Tsarina

by Ellen Alpsten

  I tried not to step in Vassily’s blood, which was all over the kitchen floor. Nadia shuffled ahead of me down the corridor, her candle dancing like a will-o’-the-wisp, and I followed. She was leading me not back to my room, but deeper inside the house.

  ‘Where are we going?’ My voice cracked.

  ‘Come,’ she said. Finally, she stopped outside the room where Vassily met his customers. Only Nadia had access to it. She pushed the door open and raised her nightlight. The curtains were drawn and last embers glimmered in the iron grate. On a wide wooden desk a quill was stuck in an inkwell. The letters and numbers on the papers and scrolls looked to me like mouse droppings; next to them I spotted an empty carafe of vodka. Nadia sniffed it scornfully: was this how Vassily had summoned up his courage, and his cruelty? One of the small bags of white powder lay beside it, open and still half-full. Nadia moistened her finger, dipped it in the powder, sniffed it hard up her nose and rubbed some on the roof of her mouth and her gums. Then, she grinned, and swept her arm across the desk, making Vassily’s bills and papers whirl up into the air. His books flew across the room; their pigskin bindings came off and they lay there, tattered and open, as she kicked them about. I sneezed from the dust.

  ‘Help me,’ she said, tipping the contents of the desk drawers onto the floor. Quills, slide rules, coins, knives, inkpots, leather pouches, bullets and pipe tampers tumbled out at my feet. I gawped, too surprised to cry, as Nadia finally tore down one of the curtains and kicked over the chair behind the desk. ‘What are you doing?’ I stared around at the chaos in the room.

  Nadia shrugged. ‘We’ve had burglars in here, Marta.’

  ‘Burglars?’ I was dumbstruck.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, as if speaking to a child. ‘The ones who killed Vassily. Such a terrible thing. Our good and generous master.’ Her bulging eyes glittered with cunning. Suddenly, she seemed capable of anything and was no longer a servant, but the one who gave the orders.

  ‘What are we going to do with you, Marta? You have to leave, right now, and never come back. You’ve only got until dawn.’

  ‘Where would I go?’ I begged. ‘I have no one, Nadia.’

  ‘I can help you with one thing only. After that, you’ll have to trust in God.’ Her hand slipped under a shelf: she found a little key and unlocked the casket on Vassily’s writing desk.

  ‘How did you know it was there?’ I was stunned.

  ‘I know everything that goes on in this house, Marta.’ She counted out a small handful of coins, although the casket was full of them. ‘Do you have another dress, apart from those rags?’ She pointed at my torn and bloodstained sarafan.

  ‘Not a plain one. Olga’s clothes are still in our room, but her dress is not made in the Russian fashion.’

  She pressed the coins into my palm. ‘So much the better. Pack your bundle. No one will remember one maid more or less in Walk. The carts set off from the town gates at daybreak for Marienburg. You’ll buy a ride. Do you understand? That’s far enough away. I’ll wait till sunrise to call for help. The money’s enough for the journey, and for you to live on for the next few days. After that you’ll have to fend for yourself.’ Nadia grabbed my chin and stared me down. ‘I never, ever want to see you here again, Marta. Is that clear?’

  ‘Marienburg?’ I said dully. The city was many versty and many worlds away.

  ‘No one will think to look for you there,’ she repeated.

  ‘What will happen to you?’ The coins lay cool in my hand; only a few, but it was more money than I had ever seen.

  Nadia smiled. The candlelight flickered in the draught from the open door, drawing lines on her round, smooth face. She pointed to the casket. ‘There’s enough for me here. When all this is over, I’ll move in next to my sister’s izba, with a little garden. I shall die honoured and loved,’ she said. ‘It’s more than I could ever have wished for.’

  There was nothing else to say.

  Nadia led me back to my room through the silent house. She watched while I hastily washed my face and packed: a good sarafan, my woollen tunic and a last pouch of sticky sweets that Vassily had given me just a few days ago. ‘I’ll have these,’ Nadia decided, and took Olga’s buttons, the balls of wool and the dark, shiny comb. ‘These you’ll have better use for,’ she said, and gave me the green gloves. ‘Let’s get you dressed and out of the door.’

