The Warsaw Conspiracy

by James Conroyd Martin

  Entering the house, Michał impulsively moved to the reception room where he drank down another vodka. His thoughts stayed with a particular facet of the exchange he had just experienced: namely, the intimation that the prince might be able to find something out about his father’s whereabouts in Russia. How that would please Mother! Might he also be able to do something about freeing her husband? Or—is this a masterful play to engage me in the “mission”?

  Torn by the emotion of the moment, he sent his vodka glass crashing into the fireplace. The sheer volume of the explosion startled him enough to clear his mind for the moment. He went directly to the dining hall.

  “Michał,” Anna said, watching him enter, “you’ve missed dinner. We’re having our pudding.”

  “So I see. Cranberry kissel!” he exclaimed, affecting a festiveness he did not feel. “It’s my favorite. And it’s not even Christmas Eve!”

  “Cranberries are plentiful this year,” Anna said. “You’ll have it on Christmas Eve, too, as ever.”

  “A great relief,” Michał joked, settling himself across from his sister’s family, in the chair next to Zofia, who was attired in a revealing rose satin gown. “I apologize to you, Mother, and to everyone for my tardiness.”

  Anna directed Marcelina to prepare a plate for Michał.

  “Was it an important guest?” Zofia asked. In a side glance, Michał saw her wink at Anna, her black eyes glittering. “A woman, perhaps?”

  “Would that it were, Cousin Zofia. But, alas, I was not so lucky.” Michał hoped she would drop the subject, but he suspected his mother’s cousin was not about to let it go. Inwardly, he sighed in relief that she evidently had not seen the prince pass the dining hall’s mullioned doors.

  “Well, who was it, Michał?” Zofia pressed.

  Michał felt his mouth tighten. He stared across the table at the two-year-old twins, bookended by their parents. Handsome little boys. One had been given a Polish name, Konrad; the other, Russian, Dimitri. Which was which?

  “Zofia,” Anna asked, “will you have some more pudding?”

  “No, Anna, my stomach has been well sated, thank you. It’s my curiosity that has not been satisfied.” She turned back to Michał. “Tell me, Michał. Whisper it in my ear if you must.”

  Michał was making much of taking a plate from the servant, attempting to feign composure. “I assure you, Cousin Zofia, it was no one of any importance.”

  “No one of any importance?” The irony in the deep male voice rang like an abbey’s bell.

  Michał slowly lifted his eyes to the speaker directly across from him, his brother-in-law Viktor, whose comment commanded the attention of everyone at the table. The Russian’s eyes were pale blue, cold, self-assured. The coldness penetrated Michał’s heart. He knew at once that the prince’s visit had not escaped everyone’s notice. He returned Viktor’s stare. “That is correct,” Michał said, his voice flat. “No one of any importance.”

  “Perhaps no longer,” Viktor said, “but in his day he carried some weight.”

  So the prince had been seen and recognized. Michał dared a fixed look at Viktor. Had he been the one outside the reception room door? Had he heard any of the conversation? Michał said nothing, took a fork, and started to poke at the venison stew Marcelina had laid before him.

  “So you know!” Zofia cried, directing herself to Viktor, oblivious to Michał’s discomfiture. “You’ll tell us then, Viktor.”

  Viktor smiled. He paused, allowing for the suspense to take hold.

  “Well?” Barbara asked, turning to her husband.

  Viktor kept his eyes trained on Michał. “It was Prince Adam Czartoryski.” There was smugness in his voice as well as in his unwavering gaze across the table. “His importance may have waned with the years, brother Michał, but I would not say he’s of no importance.”

  Brother! Michał fumed at the sarcastic familial term. With just his peripheral vision he sensed his mother was closely watching him with concern that he might create a scene. He felt himself paling. He would not be the cause of ruining his mother’s celebratory meal. His attention was quickly claimed by Zofia.

  “Lord Adam Czartoryski!” Zofia cried. “Adam! And he didn’t have the politeness to give greeting?”

