Empress of the Night (41 page)

Other losses carry with them the seed of possibility. Riches lost can be regained. Ambitions thwarted can find other outlets. But the dead cannot come back to life. Grief is always with you.

These thoughts are interrupted by a soft tap on the door to her reading room. It is Queenie, whispering that Madame Lebrun has been waiting all afternoon and begs to be admitted. Claims to have some very, very important news.

“I keep refusing, Your Majesty, but she insists,” Queenie declares, her plump hands folded together in a pleading gesture. Has she just collected another hefty bribe?

“All right, then,” Catherine says. “I’ll see her, but tell her I have little time.”

A faint scent of turpentine hovers around Madame Lebrun in spite of a lavish dosing with sandalwood.

“Your Imperial Highness! Once again you have been most generous to me!” Madame Lebrun curtsies and bends to kiss the imperial hand, muttering something about angelic sweetness. She has not been in the Tauride Palace before, and now casts greedy glances at the paintings on the walls.

Angelic sweetness or not, to make sure her impatience is perceived, the Empress clears her throat.

Madame Lebrun takes the hint. Grand Duchess Maria Fyodorovna, she begins, permitted her to attempt another painting of Grand Duchess Alexandrine. “This time, Your Majesty, I’m painting the Grand Duchess alone. In a muslin dress. It is a secret for now. A most precious gift for her father.”

“If it is to be a secret gift,” Catherine teases her unwelcome visitor, “is it wise to tell me about it?”

Madame Lebrun protests, folding her hands like a squirrel begging for nuts. Secrecy was never, ever meant to include the Empress of Russia. And now the portrait, although not finished, is at the center of an unexpected but wondrous occurrence.

“What occurrence?”

“It’s the Swedish King, Your Majesty,” Madame gushes. The weak ray of sunshine plays over the pearls in her hair. “The young man of incomparable charm, if I may say so. And extreme graciousness.” This fine young monarch came by her studio yesterday, interrupting his daily walk through the city. Which he considers unrivaled in its charm.

“Indeed?” Catherine asks, aware that her voice has betrayed her interest and that now Madame Lebrun will milk it for all it’s worth.

“Indeed, Your Majesty. A most remarkable young man. Keenly interested in art.”

Catherine resigns herself to hearing how the Swedish monarch has praised Madame’s talent. How Madame has queried him about the details of the famous coronation portrait of his father she has never had a chance to admire herself. And how the charming young King personally invited Madame to Stockholm to view this amazing work of pure inspiration. “Your Majesty must have heard of it, I’m sure.”

Finally, the story reaches its intended conclusion.

“The King, Your Majesty, asked to see what I was working on. How
could I refuse? Oh, how I wish Your Majesty would see with what rapture he perceived your granddaughter’s divine countenance.”

Is that all?

It is not all. Madame Lebrun knows how to stretch her moment. Glowing, she allows herself the pleasure to sketch the scene as it has transpired. The King dressed in black, his long hair gently falling on his shoulders. The velvet hat he is clutching in his hands. The hand raised, making its way to his heart, then the hat falling from his hands, to the floor. And then the words: “She has captured my heart. I cannot leave Russia until I’m assured she’ll become my wife.”

What joy to see a wish fulfilled, carefully laid plans come to fruition! For her darling girl, there will be no more melancholy musings, only the pleasures of a good marriage. For Russia, a long-wished-for alliance. Sweden will be back in the Russian fold.

At a moment like this, even Madame’s gabbling can be endured.

When Madame Lebrun finally leaves, Catherine takes a quill and snaps the inkwell open. On the top of the page she writes:
Two main conditions to be met before the engagement between Alexandrine and Gustav Adolf can take place
.

Then she takes a ruler and draws an even line underneath it, making sure the line ends just on the margins. Then she continues:

A complete severance of the ties with the Princess of Mecklenburg.

An assurance in writing that Alexandrine will have all she requires to practice her Orthodox faith.

Both conditions she considers self-evident, but in matters of importance it never hurts to be straightforward. No new engagement is possible without breaking the current one. And a Russian Grand Duchess is not a petty Prussian princess marrying an emperor. Religion is her tie with Russia, a tie to be nurtured and encouraged, not broken.

She rings for her secretary. Gribovsky enters at once, in his usual dark gray ensemble, which is getting too tight. Like Queenie, he cannot resist the palace treats.

She orders Gribovsky to develop the two points into a one-paragraph statement, with ample space beneath for the King’s signature, so she can have it on her person at all times.

August is almost gone.

It is with regret that she decides to return to the Winter Palace, to the avalanche of papers. For a few days only, she tells herself, knowing this won’t be so. Whatever time government business doesn’t claim will be devoured by preparations for the betrothal. She will soon be pestered for decisions. Will St. George’s Hall do for the ceremony? What decorations should be prepared? In what colors? The wardrobe headmistress is already asking for an audience. Zotov has mentioned that the peacock clock is stuttering when the owl enters. Will there be enough time to dismantle the whole mechanism and clean it?

As if nothing can be decided without her.

