The Winter Palace (27 page)

I hurried out of the room, trembling. Then I stopped. Slipping into the Imperial Bedroom, I placed the print of Ivan that the Chancellor had given me in between the sheets.

Let the Empress find
that
tonight
, I thought. I imagined Ivan Shuvalov, lips twisting, hands fumbling, a vein throbbing on his temple as he protested his innocence. Swearing that he had never looked at any actresses.

Let him taste his own medicine
, I thought.

Let him feel his own smallness. Let him feel the sharp edge of Elizabeth’s wrath
.

A few hours later, when I arrived in the antechamber to the Imperial Bedroom, I saw maids rushing in and out with jugs of hot water, towels, bottles of smelling salts. A fetid breeze drifted from the open window.

Count Lestocq had been called in to bleed the Empress, a round-faced maid with an armful of towels informed me, her voice brimming with self-importance.

Four ounces of blood.

Dark. Thick.

Her Majesty was calmer now, praise the Lord.

The storm had passed.

Man trouble
, I could hear the whispers.
No smoke without fire. Hit the table and the scissors will sound. The cat knows from which bowl of milk he has drunk
.

From the bedroom came the sounds of pleading, broken with a sob.

“No one can see Her Majesty now,” the maid told me. “Ivan Ivanovich has just been allowed back in.”

Monsieur Bernardi had no letter for me. The Grand Duchess, he reported, is quite weak and has been forbidden all exertions. Her papers, her books, her quills, have all been taken away. All we can do is pray for her swift recovery. She is young; she has always been healthy. Perhaps the harm was not as grave as some are making it.

Your friends see many possibilities where there were few before
, I wrote in my letter to Catherine, cursing the secrecy that made me choose such vague words.
Solutions better than the ones lost
.

I hoped she would understand.

This was her chance for another child, a child far less likely to be called a bastard. A child whose birth would repay her with joy for the loss that now seemed the end of everything.

I was right not to tell her of her lover’s indifference, I decided. Serge Saltykov would soon be ordered to go to her again, to complete what he had started. It was better for her to greet him with an open heart.

A whole month passed since the news of Catherine’s miscarriage and Serge Saltykov was still in St. Petersburg, gambling, borrowing money from everyone. Was the Empress giving Peter a chance to father a child? How long would she wait? I knew Catherine was anxious for news, but I had none.

Hoping the Empress would send me to Oranienbaum to check on the Grand Duchess, I began hinting at reports I would deliver if I only had a chance to see her myself. For days Elizabeth dismissed my promises with grim silence and then suddenly, when I least expected it, she ordered me to go.

It took me nearly a day to reach Oranienbaum. It was a tedious ride along the shore of the gulf, past Peterhof, with screeching seagulls and the smell of rot from the marshes.

In the Lower Gardens, by the canal leading to the sea, the gardeners in their straw hats jabbed at the earth, flattening the hillocks the moles had left. A bird was hopping on the grass, a long piece of straw hanging from its beak. I willed it to stop. The straw fell to the ground. I picked it up and turned it in my hands, releasing the seeds from the pod, scattering them into the air.

Then I saw her. Sitting in a wicker armchair, under a Siberian pine, with Madame Choglokova at her side. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I was glad there was no one to see them.

I watched Catherine pick up a book and cut the pages with a small dagger. The folds of her dove-gray morning dress were loosely draped over her stomach; her black hair was tightly pinned on the nape of her neck. Beside her was a table littered with the remnants of a blueberry tart and cups stained with afternoon chocolate.

Madame Choglokova, the onetime jailer and now the procuress, was embroidering a piece of cloth. There was no sign of her children. At the palace, Countess Shuvalova delighted in reporting Monsieur Choglokov’s complaints about his wife’s
passage intime
. “As wide as the road to Moscow,” he once said to a chorus girl.

Noticing me, Madame Choglokova cleared her throat.

Catherine looked up from her book. She was still very pale from her miscarriage but prettier and more delicate than I had ever seen her before. I didn’t like the sadness in her eyes, though, sadness that transcended the loss of the child, sadness that meant the Divine Serge was on her mind far more than he deserved to be.

A magpie descended on one of the branches overhead, screeching, its green-blue trim feathers shining in the sun.
A thief
, I thought,
just waiting for his chance
.

