The Witches of St. Petersburg

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

  Once through the alley she stopped, fighting for breath in her corseted afternoon dress. Her lungs were burning as she huffed and puffed, her nose running and her heart thumping in her chest. Leaning against a wall, she saw the road was wide, the pavements busy; she frantically looked around. Suddenly she realized that she was standing right outside 12 Kirochnaya Street. How she’d got there, how she’d found it, she would never know. She rang the bell and the doorman answered. Was Grigory Yefimovich at home?

  “Mamma!” he exclaimed, leaping out of his seat as she burst into his sitting room, her heart beating wildly, her faced flushed, and her feet soaked through. He strode over and embraced her, kissing her intimately three times on the cheek. “Sit,” he ordered, indicating to a low shabby chair opposite him. “You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  Militza stood in the middle of the room and looked around. She had expected to find him alone, but instead he was sitting at a table surrounded by at least five or six women. Militza was too taken aback to count properly. Who were they? What were they doing here? The plan that she should arrive all indignant and high and mighty, exuding a justified fury at his betrayal, had completely fallen by the wayside. Her hands were shaking, her feet were freezing, and the only indignity she could describe was how she had been treated by some workers in the street.

  “You must have some tea, Your Imperial Highness Militza Nikolayevna, please sit here.” Rasputin indicated the grubby brown chair once more. The other women bristled at the mere mention of her name, which, of course, was his reason for using it. A show-off by nature, he could not resist announcing her lofty presence to the room, and he smiled softly at its effect. The women shifted in their seats, sat up a little straighter to take in Militza’s pale white skin, her ruby red lips, and her large, dark, oblong-shaped eyes. Her dark green dress was obviously expensive, as was her ermine-edged cloak.

  “What can I do for you, my child?” asked Rasputin, his arms outstretched magnanimously, playing to the gallery.

  “Do?” Militza shot him a look as she sat down. “Tea is what you can do.”

  “Dunia! Tea!” Rasputin shouted, throwing his right hand in the air. “And some of our finest cakes.”

  “Cakes?”

  Dunia came shuffling out from the small, hot, airless kitchen to the right of the salon. She was clearly of peasant stock, with a broad waist, thick wrists, ruddy cheeks, and a large bosom that must have suckled at least eight children, not all of them her own.

  “I am not sure what cakes you might mean, sir?” she said, staring at him with her simple gray eyes.

  “Cakes!” he repeated, smacking her behind so hard and so swiftly that she stumbled. He rested this hand on her large buttocks as he continued to speak. “If we have none in the house, we must send out for some. The grand duchess has come to see us, she is our guest, and we must entertain her.”

  Militza glanced around the room. Instead of being shocked by Rasputin’s bawdy behavior, his entirely female audience looked a little envious. One, a rather pretty young girl dressed in pale blue silk, bit her bottom lip as she watched. Militza recognized her. Was she the girl from the Yacht Club? The doctor’s wife, with the kind soul? She wasn’t sure. But her presence was disconcerting. What was she doing here? Whatever all these women were doing here, it was obviously not to discuss the intricacies of the Old Testament scriptures.

  “Go!” he said, hitting Dunia firmly on the backside once more. “Go and find some cakes!”

  Despite her fifty-something years, Dunia yelped like a schoolgirl as she left the table, collecting her shawl before she closed the apartment door.

  “While we wait for cakes, my grand duchess,” continued Rasputin as he leaned across to the table to grab a white tin painted with simple red, yellow, and green flowers, “we have some eggs. Who would like one?”

  “Oh, yes please,” said the pretty girl in the blue dress. “I’m desperate.”

  “Desperate?” asked Rasputin, meeting her eye.

  “I haven’t eaten an egg in weeks,” she replied, returning the stare. “Perhaps months.”

  Rasputin took five white eggs from the pot and proceeded to peel one on the table. He pierced the shell with his blackened fingernails, tearing it roughly. As soon as he’d finished, he laid the egg in the palm of his hand and looked around. Each of the ladies stretched out their hands.

  “An egg please, Brother Grigory,” said one.

  “Yes please, an egg,” added another.

  “Who’s first?” He smiled, looking at the circle of hands.

  The pretty girl in blue smiled. “I think I am, Brother.”

  “I think you are, my dear.”

  He nodded, and he placed the egg in her hand. She ate it straight out of her own palm. She did not use her fingers or bite into it delicately, as manners dictated. Instead, she munched at it, wolfing it down in big chunks, like a horse might eat an apple out of its master’s hand. The whole effect was so revolting that Militza had to look away.

  “Tea?” he asked Militza, wiping his hand on the tablecloth. He picked up a small pot of strong cold tea, poured it into a glass, and pushed a smeared jar of cherry jam towards her. “The hot water is in the samovar,” he continued, nodding towards the fireplace. He picked another egg. “Who’s next?” he asked, tapping the white shell hard on the table. “Grand Duchess?”

  “No, thank you,” she replied, taking her glass and walking towards the samovar. “I have just been to see Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Vladimir, and she had plenty of cakes.”

  All the women stared at her, genuinely affronted. How could she refuse an egg peeled and served by Brother Grigory’s own hand?

