Dancing with Kings

At the foot of a grave mound, on the bank of theBuh River,

Under the walls of the Kalnytsky charterhouse…

This palace in the heart of Berlin would provide some relief. From what she had seen, Rosalia could tell its workings would be flawless. Since their arrival, the marble floor in the entrance hall had already been washed and wiped dry. After mentioning that charpie would be necessary to dress the wounds and that the French surgeon would likely ask for an old mattress, she was reassured both would be procured without delay. Frau Kohl, the Graf’s housekeeper, had also brought a pile of old sheets, well-washed and soft.

Rosalia wiped her mistress’s face with a sponge dipped in warm, lavender-scented water, washing away stale sweat and caked powder. Her underclothes were again stained with blood, dark and clotted with what looked like pieces of chopped liver. Mademoiselle Collard used to complain she was a lady’s maid not a nurse. ‘Neither are you,’ she reminded Rosalia. Her family’s land may have been sequestered by the Russian Tsar, but Rosalia’s father had been a Polish noble and it was her duty to guard her own station in life. It was all too easy to slip down, let herself go. With that Rosalia had to agree, as she retrieved clean undergarments from a travelling trunk and helped the countess change into her lilac dress with little embroidered rosebuds, but then the question remained of who would do it. The maids had their hands full with all the unpacking, mending and ironing. Mademoiselle la Comtesse conveniently managed to vomit every time she caught the whiff of the basin. (‘She has her father’s constitution, Rosalia. Nature cannot be helped,’ the countess said.) Only this morning – having seen the bloodstained undergarments the maids were taking away to be soaked in cold water – she became so agitated that Rosalia had had to give her a double dose of laudanum to calm her down.

‘I don’t want to see anyone but Graf von Haefen,’ the countess whispered, closing her eyes. ‘Let my daughter receive all other visitors.’

‘The French doctor will be here soon,’ Rosalia said. She was trying to foresee what else the surgeon might ask for. If he came from Paris, he would not have assistants. Doctor Bolecki would be of help, but this might not be enough. She wondered if the two grooms were strong enough to hold the countess down. And if they would withstand that much blood and the screaming.

‘I’m so tired, Rosalia,’ the countess whispered.

The pain was never far away, crouching inside her, but it was letting her breathe. It might let her fall asleep again. ‘Mademoiselle Rosalia, you should try to lead her thoughts away from death,’ Graf von Haefen had insisted with great firmness, before leaving. ‘Talk only of what brings her joy.’

The gardener reported that Sophievka was already covered in snow. He had seen icicles hanging from pine trees and from the gnarled branches of the oak tree by the lake. In the greenhouses roses and orchids were blooming and he wished he could send the countess some blooms the way he used to send them to St Petersburg, in a carriage kept warm with braziers. The nettle tree was doing fine and so was the Turkish filbert from Caucasus. He had planted it in complete shade, as instructed.

‘The nettle tree, I was assured,’ the countess said, ‘would not sink in water.’

When her mistress was dressed, Rosalia combed her hair, grey and so much thinned by her illness. Then, from the red travelling case, she took a black wig, a shapely halo of black locks, trying not to pull as she pinned it to her hair.

‘By the summer, you’ll be strong enough. We’ll go there together.’

The countess gave her the most beautiful of her smiles.

Perhaps, Rosalia thought, happiness could only come from such simple moments. From knowing that the touch of her hands calmed the sick and eased their pain. ‘Which is precisely why she would take advantage of you,’ Mademoiselle Collard would warn. ‘She already has two daughters, you know.’ It was in Rosalia’s disposition to take unending duties upon herself, feel responsible for the most insignificant of things. Like the lost charcoals, a whole box of cedar of Lebanon: Olena, the maid who had packed the dinner service at the last stop, was sure she put it in the same box with the silver. ‘Surely,’ Mademoiselle Collard would mock Rosalia’s agitation over this trifle if she were here, ‘she can afford to lose a box of charcoals. Isn’t she rich enough?’

The countess, her eyes closed, looked like a waxen figure. It was only the faint warmth of her skin that told Rosalia her mistress was still alive.

Sophie

Her cheeks still smart from her mother’s slaps. One, two, three. A fool. She is a fool. Or a whore. What was she thinking? What was on her mind? Doesn’t she understand anything? Anything at all? Hasn’t she seen and heard what human tongues can do?

The salty taste of blood inside her mouth frightens her. The memory of happiness, of lightness is gone. Instead, she has to face her mother’s fury.

‘What did he do?’ Mana screams and pushes her on her bed. Another slap, weaker than the one before. Her skirt is lifted, her legs spread. She has been damaged, nibbled at and spat out. Tried and left aside. Who will buy damaged goods now? What man in his right mind would pay for what he can have for free? Who would keep a cow if the milk comes for nothing?

Mana is poking inside her, feeling for the damage. How cruel her fingers can be. How rough.

‘Was he hard,’ she asks. ‘Did he put it in all the way? ‘Dou-Dou, I’m talking to you. Answer me, girl. ‘Tell me everything. I’m your mother.

‘It’s for your own good.

