The Fortune Teller(62)
Two months into her pregnancy, she attended a tea hosted by one of St. Petersburg’s most prominent families. She rarely went to such functions but she had heard the infamous mystic Rasputin would be there. He had arrived in the city the month before, and everyone wanted to meet the renowned prophet and healer. Kezia had come to judge the man’s abilities for herself.
She sat quietly in a corner sipping tea and watched the ladies flock around him. Rasputin was the only man in the room. He cut a dramatic figure with his long black hair and beard, but his body emitted the odor of one who never bathed. This “holy man,” a peasant from Siberia, had somehow gained entry to the highest levels of St. Petersburg society by preaching that people should sin as much as possible to find their path to God. He fully embodied his mantra by drinking to excess and hosting orgies at his home.
Squeals of laughter erupted from the women in the parlor as Rasputin squeezed their breasts. “I can measure your spirit this way,” he explained.
When he started unbuttoning the blouse of a grand duchess, Kezia burst into laughter before she could stop herself and caught his attention. With a sinking heart, she watched him excuse himself from the red-faced ladies and approach her.
“Grigori Rasputin at your service,” he said in a rich voice.
Kezia acknowledged him with a polite nod, but did not offer him her hand.
His gaze swept her body with open lust. “Would you like me to measure your spirit also?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“I’m afraid it is heavier than you think,” Kezia said with a confidence she didn’t feel.
He laughed and took two glasses of vodka off the tray of a nearby servant. He sat down and handed her one. “Then we must drink together.” He raised his glass.
“Only tea for me,” she said, wishing he would shower his attentions elsewhere.
“Because of the child in your belly?” Kezia looked at him in surprise and he shrugged. “Haven’t you heard I can read minds?”
“And see the future,” she added, wanting to see his reaction.
He smiled without humor. “Yes, I’m a very lucky man.”
As he downed his drink, she continued her appraisal. Was he truly a seer or just a drunk, sex-crazed farmer? She wasn’t sure what to make of him. He seemed quite mad.
When his hand moved to her leg and slid up her skirt, Kezia was too shocked to react at first.
“I think we have many things to talk about, you and I,” he whispered.
She grabbed his hand to stop him and their fingers locked. A shudder passed through her before she could wrench her hand from his, and she stood up, almost overturning the chair.
He chuckled. “Most women do not run away from me,” he said, touching her arm.
Kezia pulled away, about to be sick. “Excuse me, I must go.”
All eyes were on them, with a dozen women ready to take her place. As Kezia rushed toward the door, Rasputin called after her, “Many good blessings on the health of your daughter!”
He raised the vodka glass.
Kezia did not question how he knew the baby was a girl. She turned and nodded to him in acknowledgment, but she could not offer him a similar blessing. For when their hands had touched, she caught a glimpse of Rasputin’s future. He would be murdered in ten years’ time, his body brutally defiled by the family he was drinking with today.
Kezia could tell by the way his eyes surveyed the room that Rasputin knew it too.
*
When Kezia’s daughter, Galina, came into the world, the years of her life were measured not by the inches her body grew but by the violent changes happening around her.
When Galina was eight, Russia possessed the largest army in the world and went to war with Germany. When she was ten, Rasputin—who had made his way into the private circle of the tsar—was murdered, just as Kezia had portended.
Rasputin too had foreseen his future. He had told the tsar that if he died, and if Russia went to war with Germany, there would be “grief and no light … the war would bring an ocean of tears and there would be no counting them.”
By the time Galina reached eleven, the First War ended, leading to the country’s great revolution. Imperial Russia collapsed and gave rise to Communism and the Soviet Union. The new leadership wiped out the old regime. They had the tsar and tsarina, their five children, and their physician all killed in the same room.
Sergei quit the theater, fearful that any involvement in political art would bring their family unwelcome notice. Anything that was not propaganda went underground. Plays that contained social commentary were no longer performed in the glittering halls of established theaters but by candlelight in the basements of private homes. At Kezia’s urging Sergei joined the Communist Party. She had seen what would happen to those who didn’t.
Fashion became an important symbol in the Communist era, and Galina embraced this new idea of materialism for the working class. She wanted to design clothes. She found work apprenticing with a popular designer who was fixated on creating the attire of the future. The government wanted to promote new fashions distinct from Western styles to show a better life was possible under Communism.
Kezia didn’t know what to think of the strange, minimalist garments her daughter now wore. She was relieved when Galina married and she convinced the young couple to live in the family apartment so they could all stay together. To Kezia, nothing was as important.