I stood watching my mother dress, putting on her pink and white lace corset and looking at her reflection in the high triple mirror while Niuta and Elizaveta tied the corset tightly around her waist. The dressing room was full of the scent of verbena, mixed with the perfume of the rose petals that floated in mama’s bath water. The tables and chairs in the large, open room were draped with silk stockings, filmy net petticoats, dozens of pairs of slippers for mama’s rather large feet, and four gowns from the fashionable couturier Lamanov.
“Which gown will you have, Your Highness?” Shoura, mama’s pretty, auburn-haired second dresser, held up a lavender silk gown with a bodice of purple velvet and full sleeves. “This one suits you very well.”
Mama took the gown and held it up against herself, twisting this way and that so that the skirt swung from side to side.
“Mama—” I said again.
“In a minute, Tania.”
Dropping the lavender gown, which fell to the floor in a heap, she pointed to a pale yellow gown draped over a satin-lined basket. Niuta lifted the delicate creation and brought it to her. Once again mama held the gown up against herself and scrutinized the effect in the triple mirror.
“I never could wear yellow,” she muttered. “Only brunettes can wear yellow. Lamanov was wrong.”
“Your Highness is beautiful in gowns of all colors,” said Elizaveta, youngest of the dressers and the one who fumbled the most with buttons and hooks and ribbon ties.
“Nonsense,” said mama brusquely. “Bring me the mauve.”
Mauve was mama’s favorite color and I was not surprised when she chose to wear the mauve gown, with its girlish white lace trim and its chaste high neck. The three dressers set about fastening mama into the beautifully made bodice and skirt.
“I know what they’re all going to say when they see me in this. Oh yes, I know. I can just hear them all, that domineering Minnie, and fat old Miechen, and Xenia—oh yes! Xenia has her spiteful side!—and all the others.
“Stuffy Englishwoman! That’s what they call me. Stiff, prissy Englishwoman!”
She took a cigarette from an ivory box on a nearby table and Elizaveta lit it for her. The stink of tobacco replaced the perfume of verbena and roses.
“Mama, I really need my own room. Olga asked papa for her own room, so can I please have my own too?”
“Tania, you can see that I am trying to get ready for my reception. I have never before given a reception of my own, Minnie has never allowed it, and this is very important. Everyone is invited, not only the family but all the people who count. All those snobs who go to the ballet every Sunday and to the theater every Saturday and dine out at the Bear and that den of vice that calls itself a Cuban restaurant.”
“But mama, it will only take a minute for you to say yes or no.”
“Not now. Right now I have other things on my mind.”
Niuta brought a pair of mauve satin slippers and held them out to mama.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Niuta, I can’t bear satin shoes! They worry me too much! Bring the suede ones, the comfortable ones.
“There, that’s better,” she said as she sat down and slipped on the scuffed shoes. “Now they can say, ‘There goes the stuffy Englishwoman with the frumpy shoes!’ ”
I had to laugh at that, and even Shoura and Niuta smiled. Elizaveta had begun dressing mama’s hair and mama was smoking her second cigarette when one of her ladies came in.
“Your Highness, Dr. Korovin is asking for you in the nursery. The tsarevich is ill again.”
With a swiftness that startled me Mama jumped from her chair and hurried out into the corridor and down the stairs and along the hallways that led to my brother’s nursery. I ran after her. She limped on her sore leg but half-walked, half-ran very quickly despite her limp.
We could hear Alexei screaming far down the corridor. His screams when in pain were heart-wrenching: loud, piteous cries that went on and on for hours, until he lost his voice and could only utter hoarse sobs. Judging from the sound, he hadn’t been in pain very long. Mama rushed into the nursery and stood beside Alexei’s small bed, murmuring to him and feeling his pale forehead with her hand. I stood beside her, wishing there was something—anything—I could do.
“Tell me what happened,” she said to the flustered, frightened Dr. Korovin.
“There was nothing. He did not fall or injure himself. It was very sudden. He just yelled ‘my back!’ and then began crying, then screaming.”
