Veronica laughed. “So what do you think? Afraid he’ll come chasing after you? Drive you crazy and you’ll jump in the river?”
Michael’s expression remained calm, but his brow furrowed as he gazed up at Peter’s stern face. “I can see why Pushkin thought he might come to life.”
Raindrops pounded down on her umbrella and she shivered in her coat. Veronica thought of Reb’s painting that featured The Bronze Horseman and the exhibit that had gotten him in so much trouble in the first place. “Michael, has my abuela been in touch with you?”
He frowned. “About what?”
“My father.”
He drew in a deep breath and watched a trio of soldiers in dark green uniforms pass, all holding paper cups of gelato despite the cold. Michael exhaled, his breath misting in the cold air, and finally met her eyes. “What about him?”
“He wants to talk to me.”
Michael tilted his head. “After all these years? Now?”
“Exactly. I wonder if he regrets not claiming the title for himself.”
“He had his chance. From what I gathered, he never wanted anything to do with it.”
“I know. That’s what’s I don’t understand.” A bulbous street lamp hanging from a thick metal hook flickered on for the evening. Veronica stared at the writing on a small metal trash bin. In the glow she could just make out the Cyrillic letters and roughly translate them in her head.
All gay men should burn.
Veronica felt like someone had put a knife to her throat. “Do you see that?”
Michael turned around to read the graffiti. “God,” he said under his breath.
Veronica had grown interested in Russian history after the collapse of the Soviet Union. She remembered that time: freedom, openness, democracy. “Irina is conservative in so many ways, but she also seems desperate to have me emulate Catherine the Great. What do you think Catherine would do if she were around today?”
“She had her issues, but she was an enlightened empress,” Michael said. “I don’t think she would care for this.” He paused. “Veronica, about your father…” Michael stared at the buttery-yellow classical façade of the Senate and Synod Building, half-cloaked in the drizzle. “I don’t have any right to tell you what to do. This is your decision.”
“No, go ahead. What do you think?”
Michael leaned forward and dipped his head to look up at her, the way he used to do. “I know you have issues with your father,” he said.
“He’s my father in name only.”
“But you decide to come to Russia and then out of the blue he tries to get in touch with you? I don’t know. I think we should find out what he wants.”
Abuela had said something similar, that she should give her father a break or at least a chance. “Your mother still has connections. You said so on the plane. Will you try to find out what he wants?”
Veronica felt something warm in her hands. Without thinking, she had taken Michael’s hand, her fingers folding over his. Her heart raced and she found herself babbling. “I’ll consider talking to Laurent, but I just need to know why he chose to reach out now.”
Michael raised her hand, still resting in his, and lifted the edge of her glove. He kissed the inside of her wrist. She felt the slow melting inside, her desire still so close to the surface.
“I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” he told her. “I’m here for you.”
“And I’m glad…” She couldn’t manage more and began fussing with her umbrella. Michael didn’t say anything further. The figure of Peter and his horse loomed above them, not exactly in judgment, but killing the mood—at least for her. She had her own goals to accomplish in a week here and all the time in the world to worry about her feelings.
Nine
CATHERINE’S HERMITAGE
MARCH 1791
“So now we find ourselves in agreement, Your Majesty.” Zubov paused to take another shot of cherry-flavored vodka. “And couldn’t wait to share the good news.”
“I see,” Catherine said flatly. She slapped a Jack of Clubs in the center of the table and rearranged the cards remaining in her hand. “Prince Potemkin is that convincing, is he?”
“Most persuasive.” Zubov sat directly across from Grisha and gave one of his languid smiles before fanning his cards out and choosing one to play. He looked to the monkey perched on his shoulder for approval.
Grisha took another bite of his radish. Despite this show of affability, he sensed Zubov merely tolerated the game, another of Grisha’s tricks to be endured and laughed at later behind his back. He had not expected to see Catherine again so soon, but apparently there had been an opening in her daily routine when the envoy from England took ill with the grippe, or so Zubov claimed. Why didn’t they all gather in Her Majesty’s Hermitage for a few friendly tricks of whist? He couldn’t shake the feeling that the boy had anticipated this entire adventure, even before Grisha had approached him yesterday.
