He held out his hand – his left hand this time – towards his empress for another fig and I noticed for the first time that his hand was missing its last two fingers, just like mine. I looked at my own left hand, cradling it in my right as I considered my disfigurement, and wondered how it was that I had never before remarked on the coincidence of Bonaparte having the same injury I did. I looked up again and found the emperor had gone, or at least he had gone from my view, for I was now looking through his eyes, although I did not know whether the others in the room were seeing Bonaparte or Aleksei Ivanovich standing before them.
I looked towards my empress to find that she too had transformed – though little transformation was needed – from Marie-Louise into my own Domnikiia. I sat down on the bed close beside her, glancing over to Marfa, who still displayed the same inquisitive equanimity at what was going on. Domnikiia still held the bowl on her lap, but now, rather than figs, it contained grapes. The fruit, I suddenly knew, and knew also that I had always known, was poisoned. Domnikiia proffered the bowl across the room to Marfa, silently inviting her to take one of those delicious grapes. Marfa presented the palm of her hand in polite refusal.
Looking once again at the boy behind her on the bed, it occurred to me that I had been mistaken in thinking that he was my younger self. Just as any father would know his son from a single hair of his head, I recognized the boy as my son, Dmitry Alekseevich. At the same moment, I understood that he was dead; poisoned by Domnikiia's grapes. The knowledge saddened me, but I would express the emotion no more deeply than that. At his belt he wore the little wooden sword that I had made for him the last time I had seen him.
The door, next to the foot of the bed on which the boy's body lay, opened and my mother walked into the room. She had died when I was twenty-two, and although, even in my dream, I was well aware of this, it seemed perfectly reasonable to now see my dead mother entering my childhood bedroom. Almost as soon as she had come into the room, she went across to Domnikiia, who once again held out the bowl to offer her a grape.
My mother declined with the polite warmth with which I felt distantly familiar. 'No thank you, my dear,' she said, smiling at Domnikiia. 'I'm already dead.' These were the only words that anyone spoke throughout the entire dream.
Then she went and sat on the other bed, next to my wife. They greeted one another with courtesy, but with no curiosity.
Domnikiia held the bowl out to my mother again. As she did so, I saw on her hand a ring. It was the figure of a dragon, with a body of gold, emerald eyes and red, forked tongue; the same ring that Zmyeevich had been wearing that night when we met. Around the ring, Domnikiia's hand looked old and pale. Decaying skin was flaking away from her shrivelled fingers. I looked up to her face and saw that it was not her hand that wore the ring, but the hand of Zmyeevich himself. He was leaning over her from behind, holding and covering her hand, and guiding her as she offered the bowl of grapes. He looked older than when I had seen him. His grey hair had become white and his skin was decrepit and terribly wrinkled. His eyes were the eyes of an old man, begging to be remembered as he was in his youth.
Still my mother and Marfa maintained their polite rejection of the grapes. Zmyeevich left Domnikiia and went over to the door through which my mother had entered. He opened the door and, with a gesture of his hand, ushered in the Oprichnik Pyetr. Pyetr crossed the room to stand behind Domnikiia. At his entrance, Domnikiia had glanced towards the door to see who it was, but having seen, indicated no further interest and returned her gaze to me. Pyetr bent forward. As he did so, his hand slipped under her arm and around her, coming to rest upon her breast. His head hovered above her shoulder for a moment as he paused to lick his lips, then he bent down further, gently kissing her neck, and at the same time, noticed by no one else in the room but me, he squeezed her breast in his hand.
Domnikiia maintained her gaze on mine. As Pyetr kissed her and caressed her, her eyes widened very slightly, like a woman who has just seen her lover across a room of friends and tries to hide her reaction from those around her. Pyetr stood up and removed his hand and, as he did so, Domnikiia reached into the bowl and took out a grape, which she held out towards me. I opened my mouth, in full knowledge that the grapes were poisoned, and let her slip it inside, closing my lips quickly so as to briefly feel her fingers between them as she took her hand away.
Pyetr left, although I have no idea how, and at the door, Zmyeevich let in the next Oprichnik, Andrei. His behaviour was identical to Pyetr's; the kiss on Domnikiia's neck and the hand on Domnikiia's breast. Her response was once again the same and I once again greedily consumed the grape as she gave it to me, aware that I would be poisoned in the same way that my son, lying lifeless on the bed across the room, had been poisoned, but still eager to eat the grapes because of the slightest of touches of Domnikiia's fingers that accompanied them.
And so the story retold itself over and over for each of the Oprichniki. Zmyeevich showed into the room next Iakov Zevedayinich, then Ioann, then Filipp, Varfolomei, Foma, Matfei, Iakov Alfeyinich, Faddei and Simon. Each one kissed and fondled Domnikiia, and each time she responded by feeding me another poisoned grape. I swallowed each grape gladly, with an increasing sense of sorrow that they would cause my death, but with no desire to do anything to prevent it.
After Simon had come and gone, I knew that there was just one more Oprichnik left to arrive. I glanced over to the other bed, where my wife and my mother still both sat with the same look of docile curiosity on their faces, knowing in their hearts the danger of what they were witnessing, but too indulgent of my eccentric whims to criticize these people, whom they took to be my friends. Behind them, I noticed that the little wooden sword at my son's side was broken in two. And my son was bigger, much bigger – but still dead. It was now Maks, and I understood then that it always had been, although I could still not see his face.
Zmyeevich had one final guest to invite into the room. It was Iuda. He walked up to Domnikiia, but did nothing more than bow slightly and tip his hat. Then he went over to the window and flung the curtains wide open, filling the room with light. Through the window I saw the winter scene outside. A small pond sat in the middle of a snow-covered garden. A wide, jagged crack split the sheet of ice that lay on top of it. Iuda turned away from the window and towards me with a triumphant smile on his face, his arms still raised in the air from where they had clutched the curtains, accepting the cheers of a crowd that I could not hear or see, but that I knew was there.
He stood behind Domnikiia and bent over her, not to kiss her or caress her as the others had done, but simply to take a grape from the bowl in front of her. He walked over to me and casually offered me the grape, which I took in my hand, but did not eat. I held it between my thumb and fingers and offered it back to Domnikiia, but she refused, shaking her head and backing away from the death that she was well aware the grapes would bring and which I had so calmly accepted. Iuda again stepped behind her and held her head still, allowing me to hold the grape up to her lips, but still she kept them tight shut, squeezing her eyes shut as well, as if to add to her impregnability.
I crushed the grape against her lips and, though she tried to turn her head away, she could not. Iuda's grip held her firm. I saw my two remaining fingers rubbing the skin and crushed flesh of the grape against Domnikiia's lips, trying to force her to accept even the slightest morsel of the poison. I looked at the stumps of my two missing fingers and thought how much easier it would have been, had my hand been complete, to force her lips open and make her taste the fruit.