“What I do cannot be taught. You must be born with the grace to ease pain and bewitch the blood.”
“Can you knit together broken bones?”
“I can cause them to knit themselves together very quickly. All is done through faith.”
“But how then can you heal animals, who have no faith?”
“Animals know love, loyalty, faithfulness. Why not faith?”
There was a long moment while Constantin and the starets looked at one another. I felt quite left out.
“I must ask you one thing more. What happens to all the money I see here on your table? All the gifts that are given to you?”
He responded with a gesture that indicated indifference. “I send most of it to my village, to Pokrovsky. The money I send fed nearly two hundred families there last winter, praise God. But make no mistake. I have no wish to be thanked. This money is not for me, but for the grace that comes through me. If it comes to me, it must flow out again, where it is needed.”
“Are you always so generous?”
For the first time Father Gregory smiled. “I am a man. A flawed man, like any other. I have wants, needs, urges—”
Constantin, who had been sitting, now stood up, his height and his physical strength intimidating, or so I assumed, to Father Gregory, who was much older, and not nearly as big or strong.
“As to your urges, I am here to tell you that you are never to enter Tania’s bedroom again. Or the bedrooms of her sisters.”
“Papa and mama allow me to go where I will.” Father Gregory always called my father papa and my mother mama.
“But I do not. And if I hear that you have bothered the grand duchesses again, I will seek you out and bring the tsar’s police with me.”
There was a long silence, during which Father Gregory looked into Constantin’s eyes, and I felt afraid for him. Father Gregory had great power. Could he use it to hurt Constantin?
“Perhaps you are aware of Captain Golenishchev?”
“The chief of police, yes.”
“Several years ago Captain Golenishchev’s favorite daughter was dying of typhoid, and he sent for me. I healed her. Since then Captain Golenishchev has protected me from all manner of false prosecutions.”
“I think we should go, Tania,” Constantin said, holding out his hand to me. “I’m sure this peasant from Pokrovsky will remember what I have said, and will not imagine that he can evade me, if I learn that he has been bothering you or your sisters.”
We left then, making our way out through the roomful of women and down the many flights of stairs to the street. I felt shaken by the experience, confused by the change in Father Gregory’s manner, put off by the reverence paid to him by the worshipful women and upset by the thought that my mother could well have been one of them, had her rank not prevented it. I had never seen anyone stand up to him the way Constantin had; on the other hand, I had never seen Father Gregory meet another man face to face and talk with him frankly, and I liked that.
“I still think he is a hypnotist,” Constantin said to me as we were leaving. “And I don’t trust him. But what intrigues me is, how did he know about the pain in my left eye? And how did he know that when I read, I wear glasses?”
Twenty-one
How very nice to encounter you again, Your Highness.”
As soon as I heard the soothing voice I recognized it. It was the voice of the doctor who called himself Mr. Schmidt.
“And your lovely daughter,” he added, with a grave smile at me.
Mama looked at him, at first with wariness, then her gaze softened. Mama and I were sitting in a swing on the terrace of Grandma Minnie’s town house, waiting for a concert to begin. The evening was mild, and through the open doors we could hear the musicians tuning up and the audience arriving.
Mama had not wanted to come to the concert, even though she knew Grandma Minnie would not be there, as she was in Stockholm visiting relatives. But papa had urged her to attend. The Italian singer was very fine, he said, and there would be very few guests, and those congenial ones.
“You must go, dushki,” I heard him say, using the name mama once told me he had called her during their courtship. Dushki in Russian means “my soul.”
“Take Tania with you,” he said. “If anyone should say an unkind word to you, just ignore it. Pretend you can’t hear it. You are losing your hearing, after all. Dr. Korovin says so.”
Mama could not hear as well as she once had, and I had to make an effort to speak more loudly to her.
“A deaf woman going to a concert!” she said, laughing. “Imagine that!” But she decided to go, and I went along though I missed Constantin and thought of him for much of the evening. He and I had gotten into the habit of writing a letter to each other every night.
“Do you mind if I sit here in the fresh air with you and your daughter?” Mr. Schmidt was asking. I was on guard, determined to be protective of mama. But I could tell that her initial wariness had disappeared; the doctor had a soothing effect on her, she trusted him at once.
“Please join us, if you like. What brings you to Russia?”
“I have colleagues here. I like to stay in contact with them from time to time. And besides, St. Petersburg is a very beautiful city.”
“Very beautiful, yes—but full of worms.”
“Worms?”
“Earthworms, ear worms, ice worms—”
“Tell me about these worms. I would like to know more.”
“My daughter is trying to breed them. They escape. They crawl all over her bedroom. They crawl into her bed, onto her skin—” She grimaced and shut her eyes and hugged herself, shivering.
“Tania, are you breeding worms?” Mr. Schmidt asked me with a gleam of humor in his eyes.
“No. My sister Anastasia is. She’s only ten. She doesn’t know any better.”
“I know a man who is very worried about rats. He says that he believes rats are eating his flesh. Tell me, Your Highness, are you worried that these worms may crawl on you the way they do on Anastasia?”
