Of strange humour are the Fates, those three sisters sitting upon Olympus whose sole task is to spin, weave and measure lives.  Everyone’s destiny, from the mighty to the modest, is to be found in the myriad threads of the tapestry on which they have worked since time first began.  Much of the tapestry is made up of small nubs in which the influence of particular intersecting threads can be seen.  These slubs and imperfections give rise to what we define as History.  Occasionally a knot is formed which irrevocably changes those threads caught within its tangled surface.  Spala is such a knot.

Spala              By Candace Gylgayton

Romanov family dinner at Spala, August 1894 - From a paintng by Zichy

Spala in the autumn of 1912 was not a good place to be.  Tragedy was there; lurking like a hungry wolf in the brambles and the woods that surrounded the hunting lodge.  Reached by a long stretch of sandy road which snaked its way between the trees, the lodge, which for many years had been a retreat of the now deposed Kings of Poland, was set in the middle of a spacious lawn.  From this tamed clearing, numerous pathways spun out into the depths of the forest.  The lodge itself was a rambling wooden structure that looked like the sort of country inn travelers might have encountered a hundred or so years earlier as they traversed the vast distance in miles and centuries from Holy Mother Russia to one of those decadent cities of Enlightenment scattered haphazardly across Europe.  A place for Peter to drink and carouse on his way to Paris or Amsterdam; or one in which Napoleon might have spent the night pacing restlessly, wondering when the snow would start to fall and, once it fell, if it would ever stop?  Certainly, with its collection of cramped rooms, interconnected by passageways whose walls always seemed striving to touch one another, it did not look to be an Imperial residence.  Only the miracle of electricity kept the dark at bay within its walls, and that darkness was always only in abeyance for, given the slightest chance, the shadows, like the wolf just out of sight within the forest, would leap out of the corners and closets where it was fettered and plunge this artificially maintained world back into darkness.

The family had arrived from Bialowieza where the last of the aurochs, the legendary European bison, still dwelt; beasts whose ferocity had even awed the Legions of Rome as they came north in search of their missing eagles.  Immense, shaggy-pelted creatures whose great curved horns were once much sought after in the halls of Asgard by warriors who drank immortality from their depths before going forth to battle.  These animals were living relics of antiquity, of a time when impenetrable forests filled with secrets stretched from Normandy to Siberia and mankind dwelt in the darkest of caves.  Here, on vacation and in pursuit of royal sport, those few remaining ancient monarchs of another age were being hunted to extinction. 

It was in Bialowieza, that a slip as he leaped into a rowboat for a ride on the placid waters of the lake, caused the youngest of the children to fall with fateful precision onto an oarlock.  It did not hurt much, just a small bruise in the groin area that a few days of bed-rest seemed to cure, and then on they came, on to Spala, to continue their regimen of rest and relaxation after the exhausting celebrations to commemorate 300 years of their family’s hands holding the reins of state.

From the hunting of ancient aurochs, the autocrat who ruled with that same absolute authority as the emperors of long-vanished Byzantium, moved on to pursue the giant stags and elk that inhabited the forests surrounding Spala.  Rising each morning at dawn when the earth still exuded the damp humours of the night, he would ride into the wall of trees with his entourage clustered about him.  All day long they would chase the antler-crowned deer through the mottled shadows beneath the canopy of golden leaves.  And in the darkling twilight they would lay the blood-spattered bodies on the great slope of the lawn so that they might solemnly examine their work, holding aloft guttering torches for better illumination, before proceeding in to dinner.

But she who reigned, much as Theodora once had at Justinian’s side, did not partake of such robust sport.  The gilded grand-daughter of a queen whose name defined an era, the Empress had come to Spala to rest, to read English novels and to indulge herself in the verbiage of her extensive correspondence.  While thus engaged, close by this regal presence could usually be found the baby-faced, dumpy little figure of her closest friend and confidant.  For hours at a time, and with the ungrudging altruism of a spaniel, this dim and devoted woman was content to sit beside her mistress, basking in the deep emotional waters that poured out of the Empress like a murky fountain.  Sighing and smiling, exchanging confidences and glances with one another, they shared their secrets like schoolgirls.