That suspicion was lent greater weight whenever Grisha stole a glance to his right, at Catherine’s partner for the game: her own son, the Grand Duke Paul.
For the most part, Paul remained silent. Grisha supposed this was a blessing and he did not wish to question it. Paul’s squishy face and low sloping brow underneath his powdered wig were offensive enough. Worse yet, he had insisted on joining them dressed in full military regalia: dark jacket, gold braiding around his waist, bright blue sash draped over his chest, the color seemingly chosen for its ability to reflect the gold medals affixed to his coat, medals Paul had so generously awarded himself.
“You even convinced the prince to play as your partner this evening!” Catherine returned the cards to their original places in her hand. “Now, that truly is a miracle.”
“A convenience only, matushka.” Grisha tried to wink, a useless gesture with only one good eye, but he made a diligent effort. “You know I play to win.”
The monkey let out an approving bray and then clasped his little hands together and looked all around the room. Grisha patted his head, hoping his wig, so carelessly tossed atop his head this morning, was safe around the beast.
Catherine lowered her cards, her blue eyes sparkling in the candlelight. “So, what is your secret, Prince? How did you find the right words to turn my stingiest adviser into such a spendthrift? I assume he has not become a convert to Islam.”
Grisha managed a small smile and eased back into his uncomfortable chair. Catherine’s dog, the old Thomassin, had risen from his favorite spot by the hearth to greet him, placing his silky smooth head in his lap.
“Can we get to it?” Paul asked in a voice that reminded Grisha how much the impatient child the grand duke still was, even at midlife. Paul tossed a card on the table without even looking at his hand and Catherine scowled. “I told you, Mother, I’m to review the troops in an hour.”
“Tell me of the mosque,” Catherine said to Grisha, ignoring her son. “Platon Alexandrovich can now speak of nothing else.” She set a gentle hand on Zubov’s arm and Grisha tried not to wince. “He claims it will be a sight to behold, that it will put the mosques I commissioned to shame and rival the most elaborate shrines to Allah in the Arab world. Surely that can’t be true, Prince. And yet…” She gestured toward the scarf around his neck. It had been a gift from the grateful wife of a Tatar khan, once Grisha assured the woman’s husband of a high appointment in the New Russian administration. “Has your heart been so enraptured by the place that you fashion yourself a pasha?”
“I believe it’s the pasha’s turn.” Zubov fed his monkey a peanut. “Perhaps he could play a card and then tell us of his grand vision.”
“But be quick about it,” Paul added. “This whole Mohammedan project strikes me as odd anyway after your triumph in Ochakov.” Paul’s voice changed at the mention of Ochakov, suddenly drenched with admiration. “You are a hero from folklore to the troops after that siege. I often hear my soldiers speak of it.”
Despite the fire crackling in the hearth
, Grisha felt chilled. Zubov’s monkey began to bray again, only now a high-pitched wail. The creature’s teeth chattered and he hopped from Zubov’s shoulders to Paul’s, where he immediately began to pick at a brilliant medal shaped like a sunburst on Paul’s chest.
“Can’t you control this beast?” Paul sniped.
“He does as he pleases,” Zubov said, taking another swig of vodka. “Don’t you appreciate a fiery spirit, Grand Duke? Life isn’t all military parades and sword rattling.”
“But a mosque in Moscow is a most singular project, Your Highness,” Paul blathered on, squinting at Grisha while batting his fat little hand at the monkey. “I understand you refuse the care of physicians, but perhaps you might consider a consultation.”
Despite the shivering, Grisha assumed the blasé tone he always took with Paul. “And why would I want to visit some quack?”
“Why, because some would say you must be out of your mind! Staking so much importance on this project, testing my mother’s patience.”
