The Red Tide

by Christopher Nicole

  It was difficult to understand his motivations. Clearly he found his greatest pleasure in women. But he would never take one to his bed. Some, those who had never been admitted to his inner sanctum, whispered it was because he suffered a physical disability. Sonia knew better than that: she had never known a man with so much sexual power, either in size or performance. Nathalie claimed it was because he would not break his vows of chastity, but as he continually broke every other vow he might ever have taken that didn’t make sense either. Sonia had her own theories. One was that he genuinely enjoyed being masturbated by a beautiful woman; that was in fact not such an unusual masculine desire. The second was more important. She was sure he felt that actually to enter one of his acolytes, to gasp and pant his way to orgasm while holding her naked in his arms, would somehow he to surrender his power over her. When he lay, or sat, or even stood to be fondled, while playing with her hair or body, he remained in command, even at the moment of climax. To share that moment, to risk losing his own pleasure in hers, as Korsakov had so enjoyed, and even more, Leon, would be weakening. She wondered if she would ever see Korsakov or Leon again?

  The automobile threaded its way through the buildings and stopped before a private doorway. Sonia found herself in a hall of enormous splendour, with bowing servants to either side. Rasputin ignored them, so she did likewise, but it was difficult to ignore the huge Nubian, dressed in a red and white uniform and wearing a turban, who opened an inner doorway, which was quickly closed behind them again. A secretary waited inside the private apartment. “Her majesty is in the study, holy Father.”

  Rasputin raised his eyebrows. “The Tsarevich is not ill?”

  “Not today, holy Father. This is an affair of state. Goremykin has got to go. He simply cannot do his job. Thus Her Majesty must find a new prime minister. She wishes your recommendation.”

  “You had best remain here for the moment,” Rasputin told Sonia, and followed the secretary along a corridor, feet soundless on the thick carpet.

  Sonia selected a chair and sat down, allowed herself to be absorbed by the utter quiet of the palace. To her left there was a staircase leading up. To her right, a liveried flunky stood by the door, but he might have been a statue, as he never moved and indeed hardly seemed to breathe. The walls were hung with ikons and the light was muted. There was sound, but it too was muted, and very far away. She wondered what it must be like to live one’s entire life in such security, such a sense of belonging, of being above such mundane concepts as wealth or poverty, social acceptability or social disgrace, having nothing more to worry about tomorrow than which hat to wear. And having to seek advice from a man like Rasputin? Then at least some of the rumours were true: the Mad Monk, as they called him, did indeed rule Russia! And of course, not even the most omnipotent of humans could avoid illness. How bitter must the little prince be, she thought, to have so much, and know it was for such a brief time.

  “Hello!”

  Sonia looked up, and then leapt to her feet. She had not heard the young woman approach from behind the staircase, but she knew who she was: the Grand Duchess Olga, eldest of the Tsar’s daughters. Olga would be about twenty, she supposed, a quite beautiful girl, who wore a simple white house gown, and was smiling at her in a totally unaffected manner. Sonia curtseyed. “You’re Sonia Bolugayevska,” Olga remarked. “We met at Kiev, on that dreadful night Monsieur Stolypin was killed.”

  Sonia gulped. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “Mother said you’d be coming today, with Father Gregory. She says you’re his housekeeper. Do sit down.” Olga sat herself, in the chair beside Sonia’s, and Sonia obeyed. “I’d love to be the housekeeper of a man like Father Gregory,” Olga confided. Was it possible this girl was so innocent she did not know what being ‘housekeeper’ to Rasputin entailed? “Is he difficult?” the Grand Duchess asked.

  Sonia swallowed. “Sometimes, Your Highness.”

  “But I suppose you’re used to that. Having been married. Tell me, what it’s like?”

  “Your Highness?” Sonia’s voice had risen an octave.

  “Being married. And then divorced. You see,” Olga went on, “I have to be married, some time soon. I should have been already, but for this dreadful war. There’s talk of one of the King of England’s sons, perhaps the Prince of Wales. Of course, I don’t suppose I could ever be divorced.” She paused, as if expecting Sonia to say something. Sonia couldn’t imagine what. She had never encountered such innocence. She had been three years younger than this girl when she had been on a train to Irkutsk, her life already in tatters, her experience already ageless. “I really would like to know,” Olga said. “About marriage?”

