“Better you are here tonight than your mother,” Olenka confided to me in a loud whisper. “So many have turned against her. Such things the newspapers are saying! That Father Gregory is her lover! And that she has not only one, but many paramours, some of them women!”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said as firmly as I could. “Such things should not be repeated within the family, especially since we know they are untrue, and hurtful to mama.”
“They are hurtful to your father, and his government. That’s what matters. Everyone agrees.”
I said nothing. I was well aware of the rumors and newspaper reports, the slanderous posters and graffiti picturing mama and Father Gregory loving each other. It was preposterous. Yet the public craved the sensational images, and wanted more.
Just then Constantin came striding energetically through the crowd and up to our table, bringing two saucers of ice cream and handing one to me and one to my sister.
“Good evening ladies,” he said. “I hope you like raspberry.” He winked at me as he handed me my saucer.
“Ah, Constantin,” Aunt Olenka said, “I’m glad you are here at last. I need help with Baroness Essen’s table. The baroness has had to retire for the evening, will you please fill in?”
“Glad to oblige. Will you join me later, Tania, when all your goods have been sold? I’m sure I’m going to need some help.”
“Yes, of course.”
Aunt Olenka and Constantin moved off through the crowd, watched closely by my sister.
“Am I imagining things, Tania, or has Aunt Olenka been getting fatter? You don’t suppose she’s pregnant, do you? They say her husband never sleeps with her.”
“No, she isn’t pregnant.” In a lowered voice I added, “Niuta heard from Aunt Olenka’s dresser that she’s been taking Oriental Pills.”
“Those pills that enlarge the breasts?”
“Shh!” I nodded.
Olga and I giggled. “What she needs are pills to improve the face!”
“Don’t be unkind. Aunt Olenka has been good to us.” And she had been. Ever since mama’s headaches worsened, and she began shutting herself away from the world more and more, Aunt Olenka had been inviting us to her Petersburg house for tea on Sunday afternoons, taking us on excursions to Druce’s, buying us ices and trinkets and generally taking us under her wing. I liked her more and more. She was not like the other women in my father’s family; she spoke her mind frankly and was not afraid to show her feelings. She even discussed politics, which almost no one else in the family did, at least not in front of us. And she could be jokey and funny, she made us laugh.
At last our table was nearly bare. Only mama’s length of beautiful Alençon lace was waiting for a buyer. Olga and I unrolled it and spread it out across the length of the table to show it to full advantage.
Uncle Vladimir’s son Andrew came toward us from out of the crowd, and with him was a petite, curly-headed brunette, holding his arm and smiling amiably. Her movements were lithe, her face animated and attractive.
I realized, with a shock, that it had to be Mathilde Kchessinsky!
Olga too recognized her, and fumed. She looked our cousin in the eye and said, loudly enough for others to overhear, “I can’t believe you have brought that woman here tonight. She doesn’t belong here. She belongs in a brothel!”
“Olga! Don’t lower yourself to her level!” I said in a measured tone, taking hold of my sister’s arm and pulling her toward me. With a flash of anger she yanked her arm out of my grasp.
“I’ll say what I please! All the world knows she’s a whore!”
I heard a few gasps from the people around us. Mathilde, seemingly unconcerned, was fingering the beautiful lace.
“This table is closed,” I said, beginning to roll up the lace.
“Ah, but Tania, I think my companion may want to buy your lace,” Cousin Andrew drawled, taking a purse of coins from his pocket and spilling them out onto the table.
“This is my mother’s table, and that is her lace, and if she were here, she would certainly not sell it to—to—anyone unworthy.” My heart was thumping, I could feel my cheeks growing hot. I was doing my best to keep my composure.
“But this lace is just what I need for the gown Lamanov is making for me to wear to the English ambassador’s ball, Andrew,” Mathilde said in a light, trilling voice. A voice that I had to admit was sweet and charming. “Please, won’t you buy it for me?” She looked up at him.
