Empress of the Night (47 page)

Your Majesty will be pleased to know that my mother’s life has been happy. She and my stepfather ran a small but prosperous bookstore in Kraków. They were a devoted couple, and Mama never spoke of our years in St. Petersburg. Even to me it often seemed impossible that a bookseller’s wife, in her gray unadorned dresses and sensible shoes, was once Countess Malikina
.

It was right after my stepfather’s funeral that I first realized something was odd about her. She would be talking with me about my daughters, and I would see her eyes wander, as if the subject did not interest her. Then, suddenly, she would rush to another room, where I would find her rummaging through drawers. “I’ve forgotten where I’ve put my spectacles,” she would exclaim. Or “I just wanted to make sure I haven’t lost my keys.” I would help her locate what she was looking for, but this did not stop her for long, and soon she would rush off again
.

I took this unease to be the result of grief after losing a husband who was her true friend, and I hoped that, in time and with God’s assistance, she would find consolation in me and my family. But she refused to go with me, so I left her in Kraków, promising to visit soon. When I did, a month later, she took me aside and in a whisper informed me that the servants were stealing from her
.

“
What is missing?” I asked, but she just stared at me suspiciously
.

“
Why do you need to know?” she asked
.

“
I want to help you find it,” I replied
.

“
They all say that,” she told me. “But I’m not such a fool to believe them.
”

The servants swore they didn’t touch anything they were not supposed to touch, and knowing their devotion to my mother, I believed them. Indeed, it was one of the maids who showed me that Mama hid silver spoons under her own pillow, having wrapped them in an old stocking first
.

There were many more such troubling incidents, and, after Mama came back from a walk trailed by urchins who taunted her for speaking Russian to them, I took my mother into my own house. The move upset her greatly at first. She could not get used to the layout of the rooms and would find herself lost on her way from her bedroom to the parlor. Or she would ask me what happened to the service door in her room, and when I explained that we never had service doors she made a funny face and winked at me. Then she began wandering through the house and the outbuildings at night. Once a maid found her with one of the barn cats asleep on her lap. “I’ve found the Empress’s cat,” she said
.

My elder daughter, who was fourteen at the time, came to me one day and said that Grandmamma called her Catherine. “But I’m Barbara,” she said. Mama looked at her as if my daughter had lost her mind. “No, you are not,” she said, quite cross with her
.

The same conversation was repeated a few times, and since protests made Mama only more puzzled and upset, I told my daughter not to correct her. For weeks after that, Mama would pull my daughter into her room, ostensibly to tell her something. “Secrets,” she said, but they were all warnings. Someone was trying to hurt her, she had to be careful, she had to watch out. “But who is trying to hurt me, Grandmamma?” my daughter asked. “They,” my mother would whisper. “They” were listening at the door. “They” were watching them both through the keyhole. “They” knew of everything. “Run away, Catherine,” she would cry. “Run, before it is too late. Run, before they steal your soul.
”

It broke my heart to see Mama the way she was. The doctors were of no help and only weakened her with excessive bleedings. My beloved mother—and I shudder even now as I write these words—was rapidly losing her mind. Soon she no longer recognized my husband, my children, or me. She talked to herself, ceaseless monologues in Russian, in which I discerned scraps of conversations and pleadings to the ghosts that haunted her troubled mind. “Go to her, please. She is alone. She is hurting. Tell her I’ve not left her. Tell her I’m coming.
”

In the end it was anxiety that killed her. She would still smile brightly at me when I walked into her room in the morning. She would let me wash her and dress her, but soon she would grow uneasy, shuddering at each sound. When she was in her room she wanted to go outside. When she was outside she would stop the servants and beg them to take her home. Once I heard her scream in her room most horribly. When I rushed in, I found her sobbing, rocking a small pillow as if it were a newborn baby. It was one such attack that brought forth the fever that carried her away
.

In a way I was glad that Mama was spared the knowledge of the tragic events of the last year. She knew nothing of the lost insurrection and the final partition. But Your Majesty has a much more profound grasp of these sad events than I do, so I will limit myself to the true reason for my letter
.

When Our Lord in His Mercy had taken Mama to His side, I went back to the Kraków house to clear her things. She had an old cedar chest under her bed that I remembered from St. Petersburg. There were many things in it that I expected to find. The old white muslin dress that was once my grandmother’s, now failing at the seams. A piece of amber with two bees in it. My late papa’s letters tied with a ribbon. My own drawings and those of my daughters, all dated and neatly sorted
.

I also found other odd and messy pages in Mama’s own handwriting, reminders to herself, they turned out to be, as if she were trying to record what was the most important to her
. I have a daughter, Darya, and two granddaughters: Barbara and Aniela. Masha, my Russian servant who came with me from St. Petersburg, is dead. I buried her in Warsaw, near my baby brother.

It was among these odd pages that I found two notes in Your Majesty’s handwriting that I wish to return. I have no idea how they came into my mother’s possession. They are addressed “To my Sophie, to be delivered into her own hands.” The seal is broken, so they have been read, and I do not know why my mother did not deliver them. Or maybe she did but was asked to dispose of them and kept them for some reason of her own
.

She has taken the answers to these questions with her to her grave, and if she sinned, she will take her penance in the other world, so it is not for me to judge her. All I wish to say is that at some point she must have puzzled over them herself, for on one of these notes I found scribbled in her handwriting: Who is Sophie? I don’t know her
.

