Egg & Spoon

  Still, she argued with herself. Look, if I did happen to attract the young Prince, I could call upon his power to find my brother, to petition for his release, to pay for proper food for Mama, to pay for fresh potions for the doctor to administer.

  But she caught herself in that snare. She thought: Wait. You’ve already gotten yourself here, and you’ve already asked for help to find Luka already. That young guard who collected your gift for the Tsar: he promised to help. Waste no time. Go back and find out what he has learned. You weren’t flirting, but he liked you anyway. He might have sent someone to enquire.

  Find out, and then flee, before the wolves arrive, before the lightning. Before it’s too late. “I shall walk about,” she said.

  “Oh, no,” replied the great-aunt. She had been speaking to a beribboned emissary of some sort. “You have left it too long. We’re being required for an audience with the Tsar.” She gave her arm to the envoy and allowed him to haul her to her feet. “Come, my dear. The great moment has arrived.”

  “But … but …”

  “Incredible, I know. We are scarcely counted among the crowned heads of the continent! But the Tsar has taken mercy on the elderly at this late hour. He’s called for the oldest to have their audiences first.”

  “You aren’t the oldest. I’ve seen more ancient hags here in their greasy painted faces than you could find in a cemetery vault!”

  “I never question what a lady says about her age. Should someone want to cling to the notion of being younger than I, let her so cling. I have no pride. Come. By accident or by God’s design, we are promoted to first place. And first impressions are important, my girl. The young Prince Anton may fall in love with the first girl he sees. Your storybooks and the novels of Miss Austen rarely suggest that true love strikes at Candidate Number Four Hundred Seventeen. Hurry along; don’t drag your slippers so.”

  Elena wasn’t ready. But enchantment, having brought her this far, now abandoned her. It had no more to offer her.

  What in the world had she thought she was going to do once she met the Tsar? She was only a country hound, snuffling along a golden carpet on her way to meet the eminence of the continent.

  “Keep up,” said Madame Sophia.

  Even if Elena could swim, the waters of the Neva looked too cold to jump into. Besides, at such a stratagem, Madame Sophia would probably have a fit. I couldn’t do that to the old lady, Elena thought, even if I’ve lied and taken advantage of her and prevented her from searching for her lost great-niece.

  Every decision she’d made since the train began to pull away from Miersk looked boldly, coldly like what it was: self-interested calculation.

  She’d been under a spell, all right: a spell of delusion. She’d forgotten right from wrong. She hadn’t set out to replace Cat with herself, not originally, but she’d become sleepy with luxury. She had lost herself.

  She couldn’t reclaim herself fast enough, not as she walked across the swaying links from pavilion to pavilion, heading to the salon in the center, the one at which they had first arrived.

  The murmuring crowds parted on either side of them. Elena heard people murmur about them as they went past.

  “The Duchess of Haut-Saxony?”

  “One of the Montmorencys, surely … the branch from Dijon. Their family’s in mustard.”

  “I believe she is the Princess of Hesse-Messenburg.”

  “How amusing that our Tsar requests such an obscure duckling for his first course.”

  The whispering fell away as they neared the golden carpet in the center of the central pavilion. Elena could only see the carpet. She couldn’t look up.

  “Wait here,” said the envoy. He pivoted across the carpet and announced in a blat, “Madame Sophia Borisovna Orlova of Saint Petersburg and Paris, with her great-niece, Mademoiselle Ekaterina Ivanovna de Robichaux, arrived from London.”

  At least that is what Elena guessed was being said. It seemed to be in French.

  She followed a few steps behind her great-aunt, her eyes still cast down.

  “Madame,” said a deep, kindly, tired voice. Elena held her breath. He sounded almost ordinary.

  “Your Imperial Majesty,” replied the great-aunt, in Russian, “may I present Miss Ekaterina de Robichaux. She is the daughter of my niece, Izolda Robichaux, née Orlova.”

  “Enchanté,” said the Tsar.

  Perhaps that means “charmed,” thought Elena. How did he know? She was just about charmed out of her wits.

  “Through a surfeit of love for her mother country, she speaks only in Russian. Spending so much of her childhood in England, she suffers a flush of patriotic fervor upon returning to Saint Petersburg after a long absence.”

