by Irina Reyn
Catherine, the eternal dreamer, and this is the most honest dream of her life.
* * *
When she awakens to the dead of night with a palpitating heart, there is no returning to sleep. Instead, she dresses in the black of her victory, a veil over her head, the Order of Saint Catherine around her neck. It is surprisingly easy not to be recognized out on the streets slick with leftover rain. A common carriage ferries her across cobblestones. She is a black figure darting among shadow, a shroud of lace obscuring her view. The Alexander Nevsky Monastery is empty apart from the mosaic of Jesus staring at her from above the gate. She pushes open the heavy door. The interior of the church is also empty. There are no crowds of mourners like there were for the former empress, no persistent sound of female keening. Unlike the corpse of the empress that was hidden from view, Peter’s body is on stark display atop the stand, a shriveled figure in a foreign Holstein uniform and hat too large for his body. Even the extinguished candles are cold, their wicks had been barely touched by flame.
A faint hint of moon strains through glass, making more silver the grand sarcophagus of Alexander Nevsky. It is one of her favorite places. It had been no hardship to spend entire days here in public mourning for the passing of the empress, not only because it placed her in a sympathetic light with the right people but also because it allowed her to escape the embarrassment that swirled around Peter’s crowning.
She nears the stand. As feared, her husband’s face is purple, distended, marked by the struggle of his final minutes. His neck has been covered, but even the darkness cannot disguise the bluish ring radiating from beneath his chin. There is a kind of bafflement in his repose, as if he were meant for an entirely different fate, far from the world stage. As if his authentic life had taken place in some imaginary land of eternal childhood filled with simple pleasures and amusements among companions who loved him with no judgment or expectations.
She lifts the Order of Saint Catherine from around her neck and slides the medal inside Peter’s uniform. It is safer in the grave with Peter. The power it confers on its wearer is strong, magical; had she thought to lend it to Katya, her dearest friend would have doubtlessly lived to share in the triumph of her coronation. But the gift of supremacy is dangerous in the wrong hands. Vorontsova wore the Order when it did not belong to her and now she has been reduced to irrelevance. Catherine has already asked Gregory to find a suitably odious soldier to marry the woman and transfer them both to some far-flung village. She Is to Her Husband Compared.
She kneels to pray, a hasty string of sentences that morph into unexpected spasms of sorrow. If anyone caught sight of her now, he would assume to be witnessing the grieving of a wife praying for the soul of her beloved husband. And in a way, she is. Because her heart is still soft and pliant, and she can afford one last burst of sadness for the man. But she is also praying for herself: Gosudarina, Queen, God’s anointed sovereign.
She leaves the monastery the way she arrived. Solitary, solitary autocrat.
Tanya
PRESENT DAY
When I was a child, and my parents wanted to instill culture in me, they dragged me to every New York City museum except the Metropolitan. According to them, it was a temple not fit for the bedraggled Kagans from the humble reaches of Rego Park, Queens. The other museums we could handle: the MoMAs, the Museums of American History, the Cooper Hewitts. But the Met? It’s not a place for immigrants, my mother insisted, only for those worthy of entering a palace. Take a look at it! Stretching across blocks of Fifth Avenue with its superb Beaux Arts façade, so imposing it is a constant reminder of how small the human is who makes its way up the Grand Stairway.
But now, impossibly, all these years later, it’s actually me flying up the broad staircase of the Metropolitan Museum in a ball gown, past the black-suited blur of security. For the first time, all the splendor once so out of reach for poor Russian Kagans is actually inviting me inside.
I push through the front doors as summer tourists stream out for the day. Breezing past the ticket office just closing its window, I find the welcome table tucked away in the Egyptian wing. A row of girls holds reams of printed names in manicured hands. They say, “Oh, you’re one of the honorees, aren’t you?” and apply a sticky tag to my chest. Can this be real? Can I make any sense of it? Tanya Kagan of the immigrant Kagans, whose face was once pressed to the glass globe of Manhattan, who stole soap from bodegas, who fended off bullies in yeshiva and roamed the streets of Rego Park alone. Here? Now?
