Empress of the Night (29 page)

Last night was filled with merriment. Catherine wore her necklace of thirty black pearls. She wanted Count Cobenzl, the Austrian Ambassador, to see them. Alexandrine was there, too. Twiddling the hem of her sleeve in her slim white fingers, one slightly stained with ink.

They all watched a French comedy at the Hermitage Theater. About scheming servants and bumbling lovers reunited at the end. “On this earth,” the Empress told her actors when they approached and bowed to her, “night descends over each life. But in my theater, the sun always returns and shines upon our days.”

Is this when Alexandrine hunched her thin shoulders and burst into sobs?

“
We are the children of Providence,” Potemkin whispers. “All will be well. There is still time. This is not the end. Didn’t I tell you, Katinka?
”

“
You did.
”

“
So you believe me now.
”

“
Yes.
”

And she knows he is right, for her muscles move. Her fingers close on something soft and warm.

They all rush to her bed. Alexander, Rogerson, Constantine, Zotov. They trip over themselves, in a rush to see what makes Queenie scream with such joy, such abandon.

“God have mercy!” Catherine hears. “
Gospody pomyluy!
Her Majesty has just pressed my hand!”

Think harder. Concentrate
.

The biggest whore in Europe, they call her. Wanton. Full of filth. The Empress of Russia holding her skirts up, spreading her legs from Constantinople to Warsaw, sucking in whole armies.

Insatiable.

The English draw her seated on the throne decorated with two-headed eagles, wrapped in ermine-trimmed robes. Having gorged on the Ottoman Porte, she is spitting out crescent-shaped scraps from her toothless mouth. The French depict her tearing Poland off the map of Europe with her bloodied fangs. Or holding out an empty cup to be filled with the semen milked from defeated men.

If they do it, it is virtue. If I do it, it’s a sin
.

They are ambitious. She is hungry for glory.

They are skillful. She is crafty.

They inspire others to great efforts. She is letting others do the work and seizing the credit.

They are valiant kings, conquerors, heroes. She is the Medusa, the vampire, the harridan. An ugly witch, eager to copulate with the Devil himself.

There is no reasoning with slander. It breeds like vermin. It scurries in shady corners, spoils all it touches. Smuggled in the folds of travelers’ coats, between pages of books, in the double bottoms of trunks, it delivers its venom straight to the heart.

Her enemies, her ill-wishers—irked that the upstart Russia they used to dismiss has to be reckoned with or even feared—want her to forget that nations are like merchants, forming and breaking alliances according to the rules of costs and profits.

Empires need to grow or die.

But something went terribly wrong, Grishenka. Why? You know why. You remember. Go to the beginning. Think of everything that has happened
.

On that August morning, she gets out of bed slowly, for her right leg is swollen and heavy.

Pani, her Italian greyhound, is up, ready to assume her self-imposed duties. A cold, wet nose sniffs at the odors left by the night, examines their wordless exposés.

“Good girl, Pani,” she murmurs, patting the dog’s head.

The bedroom maids have laid out her simple morning clothes, a loose white satin gown, a crepe bonnet, a pair of soft bearskin slippers. She dresses quickly, anxious not to waste time. Later, Queenie and the maids will have enough time to fuss with her looks. And be more careful. On the back of her head she can still feel the slight burning in the spot where, yesterday, the curling iron came too close to the skin.

The Imperial Study is the adjacent room. Beside a pile of stiff folders tied with ribbons, a pot of steaming coffee is waiting on a silver tray. She walks there slowly, trying not to lean on the bad leg too much, Pani at her side.

The summer of 1796 has been tedious, hot and humid. In Tsarskoye Selo, the gardeners have despaired over the black spots on the rosebushes. Daily spraying with fermented compost tea has not helped. In bed after rose bed, leaves have yellowed, withered, and died. Here in St. Petersburg, it is the young birch trees in the Summer Garden that do poorly. The roots, the gardeners say, wrap around the trunk, choking off nourishment.

But the summer is almost over. And what is gone should not be dwelled on. The Empire is not run on regrets.

Among the papers on her desk is another in a series of handwriting exercises she has requested. Her eldest granddaughter, Alexandrine, is in dire need of practice. As it is, her hand might do for a truant boy, but not for Russia’s Grand Duchess about to get married.

In this sample, unlike in the previous one, the lines are even, though the letters are still too small, too hesitant:

Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth
like a flood. “Let us leave the road while we can still see,” I said, “or we shall be knocked down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.” We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room.

Catherine makes quick notes on the margin for Miss Williams, the imperial governess. More attention should be paid to the choice of fragments Alexandrine copies. Why give the child
The Fall of Pompeii
when a love poem would’ve been more appropriate?

The clock chimes seven. In the antechamber, her ministers must be gathering already, but Count Alexander Andreyevich Bezborodko, her chief minister, has still not arrived for the morning briefing.

