Flight of the Swan (7 page)

We couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but we were sure he was reciting a poem. A police van pulled up in front of the school, siren screaming, and a group of officers ran up the front steps and barged into the classroom. They lifted the poet up unceremoniously by the arms and whisked him away. Madame was horrified and ran after them, wanting to stop them from roughing up the crippled man, but Dandré ran after her and held her fast. Molinari muttered angrily at our backs: “That’s Manuel Aljama, reciting trash to our students again. American school principals are too lenient. The traitor should be shot!” Dandré hurried us on toward the hotel. “San Juan may not be as peaceful as it seems after all,” I heard him say as he escorted us away.

W
E WERE ALL INVITED
to La Fortaleza, and that evening we went to the governor’s mansion to meet some of Madame’s local admirers. She was to dance
The Dying Swan
in a private performance in the gardens. La Fortaleza was near the Malatrassi, so a few minutes before 7:00 p.m., we walked there single file wearing our evening finery, because the sidewalks were so narrow. Many of the shop and restaurant signs were in English, although everyone spoke Spanish in the streets. With Molinari leading the way, we turned right on General O’Donnell, formerly Calle San José, and then right again on General Allen, formerly Calle Fortaleza. Molinari kept translating the names from what they were before as if he enjoyed it, which made us cringe. We much preferred the Spanish names, which were several centuries old: San Francisco, San Sebastian, and San José, who are also holy in our Orthodox faith.

We passed a small chapel built over the city’s ancient walls. “A miracle happened here some years ago during a popular feast,” Molinari said. “Horse races are an important part of San Juan’s Carnival celebrations, and dozens of horsemen participate in them. One day a runaway horse plunged over the eighty-foot embankment at the end of Calle Cristo. They say horse and rider hurtled into the rocks below, but the rider was saved by the Virgen de la Providencia.” Molinari told the story with an ironic snigger, but Madame ignored him. “Look, Masha! A sacred place!” she cried, kneeling in front of the chapel’s altar. Madame looked at the jagged rocks below, imagining the poor rider’s terrible fright as he tumbled through the air. Devoutly, she crossed herself.

When we arrived at the governor’s mansion, there were already many guests waiting for us in the garden and almost as many security guards. The guards stood around like stolid mannequins in their uniforms, staring with glassy eyes straight ahead of them, their hands clasped behind their backs. We wondered if the reason there were so many police agents was because we were Russian and the governor was suspicious of us. Political assassinations were common enough in our country and Madame, they were informed by the police, was a Bolshevik sympathizer. The whole thing was absurd.

Governor Arthur Yager, tall and bewhiskered, stood next to his slender daughter, Diana, in the receiving line of the Blue Room, under a portrait of an overweight Queen Isabel II of Spain, a huge dumpling wrapped in blue satin. Diana often gave teas at La Fortaleza, and since her mother was ill, she graciously performed the functions of official hostess. She was the one who, upon hearing that Madame had arrived on the island, had insisted that her father hold a reception in her honor.

Molinari informed us that Governor Yager was a graduate and former president of Georgetown University and a good friend of President Wilson’s; he certainly looked the part. He wore a white linen suit and the suede shoes that were his trademark. His hair grew in tight silver curls around his head in the manner of the Roman emperors. He was evidently a cultured man and the mansion was decorated in good taste: colonial oil paintings hung on the walls, and antique mahogany chairs and consoles graced the corners holding up candelabra like oiled, dark-skinned servants. He had heard about Madame’s Ballets Russes in New York, and was excited to meet its dancers. As we entered the receiving room he bowed graciously before Madame and kissed her hand.

Governor Yager was from Kentucky, Molinari explained, and because he was familiar with the Appalachians, he understood the problems of an agricultural island mired in poverty. In fact, that was why President Wilson had named him to his post as governor. I thought I detected a sarcastic tone to Molinari’s words but I couldn’t be sure. Molinari was a puzzle—I didn’t know what to think of him. He was Bracale’s sub-agent, but I suspected he also worked for the police commissioner. The day before, he had told us himself that he was a translator for the government. Today he went on about how he “hated the gringos’ guts,” because he had lost thousands of dollars in his coffee plantation when the U.S. left Puerto Rican coffee outside its tariff walls. His product couldn’t be shipped to Europe as it used to be, and on the mainland no one had heard about it. His coffee grains were rotting like drops of blood in the dense forest.

