The Witches of St. Petersburg

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

  “Grisha,” came Militza’s explosive reply.

  “Grisha!” Stana put her glass down as her cheeks blanched white. “Well, I am afraid I shall have to leave, I would rather die than spend a second in that man’s company.”

  “Please don’t go!”

  There was something about Militza’s tone that stopped Stana in her tracks. For the first time ever in her life she detected a note of vulnerability in her sister’s voice.

  “Why?”

  “Because we need to change the course of events,” she whispered, “and I need your help to do that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s our fault he is here. We asked for him, we called upon the Four Winds, and we created a monster and now . . .”

  “And now what?”

  “. . . we must kill him.”

  “No, I will not,” said Stana adamantly. “I have told you before, I do not want his blood on my hands.”

  “If not us, then who? When did you last see him?” asked Militza.

  “I don’t know. I try not to think about him. Nikolasha won’t have him in the house; Rasputin offered to come and see the troops the other day at Stavka, saying his arrival might boost morale, but Nikolasha said he’d see him hang if he came anywhere near the front.”

  “You have no idea how awful he has become?”

  “I hear . . . I hear stories . . .”

  “Then you know he is now more powerful than ever. And with Nicky at the front, he’s been left to run riot. Alix does what he says. Especially after he saved Anna Vyrubova’s life after that appalling train crash, he can do no wrong. Everyone thinks it’s Badmaev’s drugs that are sending the tsarina mad, but it is him. It is just her and him. In charge. With Nicky apparently too stoned or incapacitated to care. He is atrophied by indecision and the war, and so the other two try to rule. It is a disaster. He’s unstoppable. Some members of the court offered him money, two hundred thousand rubles plus a house, a monthly allowance, and bodyguards, if he’d go back to Siberia, never to be seen again—and do you know what he said?” Stana slowly shook her head. “‘You think Mama and Papa will allow that? I don’t need money; any old merchant will give me what I need to hand out to the poor and needy.’”

  “What a charlatan,” said Stana quietly. “His house is crammed with gold and precious things.”

  “I know!” Militza nodded. “And it will only get worse. I need you to see him. I need you to see him—it—in the flesh. I need you to understand the gravity of the situation. Please, please stay.”

  Stana nodded and slowly sat back down in silence. She remembered the kiss and how her sister had always stood by her; she remembered the sacrifices, the sordid sacrifices Militza had made for her, and she realized it was time she did something in return. It was time to pay back.

  “Ha-ha-ha!” A weird chortling noise came from outside the room. The door opened and in walked Rasputin, his hair dramatically unkempt. His gait was lurching and his gaze swiveled around the room; it was as if he’d been exhumed or pulled out of a party by his legs. “Two . . . little . . . witches . . . in . . . one . . . room!” he sang, trotting around on the spot, holding up the edges of his loose black caftan. “Two little witches in one room.” He leered at the sisters, his smile wolfish as he danced towards them. “Two little witches! One!” He pointed at Stana. “Two!” He jabbed his finger at Militza. “In one room!” He laughed loudly, throwing his blackened mouth in the air, before collapsing with a loud sigh onto the divan closest to the unlit fire. “It’s cold!” he declared loudly.

  “Grisha, it is August, not even the tsarina has a fire in August,” replied Militza.

  “Grisha, how delightful to see you,” began Stana in a singsong voice she reserved for dull society parties or other people’s children. “How are you?”

  “How am I?” he asked as he rolled around on the divan, attempting to sit up a little straighter. He was clearly in a lot of pain. “Death is near me, she is crawling towards me on her hands and knees like a whore.” He gestured loosely towards the door. “And when I die, what no one knows is that Russia will perish along with me.” He inhaled and belched loudly. “The country will be tormented, it will tear itself apart, limb from limb, and the river Neva will flow with the blood of grand dukes!”

  Stana looked across at Militza; how much had the man drunk to reach this level of morbidity?

