The Mirrored World Read online

  “You can see where they lay,” Nadya said. It was true: at the center of the bed, the ice had melted slightly and left a shallow depression. It was not hard to imagine the shape of two persons lying side by side.

  A strangled whimper came from Xenia. I followed her stricken gaze and looked again into the bed. Frozen into the surface of a pillow was a ragged tuft of hair. It was bloody at the roots where shreds of scalp still adhered.

  It has been said that they were brought straight from the church, and that Empress Anna’s guests complained at being made to step out of their carriages and follow the bridal couple out onto the river, where an icy wind cut through their wraps. But their sniping was silenced by the sight of the palace glittering in the frigid moonlight. Inside, they admired the cunning forgeries and paid lavish compliments to the Empress and the architect Eropkin on such a magnificent conception.

  Golitsyn and the hunchbacked old maid were whisked into the bedchamber. There, the two were made to undress and were left naked. Guards were set at the door. It being customary on a wedding night to feast while the bride and groom consummate their union, the Empress Anna and her guests then hurried on to the banquet, their receding torches making a trail across the ice.

  The particulars of what was said and done between Prince Golitsyn and the old maid after they were left alone in the darkness of their monstrous tomb—these things can no more be discovered than can the secrets of any other wedding night.

  What is known is that they were found the next morning in the posture of husband and wife, lying in each other’s arms. And although their deaths were widely reported, they had survived the night—if only just—by virtue of the hunchback’s cleverness. While undressing, she had hid a pearl in her cheek, and this she later traded to one of the guards for his sheepskin coat. Bride and groom shared the warmth of the other’s body wrapped in this.

  Though the old woman was dead of a cold within the week, years later Xenia would find a happy ending in the story. The wretched hunchback, lonely and unloved all her days, had saved the life of her husband and died a married woman. “I should have prayed for a fate so kind,” she confided.

  Learning to Mate

  Chapter Three

  In 1745, my thirteenth year, there were three more weddings, but so far as the populace of Petersburg was concerned, only one worthy of mention.

  A German princess had been brought to the court the previous year for the purpose of providing Empress Elizabeth’s nephew with a wife. The general opinion was that she was hardly a beauty, but her ingratiating manner and the earnestness with which she applied herself to learning Russian had won her allies. It was hoped she might provide some needed ballast for the queer young man whom Fate had put in line for the throne.

  The marriage of Catherine to Grand Duke Peter was to be the first royal wedding ever celebrated in Petersburg, and the Empress was determined it should rival in splendor the recent wedding of the Dauphin at Versailles. To this end, the whole town was cast into a frenzy of preparation. Sergei Naryshkin, it was rumored, had spent seven thousand rubles to refurbish his carriage and inlay its wheels with mirror. Tailors were already at work designing new livery for Leonid Vladimirovich Berevsky’s pages and footmen. Throughout the capital, nobles vied with one another to secure the last good bottles of wine and the services of the best musicians and chefs, and for any of these things the usual currencies of bribery and flattery were much increased.

  This spirit of extravagance entered our household as well. Having turned seventeen, Nadya was to be brought out into society that season, and in anticipation of this Aunt Galya had purchased pandoras, little dolls imported from Paris and dressed à la mode so that a dressmaker might copy the fashions. Bolts of fabric were brought to the house for our mothers’ perusal, together with a quantity of ribbons and laces. It was decided between them that one court dress would not be adequate, and then there were further expenses to be incurred for morning dresses, shoes, and fans, and for bribes to arrange invitations.

  “Perhaps this is not needed after all?” Aunt Galya handed a card of lace to my mother so that she might be contradicted.

  “You might leave the neck plain,” my mother said, “but the dress will not look finished without a bit of lace at the sleeves.” She grew thoughtful. “It’s a pity Dasha is too young to be brought out this year. She might profit by some other occupation for her mind.”

  “You mustn’t fret about Dashenka,” Aunt Galya said. “She will make some man a good wife.”

