The Imperial Wife (18 page)

“Aren't you going to greet me, my dear?”

Catherine should have realized the empress would be displeased with the reunion. The empress is always watching but her conclusions alter from day to day.

Catherine allows herself to be squeezed and her cheeks to be pinched. Is it her imagination or is the hug extra long? The empress is breathing down to her, stale from the long trip. “Dearest, I have ordered a portrait of the grand duke especially for you. It should be delivered next week.”

She hopes the portrait was executed before the smallpox. “How thoughtful of Your Majesty. I will very much look forward to its arrival.”

“It is understandable that you have been worried, as have we all. What is that you are holding?”

She looks down. The Montesquieu tome Gyllenborg recommended, thick, stubbornly impenetrable, is folded at her hip. In her haste, she has forgotten to leave it in her room. “A book, but I do not think I will get through it.”

“Good.” The empress sniffs. “I never read books of this sort and neither should you. My advisors read and report back only what they think I should know. That is best, don't you think? The print is small and we must preserve our eyes. Now let me tell you about that brave boy's recovery. I sat by his side day and night.”

She throws off her furs, winds her hand around Catherine's elbow, and continues in this vein all the way past the construction to the gallery. Outside the back windows, Catherine takes in a glimpse of the frozen Neva stretching beyond end, beyond horizon. She wonders,
When will it finally melt?

 

Tanya

PRESENT DAY

The car hugs the edge of a snaking mountain road. I roll down the window and inhale the sea into my lungs. Monaco. If it weren't for my job, for Medovsky's invitation, I would never find myself in a place like this. We pass by a long street with intimidating shops, their white façades, gold letters. Rolex. Cartier. Louis Vuitton. Then back to the hills, fern and lavender on one side, on the other the expanse of turquoise horizon.

My first time in Monaco, I was not at all prepared for the pristine beauty of the coastline at sunset, crisp like a white satin sheath. The undulating blues and whites, toes of yachts wiggling in clear water, the yellow eyes of the hotels, the rectangles of private pools and faces of hotels and glass rooftops. The sight of it, the largeness of attention it demanded. The disparity between my life and that of my clients.

There were my clients, with their hundred-million-euro villas spread out over four floors, shimmering hot tubs right in the middle of living rooms framed by Grecian columns, the rooftop helicopter pad, Turkish spa, 1920s movie theater, a rooftop water slide curved into an infinity pool that gave the impression of falling into the Mediterranean. What a difference from where I grew up! And there were my parents in northern New Jersey, with their two-floor Colonial, their clunky but reliable Volvo from 1999, their gym membership where they snuck in as one another in order to battle senior citizens over empty pool lanes. They could never shed their Soviet tactics of self-preservation. They bought an extra packet of cookies for their friends if there was a two-for-one sale, logged on to their neighbors' open-access Internet, and packed brioche rolls from Russian restaurants into their bags for the following breakfast. How could I reconcile the lucky, middle-class lives of my parents with these people in Monaco, who graduated from the same Soviet public schools, attended the same universities, but here they were with their villas and chunky Winston emeralds and private dancers flown in from Buenos Aires.

How abhorrent my clients appeared to me at first. Women as foreign as aliens, wives confiding while condescending to me:
Tanyechka, talk some sense into him, will you? Do we really need the headache of owning a yacht? Does my daughter really need Taylor Swift at her bat mitzvah when that Selena Gomez would do just fine? Do we really need a custom Lamborghini Veneno?
How Carl laughed when I described the awkwardness of bumping into the singer George Michael in one of the bedrooms trying out a few sentences of Russian in preparation for a bat mitzvah concert.

I take in the Côte d'Azur, the air's orange sweetness and the magnificent view, pushing aside this image of Carl, his funny way of laughing as if only his mouth were involved in the act.
He'll be back soon, he'll be back very soon.
The tablet is open to the profiles of potential clients I'm here to meet—Medovsky's buddies Oleg and David. Their rumored purchases at Sotheby's and Christie's, their trinity of homes in Moscow, London, and Monaco. Their photographs revealing thick necks, crisp collars, hair cropped close to the head. But my mind wanders.

