I could read their thoughts.
Enough. I got to my feet at a knock on the door.
A lady-in-waiting opened it and stepped back. ‘Tsarevna,’ she started to say, sounding unsure.
On the threshold stood a Holstein soldier, looking flushed from his run across the palace. ‘Prince Augustus’ chamberlain has sent me. Come immediately, Tsarevna, please!’
I left my rooms calmly, head held high. Once the door had closed behind me, however, I kicked off my shoes to run, gathering my skirts, flying down the almost empty corridors of the Winter Palace, my hair coming undone. Silence reigned. Why had the soldier made himself scarce and not escorted me back? Few courtiers were out; only a handful of guards manned the many doors and staircases: after the long years of relentless service under my father’s watchful eye, indolence ruled.
Even at Augustus’ door, his Holstein guard was nowhere to be seen. I hesitated: in the antechamber, the curtains were drawn and a man sat slumped on a low armchair. At the sight of me, he fell to his knees: it was Augustus’ chamberlain, the Dachshund. ‘Thank God you came, Tsarevna!’ he gasped. ‘I dare not stay.’ He pushed past me and out of the door. As he fled, the tails of his coat flying, his metal-capped shoes struck the marble floor, sounding like shots.
I turned back towards the inner room. A rasping sound came from the bedchamber that lay beyond, like the pained breathing of a suffering animal. ‘Augustus?’ I asked, my voice unsteady. No answer but a low moan from next door. My heart pounding, I stepped into the small corridor linking the rooms. An unbearable stench hit me, worse than anything I could imagine. With every step I took, the air thickened. I covered my mouth and nose with my lower arm, sucking in my gown’s rosewater scent. Another low, pained moan repelled me as much as it forced me onwards: Augustus needed me, whatever had happened here.
I halted on the threshold. The bedroom was dark, curtains drawn. Yet I saw that the walls, rugs and bedlinen were horribly stained. Augustus lay slumped like a rag doll on his bed. At the sound of me, he turned his head, grimacing in pain, but his ashen face lighting up. He was too weak to rise; as his cracked lips tried to smile, his eyes stayed dull. Their whites were sickeningly yellow.
‘Shhh. Don’t move.’ I rushed forward, placing my fingertips on his mouth. His breath scalded me as he whispered, ‘I feel so hot, Lizenka.’ I hurried to pull the curtains back and opened the windows to let in the May breeze. The Neva below glittered in the bright light and the trees on the embankment burst with blossom. Such beauty felt like an insult.
‘Help me, I want to see… ’ He tried to rise but his arms buckled. I hastened to catch him, stumbling under his weight. He rolled off the bed and together we tumbled to the floor. He gasped with pain. His nightshirt slipped and I suppressed a scream: his whole body was now covered in a deadly rash, angry red spots that combined here and there in raised, knotted pustules. It was monstrous.
‘Don’t look at me,’ Augustus sobbed. ‘And do not touch me, Lizenka. We both know what this is.’ He clawed at his sheets, struggling in vain to get back to bed. I stayed on the floor, all the strength seeping out of me, and then he, too, collapsed next to me, leaning against his bed, his head lolling and his legs long and bare.
‘Not touch you – never!’ I tore down the soiled sheets to cover him. ‘You mustn’t be cold,’ I sobbed, choking and blind with tears, trying not to think of what lay ahead as I rested my head on his terribly bony shoulder. His illness had sucked him dry, leaving him brittle and parched. ‘I feel so dizzy. Today you are to be mine. Today we are to be engaged.’ He sighed, exhausted.
‘Yes, my love,’ I wept. ‘We will be.’ I kissed his burning forehead, and he gave a shadow of the smile that had won my heart just months ago, while we stood waist-deep in the Baltic Sea. Yet his eyes reflected bottomless sorrow and his bloodless lips were pale compared to the rash spreading over his face. He coughed, cramping up, before violently vomiting yellow bile all over my finery. I shrank back while he doubled over, made breathless by stabbing pains to his back and abdomen. I held his head steady until he could breathe again. Together we wrestled him back into bed. ‘Close the window. I am so cold!’ he pleaded, shivering with fever and shielding his eyes against the spring sunshine. ‘I can’t bear the light. The rays stab me—’
‘Let me get Lestocq. He will treat you.’ I choked back tears and reached out to caress the sweaty curls that stuck to his temples.
