Tsarina

by Ellen Alpsten

  Nevertheless, I would not forget a friend who had done me a good deed. In St Petersburg, a man was either the plaintiff or the accused. If Menshikov fell into disgrace, and was duly punished, none of us was safe from Peter’s wrath.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘Menshikov has sold Russian troops stale bread and thin soup. The money for proper supplies is dangling in diamonds around his wife’s fat neck instead. Worse than that, he stole fifteen thousand souls from the Cossacks, and now I have to quench an uprising,’ Peter spat furiously.

  ‘Well, I have heard worse. Is not Menshikov always Menshikov?’ I reminded him, and Alexander Danilovich dared a smile, but Peter was furious, pointing to the door. ‘Out! Both of you. Shafirov, I’ll check on your business. If you leave town without my permission, I will execute you and your family on the spot. And you . . .’ he pointed his dubina at Alexander Danilovich ‘. . . Menshikov! Your bitch of a mother conceived you in sin and shame, and you shall die in sin and shame. Yes, you shall end where you started!’

  78

  Daria Menshikova came to see me the same evening, just when we – my ladies-in-waiting, Wilhelm Mons and I – were listening to my reader by the fireplace. The book was of questionable content and my younger ladies giggled. Peter’s illness hindered him from knowing them as well as he would have done in earlier years, I thought: in the past few weeks his suffering had worsened and his swollen body sometimes made him scream in pain.

  My eyes were drawn to Wilhelm Mons; I could not help it. He lay on a chaise-longue and stared into the flames, which lent his skin a golden hue. His long, well-shaped legs were outstretched and crossed. Did the reader’s words make his heart race, as they did mine? Was the feel of his lips, which smiled so easily, soft or demanding when they touched a woman’s mouth? He moved, folding his arms behind his head and sighing, while looking into the flames. How would it feel to be caressed by these long, slender fingers; those hands that he so casually folded beneath his head? Again, it was easy to imagine him out in the open, sleeping under a starry sky and being content sitting around a campfire. I had forced myself to take my eyes off him when Agneta whispered in my ear, ‘Daria Menshikova is waiting for you in the Chinese Cabinet, my Tsaritsa.’

  I sighed. Of course. In his struggle for survival, Menshikov used the strongest weapon at his disposal: memories of my youth and friendship with Daria. If we met today, we ate sugared violets and made idle marriage plans for our living children, mourning the dead. As I rose, Wilhelm Mons sat up. ‘Follow me,’ I said briefly.

  I felt him close behind me. If I stopped, would our bodies touch? Instead, I hastened my steps. That was not to happen.

  In the Chinese Cabinet, candlelight brought to life the birds painted on the colourful silk wall-coverings. Daria paced the small room. On seeing me, she threw herself to her knees, grabbing my ankles, but I raised and embraced her. ‘Wilhelm, give Princess Menshikova your handkerchief. No woman is to be left weeping,’ I scolded him playfully. Daria sneezed as loudly as a farmer’s wife into the silk cloth; her hair was tousled and the tears left unsightly traces on the pasty white make-up she still ordered from Venice.

  ‘Sit,’ I said, as Wilhelm pushed a dainty silk-covered chair closer. He helped Daria to her feet and the chair creaked under her weight. Daria rummaged in her cleavage and handed me a small scroll. ‘Alekasha won’t tell me what’s going on. He smashed our green salon to pieces and the cook got the hiding of a lifetime. As I left he was going for the Delft tiles in his study, breaking them one by one with his cane. He sends you this.’ I unrolled the scroll on which there was only one sentence, its ink smeared by tears.

  ‘Read it to me,’ I told Wilhelm, who stepped up to the fireplace, letting the flames shed some light on the writing.

  ‘“What am I to do?”’ he read aloud, looking up in astonishment. Daria’s and my disbelief were palpable. We stared at each other: the powerful Prince Menshikov was foundering. She clasped my hands and said, ‘Please, Catherine Alexeyevna, by all that once linked us, by all that we once loved – help us.’

  ‘What should your husband do, Daria?’ I asked, chuckling, after a moment of silence. Wilhelm watched me, a slight smile playing at the corners of his full, soft lips. He leant against the silk walls as casually if they were a stable’s. His presence made me light-hearted, almost giddy. I said: ‘Well, quite simply, Menshikov must follow the command of his master and become what he was earlier. Tomorrow night, at supper with me and some friends. Will you join us?’ I asked her, but looked straight at Wilhelm.

