Rasputin's Revenge (10 page)

(
OCTOBER
15, 1916.)

T
he storm let up last night. I sat it out here at my little window desk in Tsarkoye Selo, trying with little success to fathom the first hectic events of my stay here. Communication with the outside world has been impossible, though I do have a telephone that connects me with the immediate community.

I haven’t had to return to St. Petersburg. Rasputin was right about Alyosha’s bruises—they simply never developed, although Czarina Alexandra called me twice to tell me that the boy would not be able to take his lessons until it was determined there was no bleeding. Evidently the doctors are now satisfied, and I am scheduled to go in tomorrow. Rasputin’s reasoning—how he could have known that Alexis would not bleed internally—still eludes me.

Tonight I am to see Lupa again. It is not a moment too soon. I have grown extremely restless in these two days of storm-enforced confinement. Even if it is too early to present my case to the Czar, I would like to be involved in something interesting and Lupa will likely provide that opportunity.

This morning I received an invitation from a woman named Anastasia, the wife of Grand Duke Nicholas, to come to dinner. I have no idea why she would ask for me, but one glance at the guest list, which was enclosed with the invitation, was enough for me to decide to attend. Lupa was on it.

But aside from the opportunity to see Lupa and my restlessness at being shut up alone in my quarters, there was another reason to attend the
dinner. The governess Elena Ripley was also to be there. Irrationally, my heart beat faster at the prospect of seeing her again.

This shamed me enough to spend the better part of the afternoon writing a letter to my wife, Tania. It is hard being apart from her for this long, knowing that a continent at war separates us, and that we may never hold each other again.

Paleologue’s comments about the modern world have been haunting me, locked up as I have been without distractions. Certainly I am no longer the same bon vivant who dallied in espionage a mere two years ago. Before hostilities began, it was all a game, albeit a serious one. Or, more precisely, one we all took seriously. But there still was a feeling that there was a “gentleman” class that took care of events and kept them in some kind of balance. In that club, it was bad form to cheat or lie. The prevailing belief was that war was a naturally occurring phenomenon whose primary function was to rearrange borders and provide a surcease from the monotonous tedium of domestic life.

Every generation should have a war! Build the character of the young! Splendid idea!

But now the rot of this War has spread to every part of society and, worse, has entered the most secret places of men’s hearts. Gentility is not worth the trouble. Commitment is a practical joke urged upon fools by charlatans. There is a new word for scoundrel—it is “realist.”

I am not immune to it myself. I have been dreaming not of my loyal and lovely Tania, but of a governess whom I don’t even know.

The excuses come readily to hand. Tania is far away and need never know. I am lonely. Life is too short and too hard, and what harm is there is a little comfort?

And of course all this is ridiculous. I’ve spoken no more than a hundred words to the woman, and what would a young and vibrant beauty like Elena Ripley see in a middle-aged courtier like myself?

I write it down to note its absurdity. Now I must dress for dinner.

I had to laugh upon being admitted to Anastasia’s house, which is less than a hundred meters from my own in Tsarkoye Selo. In neat Cyrillic script over the door to the cloakroom is crocheted the legend: “Rasputin not spoken here!”

The woman herself was formidable. Handsome, dark and buxom, she greeted me with a gaiety and force I hadn’t encountered since leaving France.

“Jules! I must call you Jules. How good of you to come. Your friend Auguste has done nothing but sing your praises. Oh, I’m so looking
forward to this evening! Can I have someone get you a drink? Here, let me help you with your coat.”

Somehow getting a word in, I pointed at the embroidered sampler. “Is that enforced?”

She smiled. “It is more a joke now, but when I had it done, I was quite serious. We introduced him to court, you know.”

“We?”

“My sister Militsa and I. Surely you’ve heard of us, the Montenegrin nightingales?”

“Of course,” I lied, “and I’m delighted to finally meet you.”

Knowing that Lupa had been raised in Montenegro, the connection that had led to my invitation here was becoming more obvious. She gushed on. “We were totally taken in. But then, one makes mistakes,
n’est-ce pas?
Ah well, it can’t be helped. There are bounders everywhere, I suppose. Do you like whisky?”

