The Chevalier

by The Chevalier (retail) (epub)

  “And you will please give me a painting in return,” the Empress says.

  “But I have none, Your Majesty.”

  Elizabeth laughs. “I am quite aware that French governesses seldom pack full portraits of themselves in their trousseaux.” She smiles on me again. “You will sit for Tocque when I can spare him. Be sure I will hang the picture in my gallery of beauties at Peterhof.” She claps her hands, and out we file.

  So I shall be immortal.

  * * *

  All too soon the evening is upon us – I start to prepare myself with double care to attend the ball of Metamorphosis. Displaying even more girlish spirit than usual, Katya is hovering around me in our boudoir. I need to act fast.

  “Katya, do you know where I can find an officer’s uniform? I am particularly looking for that of a colonel of the Preobrajenski Guards.”

  My young friend grins. “Why, it was thus attired that our fair Empress Elizabeth seized the throne.” She strikes a martial attitude to suit her high-flown rhetoric.

  “Precisely so, although perhaps you should say ‘ascended’.” I am forever on my guard against the unseen listener.

  “I’ll ask her First Lady, Anya. I think she can lay her hands on the same jacket and breeches from fourteen years ago.” Katya skips on the spot in anticipation. “Elizabeth was a touch trimmer then, you know.”

  “There’s no need to labour the point. But I would be most grateful if she would lend it to me all the same.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be delighted,” she says, giggling as she goes.

  I hurry to put into effect a small portion of my intimate toilette. There is just time for me to complete my change of undergarments. I am secure, ensconced, as she returns breathless a few minutes later with a package wrapped in layer upon layer of silk, cloth and thin paper.

  “Perfect, Katya. I trust you thanked the Empress most profusely.”

  “Well, yes, through Anya Dimitrievna. She says that if you damage it, your life will not be worth the living. And nor will hers.”

  “Thank you also, my friend. Now if you will excuse me…”

  “But I thought we could prepare ourselves together!” She pouts at me, eyes sullen.

  “Where then would be the fun in Metamorphosis? We must keep hidden from each other until the very moment we arrive at the ballroom.”

  Her nature, as I gamble, spots the chance for extra dramatic impact. “Oh, if you must. But I do think it’s a shame.”

  We separate for what I hope will be a colourless but safe hour of the evening until the ball is upon us. Yet the delicate nature of preparing myself – as a man pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man – brings thoughts of Marie to the forefront of my mind. It is not as if I have forgotten her; it is just that my senses have been living so much in the present for fear of exposure. Guilty of neglecting her as I am, I pause to wonder how she might advise me. I hear her telling me that I have nothing to fear, that I shall triumph and that she understands the pressures weighing down on me. She loves me still, she says in my imagination. Thus consoled, I leave for Metamorphosis.

  Arrayed in Russian soldier green yet still pancaked about my face, I make my passage down dim corridors to a ballroom, its lighting sparse and low. This serves to encourage perusal at close quarters, although my high white collar, sash and red cravat protect my throat from any prying eyes. Ensuring frequent contact, the room is small enough to be uncomfortable even for our select numbers. My claustrophobia is beginning to return.

  A familiar face bobs up in front of me in high excitement. In the blue and white jerkin and pantaloons of the Russian Navy, Katya makes a splendid boy. She has the powerful legs and the chunky physique of a sportsman, and her breasts are yet to bud so far as to distort her figure.

  The Empress, too, shows a magnificent figure as a man. Her long legs, tightly encased in white breeches, are most shapely. I note she has promoted herself to the rank of general; her green military jacket is especially becoming. Her fine jewelled waistcoat covers the tight stays that rein in her large breasts. Above, her powdered wig sets off her fine cheekbones and her noble features to good purpose. She would be an attraction for the ladies of the Marais, of that there is no doubt.

  “Do you not admire me, little one?”

  “You are imperious and will be the centre of all eyes,” I reply, knowing it to be true.

  “In this uniform, I won the throne. I rode at the head of my troops in glory through all Petersburg.”

  I flourish my sleeve. “Actually, I’m wearing that one.”

  “You young scamp, so you are. I’ll have you flogged if you don’t make obeisance.”

