The Spaces in Between

by Collin Van Reenan

  Maître Chermakov walked in just behind me, his thin, dark, obviously dyed hair slicked down with brilliantine, a stark contrast to his parchment-like skin and hollow cheeks. When he spoke, his face resembled a skull and his mouth a steel trap. With his black clothes, he looked like an undertaker.

  We all sat down and, with no pretence at small talk or the niceties of social conversation, Chermakov gestured peremptorily at Voikin to begin.

  The good doctor shifted uncomfortably on his chair and nervously cleared his throat. I guessed something serious was coming and his uneasiness communicated itself to all of us.

  ‘Er…um…monsieur, you are, I’m sure, aware that the Princess…er…Natalya, suffers from a…er…chronic neurosis?’ Not waiting for me to answer, he continued, ‘This being a form of petit mal, you might say, verging perhaps, it may be said, on paranoia, er…eclectic in nature and, er…episodic…’

  ‘Spare us the medical jargon, Voikin,’ Chermakov cut in petulantly. ‘Just get to the reason we’re here!’

  Voikin eyed him nervously before continuing. ‘Well, anyway, it…er…has been ascertained during a routine examination…er…that her Imperial Highness…’

  ‘For God’s sake man!’ Chermakov exploded. ‘Tell him!’

  Voikin flushed crimson and croaked, ‘The Princess is in the very early stages of…’

  ‘She’s pregnant!’ Chermakov shouted, totally exasperated.

  There followed a long silence as the two men stared at me, trying to gauge my reaction. Reaction, though, was too weak a word – paralysis would have been a more apt description.

  ‘Pregnant.’ I repeated the word aloud, as though I couldn’t understand what it meant. Slowly, the meaning sank in. My mouth went dry and I swallowed hard. What reply did they expect from me? What reply could I make? After what seemed an age, I heard myself saying, ‘Of course, I accept total responsibility for the situation…’

  ‘Situation?’ Chermakov exploded again. ‘Do you hear him, Voikin? He calls it a “situation”!’ His sallow complexion had turned a livid crimson and he thrust his face close to mine. ‘This is not a “situation”, monsieur; this is a crime! You have committed a serious criminal offence!’

  Now, I accepted that I had been totally irresponsible, and knew that, as a tutor, I had seriously betrayed my position of trust, and I didn’t feel in the least proud of myself, but to say it was a criminal offence was, I thought, a bit exaggerated. Suddenly feeling bolder, I parried back at Chermakov.

  ‘Natalie is no longer a child. She is almost eighteen years old – well over the age of consent, and a young woman who knows her own mind. Unfortunate and irresponsible on my part it may well have been, but criminal it is not. It takes two to tango, maître.’

  As soon as I said this, I realised that such a flippant comment was totally out of place. But I couldn’t think how else to put it. Chermakov quickly withdrew his face, as if he’d been burned. His pointing finger came up to replace it and his eyes narrowed to slits.

  ‘Monsieur,’ he said quietly. ‘The law and its application is my profession. I do not use words lightly.’ His eyes opened wide and fixed on mine, like a snake hypnotising a rabbit. ‘Allow me to explain…’ he whispered patronisingly. ‘The Princess Natalya suffers from a chronic, sometimes serious, mental illness. That, at least, you are able to understand?’

  I nodded.

  ‘As a result of this, she has been…how do you say…“sectioned”, according to French mental health regulations and legislation. This means, monsieur, in layman’s terms, that she has been certified insane and confined to this House. Do you understand that?’

  Though shocked, I nodded hesitantly and he, sensing my dismay, closed in for the kill.

  ‘Now, although we live very privately here in this House, we are nonetheless governed by the French Penal Code. According to this country’s mental health laws, any person certified insane is deemed not to be competent to give consent. Do you understand, monsieur? Natalya cannot give consent!’

  He paused for that to penetrate my humble, non-legal brain.

  ‘Therefore, according to law, any sexual intercourse that has taken place between you was, on her part, non-consensual. Think about that carefully, monsieur. And, if a sex act is non-consensual, it is called rape!’ he shouted triumphantly.