She put a crystal glass in my hand and pushed me into the house proper as someone else knocked at the front door.

Though not large, the drawing room was sumptuously appointed. Two chandeliers glowed brightly overhead, a string quartet was playing a selection from Prbkoviev. Armchairs and settees in royal blue and red, not mauve, velvet were tastefully arranged over a turquoise Oriental rug. Fine art adorned the walls—not an icon was in sight. The effect, if slightly overdone, was nevertheless pleasing.

But again, the focus of my attention became the woman who sat demurely, a wineglass in hand, listening to the music with a faraway smile playing at the corners of her mouth. I had arrived early, and we two were thus far the only guests.

I crossed the room and lowered myself onto the far end of the couch on which she sat. Sipping my whisky, I tried to concentrate on the music, but my mind was elsewhere. Elena had her hair down, chestnut tresses falling below her shoulders. Her dress was the light yellow-orange of high clouds in a dawn sky. Eyes closed, rocking her head slightly back and forth in time to the music, she did not become aware of my presence until it ended.

“Oh,” she said, charmingly flustered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear … I wasn’t aware …”

I smiled. “You like Prokoviev?”

“I adore him. It is so romantic. It takes me”—she paused, seeking the right word—“it takes me home.”

Though she said it lightly, I felt the pain in the admission.

“Where is that?” I asked. “Home, I mean.”

“Originally it was Maidstone, a little town in England, in Kent. Now, I don’t know. I don’t know if any of us will have a home again.”

I moved closer to her on the couch.

“Now, now, Miss Ripley, I’m sure we will. The War can’t drag on forever.”

She sipped at her wine. “It seems they’ve been saying that forever.”

I had to admit she was right, but there was no point in belaboring that unhappy topic. “What brought you here in the first place?” I asked. “Kent is a long way from St. Petersburg.”

She smiled. “I am, or rather I was, an actress, Monsieur Giraud …”

“Jules, please.”

“Thank you. Jules, then. And I am Elena.”

“And you are an actress?”

A wistful look. “Was, I’m afraid. I haven’t been on the boards in nearly three years.”

“When you came here?”

“Yes. I was in a command performance for King George, and he commissioned the company to come here and perform for his cousin, the Czar. Do you know how alike he and King George look? It is truly startling.”

“I had no idea.”

“Well,” she sighed, remembering, “it was all very grand and exciting, coming to Russia to perform for the court. But then the War began. A few of the company decided to get out right away, but back then the general feeling was that the whole thing wouldn’t last so long.”

“I remember it well. In France we thought it would be over by Christmas.”

“Then you know. Anyway, I was young, ambitious, perhaps foolish … I didn’t know when I would see Russia again, and I didn’t want to leave before I’d experienced it. Do you know what I’m saying?”

The questioning glance, the need for approval for her actions, was touching. “Of course,” I said. “It would only be natural.”

She rewarded me with another smile. “But then, of course, it was too late. There was no getting out. When the Czarina heard that I was left behind, she graciously asked me to tutor the girls—excuse me, the Grand Duchesses—in drama and to be a sort of governess. It has been”—again that fetching pause—“rewarding.”

“But not acting.”

There was real gratitude in her eyes, as though she had finally met someone who could understand. “No,” she said, “it’s not acting.”

The band started another song and a young man in uniform came into the room. I heard the booming voice of Sukhomlinov out in the entranceway and realized that my private talk with Elena was at an end. Just before we stood, she touched my hand and nodded shyly.

“It’s really not so bad,” she said. “Thank you for listening to my silliness.”

“Now you are being silly,” I said. “It was my pleasure.”

We stood to greet the young man, Ivan Kapov, as Anastasia bubbled into the room behind Sukhomlinov and Katrina, his wife. Though Lupa hadn’t yet arrived, she directed us into the dining room where an array of hors d’oeuvres had been laid out—caviar, smoked salmon, patés of every description, iced vodka, whisky, and champagne. Though I don’t normally like to mix grape and grain, I switched to the Moët.

As I took a slice of toast covered with the luminous gray pearls of Beluga, I felt a momentary pang of guilt over the fate that had put me in this room rather than on the streets of St. Petersburg, where even our ambassador was reduced to hoarding. The memory of the executions the other day over a few loaves of coarse peasant bread rendered the first tastes of the rich fare flat and tasteless.