  Putting on Olga’s dress was harder than I’d expected; it was tailored for when she was not pregnant. Nadia squashed my flesh into the bodice and laced me up. The bones in the seams pinched my waist until I could hardly breathe. Then I put on the tulup, a heavy sheepskin coat – another of Vassily’s presents – as well as two pairs of thick woollen socks so I could wear the boots that were kept by the front door for the menservants. I twisted my hair into a knot and tied the scarf tight around my ears and chin.

  Nadia clapped her hands. ‘How wonderfully ugly you can be. Nobody’s going to look at you twice. But be sure to lower your eyes, my girl,’ she said. ‘There’s not another pair like them in all of Walk. Slanted and green, like a cat’s.’

  I nodded, forgetting to lower my eyes, and Nadia cuffed me. We walked in silence to the front door, where she gave me a blanket of double-knitted wool that I rolled up under my arm. Then she grabbed me by the shoulders. ‘This night, Marta, will forever be our secret. If ever you should speak of what has happened, may the Devil cut off your ears, nose and hands, and roast you alive.’

  Nadia’s curse was heartfelt and frightening. She kissed my forehead and unbolted the front door. An icy gust of wind made me shrink back, but Nadia forced me over the threshold, out into the dark and the cold. I clutched at her tunic, in vain; she pushed me away. I watched her pick up a stone and walk around the house to beneath Vassily’s study. She hurled it and I heard glass shatter. ‘That’s how the burglar came in,’ she said, before pointing to the gate. ‘Carts for Marienburg leave at dawn. Go now. Farewell. It’s people you should fear, not the Devil.’

  Those were her last words to me before the door to Vassily’s house closed behind me forever. There was no contradicting her.

  I stood there, alone in the night, in possession of nothing but my life. Thick clouds smothered the stars and the snow was falling like a curtain, hiding Nadia’s tracks. I could barely make out the stable where Grigori had died that morning. It felt like a lifetime ago. I trudged down the icy steps to the courtyard, crossed it and, using all my strength, pushed back the iron bar on the gate. When I stood in the empty street, snowflakes stuck to my eyelashes and the tears froze on my cheeks. An icy wind cut through the seams of my coat. I couldn’t see or work out which way to go. Where were the town gates? I lumbered on and when I looked back, snow was already filling my footsteps as if I had never existed. Had I ever been so lonely? Still, I took a deep breath and stopped crying, because it only wasted my strength. With a handful of snow, I rubbed the last of Vassily’s blood from my face, making my cheeks burn.

  Then I set off.

  10

  The wind cut right through me, biting down to the bone; by the time I reached the town gate, my lips were white with rime. I was comforted neither by burying my fists deeply in the tulup’s fur-lined pockets nor by the memory of poor Grigori’s frozen feet. The thought of them made me wiggle my toes in my much-too-large metal-capped boots.

  Despite the early hour, the gate was teeming with life: horses bit on their snaffles, their breath steaming up into the clear winter air and their heavy, hairy hooves scraping on the icy cobblestones. Torch flames cowered before the freezing wind, the hot tar fuelling them dripping and sizzling in the snow. Men who were drenched with sweat despite the biting cold heaved bundles and bales onto carts, shouting orders and cursing. Swedish soldiers were grouped close to the town wall, leaning on their weapons and keeping an eye on everything and everyone. Their uniforms looked like they were cut from cheap, thin cloth and they warmed themselves by crackling fires. A couple of weeks earlier the footman of one of Vassily’s customers h
ad told me that Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony – was it true that he squeezed an apple to sauce with his bare hands and bent horseshoes straight? – had declared war on Sweden. Along the Livonian border to Courland the first skirmishes were said to have taken place, but that felt very far away. Still, Augustus had more than once tried to take Riga from the Swedes; among Vassily’s customers everyone believed it wouldn’t be long before he came knocking on the door here too, asking for his due. As Russians, they didn’t mind; he was a puppet of the Tsar, a puppet with a mighty army at his back.

  No wonder the mood in Walk had been sullen and downcast in recent weeks and people in both the streets and the market had been going about their business hurriedly.

