City of Silence (City of Mystery) (6 page)

“I
believe she asked you for their names,” came a voice behind her. Cold,
self-assured.  Tatiana turned to see
Grand
Duchess
Elizabeth Feodorovna, sister-in-law
to the tsar, and known as Ella to the court, also making her way down the
staircase.
 Tatiana
sank into a curtsy and Ella nodded distractedly.  Her focus was on the scene
below them. 

Everyone
claimed that Ella had been the prettiest princess of Europe, courted by royals
from every corner of the continent, but Tatiana had never considered the Grand
Duchess especially beautiful.  Or perhaps it would be better to say that her
beauty was not the sort of dainty femininity that Russians men generally admired. 
There was a stony quality to Ella’s features, which were prominent and even a
bit masculine.  This severity was echoed in the face of her attendant, another
Englishwoman, this one sent by the Queen, presumably to quell her granddaughter’s
loneliness in this land so far from her birth.  Despite the fact that Ella’s
acknowledgment of her curtsy had been perfunctory, Tatiana remained in her pose
of supplication, looking up through her eyelashes.  The woman above her was
born to royalty, married to royalty, and stood far above the wife of a bodyguard
by every standard society could apply, and yet there is a meritocracy of nature
too, is there not?  And in this ranking, Tatiana knew she reigned supreme.
There was no denying the doll-like symmetry of her face, the roundness of her
breasts, the ringlets which formed, without coaxing, in her hair. Taken in this
manner, Tatiana’s deep curtsy might even be seen as ironic.

When
the men on the stage remained silent, Ella answered her own question.  “Their
names are Katya Gorbunkova and Yulian Krupin,” she said, the comments presumably
directed toward Tatiana, although her eyes had never left the stage below them.
“Both of the tsar’s imperial ballet,” Ella continued.  “Chosen as leads at an age
when their peers are still vying for an invitation to the troupe.  Their deaths
are a waste of talent as well as youth.”

“We
have not formally met,” Tatiana said, rising at last.  “But I am Tatiana Orlov
and will also dance in the imperial waltz.”

“I
may have seen you in the rehearsals,” Ella said, flicking her eyes in Tatiana’s
direction then calling out to the men below, a bit more loudly than was
necessary, “Are you quite sure it is a suicide?”

“What
else should it be?” answered the bald man.  “They are peasants by birth, you
know.  Such violence is common in the youth of their class.”  By the brusque
tone of his voice it was clear he had not recognized Ella, which was
surprising, but perhaps the police, unlike the guard, did not often come in
contact with the imperial family.  The quality of the women’s clothes had earned
them a sliver of civility – had they been dressed as servants it’s unlikely
they would have been allowed to remain in the room at all.  But the policeman’s
tolerance evidently did not stretch so far as to include extended conversation
with civilians, especially female ones.  

“It’s
odd that the knife is in the girl’s hand,” Tatiana ventured quietly.

 “I
agree,” said Ella. “Cynthia, please retrieve my camera.”

A
quick nod from the other woman, who had remained further back but who now
turned to do her mistress’s bidding.  The British had a queer term for such
attendants, something like “the women who stand there” although Tatiana could
not think of the precise phrase in the tension of the moment.  When this
particular woman had first arrived from London there had been some speculation
she might have been sent by Queen Victoria for purposes of political reconnaissance. 
Such was the depth of the paranoia in the court of Tsar Alexander III, that a
middle-aged British widow with those odd sort of spectacles that split the eye
in half, making the bottom look much larger than the top, could be rumored a
spy.  This reflexive suspicion of outsiders had always struck Tatiana as
foolish, but she supposed the overblown fears of the court were why her husband
held his present post.  Why she slept on feather mattresses instead of straw
mats.

“I
take photographs,” Ella said to Tatiana, a bit unnecessarily and even a bit
defensively.  “A camera is a fine way to document the details of one’s own
life, is it not?  But please, continue with your thoughts.  Why do you find it
odd that the knife is in the girl’s hand?”

