The Witches of St. Petersburg

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

“And how do you propose to make that happen?”

  “We’ll manifest someone.” Stana put down her sewing and looked at her sister. “And tonight is the most auspicious of nights.”

  “Tonight?” Stana was looking nervous.

  “All Hallows’ Eve.” Militza took a long drag on her cigarette. “The best night of the year to raise someone.”

  “Or something . . .” Stana paused. “Do you have any idea what you are doing?”

  Militza nodded slowly as she exhaled steadily. “Perfectly. We’ll use the price.”

  Stana shook her head. “Militza, you can’t consort with the dead and expect to be left alone.”

  “Says who?”

  “Do you think you’re the only person who can dance with the devil and expect him to listen when you ask to stop?”

  “I have looked the devil in the eye.” Militza raised her eyebrows, sounding pleased with herself. “All those séances, all those times we have used the Ouija board, where do you think I went?”

  “You are scaring me now.”

  “Don’t be so weak. You have known about our power all your life; it goes back centuries. Now is the time to use it.”

  “But you will open Pandora’s box!”

  “And then . . .” said Militza, stubbing her cigarette in a silver ashtray, “I shall close it.”

  THAT NIGHT, THE THREE OF THEM GATHERED IN THE LIBRARY.

  Stana had spent the rest of the day begging her sister not to perform the manifestation, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. Militza had promised the tsarina that she should have someone “new,” and she, Militza, would provide him. Her logic was that if she manifested him, if she asked Spirit to provide him, then he would forever be in her thrall. She wanted someone truly powerful, who had control over life and death, and as she would provide him, she would be the one to control him. He would be her little monster. And she would keep him to heel.

  So that fateful All Hallows’ Eve in 1905, while Peter and Nikolasha went into St. Petersburg to see Chekhov’s play Three Sisters, the two sisters and Brana took out the ancient bowl from the trunk Militza had brought with her from Cetinje and filled it with herbs, henbane, and hashish. As the bowl began to crackle and smoke, Brana brought out a large carpetbag, which she placed in the center of the room.

  Militza stood in the far corner of the library and peeled back her eyelids. Staring into the small hand mirror she had brought with her, she administered the belladonna drops, each squeeze of the pipette causing her to wince at the stinging pain. Then she began to chant, swaying from side to side with her eyes closed, inhaling the smoke, repeating her mantra, calling for her spirit guide. Her nostrils flared and her breath grew deeper, her bosom heaving as she felt him enter the room. The candles flickered and the curtains billowed and her chanting grew more frantic; over and over she said the words, biting her bottom lip, trying to control herself. Her shoulders quivered and her back arched as she let out a small, ecstatic sigh, gripping the table with her slim white hands when he did finally enter her. She exhaled at last and opened her eyes. Her mouth open, her lips engorged, she kept hold of the table to steady herself.

  “He is here,” she said softly, smiling, caressing her own soft cheek with her warm hand. “And he’s excited.” She paused. “Brana,” she said, as if trying to gather her thoughts. She exhaled deeply. “Gosh,” she said, her eyes rolling in her head as she slowly circled her hips. “I am not sure I have ever felt him this strongly before . . . Brana?” She exhaled again, her eyelids fluttering. “Is it nearly midnight?”

  “Almost,” the crone said.

  “Then we have no time to waste.”

  Brana delved into her bag and brought out a glass bowl, a square of pink wax, a pot of dust; then, out of a net amulet around her neck, she produced a small wooden cross. Militza placed on the table the icon that Philippe had given her of St. John the Baptist.

  “You can’t use that!” said Stana, looking horrified.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s against God, against Nature.”

  “To hell with that!” Militza replied.

  “But it is sacred.”

  “All the more reason to use it.” Militza smiled. “Quick, you fill the bowl with water; Brana, you warm the wax.”

  The women worked quickly, and soon the bowl was full, the wax soft and malleable in Militza’s hand. Her fingers were dexterous as she pulled and teased, and the figure of a man slowly began to emerge from the wax. It was a simple effigy; she didn’t have time to make individual legs.

  “He can wear robes,” said Militza as she fashioned his feet. “Oh!” She smiled. “We must not forget this.” She pulled at the wax between his legs. “Every man must have a member!”

