The Imperial Wife

by Irina Reyn

  I could call Carl and ask him to come with me as a kind of truce. But Carl disapproved of my clients’ lifestyles so I’d been underplaying the outlandish details of my business trips. This trip might delay, rather than accelerate, our reunion. Book tickets NYC–Nice. I jot down the date and pass the stickie to Regan.

  Regan’s voice has amplified. “No, Mr. Meskin, we don’t give discounts on art, this is not a sample sale.” Then Marjorie’s head is framed by the door, a face made even more yellow by the overhead lights. “Off the phone?”

  As always, Marjorie’s look is disheveled and blocky. Squares of conflicting color in her peach pants and burgundy blouse, cinched at the waist but not complementing her body, an unflattering bird-feathered haircut. Do you think we’re all afraid of her because she looks like she doesn’t give a shit in a place like this? Regan has said, not once. There is something unnerving about a person who makes no effort to appear polished among women who wear pearls and Lilly Pulitzer prints unironically, men who sport speckled bow ties and double-breasted blazers. This, or the position etched onto her door, or her brusque manner, or the fact that she never entirely trusted me, thought me too green for the job while trying to promote twenty-five-year-old Nadia Kudrina.

  “What’s up?”

  “First of all, nice article in the Financial Times.”

  “Did it sound on point?”

  “Hey, all publicity is good. It was a little chipper, even for you. But we’re glad you did it.”

  “The reporter mangled a few of my quotes but I thought Worthington’s got a nice boost.”

  “Dean’s happy with it. So I heard about the Order. It’s been verified, right?”

  “Pretty much,” I say. Admitting anything less than ironclad about the Order’s authenticity might push an object off this auction. And I’m convinced that this auction will be deciding the future of the Russian art department, of my job, maybe even my marriage. When you pull off a major feat in one area of your life, it radiates outward.

  “Fabulous.” As expected, Marjorie hears what she needs to hear. She rises, pacing, tablet in hand. “This is just the news we needed. No one even knew the thing existed, right?”

  “Right. The timing is perfect too because of Russia’s renewed interest in the Romanovs.”

  “Oh, yeah? I didn’t hear about that.”

  I find the article on my tablet, prepared to underscore the Order’s importance. “They’re inviting all the Romanovs back to Russia actually: ‘The return of the descendants of the last Russian tsar to their historic homeland will contribute to the smoothing of political contradictions in the country, remaining from the time of the October Revolution, and will become a symbol of revival of the spiritual power of the peoples of Russia.’”

  “Yikes, okay. And I hear Medovsky’s going active. You clearly have a way with these people.”

  What was wrong with Worthington’s and the way they always classified me as one of “these people” just because I happen to be Russian? Another way Worthington’s pushes me across the border from those who belong, the unspoken demarcation between us and them. If only they knew that I’m neither us nor them; unlike Nadia Kudrina at Christie’s, I’m no insider among the oligarchs, and unlike Carl, I’ll never be truly American. What they don’t know is that I exist elsewhere, in a third, unmarked space.

  A sudden spray of afternoon sunshine slashes across my eyes. I watch its reflection chime against the glass skin of the skyscraper across the street.

  “I hope I’ve got a knack for this by now, Marjorie. I’ve been doing this for some time.”

  Marjorie lowers her voice. “You know how important this auction is. You’ve probably heard what happened in Decorative Arts.”

  “Has the entire department been let go?”

  “Between you and me? Yes. French furniture, English silver? There’s no coming back for it. Not in the near future anyway.”

  “And us?”

  “You know all the action’s in Europe. If this auction’s lackluster, we might have to consolidate the departments in London.”

  As quickly as it strikes, the light fades away, the office swabbed in sickly green. On the very day we were sipping prosecco for the Order’s discovery, seven people were packing up their offices.

  Marjorie returns to her chair, descends into it heavily. “Those people, they’re not easy for most of us here to understand and that’s why it’s important you know we value your ability to build relationships. It certainly helps that they think you’re on their side, reuniting them with their national art and all that.”

  Again, “those people.”