As a native Kentuckian, Molinari explained, Governor Yager was familiar with the ins and outs of the liquor business, and he was aware that the healthy revenues from rum production kept the island from sinking completely into ruin. Yager opposed the dry law vigorously, but Congress insisted that a plebiscite be held; the law was applied to Puerto Rico, after all. In Congress’s opinion, the least Puerto Rico could do, in exchange for American citizenship, was vote for Prohibition. “And Congress was right!” Molinari told us. “Since Puerto Ricans are only semi-civilized, it’s better if they don’t drink rum at all, because it only makes them more ungovernable.”

The whole story was incredible. “Russians drink vodka from the cradle, and pouring it into the Neva would not alter our taste for it,” Madame snapped at Molinari, shaking a finger at him. But Molinari shrugged his shoulders and ambled on.

Madame made her way among the guests; her four principal ballerinas and I surrounded her in a tight little phalanx. We could feel danger throbbing around us, in the heat of the crowd. The men wore dinner jackets, and the ladies’ evening gowns were ablaze with jewelry. Although most of the guests were Puerto Rican, it was considered impolite to speak Spanish because the governor and his daughter didn’t, so everyone spoke English with a thick accent. We saw the police commissioner there, too, probably a fixture at all the formal affairs at the governor’s palace.

Madame wore her black-draped chiffon Madame de Grès evening gown, which ended in a vanishing point at the waist, baring her back provocatively. The governor asked for silence and tapped his knife against his glass: “I wish to present to you one of Russia’s greatest artists,” he said. “Madame is one of the wonders of the world. Let us drink to her health and happiness.” He lifted his champagne glass (the dry law didn’t apply at the governor’s) in Madame’s direction and raised it to his lips.

Dandré drew near and shook the governor’s hand. “Let’s drink both to the Russians and to the Americans! May our people be friends forever!” he said. An awkward silence followed, as the governor made no answer but stared suspiciously at Dandré. It was rumored that soon the new Soviet government would ally itself with the Central Powers and Americans and Russians would become enemies: this was verified several months later, when the treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Russia and Germany was signed. But we weren’t aware of this because of our recent isolation at sea. As usual, Dandré was making an ass of himself, and Madame innocently followed his lead. “The United States has so much and our country has so little. Almost ten million people have died in Europe since the war began. Americans and Russians must help each other and put a stop to this bloody war.” The commissioner stood nearby and, lifting his glass to Madame’s, he drank to the Russians’ health without blinking. I gulped mine down, eyes shut, terrified of seeing Madame ridiculed.

Fifteen minutes later Novikov, Madame’s partner, pushed his way through the crowd and asked if she wanted to dance a foxtrot. He was short and lithe—a perfect size for Madame on the stage—and he had a splendid physique. We were used to his eccentricities. He spoke with a lisp, lifted his little finger every time he drank from a glass, and was always on the lookout for new romantic conquests. Madame could dance with him as much as she wanted: Dandré was never jealous. At that moment we could see Dandré in the background still talking with Molinari; his tall, tuxedo-clad figure loomed darkly in the distance. Novikov took Madame’s arm and led her to the adjoining ballroom, where a musical ensemble was playing. She looked over his shoulder and saw that several local young people were about to join them on the dance floor. Beautifully dressed girls were checking out their carnets with their partners to see who had the first dance.

Novikov whirled Madame around the elegant hall, decorated with gilded eighteenth-century mirrors and marble-topped consoles. I followed as unobtrusively as possible. He was keeping his eyes pegged on a brown-haired ephebe standing near the bar, who looked at him with lovelorn eyes. Madame noticed someone interesting also: the one-legged poet who had held her attention so thoroughly at the school that afternoon. He was sitting by himself next to a potted palm at one end of the room. Madame asked Novikov to whirl her in that direction. When they were near the gentleman, Madame stopped dancing and asked Novikov to get her a second glass of champagne. Novikov winked at her and went off toward the bar.

