Seized by Love (37 page)

A second gift of a large
photo portrait of Katelina had been contrived after many whispered conferences
between father and daughter. Nikki had taken Katelina for two sittings at the
fashionable "artistic photographer" at No. 4 Morskaija, until they
were both satisfied with the portrait. A mischievous face framed in ermine
peered seraphically from behind a frothy muff, and Katelina had signed the
photo with her unsteady five-year-old hand.

An unpleasant stab of guilt
struck Nikki as he accepted Alisa's gift to him; a watercolor sketch she had
done at Mon Plaisir the past summer. A wash of warm memories enveloped Nikki,
and a reminiscent smile softened his harsh-featured face for a brief moment.

Nikki actually stayed home
several nights in a row to spend the holiday with his winsome daughter. He read
her Christmas stories and joined in the songs, surprising everyone by singing
them from memory. He remembered his own early Christmases with a child's memory
and tried to give some of that delight to Katelina. With a rueful pang he had
to admit that these evenings
en famille
offered a contentment and
satisfaction that no liquor or opium could promote. How long had it been since
he'd sung Christmas songs?

Alisa was pleased to have
Nikki sitting with her before the fire, and her emotions leapt in happiness to
have him near. She resolutely steeled herself to expect his disappearance soon,
but she would bask unreservedly in the luxury of his kindness and company while
she could.

Nikki watched Alisa as she
read to Katelina or played the piano while they sang, and marveled anew at the
beauty and charm of this woman who was his wife. He would find himself
occasionally lapsing into recollections of their weeks at Mon Plaisir or in vague
musings about the child she was carrying. Alisa was charming in cashmere
dresses of a loose, flowing style suitable for ladies "awaiting a blessed
event," as Madame Vevay so delicately put it.

For the first time in his
life he thought about becoming a father. He even felt a kindly concern for
Alisa's travail, soon to begin. She was small and fragile and the child was
already extremely large. He must ask about her doctor, he considered absently,
and then was coaxed into joining them in play and forgot the subject.

However, with Christmas
over, Nikki embarked once again on his chronic, restless rounds of gambling and
drinking, descending a little further into his own private hell. His melancholy
deepened, his drinking increased, his boredom he could have cut with a knife.

Returning home at his usual
early hour one morning, Nikki found the palace already a bustle of activity.
Maids were running up the stairs, footmen were scurrying on errands, even
Sergei momentarily forgot to divest his master of his sable topcoat, gloves,
and walking stick, instead, blurting out forthwith, "I'm so glad to see
you, Lord Prince, we were not able to locate you last night."

Nikki gripped Sergei's
shoulder in alarm when he heard the nervous protestation.

"What's the matter,
Sergei?"

"The Mistress, sir,
she went into labor last evening and is having difficulty."

"Where's the damn
doctor?" Nikki roared as he dug his fingers into Sergei and shook him.
"The doctor is here,

Lord Prince, but says he
can do nothing. The baby is too large. It will not come."

Nikki released his hold on
Sergei, tossed his gloves and stick aside, and raced up the steps, bursting
furiously into Alisa's bedroom. The drapes were drawn, the room was stifling,
gaslights burned low in all the fixtures. Rushing to the bedside, Nikki looked
fearfully at Alisa's still form. Her skin was translucently pale, her fists
clung weakly to sheets tied to the bedposts above her head, small beads of
sweat lined her upper lip, and damp hair curled around her pallid face.

"Where's the damned
doctor?" Nikki spat out to Maria, hovering near. Alisa's eyelids didn't even
flutter at the sound of his voice. Holy Mother, was she dead already? He
quickly bent to feel her pulse. It was extremely weak but not irregular.

"Where's the
doctor?" he repeated in a louder whisper as he shrugged out of his fur
coat, suffocating in this hot, close room. He twirled around and searched the
darkened room.

"Here, Lord
Prince." A little man moved forward. Nikki eyed him belligerently.

"What in hell's going
on?" he growled in a repressed roar.

The poor doctor wrung his
hands in panic. Prince Kuzan's temper was notorious. This Prince could send him
to Siberia within the hour if he so chose. Dare he tell him the truth? Dare he
tell him the child was too large and wouldn't be born? He could cut the woman
open and probably save the child, but not all women survived that surgery, and
she was very weak already. Without the surgery, both mother and child would
die.

"Well, Doctor?"
Nikki asked impatiently as he glared down at the hesitant, uncertain figure.

The little man decided on
the truth. If worse came to worst, he could appeal to Prince Mikhail, who had a
reputation for justice.

"Have you no
tongue?" Nikki demanded furiously.

The doctor gravely told him
the truth; at best, he might be able to save the child. He could do no more.

