The Witches of St. Petersburg

²⁴ 20 October 1906, St Petersburg

He was right of course. Although, the next time they met, it was he who was not able to resist and she who had planned his total, inexorable seduction.

‘George has finally agreed!’ exclaimed Stana as she burst through the double doors to her sister’s private salon to find her horizontal on her divan, taking tea, while leafing through Nightmare Tales by Helena Blavatsky.

‘What has that boring little man finally agreed to now?’ asked Militza, putting down her book and slowly sitting up as she rearranged her robe. Despite it being after midday, she was still not dressed. ‘Death?’ she yawned.

‘Divorce!’

Stana triumphantly sat down on the divan, her black eyes were glowing, her thin white hands quivering with excitement as she turned and looked at her sister.

‘After all these years!’ Stana was shaking her head with astonishment. ‘Can you believe it!’ Her eyes welled up. ‘Can you?’

‘Why now? Why after all this time?’

‘I don’t know! Maybe he wants to marry the whore? Maybe he just wants to be rid of me! Maybe he wants to run into the deep blue Mediterranean and drown himself!’ She laughed. ‘I don’t care. Perhaps he has at last engaged his very mediocre brain and realized that life is short and he doesn’t want to be unhappy.’

‘Or maybe the whore is pregnant? And he doesn’t want a bastard?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t mind, I don’t care; I never want to have to see the man again.’ Stana was speaking quickly. ‘I am just glad, so glad, so very glad, he has come to his senses. I’ve endlessly asked him, endlessly pleaded with him.’ She looked up at her sister. ‘Begged.’

Stana did, in fact, look a little shocked. This was almost too much for her to take in. Years of pain, years of misery and years of embarrassment at her situation were about to come to an end.

‘Oh, thank God!’ she said, throwing her arms around her sister and hugging her. ‘Thank God! At last.’

‘Thank God,’ agreed Militza. ‘It is over.’

Stana sighed deeply, closing her eyes. Could this really truly be happening after all this time?

‘You will have to get the permission of the Tsar and Tsarina,’ added Militza.

‘She’ll grant it.’

‘I know,’ confirmed Militza, tucking her sister’s hair behind her ear and kissing her on the cheek. ‘Of course she will. When they say brothers and sisters are not allowed to marry it means just that and not brothers- and sisters-in-law.’

Stana smiled. ‘The relief…’ she whispered as she brushed a tear off her cheek. ‘It is only now I realize quite how terribly unhappy I have been.’

‘How about Elena and Sergei?’

‘The children will be fine. Sergei is sixteen, practically a man himself and Elena is only two years younger. Besides,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘they are very fond of Nikolasha.’ She looked at her sister. ‘I know,’ Stana said, nodding her head and clasping her hands in front of her. ‘I know; I love that man with all my heart.’

It was a couple of days before the Tsarina agreed to see them. She was ill, again. She had been visiting wounded soldiers, with the girls, at the nearby hospital and had strained her back, picking up a tray of medical equipment. The pain was so bad that when they did finally meet, Alix was pushed into the Maple Drawing Room in a wheelchair.

‘Oh my goodness!’ declared Militza, leaping off the curved polished bamboo sofa. ‘How are you?’

‘It is really nothing to worry about,’ said Alix with a weak smile, as she was wheeled around one of the many bearskin rugs that lay on the floor. ‘I only need to rest; rest and relaxation is what the doctor ordered, only, sadly, these days one gets very little of either. I have been given aspirin. So all should be well soon.’

‘Well, just so long as you are not in pain,’ added Stana.

‘I am always in pain,’ Alix sighed. ‘There is always pain. Some days are more painful than others. But let us not dwell on that.’

The three women looked at each other. The reason for their requesting such an urgent audience hung like a question mark in the air.

‘Every time I come here I think Meltzer has done such a fine job in this room,’ said Stana brightly, as she walked around admiring the new decorations. ‘Look,’ she declared, peering through a glass-fronted cabinet at an extensive collection of Fabergé eggs. ‘How darling! What does this pink egg do?’

‘You press a button and there’s a sweet little crown inside,’ Alix smiled. ‘Dear Nicky…’

‘How charming!’ said Stana.