Andrew emptied his purse of coins. They lay, a gleaming pile of gold, amid the lace.
“We will take the lace, Tania. I think you will find our contribution generous. There must be several hundred rubles there.”
“We don’t want your money,” Olga said firmly, sweeping the coins onto the floor and walking off into the crowd, leaving me standing by the table, exasperated.
I struggled to summon my dignity. I remembered the lessons Monsieur Gilliard had given Olga and me in how grand duchesses ought to deport themselves. With politeness and dignity, he said. Always politeness and dignity.
There was a commotion as people in the crowd, with shrieks of excitement, bent down to scramble for Andrew’s coins.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but as I told you, this table is closed. Perhaps you can find some lace elsewhere.” And I continued to roll the lace as rapidly as I could into a fat ball. It slipped through Mathilde’s fingers; to her credit, she did not grasp onto it but let it go.
Andrew reacted with amusement. “Come, dear. There are other tables, and I have other purses of coins.” And with a wave of his hand to me he steered Mathilde through the knot of scavengers while I, having stuffed the lace into my carpet bag, went off in search of Constantin.
Twenty
Constantin was puzzled. The lines on his high forehead deepened, the look in his light blue eyes was one of disbelief.
“How old did you say it is?”
“I didn’t say it, the patriarch Makarios said it. He said the earth is exactly six thousand, seven hundred and fifty years, ten months and seven days old. As of last Wednesday.”
Constantin burst out laughing—a laugh loud enough for the others in the adjacent salon to hear. We had been having tea at Aunt Olenka’s Petersburg mansion, and a lively discussion had begun over the exact age of our planet. Constantin and I had retired to an adjoining room to discuss this issue more fully. We sat on a comfortable sofa, side by side, having had our fill of frosted orange cake and biscuits and strong Indian tea that sharpened our wits and quickened our senses.
“But that’s absurd.”
“It is what the Bible says.”
“I see. And how much older is the earth likely to get? Does the Bible tell us that too?”
“Only God knows that. But Monsieur Gilliard has told me that there are many scientists who say the earth must be millions of years old, and as to its end, my father has read that it almost ended a few years ago when there was a huge explosion in Siberia.”
Now Constantin looked serious. “What explosion?”
“He read about it in a scientific journal. There was a flash of light in the sky, a thousand times brighter than the sun.”
“Really, Tania, you do exaggerate!” He cuffed me lightly on the shoulder.
“I exaggerate! You’re the one who says the earth is a billion years old!” I cuffed him back.
“You can’t even count to a billion!” He grasped me playfully and began to shake me, laughing at the same time.
“I know you have a billion germs on your hands, from the clinic! Don’t touch me!” I was laughing too.
But he only held onto me harder, and I liked it, and I smiled, and then he kissed me.
Our arguments often ended in kisses, and both the arguments and the kisses excited me. We met more and more often, at the clinic, where I went to visit Daria and baby Iskra, and at Aunt Olenka’s house, and several times at Constantin’s parents’ house, where I met his gentle, friendly mother and his self-important fathe
r. I joined in many a discussion about political reform, scientific discoveries, medical advances—a whole host of topics. I was encouraged to read more widely, to inform myself about what was going on in the world of thought and to ponder the meaning of what was called “modern,” by which people seemed to indicate what was new and therefore superior. All too often we discussed the most vital question of the day, whether or not Europe would soon find itself embroiled in war.
I was intrigued by nearly everything we talked about in those heady days. Constantin and I were both intensely curious, and even though he, being older, knew a lot more than I did he was always learning, always aware of how much more there was to learn and to know.
However serious our discussions, they always had one outcome: the deepening of our infatuation with each other.
Can one love at fourteen? Yes. An emphatic yes. I was eager for love, he was ardent and we quickly became so wrapped up in one another that we neglected other things. He got behind in his studies. I was so distracted by thoughts of him that I daydreamed for hours, ignoring mama’s delicate state and papa’s escapades, Olga’s quizzical looks and Niuta’s warning glances. (Nothing fooled Niuta; she knew I was quite infatuated.)