Mama’s eyes opened suddenly and she blinked. She looked at Mr. Schmidt, and frowned.
“Of course not. What an absurd idea. No, it isn’t the worms that are attacking me. Not at all.” She spoke crisply, then her voice changed. “It’s just that I’ve been having such bad dreams.”
“The cranberries again? The pins?”
“It’s that awful smell. I dream of that awful smell.”
“Tell me what it smells like.”
“Like—eggs gone bad.”
“In your dream, are you in the kitchen, with the rotten eggs?”
Mama shook her head, frowning, looking as if she were in pain. “No, no!”
“Where are you? Don’t be afraid to tell me. You are safe here with us.”
She continued to shake her head, as if unwilling to confront what was in her mind. I wondered what was happening to her.
“No! It was—out in front of the church.” Tears came from her eyes. “It was terrible. A terrible thing to see.” She spoke in gasps, her tears falling.
“What terrible thing did you see?”
“She died. She died. She burned up. We all saw it.”
I looked at Mr. Schmidt. “I know what she is thinking of. It was the girl who killed herself,” I told him, surprised at how calmly I was able to say the words. “It was the most dreadful thing I have ever seen. She poured kerosene all over herself and lit it on fire.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I wish I did.”
Mama dried her eyes with her fists. “I know,” she said after a time, her voice low, almost a growl. “I found out. How could anyone see that and not try to find out? How could anyone smell that stinking kerosene and not try to find out?” She peered at us accusingly, her eyes large and round and fierce, as if daring us to answer her. Mr. Schmidt and I were silent.
“She was a student. Only eighteen years old. Her name was Raissa Lieven. From a noble family, if
you can imagine it.” Mama’s voice was low and even, it was almost as if she were repeating words she had memorized, words from a play or script, words whose meaning she did not want to know.
“She was put in prison for criticizing the government. One of the guards raped her, again and again. She couldn’t bear it. When she was released from prison, she decided to kill herself. She told others that she wanted to make certain my husband and our entire family was there to see her die. So she waited for a day when she knew we would be coming to church, and when we got there, she—she—”
“Yes. You have told us now. No wonder you have bad dreams. You smell the odor of the kerosene because it brings back the ghastly image of the burning girl. I wonder, do you believe yourself to be somehow at fault?”
Mama suddenly stood up. “I think we should go in now, Tania. I am getting chilly.” She spoke brightly, with no shadow of her former anguish or of the unnatural calm I had discerned in her tone. She did not look at Mr. Schmidt. “Do you know, Tania, they say that suicide has become quite fashionable in Petersburg. There is something called the Suicide Club where people go at night to drink themselves to death—or almost to death.” She laughed. “I saw a newspaper that said papa went there. Can you imagine? The things people write!”
With a charming smile she held out her hand to me, and I took it and got up out of the swing.
“Your Highness,” Mr. Schmidt said as we prepared to go inside, “what of the things they are writing about your Father Gregory? About you and him together?”
Mama stopped. “Father Gregory? Why, he can do no wrong. Yes. He can do no wrong, whether we are together or not.”
“And you? Would you say you can do no wrong?”
Mama did not answer, but turned her face away.
“Good evening, Your Highness. Good evening, Tania,” came the pleasant, soothing voice.
“Good night, Mr. Schmidt,” mama replied over her shoulder. “Pleasant dreams.”
Twenty-two
It should not have taken long, after Adalbert asked papa for my hand in marriage, for his proposal to be politely rejected.
But it did. It took far, far too long—and the reason was that Grandma Minnie had decided that the time had come for her to intervene in our family’s affairs and insist on things being done her way.
She had just returned from Stockholm where she had spent a month or more with her Swedish and Danish relations, all of whom, mama told me, were very European in their outlook and thought all Russians were barbarians.
“They always influence her,” mama said. “They make her believe she must save Russia from self-destruction. I have no doubt she will be insufferable for a while.”
Grandma Minnie arranged a family dinner at her Petersburg house and invited most of the family, including Auntie Miechen (who was by then a widow), Uncle Bembo, Aunt Olenka and Petya, KR, and even Aunt Ella, who was no longer called Aunt Ella but Mother Superior, for she had founded her own order of nuns, the Sisters of Mercy, and always dressed all in white with a white wimple and veil. Papa’s sister Xenia was not at the dinner, I remember, because she and her husband Sandro had become separated and were staying away from the rest of the family just then.
As soon as the last course was taken away, Grandma Minnie ordered us all into her salon and began talking to us. It was late in the evening, and everyone there had drunk a good deal of wine, and some were enjoying their second or third postprandial cognac. Her words fell on numbed brains—which, no doubt, was part of her plan.
“I wonder whether any of you realize the seriousness of our situation,” she began.
“I do,” came Petya’s annoying voice. “We are almost out of cognac.” There were one or two guffaws. Grandma Minnie glared at Petya and then went on.
“Russia is in peril. If my late husband were alive he would be leading his regiments to guard the borders. He would be expelling every German from this land—”
“Every German?” asked Auntie Miechen, looking pointedly at mama. I thought at once, I am German, because mama is. Was Grandma Minnie hoping to expel me?
