The Grand Duke was staring at the jar with twins, one reduced to a few folds of shriveled skin clinging, frog-like, to the back of its bloated brother.
He was silent.
Professor Stehlin answered his own question. Peter the Great wanted to teach his subjects. Monsters were merely damaged fetuses. “The fruit of illness and abuse,” he said. “Or mother’s fear.” And then he pointed to an inscription on the wall:
For a mother can pass the imprint of her fear to the life she carries in her womb
.
“Repeat these words, Your Highness,” he said.
The Grand Duke turned his eyes away from the jar he had been staring at all this time. I saw his lips move, but no words came. And then I heard his scream, piercing, thick and dark, followed by the sounds of his footsteps fading away.
I looked at the Grand Duke’s tutor. He was blinking, bewildered at the effect his words had.
“Don’t just stand there, Varvara,” he ordered. “Go after him.”
I made my way to the bottom of the stairs, where the Grand Duke crouched and shivered. He hid his face in the palms of his hands when he saw me. “They’ll kill me here,” he sobbed. “I know they will.”
I tried to put my hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off.
“There have been omens,” I heard him whimper. “Just like when Mama died. They don’t want me to know, but I do.” A rivulet of vomit leaked through his fingers, dripping to the floor.
I thought of a nestling, its wings flapping aimlessly, too paralyzed with terror for flight.
“Get a footman, Varvara,” Professor Stehlin’s voice commanded behind me. “Hurry up, girl.”
I hadn’t even heard him come down, but he was now at the bottom of the stairs, helping the Grand Duke stand.
“You’ve seen the monsters, Your Highness. You’ve seen what fear can do. Don’t let it rule your thoughts. We cannot know the future,” I heard him say as I rushed outside. “But with the help of reason, we can prepare for what might happen.”
In the silence that shrouded the rest of that day, I turned those words in my head, examined them for stains of doubts, the way my father examined the leather for the bindings of his books.
We cannot know the future.
Reason can conquer fear.
But that night, alone in my bed, I could not shut my ears to the Grand Duke’s muffled sobs in the room next to mine.
A hundred times I almost rose, almost went to him. But every time I came up with excuses. He would just send me away. He would soon stop. The future Tsar has to learn his lessons like everyone else.
Lessons hurt.
There is no other way.
The sobs quieted down in the end, and I, too, drifted into sleep.
Look
, the Kunstkamera monsters urged me in my dreams.
Look at our webbed fingers, our fused legs, our eyes squeezed shut
.
Why are you not looking?
Are you afraid that you can see too much?
People like to think they can hide behind their faces, mold them like masks for a costume ball. They hope that their eager smiles or haughty looks do not betray thoughts they prefer to keep hidden. A courtier’s corrosive envy. A lady’s contempt. A child’s piercing longing.
I was not the only one of the Empress’s tongues, but I could read her face better than others could. Her pupils widened when a man’s bold look pleased her. A slight frown always preceded the surge of her impatience. A sweep of her arm signaled interest. If it waned, she would start playing with anything her fingers could reach.
The sins of others made the best of stories. The bowels of the palace were dark and deep, like the waters of the Neva. Something was always moving there. Something was always washed ashore. Secrets were like cast-up corpses, warped coins, polished shards of glass covered in mud. Useless to those who didn’t know where they came from. Treasures to those who did. All I had to do was watch and remember. All I had to do was listen to those who thought themselves alone.
Princess Golubeva kept her serf hairdresser locked in a cage in her bedroom alcove, so that he would not betray her baldness. In Count Sheremetev’s library, in a locked cabinet, books had titles like:
Venus in the Cloister
or
The Nun in Her Chemise
. There were pictures there, too, with secret levers hidden in their frames. Once pulled, they revealed their hidden doubles: shepherds and shepherdesses frolicking naked in a meadow. A stern court lady lifting her dress to show a little dog licking the spot between her legs.
It didn’t take me long to become the most popular of imperial tongues.
That night a bracelet on the Empress’s wrist captivated her, the glow of gold glittering in candlelight, the clinking of the jeweled pendants attached to it.
