CHAPTER 22
‘I’VE NEVER SEEN MY COUNTRY EXCEPT IN PHOTOGRAPHS. All I know about Russia comes from stories, gossip and other people’s memories. I was born on a barge crossing the Rhine in a Europe devastated by war. Years later I learned that my mother was already pregnant with me when, alone and ill, she crossed the Russo-Polish border fleeing from the revolution. She died giving birth to me. I’ve never known her name or who my father was. She was buried on the banks of the river in an unmarked grave, lost for ever. A couple of actors from Saint Petersburg who were travelling on that barge, Sergei Glazunow and his twin sister Tatiana, took care of me out of pity and because, according to what Sergei told me many years later, the fact that I was born with different-coloured eyes was a sign of good luck.
‘Thanks to Sergei’s machinations we joined a circus company in Warsaw on its way to Vienna. My first memories are of those people and their animals: the circus big top, the jugglers, and a deaf and mute fakir called Vladimir who swallowed glass, was a fire breather and always gave me paper birds he made as if by magic. Sergei ended up becoming the manager of the company and we established ourselves in Vienna. The circus was both my school and the home in which I grew up. By then we already knew, however, that it was doomed. Reality was becoming more grotesque than the pantomimes of clowns and dancing bears. Soon nobody would need us. The twentieth century had become the dark circus of history.
‘When I was only seven or eight, Sergei said it was time I started earning my own living. That is how I became part of the show, first as an assistant for Vladimir’s tricks and later with my own act, in which I sang a lullaby to a bear and made it fall asleep. The act, which had been planned as a filler to allow time for the trapeze artists to get ready, turned out to be a success. Nobody was more surprised than me. Sergei decided to extend my performance. I ended up standing on a floodlit platform singing ditties to some poor old lions, all of them starving and unwell. The animals and the audience listened to me, mesmerised. In Vienna people talked about the girl whose voice could tame beasts. And they paid to see her. I was nine years old.
‘It didn’t take Sergei long to realise that he no longer needed the circus. The girl with the different-coloured eyes had lived up to her promise of good fortune. He completed all the formalities required to become my legal guardian and announced to the rest of the company that we were going to set ourselves up independently. He explained that a circus was not a suitable place in which to bring up a young girl. When it was discovered that for years someone had been stealing part of the box-office takings, Sergei and Tatiana accused Vladimir, adding that he had behaved improperly towards me. Vladimir was arrested by the authorities and imprisoned, even though the money was never found.
‘To celebrate his independence, Sergei bought a luxury car, a dandy’s wardrobe and jewels for Tatiana. We moved into a villa Sergei had rented in the woods of Vienna. It was never clear where he’d got the funds for so much extravagance. I sang every afternoon and evening in a theatre next to the Opera House, in a show called “The Angel from Moscow” – the first of many similar performances. It was Tatiana’s idea to call me Eva Irinova, a name she’d taken from a popular newspaper serial of the time. At Tatiana’s suggestion I was provided with a singing teacher, a dance teacher and an acting coach. When I wasn’t on stage, I was rehearsing. Sergei didn’t allow me to have friends or go out for walks; I couldn’t even be on my own or read books. It’s for your own good, he would say. When my body began to develop, Tatiana demanded that I have a room to myself. Sergei agreed reluctantly, but insisted on keeping the key. He would often return home in the middle of the night, drunk, and try to get into my room. Most times he was so intoxicated he couldn’t put the key in the keyhole. Other nights he wasn’t. The applause of an anonymous audience was my only satisfaction during those years. As time went by, I needed it more than the air I breathed.
‘We travelled frequently. My success in Vienna had reached the ears of impresarios in Paris, Milan and Barcelona. Sergei and Tatiana always came with me. Naturally, I never saw a penny of the takings from all those concerts, nor do I know where the money went. Sergei always had debts and creditors. It was my fault, he told me bitterly. All his money was spent on my care and my keep, yet I was incapable of thanking him and Tatiana for everything they had done for me. Sergei taught me to see myself as a dirty, lazy, ignorant and stupid girl. A miserable wretch who would never do anything of any value, and whom nobody would ever love or respect. But none of that mattered, he whispered in my ear, his breath stinking of cheap spirits, because he and Tatiana would always be there to take care of me and protect me from the world.
