Tsarina

by Ellen Alpsten

  Olga gave birth to a boy: Nadia chased me from our chamber as labour started. All I was allowed to do was heat vat upon vat of water. For hours her agony pierced both my soul and the kitchen walls, where I sat, my head buried in my arms, my hands on my ears. Her son Ivan was never christened. Praskaya let the newborn slip from her hands while bathing him in her tub. Perhaps it was for the best. With a bit of luck, a nice young man might still marry Olga and make an honest woman of her. But a few months later, during a late, windy spring with the river frozen longer than usual, she was pregnant again. Clearly, Vassily did not need the key to our chamber to get to her. I tried to comfort her; her pale eyes welled up and she turned away.

  When the master left on his travels, using the warmer months to fill his storerooms, Praskaya found some ridiculous reason to give Olga a whipping. The next morning, Olga’s bed was empty. How and when did she tiptoe out? I cursed her greasing of the hinges: we looked everywhere for her, but in vain. Two days later the Dvina washed up her body. Weeds hung in her hair; fish had nibbled away her eyelids. Her big blue eyes stared out at nothing, and her little hands were clenched above her swollen, but sagging belly as if in prayer. As Olga had taken her own life, she wasn’t buried in sacred ground, but thrown into a clay pit outside the city walls, where animals were known to dig up the corpses and eat them. I felt like clinging to Nadia when the town warden sent two coarse men to collect Olga’s body. They threw her corpse onto their cart, but the housekeeper made no protest, just turned and went about her work. The following week, Vassily drove Praskaya away. What became of her, I do not know. Then, at night, he came for me.

  7

  Living in constant fear would not allow me to sleep properly. Still, the floorboards creaking under Vassily’s feet woke me from an exhausted slumber. He was on top of me before I could scream, pressing his hand over my mouth, pulling me to my feet. I felt instantly wide awake with terror, biting down on his stubby fingers. He let go but slapped me so hard that I fell backwards onto my bed. I tasted blood on my lips and gave a sob.

  He sat on my thighs, pinned my hands above my head and tore my nightshirt from my body: my breasts shimmered pale in the moonlight. Panting, he tweaked my nipples and sucked greedily at my flesh, biting me and gasping, ‘By God, you’re beautiful. Your Tatar slut of a mother must have chewed wild garlic, your eyes are so slanted and green. And how splendidly you’ve fattened up. It felt like poking a bag of bones when I was with Olga.’

  I struggled under his weight, but he slapped me again, and harder than before. I thought of Grigori, and kept still: did I want to be beaten foolish, like him?

  ‘I knew it. You want it too,’ said Vassily smugly, taking off his nightshirt. His naked belly hung down over his small penis. ‘Besides, I like a wildcat like you.’

  ‘Please, don’t,’ I begged, although I knew it was pointless. Vassily’s cock was bent and wrinkled; he rubbed it, but it stayed tiny and red, like a stray dog’s. He saw me staring at it and screamed, ‘You’ve hexed me!’ He yanked me to my feet and cursed, probably praying in vain to all the saints in Russia to make him go hard. I was flooded with relief: perhaps he would go away again and leave me in peace for good. But no. He dragged me off the bed and pushed me to my knees, forcing open my jaw. I felt sick. Surely he couldn’t . . . ! Yes, he could. He shoved his limp thing into my mouth, grabbed my head and dug his fingers into my hair.

  ‘Lick it. Suck it, my little witch; nice and slow, deep and firm. That’s how I like it.’ He pushed himself deeper and deeper down my throat until I gagged, but he tugged my hair and threatened, ‘Bite me and see what I do to you.’

  I closed my eyes and timidly sucked and licked at the disgusting thing in my mouth. Vassily began to groan and I felt him swell. I wanted to die. Hopefully it would soon be over – whatever ‘over’ meant.

  Just then he pulled away and said hoarsely, ‘Turn around now.’ Vassily threw me face down on the bed, spread my thighs and shoved two fingers between my legs. He gave a satisfied laugh.

