My Sergei (31 page)

Finally Sandra said that we could go. And Sergei, Marina, and I went to this smaller rink. We warmed up a little bit. We were
both very happy with the changes she’d made in the program the night before, and decided we should skate through the whole
number. Then Marina would have to go.

So we started. At the beginning I’m on one knee, and Sergei is on one knee, and we are face to face. I put my head on his
shoulder, and I remember that his T-shirt smelled very clean. So I said, “Hmm, smells good.”

And he said, “Yes, it’s clean.” Just this. These were the last words. Then we started to skate.

We did the early movements—the camel spin into a lift. The music goes low, and I circle around him and lie on the ice as
if I’m getting tired. Sergei tries to help me get up. Then we do the big lift across the ice. He puts me down, and we do a
side-by-side double flip, the new element Marina had added. We have good speed, and he throws me, a double axel throw, which
I landed cleanly. He has to hurry to catch up with me. Then we were supposed to do two crossovers before another lift.

The full orchestra was just coming in, one of those high waves of music Marina liked so much. Sergei was gliding on the ice,
but he didn’t do the crossovers. His hands didn’t go around my waist for the lift. I thought it was his back. He was bent
over slightly, and I asked him, “Is it your back?” He shook his head a little. He couldn’t control himself. He tried to stop,
but he kept gliding into the boards. He tried to hold onto the boards. He was dizzy, but Sergei didn’t tell me what was happening.
Then he bent his knees and lay down on the ice very carefully. I kept asking what was happening. “What’s wrong, Serioque?
What’s the matter?” But he didn’t tell me. He didn’t speak at all.

Marina stopped the music. When she came over to him, she knew right away it was something with his heart. It looked like he
couldn’t breathe anymore. She told me to call 911, and Marina started doing CPR on him. I was so scared. I was screaming,
I don’t know what. I forgot all the words in English. I couldn’t remember the word for help. I ran to the other rink, crying,
to get someone to call 911 for me.

By the time I got back, everyone was around him, and the medical people were working on him, trying to get his heart going.
He didn’t have normal color in his face. It was turning blue, and some white stuff was coming from his mouth. They wouldn’t
let me get close to him. The other skaters were holding me. They didn’t want to let me watch what was happening. Then they
were taking him in the ambulance, and I only had time to get my skates off and pick up Sergei’s bag. I sat in the front because
they didn’t want me to see as they worked on him in the back.

I looked at the clock when we got to the hospital, and it was 11:35. I saw on the monitor that was attached to him that Sergei’s
heart was still beating. It was a wavy line, not a straight line. I was very worried, but I didn’t think it could be something
so terrible. I really thought he would be fine. I never even let myself think for a minute he might die. The doctors asked
us some questions about Sergei’s history, whether he’d ever had any heart problems before. We told them no. We told them if
he needed an operation, to do it right away. Don’t wait to ask. Don’t waste a moment. Marina and I walked around the hospital
while we waited, and she talked to me all the time.

Then a woman doctor came out to talk to us. Her face was very serious. She said they had given the electric shocks. She said
they had given him the shot of Adrenalin in the heart. But they had lost Sergei.

When I translated these words in my head, it was very difficult to understand. I didn’t want to understand. My heart was scared,
but I understood all right. And the first thing that came into my head was, How would I tell Mom? How would I tell Daria?
How would I tell Sergei’s mom? When I started to say these concerns to Marina, she told me to put this out of my mind. “Go
talk to Sergei,” she said. “He can still hear you.”

The doctors didn’t want to let me go see him alone. I suppose they were afraid I would do something crazy. They still had
to do the autopsy. But Marina told them it would be okay. They told me that Sergei still had two tubes in his mouth, and that
these tubes had to stay in there, and not to be scared of them.

I can’t describe the feelings that went through me when I walked into the room where Sergei was lying, his skates still on
his feet. He didn’t look dead. It looked like he was just sleeping. Even one eye was open a little bit, and the whole time
I thought that maybe he was looking at me. He even looked like he was breathing. His hands were cold, but when I felt his
shoulders and chest, they were still warm.

