Sashenka (4 page)

“I will, Sergeant Volkov,” Sashenka replied, trying not to gag on the suffocating aroma of lavender cologne.

“I’m not your typical guard, am I? Do I surprise you?”

“Oh yes, Sergeant, you do.”

“That’s what everyone says. Now, Mademoiselle Zeitlin, here is your berth. Don’t forget, Sergeant Volkov is your special friend. Not your typical guard!”

“Not at all typical.”

“You’ll miss my cologne in a minute,” he warned.

A guard opened a cell door and manhandled her inside. She turned to reach for the chief guard, even raising a hand, but he was gone. The smell of women crowded into a confined space blasted her nostrils. This is the real Russia! she told herself, feeling the rottenness creeping into her clothes.

The cell door slammed behind her. The locks turned. Sashenka stood, shoulders hunched, aware of the dark cramped space behind her seething with shadowy, vigilant life. Farting, grunting, sneezing, singing and coughing vied with whispers and the flick of cards being dealt.

Sashenka slowly turned, feeling the rancid breath of twenty or thirty women, hot then cool, hot then cool, on her face. A single kerosene lamp lightened the gloom. The prisoners lined the walls and lay on mattresses on the cold dirty floor, sleeping, playing cards, some even cuddling. Two halfnaked crones were picking lice out of each other’s pubic hair like monkeys. A low partition marked off the latrine, from whence came groans and liquid explosions.

“Hurry up!” shouted the next in line.

A plump woman with slanting oriental eyes lay reading Tolstoy’s
Confessions
, while a cadaverous woman in a man’s army greatcoat over a peasant smock declaimed from a pornographic pamphlet about the Empress, Rasputin and their mutual friend, Madame Vyrubova. “‘Three is better than one,’ said the monk. ‘Anya Vyrubova, your tits are juicy as a Siberian seal—but nothing beats a wanton imperial cunt like yours, my Empress!’”

There was laughter. The reader stopped.

“Who’s this? Countess Vyrubova slumming it from court?” The creature in the greatcoat was on her feet. Stepping on a sleeping figure who howled in complaint, she rushed at Sashenka and seized her hair. “You rich little bitch, don’t look at me like that!”

Sashenka was afraid for the first time since her arrest, properly afraid, with fear that lurched in her guts and burned in her throat. Before she had time to think, she was punched in the mouth and fell, only to be crushed as the creature threw herself on top of her. She struggled to breathe. Fearing she was going to die, she thought of Lala, Grandmaman at school, her pony in the country…But suddenly the attacker was lifted right off her and tossed sideways.

“Careful, bitch. Don’t touch her! I think this one’s ours.” The plump woman holding an open copy of Tolstoy stood over her. “Sashenka? The cell elders welcome you. You’ll meet the committee in the morning. Let’s get some sleep. You can share my mattress. I’m Comrade Natasha. You don’t know me, but I know exactly who you are.”

6

Captain Sagan of the Gendarmerie dropped into his favorite chair at the Imperial Yacht Club on Greater Maritime Street and was just rubbing a toke of cocaine into his gums when his adjutant appeared in the doorway.

“Your Excellency, may I report?”

Sagan saw the blotchyskinned adjutant glance quickly around the enormous, empty room with its leather chairs and newspapers in English, French and Russian. Beyond the billiard table hung portraits of bemedaled club chairmen, and at the far end of the room, above a blazing fire of applescented wood, the watery blue eyes of the Emperor Nicholas II. “Go ahead, Ivanov.”

“Your Excellency, we’ve arrested the terrorist revolutionaries. Found dynamite, chargers, Mauser pistols, leaflets. There’s a schoolgirl among them. The general says he wants you to start on her right away before her bigshot papa gets her out. I’ve a phaeton waiting outside.”

Captain Sagan got to his feet and sighed. “Fancy a drink, Ivanov, or a pinch of this?” He held out the silver box. “Dr. Gemp’s new tonic for fatigue and headaches.”

“The general said you should hurry.”

“I’m tired,” Sagan said, although his heart was racing. It was the third winter of the war, and he was overworked to the point of exhaustion. Not only was he a gendarme, he was also a senior officer in the Okhrana, the Tsar’s secret police. “German spies, Bolsheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, every sort of traitor. We can’t hang them fast enough. And then there’s Rasputin. At least sit for a moment.”

“All right. Cognac,” Ivanov said, a shade too reluctantly for Sagan’s liking.

“Cognac? Your tastes are becoming rather expensive, Ivanov.” Sagan tinkled a silver bell.