‘I think the mezzanine is charming myself,’ Militza enthused.

‘So do the children,’ said Alix, smiling. ‘They keep suggesting it might be a wonderful place to put on a play.’

Militza couldn’t help noticing how frail Alix looked. Her face was strained and all the life had disappeared from her pale blue eyes. Her skin and hair was grey and she exuded a sort of sorrowful lassitude. How ironic, she thought, that Alix – who should be the happiest woman alive, with her four beautiful daughters, a husband who loved her and a much wished for son – was living in a permanent state of anxiety, was almost a recluse. She rarely left the palace and her daughters’ freedom was being increasingly curtailed.

‘Have you seen all the photographs?’ Alix indicated lethargically towards the window where there was a large display of silver-framed photos, mainly of the four sisters dressed in matching white dresses with picture hats, fooling around somewhere on the estate. ‘Nicky is obsessed with that Brownie of his… Also have you seen? Someone’s already drawn on the new window already. They’ve tried to scratch something using a diamond. So irritating… I am sure it is one of the children, or Nicky, only the handwriting is so bad I can’t tell who it is…’

It was difficult for Militza and Stana to know when to pick their moment. After all these years they had never asked for a direct favour for themselves. For Montenegro and their father their demands had been endless, but on the subject of their own personal happiness they had remained silent.

They had decided the Tsarina would be easier to approach for permission than the Tsar. Nicky was not known to be terribly sympathetic to affairs of the heart – they only had to recall the terrible business of Nicky’s younger brother, Michael, to realize they’d get short shrift from him. Nicky had refused him permission to marry Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, his cousin known to the family as Baby Bee. And Michael was now, seemingly deliberately, irritating his older brother with his new choice of lover, the married ballet dancer and former lover of Nicky himself, Natalia Sheremetyevskaya. So the best way to get approval would be through Alix; Nicky, as everyone knew, always did what Alix asked him.

‘But the children are well?’ asked Militza, trying to think of an easy way to bring up her sister’s divorce.

Alix grew a little more animated. She discussed the girls, their visit to the hospital and particularly how the ‘Bigs’ were growing into their roles and their responsibility so very well. She would make nurses of them yet. The ‘Littles’ still had a lot to learn but they were making her terribly proud, as was Alexei, who was so very splendidly talented at playing with his new train set.

‘That is good news,’ began Stana rather tentatively. ‘I also have some good news…’ Alix looked at her expectantly. ‘Um, George has decided to grant me a divorce.’ She smiled a little hesitantly.

‘Isn’t that wonderful news?’ Militza enthused immediately.

It was not how she would have introduced the subject, but she had to back her sister. Alix looked from one sister to the other; the appalled look on her face said it all.

‘I am so thrilled,’ continued Stana, for she had no choice. ‘All these years. All these lonely years… And at last…’

She looked across at the Tsarina for a whiff of empathy, but there was none. Alix was stony-faced; her thin mouth had hardened and her pale hands gripped the wheel of her chair. Had she the strength to wheel herself out of the room, she would have undoubtedly done so.

‘And all I need now is your—’

‘No.’

The Tsarina’s response was barely audible. The two sisters strained forward.

‘No,’ she repeated a little louder. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘But…’ said Stana.

‘He’s had a lover in Biarritz for years,’ said Militza, trying not to sound shrill. ‘The marriage has been over for a long time. He’s an adulterer.’

‘I know. We all know. But that is no excuse, no reason for divorce. Marriage is for life. It is a promise made before God. And promises made before God must be kept.’

‘But you have the power to grant a divorce,’ said Stana. ‘You are my friend. My dear, close friend.’

‘I am your sovereign. The country is in chaos at the moment, you have no idea, I have no idea what is going to happen next,’ continued Alix staring at the floor, unable to look Stana in the eye. ‘There is terror everywhere. Poor Prime Minister Stolypin! A bomb? Thrown at his dacha right here in St Petersburg. How he survived I shall never know. But that bomb not only injured his children it killed thirty other people. Thirty.’ She shook her head. ‘That is why I keep my girls under lock and key.’

‘How is Natalya?’ Militza asked, endeavouring to empathize. ‘How is she progressing?’