Augustus recoiled. His eyes were wild. ‘You mustn’t catch this … ’
I sobbed and hurried out to summon Lestocq, leaving Augustus to the twilight of his room.
The chamberlain had returned but cowered in the antechamber. He would be flogged later for his cowardice but now I needed him. ‘Get me fresh linen, well starched and scented. Send for hot water. Have camphor burned to clean the air… or I’ll have your skin for a rug!’
He returned, arms laden with all I had ordered, his face twisted by fear and disgust. ‘Leave. I’ll do it,’ I said, setting alight the dried bundle of herbs in the warming-pans, their smouldering cleansing the air. As I struggled to change the linen, Lestocq arrived. He pulled me away as soon as he saw Augustus. ‘God in Heaven! Move away, Tsarevna. It’s the smallpox.’
We both know what this is. The smallpox: merry at dawn, buried by dusk.
I shook my head like a child, wiping away snot and tears with my sleeve. ‘No. I will not leave him alone.’
‘Let me do what I can,’ Lestocq offered, and bled Augustus by puncturing his forearms and neck. The wounds looked like snake bites; blood seeped slowly out of his tortured body, dark and thick. Augustus shrank like a goatskin flask emptying and flattening. How could ‘red’ and ‘beautiful’ share a single word in our language: krazny? The rash gained force all over his body. ‘Don’t scratch,’ I pleaded, but he was crazed by the urge, clawing the pustules open, their poisonous mix of blood and pus staining everything, including me.
‘It will not be long,’ Lestocq admitted defeatedly.
Could I contemplate a lifetime spent without Augustus? ‘You go,’ I said, blinded by tears. ‘I stay until the end.’
‘I will call a priest,’ Lestocq offered and left.
The priest came and went, taking the patient’s delirious whispers for Confession. As Augustus’ fingers slackened in mine, I murmured to him, reminding him of our sun-filled, happy days in Peterhof. Finally, all that was left was to pray, folding my hands over his, caressing the small tattoo on his wrist. ‘Shine, shine, my star’, I tried to hum – ‘Gori, gori, moya Zvezda’ – yet choked on the lyrics. The White Night drained the colour from the day. The city did not sleep, merely changed pace; a night without darkness signified the madness my life had become. Augustus lay still, his breathing laboured. I cooled his forehead with a moist cloth. Finally, I too fell asleep, exhausted.
When I woke, my neck was stiff and my tongue rasped in my dry mouth. The room was blue with a cool dawn light. Augustus’ fingers lay slack in mine. As I shifted the leather strings on his bony wrist to kiss the star tattoo one last time, his skin was cold beneath my lips. The very day after the one intended to mark our engagement, my warm, funny, lively, principled and handsome Augustus was dead. The silence made my ears ring. I crawled to the window and opened it as the sun set the dawn alight. On the square outside the Winter Palace the morning breeze blew clean the dandelion clocks that sprouted between the cobblestones. Their stalks stood lonely and bare.
I dropped to the floor and the world closed in on me, dark and silent.
39
While Menshikov went ahead with celebrating the engagement of Petrushka to his daughter Maria, I had Augustus’ rooms aired and cleaned. The soiled sheets I myself burned on a pyre behind the palace, taking in the poisonous and vile stench through flared nostrils, my eyes watering from smoke and tears. His belongings I packed for their return to Holstein. He had not brought much with him to woo a Russian Tsarevna. A man like Augustus needed only himself. When I found his diary, which was
bound by leather strings similar to the ones worn around his wrist, I weighed the book in my hand, burning with curiosity. No. Onto the pyre with it!
Voices, singing, laughter and music filled the palace; Menshikov had the Great Hall adorned with a whole orange grove in bloom. Champagne corks popped long into the pale hours and dancers spilled out onto the courtyard, frolicking amongst the pillars and beneath the wide windowsills. Maria Menshikova was decked out in my mother’s jewels. Petrushka’s cousin, Crown Princess Maria Theresa of Austria, sent preserved lemons from Italy and a suite of black pearls. King Louis of France, my former possible fiancé, offered an exquisite Limoges jug with five dozen matching glasses. From England, the new King George II, another cousin of Petrushka’s, sent a pack of hounds. This wedding was to be the fulfilment of Menshikov’s wildest ambitions. Soon he would be Regent. Nobody could stop him, it seemed.