  “Only if she can first be cured of her bad habits.”

  The habits to which my mother referred were in truth only one, but it was sufficient to be more worrisome to her than many smaller ones. On several occasions, I had been found staring at the pages of the Psalter. At first this had been mistaken for piety and no thought had been given to it, but then I had made the error of confessing to Olga that I was trying to read.

  “No, no, kitten.” Olga corrected me gently, and, closing the book, returned it to its place. “You do not want to do that. It makes a woman barren.”

  There was no fate so fearful as this, and Olga’s warning should have been sufficient to cure me of my fault, but it was not. I had such a hunger for words that I took to spying on my brother whilst he was at his lessons. Afterwards, I would hide myself in the wardrobe for hours, the Psalter opened on my lap and a candlestick set on the floor beside me. In its flickering light, the strokes and curls on the pages slowly began to yield their mysteries. Then Nadya had found me and reported to my mother. I was whipped not only for my disobedience but also for taking a taper into the wardrobe and thereby endangering the lives of my family.

  Now, fingering the lace, my mother lamented, “What man will want a girl who defies her parents to read?”

  “I’ve heard that the German princess is fond of books,” Aunt Galya said, but this was no comfort to my mother.

  “My daughter can ill afford such quirks.”

  Aunt Galya hit upon an inspiration. “Why not bring her out with Nadya? She is young, as you say, but such a season will not come again with all its chances to make a match. And if it happens not this year, she will have that many more years to try.”

  My aunt pleased herself further with the argument that in truth it would represent an economy to bring out all three girls at once. We might share dresses and ribbons and whatnot, and the savings from this could even be put towards engaging a French dance master.

  On the morning of our first dancing lesson, Olga dressed us in our mothers’ hoops and skirts. We were further outfitted with heeled slippers, fans, and little porcelain bonbonnieres. So attired, we seemed suddenly to outgrow our childhood and the confines of our bedroom as well. With whalebone panniers strapped to our hips, our skirts extended us each to the width of three persons, and we maneuvered in the small room like the square-rigged ships one sees crowding the Neva, under full sail and narrowly avoiding collision at every tack. Only by turning sideways were we able to pass through the door and sidle down the corridor to the drawing room. Though my mother’s slippers were stuffed to hold my foot, and the extra length of her skirt pinned up so that I should not trip, I preened, newly a lady, and anticipated the impression I would make on the dance master.

  When finally he was announced, though, it was he who was to be admired, not we. Monsieur La Roche was a knob-kneed man with rotting teeth and a horsehair wig so puny that it rested atop his own hair like a weasel slaughtered and powdered to serve the purpose. But as befitted one who was French, he was full of condescension. As we were introduced, only the languid transfer of his gaze from one of us to the next distinguished him from a portrait. Without breaking his pose, he uttered a few syllables in his native tongue. As Monsieur La Roche spoke no Russian, our instruction was conducted entirely in French, a language known to us formerly only through our mothers speaking the occasional phrase.

  Society may be a masqu
erade, but I discovered that it was not sufficient merely to don the costume. As with any theatrical, there were lines to be learnt and attitudes to be committed to memory, and with them the intricate language of the fan by which such attitudes were signaled. To touch your left cheek with a closed fan meant no, the right cheek meant yes, and if you then unfurled the fan before your face, this signaled to the observer that you wished him to follow you. A dozen different meanings were assigned to fluttering the fan, depending upon rapidity and placement.

  It was too much for me to remember, hampered as I was by my great fear of forgetting. Even a curtsy was more exacting than it appeared. I dipped, positioning my foot precisely so and sweeping my arm out slowly, now sliding my fan open and holding it just so, then casting my eyes downwards in a show of modesty. Resting, I then prepared for the final challenge: to undo all I had just done and haul up the anchor of my skirts whilst conveying the impression of floating.