  Sonia licked her lips. “Your mother...”

  “Mother doesn’t talk about such things. And the women, well, they drop all manner of hints. But they won’t tell us anything. If you told me, I could tell my sisters,” she added, ingenuously.

  “I...” Sonia had never in her life been so relieved to hear a door open. She sprang to her feet, and Olga also rose.

  The Tsaritsa was speaking as she and Rasputin entered the hall. “The people will complain, of course. They think Sturmer is pro-German. But if you are sure he is the right man...”

  “The people will always complain about something, Little Mother,” Rasputin said. “It is always best to direct their complaints. This is Madame Bolugayevska.” Sonia curtseyed.

  The Tsaritsa’s undoubtedly handsome face was cold. “I see you have been speaking with my daughter. What have you been telling her?”

  Sonia looked at Olga, who came to her rescue. “We have been discussing the war, Mama.”

  “What do you know about the war?” Alexandra asked, contemptuously. “Or you, madame. Or does Father Gregory discuss it with you?”

  “From time to time, Your Majesty,” Sonia said.

  “Well, keep your thoughts to yourself. I knew Prince Bolugayevski. He was a misguided young man. How are you faring, madame?”

  This time Sonia had to prevent herself from glancing at Rasputin. “As well as can be expected, Your Majesty.” Did this woman, who now ruled Russia in the name of her husband, not know that she had been arrested by the Okhrana, not once, but twice? And had thus been blackmailed into becoming the mistress, in effect, of the most reviled man in the Empire?

  “That goes for all of us, in these dreadful conditions,” Alexandra agreed, as if she were living in a hovel. “I do not know, I do not wish to know, the truth of your relations with your ex-husband, madame,” she went on. “But I do not believe in divorce. You have my sympathy.” Her tone softened. “I understand your son is also in the army.”

  “Your Majesty?” Sonia was taken entirely by surprise. “My son is only just sixteen years old.”

  “He is a patriot, and a Bolugayevski. You should be proud of him. Good-day to you, madame.” Sonia gave another curtsey and nearly overbalanced and tumbled to the floor. “And you, Olga, rejoin your sisters. I should be grateful if you would look at the Tsarevich before you leave, holy Father,” Alexandra said. “He does so like to see you.”

  “Of course, Little Mother.” Rasputin followed the Empress up the stairs.

  “I must go,” Olga whispered. “I have so enjoyed meeting you, madame. Please, if you can ever find the time to visit us again, I should be so grateful.”

  She hurried off, leaving Sonia uncertain whether she was dreaming or not. The Empress, actually apologising for the part she had played in ending her marriage? The Grand Duchess Olga actually extending the hand of friendship? And above all, Colin, in the army? If he also were to be killed, while she was trapped in this obscene pit...but was she trapped? If Olga would be her friend, might it not be possible to escape?

  “They like you,” Rasputin remarked, as the car drove them back to Petrograd. “Does that not please you?”

  “It pleases me very much.”

  “Poor woman, she has not the mentality to rule,” Rasputin said. “Oh, she has the will, and the personality, a
nd the desire. But not the talent. As for Nicholas...I very much fear this dynasty is doomed. Certainly in its present form.”

  Sonia turned her head, sharply. “But...”

  Rasputin gave a shout of laughter. “Oh, we are not doomed, my little Princess. Not you and I. When Nicholas and Alexandra fall, we shall simply take up with whoever succeeds them. That is why a relationship between you and the Grand Duchess might be useful. She may well have to play her part in replacing her mother and father. I wonder...” He brooded out of the window.

  “You want Nicholas and Alexandra to fall,” Sonia said, hardly believing what she was hearing. “That is why you are recommending Sturmer as the new prime minister. He is not only pro-German, he is dishonest and incompetent.”

  Rasputin shot her a glance. “Women should not have opinions about great matters,” he remarked. “Now be quiet and let me think.”

