Death in St. Petersburg

by Tasha Alexander

  “When she crossed the street, where did she go?” I asked.

  “She didn’t go anywhere,” she said. “She vanished, just as you’d expect a ghost would.” She crossed herself and hurried away. The rest of the crowd, murmuring anxiously, followed suit.

  Colin and I separated, each canvassing different roads that led away from the river, asking everyone we encountered if he had seen the ballerina. We had agreed to meet, when finished, in front of the gray granite Rumyantsev Obelisk that stood in the center of a small park next to the Cadets College housed in the Menshikov Palace. Colin was already there, stamping his feet to keep warm, when I approached the monument.

  “No luck at all, I’m afraid,” I said. “No one admits to having seen her.”

  “I had the same result,” he said.

  “She could have stashed a coat, hat, and boots in a doorway,” I said. “As soon as she pulled them on, no one would recognize her.”

  “I don’t remember anyone saying they saw the bloody gash before,” Colin said. “Is she escalating her performance? And if so, why?”

  “This was a bolder gesture,” I said. “She appeared in broad daylight in a crowded place with no easy way to disappear. When she was on the hotel balcony, all she had to do was step back inside. At the cemetery, she had chosen her location carefully so that she could make her escape before anyone reached her.”

  “And across from the Yusupov Palace, she could vanish into one of the buildings long before anyone could get over to the bridge and across it,” Colin said.

  “Today’s appearance required her to be prepared in a different way,” I said. “She had to do something to make the crowd want to keep their distance. Covering her neck in gore, which I imagine would not be difficult for someone acquainted with the use of stage makeup, would—and did—do the trick.”

  “I agree,” Colin said. “You don’t have any mysterious message in a pocket, do you?”

  I checked my coat. “No. Nothing.”

  “What can she mean to achieve?” He took my arm. “Walk. I’m half frozen.”

  “It’s no secret that I’m investigating Nemetseva’s death,” I said. “Perhaps the dancer is hoping to motivate me to work more quickly? Even if I didn’t see her myself, I would hear about it. It’s all anyone’s talking about in the city.”

  “How could she possibly think her actions would have any impact on the length of time required to solve a murder? It makes no sense.”

  “Grieving people are ruled by emotion, not rationality.”

  “True, but I still think there is something else at play,” he said. “What are we missing?”

  We returned to the hotel for luncheon and had not yet finished our soup when the same German woman who, days earlier, had disturbed my breakfast marched over to our table, a look of triumph on her face.

  “I have seen her myself, Lady Emily, and can assure you she is a ghost.”

  “The ballerina?” I asked. “You were skating, too?” This surprised me, as I had not expected someone of her girth would be drawn to athletic pursuits.

  “Skating? No. Why do you ask? I was in the Hermitage, with my husband, looking at Flemish paintings. My Friedrich does not like Flemish paintings and had grown most annoyed at my insisting on taking so much time in the gallery. He wanted to see the Egyptian antiquities, you understand. I told him to entertain himself by looking at the ceiling in the adjacent room—have you been in the Tent-Roofed Room, Lady Emily? It is most impressive—but my Friedrich does not like to leave me unattended, you understand.”

  She paused here, to shoot an amphibian-like grin in the direction of a man I can only assume was her Friedrich.

  “No, I have not,” I said. “However, I am unable to see how any of this connects to the dancer you’re claiming is a ghost.”

  “You rush me, I understand. I take too long. Forgive me. My Friedrich went to look out the window, to see the view of the Palace Square. He has great admiration for monumental architecture, my Friedrich, and the column of Alexander, built by—”

  “Yes, quite,” Colin interrupted. “It is magnificent. Pray, do continue, madam. Did he see the ballerina?”

  “Oh, sir, you are, like your wife, in a great hurry, aren’t you? No matter. He saw her and called out to me. Soon everyone in the room was jockeying to see out the windows. She flitted all the way across Palace Square on her toes. No one living could have done so. She did not sink in the snow.” At this revelation, she paused again, smiling smugly. “You see? She is a ghost.”