  “I’ll do it, Majesty!” I fall to my knees. “No one could fail to worship you.”

  She gestures me to get back on my feet. Her eyes, swimming from wine, focus upon me. “But how about you, now I inspect you on parade? What a convincing young man you have become!”

  “I fear I am but a poor substitute when set against the glory of Your Majesty.”

  “Nonsense. You just have not my stature, that is all. Now come with me.”

  She holds my arm and leads me to a corner of the room. Checking to see no one is following us, she takes a key and lets us through a hidden door. We march in single file down a small passageway into a hall that constitutes my paradise. It is the largest wardrobe I could ever imagine. Thousands of dresses of every colour and mode are hung in rank upon rank of silk, velvet, satin, muslin, lace and taffeta. Boots and slippers, diadems and jewels, silk stockings and gloves all spill from leather trunks – I open others which contain yet more fine dresses wrapped in folds of silk.

  My brain ablaze with unfulfilled desires, I wander up the lines of gowns, running my fingers over them, glorying in the materials, revelling in the fashions, admiring the immaculate craft. Of course, I imagine myself in each and every one of them.

  “How many are there here?”

  “One for every day of my reign – at least. I never wear the same dress twice.”

  “And you have ruled for…?”

  “Fourteen years.” She gives a long sigh.

  “So what will happen to this cornucopia?

  “That has been troubling me. I’m coming to the conclusion that I want someone else to wear the best of them again. Some fresh young girl, for instance.” Elizabeth pauses to look me in the face. “Someone like you.”

  “You’re very kind.” I glance down. “But I don’t have the superb bosom and proportions of Your Majesty.”

  “Why do you think I employ seamstresses and dressmakers? They can be taken in, I’m sure.”

  It is a very tempting prospect, but one fraught with danger. My identity would come under ceaseless scrutiny, from which I could never hope to escape.

  “I’m very grateful that you even consider me.”

  “We could start by painting you in one for the gallery of beauties. I’ll choose my favourite. But, Lia, we should return – we’re missing the dancing.”

  So I say a farewell to this personal nirvana. We retrace our steps and slip back, unnoticed, into the ball. I go in search of Katya: the Empress stays to watch the quadrille, where groups of four couples manoeuvre around each other with a degree of precision that seems at odds with the Russian character. To say nothing of the fact that all are pretending, in various degrees, to be what they are not.

  I am very glad to see that the men make far less convincing women than I do myself. A trace of beard here, an Adam’s apple there, a clumsy gait, an irregular embonpoint – these signs of half-hearted sex impersonation show how much less the game means to them. And I am even more pleased that the women, on the whole, succeed as men. Perhaps it is a Russian trait, a concomitant of big bones or peasant breeding. Whatever the cause, it makes my own metamorphosis more credible.

  There is one exception. The handsome Ivan Shuvalov, the Empress’s young plaything, has made a distinct effort to impress the ladies by his transformation. Wearing a dress of rose-petal pink, sh
aven so close his skin is smooth and glowing, he is made up by Elizabeth’s maids to look exquisite. As I stroll by, one of his white, hairless arms brushes against me.

  “Madamoiselle, you are a pretty thing,” I breathe.

  He stops, examines me through his lorgnette. “A fine young man, indeed,” he says. “I could almost be deceived.”

  “Could you now, my sweet?” The Empress is suddenly at my side. “What do you reckon, my French friend? Shall we have some sport?”

  “I’m not sure of your meaning, Majesty,” I say, sending off Katya for some wine.

  “Why, it’s quite clear. We’re young men together at the ball, and we would have something to stir our senses, fire our blood. These revellers are mine to command. So what will you desire? Two young girls cavorting?” A tall, kohl-eyed young guardsman in a dark blue dress of velvet comes to her side. “Here’s Nikolai, for example. Or shall we observe the actions of a young man and his belle?” She beckons over the young Anya Dimitrievna, whose rounded haunches appear to full advantage in tight black breeches, below an even tighter blue blouson.

  “I find the dances and natural conversation of your guests to be pleasure enough, Your Majesty.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a killjoy. What is it to be?” She flicks her eyes between the candidates for possible pairings: Shuvalov, Nikolai, Anya Dimitrievna.

