The Charmed Wife

by Olga Grushin

  I am asleep the moment my head touches my makeshift pillow.

  * * *

  • • •

  Birds. That is the first thing I know upon reaching the surface after my long, dreamless dive into the dark. Birds, birds, birds, flapping their wings, shifting, pecking. I open my eyes. Broad beams of the sun are piercing the loft once again, striping it in light and shadow, but coming from the other side now, and numerous birds are cooing somewhere close. When I peek through a crack above my pallet, I see doves, tens of doves, taking off on short sun-dappled flights, landing, spreading their wings, preening, kissing, in a cote just on the other side of the wall. I watch their abbreviated attempts to fly until I am wide awake. My dress, I find, has been cleaned while I slept, and the rips in its sleeves and along its hem mended with confident needlework. I put it on and, humbled by gratitude, climb down the ladder.

  Immediately I get lost. All the spaces are odd in this house, all the angles are bent, the windows shaped like teapots, birdhouses, tall hats, the doors hidden behind other doors or inside cupboards. It is like meandering through a wildly imaginative child’s drawing. I wander for some time, gaping in helpless astonishment, until I happen upon a round opening in the floor and, edging up to it so as not to crash through, look down into the family kitchen.

  My sister is serving breakfast. The table is laden with jugs of cream, platters of forest berries, mugs of milk. The children are devouring stacks of pancakes. The redheaded man at the head of the table—this must be her husband, Tom the royal woodsman—is slathering a thick slice of bread with butter. His shoulders are broad, as are his teeth; he is not at all good-looking, his face seemingly carved with a few wide strokes of an ax, but he exudes solid sense—he exudes goodness. When Melissa passes behind him with another bowl of yogurt, I see her touch him on the back of his neck, see him place his hand over hers. Every time one of the children speaks, he stops eating, swivels toward the child, and listens, and when he offers a few words of his own, everyone pays attention. I am finally able to count their heads, some red like their father, others dark blond like their mother—two, four, seven, nine. Nine children, six boys, three girls—no, not nine, ten, for now I notice the still-hairless baby permanently attached to Melissa’s hip. They discuss the health of a lightning-struck linden in a nearby clearing, fish hatching in a stream behind their meadow, the vegetable garden. The children laugh easily.

  Wholesome, I think as I look at them. Happy, I think.

  They are talking in hushed voices—so as not to disturb me, I realize now—but I do not alert them to my presence. I watch them closely, avidly. At last the man stands, stretches, gathers Melissa to his green-clad chest in a bear hug, and plants a kiss squarely on her mouth, in front of everyone. My entire life, I have never had a kiss like that—solid, certain, open. When he leaves, the children, too, rise; the boys scamper out after their father, the girls start gathering dishes off the table, sweeping away crumbs. And I understand what I will do.

  “Melissa,” I call.

  She looks up.

  “You’re awake!” she cries. “Come down, come down, I’ll make more pancakes.”

  “Can I have something to write on first?” I ask. “And something to write with.”

  And then I am seated on another tree-stump chair, before a tree-stump table, with a sheet of paper and a feather quill (“From our beloved goose Martha,” Myrtle tells me proudly as she hands it over). For a while I sit frowning. Writing has never been easy for me: there is something about imprisoning my thoughts in neat rows of words on a page that confounds me every time. But my stomach rumbles with hunger, and at last, I dip the quill into the inkwell (“Daddy made the ink out of blackberries,” Myrtle has informed me, “and I found most of the berries!”)—and start.

  “Dear Roland.”

  But he is not dear to me—certainly not now, and possibly not in years. I tear the narrow strip with the greeting off the top of the page, crumple it up, and try again.

  “King Roland.”

  But queens do not address their spouses as kings, no matter how estranged they are from each other. I tear off another strip.