  Along the wall, old women sold hot chai, boiling up the bitter broth in huge black cauldrons on beds of smouldering coals. The tea’s coarse leaves drifted in maelstroms on the simmering surface: you had to strain them through your teeth when drinking it. Other babushky offered flat sourdough bread, topping it sparsely with salted meat and sauerkraut. I felt faint with hunger and, while I wanted to stretch my money as far as possible, I bought both chai and bread. When I counted the coins into her palm, the trader raised her eyebrows: my ill-fitting clothes and over-large boots were unusual in someone walking around with a small fortune in their pocket. Better to have counted it earlier, out of sight, I scolded myself, suddenly panicked. What if someone knocked the coins out of my hand? Both dawn and the crowds, who were all on their way somewhere, made the town gate a target for pickpockets and other loafers all too ready to pilfer.

  Feeling faint with hunger, I first ate the salty meat and sauerkraut. When that was gone, I dipped the chewy bread into my chai and sucked hungrily on the softening crust while looking around. ‘Not so greedy, my girl!’ The woman laughed toothlessly as she poured me more tea. ‘Keep your ardour for your lover, as long as you are young and beautiful and men will still look at you.’

  I barely heard her. My muscles ached with tiredness but also with fear and strain. Had Vassily’s body been found yet? What if Nadia didn’t stick to her story; who, after all, believed a serf? Crimes by souls against their masters – especially a master such as Vassily – were commonplace and the punishment usually swift and brutal. Dread made me feel even colder. I fingered the coins in my pocket again. Their weight and number reassured me.

  The first carts were ready to leave; the drivers pulled themselves up onto their boxes. Soldiers circled them, asking their origin and destination so loudly, I could hear it from across the road. They seemed to check loads repeatedly. They, too, were not wholly welcome in Walk anymore. Vassily had hoped that very soon, not only Saxony but also Russia would fight the Swedes. But when I listened to gossip in the market I’d learnt that meant only one thing for the Baltic people: we’d be helplessly caught up in a war that was neither ours to fight nor to win, and we’d be crushed when the big powers clashed. Every day I survived from now on would be a miracle I must cherish.

  The heavy-hooved carthorses were ready to leave, neighing and flicking their ears, and their drivers shouted out their destinations, hoping for last passengers.

  ‘Pernau!’

  ‘Dorpat!’

  ‘Marienburg!’

  I hurried to a cart that was just about to pull away. ‘How much will it be for you to take me to Marienburg?’ I asked, grabbing the reins and tilting my head back to look up at the driver.

  He grinned and tapped a stubby finger against his cheek. ‘It’s for free, my girl, if you add a kiss and agree to spend a night with me.’

  He seemed harmless enough all the same so I hissed. ‘Tell me, old man, or I’ll ask someone else.’

  He shrugged. ‘If you squeeze between the barrels, it will cost you a denga.’

  A denga. That was half a kopek for squeezing between some barrels in a cart! It was daylight robbery but I had no alternative, so I picked out a coin; the money was warm and sticky, I had held it so tight. The man bit into it with one of his three yellow teeth and slipped the coin out of sight. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, and pulled me up. I crawled back inside the covered cart. When it jolted forward, I leant against the barrels and stretched out my legs.

  Apart from some crates of chickens and a young couple, I was the only passenger. The woman was very pregnant and her husband would hold her steady whenever the cart shook or plunged into a pothole. They seemed to have eyes only for each other and this suited me fine, I was in no mood to chat and answer questions. When I lifted the waxy flap of the awning, the morning mist and a curtain of snowflakes had swallowed both Walk’s town walls and the patrolling soldiers. Soon we were out in the open. The next time I looked, the sun was shining, dull as a copper coin, in a sky that hung low and menacing. The villages we passed through were dark dots against the snowy, shrouded plains.

  11

  During the day, the couple and I shared a goat’s skin full of sour milk and some pieces of cold oatcake with the driver Misha. At night we stopped at a guesthouse that was hardly better than a pigsty. I sat by the open fire with the drivers. I was too fretful to sleep anyway.

  We reached Marienburg late in the afternoon. As evening fell it started snowing and didn’t look like it was ever going to stop. Nadia was right, nobody would notice me here. The alleyways were crowded. Our cart splashed soggy slush onto passers-by, who jumped away; and rolled over the fingers of beggars who cursed us with fists raised. There were Swedish soldiers everywhere: were these the men who would stop the mighty Tsar? They looked like any other men to me – a bit more handsome, I’ll allow, tall and blond in their blue uniforms and cloaks, with a certain pride and confidence to them.

