time alone, before the court returned to St. Petersburg.
She told me to watch them.
The Grand Duke visited his fiancée every day, in her rooms, for two full hours, just as the Empress wished, but there was little to report.
Sophie asked him if he would take her for a sleigh ride, but he said it would only bore her.
“Would you teach me a Russian dance, then?” she asked.
“I don’t like dancing.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t.”
The only time the conversations lasted for a while was when Sophie asked Peter about Holstein, just as her mother had told her to.
The best news I had to report was when the Grand Duke placed an awkward kiss on his fiancée’s cheek, a kiss followed by a race down the corridor to see if they could make a Palace Guard on duty laugh.
I was on my way to the Grand Duke’s study when Bairta stopped me.
“Come,” she lisped, taking hold of my hand. “Mistress wants to see you.”
I followed Bairta in silence. The day before I had heard her play the harp in the antechamber to Sophie’s bedroom. I didn’t ask the child if she still missed her mother.
Sophie was waiting for me, alone, sitting by the window, a book on her lap. I recognized the foot warmer she rested her feet on; the Empress did not think fur blankets enough for Russian winter chills.
I was cautious at first, for I half expected her to start asking me questions about the Grand Duke or the Empress. I wondered what I could tell her without revealing my own secrets. From the adjoining room, I heard Princess Johanna’s chirping voice, echoed by a man’s laughter.
“Is Varvara the same name as Barbara?” Sophie asked me.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Does it mean anything?”
I told her that in Greek my name meant “a stranger, a foreigner,” but that St. Barbara, my patron saint, was a learned woman who converted to Christianity in spite of her father’s objections. She could protect those who prayed to her from lightning and storms.
“How do you know that?” the Princess asked.
“I read it in one of my father’s books.
“He died,” I added, before she managed to ask.
She raised her blue eyes. I fixed my gaze on the tapestry behind her. It was of a nymph turning into a tree, twigs entangled in her hair, legs fusing into a trunk, already half covered by bark. Behind her, a man tried to grasp her before she escaped.
“I, too, like to read,” the Princess said.
The only book she didn’t like was the Bible, because her teacher at home, a Lutheran pastor, required her to learn passages from it by heart. When she made the tiniest of mistakes in her recitations he slapped her, saying, “The joys of the world are not worth its pains.”
I studied her face as she spoke, the dark smudges under her eyes, the black hair pinned too tight, unpowdered, bare. For a moment I let myself fall into a memory of the cats’ concert and Bairta’s childish joy.
“Will you help me?” I heard, unexpectedly. I made a step back. The heels of my new shoes sank into the thick Turkish carpet that covered the floor.
“With my Russian,” the Princess added hastily, and handed me a sheet of paper. It was a letter. A draft, rather. She had copied sentences from the exercises her Russian tutor gave her to study, but she was sure they still needed correcting.
She was a foreigner and therefore she couldn’t afford errors, she told me. Not in Russian.
Any foreigner who succeeded in Russia, she said, had to be of the highest caliber. The Russians never forgave the slightest transgression by those not of their blood. She had been warned already.
Her voice wavered and hardened.
I didn’t ask who had warned her. I didn’t want to know.
“We are both foreigners here, aren’t we, Varvara Nikolayevna?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
It was a short letter, a note of thanks to someone yet unnamed for a gift of French wine, a whole case of burgundy from the last shipment before the Baltic shores froze.
A thoughtful gift I will
She told me to watch them.
The Grand Duke visited his fiancée every day, in her rooms, for two full hours, just as the Empress wished, but there was little to report.
Sophie asked him if he would take her for a sleigh ride, but he said it would only bore her.
“Would you teach me a Russian dance, then?” she asked.
“I don’t like dancing.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t.”
The only time the conversations lasted for a while was when Sophie asked Peter about Holstein, just as her mother had told her to.
The best news I had to report was when the Grand Duke placed an awkward kiss on his fiancée’s cheek, a kiss followed by a race down the corridor to see if they could make a Palace Guard on duty laugh.
I was on my way to the Grand Duke’s study when Bairta stopped me.
“Come,” she lisped, taking hold of my hand. “Mistress wants to see you.”
I followed Bairta in silence. The day before I had heard her play the harp in the antechamber to Sophie’s bedroom. I didn’t ask the child if she still missed her mother.
Sophie was waiting for me, alone, sitting by the window, a book on her lap. I recognized the foot warmer she rested her feet on; the Empress did not think fur blankets enough for Russian winter chills.
I was cautious at first, for I half expected her to start asking me questions about the Grand Duke or the Empress. I wondered what I could tell her without revealing my own secrets. From the adjoining room, I heard Princess Johanna’s chirping voice, echoed by a man’s laughter.
“Is Varvara the same name as Barbara?” Sophie asked me.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Does it mean anything?”
I told her that in Greek my name meant “a stranger, a foreigner,” but that St. Barbara, my patron saint, was a learned woman who converted to Christianity in spite of her father’s objections. She could protect those who prayed to her from lightning and storms.
“How do you know that?” the Princess asked.
“I read it in one of my father’s books.
“He died,” I added, before she managed to ask.
She raised her blue eyes. I fixed my gaze on the tapestry behind her. It was of a nymph turning into a tree, twigs entangled in her hair, legs fusing into a trunk, already half covered by bark. Behind her, a man tried to grasp her before she escaped.
“I, too, like to read,” the Princess said.
The only book she didn’t like was the Bible, because her teacher at home, a Lutheran pastor, required her to learn passages from it by heart. When she made the tiniest of mistakes in her recitations he slapped her, saying, “The joys of the world are not worth its pains.”
I studied her face as she spoke, the dark smudges under her eyes, the black hair pinned too tight, unpowdered, bare. For a moment I let myself fall into a memory of the cats’ concert and Bairta’s childish joy.
“Will you help me?” I heard, unexpectedly. I made a step back. The heels of my new shoes sank into the thick Turkish carpet that covered the floor.
“With my Russian,” the Princess added hastily, and handed me a sheet of paper. It was a letter. A draft, rather. She had copied sentences from the exercises her Russian tutor gave her to study, but she was sure they still needed correcting.
She was a foreigner and therefore she couldn’t afford errors, she told me. Not in Russian.
Any foreigner who succeeded in Russia, she said, had to be of the highest caliber. The Russians never forgave the slightest transgression by those not of their blood. She had been warned already.
Her voice wavered and hardened.
I didn’t ask who had warned her. I didn’t want to know.
“We are both foreigners here, aren’t we, Varvara Nikolayevna?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
It was a short letter, a note of thanks to someone yet unnamed for a gift of French wine, a whole case of burgundy from the last shipment before the Baltic shores froze.
A thoughtful gift I will
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