The Last Romanov (12 page)

Defiant, every cell in her body rebelling, Darya orders the guards to exit the hall. Now that the Empress has left, she releases the soft-footed servants from their duties, and they melt away through the numerous doors.

She will honor her promise to model for Avram. She will do it in the nude. She will do it now. Do it to spit in the face of the Ancient One who appeared again last night, naked as Eve, a flamelike tear visible under her veil on an otherwise featureless face. Before stepping into the devouring blaze, she plucked the burning tear off and tossed it at Darya, but instead of catching fire, Darya's dress turned into an icy vise, stiff and irremovable and threatening to suffocate her. It is always something she is wearing in her dreams—a blouse, a cloak, a skirt—that the Ancient One transforms into a rigid, imprisoning curse.

Today, Darya is not dressed in her everyday fineries but in simpler attire of linen and Mechlin lace. She tosses her sandals aside, steps out of her robe, unbuttons the mother-of-pearl buttons running the length of her flounced petticoats, and drops them at her feet. One by one, she begins to release the hooks and ribbons of her corset. She hesitates, uncertain, gazes at the artists who, despite their efforts at civility, have their senses trained on her. She reaches out to Avram for encouragement.

“A screen can be brought in,” he suggests, finding himself at a loss for words. Is this woman real, he wonders, or an apparition with no sense of fear?

“I have nothing to hide,” she replies. This is not the truth. Her dreams, her opal eye, the woman she is, and the one at the beck and call of the Ancient One hold a million secrets.

Darya hands her corset to Avram.

She stands naked in the center of Portrait Hall. In full view of the artists and the painting of the Tsarevich and Madonna that will soon boast a place of honor in the Lilac Boudoir.

She comes down on the satin-covered dais and stretches out. She offers Avram an encouraging smile, although all she wants is to cover her naked body and crawl into herself.

Avram wrestles with the formidable task of reproducing on canvas the perfect curve of her breasts, the graceful hollow of her waist half-lit by the light coming from the window, the half-moon of her buttock, but most of all, the lovely translucency of her opal eye that projects her pleasure and suffering, courage, and vulnerability.

High on her scaffolding, Rosa attempts to banish the demons in her head, her hunger and desire. She glances at Darya naked as Venus, her prominent nipples luscious as chocolate, the soft flesh of her belly like burnished bronze. A lucky man, Avram Bensheimer, to have Darya as his model. What is she, Rosa, supposed to do with this spectacular block of stone when Joseph's head is constantly hidden behind his camera or shoved deep into his photographs?

Dimitri tears the half-finished caricature in his sketchbook, crumbles and tosses the page into a basket overflowing with rejected drafts. He has failed to embellish and exaggerate the expression in Darya's eyes, one sly like a slippery eel, the other obsessed and somewhat desperate, not unlike a betrayed woman. He leaves his station to pour himself tea from the samovar and adds a tumbler of vodka. He is a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and like the rest of his comrades prefers to be clear about the political affiliation of those who surround him. But the Jewish pimp is a mystery. On the one hand, he is enamored of Darya Borisovna, the imperialist bitch; on the other, he pretends to be against anything that might remotely reek of imperialism. Dropping four cubes of sugar into his tea, Dimitri stirs absentmindedly as he observes the painter and his model.

Two hours pass and Darya is becoming restless. Avram has yet to start painting. She tries to keep still as he continues to stare at her, at the canvas that faces away from her, back and forth, without lifting his brush. She does not want to disturb whatever is developing in his head, but the fire in the fireplace is like ice picks in her marrow, and she is desperate to cover herself, desperate for a cup of hot tea. “Avram, are you going to paint me or stand there and stare?”

As if startled out of a trance, he wipes his hands with a moist cloth, dips his brush in a jar of turpentine, and swishes it around. He measures her against the shaft of his brush, squeezes collapsible metal tubes of paint onto his pallet, arranging them like a rainbow. Small glistening puddles of Persian red and dragon blood, calamine blue and indigo, chrome orange and carnelian, and softer flesh tones of chrome primrose and shell pink. He dips the brush in paint and wipes the tip on a rag. His hand moves in fast, bold strokes, the brush licking the canvas like a possessed lover, transforming the stretch of canvas into a living entity, shaping her outline, her essence, capturing the distillation of this moment in her life.

