The Last Romanov (9 page)

Now, Darya's guts churning with anxiety, she climbs the grand staircase to the upper hall. The Empress has summoned her to look at Grand Duchess Anastasia, who refuses to open her eyes, eat, or swallow a sip of water. She moans and tosses in bed with a high fever that resists every prescribed medication.

Fumée d'Ambre Gris
, a gift from Boris and Sabrina, is prominently displayed in the upper hall. Darya glances around and finds herself alone. She passes her hand over the canvas that carries her father's loving advice, her mother's throaty laughter. The memory of the day Darya accompanied Boris to the Poniatowski Auction House remains fresh. Her father bid on this painting—a woman swathed from head to toe in a cape like churning milk, hood raised from her face to inhale the smoke of ambergris from a brazier at her feet—as a present to the Imperial Family on the occasion of the birth of their fourth daughter, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna.

Darya waves her memories away and takes the corridor that leads toward the children's quarters. A single repetitive note can be heard in Olga and Tatiana's shared bedroom. The Gramophone needle is stuck again. The two are enamored of the new gadget from America and spend long hours listening to the same songs. Darya bends down to pick up a hair barrette Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna must have lost at the ball last night. A stain of melted candle catches her eye on the marble underfoot, and she scratches it off with a fingernail. She stops to catch her breath at the door to Anastasia's bedroom. Soft-footed servants come and go, silent, their faces creased into perpetual attentiveness. They melt away down the service backstairs and into the tunnel beneath the palace, leading to the kitchens. The scent of lamb and rice stew is creeping up from the tunnel, but from under the door seeps the odor of soap and antiseptics. Darya knocks, walks into the room, her hand on the jeweled egg slung about her neck, her palms damp with perspiration. The Empress has put her trust in her, and disappointing Her Majesty is not an option.

The Tsarina is stroking her three-year-old daughter's forehead, pressing one eye to gauge her temperature. She soaks a napkin in ice water and lays it on Anastasia's forehead.

The Empress's gaze strays toward Darya's opal eye, the spark of mischief, the wisdom in its depth. There is too much complexity in this woman for the mind to comprehend, the Tsarina muses. Had she miscalculated her potential, invested too much in her? She failed to heal Alexei, after all. How will she fare with Anastasia? “Here you are, Dasha. Thank the Lord! I am beside myself with worry. Anastasia is not well, I am afraid, and the doctors are useless.”

Darya lowers herself at the edge of Anastasia's bed. She removes the napkin and wets it again in ice water. “Hello, sweetheart, are you hurting? Tell me where.”

But flushed with fever, the child is curled into herself, tossing and moaning, her wet hair plastered to her head, her lips as pale as stone.

The Empress rests a hand on Darya's shoulder and squeezes as if to stress the significance of this moment. “Heal Anastasia, dear. Will you? Show me you can do it.”

Darya's thoughts take flight, searching for a revelation, an incantation perhaps that might aid her. She massages the swollen glands that throb under her palms, tells the child how very much she is loved, embraces the fragile body, and holds tight until the butterflies inside her spread their wings and settle.

“Don't be afraid, my darling. Open your eyes, Anastasia. Tell me where it hurts.”

But the grand duchess does not respond. Tears escape under her firmly shut eyes.

“My darling!” Darya suddenly exclaims. “Is it because of Shibzig? Are you sad you lost your little dog? How about you and I go visit Shibzig's tomb on the island? We'll take flowers and toys and have a picnic there.” Lifting the child's limp body, Darya rests her head in her lap. Eyes throbbing, aching in their sockets, Darya digs deep into her well of emotions—loss, longing, fear, and love. She begs, demands, and pleads with the Ancient One for help.

Her opal eye radiates warmth, flooding her veins, her entire body. She presses her eye to the child's forehead.

“And you know what else I'll do, darling? I'll get you another dog to replace Shibzig, who is very happy and playing with his doggy friends in heaven now.”

Anastasia half opens her large blue eyes. Darya helps her into a sitting position, reaches out for a glass of water at her bedside, and raises it to her mouth.

“See, darling, you are better already. Let me examine your glands. No pain? Yes, just a bit, I know, but it will go away tomorrow.”