‘On my sixteenth birthday I realised that I hated myself and could barely look at my reflection in the mirror. I stopped eating. My body disgusted me and I tried to hide it under dirty ragged clothes. One day I found one of Sergei’s old razor blades in the rubbish bin. I took it to my room and got into the habit of cutting my hands and arms with it. To punish myself. Every night Tatiana would dress my wounds without saying a word.
‘Two years later, in Venice, a count who had seen me perform asked me to marry him. That night, when Sergei found out, he gave me a savage beating. He split open my lips and broke two of my ribs. Tatiana and the police restrained him. I left Venice in an ambulance. We returned to Vienna, but Sergei’s financial problems were very serious. We received threats. One night someone set fire to our house while we slept. A few weeks earlier Sergei had received an offer from a Barcelona impresario for whom I’d already performed successfully in the past. Daniel Mestres – that was his name – had become the main shareholder in Barcelona’s old Teatro Real and wanted to open the season with me. And so, packing our cases at dawn, we fled to Barcelona with little more than the clothes we were wearing. I was about to turn nineteen and I kept praying that I wouldn’t live to be twenty. For some time I’d been thinking about taking my own life. Nothing could make me cling to this world. I’d been dead for ages, without knowing it. It was then that I met Mijail Kolvenik . . .
‘We’d been working at the Teatro Real for a few weeks. It was rumoured in the company that a gentleman sat in the same box every night to hear me sing. At the time all sorts of stories concerning Mijail Kolvenik were circulating around Barcelona: how he’d made his fortune . . . tales about his personal life and identity, packed with mysteries and secrecy . . . His legend preceded him. One night, intrigued by this strange character, I decided to send him an invitation to visit me in my dressing room after the show. It was almost midnight when Mijail Kolvenik knocked on my door. After all the gossip I was expecting someone arrogant and threatening. But my first impression of Mijail was of someone shy and reserved. He wore dark simple clothes, with no other adornment than a small brooch on his lapel: a butterfly with open wings. He thanked me for my invitation and told me how much he admired me and what an honour it was to make my acquaintance. I replied that, after everything I’d heard about him, the honour was mine. He smiled and suggested that I forget the rumours. Mijail had the loveliest smile I have ever known. When he smiled, you could believe anything that came from his lips. Someone once said – and he was right – that Mijail could have convinced Christopher Columbus that the world was as flat as a pancake. That night he convinced me to take a stroll through the streets of Barcelona. He told me that he often walked through the sleeping city after midnight. I’d barely left the theatre since we’d arrived, so I agreed. I knew that Sergei and Tatiana were going to be furious when they found out, but I didn’t care. We slipped out incognito through the proscenium door. Mijail offered me his arm and we walked around until dawn. He showed me the captivating city through his eyes. He spoke to me about its mysteries, its enchanted corners and the spirit that lived in those streets. He told me hundreds of legends. We walked through the secret alleyways of the Gothic quarter and the old town. Mijail seemed to know everything. He knew who had lived in every building, what crimes or romances had taken place behind every wall and ev
ery window. He knew the names of all the architects, craftsmen and the countless invisible men responsible for creating that stage set. As I listened, I had the feeling that Mijail had never shared those stories with anyone. I was overwhelmed by the loneliness that seemed to possess him and at the same time I thought I could discern, inside him, a dark abyss into which I couldn’t help peering. Morning was breaking as we sat on a bench in the port. I gazed at the stranger with whom I’d been walking for hours and felt as if I’d always known him. I told him so. He laughed, and at that moment, with that rare certainty we only experience a couple of times in our lives, I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with him.
‘That night Mijail said he believed each one of us is only granted brief moments of pure happiness. Sometimes only days or weeks. Other times years. It all depends on our luck. The remembrance of such moments stays with us for ever and becomes a land of memories to which we vainly attempt to return during the rest of our existence. For me, those moments will always be found in that first night, walking through the city . . .
