A Sojourn in Bohemia Read online

  Thirty? Varanus thought. What nonsense was that? She had been physically twenty-five for the past quarter century.

  “I am an adherent of wellness,” Varanus explained. “I…milk bathe, you see. And…eat…cereals.”

  In truth, she knew little about the cult of wellness and its various remedies for old age and disease, but it seemed the sort of excuse a person could give for unnatural youth.

  “Oh, I see,” Erzsebet replied. The girl was clearly confused by the explanation, but she had the good sense not to inquire further. “Well…I shall go and tell Stanislav that there are guests, though I imagine he knows already, with the arrival of Zoya’s ‘muse’.”

  “I daresay,” Friedrich answered, giving Erzsebet a smile. “Mother and I will join you all presently.”

  “Do hurry,” Erzsebet said. “Ilya arrived from Russia last night.”

  “No!” Friedrich exclaimed. “I thought they deported him to Siberia!”

  “Siberia?” Varanus asked.

  “No, no, he was convicted of revolutionary activity, but he escaped,” Erzsebet explained. “I am certain he will be happy to tell you of it himself.”

  “With embellishments,” Friedrich agreed, sighing happily. “1899 will be a marvelous year, I am sure of it! Now then, go along and we will join you all very soon.”

  “Yes, of course,” Erzsebet said. She bowed her head to Varanus. “Again, an honor…Doctor Princess Shashavani.”

  “Mmm,” Varanus answered, nodding. She waited until Erzsebet had gone, before turning to Friedrich and shaking her head. “What a peculiarly earnest girl.”

  “A wonderful young lady, you’ll see,” Friedrich assured her. “Hungarian nobility, you know. Her family tried to marry her to a man twice her age whom she despised—some political thing—so she ran away with her lover at the time: my good friend Stanislav.”

  “I see,” Varanus replied.

  “He’s a musician,” Friedrich explained.

  “Ah,” Varanus said. That would the violin music.

  “And a revolutionary.”

  “Of course he is.” Varanus sighed. Her son had fallen in with a most peculiar crowd of people: not only artists, but also politicals. She could not imagine what sort of a bad influence they might be. Smiling at him, she said, “Alistair—”

  “Friedrich, Mother.”

  “Yes, Friedrich,” Varanus agreed.

  Alistair had been the name Varanus gave her son when he was born. “Friedrich” had been imposed upon him by his aunt Ilse, who had raised him after he had been so cruelly stolen from Varanus shortly after his birth. It was always a trial to remember to call him by the wrong name, which he had for some reason adopted as his own.

  “Friedrich, how are you?” Varanus asked. “What ever have you been doing?”

  “Asia,” Friedrich replied.

  “Asia is a place, Friedrich, not an activity.”

  “I do beg your pardon, Mother,” Friedrich amended. “I should have said, ‘I have been being in Asia.’ ”

  “Much better,” Varanus replied. At least it was grammatically correct. “And what have you been doing in Asia?” she asked.

  “Visiting distant relations,” Friedrich replied.

  Varanus sighed at this. It was obviously not the real answer. Friedrich was simply referencing an old fanciful tale about his paternal grandmother being a great khan somewhere north of Afghanistan. It was the same story that Korbinian had told Varanus’s grandfather when he had been courting her, and it was not at all plausible.

  Instead, she placed her hands upon her son’s waist. She felt his ribs and hipbones through his smoking jacket, and this did little to reassure her about his health.

  “You…you haven’t been eating, have you?” she asked.

  “Now Mother—”

  “Or sleeping!” Varanus looked at the deep circles around Friedrich’s eyes.

  “I.…” Friedrich frowned. “I have been very devoted to my work of late, that is all. Surely you understand.”

  Varanus wanted to protest, but on that point she could not. She understood the draw of science, which demanded one’s attention beyond all considerations of hunger or exhaustion. So long as one could stand and the pangs of hunger were not too great, the work was more important and could not be interrupted. But she was immortal, Living Shashavani; Friedrich still walked in the Shadow of Death, and he needed both food and rest. She would not have her only child working himself into an early grave!

