Читать книгу VanCleef & Arpels on the summer night - Nonna Ananieva - Страница 2

The Bolshoi Theater, new stage, auditorium. I won’t go into detail about the beauty and originality of the interior decoration. Well – I should probably mention the ceiling, at least, with the chandelier right in the center. I saw something like it in Moscow, in Slava Cinema when I was a schoolgirl. At first sight the comparison is not absolutely exact, but so what? The thought struck me anyway. A folding seat in the orchestra stalls. All of a sudden I began to long for The Nutcracker, for the excited and eternally tragic music of Tchaikovsky. I opened the program booklet: “It seems that in the 20th century no choreographer – from the great traditional George Balanchine right up to the super-avant-guarde choreographer Mark Morris – has resisted the temptation of plunging into the languor of the sounds of Tchaikovsky… As his music could not be kept within the framework of a nice, simple fairy-tale for schoolchildren, it erupted into the space of tragic philosophical generalizations».

I was six when my mother took me to see The Nutcracker. “Bravo Vasiliev! Bravo Maksimova!” chanted the audience. I’ll never forget that couple. But I couldn’t call that ballet a fairytale. For two months after that, I had a dream that I went to the children’s New Year party with Kostik Sokolov, a boy from my kindergarten who I didn’t really care for in real life – we never even played together. However, like me he loathed tea with milk and that strange soup the Russians make with pickled cucumbers. After that visit to the Bolshoi I began notice grown-up music, and to develop an affection for the ballet.

That excellent performance lingered in my mind for a long time; it inspired me, helped to dispel feelings of despair, to overcome disappointment in other people more easily, to cope with our inability to change the certain difficult circumstances, to put the insignificant to one side, to see through to the essence of things. It’s a life source, a miracle of human sensitivity. But I never dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer or even of attending dancing classes. I preserved the ballet for myself just like that – viewed from the perspective of the audience. I had no specialist knowledge of it and never intended to acquire any. This is how we delighted in contemplating a castle when we have no idea about architectural drawings, construction problems, all the research the designer had to do…. Nevertheless, I do sometimes muse on the creativity of choreographer, and on the lives of the people in the ballet profession.

After the Nutcracker life went back to normal: boutiques, sales, customers, orders, reports from the office. In the office almost everyone’s trying to be the boss, pretending to formulate brilliant strategic solutions, spinning intrigues, sucking up to overseas directors, putting on airs around us, while those down behind the shop counters seek favoritism, scrambling to get closer to the powers-that-be. This is the place where you can take real advantage of what’s on offer: power, trips, cars, and money are all at your disposal, and you get paid for nothing but pretending to work, and for feeling tired at the end of the day. Of course it’s tiring, nobody denies that! You should keep the boss interested, surprise him wherever possible; colleagues should be made fools of as often as possible; you should plagiarize other people’s ideas; make sure you look like a million dollars thanks to beauty salons and fashionable clothes; and implicitly understand what the boss appreciates and how he likes things done. Add to that constant pressure because of your ever-present competitors. The most important thing is to keep everything under control, squashing any parvenus in good time; to be ready to produce tears at any moment and bewail your childhood spent in poverty in a distant Soviet town; and to be able to squeeze as much out of your boss as possible as when the opportunity arises. In-between all this, you can also temporarily marry someone as a tactical move, or simply live with someone, depending on how things work out – crucially, don’t loll in front of the TV by yourself on Sundays or be seen going to the cinema with a girlfriend. And then the boss will be jealous; he’ll appreciate you and think that he’s not the only man who wants you. He’s male, after all.

I am quite sure that the foreigners who risked so much to come to this unknown and enticing Russia in the early nineties to set up their multimillion businesses here will have plenty of memories to entertain them in their old age. They could not in their wildest dreams have anticipated the vigour with which they were attacked by girls from the provinces looking for a new life. The newcomers certainly had the opportunity to enjoy the time they spent here. They could paint themselves as whatever they wanted: as hereditary aristocrats, children of millionaires, scientists, internationally renowned philanthropists… they could invent anything about their past life. They could describe things they’d read in books, things they’d seen in films – the girls would believe it all, take it all seriously. Later on they came to believe their own fantasies of adventurous youth. Their contemporaries were all telling the same lies. Everyone was doing their best to pursue their own goals. And these poor miserable childhoods, although faked, seemed to be the fuel needed to launch their jets into the sky of promise. Well, I consider myself quite a tolerant person. If you want to improve the world, start by improving yourself. Why should anybody tell these girls about the damage caused by smoking, about the dangers of dubious sexual relations and obsession with material possessions? Sometimes your wealth becomes your insomnia, your punishment, sapping away at your life. It’s better to strive not to be poor and to find another basis for your relationships with other people. But the only person to whom I could give this very sound advice was me myself. That was what I did.

