Granny Dan

“I can't do that again. I can't impose on the Czarina,” she said weakly, although she would have liked nothing better than to be with him, as they had been in the cottage before. She loved the sweetness of their living together. But she could not abandon the ballet again to recuperate. She knew that this time Madame Markova would not take her back, or ever forgive her for deserting them, sick or not. Danina had paid a high price with her for her last recuperation, and she needed the ballet. Nikolai could not help her, he was not free to marry her, or care for her, or even able to support her. She had to rely on herself.

“You can't go back to dancing for a while,” he said carefully, and then he decided to tell her what he'd been thinking. “I want you to think about something. I have thought of a thousand ways to solve our problem, while you were lying here. We cannot go on this way. Marie will never relent. It will take me years to buy a house for you, and Madame Markova will never release you from the ballet. I want to be with you, Danina. I want us to have a life together, away from all of this, and all the people who want to keep us apart. I want a real life with you, far from here, where we can begin again. We cannot be married, but no one need ever know.” And then he added gently, “In another place, we could even have children.” A look of sorrow crossed her face as he said the words, and he squeezed her hand. They both felt the loss of what had just happened between them.

“There is no place where we can do that. Where would we go? How would we support ourselves? If Madame Markova wishes to discredit me, no other ballet will have me.” She was thinking of Moscow, and other cities in Russia, but he wasn't. His plan was far more daring than that.

“I have a cousin in America. In a place called Vermont. It is in the Northeast, and he says it looks a great deal like Russia. I have enough money saved to pay for our passage there. We can live with him at first. I will find ajob, and you can teach ballet somewhere, to little children.” She knew Nikolai spoke English perfectly, because of his wife, but she did not. She couldn't imagine a life in a world so far from theirs, and the very thought of it was frightening and foreign to her.

“How could we do that, Nikolai? Could you be a doctor there?” she asked, stunned by the suggestion that she follow him halfway around the world.

“Eventually,” he answered carefully. “I would have to go back to school in America. It would take time. I could do other things in the meantime.” But what? she asked herself as she listened to him. Shovel snow? Clean stables? Curry horses? To her, the situation seemed hopeless. Surely there was no ballet in Vermont, wherever that was, and that was all she knew. Who would she teach? Who would hire either of them? How would they get there? “You must let me work this out for us. It's our only hope, Danina. We cannot stay here.” But to leave required a series of betrayals, abandoning his children and wife, the Czar and his family, who had been so kind to him, and Madame Markova and the Maryinsky Ballet, which was the only home she had known since she was a child. She had given everything to them, her life, her soul, her spirit, her body, and in turn they had given her a life, which was the only one she knew. What would she do in this place called Vermont, and what if he should tire of her and abandon her there? It was the first time she had thought that, but she was frightened, and she looked it, as she met his eyes. And he could easily read all her fears there.

“I don't know…. It is so far away…. And what if your cousin doesn't want us?”

“He will. He is a kind man. He is older than I, widowed, and he has no children. He has invited me to visit him for years. If I tell him we need his help, he will do it. He has a big house, and some money. He owns a bank, and he lives alone. He would welcome us there. Danina, it is the only hope we have for a future together. We must begin again somewhere, and forget everything we have known here.” But as much as she wanted to be with him, she wasn't sure she could do it. “You mustn't think about it now. Get healthy and strong, and we will talk about it again. I will write to him in the meantime, and see what he says.”

“Nikolai, no one would ever forgive us.” The mere thought of it filled her with terror, and grief.

“And if we stay here? What will we have? Stolen moments, a few weeks a year when the Czarina invites you to Livadia or Tsarskoe Selo? I want a life with you. I want to wake up beside you every morning, to be with you when you're ill. … I never want something like this to happen to you again…. Danina, I want our children.” She also wanted the life he described to her, but they each had to hurt everyone they had ever loved in order to be free.