“Varvara Nikolayevna,” Catherine murmured. “So you
have
come back. After so many years. And I hear that you have a child.”

Madame Choglokova put down the embroidery and joined her fingers at their tips.

“Yes, Your Highness.” I lowered my eyes. “I have a daughter,” I added, for Madame Choglokova’s sake, as if Catherine knew nothing of my life. “She is almost three years old, and already thinks herself a perfect courtier.”

I began saying how sorry I was about her miscarriage, but Catherine stopped me. “I do not wish to speak of the past,” she said.

So instead we chatted about the particulars of my return to the court. The Empress’s promise that Egor and I would move to a bigger apartment in the new Winter Palace, once it was finished. When Catherine asked me again about Darya, I hesitated, thinking the subject too painful for her, but she insisted. She wanted to know of my daughter’s delight when the Empress gave her a doll with long black hair she could comb and dress. She wished to be told of Darenka’s dimpled cheeks, the lively eagerness with which she welcomed each day.

“She is so trusting, so loving,” I said. “Perhaps too much so.”

“She has her mother to look after her, doesn’t she?” Catherine said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then nothing else matters.”

We spoke like that for a while, a court conversation of puzzles and oblique allusions. Some sacrifices are not in vain. One has to do one’s duty, first and foremost.

I said I was glad to be back at the palace, to be of use to the Empress and my old friends who had not forgotten me. I talked of the splendor of the new palace that would soon replace the old one, of the architectural drawings I’d seen, harbinger of changes that awaited us all, while in my mind, I cursed Madame Choglokova’s stolid presence, her clasped hands and her frowns. Why could she not leave us?

Catherine did not interrupt, although sometimes she rubbed her eyelids impatiently and shook her head, as if something irritated her eyes.

By the Oranienbaum palace, the gardeners were watering giant pots of orange trees lining the terrace. Madame Choglokova planted herself deeper into her wicker chair, her jaw set, giving her the look of a mastiff. Her breasts threatened to spill from her low-cut dress, trimmed with frothy lace. She was determined to play her role to the end. She would not leave us alone. Whose side was she on? The Chancellor had hinted at her cooperation in making sure Saltykov had plenty of opportunities to spend time with the Grand Duchess in the past. But I suspected she was taking bribes from the Shuvalovs, too.

“Perhaps we could all have some chocolate?” I asked. “I heard it cleanses the blood better than nettle tea.”

Madame Choglokova retrieved a bell from under the table. She rang it and, satisfied with herself, returned to her embroidery. I watched her fat fingers push the needle back and forth. She was stitching a flower, a green stem with long leaves crowned with a pink bloom.

The servants brought more chocolate and tarts. The commotion was a welcome break I used to touch Catherine’s fingers with mine, my silent promise that she was no longer alone at court, that I was back in the Winter Palace to look out for her.

She gave me a quick smile, like Darya’s when she was on the verge of bursting into tears.

“The Empress has just returned from shooting cocks and is now determined to give a masked ball in Peterhof, Your Highness,” I chattered on. “The display of fireworks will be magnificent. Everyone at court is hoping Your Highness will be well enough to be there. Chancellor Bestuzhev said there is nothing like a public feast to remind us all that the good of Russia is our common goal. And Count Shuvalov agrees.”

In spite of Ivan’s constant presence at Elizabeth’s side, the Shuvalovs had not won as much as they’d hoped for. They, too, had learned that Elizabeth preferred to be courted rather than to surrender. Ivan could have his Russian Academy and his theater, the adoration of poets and scholars, but it was Bestuzhev Elizabeth entrusted with matters of state. How the Empress cherished it: two forces pushing with equal strength, a precarious balance of opposites. Both parties at her feet, unsure, as long as she lived.

At the mention of the Chancellor and Ivan Shuvalov, Madame Choglokova grew uneasy. Politics was a forbidden subject. Determined to steer our conversation in a different direction, she announced that Oranienbaum was far from being the backwater some courtiers might think. She launched into one of the long and tedious monologues she was so well known for. As I sipped the sweet, thick chocolate I shot Catherine an exasperated look. In response I saw a tiny smile of reassurance flicker on her lips.

