Peter, though, would not smile. ‘Nonsense! She was my wife, my Tsaritsa. It was her goddamned duty to smile at me and be gracious, whatever I did. That and to bear me many healthy sons. I did not expect anything else from her.’
To this there was no answer, but I took great care to remember his words.
After his victory over the Swedes in the first full-scale naval battle of the Great Northern War, Peter was in high spirits. He himself had fought in the thick of it, under the name of Captain Mikhailov. Sheremetev rewarded him with the Order of St Andrew. At bedtime, Peter tied the blue sash around his chest with childish pride and pinned the diamond-studded order to the threadbare linen of his nightshirt, before he slipped under the blanket. The celebrations that were to follow frightened even his battle-hardened cronies and the next day Tolstoy left for the Golden Gate in Constantinople, his face pale and drawn. For his own safety, we had to tie him to his saddle.
In truth, a day had not enough hours in it for Peter. No Russian toiled harder than his ruler as, in Peter’s opinion, next to death, only wasted time could not be made up for. By four o’clock in the morning, he had already written, signed and sealed a dozen ukazy, making Makarov smile with the steady use of words such as ‘immediately’, ‘now’, ‘without delay’, ‘also do not forget . . . !’
Less than two weeks after the battle, the first wooden huts of St Petersburg sprouted like mushrooms. Peter gave the conquered Swedish settlements in the marshy Neva plains to his officers. The souls who toiled in the fields hardly cared if a Russian or a Swede gave the orders; their misery just went on and on.
We failed to grasp what these huts meant to the Tsar, thinking it would be one of those passing fancies he took, before dropping it for something more promising. But to him, nothing was ever more promising than this new city of his. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t this just perfect?’, while himself laying out the first wooden beams for the Peter and Paul Fortress, moving them around this way and that, until he was happy. He had but one thought: to hang on to this spot of earth. If it cost him his realm or even his life, never again should it be separated from Russia.
‘Why are you founding a new city right here?’ I asked him on the evening of the day we had given the remains of St Alexander Nevsky a new resting place on Lust Eland, the so-called ‘happy isle’ in the soggy marshland all around us, where St Petersburg was now founded. I lay in his arms, drowsy with vodka; logs crackled in the fireplace and the flames cast a warm light on my naked skin, which was rosy with pregnancy. I felt strong and safe as never before in my life, with Peter, and our son. ‘Don’t you have enough cities already – do you really need another one here?’ I said teasingly.
‘Everything I do is for Russia. My people will only understand much later what I am doing for them here.’ He sighed. ‘Moscow is dead and belongs to the past. It’s part of the East, Marta.’
‘Daria loves it for that reason.’
‘Daria did not suffer in Moscow what I have suffered there. I hate the Kremlin, Marta.’ I felt a tremor run through his body and held him tightly until he had calmed down.
‘I will never sleep there again. When I have to be in Moscow, I’ll be living in Preobrazenskoje where I grew up,’ he said, caressing me distractedly. ‘My new Russia needs a new landmark. I have not chosen this place at random: I fought for it and I will offer my subjects here a paradise, a New Jerusalem, on the water, dominated by a fortress as powerful as the city’s spirit.’
‘But how will you build a new city? When, and by what means, in the midst of war?’
‘You find time and means for what needs to be done, Marta. Such as for love, for example!’ He laughed and rolled on top of me.
Out in the field, I was fully part of Peter’s world, even if I was not the only girl to share his bed. But he took the others the way he ate his kasha in the morning or peed against a tree. It was me he drank with. I was the one who made him roar with laughter when I smeared resin and fresh sap on his chair so that he stuck to it, or half-filled his boots with water before he got into them in the morning. I was the one who’d hold him tight when the fits came, or his mad rage, or when the blood-soaked horror of his memories overcame him. In my arms, the Tsar of All the Russias slept as deeply as a child; I guarded his slumber against nightmares. When he felt for the hands or feet of the child in my stomach, then no other woman was dangerous to me.
I was the one who carried his son.
