Golden Paradise

by Susan Johnson

  But only minutes after the roars of victory rose into the chill air, the shouting triumph died away and a still and utter quiet fell over the Russian army. Rumor spread like wildfire through the ranks, the awful news greeted everywhere with breath-stopping despair. The White General, the Field Marshal's ad­mirable son, the Tsar's favorite young general was dead. After the barricades into the city had been breached by his single-handed effort, he'd been slaughtered in an assault of superior numbers, his faithful Kurds fighting with him to the death. Before he could claim victory for having defeated the Sultan's army of the east, he'd fallen.

  At first they couldn't believe it. The Prince was never even wounded in battle. It wasn't true, and soon he'd appear to dis­count the dreadful rumors. But then the fires broke out, set off perhaps by the artillery fire, and when the munitions' dump ignited, half the western escarpment exploded into the sky. The winds picked up the red-hot ashes and the citadel was aflame in less than an hour.

  When the blazing inferno was under some control a day later, the awful truth was finally accepted. Prince Bariatinsky must be dead. He might have survived the battle, but no one could have survived the explosion and the apocalyptic fire.

  The Empire had paid a grievous price for its victory over the Turks. Many said it was too great; Kars wasn't worth Prince Bariatinsky's life. The Tsar was said to have cried when news of Stefan's death was telegraphed to Saint Petersburg. He shut himself away for half a day, not allowing even his dearest Catherine to breach his solitude, and when he emerged, his courtiers thought he'd aged ten years.

  An hour later the church bells began their sorrowful dirge, from Saint Petersburg to Baku, from Odessa to the emptiness of the Siberian tundra. Throughout the Empire of the Tsar, Stefan Bariatinsky's death was mourned.

  Lisaveta went pale when she heard the mourning bells begin to ring, their pealing measured dirge carried on the twilight air up from the valley below, from the thirty-odd churches and bell towers, like a personal message of disaster. Without reason or thought, without need for clarification—for Stefan himself had sensed what lay ahead—she knew… before the Viceroy came. She knew for whom the bells tolled, as though their mournful clamor were directed toward the white marble palace over­looking Tiflis. He's dead…clang, clang, they rang. The Prince is dead…clang, clang. The Prince is dead and dead and dead, clang, clang.

  Later in the formal drawing room, Militza sat beside Lisa­veta and held her hand as the Viceroy told them what he knew of Stefan's death. The details were still sketchy but Kars had been taken, thanks to Stefan's rallying charge. The citadel was aflame in areas so his body had not yet been recovered, but eyewitnesses had seen him and the last of his Kurdish warriors overrun by a Bazhi attack. Militza asked the necessary ques­tions because Lisaveta found it difficult to respond graciously to a man Stefan had despised.

  "Thank you, Prince Melikoff," Militza said at last with a cool dignity that rose to Melikoff's sad and awkward mission, "for bringing us what news you have."

  "The archbishop is planning a memorial service tomorrow if you ladies feel able to attend," he mentioned on rising to leave.

  "Thank you, we shall," Stefan's aunt replied. "Stefan is a hero to this city."

  "To the Empire," the Viceroy added, his manners impec­cable.

  Lisaveta could no longer conceal her despair. She sobbed openly, fresh tears streaming down her face.

  "If you'll excuse us," Militza softly said.

  That night Lisaveta slept on Stefan's bed surrounded and atop Stefan's clothes, which she'd carried from his wardrobe. She'd taken scores of his garments and piled them on his bed. His scent lingered in the linen and silk and fine wools, and she'd curled into a pitiable cocoon of misery, snuggling deep into the familiar fragrance of the materials as an injured animal bur­rows deep into its den to nurse its wounds.

  She'd understood on a rational level that men died in battle; she'd even dealt with the fearful possibility of Stefan's death in battle since he'd gone. Or she'd thought she had. She'd known he was celebrated for his daring and bravado, that he wore his white Chevalier Gardes uniform as a taunt to his enemy, as a badge of his own courage… and he'd run the risk for years.

