Dmitri stepped away from him and lit a cigarette, looking suddenly sober.

Ruzsky cleared his throat. “No.” He saw relief in Irina’s eyes, regret in Ingrid’s. “No, it’s a kind offer. Another time, perhaps.”

“You’re here anyway,” his father said.

“Yes, but I’m… on duty, in a manner of speaking.”

His father glanced at Vasilyev.

“One must take time to relax, Sandro,” Vasilyev said, but his unyielding glare belied the soothing tone of his words.

“Of course.” He looked at his father, whose face had not quite returned to the hostile set of previous encounters. “Have a good evening.”

Ruzsky did not look back as he climbed the stairs. He slumped down into his seat at the far end of the front row with some relief, and gazed down at the empty stage. He was very high up here and it was pleasantly warm.

He only became aware that the performance was about to resume when he realized that the seats around him were once again full. The orchestra was warming up discordantly.

Ruzsky glanced down at the royal box. He could see the Tsar’s brother Grand Duke Michael in earnest conversation with Teliakovsky, the director of Imperial Theatres, and Count Fredericks, minister of the court.

The lights faded, the lavishly embroidered stage curtain was raised, and the overture began.

Maria appeared, in pure white against a startling blue backdrop, and her presence was as intoxicating as it had been when he had first watched her here, all those years ago. A young girl next to him craned her neck for a better view, her face alive with excitement.

Ruzsky forced himself to relax, sitting in the semidarkness, far above the stage.

She was tall for a ballerina. Her long, willowy body moved with such supple grace that nothing she did, no step she took, no pirouette or twist, ever seemed less than perfect. He watched her in a daze, oblivious to the music, or the onlookers, or even the careful choreography of the dance itself. He allowed himself to wallow in the sensation of being close to her.

But, as he watched, he was suddenly gripped by doubt. Only a fool would wait three years for a man who had let an unfaithful wife stand in the way of their fragile chance of happiness.

Ruzsky tried to stem the growing tide of dismay and self-reproach, but without success. He stood and pushed his way along the row, to a chorus of disapproval from those around him.

Outside, as he turned the corner of the stairs, he almost knocked Ingrid over. He grabbed hold of her to steady both of them and as he looked into her eyes, Ruzsky saw the depth of her hurt.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He stepped back. “No…”

They both stared at the floor. Ruzsky wondered what his brother had done or said on this occasion.

“You are…” He could not think of what to say. It was obvious that she was too upset to join her husband below.

“You’re leaving?” she asked.

“Yes.” He could see that her assumption was he’d been upset by the exchange with his father. “I have work to do,” he went on. He moved past her on the stairs.

Ruzsky wondered if he should offer words of comfort, but a natural sense of decorum restrained him. Whatever the cause of her unhappiness, she was his brother’s wife. “Have a good evening,” he said.

“Yes.”

Ruzsky walked down the stairs. At the corner, he looked over his shoulder and saw that she was still watching him. He raised his hand briefly-intended only as a gesture of support-and then was gone.

18

R uzsky waited next to the canal that ran along the rear of the theater. It had started snowing again. The visibility was poor in the glow of the widely spaced gas lamps, but it was warmer tonight.

The last of the audience was making its way out of the Mariinskiy, some heading for sleds or carriages, some on foot. There was the occasional burst of laughter as they went, but then the street grew quiet.

The stage door opened and a familiar figure appeared. The chief of the Petrograd Okhrana adjusted his fur hat and hesitated briefly before moving into the darkness.

Ruzsky ducked into the shadows until the rhythmic crunch of Vasilyev’s departing footsteps could no longer be heard.

Ruzsky wondered what his family was doing. He walked over the bridge, hands in his pockets.

He leaned against the railing and looked down at the icy canal.

It was a few moments before Ruzsky realized that she had left the theater and was heading away from him. Light flakes of snow gathered in her hair.

He almost called out, but thought better of it and took off in pursuit.

He touched her arm when he caught up with her, and she spun around. “Sandro!” Relief flooded her face.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. You gave me a fright.”

“Who did you think I was?”

The stage door banged shut and two men hurried toward them. Ruzsky recognized one as the ballet master with whom he’d crossed swords the previous day. “You’ll catch your death of cold,” he told her, in French.

“Ça ne fait rien,” she responded.

“C’est qui?”

“Un ami.”

The man took a pace closer and eyed Ruzsky. “We have something to eat and some vodka at home.” He pointed down the canal, in the opposite direction. “Just there, number 109.”

“Je suis fatiguée,” Maria said.

Ruzsky recognized the man now as the legendary Fokine.

“You’re going home?” he asked Maria.

“Yes.”

Fokine smiled. “Well, be good.”

He turned around and, with his companion, walked briskly away. Ruzsky felt his face reddening.

They turned and began to walk in the direction of the St. Nicholas Cathedral. “What did you think?”

“Of Fokine?”

“Of tonight.”

“Oh, it was good.”

“Good?” She laughed, kicking fresh powder up around her. Her mood was suddenly much lighter. “Good, Sandro?”

“All right, very good.”

“Very good?” She had walked a few paces ahead and faced him now, laughing. She scooped the snow up into his face. “Very good?”

“Astounding.”

“Astounding?”

“You’re Russia ’s finest prima ballerina, what can I say?”

“One of Russia ’s finest.”

“Such modesty…”

“You were bowled over by the scale and ambition of the choreography, or the physical perfection of the dancers. You-”

“All of the above.”

“I wager you don’t even like the ballet.”

“On the contrary.”

“Don’t you mean au contraire?”

“What’s so funny?”

“I bet you were asleep.”

He grinned. “If only I had been.”

“It was that boring?”

“Tedious beyond words.”

They were beside the cathedral now, its golden domes towering above them.

“My father used to take me to the ballet,” Ruzsky said quietly.

“Now there is a story.”

“Mmm…”

Maria looked into his eyes. The snow fluttered slowly down between them, big flakes melting as they touched her cheeks. His feet were cold, but he had no wish to hurry.

He turned his face toward the sky.

Maria began to walk again, half turning to examine her footprints in the snow. “You went with your father, alone? Just you and him?”

“Yes.”

“What about your brothers?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he thought they were too young.”

They crossed another bend in the Griboedov Canal and walked past the covered market. Ruzsky glimpsed figures huddled inside its entrance, seeking shelter. “Poor devils,” Maria whispered.

Ruzsky took a few more paces. “Do you know Vasilyev?”

“Of course. Of him, anyway.”

“You don’t know him personally?”

She frowned. “No. Should I?”

“I just saw him leaving the theater by the stage door. I wondered if you had known him from Yalta?”

“He’s an admirer of a colleague,” she said. “Poor girl.”

Maria’s apartment was on the top floor of a faded yellow building just beyond the Nicholas market. It was not far from where she had lived four years ago.