The Lost Season of Love and Snow

by Jennifer Laam

  I needed it to stop. I needed peace, if only for a moment. In desperation, I blurted, “The two of you should come and live with me. You will meet more gentlemen in St. Petersburg.”

  “I should like nothing better!” Ekaterina declared. “Why, we could leave at once if you wished it. Don’t you think so, Azya?”

  “I think it would be most pleasant.” Azya bowed her head so I could not see her expression. However, Ekaterina’s mood instantly perked up. The two of them must have conspired, perhaps even with Mother or Aunt Katya’s help, to compel me to utter those very words.

  “Well … I shall write to Alexander and tell him the news.” Irritated, I wished nothing more than to get Sasha into the hands of a nanny. “He shall be happy to hear it.”

  How easily the lie escaped from my lips as I abandoned my earlier pledge to tell them the truth of matters. I didn’t think Alexander would be glad to see my sisters. But I didn’t see how either of us could refuse them.

  * * *

  “It’s rather out of the swing of things, isn’t it?” Ekaterina sniffed as she made her way up the staircase of our flat in St. Petersburg a few weeks later.

  “Good to see you as well.” I bounced Sasha on one hip while Masha stood beside me, staring wide-eyed at her aunts.

  “I think it’s lovely.” Azya wiggled Sasha’s toe. Alexander’s valet—a gray-haired gentleman named Nikita—had assisted my sisters with their luggage. Azya had taken one of the bags to help ease his load. “This is most kind. I would like to thank Alexander as well.” Azya stumbled on Alexander’s name, and her already large eyes grew wider as she searched the room. “I hoped he might greet us. I wanted to ask what he’s working on now.”

  “Yes, where is he exactly?” Ekaterina twisted her lip. “Not out gambling with the boys or some such nonsense, is he?”

  “Daddy isn’t here,” Masha piped up.

  “Ah!” Ekaterina’s lips spread into a smug smile. “I suppose many temptations keep a man busy enough in this city. Still, it’s a shame. I should like to thank him for his hospitality.”

  “No, he is here,” Masha clarified. “In his study. Papa didn’t want to hear hens clucking.”

  Ekaterina’s smile collapsed, but Azya and I giggled. “You may want to keep that to yourself next time, little one,” I told her.

  “Daddy likes to work,” Masha continued proudly, swinging her perfect black curls over her shoulders. “He tells stories.”

  Ekaterina chucked Masha playfully on her chin. “You are a pretty thing, but you must know children are to be seen and not heard.”

  “Daddy said the same about you!” Masha exclaimed.

  I knew I shouldn’t laugh, but I couldn’t help it. Why, it wouldn’t have surprised me if Sasha removed his pacifier from his mouth and said something sharp to his aunt as well. Ekaterina was already exasperating, yet I confess I had missed sparring with her. “Those were not his exact words.” I led my sisters into the parlor, where Azya plopped down on our mahogany divan and ran her finger along the smooth Karelian wood end table. “Rather it was more to the effect of ‘Will this home now be filled with the sound of clucking hens?’ I assured him we wouldn’t cluck any more than his friends do when they come over and start fussing over their poetry and journals.”

  “So he does not wish us to stay here?” Ekaterina said primly, while Azya cut in with: “I hope we are not an imposition.”

  I released Masha who ran over to sit next to Azya while I shifted Sasha into my other arm and avoided the question. “I can do with the company. It will be such fun to take you to masquerade balls. We can make our costumes together!”

  “That does sound fun!” Azya said.

  “I have so many ideas! Now that there are three of us we might dress as the three sisters with glass hearts or the three sisters with wizards for husbands in the tale of Masha Morevna.” Alexander’s love of folklore had rubbed off on me and I knew many of the traditional tales now. “Perhaps we might even dress as the wizards. Dressing as the opposite gender was the rage in the court of Empress Elizabeth. Why not revive the custom?”

  “And what will your husband say to that?” Ekaterina asked.

