The Imperial Wife

by Irina Reyn

  “Yes, yes, the very same. A tycoon from Singapore, I think. One of those rich Asians. He’s had the place for eight months and he’s fixed the place right up.” The Realtor ignores me because she recognizes in me a person in the same position as herself. A supplicant, a salesperson. An outsider.

  “I do love a labyrinth,” the mistress says, pinching Medovsky’s cheek. Medovsky seems hardly the kind to tolerate pinching, but he’s grimacing into his laptop, that sloping eyebrow that lends him a darkly quizzical look.

  “Then I would love for you to look at a couple of the most exclusive items we have coming up. The Goncharova especially would look great in that space here, and should you decide to donate to a museum show, for example, we can swap in another piece that’s exactly the same size.”

  “I’ll worry about furniture and let Sasha pick the art,” the mistress says to me sweetly. She’s all waves and iridescent hair, a pinprick of a girl. Eager to please and grateful, with flimsy shoulders. I try not to linger on the mistresses for too long; until they turn into wives, mistresses come and go.

  Medovsky chides me. “Donation to a show? Getting a little ahead of yourself, are you, Mother Teresa of auction houses? You should have gotten to know the guys last night, Tanyush. I told them you were the real deal. But they liked Nadia because she didn’t throw catalogues in their faces.”

  “Somehow I doubt that was the reason they liked her.”

  “Are you referring to her tits?” Medovsky laughs. “What do you expect? They’re art collectors. Shouldn’t they admire the female form?”

  I can feel it rising inside me, the same swell I had at my parents’ house with the Shishkin. That’s all I need, to break out crying ten thousand feet in the air with an oligarch, his mistress, and a Realtor. “Sash, you know I’m an actual expert and she’s not, right? Her knowledge of art is as sophisticated as … I mean, she’s twenty-five and has never even taken an art history course as far as I know. I have a master’s degree and years of experience, Sash. I know this stuff.”

  “Of course you do. That’s why when that classless Kudrin ribs me about why I’m not with Christie’s, I just tell him that his daughter’s a sweetheart but you know your shit. But my friends need a little more connection before they do business.”

  “I didn’t have a chance with Nadia breathing down my neck. Those mimes.” I manage to reel in the tears.

  “Hey, did you like the mimes? Pretty special. Brought them down from Paris. God, I used to love Marcel Marceau as a kid. Didn’t you? I used to cry watching him in that pisshole of a kommunalka.”

  Despite myself, I continue to like him. A softie. I taught Medovsky that English word and he uses it in the press from time to time. “Success depends on personal relations with power, and if you are on the wrong side of this, there are limits to what you can achieve,” he told one British reporter. “But I’m not like those other Russian guys taking over your city. I have soul, I am softie.” I e-mailed him: “Bravo!” Strangely proud that a word I personally inserted into this man’s mouth would find its way into the pages of The Guardian.

  He closes shut his laptop. “Listen, you’re getting me that Order, right?”

  The transition in tone is abrupt. This is a command. As if to underline this point, the wings overhead flap a little less vigorously. “You’re getting you that Order, Sash.”

  “Okay, okay. I just want you to tell my competition to look elsewhere. This is no game. You-know-who is expecting it. I made a solemn promise and there is no going back.” But then he flashes a charming smile as if to say he was kidding, how could he be angry with me?

  “Are you sure you won’t consider donating it after all? How great would it look in the Tretyakov across from the portrait where’s she’s wearing it?”

  “Tan’. We’re not having this conversation again, yes?” Husky darkness swirls around in his voice.

  The Realtor clears her throat nervously. “Now this one right here is terribly sweet and worth a look around. Shall we?”

  The domed house below us sprawls along the edge of the water; on the port, a yacht is docked. “Smaller than the last one, but a great view of the sea,” the Realtor says. Then begrudgingly, with a sour nod in my direction, from one salesperson to another, “And you’ll find plenty of room inside for your art.”

  * * *

  “What was all that about, Tanyush? Donate, donate, donate. Why are you on my case, nu? Do you get some kind of special tax break or something?” Medovsky is smoking outside the pillars of the villa in a series of rapid huffs. The private beach is speckled with pebbles so white and unblemished, they might have been flown in to populate the shoreline.

