Empress of the Night (5 page)

A reader, to Peter? For how long? What does she read to him? What does she see that I don’t?

But Mother no longer pays the servant girl any heed. “We have to keep Peter happy, Sophie,” she says as if they were completely alone. “We cannot be thought of as uncaring.”

“No, Mother,” she replies, but unlike her mother, she cannot ignore Varvara Nikolayevna’s presence. It’s not just that she would’ve liked to ask her about Peter. There is something about this girl that reminds her of Father, of his encouraging nod when her eyes filled with frustration over some childish task. Of his hand on her shoulder, preventing his daughter from trampling onto a bird’s nest.

“Write what I tell you, Sophie! In your best hand,” Mother orders.

Dear Peter, I’m very sorry to have upset your important and admirable endeavor. I promise to get well very soon, and in the meantime, I’d like to resume our work while I’m still resting.

When she is finished, Mother snatches the note from her hand and examines it, scowling. “Your letters, Sophie,” she says, “are too small and too uneven. And there is a smudge of ink in the corner. Do you want Peter to think you are a slob?”

“No, Mother.”

“Write it again, then!”

Mother’s skirts twirl as she paces the room, impatient, lost in her own calculations, her own schemes. Outside the door, a heel stomps the floorboard. A man clears his throat.

“Hurry up, Sophie!”

She copies the note again. Mother, satisfied this time or simply impatient, folds the paper and flattens it at the edges. The servant girl is standing motionless, head high, lips tight, her eyes shining with thoughts known only to herself.

“There, take it to your master, and be gone,” Mother orders.

Varvara Nikolayevna, her head tilted slightly, takes a stiff step forward, and for a moment it looks like Mother might slap her. But then outside the room a man’s spirited voice breaks into careless laughter, and Mother’s whole body softens. As soon as Peter’s reader extends her hand for the folded note, Mother hurries out of the room.

The note disappears in the folds of Varvara’s dress.

Paintings hang in the corridors. On one, a bearded man is bound to a plank, a blade glitters, a crowd awaits the spectacle of execution. On another, armored men ride sturdy Tartar ponies, bred and raised on the steppes. These horses may look small, but they can cover miles without tiring. The saddles have short stirrups. Why? To let a mounted archer stand when riding. Why? To shoot with more accuracy, for when you sit in the saddle, you are jostled about and lose your aim.

Sophie is fourteen. Not a stranger to saying one thing and meaning another. But she is a foreigner here. Her eye must be trained to see what is of the essence. Her ear must hear what is hidden.

“Talking to servants again? Where is your dignity, Sophie? Your pride?”

Her mother is wrong.

Friendships are forged in chance encounters, in the faint light of the unshuttered windows, on frosty Moscow days. In the palace corridor, on the way to the imperial chambers, in the antechamber of Peter’s rooms, where the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst is kept waiting like a merchant or a debtor.

Questions are a good beginning. Questions followed by a beseeching smile, a playful shake of the head. The initial ones are innocuous, easy to answer: “What is kvass made of, Varvara Nikolayevna? What is the Russian word for a bee? Have you ever seen an elephant? Aren’t they marvelous creatures? So graceful and yet so strong! Is
Varvara
Russian for Barbara?”

Only later, when murmurs give way to easy laughter, other questions are possible:

“Have you been at court long?

“You are a bookbinder’s daughter? A ward of the Empress? A foreigner, too?

“An orphan?

“Alone?”

In the end, it is not only what one asks about but how. Every answer, however brief, however flippant, is a clue. Words hide inside other words, hint at the gravity of what is unfolding outside these drafty rooms. So do the hesitations, the sideways glances. Are they distractions to lead the newcomer astray? Or warnings to be treasured and pondered? Like that page she has copied from a book and then found burnt on a silver tray?

Nobody survives alone.

Not here. Not at this court.

