The Imperial Wife

by Irina Reyn

  “Look, I don’t want to say too much right now. You know Medovsky’s character. If he is determined, there is no outbidding him.”

  The fillet of bison is cooling on his plate, all that brown of the foie gras and truffles contrasted with the milky sheen of his nails, the thin layer of clear varnish. “In that case, we have other lots you might be interested in. If you would tell me a little bit about an artist or two that impresses you.”

  “I’m more than happy to buy a few other things.” He takes out the Worthington’s catalogue from his briefcase, flips through it. “Like this, no offense intended, crappy Grigoriev. Throw that in.”

  “Igor. If I may.” So he’s like the others after all, always working to entrap me, to trick me into bending the rules. Would Carl like this guy or hate him? I realize how accustomed I’ve become to my moral compass pointing in the direction of his opinions. “There’s really nothing I can do if you choose not to bid higher than the highest bid. But I will be your supporter, your friend, the entire time. We can be on the phone personally during the auction if you like.”

  “Medovsky won’t stop if he wants something. You may have realized this already.”

  “I’m sorry. Like I said, there’s nothing I can do.”

  He leans his chin on his hand in a theatrical gesture of defeat. C’est la vie! My plate is removed and an apricot crumb cake appears, a strawberry soufflé in front of him. He dips his spoon in the custard and holds it out to my mouth. “To sample, yes?” The spoon is dangling inches from my mouth, his eyes focused there.

  I politely decline a bite from his spoon. “You know what, Igor? I’ll be in Moscow previewing the lots. Why don’t we meet there and speak further?”

  “Excellent, yes. I will then be able to personally show you my plans for the order. This soufflé is lovely, yes? Light, not too sweet.”

  “Delicious.”

  He’s smiling, now. Everything in this environment is perfect, just right, the touches scrutinized, chosen with intention. Sitting here, you feel like the most important of humans on the planet. The staff’s sole job is to facilitate your triumphs, smooth away all obstacles. Once in a while, in places like this, the awed immigrant in me resurfaces. The impossible luster of the pool. Unmarred glass, the starch of flawless linen, the discreet scent of food. Silver trays without blemishes, chocolate truffles imprinted with a single lavender bud. Half a bottle of outrageously priced wine unfinished and abandoned on the empty table. And Igor slips his own credit card into the bill folder, even when I remind him the company’s reimbursing.

  “I cannot allow it, a beautiful woman to pay,” he says.

  It is so simply stated, as fact. A beautiful woman. Somehow, I’ve forgotten that I ever belonged to this category. Has Carl ever called me a “beautiful woman”? He was not one to spell out his feelings. His adoration for me was implicit in the Look, the tone of his voice, in the way he waved over to me in public places as if I were the only face in the world that mattered, in the quiet care with which he folded my laundered clothes and tucked them away in their proper places. But for all his Russophilia, he was determinedly American when it came to gender relations. A couple should be partners, he insisted on our honeymoon, while the very idea was ridiculous to my mother. Partners? she said. If it makes him happy, no harm to let him believe this.

  Igor escorts me out the door to the street and lowers me into the backseat of a cab. His kiss on the cheek lies differently than that of my other clients. It’s an incursion, an imprint. I swivel around to watch him on the curb. He stands immobile, patiently waiting for my taxi to fall out of view.

  “How’d it go?” Marjorie calls out when I pass her office.

  “Great. He’s really interested in the Order.” But of course what she’s really asking about is numbers, projections, promises she can make to Dean upstairs. “Should go pretty high since he’s bidding against a motivated client.”

  “That’s fabulous.” Marjorie’s desk is invisible for the paperwork and digital printouts; she looks rather lost among them. “I suppose it’s no secret that with the political and economic climate being what it is, the Russian department is on the chopping block. But you might be able to convince us with this auction that we can sustain the New York office.”

  “No pressure, right?” But Marjorie is holding up a pair of scissors as if confused about the object of incision.