‘His daughter? Well, I took Grisha to see her in hospital four days ago and he was so very helpful. He stood at the end of the bed and held up the icon of St Simeon of Verkhoturye and he prayed.’

‘You took Grisha to the hospital? With you?’ Militza glanced across at her sister.

‘Yes,’ continued Alix. ‘And after he prayed, he told the doctors, ‘Don’t worry, everything will be all right. And…’ she smiled gently. ‘It is. They think Natalya will walk again and walk quite soon. So,’ she added abruptly, looking up. ‘What the court needs is stability and we don’t get stability with a divorce, now do we? We don’t need scandals; we don’t need to give the impression that, while the whole of Russia is in turmoil, all we think of is our own amusement. Grisha explained it to me just the other day when we were discussing this very issue. “Little Mother,” he said. “The Russian people find the goings-on in court too debauched, too decadent.” And there is nothing that talks of decadence and debauchery more than a divorce, is there?’

She looked at the sisters. Her tone was patronizing, her face exuded superiority. It was as if she were admonishing her children.

Stana couldn’t help herself. Had she heard the Tsarina correctly? She stood up, her hands on her hips, glaring at Alix.

‘After all we have done for you?’ she said.

Her voice was surprisingly steady. Militza was waiting for her to shout and spit, like the explosive little cobra she remembered from childhood.

‘Don’t be silly!’ Alix blushed slightly as she fiddled with her gold bracelet. ‘That business is all in the past.’

‘I am not sure every business can be buried in the past,’ retorted Stana. ‘Stories always come out.’

She started to pace the room. The heels of her shoes brusquely tapped along the wooden floor. She stopped at the edge of a bearskin rug and turned.

‘Suzanna, for example? How long can she remain buried in the past?’

Militza held her breath. Did her heart just stop? What was Stana playing at? They had not discussed this? This was not their plan. They were supposed to charm the woman, make her see sense and cajole her into giving her permission. It was a simple plan, for what should have been a simple favour; neither of them had ever thought for one second the woman would say no. But this, this was an extremely dangerous game to play. The Tsarina was not the sort of woman to respond well to blackmail.

‘I think you have said enough,’ said Alix very quietly, clutching her heart. ‘My back hurts, my breath is short and the doctors say my heart is most certainly enlarged. I am not well.’ She leant across the arm of the wheelchair and picked up a bell. ‘I think you’d better leave.’

‘After all we did for you,’ said Stana shaking her head and walking slowly towards the door. ‘In your hour of need, we were there. In your darkest moments, we were there. When you had no one…’

The Tsarina simply stared at them; her eyes were dead with cold and denial. ‘Goodbye,’ she said in a voice that dripped rage. She rang her little golden bell.

Stana was hysterical in the car on the way home. Militza had never seen her so distraught, so angry, so completely out of control of her emotions. Tears poured down her cheeks, her teeth were chattering, her breath was snatched and panicked, her hands were shaking, her nose running, her whole body shaking with the trauma of the Tsarina’s response. The small ray of light that she’d so briefly glimpsed at the end of the long, miserable tunnel had been extinguished. Her life was in ruins, her reputation destroyed – she would be permanently known as a wronged woman turned adulteress and she and her husband were to be trapped in this hideous partnership forever.

Militza wanted to shout at her sister; she wanted to slap her face and berate her for being so damned selfish and foolish. It was just like her to throw all caution to the wind and ruin what had been a careful plan. Why was she still so naïve enough to think that her prince would come and she would be happy?

But Militza didn’t shout. She was too worried. For by the time they reached Sergievka, Stana had made herself quite unwell. She was white and sweating when they pulled up to the house and the footmen came to greet them, she was almost incapable of walking. She staggered across the gravel drive and fell against one of the Doric columns by the main entrance. She steadied herself with her right hand, only to retch violently on her own doorstep.

‘No one’s here,’ comforted Militza as she struggled to keep her sister upright. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘Of course no one’s here!’ Stana wailed, her eyes were wide with terror, her face dank with sweat, and her breath reeking of vomit. ‘He is never here! I am always alone! Quite alone! FOREVER ALONE!’ She screamed so loudly as she held on to the pillar that her whole body shook and her face turned crimson. It was as if decades of agony were pouring out of her. She shivered and panted, sobbing and struggling to breathe. An increasingly large pool seeped out below the hem of her skirts. She’d relieved herself all over her pale leather boots.