  The cart stopped outside a kabak just as the innkeeper kicked out a drunkard. The man fell down in front of us and was in no fit state to get up again. Little wonder: a kabak served no food. Punters downed as many glasses of vodka as quickly as they could so as to reach a profound stupor. Misha threw the reins to a stable boy, got down from the driver’s box, shook his legs in their coarse linen breeches tucked into sturdy knee-high boots and took off his high rabbit-skin cap.

  ‘Marienburg. Off you go, hurry up or I’ll kick you out,’ he said, eager for his visit to the kabak after stabling his cart and horses. The husband helped his pregnant wife out of the cart and then extended his hand to me. ‘May God protect you,’ I said when we parted ways, he standing protectively between his wife and the filthy road. I felt a crushing sadness to see the care and tenderness between them. Constant hardship drains away hope and leaves no room for anything but deep sorrow. Loneliness lunged at me like a wolf at a lone traveller, burying its claws in my soul. I swallowed my tears and grabbed my bundle. Where should I go? Who needed a maid, and how to find out about them?

  Misha had his horses fed and watered and their hooves searched. He eyed me while picking between his teeth, checking now and then to see what he had found. ‘Don’t you know where to go, girl?’ He tucked a pinch of chewing tobacco underneath his upper lip and sucked noisily, then spat red saliva into the snow.

  ‘No . . . Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, I am looking for work. I don’t ask for much . . .’

  ‘Come over here.’

  I walked up to him gingerly. He raised my chin with a dirty hand smelling of leather and tobacco, pushed back my headscarf and fingered one of my dark locks. He grunted and said: ‘I didn’t even notice how pretty you are. Don’t lower your eyes like that. And what has happened to your lips? Has a bee stung you in the mouth?’

  I blushed and held my bundle tight, but he seized my elbow. ‘Where is your family?’

  I didn’t answer, forcing back the tears that welled up. ‘I’m looking for work as a maid,’ I said instead. He hardly seemed the type to know a family in need of staff but I didn’t know where else to start.

  ‘Do you know how to read or write?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perfect. Too much learning spoils a pretty head,’ he laughed. ‘I might have work for you. Come, follow me,’ he said, before
telling the stable boy, ‘Watch the cart and keep me a bottle of vodka or I’ll have your hide.’

  I hesitated. But could I afford not to try in case it turned out to be true? I followed him blindly through the streets of Marienburg, one leading into another, for what felt like forever until finally we reached a small door with a candle glowing cosily behind the red glass casement. The coachman knocked, waited and then pushed the door open. When I peered inside, seeing only a dark and dingy corridor, he shoved me in. When I turned back in surprise, Misha bolted the door behind us.

  Somewhere in the house I heard a woman laugh as if she had been drinking. Misha barred my way out with his body and forced me up the narrow, creaking stairs ahead of him. It was warm inside and I tried to loosen the belt of the tulup, without losing my grip on my bundle. I could hear first another woman scream, and then the sound of a hand hitting flesh. The sound reminded me of Vassily. I froze in my tracks but the coachman pushed me along further until we reached a dingy upper floor.

  ‘Matushka? Sonia?’

  Could this be his mother? Had he brought me home? Did she need a maid? Even vain hope is better than no hope at all. One of the doors to either side of the corridor opened, and then another. Girls peered out, their faces painted as garishly as the mermaid in Master Lampert’s Tent of Wonders. The girls’ hair was loose and unkempt. I saw naked breasts, shimmering pale in the house’s dusky light, and thighs in greying lace drawers.

  A Swede poked his head out of a door and looked at me, wrapping a sheet around his nether regions. ‘Can I try her?’

  ‘You’d think you’d be busy enough with me,’ the girl standing in the room behind him scolded. She looked to be Tatar, with a firm, lithe body. He laughed and dragged her back into the room.

  I froze. Olga had told me about a house of sin in Walk, but I hadn’t believed her. That was surely what was going on here. I looked around quickly and saw no way out. The girls closed in on me, taking off my scarf and touching my hair.