The Witches of St. Petersburg

¹⁹ 2 November 1905, Znamenka, Peterhof

Militza and Stana were sitting in the Red Salon, staring at the clock on the fireplace, glancing occasionally towards the door. It was approaching three o’clock in the afternoon and Bishop Theofan was late. He’d been asked to come at two o’clock to hear their confessions. It was All Souls’ Day, the day to remember the dead and they had spent the morning in their chapel next door to the house, saying prayers for their sister Zorka who had died in childbirth fifteen years before, and of course Militza’s own daughter, Sofia, the twin sister of Nadejda, who had arrived innocently into this world, never to draw breath.

It was very unlike Bishop Theofan to be late. A small bird of a man, with a gentle demeanour and a soft, whispering voice, he was the confessor of choice for the Tsar and Tsarina and therefore everyone else at court.

‘Perhaps he’s forgotten?’ suggested Militza. ‘But he is usually so reliable.’

‘Maybe Bishop Hermogen has asked him to do something?’ said Stana, getting out of her seat. ‘Anyway, I am not hanging around much longer. I have better things to do than confess my sins and take bread and wine; besides, one of Nikolasha’s dogs is very ill. I need to tend to her.’

‘I don’t like Hermogen,’ Militza said. ‘He’s such a great big beast of a fellow who takes up too much space and is far too much of a traditional thinker – fancy demanding the excommunication of Tolstoy, of all people.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Stana, letting out a long sigh, followed by an even lengthier yawn. ‘Terrible…’

A loud knock at the door made them both jump and in walked the bustling, genuflecting, obsequious Bishop Theofan. Head down, his black robes flowing, his thin hands mincing together as he approached, he spouted a lengthy litany of apology and excuses. But neither of the sisters was listening, for behind the bishop stood someone else. Someone tall, broad, with a narrow face and a large irregular nose, thick sensual lips, a long beard, his smooth dark hair parted down the middle – this, Militza was later to learn, was to conceal a little bump, a protrusion, reminiscent of a horn.

‘Your Imperial Highnesses, please may I introduce to you a very dear friend of mine, even though we have only just met?’ He smiled, before proffering up a small, white hand. ‘Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin. A holy man from Siberia.’

‘From Tobolsk, Tyumen Province,’ Rasputin elaborated.

His voice was thick and deep and as he walked towards them, striding across the salon, unfazed by the art, the wallpaper, the gilt furniture and the opulent rugs, he held up a large, work-worn hand and placed three fingers together, in the manner of an Old Believer, crossing the air in front of him. Militza and Stana were transfixed.

‘Mamma,’ he said as he kissed Militza three times on each cheek and shook her left hand. ‘At last we meet.’

Militza was shocked by his intimate approach, his pagan left handshake, his kissing her cheek, but it was his eyes she found the most fascinating and could not stop herself from staring. Pale blue like the Siberian dawn: if eyes are the windows to the soul, then what a soul this man must have!

Stana was equally beguiled. Her cheeks pinked the moment he turned his gaze on her.

‘Mamma,’ he repeated, also kissing her cheeks three times. ‘At last we meet.’

Stana giggled despite herself, positively overcome. Rasputin bent down and kissed the back of her left hand, squeezing it as he lowered his head.

‘Grigory Yefimovich!’ she said. ‘Do sit down.’

As he turned his back to find somewhere to sit on the numerous chairs and divans, Militza glanced, smiling, at her sister who smiled in return. This was the one.

Over tea, the animated bishop recounted how he came across the Muzhik from Siberia at the Academy of Theology and how this religious pilgrim had spoken to the students and won them over with his knowledge and his incredible humility.

‘It is as if the voice of the Russian soul speaks through him,’ he enthused, rapidly stirring his jam into his tea. ‘I then introduced him to Bishop Hermogen and the Monk Iliodor, who were equally impressed! He has travelled throughout our great land and seen so many things, haven’t you, Grisha?’

