Russka (84 page)

You are requested to attend a
special meeting of the brothers
at the pink house, tomorrow
at six.

Colovion

That was all. There were not a hundred people in all Russia who would have known what it signified, but to Alexander Bobrov the message meant a great deal. As soon as he got home he would destroy it, for all communications of any kind were to be burned:
that was the rule. For the moment, however, he pushed the letter into his coat pocket. Then he sighed, ‘The voice of conscience.’

His sled was coming. There was much to do that night.

Before Alexander, on the big mahogany table, were several dishes: a chicken, bought frozen from the market that morning, a bowl of sour cabbage, a plate of rye bread, beluga caviar, and a glass of German wine. But he had scarcely tasted anything. He was dressed for the evening now, in a blue velvet coat, and, nervous though he was, his face wore the gambler’s impassive expression.

He gazed round the large, high room. Its walls were papered dark green. On the side walls hung biblical scenes done in the classical manner, with sombre backgrounds. In the corner stood the big stove, tiled in green and red. The solemn effect was lightened, however, if one looked closely at the tiles: for half of them depicted some heavy, usually dirty, joke. These tributes to Russian humour were to be found everywhere, even in the formal rooms of the imperial palaces. At the far end of the room hung a portrait of his great-grandfather Procopy, the friend of Peter the Great, staring down morosely and looking rather oriental. Alexander had been brought up to revere the great man. ‘But I wonder if you ever attempted anything like this,’ he murmured.

It was time to go and face Countess Turova.

Though the empire’s hierarchy – the fourteen ranks – was open to any gentleman, there were still families who commanded special status outside the official system. There were a modest number of old boyar and gentry families, like the Bobrovs, who had managed to survive through the turbulent centuries; there were men with old princely titles – descendants of either the Tatar Khans or of St Vladimir himself; there were men with foreign titles, usually of the Holy Roman Empire; and nowadays there were also families with new titles, created by Peter and his successors for their favourites – princes, counts, and barons. Count Turov had been one of these, a formidable man. As for his widow, Countess Turova, even Alexander had to admit he was afraid of her.

She was his father’s cousin. She and the count had lost their two children, and at his death the magnate had left a portion of his huge estate to his widow, absolutely. ‘She can do what she likes with it,’ Alexander’s father had always told him. ‘Perhaps you can
get your hands on some of it – though don’t ever count on her,’ he had added. ‘She’s always been eccentric.’

Yet this was Alexander’s dangerous mission tonight.

He could not ask the old lady for money outright. He knew she would show him the door if he did that. But was there a chance of an inheritance? There were other cousins who were also candidates: but a quarter of her fortune, even an eighth would do. Bobrov sighed. Although he had paid court to her for years, he still had no idea what his prospects were. Sometimes she showed him marks of favour, at others she just seemed to enjoy taunting him.

And what if, tonight, she said yes? His calculation was simple. She was over seventy now: the prospect of a legacy would give him confidence to take the extra risk; he even knew one or two moneylenders who would let him have enough to tide him over another year on the strength of it. Then he would turn down the German girl, burn his boats, and wait out events.

It was a horrible risk, even so. After all, his gamble might fail. Or what if, after promising him, Countess Turova changed her mind? Or what if she lived to be ninety? ‘The old bitch!’ he suddenly swore.

But he had taken his decision and he would stick to it. It was very simple. He felt the little silver coin in his hand. When he got to Countess Turova’s he would toss the coin just once. ‘If it’s tails, I marry the German girl. If it’s heads, and the old woman promises me a legacy, I’ll take a chance.’ He liked that kind of gamble. There was something almost religious about tossing a coin to decide one’s life. He smiled: he knew a card player who used to say that gambling was a kind of prayer.

The sled raced through the icy streets of St Petersburg, the faint glow from lamps and lighted windows rushing by in the gloom. A few stars could be seen.

The sled was splendid and enclosed. Two lackeys clung on behind; on the box in front sat the coachman – a huge fellow wrapped in a sheepskin, his big boots lined with flannel, a fur cap on his head. His neck, in the Russian peasant manner, was bare. Like all Russian drivers before and since, he drove at breakneck speed; and although there were few people about at such an hour, he still found the opportunity to cry out: ‘
Na prava
– keep to the right! Look out, soldier, damn you! Careful,
Babushka
!’

