by John Burke
The patron, unshaven and surly, looked her up and down.
She said: “I’m sorry to disturb you—”
“So you should be.” The patron made an effort to subdue his irritation. Imperious young women could be dangerous if crossed. “What do you want?” he growled.
“I was here last night—”
“I remember, madam,” he said defensively. “If you’ve had something stolen I really can’t be held responsible.”
“It’s nothing like that.” She was amazed at herself for coming here. It was insane. She had been lured here against her will by a power she could not explain; and now that she was here she must unquestioningly go on. “There was a man here,” she said. “A tall, bearded man. He danced. I . . . I wish to see him.”
The patron looked at her curiously. She was ashamed and defiant at one and the same time. His expression told her that there had been many such before—slumming aristos like herself, who were so good for business that he would not allow himself even a flicker of derision.
“I see,” he said.
She felt her cheeks burning but would not be put off. “Do you know where he lives?”
“Yes.” The man was almost taunting her.
“Then will you please tell me?”
“Right opposite here. Over the horse-butcher.”
Sonia took a coin from her purse and held it out. He looked at it, smiled to himself, took it—and then softened a little.
“Be careful, miss. I’ve been in this trade a long time. That man—he’s a bad one.”
“I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself, thank you.”
She was not sure that this was true but her pride demanded that she should say it.
She went down the cobbled alley beside the inn. The stench of what had been thrown from upper windows into the narrow chasm almost forced her back. But she had come this far; she would see it through to the end. The window of the horse-butcher’s shop was still shuttered. Trade did not begin until later in the day. Beside the shop was a door. She pushed it, and it opened. Beyond was a twisted flight of stairs. Sonia hesitated and looked back. It was so easy: all she had to do was throw off this absurd spell that had been cast on her and walk back across the city to her normal life, to the dull safety of her work with the fretful Tsarina and the ordered routine of her home. Only a fool would walk into danger of the kind which she knew awaited her.
She went up the stairs and was confronted by an attic door. Now there was no hesitation. She rapped on it with her knuckles.
A voice she recognized, a voice that racked her with terror and an unsought ecstasy, snarled: “Open the door.”
“I don’t know who it is. It might be someone I owe money to.”
“I know who it is. Open the door.”
It was pulled back and she looked into the blotchy, puzzled face of the man who had been drinking with her obsessional phantom the previous night. A phantom, she thought; but not any longer—he was there, in the untidy, noisome room beyond. Zargo and Rasputin. She remembered the names, bandied to and fro at the next table: remembered them as though some sly enemy had planted them in her mind.
Rasputin said: “Come in.”
She walked past Zargo. The room was dreadful. No linen had been washed for months, nobody had swept the floor or cleaned any part of it. And Rasputin himself was a foul, repulsive monster.
She looked into those smouldering eyes and said: “I have come to apologize.”
He didn’t move.
“For last night,” she said.
His smile was slow and deadly. He said: “Apologize, then.”
“I . . . I’m truly sorry.”
And she did not know whether this was true or not. She had committed no crime that she could recall, she had laughed only because the drink had gone the wrong way and she hadn’t known what she was doing. And if she was sorry for an apparent discourtesy, did she have to expunge her tiny sin by coming this far, by abasing herself to this stinking wretch, by pleading to this peasant as though he were a prince of the blood?
“Good,” he said bleakly. “Now come here.”
He indicated that she should kneel beside him. Sonia hesitated, then went down at his feet. He looked at her for a long moment. She raised her head; her eyes stared into his and she saw the fire rekindling. His hand moved gently before her face and she thought that he was about to give her his blessing. Instead, he struck her across the mouth so savagely that she was knocked to one side and crumpled on the floor.
“Look, you can’t . . .” It was Zargo, whining with alarm.
“Get out.”
“Get out? I live here. This is my—”
“Go out and buy food. She will cook for us.”
Sonia clapped a hand to her stinging cheek. She pushed herself up and tried to assert the values that she stood for, that the scum of the steppes and the reeking back streets of the cities must surely accept. “I do not cook,” she said. “I am not a peasant woman.”
“No,” said Rasputin, “you’re not, are you? What are you, then?”
She owed him no answer. She owed him nothing. If she lifted her little finger she could have him arrested. The arrogant note in his voice would crack into agony if she arranged to have him handed over to the right people.
She said meekly: “I am a lady in waiting to the Tsarina.”
The man called Zargo let out a whimper of fear. But Rasputin merely smiled and said appreciatively: “Are you, now? Boris . . . get out. I told you to go. Buy wine and food.”
After a moment of indecision the little man scuttled out.
Sonia looked at Rasputin. He returned her gaze with gouging intensity. She was fatalistic about it now. Something stronger than herself had dragged her here. She could plead that it was against her will; but voluntarily she had walked here in the pale morning in the full knowledge that she must fulfil the terms of a nightmare. She had tried to close her eyes against his eyes, and she had failed. She had tried to sleep and then had tried to stay awake. She had thrust away the devilish demands he had made on her. Yet now she was here, waiting.
He said: “Tell me your name.”
“Sonia.”