  “He would warm to the idea quickly enough.” After all, such a costume would require many layers of loose fabric and likely not attract attention from other men. A flash of memory hit me as it had with disturbing frequency over the past weeks. Sir Lancelot smiling down on me, appraising my costume as priestess of the sun. I found myself fussing with a bit of lint on my frock, thinking of the devilish glint in Lancelot’s grin, knowing full well I should not return to that image as often as I did.

  Sasha’s squalling disrupted my thoughts and a wave of guilt hit me like cold water.

  “May I try to soothe him?” Azya nodded at Sasha. I handed him over without hesitation, though I knew it would do no good. As soon as he left my arms he started to wail even louder, despite his auntie’s cooing.

  “Your husband doesn’t wish to see us at all then?” Ekaterina spoke loudly to be heard over Sasha’s cries of despair. She nodded her large chin in the direction of Alexander’s study.

  “He works all day, same as any other man.” I shook my arms, sore from lugging Sasha around the house. “He will come out of his study when he has come to a good stopping point and it makes sense to take a break.” I had heard some of Alexander’s writer friends say so much of the craft simply involves the will to place oneself in front of a blank sheet of paper. Perhaps confined, my husband would be forced to write.

  “I adored The Bronze Horseman,” Azya gushed. “It is a masterpiece.”

  I beamed at her praise, almost as though I had written the poem myself. Although Alexander’s poem still languished in the office of the censor, we had shown it privately to a select group of trusted readers, including my sisters. Masha had begged to listen, and against my better judgment, I had allowed her to sit in while Alexander performed the poem for his friends; I had been afraid she would have nightmares the entire week. Instead, she simply clapped and begged her father to take her to see the statue one more time.

  “What is he working on now?” Azya asked eagerly.

  I tried to hold my smile, but it was difficult. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fool my sisters for very long. “Many projects! His history of Pugachev as well as another fairy tale in verse. He also started a new project set during the time of Catherine the Great—a short story about gamblers. He continues his poetical works and the novel about Abram Gannibal he never finished…”

  That all sounded convoluted and unfocused, even to my own ears. I stopped and looked down at my hands. Even Ekaterina didn’t say anything tart, but merely busied herself locating a fan in one of her overstuffed valises. If Alexander failed to bring in income, it would affect her now as well and was nothing to joke about.

  “You have your own work as well to keep you occupied.” Azya gestured to my notebook, left open on a writing table.

  “Mamma writes!” Masha exclaimed.

  “So Mamma is a poet as well. I suppose this shouldn’t surprise us.” Ekaterina sounded as sincere as she could manage. “Have you shown the verse to your husband yet?”

  “They are hardly worth his time. Only a few brief ditties.” I didn’t care to admit that after four years of marriage and two children, I had yet to show my poetry to my husband. I had yet to show it to any other soul. “Alexander is the poet in the family. I am a dilettante.”

  “Still, he might enjoy hearing your work,” Ekaterina pressed.

  “Yes! Let Daddy listen.” Masha sprang off the divan and ran toward the study.

  “No!” It came out louder than intended. I softened my voice. “I shall read them to Daddy in private. Sometimes that’s better.”

  “I only hope we see the little fellow soon,” Ekaterina said, back to her irritable self. “I hoped he might take us to a good restaurant this evening. Somewhere in town.”

  “We are in town,” I said.

  “Oh, you know.
I meant the fashionable part.”

  I pressed my lips together. For a few moments, it had been pleasant to spar once more with my sister, but now I felt I could better deal with Ekaterina if I left my spectacles in their reticule atop my desk and her face remained fuzzy.

  * * *

  Alexander decided to take us to for supper at Andrieu’s, one of the most popular restaurants in the city. We made our way into the bustling establishment, past finely dressed groups of handsome bachelors smoking cigars and elegant couples huddled over candlelit tables. The dining area already smelled of the men’s tobacco mingled with the roasted meat and steamed vegetables being prepared in the kitchen. Ekaterina straightened her shoulders, and for once, looked almost satisfied with her situation in life. Azya stuck close to Alexander’s side; my husband had already drunk half a bottle of iced champagne in the carriage—quite unlike him—but his mood was much improved from this morning. He patted Azya’s hand and told her about Pugachev. I had not realized Azya took such an interest in Alexander’s work.