  With painstaking slowness, we progressed to the various figures of the minuet, which were a trial to Xenia as well. She had a natural expansiveness of gesture common to tall people and a restlessness particular to her. Though she might tamp down her spirit to fit the small, slow movements that Monsieur dictated, her face reflected like a glass all the effort it cost her, and she instantly undid any success with a burst of jubilation that caused him to chide her again.

  Nadya’s talent for imitation answered Monsieur’s haughtiness with her own. She even improved upon it. “Oui, c’est ça exactement!” he exclaimed as she rose from her curtsy. That she did not care if he praised her seemed to please him all the more—she had mastered the aloofness that underpinned every other attitude. From a resting posture of aloofness, one need make only minute adjustments to signal displeasure or its hardly perceptible opposites, approval or amusement.

  After several weeks, Monsieur at last satisfied himself. He posed us each with an imagined partner, and taking himself to the rented pianoforte began to plink its keys. This was Xenia’s downfall. She was entranced by the melody: her arms lifted of their own accord, and her head swayed like a daisy in the breezes of the music. Springing off her toes, she gave the impression she might well take flight with the next step.

  “Non, non!” Monsieur railed at her to be still, but it did him no good. She was sweeping across the floor, lost to delight.

  Exasperated, he sent for baskets, and commanded that they be filled with grain and tied to the tops of our heads like hats. This was to encourage a still bearing. Thus burdened, I felt like one of the little horses one sometimes sees in the country half-buried under sheaves of rye. On my little heeled hooves, any movement threatened to topple the load.

  He began to play again. Formerly, I had managed to follow most of Monsieur’s instructions by observing Nadya. Now I could not do even this for fear that in turning my head, I might spill the grain. Paralyzed by apprehension, I lost the power of locomotion. Monsieur barked out my name and, snapping a finger, issued a command. I could only gape. He left the pianoforte and marched towards me, repeating the command in a Gallic crescendo. I tapped my right cheek with my fan—yes?—and then splayed it open rather prettily in the desperate hope this might assuage him. It did not.

  “Non, non, non! Le pied gauche!” he raged, this time stamping his buckled shoe and gesturing to it.

  I stamped my foot in imitation, and a few grains spilt from my basket to the floor. Forgetting, I looked down, and a shower clattered round me like hail.

  “Petite idiote! Pas comme un cheval de fiacre! Avec la délicatesse!”

  “No, stop it!” Xenia commanded. “Do not berate her!”

  Monsieur La Roche swiveled on his heel, and I thought he might strike her with his stick, but Xenia stood her ground. Chin lifted, she had the regal bearing of an Empress, never mind that no Empress has ever worn so ridiculous a hat.

  “Speak to her in Russian. We will not tell.”

  His haughty air deflated, and his glance went to Nadya and then round the room to Olga and my brother, Vanya, who sat at the window, and to me again. He looked like a thief who has been caught with his pockets full of his master’s silver.

  “With the left foot,” he muttered. His pronunciation exposed him at once as a Russian. “Delicately. As though you are stepping on live coals.”

  Twice a week, Empress Elizabeth hosted a lavish ball in the Winter Palace. The smaller one was held for some two hundred of Her Imperial Majesty’s friends and the inner circle of the court, but several times this number might be invited to the larger of the balls, virtually every person of noble rank in the city minus only those who had earned her displeasure. This was to be our proving ground.

  As our mothers maneuvered us through the throng, Xenia scanned the room hungrily. “Dasha”—she elbowed me and jutted her chin upwards—“the Kaleidoscope.” Over our heads hung a gilt chandelier, its crystal pendants refracting each flame into a galaxy of lights.

  We arrived at a clutch of women on the perimeter, the wives and widows of the Semeonovsky regiment, and our mothers set at once to work, offering commiseration on a husband’s gout, congratulations on a son’s promotion, and so forth. One might have thought they intended no purpose here except to reassure themselves on the health and well-being of each one of the women’s relations. In truth, their goal was this: that one of these women might send a page to retrieve an unattached son or nephew.

