The Book of Anna

by Carmen Boullosa

  Both husband and wife sign the letter. Beneath her signature, off to one side, Claudia adds a little note in looser script, “Not a day passed that my dear papa didn’t remember the emperor fondly, always with tremendous respect and admiration,” and she signs the initials of her maiden name, imitating the signature of her father, the ambassador. More fawning—or diplomacy.

  Disregarding what day of the week it is—she fears that Sergei will change his mind again—Claudia gives instructions to one of the footmen (Piotr): he should deliver the reply immediately to the offices of the tsar, to the attention of “the Tsar’s Desk,” the subject “Portrait of Anna Karenina, painted by Mikhailov” That way, Sergei’s anxiety will ease.

  22. Piotr

  The Karenins’ footman, Piotr, is dressed in his Sunday best to attend the divine liturgy. I’ll take advantage of this errand to go to the cathedral, to go and chew the fat with his friends, the only opportunity he has all week, since his mistress keeps him so busy all the time that he spends his life running from one thing to the next. He wants to deliver the letter as soon as possible, to get rid of it and go to the church carefree. So he begins to run, without paying much attention to anything. First he’ll go to the tsar’s office—he likes the idea of delivering it to the Winter Palace—then to Sergei’s undersecretary.

  Piotr likes to sing. Despite the fact that he doesn’t have a single drop of vodka in his veins (he usually doesn’t, Claudia keeps a careful eye on him), he begins to sing at the top of his lungs as he’s running, a song he made up, or so he thinks, using a popular tune, changing the words as he goes:

  I bear a message for the Winter

  a message, a message.

  I bear a message for the Winter

  a message, a message.

  Suddenly a chorus of voices joins in, mostly children, and his improvised song becomes a refrain—usually he would change the words as he goes along.

  I bear a message for the Winter

  a message, a message!

  Although they’ve cramped his style, Piotr sings joyfully; being joined by this choir is heavenly. Since the tune is repetitive, his mind begins to wander, thinking about what he’s seeing, and as he continues singing, he asks himself, Why are all these people in the streets? Because it’s Sunday? But there are too many of them. He sings and sings, weaving his way through the crowd as quickly as he can, though progress is slow. He leaves his choir behind. Soon he’s alone, and something tells him to stop singing. He looks up: the tsar’s Cossacks are just steps away, in military formation. He says aloud, “What is this? Am I drunk?”

  The ones who have vodka (and a lot of it) in their veins are the soldiers who are guarding the Palace gates. They received a triple ration before they were sent into the street.

  Why are they here? Piotr asks himself in silence. He’s in such high spirits he can’t take them seriously. Poor soldiers, they’re freezing! He gesticulates like a child pretending to be a baby chick. Brrr! Brrr!

  He continues to approach. The head of the platoon, who’s always on guard at the palace door, recognizes him. He shouts, “Piotr! Back! Today we’re not receiving mail!”

  “Back?”

  He doesn’t want to go back. That means he won’t be able to go to the cathedral—no gossip, no prayers. Aren’t they going to let me through? he wonders.

  “What do you mean? I’m coming from the Karenin Palace!” Which isn’t exactly true, because he’s coming from Sergei and Claudia’s house. But “Karenin Palace” sounds better when you’re standing in front of the Winter Palace. This doesn’t bode well…. Or maybe it could, he thinks. I’ll stay here until they take the letter, that way I don’t have to go back, and if I don’t go back, they won’t send me out into the street again to run who knows how many more errands.

  “Back! Go back, Piotr! Go back!”

  The order is so emphatic in tone that Piotr thinks—now he’s thinking sensibly—Why didn’t it occur to me? I’ll deliver the letter to one of the tsar’s other offices, it’s not as though I have to go to the ends of the earth. Piotr turns around and walks off in the opposite direction, he knows exactly who to give the letter to on a day like today, this is a matter for the office of special cases, it’s Sunday, after all. I’ll get the doorman to stamp it, then I’ll go see that old bore Priteshko, and I’ll have the rest of the day off. For just a fraction of a second, Piotr thinks he might not have time to get to mass, where his friends are, but he’ll find them somehow…. It doesn’t cross his mind that Claudia is waiting for him.

