Debra Dean - The Mirrored World

My senses stretched taut against the darkness. Her breath caught. And released. Caught, caught again, then released, thick with tears.

“I thought it would be me,” she rasped. “Not you.”

Over the following days I tried to draw her out from her trance, talking on whatever subject came into my head. I shaped my discourse round familiar things, reminding her of times from our girlhood—the day she had fallen into the river, the bonfires built by the villagers to celebrate Shrovetide, the elephant that carried the jester and his wife—anything I could think that might spark some recognition in her face. I sometimes fancied she was listening, but she might only have been entranced by the movement of my lips or the sound of my voice.

Then, one afternoon, I suggested that the bedchamber might use a little airing. Struggling with the latch on the window, I pried it open. The bright smell of fresh snow washed into the room. “There, that’s better, don’t you think?”

“Ice.” The word popped out like a cork from a bottle.

Delighted, I encouraged her further. “Have you slept well?”

“Ice.”

“On the window?”

“The step. I was very cold.”

“Do you want me to close it up again?” She showed no comprehension, so I indicated the glass. “Shall I shut the window?”

“I am dead.”

I startled. During the past weeks I had sometimes had this very thought, that when Andrei died, she had died with him and had left behind a breathing corpse.

“You have been very near it,” I said, “but God has seen fit to bring you back to us.”

She took in the room slowly, as if she were at pains to recall it. Then her eyes lighted on me and recognition pierced her. Her features contracted with agony.

“You were at the palace. You saw what happened.”

“Yes.”

She waited for more.

“He fell down the steps and struck his head.”

She nodded as if to say she knew this much already.

“He didn’t suffer,” I assured her. “He fell and was gone.”

Her eyes drifted to the window and rested there for so long a time that I thought she had returned to her mute state. I was on the verge of slipping out when she asked, “Was he confessed and given the last sacraments?”

I had to admit that, no, he had died too suddenly.

Her eyes shut. “He was not ready.” Her voice was flat. “In the dream, it was me. It should have been.”

She awakened as if she had indeed been dead. But the person who returned to the world was not Xenia. Grief had unyoked her from herself. Dull-eyed, like an animal in extremis, she looked on her surroundings and her loved ones with indifference. Or she might suddenly begin to weep, even to tear at her nightclothes, but what emotions passed over her were like leaves borne on the surface of a river and caught in swirling eddies, unattached to anything visible.

Her speech, too, was oddly disjointed and followed no definite course. I might say a thing to her and she would answer me sensibly only to say another thing so discordant that I was thrown into confusion. Sometimes I would hear her talking in her room, and, answering as I came, find that I had been mistaken, had caught one voice of a private conversation and believed it addressed to me. In truth she had been talking to Andrei.

She did not leave her bed, and then one day I found her in the icon corner of her room, prostrate, and as feeble as if she had crawled across the steppes. This became her practice. She would kneel there for long hours, even through the length of the night, without slippers or a shawl, her gaze fixed on the image of the Virgin of Vladimir and seemingly in prayer. I say “seemingly” because, except that she had moved from her bed to the floor, the distinction between this state and her former oblivion was too subtle to observe. Her mournful appearance and drooping, shadowy eyes were so like the Virgin’s that they might have been reflected in a mirror.

Before the death of her child, she had not been devout beyond the ordinary, keeping the fasts and praying when it was right to do so and no more. But now, while the rest of the world celebrated Shrovetide, Xenia crossed early into a most extreme observation of Lent. She not only prayed but also fasted like a monk, taking only tiny morsels of bread and these only if I chided her. “You must eat if you would recover your health,” I insisted, but she was less pliable now than when I had spoon-fed her. “I do not wish to recover it,” she answered.

The Great Lent came to the rest of us in its customary time. On the first day, the house was readied, the rugs taken up, the curtains and shutters taken down, and everything scrubbed. Marfa and Masha went from room to room with a kettle and a copper bowl into which had been placed a hot brick and dried mint leaves. Pouring water over the hissing brick, they waved the medicinal steam under the beds and into each corner to chase out the wicked spirit of Lady Shrovetide. The good dishes and silver candlesticks were put away, and old sheeting was thrown over the pictures and furniture that we might forget earthly pleasures and prepare our spirits to fast. As custom dictated, we put on our oldest patched clothes and made to go to church.

Xenia surprised us by coming downstairs and professing the desire to go also. She had dressed herself, putting on light clothes unsuited to the season. In the six weeks since Andrei’s death, she had so wasted that they hung loose as sacking on her. Her pale hair was undone and floating about her head, her feet were bare—all this conspired to give her the appearance of a wraith and not a woman of twenty-six years.

“Xenichka, you are not well enough,” I said, but she had no care for her health, and when Ivan opened the front door she ran out into the snow on bare feet. She could not be persuaded by reason to return inside, not even to dress properly. I finally relented and had Masha bring stockings, shoes, and outer garments out to the sleigh. “Keep this about you,” I said, wrapping her in a fur pelisse. I put her feet into shoes and took her purse, which she had stuffed heavy with coins, that she might put her thin hands into a muff.

I blame myself. I should have bid Grishka carry her inside and sit guard at the door rather than take her with us. In the last hour of the service, she did not rise up from the prostrations and lay with her forehead resting on the cold stone floor. Looks and whispers were directed at her, but no matter; after the service I had more cause than this to rue my mistake.

Outside the church, a throng of beggars, the poor and those others whom we call blessed, were gathered to receive alms. The feeble and lame lay on the ground from the doors to the street, and those who were able-bodied crowded close round the emerging worshippers and murmured their supplications.

The sight of these beggars revived Xenia. She slipped from my supporting arm, took back her purse, and began to thread her way amongst the unfortunates, exchanging handfuls of coins for their blessings.

“Signorina.” A strange and gawky man in boots and a heavy fur cloak bowed to me, wishing me good morning. It was the musico Gaspari. Without paint, his features were almost plain, and I would not have known him except for his accent.

“I wish to offer you my sorrow.” The lilting voice was disconcertingly at odds with this likeness of a man.

“Thank you. You were most kind on that terrible night.”

He demurred, shaking his head.

“Did you stay on that night and pray over him?”

“I cannot read the Russian prayers, signorina . But yes, I stayed.” He clutched his cloak closer about him to ward off the cold.

Not only his appearance but also his manner was changed from our first meeting. To be sure, none of us is the same person at church as at a party, but without the trappings of female garb he seemed less in command of his person. The Roman goddess at the masquerade had been witty, even haughty, but this pallid creature was so undistinguished that even his extreme height did not lend him presence.