  “And your youngest,” Aunt Galya inquired, “Grigory Vasilievich, he must be almost grown by now. That is he?” She feigned shock. “In the blue waistcoat? No, it cannot be. But he is a man already! The day is long but a lifetime is short, is it not so? Only yesterday my little Nadya and Xenia were in their smocks, and look at them now.”

  Whilst our mothers labored on our behalf, what was required of us was only that we display a quiet demeanor and be at the ready if called upon. But Xenia could not attend to this little task. Her concentration continually reeled out to follow pairs of dancers revolving past us.

  “Oh, look!” she cried out. She pointed to a lady’s enormous fan of peacock feathers blooming, eye by eye, with exquisite slowness.

  The wives and widows turned as one, first to the spectacle of Xenia’s pointing finger and then to the lady with the peacock fan. Two eyes had been cut out from the feathers, and through these the lady’s own eyes were visible.

  The women took note of the fan without wonder.

  “It is a poor copy. Princess Dashkova’s had the edges tipped with gold.”

  It is a commonplace that few who admire a painting have any acquaintance with a brush. Likewise, those viewing fireworks marvel at the counterfeit of a flaming bird or a flower blooming in the night sky without a notion how the effect is achieved. But here, the spectators were also the actors. There was no ruse of the tailor with which they themselves were unacquainted, no paint they would mistake for a blush. They, too, had bathed themselves in pigeon water and applied to their own skins pomades and powders and patches. They, too, had endured hours at the hands of their hairdressers and slept in chairs to preserve the sticky confection atop their heads. As such, they were severe critics of their fellows. Xenia’s delight showed a lack of discernment, and it made her seem impressionable as a peasant in their eyes.

  When a chorister sang for the assemblage, she gaped at him openly in childish wonder. With his last note, she sprang to her feet and began to applaud with such enthusiasm that she drew the amused notice of those within earshot and then the entire room. She alone was on her feet, still clapping. The chorister gave a little bow in our direction, and this only encouraged her further. I blushed for her who had not the sense to blush for herself. Nadya, more quick-thinking, reached up and pinched Xenia hard.

  She yelped.

  Nadya hissed behind her fan. “Sit. Down.”

  If Xenia had forfeited the women’s approbation, Nadya redeemed our mothers’ efforts by behaving precisely as she had bee
n coached. She said little and not a word of it original or sincere, but the airs that she had practiced in our childhood games and perfected under the tutelage of Monsieur La Roche lent her the slightly bored appearance of one far above her rank. She was invited to dance, and when she did the honors and presented herself before the Empress, it was with the ease of one who had at last found her rightful place. As I watched her turn into the figures of the dance, I adjusted my bodice and scratched hungrily. My corset had long since transformed itself into a torture of binding and itches, but Nadya inhabited her own with the seeming disregard of one who had been swaddled in whalebone.

  So fine an impression did Nadya make that she was summoned afterwards to be introduced to Countess Chernysheva. By this notice, her value increased again and even spilt over to Xenia and myself. Partners were produced for us as well. It had been decided beforehand that if I were asked to dance I should make a better impression by declining, but Xenia was allowed to be escorted onto the dance floor at the start of a minuet.

  She drew notice round the room, the girl who had applauded the singer. However, I do not think she was aware of it. As she danced, her glance followed the chorister. When her escort whispered something to her shoulder, she startled and looked at him as though trying to place where they had met. At this critical moment, she failed to turn to the left and followed her escort to the right instead. Beside me, Aunt Galya gasped.

  The circle of dancers had split into two lines, with Xenia amongst the gentlemen and facing her own sex. Looking up the line, she did some swift mental calculation and then made an ungainly dash across the open field. She wedged herself into the middle of the opposite line and, by so doing, further upset the pattern.

  Each dancer was now aligned with a different partner. After the shuffle, Nadya drew an unlucky hand and found herself paired with a rotund courtier old enough to be her grandfather. Stone-eyed, she turned to watch Xenia, happy and oblivious, step out to meet her new partner.