  “Nonsense, Alis…Friedrich,” Varanus replied. “Even in the midst of scientific discovery, I know how to eat a meal.”

  It was a lie, but a necessary one.

  “And you, Friedrich, are not eating enough,” she said. She touched his cheek and frowned at the rough red hair that covered it. “And this beard!”

  “I thought it was rather artistic,” Friedrich replied, stroking his chin proudly.

  “It is dreadful, Friedrich,” Varanus replied. “You must shave the damned thing immediately!”

  “I will do no such thing, Mother!”

  “Oh, but Friedrich, it does not suit you!”

  In all truth, she doubted that such a thing would suit anyone!

  “Nonsense, Mother, I think I look very dashing with it,” Friedrich said. “And I will not shave it off.”

  “But Friedrich—”

  “I am not a child, Mother.” Friedrich laughed. “You cannot tell me when to shave!”

  At that moment, they were interrupted by Ekaterine, who danced back into the foyer with light steps, looking very pleased with herself as she removed her hat. She stopped short at the sight of Friedrich and smiled in delight.

  “Alistair!” she exclaimed.

  “Friedrich,” he corrected, though his face lit up at the sight of her, and he looked at her in a way that was not at all proper for a nephew to look upon an aunt. The fact that she was not actually his aunt was not a point of consideration.

  “Yes, of course, Friedrich,” Ekaterine amended. She patted his cheek and sighed. “Oh, but Friedrich, this beard of yours is simply dreadful. You must shave it off at once!”

  Friedrich frowned to hear this, but he did not immediately rebuff the suggestion as he had done with Varanus. Instead, he said:

  “Oh, but surely… I think it’s rather artistic. Don’t you agree, Auntie?”

  Ekaterine removed the pins securing her hat and answered, “Friedrich, art is measured in paint, not whiskers.”

  “You don’t find it a bit dashing?” Friedrich ventured.

  Ekaterine sighed as she removed her hat.

  “Friedrich, only three sorts of men grow beards: fathers, sailors, and those who have given up on life. And being neither of the first two, I should hope that you are not among the third.”

  Friedrich laughed at the statement, but then he stroked his upper lip and said, “Well, perhaps it is not right for me. But what about a moustache? I think I could wear a moustache very well.”

  “Nonsense.” Ekaterine sighed and placed her hat and hat pins into Friedrich’s hands. “Hold these for me, will you?”

  “Well, yes, of course—”

  “Friedrich,” Ekaterine said, “there is only one man in this world who may grow a moustache and that is my cousin Luka. All other men who attempt it are surly charlatans, and I would dread to think that you are one of them.”

  “Oh, I see.” Friedrich was silent for a few moments, holding Ekaterine’s hat in one hand. He stroked his chin. “Well…I shall go and shave then. Do excuse me, Mother, Auntie. Go on into the parlor. I’ll join you shortly.”

  Varanus stared open-mouthed as Friedrich hurried back up the stairs in search of a wash basin and his razor. When he had gone, she turned to Ekaterine, who was shaking out her hair so that it fell about her shoulders in a wild and unruly manner.

 
“How did you manage that?” she demanded. “I’ve just asked him the very same thing, and he refused me at every turn!”

  “Oh, Doctor,” Ekaterine said, giving Varanus a warm embrace, “you must learn that there are some requests that a young man will surely refuse when made by his mother that he will still agree to when asked by a maiden aunt. And shaving is one of them.”

  Varanus sighed and shook her head.

  “I don’t know which is worse, Ekaterine,” she said. “That my son is so troublesome or that you indulge him.”

  “He’s not troublesome; he is young,” Ekaterine corrected. “People eventually grow out of that. As for indulging him, that is something aunts never grow out of.”

  “Hush,” Varanus replied, laughing at this. Then she paused a moment and gave Ekaterine a serious look. “Ekaterine, why have you taken off your hat?”