35
I sewed infant clothes, slept as much as my body commanded me and happily gave in to any craving I had: sucking on fresh honeycomb or eating pickled gherkins from the Schlusselburg’s larders. What I liked most, though, was the salty sweetness of Baltic herring: Peter’s cook Felten bought the fish in the market near our budding city and marinated them in cream, apples and onions.
This market was only a row of ragged booths and stalls, but it drew a huge crowd of people. I followed Felten there one morning in June. The short, stout Dane was in a bad mood, as Peter had roughed him up the evening before: a big round of Limburger cheese had been stolen from the kitchen just when the Tsar had asked for it. It made me giggle, but Felten still smarted from the beating he had received at Peter’s hands.
The Bay of Finland sparkled in the bright sunlight, the first grain stood in the fields and the earth shone with promise. Our low, strong horses thudded along the paths, torn open by the Russian army’s carts, and the ruts and potholes baked hard by the June sun. I carefully steered my horse around the deepest furrows while Felten moped. ‘When will we finally return to Moscow, where I have a real kitchen and proper supplies? Just to think of my spices and my vats of stock there makes me cry. How should one cook in this wilderness? It’s like asking a donkey to play the harp.’
I led my horse around the thick stump of an oak tree, a remnant from Peter’s clearing operation to claim wood for his fleet. ‘You’d better prepare for a long, long stay here, and the Tsar wants to eat well in his new paradise. We need you for that, Felten,’ I said.
‘Paradise!’ He spat out the word and then slapped at a bold gnat, which was sucking lazily on his cheek. Looking angry like that, he reminded me of the piglets he lathered in beer, mustard and honey before roasting them on a small flame. Once on the table, their slightly surprised expression, apple in snout, never failed to make us laugh. ‘More like hell, I’d say. Is it true that the Tsar has ordered forced labourers, prisoners and souls, to build this city, next to the new recruits he has already drafted for that?’
I was shooing away a swarm of flies when my horse stumbled in a deep furrow. I held on, just about, but felt a jolt of sudden pain. The saddle’s pommel had dug into my belly. I kept my voice steady. ‘Yes. The first fifteen thousand men are to arrive next spring and a second load in August.’ I stopped and drew a wheezing, painful breath. ’For this year, it is already too late for large building works.’
Felten sniffed, oblivious to my distress. ‘If I had known that in Holland when I met the Tsar on the dockyards, never, ever would I have followed his summons. If only I had stayed at home.’
I laughed at his despair. ‘Cheer up! You don’t have to cook for all fifteen thousand workers. In life there can always be a worse option. Always. Believe me.’
He glanced at me, but said nothing. I clenched my teeth, belly still aching from where the saddle had ground into it. It felt as though I had been stabbed.
The wind carried the market’s noise and smells to us. The first fruits and vegetables of the season, pies, cakes, earthenware pots and jars for meat, cheese and bread, bales of plain, coarse cloth, bundles of roughly spun and uncoloured wool, as well as roots and herbs that promised to heal all kinds of diseases and ailments, were laid out on the bare earth.
Felten checked the flashing blades of newly made knives at the blacksmith’s and looked into the pens for pigs and calves – horses were traded somewhere else – bargaining hard for two fattened piglets. The guards bound them by the hooves before hoisting the
m with sticks onto their shoulders. I went ahead, walking with no aim in mind, when I heard a woman’s voice above all the rest: ‘This is usury! You should be put to the pillory, you scoundrel.’
I stopped in my tracks, heart racing: could it be? Felten had caught up with me and began, ‘Mistress –’ but I followed the lure of that voice.
‘That’s what you call filling a pastry? My pigs get more to eat than that and they are as skinny as they can get,’ the woman said, her back to me. The baker defended himself meekly against the weight of her words: no trader sought that kind of attention on market day. I touched the woman’s shoulder and she spun around, scowling. Seeing me, her pinched mouth broke into a wide, disbelieving smile and I threw my arms open: it was her, it was really Caroline Gluck.
‘Marta!’ she gasped, dropping her basket and embracing me there and then. For joy, I tried not to think about my aching belly or the sharp twinge of fear I felt. I leant into her: her cloak and her braided hair smelled of camphor and mint, the scents of their Marienburg home. She finally let go of me, or rather I finally let her.
‘Marta! My God, you’re alive. What are you doing here?’