  But until this awful moment she hadn't understood the bot­tomless depths of despair; she hadn't realized it would hurt to breathe, that every second of the day or night she would think, I'll never see him again, never touch him again or laugh when he laughs or know someday he'll come walking through the door again.

  And he never would now.

  She was so empty inside that she felt as if her own spirit and soul had departed, too. Thoughts of heaven or paradise or God's mercy didn't help or offer any solace because no philos­ophy, no matter how benevolent, could ever replace Stefan in her life.

  Militza did her best to comfort her through the long hours of the night. Her first husband had died in wartime and she understood the desperation of Lisaveta's loss, but she knew too that the time for condolence was later. The grieving came first, the inexorable anguish and pain and tears.

  Her own sense of loss was sacrificed for some future time when she could mourn her beloved nephew away from Lise. Stefan's wife needed her strength and comfort now, not her tears. Thank all the angels in heaven that Lisaveta would have Stefan's child to love, Militza thought, although in her present stricken state of hopelessness she was too distrait to find so­lace in that fact.

  "I want to die, too," Lisaveta murmured, lying in Stefan's bed, too pale and quiet, her voice detached somehow as though she'd partially left the world already.

  "No," Militza said simply, offering no argument or banal commonplace. "I won't let you," she finished, her dark Orbeliani eyes fierce with determination. Stefan had left his wife and child in her trust and she wouldn't fail him. "Your baby needs you," she gently added.

  "I can't even feel the baby," Lisaveta whispered. She was now certain there would be one, but despair overwhelmed her. "Maybe it died, too."

  "Nonsense," Militza replied, her voice soothing despite her emphatic denial. "It's too early to feel the baby… Stefan's baby," she added, taking Lise's ashen face tenderly between her hands. "Stefan's baby," she whispered, willing herself not to cry. "The baby he wanted so much…. Do you know what he ordered before he left for Kars?" Militza began talking then of the plans Stefan had made for the baby. He'd ordered toys in Saint Petersburg, given carte blanche to Madame Drouet for a layette, left instructions for the estate carpenters to add a rocking horse to the nursery like the one he'd had as a child. The Tsar's physician had been retained for the months before Lisaveta's delivery and would be arriving in Tiflis soon after the new year. He'd even said he wanted a grove of cypress planted when the baby was born to commemorate its birth.

  Her words seemed to rouse Lisaveta from her lethargy so she continued speaking, telling her of Stefan's childhood, of his first words and toddling steps, of his favorite puppy and pony, how he'd learned to ride almost before he'd learned to walk. She spoke of the way he thrived on competition and soon could outride, outfight, outswim and outrun all the other young warriors. She described Stefan's love for Tiflis and the popu­lation's adoration of their Prince. He conversed with everyone when he went down into the city, Militza said, stopping in the cafes or talking to the people in the street. There were times his strolls took on the look of a parade. She depicted Stefan at length in all the varied facets of his life because her conversa­tion kept Lisaveta from drifting away, because each word she uttered seemed to bring her back from the void of her wretchedness, because each memory and reminiscence of Ste­fan made him more alive and less dead, and the images could be added to Lisaveta's own loving memories of her husband.

  "He was a generous warmhearted man," she quietly fin­ished, pleased to see some color back in Lisaveta's cheeks. "And he loved you very much."

  "This baby will be part of Stefan, with his beautiful eyes, perhaps, or his smile," Lisaveta murmured, Stefan's presence so real for a moment that she drew in a brea
th of surprise. "Was he always tall?"

  "He was tall in a country of tall men," Militza replied with a smile, rejoicing in Lisaveta's first sign of interest, her first words implying a future.

  "We'll teach the baby how to ride young like Stefan." Her golden eyes had taken on life.

  "Or her," Militza softly suggested.

  "Or her," Lisaveta echoed, her voice warm with feeling. "It's up to us to see to Stefan's wishes, isn't it?" she went on, more animated, some of the old resourcefulness Stefan had admired prominent in her tone. And sitting up slowly, she brushed her heavy chestnut hair away from her face. She smiled, a small rueful upturning of her mouth. "He wouldn't have tolerated all my self-pity, would he?"

  Militza smiled back. "Not for long," she quietly replied. "Stefan believed in taking charge of one's life."