  Back in the Russian art area, I’m surprised to find the kiss still there, ingrained below the surface of my skin. I survey Regan’s list of missed calls, but the names float away, meaningless. None of them are Carl’s. What is he eating? I wonder. I picture him foraging for pretzels, his friend’s tiny galley kitchen a mess of open Chinese food containers, frozen pizza. His desk strewn with papers. After we moved in together, we had to adjust for our two bodies in the same space, two conflicting schedules. I would be in the gym by seven in the morning, while he slept on. He would be watching nerdy television shows while my eyes drooped at nine o’clock. That first year was moving away from politeness to showing one another where we placed our limbs, the nature of our true routines. But I never did allow myself to relax. I was always attuned to external expectations.

  The Financial Times with my photo at the column’s head is doubled over beside my keyboard. “Great profile. Never thought of you as a simple girl. Congratulations,” is written on a stickie note. Signed by my old boss in Impressionism, in his looping handwriting. I pick it up. My cool, unsmiling face is staring back at me.

  “Regan, book my tickets for Moscow today, will you? Here are the dates. I’ve got to run to one of my Jewish lectures tonight.” The tip of the girl’s auburn head is the only movement in her cubicle, but her fingers dash over the keyboard.

  At my sliver of window, the corner of Third Avenue and Fiftieth Street is filled with the sound of drilling, men belting out orders to other men. My hand hovers over the phone to call Carl. Instead, I dial the number of a Georgian restaurant around the corner from the address he gave me and order Carl a delivery of kachapuri and lula kebab.

  After a few minutes, Regan cries out, “Done.”

  * * *

  “We live in a world where God is hidden and we are fully responsible for our own actions. In the absence of accountability, human action turns to destruction. The challenge to our secular Russian Jews is this: take power, connect yourselves to the generations of history, perfect the world a little at a time.” I pop into the room while the rabbi’s in the middle of his lecture and find a seat behind Alla. The man next to me has his chin lodged upright in his palm, openly snoring.

  “We’re now fully aware that many Soviet Jews who were subsidized for yeshiva had a difficult time with integration. But if you delve into that experience, you will find that the education provided you with a necessary foundation…”

  Alla passes back a note that says, “Rescue us!”

  We’re poised to clap, to acknowledge the climactic plea, but the rabbi turns the page of his talk and we slump back in our seats. “So you see, Russian Jews, despite having lived under a regime that tried to eradicate their Jewishness, can still play an important role in transforming the world because we are all part of a partnership between the generations. Through the Bronze Age, through modern civilization, through the chain that continued with your grandparents who did their share.”

  I sit among a row of crossed legs, a file of black pumps and logoed necklaces, polite manicures resting on Fendi bags. These are supposed to be my people, Russian-American professionals carefully selected by the Jewish Community Center to bring religion back to our wayward former-Soviet brethren.

  Alla leans back in her chair and I’m enveloped in citrus perfume. “What’s going on with Carl? Is he done with his thinking or what?”

  “It’s been less than a month,” I whisper.

  “Babes, you’re in major denial.”

  Even though she’s also married to an American, Alla belongs to my mother’s philosophical school of gender relation
s—a Russian woman doesn’t wait, a Russian woman acts.

  “It’s temporary, Al. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I’d check out someone promising here if I were you.”

  “I thought you were the one who said to hang in there. That the first two years were the tough ones. And now you want me to just find a new guy here?”

  “Basically, at least to scare Carl a little. He’s taking you for granted, thinks you’re going to just wait around while he makes up his mind,” Alla says. She is unclasping her purse and checking her lipstick in the mirror.

  “I don’t think that’s what he’s doing.”

  The rabbi continues, “So our task is to tune in, not to transcend the secular nature of your Soviet past, but to harness it. We cannot depend on miracles from heaven.”

  The organizer of the night is cuing him to wrap up by noisily arranging the wineglasses in neat rows by the bar.

  “What about that one?” Alla points to the sleeping man.

  “Carl needs some time for himself, he’s coming down from a lot of work stress. He’ll be back any day now. You know better than anyone how much he loves me.”