  Michał turned to her. “It was politeness that kept him from doing so, Cousin Zofia. He didn’t want to disturb our meal which was just starting.”

  “You are acquainted with the prince in question?” Viktor asked Zofia.

  Zofia was flushing—with what emotion Michał could not decipher.

  “He was more than an acquaintance, I daresay.” Zofia said, the slitted black eyes wide now and glinting. “Why, I—I nearly married Adam Czartoryski! It was a few years ago, of course.”

  “A few?” Anna chided.

  “Why didn’t you, cousin?” Barbara asked.

  Zofia needed no further prompting. “You see, the prince had been a close friend and confidant of Tsar Aleksander, and he was completely besotted by the tsar’s wife, Elizabeth. It had been a marriage of convenience, of course, and Aleksander actually sanctioned the budding romance between Adam and the tsarina. Can you imagine! The times we live in! How the gossips wagged about that. Ah, but when Adam suggested his friend divorce her, well, that’s where it ended. A royal divorce, if you please? Not a chance in hell. No, it was Adam’s relationship with Aleksander’s wife that ended—and quite abruptly.”

  “As it should have,” Viktor said, his voice almost harsh.

  “Does my story of your past tsar offend?” Zofia asked. “I can assure you it’s quite true. And that it broke poor Adam’s heart.”

  “But what about you and the prince, Cousin Zofia?” Barbara asked.

  “Ah, it would have been a fine match, don’t you think, Basia? Just fine. A magnate like that. But, young as I was, I could tell he was on the rebound, as they say. He was interested, I can tell you, but I chose to put him off until such a time as he would forget his simpering little Tsarina Elizabeth and be prepared for a woman.”

  “You,” Anna teased, only to be rewarded with a raised and well-drawn eyebrow.

  “And?” Barbara asked.

  Zofia shrugged, and though she had finished her cranberry kissel, she made a show of bringing a thimbleful to her reddened lips. “It was a lethal misjudgment on my part, my dear. While I dithered, a ruthless old woman pushed her daughter on to him when my back was turned, and before I knew it his attention had been claimed. Not that he married her, mind you. Then, years later, he did marry. Would you believe it, a child bride twenty years his junior! Once, not so long ago when I met him at a ball, he told me that letting me go was the biggest mistake of his life. Well,” she sighed dramatically, “he lives with his regrets now.”

  With that, one of the twins began to make a fuss—Dimitri, Michał thought—and the subject mercifully came to an end.

  Michał sat alone at the table. The dishes and silver had been cleared. Nearby he could hear the sounds of the servants going about their kitchen tasks. From outside came the cheerfully excited voices of the twins and the muted goodbyes of adults being made. He had refused to see his sister’s family off. Oh, he had been prepared to bite his tongue and attempt a smile in order to play the polite brother-in-law, but that was before Viktor fired his parting shot. He could feel blood rising into his face anew at the thought. He would never—could never—accept Viktor Baklanov as a member of the family. The thought disgusted him. In the future, he decided, he would avoid him at all costs, even if it meant foregoing family events. He abhorred hypocrisy.

  He was still at the dining table brooding and peering into his coffee cup when Anna returned from seeing Barbara and her family to their carriage for the return trip to Warsaw.

  “Did Cousin Zofia go with them?” Michał asked.

  “She did. And she said you should come for a visit—that it would do Izabel a world of good.”

  “Why didn’t she come with her mother?”

  Anna seated herself a
cross the table from Michał. Although her auburn hair had silvered of late, her smooth complexion and the amber coruscation in the emerald eyes lent her youth. “According to Zofia, her years in the convent have made her terribly shy.”

  “But she’s been out for a year.”

  “Still, I think it’s difficult for her to move in Zofia’s sphere.”

  Michał emitted a sarcastic laugh. “I can believe that. Did you note her dress? Zofia must be—what? Sixty?”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Anna said, her voice a low hiss, “don’t let her hear you say that! She’s fifty-seven and be careful not to slip on your own doorstep, Michał, for I’m but a year behind her.”

