by Kim Newman
Edinburgh still sulked because he was not allowed to shoot anything.
The Duke of Cornwall was following the line of a stream, and banked the helicopter slightly to the left. Cinzia fell against the Grand Duchess sitting next to her.
"I've warned you how I get air-sick! Do you want me to spew all over you?
Yes, why not? She could scrape Her Imperial Highness's dried-up vomit into cheap lockets and sell it at a huge profit to all the poor, deluded people who hung on her antics on tele every night.
She thought of her Mother, who had for the first time in her life taken a day off from her cleaning job: to watch the Imperial Ball on tele. When Cinzia got home that night, she'd had to stay up another two hours describing who she had met. She had told Mother about the Grand Duchess's tantrums, how the Duke had heartily disliked her crack about his ears, how she had seen with her own eyes how this was emphatically, definitely, utterly, absolutely not a love match. And still at the end of it all, Mother sighed about how wonderful it was to see "two young people falling in love." Mother had listened to her, enraptured that her little girl had touched this magic, but had not heard a word she was saying.
She had not realised how powerful television was. It encouraged people to believe what they wanted to. In the hands of a tyrant it could be a force for great evil. And the Tsar of all the Russias owned ITV.
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There were fifteen of them in the gunship, on metal bucket seats covered with fraying canvas: the Duke, Edinburgh, Sir Anthony, the Earl of Balham, the Grand Duchess, and the ghastly old Grand Duchess Anastasia, who had appointed herself her great-niece's official chaperone. There were a couple of maids, a pilot, co-pilot and the ITV crew. Behind flew three other gunships, one carrying the Tsar his entourage, the others carrying security specialists from the Okhrana and medical teams. The Tsar's Sikorsky was armed, in case it became necessary to fire on a cheering crowd of his beloved subjects.
It was no longer a question of would something go wrong. Now it was a question of when. The atmosphere in their own gunship was sour, and getting worse with every hour. Everything came back to Ekaterina.
Though nobody watching proceedings on television would have noticed anything amiss, the Grand Duchess was fast becoming unmanageable. Like a lumbering goods-train on the Trans-Siberia, she threatened to leave the rails at the next bend.
When visiting a hospital, the Grand Duchess insisted the sick people be removed and replaced by actors in case she caught anything. They had met crowds on the streets of Petrograd and the Grand Duchess had had to take a bath immediately afterwards, though she had not come closer than ten feet to any of them. On the same occasion, the police failed to contain an anti-war demonstration and placards had been waved from the back of the crowd. The Grand Duchess insisted that the city's police commissioner be sacked. The couple attended a charity premiere screening of The Tempest, the new film by the British director Michael Powell, at the Narodny Dom. The Grand Duchess had to be carried out with a fit of the vapours before the opening credits. The director's trademark of arrows hitting a target had given her "a terrible premonition of assassination."
"She carries on like this and I'll be the one that does it," Bondarchuk muttered when she was being carried out of the cinema. Then he crossed himself, in case the Okhrana heard.
Today was the worst. They were supposed to go on a deer hunt on the imperial estates around Tsarskoye Selo. First the Grand Duchess insisted that the helicopter's olive green and brown camouflage colour scheme be replaced with shocking pink—"exactly the same colour as that," she said, pointing to one of the lipsticks in Cinzia's case. Grand Duchess Anastasia, who only ever wore pink, agreed this would be an appropriate way of making the nasty, brutal helicopter more feminine.
Eugene Byrne & Kim Newman
The Tsar shouted that idea down. Then the Grand Duchess pouted and said shooting deer was cruel. Great Aunt Anastasia agreed. So had Edinburgh, to everyone's surprise. He then suggested the helicopter be fitted with missile-pods to ensure a quick and painless death for the deer. At this point, the Balham collapsed in a fit of laughter, while the Tsar said it was impossible. The Grand Duchess flatly refused to go if any animals were going to be killed.
So they went for an afternoon spin instead. They had made an impromptu visit to a "typical" farmhouse and had an excellent discussion with a farmer about fertiliser. They had a picnic at which nobody said much to one another, and now they were going back again. The Grand Duchess was in a vile mood, which was why Bondarchuk was dissuading Paradjanov from taking close-ups.
