Heart of Iron (2 page)

To Eugenia, the relentless reformism seemed to signal something beyond imperial magnanimity— I swear she could see farther into the future than any of us with her small beady eyes. “I do insist,” she said, and seemed to look past the freedmen on the road’s side and past the stone slabs, past the carts and sharp gravel, “that soon enough St. Petersburg will rival the capitals of Europe — London, Paris, all of them — as a beacon of progress and industry.”

“You do babble so, Genia,” my mother said.

“It’s not babbling,” Eugenia said. “I want to see this country ascend from the mire of poverty and superstition, for us reach for the light of reason… ” She caught herself and let her voice trail off.

My aunt was entirely too infatuated with reason, as my mother used to say. She herself viewed rationality as a masculine domain, and occasionally hinted it was not my aunt’s lack of beauty but her excess of imagination that doomed her to spinsterhood. My mother seemed to think it should be a lesson to me — at least, the specter of remaining an old maid only surfaced in conversation when I was willful or spent too much time catching frogs and climbing trees with the renters’ children. Yet my mother did not seem convinced by her own words — or at least, let them be undermined by the obvious and unrepentant love she had for her sister.

We stopped for the night in the small town of Tosno. At least I remembered it as small from a few summers ago, but soon discovered it had increased considerably in size, not in small measure due to a factory that had sprung up at what had once been its outskirts.

“What does it make?” I asked Eugenia as we watched through the windows of the small hotel at tall smokestacks disgorging clouds of sulfurous steam into the evening sky.

“I am not sure,” Eugenia said. “But we can go and find out.”

My mother begged off the expedition, citing fatigue, but Eugenia and I walked down the winding dirt street past wooden cabins comprising most of the town’s residential buildings. The paint on the dwellings’ walls was peeling and discolored, and the acrid air made my eyes water. Even the trees lining the streets were blackened and mostly dead, their branches twisted like pleading fingers reaching for the sky.

The factory was still spitting out smoke and steam when we arrived at its vast doors. I worried that Eugenia, always keenly interested in things that clanged and were made of metal, would drag me inside the horrid building and make me walk across the floors where, surely, rude men swore at each other and operated dangerous-looking machines.

But she never had a chance, because the gates swung open and out came a throng of bearded, half-naked men who shouted excitedly, and pulled on long metallic ropes. There were dozens of them, all straining against thick twisted cables that sang like strings. Eugenia pulled me out of the way and we watched as the factory groaned and opened its doors wider, allowing the men to drag its strange creation forth into the last burnished rays of a setting sun — not quite a ship but a winged golden balloon as large as a three-storied house.

The egg-shaped balloon strained against the containing net. A basket, woven from strips of birch bark, like the lapti on the workers’ feet — dangled under it. Tall wings rose from its sides, bracketing both the balloon and a metal cage containing a chugging smoking engine that clung to the basket like a fungal growth.

“It doesn’t look like it needs an engine,” I whispered to Eugenia.

She shook her head. “Don’t be a fool, Sasha, of course everything needs an engine. How will it be propelled, change direction? A balloon is just the wind’s toy. An airship has its own mind, though this one could be a tad more balanced.”

A few of the men jumped into the dangerously swaying basket, the sweet aroma of birch sap mixing with the noxious smell of sweat and burning peat. The rest let go of some of the ropes, pulling the net off the airship, and the contraption soared. The basket hung lopsided, but this did not deter the men inside it. They operated the iron levers sticking through the bars of the cage that contained the engine, making it chug faster. Other levers lifted and lowered the golden wings allowing the airship to execute slow, swooping turns.

The men on the ground cheered, and Eugenia — quite unlike herself — clapped. The rising wind got hold of the ship and pulled it over the factory, toward the narrow strip of the forest, until its golden glow was hidden from view behind the treetops. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and Eugenia took my arm.

“Let us return to the hotel, Sasha,” she told me. “There won’t be anything else exciting here today.”

The next day, at breakfast, we heard the innkeeper talking about a fire ball crashing in the fields just outside of town and the peat fires that started last night just a few miles to the west. Neither Aunt Eugenia nor I mentioned the airship and its fate to my mother.