Rasputin nodded and stared without blinking at the two sisters.

‘Tell us about where you are from, Grigory Yefimovich,’ said Militza.

‘Grisha,’ he replied, and talked to them of the Siberian steppes, his small village, Pokrovskoye, by the River Tura in Tobolsk, the river where his sister had drowned and his brother had died of pneumonia having fallen into its depths. He spoke of his leaving his village and taking up a pilgrimage that had led him to walk the length of the land, sleeping under the stars, going from monastery to monastery, living on the charity of others. And now his wanderings had brought him here, to St Petersburg, where he was looking for finance to help build a church in his village, back on the Siberian steppes.

The language he used, simple and evocative, in the thick Siberian accent of a true peasant, charmed them with its simplicity and its veracity and held Militza and Stana in thrall. Accustomed to the arch, acerbic, overly intellectualized conversations of the rarefied circles they moved in, his guilessness and his ability to paint broad, vital pictures of where he’d been and what he’d seen was so delightfully refreshing it verged on the hypnotic.

It wasn’t until Grisha had finished speaking that Militza realized her tea was cold.

‘There you are!’ declared Nikolasha, bursting into the room. ‘Gentlemen,’ he acknowledged, bought to a stop by the surprise guests. ‘It’s Luna!’ he said to Stana. ‘She is breathing very heavily. The vet said she has a few months to live but I fear death is upon her.’

‘Oh no!’ Stana leapt out of her seat. ‘Will you excuse me, please?’

‘May I help?’ asked Rasputin, putting down his cup.

‘You?’ Nikolasha did not conceal his disdain. ‘Who are you?’

‘Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin,’ pronounced Bishop Theofan, as if the man’s reputation preceded him.

Nikolasha frowned. What could this peasant dressed in a long black tunic with his wild beard and smoothed-down hair possibly do to help his ailing borzoi?

‘Come,’ said Militza standing up. ‘We’ll all go.’

They left the house for the magnificent stable block and carriage house. Built of red brick, with white pillars and impressive towers at either end, above the double doors stood a large Nikolayevich crest. Once inside, past the rows of some one hundred horses, the party approached a stable where, lying on a bed of straw, was a beautiful cream and white borzoi bitch. Luna was on her side, her long tongue hanging out as she panted, her ribs easy to see through her damp coat, her flanks rising and falling in rapid succession.

‘My darling!’ said Nikolasha, bending down to stroke the dog. ‘Look how much pain and suffering she is in.’ His face was dreadfully distressed when he looked up and it appeared he was on the verge of tears.

‘Move aside,’ said Rasputin, nodding over his shoulder at the Grand Duke.

Nikolasha glanced at Stana and Militza. He clearly did not like the man’s tone, but as neither sister reacted he did what he was told. Meanwhile, the bearded Siberian knelt in the straw and placed his hand on the dog’s head, then closing his eyes he began to pray. Quite what prayer he was saying neither of the sisters could ascertain, for although he moved his lips, the words were inaudible.

Some fifteen minutes later the dog ceased to pant, simply relaxed its strained head back down on the ground. What had he done? The dog lay quite still in the straw. The Grand Duke moved as if to step forward but Rasputin raised his hand, stopping Nikolasha in his tracks. ‘Back!’ he commanded and the Grand Duke, after a moment’s hesitation, complied.

The party watched in silence for another fifteen minutes, after which the dog raised its head, licked Rasputin’s weathered hand and, to gasps from the assembled, got up and trotted out of the stable.

‘She will live for some years,’ the holy man pronounced as he stood and dusted the straw off his robes.

‘What joy! What a miracle!’ Nikolasha declared, a broad grin on his face. ‘I can’t thank you enough, thank you very much indeed.’