Regan pops out from behind a pillar. “You look amazing.”
She’s wearing the most conservative outfit I’ve ever seen on her: a soft powder-blue Alberta Ferretti wisp cinched at the waist, a pair of suede closed-toe pumps.
“I probably went a little over the top. But, hey, look at you,” I say.
But Regan’s back to business. “Have you been picking up your voice mail?”
“What’s up?”
She is leading me through the lobby, where the day’s final tourists are milling, contemplating their next move. They stare at Regan in all her height, at my own layers of black silk and lace, trying to match our faces to a mental Rolodex of celebrity. Crowds disperse, the Egyptian tombs and sphinxes displaying their ancient flint knives of battle.
Regan is scrolling through her messages. “Medovsky,” she says, ominously.
“What about him? Is he pissed Yardanov got it?”
“They’re calling it suicide, as usual. Oh, yes, here it is. The Guardian: Inconclusive cause of death, quote unquote. Wife found him in the bathtub in London.”
“What?” We’re stopped short by security. “He’s dead?”
Hands are inspecting the entrails of my purse for suspicious materials, its contents exploded onto the table. I stare dumbly as compact and perfume and a ring of keys are being tucked back away by anonymous hands. I feel like the entire hall has been sapped of air.
“Have a good time, ma’am.” The guards wave us inside but I can’t move. A strange sensation of utter grief washes over me.
I slowly turn to Regan. “How do you know?”
“Like a thousand oligarchs calling all afternoon, fishing for inside info. Why weren’t you picking up? God, I’m so sick of our clients. They’re always dropping dead.” She holds up her phone, showing a picture of an inflated blonde, the Order of Saint Catherine draped between her pixelated breasts. She scrolls down. New Hudson Yards Owner Igor Yardanov’s Beauty du Jour Flaunts Pricy Gift. Regan appears to be waiting for a comment, an assessment. “Classy, right?”
“He was a decent guy.” I’m close to bursting into tears. The guards are staring at me.
“Which one? The one who got the Order?”
“No, the other one.”
“Sucks. You liked him, right? You stayed with him in Monaco?” Regan’s concerned hand rests on my shoulder. She’s gently pushing me away from the table.
“I did,” I say.
“Probably that old gang of his from Ukraine. That’s the gossip. Too many enemies and not enough friends. Anyway, we’re late. El mayor may be up on stage already. I had no idea he would turn out to be such a little guy but still kind of sexy, don’t you think?”
“Regan, wait.” My fingers are leaving a pink imprint on my assistant’s flesh, but it suddenly seems crucial that the words are said out loud. “Do you think, maybe, had he won the Order and gifted it to the president … Do you think he would still be alive?”
Regan scans me. (For signs of culpability? Verifying my involvement? Or is she just worried?) “No, Tanya, you know what? I don’t. I’m pretty sure it was bound to happen one day.”
“But maybe not. He sounded so desperate the other day on the phone. He wanted to preempt, and I never even asked the consignor. I wanted to get us more money.”
Regan holds my hands until the shuddering subsides, then opens her clutch—sequined in the shape of a kitten—for a tissue. “Don’t do this to yourself. You’d never have gotten that kind of money if
you preempted. None of us have any idea about the crazy lives of those people. But they hardly revolve around us and our art.”
I take the tissue. For a minute, I forget what one does with a tissue. “How can you be so sure?”
Regan wipes at my face, flecks of foundation streaking her fingers. “Look at us standing out here when the superhot mayor is inside.”
“Oh, Regan.”
“What? I like powerful old dudes who run New York City. Oh, look at you. You want me to say it again?” She holds my gaze. “Don’t worry. It’s not your fault.”
We’re greeted by women in red floral folk dresses with enormous shimmering kokoshniks on their heads. They’re holding out bowls with bread and salt, traditional Russian folk rites of welcome.
Regan sweeps by them. “They’re taking the Russian thing way too seriously.”
