The Imperial Wife (36 page)

*   *   *

Matushka,
Little Mother, most merciful
Gosudarina,
sovereign lady, how can I explain or describe what happened?
The rider, cap in hand, hands her the paper scrawled with erratic ink. The expression on the man's face is of terror. Catherine tries to suppress her own panic, to give the impression of a monarch in control.

“What is the matter?” Catherine asks. Her mask is strewn across the table with its pair of excised eyes. Still in her ball gown, still recovering from hours of feverish dancing, she scrutinizes the page. The handwriting does not appear to belong to Alexis Orlov but to a drunk man, a man out of his wits; she can barely make any sense of it.

Matushka,
he is no more.
She almost does not need to read on. There will be many questions regarding her complicity, so she forces herself.

“I was handed this to deliver to you right away,” the man chatters as she scans the lines. “I swear, that is all I know.”

To her surprise, she feels herself go cold, the tips of her fingers numb. She stares out the window. The masquerade's revelers are tipping out of the front gates to their carriages. Drunken laughter swells the corridors. A speckled house sparrow tangled inside the curtains is fluttering for its freedom. She releases the bird into the night sky, an act that soothes her, and also buys her time.

Her first reaction is one of logistics. If it was indeed murder, Alexis was too smart to poison Peter and leave any residue. A knife wound would look equally bad. Then it must have been suffocation, the brute force of hands on Peter's tiny, hapless neck.

How could any of us have ventured to raise our hands against our
Gosudar,
sovereign lord. But
Gosudarina,
it has happened.

“Any word back, Your Majesty?”

She finds her voice. “No. Thank you for your prompt relay.”

Back to Alexis's jagged scribble:
We ourselves know not what we did.
She can imagine the fear on Peter's face, his weak wrists batting away his attackers. The muffled screams, high-pitched and unnatural. His lifeless body would resemble one of his puppets. A flood of relief follows remorse inside her, the two sensations alternating in waves. She considers burning the letter, then realizes its disappearance would throw suspicion on her. It remains under her pillow for the night. In the morning, points of ink stab the white linen.

Gregory arrives at her cabinet at first dawn with a hasty peck on her cheek. He peers at her warily, meaty hands limp at his sides.
Murderer,
she now thinks, unsure if she is addressing herself or him. Neither of them speaks.

“I see you have his portrait,” he says. They both glance at the floor where the face of an enhanced version of Peter III scrutinizes them, frameless. She had it wheeled in hours ago, just in case. Its stare trails her from shelves to love seat to window. She is also wearing the jeweled portrait of Peter the empress gifted her on her wedding day. The empress had promised it would be “useful” on certain occasions.

“In his letter, your brother verifies it was an accident,” she begins.

He looks as though something oppressive has been removed, as color returns to his cheeks. He probably expected her fury or, worse, arrest. A glaze of cloud seems to depart, replaced by a cast hard and bronze. “It was no accident. It was God's will.”

“A stroke.”

“Hermorrhoidal colic, if you like.”

She swallows.

“It affected his brain, then.”

Gregory nods, slowly. “The delirium was followed by exhaustion, and despite all the assistance of doctors, he expired.”

“Inflammation of the bowels.”

“Stroke of apoplexy.”

“They can attest to this?”

“We will acquire their verification. They will find no poison,” he says quickly.

“Of course not. I trust you are telling the truth.” They are heaving a cumbersome load back and forth like a child's ball. “Thank you. I must compose the statement now.”

“We can attest you were completely innocent of the matter. The man was deathly ill. As he was dying, he demanded a Lutheran priest. You might include that in the report.”

She turns away. “Thank you. You may go.”

He loiters as if torn between attempting an intimate display of regard or one more professional, then decides on an awkward bow. As if to say,
We only did what you wanted of us—your supremacy is now uncontested.

“We found this among his belongings. I believe it belongs to you.” He drops a square box on her desk. Brown, velvet, with scalloped edges. She knows its contents like she knows the pathways of her own mind. Wrapped in a delicate silk chamois lies the Order of Saint Catherine.