One thing I could not ignore, however, and that was Father Gregory’s increasingly frequent visits to the nursery wing, where my sisters and I had our bedrooms. I told Constantin about this, and he became alarmed.
“You mean to say, Tania, that he just visits the nursery whenever he likes, with no one stopping him?”
“He always comes and goes as he chooses. Papa told the servants long ago never to hinder him. Mama calls him Our Friend and says he must always be allowed entrance, day or night. You see, she believes that he knows when he is needed, without being summoned, and he comes every time.”
“And what does he do, when he comes into your room or Olga’s?”
“He sings to us, and prays with us. He sits on our bed, and tells stories about his home in Pokrovsky while he rubs our feet or massages our sore necks.”
I saw the muscles in Constantin’s face constrict. His jaw was set, his eyes filled with a cold anger I had never before seen there.
“Tania, I must ask you a very serious question now, and you must tell me the truth. Has he ever touched you anywhere besides your neck or your feet?”
I thought a moment. “He pats me on the head sometimes.”
“Has he ever kissed you?”
“Only on the cheek, like my uncles and aunts do. But I have sometimes thought—”
“Yes?”
“I have sometimes had a feeling that—he wanted to kiss me, the way you do.” I winced as I said it, the thought was repulsive to me.
I could tell that Constantin was upset by that conversation, and soon afterward he came to me and told me he wanted to meet Father Gregory.
“Where does this self-proclaimed starets live?”
“Number Four Roszdestvenskaya Street. He lives with a priest, Yaroslav Medved.”
Shortly after that conversation Constantin and I were riding along Nevsky Prospekt in his carriage, going toward Father Gregory’s apartment.
I had confided to him Father Gregory’s remarkable healing of Artipo, a healing which appeared to be absolute and without flaw, for my old dog continued to run and leap like a puppy, and I also confided the amazement I felt when my brother Alexei’s suffering was ended by the touch of Father Gregory’s hand or by the few words he spoke. This had happened many times, I told him. The sick had been made well, pain taken away, suffering eased. I was firmly convinced that without Father Gregory’s healing presence, my brother would be dead.
“Hypnosis is not healing, Tania,” was Constantin’s response. “And if this man truly has the powers you attribute to him, your brother would be cured. He would never again need healing from the starets or anyone else, save God Almighty.”
“But Artipo was not hypnotized,” I persisted in arguing. “Artipo is just a dog. An old, sick dog who is now young and healthy.”
Constantin shrugged. “Who knows what tricks of the mind can be played, even on an old dog?”
The street Father Gregory lived on was near the Haymarket, Petersburg’s huge square where vegetables and flowers and old clothes were sold, and where pickpockets and thieves flourished. Prostitutes strolled among the booths, displaying the yellow tickets the police required them to carry. Pigeons rose from out of the mass of bodies and stalls, flying upward in flocks into the overcast sky and toward the river.
“Your Father Gregory lives in an unsavory part of the city,” Constantin remarked as we passed the vast square.
“Mama says it is because he chooses to be poor. To be more like Christ and the saints. They did not live grandly.”
“I doubt whether Christ or his saints would have wanted to live on Roszdestvenskaya Street,” came the wry response.
We arrived at the address and found a dingy brick building, six stories high, the entrance partially blocked by uncollected rubbish. Constantin told the carriage driver to wait and helped me down onto the muddy roadway. No doorman was standing in the dirty entryway to admit us, no servant stood by the stairwell to caution us about the broken handrail as we began to climb the stairs.
“Niuta has been here,” I told Constantin. “She brings him messages sometimes. She says he lives right up under the roof. With the pigeons.”
It was a wearying climb, up many flights of stairs, and I had to stop and rest several times, Constantin waiting patiently for me to catch my breath. We passed no one else on the stairs, but when at last we arrived at the top floor we found it crowded with people. The door to the single apartment on that floor was wide open, and we walked through it into a fairly large room full of the treble murmuring of women’s voices.