  ‘You’re like a bitch in heat, yet you’re still a virgin.’ Then he opened my legs wider and spat on my most secret spot, before he started forcing himself inside me, each movement agony. Please God, if only he would stop! He was right on top of me, scraping me raw inside. Still he thrust, again and again, panting and slapping my buttocks. He spanked me harder and harder, so that I bit my pillow, before he kneaded my breasts and buried himself inside me. Had Olga had to endure this, over and over again? Perhaps Praskaya wasn’t the reason she had killed herself after all. My voice cracked; I could neither scream nor cry. Vassily reared up, then fell on top of me. His breath rattled as he slid out of me, and it felt sticky and damp between my legs. Olga had told me that this was when it was most dangerous. His weight was almost crushing me.

  Time dripped past; everything inside me ached. When Vassily finally started snoring, I struggled out from beneath him. He grunted, and I limped over to where a bowl of water stood in the corner of the room. I leant against the wall and held on to the door handle before sinking onto a stool. All my limbs were shaking. It was awhile before I stroked my tangled hair off my face and licked at the dried blood on my swollen lips. Vassily lay sprawled across my bed. I couldn’t look at him, but broke the thin crust of ice on the water and washed carefully between my legs. The rag was soon red with blood.

  Every month, thank God, my bleeding still came. After that first terrible night, Nadia turned a blind eye to me sneaking into the room where Praskaya’s bathtub still stood, and left the kitchen when I stoked the fire to heat bucket after bucket of hot water. As I carried the last bucket to the tub, a piece of camphor-scented soap lay on its rim. I ladled the hot water over my body countless times, hoping to cleanse my soul.

  In the kitchen afterwards she glanced at me before saying in a matter-of-fact way: ‘It won’t be nearly as bad from now on.’

  I wasn’t sure that was really a comfort.

  Vassily visited me almost nightly. I learnt how to give him pleasure, which disgusted me but made him come more quickly, so that he would leave me sooner rather than later. He gave me presents as he had done with Olga, which made me feel like a whore: another dress in the German style, which I put on a scarecrow in a field, or boxes of sticky sweets from somewhere far south of the Black Sea. I burnt them in the oven; the sugar melted and I breathed in the bitter-sweet smoke with flared nostrils. Sometimes, at night, I dreamt of Olga. Had it been she who had kept me at bay, never confiding in me or asking me for pity, or had I stayed away from her, lest her bad luck might spread, trying to survive just like everybody else here?

  During my rare breaks, I walked to the riverside where her corpse had been found. Where she was now, no one could hurt her anymore. It was a tempting thought that made me sad, but also angry. Several times I waded out into the waves until my skirt grew wet and heavy. But I didn’t have the courage; or perhaps I didn’t feel the true, deep despair needed to surrender myself forever to the waters of the Dvina.

  In November of the same year, the sharpness of the air was crystallising the breath on my lips. The blue ice on the Dvina glistened in the bright sunshine when I left the house by the kitchen door. I wrapped a blanket over my woollen dress, slipped into the servants’ boots standing next to the door and went out to the stables to bring Grigori fresh hot chai. The poor lad had to make sure the water troughs for Vassily’s horses didn’t freeze over. To stop himself from falling asleep, he always held a sack full of pieces of metal. If he nodded off too deeply, so that his muscles relaxed, the sack would fall to the ground with a clang; then Grigori would shake himself awake, seize his club and smash the thin layer of ice that had already formed on the water in that brief moment of rest. Two of his toes had already frozen off, and he was constantly exhausted from the lack of proper sleep. I hurried, because the bowl of chai was very hot, but at the stable door I stopped. What was that strange noise? I heard a whistle, and rattling breaths.

  ‘Grigori, are you there?’ I ask
ed, but shrank back as Vassily flung open the stable door. He was wearing nothing but breeches and knee-high boots, and despite the cold he was drenched in sweat. In his hand he held his long horsewhip with the silver pommel.

  ‘What do you want?’ he snarled. For the past two days he’d had an infected tooth that must have been hellishly painful. His cheek was red and swollen.

  I held out the bowl. ‘I’ve brought chai for Grigori. It’s so very cold . . .’ Then I looked over Vassily’s shoulder and fell silent, horrified. He had tied Grigori to a wooden beam with his arms stretched above his head, and had ripped the boy’s shirt – already far too thin for winter! – right down to his belt. Was Grigori still alive? The skin of his back hung down in bloody strips. My stomach turned and I retched at the sight of it. What could the poor boy possibly have done?