“I’ve been reading a lot, Varvara Nikolayevna.” Catherine interrupted the flow of Madame Choglokova’s words. There was a glitter in her eyes, that reckless glitter I would see so often later. On that afternoon I thought it such a good sign. “True stories. Useful. I’ve resolved not to waste time.”

Russian history was Catherine’s favorite study now. The tales that made our empire grow, she said.

Madame Choglokova jerked her head, sensing she was being dragged into waters beyond her depth. A well-deserved revenge on a jailer, I thought, quite willing to play my part.

“The empire that manages to harness the strength of many nations will never be conquered,” Catherine continued. “Don’t you agree, Varvara Nikolayevna?”

“Most ardently, Your Highness. And so would our Empress and the Chancellor.”

Even now I can still see Catherine on that late afternoon, cheered up by Madame Choglokova’s growing unease, a note of spite ringing in her voice. Using phrases like
grappling with the soil
and
weaving of faith into the imperial tapestry
. Asking: “Wouldn’t we grow indolent and selfish, if sacrifice were not demanded of us?”

She had been hurt, I thought. She was in pain, but she was not defeated.

The wicker chair creaked. Madame Choglokova was wriggling in distress, a giant fat worm on a hook. Charged with repeating everything she heard to the Empress, she was trying hard to remember Catherine’s every word.

The approach of the Grand Duke—his Prussian blue uniform impeccably brushed, brass buttons and black boots shining—saved Madame Choglokova from further indignities. Having just arrived from St. Petersburg, Peter came to seek his wife’s advice on the Holstein beer tax. Should it be raised or kept unchanged? And then there was the executioner’s petition.…

“Good day, Peter,” Catherine said, pointing at the empty seat beside her. “Would you like me to pour you some chocolate?”

Peter’s tricorne hat cast a shadow over his face as he sat. His Blackamoor, once dismissed by the Empress from the Grand Duke’s entourage, was now standing behind him, holding a basket with documents. A sign, I thought, of Elizabeth’s satisfaction.

The Grand Duke acknowledged my presence with a nod and a wide smile as if he’d never witnessed my refusal to participate in the merriment at Catherine’s expense.
Doesn’t he notice that the palace is taking sides?
I wondered.
That one supported either Catherine or Peter? That the treacherous territory in between was narrowing fast?

The Holstein executioner, Peter said, had protested the illegal dumping of carcasses on the town streets, where it was his duty and his cost to remove them.

“How many people signed the petition?” Catherine asked.

I watched the ease with which Catherine addressed her husband, the rapt consideration with which she listened to his explanations.
Das Fräulein
, I thought, did have her limitations, after all.

Madame Choglokova pulled at my sleeve, motioning for me to leave with her. That, too, was one of the imperial orders: Leave the married couple alone as much as possible. Appearances mattered.

“Shall I read it to you now?” I heard the Grand Duke’s shrill voice as I walked toward my carriage. “The man has a point.”

“The Prussians are asking to have their noses rubbed in their own filth,” Egor announced on one of the first dark afternoons of the fall.

He had just come home from his guard duty and sank into the ottoman in our parlor. His uniform needed a good brushing, I thought. The red facings were smudged with plaster dust.

It was not just him, Egor continued. Such had been the talk of the barracks and
banyas
. Frederick of Prussia—or the Fritz, as the officers called him—could fool the French, but he could not fool the Russians. The Fritz talked peace, for, having devoured Silesia, he needed a rest, but Prussia was still hungry. And hungry Prussia always looked east.

“There will be a war,” he said, slapping his knee. “Soon.”

The maid had set our silver tea urn on the side table and left to fetch the preserves. Next door, Masha was feeding Darya her dinner, fending off my daughter’s high-pitched protests with stories of children refusing to eat, only to be blown into the air and left there hanging, too light to get down. I fussed with teacups on a tray. Two of the saucers were badly chipped. I vowed to pack the china myself for the move that awaited us once the temporary palace was ready.

I sat down opposite my husband, arranging my skirts. A wave of weariness claimed me, and I wondered how many months more my body would endure all those sleepless nights. “You should lie down before you have to go tonight,” Egor said, frowning when I stifled a yawn. “What time is it?”