*   *   *

It is she at that stone house at Ropsha in her dreams, not the Orlovs. Just Catherine and her husband, and they are children again. She is fifteen, not thirty-three. It is a time before childbirth, before disappointment with love had settled into her bones. They are playing with his soldiers, her husband lining them up in formation, dressing some down, promoting others. She slumps in an armchair with one of her books, recalls that sense of unbroken boredom she once suffered when days were an unreasonable length, and the sun did not descend fast enough.

Peter suddenly rises from play. “Something's wrong? Fetch the doctor.” He is doubled over in agony, looking to her for salvation.

She is slow to unwind herself from the tufted arm, reluctant to respond to that voice, the one that never aged or matured or developed in it any hint of affection for her. Like the strangled croak of a wounded dog.

“I cannot help you. I don't want to help you.”

“Dura,”
he says, his face changing. “Fetch me a doctor. Fetch me Liza who loves me.” He is spread on the couch, the three-tipped hat cascading off his brow. The pillow beside him is soft enough, big enough.

“Do you suppose your Liza is already on her way to help you?”

“And who loves you? Orlov? Paniatovsky? Saltykov? You are nothing, some minor German princess. You are not beautiful. You are not smart. You don't belong here. I am the grandson of Peter the Great. I am the real heir to the throne. Only prison is good enough for you.” He is fading away into his pain.

“Stop whining already. I've had enough. Twenty years is too long for our ill-fated union.”

She collapses the pillow on top of his face, making sure the corners are tightly pressed to block the flow of air. The thought occurs that the pillow is too valuable for the task, specially ordered by the empress from Spain for its colorful embroidery. But it is too late to exchange it with a more disposable item. She is physically stronger than he; that has always been the case. He buckles with the surprise of her attack, hands flailing at her. She straddles him with her thighs, the most sexual position they have ever undertaken during all those fruitless years of marriage. He is trying to unseat her by a frantic gyration of his hips. He mumbles what is probably a string of curses, but soon the sound is thinner, weaker. All she has to do is hold the position and she does, keeps pushing down long past when he has stilled. His body is limp. She continues to thrust and to clamp down until she is absolutely sure. For a marriage to thrive, sometimes the husband must die.

Catherine, the eternal dreamer, and this is the most honest dream of her life.

*   *   *

When she awakens to the dead of night with a palpitating heart, there is no returning to sleep. Instead, she dresses in the black of her victory, a veil over her head, the Order of Saint Catherine around her neck. It is surprisingly easy not to be recognized out on the streets slick with leftover rain. A common carriage ferries her across cobblestones. She is a black figure darting among shadow, a shroud of lace obscuring her view. The Alexander Nevsky Monastery is empty apart from the mosaic of Jesus staring at her from above the gate. She pushes open the heavy door. The interior of the church is also empty. There are no crowds of mourners like there were for the former empress, no persistent sound of female keening. Unlike the corpse of the empress that was hidden from view, Peter's body is on stark display atop the stand, a shriveled figure in a foreign Holstein uniform and hat too large for his body. Even the extinguished candles are cold, their wicks had been barely touched by flame.

A faint hint of moon strains through glass, making more silver the grand sarcophagus of Alexander Nevsky. It is one of her favorite places. It had been no hardship to spend entire days here in public mourning for the passing of the empress, not only because it placed her in a sympathetic light with the right people but also because it allowed her to escape the embarrassment that swirled around Peter's crowning.

She nears the stand. As feared, her husband's face is purple, distended, marked by the struggle of his final minutes. His neck has been covered, but even the darkness cannot disguise the bluish ring radiating from beneath his chin. There is a kind of bafflement in his repose, as if he were meant for an entirely different fate, far from the world stage. As if his authentic life had taken place in some imaginary land of eternal childhood filled with simple pleasures and amusements among companions who loved him with no judgment or expectations.