  “But she still thinks she’s quite the ingénue. What with that rose gown and lime green bonnet, she resembles a great tropical bird.”

  Anna laughed, too. “A rare one at that. A bird of paradise, perhaps. And she will be thinking she’s the ingénue well into her dotage, I’m afraid. That is my dear cousin. Quite the coquette. You know that story about the prince?”

  “Yes? A fabrication, I presume?”’

  “Oh, the facts about the younger Adam’s infatuation with the tsarina were true enough, but he had not courted Zofia. On the contrary, he is one of the country’s many magnates on whom she has set her bonnet—lime green and every other color—over the years. She had done everything to gain the prince’s attention except hit him with a mallet—all to no avail.” Anna laughed. “Isn’t it amazing that one can lie with honeyed lips even while knowing that someone at table had been witness to the real history? But that is my dear cousin.”

  “Do you mean puddinged lips?” Michał asked with a laugh. “Sometimes I think we humans start to believe the history we spin out of our imagination. True history or no, she’s an excellent raconteur. I give her credit for that.” Michał was silent for a moment, then turned to his mother, a new heat coming into his face. “Did you hear what he said when he left?”

  “Viktor?” his mother asked.” Yes, dear, I heard.”

  Michał sat forward, one hand pushing aside the cup and saucer. “Instead of wishing me well on my birthday, he said, ‘Happy Constitution Day, Michał.’ The ass! He knew all along what we were truly celebrating.”

  “I know. It would seem so. He was in his cups by then.”

  “And, as they say, wine makes a person transparent. So it was all a sham, Mother, this birthday business. He knows as well as anyone we celebrate my name day and not my birthday.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, Michał. Barbara probably let it slip. You know she does that sometimes.”

  “It’s not that that galls me, Mother. It’s that he openly mocks our short-lived constitution and our attachment to it. His comment was an insult to every Pole.”

  “I understand your anger, Michał, but—”

  “Damn it! Don’t go making excuses for him. He’s Russian to the core—in our house, eating our food, and finding faults. It’s maddening! And what is this civil service job he has? Does anyone know? Does even Barbara know? My God, how I hate the man.”

  “There, there. Michał. It makes little difference now. He’s in the family.”

  “Are you taking his side, for God’s sake? This arrogant interloper! Has he won you over? Has his gimpy leg worked on your sympathy?”

  “No, Michał. And to give him his due, he tries to disguise it as much as possible.”

  “Still, you forbade Barbara to marry him. You forbade her to ever bring him here. And yet she defied you on both counts. Admit it, Mother. You hate him as much as I!”

  “Ah, Michał. Russians have always brought trouble. But Barbara Anna did marry him. She did bring him into the family. Their children are my grandchildren. Am I to deny them, too? My blood runs through their veins.”

  “And so does Father’s blood. Your husband, who sits rotting in some Russian camp!

  “Michał!”

  Michał drew in a deep breath, at once regretting his words. “I’m so sorry, Mother. Really. That was thoughtless.” He longed to take her hands in his, but the width of the table precluded the gesture. “I guess Barbara isn’t the only one to let things slip. It must be a Stelnicki trait.”

  His mother chuckled. “Well, you were tightlipped enough about the prince’s visit. Are you going to tell me what brought him here?”

  “Politics. Just politics.”

  “An offer of some kind—a position in the capital?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  “Not now.”

  “Very well, I’ll respect that. But Michał, perhaps you should visit Zofia and her daugther for a week or so. Longer, if you wish. You know we can get on here just fine.”

  “Ah ha! You’re thinking I’ll find a place socially. You’re thinking—”

  “Michał, you’re thirty-eight. You should be thinking of starting a family. And sequestered here on the estate you’re not about to find someone.”

  “I hope you haven’t plotted with Zofia for her to play matchmaker.”

  His mother’s smile was indecipherable. “I would not go so far.”

  “Indeed? Well, what if I don’t marry? I was off soldiering when men of my generation were finding wives. Look, you have two grandchildren, Mother. Don’t be greedy.”