“If
it were a suicide pact between lovers,” Tatiana said, “you would think she
would die first, and then him, that he would not leave her to…”

“Quite,”
said Ella. “And will you come stand beside me?”

She
knows the acoustics of this room as well as I do, Tatiana thought, as she
swiftly moved closer to Ella.  She knows that even a softly spoken conversation
between two women on the stairs has the potential to echo through the entire
theater.  She’s one of the aristocrats who most sincerely support the arts,
which is probably why she also knew the name of the dancers.

“I
believe your husband is a member of the royal guard?” Ella asked.

“Yes,
Your Imperial Highness.”

“And
does he ever discuss his work with you?”

The
notion was so ludicrous that Tatiana almost laughed.  She and Filip did not
have discussions of any sort.  Their marriage did not take that particular
form.  Furthermore, even had he been so inclined, there was probably nothing
about his work which merited discussion.  The grand duchess seemed to be under
the impression that Tatiana was married to an inspector or detective, a man with
cases which required deduction and analysis.  She did not understand that
Filip’s primary function was to absorb stray projectiles, nothing more.

“No,
Your Imperial Highness.”

“So
he is discreet,” Ella said, still misunderstanding.  “Which is a good thing, I
suppose.  But it is obvious that much strikes you as odd about the scene before
us.”

“The
position…” Tatiana said, tentatively.  No one had shown the slightest interest
in her opinion about anything since she had moved to the palace and it felt odd
to be speaking openly now, especially to a woman of rank. 

“The
final pose of the ballet,” said Ella, with a nod.  “Intended as some sort of
message to the survivors, no doubt.”

“I
have been trying to envision the sequence of events that would lead them there,”
Tatiana said. 

“And
how might you imagine it?  Speak freely.”

Tatiana
narrowed her eyes. “They assumed their pose on the floor and then…he cut his
throat and then she…took the knife from his hand and cut her own?  Something in
it all seems terribly wrong, unnecessarily cruel.  For if two young lovers were
determined to die by the blade of a single knife wouldn’t he do the deed for
her and then follow behind himself?  And another thing,” she added, gaining
confidence as she spoke. “Romeo and Juliet fell on their daggers, which would
have been a much easier way to die than the arrangement before us.  Faster,
more definitive, and one could not change one’s mind half way though, which is
an advantage in a method of suicide.  But these youngsters must have cut their
own throats and inflicting those sort of deep gashes which would have taken
nerves of steel.  A feat it is hard to picture a young girl performing, even if
she was looking into the eyes of her dead lover.”

Ella
nodded slowly, but did not add any observations of her own.  “And can you tell
me, Tatiana Orlov, why it does not disturb you to look so directly upon blood
and death?”

“My
father is a butcher.”

It
was a confession Tatiana rarely made, but it was true.  From earliest childhood
she had been trained to look upon flesh as a type of currency.  The guard below
them who had dismissed the dancers as peasants hadn’t known he was speaking to
a peasant himself, a woman only twenty-seven months out of poverty, a woman
whose pretty face was a type of currency too.  Tatiana had never, not for a
single day, forgotten it.

“And
so you believe,” Ella asked, in a flat tone which did not make the question a
question at all, “that they were likely murdered?”

Tatiana
nodded.  One did not merely nod at a grand duchess, even Filip would have known
better than that, but she seemed to have momentarily lost her ability to
speak.  Ella nodded too and turned toward the sound of her attendant who was
marching steadily down the steps with a box in her hands, as well as some sort
of device which looked like a collection of canes tucked under her armpit.  She
is a lady-in-waiting, Tatiana suddenly remembered.  That was what the British called
them.  A foolish phrase.  What were all those ladies waiting for?

