Empress of the Night (23 page)

Not “the King of Poland”?

Is she supposed to take it as a sign of his modesty? A desire to avoid royal etiquette? Or is it a clever bid to her sentiments? Will he also call her Sophie? Or bring back the memory of the daughter they once had?

Her gaze sweeps over the King’s face. Fifty-five, and his younger self still lingers in his brown eyes, in the finely sculptured jaw, the dimples in his now rouged cheeks. Upright, lithe, and still smoothly handsome, although, after a closer scrutiny, a tad worn out. No blemishes, though, no redness around the nose. Repnin wrote her:
Not even a glass of wine with dinner, which in Poland is being read as a reproach, not a virtue
.

Around them scraping, shuffling of feet, breaths withheld. Potemkin has asked with this curious grin of his:
Not even a tinge of regret, Katinka? Didn’t you tell me that he was
loving and beloved?

To Stanislav’s myopic eyes she must seem a blur. When he is close
enough to discern her features, he tugs at the edge of his jacket, adjusts the lace ruffles. The gesture has something desperate about it, as if he has suddenly decided he has put on the wrong clothes. The jacket is fitted tight over his slim figure, its edges thick with silver embroidery.
Like a crust
, Catherine thinks.
Or a shield
.

Potemkin has said: “Be fair, Katinka. Admit it: The Polish crown
was
a fatal gift.”

Stanislav bows and lifts his head. His eyes sweep over her face, her arms, her expanded waist.
Too swiftly
, Catherine thinks.
Were his lips always so narrow?

“We welcome the King of Poland at our court,” she says and extends her hand. Stanislav takes it tenderly and kisses it, with a reverence afforded to a Holy Relic. His own hand feels limp. Have
his
spies not warned him she values firm grips?

How they all gawk. Queenie has folded her plump hands, as if lost in prayer. Prince Potemkin gallantly points the way. Mister Redcoat screws his eyes up toward the ceiling. Her Favorite’s rudeness, oddly enough, pleases her. Childlike, she thinks it. A little amusing. Like her grandsons’ antics.

She makes a gesture toward her study. There is no point in delaying the inevitable. “Shall we retire, monsieur?” she asks.

Once inside, she heads for the ottoman, annoyed by the heavy thump with which her body settles. She motions to her guest to take the armchair opposite. Silence grows. If it is allowed to last any longer, it will become menacing.

She inquires about his uncles, his sisters, brothers, cousins. Is the Palace on the Water finished to his satisfaction? Does he know a good painter capable of architectural accuracy? To paint St. Petersburg. A city needs to be well portrayed.

His family is well. His nephew is the apple of his eye. A young man of great promise. But perhaps the Empress noted it herself, having met him in Kaniv?

She does recall the young man. Not too handsome, and somewhat stiff, but pleasant enough.

“Yes,” Catherine answers. “You have all reasons to be proud of him.”

Stanislav knows an excellent painter. Bellotto, a Venetian. As soon as he gets back to Warsaw, he will make sure she receives a sample of the man’s work. What pleasure it will give him!

Pleasantries. She is already anticipating Potemkin’s questions.
You were right
, she will say.
It was not too awkward. I did have good taste in men, even when I was young
.

Foolish to forget that everything comes with a price.

Stanislav’s hand dives into his breast pocket. He extracts a wad of pages, places it on his knees.

“Please, madame, would you consider my proposal?”

Hands make sweeping gestures, the laced cuffs flutter. Stanislav’s speech has been well rehearsed: Russia will fight the Turks again. It is inevitable, and then Poland can be of help. He offers her twenty thousand troops, armed and disciplined. She will have to pay for it, but still it will be an investment. Wise and profitable. The Ottoman Porte, conquered, will yield rich territory. He sees Poland’s borders extended, touching the Black Sea. Strong Poland will be a buffer between Russia and Prussia. “A granary and a boulevard for our joint armies.”