  I felt a rising nausea and mumbled, ‘But how was I to know she was…er…certified?’

  ‘Oh, monsieur,’ Chermakov gloated, sensing complete victory. ‘Oh, monsieur, ignorance is not a defence in French law. You raped her; it’s as simple as that.’

  I felt sick to my stomach. Part of me was thinking ‘ridiculous’ and the other part was starting to comprehend that Chermakov was right. The wicked tutor taking advantage of his mentally ill pupil; I could see the headlines. Panic rose up in me, and under the table my knees started to tremble. Chermakov leaned back in triumph, disdain and disgust written all over his face, and little sympathy came from Dr Voikin, who just sat nodding slowly, showing his complete agreement with all that his colleague had said.

  There followed a long silence punctuated only by Chermakov lighting a particularly odorous Russian cigarette.

  The moments ticked by, registered by the clock on Voikin’s desk. Finally, not trusting myself to speak without my voice breaking, I looked up at Chermakov with what I hoped was a look of contrition but was probably one of complete defeat. Eventually, I managed to say, ‘Can you advise me, maître?’

  My complete surrender seemed to work wonders on him. He made a steeple with his fingers.

  ‘Well, there is a solution, albeit a partial one. He leaned back and let his words hang in the air, deliberately prolonging my anguish. ‘Of course, the Princess is expecting your child and nothing can change that. In fact, it rather compounds the criminality of your relationship. However…’ Again he paused, enjoying seeing me squirm. ‘However, were you to be married…’

  ‘But how can she consent to marriage?’ I cut in, desperately grasping at any possible way out.

  ‘She cannot, monsieur, but her legal guardian, the Grand Duchess, could.’

  ‘But, under French law…’ I broke off miserably, looking at my feet.

  Chermakov continued, ‘Such a marriage would be a private affair, in this House, sanctified by the Russian Orthodox Church. If the Duchess recognises this and is, of course, prepared to agree to it, we would dispense with the civil marriage required by the French State.’

  ‘But the “rape”…would the police –?’

  ‘The police will have nothing to do with it if we do not report it,’ he cut in. ‘If you agree to the marriage, I shall – though reluctantly I must say – recommend to the Grand Duchess that the police should not be informed.’

  I looked up and he read the relief in my face.

  ‘There will, of course, be conditions, monsieur, with which you will be required to abide.’

  ‘Of course,’ I gasped.

  ‘That’s settled, then. I will draw up a deed of marriage, including all the conditions, and submit it to the Grand Duchess to approve.’ He got up from the table. At the door, he turned, ‘And you, monsieur, had better pray that she does.’

  Under the lime trees, my favourite bench in the rose arbour should have reminded me of the beautiful spring day. But it could not; my mind was far away, churning on the meeting with Voikin and Chermakov.

  I was scared. What they had said amounted to blackmail, pure and simple. There was no other way to describe it – nasty, threatening, vindictive blackmail. Yet I knew what they said was true. I had done something very stupid and irresponsible and I could go to prison for it. The thought terrified me. They had only to report me to the police to ensure my downfall. I couldn’t run, I had nowhere to go, and I couldn’t hide because without papers I would be picked up within hours. I had no money and no one to help me.

  Then there was Natalie. How must she be feeling? Did Voikin tell her she was pregnant or did she just know herself? Had they even told her? Di
d she want to marry me? Had she thought that somehow I could save her, help her escape from this House where she had been a prisoner all her life? But I couldn’t even help myself.

  The more I thought it through, the more I realised what a fool I had been. I had fallen right into their trap: a honey trap. I was now convinced that I’d been set up, and it all seemed so obvious now. They must have known that, sooner or later, like most young women, Natalie would want her independence. She could not survive outside this House, so her future life must be brought here to her – a future including a husband and a family but all within the confines of this House; a life in shadows in a House of shadows.

  The advertisement for a tutor, the insistence on my living in, of contracting out of any existence exterior to this place…all of it had clearly been contrived with one aim in mind.

  I poured a glass of burgundy from the bottle I’d liberated from the pantry and settled back on the bench, trying to get a grip. Everything – the clouds, the birds, the flowers – carried on, regardless of my complete and utter turmoil.