Zubov managed a halfhearted laugh, but Catherine glared at her son. Grisha made a mental note to speak with enthusiasm of her grandson Alexander next time he saw Catherine alone. With some luck, she would finally tire of her son altogether and name Alexander her successor, leaving Paul to permanently wallow in his own fussiness. Grisha fumbled in his pocket, past the little rubies he carried for luck and a few of Catherine’s old letters, until he located a handkerchief. He patted the linen on his face, breathing in the calming fragrance.
Grand Duke Paul pursed his pouty lips. “I agree with Platon Alexandrovich’s first decision on the matter. Why expend your energies on this nonsense? We need to prepare for war, not dither with phony idols. England and Prussia want to challenge us? Let them try.”
Zubov shuffled his cards aimlessly. “And hesitation is death … didn’t you say something to this effect, my darling?”
Catherine was still looking at Grisha, barely paying any attention to her cards. “It was Peter the Great’s maxim,” she said, “but I trust it has merit.”
“For God’s sake, Prince, your delay at Ochakov is infamous,” Paul jabbered. “Look what happened once you acted. Triumph! Why delay again when we face enemies from the West?”
One of the wax candles on the table went out, as though caught in a sudden breeze. Under the table, the greyhound emitted a low growl.
Grisha could scarcely see the cards in front of his face. He struggled to catch his breath. He heard the sounds of battle, as though in a distant dream and yet right here, in the room, pounding in his ears. The sick squelching sound of a sword running through a man’s chest. The strangled animal screams.
Beads of perspiration slipped down the sides of his face. He was fat and out of breath and now he was perspiring in front of Catherine. He wanted to sink into a hole and disappear.
“Besides, you don’t seem quite yourself,” Paul continued, “so perhaps your recommendations are suspect. Wouldn’t you agree, Platon Alexandrovich?”
Zubov, engaged with his neckpiece, looked up and shrugged.
“Not that I know much about the troubles of older men,” Paul said. “As you know my father was taken from me while I was still a boy.”
“We all know,” Catherine said with a crisp slap of her cards to the table. “You have mentioned it often enough.”
Zubov clicked his teeth and made an attempt to cross himself and fiddle with his cravat at the same time. “Such a tragedy.”
“Some would argue otherwise,” Grisha muttered.
“What was that, Prince?” Paul said. “I’m sorry, but you see I am accustomed to my soldiers answering in full voices like good honest men.”
Grisha waved a card in front of his face to get some air, wondering how he might best ask the empress to open a window without worrying her. “I understand you take a whip to your men when they displease you,” he told Paul. “You truly are your father’s son after all. And the way you treat them, I wouldn’t be surprised if you miss much whispering behind your back.”
“How dare you!” Paul rose to his feet. He was slight of stature and far from intimidating, but out of habit Grisha worked his large frame to his feet as well.
“Oh no,” Zubov said disinterestedly, searching his pocket for another peanut for the monkey. “What have you done now, Prince?”
“Enough!” Catherine barked. “Paul, stop nagging the prince and take a seat. And you…” She turned to Grisha, stared at his broad and heaving chest as he towered over the table. “Stop teasing him, little kitten. You don’t look well. You don’t need the agitation.”
The Thomassin greyhound snapped at Grisha’s boots as he sat back down.
“And you’re upsetting my dog,” Catherine added. “The last thing I need is a nipped finger tonight.” She peeked under the table. “I know he has turned into something of a grouch in his dotage, but honestly, I don’t understand what is wrong with him sometimes.”
The Thomassin skulked into a corner, but his cloudy gaze remained fixed on the pasha. The old warrior had appeared on the opposite side of the room sitting straight-backed on the large Turkish divan, arms folded, turban carefully propped on his knee.
“I don’t know.” Even as Grisha spoke, he was staring at the pasha’s pet lion, seated faithfully at his master’s feet. The lion’s giant pink tongue shot out of his mouth and he licked his chops. Grisha caught a glimpse of the lion’s pointed teeth set back in his wide jaws, the twitch of his ears. No wonder the dog and the monkey were so upset.
