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mirrors and portraits and statues without number, striding beneath grand chandeliers from Italy and
across deep carpets from China. Retracing the familiar route as if she were lost in a sort of dream.
At last she reached the theater and slipped through the double doors which led to the
performers’ level, where the dressing and rehearsal rooms were located. She found the stage below
her flooded with light, each bulb glowing as if the room had been lit for a grand performance. She
walked to the top of the staircase and scanned the floor below - the box where the royal family
gathered, furs tossed around their feet and legs, the entrance doors, the pulleys with the platforms
which raised and lowered props, the stage itself.
No Konstantin.
At the bottom of the staircase lay the lovers, as yet unmoved, although any number of men were
buzzing about their bodies, presumably members of the palace police, a separate division from that of
her husband. The brains, not the muscle, of the large force which existed solely to protect the
imperial family.
“Who are they?” she called.
The theater was acoustically perfect. Although she had barely raised her voice, each man
below her turned and stood. She doubted that any among them recognized her face, but something in
her clothing, or perhaps her bearing, seemed to convey well enough from which part of the palace
she’d come. Thus they were prepared to humor her questions, at least for a few minutes.
“Dancers,” one of the men answered. “Do not come any closer, please. Not until we’ve
finished.”
Tatiana gazed down at the bodies. Both slim and fair, the dancers could have passed for
siblings as easily as tragic lovers, and they lay in the pose which concluded their scene in the
performance. This final bit of juvenile theatricality made their deaths all the sadder, although not for
the reasons they’d likely intended.
“I can see that they’re dancers,” she said. “What I’m asking is their names.”
The request, while simple, gave pause to the men beneath her, who clearly did not think of the
bodies in such specific terms. If she had ever doubted Konstantin’s claim that the dancers in the royal
troupe were all anonymous, interchangeable, as replaceable as flowers in a vase, the reactions of
these men were surely proving him right. Even in death these children were not to be granted the
dignity of a name.