Papa, looking very distracted, came in and stood beside us, watching the screaming Alexei, whose pain was so great that he took no notice of us and drew no comfort from our presence.
“For God’s sake, is there nothing you can do?” papa shouted to Dr. Korovin over the bedlam.
“I can summon my colleagues from Petersburg, as I did last time, but they would have nothing new to suggest. Nothing has any effect, not hot packs or cold packs, not mustard plasters or leeches. I regret to have to tell you this, Your Imperial Highness, but medical science can do nothing for your son.”
As the doctor spoke, Alexei’s screams seemed to become louder and more urgent and mama’s face got very red.
“Get out!” she shouted to Dr. Korovin. “If you can do nothing, then leave the room this instant!”
With a disparaging glance at mama, the physician bowed and walked out of the room, his two assistants following him, leaving only the medical orderly behind.
Papa put his hands over his ears and turned aside, away from Alexei and his pitiful cries.
Mama grasped papa’s arm. “What about that healer from Pokrovsky, the one who sent you the icon of St. Simon Verkhoturie?” She practically had to shout to make papa hear her.
He turned toward her, bemused. “We know nothing of him.”
“They say he can bewitch the blood.”
“What’s that?” I asked, but no one heard me.
Mama continued to tug on papa’s arm until he cried out in exasperation.
“Oh, very well, send for him! Send for whomever you like! I’m going to my study.” He wrenched his arm away from mama’s strong grip and walked swiftly out of the room.
Mama beckoned to Sedynov, who stood nearby, and told him to fetch the Siberian and gave him the man’s address.
“How is it that you know where to find this man, mama?”
“He left his card, when he brought papa the icon.”
“But you have no card now, at this moment.”
“I remembered the address. I thought we might need this man’s help one day. After all, his icon saved papa’s life.”
Sedynov went out and then returned almost at once, a look of astonishment on his ruddy, wrinkled face.
“Your Highness,” he said, “the man is already here, in the palace. He is on his way to you now.”
A murmur passed through the room. I heard whispers of “How did he know to come here?” “What is he doing here?” “Who is this man?”
Suddenly I felt a change in the room. A ripple of calm, a sweetness. I cannot describe it otherwise. Everyone felt it. The servants stopped talking and fussing around Alexei’s crib. Mama stopped her eternal fidgeting and became quite still. The medical orderly who never left Alexei’s side, and who was a very religious man, dropped to his knees and bowed his head. And Alexei, who had been screaming without interruption, whimpered and sobbed a little, and then was still also.
There came into the room a most extraordinary man. He was dressed like a peasant, in a long black coat, shiny from much wear. His hair was long and unkempt, greying at the temples, and his beard was in need of combing. He wore no adornment save a large copper cross on a leather thong around his neck. But his face was unlike any other I have ever seen. It seemed lit from within, radiant with a faint glow. I could not take my eyes from his face. His eyes, a soft grey color, sparkled with life and with an almost palpable force.
He brought something into the room with him, something for which none of us had a name.
Something that drew us and held us in its warm, benign embrace.
“No sorrow!” he said as he came in, lifting his hand in benediction. “All sorrow forgotten! Only the joy of the day!”
He went to Alexei’s crib and stood over it, smiling and shaking his head.
“No more, no more,” he said softly, fingering the simple copper cross he wore around his neck, looking down into Alexei’s tear-stained face.
Alexei blinked rapidly, then stretched out one small hand toward the stranger, who grasped it and said, in old-fashioned language, “Be thou whole, little wayfarer!” And he began humming to himself. After a moment Alexei, soothed by the sound, slowly closed his eyes and went to sleep.
“Tomorrow he will be whole again.”
Mama broke the stillness in the room by saying to the stranger, “How can we thank you?”
“By being good to one another. By loving one another.”
“How did you know to come here today?”
He shook his head. “I try to go where I am needed. Where I am led.”
“You are the starets, the holy man, are you not? The one that sent my husband the icon of St. Simon?”
He nodded. “My name is Novy. In my village I am called God’s rascal. The naughty one. Rasputin.” His face changed. He looked distracted. “You have a pain in your leg,” he said to mama, using the old-fashioned “thee” and “thy.”