  Militza poured hot water into her tea. All she really wanted to do was leave, take a taxicab home; she didn’t know any of these women, and what she saw perturbed her.

  “How is the Grand Duchess Vladimir? Old Miechen?”

  She turned around and he leered. He was deliberately teasing her, using the familiar nickname in public.

  “Well,” said Militza, smiling, refusing to rise to the bait. The other women sat incredibly still, listening. “We had a delightful tea.”

  “Did she mention she’d seen me?” he asked.

  “Seen you?”

  “Yes. At the theatre.”

  “You were at the theatre?”

  “She invited me into her box.”

  “What was the play?”

  “The play?” he laughed. “Who goes to the theatre to watch the play! Wouldn’t you agree, ladies? Who cares about the play!” A few of them tittered in agreement.

  Militza put down her tea, untouched, and walked towards the door. “I am afraid I am late for another appointment,” she said. “Do forgive me . . . ladies.” She smiled.

  “But you have only just arrived,” he said, quickly getting out of his chair and following her into the little corridor that led to the hall.

  Militza’s hands were unsteady as she fumbled her way in the darkness along a row of pegs, looking for her coat.

  “There is no need for you to go,” he said.

  “I must,” she said, struggling to put her coat on. She really didn’t want to stay here a moment longer.

  “Here,” he said, helping her in the narrow confines, holding up the coat so she could put her arms in the sleeves. “You came to see me.” With both hands, he slowly raised the fur-lined hood about her face. His touch was surprisingly delicate. “What did you want? Did you need help? You only have to ask me, you know, and I will always help you.”

  They were standing so close she could feel his warm breath on her face. His clear blue eyes stared into hers and she watched his pupils dilate in the darkness. He leaned over, and his lips brushed against hers. With one swift movement he pushed her against the coats, his rough tongue probing into her mouth. It was thick and coated and tasted of gherkins and black bread. His right hand grabbed at her bosom and the left pulled her body towards him. Militza squirmed and shoved—there wer
e people in the other room; she did not want a scene—and pushed him away.

  The latch on the front door opened and Dunia appeared in the doorway with a bag; she stood blinking into the darkness, not quite sure what she could see.

  “I have your cakes, Brother,” she said.

  “Cakes!” declared Rasputin, stepping away. “Sadly, the grand duchess is leaving us.”

  “Oh?” said Dunia, looking from one to the other.

  “Don’t worry, little woman. She won’t be able to resist us for long.”

  Chapter 24

  October 20, 1906, St. Petersburg

  HE WAS RIGHT OF COURSE, ALTHOUGH THE NEXT TIME they met, it was he who was not able to resist and she who had planned his total, inexorable seduction.

  “George has finally agreed!” exclaimed Stana as she burst through the double doors to her sister’s private salon to find her horizontal on her divan, taking tea, while leafing through Nightmare Tales, by Helena Blavatsky.

  “What has that boring little man finally agreed to now?” asked Militza, putting down her book and slowly sitting up as she rearranged her robe. Despite it being after midday, she was still not dressed. “Death?” she yawned.

  “Divorce!”

  Stana triumphantly sat down on the divan, her black eyes glowing, her thin white hands quivering with excitement as she turned and looked at her sister.

  “After all these years, after all this time!” Stana was shaking her head with astonishment. “Can you believe it!” Her eyes welled up. “Can you?”

  “Why now? Why after all this time?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe he wants to marry the whore? Maybe he just wants to be rid of me! Maybe he wants to run into the deep blue Mediterranean and drown himself!” She laughed. “I don’t care. Perhaps he has at last engaged his very mediocre brain and realized that life is short and he doesn’t want to be unhappy.”

  “Or maybe the whore is pregnant? And he doesn’t want a bastard?”

  “Perhaps. I don’t mind, I don’t care; I never want to have to see the man again.” Stana was speaking quickly. “I am just glad, so glad, so very glad, he has come to his senses. I have endlessly asked him, endlessly pleaded with him.” She looked up at her sister. “Begged.”

  Stana did, in fact, look a little shocked. This was almost too much for her to take in. Years of pain, years of misery and years of embarrassment at her situation were about to come to an end.

  “Oh, thank God!” she said, throwing her arms around her sister and hugging her. “Thank God! At last.”

  “Thank God,” agreed Militza. “It is over.”

  Stana sighed deeply, closing her eyes. Could this really, truly be happening after all this time?

  “You will have to get the permission of the tsar and tsarina,” added Militza.

  “She’ll grant it.”

  “I know,” confirmed Militza, tucking her sister’s hair behind her ear and kissing her on the cheek. “Of course she will. When they say brothers and sisters are not allowed to marry, it means just that and not brothers- and sisters-in-law.”

  Stana smiled. “The relief . . .” she whispered as she brushed a tear off her cheek. “It is only now I realize quite how terribly unhappy I have been.”

  “How about Elena and Sergei?”

  “The children will be fine. Sergei is sixteen, practically a man himself, and Elena is only two years younger. Besides,” she said, shaking her head, “they are very fond of Nikolasha.” She looked at her sister. “I know,” Stana said, nodding her head and clasping her hands in front of her. “I know, I love that man with all my heart.”