There is more, but Catherine puts the letter down. Her hands tremble, her eyes itch.

Varvara Nikolayevna is dead.

Goodbye, my friend
, she thinks.

But it is the prickly thoughts that pain her most. Varvara, in a light blue gown, walking swiftly down the palace corridor, holding Darya’s hand. A swirl of blue and white. A peal of laughter that promises a few precious, carefree minutes. Stopping to pick up a kitten, whisper something into its ear.

When did it go wrong?

I beg Your Majesty to free me from the Imperial Service
.

“Not all friends take kindly to advancement,” Vishka said when Varvara’s letter arrived, so long ago now. “Many find it easier to pity than to admire.”

Fond memories … when I played in the corridors of the Winter Palace with the Grand Duke Paul …
What does a child remember, so many years after?

A sickly boy, fussy, colicky, and so easily terrified?

On September 11, the day of the engagement, chaos rules. Messengers race back and forth, pages announce the most recent arrivals. “Everyone wants to see Your Majesty,” Queenie grumbles, fending off requests for an audience.

Even in her study the Empress can hear the frantic pace of the preparations. Carriages roll into the palace yard, servants shout orders to delivery boys. Alexandrine’s engagement may be a private ceremony, but the capital city is swirling with excitement. People are already gathering outside the Winter Palace, hoping for a sight of the Swedish visitors.

Defeated, she pushes the unread reports aside and rings for Zotov to help her to the rolling chair.

In her dressing room, the maids, the hairdresser, and the wardrobe seamstress are waiting. The imperial gown is laid out, ivory white
robe ronde
embroidered with heavy gold thread. Her jewelry keeper is holding a black velvet cushion with necklaces and earrings for her to choose from. The air smells of orange blossoms, almonds, and a whole array of lesser scents emanating from open jars of pomades, creams, and powders.

It will take the small army of servants at least two hours to get her ready for the evening.

Queenie and Vishka are looking flustered already. Miss Williams has been asking what to do, for Alexandrine is refusing the slightest touch of rouge on her cheeks. And Maria Fyodorovna has sent her page with a request for some silver lace, for hers got torn in the carriage. “Will Your Majesty take a look at these samples, please?”

“Splendor is hard work,” Catherine tells Zotov, as he helps her out of her rolling chair and mutters his toneless “Indeed, madame.”

The wardrobe seamstress is dispatched with enough silver lace to replace the whole hem of Maria Fyodorovna’s dress. Miss Williams is told to let Alexandrine decide what the child wants on her big day.

It is four o’clock when she hears Le Noiraud’s angry whisper. “He wants to discuss it with Your Majesty personally,” Queenie reports.

Her face is smeared with a mixture of mashed cucumbers and honey; her eyes are covered with chamomile compresses. The wardrobe maid who has been brushing her hair moves aside.

“The King? What does he want to discuss?” she asks, removing the compresses from her eyes.

“This is what I asked, too,” Le Noiraud replies. His fingers tap the back of her chair. He mentions
dogged stupidity that defies reason
. Then
deviousness he cannot understand
.

Slowly she is able to put together Le Noiraud’s account of the last four hours, though it still makes little sense. Plenipotentiaries met to sign the treaty. At first all seemed in order, until Le Noiraud could not find the page with the article that secured Alexandrine’s freedom to keep her religion. “The King has taken it,” the Swedes answered when he asked why it was missing. “His Majesty wants to discuss it personally with the Empress.”

“Now?” Catherine asks. “Why didn’t he wish to discuss it yesterday?”

Le Noiraud doesn’t answer her question. “I told them it was too late for discussion,” he says. “So they want to sign the treaty without it for now.”

The unease in his voice alerts her. There must be more to this story. Has he been too trusting? Too eager to do well?

I’ll get it out of him later
, she decides. Her guests are beginning to arrive. Her hair has to be curled, coiffed, and powdered. She is only half dressed, and the stomacher is far too tight. The seamstress needs to loosen it without upsetting the line of the
robe ronde
.

“If we sign the treaty without the article now, it’ll be too late to insert it afterward,” she tells him. “Which is exactly what they are hoping for.”

He should’ve known that much without being told, but she waves this thought away. “It’s a ploy,” she continues. “They are trying to find out how much can be snatched at the last moment. We must stand firm.”

Relief shines in Le Noiraud’s eyes. Before she has the time to stop him, he kisses her on her cheek and gasps. His lips are now smudged with the cucumber mixture.

At six o’clock, when the Empress’s toilette is almost finished, Queenie announces that Alexandrine would like to present herself for her grandmother’s inspection.

The Empress nods her agreement, but when the doors open, it is Count Morkov who rushes in, apologizing for his intrusion.

“Necessary, however, madame,” he pants. “For we are at a loss.”

Can nothing go right these days?
she thinks.
What else should I get ready for? Shortages of snow in Siberia? Another ship carrying my purchases sinking to the bottom of the sea?

Queenie casts her mistress a worried look. Vishka stops the seamstress, who has just spotted something amiss with the
robe ronde
and approaches her, a row of pins between her lips. “Out, all of you! Quick!” she tells the servants.

Count Morkov wastes no words. The last two hours brought no progress in the negotiations. The Swedes insist that the clause on religion must be discussed.

“Now?” She asks Morkov the same question she has asked Le Noiraud. “Why didn’t the King wish to talk about it yesterday?”

Morkov gives her a bewildered look. “But madame,” he says. “The King didn’t have that clause yesterday.”