Those weeks after returning to St. Petersburg, Yuri had been miserable. He felt as if a sudden famine had come upon his soul after a time of fabulous plenty. But he was tied to the hospital where interns were too low in the pecking order to expect much time off. His next holiday would not be until Christmas, if he was lucky.
When his friend Vladimir had mentioned that he’d seen Katya the previous day in town, Yuri had been surprised. But she had probably only just arrived and had not had a chance to call him yet. Or perhaps she had tried. She would have trouble reaching him because he was so busy at the hospital. So the first thing Yuri did when he stopped for lunch was to call her from a hospital telephone.
“Hello, my love!” he said eagerly when she answered. “Imagine my ecstasy when I learned you were back in town.”
“Yuri . . . hello.”
“I can’t wait to see you.”
“Well, I . . .”
“I know I should give you time to unpack and get settled, but you won’t torture me too long, will you?”
“I have plans for the next two evenings.”
“What?” Then he noticed the distance in her tone, which he had at first attributed to the quality of the phone connection.
“I have been gone so long and there are people who wish to see me. You must know how that is.”
“I know. I’m one of those people.”
“Of course . . . and I want to see you.”
“Can I come tonight?”
“As I said, I have a previous engagement.”
“I don’t understand.” Was this the same person he had been with in the Crimea? Yuri felt his insides knot up with fear. “How could you have so many engagements already made if you only just returned?”
“Did I say I had just returned?”
“No. That is, I thought—”
“Yuri, I’m just spending the evening with some friends. Why don’t you join us?”
He hesitated. He had often had a vague sense that Katya was giving him crumbs, but this was the first time he truly felt like a dog begging for scraps from the master’s table. He wanted to tell her no, that he had better things to do with his time than spend it with an unfeeling, insensitive woman. But even as his ire was stirred, he found himself answering, “Yes, I’ll do that. What time?”
“Nine o’clock.”
So late in the evening, it couldn’t be a dinner invitation. Would her other friends be coming for dinner? No matter. At precisely nine o’clock that evening he took a horse-driven taxi to the Zhenechka estate, one of the grand estates on the island known as Petersburg Side. The Grand Duchess Zenia, the tsar’s sister, lived near the Zhenechkas. As the cab approached the estate, he thought about the old Fedorcenko palace—far larger and more fabulous than Katya’s home, or even the grand duchess’s, for that matter. He wondered, not for the first time that day, how Katya would have treated him had he grown up in that palace on the hill, heir to all the wealth and power that had once been at the command of the Fedorcenko name.
But he now felt far closer to his peasant roots in Katyk as he knocked on Katya’s door.
A servant received him at the door and led him up a flight of winding, wide stairs and down a long corridor to a drawing room. On the way, he passed substantial indications of the Zhenechka fortune. In the drawing room, there were already half a dozen people including Katya. Yuri nearly forgot his hurt feelings as he set hungry eyes upon her. After the four-week separation, she was even more beautiful than he remembered. And he wasn’t even shocked at her daring evening dress, which fell from her waist in satin folds and ended two revealing inches above her ankles. The coral satin of the dress set her hair to dazzling so that it looked like tongues of flame.
Katya greeted Yuri with a smile that, though warm and even friendly, held none of the passion he had felt from her on their last day in the Crimea. Again, he wondered if he had misread the entire week, especially that final day.
He was introduced to the others present, none of whom he knew. They were all about his or Katya’s ages; one couple was engaged to be married, the others, two men and another young woman, were all single. They all had titles before their names and looked the part of young Russian aristocrats. Yuri noticed immediately that he was “odd man out.” But surely Katya would not have invited him if one of the other single men present was her specific escort. And, in truth, the other two men didn’t seem attached to any particular woman, even though the fellow named Count Pytor Prokunin did seem a bit more solicitous toward Katya than to the other girl. Yuri despised the man immediately.