  He continued on until they sat down for dinner, bemoaning his fate and the fact that his and Russia’s demise were inextricably linked. He sat at the head of the table and monopolized bottle after bottle of his favorite Madeira. Rasputin would normally not have eaten any of the meat on offer, but that night, he couldn’t avail himself of enough flesh; he gnawed at the bones of his partridge and sliced sliver after sliver off the haunch of venison placed next to him. And all the while he talked about his approaching death. They, the people, were all lining up to kill him, women with guns in their dresses, young men with knives in their breeches—it was not hard to imagine a revolutionary hurling a bomb through his window at any minute.

  “And then there’s poison!” he said, his knife raised in the air. “But I have protected myself against that.”

  “How does anyone protect themselves from poisoning?” asked Stana, still using the singsong voice.

  “Taking little drops at a time,” he said, waving his knife from side to side.

  “Mithridatism,” said Militza.

  “Eat apple pips,” he added. “Stones of peaches and apricots. All day, every day. Ground up in water. Cyanide can’t touch me!” He coughed. “But it is dangerous out there—and now I no longer have the icon.”

  “The icon?” asked Militza, suddenly feeling nervous.

  “The one you kindly gave.” He smiled briefly.

  “St. John the Baptist?”

  “I lost it long ago,” he sighed, wearily, slumping a little at the table. “Long, long ago . . .”

  “You lost it?” Militza feigned surprise well.

  “I don’t know where or when. I was traveling and I mislaid it. I try and see it in my mind, picture it hiding in the long grass by the side of the road. How I feel its loss greatly. How I need it now. Without it, I shall surely die. For death is near me, she crawls towards me . . .”

  “Yes, yes.” Militza smiled. “Enough!”

  He paused, his eyes narrowed. “Maybe it was stolen from me?” He looked wildly around the room.

  “Surely not!” exclaimed Stana.

  “I have trophy hunters in my house all the time; they steal the hair off my head and the nails off my toes as I sleep.” He laughed wryly. “And now She’s given me bodyguards because She fears for my safety.”

  There was no need to ask who She was.

  “She needs me, you see.” His face changed to one of mocking sympathy. “She ne-e-e-eds me!” He laughed. “She needs her Friend. ‘Our Friend.’” He looked down the table at the two sisters. “I’m the only one she’s got!” He laughed.

  “How about Anna and Lily?” inquired Stana.

  “Anna? That old cripple! I am worth a thousand of them,” he replied, digging his fork into his venison and eating another slice. “No one can satisfy her like I can!” He laughed again.

  “I am not sure I understand you,” said Stana.

  “You’re a woman of the world, little witch!” he replied. “But I am a man of God. And the poor woman has little left but her faith.”

  “We should all have faith,” confirmed Stana.

  “I am living a quiet life,” he declared. “I visit the Little Mother and the Kazan and St. Isaac’s cathedrals each day, that is all.”

  And the Makaev wine shop on 23 Nevsky, thought Militza, and the Villa Rhode and the Yacht Club and the banya up the road from Gorokhovaya and Madame Sonya’s whorehouse not far from the Fontanka. He was a man of God with an exemplary record.

  “But I feel the hand of God above me,” he continued.

  “His hand is above us all,” said Militza.
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  “No.” He turned to stare at her, his pale eyes suddenly finding focus. “You will live, my little witch. You will escape. You will breathe the fresh air of freedom. But God will come to gather me!”

  He stared mournfully at his glass for a second, swilling its blood-red contents around. It was as if he could see nothing but misery, torment, and writhing pain within the spinning liquid.

  “But one must not be sad!” he said suddenly.

  “Indeed not,” agreed Militza.

  “We should have a party! Let’s invite some gypsies.” He looked around the room as if expecting it to be full of people. “We need music! Parties always need music. Do you have a gramophone?”