  “I make it a practice never to argue with a beautiful woman,” Colin said. I did my best to avoid any obvious reaction to this ridiculous statement, because I saw how much she enjoyed the compliment. “If you say you saw a ghost, who am I to question you?”

  “Your wife, I think, does not agree with you,” she said.

  “She often doesn’t.” He dabbed his lips with his napkin, folded it, and set it on the table. “My dear, will you despise me forever if I tear you away from our meal? I’m quite desperate to see where this ghost appeared.”

  Within moments, we had retrieved our coats, hats, gloves, overshoes, and my muff, bundled up, and headed to Palace Square. The dancer must have rushed there immediately after finishing her performance at the river. She was long gone now, as were, so far as we could gather, all the people who had seen her. That did not stop those we questioned from giving us detailed accounts of what had happened. Most of them claimed their stories came from someone who had witnessed the performance, but I suspected they were working more in fiction than fact.

  As our German friend reported, the square was covered in snow. It was packed tightly enough that one did not sink into it far when walking, but the surface would not have allowed for the graceful crossing of the space en pointe that everyone claimed the dancer had made.

  “Emily!” Colin called to me. “Look, here someone has created a narrow path of ice the length of the square. Stand on it, will you, and see if it supports your weight.” He took me by the hand to steady me, lest I slip on the slick surface. It did hold my weight.

  “She could have prepared by sprinkling water and letting it freeze overnight,” I said. “If fresh snow had fallen, she would only need to discreetly brush it away before starting her performance.”

  “And she could have done that while wearing a coat that disguised her costume,” Colin said. “But as it was, not that much snow fell. I don’t think the trace amount would have interfered with her.”

  “It must have been extremely difficult, regardless,” I said. “Dancing en pointe is no small feat, but to manage it on ice…”

  “She must be a professional,” Colin said. “Until now, she had done nothing that an amateur might have been able to accomplish—”

  “I don’t agree,” I said. “Her movements were so graceful. I have never doubted she is a trained professional.”

  We walked back to the hotel along Nevsky Prospekt, taking our time and listening to the conversation on the street. No one was speaking of anything but the mysterious dancer. We heard references to each of the incidents we knew had occurred, but the story, or rather the apparition, had started to take on a life of her own. A young lady was telling a young man that the dancer had stood at the end of her bed the previous night, waking her from a deep sleep. An elderly woman spoke of having seen her in the market, early in the morning. And two gentlemen were entertaining the ladies on their arms with a tale of having seen the ghost hovering above the imperial box at the Mariinsky during a performance of Swan Lake.

  “There has not been a performance of Swan Lake since Nemetseva’s death,” I said.

  “The truth, my dear, often falls aside when one is in search of a good story. Whatever her goal, the dancer has certainly managed to capture the attention of the entire city. I only wish we knew what she means to achieve in the process.”

  Ekaterina Petrovna

  June 1898

  Katenka had spent ages trying to convince herself that she
cared nothing for Mitya, but she could no longer deny the truth. Emotions she hardly recognized rushed through her as she saw his prostrate form on the floor. She could hardly breathe. Feeling as if she were choking, she rushed to him and knelt at his side. Concern turned to anger when she realized he was drunk. She slapped him soundly across the face, knocking his spectacles onto the floor.

  “What do you mean by coming here in this condition?” she asked.

  He reacted slowly at first, but then shook himself awake and smiled at her before picking up his eyeglasses. “I apologize. Perhaps I should have stayed away, but I needed to speak to you most urgently.”

  “You have ignored me for months,” she said. “What can be so important now?”

  “I think we should go inside,” Sofya said. “Your neighbors are not likely to appreciate being disturbed by an argument.”

  Katenka unlocked the door. Mitya stumbled through and dropped onto the settee.

  “I shall make us coffee,” Sofya said. “Very strong coffee.” She disappeared into the tiny kitchen, leaving Katenka alone with her friend.