No one looked at us as we entered. The women were seated in chairs arranged around the walls of the room, and we found two chairs and sat down. Presently a grey-haired woman in peasant dress brought us some tea.
“You are welcome,” she said. “The father is in his inner room, occupied as usual. He regrets that he cannot see everyone, but if you will wait, you may at least receive a blessing.”
We thanked her and drank our tea, watching all that was going on around us. It had been agreed between us that when we saw Father Gregory I would introduce Constantin as my friend who had a terrible pain.
We waited. An hour passed, then two hours.
“This is worse than the Workers’ Clinic,” Constantin whispered to me. “Why are there only rich old women here?”
The room was indeed filled with aging women—at least they seemed aging to us, young as we were—in furs and beautiful clothes, with gold earrings and bracelets. There was no one from Smokestack Town there, no one from the Haymarket, none of the beggars that crowded the steps of St. Isaac’s Cathedral only a few minutes’ walk from the building we sat in. From time to time one of the women would come out of a little door at one end of the room, and another would go in. Through the dirty windows we watched the waning of the afternoon light. As Niuta had said, Father Gregory lived among the pigeons, which perched on the windowsills, cooing and clucking.
The servant brought out some plates of fish and rolls and a bowl of pickled cabbage, along with some iced buns, and we helped ourselves.
“Try and look ill,” I whispered to Constantin. “Maybe you will get to see Father Gregory more quickly.”
Eventually the door to the inner room opened and Father Gregory came out, looking much as he always did, his stained, shabby peasant tunic and trousers rumpled and neglected, his beard and hair in need of combing. I thought I detected the smell of alcohol on his breath, but I couldn’t be sure. He raised his hand in blessing as he came into the room, and said “Peace be to you, wayfarers.”
To my astonishment all the well-dressed women knelt, and remained kneeling as Father Gregory sat down and began eating, carelessly and greedily.
“We had better kneel too,” I whispered to Constantin. “We don’t
want to stand out.” He raised his eyebrows but did as I suggested, murmuring “A grand duchess kneeling to a peasant. Now, that’s something I never heard of.”
For a long time we remained kneeling there, our knees on the cold bare floor, listening to the slurping and other digestive noises Father Gregory made. No one spoke or moved. Finally he was finished. He wiped his hands on the stained tablecloth and stood. He took off his tunic, pulling it over his head, and handed it to the servant. Then he went back into his inner room.
At once a clamor arose. The kneeling women got to their feet and began calling out. “Fifty rubles!” “Seventy-five!” “It’s mine, I tell you!” “No, mine!”
We watched the undignified auction of Father Gregory’s torn, sweat-stained tunic, conducted by the grey-haired servant. When it was over Father Gregory opened his inner door once again and beckoned to me.
I went in, with Constantin.
“Close the door, Tania,” Father Gregory said gravely. There was no hint of the rapturous joy, the lovely innocence he had projected on our previous encounters. Instead he seemed subdued, matter-of-fact. A shrewd peasant about to conduct business. On the table in front of his chair was a large bowl full of money—contributions, I assumed, from the people who came for healing and blessing.
“Father Gregory, I have brought my friend Constantin—”
“He is a skeptic, he does not want to believe. He mistrusts me. He listens to the dirty gossip about me. You love him. All this I can see. Also I can see that he suffers. His left eye—yes—it gives you pain, does it not?” he said, addressing Constantin.
Startled, Constantin nodded. “Sometimes, yes.”
“You do not need me. You need new glasses.”
“Father Gregory, I am a medical student. Also I serve at the Workers’ Clinic in the Vyborg. I see much suffering, and there is little enough I can do to help. If you have something to teach me, I will gladly learn.”
I looked at Constantin, no longer certain whether he was trying to maneuver Father Gregory into revealing his secrets—possibly his frauds—or making a sincere request.
The Tsarina's Daughter (Reading Group Gold) Page 11