The Winter Palace (20 page)

Knowing that for Catherine the news spelled trouble, I began waiting for Egor when he came home from his guard duty. Had he seen the Empress, I wanted to know. Was she angry? Had the Grand Duchess been summoned at night again? Was she crying?

His answers were flippant and dismissive. Why should I care if the Grand Duchess was still not with child? Don’t I have my own home to care about?

“It’s Russia’s future,” I said once, boldly.

Egor slapped his forearm, as if to swat a mosquito.

“Russia is too great to be weakened by one barren womb,
kison’ka
,” he replied.

On April 25, from the crowded section assigned to the public, I watched the Imperial Family enter the Kazan cathedral. The Empress was all glimmer in her ivory gown, an ermine-lined cape on her shoulders. Peter and Catherine walked right behind. I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of their faces. Peter seemed even more sickly and ashen than I remembered. Catherine looked grave and composed. Dressed in pearly blue, her hair entwined with silver threads, she never once took her eyes from the Empress. Beside them, the Chancellor of Russia, stooping slightly, stood taking his measure of the crowd. His eyes did not dwell long at the spot where I stood.

I felt my head spin. Dark spots fluttered before my eyes, obscuring my vision. Beads of sweat gathered on my forehead. Had I been foolish to think myself cured?

I clenched my teeth. I fixed my eyes on the beam of light that came through the stained-glass window high above. A rainbow of colors whirled and danced. The weakness passed.

Around me the officers’ wives honored with invitations to the banquet that would follow the Mass whispered excitedly of tables surrounded by fragrant orange and pomegranate trees, of fountains set up in the palace halls, of a pyramid of fire created by burning wax poured through glass domes.

I would not see any of it. The Grand Duchess, I heard, had been ordered to keep most select company. Only mothers of healthy babies could be admitted to any room she was in.

In the next weeks, with Masha in tow, I began to venture again into the city. I did not care if I rubbed shoulders with soldiers or thieves. I walked quickly past palaces and warped wooden buildings that would not survive the next fire, past brick walls split by winter frost, past churches forbidden to overshadow the buildings of the State.

I wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but I hoped for the sight of the imperial carriage. Catherine would spot me, too, I dreamed, and she would stop, even if for only a few moments, even if all I could do was urge her not to lose hope.

Masha, her feet swollen from too much walking, grumbled at my recklessness. I was like a northern wind, she complained, blowing any which way, as if ghosts were chasing me.

“And what kind of wind are you, Masha?” I taunted her in anger, but she took my measure placidly with her good eye. Ever since I had “come around,” as she put it, she made me wash my hair in kvass to give it a reddish hue. “Master likes it,” she would repeat with a sly smile when I protested.

I let her do as she pleased.

In September, when the court celebrated the Empress’s name day, I spoke to Catherine for the first time since my wedding day.

As part of the celebrations, the Russian Theater put on a play for the Empress.
Susanin’s Revenge
was one of those historical dramas that Elizabeth loved. It was set during the “Time of Troubles,” when Russia was teetering on the verge of extinction, before it would be saved, in the nick of time, by Elizabeth’s great-grandfather Mikhail. The first Romanov to become a Tsar.

Officers and their wives were invited to the third night of performances.

In the play, a detachment of the Polish army was on its way to murder the rightful Tsar and put a false one on the throne. The Polish hetman was haughtily predicting Russia’s downfall, the eradication of the Orthodox faith, and his own rise to glory. Then Ivan Susanin, a handsome young peasant, offered to guide the Poles through the swamp. Before the curtain fell for intermission, in a long soliloquy, Susanin revealed his strategy. The swamp would suck the enemies of Russia to their deaths.

I thought the play particularly crude but refrained from commenting on it, for I heard that the Empress had relished it. After the opening night the author had been raised through the Table of Ranks and received a gift of an estate.

The performance must have already started when Catherine arrived, for only when the intermission began did I hear her voice coming from the imperial box.

“I need some fresh air,” I said to Egor and hurried away.

The door to the imperial box was flung open, and a crowd of well-wishers had already gathered. I recognized Prince Naryshkin, Countess Rumyantseva, and other court ladies, gushing praises of the actors, the name-day celebrations, and the Grand Duchess. There was no sign of the Grand Duke and, to my relief, the Empress’s seat, too, was empty.