  My instincts suggest that to watch the two young men in their fine dresses would set a most unfortunate precedent, one that the Tsarina might be overly keen to seize upon. Besides, I am rocked with the strong desire to feel one of the dresses close to my skin, and wish not to exacerbate my condition. I therefore concentrate on Anya.

  “Perhaps the young man in blue should be allowed to choose?”

  “Don’t be so soft. He’ll plunder whom I say. Yet I agree with you: the aesthetic possibilities of the opposites are probably more pleasing. Seize my lady in pink, sir.” She pushes Anya onto the waiting Shuvalov.

  The two converge, the blue blouse encasing her small breasts rubbing against the white roses adorning his pink dress, sprinkling the dance floor with a shower of petals. And there they stand, Anya’s fingers exploring Shuvalov’s bare shoulders, his hands creeping downward and cupping her black-clad posterior.

  “Kiss her, sir, kiss her.” Elizabeth is importunate. “She’s not of chinaware.”

  Shuvalov is tentative, Anya even more so. Both seem all too aware that the Empress may punish them tomorrow for the sins she is ordaining now. Nevertheless, it is an imperial command. Shuvalov’s tongue flicks out, as though it were a gecko poking through a crack in the wall, and moistens her natural, pale red lips. She opens her sweet mouth and closes her eyes. They kiss.

  Head nodding in a way that shows her vicarious gratification, Elizabeth delights in the spectacle but soon urges them to the next phase. “Onto the divan with you.”

  She cracks her hand across their flanks in turn. The enforced lovers stumble, but obey. They take up their positions on the couch in front of her. Stretched out side by side, they kiss with mounting passion, ever deeper.

  “Now maul her, sir, as though you mean it.”

  Anya begins to comply, Shuvalov to respond. Her fingers pull his pink dress ever upward till it plays about his thighs. He gasps as her hand roves over straining undergarments, while his own fingers start to unbutton her shirt, on the point of releasing pert breasts from their prison. Now they move to ease down her black pantaloons, until the Empress and I can see the junction of light flesh on flesh. With well-tuned caution, unwilling to distract Elizabeth, some of the other ladies and courtiers gather around. The movements on the couch grow in intensity. Her Majesty is breathing ever shorter, matching herself to the courting couple’s sighs. She grips my hand in her large fingers, twists it open and strokes my palm in a sensual, circular motion. Any more of this and I may start to give myself away. Yet all can change.

  “That’s enough. You have achieved your purpose. Anya, you will now entertain me in your mannish guise.” Slowly, Anya shrinks back from the tableau although Shuvalov appears less willing to let her go. The Empress grips him by the neck. “And you, my pretty young maid, restrain your ardour till I summon you.”

  “As Your Majesty wishes,” Shuvalov tries not to smirk while Elizabeth adjusts his roseate dress.

  “Very well.” The Empress turns to me. “Remember, I can order you to do this at any time I desire.”

  “I understand,” I say.

  “Because the happenings at the ball are secret, you and all my favoured guests must be ready to perform whatever I ask.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  “And the night will come.” She holds my gaze with a look most impure until she leads Anya, breeches no longer loose, away to a secluded corner.

  “That must have been an ordeal, sir,” I say to Shuvalov when they are gone.

  “The only hardship was I couldn’t finish what I’d started on the spot.”

  “Really? Would you betray the Empress?”

  “Don’t be such a prude.” He pushes himself up from the divan, and makes a play to rub my thigh. “But that it might cost me my position, I’d have you.”

  I dance a little away. “I’m most honoured you should think so.”

  “Yes, you’re quite enchanting. Truly, tonight, you are a fine young lad. I said before you were a credit to our sex,” drawls Shuvalov. “The only problem is you are too wan; it’s all in the blood, you see.”

  * * *

  Blood. That is what I am missing. If I cannot create it, I will be unable to fulfil my mission. This is the one remaining barrier to my womanhood. Within at least four weeks of my arrival it must flow.

