The Imperial Wife

by Irina Reyn

  “I don’t care. I would never talk to him again. He broke the law.”

  “You do realize you’re dating a Russian, don’t you? We’re not known for our morality.”

  “You, my dear, are the grandest of the Russian spirit,” he says between kisses, and I absorb them even if I wonder if he’s simply naïve, unworldly. I couldn’t tell him about the bag of cherries I never paid for at Whole Foods: they never charged me and I said nothing. Or a few bags of cherries after that. Those were forgotten on the cart’s lower shelf until after checkout.

  “You could use a piece of art here and there. We can probably get you some photographs for under three hundred dollars,” I suggest, fingers flat against his white, rented walls.

  He brings me one of his mongrel wineglasses, the rare expensive-looking one with his initials bezeled into its side, clears a pile of papers from a wobbly metal chair. We are both mostly naked as we so often are. Covering our bodies seems an act of cruelty to the other person.

  “I’d love it if you’d be my decorator,” he says, artfully avoiding the subject of money. He’s wielding that new-couple voice, one octave too low, suggestive. Stretched on the couch in need of fresh upholstery, an odalisque among student papers feathering his feet. He pats a small, uncluttered space beside him. “And I’d been meaning to get art, but had no idea where to begin. The only paintings my parents buy are these depressing Dutch portraits.”

  “I’ll scout around for you. I just saw a lovely one of early spring buds in the ground.”

  “Would you? But none of your fakes, please. Originals only.”

  “You deserve nothing less than authenticity, my dear.”

  The kisses are intense, spontaneous, indifferent to audience. His arms, so long, as though they could wind around me three times. So what if I prefer settling in the hazy zone of grays while his world shines in impassioned black-and-whites?

  “Tanya. Tanyusha. Tanyechka,” he breathes late into the night, tracing the contours of my face with those delicate fingers. I wonder if he has read way too much Pushkin in translation, if he has internalized the intensity of Dostoevsky a bit too literally. How can I impose my messy, amoral Russianness on someone so entrenched, so unsullied, someone who chose me against all odds of logic? And there is the charm of that Upper East Side street his apartment overlooked, squares of forgotten New York where even the night’s silence emits a genteel quality. And if I crane my neck from the bedroom window, the East River makes itself available to me, flashing mercury in moonlight.

  * * *

  The thing, the book, makes its first verbal appearance at an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. We’re seated at a corner nook, a location deemed “intimate” by a hostess who led us to the table with an air of spontaneous generosity, as if to say, you will thank me for this when you’re married. The place itself seems erected for nights whirling with snow flurries and brutal wind, when inside is brick and fireplace, candle and dark wood, low Tudor ceilings. We slide inside, bent over a single menu (“They’re printing more across the street as we speak”). A breathlessness of novelty, of being in a faraway borough, sitting so close to a creature still more myth than man. Inhaling long tendrils of pappardelle, the second bottle of red newly opened. His smell so clean, it engages with the spice of each dish, morphing from lamb ragù to the lemony spice of green beans. Then there’s the symmetrical perfection of his features, his Ralph Lauren handsomeness enhanced by a cable-knit sweater straight out of a preppy catalogue, the delicate slenderness of those fingers as he expertly maneuvers wine into glass. He’s a man thoroughly at home in his skin, slowly working on his pasta, pleased with anything I share about myself. And then, of course, there’s the Vandermotter name that hovers over us, sprinkling pixie dust of fascination.

  It’s over the final glass, the glass that was two glasses too many, when I lean over and say, “Tell me more about your work at the foster care agency. I think that’s so incredible that you do that.”

  “I love it. I’m not a trained social worker or anything. I just help my mother with administration. She’s on the board.” A pair of dessert menus are placed before us, the printing problem resolved. Carl helps the waitress clear the last of the cutlery, wiping the table for crumbs. When she’s gone, he leans closer. “Actually, I’ve started a novel.”

  “That’s great.”

