Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

8

For a male dancer, partnering includes lifting, catching, and carrying a partner, also assisting with jumps, promenades and supported pirouettes.

Scarcely were M. Fokine’s elegant trousers from Paris out of the door when Rhys and his cough were in action one more.

‘Sergeant Jenkins to see you, my lord.’

The Sergeant was in a state of high excitement. Powerscourt wondered if his red hair hadn’t turned an even deeper shade.

‘They’ve spotted him, my lord! They saw him coming through on the boat from Calais!’

‘Sorry, Sergeant, who is this “he” you speak of? You make it sound like the Second Coming.’

‘I don’t think it’s that, my lord. Not yet, anyway. My granny always says the Second Coming will never happen under a Liberal government. Don’t ask me why. Sorry, my lord, my mate Charlie Watchett works in the “make sure they don’t kill the King or the PM or members of the Cabinet watch out for foreign spies” bit of the police. He says the boys at Dover picked up a tip from the Frenchies that this messenger from Lenin was coming. They all think this Lenin person is pretty important. Charlie’s boys watched the messenger walk onto English soil this morning.’

‘Did they let him through, or did they arrest him?’

‘Very cunning this, my lord, they let him through. Charlie and the lads are going to have to watch out for him in London.’

‘Did he have a name? No doubt he has many names and many disguises, but which one was he using for the present?’

‘Karl Lodost, Pole from Warsaw, my lord. Can I ask you a question, my lord? I know I should have found the answer by now, but I’m worried that some inspector will ask me about the man and I won’t know a thing.’

‘Of course,’ said Powerscourt, repressing a smile. ‘Fire ahead.’

‘Who is this Lenin person everyone seems to get so worked up about?’

‘Good question,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I’m sure Lenin, man of steel, isn’t his real name either. He’s a leader of a band of revolutionaries, one particular band of revolutionaries, as there are many more. They are people who want to throw out kings and emperors and parliaments and replace them with rule by the working class. He wants to overthrow the institutions of democracy and replace them with the rule of himself and his fellows. Quite how that would be better is not clear. Quite how it is to be achieved, this revolutionary heaven, is not clear either. Lenin is banned from Russia, where he comes from, and has become a wandering preacher of revolution, usually by pamphlet, across the face of Europe.’

‘I see,’ said Sergeant Jenkins. ‘I believe we have a few of our own here in London, our own home-grown revolutionaries, or so Charlie tells me. He says he has to pinch himself to stay awake when he has to go to their meetings. They all carry on so. They keep on mentioning the name of some other bloke — Karl Marx, is he called? He seems to be the Top Prophet man.’

‘You keep thinking of Karl Marx as Top Prophet, Sergeant, and you won’t go far wrong.’

‘But what’s this messenger man doing here, my lord?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea. Russia’s troubles seem to have come a long way from home if they’re ending up in Markham Square. New revolutionary Congress perhaps? They’re always holding mass rallies, like the revivalist preachers they resemble. Only thing is that there are so few of them in any one country that they have to invite everybody they can think of from the entire Continent. They say the arguments about which city should host the meeting — London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna — can go on for months. Perhaps it’s one of those. Maybe there’s another pamphlet due from Lenin. They’re great ones for pamphlets, these revolutionaries, Sergeant. I’d advise you to keep in touch with your friend Charlie. He may bring us further news, though I do find it hard to think of a link between Lenin and his friends and the Ballets Russes.’

Natasha Shaporova would have been the first to claim that she loved her fellow countrymen and women very dearly. But a little of that sisterly love was, if not abating, receding slightly from the shore. For the route from Covent Garden to her house in Chelsea seemed to her to have an Ariadne’s thread strung out along the way. The girls from the corps de ballet came in ones and twos and threes and fours, all lured by the prospect of tea from the samovar and the icons on the wall and an occasional visit from the local priest and a place where Russian was the normal language. She had discovered one important thing, and she was going to tell Lord Powerscourt as soon as she could. At first, in those early meetings in the Fielding Hotel, the name of Alfred Bolm and the suggestion that he might have pursued some of the young girls had been a trickle. Definitely there, but a trickle nonetheless. Now it had turned into a torrent.

