Empress of the Night (44 page)

“What is wrong in giving people the right to express their thoughts, Graman? Like they do in America.”

“Americans harbor many delusions, Alexander. They, too, will learn that there is no point in consulting the ignorant. What is the purpose of giving voice to those whose vision is limited and filled with their crippled, wishful, unenlightened thoughts?”

“And what about respecting the dignity of the human nature?”

“But the human is an animal, Alexander. Animal instinct is not to
live in peace, but to hoard and pillage. Why allow it for the sake of noble ideals? What is the point in noble failure?

“Besides, Russia is not a new country, like America. Russia is more like France, and you cannot advocate for what is happening there.”

In this argument, she is winning. She can see it in her grandson’s slumping shoulders, his slight nod.

“Remember Pugachev, Alexander. You may say it was twenty years ago. You were not even born then, but you have to remember that blood was spilled. It happened once. It can happen again. These ‘wise and suffering’ peasants can again turn into a bloodthirsty mob. Hang me and you from the nearest lantern.”

Her voice flows, soars. She is on safe grounds. “It is better for a Tsar to be thought intolerant and cruel than to allow another such tragedy.”

She smiles, satisfied with her own words. This is how she imagined him to be when he was still a teething baby. Coming to her for advice. Listening to her arguments. Coming up with his own, to counter her, if necessary. Forging his own opinions. Finding his own way.

Sometimes a dream takes many years to come to fruition. But how sweet the time when it does.

What plans she has for him! For the next few years! Daily conferences like this one will continue, become more and more serious. He will watch her make decisions. Question her advisers. Analyze their reports, but always draw his own conclusions. Alexander will learn fast. When he is not with her, Bezborodko will watch over him. Tutor him in the art of managing the imperial business.

But serious matters will have to wait for the official announcement of succession. Now it is wiser to show Alexander a list of gifts Alexandrine will take with her to Sweden. A list carefully constructed, she points out, to reflect Russia’s achievements. Porcelain from the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, silver from Tula, stockings small enough to be hidden in a walnut shell, from silk harvested in the Crimea.

“Our Alexandrine will hold her head high at the Swedish court,” she says with a chuckle of triumph.

Alexander catches her excitement. He, too, has ideas to contribute. He knows of a serf painter who has rendered the Winter Palace so skillfully
that every crack in the wall is there. A painting like this would be a wonderful gift for his sister. Alexandrine could look at it every time she feels homesick.

They work together, side by side.

When it is time for Alexander to leave, she opens the drawer of her bureau and takes out an embroidered satin sachet. Inside it is a snuffbox: on its top, a cameo of a bee leaving the hive to pollinate a fruit branch.

“This is for you, Alexander,” Catherine tells him. “I want it to remind you of me every time you hold it. And to remember these words:
What’s the point of being disgusted when you can repair what disgusts you?
”

The Swedish accounts are in disorder, Bezborodko’s report claims. The Regent is keeping false accounts in order to confuse his enemies, but often cannot distinguish which are the true ones himself.
An Augean stable, and I see no Hercules yet!

Gustav Adolf, so far, is utterly oblivious of his uncle’s disguise skills.

Seated across from her in the Imperial Study, the King describes his visit to Gatchina. The young man’s elated, agitated manner has made Pani desert her velvet cushion and watch him intently.

“The games, madame, were most intriguing,” the King says. He was particularly taken by the memory game Maria Fyodorovna proposed. Take a quick glance at a tray with many objects on it, and then try to recall as many of them as possible. A favorite game, she claimed, of all her children.

“How did you do, monsieur,” the Empress asks, “in this game?”

“Not as well as Maria Fyodorovna herself,” the King confesses. “But I had no practice.”

Pani, having decided that he is no threat, rests her narrow gray paw on his lap, expecting a treat or at least a pat on her head. The King stiffens slightly. He is not a dog lover.

“I wish I had brothers,” the King continues. “Or sisters,” he adds with the wistfulness of a child who has spent too much time among adults.

