The Tsarina's Legacy

by Jennifer Laam

  Michael put his hand tentatively on her knee, covered by the thick winter coat she had purchased for this trip. When she didn’t pull away, he let his hand rest there. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “This will be okay.”

  But by the time they arrived at their hotel, Veronica was ready to collapse in a heap.

  Dmitry had made preemptive apologies for the quality of the hotel, a Soviet-era concrete block. The lobby downstairs seemed pleasant enough, bland but welcoming, with staff who politely greeted them at the front desk and reproductions of paintings from the Hermitage Museum hanging on the walls. After a dicey ride in the shaking cage of an elevator, they arrived on her floor and the decor dramatically changed. Mildew stained the ceiling, cigarette burns pocked the threadbare carpet, and the ammonia stench of cat urine clung to the overheated air.

  Michael kicked at something. Veronica cringed, hoping it was only a dust tumbleweed. “Was the roach motel booked?” he asked Dmitry.

  “Irina claims this was best we could manage.” Dmitry put a subtle emphasis on the word “claims.” “She says Peter the Great disguise himself as common soldier and sleep with troops in barracks and tsarina should do same.”

  “So much for glamur,” Veronica muttered.

  Dmitry shrugged. “I will upgrade as possible.”

  A babushka in a shapeless gray dress sat sentry near the elevator, staring at an old laptop propped precariously on a filing cabinet behind a crumbling fortress of a desk. In Soviet times, older women were hired to serve as floor attendants who doubled as “minders” to spy on foreign guests and prevent them from seeing anything they weren’t supposed to see. Apparently, at least here, the practice had survived the transition to capitalism and beyond.

  Veronica approached the attendant with the registration card she had received downstairs. “Hello.” Veronica used English by mistake instead of a friendly Russian preevyet.

  “Shto?” the old woman asked grumpily.

  “You know perfectly well what,” Dmitry shot out in Russian. “The key.”

  “Why not get in lobby?”

  “When we asked for the key, they said you would help us up here.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her ample chest and turned to Veronica. “You have two husbands per woman in America?”

  “They’re not my husbands.” Veronica wanted to say something wittier, but she was so tired she could barely think in English let alone Russian.

  Michael smiled and cute little creases appeared at the corners of his eyes. Either he had managed to snag a nap on the plane or magical powers protected him from sleep deprivation. He leaned forward on the desk. The thin plywood made an ominous cracking sound.

  “Room twelve thirty-eight,” he said in proper Russian. “At your convenience.”

  Veronica knew the monotony of a desk job only too well. If she was sitting at her desk and Michael walked into her life, gifting her with that smile, she would have done anything he asked. The babushka appeared far less impressed. She frowned and waved a wrinkled finger in his direction. “You look familiar.”

  “You mean she does?” He gestured toward Veronica.

  “You.” She squinted. “I have seen you somewhere.” She didn’t make it sound positive.

  Veronica heard a familiar snippet of music and craned her neck to see the video playing on the laptop. The attendant was watching Veronica’s favorite telenovela, La Familia Rosa, with Russian badly dubbed over the Spanish. “You don’t watch the Russian novelas?” she asked.

  The woman’s eyes widened a little when she heard Veronica speak in Russian. “Not as good.” The woman nodded her round chin at the laptop. “My grandson showed me how to find the ones I like best.”

  Veronica imagined her grandmother back home, trying to sew and twisting thread in her hands, fretting. Abuela would watch La Familia Rosa on her own this evening and then afterward, she would force herself to watch all the latest bad news: Reb’s verdict, Russian incursions into Ukrainian territory, economic sanctions. Veronica had given up a boring but comfortable space in the world to travel to Russia. Surely a room and a decent night’s sleep weren’t too much to ask in return. If that meant she had to charm her way past this babushka, then that is what she would do.

  “Have they revealed Ana’s secret lover yet?”

  The attendant still glowered but shook her head.

  “Will you let me know when they do? I haven’t had time to watch.”

  “Neither have I,” the woman said, focusing on the screen and recrossing her arms.