  “But so big!” said Stana.

  Militza giggled. “Don’t be so prudish!” And she made it a little longer, just for fun. The hashish must have been stronger than usual. “There!” she said as she dropped it into the bowl. The little wax doll bobbed around in the water, the candlelight dancing with him. He looked part baby, part monk, part holy satyr. “Now,” she continued, “the dust from a poor man’s grave.” Brana handed her the small pot. “Collected at dawn this morning?”

  Brana nodded. “From a grave in the village, an old horse rustler, I think.”

  Militza took a pinch of the dust and sprinkled it into the bowl. As she did so, she began to chant.

  “Koldun, koldun, come to me, koldun, koldun, come to me. Koldun, koldun, come to me, and together we can set the tsarina free.”

  The little figure continued to float and bob around in the water.

  “Next, the cross. The icon. And the mirror—the invention of the devil himself!” she laughed.

  In one swift movement she slammed the icon facedown on the table. Stana closed her eyes. She could not bear to look. Next Militza dropped the wooden cross on the floor, and she began to grind it underfoot. As she did so, she placed the mirror next to the bowl so that it reflected the candlelight and intensified it, like a bright moonbeam, onto the bouncing figure.

  “Koldun, koldun, come to me,” she began again as she stamped her foot up and down on the cross, pulverizing it under her heel. “Koldun, koldun, come to me. Koldun, koldun, come to me, and together we can make the tsarevich better be.”

  Still the small pink figure bounced up and down in the water.

  “And now the price!” Militza turned and smiled at Brana.

  Brana nodded, and she bent down, opened up her carpetbag once more, and brought out a large, leather-bound Bible. She opened it and gently pulled apart the pages to reveal what looked like a blackened, crisp, oddly shaped piece of paper. Stana inhaled in horror.

  “The price!” Militza’s eyes shone. “What better way to summon a magician, a sorcerer, a koldun? What better way than to use the unshriven, unblemished soul of a dead baby? It doesn’t get more perfect than that. To create life, you must take it—and here is a life taken.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Stana, her hands shaking, her mouth twitching.

  “I have never been surer of anything!” her sister said as she plunged what remained of Grand Duchess Vladimir’s miscarried fetus into the water.

  “Koldun, koldun, come to me . . .” She swirled the water around the bowl. “Koldun, koldun, come to me.” The water gradually began to turn red, blood red, as the fetus slowly began to disintegrate and finally dissolve. “Koldun, koldun, come to me, and together we can all powerful be.”

  The curtains at the window began to sway and the table started to vibrate. Eventually, the whole room was shaking, as if hit by an earthquake. The noise was intense. The three women held on to the table so as not to be thrown over. Militza laughed, hugely, loudly, her mouth wide-open, her larynx vibrating. It sounded diabolic. Stana screamed, but Brana merely stood her ground. And then, as quickly as it had arrived, it was gone. All that remained was an empty bowl of bloodied water.

  “Where’s it gone?” asked Stana, staring into the empty bowl, her heart p
ounding.

  “Don’t worry.” Militza smiled. “It will be back.”

  Chapter 19

  November 2, 1905, Znamenka, Peterhof

  MILITZA AND STANA WERE SITTING IN THE RED SALON, staring at the clock on the fireplace, glancing occasionally towards the door. It was approaching three o’clock in the afternoon, and Bishop Theofan was late. He’d been asked to come at two o’clock to hear their confessions. It was All Souls’ Day, the day to remember the dead, and they had spent the morning in their chapel next door to the house, saying prayers for their sister Zorka, who had died in childbirth fifteen years before, and, of course, for Militza’s own daughter Sofia, the twin sister of Nadezhda, who had arrived innocently into this world, never to draw breath.

  It was very unlike Bishop Theofan to be late. A small bird of a man, with a gentle demeanor and a soft, whispering voice, he was the confessor of choice for the tsar and tsarina and therefore everyone else at court.

  “Perhaps he’s forgotten?” suggested Militza. “But he is usually so reliable.”

  “Maybe Bishop Hermogenes has asked him to do something?” said Stana, getting out of her seat. “Anyway, I am not hanging around much longer. I have better things to do than confess my sins and take bread and wine; besides, one of Nikolasha’s dogs is very ill. I need to tend to her.”