It was very difficult for me to start talking to him. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t even remember what I began talking
about. It was very simple. Something like, “You’re hands are so cold.” I apologized, too. “Sorry, Serioque. I’m so sorry.”
Once I got started, I got used to speaking to him, got used to the tubes in his mouth, and was able to say things to him normally.
As I talked, I was thinking, He will never stand up. He will never take me in his arms again, never hug me again, never hold
my hand again. But it will be a long time before I believe it.

I was in there a long time. Marina also came in and held his hand and talked to Sergei. I tried not to listen. Then I started
to take off his skates, and his feet were very cold. I tried to warm them up by rubbing them. I rubbed them and rubbed them.
I tried to warm his hands up, too. I loved his hands very much, loved the way they were so big and soft. But I couldn’t make
them warm.

It’s not clear in my memory how the rest of the day unfolded. It seemed to go on forever. Marina stayed with me the whole
time, every second. We realized we had to make some calls, and I called my mom first. She and Dad were going to fly up with
Debbie Nast and Viktor Petrenko in a plane that Debbie had chartered. Daria was staying in Simsbury with Viktor’s wife, Nina.

Back at the condominium, Marina started asking me lots of questions about Sergei. What kind of food does he like? What kind
of flowers? I told her he liked tulips, and she had a book with her about the significance of all the flowers, and looked
it up. Tulips were the flower of luck. Then we looked up his symbol on the zodiac, which was Aquarius. This sign, we learned,
stood for wisdom, and arms, and wings, and the flight of birds, and youth. The motto of Aquarius is, Don’t sacrifice love
for your friendships. He didn’t. Sergei had lots of very close friendships, but his love for me always came first.

Then Christine “Tuffy” Hough, Scott, and Kristi came to see me, to see if it was all right for all the skaters to come visit.
Of course, I said. Everyone loved Sergei so much. They were all crying. We looked at the lake and talked about how unbelievable
it was, and cried. Sergei was so big, and strong, and solid. Now he was gone.

Sometimes, if I let my mind forget a little while, just go blank and think of nothing, it seemed like Sergei was just out
of the room, and that he would come back in a minute to see all his friends. I was so used to him being around me. I kept
half expecting him to come through the door. Or that I could reach him by phone if I had to.

I was not used to sleeping by myself. That first night, when I awoke and felt cold in my bed, a knifeblade of fear went through
me as I realized I hadn’t been dreaming. Please, God, why couldn’t I have been dreaming? It would all come back, flooding
my memory like ice crystals on a river, and I would quietly shiver, the hot tears burning my eyes. In the months that followed,
sleep became my ally. I longed to sleep all the time, to sleep without waking, to dream without living.

There was never any question where the burial would be. Sergei had a Russian soul. He was only comfortable there. But before
we returned to Moscow, Debbie Nast arranged for a wake at the funeral home in Saranac Lake, to give the other skaters a chance
to say goodbye. The man at the funeral home had asked me to bring some clothes for Sergei. He didn’t say to bring a jacket
and tie and shoes and socks and everything. So I only brought the black pants he’d recently bought, before the Skates of Gold,
and a black cashmere sweater. He looked wonderful in this outfit. He had told me he liked it very much.

At this wake, I went in first to say goodbye. It was a small room, filled with flowers. Sergei looked like he was sleeping.
He had an expression on his face almost like he wanted to smile. Very peaceful and handsome. The man at the funeral home had
given me Sergei’s wedding ring, which I put on a chain to wear around my neck. He had told me I could put anything I wanted
in the casket with Sergei—a letter, even, if I wanted to write one. I did write a letter to him. But I couldn’t put it in
with him, because everything I wished to say, as soon as I wrote it down, seemed slightly wrong, slightly different from what
I had intended. So instead I tucked a picture of Daria in the front of his pants. New York to Moscow was a long way to go,
and I thought the trip would be better if he had a keepsake of Daria with him.

Then my parents went in. Then Viktor. I brought Scott in myself. He had always tried very hard to get Sergei to laugh, and
Sergei felt comfortable with him. We knelt by the open coffin, and I showed him the picture I had left with Sergei of Daria.
I whispered to Scott, “It was too perfect, maybe. It’s only fairy tales that have happy endings. Everything was too good with
me and Sergei for it to end happily.”