  “May I welcome both of you to the festivities,” he replied in Russian.

  There was a silence as Elena tried to count the number of colors on the patch of Turkey carpet on which she stood.

  “She is not usually reticent,” said the great-aunt, just a little less smoothly. “Miss Ekaterina, your sovereign addresses you.”

  But all she could think of to say was I am not who you think I am. And as she couldn’t say that without betraying the great-aunt, she couldn’t speak at all.

  “I believe,” continued Madame Sophia, rushing, “she has for so long thought that she would present our gift to you and to the Prince that she is tongue-tied. It is a wonderful gift, you see.”

  “How kind.” The Tsar murmured an aside to his attachés. “Next set of guests.”

  “We had been hoping to present it to your honored guest. But I see he is not here.”

  This was when Elena realized that the famous Prince was absent. She felt a little safer. She began to think perhaps she could look up and curtsey. Then they would be done. Then she could escape. Maybe locate Luka.

  “The gifts are so many, and some of them so large, they are established in a well-guarded treasure tent,” replied the Tsar. “The Tsar thanks you for your kindness to his family.” It was a dismissal. They were almost free.

  Madame Sophia pretended not to understand. “It is specially made for you by the London studio of the great Fabergé.” The great-aunt was gabbling as she gambled; the Tsar’s love of Fabergé eggs was common knowledge. “The lore of all the Russias is exquisitely featured. I shall say no more.”

  She stood her ground. In rapping her bosom with her closed fan, Madame Sophia exercised long dormant wiles. The Tsar continued after a moment, “Still, if it is portable …”

  “It is exactly portable. All the way from England, by hand.” The great-aunt smacked her lips as if just having set down a fan of winning cards.

  The Tsar dispatched the attaché; a drink was brought; the Tsar and the great-aunt spoke about much nonsense. One thing led to another. Armies in Austria-Hungary. The Lippizaner stallions. Tennis at Wimbledon, Odessa watering holes. The miracle of the Victrola. On and on. Elena lifted her brow enough to slide a glance at the sovereign close-up.

  He was more firmly packed in person than he had looked in profile: a well-kept and sturdy torso. Shoulders tossed back like an oxen yoke. The eyes danced, and the tone was bright and sober at once. The moustache was more white than brown, though, and the mouth did not smile.

  May this be over soon, she pleaded with all the saints in heaven and her drowned father, too.

  But here came the cheery foot soldier who had taken the gift from her and who had promised to ask after the whereabouts of Luka. He carried the parcel gravely but grinned at Elena when he saw her.

  The Tsar: “May I present my godson, Prince Anton Antonovich Romanov.”

  “You?” said Elena, her first remark.

  “She is surprised. But the Prince wanted to see the guests incognito, before they put on their formal faces to try to appeal to him. A party game among royalty; we do it all the time. Except me.”

  “How do you do, little Russian girl,” said Prince Anton. He was almost scampering with fun at the surprise. He didn’t notice the discomfiture of his guest. r />
  “And now,” said the Tsar, glancing at his pocket watch, “let us have a look at this wonderful thing, because there are hundreds of other people to greet. Anton Antonovich, will you please do the honors?”

  Something that had started to give way in Elena, under the pressure of this strangeness, continued to crumble. Finding the egg in the dawn forest — that had come to feel like a dream. This was now a nightmare, the type that accelerates toward a scream you try to make but can’t.

  “I bet it’s a model of the imperial crown made out of marzipan,” said Prince Anton. “I’d rather a cowboy outfit, with spurs.” He untied the ribbon and let the silk cloth fall away from the box, which still said in golden letters, House of Fabergé, Dover Street, Mayfair, London …

  As the barge of the Tsar was floating toward the eastern end of the linked platforms, and the heavy-lidded Russian eyes of Saint Petersburg played upon the progress of the emperor, the table of Baba Yaga was kicking industriously, approaching from the other direction.

  No one saw the witch and the girl float by.

  Cat: “What are we looking for?”

  “Well, the Tsar, of course. We’re going to give him that gift. And then I’m going to ask him about the Firebird. He has advisors who know something about everything. Except me, hee-hee-hee.” The witch looked about at the crowd, all focused forward on their sovereign. “Goodness, I’m underdressed.”