The salon is in full session, the atmosphere electric. Rosa, normally respectful of even the most inferior of stones, is hacking viciously at the valuable alabaster. Dimitri is acting suspiciously, his pen scratching like a rat on dry wood planks, tearing into one sheet after another, not caring to toss the discarded paper balls in the wastebasket. Darya wonders what he is up to. She does not trust him. She attempts to think of anything and anyone other than Avram, who steps back now and then to inspect her with narrowed eyes. She thinks of the grand duchesses and the added joy they've brought into her life. She thinks of the Tsarevich, whether he will remain as attached to her when he grows into a young man. She thinks about her parents and how they were baffled by their daughter's growing ability to heal wounds and small sorrows. She thinks of her country, how difficult it must be for her Tsar to deal with a nation in turmoil, the populace pleading for even more reforms and all types of rights, a nation ignorant of the divine right of her ruler. And she thinks of the hateful Father Gapon, the priest and self-appointed policeman, who incited the working class to march to St. Petersburg to implore the Tsar for change. The result was tragic. A procession of peaceful workers, holding icons, singing “God Save the Tsar,” had marched to the Winter Palace to hand a petition to the Tsar, calling for fairer wages, better working conditions, and an end to the Russo-Japanese War. The nervous army pickets near the palace fired directly into the crowd of more than three hundred thousand. Many were killed. The blame fell on the Tsar, who was not in the capital at the time.

“Avram, I want to see your work,” she says, at last.

“Not yet. Do you need something? Are you comfortable?” His entire attention is aimed at the canvas, the smell of turpentine burning his eyes.

Two birds of paradise land on the window ledge and embark on a courting ritual. The male struts in a costume worthy of a Tsar—shiny black plumes, pale pink flanks, springy crown feathers, and velvety neck wattle. The skeptical female scrutinizes his flapping wings, fluttering whiskers, and flashing chest. At last, the quivering female bird lets out an inviting, guttural trill. The male leaps on top of her and they fuse into a feathered fuss.

Darya grabs the satin sheet and wraps it around her, pulls herself into a sitting position, slinging her legs down the podium. To Avram's great horror, and before he is able to protest, she has come around to face the canvas.

She forgets about her nakedness, about the sound of Rosa's chisel overhead, the clicking of Joseph's camera at the window, Igor's music of Wagner echoing all around, the scratching of Dimitri's pen behind, and the passionate trills of birds of paradise on the window ledge.

This is more than art. This is magic.

Avram has given birth to the dark mystery between her thighs, the graceful indentation of her waist, her slim neck that slants toward voluptuous shoulders. Her mystical, eyes, the opal that flames in the outline of her face the shade of walnut husks. She does not recognize the hunger and sadness in her eyes, the scar on her forehead that is a duplicate of his.

“Why did you do that?” she whispers, indicating the painted scar.

“I'm branding you as my own.”

In the future, when she is an old woman with a youthful face, wandering in her crumbling Entertainment Palace with her greedy rats, in the garden with the ravenous civets plucking coffee cherries from bushes, when she bathes in her banya while Little Servant attends to her every need, she will recall this as the moment she fell in love.

Now, Avram so close, nothing else matters, save her longing. She reaches out to him. She will take him by the hand and lead him out of the Portrait Hall, across marble and parquet and gilded woodwork, across the semicircular entrance hall with its
trompe
l'oeil
ceiling, and into the park alive with the warble of aroused birds of paradise.

He inclines his head slightly toward the faint scent of ambergris emanating from her necklace and, conscious of all eyes pinned on them, whispers, “Later, Darya, later.”

This is all he says, but it is enough to startle her senses back.

She will not tempt fate. Not now. Not yet.

Wrestling with her emotions, fear, and excitement, but most of all desire, Darya leads Avram across the bridge that spans the length of the artificial lake dotted with baroque follies, where swans intertwine with beaks buried in downy feathers.

Three months passed before she gathered her courage to approach him at his easel, when the others were engaged in the dining hall. They planned to meet in the evening, when the park is quiet, when the greater birds of paradise, tired from their flirtatious strutting, fluttering, and quivering, are snoozing on the branches.

Now, she leads him deep within the park, past fountains and fancy chinoiserie, and across the bridge toward a private island, where they will be safe. She tightens her shawl against the morning chill as she instructs him how to haul the bridge for privacy.