“Sonia,” he repeated. It was slow, lascivious, brooding. “Little Sonia.”
He put out his hand to her and she walked towards him. His breath was foul. He was unkempt and content in his filth. It was unthinkable that she should be this close to him. She should be able to snap her fingers and summon a lackey who would beat him off and keep him at his proper distance.
His hand touched her face. His fingers described a pattern on her cheek. Sonia felt a pulsation deep within herself such as she had never known before.
He stank. But she did not retreat. She stood quite still as his fingers dabbed and wandered, touched and withdrew, moved round and then downwards. His hand was on her neck. And with a sudden movement he ripped the dress from her left shoulder.
Sonia cried out instinctively. Her hands reached up to cover her bare shoulder. But instead, as though acting on some remote command, they strayed across her throat and began to remove the dress from the other shoulder.
Rasputin smiled. He uttered no tender words, did not caress her, did not draw her soothingly towards him. Like a puppet-master he smiled and silently commanded that she should do what he wanted her to do. When she had thrown the last garment aside and was naked before him, he picked her up effortlessly and threw her on to the dirty counterpane. She looked helplessly into his blazing eyes as they descended on her. Like a demented beast he savaged her and then took his weight from her and pushed her aside.
She was sobbing. Pain and a fearsome love fought an excruciating battle within her. He was oblivious to this. Sated, he lay back and said idly:
“You can’t spend all day with the Tsarina. What else do you do?”
“I help to look after little Alexy.”
“The young Tsarevitch?”
It was ludicrous that she should be making what amou
nted to polite conversation on this reeking animal’s ragged bed. “He’s very frail. We play with him and take him for walks. Some days we take him to—”
“We?” he interrupted.
“The other lady in waiting. Vanessa and I. You saw her with us—she and her brother—last night.” It could surely not have been only last night but an age ago, in another world?
“The pretty one?” he said.
He had used her and left his evil smell on her flesh and now he could slash this across her like a whip.
“The pretty one,” she agreed bitterly.
Rasputin got up and paced across the room away from her. Sonia hated him and despised herself, yet longed for him to come back.
He said: “Where do you take him for these walks?”
“Into the forests. The parks, the lakes. Tomorrow we’re going to Ivan’s and Vanessa’s home out in the country. The river is freezing. With a bit of luck it will be solid by tomorrow. He loves to play on it.”
“Isn’t that dangerous for so precious a charge?”
“I have to watch him very carefully. He doesn’t like that much.”
Rasputin trod back towards her. He looked down at her. She wanted to shield herself from him—with her hands, the grubby bedclothes, anything. But she lay before him and waited for him to bruise her again.
Almost to himself, seeing her body and not seeing it, he said: “So you have to watch him when there’s a possibility of danger . . .”
There was a knock at the door. Sonia turned and groped for a tattered gown which hung from the end of the bed.
“Come in, Boris.” Rasputin laughed as Zargo came in and Sonia fought her way into the gown. “Don’t worry about Boris. He tells me that he was a doctor once.”
Then he stood very still. Some thought had hit him. Zargo, unwrapping vegetables and a raw hunk of meat, glanced apprehensively at him.
Rasputin said: “Come here, Sonia.”
Torn between loathing and abject desire, she went to him. He straddled his legs and bent over her, his eyes as red and possessive as she remembered them from that first appalling moment. Slowly he intoned:
“Look into my eyes. Look deep into them and think only of me. Shut all other thoughts from your mind. Think only of me. Listen to what I tell you, and obey.”
“Obey,” she echoed drowsily.
“Tomorrow you are taking the little Tsarevitch out to the frozen river.”
“Yes.”
Yes, of course. She was taking the heir to all the Russias out on the river and she would look after him as devotedly as she had always looked after him. The voice of Rasputin buzzed in her ears and then receded. He was telling her something. Deep in her mind something stirred, reached up and embraced what he was telling her; but she was not conscious of it, she didn’t know what he wanted her to do, she was pinned down by him and abandoned to him and yet she understood nothing.
“Send for me,” he was saying.
Yes. Send for him. She would do that. He was ordering her to do this, to act in such and such a way; and she groped through a fog and could not understand why it was so important. But she knew that she would do as he commanded.
His eyes . . . oh, God, his eyes . . .
Far away Zargo was saying: “It won’t work. She won’t obey.”
“She will do exactly as I have said.”
“But what if he’s killed?”
“He will not die.” The voice was calm and measured and absolutely sure of itself. “And you will not talk, Boris.”
Fingers snapped before her eyes. Stained, long, grubby fingers. She blinked.
“Wake up, Sonia.”
She saw him clearly. Zargo stood to one side of him. She was embarrassed by the presence in the room of someone so ordinary, belonging to the perimeter of a world which she knew.
Rasputin said: “You can get dressed now and go.”
“Go? When shall I see you again?”
“When you have done as I’ve told you.”
“Told me . . . ? I don’t understand.”
“You will,” he said indifferently. “Now get dressed.”
She edged away into a corner of the room. The men did not even trouble to look at her. Their lack of interest was a greater insult than their prurient contemplation would have been.