Horrified, she flung herself through the door and straight into the arms of Pierre Gilliard, her children’s French tutor, who was dressed immaculately in a black coat, his moustache waxed into two sharp points just above his mouth. Appalled at her sudden closeness, he swiftly attempted to disentangle himself from her.

‘Madame,’ he said, bowing and shuffling a step backwards.

‘Where are you going?’ demanded Stana, turning her puffed, pink face towards him.

‘It is 4 p.m. I am off to teach the Grand Duchesses,’ he replied with a nod, clicking his heels together. ‘Olga, Tatiana—’

‘I am well aware of their names,’ snapped Stana.

‘You were the person who suggested it, Duchesse. Sharing French lessons with the Tsar’s children,’ he added, stepping around her, departing as quickly as he could.

Militza managed to get her sister up the stairs and into her bedchamber where she stripped off Stana’s vomit-stained dress and urine-soaked underwear and rang for Brana to bring something to relax her and take her mind of the terrible last few hours.

‘Have some laudanum,’ said Militza, offering her sister the warm glass of brandy-laced tea, administering a few drops from her blue glass pipette. ‘Laudanum is always a good solution to any problem.’

Stana grabbed her sister’s hand. ‘Rasputin!’ she hissed, as the tea splattered on the bed. ‘Get Rasputin! He is the only person who can persuade her to change her mind.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Militza’s tone was mollifying, as she added some more drops to the half-spilt drink. ‘I think her mind is set.’

‘You’re wrong,’ replied Stana. ‘She will do whatever he says. She thinks he’s wise, she thinks he’s a miracle worker. You’ll have to persuade him to help.’ She stared at her sister. Her long hair lay in Medusa-like strands across her shoulders and her dark eyes were exhausted; she looked broken. ‘You have to help me. You have to persuade him.’

‘I don’t think he will listen to me.’

‘But he is your creation!’

‘Maybe. But I am not sure I can make him listen.’

‘Of course you can make him! You have to make him.’ Stana’s white face was imploring. ‘Do it for me!’ She drank some of the tea.

‘How?’

‘Seduce him.’ Her black eyes stared.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! He much prefers you, anyway!’

Stana looked confused. ‘But you’re his mistress. You made him. You’re in charge of him. He’s yours.’

‘What would Peter say?’

‘He doesn’t need to know. You seduce Rasputin and then you ask him to change her mind.’ Stana was undeterred. ‘You seduce him and he will do what you say. A man is always at his most malleable after sex. They’re like dogs after a hunt – at their most obedient when they’re spent.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You have to! You promised me once you’d look after me. You sealed it with a kiss, all those years ago. You can’t break that promise. You simply can’t.’

‘I can.’

‘You’ve done worse things. It is all your fault for manifesting him in the first place.’ She tugged at her sister’s hand. ‘If not for me, then for both our sakes and for the sake of Montenegro. For if I go down, so shall you!’

And so a few weeks later Militza returned to Rasputin’s filthy flat on Kirochnaya Street. She stepped out of her car and immediately pulled her fur-trimmed hood around her face for there were spies and informers everywhere, selling other people’s secrets to the police. She could not be too careful, even on this unremarkable street.

‘Goodness, Mamma,’ he said as she took off her cloak. ‘You look very beautiful.’

She had made an effort, it was true. It was the first time she’d set out to seduce anyone, but she’d concluded that dressing the part, wearing a costume, might help. So, despite it being late afternoon, she was wearing an evening dress of dark ruby red; it revealed her smooth white shoulders and the line of her neck. She’d piled her hair up with a few diamond-studded pins and was wearing a Bolin diamond and pearl collier de chien. She’d also swallowed half a bottle of Dr Badmaev’s cocaine elixir, which always made her feel a little better.

‘I am on my way to the opera,’ she explained, which was true. Although she had certainly made an extra effort with her toilette, judging by the heavy smell of violets that permeated the apartment, so indeed had Rasputin. His normally matted hair was clean and combed and his open-necked peasant shirt and baggy trousers looked as if they had recently been washed.

