An immediate hush takes over, all eyes turning to her.
The willowy Alexandra Feodorovna sails in like an angel dressed in a four-tiered white skirt, white lace stockings, and suede shoes. Her hair is coiled high and kept in place with silver pins. Two tear-shaped pearls the size of pigeon eggs dangle from her earlobes. She has just returned from the Feodorovsky Chapel at the end of the park, where she fell to her knees and pressed her face to the cold stones, thanking the Lord for granting her son temporary relief.
She is in good spirits, radiant, smiling. Gesturing a conspiratorial forefinger behind the door, she invites her daughters to join her. They drift in like perfumed breezes, cross the hall, and walk straight toward Darya.
At their sight, the weight pressing on Darya’s chest lightens, and she is able to draw some air into her lungs. Olga and Tatiana, the Big Pair, and Maria and Anastasia, the Little Pair, as she affectionately calls them, sail into her wide-open arms. She hugs them, drawing strength from their small bodies. Olga, the oldest, is only ten. Two years separate each sister from the other in age, but their elegant composure is breathtaking.
The Empress is observing the artists, fixing them under her stare, taking note of each face she was introduced to on the first gathering three months back. She catches sight of an unfamiliar face. “Who is this man?” she asks Darya.
“Avram Bensheimer!” Darya replies, grouping the children behind her as if to shield them from the predictable eruption.
“Bensheimer!” the Empress exclaims.
The pause is so long, the silence so complete. Darya can hear the soft inhale of breath behind her, can hear a small cough. The thought occurs to her that Anastasia might be coming down with a cold. “I invited Bensheimer back, your Majesty. May I explain?”
The smile flees from the Empress’s lips. Her tightly set face turns to stone. She breezes straight toward Darya. “No! You may not explain! Hand this man to the imperial Cossacks and meet me in the reading room.”
Darya goes to rest a trembling hand on top of the easel. Holds it there for a second.
The restive stamp of horses can be heard outside, a pale day moon sails behind a cloud. A breeze of white butterflies makes its way inside, circles the room, and then alights on Anastasia’s left shoulder.
Darya tugs at the thread that binds the cloth at the base, pulls at a knot, and unwinds it. Grabs a corner of the cloth and, with one quick motion, flips it off the easel.
The Tsarina stands motionless in front of the easel. An artery throbs at her throat. She bites her lower lip. Her lips are dry, her eyes moist.
On the same easel that three months ago displayed her son’s photograph, now stands a portrait of the Madonna and Child.
But this is not the image of the Son of God. This is her darling Alyosha. His blue-gray eyes twinkle. His full head of curls shine. His dimpled cheeks are the picture of health. He is safe in the arms of the Madonna, whose healing gaze falls on him like a benediction, her benevolent smile a balm, her caring hands resting on him like countless blessings.
The Empress lets out a sigh. Tears well in her eyes, remain suspended on her lashes. Her tentative forefinger traces the outline of the image of her son on canvas. Such artistic brilliance. Such an exceptional insight into her heart’s desire. But what is the Lord’s message to her, and why has He selected this Jewish man as His medium?
After an eternity that finds the artists scrambling for the optimal viewing position, the Empress lowers herself into the closest chair.
Darya gestures toward Avram, explains to the Empress that the portrait is his work as reparation for his insolence, explains that he extends his heartfelt regrets and profuse apologies and that a tragic event in his community kept him from the salon that day.
Avram is silent. There is not much fear in this man. There was not one tragic event, he thinks, but ongoing tragedies that are destroying entire communities, pogroms incited by the authorities, by the Tsarist secret police, by the military, even the mayor himself. His insides are a volcanic brew of resentment toward the Romanovs. But he will not jeopardize Darya’s position in the Imperial Court. He will not lose her now that she will have to keep her promise and model for him.
The Empress rises, approaches the portrait to take another close look. She brushes her cheek with an open palm. She steps back as if in the presence of a holy image.
“Darya Borisovna, deliver the painting to my private quarters. Reward Bensheimer for his efforts!” Having conveyed her wishes, she nods to her daughters to follow her, turns on her heels, and takes her leave without as much as a single glance at the work of the other artists.