The helicopter swooped down low over the town of Tsarskoye Selo. Beneath them was the railway station, and then the broad tree-lined boulevard with dozens of mansions to either side. This was where the aristocracy lived in the old days; it was where some of them still lived, though many of these elegant houses had long since been divided into apartments where the bourgeois of Petrograd commuted each evening to escape the noises and stinks of the city.
At the end of the boulevard, the gates to the Imperial Park. The eight hundred acres of Tsarskoye Selo proper—the "Tsar's Village"—had once been completely surrounded by iron railings, though these had been taken away to make munitions during the Great Patriotic War. Now, the boundaries were mainly wire and post, but still patrolled by cossacks and handpicked units of the Imperial Guard, with dogs, guns, wirelesses, even remote-control cameras.
"This is great," Bondarchuk said. "We can't get decent pictures just pointing a camera out of the window, but if you can get the ITV chopper to do this in a few minutes' time we can cut it into the evening prog with majestic music on top."
The Duke took the machine down lower over the Imperial Park. It was probably the first time he had seen the place. It was certainly the first time Cinzia had been here. She had seen photographs and paintings, but the Tsar—and his mother before him—had guarded its privacy fiercely.
The Park was designed to provide nothing but pleasant walks. Every inch was landscaped carefully with meticulously tended grass, or painstakingly trained woods. There were statues and monuments
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and flowerbeds and a huge artificial lake. The Sikorsky swooped over a tyrannosaurus rex.
As a boy, Nicholas had been fascinated by paleontology. Tsarina Tatiana commissioned life-sized dinosaurs from S. Eisenstein, the motion picture special effects genius behind the 1932 classic Tsar Saur. They were equipped with clockwork mechanisms that made them jerk to life.
The grounds were completely empty. It was as though they were for the pleasure of the Tsar alone. He might wander among his flowers and Jurassic pets, undisturbed by the millions of his subjects still tied to the dirt or crowded into city slums.
The Duke banked slightly to avoid a small hill, on top of which was an exquisite red and gold Chinese pagoda. Then the palaces came into view. Cinzia gasped when she saw the Catherine Palace, an ornate blue and white confection with immensely tall windows. The simpler Alexander Palace, five hundred yards from it, was dowdy by comparison.
She was getting to know palaces. The Antchikov merely reminded her of an expensive hotel, while the Winter Palace was big and cold, but this was a place of real majesty. This was where the handsome prince carried his bride, or where a canny monarch kept his or her uppity nobles from getting up to any mischief by engaging them in ludicrous ceremonial. Inside would be long, polished halls, mirrors and mahogany, silk and velvet, marble and crystal and gold.
She was still staring out of the window when she realised the helicopter blades were slowing and that everyone around was unbuckling seatbelts.
"That's it for the day," Bondarchuk told his crew. "There's nothing else tonight. Everyone's got the evening off."
An arm snaked around her waist. The Earl of Balham.
"Come with me to the Casbah, Cindy."
"I'm going home for a shower and an early night."
"Quel shame, laddi
e. The Duke and I have decided to toddle into town for the evening. We were hoping you'd show us the real Petrograd. These court flunkeys and pomaded pillocks don't have a clue where to go for good time. Go on, say you'll do it. Pretty please? Not for my sake, but the Duke's."
She looked at the Duke. He was taking off the headset and engaged in technical discussion with the helicopter's regular pilot.
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"Just a few drinks," she said. "And no funny business." Balham chuckled and swore loyalty.
"Compliments of Nikita's," said the waiter, placing a champagne-bucket on the table.
"This is a bit of allright," said Balham around a blini. "Well done, Cind."
"Bottoms up," said Balham raising his champagne flute, "here's to our host."
They turned to the table where the proprietor sat with cronies. He raised his glass and beamed, a benevolent great uncle dispensing presents at Easter. Bringing the party here was divine inspiration. Old Kruschev, the most important gangster in Petrograd and a devoted monarchist, would see no harm came to his precious guests. It was lively and more-or-less respectable. Kruschev kept his less salubrious properties at arms' length.