  “I have treated you badly, Ekaterina Petrovna,” Mitya said, looking down. He leaned forward, his hands clenched together, his forearms on his legs. “I tarred you with a brush tainted by my opinion of Irusya. She betrayed my best friend, and I thought you would do the same to me.”

  “I never—”

  He raised a hand. “Please. I know. I am entirely in the wrong and have come here, in this pathetic state, to beg your forgiveness. Lev has returned to Petersburg.”

  “Where is he?” Katenka asked. “Why has he not come to me?”

  “He is living with me at the moment but said he will leave again if I do not make things right with you.”

  “So you came not because of any feelings you have for me, but because my brother wanted you to?” She shook her head. “I wish you had stayed away.”

  “No, no, he pressed me to come because he knows how I feel. He is plagued with terrible guilt because he believes he catalyzed the break between us.”

  “Was there something to break?” Katenka asked. “You kissed me a few times and gave me some books. We had no understanding.” She wanted to be cruel, but when she looked at him in his worn and rumpled suit, his glasses badly smudged, her resolve abandoned her.

  “I deserve no kindness. I know that,” he said. “And I shall not press you to take me back, not now.”

  “How can I take you back when I never really had you?”

  “Did you want me?” He was looking at her now, holding her gaze, his steel-gray eyes burning with intensity.

  “I did.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Love passed, the Muse appeared, the weather / of mind got clarity new-found; / now free, I once more weave together / emotion, thought, and magic sound.”

  “You return to Pushkin?” she asked.

  “Do I dare?” His voice broke.

  “Love passed, you say, and you are now free.”

  “Emotion, thought, and magic sound I weave for you, only you, my dear Katyushenka.” He leaned so close she thought he would kiss her but pulled back when Sofya returned with coffee.

  “I see you two have reconciled. Good.” She picked up her coat and pulled it on. “I shall leave you now. Promise you won’t do anything that would horrify me.”

  Katenka flushed and asked her to stay, but Sofya refused, leaving her alone with Mitya. They talked for hours, about everything and nothing. When he left, not long before dawn, Katenka walked him to the door of her flat and called goodbye as he started down the stairs. He ran back, caught Katenka in his arms, and kissed her.

  “I will never be without you again.”

  January 1900

  18

  After Sebastian’s revelation about the pamphlets in Nemetseva’s dressing room, I had arranged to return to the Mariinsky to conduct more interviews but would have to wait until the following afternoon and, hence, decided to spend the morning at the Hermitage with Cécile. When I called to collect her at Masha’s, Vasilii was there breakfasting with them. His spirits seemed marginally improved from when I had seen him last, but the pain he felt at Nemetseva’s death remained evident, not that I could mention it in front of our friends, as neither Cécile nor Masha knew about his affair with the ill-fated ballerina.

  Masha was regaling them with tales of the ghostly dancer when I arrived, and I could see how difficult the topic was for the prince. Wanting to spare him from the conversation, I pulled him aside on the pretense of Colin’s having given me a private message for him and told him what we had learned about the dagger.

  “You think Katenka has something to do with this?” His face turned a sickly shade of gray. “I did not think it possible for this horror to be made worse, but if her dearest friend…”

  “Emily, don’t upset the poor man,” Masha called from the table at which she and Cécile were finishing their pastries. “Let us discuss something pleasant, like a lovely young lady whose acquaintance I made last week. She would be the perfect bride for you, Vasik.”

  Cécile rose from her seat. “Come, Kallista, let’s remove ourselves before this conversation goes any further.” She patted the prince’s arm sympathetically as we took our leave and called for the carriage, which was ready for us by the time we had finished swathing ourselves in coats and scarves and hats and muffs. “Whatever were you speaking about so secretly with our prince?”

  I debated how to respond. Knowing that I could trust Cécile absolutely—she was as steadfast as Colin—I decided to come clean to her and detailed everything I knew about the prince and Nemetseva.

  “I am not often shocked,” she said. “But this … mon dieu! I should not have thought Vasilii had it in him. He’s so very serious and focused. How I could miss a passionate nature hidden beneath the surface? Perhaps I am losing my touch, Kallista.”

