Winter Garden

“But—”

“No buts. Whoever he was to you, you should forget him and go home. ”

“But I love him. ”

The man’s fleshy face softens in sympathy. “Forget about your young man,” he says. “And go. ”

He pushes her with a firmness that makes her stumble sideways. In the old days perhaps such a shove would be rude, but now it is a kindness, a reminder that this is no place to stand and cry. “Thank you, sir,” she says quietly as she moves away from him.

Tears sting her eyes and she wipes them away reluctantly. Her eyes are burning when she looks up and sees a wavery image of a young man standing beneath a darkened streetlamp.

From here, it looks like Sasha, with his unruly hair and broad smile and strong jawline. Even as she picks up her pace, she tells herself she is being a fool, that he is gone and from now on all handsome blond-haired young men will remind her of Sasha; still, within a meter or so she is running. A split second before he begins to move toward her, she knows this is no mistake. It is her Sasha, now running toward her.

“Vera,” he says, pulling her into his arms, kissing her so deeply she has to push him away to breathe.

“You waited all day?”

“A day? You think that is all I would wait?” He pulls her close.

Together they cross the street. The Royal Theater rises up from the concrete like a green and white spun-sugar confection, its roof adorned with a lyre and crown. A queue is beginning to form along the sidewalk. Vera notices how beautifully the people are dressed—in furs and jewels and white gloves.

Sasha takes her around to a door in the back of the theater. She follows him into a dark hallway and up a flight of stairs.

They skirt the main hall and slip into a private box.

Vera stares across the darkened hall in awe, seeing the gilt decor and crystal chandeliers. In this box—obviously being repaired—even the tools and disarray can’t hide the exquisite detail. Plush mohair seats line the box’s front; in the back, tucked in the shadows, is an ottoman bed draped in dusty velvet. As she is standing alongside it, she hears the doors open below her, and well-dressed patrons stream into the theater. The buzz of conversation rises to the rafters.

She turns to Sasha. “We have to leave. I do not belong here. ”

He pulls her into the shadows. Blue velvet curtains cushion their bodies as they lean against the wall. “This box won’t be used tonight. If someone comes in, we’ll say we are cleaners. There are our brooms. ”

The lights flicker and a hush falls over the audience. On stage, gold and blue velvet curtains part.

Music begins with a high, pure note and then sweeps into a symphony of radiant sound. Vera has never heard anything as beautiful as this music, and then Galina Ulanova—the great ballerina—leaps across the stage like a ray of light.

Vera leans forward, as close to the velvet curtains of the box as she dares.

For more than two hours, she doesn’t move as the romantic story of a princess kidnapped by an evil wizard plays out across the intricately staged set. And when the wizard is brought to his knees by love, Vera finds herself crying for him, for her, for all of it. . . .

“My papa would have loved this,” she says to Sasha.

He kisses her tears away and leads her to the ottoman bed. She knows what is going to happen now; she can feel passion coming to life between them, uncoiling.

She wants him, there’s no doubt about that; she wants him the way a woman wants a man, but she doesn’t know much more than that. He lies down on the soft cushion, pulling her down on top of him, and when he slides his hand under her dress, she starts to shake a little. It is as if her body is taking charge of itself.

“Are you sure of this, Verushka?” he whispers, and the endearment makes her smile, reminds her that this is Sasha beneath her. She will be safe.

“I am sure. ”

By Sunday Vera is an entirely different girl. Or perhaps she is a woman. She and Sasha have met secretly after work every day since the ballet, and Vera has fallen so deeply in love with him that she knows there will never be a way out of it. He is the other half of her.

“Are you sure about this, Verushka?” he asks her now, as they climb the steps to her front door.

She takes his hand. She is sure enough for the both of them. “Yes. ” But when she reaches for the door, he grabs her hand. “Marry me,” he says, and she laughs up at him. “Of course I will. ”

Then she kisses him and tells him to come inside.

The hallway is dark and cluttered with boxes. They climb the narrow wooden stairs to the second floor. At the door to the apartment she pauses just long enough to kiss him and then she opens the door with a flourish.