‘I lost my entire family in the war,’ said Zoya, surprising me that she should talk of her past at all. ‘All of them.’
‘Oh, luvvie,’ said Rachel in surprise, leaning forward and rubbing her hands now. ‘I didn’t know that. I always thought that maybe you’d just left them behind you in Russia. You never speak of them, I mean. And there’s me, bringing up all those bad memories for you.’
‘That is what wars do,’ I said, anxious to change the subject. ‘They take our loved ones from us, separate families, create untold misery. And for what? It’s hard to see.’
‘It’s coming back, you know,’ she said then, the seriousness of her tone surprising me.
‘Coming back?’ I asked.
‘War. Can’t you feel it? I can. I can almost smell it.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Europe is … stirring, that’s for sure. There are troubles and enmities, but I don’t believe there will be another war. Not in our lifetime. No one wants to go through what we all went through last time.’
‘Don’t you think it’s ironic,’ she replied, considering this, ‘that all those boys conceived in a great outpouring of love and lust when the Great War came to an end will be just the right age to fight when the next one begins? It’s almost as if God created them for no other reason than to fight and die. To stand before the rifles and swallow the bullets that fly towards them. It’s a joke, really.’
‘But there won’t be a war,’ insisted Zoya, interrupting her. ‘As Georgy says—’
‘Such a waste,’ Rachel said with a sigh, standing up and reaching for her coat. ‘Such a terrible waste. And I don’t mean to contradict you, Georgy, not in your own home, but you’re wrong, I’m afraid. It’s coming all right. It’ll be here before too long. Just wait. You’ll see.’
The Neva
T
HE NOTE WAS
placed under the door of my room and slid so far along the floor that it almost disappeared beneath the bed. Only my name was printed on the exterior –
Georgy Daniilovich
– in a fine Cyrillic handwriting. It was rare for me to receive communications in this way; typically, any changes to the schedule of the Leib Guard were passed from Count Charnetsky to the divisional leaders, who in turn informed each man under their command. I was curious to open it, but surprised to find nothing but an address and a time printed neatly on the card inside. No instructions or clue as to who might have sent the note. No details of why my presence was required. The entire thing was a mystery which, at first, I put down to Anastasia, but then I recalled that she was due to attend a dinner at Prince Rogesky’s house later that evening with her family, so she could hardly have been arranging a secret assignation. Still, my interest was piqued, my evening was free and my spirits were good, so I went to the bath-house and washed myself thoroughly, before dressing in my finest non-military clothes and leaving the palace to make my way to the proposed address.
The night was dark and cold and the streets thick with snow, so deep that I was forced to lift my boots high above the mounds as I trawled slowly along them. As I walked, my hands buried in my pockets, I found it impossible to ignore the propaganda posters pasted on the walls and lampposts of the central city. Images of Nicholas and Alexandra, disgraceful images, naming them as plunderers of the land, tyrants, despots. Portraits of the Tsaritsa as a whore and a she-wolf, some where she was surrounded by a
harem of young, tumescent men, others where she was lying prone and exposed beneath the lusty gaze of the dark-eyed
starets
. The posters had become a regular feature of the city and were torn down by the authorities every day, only to reappear as quickly as they were removed. To be discovered with any in your possession was to risk death. I wondered how the Tsar and his wife could bear to see themselves depicted in so obscene a fashion as they passed through the streets. He who had spent months and sacrificed his health leading the army in an attempt to protect our borders. She who was at the hospital every day, tending to the sick and the dying. The Tsaritsa was no Marie Antoinette and her husband no Louis XVI, but the
moujik
s seemed to look at the Winter Palace as a second Versailles and my heart was heavy as I wondered where all this discord might end.
The address on the card led me to a part of the city I rarely visited, one of those curious areas which housed neither palaces for princes nor hovels for peasants. Nondescript streets, small shops, beer taverns, nothing that suggested anything extraordinary might be taking place here that required my attendance. I wondered for a moment whether the note had been intended for me at all. Perhaps someone had meant to put it beneath the door of a fellow involved in one of the numerous secret societies that plagued the city. Someone involved in politics. Perhaps I was being led towards a covert meeting designed to cause further upheaval against the Romanovs and I would be taken for a traitor by them all. I almost considered turning away and heading back to the Winter Palace, but before I could decide for sure, the house that I was searching for appeared before me. I stared cautiously at the unimposing black door, behind which lay someone who wanted me to visit.