“Ah.” It was Zargo, greedily watching as Rasputin poured out a large glass of wine.
“A toast, Boris.” Rasputin found a cracked mug on the marble top of the washstand, half filled it, and was then struck with an idea. “Little Sonia—have you any money?”
She struggled into her clothes and drew the laces across her bosom. “A little.”
“Leave it,” he said offhandedly, “on the bed.”
Sonia opened her purse and took out her small change. She dropped it on to the crumpled sheet where she had so recently lain.
Rasputin nodded. It was no more than a matter-of-fact acknowledgment.
“A toast,” he said again. He raised his glass towards Zargo. “To me—to Rasputin—and to the little Tsar.”
He drank, and roared with laughter.
Sonia went out, puzzled and resentful yet exalted, into the biting chill of the morning.
5
The river had been dark and muddy for weeks. Mud had been churned up and formed into little barriers which then crumbled as the thrust of the waters intensified. Gradually small ice floes had formed. The river slowed, and along the banks there were thin slivers of ice which joined up and eventually formed a solid path on either side. Now the whole surface had frozen. The grey confusion gave way to a featureless white pathway, weaving down between the fluffy whiteness of the snowy fields and woods.
Alexy turned his flushed, eager face into the rising wind. He was excited. It had been laid down that he must never under any circumstances get excited; but he was a boy, and an eager impetuous boy at that, so how could he be kept always calm?
“Vanni . . . Vanni . . . we’re here! Oh, do come on. Do please come on.” Fretfully he turned to Sonia. “You know she promised to teach me to skate today—she did promise, didn’t she?—and we’re late. She did promise.”
Sonia was carrying his skates. She tried to restrain him as he slid across the frozen river and began to scramble up the far bank. But short of seizing him and holding on to him there was no way of keeping him still; and if she did that, he would struggle and fight back until he had gone purple in the face, and perhaps there would be the bursting of a small blood vessel and all the troubles that followed—troubles which she knew all too well and didn’t wish to see repeated.
The carriage with two uniformed footmen stood above the bank. In the background was the house. Ivan’s house—where one day she might herself live, if she listened to Ivan’s stammered remarks and Vanessa’s more pungent, forthright suggestions. Once it had seemed a logical end to their relationship—the closeness of friends who would mutually profit from such a marriage. Now she was not so sure. She thought of Rasputin, the crude wretch from the appalling wastes of Siberia; and hated him and what he had done to her; and could think of no one else.
“Vanni, we’re here!”
Alexy scrambled up to the edge of the bank and waved wildly.
“Be careful,” Sonia called.
He ignored her. “Vanni!”
Vanessa was coming down the gentle slope from the house. She waved gently. Everything she did was slow, gentle, and graceful. She had a poise which Sonia had always envied. Remembering that Rasputin had referred to Vanessa as “the pretty one”, Sonia fought down a stabbing pain of jealousy.
“You’re going to teach me to skate,” the Tsarevitch shouted. “You said you would. Today. Remember?”
“Coming.” Vanessa waved again.
Sonia scrambled up the bank and stood beside Alexy. The ice below them shone with a dull, hard light. She looked down at it and swayed. Something spoke to her: something . . . someone. In her mind she heard a command. Rasputin was issuing an order. He had already im
planted it, and now it rang out loud and clear. She fought it off. It couldn’t be. But she remembered what she had not heard clearly on that first occasion. He had spoken and she had not understood; but now, here, she understood what he had meant and what she must do.
“You will see to it that he meets with an accident.” No, she said. Then it was yes. Yes, master. Yes. “An accident, you understand?” No. Yes. “He will be hurt, and then you will send for me.”
No. She fought it off.
Then she took Alexy’s arm. He tried to turn, surprised by the strength of her grip. His right foot slipped. Sonia let go. The Tsarevitch teetered on the edge for an instant, then went over. His arms flailed wildly as he fell. His body struck the bank and slid over the tightly packed snow, and then he struck the surface of the river.
He rolled over once and lay still.
Vanessa broke into a run. One of the footmen ran to the bank and threw himself down towards the small, motionless shape on the ice.
Sonia stared. Her limbs had frozen. She was a cold, stricken thing in the middle of the icebound landscape.
Vanessa was beside her. “What happened?”
The footman picked up the boy in his arms and began to climb the bank at an oblique angle, testing every step.
“He’s all right,” he said. “He’s unconscious, but he’s breathing.”
“What happened?” asked Vanessa again.
Sonia shook her head. She didn’t know what had happened. It was all too confused. “He . . . he must have slipped.”
They drove back to St. Petersburg with the white-faced, unmoving boy between them. From afar the cupolas and onion domes of the city glittered against the sombre afternoon sky. There was gaiety in their bright colors and in the crisp, sparkling air. But there was no gaiety in the palace as the heir to the throne was hurried up to his room.
He was laid upon his ornate bed. The Court physicians were summoned. The Tsarina Alexandra breathed over her son, trembling as ever on the brink of hysteria. Her nerves were raw, her mouth twitched constantly. A small mishap could bring forth a raving shrillness from her; something such as this reduced her to babbling impotence.