A boy rode on the offside horse. Both he and the coachman whipped the horses along unmercifully. What did they care? They were not Bobrov’s horses. For though he had fine horses of his own, the State Councillor preferred, like most people in St Petersburg, to use hired ones for ordinary journeys like this; and so these wretched beasts would be driven by all and sundry until they dropped and were replaced, in the usual careless Russian manner.

Bobrov sank back into the rich upholstery. The south bank of St Petersburg was divided into inner, middle and outer half-rings by three concentric canals. The outer canal, the border of the city’s rich heartland, was the famous Fontanka. Bobrov’s house lay in the fashionable First Admiralty quarter, in the middle ring, and his route soon brought him out on to the granite embankment of the great, frozen Neva. As the sled raced eastward, the ice of the river appeared on the left, the big, solid houses of the English merchants on the right. In a few moments they would be at the very heart of the capital.

He took the coin out and held it in his hand, feeling it in the darkness. What an astounding gamble it was: he was going to toss a coin for the whole Russian Empire!

This was the prize in the secret game he had been playing for so long. This was the reason why he did not wish to marry, and why he needed to keep afloat financially, just a little longer. For the prize was still, tantalizingly, in sight – perhaps only months away. The most brilliant position in the Russian state.

For Alexander Bobrov was planning to become the official lover of Catherine the Great.

It was no idle dream. For years he had been carefully manoeuvring towards his goal. And now at last – he had it on the best authority – he was the next in line. He had been promised the position by the man who was, almost certainly, Catherine’s secret husband.

At the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, there were a number of paths to power. But for a truly ambitious man, no career offered such brilliant prospects as those available to the man who shared her bed.

Though sometimes portrayed as a monstrous consumer of men, Catherine was in fact rather sentimental. Having been
humiliated in her marriage, her own letters make clear that most of her adult life was spent in the search for affection and an ideal man. Nor was she hugely promiscuous. History records the names of less than twenty lovers.

But the opportunities for those who held this position were almost boundless. Mostly they were men from families like Alexander Bobrov’s, though some were more obscure. Their names were to go down in Russian history: like Orlov the brave guardsman who had won her the throne and whose brother had killed her hateful husband. Or Saltikov the charming aristocrat: was he, as some said, the real father of Catherine’s only official heir? Or Poniatowski: she had even made him King of Poland! And greatest of all, that strange and moody genius, the one-eyed warrior Potemkin who was now her mighty Proconsul in the Crimea, where he was building her a new imperial province greater than most kingdoms.

When a new lover was chosen, he could usually expect a present of a hundred thousand roubles after the first night. After that … Potemkin, it was said, had received close to fifty million! Had the empress secretly married Potemkin years ago? No one knew for sure. But whether he was her husband or not, one thing was certain: ‘It’s Potemkin who chooses her new lovers,’ the courtiers would say.

It had not been difficult for Alexander to make friends with the great man because he really admired him and had become one of his most loyal men. And when Catherine’s poor young lover Lanskoy had suddenly died two years ago before – having ruined his health with love potions, the court whispered – Alexander had seen his chance and gone straight to Potemkin, to put himself forward.

It had been close. A young guards officer had been sent in just before him and had found favour. But Potemkin had been impressed by Bobrov as a prospect, not least because he trusted his loyalty. ‘Even I have enemies,’ the older man confessed. ‘They’d love to see a man in that position who could be turned against me.’

Several times Alexander and his patron had discussed the matter. ‘If things don’t work out,’ Potemkin had promised, ‘I’ll send you in to see her. After that …’

That had been a year ago. Alexander had waited anxiously. He
knew the young officer slightly and now he gathered every scrap of information about him that he could. He had several friends at court. They soon told him the young man had cast amorous glances at one of the court ladies, and that he was tiring of his position. Within months he might even get himself dismissed. And then, by God, it will be my turn, Alexander had promised himself. How he would astonish her! She liked men who were daring and intelligent, and he was both. He was sure he would charm her.