  Daria took my words with her into the frosty winter night.

  Our dinner was simple – stuffed cabbage with a creamy sauce of mushrooms – and Peter ate in sulky silence. He needed more money, but already took his tenth share of even a torn fisherman’s net being pulled through Russian waters, however big or small its haul. ‘Can you think of something else that I could tax?’ he asked me testily.

  ‘Let me think. Homesteads, cattle, wood and bricks, housewares, crockery, cutlery, sleds, carts, beehives, ponds, rivers, mills . . . even banjas are already taxed.’

  ‘Yes. Everything I see when I cross my country,’ he admitted grumpily.

  I dipped my spoon in my soup, fishing for cabbage and pickled gherkins. ‘How about taxing vegetables for floating in a soup?’ I asked, but Peter said, ‘Already done. The only thing that is not taxed is the air for breathing.’

  ‘Well, then . . .’ I said, holding my breath.

  Peter chuckled and raised his glass. ‘To you and your ability always to make me laugh.’ His eyes were moist; candlelight concealed the frosted streaks in his hair and smoothed the deep lines in his puffy face. Wilhelm, who waited on me, refilled my goblet so that I could answer Peter as I should, when we heard a racket from outside the room: banging and a familiar voice shouting, ‘Pierogi! Hot fresh pierogi!’ Peter listened, surprised, as the doors flew open and in marched Menshikov, dressed in rags and barefoot despite the cold. An over-large baker boy’s cap slipped over his eyes as he touted pastries from a large tray held in front of his belly. ‘Pierogi! Pierogi! Buy with me, the baker boy Menshikov.’ He shoved his tray at Peter. ‘Eat, puny little prince. Everyone knows that that witch, your half-sister Sophia, doesn’t let you have a square meal! But one day we’ll show her, together, you and me.’

  I held my breath. Peter’s eyes wandered from his friend’s face to the steaming, fragrant pierogi, and back again. He tasted one. ‘Hmm – still as good as in old times, Menshikov, you scoundrel!’ he laughed, and Alexander Danilovich knelt before him, tears filling his eyes.

  ‘Will you forgive me, my heart?’ he whispered. ‘I have failed you. But if you flog and behead all scoundrels in your Empire, you’ll soon have no subjects left.’

  Peter threw the remnants of his pastry to his dogs, who leapt at it while he embraced Menshikov, sobbing and laughing at the same time. ‘Do not cross me again, Alekasha, or otherwise I must have your hide, as sorry as I’d be.’

  Menshikov sat down and the two men chatted, drank and laughed as if nothing had ever happened. From behind my chair, I felt Wilhelm’s closeness, breathing in his scent of musk and sandalwood. I felt as helpless as a doe who senses the hunter approaching. So I heard only faintly as Menshikov said to Peter, ‘But you ought to keep an eye on that cheat Shafirov . . .’

  The following morning an adorable boy was sent to my room; his skin was like chocolate and Menshikov’s coat-of-arms was embroidered on his crimson velvet cloak. He bowed and opened the heavy jewel case he carried, showing a tiara, necklace and earrings made of flawless diamonds of such size and fire that they had no par in Peter’s treasury. The child chirped in broken Russian, ‘With gratitude and adoration from Alexander Danilovich Menshikov.’ I gladly accepted Menshikov’s beautiful present. After all, he had given me so much, why not these gems to commemorate such a moment in our lives? I sent the boy to Abraham Petrovich, Peter’s Moor, where he would be educated and want for nothing. />
  A few weeks later, in Peterhof, Peter sent for me after we had spent the morning together.

  The tubby stable cat had had kittens and our little Natalya was besotted with the blind, clumsy bundles of fur. She sat on Peter’s knees and he asked: ‘Which one do you want, my girl?’ The morning sun set Natalya’s auburn curls aflame and my heart tightened with love for her. In the autumn she was to receive her first lessons.

  ‘Can’t I have them all?’ she asked, astonished, and Peter cupped the five kittens in his large hands. ‘Of course, my little angel, you can have them all. But perhaps your sisters might want one as well?’

  Natalya thought for a moment. ‘All right. But only one.’

  ‘Open your skirt, we’ll put them inside. But let’s take the mother cat as well. The kittens still need her,’ Peter said. The cat dug her claws in his hands when he turned to me to say: ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘Not yet. Elizabeth is breaking in the stallion that the King of France sent her. I’ll watch.’

