“The banker?” she said at once, when I told her the name Moshel. “I don’t know where he lives, but the steward will. Ula,” she said to the girl, “go bring us some kruschiki and some cherries, and then go tell Panov Nolius that dear Magreta is here and ask if he won’t join us for a cup of tea: we shouldn’t make her run all over the house after so much traveling.” Another little dancing step there, because she liked to make the steward come to her, which he would not do, except that here I was. And here I was, and the wall was warm at my back, and I was too old to keep dancing anymore. I only sat and drank my tea and took another cup with cherries and ate a sweet crisp melting kruschik and said thank you to Panov Nolius when he did deign to come and sit and have tea with us.
“Panov Moshel lives in the fourth house on Varenka Street,” he said cool and stiff, when I asked him the name. “Does Her Majesty want to arrange a loan? I would be glad to be of service.”
“A loan? The tsarina?” I said, confused; Irina had said a man in the Jewish quarter, and I had thought of those moneylenders in their little stalls who looked through their small round glasses at a silver ring that had come from your mother, and then gave you money for it. A little nothing of money, compared with what it was worth to you, but the little money that you had to have just then, because one of the girls who had sat in that dark room with you, for hours, had snuck out to see one of those soldiers who’d let you out, and now she needed a doctor who wouldn’t come except for silver and in the middle of the night. That was what it meant to me, someone who lent money in the Jewish quarter. That was not someone for a duke or a tsarina to deal with.
Nolius liked that I didn’t know any better; I might be the tsarina’s servant, but I was still a silly old woman who thought the world was made of small things, and he was the trusted steward of the duke. So then he unbent a little and took a kruschik and told me, pleased and full of knowledge, “No, no, Panov Moshel has a bank: a man of solid worth, most reputable. He helped to arrange the loans for the rebuilding of the city wall after the war, with great discretion. His Grace has had him here to the house eight times on business, and all times ordered that he be treated with great respect. And never once has Moshel tried to trade upon it. He comes always on foot, not in a carriage; the women of his family dress soberly, and he keeps a modest house. Never has he asked a favor in return.”
I had always thought of the city wall as something built by soldiers, and not with money, but of course you would have to pay for it somehow; for stones and mortar and food for men to eat and clothes for them to wear while they built it for you, but even if I had imagined it so far, I would have thought only that the money must have come from a strongroom somewhere, a chest full of gold like a duke would have or a tsar. I wouldn’t have thought of it coming from quiet men in plain coats who didn’t ride in carriages.
Nolius leaned in so he could be sure I would understand he was telling me a private thing only a man of his importance would know, and added with much significance, “He has been given to know that if he converted, doors might be opened for him.” Then he sat back and shrugged, opening a hand. “But he did not choose it, and His Grace was satisfied. I have heard him say, ‘I would rather have my affairs in the hands of a man who is content than a man who is hungry. I prefer to take my risks on the battlefield.’ I would certainly recommend him if Her Majesty desired to make any financial arrangements.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “No, it’s a different matter, a woman’s matter. His granddaughter gave her a gift, one that she treasures, and she wants to make a return on the occasion of her wedding. She asked me to arrange a gift.”
Nolius looked puzzled, and glanced at Palmira: of course they thought I had muddled the story, and they were right, I knew I had gotten something in it wrong. But it didn’t matter. Let that be the story. It was strange enough already. “It was a gift given before her wedding,” I added, though, to make it a little less strange to them.
Palmira said, “Ah!” very delicately, and they both decided at once they wouldn’t press the question more, after all. There wasn’t any sense bringing up the old days when they might have been rude to me in the hallways when we passed; the days when Irina and I lived in two cold rooms a little too high in the house for a duke’s daughter, and when she might have been glad for whatever present a Jew’s granddaughter might send her: a farsighted Jew’s granddaughter, who had been wiser than they, and planted a seed of gratitude that now would come to flower.
“Well, of course it must be something notable,” Nolius said firmly: anyone who had recognized my lady must be rewarded, since otherwise those who had neglected her must be punished. “No jewels, of course, or money. Perhaps something for her household…”
“We should ask Edita’s advice,” Palmira said, meaning the housekeeper, and Nolius was also happy to have her come, since he had lowered himself, so a few minutes later she came, too, and had tea with cherries and asked me questions about the tsar’s palace.
“It’s too cold for an old woman,” I said. “Such windows everywhere! Taller twice over than this whole wall,” I showed them with my hand, “and the wall as long as the ballroom, and that is only the bedchamber. Six fireplaces going at once, to keep from freezing alive, and everything in gold, everything: the windows and the table legs and the bath, everything. Six women to clean the room.”
They all sighed with pleasure, and Edita said to Nolius, “I don’t envy whoever runs his household! So many to manage!” and he nodded seriously back to her, both of them of course full of glowing envy, but since they could not have the trouble of it themselves, they would at least content themselves by reminding each other with pleasure that they, too, had a great household to manage, and understood as others could not how difficult it was.
But the conversation wasn’t foolish really: it gave us all an excuse to sit a little while longer and rest together, in the room that was warm with the fire behind me and the four of us sitting close and the hot tea, an excuse that we had to have, or else be bad servants neglecting our work. The duchess did not keep bad servants. Edita took another small sip of her cup and said to me, in a thoughtful tone, “What about that tablecloth, dear Magreta? Do you remember, the present for the wedding of the boyar’s daughter, and then nothing came of it? It was such lovely work.”
I remembered it, I remembered it very well. That boyar was a man who had fought for the duke, and so the duke wanted a handsome gift given. And everyone else had as much work as they could hold, the duchess and her ladies, and over the years I’d little by little slowed my pace and spared my hands, cautiously, as Irina grew; I’d said, oh, I have all her things to sew, and apologized, and did the tasks Edita sent me a bit slower than she liked, so she gave me a little less. But Irina was fourteen that year, so they had brought up the baskets of silk wool to our little rooms, and Edita had smiling said it was time for Irina to be learning how to do fine work; I could teach her. And it must be done in a month, dear Magreta.
So in the end, she got back all the work I had tried to save out of my hands. I had spun the silk alone with my eyes and fingers aching into the hours of the night while my girl slept, because she already wasn’t beautiful, with her thin pallid face and sharp nose, and I was afraid to make her ugly with squinting and bending over work by the fire and not enough sleep. There wouldn’t be a great marriage for her, I thought then, but there might be a house somewhere at least; maybe an older man who wouldn’t trouble her very much, and she would have a bedroom that was not at the top of the stairs, and be the mistress there. And there would be a corner for me, where I could rock by the cradle if a child came, and knit only small things.