  “Of course not! It’s just one of my goals; you know, more Russian art where people can see it. It’s none of my business.”

  “That’s right. It’s none of your business. Leave that shit to those bored socialites, the Zhukovas and Kudrinas. You concentrate on doing what you do best.”

  The mistress’s oohs of appreciation waft from somewhere deep inside the house. I’ve seen enough mistresses to know the phase of the relationship. These women think if they’re ensconced in something concrete with walls, their positions will be secure.

  “I’m sorry, Sasha. I won’t bring it up again.”

  His shoulders seem to be relaxing, his posture less guarded. I feel bold enough to slip off my sandals and bury my toes in the sand but the texture is not as soft as I expected. Medovsky is inscrutable behind his tinted sunglasses.

  After a minute, he speaks. “You have idea why marriage is so hard? It makes no logic, yes? She liked you once. You liked her. Both of you just want to enjoy life and finally have the means to do it. Why do we create this unnecessary drama? Remember when we were in Soviet Union? We had so little but we were happy.”

  “I was seven when we left. I was a kid.” Normally this amuses me, my clients waxing philosophical. They like when I protest that I have a Russian soul just as they do, and I indulge them in their what-does-it-all-mean ruminations. But not now, not on this topic.

  “Well, then, I’ll tell you. We had nothing. We shared apartment with ten other people including babushka who would always pick up phone and hang up on our callers. We could shit only between ten and ten-thirty. If we had an emergency and failed to clean the kitchen on appointed schedule, we would be forced to do it all month. Take a dirty bath two times a week. We couldn’t make joke about our country at a house party without getting a phone call from the police next day. But we were happy. And now, world is all upside down.”

  A pink, delicate bird tiptoes into the water at the edge of the property. Even after everything I’ve seen, I can’t help but stare. “Is that a flamingo?”

  Medovsky doesn’t turn to look. He flicks the cigarette to the ground, grinds pebbles on top of it with his toes. “Greater flamingo: pink legs, pink bill, black tip. Imported from Zoo Basel. It is listed in amenities.”

  The bird submerges its jaw into the wet sand, and it retains the perfect S-shape of the neck.

  Medovsky says, “Women are complicated. So many moods. You give and you give but they are not satisfied.”

  I bristle, defensive. “I’m sure she gives too, probably even more. It’s a partnership, isn’t it?”

  “Marriage? Partnership? Tanyush.” He laughs. “You are so American, it’s charming. I forgot that about you. Since when is marriage partnership? Even your business partner’s not partnership. For God’s sake. It is two lonely people who exist in same home sometimes. Hopefully they diddle each other once in a while. Maybe they laugh.”

  “Isn’t that a little … depressing?”

  “Don’t tell me your marriage is partnership. Woman like you who wears pants in family? I don’t believe it.”

  I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold. “What makes you think I wear the pants?”

  “Anyone can see. You think you are superior. Maybe you are, but let me give you word of advice. Don’t let your man know this.” He kicks off hi
s shoes too and wades into the water.

  Wears the pants. CEO. I’m used to people assuming I’m the alpha in my marriage. Yes, I am more competent, more efficient; taking care of others comes naturally to me. Faster to have me accomplish something than Carl with his lack of attention to details, his indecision. It was during our honeymoon that the terrible thought occurred to me. Weak.

  We had just arrived in Turks and Caicos. We flung open our French doors to be confronted with the aquamarine perfection of the water, the long stretch of near-empty beach. Our first time in the Caribbean and we were giddy with the transparency of the water. A slick shoreline free of seaweed, free of human detritus. Free of our families and the lives that clung to us in New York. That first day, we ate conch salad tossed with orange slices in our tiki hut resort, treated ourselves to raspberry daiquiris. It was the kind of day that unspooled along with a single narrative in my head—this is perfect. How did I get this lucky? Everything Carl said was interesting to me, and I would catch him in the Look.

