The Mysterious Alexandra Tarasova-Yusupov

by Carl Douglass

  Alexandra had the helm of the Far East Transporter’s grey painted launch, and her personal body guard—the massive Don Cossack, Stenka Mazepa—stood close by her armed to the teeth. Boris had been duped into teaching the ship’s meager marine component to do Russian army close-order drills, a task which should keep him busy the rest of the afternoon. When she saw the bright red launch close by the buoy, she signaled for the crew members tasked with off-loading the launch into the Far East Transporter’s holds.

  She slowly and deftly pulled along side Hou’s launch, her starboard side to his port side. The nimble ship’s monkeys swung across the narrow distance between the ship and the launch and secured them together. A ramp built by Hou’s men was placed across the space, and the off-loading began at a running pace. They could not be caught holding any of this cargo which was illegal every place in the world in the time period in which they were working. The work took just under an hour and a half and was secured in the Far East Transporter’s holds hidden under large beige canvas covers and behind the bales of silk from Shanghai.

  Hou and Alexandra observed the transfer and both made rapid calculations of the products to be certain that nothing and no one was shorted. Hou used his abacus deftly and rapidly after long years of practice, and Alexandra did the math in her head.

  “Alexandra, you and I are about to become very rich. Just keep your head and don’t let another soul see the new boxes. Let us not attempt to exchange money here. We operate on a basis of trust. I will see you in my building in Millionka when you get back. I intend to take three weeks to get there, and I presume it will take you closer to four. That will help keep us separate in the eyes of spies, pirates, and the constabulary.”

  They bowed in a modest wai, neither of them was as yet comfortable with the western custom of hand shaking for business. Within minutes the two vessels separated—Hou back into the Chinese sector of Shanghai, and Alexandra heading back out to the open ocean.

  Boris was not as easily duped as Alexandra thought, and it offended him that she considered him so easily fooled. It also bothered him that he did not know what was being transferred into the Far East Transporter’s holds and why it was shrouded in so much secrecy. Even before they got married, each of them had promised to deal with full honesty with the other; and this activity strained their trust and credulity. He vowed to wait for the right moment to bring up his questions.

  The right moment did not come during the remainder of the voyage home or during the vigorous activity of unloading the cargo and doing the accounting. Any thought of bringing the subject up evaporated when Boris saw Alexandra grow pale and begin to vomit as they off-loaded a crate of foul-smelling—but good tasting—durian fruit from Saigon. It was not like her to be bothered by bad sights or odoriferous smells.

  When she stopped retching, Boris asked, “What’s the problem, Alexandra? You look terrible. Did you catch one of the Chinese fevers?”

  “No, Boris, but my monthly curse has not been with me for two times.”

  “Is that a female kind of problem?”

  “You might say so. It appears that I am with child—maybe for two months now.”

  It was Boris’s time to become pale.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am sure, big brave Boris. I am very sure?”

  “Is it a boy?” he asked guilelessly.

  She laughed, “Only God knows. We will love our baby no matter what its sex.”

  “That we will, my love. That we will. And whether the baby is a prince or a princess, we will see to it that he or she has a great role in an important family.”

  The early months of the pregnancy were difficult for Alexandra—nausea, vomiting, weakness, easy fatigability, and little interest in marital or business life. At first, Boris was understanding and sympathetic; but by the fifth month, his stay in the bull’s pen began to grow tedious, then frustrating, and finally made him angry. By the seventh month, Alexandra seemed to be doing well. Her appetite had returned with a vengeance, and her food preferences were so strange that it was as if a different person had inhabited her body. Prior to the pregnancy, Alexandra was a dainty eater and always mindful of her beautiful figure. Now she was a glutton; there was no kind way to describe her, in Boris’s mind. She ate pickles with chocolate, mutton with sauerkraut, cake and pie with vegetables, and all in ever increasing amounts. Her weight began to balloon which made her cry. In fact, she cried much of the time, unable to tell him or her mother why. Irina said she had the melancholy that went along with being with child, and it would pass like all bad things.

  One positive thing came of Alexandra’s ennui and lack of interest. Boris had to take over the business coming from their recent commercial voyage and from their involvement with Abram and Irina in the fur company enterprises. When he supervised the off-loading of the brigantine Far East Transporter’s holds, the stevedores and clerks took him aside to show him boxes hidden under large beige canvas covers and behind the bales of silk from Shanghai which were not included in the ship’s manifest.

  “We have no knowledge of these boxes. They are very sturdily built and heavy. We presume that they are some considerable value, Sir. Perhaps it would be best if you were to attend to them personally, Prince Boris,” the unctuous port clerk said with a bland expression and syrup on his almost smirking lips.

  “Perhaps that would be best,” Boris said dismissively.

  He knew that this could prove to be problematical if a secret cargo became public knowledge. He remembered rather vividly seeing Alexandra supervising the boxes in question from the red Chinese launch in Shanghai harbor. He felt anger rising in his chest.