He is fast, efficient, his muscles straining as he follows her directions, unlocking the metal components, jaws, tongues, shifting, raising, and lowering the heavy locks that click into place with well-oiled precision.

They continue deep into the island, past a pillar in the center that commemorates a naval victory, and toward rows of massive urns leading to two yellow wooden pavilions: the banya erected by Catherine II for her beloved grandson.

Avram steps closer and murmurs into her hair. “You are delicious, my queen, and I'm addicted to your scent. Where are you taking me?”

Her voice shaking a little, she says, “To the banya, Avram.”

He holds up a finger to warn her of the many dangers in store for her. The palace has eyes and ears. It is a den of informants. Spies might be lurking behind bushes and trees. The Tsar and Tsarina will not be pleased to discover that their admired Darya Borisovna is sneaking out with a Jew. He withdraws his warning. He wants her too, wants her badly.

They are unaware that, wet and shivering from his swim across the lake, Count Trebla, the court veterinarian, is trailing them in the shadows, skipping behind one tree, then another, a feral growl rumbling in his throat. He has been following Darya, her coming and going, certain he would catch her red-handed. And he has. Hand in hand with Bensheimer, no less, with his artistic nonsense and pompous ways, as if he carries royal blood in his veins. How dare she reject him, a count, an aristocrat, a descendant from a long line of noblemen who were all counts. He ducks behind a bush to avoid detection, scuttles to crouch behind the arbor surrounding the banya, nudges some branches back, and settles on his haunches to observe the two.

They enter the jasper and rock crystal Agate Pavilion, where eucalyptus-scented steam wafts off a sinking pool. Darya releases her gossamer shawl, and it drifts in the air, dazzling, diaphanous, light as butterfly wings. She steps out of layers of silk chiffon that fall to the floor with a peal of beads, tosses her pearl-studded suede shoes aside, and shakes her dark mane loose around her shoulders. Moonlight peeps through an arbor dotted with dahlias and zinnias, dappling her naked breasts, voluptuous buttocks, small waist. She plunges into the scented pool, her laughter pealing around the banya. Her stomach is tight with longing for Avram's feline suppleness as he peels off his paint-splotched pants, his aroused penis so unexpectedly beautiful.

He dives into the sunken pool, steam licking the sun-touched demarcation at his neck.

She presses her palms on his eyes, slides her tongue across his neck, a hum of pleasure in his throat, his breath in her hair.

He swims around her, his thighs brushing her buttocks, hands stroking her belly as if with a paintbrush. He takes her nipples in his mouth, one then the other, to experience their different tastes. “I'll take you to Vienna one day. We'll dine at Tomaselli, Mozart's favorite café. I'll show you the Vienna Court Opera. We'll see the manuscript of Mozart's
Don
Giovanni
, the greatest piece of music ever composed. I'll teach you to swim in the Danube.”

“I'll show you the gilded statues of the Imperial Palace in Peterhof,” she whispers back, their breath mingling with eucalyptus steam. “In August, when the blue ageratum is in full bloom, we'll climb the azure-winged dragons and bathe under their water-spewing mouths. We'll play chess on the giant outdoor checkerboard and pretend that Peter the Great is looking over us.”

“I will love you here and there and everywhere,” he murmurs, sucking her wet earlobe, covering her eyelids with kisses. “I will lift you in my arms like this and anchor your legs around me. I will be patient and gentle and tell you how very much I want you. And you will feel pleasure and no pain, my Opal-Eyed Jewess, no pain at all.”

The Empress directs her tear-filled gaze toward her husband who, hands clasped behind him, paces the room. Her ears register nothing but her fifteen-month-old son's moans and her failure to make his pain go away. What do doctors know about her suffering, her unbearable sense of self-blame and reproach? Now that Alexei has started walking and is prone to accidents, she and her husband have had long discussions about assigning two sailors from the imperial navy to protect him. But in the end, they had concluded that he did not require that kind of constant surveillance yet. How wrong they were.

To add to their grief, despite all precautions, rumors about the heir's failing health have found their way into magazines and newspapers. Special services are being held in cathedrals and churches around the country. The Empress, when not at her son's side, or finding refuge in the Feodorovsky Chapel at the end of the park, prostrates herself in front of Avram Bensheimer's portrait of the Madonna, in whose arms her son is the image of health.

