The Mirrored World

by Debra Dean

The musici have since fallen out of favor, and I do not expect to hear such an ethereal sound again until the angels sing me home. It is just as well. Such radiance was not intended for mortals, and to achieve it, hundreds of boys were mutilated, made into monsters so that a few among the wounded might sing. That such beauty should come from such suffering . . . I see it in Xenia also. It is a terrible mystery.

  The next morning, I awoke to stabbing light and the sound of church bells ringing, each clang so deafening that I might have been trapped within the bell itself, with the bronze tongue striking my skull. Anyone may ring the bells in Bright Week and so they rang incessantly, as I foresaw they would for days yet. Coupled with this misery, in the previous days the ice on the Neva had begun to break up, and in the lulls between chimes I heard the river’s painful groans, the screech of ice against ice. Against this noise, the promises of spring and our Lord’s resurrection seemed faint abstractions, and the bliss of Gaspari’s voice an improbable memory.

  Xenia was in her accustomed place in the corner, her black shape bent before the Virgin of Vladimir. She was as still as a corpse, her countenance empty, her eyes sunken in shadow. Apparently, I had missed the morning service, but Xenia had not: the basket she had filled with red eggs the night before sat next to her, empty.

  I saw the truth of our situation with the clarity of a drunkard’s remorse. There was nothing left in the larder, and I would have to sell the sleigh and horse.

  Chapter Ten

  That same week, Nadya and her mother came to call and brought with them intricately painted eggs, one for Xenia and another for myself.

  “Xenia is at her prayers just now,” I said, “but she will be delighted by this.”

  Aunt Galya smiled thinly and held fast to the egg meant for Xenia. “We can wait till she is finished. I should very much like to give it to her myself.”

  I showed them into the drawing room, grateful as I did that I had not yet found it necessary to sell the chairs, or Xenia to give them away. The sideboard was gone, but the divan and two chairs remained.

  They glanced about, poorly concealing their dismay. “A house always looks barren at Lent,” Aunt Galya remarked. “But why have you not put things back in their places?”

  Nadya answered her. “Xenia has become a great benefactress, Maman. Isn’t that so, Dasha?”

  I nodded. “She is very kind to the poor. They call her Matushka.”

  Nadya looked as though she had eaten something bitter. “So kind she has given them even the clothes from her back?”

  “Just the once.”

  A look passed between mother and daughter, and Nadya made her aspect more pleasing. “Let us speak freely. Like sisters. My mother and I are greatly concerned for her. People are talking. Yesterday, it came back to us that she had been seen giving her corset to a person on the street.”

  I turned the egg in my palm. On one side was painted the head of our Savior, his eyes two dark and elongated hollows of sorrow. The reverse showed a pastoral scene, a young lord and lady courting in a glade, she perched on a swing and he pushing her.

  Aunt Galya put an affectionate hand on my shoulder. “I know you love her and would protect her, Dasha, but consider that you are protecting her from those who love her equally as well. Clearly, she is troubled, and we want to help.”

  The promise of help overruled my scruples, and I spilt all the trials of the past weeks, how Xenia had emptied the strongbox, how one moment she was taciturn and the next was taking me to task for putting a portion of sausage on her plate. “She eats only bread now and too little of that. She has no appetite for anything but prayer. That she may do for hours. You may as well know that there is no point to waiting on her. She will not come down.”

  Nadya was horrified. “She can’t have given away everything?”

  “Not all,” I admitted. “I hid some things from her.”

  “But the strongbox . . . is all her money gone, then?”

  I said that it was, except for the few kopeks that remained from the sale of the sideboard. If Nadya might speak to Kuzma Zakharovich about a loan, I began, but her outraged look silenced me.

  Aunt Galya was also distressed at her daughter’s misfortune. But she knew what it was to lose a husband and all one’s possessions, and perhaps it was this that made her better able to school her emotions.

  “What did you hide, Dasha?”

  “It is only that I thought she may desire them later.”

  She nodded approvingly and encouraged me to list for her the various items, which I did.

  “Odds and ends,” Nadya fumed.

  A look of reproof passed from mother to daughter. “There are still the serfs. And the house and furnishings,” Aunt Galya said. “But she can’t be allowed to go on like this. We must do what is best for her, however hard.”

  The following week, Xenia was served with a summons to show herself in court and answer to the charge that she was alienated, startled out of her mind. If she were found unfit to manage her own affairs, she would be declared one of the sumasbrodnye, mad, then dispossessed of her property and given into the custody of her family.

  It may be that they were indeed trying to save Xenia from herself. Still, the word itself was shocking. For all her strangeness, I could not reconcile Xenia with that word. If she behaved rashly, well, had she not always been passionate and a bit wild? It was only her profound sorrow that made her like a foreigner amongst us now. Even stripping to her skin on the steps of the church might be deemed an excess of grief. True, I had never seen grief like this, but neither had I known anyone so completely possessed by love of her husband. One could not expect such passion, when ripped from its source, to fade gently. Given time, I thought, the wound might yet heal.