“Now, mother,” said papa, speaking slowly and with a drawl of inebriation, “you go too far.”
“German arms threaten us all. But family bonds may yet save us. I am told that the Kaiser’s son, Prince Adalbert, intends to offer marriage to Grand Duchess Tania.”
Papa interrupted her. “Yes, he came to me the other day and said he had his father’s permission to propose to Tania—if I agreed. The wedding would not be for another year.”
“And did you agree?”
“Of course he didn’t!” Uncle Bembo put in, his voice gruff. “He has to consult his ministers! This is a matter of state!”
“I think it is first a family matter,” was Grandma Minnie’s response. “An alliance between Hohenzollern and Romanov will benefit both families—and both countries. The prince is pleasant and well spoken. He is a naval officer. Tania’s marriage can do much good.”
I felt many eyes on me. Was I expected to say something? Surely I was not expected to express my true feelings, which were that though I felt fondness for Adalbert I much preferred Constantin and wished very much that I could marry him.
Olga, who was sitting next to me, elbowed me in the ribs, making me cry out.
“Yes, Tania?”
“Nothing, grandma.”
Then mama spoke up, enunciating very clearly and distinctly though her German accent had never been more conspicuous.
“No! There will be no wedding! No daughter of mine will marry a Hohenzollern! Not while Cousin Willy is Kaiser! The man is a bully and a braggart. He has no humanity, none!”
“It is not his humanity that is at issue,” remarked KR, who tended to mumble his words.
“What was that?” Mama sat up in her chair, looking around for the speaker, but KR did not repeat what he had said.
“I know someone said something! It was something about me, wasn’t it! Something spiteful!”
“Dear, no one said anything against you,” papa said, looking anxious and attempting to reach for mama’s hand. But she was incensed, and would not be stilled. We had grown accustomed to seeing her this way. We never knew whether her irritation would build into a full-scale tantrum, or would subside into seething, thinly-disguised anger.
I thought I saw the faintest glimmer of a smile hover on Grandma Minnie’s lips. I hated her then.
“Mama,” papa was saying to Grandma Minnie, “Willy is a bore and an exhibitionist, but he would never start a war. I have said so many times. It continues to be my view. To say otherwise is to make the situation worse. The more we fear him, the happier he is, and the happier he is, the more ships he builds.”
“He cheated, you know, during the yacht races,” mama was saying, her tone now seeming detached, speaking to no one in particular. “He put out more sail than he was allowed. Nicky had to make a formal complaint to the judges.” She looked around the room. Everyone was staring at her.
“Well, he did. You all don’t know! You weren’t there!”
Before mama could become angry and vehement again Grandma Minnie interrupted her.
“Is that what your drunken monk told you? The filthy one who calls himself Rasputin? The one you worship?”
Mama got to her feet and, with a scream of anger, rushed toward Grandma Minnie, but before she could reach her Ella stepped between them and caught mama by the shoulders.
“Ah, Sunshine, don’t let her goad you. You know better. Here, come with me. We’ll say a prayer to St. John of the Battles, shall we? His icon is nearby, I think. We can find it.” Ella led mama, who had begun to weep, her shoulders shaking, out of the room.
Papa got up to follow them.
“Stay with us awhile, Nicholas. I have more to say. Necessary things. Things everyone in the family knows must be said, yet no one but myself is brave enough to say.”
There was a stir of unease in the room. I had an impulse to get up and follow mama and Aunt Ell
a, yet I felt I needed to hear whatever it was that Grandma Minnie was about to tell everyone. There was still the question of Adalbert’s proposal—had papa agreed to it? But at that moment Adalbert no longer seemed very important.
I looked at Olga, who appeared vexed, as she often did when she was bored.
“Nicholas, I have found out the truth about this Rasputin, this man your wife relies on so greatly, and worships, and probably loves. Yes, loves. Carnally.”
“Mother!”
“I will be heard!” Grandma Minnie drew from the pocket of her gown several sheets of paper, and held them up so that everyone in the room could see them. They were stamped with a large red official seal.
“I have here police reports on this criminal, Gregory Yefimovich Novy, called Rasputin, a convicted thief and rapist from the village of Pokrovsky, a fraudulent so-called healer.” She read from the papers. “He has abandoned his wife and three children. Two of the children have come to Petersburg looking for him. While living on Roszdestvenskaya Street with the priest Yaroslav Medved he has been seen hiring prostitutes on Morskaya Street and taking them to bathhouses. Sometimes he hires two or three in one night. He cheats rich women out of their fortunes in the afternoons, then goes out into the street at night and urinates against the walls of churches.”
“And he has kept our son alive, through his prayers,” papa added. “And I do not know how I could have survived all these last weary years without him.” He hung his head.
But Grandma Minnie ignored his heartfelt words, and went on.
“Did he tell you he had gone to Jerusalem as a pilgrim, walking all the way, dragging heavy chains?”
“Yes.”
“It was a lie. Did he claim that he could raise the dead?”
“No. He never told us that.”
“Well, he has said it to others. And he has cheated them out of thousands of rubles.”
“No! I don’t want to hear it. Any of it.”
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