  “To His Majesty from Her Majesty.” No. “To whom it may concern.” No. “To my husband.” No. “To the evil wretch who calls himself my husband.” Tempting, but no. As I rip off greeting after greeting, the page is getting shorter and shorter, until I am left with a mere stub, no more than a paragraph’s worth, which will never fit all the lofty sentiments about love, faithfulness, and decency that I have planned to include in my long, well-thought-out letter. Myrtle is playing with her velvet pouch in the corner, putting some shiny pebbles in, taking them out, putting them in again, humming softly. When I ask her for more paper, her little face falls.

  “But this was the only sheet we had in the house,” she whispers.

  And so, I consider the tortured, uneven fragment before me, then dip Martha’s feather into Tom’s blackberries, and write decisively: “Roland. I want a divorce. I want the children, who have never been of any interest to you. And I want half the kingdom.” But I do not want half the kingdom, for what would I do with it? I cross out “kingdom,” write “palace” above it; but I do not want half the palace, either, for I will never again live under the same roof with that man. I cross out the entire sentence—I trust he will know how to make proper arrangements—and finish simply: “I am staying at the woodsman’s cottage with my sister. Please send your reply there.” I study the period at the end of the sentence, listen to my heartbeat, and change the period to a comma, and add, my hand somewhat unsteady now: “by a courier.” Perhaps . . . But I do not wish to complete my unvoiced thought, not even in the privacy of my mind.

  The note rolled up, I go looking for Melissa. I find her in the yard, clipping a new load of laundry to the clothesline.

  “I need to get this to the king,” I say. “Urgently. I know the palace is far and the way to it treacherous, there are wolves and wicked spirits and—”

  But she is already calling for Tom Junior. Another holler later, the boy pops up out of nowhere—a red cowlick, a smudge of mud across his freckled nose, dirt under his fingernails, a sleeve torn over a scraped elbow. She gives him the note and a smack (“You lot must think clothes grow on trees!”) and dispatches him promptly.

  “But he is too young to go on such a long, perilous quest!” I exclaim as I watch him disappear into the trees at a run.

  “Long? Perilous?” She laughs. “See the forest road that starts right over there? It’s broad and well maintained, carts travel it weekly. It will take him to the palace in two hours. Three, if he stops to chat with the miller’s daughter over at the village. And no wolves around here—Tom takes care to keep them away. And even if there were, Tom Junior could hold his own. A wild boy, like all my sons, not afraid of anything, always full of mischief. Don’t know where they get it.”

  She sounds exasperated and proud at the same time.

  As I give her a hand with the laundry, I wonder, silently, about the willow girl at the brook in the heart of the forest and the mysterious path through the brambles that brought me here—but already, much of my journey is fading from my memory, like a shimmering starlit dream. The autumnal air is crisp; the sky, luminous as stained glass, is filled with the flapping of starched white shirts; and all at once I feel hopeful. Perhaps, I think, King Roland will want to be rid of me himself.

  Perhaps this will all be over quickly.

  My hope, however, will diminish over the next two days, will fade completely by day four, will turn into sullen despair by the end of the week. I help with the chores around the house as much as I can, but I am conscious of Melissa always trying to take all the work upon herself, always giving me the best of everything, always fretting about my discomfort. Late one night, wandering lost about the house again, I happen to pass Tom and Melissa’s room and overhear them talking, in whispers, about how
best to survive the coming winter on what little they have, what with the appetites of their six sons growing faster and faster, and, too, having to provide for their sister the queen. “But of course, she is welcome to live with us always, always,” Tom offers staunchly, and on the other side of their door, my heart breaks a little. I intend to speak to them the following morning, right after breakfast, when our meal is interrupted by a horn trumpeting in the meadow.

  I must confess to my breath quickening—but the man who enters the house is in his middle years, with an expressionless face that resembles a door handle, and I quickly pretend to myself that I have not been holding out hope of anyone else darkening the threshold. The courier hands me a parchment with the royal seal (depicting a unicorn in a field of daisies), then doubles up in a series of ridiculous bows and flourishes, and steps aside to wait for my answer.

  My hands tremble as I break the seal open.