‘Is Ernst here as well? And Agneta? Frederic?’
We talked so fast and so much that we didn’t even hear each other to begin with. I asked after the rest of her family. They lived together in a small wooden house, she said, where the wind whistled through the cracks and crevices of the hastily piled together logs and Ernst Gluck was working as a teacher. Eventually she noticed my belly. ‘My goodness, family life becomes you. Poor Johann, God bless his soul. So who . . . ?’ Caroline spotted Felten, who stood behind me with his soldiers. Her voice trailed off as he moodily blew out his cheeks; I understood very clearly what he thought of me for making him wait but didn’t give a damn. Caroline frowned and I bit my lip. Oh, until the end of her days, she’d be a righteous, dutiful pastor’s wife!
‘Well, are you married? Why are you here with soldiers? Have you done something bad?’ she demanded.
‘Well, no. Not at all. It’s not that easy to explain . . .’ I searched for words, as there were truly none for what had happened to me. When we had met last, I had been pregnant by her son and married to a simple Swedish dragoon. I took a deep breath. There would be time for the whole story later. Better stick to the truth for now. ‘This child has a father,’ I said. ‘It is Peter, Tsar of All the Russias.’
Caroline dropped one of the pierogi over which she had fought so bitterly.
‘Peter? The Tsar! Good God in Heaven!’ she said, all pale with surprise, her eyes as big as saucers. ‘But how . . . I mean, when . . . this is incredible.’
‘Milady,’ Felten interrupted, red-faced from holding a new, enormous wheel of cheese, which he wanted to offer to Peter in apology for his carelessness.
I embraced Caroline once more. ‘Why don’t you come for dinner tonight? Felten can roast one of the piglets to celebrate. I will send a guard to pick you up.’
Caroline hesitated but couldn’t turn down my invitation: her curiosity wouldn’t allow it.
All the way back, Felten complained about using one of the piglets, until I spurred my pony into a trot. My cheeks were flushed from the sun, the wind and the happiness of having found the Glucks again. Next to Daria and Peter, they were all I had in this world. I wanted to help and thank them for all the good they had done to me. I didn’t ask about Anton and I couldn’t care less about him. All I thought of was the joy of meeting Caroline – and not the nagging fear of what might have happened earlier on, when my horse had stumbled.
Our hut was cosy and warm, the tiled stove burning there even in early summer. Before sunrise Peter had already visited the docks, sorted out a quarrel between his generals and finally dictated a long, angry letter to Alexey. Then he had ordered orange trees, camphor bushes and mint plants from Persia, before drafting and signing a ukaz about the general education of Russian youth. As I pushed the door open he was bent over the ever-changing plans for his city, twirling a quill in grubby fingers and eating a spoonful of cold kasha. In the wooden cup, which he had carved himself, an oily layer floated on the now-bitter residue of kvass. His feet tapped and kicked underneath the table and his face and shoulders twitched, but when I entered the room he looked up and smiled, welcoming the sunshine and fresh air. I shook off my dusty cloak and slipped my swollen feet out of my leather sandals. Their straps had cut deeply into my flesh.
‘God, this is good,’ I sighed, sitting on Peter’s lap. When I kissed him, his hand searched for our child.
‘What is our young recruit doing? Is he standing to attention?’ He nuzzled my throat, which made me laugh. ‘Hmm, you smell good, like fresh air. Has Felten found something in the market? I’m as hungry as a wolf.’
‘The recruit is swimming,’ I said lightly. ‘I think he’s going to be a sailor.’ I grabbed the half-finished ukaz. The sight of the heavy rolls of paper covered with thick black ink and shining, bright red seals, where Peter placed his sign, never ceased to amaze me. ‘Why don’t you carry on writing?’
He rested his head on my shoulder and I took in his scent of smoke and leather. ‘Oh, matka. I can command as much as I like, it just does not work. Whatever I say is marred by the stupidity and unwillingness of the Russians. I cannot do this on my own. I need help.’
‘Help you? Who could do that?’ I asked.
‘Someone who is well educated and can speak several languages. Someone who can be an example to them.’