  ‘Hopefully she will not break her neck before we marry her off in Paris,’ he chuckled, and stepped together with Natalya from the darkness of the stables into the bright spring sunshine. Alice already waited for them. She took Natalya’s free hand, and the little girl skipped along: they disappeared in a swirl of light.

  Elizabeth noted my presence at the school with a polite nod. I watched her force her will upon the stallion and knew she had not forgiven me for taking Wilhelm from her. She would be a good Queen in France, even if Versailles had grown curiously quiet in recent months.

  Peter and Feofan Prokopovich awaited me. The priest leant against one of the study’s walls, his dark robe blending with the panelling. The room’s scent of dust, paper, ink and tobacco was laced by a salty breeze and sunbeams drew patterns on the Persian rugs. I kissed Feofan’s panagia, and he blessed me with the Sign of the Cross. What duties did Feofan have in Peterhof? His manifold talents never ceased to astonish me; he wrote plays as well as a history of the Great Northern War, together with Peter, every Saturday morning. He read the works of scholars, whose names I could scarcely pronounce, in their own language: Spinoza, Descartes, Bacon and Leibniz, to name just a few I could remember. All his work was done to the honour and glory of the Emperor who had made him a Father of the Fatherland.

  Peter looked up from the scroll he was reading, with a tender smile for me. ‘Matka, come, sit down with us two old men. We’ll talk some nonsense together.’ I felt Feofan’s gaze intent upon me but closed my face as only we ‘souls’ knew how.

  ‘We were talking about freedom,’ Feofan said.

  ‘I like to talk about it! Volya! To do as you like – isn’t that the dream of all of us?’ I laughed.

  Feofan scolded me. ‘My Tsaritsa, you speak like the soul you once were. But freedom does not mean doing whatever one feels like, but being delivered from all ideas that hinder our souls’ well-being.’

  Peter placed his muddy boots on the table. I frowned: what was Feofan going on about? He chose every word carefully. ‘There are laws of the heart and of nature. God decides on them, or else his chosen ruler. The Tsar is a father to his people. With God’s help, he takes decisions that we can’t fathom immediately.’

  ‘Get to the point, honourable Feofan,’ Peter said.

  ‘The Tsar has no son,’ the priest continued. ‘So he will and must decide upon the succession when the day comes.’

  ‘Let that day be far from us,’ I said.

  ‘Indeed,’ Peter chuckled, and got up, shaking his legs. ‘Thank you, Feofan Prokopovich. I will tell the Tsaritsa what I have to tell her when we are alone. But you showed me the way.’

  When Feofan had left, I clenched the carved lion’s heads on the armrests of my chair and Peter looked at me in silence. I could barely hold myself back: which of his bastards would he appoint as his heir? He had an army of sons born out of wedlock. My heart beat so hard it hurt. To distract myself I rose and stepped over to the window. There was no sound bar the ticking of the room’s clocks, which were set to chime together.

  Outside, on the bright gravel of the terrace, Elizabeth stood with Wilhelm, her cheeks flushed by the ride. He laughed politely at whatever she said, but kept his distance, I noticed. My gaze skimmed the park’s treetops and the fountains, whose water sparkled in all the colours of the rainbow, and then slid out towards the leaden sea of ​​the Finnish Bay. Peter stepped behind me, embracing me and nuzzling my neck.

  ‘Catherinushka. I’ve learnt that a woman’s body does not do my bidding,’ he said, sounding sad, his words cutting my soul like a blade. ‘God has denied us a strong, healthy son. I cannot be angry with Him, for wrath shall not spoil my latter days. But you and I, we’ve always stuck together. You have been faithful to me, always; your words were always to be trusted, as was your kindness and your grace.’ His voice cracked. I leant my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes so as to not shed the tears I felt coming. Was he sweetening the bitter pill for me?

  ‘I want to thank you,’ he breathed into my ear. ‘Are you ready for this?’

  I opened my eyes and light poured in painfully. ‘Ready? Whatever for?’

  ‘To be crowned. Next year, in Moscow, as soon as it is warm and sunny. If I die before my time, you can carry on my work,’ he said, his eyes not leaving my face. ‘Are you ready? We are both old. I wish to thank you for everything.’

  We are both old. His words took root in my soul, but before they could hurt, I nodded. He laughed, delighted, as he bit me playfully on the neck. ‘I am so proud of you!’ he told me.