She lifts the Order of Saint Catherine from around her neck and slides the medal inside Peter's uniform. It is safer in the grave with Peter. The power it confers on its wearer is strong, magical; had she thought to lend it to Katya, her dearest friend would have doubtlessly lived to share in the triumph of her coronation. But the gift of supremacy is dangerous in the wrong hands. Vorontsova wore the Order when it did not belong to her and now she has been reduced to irrelevance. Catherine has already asked Gregory to find a suitably odious soldier to marry the woman and transfer them both to some far-flung village.
She Is to Her Husband Compared.

She kneels to pray, a hasty string of sentences that morph into unexpected spasms of sorrow. If anyone caught sight of her now, he would assume to be witnessing the grieving of a wife praying for the soul of her beloved husband. And in a way, she is. Because her heart is still soft and pliant, and she can afford one last burst of sadness for the man. But she is also praying for herself:
Gosudarina,
Queen, God's anointed sovereign.

She leaves the monastery the way she arrived. Solitary, solitary autocrat.

 

Tanya

PRESENT DAY

When I was a child, and my parents wanted to instill culture in me, they dragged me to every New York City museum except the Metropolitan. According to them, it was a temple not fit for the bedraggled Kagans from the humble reaches of Rego Park, Queens. The other museums we could handle: the MoMAs, the Museums of American History, the Cooper Hewitts. But the Met? It's not a place for immigrants, my mother insisted, only for those worthy of entering a palace. Take a look at it! Stretching across blocks of Fifth Avenue with its superb Beaux Arts façade, so imposing it is a constant reminder of how small the human is who makes its way up the Grand Stairway.

But now, impossibly, all these years later, it's actually me flying up the broad staircase of the Metropolitan Museum in a ball gown, past the black-suited blur of security. For the first time, all the splendor once so out of reach for poor Russian Kagans is actually inviting me inside.

I push through the front doors as summer tourists stream out for the day. Breezing past the ticket office just closing its window, I find the welcome table tucked away in the Egyptian wing. A row of girls holds reams of printed names in manicured hands. They say, “Oh, you're one of the honorees, aren't you?” and apply a sticky tag to my chest. Can this be real? Can I make any sense of it? Tanya Kagan of the immigrant Kagans, whose face was once pressed to the glass globe of Manhattan, who stole soap from bodegas, who fended off bullies in yeshiva and roamed the streets of Rego Park alone. Here? Now?

Regan pops out from behind a pillar. “You look amazing.”

She's wearing the most conservative outfit I've ever seen on her: a soft powder-blue Alberta Ferretti wisp cinched at the waist, a pair of suede closed-toe pumps.

“I probably went a little over the top. But, hey, look at you,” I say.

But Regan's back to business. “Have you been picking up your voice mail?”

“What's up?”

She is leading me through the lobby, where the day's final tourists are milling, contemplating their next move. They stare at Regan in all her height, at my own layers of black silk and lace, trying to match our faces to a mental Rolodex of celebrity. Crowds disperse, the Egyptian tombs and sphinxes displaying their ancient flint knives of battle.

Regan is scrolling through her messages. “Medovsky,” she says, ominously.

“What about him? Is he pissed Yardanov got it?”

“They're calling it suicide, as usual. Oh, yes, here it is.
The Guardian
: Inconclusive cause of death, quote unquote. Wife found him in the bathtub in London.”

“What?” We're stopped short by security. “He's dead?”

Hands are inspecting the entrails of my purse for suspicious materials, its contents exploded onto the table. I stare dumbly as compact and perfume and a ring of keys are being tucked back away by anonymous hands. I feel like the entire hall has been sapped of air.

“Have a good time, ma'am.” The guards wave us inside but I can't move. A strange sensation of utter grief washes over me.

I slowly turn to Regan. “How do you know?”

“Like a thousand oligarchs calling all afternoon, fishing for inside info. Why weren't you picking up? God, I'm so sick of our clients. They're always dropping dead.” She holds up her phone, showing a picture of an inflated blonde, the Order of Saint Catherine draped between her pixelated breasts. She scrolls down.
New Hudson Yards Owner Igor Yardanov's Beauty du Jour Flaunts Pricy Gift.
Regan appears to be waiting for a comment, an assessment. “Classy, right?”