  “I didn’t want to say anything, but you’re Russian, so…” He speaks quickly, that vivacity exploding in his eyes. He doesn’t seem to notice that the restaurant has become bottlenecked with people waiting for our table. “So get this. No one’s written the book focusing on Catherine the Great, before she was Catherine the Great.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Not a good one anyway. So this young Prussian girl comes to the Russian court, marries this buffoon who can’t even get it up for her. And she winds up with the crown. The queen of the entire Russian kingdom with no dynastic right to the throne! Not as regent, not as consort, but as empress and, to top it all off, one of the greatest monarchs in history. A foreigner.”

  “And?”

  He’s taken aback. “Doesn’t that seem incredible to you?”

  “Sure.” Except it doesn’t, not even remotely. Of course she would wind up with the crown if her husband was a useless razmaznya, I think. An immigrant like her with all those ambitions? But my instincts tell me not to say any of that out loud.

  The door blows open with a fresh gust of wind and a large group files in. I’m aware of women blowing on their hands, coned in birthday hats, the hostess gesticulating in our direction. The servers are hovering around us, waiting for a decision on dessert so the table can be released.

  The last thing I want to explain to Carl is the inner life of the immigrant. By now, I’m sick of mining my tale for narrative curiosity. I’m tired of my “exotic” story. Yes, it was very hard to not speak the language. Yes, for a long time, I had no friends and American kids tormented me for my accent and granny clothing. Yes, I cried myself to sleep most nights, afraid I would never belong here. Yes, my parents cried too because they were afraid they had made a terrible mistake. That a language was already dissolving on their tongues, that they would never lay eyes on their home again. I knew enough to make it easy on them and stuck to zoned schools, close and cheap schools. That I wish I were a Vandermotter instead, a path of privilege spread wide open for me. But what is the point of going into all this in an insanely busy, sexy restaurant on a Friday night, when the main choice is tiramisu or pot-de-crème? Our table, the server reminds us, has been promised.

  Carl’s face is still steaming from the heat off his plate, a perfect Nordic face crafted by angels. “Anyway I’ve been working on this thing forever. If something comes of it, they might hire me full-time at Ditmas College.”

  “I’ll help with the Russian parts, if you like.”

  “Wow. I don’t want to essentialize and say there’s something unique about Russians, but I think you’re amazing,” he says. He’s used that hyperbolic word before—“amazing.” It thrills me almost as much as it worries me. Is he seeing me or some heroine out of Doctor Zhivago, a fur stole around her shoulders, melancholy blue eyes staring deeply into the expanse of icy steppes? Does it matter? “I could tell from the minute I saw you studiously naming those frankly ugly paintings behind your desk. This girl, I thought, is the opposite of complacent. She glows with fire. I have to tell you, I was pretty drawn to it.” Reaching over the corner of the table, his hand is warm on my wrist. It burns a hole in its center. There’s that Look I can’t define, filled with reverence.

  How grateful I am for that Look. How much my wobbly confidence needs the fire of all that admiration. I place a trio of fingers on his forearm. “Hey, you know what? I want to read your book when it’s ready. I’ll love it. And I can help you with any Russian words.”

  “Would you? It’s kind of getting killed in this workshop I’m taking right now, but the only thing people understand in workshop is short stories. It’
s a waste to even put it up for workshop.” He bends his head to mine in an arc of conspiracy. “But I’ve got a feeling you’ll inspire me. Moi kotenok. Am I saying that right?”

  The restaurant has more people standing than sitting, waiting their turn. All that waiting makes me feel at the cusp of uncultivated possibility. “Tiramisu and two forks,” he tells the waitress. How confident he sounds ordering for us both. A sprinkle of cocoa powder, the moistness of rum, two forks meeting in the center. The last time I was this happy was when I won the third-grade spelling bee and overheard parents whispering that I’d only arrived in the country nine months ago.

  When the bill arrives, the tiramisu not reflected on the final tally, Carl makes sure to call the server back and inform her that she forgot to charge for the dessert.