I stood in the doorway and waited, but moments passed before Catherine saw me.

“Welcome, Varvara Nikolayevna,” I heard. “What an unexpected pleasure to see you looking so well.”

“I, too, am glad to see Your Highness,” I replied carefully. Her face was cheerful and animated. Perhaps the rumors of Elizabeth’s rages were exaggerated, or perhaps Catherine was with child at last.

I couldn’t ask. I could only listen and watch.

Prince Naryshkin launched into some elaborate story of mushroom picking that ended with him and his sister getting lost in the woods. “Lev, the wanderer,” Countess Rumyantseva teased. “Do you always manage to be so careless?”

Catherine stepped closer toward me. Her scent was all spring flowers: hyacinths, violets, and daffodils.

“How are you feeling, Your Highness?” I asked her, unable to keep my voice from shaking.

“Well,” she answered, letting her shawl fall loosely over her shoulders. Prince Naryshkin, tangled in his tale, roared with laughter.

“And the Grand Duke?”

“My husband, too, is well.”

This is all we had: a few minutes, a few words. Nothing that could not be overheard, reported back.

“I read a lot now, Varvara Nikolayevna. No more French novels, though. Tacitus.” Catherine’s smile gave her blue eyes a mischievous tilt. “Count von Gyllenburg suggested I should start reading Tacitus. And Montesquieu. But those books are not easy to find.”

“I’ll look for them, Your Highness,” I promised.

“I’d be most obliged,” Catherine said, extending her hand as if to touch me. She withdrew it before anyone could notice.

I watched her turn away from me to greet another visitor, and then I took my leave.

I scarcely watched the rest of the play. Onstage, Ivan Susanin was leading the invaders into the swamp. The Poles discovered his trick too late and decided to kill him before they would perish themselves. Susanin welcomed his own hero’s death with a long list of accusations against the enemies of Russia. The Poles were trying to convert the Russians to their Latin faith, to steal their souls and make them their slaves.

“They’ll promise us everything to get what they want. In Polish schemes we count for nothing,” Susanin declared, hands raised to the heavens, a loud gust of wind bending the stage trees to add weight to his words.

I heard murmurs of approval in the audience, followed by a storm of applause. Beside me, Egor clapped vigorously.

I thought of the brave cheerfulness of Catherine’s words, the hand that almost touched mine. When the play ended, I walked out of the theater to our carriage as if in a dream. I was grateful when Egor, spotting a fellow officer in the throng, announced that he would not accompany me home.

For the rest of that week I looked for Tacitus in the old bookstores on the Great Perspective Road. Not finding any of his works, I sent word to booksellers who had once used my father’s services.
Germanie
was the first to arrive, followed by
Persian Letters, Annals, Histories
. If I could, I always chose solid leather bindings, strong seams, volumes I hoped my father had once touched, although I never came across the one where the letters of a title crossed the shadow line.

I had no doubts that the Choglokovs carefully examined each book I sent to the Winter Palace. Or that Catherine’s notes on the elegant vellum paper with gilded edges assuring me of her gratitude went through the same scrutiny.

One dark November day, Egor returned from the palace with news that the Grand Duke and his wife had departed for Oranienbaum.

“Why?” I could not help asking.

“Bestuzhev’s order,” he said. “The Chancellor thinks there are too many distractions at court.”

He screwed his eyes in mock horror.

“Now, let’s see—what distractions could possibly stop the Grand Duke from getting his wife with child? A masquerade? A drill? I can’t think of any more. Can you,
kison’ka
?”

I ignored the glee in my husband’s voice.

Forty-three
versty
of country roads would now stand between Catherine and me, I thought. A whole day’s carriage ride. There would be no theater, no visits. The Chancellor would make sure of that. What would she have to keep her from despair besides books?

The first letter from Oranienbaum was short.

The bearer of this note is a purveyor of many exquisite treasures, many of which would become you. I shall be waiting for the result of his efforts with great impatience. Please remember that I’m as certain of your devotion to me as I’m sure of my friendship with you.

It was not signed, but I recognized Catherine’s hand instantly.