The gentleman was slender, his neck almost swimming inside his impeccably starched collar. His ears, which stuck out of his head like pale, almost transparent bat wings, gave him an alert and at the same time pathetic look. He trembled slightly, but the same fire was smoldering in his eyes we had noticed that afternoon. “Was that a poem you were reciting in Spanish at the school earlier?” she asked softly. “I heard you from the street, and it was beautiful, even if I couldn’t understand a word. What was the title?” Madame spoke to him in French, convinced that the gentleman would understand her, and she wasn’t mistaken. His eyes were the color of amber. “It’s a poem about death and resurrection,” he said. “The school principal didn’t know I was going to recite it when they invited me to talk to the students, and when the police arrived, it was too late, they couldn’t shut me up. Next time, however, it’ll be more difficult. If there is a next time, that is. At least my daughter, Estrella, has promised to recite it at my wake.” He looked directly at her, smiling under his huge mustache.

“Why do you write about death?” Madame asked him softly. “You should write about life!”

“Because I can’t go on living when freedom isn’t possible!” the poet answered vehemently.

Madame shivered and wrapped her shawl more closely about her.

T
HE CRUSH OF PEOPLE
milling about in the Hall of Mirrors began to make me feel claustrophobic. We were about to step into one of the enclosed galleries of louvered windows, which had fanlike, gaily colored panes of glass on top, for a breath of fresh air when Madame ran into a young man with a wide mourning ribbon tied around his upper sleeve. He was slender, with delicate hands and tapered fingers. He wore glasses, and behind them his eyes glowed like coals. He was very good-looking, and he knew it.

“Are you the famous Russian ballerina?” the young man asked eagerly, stepping aside to let Madame through. “I’ve been looking for you all evening. I’m the one who sent the Pierce-Arrow to pick you up at the wharf this morning. I wanted to receive you in style!”

Madame looked pleasantly surprised, and as they walked out onto the verandah together, I purposely stayed behind a few steps.

They stood looking toward the garden. A Moorish fountain spilled a jet of water into a mosaic basin, and its soft murmur echoed through the enclosed patio. The young man wanted to know everything about the company—where we were staying, how long we were traveling around the island, and what Madame was going to dance that night.

He’d lived in New York, he said, where he had studied journalism, and it didn’t take Madame long to discover that he was very well educated. He had read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and began to quote her a passage from
Das Kapital
, his voice full of enthusiasm, until she begged him to stop. Politics upset her, she said. He looked downcast at her lack of interest. Like many young men his age, he wanted to show off.

“I saw you talking to Aljama, our local poet, a minute ago,” the young man added. “He’s the Don Quixote of our independence movement, you know. Quite a picturesque character.”

“I would have liked to talk to him longer, but he walked away. He seemed ill,” Madame said.

“He
is
ill. He’s a diabetic and lost his leg to gangrene recently. I hear that he’s become addicted to morphine. He won’t last very long.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is he one of your well-known poets?”

“He is
the
poet; people travel for miles on foot, across rivers and mountains, just to hear him read his poems in public.”

“This afternoon I saw the police manhandle and arrest him at a public school. Why on earth has he been invited here tonight?” Madame said, looking amazed.

The young man laughed softly and took off his glasses to polish them with a linen handkerchief. He shook his head.

“They weren’t really arresting him. They pick him up and take him back home all the time. And of course, that’s why he was invited here tonight. It’s wise to keep your enemy in sight; that way he can do less harm.” Madame listened with interest. The young man had eyes with deep shadows in them, and he stared at her shamelessly. Half concealed behind a Sevres porcelain urn that stood on a pedestal, I began to feel uncomfortable.

At that moment the governor approached with Diana and another girl accompanying him, one on each arm. Four uniformed security guards followed, a walking wall of muscle and sinew. “This is Estrella Aljama, our famous poet’s daughter,” the governor announced to Madame. “And this is Diana, my daughter. They are very good friends and they were looking forward to meeting you.” The girls giggled, and it was obvious that Estrella, especially, was very shy; she hardly dared look at Madame. Madame turned on the charm and embraced them both, kissing them on the cheek. Then she called over Nadja Bulova and Maya Ulanova and introduced them to the girls, since they were more or less the same age.