It took us four days of being shaken along the ruts and staying in inns before we arrived at the severe glory of the capital. Eugenia had arranged for the hiring of staff who had uncovered furniture, cleaned, provisioned the place, and laid fires to warm the house in anticipation of our arrival, but it took another day of unpacking and arranging before we were settled in our St. Petersburg quarters. It took even longer before I was allowed to go for a walk along the Neva’s embankment.

Oh, but the wait only made it more rewarding — as I strolled across the drizzle-slicked stones of the embankment, a sense of historical
gravitas
washed over me: these were the stones my papa’s feet walked over, and the emperor’s, and Peter the Great’s; every important person who had ever lived in this city, every prominent player in the tragedies of our national life had left invisible footprints here.

I looked at the slick surface of the river and noticed it churn, water frothing white and green as bottle glass until a heavy brass hull, patina-covered, breached the surface. It looked like a monstrous sinking boat that was going the wrong way. A pair of binoculars mounted on a long pole swiveled toward me, and almost immediately the round cover on the convex back of the boat started turning. A few passersby stopped and clustered closer to the water, pointing and gasping. I had to push through the small crowd to get a view of the goings on.

When it opened, a very ordinary-looking freedman, dressed in linen shirt and matching trousers girded with a piece of rope, stepped out of the hatch just as I managed to work my way to the front of the crowd, inches away from the gray stone wall and the black water lapping at it.

“How do you do, miss,” the freedman said to me. He then proceeded to walk the length of the monstrous contraption to adjust one of the mismatched knobs studding its tail end like a lace-maker’s bobbins. He fiddled with one knob and then another one, as I watched in mute fascination, until he returned to the hatch and climbed inside. The green brass shuddered and several of the bobbins exhaled white clouds of steam. The water hissed and bubbled as it lapped against the knobs, and the boat soon sunk under the water and disappeared from view, leaving only a short-lived white-crested wave in its wake.

Afterwards, I walked along the Nevsky Prospect, the heart of the city laid out so vast, flayed open for the Kazan Cathedral and its square, and I gawped at the rearing horses guarding the Anichkov Bridge. Then I stopped to look at the stately, simple lines of Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace. I tried to guess what silent and luxurious life teemed behind those tall vaulted windows of the second story, who were the shadows sliding past the lacy white curtains like fishes under ice.

I could lose myself in these streets, and even as the rain grew heavier I dawdled, reluctant to go back to our quarters by the Moyka River, not too far from the Yusupov Palace. I had decided to go to St. Isaac’s Cathedral and the Senate Square tomorrow; no doubt, both my mother and Aunt Eugenia would be interested in visiting the place of Papa’s triumph.

However, upon my return I learned that Eugenia had other plans. Normally my mother and my aunt would arrange for an audience with the emperor, but because of my impending debut and associated emergencies — a tear in one of my silk slippers, a length of soutache coming undone along the front of the dress — they had been unable to arrange for an audience before the ball. The ball at the Winter Palace was two days hence, and preparations had to be made. My aunt was still overseeing getting the apartment and menus in order, and all other business had to wait until after the ball.

The hired maid turned out to be handy with a sewing needle, and thanks to her the clothing emergencies were solved with just a modicum of anxiety, letting us all fret about other matters. I was mostly worried about meeting my peers — even though Miss Chartwell did her best to impart the necessary knowledge of English (no one spoke Russian at the court since Emperor Constantine contracted a profound case of Anglophilia) and manners, I was still more used to the company of peasant and engineer children. I suspected that the young ladies of my own age and social standing would have a much less interest in the life of our estate than I did. Even my treasures, the books by James Fenimore Cooper, were unlikely to interest them.

Meanwhile, my mother seemed to grow even more despondent, the present receding as the deluge of memories of the house and familiar sights of the capital assaulted her. She mopped at her eyes with her handkerchief and drifted from one well-lit room to the next, pausing only in front of the wide bay windows to catch a glimpse of the pavement’s rain-slicked stones and the gleaming of St. Isaac’s across the river.