  “My beloved queen,” the letter starts. “You have tricked us, drugged us, left us without a word, but your attempt to humiliate us in front of our entire court has failed. We have announced that you will be visiting your ailing stepsister through the end of the year, as befits your charitable nature, and no one shall expect your return before the first snows. We feel that three months of an impoverished existence in a woodsman’s shack with no allowance will be enough for you to regain your sense of priorities. At the end of that period, we expect you to return chastened to the palace and resume your spousal duties. As you well know, they do not consist of much, but we require your presence by our side for propriety’s sake. In the event you choose to disregard our royal wishes and stay away, we will consider the divorce proceedings initiated, but we promise you that you will rue the day you turned your back on our marriage. You will lose the children and will be left homeless and penniless. The law, as you will be sure to discover, is on our side. Consider this a fair warning. Yours always, King Roland Ferdinand Boniface Frederick Reginald the Fifth.”

  I read it again, then ask for a quill.

  “I beg you, can I please, please, see the children?” I write at the bottom of the parchment. The messenger accepts it with renewed flourishes, pretending not to notice the tears that are streaming down my face, lifts his chin high in the air, and departs. A day, two days, three days pass, but there is no answer.

  After another week, I know not to expect a reply.

  At the Manor

  “My dear, tell me what the bastard did to you,” Melissa asks again.

  Her nine children have all been put to bed, and the two of us are sitting alone by the fire, warming our hands on mugs of hot milk.

  I shake my head, then say, to change the subject: “I overheard you and Tom. Talking about the winter.”

  She presses both hands to her ample breasts.

  “Oh, my dear. You weren’t meant to hear that. We are happy to have you. What else is family for?”

  I think of all the times I spat in Melissa’s food as a child, and flush dark with shame. “I know.” And I do know, which only deepens my guilt. “But I want to help with the household expenses.” For a moment I stare into the dancing fire. “I believe I would be good at shoeing horses. And—weaving straw bonnets?”

  Melissa smiles, then stops smiling. “Oh. You’re serious. Alas, my dear. Those are commendable skills to have, even if I can’t think how you would have come by them—but the village smith already has three sons to help with the horses. And we don’t have much need for fancy hats around here.”

  “I will not sit with my hands in my lap while you work your fingers to the bone, sister.” I frown at the leaping flames in the fireplace—so full of life now, yet in another hour or two, nothing but ash and cinders—and at once the perfect solution comes to me. My mouth twists at the thought, but not a small part of me revels in the bitter irony of its aptness. “Is there someone in these parts who needs a maid?”

  Looking stricken, Melissa starts to say no, then hesitates.

  “Please. I need to do something.” I do not add that, even more, I need to get out of this house where everyone is so welcoming, where everyone is so joyous, where I die a small death every day, every day.

  “There might be a lady,” she concedes after meeting my eyes. “I hear she is rather odd. And her manor is badly neglected. But I will make inquiries. If you wish.”

  “I do,” I say, “I do”—and she heeds the desperation in my voice, which is why, only two days later, I am walking the forest road with detailed directions scribbled on an oily piece of paper in which Tom brought fish for supper the night before. I soon take a less traveled path branching off the broad track, but the wood remains filled with light, transparent in the way of all autumnal woods, brown leaves fluttering down through the air. As I walk the rustling path, I let my thoughts float where they will. I wonder, not for the first time, about the mysterious life’s spark that the witch allowed me to keep at the crossroads. I try to imagine what my children are doing at this very moment. I recall, as I do now and then, the beekeeper with the honey-colored eyes and gentle lips. It suddenly occurs to me that, had I chosen differently at that forest clearing, had I gone right, to a fresh happy ending, he would have probably come back into my life, revealed, no less, as a long-lost son of some distant king, and a perfect new story would have started to unfold, from its enchanted beginning to who knows what (quite possibly grim) conclusion—and, just like that, I understand that I will not see him ever again, having chosen a thornier way. For a few minutes, the memory of our dream kiss lingers, warm and stirring; then I let go of it, and it dissipates in the morning chill, not to return.