  “Very kind of you to acknowledge my efforts, Marjorie. Perhaps you can pass word of your thoughts to Dean. I think the U.S. office is very important for this company. This will be the department’s biggest yield, not to mention all the revenue we’re creating by collecting the seller’s commission and not waiving the buyer’s premium. I’ve gotten many phone calls about quite a few of the pieces. And now that you bring it up, I’d love to schedule a meeting to discuss some thoughts. I’m bringing in extraordinary people who are signing with Worthington’s because of my relationships…”

  But Marjorie is fidgeting. She’s done with me. “Fine, fine, call Karen and set that up.” A hint of anxiety crosses her face. She’s likely having a very different conversation with the director of Southeast Asian, whose five major buyers just dropped out. The three Ds. Death, divorce, debt: the blessing or curse of any market.

  When Marjorie leaves, I get ready to go for the night. Outside my window the spire of the Empire State Building injects white into the turbid lavender of evening. “Good night, Regan.” The next time I glance up at the young woman’s screen, Facebook is exchanged for the vividness of Goncharova’s Spanish Dancer, the painting conservatively estimated at one point nine million.

  “Don’t forget to friend Mr. Meskin,” I call out.

  “I won’t!” comes the sheepish reply. Caught.

  Next to the viewing room is the storage room, and a pull compels me to the knob, to the back wall where the safe is kept. Past a small sculpture by Jacques Lipschitz, a Joseph Cornell etching, and I turn the knob of the safe tucked into the back wall. Next to a sapphire necklace worn by Grace Kelly and the rare 1913 Liberty Head five-cent piece, the Imperial Order of Saint Catherine sits on its velvet tray, its embedded diamonds winking, fresh from its intercontinental voyage. A medal of honor for female friends and relatives of the court. And, of course, awarded to all new Romanov wives. Carl would have loved to see it, to touch its face with his own hands. Why didn’t I let him do that?

  In the center of the pendant, Saint Catherine sits wrapped in her cape, holding cross and wheel. On the ribbon the embroidered words “For Love and for the Fatherland.” I imagine the almost-fifteen-year-old future queen bowing her head as it was wound across her chest. The recent immigrant from Prussia who had no dynastic right to be an empress. Carl’s Catherine who became mine too for a while.

  Reluctantly, I drape the order back into the bloodred leather box and seal it under a tomb of chamois leather.

  In the elevator, I step next to my old boss from Impressionist, as always tucked into a pressed Italian suit, a silk tie. How comforting it had been to watch his manicured hands in meetings, to simply follow orders rather than give them. To be commended, “Nice job on that catalogue, Tanya.”

  “Going to the event on five?” he says, a shellacked pinkie encircled by a heavy garnet ring pressing the already illuminated button. White teeth, impeccable suit, a man whose cosseted reality is incomprehensible to me.

  “I’ve got my own later this week.”

  “Well, good luck up there with Eastern Aggression. Call me if I can help.”

  You’d think that U.S. relations with Russia being what they are, there’d be awkwardness about my position at the company, but luckily, auction houses are apolitical. They take advantage of the market unless there’s a possibility of bad press. We had to say n
o to a charity auction by the president of Uzbekistan because of the country’s record of human rights violations, but the only thing that truly changes the strategy of an auction house is if the money dries up. I’ve tried to use this to my advantage to show that Russia is not a simple, evil nemesis, that there are many important people who are fighting for change, operating for the good of the world.

  The doors open and he steps out before I can assure him that I’m a boss now too, and everything’s under control. I call after him anyway. “We’re actually doing great, thanks.”

  Before the elevator doors close, I see that another gala is under way. The company still reeling from the recession and the galas give the impression of turning fortunes. But the champagne is cheaper, the band signed for free, its lead singer a nephew of one of the vice presidents. The director of Southeast Asian tries to wave me over. I glimpse blue tulle, crisp white blouses, caterers gliding around the floor with trays, behind them all the jagged lines of a Picasso drawing taking up an entire wall. I’m sure if I got off the elevator, I would find my single colleagues, all young women who ferment in these surroundings, who wait with a glass of white wine until an older male client sidles over, proposes marriage. So many girls here: deboned, pale, waiting for the man to pluck them alongside the art they’re selling.