She nodded.
“Sit,” the stranger commanded.
Mama sat down on the sofa.
He stood before her, and once again I felt the curious sensation of a change in the room. I said to myself, he is summoning his powers.
“Be thou whole, wayfarer!” he said to mama, who clutched her trembling leg. Then, humming to himself, the stranger turned and walked out of the room, ignoring the hands that reached out to touch him as he passed.
The next day, as the stranger who called himself Novy predicted, Alexei’s pain was gone though he was not cured of the bleeding disease. Mama, on the other hand, still had her sore leg and was in a bad temper. The reception she had held the night before, which she had arranged with such care, and to which she had invited all her in-laws and much of Petersburg society, was a spectacular failure.
No one attended. When the hour came for the reception to begin, Mama stood in her beautiful mauve gown at the center of the grand salon, the room decorated with flowers sent all the way from the Riviera, the tables laden with delicacies and wines, punch and cakes. Dozens of white-gloved valets in spotless livery stood waiting to serve the hundreds of expected guests. The orchestra played. The tall ornate doors of the salon stood open. But not a single person came through them.
Ten minutes passed, then twenty. After half an hour mama, her face and hands beet red, her mouth set in a grim line, held out her arm to the nearest valet and was escorted out of the room.
It was Aunt Xenia who told mama why no one had come to her reception. Grandma Minnie had held a reception of her own at the very same hour and had insisted that the entire court attend. And because mama was disliked, and Grandma Minnie was feared, everyone had obeyed her.
I felt very sad for mama, watching from my perch high up on the balcony on the day of her reception, hidden from view. I imagined how angry she must be—and yet, at the same time, how happy she must feel about Alexei and his encounter with the remarkable Siberian healer. What was one failed reception when compared to the hope that my brother might not have to suffer any more, the hope that he might survive?
Eight
There was a violent thunderstorm on the night the entire family gathered in the malachite banqueting hall to dine and watch The Pride of Messina, KR’s new play. KR was my father’s cousin, Grand Duke Constantine, but no one ever called him anything but KR, not even Olga and I. As a mark of honor KR was seated to my father’s right at the head of the long banqueting table, and he preened and gloated throughout the dinner, lifting his glass again and again to offer toasts, telling jokes, talking loudly to papa and winking and flirting with the women and girls, especially my sister Olga, who was just then being considered as a bride for the Crown Prince of Romania and was feeling very grown-up and special, though she was only fourteen years old.
Thunder rumbled like cannonfire and rain beat against the tall windows as course after course of tantalizing entrees was brought in: shrimp bisque and Cassolettes Pompadour, Loire trout braised in sauternes, lamb fillet and roast bartavels and ortolans garnished with truffles. Each course had its own wines, and the longer the dining went on, and the more wine was drunk, the louder and more expansive the family became.
There must have been at least twenty of us around the table that night, if memory serves, papa and KR and Olga, Marie and I (mama was not present, she hated dining with Grandma Minnie and held a grudge against her for causing the failure of her grand reception) but not Anastasia or Alexei, they were too young, Grandma Minnie presiding at the far end of the table, Uncle Vladimir and Auntie Miechen, Aunt Xenia and Uncle Sandro, and old Uncle Bembo, looking sour because he disliked KR’s fanciful plays and thought them unworthy of a Romanov.
Aunt Olenka was there—she had a role in KR’s play and did not stay through dessert, having to go and put on her costume and makeup—along with her husband Petya, who everyone said in hushed tones was no husband to her and who ate very daintily and picked at his food.
Aunt Olenka could be very jolly when she chose to be, she was my favorite aunt though I loved Aunt Ella very much too for her kindness and goodness. Aunt Olenka was my father’s youngest sister and unlike his other sister Xenia, Olenka was quite plain, with buck teeth and large ears that stood out from her head and a somewhat ratlike face. She was a large, rather shapeless woman with an impish smile and a taste for elegant, costly clothes, especially furs. No one in the family had furs like Aunt Olenka’s, not even Grandma Minnie. Mama said it was wicked to spend so much money on furs when so many in Petersburg were poor and cold all winter long, but she never said it was wicked to spend money on diamonds (which, after all, cost much more than furs) and she herself had a ring with an enormous pink diamond that Niuta said must have cost a king’s ransom.
