Death in St. Petersburg

by Tasha Alexander

  “I see I shall have to take matters in hand,” Colin said. “You are already distracted. I shall inquire as to whether Mr. Fabergé is available to speak with us. In the meantime, you may browse.”

  Of course, I was not distracted; I never lose sight of the importance of my work. That does not mean, however, that I was incapable of appreciating the beauty around me, and I admit to being ever so slightly disappointed by how quickly Monsieur Fabergé invited us into his office.

  After introductions and the usual pleasantries, I explained the situation and showed him the enameled case I had received, asking if it would be possible for him to tell us who had originally purchased it.

  “Ordinarily, this is not something I would be comfortable doing,” he said. “I respect the privacy of my clients. Your situation, however, is unusual. Excuse me for a moment and I will see what I can uncover.”

  “I shouldn’t mind having an egg of my own,” I said, when Colin and I were waiting for him to return. “It would make a fitting remembrance of our time together in Russia.”

  “I’d rather find you a nice Greek vase,” he said. “No, that would never do. You’re far too fastidious about vase painters. Ancient jewelry is more my forte. I did well with your wedding ring, did I not?” He took my left hand and touched the ancient band of gold and lapis lazuli on the fourth finger.

  “Indeed you did,” I said, feeling my cheeks flush as I met his eyes. “I agree to leave all purchases of ancient jewelry to you, as you have proven yourself a master at it, but in return you must allow me to indulge myself in the occasional egg.”

  Monsieur Fabergé returned. “Your card case was purchased six years ago by the Countess Lagunova. She died two years later, and all her possessions were sold at auction to cover unpaid debts.”

  “Do you know which house handled the sale?” Colin asked.

  “I am afraid I do not. I wish I could be of more help.”

  “We could hardly ask for more,” I said. “We are most appreciative.”

  On our way out, I lingered in showroom. I was severely tempted by a lovely blue-and-gold egg but instead purchased a charming fan, its guard sticks covered in pink enamel embellished with diamond-studded flowers and a laurel festoon. It opened to reveal mother-of-pearl sticks and silk leaves painted with tiny flowers in gold paillon borders. Who was I to resist such beauty?

  The next morning, from our suite, I telephoned all the major auction houses in the city until I identified the one who had handled the sale of the Countess Lagunova’s estate. The card case had been part of a larger lot that included nearly a dozen other small items. The high bidder was a man who ran a shop in Gostiny Dvor. Colin had left early for undisclosed purposes and Cécile and Masha had planned to go to the Hermitage—Cécile wanted to see the collection of eighteenth-century French art—so I went on my own to visit the establishment. On the way, I reflected that not so long ago, society had considered a lady going anywhere unescorted to be scandalous, and I had more than once been judged harshly for my habit of walking alone. Now, on the cusp of a new century, much had changed. I was feeling quite pleased with myself, hoping that my own example had influenced this shift, but when I reached my destination and showed the proprietor the card case, my sense of satisfaction disappeared. Although he recognized it, he had no memory of the person to whom he had sold it.

  Frustrated, I returned to the hotel, where I buried myself in War and Peace until it was time to dress for the evening. The party that we were attending was hosted by Masha’s dearest childhood friend, and it was so crowded that I never in the course of the evening managed to meet her. I wished I could have stayed home with my book. Colin agreed with the sentiment and pulled me into a convenient alcove.

  “I say we make our escape,” he said. “There’s no point staying any longer. No one could possibly notice that we’ve gone.”

  “I would notice.” Sebastian had crept up next to me. “Have you heard about my latest coup? I liberated a divine sable coat from a countess who trod on my foot at a ball. Gave it to a young lady I met walking near the Neva last week. Her own coat was all but threadbare, and I am certain she was on the verge of freezing. I signed the accompanying note Anatole Kuragin. You recognize the reference, I hope?”

  “When Kuragin was planning his elopement with Natasha Rostova, a friend warned him that he must have a sable coat for her. Anything of lesser quality might not keep her warm enough, and he would risk her abandoning her plans to run off with him,” Colin said. “I hadn’t realized you were looking to get married.”

  Sebastian pulled a face that would have wilted a lesser man. “Of course not. A wife would be nothing but a burden to my lifestyle.”

  “If you’re reading the book, you ought to do more than skim it,” Colin said. “Emily would be far better impressed by literary references that made sense. Furthermore, you’re posing as a Cossack, yet you belong to no regiment. Someone is bound to discover the fraud.”

  “Nothing matters more to the aristocracy than having an honorable family,” Sebastian said. “And I am always careful to have all necessary explanations at the ready. In my current guise, I tell anyone interested that my father is an eccentric man who supplies the emperor with a regiment made up of his own men and led by me, his son and heir. I never mention specifically what part of the Russian army it belongs to, but instead distract anyone exhibiting signs of excessive curiosity with stories of our family being staunch supporters of the Romanovs. My great uncle helped stop one of the assassination attempts against Alexander II and, no doubt, would have prevented his death had he been present when the fatal bomb exploded at the site where is now being constructed the Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood. Once they’ve heard all that, they never doubt Nicholas would be only too glad to accommodate whatever my father asks.”