It is not like him to be late.

They go a long way back, Bezborodko and she, companions of many journeys. People like that are becoming rare around her. Death is a cruel gleaner. So is desertion in the name of righteous indignation. So are friendships abandoned for silly reasons. Accusations of betrayal when none was intended.

Pani is chasing her tail. Growling, whirling around, faster and faster, snapping her teeth. What happens in a dog’s head at moments like that? Is play merely a rehearsal for a hunt? Or is it the sheer exuberance of joy, the animal life force that propels Pani to exert herself until exhaustion wins?

The word
pani
is Polish. It means madame. Catherine came up with the name as her little revenge on a tedious guest. Harmless, really. In every litter there is a puppy like this. Overly eager to please, longing to be touched and petted, the tiny tongue licking everything within reach. A Polish princess who was staying at the Winter Palace just when the puppy was born was like that, too. Cringing. Always hungry for attention. Always trying to get herself noticed. What a pleasure it was to chastise the puppy in the woman’s presence. “Show a little restraint, Pani. Don’t pee yourself with excitement at my sight, Pani.” Not that the hint was ever taken!

“That’s enough, Pani! Lie down!”

Pani freezes in mid-chase and gives her mistress a puzzled look. As if, for a brief moment, she is unsure what was expected of her. But dogs are
undisputed masters of the art of pleasing. The tail, abandoned, curls downward, and Pani saunters toward her favorite resting spot. Right beside her mistress’s legs.

Palace wisdom holds dogs to be faithful and cats false and sneaky. Cats moan and screech on the roof at night. Or, worse, they wail like abandoned babies. Or like a witch in heat. The maids recall the village stories of witches turning themselves into cats to drink the cows dry, or to stifle a child in its cradle.

Such are ignorance’s murky limits, unlit by the sunshine of reason.

She takes one more sip of coffee. Black, for this is still morning, though later she will indulge herself with a smudge of cream. She is aware of a tightness in her chest. It takes her a moment to recognize it for what it is. The grip of tenderness and joy. Soon, the first of her granddaughters will be married.

Her attendants’ voices float from the antechamber. Queenie and Vishka are talking about Le Noiraud.

“Alexander the Great slept with a copy of
The Iliad
under his pillow.”

“Not everyone is Alexander the Great. Let’s agree on that!”

“We want more than we can chew. We want it now.”

“Few men know how to become a personage of distinction. Didn’t I tell you that before?”

Their exchange is predictable, yet another eruption of petty jealousy, the fare of the inner chambers. Scorn for the Imperial Favorite is the only topic on which Vishka and Queenie fully agree. Vishka trusts no one, so this doesn’t come as a surprise. Queenie, who has thus far approved of Platon Zubov, must have now changed her mind. Hence her list of Le Noiraud’s most outrageous sins:

He holds a levee like a French king. Arrives in his dressing gown, has everyone stand in silence and watch him being dressed and coiffed, while those who haven’t bribed his valets sufficiently crowd outside. He spends too much time at empty chatter with his gossipy sister. He thinks Pygmalion is a great Greek philosopher. He has acquired a field glass and, at the time when he is supposed to be reading, he has it trained on the maids’ quarters.

Clever Queenie sweetens venom with laughter. But her stories are all carefully chosen. It’s Le Noiraud’s family aspirations that Queenie questions now. Platon’s sister has just sent back a length of satin, claiming it was too dull and too plain. Others may think it insignificant, but Queenie has a knack for the underside of stories. For hasn’t Grand Duchess Elizabeth just bought some of the same swath for Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo? Is it merely a coincidence, Queenie wonders aloud. Or does Prince Zubov’s sister desire to outshine someone far more important than she is?

Vishka laughs. It is no news to her that everyone’s life, when examined close enough, is utterly and brutally banal.

Everyone’s.

The energetic rap on the door sounds like a drumbeat. Pani raises her head and gives her mistress a reassuring look. Actions that are repeated do not merit canine vigilance.

“The Swedes have arrived, Your Majesty,” Bezborodko announces, as he rushes in, the buttons of his jacket undone, begging forgiveness for his tardiness. “I waited for the latest reports. I knew Your Majesty would have questions.”

There is a hint of jasmine about him, not quite drowned by musk and snuff. “We possess a soft spot for actresses,” Queenie, who keeps the tally of all court liaisons, says. “A well-turned ankle drives us insane.”

“Catch your breath first, Alexander Andreyevich,” Catherine says, smiling. “Sit down. I still haven’t finished with my morning work.”

Nodding with gratitude, the Count takes his usual seat with flourish, in spite of his bulk. Pearls of sweat glisten under the rim of his wig. He may not have slept at all, judging by the red-rimmed eyes and the sagging skin under them.

Pani greets Alexander Andreyevich with an elaborate dance of wiggles, leaps, and tail wagging that ends only when he lets her rest her front paws on his big, bearlike chest.