If Anoushka, too, celebrated with them while my world had crumbled, I did not know. I had no word from her. Instead, two days later, Menshikov sent me a messenger bearing a ceremoniously rolled-up and beribboned scroll. It was no letter of condolence but a list of possible matches for me: the names of princes in realms ranging from Persia to Portugal. I could only learn from him. He knew how to strike where it hurt most.
After a week, I finally heard from Anoushka, who wrote to me from Ekaterinenhof Palace: ‘Dearest sister, we share your grief and distress and invite you to come and live with us… ’ The words seemed stilted; the invitation half-hearted and too late after the long months of painful silence and my days of solitary mourning. Anoushka’s words fell into my soul like a stone into a deep, empty well, leaving no trace. While I longed for company, the thought of being at Karl’s mercy, or of them both flaunting their happiness all day long, made me the more determined to survive despite my solitude.
When Augustus’ coffin was about to be closed, I slipped the leather strips from his wrist and strung the icon of St Nicholas on them, wrapping them twice around my neck: the things I valued most in the world. I had had the pink and silver engagement dress cleaned and sold to pay for the frigate back to Holstein being rigged in black sails: it sailed out of St Petersburg like a nightmare, spoiling the dreamlike beauty of summer’s White Nights.
Curiously enough, the days to come made me think of my cousin Anna Ivanovna, the Duchess of Courland, who had suffered fate’s twists and turns herself. She must know what was happening to me, and to Russia, as Menshikov was trying to get himself elected Duke of Courland in her place. In vain, fortunately for her. Even though his thugs first beat up the Duchy Council and then he threatened to shoot the burghers, they ridiculed him whenever possible, even naming a greasy sausage after him.
Laughing at Menshikov seemed to be the only recourse against his rise to power. Yet my laughter made me choke; he had me in his grip like a puppet whose strings he could snip at any given moment, before casting me out to live in a dark, damp nunnery.
Following Petrushka’s engagement, Menshikov had me shunned at court. At least he was still concerned enough about appearances to ensure I was granted an apartment in the Summer Palace. Both Lestocq and Herr Schwartz, the dance and music teacher, moved in with me. The snug rooms with their long windows and high stucco ceilings decorated with murals of birds and flowers at least offered me the solace of a home, even if it was away from the young Tsar, who was the last family member I had left apart, from my sister. Who was by Petrushka’s side, I wondered, guarding him against Menshikov, if not loving him? I had seen what the man could do. At least Ostermann was devoted to Petrushka, and Buturlin still served the young Tsar as his chamberlain. What did he make of the frightening turn my life had taken? I forbade myself any thought of his uplifting company. I was in mourning.
There was no mention of any official funds to be granted to me. I had to face up to my fears for the future. What did one need to live on, how many roubles exactly, and how should I procure that sum? I had no idea, remembering suddenly how Anoushka had patted her pockets in the Golosov Ravine and the Leshy spirit’s evil snarl: ‘Ah, the fine young Tsarevny! Never carry money, eh?’ My sister had received her dowry and Karl was awarded 100,000 roubles a year as an officer’s stipend. I had neither a fiancé to support me, nor estates to pay me revenue, nor a remunerated position at court. Every day I lived free, I was a threat to Menshikov’s plans. I had agreed to relinquish my right to the throne to Petrushka’s possible descendants, but had maintained my right of succession to the young Tsar himself, should anything befall him before he had children. Starving me out was part of Menshikov’s strategy: either I picked one of the suitors from his abominable list or I must voluntarily retreat into a convent.
Finally, after the third week of eating sauerkraut and fatty meat, I’d had enough. ‘You need a budget,’ Lestocq said, after checking an interminable list of items and numbers, which meant nothing to me. A frown had taken up permanent residence on his forehead these days.
‘Does that mean something good to eat for a change?’ I asked, caressing my Persian cat, which had settled in my lap.
‘No. It means that you have to learn to get by.’
‘And what does that signify?’ He might as well have spoken Chinese.
‘You have to tell me what we really need – from the market and the gostiny dvor.’
I shrugged. ‘I have never been to a market. And the gostiny dvor sent all bills to the palace, always.’