  “I could hardly follow your train of thought,” I said. “Can you possibly believe you are deceiving those who know the emperor?”

  “I have met the emperor himself twice since my arrival here—I saw him just last week at the Alexander Palace.” Sebastian could not have looked smugger if he tried. “He told me how much he admires my dear pater.”

  “You told these lies to the tsar?” I asked.

  “Bold lies are always better than timid ones,” Sebastian said. “People are far more likely to believe them.”

  Colin was shaking his head. “I do not know whether to admire or despise you, Capet.”

  “Do whichever you find most amusing, Hargreaves,” Sebastian said. “Neither shall trouble me.”

  Ekaterina Petrovna

  August 1897

  Katenka considered that summer’s production of Sleeping Beauty a turning point. The morning after the performance, as they were leaving company class, Irusya received an enormous delivery of flowers from the count. While it was common for members of the nobility to shower ballerinas with attention, to have a gift delivered to rehearsal space was unusual. More than a few eyebrows were raised, and Mathilde Kschessinska pulled Irusya aside and spoke to her for nearly half an hour.

  “What did she say?” Katenka asked. She had waited for her friend outside the theatre, basking in the sunny day and allowing herself, for the first time, to contemplate Mitya—and his kiss—without censoring her thoughts.

  “It was nothing.” Irusya’s tone was unusually sharp. “She asked me a series of practical questions about my goals. I told her I hope, someday, to command the stage the way she does.”

  “Petipa does not much like her,” Katenka said.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Irusya replied. “Her talent forces him to use her, even if they don’t get along.”

  “I mention this only to suggest that she may not be the best person from whom to seek advice. Why don’t you talk to Pierina Legnani? She admires you.”

  “That is true,” Irusya said. “But Mathilde understands the pressures that come from royal attention.”

  “Are you feeling such pressures?” Katenka asked.

&nb
sp; Irusya thrust the flowers at her friend. “The count grows more attentive with every passing day, and I can no longer ignore the fact that he would like a closer friendship than that we currently share.”

  “What does Lev say?”

  “This doesn’t concern Lev.”

  “Of course it concerns Lev! He loves you.”

  “And I love him.” They were walking now, away from the theatre and toward the park. “But is it reasonable to believe we will always be together? We were so young when we met, at least I was, and we inhabit very different worlds. I will always adore Lev, but I have to think about my career, and he cannot help me with it.”

  “You are too talented to require the count’s assistance.”

  “You are kind to say so, but I am of the mind that it would be foolish to reject anyone’s help. There are many dancers in the company, Katenka. They will not all be principals.”

  “So you mean to throw over my brother?” Katenka asked.

  “No, I don’t want to do that…” She looked away from her friend. “It’s just that, well … I don’t know what I want to do.”

  Later that evening, after another well-received performance, Katenka took the train back to Petersburg and walked alone to her flat. The count had invited Irusya to a party, and she had accepted with obvious satisfaction written on her face. Katenka hated to think what would happen next. She had been so happy only twenty-four hours earlier. How could things change so quickly?

  After the close of the summer season, the company had a short break before they would begin performing in the capital, and, again, Irusya invited Katenka to her dacha. The holiday had not ended so badly as she had feared it might. Mitya had declared himself to her, and the count had not come between Irusya and Lev. His engagement had been announced less than a week after he had begged Irusya to let herself grow closer to him. By the time the girls had arrived back in St. Petersburg, everything had returned to normal.

  In class, she and Irusya had always claimed places next to each other at the barre, but now that their ranks were so different, Katenka was relegated to a less desirable spot with the rest of the corps de ballet. After that, the girls did not work together again, as Irusya was rehearsing soloist roles, and Katenka was not.

  Miraculously, though, she no longer felt plagued by regret and hardly ever thought about her graduation performance. She was dancing every day in the greatest ballet company in the world. Working in the corps proved more difficult than she could have imagined and required a different mind-set from that of the roles she had learned while still in school, but she delighted in the challenge. Petipa himself noticed her diligence, and gave her the occasional compliment. Perhaps her position was not so dire as she had first believed. She would earn promotions, even if it took longer than she had originally hoped.

  The autumn season was opening with Sleeping Beauty, and just as the count had predicted, Irusya had been cast in the role of the Lilac Fairy. The afternoon before the first performance, Irusya invited Katenka to lunch at her elegant apartment. When Katenka arrived, expecting an intimate chat with her friend, she was surprised to find Pierina Legnani, Mathilde Kschessinska—the only two prima ballerina assolutas in the world—and four other senior ballerinas in the company already there, including Olga Preobrajenska, whose turnout was the envy of all the other dancers. They were all gracious to Katenka, but as the lowest-ranking dancer present, she could not help but feel out of her depth.

  Irusya made a point of trying to make her feel welcome, but the deliberateness of her actions only served to make Katenka more uncomfortable. Legnani, who had taken the seat next to her, leaned close during the soup course.