  Inspection of the boxes confirmed his worst fears which added fuel to his growing anger and to the beginnings of feelings of estrangement with Alexandra. How could she risk their family’s reputation and financial holdings with such a brazen and secret deal with low-life criminals? The knowledge that she was keeping serious secrets from him was like a corrosive in his gut. But, there it was hidden under large beige canvas covers and behind the bales of silk from Shanghai: cannabis, cocaine, heroin, morphine, needles, laudanum syrup, and opium in the form of blue pills. Boris did not know the value of this illicit cargo, but his limited observations made him sure that it was in the millions. He had reluctantly agreed to ship legal opium to be able to business in Colombo. That went against the grain of everything he believed about doing business honorably. This was different; it was vile and illegal. It made him angry and afraid.

  He pondered about what he should do, torn between his oath of fealty to his wife and her family and his deeply held honor. Pragmatically, he was looking at a fortune in illegal and—in his mind—dangerous goods. To be caught with this much could mean being charged with a capital crime and being hanged for it. He could not think of where he could hide it until a proper disposal could be made. It would expose him, the ship, and the company to grave danger to be caught dumping it into the ocean.

  He sat there for half an hour racking his brain. One of the stevedores tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Master, there is a merchant from Millionka here who wishes a word with you. He says it is rather urgent. Shall I send him away?”

  Boris looked at the man standing in the light of the hatch leading to the deck above the hold. He had seen him before; he had seen Alexandra talking to him. He could not recall the man’s name, if he had ever heard it; but the man himself was unforgettable, an anachronism—something from the old Chinese past. He stood with his arms folded with an imperious look on his face. Boris saw that the crew men deferred to him.

  “Bring him to me please,” Boris answered the stevedore.

  “I am Hou Eadric,” the Chinaman said and bowed deeply. “I know that you are Prince Boris of the House of Yusupov.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Hou?” Boris said and bowed even lower.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  TENSE TIMES

  I know being pregnant and giving birth is th
e most wonderful thing on Earth. I know that after you have a baby, there is a sense of addiction, a need to have another. It’s biological.

  —Janine di Giovanni

  Aboard the Tarasova-Yusupov Commercial Vessel, the Far East Transporter, Vladivostok Freeport Harbor, Vladivostok, Far East Russia, June 15, 1879

  Hou gave Prince Boris one of those enigmatic or more popularly called by Englishmen—inscrutable–smiles and made a deferential wai before answering. The smugness of the man’s general demeanor and the false smile rankled Boris and added to his general sense of distrust.

  “Ah, good master, I am Hou Eadric. It is rather what I can do for you. I don’t know how much your esteemed wife has told you of our business transaction; but since she is suffering the pangs of being with child at this time, I thought it prudent to conclude our bargain before…shall we say…problems raise their ugly heads.”

  “Are you responsible for this cargo which is not listed on the legal manifest of the ship, Mr. Hou?”

  “I am, along with your delicate and lovely wife, whom I must say is a very astute businesswoman.”

  “What happens now, Mr. Hou?”

  “Now, I take over; and all problems for you evaporate. Is that not a good thing?”

  “Yes. However, once you take the goods, how can I be sure that my wife will receive her proper share of the proceeds.”

  “I am most pleased that you asked that question. In my business, we rely on trust; and Princess Yusupov and I trust each other. She knows that I will keep up my end of the bargain; and once the goods are moved from Vladivostok, a messenger will contact her; so, she can know how, when, and where, to receive her payment. We do not cheat or lie to each other. For others to do such a thing to the Three Families Tong would result in…a fatal…consequence. I respect the power and reach of the Tarasovas, the Jardine-Mathesons, and the Yusupovs. Because of that, I would not hold back so much as a single kopeck from you. I see that the boxes are all completely undisturbed; so, I have all good faith that nothing has been removed. We are all acting in jiāzú chéngxìn. That is ‘familial good faith’ in case, perhaps, you are not fully fluent with our Mandarin language and strong cultural customs.”

  “I have to trust to your good faith intentions and to Alexandra’s good business sense. What is my part?”

  “Simply to inform your fine crew members that Mr. Hou and the Three Families Tong will assume responsibility for this part of the ship’s cargo. You need do nothing more. My messenger will come to your family home on Pekinskaya Street when the business is completed. Until then, rest easy and give my humble regards to your precious wife.”

  He bowed in a small wai, and Boris did likewise. He did not wish to spend any longer than necessary with this supercilious, duplicitous, humblebragger, sycophant whom he trusted about as far as he did the Bengal pirates.

  Boris hurried home as rapidly as he could, feeling most uneasy for many and varied reasons. He sorted out his order of priorities and went to see Alexandra first. She was lying uncomfortable in her feather bed munching on fresh fruit and a bowl of fragrant rice.

  “How are you this afternoon?” he asked.

  “All right I suppose, dear patient Boris. I have a woman’s intuition that my bat-in-the cave time is about to come to an end soon.”

  Boris laughed and made Alexandra laugh for the first time in days, “Surely my dear, you mean ‘being in the family way’, don’t you?”

  “Of course, or as my mother, and probably yours would say, ‘with child’, all such sweet and rather silly terms.”

  “Why do you think you are near to delivering the new family prince, Alexandra?”