Rows of sarcophagi, masks, tusk figurines line the exhibition halls. Limestone statues of kings, hands stiff at their sides, peer at us, eyelids like hardboiled eggs without centers. All I can think about is Medovsky, his thick eyebrows and trimmed moustache, Lena, the mistress, his friends reminiscing on the yacht. I remember my friend smoking before the precipice of the Mediterranean, the flamingo delicately tiptoeing in the background. I hold the image in my mind. But there’s no time.
My hair, I think, my makeup, I’d been running. But the mayor’s voice is reverberating along scalloped ceilings, the introduction to the ceremony under way. The wing opens up to a large party milling around the bar. They’re forking mini chicken Kievs in their mouths, petite slivers of toast pyramided with red caviar. The women wearing a shade of somber red as if they were instructed: adorn yourself like a Russian! In one corner, by the wall of glass, prances a folk ensemble in Siberian attire, a circle of socialites urging them on. Nadia from Christie’s is working the crowd, flinging a genuine smile in my direction. I notice Alla standing next to a few other JCC folks, glass raised to me in proud salute. I look around for any glimpse of Carl.
In the center of the room, past the dappled rectangle of the pool, looms the Temple of Dendur, its yawning sandstone gate with its two fringing walls, its carvings of lotus plants and Egyptian gods. A Met employee helps me up the steps of the dais. When I take my place behind the podium, I think the structure must be stretching high behind me as if I were Cleopatra or a queen at a coronation.
At the microphone, the mayor is rushing toward the end of his speech. He is enumerating the many accomplishments Americans from the former Soviet Union have contributed to the country. Russia’s loss was our gain. Their names are rattled off like a chant: Mikhail Baryshnikov, Regina Spektor, Vladimir Horowitz, Sergei Brin, Maria Sharapova, Mila Kunis. They have enriched us in the arts, in sciences, in technology. On stage beside me stands an ambassador to Israel, a hockey player, and to my surprise: Igor. No one told me he would be one of the honorees and the unexpected sight of him makes me aware of a boiling inside my body. That bronzed skin, gelled hair, those symmetrical features that add up to a face that is more superhuman than human. I feel myself flushing with anger.
“Darling, your hair,” I hear my mother-in-law whisper delicately. “Pat it down.”
The mayor is calling us to the podium, a handshake frozen for the benefit of photographers.
To Igor, the mayor says, “For your role in supporting one of our greatest sports teams and for your contribution to the New York Foster Children’s Alliance, an organization that is bettering the lives of foster children not only in this city but across the entire country.” Igor nods. He must be used to honors like this, must receive a few of them a week.
When it’s my turn, I realize the mayor has edged into my palm a silver teapot. “Congratulations,” he says to the cameras.
I examine the trophy. TV is engraved on the pot’s front in sloping letters, the finial shaped like a pineapple, a fluted straight spout with a scroll wood handle. TV? I think. TV? But then I’m gently guided back to the row of honorees and struggle to balance this curious item for the remainder of the speech. When one hand can no longer prop it up, I transfer it to the other. Igor’s just two people away from me.
It was bound to happen, I tell myself. They’re killed for so many reasons, men like Medovsky, they all have so many enemies. Regan’s absolutely right. It would be foolish to assume I played any tertiary role in the murder. Would he be alive if I hadn’t steered him away from the Order?
The tall brunette in the front row, the one who is now wearing the Order of Saint Catherine between the scooped décolletage of her nonexistent breasts, was Igor’s date at the Bulgari event. There’s nothing remarkable about this girl taking pictures of Igor with her phone except she looks bored, as if fulfilling a task required of her. She is interchangeable with all the others at his side, pouting, inflated lips, beautiful Asiatic cheekbones, the kind of striking perfection you see in every bathroom of Moscow nightclubs, at every hotel bar. The Order is draped incorrectly, I notice. Not the way Catherine would have worn it at the side of the hip, but as if it’s a gaudy pendant. The fraying ribbon has been removed, the star of the Order dangling on a thick gold chain.