I hesitated, surprised by my own anxieties, and knocked quickly upon the wooden frame. I had been invited here, I told myself. The note had been addressed to me. There was no immediate answer, however, so I removed my right glove to knock again
more loudly. But at that same moment the door swung open and I stood face to face with a dark-clothed figure, who stared at me for a moment as he tried to identify my face in the darkness of the night, before breaking into a delighted, hideous smile.
‘You came!’ he roared, reaching out and placing both hands on my shoulders. ‘I knew you would! Young men are so easily led, don’t you agree? I could have told you to throw yourself into the depths of the Moyka and you would be lying dead on the riverbed by now.’
I struggled beneath the weight of those great hands and tried to shrug them off, but without success; he pressed down with such determination that it felt like a test of his strength and my endurance. ‘Father Gregory,’ I said, for it was he who had opened the door – the monk, the man of God, the
moujik
who had made a whore of the Russian Empress. ‘I didn’t realize it was you who had invited me here.’
‘Why, would you have come quicker if you had?’ he asked, grinning. ‘Or not come at all, perhaps? Which would it have been, Georgy Daniilovich? Not the latter, surely. I won’t believe that for a moment.’
‘It’s a surprise, that’s all,’ I said truthfully, for as uncomfortable as I felt around him, and as much as he repulsed me, it was impossible not to be simultaneously fascinated by him, for his was a consistently intoxicating presence. Whenever I saw him, I found myself in a state of near paralysis. In this, I was not alone. Everyone hated him, but no one could keep their eyes off him.
‘You came and that is all that matters,’ he said now, ushering me through the door. ‘Come inside, it’s cold outside and we can’t have you becoming sick, can we? I want to introduce you to my friends.’
‘But what am I doing here?’ I asked, following him as he walked along a dark corridor towards the rear of the house, where a room entirely illuminated by red candles could be glimpsed in the background. ‘Why did you invite me?’
‘Because I enjoy the company of interesting people, Georgy Daniilovich,’ he roared, seemingly enchanted by the sound of his own voice. ‘And I consider you a very interesting person.’
‘I don’t know why,’ I said.
‘Don’t you? You should.’ He stopped for a moment and turned to smile at me, revealing two rows of yellow teeth. ‘I like anyone who has something to hide, and
you
, my young delight, are filled with secrets, are you not?’
I stared into those deep-blue eyes of his and swallowed nervously.
‘I have no secrets,’ I said. ‘None at all.’
‘Of course you do. Only a dullard has no secrets and I don’t think you’re one of those, are you? And anyway, we are all hiding something. Every one of us. Our betters, our equals. Those who have not had our advantages. No one likes to reveal their true selves; we would fall upon each other if we did. But you are a little different from most, I agree with you on that. For you seem utterly incapable of hiding your secrets. I can’t believe that I’m the only one who has noticed. But please, this is not why I brought you here,’ he added, turning back and continuing along. ‘Such talk can wait. Come and meet my friends. I think you will enjoy each other.’
I told myself that I should turn and leave, but he had disappeared into the red-candled room by now and there was no force on earth that could have stopped me from following him inside. I knew not what I might encounter when I stepped through the door. A small gang of fellow
starets
, perhaps. Or the Tsaritsa. It was impossible to guess. And as much as I tried to imagine it, the sight that greeted me when I entered was strange, unexpected and immediately intoxicating.