Alexandrine, however, is relieved to be back at the Winter Palace. Bolik’s still missing, though the sightings of him never stop. Perhaps—though one shouldn’t be too cynical—because every such sighting assures a reward. Alexandrine’s chambermaids must be instructed to fold jasmine petals into her undergarments. This will surround the child with a lovely fragrant vapor, a far more delicate scent than perfume.

“What do you think, Pani?”

Pani wags her tail in agreement, oblivious to the change of residence. As soon as her green velvet pillow is placed on a floor, she settles on it with her customary delight. And as soon as Bezborodko presents his greasy morning offering, all is fine in the dog’s world.

Now that Alexandrine’s engagement is on its way to completion, the issue of succession becomes pressing. Catherine has postponed the matter long enough. Too much has been on her mind. And—this, too, is best acknowledged—she dreads the unpleasantness of it all.

But there is no advantage in keeping her decision secret. Not any longer.

An official announcement will clear the air. Alexander must get used
to the thought of taking his father’s place. Start taking part in Council meetings, watching and learning.

When?

September will likely all be taken by the betrothal. October by Alexandrine’s departure to Sweden.

“November?” Count Bezborodko suggests. “On the Grand Duke’s name day?”

This, the Empress decides, is an excellent suggestion.

Her leg is getting worse. By the end of the day, it turns into a phantom limb, unusable but still tormented by waves of throbbing pain. The open sores in between her toes ooze bloody pus. A shooting pain travels along the shin up her hip.

She won’t admit it, though, not yet. Rogerson, Queenie tells her, is denouncing Lambro-Cazzioni everywhere as a dangerous quack who has turned Her Majesty’s head with his sorcery. As if he were selling her the tears of John the Baptist! Silly Rogerson, with his mounting gambling debts, afraid she will sack him and send him back to his gloomy Scotland moors. How tedious, human vanities. How predictable.

Her hand hurts, too. Not while she writes, but as soon as she lifts the quill off the page. Sometimes the pain returns during the day in most unexpected moments. When she opens a snuffbox, or lifts something, no matter how light.

Her body is giving in. Worn in service to the Empire. Thirty-four years taking their toll.

Old age takes us by surprise. Is it because it is the only stage of life from which there is no escape, no return? No one can ever look back at old age from a distance.

Years do not make sages, she likes to observe, just old men and women unsure of where they are going. This is why she wants to surround herself with the young. Effervescent, pliable, moldable. The future of the human race. In their souls there is still color.

Before dusk falls, from the Hermitage window she catches a glimpse of a well-dressed woman on the Moyka bridge walking with a companion, a girl in a gray bonnet. The girl is saying something; the woman—her mother perhaps—shakes her head and raises her hand in exasperation. The girl lifts her hands and covers her ears. Is she being scolded for some petty misdemeanor?

A moment later, when she looks again, the two have reconciled and walk arm in arm, the girl leaning toward the mother, lost in some story.

Varvara Nikolayevna?

Darya?

The absurdity of this thought amuses her. The woman who walks away is much too young, and much more graceful than Varvara ever was. The girl limps slightly as she walks, which, too, is wrong.

And yet …

The memory that comes is of the sharp and angry moment of Varvara’s leaving. A misunderstanding. An undeserved accusation. Grand expectations that always anticipate more than can be granted. Recriminations spreading like the black fungus on her roses.

Like the heir of Candide, I wish to cultivate my garden
.

The boundary between friendship and betrayal is a thin one. It has to do with entrancement and expectations.

You have not been the only one
, she tells Varvara in her thoughts.
But you were the first one to leave me. Refused to take what was offered to you with generosity and gratitude. For reasons you never even tried to explain
.

She has hardened herself for this moment.

Being a Tsar
, she’ll tell Alexander,
may often seem like a burden. But in the right hands, power is the only means of assuring the happiness of the greatest number
.

In the right hands
, she will repeat.

One has to safeguard the good that has already been done.

Sometimes a son must step over his father.

“This is my true kingdom,” she tells Alexander, pointing to the books in her library.

Rows of volumes are arranged according to the subject matter, author, and language. The books from Diderot’s collection stand out, with their elaborate lettering on soft brown calfskin. She herself has always preferred simple leather bindings. Not too much gold tooling, no jewel-encrusted edges, for it is the content that matters, not the covers.

Only the other day, between the well-worn pages of her Montesquieu, she found a yellowing letter in a childish hand:
We are well. We hope you are well, too. I kiss your hands and feet and your little finger. Your little grandson Alexander
.

“Can I see the medals, Graman?” Alexander asks with his old, childish eagerness. He pulls out the shallow drawers one by one, exclaiming at each new discovery. “Oh, I remember this one,” he says, holding the Victory at Chesme to the light.

All her life Catherine has always collected something. Paintings, porcelain, china figurines, cameos, books. The archive shelves are piled with old herbaria, boxes with shells and fossils. Rocks from the frozen fields of Siberia. Twisted roots shaped like human limbs.

Passions long gone, she thinks, as she watches her grandson dive into her old treasures. Not empty memories of the past, but evidence that she has lived and loved. That she didn’t pass by what caught her fancy. This is why she is keeping it all. As proof.

She has settled in her library chair by the window. Her bad leg is resting on a velvet footstool. It hurts, at times far more than it used to before the water treatment began. “You’ve visited Gatchina again,” she says.