The little boy, who slipped and fell so unpropitiously a few days ago, lies fretting in his bed in the cramped room.  Upon arriving, his mother had pleased him by announcing that he was old enough to begin learning French from the neatly mustachioed Swiss gentleman who teaches the boy’s older sisters.  After a few days however, the pain in his groin that seemed to have abated returned, and he was carried to this bed where he lies aching with boredom and the slow spread of his injury.  For a young boy just nine years old and heir to an empire which extends from Europe’s edge to the Pacific rim, it is a grave injustice to be stuck within the gloomy confines of these four walls while his sisters are free to roam in the crisping autumn air.  Those girls, adorned like vestals in their immaculate white dresses, play vigorous games of tennis or take long strolls down the alleyways between the trees.  When permitted, they visit their incarcerated brother to amuse him with stories and tales of their carefully supervised activities. 

To the girl who has come with her mother’s cousin to wash the clothes, they are hardly mortal creatures: these four fairy princesses chatting amongst themselves in their own strange language.  On her ears their laughter falls like the clear chiming of crystal.  As she washes the princesses’ clothes, touching the impossible whiteness with her own hands, she wonders what it would be like to wear such lovely things. 

The girl who helps with the laundry does not come from the clouds; for the men of her family plow the dark damp soil, and she is a child of that earth.  Yet she is not like those whose blood flows through her veins.  Her mind is full of fancies and she colours the world with her imagination.  Those who gave her birth do not fathom her, she is like some changeling left on their doorstep.  Outwardly she appears to be their daughter, yet they cannot look into her eyes.  Women must scrub, clean the house and see to the children; but she does not care for such drudgery.  Sitting beside a window, she leaves the mundane and wanders freely into golden realms.  Hoping to shake the girl free of her daydreams, her family have sent her here: to Spala.

“Watch what you are doing!”  Her mother’s cousin scolds her for letting the iron grow cold.  It will not do for the princesses to wear dresses that are not properly pressed!  Dutifully, the girl carries the heavy metal iron to the stove and sets it down to be heated.  The children of her mother’s cousin laugh at her and tease her, saying her head is full of cobwebs. 

Casually, one of them remarks, “Doesn’t our fleece-brained cousin look like one of the princesses?”

“Which one?”  Her mother’s cousin asks without caring for an answer. 

“The short one!” is the laughing reply.

They may have thought it was a joke, but the girl does not.  In her mind a seed has been planted.  From a discreet distance she begins to shadow the four girls, watching them with unflagging interest.  But it is the youngest princess, the prankster who makes the others laugh when she slyly mimics the speech and manners of her parents’ friends and servants, upon whom the girl lavishes the most attention. 

One afternoon, when everyone is in the kitchen drinking tea and gossiping about the illustrious visitors of the lodge, the girl creeps away to a room with a long mirror to try on a dress belonging to the youngest princess that she snatched earlier from an already ironed pile of clothing.  Sliding her arms into the beautiful dress, she lets it slither down the length of her body.  Nothing she has ever worn has felt so perfect.  Looking into the mirror, she sees staring back at her, not a dull, ordinary peasant girl, but a princess.  She scrutinizes the image before her and sees that her face, especially the width of her forehead and the shape and expression of her mouth, is very like the face of the real princess.  Even her hair, though poorly cut and not always clean, is of the same golden colour and texture.  Having one day seen the princess wading in the stream, she knows that they share the same oddly shaped feet.  Moreover her eyes, those inescapable windows to the soul, are the exact shade of saturated blue to be found in the princess’ own eyes.  Barely breathing, as if a deep breath would mist the mirror and destroy the image, like Narcissus bent over his pool, she allows herself to be mesmerized by this new perception of herself.

The idea of a carriage ride was his mother’s.  She, whose resolve since his birth is to expiate her guilty blood by willing life to him, decided that it was fresh air that was needed to restore his health and spirits.  So, plumped between the swathed, veiled and crinolined forms of his mother and her companion, the boy is whisked down the sandy road away from the lodge of darkness.  But he cannot escape; the trap has already been sprung, and everyone must return to play out their parts. 

From the boy arises a thin wail of pain which modulates its frequency to the ears of those who stand and watch as the carriage flies back up the road with dust churning beneath hooves and wheels.  The carriage stops and the villa empties of servants and guests, family and friends.  They spill out through the doors; everyone alarmed or curious, everyone wanting to help.  But there is no help at Spala.