Darya waits for the echo of the Empress’s steps to die, for her own heartbeat to settle.
She is unaware what a great risk Avram has taken. He presented this portrait to her Imperial Majesty, certain she would not recognize the woman who posed as the Madonna.
And he was right.
Cloistered in the Alexander Palace, the Empress failed to identify the face of the Madonna as that of White Thighs Paulina, an unknown proletariat whore.
Chapter Eighteen
Defiant, every cell in her body rebelling, Darya orders the guards to exit the hall. Now that the Empress has left, she releases the soft-footed servants from their duties, and they melt away through the numerous doors.
She will honor her promise to model for Avram. She will do it in the nude. She will do it now. Do it to spit in the face of the Ancient One who appeared again last night, naked as Eve, a flamelike tear visible under her veil on an otherwise featureless face. Before stepping into the devouring blaze, she plucked the burning tear off and tossed it at Darya, but instead of catching fire, Darya’s dress turned into an icy vise, stiff and irremovable and threatening to suffocate her. It is always something she is wearing in her dreams—a blouse, a cloak, a skirt—that the Ancient One transforms into a rigid, imprisoning curse.
Today, Darya is not dressed in her everyday fineries but in simpler attire of linen and Mechlin lace. She tosses her sandals aside, steps out of her robe, unbuttons the mother-of-pearl buttons running the length of her flounced petticoats, and drops them at her feet. One by one, she begins to release the hooks and ribbons of her corset. She hesitates, uncertain, gazes at the artists who, despite their efforts at civility, have their senses trained on her. She reaches out to Avram for encouragement.
“A screen can be brought in,” he suggests, finding himself at a loss for words. Is this woman real, he wonders, or an apparition with no sense of fear?
“I have nothing to hide,” she replies. This is not the truth. Her dreams, her opal eye, the woman she is, and the one at the beck and call of the Ancient One hold a million secrets.
Darya hands her corset to Avram.
She stands naked in the center of Portrait Hall. In full view of the artists and the painting of the Tsarevich and Madonna that will soon boast a place of honor in the Lilac Boudoir.
She comes down on the satin-covered dais and stretches out. She offers Avram an encouraging smile, although all she wants is to cover her naked body and crawl into herself.
Avram wrestles with the formidable task of reproducing on canvas the perfect curve of her breasts, the graceful hollow of her waist half-lit by the light coming from the window, the half-moon of her buttock, but most of all, the lovely translucency of her opal eye that projects her pleasure and suffering, courage, and vulnerability.
High on her scaffolding, Rosa attempts to banish the demons in her head, her hunger and desire. She glances at Darya naked as Venus, her prominent nipples luscious as chocolate, the soft flesh of her belly like burnished bronze. A lucky man, Avram Bensheimer, to have Darya as his model. What is she, Rosa, supposed to do with this spectacular block of stone when Joseph’s head is constantly hidden behind his camera or shoved deep into his photographs?
Dimitri tears the half-finished caricature in his sketchbook, crumbles and tosses the page into a basket overflowing with rejected drafts. He has faile
d to embellish and exaggerate the expression in Darya’s eyes, one sly like a slippery eel, the other obsessed and somewhat desperate, not unlike a betrayed woman. He leaves his station to pour himself tea from the samovar and adds a tumbler of vodka. He is a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and like the rest of his comrades prefers to be clear about the political affiliation of those who surround him. But the Jewish pimp is a mystery. On the one hand, he is enamored of Darya Borisovna, the imperialist bitch; on the other, he pretends to be against anything that might remotely reek of imperialism. Dropping four cubes of sugar into his tea, Dimitri stirs absentmindedly as he observes the painter and his model.
Two hours pass and Darya is becoming restless. Avram has yet to start painting. She tries to keep still as he continues to stare at her, at the canvas that faces away from her, back and forth, without lifting his brush. She does not want to disturb whatever is developing in his head, but the fire in the fireplace is like ice picks in her marrow, and she is desperate to cover herself, desperate for a cup of hot tea. “Avram, are you going to paint me or stand there and stare?”