The Emperor comes to stand behind his wife who, having been diagnosed with an enlarged heart caused by worry over the condition of her son, is temporarily confined to a wheelchair. Over the room hover the odor of grief and all types of medication. His son's internal bleeding is more serious this time. Months of civil unrest and a universal strike have left his country paralyzed. Ships dock idle along piers. Trains do not run. Factories, schools, and hospitals are closed. Food is scarce, and the streets are dark and empty at night. Crowds display antimonarchist sentiments. Red flags of the worker and peasant movement fly on rooftops. A new workers' organization with the preposterous title of “Soviet” or “Council” has materialized out of nowhere and is gathering clout. Peasants raid estates and set fire to mansions.

In order to bring a semblance of peace to the country, he has reluctantly accepted the suggestion of Sergius Witte and signed the imperial manifesto, transforming Russia from an absolute autocracy into a semiconstitutional monarchy, and granting his people the Duma, an elected parliament. Despite such concessions, the situation has not improved. What is a ruler to do? Everything he grew up believing is chipped away in small increments first, then in larger chunks until he does not know what to believe in.

Darya tucks a blanket around the Empress's legs, hands her a cup of hot tea. The Tyotia Dasha is screaming inside, pleading, demanding, furious at the Ancient One, who appears and disappears like an unwanted guest, yet is nowhere to be found now.
Ancient
One, I need you! My Alexei is bleeding! Suffering! I can't help him. I've lost my powers!

Then she sees her, outside the window, far away in the horizon. The Talmud rabbinic law in one hand and the Book of Ethics in the other, the Ancient One is wading through rivers of blood, leaving in her wake ripples of subliminal information about the nature of the bleeding disease.
A
curse
as
old
as
man
, she whispers,
shrouded
in
mystery
since
ancient
times. Pharaohs forbade women to bear more children if their firstborn was afflicted with the bleeding disease. The Talmud bars circumcision in a family if two male children had previously suffered fatal hemorrhaging.

Show
me
a
cure
, Darya begs.
Tell
me
how
to
save
him
. But the Ancient One is turning her back to her, leaving, shrinking, drowning in blood.

Dr. Eugene Botkin, the court physician, applies another compress to the swollen knee of the Tsarevich that is darker than burned eggplant. A gold watch chain swaying over his stout stomach, the doctor retreats into a far corner of the room and silently gestures to the Tsar, who gently unlocks the Empress's fingers from around his cane.

“The prognosis is dire, Your Majesty,” the doctor says in a low voice. “The Tsarevich is hemorrhaging in the stomach as well as the knee. We tried to check the bleeding with medication, pressure, bandaging. Everything failed. It's time to call a priest.”

The Tsar clutches the handle of his cane. “To administer the last sacrament?”

“I am afraid so,” the doctor murmurs under his breath.

The Tsar seems to diminish, a lost expression creeping into his eyes. His right hand makes a twisting motion in the air as if puzzled at his fate. His voice shakes a little. “Publish a medical bulletin. Announce that the Tsarevich is critically ill. But under no circumstances mention hemophilia.”

Darya kneels in front of the Tsarina, whose face has aged overnight, her lips blue with her effort to breathe. “May I speak, Your Majesty?”

“What is there to say, Darya? If you, too, want to tell me to rest while my son is dying, then, no, you may not speak.”

“Your son
will
not die, Your Majesty, but you will if you don't eat. Constant fasting is taking its toll on your fragile health.”

“What else is a mother to do?”

“Allow me to ask Father Grigori to come see the Tsarevich.” Darya hates to admit that the vile man, with his cutting stare and disjointed way of speaking, who outbid her for
The
Cure
, was right, after all. The Tsarevich needs him. Needs him badly. So she will swallow her pride and spit it out on her own face if Rasputin might be able to cure the Tsarevich.

“Nonsense!” Doctor Botkin interjects with an exaggerated gesture of his arm that raises the strong scent of his Parisian eau de cologne. “The best doctors in the country have examined the Tsarevich. An illiterate monk with no medical expertise is useless.”

“Those so-called doctors,” the Empress lashes out, “failed miserably.”

“I beg of you, Your Majesty. Another unnecessary examination might dislodge the clot, add more suffering…hasten the inevitable.”

The Empress grabs the handles of her wheelchair and raises herself to her feet, towering over the doctor, who seems to fade away in her presence. “This is my son you're talking about, doctor! Death is not an option. Am I clear?

“Darya Borisovna, summon Father Grigori!”