“There is something about Madame Kluge that Your Highness should know,” I said.
“Madame Kluge?” the Empress said idly. “What about her?”
“An old
Baba
came to her.”
The bracelet stopped moving. The Empress sat mute when I said it all: the old
Baba
’s toothless mouth muttering her incantations, a candle that sputtered and smoked even though there was no draft.
How swiftly my words flew, how easily.
Rubles changed hands. Charms were given. Foul. Unspeakable.
Take this bottle.… Fill it with your piddle.… Smear it on the four legs of your mistress’s bed. That will stop her affection from slipping away
.
Hairs, nail clippings, flakes of skin were to be gathered. Mixed with charms and potent herbs. Bundled up in old paper. Tied with a black ribbon freshly ironed. Placed in secret so the charms could work their way.
The Empress drew a sharp breath. I didn’t know then how much she feared witchcraft, but I wouldn’t have stopped talking if I’d known. Her eyes widened, her hand gripped mine, pulling me closer. No one has ever listened to me like that before.
“Where is it?” she demanded.
I pointed at her bed, hoping I had heard it right. Hoping Madame Kluge had done what she was told to do.
“Show me,” the Empress said.
I walked to the bed and lifted the mattress. I should not have doubted the force of desperation. It was there, a small bundle of paper, tied with a black ribbon.
The Empress ordered me to open it.
I did. It smelled of dust and herbs. Inside, beside nail clippings stained pink, there was a bone, a ball of hair, a wilted carrot, and a bunch of dried flowers.
The Empress crossed herself, again and again.
“Put that thing there,” she commanded. I could hear the tremor of fear in her voice. “Careful. Don’t drop it.”
I placed my finding on a table by the window.
“Cover it.”
I placed a silk kerchief over the package.
“Now go,” she said.
I made a step toward the secret door. But to my surprise, she stopped me and motioned for me to approach.
“You did well, Varvara. The Chancellor was right about you. You did very well.”
I felt her fingers touch my hair.
I didn’t think much of the Chancellor or Madame Kluge that night, when I reached my spartan room. I didn’t ask myself what would happen. I fell asleep with the memory of that touch.
A sable pelisse covered Her Majesty’s shining gown, the edge of her green velvet hood revealing a black feather in her hair. From the balcony where she stood, the Empress watched as two guards brought Madame Kluge to the palace yard, freshly cleared from the first November snowfall.
The Grand Duke was absent. The Empress forbade her nephew to leave his room, for he had awakened with a sore throat. When I came to ask if he wished me to read to him, he was straddling his dog, teasing it with a bone. “Leave me alone,” he snapped gruffly.
The crowd had been gathering since dawn. People huddled by the walls of the Winter Palace, stomping their feet, pounding their chests to make the blood flow faster.
Madame Kluge’s fat face was pale and clenched, her eyes downcast.
German traitor
… I heard the shouts …
wishing misfortune on our heads
.
Feet shuffled on the frozen ground. Rumors flew, dark and menacing.
Worshipping the Dark One … biting the merciful hand that fed her
.
Someone threw a rotten cabbage. It splashed into a slimy puddle on the snow. Madame Kluge’s eyes shrank with fear.
Caught red-handed
, I heard.
Exposed when she least expected. Serves her right. Spying for the Prussians. Her hands greased with German gold
.
Wasn’t she always sneaky and underhanded? Always asking questions when she should’ve been quiet?
A dog snarled. I heard a single beat of the drum.
All eyes turned to the balcony, its railings covered with a flag on which the double-headed Russian eagle was spreading its wings. The Empress did not move.
When the drum sounded again, the Empress turned toward the Captain of the Guards. Her gloved hand rose and, for an instant, I thought that the plea in Madame Kluge’s eyes would soften my mistress’s heart. But the Empress of All the Russias nodded and lowered her hand.
The guards pushed Madame Kluge onto the makeshift scaffold, hastily assembled from a few pieces of timber and a plank. I felt drops of falling snow melt on my cheeks and lips. Behind me a man complained that he could not see anything.