“Loneliness does not have to be endured,” Catherine says and watches him nod with eagerness.

The awaited moment has arrived. The Swedish King is ready to declare his love for Alexandrine. She can see it in his widened eyes and flushed cheeks.

“Before you say anything, monsieur,” she interposes, “I need to make some things very clear.”

Gustav Adolf gives her a startled look, as if she caught him stuffing his pockets with the imperial silver. But she does not put him at ease. She wants his full attention.

“My granddaughter has a pure soul. She may have been raised at court, but this child cannot conceive of malice or intrigue. She needs to be protected from all harm.”

At these words the King’s face relaxes visibly. He believes himself on solid ground. His brown eyes moisten, and his voice softens. “I wouldn’t let anyone harm her.”

“That I don’t doubt, monsieur,” she tells him. “But you cannot be always at her side. You, too, have enemies. The masked man who murdered your father could not have acted alone. Besides your affection and goodwill, Alexandrine needs her family and her position in her new country.”

“I have no intention of denying her that,” Gustav Adolf protests. “I can assure—”

“Please,” she interrupts. “Let me say what I have to say and let me be plain. You, monsieur, are Lutheran. My granddaughter is Russian Orthodox. Have you considered the issue of faith?”

The King gives her a startled, incredulous look. What did he think she would talk to him about? His father’s intimate inclinations? His frolicking with Baron Munck?

“Doesn’t a wife,” Gustav Adolf asks in reply, “always take on the husband’s religion?”

“Russian nobles are forbidden to leave the Orthodox Church. If a Russian Grand Duchess ever abandoned her faith, she would cut herself off from her family and from Russia. And then she would be alone.”

The Empress pauses, letting him assess the consequences of her words. She would have liked to watch his face, but the Swedish King has lowered his head. All she can see is the straight line of his skin where his shiny hair parts before it falls along his cheeks. She hopes he is thinking
beyond love and faith, calculating his own advantages, thinking of the future. What use would Alexandrine be to him without her influence in St. Petersburg?

“If you seek my permission to marry my granddaughter, I’ll give it, under the condition that in Sweden she will be allowed to worship the way she does here. Do not reply to me right now, monsieur. I intend to depart for Tsarskoye Selo for a few days. Think about what I’ve said. If this is impossible, make the most of your visit, and when I come back you will leave without resuming this conversation. But if you stay, I’ll know you’ve accepted this condition.”

The King raises his head. His face is pale but composed. He thanks her for her straightforward manner, which he values tremendously. And then, his body slumping, a punctured balloon deflated, he leaves the room.

At the door, Gustav Adolf gives her one more look, as if still incredulous that he had heard her right.

He bows.

The doors close, and she is alone again. Pani returns to her cushion, circling it a few times before settling to her midday nap.

Poor Gustav Adolf, not yet a true King, and already torn between what he desires and what he can have. Is she truly asking for that much, though? Haven’t dogmas always been disputed? Wine or blood? Flesh or wafer? One God in three spirits or three gods in one? A song of love and suffering or wrath and damnation?

Isn’t religion only an imperfect human view of what is ultimately unknowable? Doesn’t it change with time? With circumstances? Where were the Lutherans before Martin Luther? Calvinists before Calvin?

Isn’t it best to accept that there are some things we will never know and busy ourselves with what we can change?

And then she wonders what has happened to the cane she had given Gustav Adolf’s father (cousin Gu, she called him) when he came to St. Petersburg for the first time, in 1783. He was her first cousin, on her mother’s side. The cane’s knob was made of a single diamond worth sixty thousand rubles.

As soon as Gustav Adolf leaves, Le Noiraud comes into her study. His black eyes are rimmed with red.

Vishka reports that he has ordered one of his pages to watch for the King’s visits. She also informs her that the Favorite cannot sleep. “We are quite unsure of ourselves,” she remarks with a sour smile. “A pinch of jealousy might’ve done us some real good.”