  “Your man is an honest one,” the woman says, and brings us a decadent complimentary bread pudding even though it will enrage the hostess and all those hungry people, and extend our stay here together, indefinitely. Your man.

  * * *

  Eventually, the day arrives when he says, “Are you ready to meet the Vandermotters?”

  It’s an invitation for which I’ve spent years at Worthington’s preparing. I know only this much: his mother likes to be called Cece, she will expect a thank-you card after the dinner, and I’m to eat as much as possible before heading over because there will probably be little food on offer.

  “Ready,” I say, instructions memorized. I can’t possibly eat, my stomach flip-flopping.

  The weekend before, I spend an entire paycheck shopping for the occasion. Entering Bergdorf’s department store is not unlike entering Worthington’s, where the salespeople instantly appraise your worthiness of their solicitude. A store where dresses hang far apart from their neighbors in neat rows, sleeves queued up like soldiers. So different than the usual places I shop—the Russian-preferred discounted jumble of Loehmann’s, the bins of sample sales and clearance racks of Century 21. At Bergdorf’s, even the sale signs, when they crop up, are so discreet and tiny, they almost dare you to scrutinize them.

  In a dressing room the size of my bedroom, I tremble into dresses of pink floral patterns and absurdly expensive blue and white cotton twill, and hold my breath at the exorbitant price tags.

  “What is the return policy?” I ask the saleswoman. She assures me it is sixty days with receipt so I buy the Chanel blazer and bag and conceal the sales tag in one of the pockets.

  As the day draws closer, I rifle through my mother’s drawers for jewelry that looks most like pearls, trying out two of Bergen County’s fanciest salons for elaborate up-dos and leaving looking less like Ingrid Bergman and more like Emily Dickinson. I research New Jersey’s best dessert and flowers and wine as if my Russian manners would translate in this sphere, as if the Russian emphasis on culture would register as familiar to them.

  “Wow.” Carl appraises me when I’m standing at his door in an approximation of “old money” attire. I look like a headmistress of some decrepit British institution.

  When I left the house earlier, my mother stared at me in bewilderment. “What did they do to your hair and why in the world did you buy that overpriced housecoat?”

  Carl says, “You didn’t have to get so fancy. I told you they’re pretty casual. You should have just worn what you always wear.”

  “Are you saying I look hot?”

  “You always look hot, baby.” He tries to nuzzle near my chin before withdrawing. “But I’m afraid to touch you. You’re like a doll in a store or something and you smell like fabric softener.”

  “That’s Chanel No. 5, hon.”

  “So you like smelling like laundry?”

  “I figured that’s what your mother wears.”

  “First of all, she hates perfume, and she’d never buy any Chanel except at consignment,” he says, enfolding me in his arms. I am amazed that he truly doesn’t understand the source of my anxiety, that he’s probably never felt its equivalent. “Second of all, you’re trying way too hard. You should be yourself.”

  Be myself? What does it even mean to be “yourself”? Isn’t life a series of situational personas? I’m internally working the freshly acquired tenets of optimism (an outcome of a single situation does not dictate who I am and what I am capable of becoming) but in reality, I’m too nervous to come into contact with anything, to rumple or stain. A rapid agitation worms inside my belly. Carl dresses in his usual pleated pants and rolled-up navy button-down shirt. His process is the opposite of mine, an impression of indifference when the result is unstudied perfection. He runs a lazy brush through his hair, then pours himself a glass of water, squeezes a lemon down its side. He kisses me at the corner of my mouth.

  “Aren’t we late?” I ask, by now wanting the whole thing over. I’m holding a box inside which, I’m convinced, is a squashed vanilla butter cream cake.

  He insists we take the subway so he can better point out the signposts of his childhood. I don’t want to admit that my new shoes are digging into my heels with each step; I can feel two slicing lines across the back of each foot. With each gingerly step, I feel burdened by the stiff layers, the jewelry choking my neck.

  Down into the station, the heat of the Chanel blazer suffocating, I am weighed down by the effort of staying erect in a crowded train, the fabric of the dress stiff and unyielding. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the train’s window and can see how he compared me to a doll, all square and painted, the quilted handbag drooping like a piece of excess skin, the clownish pink lipstick.