  “It’s my grandmother’s favorite show. We watch it together back home. I miss her.”

  When Veronica said the word “grandmother,” the attendant’s lip twitched. She opened her creaking desk door, fumbled around, and withdrew a large silver key with a gold tassel. She handed the key to Veronica.

  “Cpacebo,” Veronica said, thanking her, and headed down the hall, rolling her luggage behind her.

  “That’s my girl,” Michael said in a low voice, following Veronica. He stopped her and took the luggage handle. “Let’s get breakfast tomorrow before your meeting with Irina.” He turned to Dmitry, who was trailing just behind them, and gave a sarcastic little bow. “If that’s okay with you. I’m sure you’ll want to supervise us and all that.”

  “You need not ask permission, Mr. Karstadt. Breakfast is served promptly at nine.”

  “And you?” Michael turned to Veronica. “You’re okay with breakfast?”

  “Sure. A giant, greasy hotel meal. No vegetarian options. Looking forward to it.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dmitry frown and tap on his phone.

  “I meant are you okay with me joining you.”

  “Of course,” she said, suddenly realizing she meant it. Perhaps it was good to have a familiar face around. “Do you know where you’ll stay tonight?”

  “Oh,” Michael said. “The Ambassador.”

  Veronica jerked her head. “You bastard.” The Ambassador was posh. Definitely a few steps above her accommodations. “How did you manage that?”

  “Well … Irina knows someone there. She may have hooked me up.”

  “Oh, right,” Veronica said, her tone flat. “Let me guess. She’s staying there too.”

  “Irina has apartment in city.” Dmitry put his phone back in his pocket. “In addition to her dacha in the countryside near Moscow.” He hesitated. “Of course, her apartment is near Ambassador.”

  “Of course,” Veronica said. “And why shouldn’t I stay in Hotel Soviet Dump if it means the handsome American gets the finest treatment?”

  Michael ducked an exposed, flickering bulb hanging from the ceiling. Veronica didn’t see any smoke detectors. She imagined the cheap wood of the hotel walls burning.

  “You sound nervous,” he said. “Everything will be okay. If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t have let you come.”

  “You wouldn’t have let me?” Veronica said. “Wow. You are such a feminist.”

  “You know what I mean,” he said playfully. She smelled the damp wool in his coat, his leather gloves, and fresh shaving cream. Perhaps Abuela hadn’t been completely wrong to have him tag along. “I’m going to head back to the elevator. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Veronica nodded, too emphatically, and twisted her fingers in her hand. Michael could have tried to kiss her cheek or hug her or something else but he only hovered awkwardly for a moment. She didn’t know what she expected, but she knew she wanted … more. Some reminder of the passion they once shared.

  Maybe the past was all they had.

  In the end they parted with nothing more than a nod. The elevator doors rattled shut.

  “We meet in lobby tomorrow?” Dmitry asked. “I am to stay on other end of the floor. Room 1203.”

  Veronica redirected her gaze from the elevator to Dmitry. “Okay. Sleep well.”

  “With permission, I want to escort you to room and make sure is all right.” He headed down
the hall, transferring his room key from hand to hand.

  “Did Michael ask you to do that?” Veronica followed him, hitching her purse higher on one shoulder and dragging her luggage behind her once more.

  Dmitry gave a mischievous smile. For a moment, he was the spitting image of his ancestor Grigory Potemkin. “My idea. But yes, Mikhail did mention. We had much time to talk on plane.” Dmitry’s gaze took in every nook and cranny in the hallway. Veronica wondered if he was checking for bugs, and not the kind Michael had been kicking on the carpet a few minutes earlier. She assumed none of the old guard from the KGB would bother to listen in on them, but someone might make use of all the old gadgets.

  “So you and Michael are friends now? Will you talk about me behind my back every time I step into the ladies’ room?”

