I suppose being stalked by the woman one is interested in can produce mixed feelings. I noted that the Austin revved the engine and left when it was clear that we were going away. As we rolled through gray proletarian suburbs with their strings of drying laundry and an occasional sloppy accordion pumping away, to Oranienbaum, I burned with impatience, waiting for a moment of privacy when I could read the letter.
I was not pleased to see Mr. Wallace on board. Why should the remainder of our visit suddenly receive his close scrutiny? In the yacht’s salon, where everybody retreated soon after we set sail, the conversation touched upon the paint bomb news, and one of the Russian guests said something to the end that in this country, one can never be sure. “Even the sweetest young girls, freshly educated at their Women’s Advanced Courses, even the tremulous daughters of nobility get all kinds of ideas in their lovely heads and become socialist-revolutionaries. Start throwing bombs at people, start shooting at people out of pistols. That is not like your suffragettes with their Mrs. Parkhurst! That, gentlemen, is far, far more disturbing!”
The café au lait–colored Austin. The thought made me jeer at myself. What a splendid joke it would be if the Urchin Princess was simply stalking us Britons on some socialist party’s order! Bombs an option. And you thought, you old goat . . . I separated from the group, came out onto the breezy deck, and opened her letter. Inside, to my disappointment and relief, was another sheet of verse:
See her hiding her face on the morrow
Under shadowy veil . . . “Why so blue?”
“ ’Cause I served him a cup full of sorrow
And I forced him to drink till he was through.
“Clenched his teeth, he. How tortured his stare was!
Stumbled out. Oh, how to forget?
I ran after him—down the stairs,
I caught up with him—down by the gate.
“Short of breath, I cried out, ‘I’m sorry!
‘I was joking! You leave me—I’ll die.’
Calm, he flashed me a smile. Calm and horrid.
Said, ‘It’s windy, you should go inside.’ ”
Mr. Veltzen, this was the poem Akhmatova read second. I am sorry if I may have seemed a little abrupt at our parting. By no means was it intentional. My fatigue was to blame. Would you like to attend a cinematograph theater tonight, to see a Russian motion picture starring our own Vera Kholodnaya? Kholodnaya means Cold. I should like to think you may find it amusing.
• • •
I reread the poem, then the postscript. Yes, she could have been crazy, or vain, or maybe she was a socialist revolutionary. Still, I felt elated. And anxious—though not because I could have been on some extremist party’s target list. No, because there was this girl, and she wooed me with poetry. This threatened my existence more than a bomb could.
Perhaps it was no coincidence that the theme of I am sorry for the way I behaved was both in a poem and in a postscript. And if so, could there be other clues? What if the Gray-Eyed King of Akhmatova the poet was the Ice King of Goretsky the translator? What if the Urchin Princess was not just translating Akhmatova into English but channeling her, in an unconscious endeavor to reenact her heroine in another—parallel—world?
Oh, forget it. The only result from all of this is that you, Velitzyn, are missing out on an important discussion that reasonable gentlemen are conducting in the salon right this very moment.
On the way to join the “reasonable gentlemen,” I ran into Mr. Wallace. “Mr. Veltzen! Found you at last. This may be of interest to you: the vice minister you are curious about has left for Moscow and is not due back until your departure. Does it tell you anything?”
Oh yes. Papa is gone on a business trip and his girl is free to do whatever she pleases.
I said, “What is he doing in Moscow?”
“I don’t know. Would you like me to find out?”
“Can you?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
• • •
It was with grateful submission that I entrusted myself to the will of waves, as Russians say, and made no attempt to leave the yacht outing or the evening reception on land that followed and that lasted till midnight. I hoped, for the sake of Elizabeth’s sanity, that the café au lait‒colored Austin would not be waiting for me by the time we returned. When it wasn’t, I was disappointed.
My visit was almost over. I hoped and feared in equal measure that she would not approach me again after her last two overtures were left unanswered. Doing nothing about it was my easiest option. I did not know where she lived. Or how to call her on the telephone, if she had one—Operator, give me Lizzy Goretsky? Goretsky the father was still in Moscow, attending some right wing nationalist party’s gathering, as Mr. Wallace imparted to me. The vice minister had left the ball in my court—I was to decide whether I would play by his rules. Beginning with the bribe. This decision was better made from the comfort of my London office.