  Out of the subway, evening is settling. We walk away from the frenzied rush of Lexington toward the stillness of Park, where the pain of my feet has faded into a pleasant dullness. For me, the East Sixties may as well be an alien landscape. We turn on Madison, where boutiques are locking away jewelry for the night, expensive children’s clothing stores are displaying a single style of cashmere, past delicate pyramids of chocolate squares and watches with flat, empty faces. We encounter the kind of people who live here and work at Worthington’s, dining outdoors even though the air still carries the chill of spring, ponytailed mothers in sailor stripes pushing prams. Little girls eating sundaes at glass counters and Bendel’s bags swinging between legs. Each block as manicured as my colleagues at work. Pampered in all this understated grace and beauty, this land of expensive boater shirts and anorexic mixed greens. I feel a burst of envy that Carl got to grow up here, taking all this for granted. Once my father got an especially large massage tip and in a burst of triumph and a hunger that could not be sated, my parents and I ordered more dishes from the local Chinese place than we could possibly eat, the remains of ribs like a cemetery of bones piling high on our plates.

  In the lobby, past the greetings of the suited doorman, I try to forge some kind of confidence. But my heels are killing me and the string of the cake box is digging into my skin.

  “Don’t worry so much,” he says. “It’s no big deal. Trust me.” He’s patting his pockets for something, but his hands emerge empty.

  I stall him, a hand on his wrist. “Do they know I’m a Russian Jew?”

  “You’re being silly,” he snaps.

  This is the first time he stops using our new couple voice. I knew that time would come but it’s unexpected, a turning of the page, the end of a particular phase. I wonder if I’ve shown too much of myself, if my insecurity has risen to the surface despite all my work at changing my cognitive patterns. His sharpness is surprising, this sudden coldness that freezes the expressiveness of his face and turns him into the subject of a portrait.

  “Of course you’re right. I was just joking,” I assure him. We ring the doorbell.

  His father ushers us inside a living room that appears to be the beginning of a long maze, vertiginous ceilings sheltering incomprehensible places like pantries and linen closets. The very immensity of the space is wrong, unnatural for Manhattan, but I inwardly focus on breathing exercises and present Carl’s father with the cake.

  “Not
necessary,” he says, not in a polite way but as though he means it. It really is unnecessary. The vanilla cake goes off to the side and I never see it again.

  “Ah, there you are.” Frances Vandermotter appears in a cardigan and neat, pleated pants, highlighted hair pulled back into a bow clip. A sliver of blue skin is camouflaged under her eyes. She presses a single cold cheek against mine and is speaking loudly and exceedingly slowly. “You’ll. Want. A. Tour.”

  My impulse is to assure her my English is fluent. “That would be great.”

  I had pictured a home chic and preppy, pointillist and perfect. But there’s a mismatched quality to the place, the furniture pieces not in proportion with each other, too big or too small. American and English antiques clutter the tops of Queen Anne cabinets, faded cotton chintz curtains. I summon my charm and unleash it on the art as planned, except the art is not very interesting or varied, a series of Dutch nautical landscapes, a portrait of a prim Puritan woman.

  “Carl tells me you’re an intern at Worthington’s. I’m afraid the art will disappoint you,” his mother says.

  “No, no, I love landscapes.” I meet Carl’s eyes over her shoulder. He shrugs in apology, mouths, I swear I never said you were an intern.

  “And this one was inherited from an elderly aunt. Your boss in Nineteenth Century might be interested to appraise it sometime.” You pass the pursed-lipped woman in a white cap, her eyes steely with resolve.

  “It’s well executed.” I’m aware that by pretending to some kind of authority, I’m actually wielding it. “It’s got great depth, actually.” Next to the Puritan lady, a set of worn Princeton fleeces are framed, and the bureau holds an army of brass ship bells. Everything needs a good dusting but you can tell each item has importance, that its placement in relation to its neighbors is not incidental.