Two days later Militza invited Rasputin to the Countess Ignatiev’s salon. When she, Stana and Nikolasha collected him from Bishop Theofan’s apartment they were surprised to see him dressed not in the black robes of a priest but in a handsome, loose-fitting cream silk shirt with red baggy trousers and the knee-length boots of a peasant. But not a real peasant, it was more a costume, something that could have been worn at one of the Grand Duchess Vladimir’s glamorous parties.

‘Good evening,’ he said, getting into the car. He smelt very heavily of violets. ‘Your Imperial Highness,’ he acknowledged Nikolasha with a curt nod.

‘What a charming cologne,’ said Stana.

‘I have been to the bathhouse,’ came his reply. He paused. ‘Your husbands are not with you?’

‘Mine?’ Stana laughed despite herself.

‘Moscow,’ added Militza. ‘He had some business to attend to. And Stana’s…’

‘… is always in Biarritz.’

The Countess Ignatiev was so delighted that Militza and Stana should once more be gracing her Salon, and that they’d brought a new protégé with them, that she immediately had someone open a bottle of champagne.

‘Welcome,’ she gushed as she handed Rasputin a glass. ‘We are so terribly excited to receive you here. Your reputation comes before you.’

‘My reputation, Madame?’ asked Rasputin as he drained the glass in one. ‘I was not aware I had one.’ He looked at the glass and, with a revolted face, returned it to the salver. ‘Do you have any Madeira wine?’

‘Madeira? Of course.’ The Countess nodded at a liveried servant who was immediately dispatched to find a bottle. ‘Now how is the Empress?’ she asked, linking arms with Militza as she led them into the room. ‘And the little boy? They are so ensconced in Tsarskoye Selo, especially since all the troubles, that no one sees them any more. What does the boy look like? I went to London during the summer and you can’t move for photographs of the Royal family – at the races, taking a ride out in a carriage, cutting ribbons here, opening other things there. They are forever in the newspapers. But here? We never so much as glimpse ours. Is he a handsome child? You and Stana are the only ones who ever see them!’

‘Oh, he is a beauty,’ said Stana. ‘Blond curls, big blue eyes and such a robust, fat thing. He gives his parents so much joy.’

‘How wonderful,’ smiled the Countess. ‘And do you think the Empress will be doing the season? She cannot remain locked up in the Alexander Palace forever! The last time we saw her was at the Medieval Ball.’

‘What a night that was,’ smiled Stana, glancing across at Nikolasha who was helping himself to a cigarette over on the other side of the room.

‘What a night indeed,’ confirmed Militza.

‘Now, Grigory Yefimovich—’

‘Grisha,’ he interrupted.

‘Grisha,’ she repeated, smiling. ‘There are so many people I would like you to meet. Do you know Dr Badmaev?’

‘I am not fond of doctors.’

‘He’s not that sort of doctor, more an apothecary. And he’s terribly well connected. Let me introduce you. Peter!’ she said, as she approached the table where Dr Badmaev was sitting, smoking his small clay pipe. ‘This,’ she paused, waving her fan, ‘is Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin, the man I was telling you about. The man who cured Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich’s dog! Apparently, he laid his hands on the dog and he rose again, like Lazarus!’ recounted the Countess.

‘Not like Jesus?’ Dr Badmaev smirked.

‘No,’ replied Rasputin. ‘I raised the dog, not the Holy Spirit of the dog.’

‘I’m sure you could manage that too, old boy!’ He chuckled and slapped Rasputin on the back, while he shook his hand. ‘A dog indeed! A dog!’

Rasputin stared at Dr Badmaev, his pale eyes narrowed with irritation. He withdrew his hand and was on the point of saying something, for where he came from such mocking would not pass without some sort of a fight, but the Countess merely laughed.

‘A dog,’ she confirmed. ‘But a miracle all the same. Come, Grisha.’ She pushed the small of his back to move on. She was looking for a more appreciative audience for her Siberian. Militza was on the point of following.

‘I am not sure your friend likes my jokes,’ remarked Badmaev, a little entertained.