The Empress approaches Darya, cuddles her face between both hands, gazing at her for a long, tender, almost intimate moment before resting her hands on her shoulders, applying a steady pressure as if Darya might flee if she were not held in place. “Darya Borisovna, my heart is full of gratitude. You have lived up to your name, my dear, proven your healing powers. I want you to take care of my precious Alyosha. I appoint you Tyotia Dasha of His Imperial Majesty Alexei Nikolaevich, sovereign heir Tsarevich, Grand Duke of Russia.”

Darya steps into the thick-carpeted, mahogany-paneled auction house that evokes monasteries where tight-lipped nuns glide across shadowy corridors. She has instructions to bid on a contemporary portrait the Empress desires, a deviation from established classical art, the customary norm of the Imperial Court.

Darya registers the multitude of tired hearts she sets into a gallop by her young appearance. Men with satin vests and heavy gold watches, thick mustaches stretched across arrogant grins that speak of wealth and greed. She recognizes one of her suitors, the bearded, heavy-lidded Prince Lukashenko, who rises to salute her, a spark in his small, roaming eyes. Among her many rejected gentlemen callers, this one was the most unimaginative, not a grain of creativity to allow for a certain sense of anticipation, a sense of excitement, of what might come if she happened to accept him. He is wearing a three-piece burgundy suit, a gold chain draped about his tight vest. The prince fumbles for his watch and, in the process, snaps off a vest button that lands on his shoe with a tiny bounce. She acknowledges him with a nod and continues on her way.

She is greeted by familiar dealers, curators, advisers, and collectors. Was it only a year ago that she accompanied her parents to this auction house to bid on a sculpture by Mordecai Matysovich Antokolsk? A week later, Sabrina and Boris were dead. Auction specialists walk the perimeters of the room, nodding to her in discreet acknowledgment. The daughter of Grand Duke Boris Spiridov and Princess Sabrina of Corinin, Darya is a recognized face and one of the few permitted to forgo the bidding paddle. Her number was supplied to the bid spotters, who scan the room and have been alerted to her bidding signal: slipping her shawl off her shoulders.

In this arena that boasts a culture of its own, a collector's behavior is as important as his bank account, seating assignments of utmost importance, as are the observed rituals between experienced bidders. Art purchased for personal pleasure and not for resale is a subjective and private decision, and she has made a point to find out the condition, the unpublished reserve price, and the level of interest in the portrait she wants. The maximum of forty-five thousand rubles the Imperial Couple allotted for the acquisition is more than sufficient, Darya is certain, a sum far higher than any bidder would consider paying.

She settles into her assigned seat, in the same preferred area allocated to her parents with whom she attended the auction in which they acquired
Fumée d'Ambre Gris
. That day, Boris taught her to appreciate the nuances of a sculpture—sloping shoulders that melt into breasts and heart-shaped faces scooped out of stone, buffed skin of marble, and the gracefully rendered folds of the garments of ancient goddesses. Here she is now, wearing a seashell-colored robe the Empress had once worn to a much publicized inaugural ceremony, wild hair shimmering like black ink, lonely in a crowded room, every seat taken except the two on her right that once belonged to Boris and Sabrina.

A drone of excitement rises in the room. Heads turn toward the entrance. Murmurs ripple and bubble and gather force. “Miraculous healings…” “Strange religious belief…” “He cured the peasant of rabies…” “Bedded thousands of women…” “Wagged his penis in the face of customers…” “Cured Mirfenderesky's gout…” “A man of God…”

A fly buzzes its way into the room, settling on the sweat-beaded head of the auction master. A faint, anticipatory hum joins the surrounding murmurs.

Darya turns toward the entrance to discover the cause of this excitement.

A pair of eyes grabs and holds her like blue magnets, unrelenting, cutting, splitting her open, exposed.

He is of medium height, with powerful legs, square shoulders, hair parted in the center and held back with a gray ribbon. A wiry beard claws at his buttoned-up jacket that has seen its share of borscht and Madeira. He wends his way toward Darya, a churning storm gathering force with each approaching footstep, a cyclonic gale in which his peasant coat flaps like bat wings. Trailed by the clang of unexpected thunder, his beard flails in the wind of his steps that carry the pungent odor of his collective sins. Darya is bewildered. Did she witness a miracle, witness him usher in the wind? Thunder? She sniffs the air, tastes the smell under her tongue and at the base of her throat, and her heart closes into a fist in her chest. The odor of bitter almonds and arsenic becomes stronger with his every nearing footstep.

