The Imperial Wife (7 page)

The doors open and he steps out before I can assure him that I'm a boss now too, and everything's under control. I call after him anyway. “We're actually doing great, thanks.”

Before the elevator doors close, I see that another gala is under way. The company still reeling from the recession and the galas give the impression of turning fortunes. But the champagne is cheaper, the band signed for free, its lead singer a nephew of one of the vice presidents. The director of Southeast Asian tries to wave me over. I glimpse blue tulle, crisp white blouses, caterers gliding around the floor with trays, behind them all the jagged lines of a Picasso drawing taking up an entire wall. I'm sure if I got off the elevator, I would find my single colleagues, all young women who ferment in these surroundings, who wait with a glass of white wine until an older male client sidles over, proposes marriage. So many girls here: deboned, pale, waiting for the man to pluck them alongside the art they're selling.

Outside, Third Avenue fades to a blur. The rushing bodies heading down to Grand Central, groups of tight jeans and huddled blacks, masses of suits spilling out of the Lipstick Building, couples slurping oysters in windows, the new generation of New Yorkers with their long, mussed hair and booties and bee-stung mouths. I was one of them once, rushing from gallery to dry cleaners to party to drinks with friends to whatever final place cradled me for the night. Those days of my twenties were vivid as Technicolor, wedging myself into crowded bars, leading an army of girls to subterranean dance parties, stumbling home at dawn. Responsible to no one but myself.

“Hi, honey, just checking in,” I say into Carl's voice mail just before heading down into the subway. He'll pick up eventually; I just have to be loving, persistent.

Marriage stops time for lack of markers like this. Marriage, a thing that had once felt so inevitable, so stable, was now turning out to be the biggest mystery of my life.

 

Catherine

FEBRUARY 1744

As the grand duke's birthday ceremony drones on, Sophie is staring at the best-looking man she has ever seen. He is wearing hunting insignia and is handsome in the soft, easy way of recent aristocracy, as his hands are rough and callused and his fingernails are studded with dirt. As he passes to the empress the red ribbon on which hangs the Order of Saint Catherine, he winks at Sophie. It gives her strength, this show of commiseration from the empress's favorite.

Sophie and her mother are now “princesses of the blood, my blood,” declares the empress, swinging the medallion over Sophie's head. It dangles over her left nub of a breast, clanging against the bone of a nonexistent hip. She examines the medal's center, stares at the seated woman portrayed there. The fair-haired saint appears to be watching her, approving. The history of the honor is briefly explained to them: established thirty years ago by Tsar Peter to honor his wife, Catherine, for rescuing kidnapped Cossacks with her own money, the Order is bestowed by the court upon every woman of high rank who either performs extraordinary acts for the love of her country or marries into the royal family. Surely the German princesses are familiar with the martyr Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a woman who dared to challenge a pagan emperor in order to save doomed Christian souls?

“Of course,” her mother chimes in even though the question is directed toward Sophie.

In the middle of the explanation, the empress loses her footing, and Sophie notices that this Razumovsky, as she hears him called, rushes to steady her. His hands, his fingernails rimmed by those soiled moons, fall at the small of her back. The empress leans into him, a brief suture of skin, and a vague frisson of yearning courses through Sophie.

In the far corner of the palace hall, Sophie sees her future husband whispering with one of her ladies-in-waiting, a series of unpleasant laughs ringing through the hall. This merriment is to be expected of a man the day he turns sixteen, she supposes. And he does look more attractive in the light of day, the snowy paleness not as noticeable, his uniform lending him an appearance of height. She wonders if she will lean into him in that same catlike way, and if such an insubstantial frame contains enough strength to bolster her. Next to Razumovsky, the empress looks relaxed and happy. She whispers something in his ear.

And the ceremony welcoming her into the Russian court is over. Sophie waits for further instructions. “Come,” or “Follow me,” Razumovsky finally gestures to her. She is bidden to follow the procession toward the bells of a nearby church past the frozen corpses of trees, the famished earth, the faceless row of soldiers. As they trample, Sophie notices the empress's brown silk hoop skirt is pressed against his thigh and wonders if this is marriage, two bodies constantly intersecting.

