Father Gregory had been summoned but he was thousands of miles away in Pokrovsky, in faroff Siberia. He could not be expected to arrive in Petersburg any time soon. And besides, he had been heard to say that his healing powers, once so strong, were losing their force. Mama and papa, who relied on him so heavily and drew such comfort from his presence, refused to believe that he could ever fail to heal Alexei, but this time I was not so sure. Week after week my brother continued to grow more feeble, his face a sickly white and his eyes rimmed with dark shadows, and still Father Gregory did not come, nor was there any message from him. We all worried. This had never happened before.
Meanwhile Petersburg was decorated for the coming tercentenary celebrations. It was midwinter, the river ice was thick and the streets clogged wth newfallen snow that turned to slippery ice. Bunting was draped from windows, flags flew from atop all the tall buildings. Along the banks of the Neva signs were put up reading GOD SAVE THE TSAR in red letters thirty feet high. There were commemorative hats and mugs and medals for sale in all the shops; rich people could buy diamond-studded jewelry with my father’s face engraved on it. For the poor, there were gifts of food and warm clothes, accompanied by notes reading “From the Bounty of the Tsar.”
For a few weeks the newspapers were filled with pictures of papa and mama and stories about the coming ceremonies and social events. News of the ever-expanding armies and navies of Austria and France, Germany and England was crowded out by announcements of fetes and banquets to come, and of a triumphal tour our family was to make of historic towns and sites important in the history of the Romanovs.
All this would soon be upon us—yet my brother, the hope of the Romanov dynasty, grew weaker and more ill by the day. What if he were to die, I wondered, just when Russia was celebrating the long continuity of the Romanov line? What a terrible omen that would be! I had heard Grandma Minnie say, with asperity, that mama was too old to have another child, and that even if she did have another son, he would be cursed with the English disease just like Alexei.
My worried musings were cut short by the arrival of a telegram for papa—from Pokrovsky.
Joy to everyone! All fear dispelled! A blessing on sweet Alexei. I will be with you soon. Gregory Novy.
Mama, who had been praying before all the icons in the palace for Father Gregory’s return, was greatly relieved. Yet when he finally arrived, it was as if he had become a different man.
Gone were his moth-eaten black tunic and coarse peasant trousers, his shaggy long hair and uncombed beard. Now he wore the silken shirt, embroidered vest and velvet breeches of a prosperous townsman, a full purse of coins that jingled as he walked hanging from his belt, a gold chain around his neck and a large gold ring on one finger. His hair and beard were combed and trimmed. No longer gaunt and ascetic-looking he had grown fat, his cheeks puffy and jowly, his eyes cold. Most important, I thought, was the feeling he brought into the room with him. Gone was the subtle, unmistakable ripple of calm and sweetness, the air of still, serene healing, the radiance of face and eyes. He had become another man entirely.
Still, he raised his hand in benediction as he approached Alexei’s bed and I saw Alexei smile happily at him, just as if he was the Father Gregory of old.
“Be thou whole, little wayfarer!” the starets said, and began to hum. We all watched Alexei eagerly, looking for signs that his pain was growing less, hoping to see a healthy pink glow return to his cheeks. But nothing happened. Father Gregory stayed beside his bed for a long time, praying and humming, but poor Alexei, far from improving, wept and screamed just as before, and mama, deeply upset, got up and left the room in tears.
I followed her into her mauve sitting room, her sanctuary, talking to her and trying to soothe her. She patted my arm appreciatively but I could tell that my words had no effect. She poured a little water into a glass and then, taking her vial of Veronal and her eyedropper, measured out six drops into the water—twice her usual dose. She drank it and lay back on her chaise longue. I covered her with her lavender knitted shawl. Soon she was asleep.