You couldn’t get into a lift with the man. He wasn’t to be trusted in a train or taxi or any form of wheeled transport. His presents had to be returned immediately, his other advances rejected. Natasha knew that none of these girls could have carried out the murder, but what about the other members of the company — the reserves, as she called them, who weren’t on the stage that fateful night? Could one of them, carefully selected by her fellows for her skill with the dagger in the Cossack dance, have performed in a new adaptation below the stage?

Natasha also sensed that the girls had been turned homesick by the murder. In St Petersburg by now, the police would have arrested somebody, almost certainly the wrong person, but still an arrest. Now the plaintive calls grew in number. Why was London so big? Why were there so many people in it? Where was the sea? Why did the people always walk so quickly? Why did nobody speak Russian? Why hadn’t the police arrested somebody? It was Diaghilev who had done it. It was Bakst. It was Fokine, his patience finally exhausted by the ballet girls until he could kill the first person he saw.

For Natasha, that last accusation was too unkind. The girls had gone and she and Mikhail had an important engagement. They were going to meet Lady Lucy and Lord Francis at the ballet.

Powerscourt had known it was coming. It was fruitless to resist. He had said how nice in what he thought was a friendly fashion to Lady Lucy in the taxi that brought them here to the evening performance of the Ballets Russes in the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. She looked at him with deep but silent suspicion. Now he was in their box. He waved to Natasha and Mikhail in their box on the opposite side of the auditorium. He could hear the orchestra revving up. He remembered an old saying of his father’s about going to the dentist: just remember when it starts that you’re much closer to the end; to the whole visit being over.

There were garlands on the stage already and things hadn’t even started. Now they had! They were off! The music seemed to be almost a lullaby. The curtains rose to reveal a small pack of ballerinas, as Powerscourt referred to them, apparently frozen on stage. He remembered this one from his last visit all those years before. They’re going to start prancing about now, he told himself. Then that one in the outrageous costume will wake up on her high bed and she too will start prancing about. Round and about, up and down, forward to the front of the stage went the ballerinas. Powerscourt thought that it was like a moving harem, a tableau of female flesh on display. When the music stopped you could pick your girl. You might have to dance your way off the stage with her, but you could retire to some invisible box behind the curtains. But no. The music did not stop. Instead, as Powerscourt had prophesied, the one on the bed woke up. She too began strutting about. The others retired to the back of the stage, wares still on display, minimum clothing, maximum length of leg still available. It was a miracle the Lord Chamberlain, keeper of theatrical virtue in the capital, hadn’t intervened. Any moment now, Powerscourt said to himself, the music’s going to change gear and became more urgent, more dramatic. It did. And — Powerscourt felt on top of his form now — some bloke is going to appear and jump about. He did. The fellow appeared capable of some of the highest leaps Powerscourt had ever seen. The audience were on the edge of their seats. Powerscourt felt this chap could win Olympic gold for the high jump if he ever bothered. Only later was he to learn that his name was Nijinsky. Passion offered, passion rejected, passion offered again — yet more leaping about, higher still and higher, and at last the first ballet of the evening was over. Passion seemed to have been resolved as the high jumper and the sleeping one seemed to move off together. The applause was deafening. One ballet down, only two to go, Powerscourt said to himself. He felt quite cheerful. If he could sit through one of the bloody things, two shouldn’t be a problem. The evening at the dentist’s would soon be over.

That same evening another telegram arrived for M. Diaghilev at the Savoy Hotel in London. It came from Venice. The message was short and to the point: ‘Regret, repeat regret that your outstanding bills with the Grand Hotel have still not been cleared. No repeat accommodation will be offered here until they are settled. Giulio Baggini, General Manager Grand Hotel Venezia.’ The message joined its companions, unopened and unread, in the guests’ letterboxes in the Savoy Hotel reception.