  The footmen were called; a gramophone was found, as well as some records, and the sisters watched as Rasputin started to dance. They knew of the all-night parties that he hosted in his apartment, where the telephone was always ringing, the door was always open, and the wine never ran out. Munia once told Militza about a party where everyone had stayed over because they were all too drunk to leave, only for two husbands to arrive the next morning, each with a revolver, on the hunt for their wives. The secret police delayed the husbands long enough for the wives to dress and disappear down the back stairs, but Munia had been horrified and said she would never attend one of his parties again.

  Rasputin moved slowly; his stomach was still clearly giving him some pain, but the more he drank, the less he cared. He held his arms outstretched and waved his hips from side to side, swaying along with the music.

  “Oh, this!” he announced, closing his eyes, listening to the soaring sound of the violins. “This reminds me of Siberia. The space. The skies. And the plump peasant girls!” He laughed again, as if he were transported back there. “Dance with me!” he demanded, looking from one sister to the other. “Dance!”

  “No, thank you.” Militza smiled, taking a sip of her champagne.

  “You!” He pointed at Stana. Stana shook her head. “I am the most powerful man in Russia and I command you to dance.”

  “Really, Grisha, no,” said Stana.

  “I command it!” he shouted.

  “Thank you, but no,” said Stana.

  “Dance!” he spat. “I have people queuing down the street wanting to give me money, presents, paintings, carpets for five minutes with me, and you, you won’t dance with me when I command it!”

  “Just dance with him,” hissed Militza.

  Stana reluctantly rose from the divan. It was a sultry night and the air hung close; Rasputin smelled high and acrid with old sweat. He grabbed her and pulled her towards him as he rocked her from side to side. Stana’s heart was beating fast. She was desperate to pull away from him, but his grip was firm, almost as firm as his shaft, which she could feel through the folds of her dress.

  “Oh, Stana, Stana, Stana,” he whispered in her ear, his spittle spraying the side of her neck as he spoke. “You’ve come to me at last. All those years, all those years I have watched, all those years I have longed for you . . .” He pulled her tighter towards him. “I knew you’d come in the end. Women can’t resist power, my power, the power of Grisha, they bounce up and down on it like whores at an orgy. Come closer, my little whore . . .”

  “That’s it!” declared Stana, pushing him so hard in the chest that he stumbled back a step. “I am leaving. Good night, sister!” Grabbing her fan and her wrap, she ran out of the room and down the front stairs, bursting through the front door and out into the evening air. She inhaled deeply, looking up at the pale blue sky and the stars. What an odious creature that man was! Truly he was unbearable.

  She glanced around the drive. Her car was on the other side of the fountain. She stumbled across past Rasputin’s car, which was waiting, complete with Okhrana driver snoozing at the wheel. Stana opened her car door and slipped into the back seat. Where was her driver?

  “You should be a little nicer to me,” came a voice right next to her in the shadows.

  Stana screamed. He covered her mouth with his rough, gnarled hand. How did he get there? How did he leave the palace more quickly than she? He truly was the devil himself! “Shhhhh,” he hissed in her ear as he heaved himself on top of her. “I don’t know who you think you are, little witch, but I control armies, I control governments, and I control the imperial family. You have not been nice to Grisha, and so Grisha won’t be nice to you.”

  “I am a married woman!” spat Stana. “Leave me alone. I love my husband.”

  “Your husband?” He stared. “You wouldn’t have that husband if it weren’t for me. And what I have given, I can also take away.”

  “No, you can’t. He’s much more powerful that you, he’s head of the army.”

  “No one is more powerful than Grisha.”

  “What utter rubbish, I am not afraid of you. I have never been afraid of you!”

  “Silly girl.” He smiled. “I shall have him sent to the Caucasus!”

  He leaned forward and forced his hard tongue in her mouth. He worked his way deep down in her throat, jabbing and rolling it around, making sure he probed every corner, and then he licked her face, her cheek, and her lips as he slowly pushed himself off her. He opened the car door and slammed it behind him without another word. Stana was left, her clothes crumpled, her face covered in saliva, rigid with indignation and fury. Her driver suddenly got into the car, along with a trail of cigarette smoke.

