You cupped my face in your hands, your silhouette wreathed like a devil in brimstone smoke by the steam pluming from the train.
“We’ve waltzed through a hundred tiny apocalypses, you and I, walked unharmed through the ash of countless crumbling regimes. We feast on the ruin of empires, Constanta. Their destruction is our high feast day.”
I pressed my lips together. Where you saw glorious progress, I only saw war, famine, and desolation. Humans had learned in recent years to make machines so ferocious they could blow a person to bits, vampire or no. I wondered if we should be more concerned about the way the world was tilting.
Magdalena emerged from the train, squinting against the thin dawn light. We would have to hurry to our apartments for a long sleep before the sun was at its full height. You kissed her gloved hand.
“Say hello to your fresh start, my love.”
The apartments you rented us were near the city central, optimum for hunting. I wish I could remember more about them, but we weren’t in Russia for very long. All I can clearly recall is the beautiful crown molding rimming the room Magdalena and I shared, tiny flowers rendered in swirling white plaster.
Autumn disappearing fast into a frosty winter, with the last rain-battered golden leaves still clinging valiantly to the trees. Still, we spent most of our time out of the house, attending night markets and visiting whatever theatrical performances were still running. The city was too dangerous for Magdalena and I to walk freely without a chaperone, you said, although I couldn’t fathom what terror any human could unleash on us that we weren’t fully prepared for. You urged us to stay at home, to read Pushkin and sew and practice our music, while you purveyed the coffeehouses and taverns. You trafficked with radicals and constitutionalists, anarchists and Decembrists and representatives of the Duma, cataloging them with rapt fascination. Such a vibrant symphony of human philosophy and desire on display, you said. Such a roiling brew of ideas, of potential.
Potential. You always loved that word. You were drawn to potential like a shark to blood.
Magdalena all but seethed with jealousy over your political connections, and begged you to inform her over every new coup, each philosophical principle. You doled them out the way you would candy to a child, smiling warmly at her as you teased her with your knowledge, all the while forbidding her from taking up correspondence of her own. It was too dangerous for a woman, you said.
Unsurprisingly, Magdalena and I became restless. I could not resist the siren song of a new language, a new culture to explore, and Magdalena was itching for fresh air and fresh ideas. She privately referred to our time in the apartment as her “gilded confinement”， and I had to talk her out of letting herself out onto the street more than once. I wanted to let her go. I wanted to turn my back while she slipped out the window, or throw the door open wide for her the moment you disappeared from view. I wanted her to taste freedom, to feel the salty sea air toying with her hair, to find a lover or a meal in a darkened tavern. She was still young, still fresh and vibrant. I feared smothering the light that came back into her eyes when she dreamed of roaming the whole of Petrograd.
But, my captor, I feared your ire more. So I coddled her and shushed her and kept her shut up in our stuffy home just the way you wanted, without you even having to ask me to.
You must have known, my lord. You always knew. You could sense the moment one of us began to draw away from you with the acuteness of a bloodhound. That’s when either the iron fist or the velvet glove came out. Sometimes it was both. But ever since Magdalena’s melancholy became more pronounced, you favored sweetness. Magdalena was delicate, you confided to me. Prone to emotional weaknesses and flights of fancy. We must handle her carefully for a while, give her everything she wanted. I didn’t want her to run off and abandon our family, did I? I didn’t want to lose my only friend. Best convince her to stay then, by whatever means necessary.
I didn’t realize what means you were referring to until you took us to the artist’s studio. He was a favorite of yours, lauded in the coffeehouse for both his progressive politics and his mastery over stone, plaster, and oil paints.
“A true savant,” you declared as you helped Magdalena into her coat. “A genius of his age. I must show you some of his work. Anything you want in the studio, you can have. Pick whatever beautiful thing strikes your fancy and we’ll bring it home.”
At the time I thought you were just in one of your magnanimous, indulgent moods, the ones that made your kindness feel extravagant. I should have learned by then to expect some kind of scheme.