A waiter, as long and thin as a flute, glided drunkenly through the door, as if on skis.

“Two cognacs and make it quick,” Sagan ordered, savoring the aroma of cigars, cologne and shoe polish, the essence of officers’ messes and gentlemen’s clubs across the Empire.

When the glasses arrived, the two men stood up, toasted the Tsar, downed their brandies and hurried into the lobby.

They pulled on their uniform greatcoats and
shapkas
and stepped out into a numbing cold.

Disorderly, shapeless snowflakes danced around them. It was already midnight but a full moon made the fresh snow glow an eerie blue. Cocaine, Sagan decided, was the secret policeman’s ideal tonic in that it intensified his scrutiny, sharpening his vision. There stood his phaeton, a taxicarriage with one horse snorting geysers of breath, its driver a snoring bundle of clothing. Ivanov gave him a shove and the driver’s bald head appeared out of his sheepskin, pink, shiny and blearyeyed, like a grotesque baby born blind drunk.

Sagan, heart still palpitating, scanned the street. To the left, the golden dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral loomed ominously over the houses as if about to crush them. Down to the right, he could see the doorway of the Zeitlin residence. He checked his surveillance team. Yes, a mustachioed figure in a green coat and bowler hat lurked near the corner: that was Batko, ex–NCO Cossack, smoking a cigarette in the doorway of the apartments opposite. (Cossacks and ex–NCOs made the best “external agents,” those who worked on surveillance.) And there was a sleeping droshky driver a little farther down the street: Sagan hoped he was not really asleep.

A RollsRoyce, with chains on its wheels and a Romanov crest on its doors, skidded past.

Sagan knew that it belonged to Grand Duke Sergei, who would be going home with the ballerina mistress he shared with his cousin Grand Duke Andrei.

From the Blue Bridge over the Moika came the echo of shouts, the thud of punches and the crunch of boots and bodies on compacted snow. Some sailors from the Kronstadt base were fighting soldiers—dark blue versus khaki.

Then, just as Sagan had one foot on the phaeton’s step, a Benz limousine rumbled up. Its uniformed driver leaped out and opened the leatherlined door. Out of it stepped an overripe, ruddycheeked figure in a fur coat. ManuilovManesevich, spy, war profiteer, friend of Rasputin, born a Jew, converted to Orthodoxy, pushed past Sagan and hurried into the Imperial Yacht Club. Inside the limousine, Sagan glimpsed crushed scarlet satin and mink on a pale throat. A waft of sweat and cigar smoke disgusted him. He got into the carriage.

“This is what the Empire has come to,” he told Ivanov. “Yid spies and influence peddlers.

A scandal every day!”

“Yaaaa!” the driver yelled, cracking his whip a little too close to Sagan’s nose. The phaeton lurched forward.

Sagan leaned back and let the lights of Peter the Great’s city flow past him. The brandy was a bullet of molten gold scouring his belly. Here was his life, in the capital of the world’s greatest empire, ruled by its stupidest people in the midst of the most terrible war the world had ever known. Sagan told himself that the Emperor was lucky that he and his colleagues still believed in him and his right to rule; lucky they were so vigilant; lucky that they would stop at nothing to save this fool Tsar and his hysterical wife, whoever her friends were…

“Y’wanna know what I think,
barin
?” said the driver, sitting sideways to his passengers, his warthog nose illuminated by the phaeton’s swinging lantern. “Oats is going up again!

One more price hike and we won’t be able to feed our horses. There was a time, I remember it well, when oats was only…”

Oats, oats, oats, that was all Sagan heard from the damn drivers of carriages and sleighs.

He breathed deeply as the cocainecharged blood gushed through his temples like a mountain stream.

7

“Where are you going tonight?” Zeitlin asked his wife.

“I don’t know,” sighed Ariadna Zeitlin dreamily. She was reclining on the divan in her fleshcolored boudoir, dressed only in stockings and a slip. She closed her eyes as her lady’s maid primped her hair with curling tongs. Her voice was low and husky, the words running together as if she were already a little high. “Want to come along for the ride?”

“It’s important, my dear.” He took a chair close to the divan.

“Well, maybe Baroness Rozen’s for cocktails, then a dinner at the Donan, some dancing at the Aquarium—I love that place, have you seen the beautiful fish all around the walls?—

and then, well, I’m not sure…Ah Nyana, let’s see, I fancy something with brocade for tonight.”

Two maids came out of her dressing room, Nyana holding a jewelry box, the other girl with a heap of dresses over her arm.