  “We just got here and you’ve already got sand on your forehead,” he would say, brushing it off, his fingers lingering in my hair where I would capture them with my own.

  Then we proceeded to the beach. But there were no chairs for us. A shrugging employee explained that the resort ran out of beach chairs and umbrellas by mid-morning. The competition for chairs, we discovered, was early and fierce. We watched jealously as the protectors of their chairs reclined in sweeping shade while we spread our towels on the sand, and shielded ourselves from sun rays with hats.

  “Here, take my hat, it’s got a bigger brim,” Carl said. We kissed, but the furrow between his eyebrows deepened. A vine of anxiety was starting to coil around him.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll be the ones on the chairs,” I promised.

  The next day, we woke at first light and ran to the beach to claim our chairs. Too scared to leave them even to swim, we crisped ourselves past the point of sanity, until the sun and reading books brought on migraines and our hungry stomachs growled in protest.

  “This is ridiculous, we’re trapped here,” Carl said from under a precious umbrella as we watched couples like us prowling the sand in search of vacancy.

  As the week progressed, we grew bolder, daring to mark our places with towels while we ate breakfast. We consumed eggs and toast in three bites, gulped down coffee and dashed to the beach. It worked, our chairs were left alone. Our places held.

  But one morning, a woman was reclined on Carl’s chair, reading a paperback against the slash of sun. Carl’s towel and mine lay on the sand next to her feet in a crumpled pile. The second chair held the detritus of a companion a pair of flip-flops, a Hawaiian shirt. The woman had the air of neither guilt nor complete ignorance of the situation, her hips flat against the stripes, head propped on her own rolled-up towel. The umbrella we had wedged into the sand was shielding her sun-mottled skin. On the cover of the paperback she was reading was a girl’s ponytail, pulled together by a turquoise sash.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I think you’re in our chair.”

  “Did you buy it? Does it belong to you?” The woman’s voice rose in agitation but she didn’t look up from her book. She was prepared for the confrontation, her pose still and defensive. Probably a seasoned vacationer at this resort, accustomed to the morning tussle for resources.

  “We saved our place just a half hour ago. My bag’s right there.”

  The woman glanced down. “Shall I reach it for you or will you get it yourself?”

  I was aware of Carl at my side, silent, his pale skin scorched by sun or embarrassment or both. He wasn’t used to confrontations of any kind. In his world, this simply didn’t happen. Yet a Russian part of me, the part ensconced in that patriarchal world, thought, Isn’t this a man’s job?

  “Actually, we’d prefer the chairs, if you don’t mind,” I said when it was clear Carl would not be getting involved.

  A field of tanning witnesses turned in our direction, raised on their elbows. This was the show they’d been looking forward to all week. All of them waiting to see how far I would push this, if I would upend the Lord of the Flies rules of this resort.

  The woman yanked our tote bag off the sand with two pincer fingers and tossed it to me like a football. “Let me give you a little tip, guys. It’s yours when you sit in it.”

  I wondered when Carl would step in. By her logic, we could have claimed the second chair. Even the woman was scanning him, daring him, poised for his response.

  “Let’s go, Tan,” was what he finally said, guiding me away by the elbow. “It’s not worth it.”

  Of course I knew this was the best solution, a clearheaded, practical end to the impasse. What were we going to do—get into a fistfight over chairs? But it took me by surprise, my disappointment in him. I thought I was more American than this. But the thought wormed into my head: weak. I had the rest of the vacation to forget this instinct, the rest of our lives.

  Now Medovsky tosses his shoes to the side, wincing as he tiptoes over the sharp points of rocks. The flamingo has disappeared down the shoreline. “Tanyush. Be honest. What do you think about Marina?”

  “Marina?”

  So that’s her name. The kind of girl who bruises easily, a peach that can be thumbed with just a little force. The victim of a practical Russian mother who had pushed her toward men like Medovsky since puberty. In a few years, she’ll grow cold and wise. The bitterness of being a woman washes over me.

  “She seems like a darling.”

  On the balcony, the Realtor is sweeping at the view for Marina’s sake, her hands wafting the landscape as if painting a picture of the future in the air.

