The Tsarina's Daughter (Reading Group Gold)

by Carolly Erickson

  “Well then, Tania,” Constantin said, kissing me lightly on the ear, on my cheek, and down my neck, making me catch my breath with excitement, “I think you ought to have a talk with your Aunt Olga. There are things you need to know before we go any further, things I imagine your mother hasn’t confided to you, because she expects you to be pure until you marry. Will you talk to your aunt?”

  I nodded, my eyes closed, my pulse racing—and then I kissed him back, with more abandon than before, and wishing more than ever that I could be fully, finally his.

  With her usual wide toothy grin Aunt Olenka brought me into her rose-tinted boudoir the following day and sat me down on a soft sofa covered in ivory silk striped with gold. I had never before been in this room of her mansion, and felt both shy and privileged. It was as though I were entering an elite circle, the circle, as I thought of it afterward, of experienced women, women of the world.

  When we had eaten our fill of tea cakes and drunk a glass of sherry Aunt Olenka told me that Constantin had spoken to her and that she understood where things stood between us.

  “I like your Constantin so much,” she told me. “Such a serious young man, so eager to do good. You know he has helped me out with my charity bazaars. I think if I were to be sick, he is the one I’d call.

  “You don’t know how fortunate you are to have such a considerate young man as Constantin,” she went on. “He really cares about you. He wants you to take no risks. There must be no unfortunate consequences of the love you share.”

  Patiently and thoroughly, she told me what I needed to do to avoid becoming pregnant—and much more. She described the varieties of lovemaking, she spoke with no embarrassment of the male and female anatomy, helping to satisfy my curiosity and calm my fears. She told me about her own initiation into the act of love—with one of our coachmen, when she was younger than I was—and prepared me for the joy and beauty of sexual union.

  “All will be well, if you are gentle and loving with each other,” she concluded. “Your first affair will be a lovely memory for the rest of your life.”

  I understood, by that time, that there could be no question of my marrying Constantin, that papa would never permit me to marry a commoner. But deep in my romantic heart marriage was what I wanted, not an affair. An affair sounded too French (“affaire de coeur” was the current expression), too much like something to be taken lightly.

  “I do love him, Aunt Olenka.”

  “Of course you do, and a part of you always will.”

  I began to cry then, though I could not have said why, and she hugged me.

  “Say goodbye to your innocence, sweet Tania. With Constantin you will enter a new world.”

  And enter it we did, shortly afterward, with Aunt Olenka’s help.

  There was a small apartment above the garage at her town mansion. It was meant for a chauffeur, but ever since her accident Aunt Olenka had not employed a chauffeur—indeed she preferred not to ride in an auto at all, though she owned several. She gave us the key to this secluded place and assured us it was ours to use.

  Constantin grinned. “I have a passion for autos,” he said. “Shall we go and have a look?”

  The apartment, warmed by a large tiled stove, had a sitting room, kitchen and bedroom with a wide, somewhat lumpy bed and frayed green bedspread. Aunt Olenka had provided champagne, blinis, strawberries and rum cake in the well-stocked icebox.

  I remember how excited I was to actually be sharing a bedroom with Constantin. It was almost like being married, I thought to myself. A pretend marriage, not an affair. My heart leapt at the thought. I took off my gown and slipped beneath the blanket in my underclothes, letting myself luxuriate in its warm softness.

  But nothing had prepared me for the sight of Constantin’s naked body. I watched eagerly as he removed his clothes, taking in his strong, muscular arms and legs, his fleshy, thick torso, his hairless chest and the rest of him—all of it, I was dismayed to see, very far from the male perfection of the garden statues of the Greek gods.

  I think I knew then, even before he got into bed with me, that our tepid kisses—always before, when shared in stolen moments, so thrilling—and his fumbling efforts to give me pleasure were not to excite me or lead to the rapturous delight I had hoped for. Despite all that Aunt Olenka had told me, I found myself shy about revealing my nakedness to him and he, considerate as ever, let me keep myself covered with the green bedspread.

  He did manage to make love to me, after a fashion, but we were both embarrassed and let down afterward.

  “I have disappointed you, Tania,” he said as I lay in his arms. “I’m so sorry! I am becoming a good doctor, I know, but that is probably the only thing I am good at. As a lover I fear I have no talent at all.”

  “Could it just be because it is our first time?”

  He kissed my cheek. “Let’s hope so.”

  We lay there, both of us uncomfortable, until he finally spoke again.

  “You had better wash yourself thoroughly, inside and out,” he told me, urging me toward the bathroom. “Take a douche.”

  I stood under the tepid water and cried.

  When I had dried myself and put my clothes back on Constantin was sitting at the small dingy table in the kitchen, eating a cold blini and drinking champagne. He blew me a kiss and smiled wanly, holding out the bottle to me.

  “No, thank you,” I replied. And as I said the words, I realized that I was saying no to more than the champagne. I was saying no to Constantin, high forehead, hairless chest, disappointing sex and all.

  Twenty-eight

  Mama had become convinced that Cousin Willy would soon declare war against everyone, including Russia, and she was determined that when that time came, we all would have to do our part for the war effort. She arranged for Olga and me to go to nursing school, in order to be ready.