  A minute later she added, “Luckily, no one looks at staff.”

  Another minute later she said, “Who do they all think they are?”

  “Shhh,” said Cat. The fireworks and the basses had stopped. “I believe the Tsar is addressing the crowd.”

  “Yoo-hoo, honeybucket, I’m over here.” The witch spoke in a whisper; she was only kidding. She was learning.

  They floated so close to the platforms that anyone glancing from the interior might have imagined that Cat and her retainer were gliding on tender toes along the very edge of the pavilion. They went slowly so as to draw little attention to themselves.

  “The hoity are very toity in this town,” said the witch.

  “Governesses should be seen and not heard, Miss Yaga.”

  “Miss Yaga stands corrected.” She minced a little, but then clamped her mouth shut. As they drifted, the Tsar alighted somewhere beyond them, to cheers.

  Perhaps the only creature that noticed a tiny independent platform sidling along the great linked pavilions was an old raven. It had mangy wings and was blind in one eye. It turned its head to follow the progress of the gate-crashers.

  Oh, Madame,” said Elena. She put her hand on the great-aunt’s elbow. “I should’ve done this long ago. I —”

  Watching the Tsar’s face, the great-aunt was readying to burst into blushes. “Hush, child, your timing! You’ve chosen to speak at the wrong moment.”

  “You should sit down. Perhaps someone could bring a chair?”

  “One does not sit in the presence of the Tsar.” Her voice low and impatient. Elena glanced at the Tsar, but apparently he agreed with his elderly guest. He was standing, after all, so why shouldn’t the entire continent?

  Elena turned from the box and looked instead at the young soldier, who was really a prince. Just like in a fable. The person she’d come all this way to meet.

  That Mademoiselle Ekaterina had come all this way to meet.

  Frankly, he didn’t look worth a trip to the nearest grain crib. Which is to say, he didn’t look like Elena’s idea of a prince. Though what ideas did she have but those from the silliness of fairy stories?

  For one thing, Prince Anton was young or short for his age, or both. His unguarded eyes danced more like a spaniel’s than a boy’s, and nothing like a potential husband’s. His hair went in several directions, as if he’d started to run a race and fallen in the process. Grandmother Onna had more hair on her upper lip than he did. His cheeks, two scuppers of borscht, as Peter Petrovich had been used to saying.

  After this short while in the household of Madame Sophia, Elena had picked up some standards. She wasn’t impressed by the boy’s manner. His interest in the gift was unseemly.

  All this occurred to her as his fingers gripped the lid. “May I?” he asked his distant cousin, his godfather, his host, his Tsar.

  “Please.”

  The lid came up. Madame Sophia gripped Elena’s hand.

  In this amber light of imperium, behold: a plain eggshell. No longer pale brown, but chalky grey.

  The pressure of Madame Sophia’s fingers lightened. She made a sound as of air sucked into a wooden recorder — a peasant dudka in mid-melody, catching its own breath. The stiffness of her skirts slowed her descent. At the Tsar’s nod, a slender sofa was rushed forward. The gilded palm fronds carved on its legs and back trembled as the great-aunt was lowered senseless upon it.

  Prince Anton lifted out the egg. How had Elena once imagined that it glowed? It looked like an outsize quail egg. Admittedly, an egg from a big-boned quail, a portly quail; a quail with a bit of heft to it. A quail of magnitude.

  Elena giggled. Hysteria. She’d mistaken a biological anomaly for an artifact of magic. How impressionable she’d been when young — a week or two ago.

  A quail of means. A quail of quality. A landed quail, with property in three provinces. Sir Quail of Upper Quailistan.

  The Prince was laughing, too, until he saw the Tsar’s face. His godfather said, “This is not Fabergé unless Fabergé’s London office has been taken over by revolutionaries and sent this as a rebuke to the throne. Who is this woman? Why is she languishing?”

  “Maybe it’s going to detonate,” said the Prince.

  “That joke suggests furiously poor taste, and I shall chastise you in private. Awaken this woman. Remove this offense.” The Tsar swept his hand as if at a gnat.