Le Noiraud does not take a seat, but walks about the room. A distinct blend of musk and almond oil trails his every step. Too strong, but this is not a good moment to point out such a trifle.

He stops by the mantel as if to admire the Chinese vase, then the porcelain figures she has placed in a row: an onion seller, a fisherman, a cobbler. Old gifts from the Prussian King she still finds endearing. The onion woman, Grishenka always maintained, looks like a witch.

Platon’s restlessness and silence are meant to make her ask for reasons. So does the studied pose he assumes by the fireplace, with his elbow resting on the marble. He knows this shows his handsome figure to the advantage. The cloud in his eyes darkens.

“Has Gustav Adolf proposed?” he finally blurts out, defeated.

“Almost,” Catherine replies.

“What happened?”

“I don’t want him to rush. Young favor is warm but not durable …”

Le Noiraud nods with cheerful eagerness, a pupil who knows how to please his teacher. “Then it has to be snatched and improved.”

When she laughs, he saunters to her side and kneels beside her. His head feels heavy on her lap, for he presses it with desperation. Are these sobs or laughter she hears?

She lifts his head. Rouge is smeared on his wet face.

“What’s the matter with my silly boy?”

The warmth in her voice melts him. “I’m nothing, Katinka,” he mutters. “They laugh at me.”

She doesn’t have to ask whose indifference is the cause of Le Noiraud’s despair. There are many ladders of rank, some more obvious than others. Alexander Andreyevich Bezborodko is the culprit. Grishenka called him a genius and a friend, but in Platon’s eyes what matters most is Bezborodko’s indifference to him. The imperial minister does not consider the Imperial Favorite a worthy opponent.

“I’m of no use to you. You don’t need me. Nothing I do is even worth noting. I bring you news, and you dismiss it … Give me a chance, Katinka,” he says. “Let me do something worthy. Like my brother has done.”

It is better not to let Platon dwell on Valerian’s recent conquests. The brothers barely speak ever since Platon decided Valerian was trying to take his place at her side.

“Anything that will let me prove my worth,” Platon continues. He fixes his eyes on hers, pleading with his whole body. The sweet memory that crosses her mind is singed with regret.

If she could still feel anything when he made love to her, none of this would have mattered.

“Please, Katinka. I beg you.”

The pain in his voice is real. It makes her heart melt.

“I’ll think about it,
Votre Altesse
,” she promises, and sees him smile. “Now, go away,” she adds. “I have work to do.”

“What is this smell?” Vishka asks when she enters with another pot of hot coffee half an hour later. “May I open the window?” she asks and tries, in vain, to stifle a sneeze.

Platon’s heavy perfume permeates her study, in spite of Vishka’s airing, but unlike Vishka, Alexander Andreyevich Bezborodko makes no mention of the scent when he arrives to deliver his reports.

The Swedes have been taken to Tsarskoye Selo. Gushed over the hanging garden, the splendor of the amber room. Gustav Adolf wondered if he could re-create the Golden Enfilade at his palace. Not as long and as sumptuous, he said, but enough of it “to create a resemblance to this incomparable interior.”

“He didn’t mention for whom?” the Empress asks, beaming with pleasure.

“Implied, not stated bluntly, Your Highness,” Alexander Andreyevich answers. “We should start talking about drafting the engagement contract.”

“I’ve been considering asking Prince Zubov to do it,” she says and waits. With her minister, directness is the best policy. He deserves it, and he can handle it. “Prince Zubov doesn’t know it yet,” she adds. “You, Alexander Andreyevich, should concentrate on the matter of succession.”

“As Your Majesty wishes.”

There is no surprise in Bezborodko’s eyes. A perfect courtier knows she can read silence as well as words:
It is Your Majesty’s decision. I wouldn’t have made it, but the matter does not warrant an objection. This is a simple negotiation of a contract agreed upon in principle already. What can go wrong?