Two days before our departure, I wrote her a letter. I often wonder what my life would be like if I didn’t. At the time it didn’t seem anything fateful, more like an exercise in self-deception. I left the letter at the front desk. “Find a way so this is received by Princess Goretsky,” I told the clerk. I paid him. I wasn’t seeking her out, I assured myself. I was just being polite; silence was no way of treating a lady. If I saw her again after this, it would be just a coincidence.
My Dear Princess Elizabeth,
I am grateful for the marvelous introduction to St. Petersburg that you have so kindly offered me. I enjoyed your company and would have sought more of it, had I not been so constrained by my present responsibilities. Lamentably, our acquaintance must be brief. I wish you all the best, and remain, hoping you will realize your literary aspirations and happy to have served you as a conversation partner in English.
Yours truly,
Alexander Veltzen
On the eve of our departure I received a response. It invited me to hop back into the café au lait‒colored Austin. Of course I did.
Our second date began as if it were our first date ever. Elizabeth was different: none of the casual chatter of the commedia night. Instead, she was on tiptoe with me. Her smile was tentative, her witticisms—nervous. I said I wanted to visit a few sights of St. Petersburg—very particular ones. Would she bear with me? She conceded. We followed the Nevsky to the magisterial Palace Square, and left the Alexandrine column on our right (the column and half the buildings were not there in my time). This is where the Ice Palace used to stand, I thought, where I was conceived. I was born here too—in the Winter Palace, which used to be smaller and older, as if it had been living its life in reverse. The square used to be just a field of grass. The imperial herd grazed on it when I was a child. When I was a teenager, I stomped on packed dirt here, marching round and round in my cadet uniform. Past the Winter Palace on the other side of the square was the Leib Company House, where I had lived in my twenties, before my company and the whole of Preobrazhensky were relocated beyond the Fontanka River, a complete wilderness back then . . .
Of course I told Elizabeth none of this. Not aloud, at any rate.
I asked for a stroll on the Admiralty Embankment. I offered her my elbow and her hand alighted on my sleeve, weightless. Below us, the Neva tossed, sleep-deprived and grumpy. Over there, in the streets behind the admiralty, in the Kirpichny Alley, was where Sawyer’s apartment had been. I told Elizabeth I wanted to say her name in the Russian manner. Would she teach me? The full name, with the title. She said, Knyazhna Goretzkaya, Elizaveta Dmitrievna. I repeated it, careful to keep the English accent. She smiled but said she did not want me to use it. Why? She didn’t like her name in Russian. It was the name of that Dostoevsky’s female character in Crime and Punishment, a poor, docile, innocent cow who gets axed by Raskolnikov because she happened to witness another murder. An epitome of passivity, victimhood. No, she hated being a Lizaveta. It dragged her down. But Elizabeth—well, that’s a different story, didn’t I think?
We walked past the Bronze Horseman and his formidable rear guard, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, a construction site in my time. There was once a bridge here; back then it was rebuilt each year over pontoons—all but devoured by the spring meltdown on the river. And now there were two bridges—one behind, one ahead of us.
We continued onto the English Embankment. This was where I used to drink ale with my friends. Andrei Junior’s last barracks—he left here for Austerlitz—were just behind the English colony. “Do you write your own poetry?” I asked.
She said yes. “Bad poetry.”
I said I enjoyed her translations and acknowledged that few people could produce anything of that sort. But I was not a man of letters. Had she thought of showing her translations to Mr. Wallace, the Times correspondent? She was acquainted with him, was she not? I could drop him a word . . .
She glanced at me with a perfunctory smile, of the kind with which an initiate meets a layman’s advice. I was already regretting I had brought poetry up when she said, “I’ve taken classes from him. In his eyes, I’d always be a bumbling pupil. And a woman. I don’t think he is fond of writing women.”
“I see. He is old-fashioned.”
“I suppose.”