‘Oh.’ He sounded a little disappointed. ‘I had rather hoped we might drink some Madeira.’ He looked down at two polished glasses he had placed on the table.

‘I am happy to have a glass of wine,’ replied Militza, sitting down opposite him, with swish of silk. She was more than happy to have a glass of wine; she was sick to her core with trepidation and was desperate for anything to calm her nerves. ‘No friends here today?’ she asked breezily, looking around the room.

He even appeared to have put a small vase of dark roses on the table. Their perfume was trying – and failing – to compete with the heady notes of his cologne.

‘None of my little women are here today,’ he said, looking across at her as he poured the wine. ‘I dismissed them as soon as I knew you were coming.’ He handed her the glass and Militza had to admit she was a little flattered.

He raised his glass to her and took a large sip of sweet, heavy wine. There was something about the man’s directness, coupled with his disarming eyes and his coarse peasant hands, that made him very attractive to an aristocratic woman. He was not bound by convention and he exuded a physicality, a sensuality – and a sexuality that most of the fine young men of St Petersburg had mislaid decades ago on the way to the salon.

‘I know why you are here,’ he continued.

‘Really?’ Militza was a little taken aback. Were the dress and the jewels too obvious?

‘You are annoyed with me,’ he said. ‘I can see the anger in your soul.’

‘You can see my soul?’ She drank a sip of her wine.

‘I can see all souls,’ he said, pouring himself more Madeira. ‘They glow like halos around the head. The happier the person, the brighter it shines. Spiritually awakens the soul. Today, I can feel your anger and your soul is diminished, it doesn’t shine; it hangs around you like a grey, sad cloud. You are much like when you were last in my flat, when you were agitated and angry.’

‘Well, you are right,’ she conceded, taking another large sip of wine.

‘I am always right,’ he replied.

‘Only a fool thinks he is always right.’

‘I am no fool, my lady, I can tell at a glance whether someone is ill and if I concentrate a little longer I find out what ails them and how to cure their illness.’

‘Pure hypnotism and witch-doctoring, you’re no better than any of those dozens of shamans you find in the Altai.’ She smiled. ‘You’re not the only one to be able to dilate their pupils at will.’

‘Yes, but some of us, Mamma, make the use of drops. And now you are angry because I am curing the young boy without you. What do you care about more? Yourself? The young boy? Or the future of Russia? Don’t tell me you don’t care about the future of Russia?’

‘I am not angry about you helping the Tsarevich. I have children and I would hate to see any of them in pain,’ she countered. The man was certainly no fool, but then neither was she. ‘What you are doing is so helpful to the Tsarina and indeed the Tsar.’

‘They would be broken without me,’ he said, draining his glass and banging it down on the table. ‘Broken! You should see their pitiful, grateful eyes every time they look at me. Their souls lie in tatters and I am sewing them back together again, one stitch at a time. How can that make you angry?’

‘I am not angry.’

‘You are lying. You have the dark soul of a liar.’

‘I want you to help the Tsar and Tsarina, that is why I took you there, that is why I introduced you to them. I am so happy you can help the poor boy,’ she said, taking another small sip of wine and then looking up at him. ‘I am only worried for you, Brother Grigory.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, Grisha, you. I am worried about the gossip, about the sharp tongues that surround the court, about what the cabal of harpies would say about you visiting at night.’

‘You should hear what they say about you, my dear,’ he said, staring at her as his hand slowly moved across the table to stroke the soft skin between her thumb and forefinger.

His touch was so unnerving that Militza could not respond. She felt panicked. She was supposed to seduce him. She needed to gather herself. She thought of her sister and the position she was losing, the position they would both be losing. She closed her eyes. She must concentrate.

‘Do you want to hear what they say about you?’ he asked, his voice was soft, his caresses even softer.

‘What do they say, Grisha,’ she asked, her gaze meeting his. ‘What awful, terrible things do they say?’

‘That you’re a witch!’

‘A witch?’ She laughed gently and moved a little closer. ‘Is that all?’

‘A witch who casts spells and can see dead people.’

‘Dead people?’

‘And that you smell of goat.’