“Very
well,” said Ella. “Let us set it up near the railing.”  The woman handed Ella
the box, which Tatiana supposed was the camera.  She had never seen one, only
finished photographs, and it seemed nearly unbelievable that this square black
case, no larger than a hatbox, should hold within the power to freeze history,
to doom human faces to remain forever suspended in time.  The attendant snapped
the group of canes and they fell into a sort of stand upon which Ella placed
the camera.  She stooped to look through an aperture in the box.  Whatever she
saw must have displeased her, for she stood and moved the camera and its stand
to another part of the railing and then looked again.

“Pardon
me,” Ella said, rising up and calling down to the men on the floor.  “I must
request that you all stand back.”

“Stand
back?”  The bald man now looked up at the three women with open annoyance.  It
was one thing for the ladies of the court to come here out of curiosity, rising
early from their beds to gape and stare. One thing for them to wish to witness
the scene, for death is exciting, even a bit sexual, and sometimes the most
unlikely of people are drawn to stand witness to its power.  God knows, he had
felt the pull himself.  But it was entirely a different matter for one of these
women, no matter how well dressed, to order him to stand back.

“I
intend to take a photograph,” she said.

“For
what?”

“For
my own edification,” she said icily and then, just before he gave way to a
sputter she added, “and of course my husband the Grand Duke Serge also takes an
interest in my photography.”

At
the words “my husband the Grand Duke Serge,” the entire scene before them
changed.   The officers on the floor stood, looked up, took a beat to absorb
the identity of the woman above them with her camera, and then, to a man, leapt
back.  The two bodies on the floor suddenly lay in the center of an empty
circle, looking small and pitifully alone.

Ella
lowered her head and looked through the lens.  “It would be better if I had my
cloth,” she murmured, “but this will do,” and then there was the loud pop of a
shutter closing, followed by another.  With a satisfied sigh, Ella carefully
lifted the camera from the triangular stand. 

“Thank
you,” she said to the men below. “You may carry on now.”

She
is the kind of woman, Tatiana thought, who says phrases like “Pardon me” or
“thank you” in a tone of voice that makes even words of supplication sound like
an order.  The men below seemed somehow shamed by her surface politeness.  They
moved back around the body but silently, almost furtively.  What would it be
like, Tatiana thought, to have that sort of power?  To be able to not only
change people’s behavior but to change how they feel about themselves, to level
the proud and correct the arrogant, all with a few casually spoken words?

The
grand duchess and her lady in waiting proceeded up the staircase, Ella carrying
the camera and the woman carrying the stand.  As she reached the step where
Tatiana waited, Ella paused. 

“Our
discussion has captured my interest, Tatiana Orlov,” she said.  “I believe we
shall meet again, very soon.”

Tatiana
curtsied and the two women swept past her, Ella holding the camera out in front
of her as if it were a crown, the lady in waiting clumsily banging each step
with the wooden stand as they ascended.  Tatiana waited until she was sure they
were gone to slip the rest of the way down the stairs to the railing.

“Will
there be an investigation?” she called to the bald man.

With
Ella gone from the room, his attitude had reverted back to its previous level
of charm. “An investigation of what?” he asked roughly. 

No
one will ask about these dancers, Tatiana thought sadly.  No one will wonder
why the knife lies in the girl’s hand and not the boy’s, or why they would kill
themselves when the ballet will be over by the end of next week and presumably
they could renew their courtship then.  No one will ponder if they knew each
other before they came here, to the Winter Palace, or what their futures might
have held.  The tsar’s guard and the palace police, for all their differences,
exist to protect the imperial family.  If a crime is not directed toward them,
it is not a crime at all.

The
stretchers were moved in. The girl was lifted to one, the boy to the other. 
Carried away, Tatiana supposed, to some cool place, most likely a part of the
kitchen, to await the arrival of their families, come in grief from a great
distance to claim their children’s bodies.  And then what?  She did not suppose
Katya and Yulian qualified for burial in the Winter Palace cemetery, even the
section reserved for loyal servants, those who had dedicated their lives to the
court within.  More likely Katya and Yulian would be carted away, each to their
separate village, moldering more with each slow, rutted mile, until even the
most devoted of parents would begin to question the wisdom of such a journey.