  23. The Three Women

  There are three Alexandras in our story. One of their names is spelled slightly differently: Aleksandra, Alexandra, and Alexandra. Aleksandra is the disorganized one, with the gorgeous hair, which is unusually messy today, because she hasn’t dressed in her own room. Then there’s Alexandra, or Sasha, Aleksandra’s friend, who’s Father Gapon’s lover, her hair so tightly knotted at the nape of her neck it’s impossible to tell if it’s thick or thin, or how long it is. And there’s Alexandra Kollontai, with her short, fluffy locks. All three Alexandras are dressed with strict propriety, their high-necked dresses covering their décolletage. But the quality of their dresses varies wildly; all they have in common is their style.

  Alexandra Kollontai is thirty-three years old, the same as Christ. The other Alexandra with an x, pretty Sasha (the reverend’s live-in lover), and Aleksandra (Anya Karenina’s maid) are both sixteen. But even though they’re the same age, they don’t look like it. The reverend took Sasha from the orphanage when she was twelve; she became a woman in the company of Gapon, who is a force of nature. She’s matured from her neck to her knees, but the rest of her is still twelve.

  A handful of protesters calls Kollontai “the Marxist revolutionary.” Another calls Aleksandra (who works for Karenina) “the sister of Vladimir, Father Gapon’s messenger.” No one calls Sasha anything, except Gapon, who is too busy shaking his fist.

  Kollontai (who spent all night persuading communists to join the demonstration because it will aid their cause) is marching with her group of Bolshevik laborers. Aleksandra is at the front, Gapon and his lieutenants behind her. As for Sasha, she’s at home, completely unaware of this important event. She’s not praying, like some say she is. Today she wants to stew some beets, but how do you cook beets? Her lover received them as a gift. She has no idea what to do with them and doesn’t know whom to ask. She regards them with curiosity, trying to work out their secret.

  So, of our three Alexandras, two are marching, and one is pondering a difficult subject. Kollontai says, “From now on things are going to be different.” For Sasha, nothing will change after today, it’ll be the same as ever, waiting for her lover (he gets home so late that she’s already asleep, and it’s not unusual for him to leave before she’s opened her eyes). Waiting, and trying to understand things beyond her ken. She’s not stupid, it’s just that life is complicated, as they say.

  For the other Aleksandra—Vladimir’s sister—everything will change.

  24. Claudia’s Impatience

  That Sunday, Claudia is thinking that they should get Mikhailov’s portrait out of the attic as soon as possible, in case (though it’s unlikely) the appraisers come soon. “It should be out on display, I don’t want it to stay up there forever.”

  The problem is where to put it. Claudia doesn’t have an office. The library is too full. The blue room, where it would look lovely, isn’t a good idea, because Sergei likes to spend time there, and Claudia wants to put the portrait somewhere he won’t see it.

  But then, Sergei doesn’t use his office very often. To be sure he won’t see the portrait, they’ll have to cover it. His undersecretary, Priteshko, who comes to the house three times a week—he spends the other days at the ministry—is the one who uses the office, and the portrait won’t bother him in the least. Sergei can’t stand Priteshko.

  “I’m going to ask Priteshko to come every day so there’s no chance Sergei will see it by accident.�
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  Piotr, the messenger, is also carrying a note for Priteshko; Claudia wrote it in a rush this morning. It’s one simple line, asking Priteshko to come to the house first thing on Monday. She’ll tell him everything herself. All day—though in St. Petersburg’s long winters it’s more like all night—she’ll wait for him in Sergei’s office. After she speaks with him, she’ll tell Sergei that Priteshko needs to work there for the next few weeks.

  Piotr, the messenger, is also responsible for overseeing the pantry and the attic, according to Claudia’s orders. The portrait is in a corner of the attic, but Piotr is nowhere to be found.