How meager the trifles one clings to, to keep guilt at bay: the memories of an unkind word, a face distorted with anger, the lash of a whip. How welcoming the thought of punishment deserved, of justice meted out. How easy the contempt for those who fall from grace.
“No one will be put to death under my rule,” the Empress had vowed on the day of the coup that gave her the throne, two years before. Madame Kluge would not die, I told myself, knowing that death was not all a soul could fear. Under the strokes of the knout, skin turns to meaty straps. Muscles tear. Backs break. It didn’t take much to turn a woman into a cripple.
Someone behind me tittered. I heard Madame Kluge scream. Before I could turn my eyes away from the scaffold, I saw her body go limp.
The Empress nodded again. The guard who held the knout raised his hand and the first blow broke the silence. Nine more followed before the verdict was announced—dismissal from court and exile.
Since that day, no one in the Winter Palace was allowed to mention Madame Kluge’s name.
“You play the palace game. You lose or you win,” the Chancellor would tell me that night, caressing my breast. “You, too, can find yourself back where you came from.”
The scar on his chest, he said with a chuckle, was a mark left by a dying hand. He didn’t even recall the man’s name.
“Keep watching what lurks in the shadows, Varvara. The moment you stop, someone else will take your place.”
I made myself believe that there was no other way.
In the small, forgotten rooms at the far ends of the old Winter Palace—dim oak-paneled chambers that still remembered her father’s giant footsteps—beds were kept ready for the Empress at all times. The room she chose was never the same from night to night. No one was to know where the Empress of Russia would sleep.
She, too, was afraid of an assassin’s dagger.
I had seen many an imperial secret by then. I had seen my mistress in tears; I had seen her sick from lust. I had seen her ripped clothes in a heap on the floor, slashed to free her when she had been too drunk to undress. In the months that had passed since my first summons, I had brought her many stories of foolishness and pride, of hopes and deceits.
It was the measure of the Empress’s confidence in me that she told me of the letter her secretary had dispatched to the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst.
The letter made no promises but asked for his daughter’s company. The Empress had every reason to believe the Princess would arrive before February 10, in time to celebrate the Grand Duke’s sixteenth birthday.
“We would all be in Moscow by then,” she told me, pleased at the thought of the court’s approaching journey. Staying in one place for too long made Elizabeth restless. Days were always brighter elsewhere, nights more starry. Besides, she disliked the thought of any of her palaces left to the servants for too long. This is when walls began to peel, silks faded, and carpets grew threadbare.
Master’s eye fattened the horse.
There was no reading of reports that night. Instead, I was to write down a list of questions for the steward. Did the furniture the Empress had ordered shipped to Moscow in advance of her trip arrive? Was there any damage from dampness or mice? Had the sculptor been hired to check the condition of the statues and do the necessary repairs? Even away from the capital, her visitors would not be given an excuse to doubt the splendor of the Russian court.
“The grand ballroom of the Annenhof palace would do very well for their first dance,” Elizabeth said. Her hand was stroking a purring cat curled on her lap.
The cats were never fooled by the charade of changing bedrooms. They always knew where to find her.
In the Imperial Wardrobe the seamstresses were busy laying out the traveling clothes. In the hallways footmen were stacking up trunks and chests before loading them onto carriages. Crates lined up with braids of straw were still piling up in the main hall. In the stables, the grooms were fitting harnesses and traces for the horses.
From now on I was also to make sure Grand Duke Peter’s reading contained suitable passages. “Not so many battles, Varvara,” the Empress said. “Some French novels, perhaps. But make sure they are not too frivolous. My nephew is too impressionable. And find him some love poems to learn by heart.”
In January of 1744, in the Moscow Annenhof palace, the Empress of All the Russias wanted to hear of nothing but the journey of Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst.
“What have you heard about our travelers, Varvara?” the Empress demanded as I entered her bedroom that night. It was past midnight, in the darkest of hours. She was lying on the bed, her feet bare, her head propped on pillows. Pushok, one of the cats that came with her from St. Petersburg, the fluffy white one, had settled down beside her, licking its paws.
I seated myself at her feet, the slim, shapely feet of a dancer. Pouring lavender oil on the palms of my hands, I warmed them first, rubbing the skin.