  Alla leans back in her chair, purse in lap, tawny hair voluminously arranged around her shoulders. A brooch of inlaid sapphire and gold is carefully attached to a violet silk blouse. She’s the kind of Russian woman I’ll never be. “So what the hell’s he doing then? Is he really ‘thinking’ about your future? If that’s really all he’s doing. I bet one of his cute new students is helping him think.”

  “There is no new student. You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Don’t wait too long, Tan. You’ve got to take matters into your own hands.” I feel the softness of my friend’s hand on my wrist. “I’m just telling you how it is. No more waiting around. You might be losing him right now.”

  I sharply pull back my arm and press a flushed cheek against the tall glass windows. My heart is flexing, contracting. Below me, along the FDR Drive, a blurry string of unmoving lights wait in the final gasp of evening rush hour.

  The rabbi begins to notice the restless noise in the audience, and opens the floor for questions. The sleeping man is the first to raise his hand.

  “Can you please explain to us where is the virtue in unconditional love?”

  The rabbi is puzzled. His lecture probably said nothing about unconditional love. “Of course, when we think about Moses descending from the mountain with the commandments, he discovers his people have betrayed God with the golden calf. No doubt there was the initial temptation to abandon them…” The man sinks back to his original position. No one else dares raise a hand.

  “Let’s drink,” someone calls out.

  The rabbi, left alone, seems confused by the milling crowd. A flourish of silver hair glistens in the incandescent light. I find him lingering by the door as if deciding to eat or go, to run away from this crowd or hang around and make himself available.

  “Rabbi, excuse me. First of all, thank you for the talk. That was very informative.”

  His dense eyebrows lift in welcome. “Well, I certainly hope I galvanized some of you.”

  “This is a bit off topic. I was actually wondering whether there are any actions we can take—you know, as Jews—to hasten a favorable outcome in a marital disagreement?”

  “If you’re talking about whether Jews believe in karma, the answer is we believe in hashgacha—providence. It tells us that we can ask God to change, to alter what came before and even repent. Even if what we have done in this relationship may have consequences that are unchangeable. Acting with pure, warmhearted intention’s important. Focusing on what you can control in yourself rather than trying to influence others. There’s teshuvah, of course, the doing of good deeds.”

  I think about how best to phrase it. “Actually, that’s not exactly what I meant. I was wondering when being proactive is preferable to being patient. You see my husband left and I think I know why…”

  But Alla’s approaching with the sleeping man tucked under her elbow and the rabbi takes his opportunity to slip out the door. I watch him in the hallway stabbing fruitlessly at the elevator button.

  “So let’s cut to the chase,” Alla says. “This is Grisha. Meet Tanya. Tanya, meet Gregory. You’re both sort of unattached. For the moment.”

  You’ve got to do something. A Russian woman acts. I look at Grisha. He is almost entirely bald and dressed in violet jeans looped by a fabric belt. A tight, white button-down shirt reveals a proud smattering of chest hair. A gold hand dangles from a necklace.

  “So what do we have here?” he says, looking me up and down.

  “I’ll get you a both a cocktail.” Alla floats away with an apologetic smile.

  Grisha’s kiss of greeting is the opposite of Igor Yardanov’s, a wispy nothing scraped against my skin. He’s inserting an abridged autobiography into the gaps of my silence. CEO of a development consultant firm, maybe I’ve heard of it? Plays tennis three times a week. Have I stayed at Koh Samui in Thailand? Have I seen the Gauguin show at the Met? Which other boards do I belong to? The lectures at the JCC’s Emerging Leaders’ series is really strong this year. Isn’t it?

  He escorts me to the buffet, offers me rolled-up roast beef, a wedge of knish. A hand continues to linger at the small of my back as if to guide me or keep me from tripping. I feel hot and uncomfortable and find myself staring at his downy arm hair. I see Alla lingering nearby, but I’m at a loss as to how I’m supposed to be. Like I’m single? Like I’m open to a date? I’ve forgotten all the steps, the push and pull of enticement, the small touches of his arm, the flirty repartee.