  “Why isn’t he back yet? I can just imagine, he’s so scatter-brained sometimes.”

  Claudia is antsy.

  Years ago, when Sergei and Claudia were newlyweds moving into their home, she asked for the things that had belonged to Sergei when he was a boy—his furniture, trunks, toys, pictures, and books. “I want our children to play with the toys you played with and to read what you read.”

  “Why, Claudine? I was an unhappy boy. My son”—Sergei could imagine fathering only one child—“should be a happy child, he shouldn’t have anything of mine.”

  “You weren’t unhappy, you became unhappy, which is different, but we won’t talk about that.” Not talking about that is the key to their marital harmony.

  Claudia hasn’t kept anything from her childhood—because of the life they led, moving from one city to the next, because of her parents, who were consumed by their own ambitions (which is how they were able to leave a modest inheritance to their children). That’s why she was so keen to have all Sergei’s things.

  Sergei’s childhood effects were all they took from the Karenin Palace. Claudia made sure these things—the furniture, pictures, and clothes—were stored in their new home, relegated to the attic. The three portraits of Anna Karenina leaning against the wall—Mikhailov’s, the one Sergei’s father commissioned before that (it hung in his study until she killed herself), and the one Vronsky, the dilettante, left unfinished. These three crazy women had lived in the attic for years; Claudia hasn’t set foot in that part of the house since they moved in. “Fate didn’t smile on us”—that’s what she said when people asked her about children—so they didn’t need any of these things. “What’s the point?” she used to say. “Time is so fleeting.”

  • • •

  At twelve noon Claudia decides not to wait any longer for Piotr, the singing footman. She brings two servants to the cave of treasures from Sergei’s childhood—to the attic.

  Next to Sergei’s school desk—where he scratched little boats and hieroglyphics as a boy—Claudia sees a box covered in blue fabric and tied with a silk ribbon. “What’s this? Isn’t moving to a new house just like that? Things disappear, get lost, and eventually reappear.” She blows on the box a few times to scatter the dust, then picks it up, taking care not to dirty her dress.

  In the far corner, leaning against the wall, are the three portraits of Anna Karenina. The one Vronsky started to paint in Italy (a very poor attempt) is face-to-face with Mikhailov’s painting (a masterpiece). The third one, by an unknown portraitist, of a young Anna, is next to them. Claudia directs the servants to carry Mikhailov’s canvas to Sergei’s office. The other two remain propped against the wall, in their corner.

  Claudia hugs the blue box, forgetting that the dust will make a mess of her dress.

  “I had forgotten all about this box. I wonder what’s in it.”

  25. Unexpected Guests at the Karenin Palace

  The time for taking a turn out of doors is long past, and Anya still hasn’t left her room. Aleksandra’s disorganization has taken over the entire palace. No one has any idea what time it is—it’s after two-thirty in the afternoon, but everyone’s on a different schedule; some of the servants are doing what they would at ten in the morning, others what they would at one in the afternoon—when a group of young men comes through the kitchen door carrying a body wrapped in a dark cloak.

  The cook is snoozing in her chair, facing the door. She’s one of those old people who nap all day long instead of sleeping a full night through. Although the young men try to come in without making a sound, it’s too difficult to pass through the small door with an inert body. The cook wakes up.

  “Aleksandra?” she asks them, as if it’s perfectly normal for a group of shabbily dressed fugitives to walk into her kitchen. Seeing their faces and the body they’re carrying, she fears the worst.

  “We need hot water and bandages.”

  “A doctor would be better.”

  “No one will come. Bandages! Water!”

  “What happened to Aleksandra? Answer me!” the cook insists.

  “I saw them. The tsar’s Cossacks came charging at us, their swords drawn, brandishing them left and right. Anyone who could, fled. People were dropping like flies, slashed to pieces by their blades, they were the only things standing between us and them. And still they kept on charging….”

  The young man begins to cry.