Darya has learned to recognize the taste of ash, the sour, mouth-puckering taste of looming misfortunes. But she does not recognize the pungent smell woven into the fabric of this man, is unaware that it portends historical calamities that will reverberate around the world, tragedies far greater than her young mind can fathom.

He is standing in front of her, left hand resting on his heart, right hand raised in a salute, the coarse fabric of his pants assaulting her knees. He speaks in a broken way: “Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. Ah! Darya! Your name. The sea.”

Darya recoils from his grip, attempts to shutter herself from his churning stare. What else does he know about her? Does he also know that she was conceived in the forest and out of wedlock? What business does a man of such low taste have in this exclusive auction house? “How do you know me?” she asks, shifting her legs away.

He holds his paddle below his unrelenting eyes, amplifying the power of his gaze. “I know everything about you, Darya Borisovna. Of course I do. Why? Not important. Not at all. Important is your amulet of an eye. Precious.”

She straightens up in her seat, tightens her shawl around her shoulders. She wants nothing to do with this man and his sour odor.

The auction master's hammer comes down with a force, silencing the crowd. His short feet dangling above the ground under the ornate desk, he jerks his bald head behind, then jolts to one side with peculiar urgency—his way of ushering in the first object.

A violin is carried in. Burnished lights of the chandelier flicker on the slick shell of maple and spruce that has turned the shade of ebony. Legend has it that each time the violin played for a dead virgin, its shade became a bit darker until it turned black.

“Lot number one. Sixteenth-century funerary violin. Vilhelm Van Mordeh. The only black violin in the world. Excellent condition.”

Silence shrouds the room. Who would want a notorious violin, known for its melancholy melodies in imperial funerals, a violin that had the power to solicit tears from the most callous? A violin reputed to have brought a tragic end to every one of its owners. Its last proprietor was a high-ranking Imperial Courtier who was trampled to death by his own stallion.

“One of a kind!” the auction master announces. “Do I have a bid?”

A red-cheeked man with pomaded, combed-back hair lifts a bony hand to flourish his paddle. Darya recognizes the dealer from whom her parents had purchased the despised
Mephistopheles
.

“Twenty-five rubles,” the auction master calls out. “One! Two! Three! Going! Going! Knocked down! Funerary violin goes to bidder number fifty-three.”

The man rises and, without as much as a backward glance, exits the room with short harried steps, leaving behind a sense of relief.

Another quick backward jerk of the auctioneer's head ushers in a couple of pubescent boys carrying a detailed rendition of what resembles an ornate cathedral.

“Lot thirty-three. Blueprint of the Russian Masonic grand lodge headquarters. The only known representation of its kind, rendered by the famous Soltan Kontisky, a master mason who gathered information never before revealed.”

A murmur of surprise scurries about the room. No outsider has set eyes on the sacred sanctum of a lodge, where the highly secretive Freemasons hold their rituals. An altar and candles stand in the center of a windowless room. Two blocks of stone are rendered with great care, the edges of one uncut, the other polished to symbolize the ritual of preparation Masons are required to undergo. A stained-glass panel portrays a G in a square and a compass. Darya wonders if it is true that Masons undress during rituals, require tattoos, or that women are not admitted because they are inferior in the eyes of God, the great architect of the universe.

“Yes sir, louder please. One hundred fifteen. Do I have another?”

In an unmistakable plot among the bidders not to compete against one another, the work is sold quickly and without fanfare to a man sporting a Masonic ring on his small finger.

Another clap of the hammer silences the crowd.
The
Victorious
Samson
by Guido Reni is brought out. An important seventeenth-century Baroque painting that might have been more at home among the imperial collection than the one the Empress has set her heart on.

A slash of red toga drapes in folds around Samson's lower torso, the flesh and blood shades true to life, the sensual lines of his sinewy arm stretched up to pour wine from a decanter into his open mouth. One foot rests on the lifeless body of an enemy.

“Two hundred fifty…Three hundred…Four hundred fifty…
The
Victorious
Samson
, ladies and gentlemen. Do I have another bid? Yours, sir.”

The evening is coming to an end. The atmosphere is charged with excitement.