It was unlike mama to leave Alexei’s bedside when he was in the midst of one of his bad attacks. The shock of Father Gregory’s failure to heal Alexei must have been very great. I went back into the nursery and sat with my brother for awhile, holding his hand. No one else was with him but the medical orderly and one of the nursery maids. Papa, I was told, had had to meet with the members of the tercentenary committee. Father Gregory had gone.
That night, as Niuta brushed out my hair with the silver hairbrush my sisters had given me for my fifteenth birthday, I asked her about the change in Father Gregory.
“What happened to him there in Pokrovsky, Niuta? Something must have happened. You have relatives there, you must know. He is so different. And Alexei is no better. His blessings are having no effect.”
Niuta sighed, and went on brushing. I could not get her to talk for a long time. I was insistent, then I pleaded, then I threatened to tell mama that Niuta sometimes put on her White Rose perfume. Still Niuta shook her head and went on brushing, more vigorously than before. I did not give up.
“I’ll tell Nikandr that I saw you flirting with Gennady.” Gennady was one of the guardsmen, a handsome Uzbek.
“Tania! You wouldn’t!”
“Tell me about Father Gregory and I won’t.”
At last, exasperated by my persistence, she threw up her hands.
“All right! I’ll tell you what I know—if you promise not to tell anybody else.”
“There are far too many secrets in this household!” I burst out, jumping to my feet, sending the hairbrush flying off into a corner. “Too much that cannot be brought to light. Who Daria really is. Little Iskra. Mama’s illness—her mind is ill, Niuta, and we all know it. Don’t try to deny it. Papa’s drinking too much. Grandma Minnie’s hateful spying on everybody. Aunt Olenka’s love affair—”
“What love affair?” Niuta looked genuinely surprised.
“You truly don’t know?” She shook her head.
“Well then, she’s taken up with another man and is going to divorce Petya.”
I gave her a moment to digest this news.
“Now—one more secret. Tell me about Father Gregory.”
“If you reveal this,” Niuta said, “the beast may come after me.” Niuta called Father Gregory “the beast” because, she said, he was untamed, uncivilized. He was like a wild thing in the forest.
“Then I won’t reveal it.”
She bent down and whispered to me that during his months in Pokrovsky Father Gregory had been arrested and put in jail for raping a young girl.
I remembered the police report Grandma Minnie had read to us about Father Gregory. The prostitutes, the drinking, the shameless brawling and time spent in bathhouses, “dens of immorality,” as mama called them. Niuta’s revelation fitted in with all the police had discovered. Though I was sure that mama would claim every bad thing said about Father Gregory was mere slander, not the truth.
“In the past,” Niuta was saying, her voice low, “the priests protected him. His healing brought great donations to the village church. He had a great following, as he has here in Petersburg. Pilgrims came from villages twenty and thirty and even fifty versts away just to see him and touch his filthy robes. But he always had a wild, beastly side. He drank, and started fights, and ran after women.
“When he began seducing young girls, the good Lord punished him. He started to take away the healing power from his hands. The priests abandoned him. Now he is no longer a starets, but just a peasant farmer from Pokrovsky—with a small fortune he has made over the years from the donations of those he has healed.”
“Perhaps his powers will return. Perhaps he will reform,” I heard myself say—yet even as I said the words I felt deep misgivings. People rarely reformed. Bad people became worse, not better. It is the way of the world, I told myself, feeling very grown up at the thought. But if Father Gregory became worse, who would mama and papa tu
rn to for comfort, for hope? Who would heal Alexei?
I looked at Niuta, who knew me so well, and saw the same questions and worries in her eyes. Servants know everything, I had often heard Aunt Olenka say, and of course she was right. I sat down at my dressing table and let Niuta resume her brushing out of my hair, using an old hairbrush with a tortoiseshell back. Usually I found the brushing soothing, a relaxing preparation for sleep. But that night I only found it irritating, every tug of the brush a rough, jarring reminder of the snags and tangles that always seemed to rise up before me, just when things began to go well. In the end I dismissed Niuta before she had finished and went to bed with snarls in my hair and troubling thoughts on my mind.