He sighed. ‘I see. Well, let me try and sort this out. I should be good at it by now, having once been poor and exiled. In the meantime, you should do what you are good at.’
My hands stilled on the purring cat’s slate-coloured fur. ‘And what would that be?’
Lestocq’s eyes met mine. There was a moment of silence.
‘Time will tell,’ he said, devoting himself to his ‘budget’ again. Already, I did not like the sound of that word at all.
Time will tell – but how? Both Lestocq and Schwartz, on behalf of Versailles and Vienna, helped me where they could. I was not proud of having to be bankrolled by foreign powers, but this is how it was. When ends still would not meet, I suffered the shame of accumulating debts: being the Tsarina’s daughter still opened many doors. It was abominable having to humble myself, though. While everything had always been offered to me, now I had to ask for it, my heart burning and the words turning sour in my mouth. Finally, I sold the last of my dresses – I had had literally hundreds of gowns – and remaining jewellery. My best customer was the Princess Cherkassky, who owned countless ‘souls’ and as many versty of the Russian Empire, and whose family had served mine since the first Romanov Tsar. She often paid double what I would have settled for and passed on the dresses to her ladies-in-waiting. For her to wear my very recognisable, splendid wardrobe in public would have meant defying Menshikov. For every Russian, however high-born, there was always a seat available on the next sled heading to Siberia. I myself from those days on dressed simply, in a white taffeta top over an under-robe of black silk or velvet, tying a colourful sash of silk around my waist. Living like a tsarevna on a peasant’s purse was hard work.
‘What will you do with that money?’ Lestocq asked, as he caught me counting out roubles after the Princess Cherkassky had been.
‘Psst,’ I said, frowning in despair at my lack of skill in counting. Why had I not paid more attention in the classroom? ‘Now I’ve made a mistake and have to start again.’
He could not help but grin. ‘It will never be enough, however often you count it.’
‘How do you know?’ I sulked, letting the money be.
‘Because I know you.’
‘I shall buy weapons to arm my servants here. Have you heard about the latest burglaries? I am terrified of robbers. I also have to repay Schwartz and you. Music and my health are important.’
‘Don’t worry about paying us.’
‘You have to eat,’ I teased. ‘Any Frenchman needs that, no?’
‘None of us will starve,’ he said.
&n
bsp; ‘Fabulous. Then I even have some money left.’
‘That is what you think! Menshikov is willing to let you buy back some of your mother’s furniture,’ Lestocq said.
‘Is he now? Of course I will have to; there’s no real choice. So much for my visit to the gostiny dvor this afternoon. I wanted to get that adorable golden monkey I saw there, last time.’
‘You should get a phoenix as a pet instead. That would suit you.’
‘What is that?’
‘A mythical bird that rises from its own ashes,’ he said.
‘Mythical – I have not heard of that country before. Is there a prince that Menshikov might suggest I should marry?’
‘Tsarevna, your situation is bad,’ Lestocq rebuked me for joking.
He spoke the truth. Yet if I did not try and keep my spirits up, the inner Ice Princess would conquer my soul once more, freezing me to the core. That would be infinitely worse than poverty. ‘All right then,’ I sighed. ‘Find the shop in the gostiny dvor that sells phoenixes. Put an order in. I shall have two of them at least.’
Like that, I learned to get by.
*
The summer melted away. My lonely days dragged by with little or no difference between them, like identical twins. Lestocq and Schwartz kept me company, reading to me and playing music. Menshikov’s list of suitors remained unacted upon. As the White Nights shortened, I relished the return of dawn and dusk. The tawny hues of the autumn leaves filled the air with their light; there was a scent of freshly picked apples and pears. The season bridging Russia’s unbridled joy in life and its long months of darkness was the background to my mourning for Augustus. Any merriment meant nothing to me; the Winter Palace was just a verst and yet a world away. He was closest to me when my thoughts joined him at night; in the darkness that held him to its heart. When I drew the curtains, the stillness brought Augustus back to me. I so missed everything about him; his talk and, oh, his touch – both had kindled a fire in my veins that would burn for life. As the first leaves fell, Menshikov stopped sending his lists. His patience was running out. Sometime soon, I would be shorn and sent to a convent. For how long would the memory of summer days spent with Augustus illuminate that darkness? I feared the answer.
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