  “I don’t like Hermogenes,” Militza said. “He’s such a great big beast of a fellow who takes up too much space and is far too much of a traditional thinker—fancy demanding the excommunication of Tolstoy, of all people.”

  “Yes,” agreed Stana, letting out a long sigh, followed by an even lengthier yawn. “Terrible . . .”

  A loud knock at the door made them both jump, and in walked the bustling, genuflecting, obsequious Bishop Theofan. Head down, his black robes flowing, his thin hands mincing together as he approached, he spouted a lengthy litany of apologies and excuses. But neither of the sisters was listening, for behind the bishop stood someone else. Someone tall, broad, with a narrow face and a large irregular nose, thick sensual lips, a long beard, his smooth dark hair parted down the middle—this, Militza was later to learn, was to conceal a little bump, a protrusion, reminiscent of a horn.

  “Your Imperial Highnesses, please may I introduce to you a very dear friend of mine, even though we have only just met?” He smiled before proffering up a small white hand. “Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin. A holy man from Siberia.”

  “From Tobolsk, Tyumen Province,” Rasputin elaborated.

  His voice was thick and deep, and as he walked towards them, striding across the salon, unfazed by the art, the wallpaper, the gilt furniture, and the opulent rugs, he held up a large, work-worn hand and placed three fingers together, in the manner of an Old Believer, crossing the air in front of him. Militza and Stana were transfixed.

  “Mamma,” he said as he kissed Militza three times on each cheek and shook her left hand. “At last we meet.”

  Militza was shocked by his intimate approach, his pagan left handshake, his kissing her cheek, but it was his eyes she found the most fascinating and could not stop herself from staring. Pale blue like the Siberian dawn: if eyes were the windows to the soul, then what a soul this man must have!

  Stana was equally beguiled. Her cheeks pinked the moment he turned his gaze on her.

  “Mamma,” he repeated, also kissing her cheeks three times. “At last we meet.”

  Stana giggled despite herself, positively overcome. Rasputin bent down and kissed the back of her left hand, squeezing it as he lowered his head.

  “Grigory Yefimovich!” she said. “Do sit down.”

  As he turned his back to find somewhere to sit on the numerous chairs and divans, Militza glanced, smiling, at her sister, who smiled in return. This was the one.

  OVER TEA, THE ANIMATED BISHOP RECOUNTED HOW HE HAD come across the muzhik from Siberia at the Academy of Theology and how this religious pilgrim had spoken to the students and won them over with his knowledge and his incredible humility.

  “It is as if the voice of the Russian soul speaks through him,” he enthused, rapidly stirring his jam into his tea. “I then introduced him to Bishop Hermogenes and the monk Iliodor, who were equally impressed! He has traveled throughout our great land and seen so many things, haven’t you, Grisha?”

  Rasputin nodded and stared without blinking at the two sisters.

  “Tell us about where you are from, Grigory Yefimovich,” said Militza.

  “Grisha,” he replied, and talked to them of the Siberian steppes and his small village, Pokrovskoye, by the river Tura in Tobolsk, the river where his sister had drowned and his brother had died of pneumonia, having fallen into its depths. He spoke of his leaving his village and taking up a pilgrimage that had led him to walk the length of the land, sleeping under the stars, going from monastery to monastery, living on the charity of others. And now his wanderings had brought him here, to St. Petersburg, where he was looking for funds to help build a church in his village, back on the Siberian steppes.

  The language he used, simple and evocative, in the thick Siberian accent of a true peasant, charmed Militza and Stana with its simplicity and its veracity and held them in thrall. Accustomed to the arch, acerbic, overly intellectualized conversations of the rarefied circles they moved in, they found his guilelessness and his ability to paint broad, vital pictures of where he’d been and what he’d seen so delightfully refreshing it verged on the hypnotic.

  It wasn’t until Grisha had finished speaking that Militza realized her tea was cold.

  “There you are!” declared Nikolasha, bursting into the room. “Gentlemen,” he acknowledged, brought to a stop by the surprise guests. “It’s Luna!” he said to Stana. “She is breathing very heavily. The vet said she has a few months to live, but I fear death is upon her.”

  “Oh, no!” Stana leapt out of her seat. “Will you excuse me, please?”