  My phone rings, and I think, Saved by hashgacha! Carl probably thanking me for the takeout food. “I know how you love the lula,” I’ll say. And that will be the first step. That’s how our fights usually ended, one person sublimating an irritation in an act of kindness.

  But it’s Regan with an emergency, a lot pulled at the last minute. I want to weep with the disappointment of it, not to mention the additional work it will entail. Don’t give in to learned helplessness. Don’t catastrophize!

  “I’ll take a cab and meet you in the office?” Regan says, over a cacophony of drumming.

  “I’ll try to change his mind on the way. Just a case of cold feet or did he get a better deal?”

  “Who knows? Good luck with that. I’m heading over.”

  “You rock. See you soon.”

  I find Grisha on my way out but he’s already deep in conversation with an elegant woman in a hot-pink skirt. Her entire body is coiled into him, rapt with attention. He turns to me with a shrug, as if to say, You snooze, you lose. You think I care that you’re the CEO type? You think that’ll make it easy for you out there?

  “I’m so sorry, but I’ve got to run.” At the bar, Alla is frantically miming a square in the air, the act of taking it out of a purse. Reluctantly, I add, “So, can I give you my card?”

  “Well, poka then.” Grisha pockets it. And he turns away.

  Catherine

  MAY–JUNE 1744

  “Any doubts?” the empress says. She is perched on the settee, watching the maids’ efforts. It took three of them to work the red material over Sophie’s head.

  Strange: the night before the formal betrothal, Sophie slept well for the first time since her arrival in Russia. Until this one, every night had been pocked by interruptions. The very slither of a mouse across the floor startled her awake. Her dreams were nothing more astonishing than reality transposed—Peter refusing to carry out his duties as husband, the disfavor of Her Imperial Majesty, the arrival of her charming rival Marianne from Poland, forgetting all her Russian during her confession of faith. But the night has actually been still, unmarred. She is refreshed. Filled with the keenest impatience.

  “Doubts? I have written my father about the matter of the conversion. He has reservations as you know, but my own mind is at peace.”

  The empress looks taken aback and Sophie wonders if she meant doubts of
a different kind, perhaps about the actual union. The empress is kneading the material of her skirt. “This is very expensive fabric, you know. Gros de tours. It holds up nicely over the course of a day, especially after all that kneeling.”

  The dress is strapped onto Sophie, her body made to conform to the stiff fabric. The empress is wearing the same dress, but hers is embellished by brilliant jewelry while Sophie’s only options for accessories are a smattering of pendants gifted to her in the aftermath of her illness.

  The pause in the conversation is long, unsettling. Sophie turns to the empress and looks directly into the woman’s eyes. “This is the most beautiful gown I have ever had the privilege of wearing.”

  “Yes, yes,” the empress says, distracted. “This must be an exciting time for a young girl.” Again, she seems to want to impart more, a longer disquisition on conjugal bonds and duty perhaps. Sophie wonders if the empress will speak in greater confidence about Peter’s character. But whatever moment she was trying to fashion between them is lost to the rush of logistics. They are telling her that the time has come to form the procession.

  The palace chapel is thronged with shrieking onlookers, but for some reason, kneeling at the cushion, Sophie is not nervous. The chatter behind her continues even as the archbishop begins speaking. She has studied the intricacies of the conversion ceremony with Teodorsky, and is pleased to find she anticipates each element. The oil arrives on schedule, is dotted on the forehead, eyes, neck, and throat and just as quickly dabbed off with cotton. When it comes time to recite the faith, the Russian words unspool easily in her mind and off the tongue. Her dear governess Babette would have wept with pride. My little sheep has talent for recitation, her nanny might say, kissing her forehead. She wonders what Babette made of her sudden departure, if she wept or sensed something was amiss. She wonders if Babette found a new post. Sophie finds Katya’s face among the maidens.

  When her new name is first spoken around—Ekaterina, Catherine— she meets Katya’s eye. In name, they are true mirror sisters now. When the empress first told her the plan for her renaming, she had initially been dismayed.