  Then, as if in answer to my thoughts, there was Natalie, standing in front of me, beautiful, smiling and serene. She sat down beside me, took my hand and put her head on my shoulder.

  ‘Be calm, Nicholas. Everything is going to be all right. We love each other, don’t we? We want to be together. This way, we will be married and be together always.’ Then she sat up. ‘That is what you want, Nico, isn’t it?’ she asked, her eyes full of anxiety.

  My heart went out to her. I wondered how she could possibly want anything to do with a selfish idiot like me.

  ‘Of course it’s what I want,’ I reassured her, and slowly, as I said it, I realised that it was true. What I had considered a trap might actually be a doorway to getting what I wanted. I wanted this girl, princess or not, ill or not, and I wanted to spend my life with her, wherever she was, and for her to have my child – our child. Why was I so anxious for the future? She was going to be my wife, and so what if we were trapped in this House? It could not be forever. When the Grand Duchess died, Natalie would surely inherit. Maybe, in the interim, medical science would discover a cure for her illness. Maybe, one day, we could be free of this House – and maybe then we wouldn’t want to leave!

  Natalie was still staring at me, concern written all over her lovely face. ‘Nico, you do want to marry me, don’t you? Please tell me you do.’

  ‘More than I can say!’

  She pressed her face against mine and I felt her tears and the sobs racking her slender body. We stayed like that a long while and, when at last she stood up, she was smiling. ‘Walk with me, Nico, and I’ll explain what’s going to happen.’

  I scarcely remember everything she told me then. She rattled it all off so quickly and with obvious pleasure. I gathered that I was to be elevated to the nobility, given a title by the Grand Duchess so as to avoid a ‘morganatic’ marriage and introducing a commoner into the family. It appeared that the Grand Duchess was on good terms with His Imperial Highness Vladimir, the Tsar in exile, and he would make the title official. We were to be married here at the House by Father Feodor in an Orthodox ceremony, with me using the name ‘Nicolai’. Several rooms on the third floor would be made available to us, converted into an apartment. The baby would be born at home and looked after by a nanny and…

  …and we will all live happily ever after, I thought, with bad grace.

  In the meantime, the Grand Duchess would be donating a ring for our engagement, a family heirloom of great value. I was formally, in writing, to ask for Natalya’s hand in marriage, and an engagement party would follow. The wedding would take place in a week’s time.

  Then, smiling happily, Natalie went off back to the House to arrange the making of her wedding dress.

  Back on my bench, I was having a severe attack of reality. Engagement, elevation to the nobility, marriage, fatherhood, happy families… I looked at the nearest rose bush and tried to concentrate on something ‘normal’.

  I reached out and picked a rose, pricking my hand in the process. Inhaling the fragrance, I watched the blood trickle down my fingers and managed to regain some self-control. To possess something of beauty, I thought, you had to suffer in some way. What an irony that I should have been studying Sartre, Bergson and Camus and yet be living a life more ‘existential’ than any of them ever dreamt about.

  It seemed as though my entire existence up to this point had been dull and commonplace and now I had suddenly come alive in this strange place, though I wasn’t absolutely sure yet that I liked the change, or that ‘alive’ was the correct description. The House seemed to represent the victory of death over life, the old over the new, and obscurity over reason.

  And yet somehow the fact that I was being blackmailed into a shotgun marriage no longer mattered to me now. I really felt that I had won. After all, I had the hand in marriage of the girl I adored and, to be brutally honest for once, the only person I had ever loved more than myself! A life of total selfishness was about to change.