He gathers up the papers and holds them out to her. “This modest memorandum,” he says, “is an outline of my proposal.”

It always amuses her how highly people think of themselves.

A king who cannot even control his own subjects wants an army, and he wants her to pay for it. As if she hasn’t given him enough already! And what has she got in return? First a bloody rebellion. Then constant petitions and intrigues. She would’ve preferred bluntness. Acknowledgment that in Warsaw—among the constantly warring factions—without his special influence in St. Petersburg, he is nothing.

Poland, divided, is an unmanned fortress. Why spoil what is working in Russia’s favor? Let warring factions undermine one another. It’s all that simple.

“It’s a very sound proposal, but I need time to examine it.” She takes the papers from his hand, noting its tremor. She rises. “My courtiers are all impatient to meet you. Prince Potemkin tells me that you’ve prepared a splendid evening ball in my honor. I hope the Prince has warned you that I won’t stay very long. These days I always retire at ten.”

He jumps to his feet. And then he says it: “I’ve waited for this moment twenty-eight years.”

She flinches. But he doesn’t stop.

A flood of words. A torrent.

How he worried about her when Elizabeth died. How he lay awake at night tormented by rumors of assassins. Torn and soothed by memories of their happiness. Of their child he was not even allowed to mourn. No one else has ever ruled his heart like Catherine has.

With a flick of his hand, he opens the cover of his pocket watch. Her own young face looks at her from the inside flap. He recalls the time when they sneaked out of the palace to be alone. They got into a sleigh, buried themselves in furs. One moment she was in his arms, another she was thrown off the speeding sleigh. Into the snow. Struck her head on a stone. He thought she was dead. He prayed to the Almighty. He offered his life and his happiness for hers. And then she opened her eyes. And she kissed him. How does one forget such moments?

“I once asked you not to make me King but to call me to your side. I still wish you would,” he says and pauses, as if still considering the word he is about to say. “
Sophie.
”

Her heart quickens. She considers what she has just heard.

You made me King, so support me now? You have no right to expect anything in return? You have no right to change?

Anger is not easy to hide. It lingers. It drags out images from the past, long hoped left behind. Floorboards shaking under her feet, a glass pane shattering into splinters. A mattress on the floor, soaked with her sweat. Peter, sucking at his pipe, looking at her with contempt. Mother asking: “Have you already forgotten who you are?”

“It’s time to join the rest,” Catherine tells him.

Queenie and Vishka, who went to the Polish ball, declare it magnificent. The Polish King, Queenie says, must have spent a fortune on the decorations alone. On the main table there was a beautiful display made entirely of sugar. A sleigh with two figures inside was making its way through the sugar dunes toward a magnificent sugar garden. There were paths leading to intricate caves lit from the inside. There was a triumphant arch. And an obelisk. And a hermit’s hut, beside which a flock of sheep was grazing.

“
Matushka
, spit on Mister Redcoat,” Potemkin says. “The faithless wretch doesn’t deserve you.”

Her servants have trampled the grass and spread a cloth in the shade of the young birch trees. They wiped the plates, cups, saucers from the everyday service and unpacked the provisions. Melon cubes on a bed of crushed ice, peach halves wrapped in leaves. Slices of bread smeared with freshly churned butter,
bliny
with caviar, and bottles of cold kvass. On double-layered plates lie pink paper cornets with grapes and small cakes hidden inside.

At the end of an outing at the edge of the woods, a summer treat awaited. Folded iron furniture is comfortable enough, though the legs of her armchair wobble as they dig into the moist earth. The sun rays glitter through the young branches and throw little balls of light upon the white cloth. Dogs lie in the shadow of the carriage that has brought them there, panting; some lick the grease off the carriage wheels.

Captain Platon Alexandrovich Zubov, lean and trim in his steel-colored dress uniform, has taken the seat opposite her. They are still strangers, although his lips have caressed her nipples, his clean-shaven cheek rested against her thigh as he kneeled before her, desperate to know if he has pleased her enough.