Nikki, in a blinding rage,
picked up the little man bodily and flung him out the door, then he roared for
Ivan and all the servants. Within seconds a crowd was assembled around him.

"I want every midwife
in the city here within ten minutes!" he bellowed. "Ivan, check with
that incompetent who calls himself a doctor and get names and addresses. Send
out the troikas to pick them up. Immediately!" he stormed, and swung back
into the bedroom.

The stable boys set a new
record that morning harnessing up the troikas, and as the last buckle was
wrenched into place, the drivers lashed the horses and sped off, the sleighs
flying over the crisp white snow.

Within ten minutes the
first midwife appeared, and within twenty minutes a score of women were
standing in the hallway outside Alisa's room.

Nikki, who had been
watching Alisa in an agony of despair and fear, returned to the hallway and
scrutinized the assembled women. Several he dismissed on the spot as being too
dirty and pushed the others into the room to Alisa.

After examining her, most
of the women shook their heads and refused to touch her. They believed she was
going to die anyway, and if they assisted, they would be blamed when she died.
None of them cared to incur the wrath of Prince Kuzan.

One woman said very simply,
"There's not much hope, Lord Prince, she's very weak, the baby is much too
large, but I'll try."

His world reeled madly. No
hope? Alisa would die? All his wealth and power were helpless. Despair opened
like a black chasm. He resolutely shook it off. Nikki released his breath which
he'd been unconsciously holding, dismissed the other women with a wave of his
hand, and in a voice deep with emotion said, "If you cannot save them
both, sacrifice the child; take it out any way you have to; I don't care, but I
will not lose my wife. Do you hear?" he whispered fiercely. "I will
not lose my wife!"

The woman shuddered at the
piercing eyes staring at her and couldn't answer such a statement. Was he mad?

Alisa lay in a deep,
unconscious state from which she would frequently drift up and hear the muted
words and quiet sobs of the servants, the whispers and the questioning voices.
Time became disjointed, erratic; fragmented vignettes fluctuated madly, images
of her and Nikki at Mon Plaisir, mindless longing for peaceful oblivion from
the pain, visions of the pine forests and clover fields of her childhood. Take
me away, take me back. There must be something more than this wrenching,
brutal, unnatural pain—this unbearable agony of labor.

Why, she moaned, had she
ever lain with Nikki in that spring meadow and wanted him to make love to her?
She had forgotten how painful, how devastatingly wicked, how agonizing the
contractions of labor were. The pain crept over her slowly and then sank in
like fangs of a crazed animal, ripping and tearing her apart until she screamed
in frenzy. She would cling to the sheets, pulling until her arms ached with the
effort, twisting, turning, trying to elude the monstrous, ruthless, unceasing
beast.

Now nothing hurt anymore.
She floated powerless in a sequence of dreams and blackness and whispered sobs.
She's dying. The baby won't come. Dear God, was she dying? Was it she they were
whispering about? She wanted to see Nikki and Katelina. I have to explain to
Katelina. She's so young. She won't understand. She wanted to see

Nikki. Nikki! she screamed,
Nikki! In her floating world and to those around the bed a pitiful faint
whisper spoke— Nikki.

"I'm here, my
love," he answered brokenly, and she opened her eyes slowly, and in a
golden haze of light his swarthy face, those tawny eyes, looked lovingly into
hers. Her hand fluttered up to touch him, but she hadn't the strength to lift
it.

"I love you," he
whispered. She smiled faintly at those words she'd not heard for many months.
She tried to say I love you too, but the sound wouldn't come.

What were they doing to her
body? Don't touch me, she wanted to say, leave me alone. The blackness
enveloped her golden haze and she thought how remarkable that a dead woman can
still hurt so.

The midwife was instructing
Nikki quietly. "Press down on her stomach, she has no more strength for
contractions. I'll work my fingers in and try to force the baby's cranial
plates together. If we can just inch the head through, we can pull the baby
free."

She ruthlessly cut the
opening wider. Her sensitive fingers edged into Alisa, probing and pressing,
feeling for the bony plates that would compress and ease the size of the skull.
For three minutes she worked, sweat dripping from her brow. Nikki did what he
was told, exerting pressure on Alisa's swollen abdomen when commanded,
repeating to himself in a hopeless inaudible monotone, Help her. Help her, God.
Sweet Jesus and all the Saints, help her.

At last the fullness of the
baby's head slid through, and a great sigh was heard around the room. Nikki's
bitter despair lifted, and he dared to hope. Very slowly the midwife guided out
first one small shoulder, then the second, the long torso emerged, and finally
the chubby legs. The baby was a boy; fat, healthy, and now vigorously bawling
in a nurse's arms.