  “My mother advises it,” mama told us. “She came to me just as I was going to sleep, she sat down on my bed and talked to me for a long time about the coming war, and how we must prepare for it.”

  “Surely it was a dream, mama,” Olga said. Olga was disturbed by how often mama said she saw the ghost of her mother Alice. Like me, Olga was aware of the many emotional crosscurrents in our family, as she was of mama’s erratic behavior, but while I took these things to heart Olga tended to deny them or grow angry about them. It also angered her that she was nearly eighteen years old and yet no betrothal had been arranged for her. She was pretty enough (though I was a lot prettier, everyone said so, a fact I enjoy repeating), but her temperament was harsh and she lacked empathy. She certainly had no empathy for mama’s delusions, and tended to speak up unsparingly when mama mentioned seeing her mother.

  “A visitation from the other world is not the same as a dream. Mother comes and visits me.”

  “And is she going to take nursing training too?” Olga asked. I thought her sarcasm cruel.

  “No, but I am,” was mama’s reply. “I want to do my part. I have enrolled myself along with you girls.”

  It was settled; Olga and I and mama took classes every morning and spent several hours in the wards of St. Mary of Mercy—Constantin’s sole hospital, since the closing of the Workers’ Clinic—every afternoon.

  Our Red Cross training was very thorough, beginning with instruction in basic hygiene. We learned how important it was to keep ourselves and everything we touched and used scrupulously clean, including our uniforms and aprons and the uncomfortable wimple-like caps that shrouded our heads, leaving only our eyes, noses and mouths visible. We learned how diseases spread, how infection occurs and how it may be arrested. We learned how to bandage wounds and make tourniquets and bind up broken limbs with splints.

  There was a great deal to learn, and Olga and I and mama were all told that we were apt pupils—except that mama had to miss class quite often because of her headaches and the pains in her leg. We studied diligently, learning the names of medicines and what each was prescribed for. Finally, after three months,
we were ready for our final examinations.

  “But Your Imperial Highness,” the chief Red Cross instructor said to mama, “there is no need for you or your daughters to sit for any examinations.”

  “Why ever not?”

  The instructor looked nonplussed. “Why—why—because you do not need to trouble yourselves—” she stammered.

  “Nonsense. Unless we take the examinations, we cannot receive our diplomas and make ourselves useful when the war comes.”

  The instructor crossed herself. “I pray there will be no war, Your Imperial Highness.”

  “It will come,” mama replied calmly. “Now, when are we to be examined?”

  We took our examinations, Olga passed with distinction, mama and I merely passed. But we all stood proudly, along with about thirty other women and girls, to receive our official diplomas. And we volunteered at the hospital three afternoons a week. I often encountered Constantin there, and was friendly—even affectionate—with him. But clearly our feelings had changed. There was a tacit understanding between us that we were not destined to be a loving, intimate couple. We were fond of each other, and good, trusting friends—friends who made each other laugh and relied on each other—and that was all.

  It was not long after we completed our training that a letter came from Cousin Willy, inviting us to come to Berlin to attend the wedding of his daughter Sissy, Adalbert’s sister, to a Prussian nobleman. Mama did not want to go, but papa insisted. Delicate diplomatic negotiations were under way between our two countries and it was essential that the family appear to be on the best of terms.

  I had never been to Germany, but I had read about the great city of Berlin with its imposing architectural monuments, theaters, broad boulevards and parks. Adalbert had told me about his family’s splendid palaces though he had to admit that ours in Russia were larger and finer. The Germans, I had always heard, were large, stout people who drank a lot of wine and beer and were fond of their “Gemütlichkeit”—a word, Adalbert assured me, for which there was no equivalent in Russian or English. The closest he could come to translating it for me was to use the English words “comfort” and “coziness.”

  But Berlin, when the family gathered there in the late fall of 1913, was anything but comfortable or cozy. The city was filled with marching men. It seemed as if military parades were being held every day. Along the broad main thoroughfares there were more men in uniform to be seen than men in civilian clothes, and soldiers crowded the restaurants and café bars and night clubs.

  “All our efforts to promote peace among the young people of Europe have come to nothing,” Adalbert told me after the banquet Cousin Willy gave for Sissy and her fiancé. Adalbert looked older, harder, the gentle boyishness that had so attracted me all but gone from his handsome face.

  “My father is determined to use the might of our armies to intimidate the rest of Europe. I see it clearly now.”

  I told him about my Red Cross course and how I was volunteering in the hospital.

  “Mama wants us to be ready when war comes.”

  “Ah, Tania, you should be dancing, shopping, laughing with friends, falling in love—not thinking of disasters and injuries. You should be becoming engaged, like me.”

  He introduced me to his fiancée Adi, a charming, fresh-faced young woman with bright blue eyes and curling blond hair.

  “We are going to be married next summer,” Adi told me. “In August. You must come to the wedding. By then it may be your turn to announce your engagement.” She smiled and slipped her arm through Adalbert’s. “I only hope you will be as happy as we are.”

  I thought of Constantin, ruefully. “There was someone for a while, but—I decided that we would not be happy together, so now we are just friends.”