Twenty-five
A week before the grand tercentenary celebration began, Captain Teraev of the security police gave us each our own revolver and taught us how to shoot. Everyone in the family received one except Alexei, who was only eight, and Anastasia, who was not yet twelve. We were taken out to a shooting range and shown how to load, aim and fire at practice targets.
“A prudent family takes precautions,” the captain told us. “You will be out amid large crowds in the coming weeks, and it is possible that an emergency may arise. Of course you will be guarded. Soldiers, police, men dressed as spectators will all be keeping a close watch to make sure no one in the crowd tries to cause you harm.”
Papa had his own nickel-plated revolver, beside his large collection of firearms and hunting weapons. He needed no instruction. But mama, until that day, had never wanted to own a weapon of any kind.
“The Lord will watch over me,” she had always said, “and Father Gregory will as well.” But now she accepted her revolver from Captain Teraev without demur, and listened carefully to his instructions. When she practiced shooting at the target she took calm, precise aim and shot true.
A bright March sun shone over the snowy streets on the day of the grand parade, the day we rode in an open carriage amid vast throngs of clapping, chanting people. Alexei rode beside papa, waving and smiling, his stiff, swollen leg hidden under the warm woolen blankets covering our laps as we rode. He had improved, and was improving—but not because of any aid provided by Father Gregory. Somehow he found the strength not to succumb, amazing us all. He did not succumb, but he did not thrive either, and the next attack, we all knew, might prove to be his last.
Bands played and soldiers marched and cheers of “God Save the Tsar” followed our carriage as we rode slowly along the broad avenues. The singing and shouting rose above us into the frosty air as all the guns in the Peter and Paul fortress boomed out their prolonged salute.
I looked out into the sea of faces and saw, among them, a few scowls and dark looks directed toward us. There were even cries of “German bitch!” directed at mama, who turned her head away when she heard them and tried to ignore the insult. As the menace from Germany grew, so did the accusations that mama, who had been raised in Darmstadt and whose father was a German nobleman, was a German spy. A traitor to Russia.
I reached into my pocket and felt the reassuring metallic hardness of my loaded revolver. If an assassin should burst out of the crowd and run toward our carriage, I wondered, would I have the courage to shoot him?
Most of the faces were smiling and enthusiastic. Hands were held out toward us, blessings were called down on our heads. Every now and then people fell on their knees to kiss the shadow of our carriage as we passed—an old custom that I found very touching and beautiful.
At the tercentenary ball held that evening Olga and I were much admired. We had new gowns with overskirts of a shimmering silvery lace and when we danced the lace seemed to float through the air around us in a very becoming way. It felt odd to have to conceal my revolver in a pocket of the beautiful gown, but Captain Teraev had been insistent: we were to take the weapons everywhere with us during the celebrations. I did as he bade us.
I remember dancing with one good-looking young officer or nobleman after another, enjoying the knowledge that I was much in demand, feeling buoyant and lighthearted—though wishing that Constantin were there. Duty prevented him from enjoying the ball; earlier in the day, at the parade, there had been a stampede when souvenirs were distributed, and hundreds of people had been injured. Constantin volunteered to stay on at St. Mary of Mercy hospital into the evening, missing the festivities, in order to ensure that all those who were hurt were treated.
I was so wrapped up in my own pleasures that for hours I failed to notice how the long day and evening were weighing on mama and making her uncomfortable. Public functions always wearied her. She sat now beside papa, both of them in tall thronelike chairs, mama wearing her heavy diamond-and-pearl tiara, her hands folded in her lap, her whole posture stiff and a look of fatigue and strain on her lovely face. I suppose that to those who did not know her she looked bored, even impatient. But I knew better. The redness in her cheeks and hands, the faint tremor in her hands when she reached back to rub her neck, the occasional panic I saw in her eyes when she gazed around the room, looking (I knew) for a way to escape told me that she needed to leave.