‘I am not sure he likes you,’ replied Militza. ‘You should really try a little harder, Peter. Everyone needs friends, no matter how powerful they think they are.’

He looked at her, a little put out, and changed the subject. ‘How is the Tsarina?’ he asked. ‘I only see the Tsar these days, and only when he wants more elixir, which he seems to need more and more. And every time I go, the Empress is always in her quarters.’

‘She is not well,’ said Militza, her voice quietening. ‘It is her back, or heart, or both.’

‘They should leave that palace more, see some people, be seen by people. I know it is a security risk but—’

‘His uncle has just been blown up in the street,’ she hissed.

‘I know that but even so… He’s paranoid…’

‘I think, when you’ve seen your grandfather blown up in front of you when you’re twelve years old, and watched them carry his legless body, his intestines spewing out, to the Winter Palace for the rest of the family to mourn, that might be enough to scare a man.’ Militza stared at Dr Badmaev.

‘If that’s all you think it is,’ he said.

‘I thought you of all people would understand.’

‘I just worry—’

‘The Tsarevich is fine,’ she interrupted.

Dr Badmaev looked puzzled. ‘It is just that the quantities of hashish and cocaine I’ve been supplying can sometimes make you a little… um, anxious.’

By the time Militza had found Rasputin over on the other side of the party, he was ensconced at a table surrounded by a coterie of enthusiastic women, most notably an actress who’d drunk at least a bottle of champagne. She had wrapped her elegant calf around his and seemed to be hanging off his every word.

‘Did you know,’ she said to Militza, her gown slipping slowly off her right shoulder, ‘he was in Sarov when they canonized that saint?’

‘Oh?’

‘And he predicted the Empress would have a son after that, and she did!’

‘Incredible.’

‘Isn’t he!’ She grabbed hold of his leg and Rasputin smiled.

‘Come!’ said Militza to her protégé, pulling him away by the hand from the actress. ‘Why don’t we go and have our fortunes told; there is a woman in the corner scrying with a crystal ball.’

Leaving the tactile actress, a somewhat reluctant Rasputin crossed the room to the fortune-teller’s table. Dressed in a fringed headscarf, with dark eyes and an even darker complexion, she professed to be a gypsy from Novaya Derevnaya. As he sat down, she stared at him.

‘Have I met you before?’ she asked. ‘Do you ever come to see the gypsies on The Islands? To hear us sing?’

‘I am new to the city.’

She raised her eyebrows for a second, expecting him to say more, then bent down below the table and brought out a smooth, black shining ball. ‘Obsidian,’ she said. ‘It is the hardest but most accurate ball to read. It has taken a lifetime to learn.’

‘I have never seen one that black,’ said Militza, leaning in closer.

‘Do you scry?’ asked the gypsy.

‘A little.’

‘This ball is very rare.’

‘Get on with it, woman!’ yawned Rasputin, looking across the room at the drunken actress.

‘Right,’ replied the gypsy, closing her eyes and breathing slowly as if entering a deep meditation. Suddenly she opened them. ‘You have journeyed far,’ she said, looking into the ball. ‘I see bare feet, walking through the snow and the ice and the mud. I see faraway lands and I see churches, statues. Now I see crowns and crosses and tears. I see a baby. I see wealth and power and gold.’ She sat back and looked at him. ‘Do you want wealth and power and gold?’

Rasputin shook his head. ‘I am a man of God, Madame, what would I want with wealth and power and gold?’

‘One day,’ she whispered, ‘you will be the most powerful man in Russia.’

Rasputin roared with laughter. ‘You gypsies are all the same! Power and gold! What rubbish! I want no such thing,’ he said, getting out from his seat. ‘What I need is more wine.’

It was three o’clock in the morning by the time Militza and Rasputin left the salon. Stana and Nikolasha had gone on ahead, leaving them to take the car alone. Rasputin had probably consumed more than three bottles of Madeira wine and Militza had not had an abstemious evening herself. He sat next to her on the back seat, so close that she could smell his heady violet cologne and feel the strength of his thigh as he placed his leg alongside hers, pushing himself hard up against her. She felt a frisson run the length of her body.