But with Anastasia in a room, there could be no sustained introspection. She flitted from topic to topic, from Court scandal to War news, with the unflagging enthusiasm of a schoolgirl. I learned that her husband, Grand Duke Nicholas (not to be confused with the Emperor), had been the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army before the Czar had taken over only six months ago. I had of course known of the Duke—he was a personal friend of Freddy Foch. Almost a giant and dashingly handsome, he is revered still by the army, and is presently commanding the modestly successful campaign in Galacia.

Anastasia was recounting her husband’s latest exploits when Sukhomlinov interrupted crudely: “When will he be coming back to the capital to claim the throne, dear?”

“Lashka, don’t talk nonsense.” Katrina, his wife, did not want to discuss the subject. Looking at her face, which had been so pretty three nights before, I was struck by how wretched she looked, as though she’d been crying continually for hours.

“That’s not nonsense—it’s treason,” Anastasia said. “No one is more loyal to Nicky than my husband. You know that, Vladimir.”

Ivan Kapov, who’d been conspicuous by his silence until then, spoke up. “It’s not really a question of loyalty. The Czar has lost the confidence of the people, and …”

“That’s not true!”

Kapov took Anastasia’s hand. “My dear Annushka, of course it’s true.

He was a young man, not yet thirty, with long blond lashes over blue-green eyes. His ruddy, clean-shaven face glowed with health and good humor. The blue-sashed uniform bulged impressively over his chest, and tapered to a waist that many women might envy. He seemed to have the ability to quiet Anastasia by looking into her eyes. Now, kissing her hand almost intimately, he said quietly, “Admitting the truth isn’t treason. Neither is criticism.”

Sukhomlinov laughed loudly. “She’s in a difficult position, Ivan. Of course she wants her husband to return and take the throne, so she has to protest.”

“Too much, methinks,” Kapov said in English, darting a glance at Elena.

If she noted the allusion, she kept it to herself. Her loyalty was to Anastasia. “All the same, we really should watch what we say in front of the servants.”

It was a remark so typically British, so understatedly humorous and yet so apropos, that we all found ourselves laughing. Watching Elena as she too joined in, I was sure she saw both the irony and the pith of the statement.

However, Anastasia was not one to let any sort of silence develop in the midst of a party. “Well, then, Elena, whatever shall we talk about?”

Elena deftly included me into the conversation. “Perhaps Monsieur Giraud can tell us about the Friend’s latest miracle?” There was a bite to her voice in the reference to Rasputin.

“Are we allowed to discuss him here?”

“With suitable disclaimers,” Elena said lightly.

As simply as possible, I recounted the story of the monk and the runaway stallion, ending by saying that strange though the actual taming had been, more inexplicable to me was Rasputin’s conviction, proven true, that Alexis would suffer no bleeding.

“But Jules, surely the explanation is simplicity itself.”

I whirled around at the familiar voice. Auguste Lupa stood framed in the doorway holding a tray on which was arranged an impressive display of canapes and other finger foods.

“Ah,” he said, looking over the hors d’oeuvres table, “I see the first courses are appreciated. But then how can one fail with simple and unadorned natural ingredients?” He put his tray on the table and motioned everyone forward to it. “But these!” he said, nodding at the platter. “These creations are a better test of a chef’s mettle. Come, come, while they are hot.”

Anastasia broke in to introduce Lupa to the rest of the guests as we gathered around to sample the fruits of his labor. In the months since I’d worked with him, his deductive abilities had overshadowed the brilliance of his cuisine in my memory. But that wasn’t just. The man was possibly a better cook than he was a spy, and he was the best spy in Europe.

The array was speptacular in range as well as in depth. Crayfish restuffed into their shells with a dill mayonnaise, escargots en brioche (if pastry of such airy texture and flavor could be called brioche) with Pernod and, I noticed, no garlic, julienne breast of squab wrapped in pancetta, cod cakes with a marron onion dressing, a spicy Periwinkle and black pepper bisque served in vodka shot glasses, tiny sausages of such subtle complexity that they defy description …