A jeweler, Monsieur Bernardi, had brought the note on the pretext of offering his services. After all, I was an officer’s wife, a tribute to my husband’s rank. Had Egor not been promoted to Lieutenant Captain? He would not want me to be outshone by other ladies. Would I allow Monsieur Bernardi to examine my jewels?

Monsieur Bernardi was not surprised to discover that many pieces had to be cleaned and repaired, clips had to be adjusted, pearls restrung.

He never mentioned Catherine or his visits to Oranienbaum. But every time he came, he slipped a letter from the Grand Duchess into my hand and took the one I had prepared.

You are meant for great things
, I wrote in the first one.

Don’t trust anyone
, I wished to write.
Nothing has changed. You are in a gambling house where every player is cheating
.

But she knew that already.

She knew which of her maids checked her underclothes for the blood of her menses. She knew who went through the pages of the books she read, hoping to find a forgotten note. She knew who spied on her for the Empress and who carried her secrets to the Chancellor of Russia. She had discovered all the spying holes in her rooms and never left her fireplace until the thing she wanted burned had turned to ash.

Even in her secret letters to me, Catherine was taking precautions. She wrote them as if she were writing to a man whose name was never mentioned. She referred to the Empress as La Grande Dame. Peter was the Soldier. The Choglokovs were referred to as the Peacock and the Hen. The Chancellor was the Old Fox. Her awaited pregnancy became “the great event” or “the awaited news.”

I’m very sorry, Monsieur, not to have had the pleasure of seeing you for such a long, long time. Even a quick glimpse of your figure would have been a consolation. I long for a time when I will again be allowed to walk up to you and express my happiness at the sight of you.

For these dark days cannot last forever, can they?

La Grande Dame speaks of reading as if it were an incurable disease.

My valet had been ordered to leave my service, because I foolishly thanked him for his kindness in the Hen’s presence.

The Soldier’s Blackamoor was sent away to St. Petersburg, and two of his valets were replaced, too. We are forbidden to like anyone, Monsieur. We are forbidden to have friends. I pray no one finds out that I’m writing to you. I urge you to burn each of my letters as soon as you read it.

I did what she asked me and burned them. But they are in my memory, as if I still held them in my hands, each word read and reread, releasing its dose of sorrow.

They kept coming, Catherine’s letters. The brood of the Peacock and the Hen were pestering the Soldier to let them play with his model fortress. La Grande Dame came to Oranienbaum accompanied by yet another Favorite, shot twenty-two partridges, and allowed Catherine to take riding lessons. Letters I memorized before they turned to ash.

I was pleased that Catherine was far away from the intrigues of the court. She wrote that the Oranienbaum gardens were giving her unexpected pleasure and a sense of growing calm. There was still no “awaited news” but the long days in the country allowed for a lot of good reading and thinking. She was not wasting time, she assured me, but was using it to reflect on her mission in life, her duties, her obligations. More and more she was convinced that friendship and loyalty were the most priceless possessions she could ever have.

For a time, I took solace in these words.

Another year passed, and the Chancellor of Russia was still in charge of the conduct of the Young Court. By then the Empress let it be known that the wretched scamps, as she took to calling the Grand Duke and Duchess, even in public, had dared to defy the greatest of her wishes.

In the salons of St. Petersburg, the officers’ wives talked of little else. It was Catherine whom the Empress blamed, they gossiped.

“I brought her here to breed, not to read,” she screamed for everyone to hear when yet another monthly report of Catherine’s reoccurring menses reached her. “Who does she think she is?”

The Grand Duchess was becoming the target of malice. Everyone had a theory of why she was not conceiving. “It’s because Her Highness refuses to use a woman’s saddle when she rides,” I heard. “It’s because Her Highness laces herself too tight.” “What is the use of a barren womb?” people asked. “A fruitless tree?”

There were other rumors, too. At the latest palace ball, the Grand Duke danced with his wife only once. Didn’t Catherine notice that her superior airs were making her husband angry? That Peter had begun praising the virtues of his wife’s maids-of-honor when he was sure she would hear him? Princess Kurakina had most delicate bones; Countess Vorontzova had the best ear for music of anyone he knew. After all, what kind of man likes a woman who outshines him?