  ‘Oh my God!’ I dropped the clay bowl; it smashed, and spattered chai all over Vassily’s boots. ‘Why have you done this?’ I asked, aghast. I pressed my fingers over my mouth to force back the rising bile.

  He spat out, ‘Lazy, useless creature! He fell asleep, and now the troughs are frozen. How are my horses supposed to drink?’

  ‘You’ve beaten him half to death because he fell asleep? He’s just a boy. Stop –’ These days, I could get away with a number of things with Vassily, but instead of answering he went back inside the stable. Grigori merely sighed as the whip sliced down on his raw flesh once more. He was still alive, but barely so, and Vassily was about to strike him again. I couldn’t stop myself; I hurled myself onto his arm and tore the horsewhip from his hand. ‘You animal! You’re killing him,’ I shouted.

  Vassily shoved me; I stumbled, fell over backwards in the straw and dropped the whip. He grabbed it and hit me with it, two or three times. I curled up, shielding my head with my arms. The whip licked across my hands. It felt like an animal clawing at me, and I howled. Vassily wiped the sweat from his brow and his eyes almost popped from their sockets. ‘Just you wait until tonight. I’ll teach you to behave like that with your master.’ Then he left the stable.

  I sat up slowly. The whip had torn both the blanket and my dress. Warm blood trickled down my arm, but I could deal with that later: Grigori’s head was hanging back, his whole body rigid, and he was gurgling and foaming at the mouth. When I loosened the rope, he collapsed on the straw with a sigh. Vassily’s shirt lay nearby: I folded it to make a cushion for Grigori’s head.

  Then came the seizure, more terrible and more violent than I could ever have imagined. His face twisted and his eyes bulged; he did look possessed as he thrashed about, arms and legs jerking, gurgling incomprehensible words. Suddenly a stream of blood mingled with the foam at his mouth and he spat out a piece of pink, spongy flesh. I shrank back and crossed myself, before taking pity on him and overcoming my fear. What could I do? I thought of how I used to calm my younger siblings when they screamed, and I grabbed his lolling head. His eyes rolled back until only the whites were showing. I mastered my dread and pressed his face firmly against my breasts, rocking him back and forth, crying silently as he gradually quietened in my arms. At last he lay still. His life was now in God’s hands. I felt his breath go cold between my breasts, in fits and starts, before it stalled.

  Moments later, Grigori was dead.

  8

  For the rest of the day, I was strangled by a fear that curdled my blood and twisted my guts. Never before and never again have I known such terrible foreboding. I saw Vassily neither in the house nor in the yard. Nadia and I stood and watched as Grigori’s body was dragged from the stable. I wept: what would Vassily do to me now?

  Nadia eyed me but said nothing. She knew well enough what was going on and tonight of all nights, it was my turn to keep watch over the fire in the kitchen, which in winter could not be allowed to go out. I couldn’t lock myself in the maids’ room; I was utterly at Vassily’s mercy. When Nadia wanted to go to bed, I clung to her against all reason.

  ‘Can’t you stay with me, Nadia? Please.’

  She loosened my grip. ‘What on earth have you done? I have never seen him so angry.’ My heart sank: she should know, she had raised him after all. He ought to be like a son to her. I knew I couldn’t expect more from her than that square remark.

  Feeling doomed, I moved around the dark kitchen like a sleepwalker, pointlessly scrubbing the top of the stove again and again with a sprinkling of ash and a coarse brush. As long as I was doing something, no one could do anything to me, I thought foolishly. Eventually I wrapped myself in my blanket, exhausted, on the warm floor in front of the stove. I couldn’t sleep, listening wide-eyed to the silence. Pictures were chasing madly through my mind: Olga’s heavy belly, swollen with Vassily’s bastard. Ivan’s little limbs sinking into the depths of Praskaya’s tub. The terrible sight of Grigori’s battered body. I didn’t want to die: not like that, not now. Then I heard Vassily’s footsteps approaching, swift and threatening. Before I could hide, he grabbed me, dragged me to my feet and pressed me against the wall.

