The Turning Chapter One Escape The moment my friend Vera Chikov heard our Leningrad ballet troupe would be going to Paris in August to perform, Vera began to plot her escape from the Soviet Union. "Come with me, Tatiana," she begged. "Russia is dreary, like a picture painted all in gray and black. No excitement, nobody laughs, everyone is gloomy." At first I could not take Vera seriously, but she talked about defecting day and night, exploring the possibilities as if she were an empress turning over the diamonds in her jewelry box. Instead of frightening her, the danger of defecting only made her more determined. I couldn't help but be impressed by Vera's courage. After a while and just for the fun of it, I began to daydream about a life away from the Soviet Union. In the corner of our family apartment where I slept, I tacked up pictures of the river Seine and the Eiffel Tower and the Luxembourg Gardens, where you could sit by a little lake and read anything you wanted without worrying about someone reporting you to the KGB, the secret police. My favorite picture was of the Paris Opéra. I imagined myself dancing in that elegant building. Underneath the opera house was the grotto where the Phantom of the Opera was said to have lived. In the opera house museum you could see the ballet slippers of the great Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky and the crown Anna Pavlova, the most famous Russian ballerina of them all, wore when she danced Swan Lake . I didn't want to leave my family, but the ballet meant everything to me. For as long as I could remember, I had sacrificed my life to endless hours of practice. Yet hard as I worked, I wondered if I would ever find in Russia the opportunity to further my career that I could find with the ballet of the Paris Opéra, or an even greater dream, the New York City Ballet in America. What at first began as an idle daydream began to be a possibility. Vera told me of her plans: what she would take with her when she left Russia, and how, once she was in Paris, she would slip away and contact the authorities there, asking for asylum. It was hard not to be caught up in her excitement. We tried to guess what our chances would be of joining the Paris ballet. All these conversations were whispered. We knew what danger there would be in defecting. If we were caught, we would be thrown out of the ballet, perhaps arrested, certainly watched day and night. I was not sure I was willing to take the risk. Vera shrugged off the danger. "The first thing I will do in Paris," Vera announced, "is go to the Galeries Lafayette, the fancy department store, and buy lipstick that doesn't go on as if it were wax and a dozen pairs of those sexy French thong panties. Then I'm going to a restaurant and order a big goose liver and two kinds of soufflé for dessert." I laughed at Vera's gluttony. "You'll get fat and won't fit into the panties," I told her. Vera's whole family was as hungry for things as Vera was. Unlike my family, her family had money, lots of it. The Chikovs' apartment was ten times bigger than ours. Vera had a bedroom all to herself. There was a room just for eating in and a living room where no one had to sleep. There was a television set where Vera and I could see the things that went on in the world, though most of what was going on in 1991 seemed to be bad news: war in the Middle East; in Afghanistan a thousand people dead in an earthquake. In Leningrad, where we lived, it wasn't much better. Night after night a TV show, 600 Seconds , showed scenes of robberies and murders right in our own city. Crowded into the Chikovs' kitchen were a stove with four burners and a refrigerator and even a microwave oven. I loved to put a cup of water in the little oven's belly and watch as the water boiled up. It was magic. Vera, who was one of the most generous people in the world, would give me a packet of American chocolate to put into the boiling water, and I would drink the heavenly cocoa. The Chikovs were very rich, but no one was sure just why. They had a peephole in their apartment door so they could see who was knocking, and when I came to visit, I had to wait while they snapped open a dozen locks. Vera didn't walk to ballet rehearsals and performances but was taken and picked up in a car driven by a bodyguard. The car wasn't a cheap little Lada, or even a Volga, but a Mercedes from Germany. There were even rumors that the Chikovs' car was bulletproof. Vera's father was once high up in the army, but his money did not come from that, for most of the soldiers in Russia hardly earned enough to feed their families. Mr. Chikov was no longer in uniform. He wore a navy-blue jacket with gold buttons and gray flannel trousers and carried a real leather briefcase. The rumor among the dancers was that Mr. Chikov was part of the newly rich who made their money in the black market buying and selling scarce goods. The newspaper was full of scandals. Millions of rubles' worth of caviar had been secretly shipped out of Russia labeled as herring! I wondered if it was caviar that Vera's father sold or something more dangerous. For myself, I wouldn't go to Paris for fancy underwear. I told Vera, "After I sent money home, I'd buy toe shoes that don't have to be darned every five minutes." After our conversations about remaining in Paris, I began to see myself in Paris; at first it was only a harmless daydream, but bit by bit the daydream became more real. Vera had planted a seed, and what started as an impossible idea took root. The Turning . Copyright © by Gloria Whelan. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The Turning by Gloria Whelan All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
