Debra Dean - The Mirrored World

“Sehr gut,” I said, though in truth I might have been gumming rubber and paste. “Danke.” They urged more on me, but their eyes were so full of sympathy that my throat closed up and I could not swallow any more. After this, I stayed in Gaspari’s room. A coach brought new guests to the inn; I heard the muted sounds of voices and of snow being knocked from boots.

Between the mistress and her servant girl, a steady rotation of this and that was brought to the door. Gaspari’s linens were changed and fresh plasters applied, the wicks trimmed, and the stove banked or fed. Upon leaving, they removed the untouched plates of food. For long hours, there was nothing left for me to do but wipe Gaspari’s brow and listen to the terrible bellows of his breath.

I remember thinking to myself, you are watching your husband die, and in a matter of hours, at most a day or two, he will be gone from this earth. I tested the assertion in my mind, and it seemed both unreal and irrefutable. Tears rose up and puddled in my eyes, but they were like drops leaking through a chink in a dam and gave no relief.

When the moment of his death did come, there was nothing to mark it but a cessation of breath and then a profound stillness. He was there and then, quite visibly, he was not. I marveled at this. Absent the spirit and the promise of heaven in his voice, what remained was so plainly a mask.

The horrible days of his death and the slow journey back to Petersburg with his coffin strapped to the rear of the public coach—I recall this with more grief than I felt at the time. I was cloaked in numbness.

For one whose voice had inspired fervent admiration, Gaspari had left behind in Russia hardly enough mourners to bear his coffin to its resting place. His tailor and three stranded members of the Italian Company put him in unconsecrated ground. As his coffin was lowered, I remember worrying that come winter the ground would be too cold for him, much colder than if he had been in Italy.

I brought Masha back—I was obliged to buy her from Nadya, though I had not sold her—and I attempted to take up my old life, remaking my routines round the absence at their center. A stranger to myself, I kneaded bread enough for a larger household. I forgot and then remembered a dozen times in a day that there was no cause now for the glass of kvas or the plate of anchovies, no need to build the fire so hot.

During this same time, Catherine seized the throne from her husband, the new Emperor, by riding into Petersburg at the head of the Imperial Guards. Within days, Peter the Third was dead by mysterious hands. These momentous happenings were like thunder heard at a great distance: they did not touch me. I slept at odd hours and then was wakeful through the night. What came to me in these hours were all my sins of omission, those small tendernesses I might have shown Gaspari while he still lived, and words I might have said to ease his passage into the hereafter. Dear friend, I might have said—as I have said a hundred times since— you were a great gift to me.

These regrets haunted me even into the day. I attempted to escape them through working, and when this failed I fled the house to distance myself from its associations. Going out to take the air, I would later find myself in some unfamiliar place, and with no memory of how I had come there.

I had no cause to return to St. Matthias parish. But I rose early one morning after another night of broken sleep, hired a droshky, and directed the driver to take me across the river. On the steps of the church there, I distributed coins to the poor. If I had hoped by this to gain some relief, I did not; the squalor of the place and the desperate circumstances of the people only increased my despondency. I could not bear even to stay for the service. Thinking only how to get away quickly, I gave up protecting my skirt against the foulness in the street and set off in search of another droshky to take me home. A short distance from the church, I found the same one I had dismissed, stopped before a tavern. The driver was not about, but thinking he would return momentarily I got in it to wait.

There was such a menagerie in the street, both man and beast, that I took no special notice of a fool approaching the droshky, thin and shabbily dressed and talking to the air—there are many such creatures in Petersburg, and they are generally harmless and pitiable souls. He stopped and fastened his attention on the horse, then extracted a parsnip from the jacket of his pocket. The horse nickered and bobbed at its bridle, and the fool, bobbing his head in response, began to sing as it fed from his hand.

It was his tune that snagged my attention.

“This poor sinner only prays” —the fool nuzzled the nose of the horse with his own as he sang— “to be kissed to Paradise.”

All at once and with a shock, I knew.

Even had she not been dressed as a man, I might not have recognized Xenia except by the song. She was filthy, her hair matted as felt, and her garments stained and worn to threads.

Steadying myself, I came down from the droshky and approached her with the quiet demeanor one would use to tame a wild bird. “Xenia?”

Her gaze turned at my voice.

“It is Dasha,” I said.

“Are you looking for Xenia?” she asked. There was such a sweetness in her face—it is beyond my poor powers to describe—as if all of life’s harshness had been wiped clean from it, leaving her soft and unscarred.

I nodded. “I looked everywhere. We thought you had …” In spite of my intent, my voice broke.

The horse was nudging her pocket. “He could use another.”

“Where did you go, darling?” I asked.

“Do you have one?”

“A parsnip?”

“Any vegetable will do. He is not particular.”

“No.” I asked her again where she had gone.

She cocked her head. “I am here. This is all of me.”

Never mind for now, I thought. I held fast to this: she had returned to me. For the moment, it was more than enough. I took both her hands in mine, and she did not resist this.

“Let us go home,” I said.

She was content to get into the droshky, but for the length of our journey Xenia said nothing. Her attention was entirely taken up by the passing scenes, and she seemed equally pleased by all prospects. As we approached the house, I expected some change in her aspect, but there was none. The driver stopped before our door.

“Do you not remember your house?” I asked.

“I do not have one of these,” she answered cheerfully.

“Of course you do. This is your home.”

The driver would take no fare. “Not for her,” he demurred. I wondered briefly at this, but it was one with the strangeness of the morning.

Masha opened the front door. Upon seeing Xenia, she knew her instantly and burst into tears and kissed her shoulders. Xenia received these affections and allowed herself to be led inside.

“We shall have tea, but would you like to bathe first?” I asked.

“Would you like me to?”

Truth be told, her stink was bad, but I answered that I was thinking only of her comfort.

She laughed brightly. “My comfort is not your concern. Or mine either.” She was perfectly amenable to bathing if it would please me; I confessed that it would please me very much.

She stained the water brown as a flood stream. When at last she was clean, she looked to put on her breeches again.

“I have a dress for you.” I offered one of mine, but she shook her head and would not take it.

“It is black.”

“Yes. I am a widow now, too.”