  And let me think as well, Sonia thought. Life had suddenly taken on a new meaning. She had always dreamed of escaping to Bolugayen, to the protection of Colin. But if Colin was in the army...Anna was too small to protect her. She would be at the mercy of the Countess Anna and the Princess Dowager. The other Princess Dowager, who would undoubtedly be a more deadly enemy than Nathalie had ever been. But escape, to Tsarskoye Selo — there was a heady thought. Yet it had to be considered very carefully, if only because she had no idea whether or not the Grand Duchess really wanted to be friends with her, as Sonia Bolugayevska, or with Rasputin’s housekeeper. In which case, she would be no protection at all.

  Meanwhile, winter once again descended upon the capital, while the news of Brusilov’s defeat as he encountered a German counterattack came trickling in to increase the despair caused by hunger and cold, while the bread lines lengthened and the police and the Cossacks had to use more and more force to disperse the angry mobs, swollen by the endless succession of strikes. “I really think the Tsar should come home and take control,” Nathalie grumbled. “This man Sturmer is a fool.”

  “Sssh,” Sonia recommended. “He was Father Gregory’s choice.”

  “Oh! Well, then, I suppose he is not as bad as all that.” She looked up as Anton entered. They were in the inner room, but Rasputin was in his bedroom, with one of his more attractive young women callers, with whom he wished, for once, to be private.

  “Prince Yusupov is here, Your Highness,” Anton said.

  Nathalie raised her eyebrows. Felix Yusupov was married to one of the Tsar’s nieces, the Princess Irina, and was not a usual visitor to the staretz, although Sonia knew the two men occasionally dined together. Felix Yusupov was, in fact, a somewhat disreputable figure, whatever his wealth — his family owned more land than even the Bolugayevskis — or his royal connections: he was rumoured to have been a transvestite in his youth, which was only a few years ago, and although married to one of the most beautiful women in Russia was seldom seen in her company. “What does he want?”

  “To see Father Gregory. He says it is important.”

  “Oh! Well...” Nathalie looked at Sonia.

  “I will see if Father Gregory can receive him.” Sonia got up and went to the inner door, checked as Yusupov himself entered the room, thrusting eager women away behind him.

  “I am not accustomed to being kept waiting,” he remarked. He was a remarkably handsome man, clean-shaven and with crisp features.

  “Your Highness.” Sonia bobbed in a brief curtsey, while Nathalie merely snorted. “I was going to see if...”

  To her relief, the door behind her opened and Rasputin emerged, pulling up his pants. “Felix!” he said. “You are slumming.”

  “One never slums in the company of beautiful women,” Yusupov pointed out. “I have come to invite you to a party.”

  “You have come?” Rasputin sat down beside Nathalie, and whatever the condition of the young woman he had just left, immediately began fondling her.

  “I did not wish to confide this invitation to a servant,” Yusupov said. “It is a small dinner, at my house, the day after tomorrow, 16 December.”

  “I am already dining out the day after tomorrow,” Rasputin said. “With Sonia. At the Restaurant de Paris.”

  It was Sonia’s turn to raise her eyebrows. This was the first she had heard of it, and Rasputin had never taken her out to dinner before. That visit to Tsarskoye Selo must have been more important than she had supposed.

  “Surely, as you can take Sonia out to dinner on any night of the week,” Yusupov argued, “you can change that date and come to me instead.”

  “Why do you not change your date instead? Or will you extend your invitation to Sonia as well?”

  “Certainly, if you wish. The reason I cannot change my date is that my wife has agreed to attend.” There was a moment’s silence. Everyone in the room knew that Rasputin had wanted to get his hands on the Princess Irina from the moment he had first seen her at a court function. “Shall we say, seven?” Yusupov asked, knowing he had won the day. “And will you be bringing Madame Bolugayevska?”

  Rasputin glanced at Sonia, and gave one of his great shouts of laughter. “I think I shall come alone,” he decided.

  “Of all the cheek,” Nathalie remarked. “He treats you like dirt, Sonia.”