  “We only want to see room is secure.” Dmitry thrust his hands deep in his pockets. “When someone assumes power, even ceremonial power, they attract enemies. Unfortunate, I suppose, but is natural. You are to speak out against Reb’s sentence? Some people feel Reb only get what he deserve. You hear on radio. You may make an enemy or two.” Dmitry shook his head, as though trying to free it of negativity. “This, I should not have said. It is only when I think about Reb … I suppose now I think worst. I am cautious.”

  Veronica hesitated. “You care so much about his situation. Even though you think it’s dangerous to help him. Why?”

  “You have only recently learned your tie to Romanov past. This is all new. For me, restoring monarchy life’s work.” He switched to Russian. “I can’t let what I have worked for my whole life be in service to ancient prejudices and oppressive laws. The monarchy might be a traditional institution, but Russia must be a modern nation. Otherwise what is the point of anything we are doing here? I want to be on the right side of history. I want to help people like Reb who are hurt by oppressive laws.”

  The words were complicated, and it took Veronica a few minutes to process them. But she finally said, “I understand.” When they reached her door, she turned the heavy key in the lock. “Are you going to check inside the room?”

  Dmitry’s frown became a sheepish grin. It changed the whole impression of his face, made him seem more like a nervous college student. He spoke in English once more. “I step in only for moment.”

  She opened the door. “Knock yourself out.”

  “Knock? Why?”

  “No … I mean go on inside,” she said. “I don’t mind. But then I want to sleep.”

  Veronica felt the steady gaze of the attendant at the other end of the hall.

  “Don’t forget to let me know if Fernando proposes to Ana,” Veronica said. “Maybe then she’ll give up her affair on the side.”

  “Fernando will never propose, the jackass,” the attendant replied grumpily. “No wonder she keeps a secret lover.”

  * * *

  Breakfast the next morning was served in a conference room that struck Veronica as strangely spacious and modern given the wreck of the guest floors. Judging from the digital billboard flashing in the lobby, the hotel hosted groups and delegations from all around the world. This included a group of American men in stiff, ill-fitting plaid shirts, jabbering in grating Upper Midwestern accents, checking out every woman who passed their table.

  Dmitry and Michael waited at the end of the line for the buffet, Michael smiling broadly, Dmitry checking his phone. Conversations floated around her in Russian, English, Mandarin, and Farsi. She thought of the way she had spent most of her mornings for the past three months, wolfing down a veggie burrito on her way to work, spilling hot sauce, and then frantically scrubbing the stain off the front of her dress. She perpetually ran late and rushed to her desk murmuring apologies, only to stare at another dull spreadsheet.

  Yet today, despite jet lag and getting less than five hours of sleep last night, she had popped out of bed wide awake. Veronica felt a little bounce in her step as she approached the buffet. Something was going on inside of her, a sensation she had almost forgotten.

  She felt alive.

  “So, my body is ten hours behind,” she said, joining Dmitry and Michael, “and thinks I should have dinner. But I guess I can make this work.” She tapped the red leather binder with her itinerary. “I’m meeting with Irina later this morning, right? Might as well get off to a good start.”

  Dmitry stepped back and gave the international gesture for “after you.” She eyed the breakfast spread and smiled: soft cheeses in tinfoil, potatoes, little puffy dumplings, fresh fruit, and eggs scrambled with red pepper in sparkling metal platters.

  “Happy?” Dmitry asked, eyes twinkling. “I ask favor to make menu to your taste.”

  Michael spun around. “You got the hotel to change the menu for Veronica?”

  Dmitry gave a perfect Russian shrug. “And why not? This is healthier, yes?”

  Veronica remembered the picture of her face Photoshopped on Catherine’s coronation portrait. “Did the food come from Ekaterina Restaurant? Irina mentioned they were expanding to St. Petersburg.”

  “Well, yes,” Dmitry admitted. “They delivered and hoped you might like.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.” Veronica tucked her binder under her arm.

  After going through the line, they elbowed their way through the crowded dining area, plates piled high with food. Music played low over the speakers, electronic Russian-language Eurovision-type pop. Across the room, four women in full makeup, short skirts, and slinky accents had joined the American men in the awful shirts.

