The House of Special Purpose Read Online Free PDF

wear different jewellery every day – opals, sapphires, rubies, diamonds – and during the season we will dance together in the throne room of the Winter Palace, and everyone will look at me from morning till night and admire me and wish that they could stand in my place.’
    I stared at her, this unrecognizable girl with her fantastical plans. Was this the sister who lay on the moss-and-pine floor beside me every night and woke up with the imprint of the grainy branches upon her cheeks? I could scarcely comprehend a single word of which she spoke. Princes, servants, jewellery. Such concepts were entirely alien to my young mind. And as for love. What was that, after all? How did that concern any of us? She caught my look of incomprehension, of course, and burst out laughing as she tousled my hair.
    ‘Oh, Georgy,’ she said, kissing me now on either cheek and then once on the lips for luck. ‘You don’t understand a thing I’m saying, do you?’
    ‘Yes,’ I insisted quickly, for I hated her to think of me as ignorant. ‘Of course I do.’
    ‘You’ve heard of the Winter Palace, haven’t you?’
    I hesitated. I wanted to say yes, but if I did, then she might not explain it in further detail and the words were already holding a certain allure. ‘I think I have,’ I said finally. ‘I can’t remember exactly. Remind me, Asya.’
    ‘The Winter Palace is where the Tsar lives,’ she explained. ‘With the Tsaritsa, of course, and the Imperial Family. You know who they are, don’t you?’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ I said quickly, for His Majesty’s name, and that of his family, was invoked before every meal as we offered a prayer for his continued health, generosity and wisdom. The prayers themselves often lasted longer than the eating. ‘I’m not stupid, you know.’
    ‘Well then you should know where the Tsar makes his home. Or one of his homes, anyway. He has many. Tsarskoe Selo. Livadia. The Standart .’
    I raised an eyebrow and now it was my turn to laugh. The notion of more than one home seemed ridiculous to me. Why would anyone need such a thing? Of course, I knew that Tsar Nicholas had been appointed to his glorious position by God himself, that his powers and autocracy were infinite and absolute, but was he possessed of magical qualities also? Could he be in more than one place simultaneously? The idea was absurd and yet somehow possible. He was the Tsar, after all. He could be anything. He could do anything. He was as much a god as God himself.
    ‘Will you take me to St Petersburg with you?’ I asked a few moments later, my voice sinking almost to a whisper, as if I was afraid that she might deny me this ultimate honour. ‘When you go, Asya. You won’t leave me behind, will you?’
    ‘I could try,’ she said magnanimously, considering it. ‘Or perhaps you could come and visit the prince and me when we are established in our new home. You can have a wing of our palace entirely for yourself and a team of butlers to assist you. And we will have children, of course, too. Beautiful children, many of them, boys and girls. You will be an uncle to them, Georgy. Would you like that?’
    ‘Certainly,’ I agreed, although I found myself growing jealous at the idea of sharing my beautiful sister with anyone else, even a prince of the royal blood.
    ‘One day …’ she said with a sigh, staring into the fire as if she could see depictions of her glorious future flickering and bursting into life within the flames. Of course, she was only a child herself at the time. I wonder whether it was Kashin that she hated or just a better life that she longed for.
    It saddens me to recall that conversation from such a distance of time. My heart aches to think that she never achieved herambitions. For it was not Asya who found her way to St Petersburg and the Winter Palace. It was not she who ever knew how it felt to be surrounded by the seductive power of wealth and luxury.
    It was me. It was little Georgy.
    The closest