  On the next night, when my reading is over and Elizabeth has decided to try Shuvalov again for stamina, I lie awake through the cold hours. At last I come to a momentous decision. I take a sharp knife with me when I attend to my toilette. Satisfying myself that the energetic Katya is still asleep, I make two small incisions near the top of my thighs, in the area abutting my withdrawn scrotal sac. The dark red liquid spills and I press my undergarments to the wounds so the material may absorb the blood. I cannot recreate the aroma by myself, but bring to my aid a shift worn by the Empress during her recent monthly excretions, one that I have saved from the fire. Meticulous in my studied carelessness, I leave the tell-tale underthings beside the bed.

  Katya is first to rise in the morning. “Oh dear! I see that Alexander Nevsky has invaded you, my sweet.”

  “I beg your pardon,” I reply, affecting more than usual indolence.

  “It is just a phrase we use for our menses. So my sister says, anyway. Of course, being French, you would not understand.”

  “Oh no. Not exactly,” I admit. “We just say that Monsieur de Malbrook has come.”

  “Malbrook?”

  “An English general who was the cause of much bloodletting in the wars fifty years ago.”

  Her smile is a touch nervous, I presume because she has not yet begun her own monthly bleedings. “Much the same thing, then.”

  “I suppose so.” I feel that I am now become a woman.

  * * *

  Such a complete transformation soon turns out to resemble a curse. Not two hours later, Katya and I are conversing on matters philosophical when the youngest handmaiden of the Tsarina calls on us. We are summoned to the imperial bedchamber without delay.

  “What is this?” The Empress is in a violent passion. “Who put this underneath my bed?”

  She holds up a loose agglomeration of mandrake roots, bound together by strands of human hair. The hairs are similar to the colour of that worn by Anya – and my own. The whole resembles the shape of a human body. Elizabeth turns away from us in an attempt to control her fury.

  A young voice whispers in my ear: “Our Tsarina is most superstitious. She will not rest until she knows the truth.” Even Katya has lost her usual bounce.

  “I’ve spoken to my two young maids. Not guilty. There are only three more of yo
u who frequent my chamber with time and opportunity to do this,” Elizabeth glowers at us all – I can smell she has been drinking, even this early in the day. “You, Katya, are too young – besides you are dark. But you, Anya, and you, my little Lia, both possess fair waving hair and have had leisure to distribute this, this, this thing.” She spits out the last word.

  I point out what I believe to be obvious: “Your Majesty, we would hardly have used our own hair if this doll was meant to be malignant.”

  “You can’t fool me that way. The witchcraft will only work in favour of the perpetrator if she employs her own hair in the design.” The Empress shakes the mandrake figurine.

  “Your Majesty, I’m innocent,” I say.

  Anya is sobbing with fright. “And so am I.”

  “We shall soon see. You will both be put to the test in turn,” says Elizabeth. “I shall now decide whom to interrogate first.”

  “Oh, but please…” gulps my companion in distress.

  “Silence, Anya,” the Empress commands. “There is a coin in one of my palms, Lia. Which one is it?” She holds her hands behind her back. “Well?”

  I am unable to speak.

  “Come on then, Anya Dimitrievna. The choice is yours.”

  “The right, Your Majesty.” Anya shivers from her shoulders to her knees. “It must be the right.”

  With infinite slowness, the Empress brings out her right fist from behind her back, and holds it in front of us. She opens it. Anya shrinks to the floor. It is empty.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Empress

  If I think chance might have earned me some respite, I am reckoning without considering Elizabeth’s perversity. To my horror, I am seized while Anya is left on her knees, wailing for pity. The Empress hustles me into the chamber where I had my initiation and places me in the middle of the floor. My eyes plead with her: did Anya not lose the gambit? However, I say nothing. I know better than to question her authority. She binds my wrists, and with another cord ties my hands, pointing them as though in supplication to the chandelier above. The mirrors endlessly reflect my plight. With her face set in stern concentration she pulls on the end of the rope, lifting me and leaving my feet dangling, big toes scraping the floor. She takes up a whip and swishes it through the air, the draught rustling my thin shift. I pray to God that she will not disrobe me to complete my humiliation and in the process discover my true nature. As I languish in this excruciating pose, she jerks my head back and secures a blindfold round my eyes, the same cloth used in that earlier ceremony. I wait for pain to take over my life.