  When we received our menus, my sisters attempted to discern the names of the French dishes. The coq au vin was easy enough to decipher but they had a difficult time with andouilletes de troyes. I fretted, avoiding the champagne brought to our table, for I had missed my monthly cycle and my body felt uncomfortable in a way I hadn’t noticed during my previous pregnancies. After Sasha’s birth, my stomach retracted down to the small pouch I was accustomed to seeing. Alexander never minded the extra weight; he liked to squeeze the soft parts of me and lay his head on my stomach when our lovemaking was over. Still, I didn’t care for the idea of growing overly stout. My breasts were still heavy and, looking down, I realized the gown I wore did not fit as well as it once had. I was trying to adjust my top without anyone else noticing when a familiar masculine voice rang in my ear.

  “Mademoiselles! You seem to be having some trouble interpreting the menu. Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

  The pretty face of Georges d’Anthès loomed above me, the white uniform of his cavalry regiment, the Chevalier Guards, immaculate down to the golden epaulettes on his shoulders, but his dark blond hair artfully tousled just so. Behind him stood an older man, pleasant looking enough, perhaps in his mid-forties, with a full brown beard and a receding hairline. He was dressed less formally than Georges, in a plain frock coat with two medallions shaped like stars on the right side of his chest.

  A swell of panic rose, as I fancied that Georges knew I’d been thinking of him lately more than I ought, that somehow I had conjured him. With a flash like a firework in my mind, I remembered Alexander’s fortune-teller warning him of a tall, fair man.

  That was foolishness. I forced the anxiety to the back of my mind, giving a slight shake of my head, determined to behave like a normal human being. “Monsieur d’Anthès! The knight from Arthur’s court.” I extended my hand. He lowered his head to kiss it and I fervently wished I’d had more success adjusting my gown before he made it to the table.

  Alexander stood, and when Georges rose back to his full height, he was a head taller than my husband—a fact clearly not lost on Alexander who straightened his back to make himself as high as he could manage.

  “These are my sisters.” I wished their first introductions in St. Petersburg society had been to someone different. “You must know of my husband, Alexander Pushkin,” I added quickly, feeling ashamed to have not led with him.

  “An honor.” Georges nodded in Alexander’s direction. “And enchanted.” He kissed both Ekaterina’s and Azya’s hands. Azya looked flustered at the attention. Georges lingered a bit on Ekaterina’s fingers. She simpered, whispering, “Call me Koko.” The name was an old childhood affectation of hers and I felt a spark of jealousy in my chest followed rapidly by another dark cloud of guilt.

  “May I introduce Baron Heeckeren, a diplomat of the Netherlands.”

  My sisters nodded politely in the baron’s direction while keeping their enraptured gazes focused on Georges’s handsome face. Ekaterina’s foolishness didn’t surprise me, but it seemed even Azya was smitten, though at least her gaze turned back to her menu soon enough. Ekaterina’s heavy jaw might have dropped to the floor for all her lack of subtlety.

  “How do you two know one other?” I asked.

  Georges concentrated on me intently, like Alexander had early in our marriage, as though I had asked the most fascinating question in the world. I found myself struggling to maintain my neutral smile. “Baron Heeckeren and I met in court circles.”

  At that, the baron patted Georges’s arm fondly. “We are more than friends, or will be soon at any rate.”

  I tilted my head, unsure what the baron meant to imply.

  “Yes, it seems that now we are to be family as well. He plans to make me his heir. The baron will be my adopted father! Can you imagine the luck?”

  “I cannot,” Alexander said. “It seems fortune sometimes favors charming foreigners more than the bold.”

  The tips of my ears burned, but the baron merely dipped his head while Georges turned to Alexander and said: “I was most enchanted by your wife’s costume at the last masquerade before Lent. I am so sorry the night was disturbed by her unfortunate illness.”