The church is inundated with smoke. Swirls of incense make it hard to look around properly, but when the fog dissipates, she finds the place beautiful. So much more ornate than what she is used to, so different from the austere rigidity of the churches she has known. Entire panels of icons lined behind the nave, the blinding gold of the candle stands. She finds the music pulsing with emotion, the incantations of the priest might as well be poetry. In the sanctuary, the empress opens her mouth to accept the Sacred Gifts, and Sophie can envision herself in the same place, the spoon plunging inside her own mouth, the Mother and Child watching her serenely from golden frames. The image is so natural, so inevitable, it unnerves her. Then she overhears her mother's lady-in-waiting whispering in German: “I expect the princess will take no issue with conversion. I understand Lutherans do not hold to the apostolic succession, isn't that so?”

Silence, please, she wills her mother. She is about to step in, protest that she sees no great conflict between the faiths, not that it is this woman's business to inquire. The proper retaliation is forming in her mind, taking shape in her mouth. But for once, her mother is too busy craning her neck at the ceremony.

“How did you enjoy the service?” Peter says, when their paths conjoin in the church garden. She is aware of his attention solely on her now, a fresh interest to his gaze. In the gauze of the afternoon, the yellow smudge on his cheek is more evident as a bruise and, underneath it, she notices tiny red bumps beading from chin to ear. She wants to share with him the extent of her rapture, show him the place inside her where this country's beauty has already nestled. Her fingers are making their way there, up her rib cage to the place her heart beats the loudest.

“Actually…”

He leans in. “Barbaric, is it not? Lutheranism is so much more civilized, orderly. Do you not find it to be the case? Even so, back in my beloved Kiel, they had to drag me to church by my heels.”

Her fingers flutter down and away.
Idiot,
she thinks, then allows the word to dissipate. Instead, she looks down at the dangling face of Saint Catherine. She can feel the resolve of this saint coursing from her rib cage all the way to the top of her head.

“There she is. Let me make the proper introductions.” The empress is steering her away from Peter and toward a group of older women. And Sophie is swallowed by them: does the young
princesse
have a talent for music? Does she play faro? Because that is how they pass time between Lenten vigil services until the amusements are allowed to begin again.

“I am utterly devoted to faro. Back home, I am called the ‘philosopher of faro,'” she says. And they are all laughing and nodding and agreeing, so she must be charming them with her excellent French. Was it not the king of Prussia himself who turned to her at dinner to say that her intelligence and wit were surprising in one so young? It is then it occurs to her: she will earn her Order of Saint Catherine. For now it was gifted to her for marrying Peter, but she
will
perform extraordinary acts for this country. The comet told her so.

Yes,
she answers them now. She is passionate about dogs and horses. Do they ride? She finds it simple to say silly things expected of her, to hide the scope of her true intentions.
You were meant for greater,
George said to her. In fact, it is almost too easy.

 

Tanya

PRESENT DAY

The Order of Saint Catherine is enshrined in a glass box in the center of the room, the red moiré sash rippling around the pendant on its bed of black velvet. It radiates brighter than any of the surrounding pieces. I'm aware of this preternatural glow even as I'm rushing around this auction preview greeting the arrivals at the elevator bank.

The Worthington's fifth-floor gallery is dappled by silk-covered knees and shiny elbows, chandelier earrings, matte lips. The sparkle of precious stones. Once in a while, I hear someone trying to pronounce the consonants of a Ukrainian artist and giving up. Guests are holding effervescent wines and our catalogues, eyes scanning the centerpiece, then turning to the sculptures and the landscapes on the wall.

The preview is my favorite part of the season, when I can catch my breath and survey the art I've gathered, arduously, piece by piece, from far-flung corners of the world, arrayed before me in all its breathtaking glory. It makes my heart constrict for Russia, for the brilliant minds that have lived and been destroyed by it, for all that suppressed risk and innovation, the lines, the colors, the earthly and the sublime. Each year, I feel Russia slipping away, growing more dangerous and foreign. Once, as a Russian, I was the enemy in this country too.