  “Did you know Irina wants me to be a walking ad campaign?” she asked wryly.

  Michael’s expression remained calm, except his eyes crinkled. “What?”

  “She has different ideas about what it means to be a royal than I do.” They slipped into their chairs. The table was covered with a lacy cloth the color of sea foam. Beautiful goblets and linen napkins had been set out for them, along with an assortment of mineral waters and juices. “But first I want to discuss these potential ‘enemies’ of mine,” Veronica said to Dmitry.

  “Enemies?” Michael asked.

  “I was tired when I say this. I apologize.”

  “Can you at least elaborate?”

  Dmitry looked over his shoulder. “Some people may not want Dr. Herrera—an American—to interfere with Reb. This is all I mean. We will take care. She will be safe.”

  “Uh-huh.” Michael took his phone out of his pocket. He tapped a few buttons and then turned it around. On the main Russian news website, Reb’s pretty face dominated the first screen, along with a screaming Russian headline: “Reb Volkov under house arrest. Speaks for first time on impending prison sentence.”

  “He made a YouTube video that posted last night,” Michael said. “Have you seen it? He’s calling out the government, the church, even foreign nationals who pump money into the Russian economy while all of this crap is happening. He doesn’t strike me as a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. I find it hard to believe he wants to associate with a new tsarina. Doesn’t he like to talk about his grandfather who served in the Red Army?”

  Michael let the video play and the image switched briefly to Reb at his trial, looking pretty and defiant behind the bars of the cage used for defendants in Russian courtrooms.

  Dmitry’s hands balled into fists on either side of his plate. “Reb is passionate man but not judgmental.”

  “So you know him well?” Michael said.

  Dmitry looked at his eggs. He hadn’t eaten a bite. “I do. I am sure you understand is more to this than free speech. Or do you?”

  “The art exhibit was a pretext,” Veronica said. “Reb was arrested because he is gay.”

  “You knew?” Dmitry asked.

  “He came out a few years ago, didn’t he? Around the same time the Duma began spewing antigay rhetoric and passing laws against gay ‘propaganda’—whatever that means. And he helped organize Pride Parades here and in Moscow.”

  Dmitry nodded. “Yes. He is activist, as Americans say. Re
b is grandson of Red Army in best way. He feels responsibility to new Russia.”

  “The whole situation is ridiculous,” Veronica said. “Peter the Great founded this city and some historians think he was bisexual. And Tchaikovsky? He was gay no matter what Russian movies want people to believe.”

  A few other diners turned to look at her.

  “And Reb is not type to be bullied,” Dmitry said.

  Veronica knew what it felt like to be bullied. She also knew what it felt like to be powerless, as though your voice meant nothing and could be ignored or easily cast aside. If she had an opportunity to speak, she would not let it go to waste.

  “Why didn’t they arrest Reb using the propaganda law?” Michael asked.

  “Reb is smart. He use careful language. He does not carry political materials on his person. He spoke through his art. He thought this safe. I tried to warn him…” Dmitry’s phone started to buzz. He checked the number and frowned. “This is Irina. Excuse me for moment.” He got up, moving away from their table to take the call.

  Veronica glanced at Michael and popped a fried potato in her mouth. “I doubt Irina will have any objections to you tagging along to our meeting this morning.”

  Michael pushed his dumplings around on his plate. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy?”

  “Ha!” Veronica tried to smile, tried not to picture Irina pouncing on Michael as soon as she saw him. “More like concern. I need her help, but I don’t trust her.”

  “So this is just friendly advice?”

  Veronica wasn’t about to start complaining about Irina like a harpy. “Do as you please.”

  “Maybe I hoped you were jealous.”

  She saw a wistfulness in his eyes. Something lingered there, even with the distance between them. Even if he had only come because her abuela asked him to tag along. She wondered what would have happened if they had met under different circumstances, if they would have found happiness in a normal life of children, day jobs, and mutual friends. She had the sinking feeling that kind of blissful domesticity would always elude her.