  Alexander leaned back in his chair, but his hands pressed into tight fists and then opened wide again. I imagined the flat of his palm smacking Georges across the cheeks. “That was months ago. How odd you should take note of it now.”

  “The image is still vivid in my mind. The priestess of the sun. Such a beauty.”

  “And who were you at this masquerade, Monsieur d’Anthès?” Ekaterina asked.

  “Sir Lancelot. The fellow from the Englishmen’s stories? He loved a woman who belonged to another.”

  “How scandalous!” Ekaterina declared, clearly pleased.

  “I know the story. Poor Arthur,” Azya added.

  “Sir Lancelot was in love, in rapture,” Georges said. “How could he be expected to behave in a proper manner? All is forgiven when love is involved. Don’t you agree?”

  Now I busied myself with the menu, wishing we had taken my sisters to one of the foreign restaurants far away from the more fashionable part of the city. Alexander said nothing further. However, his hands lay flat on the table to either side of his china plate and he focused on them as though at any moment they might spring to life of their own volition and box Georges between the ears. The silence grew awkward, and I could not let the final note of our conversation remain Georges’s thoughts on forbidden love.

  “I’m sure you had no shortage of admirers at the masquerade,” I said, without considering the words too carefully. “Why would you ever stoop to chase another man’s wife when you looked handsome as Apollo!”

  Alexander’s fingers curled into fists, and Ekaterina sneered. I vowed to say nothing more.

  The baron placed his hand on Georges’s upper arm. “We should find our table before Monsieur Andrieu releases it to another party.” His tone was strangely irritable, even more so than Alexander’s.

  “Of course.” Georges clicked his heels together and nodded at my sisters. “Charmed.” He turned to me. “And I trust I will see you again, Madame Natalie.”

  I wished to sink under the folds of white linen draped over Monsieur Andrieu’s table. I had not shared my husband’s old western nickname for me with Georges; he had summoned this endearment on his own. Still, Alexander would assume I had shared this intimacy with Georges. I could not bear to look up again until I heard the thump of boots on the floor and knew Georges and the baron had retreated to their own table.

  “Now that is why I came to the city,” Ekaterina said. “What a handsome fellow.”

  “I trust that chap will find some way or another to see Natalie,” Alexander muttered. “And then the rest of us will be forced to tolerate his company.”

  “Anyone else thinking of ordering truffles?” My gaze fixed on the lovely calligraphy on the evening’s menu.

  “I am thinking now of a differe
nt dish,” Ekaterina said. I raised my head enough to watch her sip champagne while her gray eyes set on Georges’s broad back as he and the baron took their seats near the window.

  “You can do better.” Alexander’s voice changed. I didn’t care for the switch from irritability to false joviality. “What did you think of him, Azya?”

  I peeped at them. Azya’s gaze flitted between Alexander and me. “Too tall.”

  “Too tall?” Ekaterina said. “What rubbish!”

  “I found him excessively tall.”

  Alexander leaned back in his chair. “I think you are the diplomat tonight, my little sister, not our stuffy Dutch friend. Perhaps the tsar might hire you as an ambassador and send you to talk sense to the Poles or the Turks when they start causing trouble.” Alexander may have been speaking to Azya, but he looked straight at me as though I had already shattered his heart. “I think you will do very well here in St. Petersburg.”

  * * *

  “I have something I would like you to see.” I tried to keep my voice as gentle as possible as Alexander removed his striped dressing gown and took a seat beside me in bed. His loose nightshirt was fully buttoned and he didn’t reach for me as he usually did when we retired together for the evening.

  “Is that so?” he asked, still as a statue.

  I was trying to make amends, even as a faint voice inside insisted I had done nothing wrong. Except a stronger voice said it didn’t matter. Alexander’s shoulders drooped and he had spoken less than ten words to me since dinner. My heart beat anxiously underneath my nightgown. My husband was unhappy. And it was my fault. I needed to show him how much he meant to me. I looked down at the notebook propped on my lap.