  “More frequent and harder belly pains. I can’t put my legs together, and they are more swollen than ever. Just like my face. My belly is so big that I am sure I will have ugly stretch marks, and you won’t love me anymore. But my water hasn’t broken; so, it won’t be right away.”

  Boris was aware of some of the mysterious processes of bringing forth a son having attended to numerous female animals on the Yusupov farms. He supposed the breaking of the waters happened to “grease the skids” as Vlad used to say.

  Two days later, Alexander went into frank labor. During one particularly hard contraction, she had Boris feel the baby’s head as it pushed against her pubic bone.

  “I think it is time to fetch Mama and the midwife. They will know what to do.”

  Fortunately for her, her mother, aunts, and grandmothers had told her exactly what was going to transpire in great detail, only leaving out the part where some mothers die of exhaustion or hemorrhage.

  The midwife, Dominika Rodiovna Golovanova, and the naval physician, Captain Second Rank Vladislav Rostislavevich Fedorov, were brought to the Pekinskaya Street residence by racing troika buggies. Federov began immediately to order the necessary large bowls of hot water and piles of towels while Golovanova rounded up the mother, grandmother, and several maids to serve as assistants.

  “Prince Boris, and Abram Timurovich, please find a restful place outside the room. I will come to you when the birthing is done.”

  The two men, so used to giving orders, obeyed meekly.

  Then, Captain Federov turned his attention to Alexandra and spoke kindly, “How are you, my dear?”

  “Hurting like my bottom is going to fall out, Kind Sir,” she responded in as surly a fashion as she felt.

  “Try to relax. How frequent are your pains now?”

  “Less than five minutes apart and getting harder and harder, Doctor.”

  “Let me examine you, and we can get a good idea of how long it will be; is that all right?”

  “Of course…” she groaned and arched her back suppressing a scream. “…anything.”

  His deft practiced hands and long fingers took less than a minute to know all he needed to know.

  “All is as it should be, Sasha,” he said in his mellifluous soothing voice, made all the more comforting by using the diminutive for her name as if she were a well-cared for child in good hands. “I think it is time to break your water sac. It will be just a pinprick, then you will feel a great gush of water, which we will collect. You will feel a few minutes of decreased pressure and pain; then I predict, labor will get going rapidly until we have a baby out in a very short time.”

  “Will it hurt terrible?” Alexandra asked.

  Before the doctor’s gentle voice could reassure her, Midwife Golovanova announced with all the charm of an Old Testament prophet, “thousands and thousands of women have gone through this since time began. You must be strong. Be a good girl for the doctor. ‘Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’ Genesis 3:16. That is your duty. No screaming or other nonsense now, young lady.”

  Captain Federova gave her a withering look but said nothing. He pushed Alexandra’s thighs gently apart and found the fully open cervix. He made a four-millimeter cut in the tough translucent covering and out gushed a pail full of thick cloudy fluid. There was a moment of almost complete relief of pressure, and the nearly exhausted girl began to fall asleep.

  “No sleeping now, lazy bones. It’s time to work. Get ready to push,” ordered Golovanova.

  “Wait until I tell you, Sasha. Rest for a little bit.”

  Soon the pains started again, this time more definitive, harder, and more directed towards the portal out of her body.

  “Push now,” the doctor said, “don’t stop until I say so. It is called ‘labor’ for a reason.”

  Alexandra’s face flushed, and the veins in her neck and forehead bulged. She grunted with the effort.

  “Breath, girl; breath. Take a deep breath then start again,” the midwife ordered, this time more gently.

  The pains increased; the laboring pressure increased; and the exhaustion multiplied until Alexandra thought she would become unconscious.

  Doctor Federova pointed at the
crowning head of the baby beginning to push through, and Golovanova nodded with a smile.

  “Just a few more pushes, and we’ll have a baby,” Federova said; and Alexandra felt a wave of emotional relief that it was almost over with.

  Doctor Federova’s fingers manipulated the baby’s shoulders; so, there would be no injuries, and gave a gentle steady tug on them. The baby moved quickly down the birth canal but came to a point of tough narrowing at the opening to the outside.”

  “Scissors, Nurse,” he ordered.

  She gently slapped them into his palm. He inserted his left index finger under the tight introitus and lifted it away from the baby’s glistening slick wet head. He made a small transverse cut on both sides and helped the small head move out followed by the shoulders, chest, belly, and lower extremities. He double clamped the umbilical cord and transected it. Then, he made a very quick motion to lift the baby up and then to bring it done again. The newborn emitted a gusty howl.

  “We have a bouncing baby boy, Sasha. Good work!”

  Golovanova wrinkled her brow and returned to her usual frown, “It’s small,” she said critically but softly.

  “Ah, my dear midwife, there is a reason for that. We have a surprise.”

  He said it loud enough for Alexandra to hear.

  “What surprise, Doctor? I don’t think I like the sound of that,” Alexandra responded.

  “Oh, dear Sasha; but you will. We have another baby waiting to greet the world. This is a great day!”

  Alexandra managed a smile even though she felt like one delivery was enough for today already.

  The new baby was a little larger and took some more manipulation to present itself to the world.