I’m not like him. I’d dote on her, surround her with books to translate . . . If only I could. Doggedly, I headed across the bridge to Vasilievsky Island. Here at the Bourse—not the new one, but what used to be a warehouse behind it—Sawyer and I had closed our first ice export deal. And this—the Kunstkamera, you say?—used to be all of the Imperial Academy. On these steps I stood with Ivan Kuznetzov. Merck’s pump was in the yard out back.
We climbed back into the car and drove around the tip of Vasilievsky, then followed the bank of the Smolenka River. The Lutheran cemetery—this is where Merck was buried. If I went there, I might see Nadya’s grave too. And Druka’s and Sophichka’s graves. My dear Elizabeth the Urchin Princess, can you help me against the tide of my memory?
We turned left onto Seventeenth Lane. “You are so quiet,” Elizabeth said.
A bakery, windows still lit, the owner inside, making bread. A luminous, raspberry-red globe of an apothecary’s sign. Nearby, a dozing izvozchik, a cabbie, with his dozing pony. Merck lived just a block from here.
“Semyon, pull over,” Elizabeth commanded. She slipped out and knocked on the locked bakery door. The startled owner opened up, there was a brief negotiation, then Elizabeth went in. Here comes the socialist revolutionary party’s abduction plan, part of me mused, quite aloof. Elizabeth emerged carrying a paper bag. “I am ravenous,” she announced, once in the car. The warmth and fragrance of the baked bread entered with her. “This is a hot bublik. Fresh from the oven. Would you like some?” She pulled out a kind of a bagel, only skinnier and larger in circumference. She broke out a quarter of it and presented it to me before I opened my mouth to respond.
She didn’t even know she had just chased away a dozen ghosts with one steaming-hot piece of bread.
I’d fallen in love with her.
• • •
I asked her to take me to the end of the island, the seashore. We got out of the Austin into a stiff breeze and a rumble of surf, we saw Kronstadt’s sleepless eye scrutinize the harbor. The Austin held us in the stare of its headlamps. Bugs or splatters of sea foam darted through the cones of light. “Are you sure this is the place you wanted to see?” she said. “My shoes will get sandy!”
This was the place, and it still remained a raw beach line. I had stood here with Ivan Kuznetzov once upon a time. I went down to the very line of surf, until it almost licked my feet. I breathed. Once, twice. I breathed as if I’d never done it before. As if I only now woke up. I was the Empire de Glace and my permafrost was melting. The many layers that covered it, all the silt, humus, thatch, brickwork, masonry started to sink, lean, topple. Potholes. Avalanches. Mudslides. I whipped around. Elizabeth was halfway between me and the car, standing gingerly, as if on a small step stone. She had picked up a stick of driftwood. On its end she’d already managed to spear a band of seaweed. In her other hand she still held her piece of bublik.
“I am leaving tomorrow,” I said, throwing words out like brakes to make me stop before I ran into her.
“I know.”
Several avalanches joined into one. I fell into a widening sinkhole—onto my knees. Startled, she dropped the stick, the bublik. Maybe she wanted to help me to my feet. I caught both of her hands—the one that smelled of warm bread, and the one that smelled of sea rot. I may have wept into them, but only for a brief, brief moment. The other part of me that was still left standing was eagerly anticipating her withdrawal, fear—because no matter how I melted on the inside, the outside had to be the same old cold, all hundred and fifty years of it. She’d pull her hands away from my face, now—no, now. “I am very sorry,” I said, letting go. “I’d better go back to the hotel. I am not feeling well.” That’s right, blame it on health, the other part of me jeered.
She supported my elbow walking back to the Austin, and I prayed that the sleeve of my jacket was insulating enough. I was still cold, still miserable. A wreck. I feared that once we got in the car, she’d act like a child left alone in the presence of a sickly adult. Or she’d act motherly. I did not want her to pity me. “Are you feeling better?” she asked.
“Yes, yes.” I was so homesick. I ached for that small place of Russia between her hands—between cold sea and warm bread. That’s why I had to run—I could not have what I wanted and there was no point in torturing myself. When I saw a cabbie, after the Galernaya harbor, I made her pull over. I said she should go home, said I’d be all right. Everything was wonderful, thank you, and please accept my apology for the evening that was not as entertaining as one perhaps hoped.