  IT WAS A COUPLE OF DAYS BEFORE THE TSARINA AGREED TO SEE them. She was ill, again. She had been visiting wounded soldiers, with the girls, at the nearby hospital and had strained her back, picking up a tray of medical equipment. The pain was so bad that when they did finally meet, Alix was pushed into the Maple Drawing Room in a wheelchair.

  “Oh, my goodness!” declared Militza, leaping off the curved polished bamboo sofa. “How are you?”

  “It is really nothing to worry about,” said Alix with a weak smile as she was wheeled around one of the many bearskin rugs that lay on the floor. “I only need to rest; rest and relaxation is what the doctor ordered, only, sadly, these days one gets very little of either. I have been given aspirin, so all should be well soon.”

  “Well, just so long as you are not in pain,” added Stana.

  “I am always in pain,” Alix sighed. “There is always pain. Some days are more painful than others. But let us not dwell on that.”

  The three women looked at each other. The reason for their requesting such an urgent audience hung like a question mark in the air.

  “Every time I come here, I think Meltzer has done such a fine job in this room,” said Stana brightly as she walked around admiring the new decorations. “Look,” she declared, peering through a glass-fronted cabinet at an extensive collection of Fabergé eggs. “How darling! What does this pink egg do?”

  “You press a button and there’s a sweet little crown inside.” Alix smiled. “Dear Nicky . . .”

  “How charming!” said Stana.

  “I think the mezzanine is charming myself,” Militza enthused.

  “So do the children,” said Alix, smiling. “They keep suggesting it might be a wonderful place to put on a play.”

  Militza couldn’t help noticing how frail Alix looked. Her face was strained, and all the life had disappeared from her pale blue eyes. Her skin and hair were gray, and she exuded a sort of sorrowful lassitude. How ironic, she thought, that Alix—who should be the happiest woman alive, with her four beautiful daughters, a husband who loved her, and a much-wished-for son—was living in a permanent state of anxiety, was almost a recluse. She rarely left the palace, and her daughters’ freedom was being increasingly curtailed.

  “Have you seen all the photographs?” Alix indicated lethargically towards the window, where there was a large display of silver-framed photos, mainly of the four sisters dressed in matching white dresses with picture hats, fooling around somewhere on the estate. “Nicky is obsessed with that Brownie of his . . . Also, have you seen? Someone’s drawn on the new window already. They’ve tried to scratch something using a diamond. So irritating . . . I am sure it is one of the children, or Nicky, only the handwriting is so bad I can’t tell who it is . . .”

  It was difficult for Militza and Stana to know when to pick their moment. After all these years they had never asked for a direct favor for themselves. For Montenegro and their father their demands had been endless, but on the subject of their own personal happiness they had remained silent.

  They had decided the tsarina would be easier to approach for permission than the tsar. Nicky was not known to be terribly sympathetic to affairs of the heart—they only had to recall the terrible business of Nicky’s younger brother Michael to realize they’d get short shrift from him. Nicky had refused him permission to marry Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, his cousin known to the family as Baby Bee. And Michael was now, seemingly deliberately, irritating his older brother with his new choice of lover, Natalia Sheremetyevskaya, the married ballet dancer and former lover of Nicky himself. So the best way to get approval would be through Alix; Nicky, as everyone knew, always did what Alix asked him.

  “But the children are well?” asked Militza, trying to think of an easy way to bring up her sister’s divorce.

  Alix grew a little more animated. She discussed the girls, their visit to the hospital, and particularly how the “bigs” were growing into their roles and their responsibilities so very well. She would make nurses of them yet. The “littles” still had a lot to learn, but they were making her terribly proud, as was Alexei, who was so very splendidly talented at playing with his new train set.

  “That is good news,” began Stana rather tentatively. “I also have some good news . . .” Alix looked at her expectantly. “Um, George has decided to grant me a divorce.” She smiled a little
hesitantly.

  “Isn’t that wonderful news?” Militza enthused immediately.

  It was not how she would have introduced the subject, but she had to back her sister. Alix looked from one sister to the other; the appalled look on her face said it all.

  “I am so thrilled,” continued Stana, for she had no choice. “All these years. All these lonely years . . . and at last . . .”

  She looked across at the tsarina for a whiff of empathy, but there was none. Alix was stone-faced; her thin mouth had hardened, and her pale hands gripped the wheel of her chair. Had she the strength to wheel herself out of the room, she would have undoubtedly done so.

  “And all I need now is your—”

  “No.”

  The tsarina’s response was barely audible. The two sisters strained forward.

  “No,” she repeated a little louder. “Absolutely not.”

  “But . . .” said Stana.

  “He’s had a lover in Biarritz for years,” said Militza, trying not to sound shrill. “The marriage has been over for a long time. He’s an adulterer.”

  “I know. We all know. But that is no excuse, no reason for divorce. Marriage is for life. It is a promise made before God. And promises made before God must be kept.”

  “But you have the power to grant a divorce,” said Stana. “You are my friend. My dear, close friend.”