We pull up to a structure that seems to sink into its landscape, seems to be sculpted out of the very rock around it. The wide iron gates pull back to engulf the car into the complex.

From what I hear, Medovsky paid five hundred million euros to tear down a perfectly luxurious villa and build a riad in its place. A Moroccan riad on the Côte d'Azur! Only my clients would think of something like this. The exterior is a plain fortress of mud-brick wall so you think you're about to enter a modest, simple home. In the oligarch's case, the riad's is a useful structure for privacy, but the interior is far from modest.

Stepping into the atrium, through the horseshoe arches and past the interior courtyard, I find myself in front of a fountain that looks suspiciously like a miniature replica of Rome's Trevi Fountain complete with Neptune's chariot with sea horses, the general Agrippa, and the papal coat of arms. The floors are lined with terra-cotta tiles etched with Hebrew, rather than Arabic, calligraphy. Lemon trees in full bloom garnish the voluminous red walls.

I can barely take it all in when the doors swing open and in clicks a tall blonde, the kind who's used to pausing a room with her entrance. She's wearing a floor-length jersey dress speckled with flowers. Her neck is evenly bronzed and a gold clutch is tucked beneath her arm. I should have known Nadia Kudrina would be here.

My former assistant is twenty-five years old and knows next to nothing about Russian or any other art history but her father is
PYOTOR
Oil chairman Arkady Kudrin, and many powerful men who do business with Kudrin have no choice but to consign with Nadia at Christie's.

She heads immediately for my cheek. “
Privet,
Tanyechka. How are things at Worthy's?”

“Great, Nadia. You?”

“
Normal'no.
Too busy. As usual.”

There's no competition on any level with a Russian woman like this: hair ironed flat and combed over one shoulder, robust breasts in danger of escaping her Etro gown, a porcelain leg emerging from an impossibly high slit, unmarked face professionally applied. A pair of expensive sunglasses perch on top of her head. This is the woman whose Facebook profile photo shows her lying on her stomach in a purple lace teddy, heels crossed like daggers behind her, her head tilted to the side, lips glistening purple. Who posts languorous photos of herself on European bridges with men thirty years her senior. Who appears at art openings in head-to-toe fish netting, pens an advice column on how to oversee an armada of domestic staff in
Tatler
. Who's been named by a British gossip magazine as the Russian Kim Kardashian.

“What a treat to see you here.” I try to sound genuine but I'm instantly on my guard. Nadia always manages to make me feel like the help she is always hiring and firing for one of her global homes. “Your last sale was pretty impressive. I really love those Chagalls you got. Congratulations.”

“The synagogue ones, you mean? The rare oils?”

“I love the stained glass of the Vilna one.”

“It's the one always singled out in press. But the others are more interesting, no?”

“I actually prefer the one that's singled out.”

I've detested Nadia since she first set foot in Worthington's dressed inappropriately in a white Hervé Leger bandage dress and strappy gold pumps for her first day of work as a summer intern. The girl was everything I dreaded, a lithe, sexual creature, an entitled exhibitionist posting pictures of herself dancing at some Art Basel party or on a yacht in the Maldives or at Reese Witherspoon's wedding. Her very presence announced her as Nadia Kudrina, enfant terrible, fulfilling her global Russian destiny, and no one would stand in her way. When she left the company, I was relieved, assumed Kudrin whisked her away to an internship in fashion or public relations. Except Nadia emerged as the head of Russian art at Christie's and her first auction, a terribly uneven selection from her father's personal collection, raised fifteen million dollars. “The one that got away” is how Marjorie referred to her in my presence. A rueful glance at me as the one who stayed.

“It's a mess out there, isn't it? Are you still managing to pull together auctions? I barely unloaded that Serebriakova for six mil.”

“Actually, I've got a great Nesterov for the fall,” I say.

“Oh, Nesterov.” Nadia takes out a compact, does a quick assessment. “I know the one. Overcleaned, right? After the restorers were done, nothing left of the original.”

“And Grigoriev.”

“The one that's not an oil?”