She became angry with me. “Mr. Veltzen, this is quite unnecessary,” she argued even as I was climbing into the cab. “And unreasonable. I can perfectly well give you a ride! And I took a first aid course as a student!”
Angry was good. I liked it. I did not mind—remembering her this way. Because I could not have her. I was leaving and not coming back.
• • •
I loved her differently than Marie. Differently than Anna. Harder? That’s one way to put it. I loved her so that my permafrost turned into Swiss cheese; so that my glaciers slid into the sea; so that my Northwest Passage, frozen solid since time immemorial, opened up. I was like a mammoth, freeze-dried for a hundred thousand years, who now thawed, fleshed up, and managed to take his first steps. Just feeling this way should be more than enough for me, I thought, for decades to come. I did not need to see her ever again.
I was lying to myself.
Because no matter how much I praised the advantages of self-sustaining love, I kept moving pieces to get closer to her. My excuse? I was not arranging to meet her. I was still leaving it to chance, only improving the odds. I kept dealing with her father, the corrupt Germanophilic ultraconservative whom Lord Revelstoke kept advising me against.
I brushed away frustrations and setbacks. Consider an example: I wanted a foothold in Odessa, a major trade port and railroad hub, with arterials to Lemberg, Brest-Litovsk, Vilna, then Libau on the Baltic. Instead I was steered toward the lesser Sebastopol with its connections to the Russian inland. Still, I wasn’t pulling out of the game. By August 1913, I had returned to Russia to visit Crimea, where we were edging toward a deal with the local governor. The perks: a stay at the Russian Riviera, in Yalta, lavish dinners at the Hotel Russia, trips to “the Russian Alhambra,” i.e., Vorontsov’s (a lineal descendant of the Vorontsov who had brokered our expedition to the Arctic) palace in Alupka, and to Balaclava with its ancient Greek ruins and mementos of the past war with Britain.
And then a pleasant surprise: Vice Minister Goretsky invited me to stay at his villa west of Alupka. His daughter was there. This was pure chance, I reasoned, I had not orchestrated it, so I had all the rights to enjoy the opportunity. I buzzed with anticipation.
•
• •
When I saw her again, she was—once more—different. We met haphazardly, in the driveway of the villa. I was arriving, she was going out. She was accompanied by two young women and a pack of young men. She reacted to me with the briefest hello and continued on her way.
I thought another greeting would follow later, but none did. We exchanged ten words at most—always socially. She seemed absorbed in managing and manipulating her circle of male admirers (dashing naval officers and idle millionaire sons) and female accomplices (two friends she’d brought along from St. Petersburg). She appeared less sophisticated and more oblivious to the world; like every one of her youthful friends, she was tanned and vigorous, and she dressed, as they did, in white—light French dresses and sun hats. She looked, in other words, the part of a spoiled rich girl, the high bureaucrat’s daughter she had once announced herself to be.
They were doing what they were supposed to do: tennis lessons, swimming lessons, giggly sessions of bicycle riding; all that play of young skin and muscle, so infused with an invigorating smell of youthful pheromones, so full of sweet, innocent lust . . . Driving around in long, sleek, shiny American automobiles, taking trips to listen to a band in Alupka, or to watch a sunset, or for no reason at all. While I was supposed to observe these proceedings from the terrace with a club soda or from the lawn with a croquet mallet in my hand. To sit under a white parasol and read the Daily Telegraph, to discuss yet another Balkan war with the neighbors and frequent the room with a telegraph apparatus for my very important business messages.
So goddamn what? I had come here to get another eyeful of her, nothing more, had I not? I didn’t need to compete with those youngsters—I was a lost cause by definition. No, I don’t mean to say that I wasn’t jealous. Of course I was. But I used jealousy to train my love, like a new foxhound, let it sniff blood and then force it to heel until I commanded it otherwise. Watch, I would say, this is what would be happening for the first decade or two if you married her and left her dissatisfied.
The Age of Ice: A Novel Page 43
