Debra Dean - The Mirrored World

“Go to bed,” he implored us. I bid him good night and waited for Xenia on the stair, but she did not follow.

“I cannot sleep,” she said to him. “My heart is too loud. It keeps beating and beating, like an imprisoned creature pounding to get out. I beg God to still it, but He will not.”

“You might yet have another child, even many more.”

It was said with gentleness, but she was stricken. “I have lost my happiness. Do you think I may simply forget our Katenka? I don’t have your capacity.” She hid her face in her hands and did not see what I saw: the surprise of hurt in his eyes, the way his jaw slowly worked at this bile before swallowing it. Afterwards, he often stayed away past dawn and even for days at a time.

The air in Petersburg was thick with talk of the infant Grand Duke. We refrained from any mention of it in Xenia’s presence, but the world is full of babies, including one under her own roof that belonged to the servant Masha. This child’s crib hung from a rafter in the corner of the kitchen, close to the hearth and out of the way. It lay there most hours unnoticed, sucking on its soska , the little cloth bag of gruel that kept it mostly quiet. But Xenia was so susceptible to this child’s presence that if it did cry, wherever she might be in the house she heard it. Her mouth and eyes would tighten as though she were being tortured, as though the Secret Chancery were pulling out her fingernails one by one. If no one happened to be in the kitchen to still the child, Xenia was compelled to go to it; she could not help herself. I sometimes found her at the crib, clutching the baby to her breast and soothing it. But more often, her own face mirrored the tearful infant’s, and then she would rebuke Masha for allowing the child to be soiled or hungry. Masha was not neglectful, or no more so than any mother whose labors are divided, but because Xenia was so sensitive, the whole household tried to keep the child from her notice as much as was possible.

Of all Xenia’s former pleasures, only hymns that were sung in the church still soothed her. You might not think it to see her—she would listen with water coursing down her cheeks—but no, she said, the music was a relief. “I do not think.” Sometimes at home she hummed a line of the litany, repeating the same phrase over and over. If I happened upon her then, she would startle, bewildered, as though she had wakened in a strange place, and then her countenance would assume its remembered sorrow.

Four months after the death of the child and a week before Christmas, Xenia sent for me where I was dining at Kuzma Zakharovich’s. Aunt Galya had arranged it in order that I should meet a certain gentleman there, an acquaintance of Kuzma Zakharovich visiting from Moscow. I knew nothing else of him except that he was unmarried and in need of a wife. I suspect Aunt Galya had only surmised the latter, for when we were introduced, it was evident he knew nothing of me either and was surprised to have me sprung upon him, as it were.

We had not yet sat down to supper when Xenia’s houseboy, Grishka, came with a message saying that his mistress required me urgently. I immediately made my apologies and departed.

When I arrived at the house, I saw Xenia’s figure through the open doorway of the drawing room. “I’ve come as quickly as…” The words dried on my tongue when she turned and I saw it was Andrei. He was wearing an apricot-colored damask gown of Xenia’s that had been let out and refashioned for him, but not skillfully. His broad chest strained against the bodice, and incongruous tufts of dark hair curled over the top. Balancing on his head was a lady’s powdered wig.

My surprise and discomfort were reflected in his own face. “It’s another of her wretched fancies.” He waved a naked forearm—like a mutton shank edged in white lace—in the general direction of the Winter Palace.

The Imperial ball that evening was to be a metamorphoses, the men compelled to dress as women and the women to don breeches and jackets.

Our sovereign, he mused, was partial to these evenings because she had once looked so well in men’s clothes, with her fine legs shown off to advantage. “No doubt, her pleasure is increased by how ludicrous everyone else looks.” He swayed across the room, swatting at his skirt with annoyance. “Have you come to gawk at me?”

I didn’t know where to rest my eyes. “Is Xenia ill?”

“No, cousin, not ill.” He picked up a wineglass sitting beside an empty decanter. The glass was all but empty as well, but he lifted it to his lips anyway and, tilting back his head, caused his towering wig to list dangerously. He caught at it and grimaced, as though the victim of a prank.

“She slept poorly and has been in a state all day, insisting that we mustn’t go to the palace tonight.”

He readjusted the wig, trying without success to prop it in such a way that he might rescue the last drops from the bottom of his glass. “God knows, I would happily oblige her if I could, but we have been particularly invited.”

Empress Elizabeth’s constant entertainments, once a source of delight, had become a tedious obligation and a formidable expense. By Imperial edict, dresses might be worn at court only just the once, and to enforce this, pages were set at the door to dab ink on the skirts of departing guests.

Still, those favored with an invitation to the Winter Palace balls were compelled to attend, and Andrei worried that Xenia’s absence might be reported. The recent poor health of Her Imperial Majesty had made her intolerant of others’ excuses. Last month, she had sent cadets to Alexi Arkharov’s home to see if he was indeed ill. When he was discovered with nothing more than a slight cough, she had ordered him dragged out into a snowbank and left there until he was adequately sick.

“Perhaps my wife will listen to you,” Andrei said. “I cannot bend her.”

“I shall try.”

“And if you would indulge me further, tell Ivan to fetch up another bottle.”

I found Xenia in bed, sunk against a raft of pillows. Since little Katenka’s death, she had lost all color in her face and her eyes had become dull, but tonight they held a glitter like fever.

“He must think I do not love him. I promised obedience, and now when he asks it… I thought I would give up my life for him, but it seems I cannot.”

I put my hand to her forehead. “In heaven’s name, what are you talking about?”

She grasped my hand to still it. “I dreamt my own death.” Her eyes were far away. “I was falling. I was tumbling down the front steps of the palace, but I could see it happening, as though I were watching from a high window. Someone screamed, and then I was lying on the snow at the bottom of the steps.” She gazed at the far wall as though a drama were playing out before her, and she narrating as it unfolded. “A darkness bloomed round my head. At first I thought it was a shadow thrown on the snow by torches.” Her voice broke, and she fell silent for a moment before resuming. “There was a confusion of voices, but I remember someone said to send for a priest. Another person argued no, a priest might arouse the suspicions of Her Imperial Majesty. ‘If she asks,’ this person said, ‘you must say only that a guest has fallen. You know how she abhors any mention of death.’ That is how I knew.”

“Xenia—” I began.

“I felt such agony, and when I woke, I knew it was a warning from God.”

What answer could I make to this?

Xenia, though, had devised a plan. I should go in her place. It was a metamorphosis, after all. If I wore her costume, kept to myself, and said nothing, no one might discover the ruse.

An outlandish scheme, perhaps—only in plays are such swapped identities believed—yet saying no to Xenia was more unthinkable to me than her plot. Perhaps it was not such a leap as I imagined. After all, who knew her better than I? I allowed myself to be persuaded.