My heart beat hard in my chest as a thought struck me. ‘I think I may know someone,’ I said. ‘I think I do.’ My heart leapt. I had found a way to help the Glucks without offending them by offering charity.
‘Who?’ Peter asked, amazed.
But before I could answer a wave of pain washed over me as if a giant had got hold of my body, squeezing and wringing all the life out of me. Fear and agony strangled me; I gasped for air, but my lungs failed me. I felt I was suffocating.
‘No!’ I panted as my skirt turned scarlet with blood. Within seconds its cloth was soaked and a crimson puddle had formed at my feet. The pain blotted out every other feeling and all strength and all life seeped from my body. Peter caught me with a terrified shout. Sobbing, he held me tight when our son was stillborn in the sixth month of my pregnancy.
The following months blur in my memory and disappear behind a veil dense with grief and deep sadness. It was as if everything I’d had no time to mull over before now caught up with me when I was forced to lie back and rest. The dark thoughts lost no time but swarmed my soul like locusts, devouring all joy and leaving nothing but bare, barren soil behind. It felt like birds of sorrow swooping down on me, dulling the light of my mind with their sombre wings. Their plumage was as black as soot, and they dug their sharp claws into my heart, breeding in my spirit, laying their rotten, stinking eggs in nests woven from my despair.
When Caroline caught me crying, she embraced me. ‘Oh, Marta. How harsh this sounds but only you can rid yourself of this sadness.’ She was right: no one except the person in whom the birds of sorrow settle can ever drive them out.
Caroline was always by my side: the Glucks had come into the camp after I miscarried and Caroline had taken over my care, pushing even Peter out of the room at first: ‘Out! Nothing worse than men in such a situation, gawping like cattle and making the room dirty!’
Peter had given the Glucks a Swedish officer’s former house to live in. Caroline said that the Tsar had cried when he tenderly touched the already perfectly formed little finger- and toenails of his stillborn son.
I felt cold with fear. This was my second miscarriage. What if I could never give him a healthy child, let alone a son? The birds of sorrow shrieked, and their shrill call made a terrible mockery of Daria’s words in the void of my soul. Nothing brings such joy to a man as a son. Caroline fed me hot, thick stews made of bacon and beans, warm bread rolls stuffed with blood sausage, omelettes with fresh herbs, and dried sweet fruits she had soaked
overnight in warm wine. Even Felten asked her for the recipe, she told me with a certain pride, when she laid hot stones on my feet and folded my blanket over the tiled stove before wrapping me in it. Strength slowly returned to my body, but my soul remained listless. I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling and counting the beetles crawling there amongst the dried tar and the boiled moss.
When I was strong enough, Peter sent me back to Moscow. All my resistance, pleading and tears would not help; if anything, they annoyed him.
‘Please, let me stay with you,’ I pleaded, despite knowing the answer.
‘You’re too weak. In Moscow the court doctors can take better care of you. We want you up and running again soon, don’t we?’
I could only hope that was the real reason.
So I travelled in comfort on a litter, and accompanied by a train of coaches and carts, but when we rolled out of the camp I saw a group of young, healthy washerwomen swimming in the river. They showed their bodies without false shame, and their bare, pale skin glowed in the summer sunshine. Which of them would be with Peter, this very night? In a few weeks any of them could be pregnant with his son. I pulled the curtains shut and sank back into the cushions, sobbing uncontrollably and biting my fists until I tasted blood. Peter’s favourite dogs, Lenka and Lenta, accompanied me in my litter; he had taken leave of them with tears in his eyes. Lenta was pregnant. I stroked her belly silently and steadily, like a lucky charm.
I was hardly ever left alone on my return as the Glucks had feared I might harm myself. The Lutheran priest and the Tsar had understood each other immediately, and Ernst Gluck, being still the upright, learned and kind man he had always been in Marienburg, on the Tsar’s orders established the first grammar school in Moscow, which taught philosophy, ethics, politics, Latin, several languages, arithmetic and physical education. Agneta, the once frail and pale child I had looked after, had turned into a pretty young girl who made heads turn in the German Quarter. When Ernst died of a fever two years later, I took Agneta into my household while Caroline stayed on in the suburb of Moscow.
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