The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov by Paul Russell

Author:Paul Russell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Gay, Historical
ISBN: 9781573447195
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 2009-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

27

WITH GREAT ANTICIPATION I BOARDED THE Maréchal Joffre, a barge turned restaurant that our rich American hosts had rented for the evening. I wore the better of my two battered suits, shiny at the elbows, its silk lining in tatters; a neat stiff collar with a crimson tie; smart dove-gray spats. I had toned down my rosy flush with lavender powder. My lips bloomed, in contrast, with a touch of geranium rouge (Helena Rubenstein!). I had adjusted a lock of hair to fall just so over my left eye. At least, I thought, if I was not to be the handsomest devil at the soiree, I would nonetheless prove one of the most debonair.

Gerald Murphy met me at the bottom of the gangplank—an open-faced, unassuming fellow, hardly my notion of a rich American. (His family owned a leather goods empire.) Later I would come to admire the very few but highly original paintings he would produce before lapsing into the painterly equivalent of silence.

Fortified with a flute of champagne from the bar, I stationed myself by the railing to await Cocteau’s arrival. Happily, he was not long. And what an entourage he had brought! There stood Diaghilev, pale and bloated, with handsome factotum Boris Kochno on his left arm and shockingly beautiful Serge Lifar on his right. Behind him, Véra Nemchinova, the troupe’s prima ballerina, was accompanied by Ernest Ansermet, under whose baton Les Noces had sprung so thrillingly to life the evening before.

Lifar and Nemchinova bounded aboard, but Diaghilev remained quayside. Despite the urging of Cocteau and Kochno, he balked at making his entrance.

“Please, Sergey Pavlovich, it’s time to come aboard,” Kochno urged.

Diaghilev shook his huge head, on which a tiny derby balanced precariously. He adjusted his monocle, chewed his lower lip. “Why wasn’t I told?” he demanded.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Kochno reassured him. “I offer you my word.”

Drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, Diaghilev dabbed at the sweat on his brow. “When they said ‘restaurant’…”

“Perfectly safe,” Kochno repeated.

Diaghilev’s voice grew shrill. “Why could no one be bothered to tell me? Isn’t there a single soul here I can trust? Go! Summon Lifar. Can’t I count on a single one of you ungrateful little bitches?”

“Honolulu,” serenely chanted Cocteau, who until now had been silent. “The most soothing word in any language. Simply repeat after me: Honolulu.”

Diaghilev ceased to pat his brow, and bestowed on Cocteau an extraordinarily charming smile. “I’m hardly assured by such foolishness, Jeanchik. Nevertheless: should today prove my appointed day, well, then, so much the worse for my creditors.” And with that, gripping his walking stick with one hand and Kochno’s arm with the other, the portly figure crossed over the gangway and onto the deck.

Safely delivered, he paused to survey the crowded scene before him. I felt a tremor of anxious excitement as he recognized me. “Ah, my dear fellow exile,” he said, approaching and clasping my hand. He seemed to have forgotten entirely the inauspicious circumstances of our earlier meeting. “What news of the holy motherland? My great condolences on your father, my boy.

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