As if startled out of a trance, he wipes his hands with a moist cloth, dips his brush in a jar of turpentine, and swishes it around. He measures her against the shaft of his brush, squeezes collapsible metal tubes of paint onto his pallet, arranging them like a rainbow. Small glistening puddles of Persian red and dragon blood, calamine blue and indigo, chrome orange and carnelian, and softer flesh tones of chrome primrose and shell pink. He dips the brush in paint and wipes the tip on a rag. His hand moves in fast, bold strokes, the brush licking the canvas like a possessed lover, transforming the stretch of canvas into a living entity, shaping her outline, her essence, capturing the distillation of this moment in her life.
The salon is in full session, the atmosphere electric. Rosa, normally respectful of even the most inferior of stones, is hacking viciously at the valuable alabaster. Dimitri is acting suspiciously, his pen scratching like a rat on dry wood planks, tearing into one sheet after another, not caring to toss the discarded paper balls in the wastebasket. Darya wonders what he is up to. She does not trust him. She attempts to think of anything and anyone other than Avram, who steps back now and then to inspect her with narrowed eyes. She thinks of the grand duchesses and the added joy they’ve brought into her life. She thinks of the Tsarevich, whether he will remain as attached to her when he grows into a young man. She thinks about her parents and how they were baffled by their daughter’s growing ability to heal wounds and small sorrows. She thinks of her country, how difficult it must be for her Tsar to deal with a nation in turmoil, the populace pleading for even more reforms and all types of rights, a nation ignorant of the divine right of her ruler. And she thinks of the hateful Father Gapon, the priest and self-appointed policeman, who incited the working class to march to St. Petersburg to implore the Tsar for change. The result was tragic. A procession of peaceful workers, holding icons, singing “God Save the Tsar,” had marched to the Winter Palace to hand a petition to the Tsar, calling for fairer wages, better working conditions, and an end to the Russo-Japanese War. The nervous army pickets near the palace fired directly into the crowd of more than three hundred thousand. Many were killed. The blame fell on the Tsar, who was not in the capital at the time.
“Avram, I want to see your work,” she says, at last.
“Not yet. Do you need something? Are you comfortable?” His entire attention is aimed at the canvas, the smell of turpentine burning his eyes.
Two birds of paradise land on the window ledge and embark on a courting ritual. The male struts in a costume worthy of a Tsar—shiny black plumes, pale pink flanks, springy crown feathers, and velvety neck wattle. The skeptical female scrutinizes his flapping wings, fluttering whiskers, and flashing chest. At last, the quivering female bird lets out an inviting, guttural trill. The male leaps on top of her and they fuse into a feathered fuss.
Darya grabs the satin sheet and wraps it around her, pulls herself into a sitting position, slinging her legs down the podium. To Avram’s great horror, and before he is able to protest, she has come around to face the canvas.
She forgets about her nakedness, about the sound of Rosa’s chisel overhead, the clicking of Joseph’s camera at the window, Igor’s music of Wagner echoing all around, the scratching of Dimitri’s pen behind, and the passionate trills of birds of paradise on the window ledge.
This is more than art. This is magic.
Avram has given birth to the dark mystery between her thighs, the graceful indentation of her waist, her slim neck that slants toward voluptuous shoulders. Her mystical, eyes, the opal that flames in the outline of her face the shade of walnut husks. She does not recognize the hunger and sadness in her eyes, the scar on her forehead that is a duplicate of his.
“Why did you do that?” she whispers, indicating the painted scar.
“I’m branding you as my own.”
In the future, when she is an old woman with a youthful face, wandering in her crumbling Entertainment Palace with her greedy rats, in the garden with the ravenous civets plucking coffee cherries from bushes, when she bathes in her banya while Little Servant attends to her every need, she will recall this as the moment she fell in love.
Now, Avram so close, nothing else matters, save her longing. She reaches out to him. She will take him by the hand and lead him out of the Portrait Hall, across marble and parquet and gilded woodwork, across the semicircular entrance hall with its trompe l’oeil ceiling, and into the park alive with the warble of aroused birds of paradise.