The agonized frame of the young boy is gently lifted from his mother’s lap and tenderly carried back into that dark house to be laid upon his tiny bed.  In the hallway, there are muffled whispers; within the room another pièta is about to be reenacted as a mother begins to mourn for her dying son.

Linked together by blood and by conspiracy, the family presents a façade of normalcy.  The father continues to ride out in the morning and return later in the day with the slain bodies of his sport.  Standing beside the massive carcass of a stag in his Cossack coat with its bandoleers crossing his chest, his head crowned by a tall fur hat, the Emperor stares impassively into the lens of a camera.  What goes on beneath his mask is not for public consumption.

The girls continue with their lessons in French and Geography, and play tennis in the afternoon against the long shadows of the trees.  The mother plays at being an Empress in the evening when the local nobility come to call; but, away from prying eyes, she is her child’s faithful attendant and devoted slave.  She sits with him, holds his hand, wipes his tears and prays, an unending litany of supplication to an impersonal cosmos which wears a celestial face.

The servants are not fooled.  They hear the cries, the moans, the whimpers, the shrieks of agony as his precious blood cannot be stopped but flows unending through severed vessels into spaces never meant to hold such a crimson tide.  Some of the servants stuff their ears so they will not hear his pleas for mercy.  In the kitchen, in hallways, in the stables and gardens, they pass the rumour among themselves, “the boy shall die.”  Feelings of sadness and pity are mixed with indifference: Life goes on.

Beneath the trees it is cool; the leaves make a harlequin carpet where they fall on the path.  All week long the charade has been going on.  Depressed and tired of her role in this great drama, the youngest princess at last abandons the sorrowful house and wanders into the woods by herself.  She feels the need to be alone, to grapple with the things that cannot be thought about within the stifling walls.  As the wall of trees closes in around her, she allows herself to be enveloped by the rare commodities of peace and solitude.  Eventually someone will come looking for her.  The path her feet have chosen is the one they call the “mushroom path” because it ends in a little glade with a bench surrounded by a fairy-ring of mushrooms.  Behind her she leaves her sisters praying to their icons; those holy images, windows of communication between the living and the divine; they plead for an act of intercession, one which will save their brother’s life.  The Emperor and his consort have at last dropped the brittle masks of deception and told the world that their only son is ill unto death.  “Pray for him,” they ask.  “And for ourselves, as well.”

There is no onion-domed, jewel box, House of God breathing incense and holiness here at Spala.  Only a large green tent of canvas which has been hastily erected on the great lawn offers sanctuary to the faithful.  The doctors have admitted the failure of science and time slips effortlessly back into the cave of superstition.  Like a metronome, the censor swings back and forth to the chanting of the priests who lead the crowd through the ritual phrases, entreating and acknowledging that which they do not understand.  The Empress’ older sister, who bequeathed the same tainted blood to her own sons, is here as well.  Beside them, she keeps the same vigil for her nephew that she kept for her youngest son when he lay on his deathbed eight years ago.  Beneath the flimsy shelter, Imperial knees crush the grass along with the knees of their friends, of family members, of servants, of soldiers, and of peasants who know what it is to lose a child.  In the back of the tent, the girl who is related to the woman who washes the household’s clothing, raises her hands to her face and prays for the soul of the young prince.  From where she kneels, she observes the Imperial Family crossing themselves in the opposite direction from the way in which she has been taught; without hesitation she copies them.  Together they weep and pray and wait for the future to reveal what is behind its curtain.  The day is a long and anguished one.

A bend in the path places a wall of trees between the voices of those who remain on the lawn and the young princess’ ears.  Soon only the sonorous breath of the forest is heard.  Her white shoes pick up the wet leaves and leave faint traces of her passing.  It is cold.  Now and again to her nose comes the scent, mingled with the wet stench of the woods, that presages the fall of snow.  Raised in a land where the nights of winter last for weeks at a time and everything outside of the snug world within the yellow and white walls of her home lies enshrouded by the dust-sheets of winter, she is no stranger to that particular smell.