She puts out her hand to grip the arm of her chair, to steady herself. “Will you help me with my Russian, Varvara Nikolayevna? Sometimes?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Will you read to me, too? Happy stories. With good endings. There is enough sadness in the world.”

“If the Empress permits.”

“Then I’ll ask her as soon as she returns. And I shall praise you to her. Tell her how kind and helpful you’ve been. How I wish she were here already!”

“Too many requests are waiting for her, Your Highness. It’s better to wait for the right moment.”

“How will I know when the right moment arrives? Will you tell me?”

But Varvara Nikolayevna does not answer. “Praises are not always good, Your Highness,” she says instead. “It’s best you don’t mention me to the Empress at all.”

“Why not?”

“It’s best not to reveal what we truly want. It’s best to hide our impatience and our fears.”

Like mother, like daughter
.

An apple may fall close to the apple tree, but it doesn’t have to stay there
.

Noises wake her at night. The wooden walls are thin. In Mother’s room, the floor squeaks. A wardrobe door creaks. A stumble, a giggle, clicking
of glasses. The wine is pronounced inferior, but it will do. Must do. It’s a cold Russian night, after all.

“Wait until we move back to St. Petersburg,” Chevalier Betskoy warns. “There, it’s even colder.”

“How much colder?”

“Think birds freezing in mid-flight and falling out of the sky. By three o’clock, it’s already pitch dark.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“You should.”

Soon, so soon, Mother’s voice thickens and breaks. “Not here … wait … let me …”

A bedframe rattles against the wall. Breathing gets raspy, greedy. A giggle snaps, turns into a deep moan of pleasure.

Mother is gasping for air. Calling the man who is with her
beloved … my treasure … my only, true happiness
. “You don’t know what hunger is,” Sophie hears her whisper. “How much he has suffocated me. For how long.”

Her bedroom is shrouded in darkness. In the small alcove, the sleeping maid gnashes her teeth and moans something in Russian that sounds like a plea for mercy or a favor. The girl is a sound sleeper and won’t wake up unless yanked out of her dreams by force.

But Sophie is wide awake. Mother destroys everything she touches. The present and the future. Stains it all with gossip and greed, with lust that serves nothing but her own pleasure.

If Sophie doesn’t stop her now, they will both be packed off back to Zerbst in disgrace.

She gets out of bed and walks toward the window. Outside, on the moonlit street, the snow has banked into tall drifts. A horse-drawn sleigh is making its way past them, the peal of harness bells teasing her ears. Empress Elizabeth won’t be back for another three long weeks. The Empress who once placed a
kokoshnik
on her head and called her “my beloved moon girl, my hope.”

Her mind moves over the possibilities, feels them for ripeness. Rivalry? Possession? Pride?

Would the Empress come back to save a dying girl?

Za chem poydyosh, to i naydyosh
. If you go looking for it, you will find it.

Lips become parched if you keep them parted long enough, without licking them. Cheeks can be made to redden with a vigorous rubbing. But will looking sick be enough? An ordinary cold would help, a runny nose, bloodshot eyes, voice made raw by a sore throat.

She considers opening the window, but it has frozen into the frame and won’t budge. Besides, the night watchman might hear her struggle with it. Then her eyes rest on a vase filled with cut orchids. The chambermaids are lazy, even with an imperial gift. The water, unchanged for days, already smells of rot.

She picks up the vase and lifts it to her lips, taking one bitter sip, then another. Slimy strands stick to her tongue and teeth, but she holds her breath and doesn’t gag. Human will, Babette, her governess, has taught her, is more powerful than animal instincts. Human will is the iron gate to mankind’s true salvation. Reason can overcome emotions that try to divert us away from our goal.

A stomach can hold the stinking water and the slimy remnants of the rotting stems. Longer than she has thought. As long as it is necessary.

“No bleeding,” Mother says sharply when the court doctor arrives this time.

The doctor raises his thick, graying eyebrows.

“But why?” he asks. His voice is reassuring. He explains the necessity of restoring the balance of humors. Surely the illustrious Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst will not object to medical wisdom?