I went up to her. When she saw me she seemed relieved.
“Oh, Tania, there you are. How very pretty you look! Dear, would you please ask one of the valets to call Dr. Korovin? I am feeling quite dizzy.”
“Why not let me call Constantin? His hospital is nearby. Dr. Korovin would take an hour to get here.”
She was too tired to protest. She nodded and I went out to find a telephone. But when I called the hospital, I found that Constantin had gone out with an ambulance to the site of the stampede earlier in the day and was not expected back for a long time. I was disappointed. I had hoped to see him.
Dr. Korovin was summoned and I stayed near mama until he arrived. It took quite a long time, and as we waited, mama became more nervous. She could not sit still, but squirmed in her chair, fingering the religious medal she wore around her neck, adjusting her tiara, finally taking it off and doing her best to stuff it into the elegant jeweled bag that hung suspended from her beet-red wrist. I tried to distract her with conversation but she answered only “yes” or “no” or “oh” and would not be drawn in on any topic other than her health. She was short of breath, she told me; her teeth hurt, she had a pain in her leg. She was exhausted.
Nor did her distress abate when at last we were told that the doctor had arrived and we made our exit from the ballroom. After examining her briefly in a private chamber Dr. Korovin said that mama should return to Tsarskoe Selo at once and lie down.
“But none of the servants are there tonight,” I said. “They have all been allowed to attend the parade and the evening’s celebrations.” There were street fairs and bonfires, parties and dinners all over Petersburg that night, and papa had wanted everyone in the imperial household to enjoy the fireworks and other entertainments.
“Is there no one at all?” the doctor asked, incredulous. “No guards, no sweepers, no stable boys?”
“I suppose there may be a few.” I was doubtful, however. Papa had insisted that on this one special day everyone should be free to come to Petersburg for the rejoicings.
“Then you and I will look after her.”
We helped mama into the carriage and began the long drive to Tsarskoe Selo. She produced her smelling salts from her bag—dropping the priceless tiara on the floor in the process—and inhaled deeply. The carriage windows were rolled up against the wintry air and a light snow had begun to fall. Despite the cold people were still in the streets in large numbers, warming their hands at huge bonfires, standing under sheltering eaves, swaying to the music of balalaikas and impromptu choruses. Jars and jugs were being passed from hand to hand and I thought, they are enjoying their Little Father’s free vodka tonight.
When we arrived at Tsarskoe Selo mama was dozing. It was a shame to wake her, I thought, but of course she had to go inside. She was irritable when I shook her shoulder gently. Dr. Korovin and I helped her out of the carriage and into the spa
cious front hallway of the palace, then up the grand staircase and along several corridors to the hallway outside her suite. It was eerie, seeing no one, not even Sedynov, who usually hovered near our innermost family rooms, either the nursery or mama and papa’s apartments, which included a salon, papa’s study and mama’s mauve sitting room in addition to the large bedroom and dressing rooms they shared. But there was no sign of Sedynov, or of Niuta or Elizaveta, or of any of mama’s maids or dressers. They had all gone to Petersburg.
As we walked along I wondered idly who had lit the gaslights that illumined the long corridors. There had to be someone still here, I thought. Not everyone has left.
Then, from the far end of the long dim hallway came a shambling figure, more stumbling than walking. Frightened, I held tightly to mama’s arm and with my free hand reached into the pocket of my gown for the revolver. Feeling it, I felt my fear recede, but only a little.
“Who is it?” Dr. Korovin called out. I felt mama stiffen, then relax as she recognized who it was.
“No sorrow! All sorrow forgotten! Only the joy of the day!”
“It’s night, not day,” I called out as Father Gregory came up to us. “And what are you doing here?” His puffy face was red, his nose bulbous and pockmarked, his eyes more bleary than piercing, as they usually were. He had a furtive look, and he smelled strongly of drink.
The Tsarina's Daughter (Reading Group Gold) Page 14