  It was all over now. Send away the basso profundos, bring on the firing squad. Elena dropped a curtsey, then a series of them. “It’s not her fault. I can explain. I’m not who she thinks I am. I’m, I guess, a substitute.”

  Prince Anton Antonovich Romanov would have clapped his hands if they hadn’t been full of egg. Such readiness to be intrigued. “Let her speak, if you please? Oh, but this is excellent fun.”

  Elena, rushing on: “She’s not to blame. She’s horribly old, and nearly blind, and so thick that she hasn’t realized I’m not even her great-niece —”

  “An impostor. A traitor.” The angrier the Tsar grew, the more mellifluous his voice. But as he didn’t overrule his godson’s request, his men held still. “Speak, then, while you can.”

  “Go on,” said Prince Anton. “Why have you done this?”

  “I didn’t … you weren’t … it wasn’t … and I thought this was the egg of the Firebird,” said Elena.

  “The Firebird. And you?— a limb of Bolshevism,” said the Tsar again, but in a quieter voice.

  Madame Sophia was coming around thanks to smelling salts uncorked near her broad old nostrils. Her first syllables were in the tongue of the lost, but they arranged themselves into language soon enough. “Miss Ekaterina, what has happened? What is this foul old thing? … And where is our precious, precious, full-of-preciousness gift for the Tsar? Have I gone entirely mad? Oh, that’s it; I’m having a dream. Very well. I like this sofa.” She squinted at Prince Anton. “I can’t see him well, ma chérie, but in this fantasy he’s rather a lightweight. I hope the real one has a bit more heave-ho.”

  “Madame.” Elena spoke as softly as if to her own sick mother. “I must confess. I’m not your great-niece.”

  Prince Anton to the Tsar: “Is this an entertainment you’ve arranged to surprise me with? You are such a dear godfather!”

  The old woman sputtered to Elena, “What do you mean, you’re not my great-niece? You’re certainly not my maternal gypsy grandmother, who was known as the Scourge of the Carpathians before she was carried off by my grandfather. Though I’ve always suspected she carried him off.”

  Elena knelt on the carpet. She fed her hand
s into the old woman’s palms. “You must listen to me. I’m not Miss Ekaterina. I’m the girl from the village of Miersk, where the train stopped for days. Miss Ekaterina fell off the train as it departed, and I was trapped inside. I’ve been out of my mind with worry. With something: I’ve been fully out of my mind.”

  Madame Sophia, dubiously: “This is a most peculiar dream.”

  Elena finished: “And the gift for the Tsar was lost, but while we came north, I happened upon a freak of nature. An accident at sunrise, a trick of the light. I thought it was a Firebird in its final throes, and this must be the egg it left behind.” In a smaller voice, then: “I told myself too many stories.”

  “It’s a pretty egg,” said the Prince, without conviction. He turned it about, trying to think of something else to say. “It has a nice eggy shape. We used to throw eggs off the balcony at school in Rome, until we hit a monsignor one day.”

  The great-aunt was blinking, confusion giving way to alarm.

  “You thought I had a cold,” continued Elena. “It isn’t that I had a cold. I just don’t sound like Ekaterina, even if I look like her a little. I don’t speak French. Nor English. Whatever decent Russian I have, I learned from the doctor in the village, who studied in Moscow when he was young.”

  Too late brave, she turned to the Tsar. “I beg for mercy. Remember, for all my crimes and mistakes, I did briefly believe I was bringing you a Firebird’s egg in place of the Fabergé egg that Madame Sophia arranged for.”

  The Tsar: “In the tales, the Firebird lays its egg in flames, and like a phoenix it hatches at once, from its own ashes. So it is never dead. So even were the Firebird real, this couldn’t be its egg. And frankly, this thing looks like papier-mâché.”

  Madame Sophia clucked, “I am beside myself.”

  “You are all excused,” said the Tsar. “Take the egg to the treasury. I shall have Brother Uri examine it later.”

  Anton put the egg back in the box, and the envoy marched off with it.

  “But if you aren’t Ekaterina, then where is Ekaterina?” Madame Sophia sat bolt upright. “What have you done with her?”