‘Did you find that exciting?’ she asked, holding her head coquettishly to one side.

She was flirting and he knew it, but she couldn’t help herself. He was her creation, she thought, hers to do with as she pleased; and if it pleased her to flirt with him, then flirt she would. It was the wine, his close proximity and the fact he’d spread his favours so liberally around the room without a thought to her and her feelings. She had brought him to the party; he should have paid her more attention.

‘Exciting?’ He snorted. ‘I am not sure you know what excitement is, Mamma.’

‘I have lived a life!’ she laughed. ‘I have had much more excitement than you’ll ever have.’

She ran her hands through her dark hair as she turned to look at him. She had certainly drunk far too much wine, but this man owed her. She was an attractive woman, a beauty, or she’d been told many times. He’d been flirting with other women all night long and now it was her turn.

‘Let me tell you what excitement is, Mamma.’ He leaned in closer to her. She could feel his breath on her lips. And it thrilled her. ‘Excitement. Real excitement… is a meeting of the Khlysty.’

‘That’s illegal,’ she whispered, as she stared into his eyes.

‘There is nothing illegal about finding God.’

‘Through sin?’

‘It starts with a dance,’ he began, taking her hand and starting to draw circles with his index finger on her palm. ‘When the red sun has set, they gather in a small hut.’ His voice was soft and the circles he drew were softer still. ‘They are dressed in normal clothes as the singing begins. It starts with psalms and folk songs about longing for the advent of the Kingdom of God, for God becoming man, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And gradually, slowly but surely, the music gets more and more jubilant and they start to take off their clothes, put on shirts made of white muslin to commemorate the resurrection of Christ. It is a symbol that they have exchanged their earthly life for a spiritual one, and then they dance. Slowly at first, swaying together, moving as one, to the light of twelve candles.’ His finger went back and forth across her hand. Militza held her breath. ‘Then the group splits into couples and they dance, up and down the room, up and down, as the room gets hotter and hotter and they start to chant: “The Holy Ghost is amongst us. The Holy Ghost is amongst us.” Over and over and over until their tongues are thick and stiff and paralyzed. Then the preacher speaks of God and Man and the Holy Spirit, while the rest of us shiver and shake like little children. The dancing begins again. This time we remove our tops; women are bare-breasted, their hair flying around their faces like snakes. Out come the whips, made of thin strips of leather, that sting like acid as they hit your skin. We self-flagellate; we thrash and whip until there are cuts and slices all over our backs, until finally we sink to the floor, covered in blood and sweat, exhausted by the dance and the song, but ecstatic, higher than the clouds in the sky. And then, at last, we copulate. Regardless of age or relationship, you copulate with whoever is next to you, behind you – it bears no relevance. And when you finally, both men and women, reach a shuddering climax of fluid and flesh, there is no more earthly ego, no more I, or you, nothing but an indivisible spirit. The Holy Spirit. Ecstasy.’ He smiled and then sniffed. ‘That, Mamma, is excitement.’

She leant towards him in the back of the car, felt his large member, the member she herself had fashioned, tumescent against her thigh; a sudden rush of urgent excitement and she swiftly placed her hand on top of his groin then wrapped her fingers around its wide girth and squeezed. His mouth opened in pleasure and he moaned. Militza was completely aroused as she parted her legs under her silk skirts, awaiting the rough, bracing touch of his hand. How she longed to ride this man! How she longed to feel the thrust of his large shaft inside her, longed to dance naked and covered in sweat, copulate with him over and over again.

He leant over.?‘It is not you, but your sister who puts fire into my loins,’ he whispered, firing droplets of spittle into her ear. ‘She is the sort of warm whore we dream of on a cold, Siberian night. She is already fucking another, other than her husband; what is another cock to service?’