette and Sonya are ill for the first week, which allows Baila to roam freely and make friends everywhere. She becomes a favorite of the grandes dames traveling in first class with their dogs—or, if the ladies are sensitive to the ship’s motion, Baila befriends their servants, who are even snobbier than their employers. Her favorite people on the voyage are the dogs, with their guileless love and utter sincerity.

  When the dancers practice on deck, Baila is allowed to stand at the back and practice with them, always being careful to stay out of the way. There are certain sequences that she isn’t able to execute. But there are other maneuvers, such as the fouetté, which plague many ballerinas but come easily to Baila. She doesn’t know why. Once, after class, she makes Nijinsky laugh by executing ten fouettés in quick succession: a double pirouette, then one shapely leg extended to the front, whipped to the side à la seconde, and pulled back into passé for another pirouette. Again and again, on demi-pointe, a grin on her face and her eyes trained forward.

  After that, the dancers allow her (but not Jeannette or Sonya) to sit at their table in the second-class dining room. The only other outsider is a pretty blonde Hungarian, Mademoiselle Romola, traveling in first class. Always beautifully and expensively dressed, she appears every time Nijinsky chooses to sit among them. She is not well liked by the dancers, with the exception of Nijinsky, who becomes nervous and excited in her presence.