  “You are in possession of a great talent, my child,” she said. “Right now, it appears to be your master, as if you do not believe yourself capable of controlling it. You must learn how to make it serve you. Do this, and you will be one of the greatest dancers to ever grace the stage of the Mariinsky.”

  Katenka meditated on those words for the rest of the afternoon. She had not understood precisely what Legnani meant, but was too in awe of her to ask for any explanation. By the time she stepped onto the stage that evening, she was consumed by the notion of being controlled by her talent. Was not talent a good thing? She was thinking of this when she made a sloppy landing on a jump in the first act, and again in the third when she nearly missed her partner’s hand in the grand dance celebrating Princess Aurora’s wedding.

  She had never given a worse performance. Now, not only had her emotions failed her, her technical prowess had gone missing as well.

  Legnani had not performed that night, but she had been watching, and she came to Katenka backstage, finding her fighting back tears in a corner of the corps’ dressing room.

  “Tonight you accomplished nothing beyond proving the truth of what I told you this afternoon,” she said. “You need to do more. Study with Cecchetti. He will teach you all our Italian tricks. I shall tell him to expect you.”

  January 1900

  12

  I did not often have the opportunity to observe my husband while he was working. Generally speaking, he was abroad and I at home, but my time in Petersburg gave me daily reminders of the toll his duty took on him, physically and mentally. He had collapsed into our bed yesterday after having been awake for more than thirty-six hours and looked more haggard than I had ever seen him. I could not help but worry about him.

  My own investigation was proving both challenging and frustrating. I had decided to speak to Katenka again, but wanted to meet her somewhere other than her flat or the theatre, and invited her to join me for luncheon at the Polish Café, which the concierge at the Grand Hôtel assured me was quite popular with ladies. Even better, it was less than a block away from the hotel, just on the other side of Mikhaylovskaya ulitsa.

  Katenka arrived precisely on time, dressed in a simple but elegant gown that would have been fashionable five years ago. Not that its age mattered; she carried herself with such grace and moved so fluidly that no one could fault her appearance. No sooner had we sat down than two ladies from a nearby table bent their heads together, whispering and staring before rising to approach her.

  “We saw you in Paquita last night,” the shorter of the two said. “It was a triumph.”

  “We have already booked tickets for Cinderella,” the other said. “It is a scandal that the theatre kept you hidden for so long. It ought not to have taken a murder to get you the roles you should have been dancing years ago.”

  Katenka smiled, but I could see it was forced. Her pale blue eyes looked strained. “We all must wait for our time to come. I do hope you enjoy Cinderella.”

  I waited until after they had returned to their seats to speak. “It must be difficult having your success tied to the loss of your friend.”

  “I hate it,” she said. “It is all so difficult, but Irusya would never approve of me wallowing. If she were here, she would implore me to move to better accommodations, to start lobbying for even more roles than I am currently getting, and to insist on more private coaching.”

  “And will you?”

  “I shan’t move house. I don’t like disruption and I don’t think Mitya would approve of me adopting a more bourgeois lifestyle.”

  “Is that so?” I studied her face. She had blushed slightly when she said his name. “I met Agrippina Alexandrovna the other day. She told me that Irusya made a habit of waving to her from the stage door during intervals. Were you aware of that?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, and opened her menu.

  “I wonder that you didn’t mention it when we spoke before? Had I not found her myself, I would be missing critical information about the night of the murder.”

  “I should have. I see that now. Do forgive me; I’m afraid I’ve been rather scatterbrained of late and too upset to get much sleep. I am glad you found her and learned what you did.”

  She gave every appearance of being sincere, and while I did not hold the omission again
st her, I would not forget it. In the meantime, I had other questions for her. “What does your family think of your promotion to principal? They must be delighted.”

  “My parents died years ago, as did my grandfather,” Katenka said. “Before I graduated from school. I wish so much they were here to see me. Grandpapa particularly adored Cinderella. He was at the first performance of Petipa’s production, when Legnani shocked everyone with her thirty-two fouettées.”

  “Have you any siblings?”

  “I have one brother left, Lev. The rest we lost to cholera.” She returned to studying the menu. “Will you start with soup? I’m going to have the borscht.”

  “Tell me about him. Where does he live?”

  “After the soup, a cutlet, I think. I can’t remember the last time I had one. They were my favorite when I was young.”

  “You’re still young,” I said. “Does your brother live in Petersburg?”

  “I’m afraid we’ve fallen out of touch. I have not spoken to him in more than a year. Last I heard, he was in Moscow.”

  Katenka’s acting skills would have fooled most people, but I could see tension in the fine lines at the corners of her eyes. She smiled beguilingly, and made pretty conversation for the rest of our meal, even insisting that we share a cream-laden pastry to finish, but none of this hid from me her reluctance to talk about her brother.

  “I ought not to have eaten so much,” she said after we had collected our coats from the cloakroom. “I will pay for it tomorrow in class. It was a lovely meal, though; thank you. I have enjoyed myself immensely.”

  We stepped out of the door and onto the pavement, crowded with shoppers bustling toward Nevsky Prospekt at the end of the block. “I hope to see you dance again while I am here,” I said. “Which upcoming production is your favorite? I shall get tickets to that.”