Only one worrying thought had crossed his mind: could he satisfy her? The empress had never been beautiful. Though her strong, German face and broad, intellectual forehead were fine, she was squat and frankly stout these days. She was fifty-seven and, he’d heard, sometimes a little short of wind.

But she was also Catherine, Empress of all Russia. In all the world there was no other being like her. Her power, her heroic position, her extraordinary mind – all these, for a man like Bobrov, in search of the summit of the world – made her desirable beyond all others. And, anyway, if there’s any problem in bed, I know how to get by, he considered. He was strong, fit, and not too sensitive. I’m always all right if I eat a good meal, he reminded himself.

And then … what a destiny! Mother Russia and all her mighty empire at his feet: he would be one of the innermost circle who ruled with the empress. There was no greater position in all the world. If he could just hold out a little longer.

Outside, St Petersburg slipped silently by, huge and magical. They were coming into the huge expanse of Peter’s Square, in front of the Admiralty. On his left he could see the long pontoon bridge that stretched across the frozen Neva to Vasilevsky Island. The bridge was not really needed, for the huge lagoon of ice was a busy thoroughfare in these winter months. Huge fairs were held upon it. He could see half a dozen roads across it, marked out by avenues of cut trees, or lamps which gleamed dimly until they almost faded in the darkness by the distant northern shore. A bonfire burned by the tip of the island. Further away, opposite the Winter Palace, was the faint shape of the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral’s slim spire against the night sky.

And it was now, as he came out on to the big expanse of the square, that something else, quite nearby, caught his eye: and for a
few moments he seemed to forget himself, pulling the window of the sled open, letting the icy air freeze on his face as he gazed at it, with a look so strange that one would almost have thought he had been hypnotized.

It was the Bronze Horseman.

This huge statue, which had taken the French sculptor Falconet years to make, had only been put up recently; but already it was the most famous statue in all Russia. On a colossal granite rock a mighty horse, three times life size, reared up on its hind legs. Below it lay a serpent. And astride the horse, dressed in a Roman toga, was the living image of great Peter himself. In his left arm he held the reins, while his right, in a tremendous, imperial gesture, was stretched out, pointing across the broad Neva that lay before him.

Nowhere in the world, they said, was there a greater block of granite; never had such a huge casting in bronze been made. The splendid horse, copied from the finest in Catherine’s stables, seemed to be launching itself in an almost impossible leap forward into space. And now, as it did every time he saw it, the great statue took Alexander’s breath away. All his dreams and ambitions seemed to be expressed in this huge bronze hymn to Russia’s might. It had to be huge: had not Russia already cast, in Moscow, the biggest cannon and the greatest bell the world had ever seen? Of course St Petersburg should cast the largest statue in bronze. And although the narrow-minded priests had objected to Peter’s Roman, pagan dress, Bobrov saw that the French sculptor had captured the very essence of the new, imperial destiny that Peter had created for his country, and the genius of Catherine would complete. Russia, by her unconquerable will, would make a final, mighty leap and rule half the world.

The statue’s huge, granite plinth bore only the simple legend:

To Peter the First, from
Catherine the Second

Like a great phantom it dominated the dimly lit square. It was unassailable. And as Alexander stared, the statue seemed, like the inner voice of his own ambition, to speak to him and say: ‘Little man: would you turn back now?’

No, Alexander thought. No, I cannot turn back. I have come too
far. Better to gamble – to win an empire or lose all – just one more time.

And he took the silver coin he was to have tossed, and threw it out of the window, into the night.

‘Dear Alexander!’ She was smiling. ‘I am so glad you have come.’

‘Daria Mikhailovna.’ He bent down to kiss her. ‘You are looking wonderful.’

In fact, the countess wasn’t looking too bad. One could even see that she had once been attractive. Her little face, rather too heavily painted, always reminded him of some bright bird’s, especially as now, with age, her hooked nose had become more prominent. Her small, blue eyes were lively, darting glances from place to place. She was wearing a floor-length antique dress of mauve gauze, decorated with white lace and pink ribbons, which made her look like a figure of the previous generation from the French court. Her hair was fine; but somehow, despite the fact that it was powdered, it had a strange yellowish tinge at the sides, like tarnished silver. It was swept up high above her head into a daunting coiffure topped with curls and decorated with pearls and a pale blue ribbon.