I'm so angry, I decide to take the risk. “And, of course, the centerpiece lot. Catherine the Great's Order of Saint Catherine. It's authentic. We've got it confirmed.” That is at least partially true.

Nadia looks up from the mirror. “Oh? And where did that come from? How come I haven't heard anything about it this late in the game?”

“Trust me, you will.”

A trio of men in hooded dishdashas gesture for us to follow and I eagerly line up behind them. This may be my first moment of triumph with Nadia Kudrina.

“Anyway,” Nadia says, swaying behind me, “I am surprised you're even here. I thought I left a message with your assistant, to save you a trip. Maybe it slipped my mind.”

“That's thoughtful.”

“Tan'. It's like you don't believe I'm sincere. I respect you. There might just not be enough business for both of us. That's a fact.”

We're being guided down elaborate open galleries, past the steamy door of the hammam, through sumptuous rooms filled with treasures—vases, tapestries, European masterpieces, rugs—underneath the coffered wood ceilings and drooping lanterns. Palaces like this terrified me at first, but now I appreciate the treasures independent of their owners. We step out onto a garden the size of a city block, through a snakelike trellis, past olive groves and lemon trees, and before a set of gold double doors. We're bidden to take off our shoes and slip on silk babouches.

My first impression is the rose flash of illumination, a room exploding with light. Women wearing elaborate caftans with silk strappy heels and heavy chandelier earrings. Dashing between them are the black spots of occasional tuxedos. The women call out to Nadia, fold her into their circle. I'm free of her, but then there's that moment at a party where you're aware of being very much alone. The klezmer band launches into a new song and, at its head, I recognize the famous violinist Itzhak Perlman.

When I enter parties like this, my initial instinct is to flee, but now I slap the widest of smiles on my face and look approachable. I kiss familiar, nameless people on the cheek, compliment the women on their appearances. I raise myself to my full height and stalk to the bar. But once there, I'm intercepted by a chalky face topped by a beret. It grimaces at me with a wide pair of black-rimmed eyes. Its painted red lips seem to be murmuring something. I try to move away from its mouth but the crowd at the bar pins us together. The sound resembles
muzh. Muzhmuzhmuzh,
the creature is mouthing.

“What's with you?” someone asks, because what must I look like? Frozen, wide-eyed. All I can see is the red mouth, elaborately outlined. But then it's moving away from me and toward a woman in a long silver gown who's stuffed most of a Pomeranian into a Gucci clutch.

I notice there are more of these white-painted men on stilts and unicycles, bending over to tap guests on their shoulders, drawing them into elaborate pantomimes. Mimes. For God's sake, they're only mimes. I try to still the rattling in my rib cage and pretend to enjoy their pranks. I can already imagine Medovsky's wife, Lena, in that brittle way of hers, saying, “But the Soltukovs had a skating rink and penguins! We can't let them throw the better party.”

A glass of pink champagne is eased into my hand and I wander outdoors by the pool where the laser light show is streaming neon onto the Olympic-sized pool and groups of people lounge on cushions under caidal tents. A few of the guests are watching the interplay of light, and I press between them for a view. A pair of tightrope walkers are traversing a taut string over the pool, stacked Louis XIV chairs balanced on top of their heads. This is exactly the kind of lunacy Carl would be fascinated by.

In those days before the book, he would invent day trips for us to Roosevelt Island, to the Cloisters. Inside a basket he packed for us, I would find the strangest things: hummus and sliced turkey bacon, dried currants and shaved ginger and pitted olives. I loved his wacky lunches. When I prepared our meals, they were carefully compiled, a sandwich, a vegetable, a dessert. Practical and composed.

It was that afternoon at the Cloisters that I told him I would take the job. If I don't step up, who would do it? I was the best specialist in a burgeoning field, a field increasingly littered with fakes. Who else will separate the authentic from the forgery? Who else will see to it that Russian art has a future, that the world so wary of Russian politics won't be suspicious of the Russian market?

“Sure, if you love it,” he said, as I knew he would.

Follow your passion, live your dream, all those heady American myths. I loved that Carl believed them all.