The day has grown late and in the forest it is dim, so dim that she does not see the figure sitting on the stone bench until she has entered the clearing.  A head of golden-brown hair turns, and she is looking into her own eyes set within her own face.  She comes to an abrupt halt, but it is too late.

“Who are you?”  This sheltered princess is more curious than frightened.  She does not feel the delicate crackle of the fairy-ring’s power surrounding her.

The girl on the bench rises to face the princess.  Dressed in the dark-drab clothing of a servant, nonetheless, she is the mirror-image of the girl in white.  Her eyes are red-rimmed from too many tears.  Wordlessly she lifts her hand. 

The princess feels a shiver climb her spine and lift the fine hairs on the crown of her head.  “Who are you?”  This time it is not a question but an imperious demand.

“Your highness.”  As she says it, the girl in the dark dress snatches back her hand in confusion.  For her to say this phrase correctly it must be followed by a bow or curtsey, a sign that rank has been admitted.  Yet her knees do not bend and her eyes do not leave that other face, thus nothing is established but ambiguity.

The princess’ brow furrows unattractively as she scowls at this odd creature who stands trembling before her.  Though the girl did not demonstrate the proper obeisance, the princess has been addressed by her title for so many years that she does not hear it as a reply, only as an acknowledgment.  “You must work here.” 

The girl nods slowly and then shakes her head.  “I am only visiting Spala for a short time,” she replies.

The princess does not know Polish and the other girl can not speak Russian, so they converse haltingly in German.  It is an irony of which neither of them is aware.  In two years time, both of their countries will be at war with Germany and the spell being laid on them as they stand here in these woods at this exact conjunction of the moons, stars and planets, will be realized eight years hence in Berlin.

The princess’ serious expression remains in place.  “What are you doing here in the woods?”

“I needed to be... in a quiet place.”  The girl stammers out her reply.

It is an answer that the princess understands.  Together they stand in the gloom, isolated from the tragedy that is taking place in the house, bound together by the uncanny similarities of face and form, both trying to ease their loads of grief which have been fueled by the afternoon’s holy rituals.

“I feel so badly about your brother.”

The princess accepts this offer of sympathy with a nod.  It is a gesture she has observed both of her parents to make on those occasions when they wished to mask their own inner turmoil.  The girl understands that the princess has signaled that they share the same pain and confusion in this matter.

“I thought I smelt snow-clouds a few minutes ago.”  The princess looks around with an expression of mild surprise that there are no white flakes falling from the shadowed heights.  Her eyes return to rest once again on the face of the girl who stands in the twilight with her.  The strangeness she felt upon entering the glade is gone.  “The pond at home will soon be turning into ice.  I like skating on it in the winter.”  Mention of her home brings a light to her face and she smiles for the first time in many days.

“You ice skate?”  Such an activity seems alien in connection with princesses.

“Of course!”  The princess herself does not see it as incongruous with her title.  “We spend hours playing in the snow.  We skate and ride our sleds down the hills, and have snowball fights, as well.  It is great fun!”  She stops, the smile fading from her face.  “Baby loves the snow, too.”  This is whispered as her transitory thoughts turn back like a compass’ needle to the boy who lies dying beyond the trees.

The coolness of the afternoon has become the bitter chill of the approaching evening.  Darkness, balled up within the branches of the trees and huddling near its roots, waits for night to fall and spread out over the forest like an inky cloud.  The girls shiver and simultaneously run their hands up and down their arms.  The forest, having lured these two into its depths and seen its purpose fulfilled, now relinquishes its hold on them.  From the unseen house in the distance, both girls hear the princess’ name being carried on the wind.

“It is my nurse!”  The princess is uncharacteristically contrite.  Her habitual disregard for the formality of her exalted station, usually expressed by her readiness for playing tricks, has deserted her.  “I must get back before Papa begins to worry about me.”  Spinning on the white kid heel of her shoe, she hastens back up the path to rejoin her family.

The other girl is not so keen to leave this place of shadows and fantasy.  In the space of an afternoon she has moved out of the pedestrian world into which she was born and entered into a fairytale.  Dreamily, she repeats their conversation to herself, examining the nuances of character revealed in their few exchanged sentences.  She no longer feels that she is on the fringes of what is happening here, but sees herself swept up and into a great drama.  Like the saint of Avila, she swoons ecstatically on the sarcophagal stone of the bench and lets the turbulent visions of her adolescent imagination begin their work of redefining who she is.