  "He did, didn't he?" Her pallor had been replaced by a rosy glow of health and her expression was wryly musing.

  "Sometimes with a vengeance," Militza said with a wide smile.

  "In that case," Lisaveta said, lifting up one of Stefan's shirts and beginning to fold it away, "I mustn't let him down."

  How resilient youth is, Militza thought, seeing the ashen wraith of moments ago restored to a healthy bloom. And how valiant and brave, she mused, gazing at the beautiful young woman who'd brought such happiness to her nephew. "Stefan would be proud of you, my dear," she said softly.

  The rumors started almost immediately after his death be­cause the bodies of Stefan and his Kurdish bodyguard had never been found. The logical explanation took into account the fire that swept through the citadel after the battle, a fire that had spread so fast and burnt so high the night sky had been lighted up for a hundred miles. Half the dead bodies and un­fortunate wounded were cremated where they lay. The screams of the dying had been more horrible than the bloody hours of battle. The night sky, survivors said, echoed with their shriek­ing agony, like a scene from hell.

  The added and awful tragedy cast a pall over the glorious victory.

  But it was the apocalyptic nature of the fire that fueled the first stories of Stefan's rise from the dead.

  The mystic tendencies of the peasant mentality and the reli­gious imagery of the common soldier deified in a pagan myth­ical hopefulness the best and favorite of their leaders. Stefan had always possessed a personal bond with his army; he had fought at their side, ate, slept and suffered with his soldiers, understood their fears, shared their triumphs and the intima­cies of their lives. They would not relinquish his memory and refused to concede his death. The White General, the Prince, the Savior of Mirum had never been defeated. Even Kars, the citadel of citadels, had fallen before his courage. He couldn't be dead, no more than he could be defeated.

  He'd become a pilgrim, they said, like the pious and gentle Alexander I, wandering the countryside and steppes and for­ests, searching for peace, seeking solace in the solitude of vast Mother Russia. To touch him was good fortune; to see him even from afar was acknowledgement from God that a better life lay ahead… a life without suffering and pain, a life of se­renity and peace.

  Nikki heard the rumors very early, no more than two weeks after the battle. He accepted them as natural for a country un­able to come to terms with Stefan's death. The loss of Russia's favorite general had struck the Empire to the core; there was no one to replace Stefan in temperament and charisma, in com­petence or ability.

  Another two weeks passed but the rumors of Stefan's resur­rection persisted; they were, in fact, augmented daily by addi­tional reports and new tales. Nikki considered himself a pragmatic man, so he ignored the stories at first when he heard them at the club or in the military offices, and he'd patiently listen to the latest hearsay with a tolerant courtesy. Then one day Haci's name was mentioned in the most current report of Stefan's reappearance. Stefan was in the mountains, rumor had it, nursing his aide back to health. Details were included this time by a villager who had supposedly talked to him.

  Nikki went home and set his valet to packing.

  And then he went in search of his wife to explain his im­practical journey.

  Alisa was in the nursery, rocking baby Georgi. When her husband declared his intention in an erratic presentation at the same time hopeful and hopeless, she gazed at him over the head of their youngest child sleeping in her arms and said, "Could it even remotely be true?" Her thoughts were on Lisaveta.

  "Realistically, no one could survive the fire," he replied with a small sigh. Nikki had spoken with many of the survivors and he wasn't optimistic about "even remotely." Bodies had been charred to ashes in the flaming inferno. The fact Stefan's body hadn't been recovered wasn't an isolated incident. Thousands of men had disappeared into ashes. "I don't know what to say—" he shrugged, his expression grave "—that won't sound pessimistic…"

  "Yet you're going," his wife softly declared. "Why?"

  "To set my conscience at ease, I suppose. And for Stefan," Nikki slowly said. "Because I'd want him to look for me, too, even if it was a chance in a million."