‘It didn’t take long for Sergei and Tatiana to react. Especially Sergei. He forbade me to see Mijail or speak to him. He said that if I ever left the theatre again without his permission, he’d kill me. For the first time in my life I discovered that he no longer frightened me. All I felt was disdain. To infuriate him even further I told him that Mijail had asked me to marry him and that I’d accepted. Sergei reminded me that he was my legal guardian: not only was he not going to authorise this marriage, but we were leaving for Lisbon. I sent a desperate message to Mijail through one of the dancers in the company. That night, before the performance, Mijail came to the theatre with two of his lawyers and held a meeting with Sergei. He announced that he’d signed an agreement that very afternoon with Mestres, the Teatro Real impresario, whereby he had become its new owner. Sergei and Tatiana were instantly fired.
‘Soon Mijail presented Sergei with an entire file of documents, proof of the illegal activities he’d carried out in Vienna, Warsaw and Barcelona. More than enough material to put him behind bars for fifteen or twenty years. To that Mijail added a cheque for an amount that exceeded anything Sergei could have obtained in his entire life through his mean and shady deals. He was given two options: if within forty-eight hours he and Tatiana abandoned Barcelona for ever and promised not to get in touch with me again in any way, they could take the file and the cheque; if they refused to cooperate, the file would end up with the police, together with the cheque as an incentive to oil the wheels of justice. Sergei flew into a rage. He shouted like a madman that he was never going to let me go, that Mijail would have to step over his dead body to get his own way.
‘Mijail smiled and left. That night Tatiana and Sergei arranged to meet a strange individual who offered his services as a hit man. On their way out of that meeting they were almost killed by shots fired anonymously from a passing carriage. The papers published the news item, venturing various hypotheses to account for the attack. The next day Sergei accepted Mijail’s cheque and vanished from Barcelona with Tatiana, without saying goodbye . . .
‘When I found out what had happened, I demanded the truth from Mijail. I wanted to know whether he was responsible for the attack. I desperately wanted him to say he wasn’t. He fixed his eyes on mine and asked me why I doubted him. I felt like dying. All that happiness and hope seemed about to collapse like a pack of cards. I asked him again. Mijail said no, he wasn’t responsible for the attack.
‘“Had I been, neither of them would be alive,” he replied coldly.
‘Soon afterwards he hired one of the best architects in town to build the house next to Güell Park, following his detailed instructions. The cost wasn’t an issue; no expense was to be spared to realise his vision. While the house was being built, Mijail rented an entire floor in the great Hotel Colón, in Plaza Cataluña, the most luxurious hotel in Barcelona at the time. We moved there temporarily. For the first time in my life I discovered it was possible to have so many servants you couldn’t remember all their names. Mijail had only one helper, his chauffeur, Lluís.
‘Bagués, the jewellers, called on me in my rooms. The best couturiers took my measurements to create a wardrobe fit for an empress. Mijail opened unlimited accounts for me in the best shops in Barcelona. People I’d never seen in my life would bow to me in the streets or in the hotel lobby. I was invited to balls in palaces belonging to families whose names I’d only ever seen in the society pages of the press. I wasn’t even twenty. I’d never had enough money in my hands for a tram ride. It was like a dream, but I began to feel overwhelmed by all the lavishness and waste surrounding me. When I told Mijail, he would say that money was unimportant, unless one didn’t have any.
‘We would spend the day together, strolling through the city, visiting the Tibidabo casino (although I never saw Mijail bet a single coin) or at the Liceo. In the evening we’d go back to the Hotel Colón and Mijail would retire to his rooms. I began to notice that, quite often, Mijail would go out in the middle of the night and not return until dawn. According to him, he had business matters to deal with.