"Chas, d'you recognise the fellows sitting on the table next to Niki's?"
"No," said the Duke to the Earl, "should we?"
Cinzia glanced. To one side was a tall, bespectacled man in early middle age with close-cropped, wiry hair. A little too careful with his appearance to be an intellectual.
"We were introduced to him at the reception for civil serviles the other morning," said Balham. "He had a meaningless job title, something with the Ministry of the Interior."
"Andropov. I remember. A senior civil servant hanging around in a shady night-club. Bit fishy, isn't it?"
"It's more than fishy, Moriarty," said Balham, slipping into a Georgi Sanders purr, "I had him down as one of the head mummers in the cloak-and-dagger brigade. Okhrana, and all that."
"Sapristil" said the Duke, a word she'd never heard before.
"I'll tell you something else, old fruitgum," said the Earl. "If you turn around—nyet yet!—and steal a look in the next minute you'll notice Mr. Andropopoff popping off. The fellah sneaking with him happens to be Harold Philby, Russia correspondent of The Times."
"I wonder what they were plotting?" said the Duke.
"Overthrow of civilisation as we know it. What do you think, Cindy?"
"Probably nothing important. Russians love to plot for its own sake. It's why we always knock you out of the first round in the World Chess Championships."
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"We always beat you at soccer, though," said the Duke. "It's the Accrington Stanley game tomorrow. Bobby Moore at centre-forward, Gordon Banks in goal. We can't lose."
A woman in her late twenties wobbled past them. She wore a Chinese cheongsam so tight she could barely walk properly. Her head was shaved and a dozen ping-pong balls were magically stuck to her scalp.
"Oh I say," said Balham.
She sat alone at a table close by and took a packet of Fribourg and Treyer cigarettes and a gold lighter from a tiny handbag. Cinzia decided she must be a whore. An experienced, expert, expensive one.
Balham had barely raised his hand when the head waiter appeared at his side.
"Would you be so kind as to convey my compliments to the lady with the lumps and ask if she would care to join us."
The waiter made the slightest gesture with his eye. The woman scooped belongings from the table and tottered over. The waiter held out the chair for her to sit down. Her jaw dropped when she realised who the Duke was.
"This is jolly, isn't it?" said Balham, "and what's your name, my dear?"
"Mariella Novotny," she said, recovering her composure. Her skin had a faint olive sheen. She might be a gypsy.
Cinzia looked at the Duke, expecting him to be discomforted by his uncle's philandering. He smiled faintly. He had seen all this before.
Balham busied himself with Mariella. Her English was basic, and he had no Russian. They communicated in broken French. Balham's accent was comically extreme, almost strangling the few words Mariella could recognise. He took her hand and ran his finger over it, pretending he could tell her fortune. Isaac would have been proud of him.
Scattered applause came as a men in evening dress filed onto a small raised platform and picked up instruments. The band launched into a silky-smooth, melodious Israel Baline tune, "Always" Piano, sax and clarinet took turns at the theme. It was seductive, tinged with longing or regret. Perfect music for falling in love, or getting drunk.
Some couples took the floor to dance. Balham and Mariella joined them.
She was alone with the Duke and didn't much like it. He was still frostily polite to her for the Grand Duchess's sake, but hadn't forgiven the remark about ears.
"How do you like Mother Russia?" she asked, trying to fill an embarrassing silence.
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"Very interesting. Splendid architecture. Petrograd is a beautiful city."
She wanted to tell him of the city he wouldn't see, soulless acres of low-rise concrete apartments where the plumbing never worked, but thought better of it. Another long silence.
"Look," he said at last, "I wanted to..."
"Cinz-doll!" interrupted a whiny voice, "Is it copacetic if I make like a carpenter and join you?"
Allen Martinovich. The last person she wanted to see right now, but here he was. Drunk.
He sat down, uninvited, at the table and helped himself to one of Mariella's cigarettes. "Who's your dybbuk friend? He looks like that English idiot the Grand Duchess is going to marry. Babychik, I need a favour."
"Whatever it is, the answer is no, nein, non..."