  “Yes, and I love them dearly, but I want some grandchildren who will carry a Polish surname! The Stelnicki name.”

  “Well, don’t hate me if I am unable to deliver—or rather that some future bride of mine is long in the tooth and beyond child-bearing! Remember, you always have another bird in the hand. You always have—” Michał stopped mid-sentence.

  “Józef? You were going to say ‘Józef,’ yes?” A shadow flickered momentarily across his mother’s face, a darkening that reflected pain and hurt.

  “What? Oh, yes—Józef. I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought.” The truth of the matter was that he had no wish to worry his mother about the prince’s speculation concerning Józef. And no wish to remind her further that Józef had defied her by joining the military. Michał bent to kiss Anna. “Mother, I told the stablemaster I’d discuss something with him after our meal. We’ll talk later.” As he proceeded to make his retreat, his memory checked him and he pivoted toward Anna. “Mother, while I was shut up in the reception room with Prince Czartoryski, someone left the dining hall. Do you recall who it was?”

  “Of course, dear, Viktor left for a short while. Now do think about taking Zofia up on her invitation! Warsaw will do you a world of good!”

  Princess Anna Maria Stelnicka stayed at her place in the dining hall. All traces of the celebratory meal had been removed from the table, as well as from her thoughts which had turned to her son Józef. If only Michał would visit Warsaw, she thought, he could look in on her youngest at the academy.

  Despite her resolve to cultivate Józef’s interest in music and steer him away from the paths of her husband and two older sons, the military had, like some mythical siren, managed to seduce her youngest. She had yet to come to terms with her defeat. Only God knew what dangers he would face as a soldier.

  Anna wished Jan were here to lend support. But would he—with his own military ways—have supported her, or Józef? And when she thought of Jan her serious thoughts turned darker.

  Anna thought back to the day they came to take her husband away. Oh, she had known he had become active in the Patriotic Society, but who could have imagined that its members would be accused of complicity in a Russian plot to assassinate the tsar in faraway Moscow? Had the Society been involved? Jan had told her that he had not taken part in the conspiracy in any way, and she believed him. But the Third Department—the Russian secret police—cared little for the truth. They were interested only in making examples of men like Count Jan Stelnicki, former military heroes, men of stature and respect. Men of the nobility. He and two others had been sentenced to exile somewhere in the Russian Northern hinterlands. Anna’s heart constricted as she recalled
the day the three had been sent off. The families were allowed their goodbyes in the Castle Square prior to witnessing their loved ones’ being hurried into the coach that would take them away. Because no one could recall any convict returning from Russia, such sentences usually meant severing ties forever. Russian soldiers linked hands, holding back a large crowd of Polish well-wishers, many weeping openly. Such a public spectacle for the last memory of her husband. It was the Russian way of making examples. It was their way to continue suppression.

  Jan’s hands were bound and hidden beneath the grubby greatcoat he wore so that it was she who had to embrace him. And it was only as Jan turned away and grasped hold of the carriage, pulling himself up into the coach, that she noticed that one of those hands was bandaged. “Sweet Jesus!” she called out. “What have they done to you, Jan?”

  Jan turned and gifted her with a smile that said, It’s nothing, dearest. Just a scratch. It was his way.

  And then the carriage was wheeling away, taking the man she had thought vain, superficial, mocking—and handsome—so many years before when he had boldly approached her in a summer meadow in Halicz, the man whose character she had foolishly questioned, the man who waited for the duration of her arranged marriage, the man who had married her and become a devoted stepfather to Jan Michał and father to Tadeusz, Barbara Anna, and Józef.

  They had had their separations, some lasting years while he fought side by side with Kościuszko and after that with the French in Italy and finally with Napoleon himself on the Eastern steppes. But he had come back. Like the faithful storks returning to their nests in the spring, he had come back. At that moment, though, watching that carriage move through Castle Square and descend toward the River Vistula and the Praga Bridge that would take them east, Anna had not managed to conjure the thinnest thread of hope that she would ever see her Jan again. This time she could not bring herself to believe that he would come back.