‘Plenty of dirty pots in the kitchen that need to be scrubbed. The maid can be let go, the scruffy thing she is, and dirty too. You want dirt? You can scrub the pots with ashes. See how your hands redden from scalding. See how your knuckles grow and crack open. See how they bleed.

‘Is that what you want, girl? Is that what I gave you your life for? Is that why I screamed with pain for the twelve hours you took to be born? Tearing me apart, almost killing me?

‘And for what? A poke from this runt? This good-fornothing? This high-and-mighty cavalier whose tongue is stronger than his dick. Who now walks around the town in his glory, telling everyone what you let him do.’

In the end Mana’s tears are harder to bear than her anger. Seeing her hide her face in her hands in shame. Hearing her sobs.

‘All I ever wanted for you is now lost.’

Dou-Dou wants to scream that this is not true. Isn’t she still her mother’s beloved daughter as she was a day ago? But her mother only looks at her with unseeing eyes.

‘You do not know the power of the human tongue.’

The sun is caught in Mana’s raven black hair. If angels have faces, that’s how they must look. The shape of the brows enlarging the eyes, the cheeks full and smooth. The lips like cherries, glistening from the tears that have rolled down her cheeks.

‘Is that what you want girl? Is that what I gave you your life for? Is that why I screamed from pain for the twelve hours you took to be born? Tearing me apart so badly that I could have no more children?

‘I’ve always wanted my daughter to do better than I’ve done. Not to waste what God has given her. Not to throw it away. Was it too much to hope for?’

Konstantin Glavani comes back from the tavern. Even from his steps, Dou-Dou can tell that he knows. From the force with which his heels hit the ground. From the way his fist lands on the table. With a thump. With choking anger. Something falls off, rolls, smashing on the floor.

There is a slap, then another one, and a scream. ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ he yells. ‘Is that what you teach her? To spread her legs for every loser in Bursa?

‘To be the talk of the town?’

The door opens and Sophie’s body softens like a kitten readying itself for a fall. She is lying on her stomach, sobbing into a pillow and her father is standing beside the bed. His breath is all she hears. In and out, in and out. In his big hand she can see the handle of the whip Konstantin Glavani uses to corral the sheep.

This silence frightens her more than Mana’s screams.

He lifts her skirt, her shift, and exposes her buttocks. If she doesn’t tense them, it will hurt less. The swish of leather through the air comes first, before the spasm, before the warmth of her pee dissolving into the mattress. When the strap touches her skin, she feels another spasm. And another until there is nothing but burning pain.

She doesn’t scream. Her face is buried in the pillow. Tears soak into the embroidered fabric. Mana had stitched these birds singing on branches, their beaks open wide. And the tall cypresses that sway in the wind. She did it in another time when Sophie was but a child and wanted to know about everything. How to make such a bird look real. How to make a thread go through the eye of the needle.

Her father stops and turns her over. ‘Look at me,’ he says. ‘See the man who can’t look his friends in the eye. Who has to listen in silence as his daughter’s name is dragged in filth. The man whose daughter is a whore.’

She looks at him. He is standing above her, big body swaying, his breath smelling of wine and roasted lamb. Red blotches have sprung up on his neck, his mouth is twisted into a grimace of disgust. She remembers that his fingers can bend a horseshoe. He will not be made the laughing-stock of Bursa. He will not allow his daughter to disgrace his name. He will kill her first, and then kill himself.

‘A brood mare.’

He lifts his hand in the air. A big hand, calloused and reddened, with chapped skin on the knuckles. Will her neck snap with a crack, like that of a chicken?

She fixes her eyes on him. Everything can happen now. Everything is nestled in such moments, the malice, the revenge, the pain. The hand falls down slowly, limp, alongside his body. It clenches into a fist and then relaxes, defeated.

How does one escape the power of human tongues?

She has heard of a man slashing his daughter’s face with a razor. Of burning her cheeks with hot coals to scar her beauty. Her father keeps looking at her, forcing himself to keep looking, until, in an instant, he turns on his heel, and walks away. The door slams after him, and she wipes the tears from her eyes and cheeks. There is a pitcher of water and a basin her mother has left for her, and she splashes cold water on her face. Then she squats over the basin and washes the place between her legs, still wet from her pee. Where the strap hit her, she can feel needles of pain in a web of punishment, the memory of her defeat.

Konstantin Glavani announces that they are leaving Bursa.

She watches his quick, determined steps, listens to the stomping of his heels on the floor. Outside, the earth smells of camomile, lemon blossom, and laurel. Her friends are in the fields, running or riding horses. Or making bonfires on the edge of the river. Diamandi is there too, but she won’t see him. She is not allowed to leave the house of shame.

The stories flow, thicker and more poisonous each day. The stories men whisper in low, lusty whispers. The stories women repeat with gasps of disbelief. There will be no end to them now, no end to the malice of lashing tongues. The torrent of gossip will follow her until the day God pleases to call her to His presence and account for her sins. An egg once broken cannot be made whole again.

Konstantin Glavani is pacing the room. He has been punished for the sins of the flesh, for marrying beneath himself. For being a fool and closing his ears to the words of the wise. Slash her throat, people tell him. Make her kneel in the dust and cut your daughter’s throat. Make her bellow like a heifer when she sees a knife raised above her head.