The Age of Ice: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

larders.
    Imagine a cheerful crowd of Leib Guard officers invading the imperial kitchens, holding the staff almost at gunpoint. Led, as ever, by Svetogorov, we descended into the basement, unlocked a door to a room, and flipped the lid of a chest to reveal layers of straw that covered perfectly preserved, huge slabs of ice. We whipped out our swords and attempted to hack at it, but the highest-grade imperial ice resisted splendidly. Then Svetogorov found an ice pick, and the next moment, shards of ice flew in all directions as if they were alive and trying to escape. My fellows frolicked after them, but I—I froze. One shard had lodged itself at my feet and lay there waiting. It glittered in the candlelight and it seemed to radiate confidence—a groomed, smooth, mature ice. It could have been old. As old as I. It could have been the very same ice from which Empress Anna’s Ice Palace had been built. The ice my parents had lain on. Do they not say that ice has memory? Suddenly, it seemed as if my mind—no, my whole body impaled itself on a peculiar realization: if I picked it up, it would become one with me.
    Why?!
    “Hey!” Svetogorov pushed me in the shoulder. “Wake up!”
    I fled the basement.
    • • •
    Svetogorov said, “Marriage fears. Nothing out of the ordinary.” I begged to differ.
    But in those days we did not speak so openly. Euphemisms, innuendos, and—for the more daring—French colloquialisms, oft misinterpreted, were all we had. Svetogorov used to say that I had been either too anxious or too idealistic with the ladies; in private, he may have thought that I simply couldn’t achieve an erection. That, I could. What I could not do was explain to him how strange were the fears that struck me after the visit to the ice box. As grotesque as they were vague, they fled the torch of reason but returned tripled the moment reason looked the other way. What if some curse had been precipitated on me and my brother at conception? Was that why Andrei disliked me? What if Marie would be repelled by me just as others had been? No matter how fond of me she was now, what would she do on our connubial night?
    And could I—should I—talk to her about it?
    • • •
    The gentle humor of the rites of courtship is that after one’s intent had been declared, everybody conspires to create opportunities for imminentproposal. Watchdog aunts and nosy sisters now flutter out of the room whenever one pays one’s call. Everybody, including the bride-to-be, stares at one with bright anticipation. Yet, time after time, one fails to deliver.
    Same as ever, that day: we were walking down a path in the Italian Gardens, and Marie’s mother, uncharacteristically interested in every rose along the way, just kept falling farther and farther behind. I grew tenser by the minute, which finally caused Marie to take matters into her own hands. “ Mon ami, forgive me, but I can’t help but see you are ill at ease with me. I should like to know the reason. I would hate to cause you an upset and not amend it.”
    I stopped. I could lie or evade. Or confess. Did we not love each other? Ought we not to speak of our woes? So at long last I said, “I hope it would not be a surprise to you if I say that I’d be honored and delighted to ask your hand in marriage, but before I even dare to do it, I need to tell you something important.”
    She was intrigued—pleasantly, so far. “But by all means! You should not have troubled yourself over it, I would gladly listen to you and help in any way.”
    The next step was much harder. I took her hand and stopped looking her in the eyes. I squeezed the words out with much labor and torment, meander and pause. The summary of it was: “I have a concern about myself,” and “when we’re man and wife you may be dissatisfied with me,” and “if so I will never forgive myself for binding you in a union that was a burden,” and “I have to ask your permission to perform a trial of sorts