  Nikki arrived in Tiflis four days later. He spoke to Militza first for he wasn't certain how Lisaveta was dealing with Ste­fan's death. If she wasn't emotionally stable, he didn't wish to inform her of his mission. He felt compelled to follow the ru­mors however unprosperous their substance, however fruitless his search, because his friendship with Stefan demanded it. But something in him did insist on hope. What he hadn't men­tioned to Alisa, for it seemed too tenuous even to himself, were his own feelings about Stefan's extraordinary will to survive. In fact, over the years they'd been friends, he'd often wondered if Stefan recognized the finality of death or whether he'd do battle with the grim reaper, too, when his time came. And since his body had never been identified—although in the charred remains of so many tragic souls, his could have been as unrec­ognizable as any other—Nikki retained the minutest, unsub­stantial, inexplicable hope Stefan might have lived.

  With all his heart and every dim, obscure mystical interpre­tation of his spirit, he wished the rumors true.

  A month had passed since the fall of Kars, slightly longer still since Nikki had seen Lisaveta on her wedding day, and she looked altered walking into the morning room, paler, more delicate, her luminous eyes strangely otherworldly and under­scored with dark and melancholy shadows.

  "You must eat," he said immediately, rising to greet her.

  She smiled. "I am, Nikki, for Stefan's child."

  "You're too pale." He took her hands in his and gazed at her in the judgmental familiar way of family. Was she too slen­der? Her hands perhaps too cool? Did the cranberry shade of her gown accent the whiteness of her skin? She wasn't wearing black, he noted, but knowing her own strength of character and Stefan's superstitious dislike of mourning attire, he wasn't surprised.

  "Well, I'll contrive to get out more," she replied politely, aware his concern was motivated by affection and not inclined to argue with him. But in truth, she rarely went out anymore. "You look fit," she declared, intent on transferring the sub­ject away from herself.

  Nikki was tanned and lean, dressed in chamois hunting clothes. "Thank you. Come, sit. Militza must see you go out more," he added with a significant look at Stefan's aunt. "She tells me you're strong enough to hear what I have to say." He was abrupt but pressed by an internal urgency, his thoughts absorbed by his quest. He found he didn't have patience for socializing.

  Lisaveta didn't answer immediately, her gaze having swiftly shifted over to Militza, who was seated on an embroidered set­tee near the sunny windows.

  Nikki in turn surveyed Lisaveta for a troubled moment, wondering if he'd be mistaken offering her such slender hope. She was far from robust, her appearance causing him some concern.

  Nikki hadn't traveled this distance without some purpose, Lisaveta realized, and for a wishful moment she overlooked the ominous quality of the term "strong enough" and dared to hope. As swiftly, more prudent reflection intervened and she calmed herself, knowing nothing he could say co
uld hurt her beyond the pain she'd already endured. "Don't look so dread­fully worried, Nikki," she declared placidly, "I'm quite healthy."

  As she seated herself in a graceful flow of cranberry wool, Nikki pulled up a chair opposite and, sitting down, debated briefly how best to begin. "You've heard the rumors," he de­cided would be suitable preface. His identical golden eyes held hers in a steady gaze. "About Stefan," he added, because her expression was so emotionless he wasn't sure she understood.

  "Only recently," she answered after a short silence.

  As Nikki's brows drew together slightly in puzzlement, Mil­itza, seated off to one side, beyond Lisaveta's direct line of vi­sion, indicated to Nikki with a finger to her lips that she'd withheld the information.

  "Yesterday, in fact," Lisaveta went on, noting the direction of Nikki's glance, aware suddenly why she hadn't heard sooner. Her face seemed to light with an instant excitement. "Is it pos­sible—"

  "The stories are most likely the apocryphal kind that fol­lowed, the death of Alexander I fifty years ago," Nikki inter­rupted, not wishing to raise false hopes. "In fact, I'm sure they're equally fanciful, but—"

  This time Lisaveta interrupted. "Take me with you." Her statement was unequivocal, touched with an intensity that seemed to vibrate across the small distance separating them. She didn't ask for further clarification or detail. She'd under­stood immediately why Nikki was in Tiflis and intended in­cluding herself in his search.

  Nikki shook his head. "It's too dangerous. The fighting is still sporadic around Kars and Erzurum. Although treaty ne­gotiations have begun, no truce has been called yet. I can't ex­pose you to that danger."