  “Because I am dirt,” Sonia agreed. “I am not complaining. I am going to have a night all to myself. There is a blessing.”

  “I think you should be very rude to him,” Nathalie recommended.

  She did not seem to realise that it was not possible to be very rude to Rasputin. Or even ordinarily rude. Besides, Sonia had meant what she said; the idea of having an evening entirely to herself was a delight. She ate a light meal, declined to drink a single glass of wine — when she dined with Rasputin she was invariably forced to drink herself insensible — and retired early to her own two-roomed apartment within the building awaking with a start to realise that although it was winter it was light outside. She tumbled out of bed, pulled on her robe, and ran into the outer room. “Anton!”

  “I am here, madame.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Ten of the morning, madame.”

  “But...where is Father Gregory’?”

  “He has not returned as yet, madame.” Anton gave a discreet smile. “The Princess Irina must he even more attractive than one hears.”

  Sonia sat down to drink her coffee. But why should she worry about what he might he doing, even if he was debauching a royal Princess? Yet when Rasputin did not return by that evening, she felt obliged to telephone Prince Yusupov’s house. She got the butler, who told her that the Prince had left the city, with his guests. “And the Princess?” Sonia asked.

  “The Princess Irina is at her country estate, madame. She has not been in town for over a month,” the butler pointed out, clearly wondering who this foolish woman was.

  Sonia hung up, and stared at the wall for several seconds. Rasputin had been invited to meet the Princess at her town house. But she had not been there. Had never been there. Yet Rasputin had stayed the night. And now the Prince had gone off into the country with his friends. Including, presumably, Rasputin. Well, she thought, it merely prolonged her opportunity to rest and relax.

  And wait for him to return. She dared not even leave the apartment, without Rasputin, because the Okhrana had released her into his custody. and she was quite certain that Michaelin was only waiting for the staretz to tire of her and put her out, to rearrest her. Even to be arrested by mistake, and taken to that prison for only half an hour before he came to get her, was not something she could contemplate. While if he were to leave her there for twenty-four hours or more...

  There was no word from Rasputin the next day, either. The day after, Sonia was still in bed when there was the sound of doors banging. She sat up. scooping hair from her face. Oh Lord, she thought. He’s back. But her door was thrown open, not by Rasputin, but by Nathalie. A Nathalie, Sonia had never seen before, wide-eyed and panting. “Sonia!” she screamed. “Sonia! Get up. Haven’t you heard? Father Grego
ry is dead!”

  Part Three - The Red Tide

  ‘But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

  Too full for sound and foam,

  When that which drew from out the boundless deep,

  Turns home again.’

  Tennyson: Come Not When I Am Dead

  Chapter Nine - Fall of a Dynasty

  Sonia could only stare at Nathalie in total consternation.

  “Dead!” Nathalie shouted. “Can’t you understand? Rasputin is dead. They pulled his body out of the Neva, this morning. Through a hole in the ice. My God!” She sat down, shivering violently although the room was warm as toast.

  Sonia looked past her at an equally thunderstruck Anton, standing in the doorway. “Brandy,” she suggested.

  Anton hurried off, and Sonia sat beside Nathalie. “You say he was in the river? But that’s not possible. He was in the country, with Prince Yusupov.”

  “He was in the river,” Nathalie insisted. “He was murdered.”

  “Murdered? But if he was in the river...?”

  “Oh, he drowned. But before that he had been shot and stabbed, more than once. They put his body in the river because they thought he was dead. Then he drowned.”

  Anton was back, with a tray and glasses, and again he and Sonia stared at each other. Rasputin had been to dinner with Felix Yusupov. Then the Prince had gone off into the country. Taking Rasputin with him? Or having shot him and stabbed him, thrust him, still alive, beneath the ice of the Neva? Suppose she had gone after all? Yusupov had raised no objection. Would she now also be drowned in the Neva? But where did his death leave Rasputin’s acolytes, hitherto protected by his powerful presence and through him, the favour of the Tsaritsa? Those who came and went could just stay away out of sight, and hope never to be identified. Those who had lived in the same house...