"I gotta get a gig." She looked him in the face. As usual, his eyes skittered away from hers. He hid behind oversize eyeglasses. "I need to get on my horn again, Cinz. You could talk to someone at ITV. They've got house bands. They have to need a clarinet-player. Put in a word, please-please?"
"If I say yes, will you go away?"
"I'll make like a train and depart, I'll make like a family photo and fade, I'll make like a tree and..."
"Enough already."
"Do you know anyone who needs a musician?" he asked the Duke. "What's your angle, anyway?"
"He's the future King of England, Allen Martinovich. He doesn't need a clarinet player."
"Don't be silly, everybody needs a clarinet player."
Hands swallowed Allen's arms as the biggest men she had ever seen lifted him from the chair and carried him from the room.
"The proprietor sends humble apologies for the unpleasant imposition," said their waiter, signalling for a minion to bring a plate of baklava cakes and a jug of hot honey and rosewater sauce.
"Sorry about that," she said. The Duke refilled her flute.
"Skeleton from your cupboard?"
"I went with Allen for a long time. We were betrothed. He was going to be a famous musician. Like an idiot, I believed him. I supported him while he was waiting to be famous. He nearly made it, too. He had a band, Allen Konigsberg and the Bananas. They performed at the opening
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of the Moscow Olympiad in '70. At the party afterwards, I caught him fooling around with a jail-bait Wallachian gymnast."
"Ouch."
"He sickens me. He ruined everything. He's the dybbuk."
The Duke grasped her hand across the table. "Everything will turn out fine, Cinzia," he said.
"It did," she giggled, half-hysterically. "He was pitifully infatuated with his bendy toy. He wrote a swing oratorio for her to perform to, The Purple Rose ofCluj. But she ran off with the novelist, Nabokov."
Her eyes stung. She drained her champagne flute at a gulp.
"What are we supposed to do with these?" said the Duke, indicating the baklava. He still held her hand. She poured the sauce over the cakes.
"You have to eat the cakes while the sauce is still hot."
"I wonder where our lovebirds have got to?"
"There are rooms upstairs. I wouldn't be surprised if Miss Bubblehead was an employee."
The Duke nodded. He ate a pair of baklavas. "These are very good."
"The country is wild for Turkish food. A new Turkish restaurant opens in Petrograd every week."
The Duke took his hand back and was oddly formal for a moment.
"I owe you an apology. Normally, I wouldn't bother. Being heir to the throne means never having to say you're sorry, but I want to say sorry to you. You didn't deserve my rudeness."
"What do you mean?"
"I got chilly when you said the thing about my ears. I don't give a damn about my appearance. If I was only Lieutenant Charles Windsor, we could laugh at my bloody ears all night long. But I have to protect the dignity of the future king. At times, I hate this job. Being a royal is a job, you know. Sometimes I think it's important. Sometimes I think it's ludicrous farce. I see you looking at me and the Tsar and my Father and Blunt and the Grand Duchess. You think we're idiots acting out some kind of comic opera." 1 never...
"Don't interrupt, Cinzia Davidovna. Several times in the last few days, I'd gladly have resigned. But I would let too many people down."
"Your family? The Imperial family?"
"No. The blade wouldn't fall on their necks if I was to quit. I mean the lads."
"I'm sorry. I don't follow you."
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"I served in the Navy. Eighteen months in Indo-China, flying Sea Kings off carriers, evacuating the wounded. For the first time in my life, something real. At Khe Sanh, I flew sixty-two missions in three days, didn't sleep at all. Brought in the bus three hundred yards short of the enemy's forward positions. Loaded with dying men, mutilated men, men maddened by combat, men who'd never walk or see again. I can't pretend I was happy because I absolutely wasn't, but I was more alive than I am now. Civvies can't understand. In Britain and here in Russia, people are sick of the War. We're pulling out as messily as possible. At the moment, Indo-China veterans, able-bodied and maimed alike, are merely despised, spat on by the longhairs. Soon, the men who served will be forgotten. That's my good reason for becoming King. I'll do all I can for the men; I won't have much political power, but I can get things done. The price I must pay for that is to appear regal, to be popular. Dress in silly suits and go through this happy-ever-after charade."