  Xenia received the news of the summons with no visible concern. She wished only to return to her room, and when I expressed surprise that she could be so indifferent to her own fate, she asked if there was something else I would have her do.

  It being common for persons to attempt to seize the property of their relations by falsely declaring them mad, all such cases bypassed the lower courts and were brought directly before the Senate. Thus, on the appointed day, we appeared at the long expanse of red and white buildings that make up the Twelve Colleges and were directed to a vast anteroom. It was teeming with persons, many more than the benches lining the walls would accommodate.

  All who had business with the crown were gathered here like waters behind a dike and trickled through a single set of doors. Amongst these were foreign ambassadors hoping to influence the Senate to favor a trade agreement, nobles awaiting civilian appointments or promotions in rank, and merchants seeking military contracts or the rights to sell vodka. Those appealing the ruling of a lower court or seeking criminal review were also funneled here. And one must presume there were other persons in the room like Xenia, who might or might not be ruled mad.

  Those petitioners without influence or means to bribe their way through these doors might well linger in the shallows for ten or even twenty years without their suits being heard, and this prospect was reflected in their behaviors. Like the denizens of Hades, they sat or stood in attitudes suggesting they had taken up residence here long ago and had since forgotten the manners of the other world. They scratched themselves freely, yawned, and even slept with their chins on their chests and their mouths gaping. Some had withdrawn so far into themselves that they resembled Xenia; others, more social, played at games of dice or cards and made such a noise that clerks who appeared at intervals to call forward the next case could not be heard above the din. The residents, apparently having lost hope of hearing their own names called, paid them no mind. Looking about, I wondered how a judge might sort the mad from the rest.

  Kuzma Zakharovich found us in the midst of this crowd. He wished me good morning and then greeted Xenia in a louder tone as if she might be deaf. She gave him in r
eturn a penetrating look, which discomfited him.

  “Does she not speak?” he asked me.

  “If she is so inclined, but she cannot be depended upon for courtesy.”

  He gave her another wary glance. “My wife and Galina Stepanovna are anxious of her whereabouts,” he said, and bid us join them.

  Aunt Galya had not seen Xenia since Andrei’s death. “So thin and bleak,” she exclaimed, kissing her. “The Lord gave you such prettiness and only to take it away like this. My poor daughter.”

  A hardly noticeable twitch unsettled Xenia’s features, as if her mother’s kiss were a fly lighting on her cheek.

  “When we are through here,” Aunt Galya went on, “we shall take you home with us and see that you are properly tended to.”

  “You see how she is,” Nadya said. “Your affection is wasted on her. It would be just as well to send her to a monastery.”

  “You want feeling, Nadya, to say such things now.”

  All of Kuzma Zakharovich’s remaining influence must have been wielded to turn the wheels of Justice, for Xenia’s case was called that same afternoon, and we were ushered past the residents and through the doors, and to a smaller chamber. A judge and a scribe sat behind a long table raised on a dais. The judge wore the robe and long, curled wig befitting his office, and the gray complexion of one who has not seen daylight for many years.

  The clerk announced the case to His Excellency, who bid the former hunt-master to approach the bench and lay out the matter. This Kuzma Zakharovich did with meticulousness, listing each instance of Xenia’s supposed mad behavior as though he were recounting a season of hunts.

  “Have you witnessed these things yourself, Gospodin Sudakov, or only heard them reported?” the judge asked.

  “I am but the messenger, Your Excellency, but you may see with your own eyes how the woman behaves, in what manner she answers, and judge in your wisdom whether she conforms to the pictures I have painted for you.”

  “Is this she?” The judge indicated Xenia, and when it was confirmed, he bid her step forward. “Do you understand the charge laid against you?”

  She did not speak straightaway. I was anxious lest her silence prove the charge better than all of Kuzma Zakharovich’s words, but at last she seemed to find her answer on the floor.

  “They say I am mad.”

  “And how do you answer to this?”

  “It would be a comfort.”

  “Answer in a respectful manner. Are you mad or no?”

  She looked up at him. “My reason tells me that my husband and child are dead. I long for less reason.”

  The judge nodded slowly as she spoke, but it was impossible to read in his face the meaning of these nods.

  “Do you understand that should this court find against you, you will not be permitted to marry again? Further, that you shall be remanded to the custody of your nearest relations, and to them shall also go whatever property you may own?”

  “It’s no matter.” She turned and looked directly at her mother and Nadya. “They may have whatever they ask. I do not want it.”

  “So it seems. Gospodin Sudakov here claims that you have already given the bulk of your property to beggars.”

  She nodded.

  “And are you aware that there is a law against almsgiving?”

  She nodded again.

  “How do you explain yourself, then?”

  There was another long silence.

  “You will answer the court.”

  Xenia looked on him wearily. “I did it that I might give my husband’s soul rest. And mine also. But God will not bargain for so little.”

  “The law is in place to protect Her Imperial Majesty’s subjects from charlatans who would prey on their sympathies.”

  “That your son died was not her fault,” Xenia answered. “Her prayers for his soul were well worth thirty kopeks.”