  “Sorry, Grand Duchess, I didn’t see you leave the palace,” he apologized. “Where to?”

  “Home,” she said quietly.

  IT TOOK LESS THAN THIRTY-SIX HOURS FOR NIKOLASHA TO learn he was to be relieved of his duties as commander in chief of the Russian forces. He was to be replaced by the tsar himself. He and his wife were told to leave the city, to move south. To the Caucasus.

  Chapter 34

  December 16, 1916, Petrograd

  IT WAS CHANCE. OR WAS IT?

  How many things in life happen by chance? How many paths are preordained? How free is our own will? And how much is down to the Fates?

  It had been over a year since the sisters had seen each other. With Nikolasha relieved of his post and sent south, Stana had been living in Tchair, their house in the Crimea, while Militza and Peter had been based in Petrograd and, of course, Znamenka. In normal times, the sisters would have managed to see each other, but times were anything but normal. There were riots in the streets, strikes in every province, rebellions in the cities, food shortages and power cuts everywhere; none but essential travel was advised, especially among members of the aristocracy—the stories of those who’d succumbed to banditry were too numerous to mention.

  But a year in the Crimea, while lovely and most certainly full of charm, had left Stana desperate to see her sister and her nieces and nephew, so she finally made it to Petrograd in the middle of December, despite the war, the misery, and the constant fear of attack. Militza was beside herself with excitement.

  “Are you sure it is open?” asked Stana as they sat, muffled together, holding hands, in the back of the car.

  “I heard it was,” said Militza. “Although nothing is sure these days.”

  “If not?”

  “If not the Yacht Club, then I am not sure if anything else will be open—all the nice restaurants are shut because there is not much food in the city.”

  “It looks very different,” said Stana, staring out of the window at the gray, intimidating streets.

  “Yes—and it is dangerous to go anywhere alone at night,” said Militza. “You never know who you might bump into.”

  They pulled up outside the club and looked up at the windows; a few rays of light seeped hopefully through the tightly shut curtains. There was a smell of boiled cabbage in the street as they picked their way through the salted slush on the pavement. Militza knocked on the door, and it was opened a crack; a pair of eyes looked her up and down.

  “Grand Duchess Militza Nikolayevna,” she announced, and the footman opened the door.

  Upstairs in t
he dining room the place was packed. In comparison to the gloom and misery outside, here life was joyful; there was laughter—and most importantly of all, there seemed to be a fully functioning kitchen and plenty of wine. The textile workers might be on strike across town due to the shortage of bread, but here there was sturgeon, morels in a cream sauce, pommes dauphinoise and braised cabbage leaves, plus plenty of fine Bordeaux and even a small glass or two of champagne.

  “He is unstoppable,” said Stana, eating a little fish off her fork. “Nicky came to Kiev, and both Nikolasha and Minny told him to get Rasputin out of the palace.” She leaned forward, her eyes glancing left and right. One never knew who was listening. “And Ella went to Tsarskoye Selo to plead with her. Her own sister—a nun—and she still didn’t listen.” Stana shook her head. “Apparently she drove her away like a dog! It is so, so sad.”

  Little did anyone know that it was the last time the tsarina would ever see her sister Ella again. Both would be brutally murdered, one day after the other, in less than eighteen months’ time.

  “But there is nothing to be done,” continued Stana. “If the tsar persists in being ruled by his wife and his wife persists in being ruled by him—”

  “Your Imperial Highnesses!”

  Militza looked up. “Mr. Rayner?” she asked, a little unsure, for the light was behind him and the man appeared to have slicked back his hair. “Mr. Oswald Rayner?”

  “Lieutenant Rayner now,” he said with a little nod. “How very charming to see you again.”

  “Absolutely,” agreed Militza.

  “And how is your friend Yusupov?” inquired Stana.

  “Quite well. Felix is even entertaining tonight, I believe,” he said.

  “I can’t believe people still have the energy to entertain,” said Militza, “with all that is going on around us. And fear standing at every street corner.”