  I pull my cloak about me and walk faster.

  After another half an hour, I detect an unexpected floral scent, rich and sweet, yet with the faintest trace of dampness, of rot, underneath. Presently, the trees lining the path give way to blooming rosebushes, and the lane opens onto the great expanse of an unkempt lawn crowned by a sprawling redbrick manor. Its darkened windows stare blankly through trailing ivy. Rust has corroded the wrought-iron arabesques of balcony grilles, and there is a deep layer of grime on the lion-shaped door handle, as if no hand has touched it in a hundred years.

  The instructions I have been given direct me to enter without knocking.

  Inside, all is oppressive silence, cobwebs, and obscurity; even the bright morning light invading the foyer has lost its cheer, become somber and dull, after straining through the gray and purple petals of the rosette window above the grand entrance. I move through the unfolding array of hushed rooms, and the echo of my footfalls gets lost, trapped in heavy gray draperies, muffled in thick purple rugs. Everything here, I notice, is gray and purple—the slate tints of veined marble floors, the striped light gray wallpaper, the faded violets of velvet sofas with tasseled lilac cushions, the flat grays of tarnished tea urns, trays, and sugar bowls arranged in fussy clusters on lavender tablecloths, the mauves of artificial orchids and chrysanthemums in prim purple vases, and, presiding over everything, the ubiquitous grays of dust, dust, dust.

  This must be the house of a very old lady, I decide as I find my way downstairs and into the chilly, unused kitchen, where, as promised, a sad collection of pails and mops awaits my efficient handling.

  I spend that day scrubbing the floors; the next, washing the windows; the third, dusting the knickknacks; the fourth, buffing the silver. The first two floors of the manor are deserted save for a dozen gray birds in rusty gray cages—and the birds, oddly, are always asleep, their heads tucked under ruffled wings. As soon as I arrive in the mornings, I pause by their perches to make sure that they have not died in the night; the scarcely discernible rise and fall of gray feathers never fails to reassure me, and yet I find the sight of these still, headless creatures so unnerving that I try to keep away from their cages as much as I can through the day. For the rest, I soon discover that the job suits me well, which is, in truth, unexpected; manual labor made me
restless when I was a moody adolescent waiting for my life to begin. Now I move through the manor, singing softly, transforming the cluttered, dim spaces into gleaming geometries of order, and I think of how much satisfaction this simple work brings me. When I first took hold of the broom, after all those indolent years, I was surprised by the feeling of brisk self-sufficiency, almost of power, that surged from my fingers into my heart. I think, then, of how this might just be the answer—or, if not the answer, then at least an answer—to the question that used to bother me so during my empty days in the palace: What makes me different from any other starry-eyed maiden dreaming of her golden prince or her golden goose? Raised on the bland, mealy porridge of princess fantasies, I had imbibed the widely held belief that royal idleness was the only suitable reward for past misery and good behavior—but perhaps this one-size-fits-all approach could have never made me happy.

  Perhaps I am, simply, someone who was never meant to be a princess. Perhaps I am someone who prefers the daily joy of using her hands.

  And for the first time since escaping the palace, I am visited by a feeling that everything may still work out somehow—that everything will be fine.

  On the fifth day, I gather my mops and pails and trudge up the carpeted stairs to the top floor. Darkening tapestries of purple parrots poised along silver branches line the long corridor, and when I touch them with my duster, soft clouds of oblivion bloom before me, making the insides of my nose itch. The rooms on both sides of the corridor are all sleeping chambers, the beds like elaborately garlanded four-poster tombs in their undisturbed brocade magnificence, each with an ornate chamber pot hiding coyly beneath the cascading frills of stiff coverlets. In the last room, the curtains are fully drawn, the windows shuttered, and my steps stir graying cobwebs that hang dense upon the air. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust in the swaying shadows—and then I stifle a cry.