The group visited together, drank wine, and ate canapes for an hour. Yuri tried to overcome his misery and keep up his end of the social banter. The group interacted as old, familiar friends, but the conversation was far from deep or stimulating. The women talked about clothes and gossip, the men talked about automobiles and hunting and gossip. Yuri knew very little about any of these topics, and when he tried to talk politics or philosophy his attempt fizzled out quickly.
After an hour or so of this, one of the men suggested that they go out for the rest of the evening. Someone suggested going to see the gypsies—an idea that was eagerly adopted by the rest of the group. Katya ordered her grandmother’s motorcar around, and though it was crowded, the entire group squeezed in. Yuri was forced to sit up front with the driver.
It was too early to see the gypsies, who often didn’t perform until after midnight, so the group stopped at a couple of fashionable nightclubs first. Well after midnight, they piled once more into the motorcar and ordered the driver to take them to the Novaya Derevnya district, commonly called The Islands because of its many interlacing canals on the Neva. There they sought out the Villa Rhode, one of the most popular gypsy clubs.
Although visiting the gypsies was all the rage among the avant-garde of Russian aristocracy, Yuri had never been to any of their clubs. He had, of course, heard many stories of the fiercely independent gypsies who practically formed a class, even a race, of their own. Set apart by their dark skin, ebony hair, bright clothes laden with gold and silver jewelry, they were most famous for the grace and beauty of their women and the unbridled passion of their music.
Parties were received by appointment, and though Katya’s guests had decided impromptu, one of the men had called ahead and reserved a place for them. They were led into a large, brightly lit room. In contrast to other clubs that were traditionally dim, the gypsies liked their lighting as bright as their clothing. There were already about thirty other guests in the room, which was furnished with long divans, armchairs, and low tables on which to set refreshments. The performance had not yet begun, but there was a charged atmosphere in the room. Gypsies, in their red and green and indigo costumes sparkling with baubles, circulated among the guests serving refreshments.
Count Prokunin found six seats together, then, when he realized they were one short, smiled sheepishly at Yuri.
“Yuri, be a good fellow and see if you can fetch yourself another chair.”
Yuri pulled over another chair and managed, while Prokunin was distracted ordering drinks, to snag a seat next to Katya.
“Well, what do you think, Yuri?” she asked. “I know this is your first time.”
“Quite gay. But I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve heard them perform.” Feeling encouraged by her responsiveness, he added, “I feel as if we haven’t had a chance to talk all evening.”
“This is an evening for fun, not talk.”
“So, that’s it then, why you seem so distant?”
“Now, Yuri, no more of this seriousness or I won’t let you sit by me.”
“I’m so sorry, Your Highness,” he said sarcastically. “Your wish is my command.”
She giggled. “It’s good to see you are not always so earnest.”
“Katya—”
“Look, over there! It’s Father Grigori.”
“Father Grigori?”
“You know, Rasputin.” Katya leaned across Yuri to speak to Olga, the other single girl in the group. “Olga, do you see who is here?”
Yuri hardly heard Olga’s answer. As Katya pressed close to him, a heart-pounding surge coursed through him. He forced himself to focus on the conversation.
Olga squealed when she looked where Katya directed her. “Katya, we must invite him over here.”
“I don’t know, he’s with his own group.”
“It would be rude for us not to speak with him.”
Yuri asked, “What is a priest doing in a place like this?”
He had heard about the escapades of the infamous Grigori Rasputin, of course, but he had attributed the rumors to vile gossip. Stories had circulated about drunkenness, even sexual orgies. They certainly couldn’t be true. Wasn’t he a man of God and a confidant of the emperor and empress? Still at the moment Rasputin didn’t look like much of a priest. He was dressed in a richly embroidered bright blue silk peasant shirt and black baggy trousers tucked into high boots that were shiny and new.
Olga answered Yuri with a deprecating shrug. “Father Grigori isn’t to be judged on the same level as mere mortals like us. He is above all that. If he does something, it can’t be wrong.”
“You sound like he’s not a flesh-and-blood human being.”
“Don’t you know?” put in the third single man, Alex. “He’s practically a saint.” His tone was laced with sarcasm.