As a rule Olenka spoke up a lot at family dinners and laughed a lot too, but on this night she was unusually quiet, probably because only a few days earlier she had suffered a great shock and had a lucky escape from death. She was riding with Petya in their brand new automobile. At that time automobiles were a rarity in Petersburg, only a few very rich people had them. My father was suspicious of mechanical things and still drove a carriage and I heard him say to mama more than once that automobiles were just a dangerous fad and would soon pass and everyone would go back to using only horses.
But Aunt Olenka and Petya always had to have the newest and latest thing and Petya boasted that his automobile went at the unheard-of speed of thirty versts an hour. However, Petya was a poor driver—so Grandma Minnie told everyone—and the roads were very poor in those days as well, muddy and rutted and full of deep holes, so it may be that the accident wasn’t really Petya’s fault. At any rate, the car was speeding down a narrow road through the forest and it smashed into a tree.
Everyone at the banquet table that night knew about the accident, but no one was talking about it. Instead they were just staring rudely at Olenka and Petya while talking of other things. Meanwhile the thunder was pounding and roaring and the rain continued to lash against the windows, and once or twice I saw Grandma Minnie wince when a loud crack was heard overhead followed by a furious burst of rain.
Presently Aunt Xenia spoke up, teasing my sister.
“Tell us, Olga, when is the Romanian crown prince coming to visit us?”
Olga blushed.
“I hear he is eager to get married—very eager—and that he has his eye on a certain Russian grand duchess.” Laughter followed this remark.
“Well,” said Olga, putting down her fork, aware that all eyes were on her, “I believe it is time he got married. He is twenty-four.
Or is it twenty-five?”
“Nothing is concluded yet,” papa said. “There is plenty of time to consider what is best—not only for Olga but for all my children.”
“Is he handsome, Olga, this crown prince of yours?”
“I have heard that he is.”
“Hah! Then he won’t take her. Her forehead is too high,” said Grandma Minnie. “And she is too much of a know-it-all.” In fact Olga was very good at her lessons, very clever. Monsieur Gilliard was pleased with her.
“I am very proud of Olga’s intelligence and good sense,” papa said, smiling at Olga. “You know that, mother.”
“But Tatiana is prettier,” put in KR. “Just like the ingénue in my play. A true Russian rose, a Red Maid. Why, in the second act of The Bride of Messina—”
“We don’t want to hear about it!” Uncle Bembo snapped. “It’s bad enough we have to sit through the damnable play!”
“Olga!” Auntie Miechen suddenly cried, “throw your slipper!”
It was a traditional game played by peasant girls. They threw their slippers over one shoulder, and then looked to see what letter the fallen slippers formed. That letter was thought to be the initial of their future husband’s Christian name.
Olga looked over at papa, who shrugged as if to say, do it if you like, it doesn’t matter to me.
What happened next happened so quickly, and was so unexpected, that it took us all by surprise. Olga removed her slippers, stood with her back to the table, and threw the slippers over her left shoulder.
One landed in Grandma Minnie’s plate and the other overturned her wineglass, splashing red wine all over the front of her pale blue velvet gown and making her shriek with vexation.
“Oh you wicked, wicked girl! See what you’ve done! It’s all your horrid mother’s fault, raising you with no rules, no morals, no reverence for anything or anyone—”
“Mother!” papa said, “you forget yourself! I suggest you go and change your gown and take some of your Quiet Drops. Olga, apologize to your grandmother.”
“If she will apologize to me for what she said about my forehead, and my being a know-it-all,” Olga replied staunchly. At that moment, I have to say, I felt proud of my sister. And as if in response to the confrontation in the room, a powerful crack of thunder broke over our heads and rolled on for a long minute.
The Tsarina's Daughter (Reading Group Gold) Page 4