  “Unlikely,” I said. “I have never met someone more discreet than he. He was protecting his reputation as well as hers but has expressed much regret over not having married her.”

  “Married her?” Cécile looked to the heavens and shook her head. “Nemetseva would never have agreed to marry him.”

  “How can you possibly know that?” I asked.

  “Think of your own experience, chérie,” she said. “What state naturally follows marriage? Motherhood. Why would a dancer in the prime of her career enter into a situation likely to interfere with everything she has worked for?”

  “Well…” I hesitated. “Obviously she, er … I mean … if she and the prince…”

  “Mais oui, perhaps this is a subject better abandoned without further discussion. Yet I remain aghast at learning that Vasilii is a heartbroken lover. The poor man.”

  “Don’t even think about consoling him,” I said.

  Cécile gave me a look of utter disdain. “Really, Kallista, you should know better. When have I ever expressed interest in a military man? That dancer, Yuri, is infinitely more appealing.”

  We had arrived at the museum and entered its vestibule through the portico on Millionnaya ulitsa. After depositing our coats and accoutrements in the cloakroom, we climbed a staircase between walls finished to look like marble and emerged in the gallery above it, which was lined with twenty granite Corinthian columns. I knew from reading that the designer had modeled this path into the museum’s collections on the approach to the Acropolis in Athens. The lacunar ceiling above contributed to the feeling of having stepped into something ancient, a sensation that only increased when one crossed from the stairs and into a brightly colored gallery, on whose walls Georg Hiltensperger had painted nearly a hundred scenes inspired by descriptions of classical images.

  Very few paintings from ancient Greek and Rome have survived, but the German architect Leo von Klenze wanted visitors to the museum to pass through a hall dedicated to these works as well as to the sculpture of the period before entering rooms containing more familiar European pieces. This, he felt, would serve as a reminder t
hat western art as we know it could not have existed without the contribution of our ancient counterparts. Hiltensperger used the encaustic technique, the same employed centuries ago in Greece, covering the walls with neoclassical decoration and mythological scenes. The room also held a collection of eighteenth-century sculpture, much of it classically inspired, as well as a fine bust of Voltaire and one of Catherine the Great.

  The European picture galleries followed from here, but I did not enter them, instead leading Cécile back down the stairs and into a series of galleries displaying a stunning collection of ancient Greek vases.

  “Oh, no, Kallista,” Cécile said. “I have not come here to spend the entire day looking at pots. I know your passion for them—”

  “Fear not,” I said. “I shall return to study them on my own, but I want us to see the Scythian gold and Peter the Great’s Siberian collection.” I led her through room after room filled with the most marvelous Greek antiquities but resisted stopping until I had reached my stated destination. We were marveling at a stunning piece from the seventh century BC, a recumbent stag, more than a foot long, fashioned from solid gold, its spectacular antlers a masterpiece of its Scythian creator, when I caught sight of a familiar figure.

  I grabbed Cécile’s arm and pulled her alongside me. “That man over there—do you see him?”—I pointed to a tall figure in a drab suit coat—“It’s Lev. Let’s follow him. I want to see what he’s doing.”

  “Most likely he is looking at art,” Cécile said, squinting. “This is, after all, a museum.”

  “He’s walking with obvious purpose and doesn’t seem interested by anything on exhibit. I want to see where he goes. Perhaps he’s planned to meet someone here.”

  Cécile and I stepped toward him, moving (figuratively) as one man. He passed through three more rooms filled with classical antiquities and then turned into one that housed medieval arms and armor. From there, he entered a large hall lined with dark granite columns. I found the contents of the room—the discoveries from excavations near Kertch, in the Crimea—so distracting I nearly lost sight of our quarry. I must be forgiven, however, as there are few finer examples of Greek artifacts from the fourth and fifth centuries BC to be found in the world. Needless to say, I soldiered on, and we pursued him (discreetly, I need hardly say) into the medieval and Renaissance galleries.