The room was filled with low sofas, each upholstered in deep shades of scarlet and purple, and dominated by expensive rugs and tapestries that looked as if they might have been delivered from the bazaars of Delhi. Spread across the room, lying on the
sofas and chaises longues, were perhaps a dozen people, each one dressed more provocatively than the last. A woman whom I knew to be a countess and a former intimate of the Empress, who had earned her displeasure after a troubled visit to Livadia when she had dared to kick the Tsaritsa’s malevolent terrier, Eira. A prince of the royal blood. The daughter of one of St Petersburg’s most notorious sodomites. Four or five younger people, perhaps my own age, perhaps a little older, whom I had never seen before. Some prostitutes. A young boy of quite extraordinary beauty whose face was smeared with rouge and lipstick. Most of them were in a state of undress, their shirts open, bare feet on display, some clothed in nothing but their undergarments. One of the prostitutes, visible through the mist which clouded the room and took hold of my senses, causing me to feel immediately drowsy and anxious for more, was seated on the sofa with a boy’s head in her lap; he was completely naked and his tongue lapped at her body like a cat at a saucer of milk. I stared at the tableau before me, my eyes wide in a mixture of revulsion and desire, the one urging me to run, the other pressing me to stay.
‘Friends,’ roared Father Gregory, spreading his arms wide and silencing the room immediately. ‘My most dear friends, familiars and intimates, may I introduce a delicious young man whose acquaintance I have been lucky enough to make. Georgy Daniilovich Jachmenev, late of the village of Kashin, a miserable shithole in the centre of our blessed country. He displayed great loyalty to his royal family, if not, it is fair to say, to his oldest friend. He has been in St Petersburg for some time now, but has never, I think, learned to enjoy himself. I mean to change that tonight.’
His guests stared at me with a mixture of boredom and disinterest, continuing to drink from their wine glasses and take deep breaths from the bubbling glass pipes that passed between them, their conversation starting up again now in a low, whispered murmur. They had a dead look in their eyes, every one of them. Except Father Gregory. He was fiercely alive.
‘Georgy, aren’t you glad that I invited you?’ he asked me quietly, placing an arm around my shoulder and pulling me towards him as he stared across at the woman and the boy, watching them as they began to move and groan in rhythm with each other. ‘It’s so much better here than at that dreary old palace, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘What do you want with me?’ I asked, turning to look at him. ‘Why did you ask me here?’
‘But my dear, it was you who wanted to come,’ he said, laughing in my face as if I was a fool or a halfwit. ‘I didn’t take your hand and lead you through the streets, did I?’
‘I didn’t know who sent the card,’ I replied quickly. ‘Had I known—’
‘You knew perfectly well, but you didn’t care,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘It’s foolish to lie to oneself. Lie to others, by all means, but not to yourself. Anyway, come, my young friend, don’t be angry with me. We don’t allow temper here, only harmony. Have a glass of wine. Relax. Let yourself be entertained. You might like it here, Georgy Daniilovich, if you allow yourself to forget who you think you are and be who you truly want to be. Or should I call you Pasha? Would you prefer it if I did?’
I opened my eyes wide. No one had called me that name in years, and even then it had only been my father. ‘How did you hear that name?’ I asked. ‘Who told you that?’
‘I hear many things,’ he cried, raising his voice suddenly but causing none of his guests to stir in surprise or fright; his tone trembled with righteousness and dread as he spoke. ‘I hear the voices of the peasants in the field, crying out for justice and equality. I hear the sound of Matushka, crying at night over her diseased son. I hear it all, Pasha,’ he cried, his voice piteous now and craven, his face crumpled in pain as he leaned closer to me. ‘I hear the sound of her breath as she turns and sees the vehicle, ready to run her down, to take her life. I hear the cries of the sinners in hell, begging for release. I hear the laughter of the saved
as they turn their faces away from us in Paradise. I hear the stomp of the soldiers’ boots as they enter the room, the rifles in their hands, prepared to shoot, prepared to kill, prepared to martyr—’ He stopped there and buried his face in his hands. ‘And I hear you, Georgy Daniilovich Jachmenev,’ he said, taking his hands away from his face and pressing them to either side of my own, his fingers warm and soft against my cold cheeks. ‘I hear the things that you say, the things you try so desperately not to hear.’
‘What things?’ I asked, my voice emerging almost too quietly to be heard. ‘What do I say? What do you hear?’
‘Oh, my dear boy,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You say,
What has happened? Who was shooting?
’
‘Here, drink some of this,’ said a voice to my right, interrupting us, and I turned to see the prince standing there, a glass of dark-red wine in his hand. I could think of no good reason to refuse it and brought it to my mouth immediately, swallowing it down in one mouthful.