  ‘Look at me before I kill you. Look what I’ve got for you.’ He dangled a whip with several knotted straps before my eyes. I hiccupped in horror. Executioners used lashes like these to flay thieves and swindlers alive. A single blow would tear off layers of skin. ‘Yes.’ He enjoyed seeing my despair. ‘Do you know what the Regent Sophia did with disobedient souls? She flogged them, rubbed them with vodka and set them on fire. I am still her loyal subject and I spit on the false Tsar Peter. You’re going to make a beautiful torch, Marta.’ He pulled me over to the big kitchen table and bent me across its heavy wooden top. He kissed me then, which made me gag, and bore down with all his weight.

  Vassily’s head on my throat and chest almost choked me and I gasped for air. He was pushing up my dress and spreading my legs. He didn’t think I’d put up any real struggle. In the dim light I frantically swept my hands over the table, first beside me, then behind my head. That afternoon, Nadia had been crushing herbs, right here where I was lying; she’d used the heavy brass pestle and mortar, because the frozen greens didn’t give up their flavour lightly. Vassily pulled my hips up. As he threw himself on me, my fingers stretched back as far as they could and brushed against the cool metal of the mortar. Quickly, I pulled it towards me.

  ‘Turn over,’ Vassily groaned, and started yanking me onto my stomach. No! I’d be lost then. And so I raised the pestle with all my strength and brought it crashing down onto his skull. There was a hideous, crunching sound, like cartwheels on frozen snow. In the faint glow from the fire, Vassily’s face changed: turning first astonished, then empty. He opened his mouth and spat over me, spilling not words and hatred, but blood. His skull had split in two like a walnut. But that was no longer enough for me: I hit him again, and a third time, spurred on by my fury, my helplessness and the shame he had made me suffer. He should not go to the next world with the face of a man.

  Vassily slumped, fell sideways and lay still on the cold stone floor. I slid off the table and knelt beside him. His face was a pulp. I was still holding the pestle; I smashed it down one last time, just to be sure. I felt sick, the kitchen spun all around me and I passed out on the floor next to him.

  9

  Someone was wiping my face with a damp cloth. I came to and blinked: Nadia was kneeling over me in her nightdress, her hair braided in two long plaits. Her nightlight – a piece of rope dipped in rancid pig fat – flickered on the floor beside us. It gave off an evil stench, but there was another, more nauseating smell: the kitchen reeked of blood and death, just like slaughter day in the village.

  Nadia shook me. ‘Marta, wake up.’

  I tried to sit, but everything hurt. Then I saw Vassily: all that was left of his face was a bloody mess. Had I done this? I pulled myself onto my knees, closed my eyes and rubbed my temples with trembling fingers. My whole body shivered now and I felt so weak I could barely move.

  ‘He wanted to kill me, Nadia. He threatened to flog me, rub me with vodka and set me on fire,’ I stammered, looking up at
her. The nightlight drew strange shadows over her face with its bulging eyes and lips pinched in steady disapproval. What had I done? The kitchen closed in on me. I tried to steady my head by holding it and gasping as if coming up for air after having been held underwater. ‘Please, Nadia –’ I started, and cowered away, but she didn’t say anything. Mine was the worst kind of volnenye: any form of disobedience by a soul towards their master. Men were broken on the wheel for it, women were buried alive up to their heads and left to die of thirst and starvation. Only in milder cases were they condemned to a life of hard labour in the spinning mills. But killing Vassily was no milder case.

  My teeth were chattering. I wrapped my arms around my knees to hold them steady, but my legs were trembling too much with cold and fear. ‘Please,’ I said again, as she took a step closer, ready to seize me. On her face, emotions chased each other: stunned surprise, shock and then, sheer hatred. I wrapped my hands around my head, ready for her blows. Would she finish Vassily’s work and pour vodka over me before setting me alight? I peered through my elbows, sobbing.

  Nadia kicked Vassily’s faceless body with all her might, once, and then again. His ribs crunched and she stomped on his fingers. ‘Serves him right, the dog. He should be fed to his sows.’ She stopped, breathing heavily, and looked at me, thoughtful and stern-faced. I hiccupped with surprise. ‘Someone should have done this long ago,’ she said. ‘What are we going to do with you? They’ll torture you, and then you’ll be executed. Come with me,’ Nadia said, pulling me to my feet. I stumbled up, wiping snot and tears off my face with my sleeve. ‘We have to be fast. It’s almost morning.’