  Outside, Third Avenue fades to a blur. The rushing bodies heading down to Grand Central, groups of tight jeans and huddled blacks, masses of suits spilling out of the Lipstick Building, couples slurping oysters in windows, the new generation of New Yorkers with their long, mussed hair and booties and bee-stung mouths. I was one of them once, rushing from gallery to dry cleaners to party to drinks with friends to whatever final place cradled me for the night. Those days of my twenties were vivid as Technicolor, wedging myself into crowded bars, leading an army of girls to subterranean dance parties, stumbling home at dawn. Responsible to no one but myself.

  “Hi, honey, just checking in,” I say into Carl’s voice mail just before heading down into the subway. He’ll pick up eventually; I just have to be loving, persistent.

  Marriage stops time for lack of markers like this. Marriage, a thing that had once felt so inevitable, so stable, was now turning out to be the biggest mystery of my life.

  Catherine

  FEBRUARY 1744

  As the grand duke’s birthday ceremony drones on, Sophie is staring at the best-looking man she has ever seen. He is wearing hunting insignia and is handsome in the soft, easy way of recent aristocracy, as his hands are rough and callused and his fingernails are studded with dirt. As he passes to the empress the red ribbon on which hangs the Order of Saint Catherine, he winks at Sophie. It gives her strength, this show of commiseration from the empress’s favorite.

  Sophie and her mother are now “princesses of the blood, my blood,” declares the empress, swinging the medallion over Sophie’s head. It dangles over her left nub of a breast, clanging against the bone of a nonexistent hip. She examines the medal’s center, stares at the seated woman portrayed there. The fair-haired saint appears to be watching her, approving. The history of the honor is briefly explained to them: established thirty years ago by Tsar Peter to honor his wife, Catherine, for rescuing kidnapped Cossacks with her own money, the Order is bestowed by the court upon every woman of high rank who either performs extraordinary acts for the love of her country or marries into the royal family. Surely the German princesses are familiar with the martyr Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a woman who dared to challenge a pagan emperor in order to save doomed Christian souls?

  “Of course,” her mother chimes in even though the question is directed toward Sophie.

  In the middle of the explanation, the empress loses her footing, and Sophie notices that this Razumovsky, as she hears him called, rushes to steady her. His hands, his fingernails rimmed by those soiled moons, fall at the small of her back. The empress leans into him, a brief suture of skin, and a vague frisson of yearning courses through Sophie.

  In the far corner of the palace hall, Sophie sees her future husband whispering with one of her ladies-in-waiting, a series of unpleasant laughs ringing through the hall. This merriment is to be expected of a man the day he turns sixteen, she supposes. And he does look more attractive in the light of day, the snowy paleness not as noticeable, his uniform lending him an appearance of height. She wonders if she will lean into him in that same catlike way, and if such an insubstantial frame contains enough strength to bolster her. Next to Razumovsky, the empress looks relaxed and happy. She whispers something in his ear.

  And the ceremony welcoming her into the Russian court is over. Sophie waits for further instructions. “Come,” or “Follow me,” Razumovsky finally gestures to her. She is bidden to follow the procession toward the bells of a nearby church past the frozen corpses of trees, the famished earth, the faceless row of soldiers. As they trample, Sophie notices the empress’s brown silk hoop skirt is pressed against his thigh and wonders if this is marriage, two bodies constantly intersecting.

  The church is inundated with smoke. Swirls of incense make it hard to look around properly, but when the fog dissipates, she finds the place beautiful. So much more ornate than what she is used to, so different from the austere rigidity of the churches she has known. Entire panels of icons lined behind the nave, the blinding gold of the candle stands. She finds the music pulsing with emotion, the incantations of the priest might as well be poetry. In the sanctuary, the empress opens her mouth to accept the Sacred Gifts, and Sophie can envision herself in the same place, the spoon plunging inside her own mouth, the Mother and Child watching her serenely from golden frames. The image is so natural, so inevitable, it unnerves her. Then she overhears her mother’s lady-in-waiting whispering in German: “I expect the princess will take no issue with conversion. I understand Lutherans do not hold to the apostolic succession, isn’t that so?”