  Nor did the thought of being a father intimidate me. We would have a comfortable home in this House, in Paris, with servants to look after us and, almost certainly, some sort of financial allowance from the Grand Duchess. How could I possibly have afforded all that as a penniless, unqualified student, homeless and without even residential status or a student visa? If we had been able to leave as I had originally hoped and imagined, could Natalie have ever survived the life I would have inflicted on her? In truth, the more I thought it all through, the more it seemed a wonderful solution to all my problems. When the Grand Duchess died, as she probably would quite soon, I would surely become my wife’s legal guardian and then, slowly at first, we would change our lives. I would start to take Natalie on short trips away from the House, gradually introduce her to a wider society…modern life…

  I stopped. She was so beautiful but so very fragile; to impose my values on her would be to break her in every respect. And anyway, what were my values? I had been quick to criticise this House with its Victorian way of life, but what could modern Paris offer in its place: riots, unrest, instability, a frantic lifestyle full of violence and stress, with money at the centre of all ambition?

  I had come full circle. Now I was happy to marry, happy to stay, happy to opt out of the modern world for a life of love and affection.

  Another glass of wine compounded my newfound optimism and I had just decided to finish the bottle when a slight movement caught my eye. Sitting opposite, staring at me, was Tatiana. Though I recognised her immediately, I couldn’t prevent an involuntary start, and spilled some of the wine on my shoes.

  ‘Clumsy boy!’ she chided me, smiling.

  ‘Oh, Tatiana! How do you do that?’

  ‘Do what, Nicolai Feodorovitch?’

  ‘Just appear like that. Just a moment ago that was an empty chair.’

  ‘I’ve been here for some time, Nicholas, but you see me only when you want to. You must learn to look at the spaces in between,’ she said, mysteriously. ‘Please not to be angry. I thought you might be pleased I am here. You seem so distracted of late.’ She eyed me anxiously.

  Now whether it was my newfound euphoria at being about to marry Natalya or the effect of the wine on my precarious grip on reality, I can’t be sure, but I suddenly decided to solve the Tatiana ‘phenomenon’ once and for all, and start my new life without any questions and mysteries.

  I realised that I had never really looked at Tatiana. Of course, I’d seen her several times, but I couldn’t recall actually studying her, so to speak. She seemed to appear always when some crisis was distracting me.

  She sat across the table from me, a matter of a few feet away, and in spite of the effects of the wine I could see her very clearly in the bright sunshine. As I had first thought, she appeared to be about nineteen or twenty years old, although her Victorian-style clothing and hair made her seem older. Tall and slim, she had great elegance and poise, and there was definitely something reg
al in the way she held herself; an ‘aristocratic bearing’ that was reflected in the way she held her head high on her slender neck and even the way she composed her features. Like Natalie, she had a fine, slender nose and a small but sensuous mouth and even teeth of a slightly greyish white. Her most striking features were her high cheekbones, which made her blue-grey eyes look smaller, as if she were squinting into the sun. Her auburn hair was piled loosely on top of her head in a way I associated with the same period as her clothes. As far as I could tell, she wore no make-up except the ‘bloom’ of her youth.

  ‘Who are you, Tatiana? …I mean, really? I know you already told me you are the second daughter of Nicholas, Tsar of all the Russias, but who are you really?’

  ‘Who do you want me to be?’ she asked, the smile gone.

  ‘I don’t know. The girl who lives next door, perhaps…a secret friend of Natalya’s…a local amateur actress…’

  ‘An actress!’ she shouted at me, her eyes flashing angrily. ‘Is that what you think, monsieur – that I look like an actress?’

  She was genuinely annoyed and I regretted immediately saying such a thing and tried to back-pedal to calm her growing anger.

  ‘No, of course not, Tatiana. I’m sorry. I expressed myself badly. I certainly didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just that everybody keeps asking me about you. You seem to have caused a panic in the entire household. I just wanted to learn a bit more about you, where you live…and how you get into this garden…the gates are always locked…and how you were in that room when we had the famous séance…’

  ‘Séance?’ She frowned her puzzlement. After a long pause, she leaned forward, as if about to impart a huge secret, and whispered, ‘We are the Old Ones. We live in the spaces in between.’

  ‘I’m sorry for being so dense, Tatiana, but I don’t understand. In between what?’

  She leaned back and looked at me, but made no attempt at any further answers. We just sat and looked at each other. Now I had studied her close up, so to speak, I decided that she was indeed very beautiful. She was a person of contradictions, slim and elegant, haughty yet warm and gentle, serious yet naïve, mature yet sometimes childlike.