He squeezed my hand. Then the others came in, too, everyone getting a chance to say a proper goodbye. They all held my hand,
and Paul Wylie, who is very religious, said some words to God about protecting Sergei’s soul and watching over Daria and me.
There was a book for everyone to sign. The whole experience gave me comfort, and I was happy that my close friends were with
me. Sergei was still so beautiful, even in death. In my mind, that will always be the last day I had with my Seriozha.

That night, very late, we drove back to Simsbury to pack for the trip to Moscow. Daria, of course, would come, too, and there
was the question of what to say to her. How to tell her. Whether to say anything at all. My mother thought at first we should
tell her that her father was away training. She was certainly used to us being away. But then Daria’s teacher from nursery
school called to find out how long she would be gone.

I asked her what she thought I should tell Daria. She didn’t know, but she said she would talk to the school psychologist
and call me right back. When she did, she told me that it was important that I explain what had happened before someone else
tried. She said not to be afraid to use the words “He’s dead and will never come back.” She told me to explain that everyone
will be very upset with this, and a lot of people will be crying. She said, don’t expect Daria to cry and scream, or even,
necessarily, be upset. She cannot understand the word
death
and all it implies. But it’s important that she hear it from her mother.

The next morning, I did this. I didn’t tell my mother what I was planning. I just sat Daria down and we talked. It was very,
very difficult to start, difficult even for me to say the words: “Your father is dead; he’s not coming back.” And, as the
teacher had said, Daria didn’t cry or get upset. But she asked, “How can we see him?” So I told her that her father would
come see her whenever he wants, and that sometimes she’d see him in her dreams. That he was like a little angel now. But that
he’d never come back to her as we knew him, and that it was very sad, and sometimes I would be crying, and that would be the
reason. I looked carefully into her eyes as I spoke these words, so she’d understand. And I think she did understand, at least
as far as it was possible. Because when we were back in Moscow, Daria wore a cross around her neck on a chain. And a few times
she held this cross up to people and said, her face very sad, “You know, God took my father.”

In Moscow, it was all so different, everything rushed, everything crowded, everything crazy. The first day I arrived I went
to see Sergei’s mother, Anna, who was mad with grief. Her apartment was filled with relatives, men and women I had never met
before, most of whom had not seen Sergei since he was a little boy. Everyone wanted to show their emotions and their tears.
No one was holding anything back, which was so different from Sergei, who believed in not showing his pain. First one would
cry, then another would cry, then another and another. They fed off each other’s misery. All the time, they were crying. I
felt so badly for Sergei’s sister, Natalia, and her daughter, Svetlana, who had to stay there with all these crying relatives.

There was one lady, perhaps an aunt, who was reading the Bible all the time in front of Sergei’s picture. Everyone wanted
to say something to me, what they thought about this tragedy, but not necessarily something nice. Even though they had seen
Sergei maybe twice in their life, they thought of Sergei as theirs, and now they had lost him, and they would talk to me about
their loss.

Even Anna was taking it so differently from me. It’s not possible to compare my loss with her loss, but when she talked to
me about him, it was always about how she remembered him as a very little boy. All her memories of him were of when he was
small. This Sergei, the one she missed so, had long ago passed from the world. We had traveled so much, had seen so little
of our parents. Anna had never been out of the country before. She had never seen the kind of life that we had made for ourselves.
She blamed skating for his heart attack. That Sergei’s dear father had had four heart attacks did not factor into her thinking.
She told me I didn’t take good enough care of her son. All these things that I could not bear to hear.

It was cold and bleak the day of the funeral. The service was held at the ice rink of the Central Red Army Club, which had
twelve thousand seats, most of them filled with mourners, with thousands more filing past Sergei’s casket, which lay open
at center ice. Before the service, some of Sergei’s relatives were asking me why he was not in a jacket. Why he wasn’t wearing
a tie. They drove me crazy with this talk about clothes. When they found out about the picture of Daria I’d put in his pants,
they thought I’d gone mad. They told me, It’s not supposed to be this way.