The auctioneer's cheeks glow under the chandelier. “Last lot! Number sixty-six.”

The two boys usher in a rolling easel covered with black satin as if leading a convict to the gallows. In a dramatic show of unison, the cloth is removed to reveal the treasure underneath.

Murmurs fill the room, astonishment, disbelief, but mostly admiration.

Darya leans forward, her heart beating in her ears. Avram Bensheimer's
The
Cure
is breathtaking. It is a masterpiece, impressive in its intimacy and terrifying in the confrontational expression of the dark eyes. A scar slashes diagonally across the black and white rendition of a man's face and neck, evidence of a bullet that destroyed the exposed vocal cords, shattered half the chin and right cheek, leaving a thumb-sized hole in the skull. Yet it is not a gloomy portrait. The vibrant ribbon of red, orange, and violet the artist painted with fluid strokes to frame the scar transforms the portrait from proof of a bleak injury to confirmation of the human body's miraculous ability to heal.

Darya better understands now why the Empress wants this portrait. In the end, it is an optimistic piece of art, connoting hope and a restorative future. Afflicted with a bad back and a weak heart, it is understandable for the Empress to admire Bensheimer's ability to celebrate human frailties and the body's healing powers.

Darya leans back in her seat. Patience and timing are of utmost importance. Once each of the perspective bidders has arrived at his limit, then and only then, will she drop her shawl.

Two men in front stand up, one long-faced with a bulbous nose, the other stout, large ears flushed red with excitement. Both men struggle to be noticed. The long-faced one leaps up and down like a metal coil, the other flaps both arms like giant bird wings. She will benefit from these novices who have entered the bidding too early, flourish their paddles unceremoniously, and encourage a frantic atmosphere.

“Nine thousand…Nine thousand five hundred…Eleven thousand!”

Darya's palms begin to perspire; a drop rolls down her vertebrae. The price is rising, far more than she had expected for an unknown artist. Nevertheless, there is time.

Next to her, Rasputin is as still as stone.

Two bidders remain: an anemic man in front, his hair spiky as boar's hide, and Darya's bearded suitor, whose stare travels from
The
Cure
to Darya, back and forth, as if he were bidding on both.

Darya laces her fingers in her lap. The limit allowed her for the purchase is fast approaching. Soon it will be time to act.

The auction master stands up, wiping his bald head with a checkered handkerchief. “Twenty thousand!…Thirty-five thousand!…Sir, do I see your paddle?”

Darya listens intently, notices the tension in her suitor's gestures, the excitement. But more than anything, anxiety, his trembling fingers toying with his pocket watch, shutting and opening the lid with metallic snaps. He has arrived at his threshold. The greatest sum ever paid for a Russian painting was the sum of thirty-five thousand rubles by Alexander III for
Reply
of
the
Zaporozhian
Cossacks
to
Sultan
Mehmed
IV
of
the
Ottoman
Empire
, a painting that had taken the artist Ilya Repin eleven years to complete.

Darya drops her shawl off her shoulders.

At that signal, one of the bid spotters raises a forefinger, gesturing to the auctioneer.

“Bidder number eighteen. Forty-five thousand.”

She lifts her shawl and ties it into a tight knot around her shoulders. The portrait is hers. The Empress will be pleased.

Rasputin raises his paddle. Holds it up like a lure. His underarm is stained.

“Fifty-five thousand!” The auctioneer announces, sucking in his breath.

The crowd bursts into applause. The room is hot and humid from the plethora of sweating bodies. The fly buzzes its way from the opposite end of the room to circle around a lamp shade, finds its way to the naked electrical bulb, crackling and sizzling.

“Do I have another bid? One! Two! Three!” The yellow-nailed finger of the auctioneer aims at Rasputin. “Lot number sixty-six. Knocked down! Congratulations, sir!”

Darya's head reels. She grabs her shawl, pulling with a savage tug, splitting the seams. She clutches her necklace, wanting to open it, needing to inhale the scent, longing to evoke Boris, ask where she failed. She turns to take a better look at Grigori Rasputin. He is sweating profusely, tugging at his beard with thumb and forefinger. She returns his gaze, her own unblinking, spewing fire until her shoulders slump under the torn shawl. How in the world would this man have the means to pay for such an expensive portrait?