After the ceremony ends, I’m attacked by a thousand cold imprints of lipstick, by anonymous handshakes. I look for a place to deposit the teapot, to free myself of its weight. Nadia Kudrina sidles in beside me. She’s wearing a low-cut pink gown, a strip of velvet fabric stretched across her breasts. Some man’s arm is attached to her waist. “Congratulations, dear. Just so you know, I’m serious about us starting a gallery. I think it’s the perfect time to get out of the auction business. We’ll make more money and so much less stress.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it,” I say, vaguely.
“Soon, okay? Poka. Kiss, kiss.”
Others are touching my arm, shaking my hand. A Russian man with a camera is following me, encouraging me to smile for the show Kultura. Your relatives in New Jersey are watching, he says. Smile!
I slice into the belly of the crowd and find Igor in conversation with the mayor, the girl leaning robotically at his side. The mayor is trying to talk Igor into donating to the New York library system.
“I suppose the Order is on loan from the Tretyakov.” I insert myself between them. The mayor is taken aback at the intrusion, but politicians know how to quickly recover. “Congratulations again, Ms. Vandermotter.” He rattles off an abbreviated version of his great admiration for Russian-Americans.
I ignore him and point to the Order, unabashedly sticking my finger in the girl’s chest. “You’d better be careful, honey. This thing’s going to a museum.”
“Have you lost your mind or what?” the girl says in accent-free British English. Handlers whisper into the mayor’s ear, and he is expertly eased away.
“Don’t be naïve, Tanya,” Igor says. He too ignores his date. “Have a glass of wine. Relax.”
“I won’t relax. Why do you people always tell me to relax? Do you have any intention of carrying through with what you promised me? Do you know how historically important this piece is?”
The girl’s shocked and I don’t blame her. Apart from wives in the privacy of their homes, no one speaks like this to men like these.
“Maybe I’ll still do it. I’m surprised at you. I had no idea you were such an idealist.”
“I suppose you’ve heard what happened to Alexander Medovsky.” I know I’m on thin ice. Danger aside, the thwarted kiss aside, a specialist knows when to press her case and when to remain silent.
“A tragedy.”
“And I don’t suppose you had any idea it was going to happen. I suppose it was a case of serendipitous timing.”
Igor looks bemused. He presses a finger to his lips as if to say, Shhhh. But he doesn’t go through with the sound and it is the implication of the gesture that chills me. The president could have protected Sasha, I think, but he had no Order, no incentive. I gave it away to the man standing in front of me.
Igor says, “Remember when you said it was open market? I think y
ou would agree with me that even an open market needs a nudge in right direction.”
“Maybe your ladies’-man reputation needs a nudge in the right direction.” I must be out of my mind to be threatening a man like this.
But his face is frozen. “Maybe your job needs a shove in the right direction.”
Behind him, Marjorie is waiting her turn to join in the conversation, ever harried in an unfortunate acrylic pantsuit. I quickly swallow my response. My boss wears the polite smile of client relations, of bringing an important person into the fold. “What a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Yardanov!”
A thick male cohort of admirers is pulling Igor toward the Siberian dancers. The room is pressing in on me, the glass walls leaning at a dangerous slant.
Marjorie turns to me. “Tanya, we have really underestimated this market. You’re so incredibly good with these clients.”
“Thanks, Marjorie. That means a lot to me.”
“This auction has made me and Dean think a bit deeper about your role in the company.” She sips at her wine with the awkward slant of someone avoiding transferring their lipstick onto the rim. “I was going to talk to you about this on Monday but the good news is this: we want you out in the field.”
I force myself to pay attention even as I watch Igor and the mayor in a huddled group with other suited men. “The field? What field?”
“Where these new clients are. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan. You could have Moscow as your base, of course. It’s an incredible opportunity for a newly minted vice president, don’t you think?”
The shoulders of the men become one blue smudge. I force my attention to Marjorie. “You mean leave the New York office? I don’t understand. Was this Dean’s decision? You know my husband’s job is in Brooklyn.”