Militza flinched. Would this insult never go away? She was sitting right next to him now on the velvet banquette, all the more determined to see it through. Smell of goat? She will show them. Let them see quite how powerful she could be. With her sister married to Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich and she to Grand Duke Peter Nikolayevich, the pair of them would be an incomparable force. All she needed, all they needed, was the Tsarina to grant the divorce.

‘Is that all they can come up with?’ she said, taking a large sip of Madeira. She raised her eyebrows and then ran her index finger the length of her of soft lips.

Rasputin watched her, his mouth ajar as he breathed a little more heavily.

‘You are certainly a witch,’ he said. ‘A bewitching witch. Who is casting a spell right now.’

Militza leant over and kissed him. She felt his stiff whiskers on her face; she tasted his rotten breath as his rough-coated tongue probed its way into her mouth. It was all she could do to continue. And yet, as she put her hand on his muscular thigh and felt a vigorous energy ignite within him, she was thrilled.

‘Come here, Mamma,’ he said, getting up off the banquette and leading her towards the low, shabby brown chair he’d offered her during her previous visit. Instead, it was he who sat down. Then, opening his legs, he put his hands down the front of his loose fitting baggy trousers and pulled out his member. It was huge. Already pumped up with blood and excitement, it curved back towards his stomach. ‘Come and take a ride.’

Militza stared at his cock as she undid the buttons down the front of her dress. Her hands shook as she wondered: could she really have fashioned this out of wax? Was its size and the odd-looking wart on the end something she had actually constructed? Or was this all some sort of coincidence? Was the Spirit World teasing her for her arrogance at thinking she could manifest someone, something, or was this all part of some very complicated fantasy she and her sister had dreamt up?

She hesitated, her heart pounding. Then her red silk dress dropped to the floor, leaving her in her corset, her stockings, her cotton knickers and a fine lace-trimmed chemise. Could she?

‘Don’t tease me,’ he said, stroking his length. ‘You have seduced me, you little minx, so do your worst. I am wax in your hands, mould me how you will.’

Militza thought of the tears and the endless miserable years ahead for her and Stana if they were rejected now from the fold. They’d be goat girls forever. Slowly, she walked towards him.

‘Come here!’ he barked, grabbing her by the wrist with one hand and using the other to loosen her drawers. He tugged at her stockings and ripped at anything that got in his way as he pulled her now naked buttocks towards him. He parted her white, soft thighs with his rough hands and pushed his mouth between her legs. Militza nearly lost her balance as she grabbed hold of the arms of the chair and tentatively thrust her splayed legs towards him. His long, leathered tongue began to lick her; it poked around the pink folds of her flesh and she found herself beginning to quiver with excitement as she stood on her tiptoes and opened herself up more, pushing her legs wider. The more he licked her and sucked her, the more she arched her back and the wider she forced her legs, opening up like a rose before him. He leant back in the chair to admire her. ‘What a pretty cunt,’ he said, smiling as he played with its curled, unfurled edges with his fingers. Then suddenly he pushed two fingers inside her. In and out, in and out, in and out they went. He was vigorous and thorough and the wetter she became, the harder he pushed. His rough skin and the hard lumps on the sides of his fingers only gave her greater pleasure. She was now completely straddling the chair, her bosom spilling over the top her corset, her cunt sodden as she moaned and shook and writhed on the end of his hand.

‘Come, Mamma,’ he said.

He grabbed hold of her naked buttocks and slowly, slowly he lowered her on top of his huge, hard shaft. Militza cried out in glorious pain as he entered her. Never before had she encountered a feeling like it. His cock was so thick and long and large she felt as if she’d been eviscerated – and yet she’d never experienced pleasure like it before. As he thrust into her, she found herself thrusting back; the harder he rode her, the harder she rode him back. The sound of flesh on flesh, her buttocks rippling, her bosom jiggling… she had never fucked with such joyful abandon in her life. She wanted more, she wanted him deep, deep inside her; wanted to feel him high up in the pit of her stomach. Harder, faster. Deeper, deeper… Finally, eventually, at last, they came together. Rasputin bellowed like an ox as he ejaculated, his head falling slowly backwards against the chair. She, on the other hard, quietly quivered on top of him, then collapsed with her arms around his neck, her bosom pressing against his face, his cock still inside her.

‘Naughty girl,’ he whispered in her ear.