‘But tongues were wagging. I felt as if I was going to marry a man everyone knew better than I did myself. I could hear the maids talk behind my back. In the street people would look me up and down after a hypocritical smile. Slowly I became a prisoner of my own suspicions. And an idea began to torment me. All that luxury, the extravagance that surrounded me, made me feel like one more piece of furniture. One more of Mijail’s whims. He could buy anything: the Teatro Real, Sergei, cars, jewels, palaces. And me. I burned with anxiety when I saw him leave every night, in the small hours, convinced that he was running to the arms of another woman. One night I decided to follow him and put an end to the charade.
‘I trailed him to the old workshop of Velo-Granell Industries, next to the Borne Market. Mijail had gone there alone. I had to creep in through a tiny window in an alleyway. The inside of the factory looked to me like the scene of a nightmare. Hundreds of feet, hands, arms, legs and glass eyes were scattered about the premises . . . replacement parts for a broken and miserable humanity. I walked through the plant until I came to a large dark room where shapeless figures were visible floating inside enormous glass tanks. In the middle of the room, in the half-light, Mijail was staring at me from a chair, smoking a cigar.
‘“You shouldn’t have followed me,” he said. There was no anger in his voice.
‘I argued that I couldn’t marry a man of whom I’d only seen one half, a man whose days I knew, but not his nights.
‘“You might not like what you find,” he hinted.
‘I said I didn’t care what or why. I didn’t care what he did or whether the rumours about him were true. I only wanted to share his life, completely. Without shadows. Without secrets. He nodded and I knew what that meant: it meant going through a door from which there was no turning back. When Mijail switched on the lights in that room, I awoke from the dream I’d been living in for the last few weeks. I was in hell.
‘The formaldehyde tanks contained corpses that gyrated in a macabre dance. On a metal table was the naked body of a woman that had been dissected from the belly to the throat. The arms were stretched out wide and I noticed that the joints in her arms and hands were made of pieces of metal and wood. Tubes went down her throat and bronze cables were sunk into her extremities and hips. Her skin was translucent and bluish, like the skin of a fish. Speechless, I watched Mijail as he approached the body, gazing sadly at it.
‘“This is what nature does with its children. There is no evil in men’s hearts, just a simple struggle to survive the inevitable. The only devil is Mother Nature . . . My work, all my efforts, are just an attempt to outdo the great sacrilege of creation . . .”
‘I saw him take a syringe and fill it with an emerald-coloured liquid he kept in a bottle. Our eyes met briefly and then Mijail plunged the needle into the corpse’s skull and emptied the contents. He pulled out the needle and wa
ited, motionless, for a moment, observing the inert body. Seconds later I felt my blood curdle. The eyelashes on one of the eyelids were fluttering. I heard the sound of the mechanism in the wood-and-metal joints. The fingers flapped. Suddenly the woman’s body sat up with a violent jerk. A deafening animal scream filled the room. Threads of white froth ran down her black swollen lips. The woman pulled off the cables perforating her skin and fell to the floor like a broken puppet. She howled like a wounded wolf, then raised her head and fixed her eyes on mine. I found it impossible to look away from the horror I saw in them, from the spine-chilling animal force they gave off. She wanted to live.
‘I was paralysed. A few seconds later the body lay once again inert, lifeless. Mijail, who had watched the whole event impassively, picked up a sheet and covered the corpse.
‘He drew close to me and took my trembling hands. He looked at me as if he was trying to discover whether I would be able to remain by his side after what I’d witnessed. I tried to find words to express my fear, to tell him how wrong he was . . . All I managed to stammer was “Get me out of here.” He did. We returned to the Hotel Colón. He accompanied me to my bedroom, asked for a bowl of hot broth to be brought to me and wrapped me in blankets while I drank it.
‘“The woman you saw tonight died six weeks ago under the wheels of a tram. She leaped forward to save a boy who was playing on the line and couldn’t avoid the impact. The wheels severed her arms at the elbows. She died in the street. Nobody knows her name. Nobody claimed her. There are dozens like her. Every day . . .”
‘“Mijail, you don’t understand . . . You can’t do God’s work . . .”
‘He caressed my forehead and smiled sadly, nodding as he did so.