All is still before them, weaknesses unveiled, desires confessed. None of it is certain. She might still send him back, in spite of his youthful charm and twinkling black eyes. She needs solitude. To find herself, after so many losses.

The handsome Captain picks a paper cornet and peeks inside. His fingers deftly extract the grapes, one by one, and pop them into his mouth. His tongue is stained deep red. Queenie laughs when she tells her how the Captain memorizes maxims from books to impress her:
Do not waste time on empty activities. Abandon an opinion if it is refuted. Only the ignorant believe they know everything
.

Her grandchildren—Alexander, Constantine, Alexandrine, Yelena, and Maria—play at a distance. Alexander, who will turn twelve in December, wishes to build a summerhouse from sticks and leafy branches. But as soon as the first elements of the structure are raised, his younger
brother, Constantine, declares their endeavor stupid. Why build a house in a place they will soon have to leave?

She recalls holding Constantine the day he was born: crying, creased, his unfocused eyes shying away from the light.

“What shall we do, then?” Alexander asks, his voice throbbing with hurt. The boys strive for supremacy at all times, so why does her grandson now prefer to sound offended rather than to command?

“Let’s go to Crimea,” Constantine decides. With a few adjustments, a row of folded chairs becomes an imperial barge that goes up and down the imaginary waves of the Dnieper River in reenactment of their grandmother’s grand journey to inspect her conquered lands. Maria, chubby and quite ugly at three, chortling with glee, sways in Alexandrine’s arms. Alexander hands her a field glass made from a roll of paper and tells her to admire the rapids. “I can only see trees,” Maria announces with utter seriousness, “and I can see Graman.”

“You have to pretend we are far away from here,” Constantine yells, yanking the field glass from her hands. “You are spoiling everything, you dunce!”

Maria bursts into tears.

“See what you have done?” Alexandrine says accusingly, as Constantine jumps out of the imaginary boat. He has a horsewhip in his hands and lashes at the grass, the trees, at anything that he imagines stands in his way.

It is July of 1789, the year she has turned sixty. A tumultuous time, she calls it in her letters. In the last months, she has been betrayed by one lover, and now she is courted again.

“I’ve tried to warn you of his duplicity, but you wouldn’t listen,” Potemkin told her.

Queenie has denounced the departed Mister Redcoat as a deranged fool who will soon be pining for what he has lost. Captain Zubov, the lover who has come courting, has a far more pleasing disposition. With this one, there will be no more sulking, no more accusations. “Why does a breakup hurt so much, though?” Catherine has asked Queenie. But Queenie’s explanations are always predictable. “Because Your Majesty is too good. Too forgiving.”

Betrayal is a loss. Losses hurt.

Under my own nose
, she thinks, with a pang as sharp as if she has just learned of Mister Redcoat’s tryst with her lady-in-waiting. Told of fruit from her table he has been sending to his mistress. Shown the room where the two rendezvoused. “Right after he’d stormed out of Your Majesty’s bedroom. Having accused Your Majesty of neglecting him!”

“May I, Your Majesty?” Captain Zubov asks. He holds the platter of melon chunks before him, like an offering.

She shakes her head, but her handsome Captain insists. She picks a small piece and puts it in her mouth. The red flesh melts on her tongue. It is ice cold and very sweet.

She looks in the direction of the children. With Constantine gone, Alexandrine and Yelena are whispering something to each other, their heads touching. Maria is rubbing her eyes with her pudgy fingers. Alexander is standing alone, his arms folded, his eyes on the ground. With his right foot he is kicking a tuft of grass.

A game
, Catherine thinks.
We should all play some game
.

Blindman’s buff is one blunder after another. Constantine refuses to play. Maria retreats into her nurse’s arms after tripping and falling on her face. When he is blindfolded, Alexander waves his hands and takes a few perfunctory steps without trying to touch anyone.