  “Didn’t you hear?” Ekaterine asked, taking Varanus by the hand and leading her toward the parlor. “I’m going to have my portrait painted!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Varanus followed Ekaterine into the adjoining parlor, which was broken and decaying like the rest of the house. It was deceptively cozy, Varanus had to admit, with a warm fire to keep out the chill and gas lamps that were kept well lit despite the cost. But still, it was a poor and unkempt place. All the furniture was broken or otherwise damaged, there were empty wine bottles in all of the corners, and the furnishings, such as there were, were all threadbare.

  There were half a dozen people in the room. The girl Erzsebet was sitting beside a man with a bushy, unkempt beard who was playing the violin by the window. Another fellow lounged on a sofa nearby, scribbling bits of poetry onto sheets of paper before tossing them on the floor, evidently dissatisfied with every last bit of his own work. Two more men sat across the room, shouting at one another in a mixture of Russian and German, though no one else seemed to care. And finally there was the strange painter, Zoya, who had her easel set up by the fireplace and was busy stirring up the fire to what Varanus assumed to be the “artistically necessary” degree of intensity.

  Zoya turned to Varanus and Ekaterine as they entered and hurried over to them, taking Ekaterine by the hand and pulling her toward a chair by the fire.

  “Come, muse, come!” she exclaimed. “The light will not last forever.”

  “How very peculiar,” Varanus mused.

  “Isn’t it fun?” Ekaterine asked, in what it seemed she thought was agreement. “I’ve never been an artist’s model before!”

  “Indeed,” Varanus said.

  She stood to one side and watched the room. Nearby, the two arguing revolutionaries carried on, easy to hear and difficult to ignore.

  “Revolution is simply impossible in Russia!” one of them insisted, his accent German. “Marxism is not made for such a rural country!”

  “That is absurd!” came the retort, the speaker clearly a Russian. “What is needed for revolution is oppression and tyranny. And you tell me, my friend, what nation in all the world is as oppressed as Russia?”

  “Marxism requires a proletariat!” said the German.

  “There is a proletariat!” answered the Russian. “And we are more aware of the need for revolution than you here in Austria!”

  “Nonsense, you have nothing but peasants! And you cannot have a revolution with peasants!”

  Varanus sighed and ignored them. Arguing about peasants and revolution? What sort of people had her son fallen in with?

  She turned her attention back to Ekaterine and the painter. Zoya had directed Ekaterine to the chair and was busy adjusting her hair. Ekaterine sat through it without complaint, unable to take the grin of amusement from her face. Finally, Zoya backed away slowly, holding her hands out toward Ekaterine.

  “Do not move,” she said. “Do…not…move.…”

  “Mmhmm,” Ekaterine answered.

  “Ekaterine I cannot believe that you are humoring this,” Varanus said.

  “Oh, she is having fun, Liebchen,” Korbinian murmured in Varanus’s ear.

  Varanus turned and saw Korbinian leaning against the wall nearby, his arms folded. Varanus simply shook his head at him. There were far too many people around for her to give an answer. But yes, he was right: Ekaterine was having fun. And why shouldn’t she? She had no business in Prague; she was simply there accompanying Iosef and Varanus. It might be good for her to have some sort of diversion, though being an artist’s model was not quite what Varanus would have had in mind.

  “Does the light still adore me?” Ekaterine asked, as Zoya began to paint her.

  Zoya’s eyes darted from the canvas to Ekaterine, mimicking the rapid movements of her brush as it covered the canvas in dabs and strokes of paint. She did not even break the darting of her eyes as she replied:

  “Oh yes, muse, it most surely does. And by firelight… I wonder…I wonder how you look in the sun.”

  “Radiant,” Ekaterine answered.

  “Cheeky,” Varanus said.

  She walked to the easel and studied the painting. Although there was little to be seen yet, there was something almost coherent forming on the canvas. But the method of painting was simply bizarre to Varanus’s eyes, for it seemed to involve laying fragmented bits of color all over the canvas in the hopes that viewed together they might be mistaken for some greater whole. It almost reminded Varanus of certain works by Claude Monet, but altogether more chaotic.