  Thinking back to those days we spent in Berlin, I am struck by how much we felt like one large, sprawling, somewhat inharmonious family. The ties of blood were strong, the family resemblances striking, especially the uncanny resemblance between papa and King George, who almost looked like twins. There were so many of us: mama’s cousin King George and Queen Mary and the dowager Queen Alexandra, who was of course my Grandma Minnie’s sister, and all the many many English cousins whose names I could barely remember, and mama’s sisters Irene and Victoria and their husbands and children and mama’s dear brother Ernie, who lived the life of a bachelor though he had a male companion, and all Cousin Willy’s large family and Sissy’s friends and her fiancé’s friends—in short, a mob of relatives, all of whom seemed to talk at once and none of whom seemed to have anything very interesting to say.

  Perhaps the vapid conversation was the result of our trying very hard to say nothing about the one thing that was on everyone’s mind: the overwhelming presence of the military.

  Berlin is an armed camp, I thought to myself. Yet no one wants to acknowledge it openly; that would be impolite, and contrary to family feeling. Everyone knew that England and France and Russia were joined in an alliance whose purpose was to defeat the aggression of the German Empire. While the diplomats endeavored to preserve peace, the armies were preparing to wage war, as Monsieur Gilliard had explained to my sisters and me before we left to travel to Berlin. Each country was rushing to increase its armaments and to recruit more men to increase the size of its armies.

  I noticed that mama avoided Cousin Willy, though he sent her a handsome gift on our arrival in Berlin, together with a note wishing her well and expressing a hope for greater understanding and harmony between Germany and Russia in the future. It seems he had very much wanted Adalbert to marry me, as a token of good will between our two imperial families. He had been disappointed when papa refused Adalbert’s request, and he blamed mama—rightly—for the decision.

  Grandma Minnie, who had been spending time with her sister in England before coming to Berlin, gave a tea for Sissy and mama agreed to attend, provided Cousin Willy would not be there.

  “My father does not attend ladies’ teas,” Sissy announced to us in a rather arch tone. “He has more important things on his mind.”

  “We all know what is on his mind,” was mama’s tart reply.

  I felt a stir of uneasiness sitting at the large table where several dozen of us were gathered, handing around plates of cake and sandwiches.

  “Oh? And what is that?”

  “There is no need to say what we all know.”

  “Don’t be cryptic, Alix,” Grandma Minnie said. “Tell us what you mean.”

  “Some subjects are better left undiscussed,” spoke up Queen Alexandra, who, I remembered from our happy days at Cowes, had a way of smoothing over awkwardness with her kind and emollient manner. “Ah! That pound cake reminds me so of my dear Edward. He used to love pound cake with his tea.”

  Mama drank her tea in nervous silence, as Sissy went on about her future husband, who was an officer in command of the Fourth Prussian Fusiliers.

  “We are to be billeted in Königsberg,” she said. “The society is not so good there, only officers’ wives and the provincial nobility of course. But I’m told there is a very fine chamber music society, and my fiancé is quite musical. He plays the flute.”

  “I doubt whether the sound of the flute will be heard above the pounding of the guns,” mama remarked in a low voice.

  “Did you say something, Alix?” Grandma Minnie asked.

  “Not to you.”

  I sensed that mama was about to have one of her outbursts. All the signs were there, her red cheeks and hands, her restlessness.

  “Shall we go, mama?” I whispered. “I am ready if you are.”

  “My daughter thinks it is time I left,” mama announced, standing up so abruptly that she nearly overturned her plate. “Perhaps she is right.”

  As we were gathering our things and saying our goodbyes I glimpsed a figure entering the room, a man in a dark grey suit. He stood by the door. I was sure he was waiting for us. Looking more closely I recognized him. It was Mr. Schmidt.

  Twenty-nine

 
May I escort you and your daughter, Your Imperial Highness?”

  Mr. Schmidt spoke with a kindly gravity, and mama, as she had in the past, responded gratefully, her tense body relaxing in his soothing presence.

  He took us in his carriage to an imposing house which, he said, belonged to a colleague of his. The house was in a parklike setting, carefully tended and tastefully landscaped, surrounded by a high stone wall.

  “My friend, who is a doctor, opens his home to visitors,” Mr. Schmidt explained as we went in the broad, thick front door and were shown into a comfortable salon with deep soft rugs and inviting sofas and chairs. A restful room, I thought.

  “Please, have a seat and we can talk, if you like.”

  “I always enjoy talking with you,” mama began.

  “My patients—I mean my acquaintances—frequently tell me that. The cares of the world press in upon them so heavily, but while we talk, those cares fall away for a time, and they enjoy relief.”

  “Yes. That’s it exactly.” Mama’s voice grew lower and her shoulders dropped, the muscles in her face relaxed and she allowed herself to sink back into the cushions on the sofa.

  We all sat for awhile in silence. Then mama spoke.

  “War,” she said. Just the one word, war.

  “Many fear its coming.”

  “Death.”

  “For many, yes.”

  “The end of all our hopes, all our aspirations. No future for my children.”

  “You speak a profound and sorrowful truth. But never forget—out of wars have come beneficial changes.”