Aunt Eugenia was also lost in thought — she had retreated to her room and muttered darkly there, pacing all the while. I suspected that her discontent had to do more with the present state of affairs rather than the memories of the past youth. She seemed to be embroiled in preparations for the ball — her dress of black silk, decorated with charcoal-gray diamonds sewn onto a ribbon that ran all the way down the front was both beautiful and severe — much more elaborate than her usual clothing, and I was flattered that she would go to such length for me.

As it turned out, it wasn’t my debut Aunt Eugenia was preparing for.

The day of the ball was gloomy, but it mattered little as all of society headed for the Winter Palace. The Neva swelled with rain and turned leaden like a corpse, and small white-crested waves lapped at the mottled walls of the embankment. The squares and throughways were choked with the multitude of carriages and horses, and for a while I thought we might never arrive to the palace — I blushed when I realized the thought filled me with relief. I tried hard not to pick at the length of soutache twisting and winding down the front of my dress, and instead played with lace rosettes along my neckline and worried at the buttons of my long gloves.

My mother kept looking at the torrents of rain outside the window, and Aunt Eugenia frowned at her private thoughts. In her black and gray, she was formidable — and a stunning contrast to my mother who wore youthful dark rose and an overabundance of lace and ribbons. Between the three of us, she was dressed most as a debutante.

But, to my disappointment, we somehow managed to arrive at the palace and ascended its grand staircase, chandeliers blazing over the crowd — bright dresses and dark suits, with the occasional royal blue of officers’ uniforms and the white of pelisses. There were bare shoulders and enough lace to wrap the Earth three times over. There was an overabundance of glossy marble, too much light and sparkling jewels. My head spun. If not for the strong, dry hand of my aunt steadying me, I would have lost my footing and tumbled gracelessly down the marble staircase. We entered the ballroom arm in arm — or rather with me leaning on her strong, square hand, her surprisingly small birdlike bones belying her evidently supernatural power.

We were announced and joined the overwhelming crowd. There were many young women who smelled of exotic flowers and looked like them too with their bright-colored dresses and pleated lace sewn onto every available surface. Their bodices and bell skirts were stiff with embroidery, and next to them my non-embarrassing dress looked plain, yards of soutache notwithstanding. I even saw a few wearing real orchids pinned to their hair and bodices.

“Goodness,” Eugenia whispered. “While we were in our provinces, half of St. Petersburg lost its mind, and now they fancy themselves a greenhouse.”

I snickered and immediately felt better. My mother had drifted off to greet some people she recognized, leaving me in Eugenia’s uncompromising care. I expected a round of introductions and perhaps some dancing — the orchestra was tuning itself, with low melodic yowls of violins and shy exhalations of trumpets — but instead, Eugenia steered me toward the far end of the ballroom, where a clump of royal blue uniforms betrayed the presence of the emperor and his Polish wife.

He was sitting in a tall chair, not a throne by any means, but imposing enough to suggest it; his wife, a stately woman with watery eyes, sat next to him, with everyone else standing in a semicircle. General Pestel, much older than I remembered him, smiled at Aunt Eugenia.

She nodded, but her eyes and her glare were for the emperor alone. In his blue uniform jacket and white trousers, he looked like an elderly officer; his wig, desperately out of style, gave him an appearance of vulnerability — so light and fine, like the fuzz on a duckling. His pale blue eyes looked past me and at Eugenia, and I could have sworn that for a moment he looked… not fearful exactly, but apprehensive.

“Dear Countess Menshova,” he said to her. “How good it is to see you! And this”—he nodded at me, smiling beatifically—“must be the Trubetskaya girl… I mean, young lady.”

I curtsied and blushed.

“Indeed,” Aunt Eugenia said, frowning. “A daughter of one of your officers, still waiting for you to wake up and perhaps do something useful with your reforms.”

At that moment, I rather resented Aunt Eugenia dragging me into the imperial circle of attention with such a pronouncement. “I… ” I stammered.