“Mother thinks you’ve lost your courage,” Paul said, “when it comes to taking on England and their Prussian allies over the jewels of New Russia.”
“Those were not my exact words. I only suggested the prince no longer seeks battles.”
“You have won,” the pasha told Grisha. “She wants to help you. And as she is so fond of repeating, delay is death.”
Grisha looked around the table. Paul was now grappling with the monkey, who had finally ripped the medal from his sash. He tried to extract it from the animal’s greedy hands. Zubov smothered laughter, while Catherine stared even more intently at her cards. It was as though they were in another world entirely, which of course they were.
“Your powerful woman will build the mosque. It is the slightest token after what you did to our cities. You are a conqueror and you can have your conqueror’s guilt assuaged. You should be celebrating. Why are you still upset?”
“I am not upset.” Grisha spoke harshly and out loud without meaning to do so. Catherine looked up from her cards. “So I don’t know why the dog would be,” he added quickly.
“Thank her and return to the south,” the pasha said. “This is the will of Allah.”
The room around him seemed to dissolve, except for the pasha and his lion, still sitting, waiting patiently for his reply.
The heat of the southern summers could be unbearable. Grisha never spoke of it in front of his men, instead praising the blue skies and healthy atmosphere, particularly after the frozen horrors of winter campaigns. Secretly he longed for frigid nights and droplets of snow clinging to pine trees.
But when the winter came at last to Ochakov, the supplies for his men began to dwindle. If they were cut off entirely, the men would freeze to death. They would starve. The camp already stank of bowels loosened by dysentery. They could not withstand another winter. Grisha received new missives from St. Petersburg, from the other generals, even from Catherine herself. Why wouldn’t he take action? Why wouldn’t he begin the siege? Delay is death.
Grisha grew careless. One day he marched onto the field in full uniform, daring their enemies to kill him and take his head as a prize. That’s when the rumors began. He had a death wish, or so it had been whispered around the encampment when his junior officers thought he couldn’t hear. But Grisha only assumed God would will his fate, as he always had.
Others under his command had not been so favored by providence. After Russian prisoners were taken, they all waited, knowin
g the faces of the prisoners would reappear. Hours later they did, bodies missing but eyes wide open, mouths twisted in agony. Heads strung along the walls outside the fortressed city.
Grisha remembered the men as they had been in life, laughing, wrestling with each other over tobacco, full of themselves. Proud men, foolish men, arrogant men, but valiant Russian men nonetheless. And to be reduced to this … He saw the heads when he closed his eyes, when he attempted to pray or to sleep. Images of those same men in life haunted him, tortured him: happy, drinking, slapping one another on the back, galloping on their horses. Honorable combatants in war. Precious souls in the eyes of God.
Men of his tribe, his people.
Tears pinched the corners of his eyes.
The pasha dipped his head and rubbed his brow as though he knew Grisha’s thoughts. The lion placed its chin on the pasha’s lap, much as the Thomassin had with Grisha.
There hadn’t been a choice. No other way. He had to storm Ochakov. He’d kept telling himself that over and over. If he had waited any longer more of his men would have died: from cold, from exposure, from lack of nourishment. The raiding bands continued to swipe soldiers in the middle of the night and display their heads on pikes the next morning, vibrant young men now refashioned into the macabre.
“I had no choice,” Grisha said.
The room came back into focus. Catherine, Zubov, and Paul all stared at him.
He quickly chose a card and tossed it to the center of the table. “No choice at all.” He managed a smile. The pasha and his lion had disappeared.
Catherine’s features tightened. There had been a time when he craved her matronly concern nearly as much as he craved their time alone in the bedroom. He let her fawn over him.
“Are you not well?”
Grisha wiped away the perspiration and returned his handkerchief to his pocket. “Only fatigued, matushka.”
“Speak the truth. What is wrong?” Catherine’s gentle hand shook his shoulder, soft as rose petals. “It is the return of malarial fever? You must see a doctor.”
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