Free The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak

wings flapping aimlessly, too paralyzed with terror for flight.
    “Get a footman, Varvara,” Professor Stehlin’s voice commanded behind me. “Hurry up, girl.”
    I hadn’t even heard him come down, but he was now at the bottom of the stairs, helping the Grand Duke stand.
    “You’ve seen the monsters, Your Highness. You’ve seen what fear can do. Don’t let it rule your thoughts. We cannot know the future,” I heard him say as I rushed outside. “But with the help of reason, we can prepare for what might happen.”
    In the silence that shrouded the rest of that day, I turned those words in my head, examined them for stains of doubts, the way my father examined the leather for the bindings of his books.
    We cannot know the future.
    Reason can conquer fear.
    But that night, alone in my bed, I could not shut my ears to the Grand Duke’s muffled sobs in the room next to mine.
    A hundred times I almost rose, almost went to him. But every time I came up with excuses. He would just send me away. He would soon stop. The future Tsar has to learn his lessons like everyone else.
    Lessons hurt.
    There is no other way.
    The sobs quieted down in the end, and I, too, drifted into sleep.
Look
, the Kunstkamera monsters urged me in my dreams.
Look at our webbed fingers, our fused legs, our eyes squeezed shut
.
    Why are you not looking?
    Are you afraid that you can see too much?
    People like to think they can hide behind their faces, mold them like masks for a costume ball. They hope that their eager smiles or haughty looks do not betray thoughts they prefer to keep hidden. A courtier’s corrosive envy. A lady’s contempt. A child’s piercing longing.
    I was not the only one of the Empress’s tongues, but I could read her face better than others could. Her pupils widened when a man’s bold look pleased her. A slight frown always preceded the surge of her impatience. A sweep of her arm signaled interest. If it waned, she would start playing with anything her fingers could reach.
    The sins of others made the best of stories. The bowels of the palace were dark and deep, like the waters of the Neva. Something was always moving there. Something was always washed ashore. Secrets were like cast-up corpses, warped coins, polished shards of glass covered in mud. Useless to those who didn’t know where they came from. Treasures to those who did. All I had to do was watch and remember. All I had to do was listen to those who thought themselves alone.
    Princess Golubeva kept her serf hairdresser locked in a cage in her bedroom alcove, so that he would not betray her baldness. In Count Sheremetev’s library, in a locked cabinet, books had titles like:
Venus in the Cloister
or
The Nun in Her Chemise
. There were pictures there, too, with secret levers hidden in their frames. Once pulled, they revealed their hidden doubles: shepherds and shepherdesses frolicking naked in a meadow. A stern court lady lifting her dress to show a little dog licking the spot between her legs.
    It didn’t take me long to become the most popular of imperial tongues.
    That night a bracelet on the Empress’s wrist captivated her, the glow of gold glittering in candlelight, the clinking of the jeweled pendants attached to it.
    “There is something about Madame Kluge that Your Highness should know,” I said.
    “Madame Kluge?” the Empress said idly. “What about her?”
    “An old
Baba
came to her.”
    The bracelet stopped moving. The Empress sat mute when I said it all: the old
Baba
’s toothless mouth muttering her incantations, a candle that sputtered and smoked even though there was no draft.
    How swiftly my words flew, how easily.
    Rubles changed hands. Charms were given. Foul. Unspeakable.
Take this bottle.… Fill it with your piddle.… Smear it on the four legs of your mistress’s bed. That will stop her affection from slipping away
.
    Hairs, nail clippings, flakes of skin were to be gathered. Mixed with charms and potent herbs. Bundled up in old