  “I can’t go back, you know,” Medovksy says. The water is lapping at the cuffs of his rolled-up pants. “My only desire is to see Russia again, but I’ve been barred. Do you know what it is to be stranded from home?”

  “I thought you were originally from Ukraine?”

  “I can’t go back there either.”

  Marina’s gold lamé pants provide a focal point for the sun. Her pants may as well be the sun itself. I don’t want to know the particulars of Medovsky’s exile and it’s safer that way. Enough to know that the relation between my client and the president seems to be one of extreme caution bordering on paranoia.

  “You were a Jew but you left us,” he says. “That’s normal. But now at least you can go back if you want to. But I have to buy back in. And even that might not work. I’ve got some serious enemies, Tanyush. He can fend them off if he wants to, he can keep me safe. But he is not easy man to sway. He has ear of people who hate me, former partners, people I thought were friends. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

  “Sash, please don’t feel like you need to tell me any of this.”

  “The Order might be my last chance. You know he has a weakness for Russian history, for making himself a natural heir to Russian aristocracy. He aims to be a Romanov, to pretend the end of Soviet Union never happened.”

  “Well, for your sake, I hope this will convince him to let you back. I really do.” If the Order’s really hers, I think. It better be. But I don’t say any of this.

  Something in the Turks and Caicos memory is continuing to tug at the edges of my mind. Weak. I never wanted to be in that position again, of watching my husband fail. I would rather rescue him than experience that moment of vulnerability. Carl was so used to others propping him up, an entire network of name and money coming to his aid. As his wife, how could I not be one of them?

  “Of course, there are a few other pieces I hope will interest you.”

  “Women,” Medovsky says, turning back to the water as if he expected more sympathy from me. “Lena drinks my blood, always dissatisfied. In a woman I prefer simple. But can I divorce her with our two children and properties? Look, Tan’ka, you know men don’t leave their wives. It’s uncomfortable, inconvenient, and we are creatures of convenience.”

  “They don’t leave their wives? That’s an interesting
theory, Sash. I wish that were true.”

  The sun sears high overhead, the blazing heat of it. I feel parched, my tongue the consistency of paper.

  He turns back to me, his eyes secreted behind the density of those eyebrows. “It’s not too late for you. You are newly married and have no kids, no assets, it looks like. Here’s more advice for you: don’t marry until you can tell yourself that you’ve done all you could, and until you’ve stopped loving the woman you’ve chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you’ll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you’re old and good for nothing … otherwise all that’s good and lofty in you will be lost.’”

  “What do you mean, Sash?”

  “I didn’t say this, Tolstoy did.” Medovsky grins. “Don’t look so scared. This advice is useless. Tolstoy had no clue about marriage. He was a dick to his wife at the very end. And not that it worked for me.”

  I laugh and the very act of it loosens the tension between us. For the first time since Carl left, I’m filled with a new expansiveness. We will find our way out. We have to. How could there not be a happy ending when a view like this exists in the world?

  “We’re alike, you and I, don’t you think?” Medovksy says, playfully splashing some sea water in my direction.

  “You think so?” I shield myself, happy to submerge my ankles in warm water, happy to be back in Medovsky’s good graces. “Hey, watch the suit.”

  “Don’t forget there’s a little dinner on the yacht tonight. Maybe you’ll be more charming to my friends this time.”

  “I’ll do better, I promise.”

  A series of pattering taps across marble and Marina flies into his arms. I move away, discreetly. They kiss, a long, precise stamp of mouths. “I think this is it,” she says. “The one.”

  * * *

  The “little dinner” numbers forty people around a geometric white table on the yacht’s deck. On the table: morel custard, grilled lobster with ginger vegetable stew, Beluga caviar sushi rolls, Uzbek pilaf with apricots and chestnuts, vintage Château Lafite-Rothschild. I can’t help but notice the formality of the setting, the white tablecloth, two glasses centered directly above my plate, the prongs of the fork facing down. A fluttering staff in livery bend next to me with tray and tongs, and off to the side stand three sommeliers: one for wine, one for champagne, and the last for vodka.