“No bleeding,” Mother insists. Her own brother came to Russia to marry. He fell ill, was bled, and died.

If it happened before, it can happen again.

The doctor rolls his eyes. “A woman’s reasoning,” he whispers, loud enough for those close by to hear. He has come prepared for such a contingency.
His voice is stern: “If bleeding is not allowed, the Princess may die.”

“No bleeding!” Mother shrieks. “I won’t let you butcher my child!”

The silk pillows are soiled with vomit. The maids cannot empty the chamber pot fast enough. Their pale faces cringe. With revulsion? Or fear?

“Look at me, Sophie,” Mother orders, unable to conceal her unease. It’s a chink in her armor, which would’ve pleased her daughter at some other time.

The slimy taste of the flower water lingers on Sophie’s lips. No amount of vomiting can erase it. When she tries to raise herself up, her head spins so much that she has to squeeze her eyes shut.

The court doctor rests his hand on her forehead and shakes his head, shooting Chevalier Betskoy a man-to-man look. How can Princess Johanna of Anhalt-Zerbst be so blind? So ignorant? Shouldn’t a man interfere? Right now?

Mother has always been stubborn. Only Father knows how to distract her into compliance. Chevalier Betskoy makes one mistake after another. He returns the doctor’s look. “Perhaps we should summon Her Imperial Majesty,” he says. “Before it is too late.”

“Sophie is
my
daughter,” Mother seethes through clenched teeth. “What can a barren woman know that I don’t?”

The imperial sleigh pulls into the palace yard in a whirlwind of snow. A barking dog is shooed away, the lash of a horsewhip brings forth a yelp of pain.

Doors open. Rosary beads click.

“My Sophie! Poor lamb! What have they done to you? A few days I’m away, and this is what happens?”

Servants are peeking from behind screens and half-closed doors, eager for the spectacle of the imperial rage directed at someone else. What do they see? Whose side do they take?

“The moment I leave, common sense and decency go to the Devil!”

It is all directed at Mother.

Mother, a German bitch, ready to let her own child die because she is too busy fucking.

“
Durak
, and you listened to her!” the doctor hears when he mumbles his explanations for why the bleeding has been delayed for so long. “You, too, wished me to come home to a funeral?”

The Empress moves briskly about the sickroom. Skirts rustle, heels pound the floorboards. “Fetch Lestocq,” Elizabeth bellows. “I trust no one else.”

The maids scurry around. One is holding a wicker basket covered with a white lace kerchief. Another, a Holy Icon. A cat meows.

“Has anyone even had the presence of mind to call a pastor? Or have you all chosen a coffin for this child already?”

Mother is standing on the other side of the bed. Chevalier Betskoy is right behind her, inching his way backward, out of sight.

Where is Peter? Does he think she, his fiancée, might die? Is he sorry for her? Does he even care?

Sophie cannot see with her eyes closed, but the snorting noises must come from Peter. And the stifled grunts of disbelief.

They are all here.

They are all watching.

The doors open. Count Lestocq is announced. “I came as soon as I heard, Majesty,” he mutters as he rushes in, ordering his assistant to open his lancet case. “Without a moment’s delay.”

A draft floats inside, a frigid, slithering stream of winter air.

The Empress’s onetime lover, the man who helped Elizabeth seize Russia’s crown, the Count lifts the coverlet. Not too much, just enough to expose his patient’s small, shapely foot.

The sharp lancet blade opens a vein right above Sophie’s ankle. It hurts, but not much. A stream of blood flows down. A bandage tightens. She feels nothing at first, but then a lightness descends, dizzy, luminous. Her heart slows. Her breath deepens.

She lifts her eyelids a mere slit, enough to discern the Empress bending over the bed. The skin of imperial cheeks has not been touched
by powder today. The front tooth is darkened and chipped. The pale lips are muttering a Russian blessing she, Sophie, doesn’t quite understand.