  Wilhelm looked up at our window. I felt his gaze on me like a caress and stepped out of view. I am not that old yet, I thought. Wilhelm watched with burning eyes as Peter lifted my chin and kissed me.

  79

  Peter Shafirov trembled like pig’s blubber when he mounted the scaffold, barefoot and dressed in a hair shirt: he had been found guilty of treason and embezzlement of public funds. After the weeks of privation in prison he looked once more like the bright young man he had been before greed got the better of him. Alexander Danilovich sat beside me, spinning the diamond-studded knob of his walking stick. To celebrate the day his former friend was to be beheaded, he wore a new wig and a splendid crimson coat.

  For April, the Moscow air was unusually stuffy and a small crowd had gathered on the Red Square. After three years of famine, the people looked gaunt; their eyes lay deep-set and their heads were skull-like. I had heard the whispers: God punishes the murderer on Russia’s throne. We pay for the Tsar’s sins. The Moskva carried hardly any water. In some parts of Russia travellers were told not to spend the night alone in an inn, for otherwise they might end up as a juicy stew. Shafirov sobbed when he saw his five princess daughters soaking their handkerchiefs with tears. I tried in vain to meet Peter’s eye. He scanned the crowd and then the sky, where pot-bellied clouds gathered.

  The night before, I had searched my drawers for the leather pouch which had hung on my belt during the Pruth campaign. Inside it lay the ring Peter had given me back then, when Shafirov had risked his life for the Tsar and for Russia by going as envoy into the Grand Vizier's camp. ‘Let us never forget what happened today,’ Peter had said back then.

  When I placed the ring on his desk, he frowned.

  ‘What is that?’ He turned the ring back and forth, so that the candle flame caught the fire of the flawless ruby.

  ‘The ring you gave me on the Pruth twelve years ago.’ I reminded him. ‘You said then that I should help you never to forget what Shafirov did for Russia.’

  Peter had slipped the ring into the pocket of his old green velvet dressing-gown, telling me, ‘Go back to sleep, Catherinushka. It will be a hard enough day tomorrow. For all of us.’

  Peter stood up on the scaffold, his expression unreadable. As a cruel joke, the guards yanked Shafirov’s legs from under him as he was about to kneel down, so that he wobbled like one of Natalya’s toys on what was left of his belly. The people jeered while
the executioner adjusted his red hood, to see better through the narrow eye slits. The blade of the axe flashed in the morning sun; Shafirov’s lips moved in a silent prayer and his wife, the slender, sour Baroness Shafirov, fainted as the steel swung downward in an arc.

  I closed my eyes – and heard the crowd gasp. When I dared a peek, I saw the axe stuck in the wood next to Shafirov’s head. He cowered on the executioner’s block, ashen with sheer dread but still alive. Menshikov blew his nose in his fingers and grunted with anger. ‘Really, can’t a man like Shafirov even afford a good executioner? Fool.’

  Up on the scaffold, Makarov handed Peter a scroll and the Kremlin’s walls echoed the Emperor’s declaration back at us: Shafirov had been pardoned. A sigh ran through the crowd; the Baroness Shafirov came to. Shafirov’s physician had to bleed him twice before he felt truly back amongst the living again, having seen death ready to snatch him.

  In the evening, I found the ring from Pruth lying amongst my bottles of perfume, my make-up, brushes and combs. Peter never said a word about it, ever again.

  The summer brought long, bright days and I returned to Peterhof on my own: Peter helped me step on my sailboat, kissing me and calling me by the old nicknames as we took leave of each other for some days. It was as if his love for me was refreshed, twenty years on. As the wind filled my boat’s sails, I saw him merge with the grey stone of the Summer Palace’s jetty, waving me goodbye. He had been held back in St Petersburg but had urged me to seek the country air. I felt the peace and security I had longed for always, but also a sense of unrest and a yearning for something more. Was that the other woman deep inside me, stirring? I willed her to be quiet.

  In Peterhof, I knew, Wilhelm Mons awaited me.

  After the stifling heat of the city, the sight of the barren, famished land around pained me: for the fourth year in a row, the barns were bare, and starved bodies lay at the roadside, as no one had enough strength left to bury them. Peterhof by contrast was a quiet paradise: the treetops had grown above the palace’s roof, from afar the fountains sparkled, colourful birds darted through the air, butterflies tumbled in the reeds, and I heard the shrieking of the little monkeys I kept in Marly.