  The judge was surprised from his dignity. He looked her up and down with undisguised confusion, and an emotion burbling beneath his features threatened to unseat him. He waved the clerk to him. There was a whispered exchange between them that somehow also concerned the person of Kuzma Zakharovich.

  At last having satisfied himself, the judge put on again his formal demeanor. He did not look again at Xenia.

  “The court cannot condone the breaking of its laws. But if it were to declare mad all those who breached this law, the monasteries should overflow with half of Russia.

  “Her speech shows reason, and I can find no cause to declare her sumasbrodnaya.”

  With that, we were dismissed from his presence and other petitioners ushered in behind us.

  As we made our way through the anteroom, Kuzma Zakharovich was philosophical. “It is true what they say. Tell God the truth, but give the judge money.”

  “You might have thought of this before,” Nadya said.

  “I was given assurances.” Kuzma Zakharovich shook his head. “By Prince Tatishchev himself.”

  “Perhaps the Prince cares less for your welfare than you believe.”

  At this, Xenia suddenly clutched her sister by the arm and said, “Your husband still lives and wants only your tenderness. Thank God for His mercy!”

  Nadya wrenched herself from Xenia’s grasp. “You! I will not be preached to by you!” Her harshness caught even the attention of the residents, who left off their other diversions. I was reminded of the festival crowds that stop before a puppet theatre in the street to see Petrushka and his foes knock each other about the head.

  “Collect yourself,” Aunt Galya said. She then took Xenia’s arm and with her free hand turned her daughter’s face to meet hers. “You said you would part with whatever we asked. So I will ask it: give up your people and your house, and I shall care for you.”

  Xenia met her mother’s gaze. “If my peasants wish to serve you, they may. But the house is Dasha’s. It is my wedding gift to her.”

  Aunt Galya turned on me, her voice brittle with suspicion. “What is this?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Have you schemed behind my back? After the love I have shown you?”

  Someone in the crowd jeered and said I needed whipping.

  “I do not deserve to be used so poorly,” she said.

  I protested my innocence, but she shook me off, fury blooming in her cheeks. “Do not compound your sin with more lies.”

  The Musico’s Wife

  Chapter Eleven

  We returned from the courthouse even poorer than we had been. The judge had granted Xenia control over what little remained of her estate but at the cost of her family’s protection. She, in turn, had bequeathed me this same house as a wedding gift—and with it the enmity of the person charged with finding me a husband. Mine had been a lost cause well before this—I was then nearly twenty-five, well beyond the age of a bride—but I could no longer pretend otherwise.

  In short, because it was untenable for us to remain as we were, two women alone and without means or prospects, I devised the only plan I could think of, that we should go to the country and live again under my father’s roof. I wrote to him asking that he take us in.

  Xenia did not like my plan, though.

  “Where shall they go if the door is locked against them?” she asked me.

  I explained that Marfa would go to live with her brother; Ivan and his son, Grishka, to the village where he was born; Masha would be coming with us.

  “And the rest?”

  “Who?”

  “All the others.” There was no one unaccounted for. She gestured at the window. “Them.”

  I understood. She meant the beggars. I answered that they would be taken care of.

  She looked at me as though this untruth was a visible blemish on my nose.

  “You cannot provide for all the poor, Xenia. You cannot even look after
yourself.”

  “I do not matter,” she countered. “But if you stayed here, you might look after them.”

  “And how shall I do that? I do not have even a kopek to my name.”

  “God is bringing a husband for you. Then you shall want for nothing.”

  I could bear it no more. I broke into sobs, and once I had started could not stop myself. Xenia patted and stroked my head, but this only loosened my grief further. I was alone and unloved. Only Xenia remained, murmuring in my ear that my husband was coming. But she, too, was gone. Bereft, I exhausted myself in tears.

  Masha entered to say that Gaspari was downstairs. I had no desire to be seen in such a state, but neither would I send away our last friend in the city. “Say that I shall be down presently.” I splashed water on my face, then gathered myself together and went downstairs.

  He met me with such a look of sorrow that I suspected Masha had already told him our news. But no, he was only mirroring what he found in my face.

  “The court has sent away Xenia Grigoryevna?”

  “It is not the court’s doing, but we must leave nonetheless.”

  I told him all that had occurred at the courthouse, and what I had written to my father.

  “I have some monies put away, and this I would give you. You must allow me to do this, dear friend.”

  He had been setting aside sums every year so that he might return to Italy. I did not know the amount, but I knew its value.

  “I cannot. I have no way to repay you, and it would only forestall what needs to be done.”

  He looked stricken. An unaccustomed silence fell upon us. He seemed to be making an effort to say something further, but he could find no stories for me now. Xenia entered, wearing Andrei’s jacket over her dress. Gaspari stood up from his chair and, bowing, offered it to her.

  Taking no notice of his courtesy, she announced to him, “I am going away. This shall be her house.”

  “Yes. I am greatly saddened to hear it.”

  She gave him a look of impatience. “This shall be her house,” she repeated, and pounded the wall as though to give proof there were no vermin in it.