Interns are dispersing printed catalogues to newcomers, iPads displaying the downloaded catalogue are tacked to walls. The preview is important because it allows buyers a firsthand glimpse of the art in person. The art is hung as though in a museum, whetting buyer appetites and attracting the kind of press we need for a decent turnout. And our job is to parse the serious buyers from the party hoppers, to entice the uncertain into bidding at the actual auction. Marjorie, clueless to guest hierarchies, is wasting her time on celebrities and nonbuyers from the Upper East Side who come to these parties to be photographed in structured dresses and coral lipsticks, while Regan is smartly occupying the art bloggers from Art World Salon, passionate art-historians-in-training who actually appreciate the significance of the show.

My parents arrive and are hovering next to the Archipenko bronze at the entrance, pretending to scrutinize its patina. They look uncomfortable here among the coiffed, the self-assured, the multigenerational New Yorker buyers. An Archipenko bronze is as foreign to them as penthouse apartments overlooking Central Park, but aware of their role as my parents, they move stiffly, with studied admiration, among the art. I'm relieved that my father's not wearing his tracksuit, my mother having forced him into a short-sleeved shirt. I hug them, inhale my mother's perfume. She is wearing all black, as if the very color will protect her from the intimidating crowd.

She feigns confidence around the sculpture's amorphous body. “Nice piece.”

“Isn't it amazing?”

“This one I like,” she admits. She once asked me regarding a Rothko,
Can you explain to me why this is art?

“But I want to show you something really special.” I lead them to the glass case, to the Order of Saint Catherine. “This is what I told you about at dinner.”

How lovely it looks preening in the center of the room, her tiny oval alone in all that space, the diamond-encrusted cross, the staunchly seated woman surrounded by symbols of faith and martyrdom.

“That
barokhlo
a queen wears? It's even shabbier in person,” my mother says, squinting into the glass.

“It's not so bad,” my father says. “It's old, that's for sure.”

“You're kidding right, Yash? I saw something very much like this at Century Twenty One in the jewelry section.”

I try not to take offense. My mother is pessimistic in the way she sees both herself and the world. Good things happen by accident and bad events come about due to personal shortcomings. She's a classic Russian Jew. Which is a shame because my mother is beautiful, the luxuriant hair she crops too short, cobalt eyes never handed to me, a sorrowful Modigliani face. I think my mother is more beautiful than Isabella Rossellini, who is now in front of the Goncharova laughing with Jeremiah Gruber and his wife in a voluminous shawl draped over a pair of complicated dungarees.

“Whoever buys this ugly thing is idiot,” my mother continues. “Do these rich people really think this belonged to that queen? The Hermitage probably hired someone last year to forge this.”

“Shh, Ma, please keep your voice down. It's not fake.”

“How much you want to bet that Hermitage person was paid off to say that?”

As usual, my mother injects the proper amount of fear into me. I've been trying not to think about that possibility, but how could you not with the world I'm navigating? If it's discovered to be fake, my reputation might be ruined, not to mention that Medovsky's wrath, like so many of my clients, carries in it real mortal dangers.

I swallow and repeat, “It's not fake. Why don't I get you drinks. Champagne?”

A man standing behind us moves closer to the sheet of glass so his face recedes and refracts between the panels. “Such an incredible, incredible piece.

“‘The Order was gifted during the Imperial era to what Peter the Great originally referred to as extraordinary persons of the feminine sex.'” He's quoting the words of my catalogue copy in a Russian accent and, indeed, the tome rests in his hand, one finger thrust deep into its spine. My mother flickers to the man's bare ring finger, then back to his face, and I realize that all my peppy evasions—Carl's swamped in midterms, he's on major deadline—have not been entirely convincing.

The man is astoundingly tall and tan and attractive, three uncharacteristic traits for your standard Russian male. “I see you estimate it at seven million.”