  • • •

  Someone will tell this story more calmly, of how the crowd marches toward the Winter Palace square in five contingents, approaching from different parts of the city and its outskirts. They proceed in silence, with a few exceptions (such as the ones who sang with Piotr). Children run up and down the flanks of the tightly packed processions, imitating the composure of the adults but unaffected by the solemnity of the occasion.

  Father Gapon is at the head of the Neva contingent, the same one the young men who appeared at the kitchen of the Karenin Palace were in. His priest’s cassock is covered by an overcoat because the warrant for his arrest has already been issued (this very morning the mayor invited him to the police station for a telephone conversation, but Gapon realized it was a trap and declined). He knows his hours are numbered, that they want to get rid of him. That’s why he isn’t marching at the front of the procession, with the bravest, most notorious and devoted leaders of the proletariat. That contingent is carrying an enormous crucifix and other religious icons, which they’ve just taken from a nearby chapel (others have had less luck obtaining religious items because the reverends have refused to lend them), and portraits of the tsars from the headquarters of the Neva Branch of the Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers of the City of St. Petersburg.

  Vasilev (the labor leader who is a member of the assembly) and Gapon’s two most trusted bodyguards are also at the front of the procession, along with Aleksandra (the one who works for Anya Karenina), who is there so Gapon can keep an eye on her. In a state of nervous exhaustion from the events of the past few days, she’s at breaking point. Aleksandra marches with the passion and contagious fervor she first experienced yesterday. Volodin walks beside Aleksandra, not because he merits a place at the front of the procession, but because he feels responsible for her; he gave his word to Giorgi.

  All the city’s dispossessed have joined in the demonstration, including activists and students, despite the fact that when one of them tried to say something, he was shouted down: “We don’t need no students here!” In total there are more than two hundred thousand demonstrators. They broke their solemn silence only to pray in unison and sing the national anthem to the tsar (their beloved “father”). Obeying orders, they’re all wearing their Sunday best—young people, old people, women, and of course the children we’ve already mentioned.

  There’s not a cloud in the sky. Ice gleams on the rooftops. The cupolas of churches and cathedrals are shining. The white snow reflects the sun. It all seems like a good omen, because it’s been days since the heavens have been visible, and the temperature is mild for this time of year. But the omen is misleading, this is no day for ascendant stars. As Kollontai would write, “That day, the tsar killed something monumental in addition to the hundreds who died. He killed superstition. He killed the blind faith of the people, who had been certain that they would obtain justice by appealing to the tsar.”

  Although it beggars belie
f, official sources and reports allege that no more than three dozen people died that day. But for the Russian people, it was the last straw. The day goes down in history as Bloody Sunday. The petition they were bringing to the tsar, their letter, their prayer, goes undelivered.

  26. What on Earth Was the Tsar Thinking?

  If we go by his various biographies, it’s impossible to know exactly what the tsar was doing when the masses attempted to approach the Winter Palace with their petition letter. Some say he was dining and even specify the menu, but those are lies like so many others.

  We have it on good authority that he was keenly aware of the demonstration and that to calm his nerves he was bathing in the imperial bathroom.

  The bubbles were a variety of colors. Beneath the foam, the monarch was squeezing his thighs with his hands, anxious despite the effect of the soap. Because at times like this, soap realizes it can fly when given half a chance. The heaviest bar of soap, the greasiest, the most difficult to dissolve, they all take off in situations like this.

  Beneath the airborne soap bubbles, the tsar thinks. Not about the silent multitudes. Not about the prayers they sing from time to time. Not about the petition. Not about his childish delusion that he can fix everything. Thanks to the soap, he’s not worrying about the war with the Japanese, despite the fact that it’s a daily (and nightly) preoccupation. He’s not thinking about his wife or his children or about the meal some say he was eating at this very moment. He thinks without thinking, as if the soap bubbles have entered his head through one of his ears and gotten stuck inside his skull, unable to find an exit, perhaps because they’re too embarrassed to retrace their path, or because they don’t know how to get to the other ear. His thoughts are like the elusive bubbles, fragile, empty; like the contents of the bubbles—pure air.