“Oh, what do you know, Alex, you cynic,” Olga said.
As the two engaged in this dispute, Yuri turned to Katya. “What do you think of him?”
“I’ve known him in the past, although I haven’t seen him in a long time,” she replied, the first hint of sincerity in her tone. “He helped me a great deal . . . a while ago.”
“Helped you?”
“Yuri, you are a man of science. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I have faith also,” Yuri defended himself. “I was raised in a deeply devout home.”
“Maybe you should meet him, then.”
Katya started to rise from her seat, apparently to approach the starets, but at that same moment the musicians started up their music and the performance began. For the next hour Yuri was so mesmerized that he forgot his former misery. It was as if the singers cast a spell over him. He could hardly take his eyes off them. They not only sang, they enchanted. At one point a middle-aged gypsy woman took center stage and sang in a deeply moving contralto. True, Yuri had had more wine that evening than he was used to, but the woman made him feel positively euphoric—and not from wine.
The only time Yuri was distracted from the performance was when at one point, while several gypsies were singing and dancing together, they danced to where Rasputin was seated. Laughing merrily, they began to rifle his pockets, pulling out trinkets which, by the congenial look of all involved, had been put in the pockets precisely for that purpose.
Rasputin laughed loudly. “Gypsy pickpockets are robbing me!”
He then grabbed one of the gypsy women and danced around his table with her. He moved with the hearty gusto of a drunken peasant, uninhibited and full of mirth.
When the performers took a small break, Katya rose from her seat and resumed the mission that had been interrupted before. She went to Rasputin, who, upon seeing her, jumped up from his chair and gave her a vigorous embrace. In another moment, they were coming Yuri’s way.
“This is my friend, Father Grigori,” Katya said, indicating Yuri. “Prince Yuri Sergeiovich Fedorcenko. He is a doctor.”
Yuri stood, and Rasputin stepped so close to him that Yuri could smell the man’s fetid breath, reeking of wine. “A doctor?”
“An intern, really,” Yuri said.
As if he hadn’t heard, Rasputin continued, “Oh, Physician, heal thyself!” Then he laughed. “It’s not so easy, is it?”
“But I’m not ill.”
“Is the physician sent to the healthy? No, it is to the sick that he comes.” Rasputin spoke in disjointed sentences. Yuri had a hard time following him. “Naked and ye clothed me, sick and ye visited me, in prison and ye came unto me,” Rasputin went on. Yuri wondered if either he or the starets had missed something.
“I . . . I don’t understand,” said Yuri.
“Oh yes, you are a man of great intelligence, yet you have no understanding. I’m not surprised. It is not to the healthy that I have come.” Rasputin focused his eyes on Yuri. “Where are you from?”
“St. Petersburg.”
“You’re not married, are you?”
“No.”
“Have you a woman?”
“I . . . no.” Yuri felt weak all over. Between the man’s unsettling gaze and the interrogation, his head was spinning.
“You are sicker than you think, Yuri Sergeiovich. No medicines can touch the pain that haunts you.”
“Well . . . I . . . I . . .”
“Come and see me tomorrow evening. We will talk. I have medicine you have never heard of.” Rasputin turned to the others. “It is so good to see all my dear friends. We must spend an evening together soon.” He directed his hypnotic eyes toward Katya. “You especially, Katichka. It has been too long.” Then he turned and rejoined his other friends.
Yuri was silent the rest of the evening. He would have left right then, even if it had meant a long walk home. But the minute Rasputin departed, the gypsies began to sing again—almost as if they were all conspiring to keep Yuri where he was. He tried hard not to think of Rasputin, but with no success. Had the man read into his very soul? That, too, was rumored to be one of the starets’ talents. It was almost as if Rasputin had seen things in Yuri that even the young prince was unaware of—or, at least, afraid to admit.
His mind fixed on Rasputin’s invitation. He would not go, of course. An innate fear gripped Yuri, but he could not tell if it was a fear of Rasputin . . . or of himself.