I got a call from the office about sales. In this trade, sales are unquestionably the major index. We were doing our best. We offered jewelry of the very highest quality, really top rate. It was VanCleef & Arpels Boutique. That’s one of the most popular and respected names of the world jewelry. Not everything worked out the way we wanted it to: insufficient PR, not enough advertisement, shipping delays for new items… and as there was no showcase in the street, the majority of our potential customers didn’t even visit us. Nevertheless, with each new year we were gradually developing.

After working with Cartier sales, the pace felt very different to me, but then so did the jewelry and the clients. Cartier’s motif is aggression – you must; it’s aimed at the majority market. They advertise in practically every newspaper, with no expense spared: images of Monica, cats, giraffes, tanks, red bags. The motif of VanCleef & Arpels, by contrast, is the lady, the woman, with whom you dream to escape to wonderful distant places; who takes you by the arm and you find you no longer care where in the world you are; with whom the evening instantaneously becomes surprising and marvelous, and you dance and sing. This beauty is not to be offered to everyone – and this is the key point.

I skimmed the morning papers. Everything seemed fine. I asked the office cleaner to wipe down the glasses of the showcases once again. I opened one and took out a ruby ring, called Forest. It was star-shaped – that is, the rubies were laid in a star shape. They were bright red, burning. The stones were set in an invisible frame, perfectly aligned with one another. It was made using the unbeatable VanCleef & Arpels technique, patented in the beginning of the 1930ies. To set one ruby in this way takes the master jeweler from one to two and a half hours. There are only two master jewelers with such skills in the company, and they are the only two in the whole world. It’s a real gem. Why Forest? They spend a lot of time thinking up the names. Is this gem meant to be a star in the forest? Or is it a red autumn leaf, shining in the evening rays of the Northern sun? Shine, shine, my star – as the Russian song goes – there won’t ever be any other like you. Anyway, it’s better that the star carries some personal significance for whoever beholds it. And there’s no need to be reminded about that.

– The call is for you – Helen handed over the receiver to me.

– Hello!

– If we want things to stay the same, things will have to change[1] – a baritone voice said, melodic, familiar, perfect in each sigh.

– Sometimes one changes unrecognizably – I replied. So he had noticed me in Stockmann after all.

– How could I have failed to recognize you?

– Or pretended that you didn’t…

– I was trying to suppress emotional shock, dear.

– And who won eventually, you or emotional shock?

– Could I invite you to the theater? – he paused – Are you still fond of ballet?

– As you are, if I remember correctly?

– Yes, in my own way – Sergey laughed.

I thought for a while, and consented. I stood up to place the ring back in the showcase. Lena, the salesgirl, shook the hair away from her forehead and gave me a wink.

– Yesterday you got a perfect haircut – I said to her, winking back.

– Dima left, so I have to ask the others.

– You mean to do your hair?

– You want your hair cut as well?

– I do. Why has Lenia disappeared? – I didn’t like this news at all. Who could I trust with my image now? I felt kind of upset. We had been going to Dima for several years; he was a master and a creator. He was Lena’s own discovery.

– He left for Guinea – she responded.

– To work there? As a hairdresser? – Naturally, this surprised me.

– No, to pay a visit to his grandmother, – Lena joked. – He started working as a gold digger – she continued.

– Searching for diamonds? Are you for real?!

– As far as I know he went over with an acquaintance from Bauman’s University as a programmer. They found something. Everybody finds something out there. Oh, and rubies too. Neither of them has come back.

I took out my appointment book. There was a political map of the World. I opened it at Africa and found Guinea. Then I remembered from my courses that there were no kimberlite deposits in Guinea, although something else like lamproite was found there, but I couldn’t be sure that was quite correct. Within these deposits of the second type other precious stones could be found, like rubies or sapphire, which basically belong to the same corund. And sure there were also colored diamonds, such as the brown ones.

– Just think about it! – I was still surprised.

– In the salon they told me that he isn’t likely to come back to work. Last time someone heard from him was an email he sent to one of his colleagues from Goa. He was spending his holiday there.

– Well, I hope he hasn’t lost his scissors so he won’t starve.

– Lenia? Starve?

– Well, take it easy, I guess. Life’s an unpredictable thing; only the sun doesn’t struggle to rise. What do you reckon, is he gay?

– Hard to say… in all probability, though, yes. His favorite dream was to visit San Francisco at Halloween and to go for a walk through Haight-Ashbury.

– That’s a typical gay dream. And a handful of rubies would definitely help him to fulfill it.

– A handful of rubies would be very helpful for many things, – sighed Lena.

– He must have been bored in the salon, in spite of his talent and all his exquisite customers. He was dreaming of things.

– Of what things?

– I think that if he has money to spare now, you’ll need to find another hairdresser.

– Do you think he’ll actually set off for California?

– Dreams are a serious thing, birdie – I told Lena, who was quite young and pretty. Incidentally, so are all the other girls in our boutique.