Night has come to Spala.  The gloom is a palpable creature sitting at the feet of those friends and advisors who have gathered in the Empress’ boudoir, relentlessly stifling all of their attempts at conversation.  Depressed and anxious, they wait together for the inevitable pronouncement of the heir’s departure from life.  Wreathed in filmy coils, the Emperor nervously smokes cigarette after cigarette from his gem-encrusted box.  In the past week he has watched his wife’s crown of golden hair become bitten by frost.  He, whose word can alter the destiny of millions, is powerless to stop the black shadows reaching out for his son.

Heads turn and crane forward expectantly as the door opens.  It is the Empress’ sister coming to tell those who are waiting that the end is very near.  Down the hall, in the boy’s room, the last rites have been given and received, there is nothing more that can be done by anyone here.

Alone with her son, the Empress sits motionless in her chair brooding over the knowledge that all hope has been withdrawn for the boy’s recovery.  She has heeded the doctors and obeyed the priests only to have them fail her.  For her, the hours of these past days have been like a series of veils being lifted one by one until they are all gone and she is left staring directly into Death’s face.  Everyone has given up except her.  A miracle is needed.  Such is the intensity of her faith that it gives her the confidence to believe in Divine magic, and her own strong will compels her to seek it.  As if pulled by a lodestone, her thoughts become fixed on the one she calls her “Friend.”  Close to the earth, and closer to God than she, perhaps by his prayers death can be changed into life for her son.

In the hour after midnight, when the memory of light is at its faintest, she summons her confidant into her presence and gives her instructions to beg for a miracle.    It is an act of inspired desperation which will create the lynch-pin on which all of their fates will turn.  For her though, here in the deep woods where the clouds have obscured the navigating stars, it is her last chance to achieve redemption.  Her message transmuted into a succession of electrons, the signal travels almost instantaneously down the miles of wires that stretch across a land of endless forests and frozen steppes to a tiny village on the edge of nowhere.

Morning comes, thin and grey, but finds no corpses to illuminate.  The doctors have not changed their minds and still offer only death; while the priests continue to address the afterlife in prayer.  Into their midst, her slender frame barely concealing her incandescent faith, the Empress carries the answer to her entreaties like a banner of victory.  Against the forces of reason and ritual, she confronts them with a miracle: my son will live! 

And he does.  To their amazement they find that the boy no longer burns with fever and that his blood no longer flows unchecked.  The boy sleeps, the doctors debate, the priests deliver holy sustenance.  Outside, concealing the familiar, lies a layer of fresh, new snow. 

In a few days the snow melts.  The Emperor returns to the forest’s shadows to hunt his elusive quarry.  The princesses study once again with their tutor and play tennis in the afternoon.  On the porch, the boy and his mother convalesce together in the late autumn sunlight and think of the comforting author of this miracle.  He has yet to see what he has accomplished from the heart of the taiga.

The family will stay here for another month and then, in carriages pulled over roads smoothed by the labour of many human hands and in sumptuous railway cars that roll at a snail’s pace, they will creep homeward believing that the cosmos has smiled on them and that they are favoured by God.  They will not see the future battlefields they are crossing on this journey, nor will they be aware of the maw that is preparing to open and swallow them.  Oblivious to everything but their reprieve, they trust that they are leaving Spala behind.  Yet the consequences of what has happened here at Spala will follow them out of these ancient woods like a black wolf.   It will be at their heels down all the roads they take, and it will eventually lead them to the cellar of the House of Special Purpose.

And what of the girl who even now watches as the injured prince is tenderly placed among the cushions for the ride to the railway station?   Soon she will return to the stifling confines of the backwater into which she was born, and from there she should vanish into obscurity.  But that is not what will happen.  For her interest in this family has become an obsession and the subtle process of incarnation has begun.  Within an invisible chrysalis, one identity prepares to be shed and another one assumed in the cold waters of a Berlin canal.  It is a matter of theurgy and delusion, the twin aspects of Spala.

Copyright (c) Candace Gylgayton, 1997

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