  “Your style is very…unique,” she said to Zoya.

  “Thank you,” Zoya answered. Her tone, though it was distant and focused, suggested that she interpreted the word as a compliment.

  “Is it Impressionist?” Varanus asked.

  She knew little about artistic movements and cared about them even less—why quarrel over methodologies of art when scientific questions were so much more important?

  “Impressionist?” Zoya exclaimed. “Do not speak to me of the Impressionists, Madam! Superficial sentimentalists scrabbling about in the dark with their brush strokes!”

  “I thought that the Impressionists were all about light,” Ekaterine interjected. Varanus suspected that her friend knew more about European art than she did. Ekaterine had always been eclectic in the subjects she found it worth her attention to study. She might never be a great scientist, but she was a truly remarkable dilettante.

  Zoya made a face and grumbled, “The likes of Monet and Renoir and Bazille wouldn’t recognize light if it shone into their eyes!”

  “I believe that is what light generally does,” Varanus said.

  “Even Seurat!” Zoya cried, never once stopping the mad tapping of her brush. “Such genius! Yet wasted, wasted!”

  “I’ve never met the man,” Ekaterine replied, acting like she was expected to have done so. “I’m afraid I couldn’t say.”

  “Seurat…” Varanus mused. “The name is familiar. I’m certain I saw a painting of his when we were last in France. Something about a river.”

  “Well they do have a lot of those in France,” Ekaterine agreed.

  “Paintings or rivers?”

  “Both?”

  “If you aren’t an Impressionist, then what are you?” Varanus asked.

  She felt Korbinian appear behind her and whisper in her ear, “There appear to be quite a lot of dots on the canvas. Perhaps she is a Dottist.”

  Though rather funny, Varanus considered it to be a rude statement and she did not relay it.

  “I…” Zoya replied, drawing herself up proudly as she continued to dab at her canvas, even in the midst of a tirade unable to break from her work. “I am a Chromoluminarist!”

  “A what?”

  Zoya pointed at her canvas with her palette so that she would not have to distract her brush hand.

  “A Chromoluminarist. I take color and light and through them I show Truth.”

  Well, Varanus thought
, it is certainly grammatically correct and accurate by degrees.

  “I consider myself to be a disciple of Van Gogh,” Zoya continued.

  “Who?” Varanus asked.

  “Who? Who?” Zoya exclaimed. This at least was enough to pause her painting, though only for long enough to say the words; and then she was at it again, her hand working like a thing possessed while she carried on her conversation. “Not ten years in the grave and already forgotten!”

  This loud statement was enough to draw the attention of the others in the room. The arguing revolutionaries stopped their heated debate long enough to laugh heartily and raise their glasses in toast to something or other—Varanus could not make out what. A moment later, they were bickering again. Across the room, the violinist’s music paused, but not for long. Of them all, only the poet on the sofa paid any real mind, for he laughed aloud and said:

  “Hardly forgotten, dear Zoya! I daresay your beloved Dutchman is better known in death than he ever was in life!”

  “Oh be quiet, Karel!” Zoya snapped. “What would you know of it?”

  The poet named Karel called to Varanus and Ekaterine:

  “She only considers herself a disciple of his because she saw a few of his paintings on display in Belgium and took a fancy to them! And don’t let her tell you otherwise! She’s never even met the man!” He pointed his pen at Zoya and said, “Besides your paintings don’t even look like his! All your factories and shop girls and the struggles of the working class! You’re practically a Realist. You should call yourself a disciple of Millet.”

  “How dare you, Karel!” Zoya snapped. “If I were not working—”

  Varanus and Ekaterine exchanged looks, neither enjoying the angry mood that had suddenly imposed itself upon an otherwise perplexing environment.

  “Well, I don’t believe that you’re a Realist at all,” Ekaterine said. “You’re an absolute Goghite if you ask me.”

  Varanus rolled her eyes at the statement, but at least it did the task of diffusing the situation. Zoya immediately turned her back on Karel and looked at Ekaterine.