He inclines his head slightly toward the faint scent of ambergris emanating from her necklace and, conscious of all eyes pinned on them, whispers, “Later, Darya, later.”
This is all he says, but it is enough to startle her senses back.
She will not tempt fate. Not now. Not yet.
Chapter Nineteen
Wrestling with her emotions, fear, and excitement, but most of all desire, Darya leads Avram across the bridge that spans the length of the artificial lake dotted with baroque follies, where swans intertwine with beaks buried in downy feathers.
Three months passed before she gathered her courage to approach him at his easel, when the others were engaged in the dining hall. They planned to meet in the evening, when the park is quiet, when the greater birds of paradise, tired from their flirtatious strutting, fluttering, and quivering, are snoozing on the branches.
Now, she leads him deep within the park, past fountains and fancy chinoiserie, and across the bridge toward a private island, where they will be safe. She tightens her shawl against the morning chill as she instructs him how to haul the bridge for privacy.
He is fast, efficient, his muscles straining as he follows her directions, unlocking the metal components, jaws, tongues, shifting, raising, and lowering the heavy locks that click into place with well-oiled precision.
They continue deep into the island, past a pillar in the center that commemorates a naval victory, and toward rows of massive urns leading to two yellow wooden pavilions: the banya erected by Catherine II for her beloved grandson.
Avram steps closer and murmurs into her hair. “You are delicious, my queen, and I’m addicted to your scent. Where are you taking me?”
Her voice shaking a little, she says, “To the banya, Avram.”
He holds up a finger to warn her of the many dangers in store for her. The palace has eyes and ears. It is a den of informants. Spies might be lurking behind bushes and trees. The Tsar and Tsarina will not be pleased to discover that their admired Darya Borisovna is sneaking out with a Jew. He withdraws his warning. He wants her too, wants her badly.
They are unaware that, wet and shivering from his swim across the lake, Count Trebla, the court veterinarian, is trailing them in the shadows, skipping behind one tree, then another, a feral growl rumbling in his throat. He has been following Darya, her coming and going, certain he would catch her red-handed. And he has. Hand in hand with Bensheimer, no
less, with his artistic nonsense and pompous ways, as if he carries royal blood in his veins. How dare she reject him, a count, an aristocrat, a descendant from a long line of noblemen who were all counts. He ducks behind a bush to avoid detection, scuttles to crouch behind the arbor surrounding the banya, nudges some branches back, and settles on his haunches to observe the two.
They enter the jasper and rock crystal Agate Pavilion, where eucalyptus-scented steam wafts off a sinking pool. Darya releases her gossamer shawl, and it drifts in the air, dazzling, diaphanous, light as butterfly wings. She steps out of layers of silk chiffon that fall to the floor with a peal of beads, tosses her pearl-studded suede shoes aside, and shakes her dark mane loose around her shoulders. Moonlight peeps through an arbor dotted with dahlias and zinnias, dappling her naked breasts, voluptuous buttocks, small waist. She plunges into the scented pool, her laughter pealing around the banya. Her stomach is tight with longing for Avram’s feline suppleness as he peels off his paint-splotched pants, his aroused penis so unexpectedly beautiful.
He dives into the sunken pool, steam licking the sun-touched demarcation at his neck.
She presses her palms on his eyes, slides her tongue across his neck, a hum of pleasure in his throat, his breath in her hair.
He swims around her, his thighs brushing her buttocks, hands stroking her belly as if with a paintbrush. He takes her nipples in his mouth, one then the other, to experience their different tastes. “I’ll take you to Vienna one day. We’ll dine at Tomaselli, Mozart’s favorite café. I’ll show you the Vienna Court Opera. We’ll see the manuscript of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the greatest piece of music ever composed. I’ll teach you to swim in the Danube.”
“I’ll show you the gilded statues of the Imperial Palace in Peterhof,” she whispers back, their breath mingling with eucalyptus steam. “In August, when the blue ageratum is in full bloom, we’ll climb the azure-winged dragons and bathe under their water-spewing mouths. We’ll play chess on the giant outdoor checkerboard and pretend that Peter the Great is looking over us.”
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