“Come on, Ariadna. I need to know where you’re going,” snapped Zeitlin.

Ariadna sat up sharply. “What is it? You look quite upset. Has the Bourse crashed or…”

and here she gave him a tender smile, flashing her white teeth, “or are you learning how to be jealous? It’s never too late, you know. A girl likes to be cherished.”

Zeitlin inhaled his cigar. Their marriage had diminished to these brief exchanges before each plunged, separately, into the St. Petersburg night, though they still attended balls and formal dinners together. He glanced at the unmade bed, where his wife spent so much time sleeping during the day. He looked at the dresses in batiste, chiffon and silk, at the bottles of potions and perfumes, at the halfsmoked cigarettes, at the healing crystals, and all those other fads and luxuries, but he looked longest at Ariadna with her snowwhite skin, her wide shoulders and her violet eyes. She was still beautiful, even if her eyes were bloodshot and the veins stood out in her temples.

She opened her hands and reached out to him, her tuberose perfume mixing deliciously with that of her skin, but he was too anxious to play their usual games.

“Sashenka’s been arrested by the gendarmes,” he told her. “Right at the school gates. She’s in the Kresty for the night. Can you imagine the cells there?”

Ariadna blinked. A tiny frown appeared on her pale face. “It must be a misunderstanding.

She’s so bookish, it’s hard to imagine she’d do anything silly.” She looked at him. “Surely you can get her out tonight, Samuil? Call the Interior Minister. Doesn’t he owe you money?”

“I’ve just called Protopopov and he says it’s serious.”

“Nyana?” Ariadna beckoned to her lady’s maid. “I think I’ll wear the mauve brocade with the gold leaf and flounces from Madame Chanceau, and I’ll have the pearl choker and the sapphire brooch…”

Zeitlin was losing his patience. “That’s enough, Ariadna.” He switched to Yiddish so the servants could not understand. “Stop lolling there like a chorus girl, dammit! We’re talking about Sashenka.” He switched back to Russian, casting a black glance around the disorderly room: “Girls! Leave us alone!” Zeitlin knew that his tempers were as rare as they were fearsome and the three maids abandoned the dresses and jewels and curling tongs and scurried out.

“Was that really necessary?” asked Ariadna, her voice quivering, tears welling in her kohlsmeared eyes.

But Zeitlin was all business. “Are you seeing Rasputin?”

“Yes, I’m visiting the Elder Grigory tonight. After midnight. Don’t speak of him in that mocking tone, Samuil. When Dr. Badaev’s Mongolian lama hypnotized me at the House of Spirits, he said I needed a special teacher. He was right. The Elder Grigory helps me, nourishes me spiritually. He says I’m a gentle lamb in a metal world, and that you crush me.

You think I’m happy in this house?”

“We’re here to talk about Sashenka,” he protested, but Ariadna’s voice was rising.

“Remember, Samuil, when we used to go to the ballet, every set of binoculars was aimed at
me,
not the stage? ‘What is Baroness Zeitlin wearing? Look at her eyes, her jewels, her lovely shoulders…’ When the officers looked at me, they thought, There’s a fine racehorse, a Thoroughbred—it might be worth having a guilty conscience for that one! Weren’t you proud of me then, Samuil? And now—just look at me!”

Zeitlin stood up angrily. “This is not about you, Ariadna. Try to remember we’re talking about our child!”

“I’m sorry. I’m listening…”

“Mendel’s back from exile.” He saw her shrug. “Oh, so you knew that? Well, he’s probably played some part in our daughter’s incarceration.”

He knelt down beside the divan and took her hands. “Look, Protopopov doesn’t control things. Even Premier Sturmer has no influence—he’s about to be replaced. Everything’s in the hands of the Empress and Rasputin. So this time I
want
you to go to Rasputin’s—I need you to go there! I’m delighted you have access, and I don’t care how long you spend being pawed by the sacred peasant. Tell him he’s in luck tonight. Only
you
can do this, Ariadna.

Just get in there and petition all of them—Rasputin, the Empress’s friends, whoever, to get Sashenka out!”

“You’re sending me on a mission?” Ariadna shook herself like a cat flicking off rain.

“Yes.”

“Me on a political mission? I like the sound of that.” She paused and Zeitlin could almost hear the wheels turning as she came to a decision. “I’ll show you what a good mama I am.” She rose from the divan and pulled the braid cord by her side. “Girls—get back in here! I’ve got to look my best.” The maids returned, looking gingerly at Zeitlin. “And what will you be doing, Samuil?”