Debra Dean - The Mirrored World

Her costume had been laid out over a chair: one of Andrei’s uniforms, a pair of stockings, and small buckled shoes in a man’s style. The jacket and breeches were too long for my person, but this did not dissuade Xenia.

“Grishka is of your proportions.” She sent for him, and when he appeared asked him to relinquish his new livery. The poor boy misunderstood and was distraught at what he might have done to provoke the loss of his position. Xenia explained that I was merely borrowing his garments for the evening, which did nothing to relieve his confusion. “Go on”—she motioned for his baize jacket, which he abashedly removed. She waited for the rest, but then relented. “See that your breeches are sent back up straightaway.”

“We can tack some lace at the sleeves and neck,” she said to me.

Once we had bound my breasts, the jacket fitted me, as did the rest of the livery. With my hair pulled back into a tail, I resembled to the passing eye a boy in service. But I bore no likeness to Xenia.

“Nor would I resemble myself if I were costumed. That’s the entire point of the metamorphosis.”

Had he been sober, who knows if Andrei would have allowed this charade to go forward. As it was, when we came downstairs he was far enough into his wine to have abandoned discretion. He gaped at me, making me painfully conscious of my legs, their shape exposed in the tight cloth of the breeches.

“What is this? Are you coming to the ball as our footman?”

Xenia revealed her plan, and Andrei laughed. “So I am to go as you, Xenia? And Dasha is also to go as you? If only you will come as yourself, we might be a holy trinity.”

She looked miserable.

“It’s madness.” He chuckled. “No one will be deceived.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Nonsense, I’m not complaining. One wife at home, another at court—were I not wearing a skirt, I should be feeling quite vigorous right now.”

From a long way off, I could see the Winter Palace, its windows lit like a row of polished gold ingots. As we neared, I felt fresh stirrings of apprehension; when we passed through the gates and I saw the line of sleighs disgorging their occupants, my apprehension spilt over.

Grishka waited, his hand held out, his eyes trained fixedly on nothing, his features rigid with the effort to disregard his own livery and the ridiculous picture we made: one footman helping another to alight. He then offered his hand to Andrei, who was obliged to accept it in order that he might manage his skirts. Snatching his fan back from Grishka, Andrei took my arm in his free hand only to drop it again so that he might lift his hem as we mounted the steps and then marble staircase inside. I had no need of his hand anyway; being costumed as a man, I could move unencumbered. Not a thing prevented my taking the steps two at a time, save my dread of arriving at the top.

On the landing, an Imperial page received our invitation and announced us. My knees turned liquid. I had no skirt to hide their quaking, no fan to hide the rising color in my face. Andrei whispered in my ear, “Don’t look so stricken. Pretend an interest in who else is here.”

At a glance, the scene appeared the twin of other Imperial balls: hundreds of lavishly costumed persons so crowded into the room that their skirts touched, color to color, like a jumble of mosaic tiles. If only I could step back, I thought, the confusion might resolve into a design. My desire to withdraw was made all the more powerful by the airless stench in the room. I felt faint and patted my pockets for Xenia’s little enameled box of herbs. I distinctly remembered tucking it in my jacket. But no, that had been the other jacket, the one of Andrei’s that had been too large. Andrei grasped an elbow to still my skittering hands.

He guided me into the room. “Don’t let yourself be engaged in conversation.”

“What if someone should address me?”

“Smile or be aloof, depending on the person. But keep quiet.”

Although the scene was familiar from other such gatherings, there was an ineffable difference, a slight distortion as if reflected in a poor mirror. The ladies appeared taller and bulkier than their male partners, who, for their part, seemed to have shrunk like old men, their shoulders and calves thin as sticks. As we neared, this dissonance grew, persons changing sexes or wavering uncertainly between one sex and the other.

A stout merchant’s wife rumbled in a basso profundo about the difficulty of keeping her troops supplied. “I have been six weeks now awaiting a signature.”

Her companion, a swarthy woman in yellow brocade, nodded glumly. “It’s true. She schools us, her children, in the virtue of patience.” The woman absently plucked feathers from a fan clutched in her thick-knuckled hand. “My wife has borne two children while I await some word on Prussia.” Before my eyes, her face sprouted stubble and she assumed the appearance of a poorly camouflaged man. All about us, such transformations unfolded as we moved into the room. It was unsettling.

Andrei scanned the room like a hound searching the scent. At last he found it in the person of a very long-limbed woman standing near a window at the far end of the room. She stood apart, not only by virtue of being alone but also because she stood a full head taller than anyone in the room. Further, she alone had disregarded the injunction to wear breeches and was costumed instead in a hoopless white gown that skimmed her form. I guessed by the crown of olive leaves in her hair that she was meant to be one of the Roman goddesses.

Andrei approached and addressed her in Italian. Her fan swished open in greeting, and she loosed a trill of words. Like birdsong, it was exquisite to hear. Andrei’s low and labored Italian alternated like a duet with her lilting voice. Though I could not translate their words, the matter revealed itself in their expressions and gestures. Andrei was flattering her. It looks the same in any language. With an expansive gesture, he praised her appearance. She held her pose but indicated modesty by the transfer of her gaze downwards. He repeated himself in more insistent tones; again, she demurred by tilting her chin and showing her profile, but I saw she was pleased.

She bore a startling resemblance to the cranes we sometimes saw, posed and motionless, in the marshes near our country house. Her arms were exceedingly long and seemed too delicate to support even the weight of a fan. Her head, dominated by a beakish nose, balanced precariously on a reed-like neck. She had small, dark eyes. Another woman of just her proportions might have been thought ugly. But she carried herself with such elegance, each gesture arrived at and held with such attention, that like the crane’s, her awkwardness was made graceful. Once I had formed this idea of her, her white breast seemed the counterfeit of the bird’s and the lace half-concealing it resembled feathers. I fairly expected her to spear up a fish at any moment.

Directing her fan at me, she warbled a question.

“La mia moglie,” Andrei answered. “Xenia Grigoryevna.” He turned to me. “Xenia, may I present Signor Francesco Gaspari.”

I was shocked, and not solely to discover that he was a man. You see, I knew the name. Who did not? It was lately on the lips of all Petersburg society, in loud praise for the purity of his singing and also in salacious whispers. He was what is called a musico. A sacred monster. A eunuch.

Lifting my hand, he kissed it a moment longer than was fashionable. “Sono incantanto,” he said, followed by a ripple of syllables beyond my understanding. I felt myself coloring and was relieved when Andrei coaxed his attention outwards. He asked the musico some question, and the two began to speak in lowered tones, though Gaspari’s voice still tinkled an octave higher than Andrei’s.