  “May I help?” asked Rasputin, putting down his cup.

  “You?” Nikolasha did not conceal his disdain. “Who are you?”

  “Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin,” pronounced Bishop Theofan, as if the man’s reputation preceded him.

  Nikolasha frowned. What could this peasant dressed in a long black tunic with his wild beard and smoothed-down hair possibly do to help his ailing borzoi?

  “Come,” said Militza standing up. “We’ll all go.”

  They left the house for the magnificent stable block and carriage house. It was built of red brick, with white pillars and impressive towers at either end, and above the double doors stood a large Nikolayevich crest. Once inside, past the rows of some one hundred horses, the party approached a stable, where, lying on a bed of straw, was a beautiful cream-and-white borzoi bitch. Luna was on her side, her long tongue hanging out as she panted, her ribs easy to see through her damp coat, her flanks rising and falling in rapid succession.

  “My darling!” said Nikolasha, bending down to stroke the dog. “Look how much pain and suffering she is in.” His face was dreadfully distressed when he looked up, and it appeared he was on the verge of tears.

  “Move aside,” said Rasputin, nodding over his shoulder at the grand duke.

  Nikolasha glanced at Stana and Militza. He clearly did not like the man’s tone, but as neither sister reacted, he did what he was told. Meanwhile, the bearded Siberian knelt in the straw and placed his hand on the dog’s head; then, closing his eyes, he began to pray. Quite what prayer he was saying neither of the sisters could ascertain, for although he moved his lips, the words were inaudible.

  Some fifteen minutes later the dog ceased to pant, simply relaxed her strained head back down on the ground. What had he done? The dog lay quite still in the straw. The grand duke moved as if to step forward, but Rasputin raised his hand, stopping Nikolasha in his tracks. “Back!” he commanded, and the grand duke, after a moment’s hesitation, complied.

  The party watched in silence for another fifteen minutes, after which the dog raised her head, licked Rasputin’s weathered
hand, and, to gasps from the assembled, got up and trotted out of the stable.

  “She will live for some years,” the holy man pronounced as he stood and dusted the straw off his robes.

  “What joy! What a miracle!” Nikolasha declared, a broad grin on his face. “I can’t thank you enough, thank you very much indeed.”

  TWO DAYS LATER MILITZA INVITED RASPUTIN TO THE COUNTESS Ignatiev’s salon. When she, Stana, and Nikolasha collected him from Bishop Theofan’s apartment, they were surprised to see him dressed not in the black robes of a priest but in a handsome, loose-fitting cream silk shirt with baggy red trousers and the knee-high boots of a peasant. But not a real peasant—it was more a costume, something that could have been worn at one of the Grand Duchess Vladimir’s glamorous parties.

  “Good evening,” he said, getting into the car. He smelled very heavily of violets. “Your Imperial Highness,” he acknowledged Nikolasha with a curt nod.

  “What a charming cologne,” said Stana.

  “I have been to the bathhouse,” came his reply. He paused. “Your husbands are with you?”

  “Mine?” Stana laughed despite herself.

  “Moscow,” added Militza. “He had some business to attend to. And Stana’s . . .”

  “. . . is always in Biarritz.”

  The Countess Ignatiev was so delighted that Militza and Stana should once more be gracing her salon, and that they’d brought a new protégé with them, that she immediately had someone open a bottle of champagne.

  “Welcome,” she gushed as she handed Rasputin a glass. “We are so terribly excited to receive you here. Your reputation comes before you.”

  “My reputation, Madame?” asked Rasputin as he drained the glass in one. “I was not aware I had one.” He looked at the glass and, with a revolted face, returned it to the salver. “Do you have any Madeira wine?”

  “Madeira? Of course.” The countess nodded at a liveried servant, who immediately departed to find a bottle. “Now how is the empress?” she asked, linking arms with Militza as she led them into the room. “And the little boy? They are so ensconced in Tsarskoye Selo, especially since all the troubles, that no one sees them anymore. What does the boy look like? I went to London during the summer and you can’t move for photographs of the royal family—at the races, taking a ride out in a carriage, cutting ribbons here, opening other things there. They are forever in the newspapers. But here? We never so much as glimpse ours. Is he a handsome child? You and Stana are the only ones who ever see them!”