  Silence, please, she wills her mother. She is about to step in, protest that she sees no great conflict between the faiths, not that it is this woman’s business to inquire. The proper retaliation is forming in her mind, taking shape in her mouth. But for once, her mother is too busy craning her neck at the ceremony.

  “How did you enjoy the service?” Peter says, when their paths conjoin in the church garden. She is aware of his attention solely on her now, a fresh interest to his gaze. In the gauze of the afternoon, the yellow smudge on his cheek is more evident as a bruise and, underneath it, she notices tiny red bumps beading from chin to ear. She wants to share with him the extent of her rapture, show him the place inside her where this country’s beauty has already nestled. Her fingers are making their way there, up her rib cage to the place her heart beats the loudest.

  “Actually…”

  He leans in. “Barbaric, is it not? Lutheranism is so much more civilized, orderly. Do you not find it to be the case? Even so, back in my beloved Kiel, they had to drag me to church by my heels.”

  Her fingers flutter down and away. Idiot, she thinks, then allows the word to dissipate. Instead, she looks down at the dangling face of Saint Catherine. She can feel the resolve of this saint coursing from her rib cage all the way to the top of her head.

  “There she is. Let me make the proper introductions.” The empress is steering her away from Peter and toward a group of older women. And Sophie is swallowed by them: does the young princesse have a talent for music? Does she play faro? Because that is how they pass time between Lenten vigil services until the amusements are allowed to begin again.

  “I am utterly devoted to faro. Back home, I am called the ‘philosopher of faro,’” she says. And they are all laughing and nodding and agreeing, so she must be charming them with her excellent French. Was it not the king of Prussia himself who turned to her at dinner to say that her intelligence and wit were surprising in one so young? It is then it occurs to her: she will earn her Order of Saint Catherine. For now it was gifted to her for marrying Peter, but she will perform extraordinary acts for this country. The comet told h
er so.

  Yes, she answers them now. She is passionate about dogs and horses. Do they ride? She finds it simple to say silly things expected of her, to hide the scope of her true intentions. You were meant for greater, George said to her. In fact, it is almost too easy.

  Tanya

  PRESENT DAY

  The Order of Saint Catherine is enshrined in a glass box in the center of the room, the red moiré sash rippling around the pendant on its bed of black velvet. It radiates brighter than any of the surrounding pieces. I’m aware of this preternatural glow even as I’m rushing around this auction preview greeting the arrivals at the elevator bank.

  The Worthington’s fifth-floor gallery is dappled by silk-covered knees and shiny elbows, chandelier earrings, matte lips. The sparkle of precious stones. Once in a while, I hear someone trying to pronounce the consonants of a Ukrainian artist and giving up. Guests are holding effervescent wines and our catalogues, eyes scanning the centerpiece, then turning to the sculptures and the landscapes on the wall.

  The preview is my favorite part of the season, when I can catch my breath and survey the art I’ve gathered, arduously, piece by piece, from far-flung corners of the world, arrayed before me in all its breathtaking glory. It makes my heart constrict for Russia, for the brilliant minds that have lived and been destroyed by it, for all that suppressed risk and innovation, the lines, the colors, the earthly and the sublime. Each year, I feel Russia slipping away, growing more dangerous and foreign. Once, as a Russian, I was the enemy in this country too.

  Interns are dispersing printed catalogues to newcomers, iPads displaying the downloaded catalogue are tacked to walls. The preview is important because it allows buyers a firsthand glimpse of the art in person. The art is hung as though in a museum, whetting buyer appetites and attracting the kind of press we need for a decent turnout. And our job is to parse the serious buyers from the party hoppers, to entice the uncertain into bidding at the actual auction. Marjorie, clueless to guest hierarchies, is wasting her time on celebrities and nonbuyers from the Upper East Side who come to these parties to be photographed in structured dresses and coral lipsticks, while Regan is smartly occupying the art bloggers from Art World Salon, passionate art-historians-in-training who actually appreciate the significance of the show.