Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [52]
Maria kept her word and made a mustache out of my hair. I was secretly hoping for an elaborate concoction, like the one decorating Commandant Mishkin’s face. Instead, Maria produced several thin strips of sheer fabric covered in sparse hairs and a small bottle of glue. When she glued it to my face and held up the mirror, I laughed. As a woman, I was plain, but as a boy hussar with a nascent mustache, I looked . . . handsome. Maria nodded, pleased. “You look like you are about seventeen,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone you are older or no one will believe you. If your mustache gets dirty, replace it promptly; the glue dries fast. Now we need to work on your walk.”
I just had to think of the way Eugenia moved around the manor in Trubetskoye—with long, hasty steps, her footfalls loud and haphazard, and tried to do the same. Maria nodded, smiling. “You’re good at it,” she said. “Have you practiced before?”
“No,” I said.
I did not ask the questions on my mind, foremost among them my conviction that Maria herself had helped many women appear to be men, and perhaps had done so herself. I could see the advantage, of course, but I had no idea that such behavior was in any measure common. As it seemed impolite to ask, I practiced walking like a man late at night, after all the seamstresses were sent home, in Maria’s vast and empty atelier. I weaved among the gypsum dummies, most wearing half finished dresses and frocks, sack jackets and evening coats, several drowning in a sea of handmade lace. I walked among them, practicing bowing and shaking their imaginary hands. I practiced talking.
“Don’t try to make your voice too low,” Maria advised. “It will sound artificial. Just lower it comfortably, and the rest will be attributed to your youth.”
I waited to have her cut my hair until the last day of the exams.
I think my lack of nervousness helped with the examinations, for my grades were better than the previous quarter. I was pleased and Eugenia ecstatic; nonetheless, my thoughts were with Jack.
We had it all planned out. On the night of the last exam, Jack was to obtain the papers and then I was to meet him at the Moscow Train Station. Eugenia took me to Maria’s to have my hair cut, and helped me pack when we returned to the dormitory—I had some civilian clothes as well as spare britches, six shirts of good cotton, and my underclothes. It all fit into a single satchel. Anastasia cried a little, worried I would need all the dresses and lace and pretty things I was leaving behind. In truth, I too felt like crying, even though I kept reassuring the silly girl I would be back soon.
Eugenia, always preoccupied with practical matters, gave me some last minute instructions. “You’re Alexander Menshov now,” she told me. “No need for fancy aliases, and it was easy enough to get you papers in this name. I’ll tell your mother you are visiting classmates in Crimea—it is warmer there, she’ll understand. You know how to handle yourself, so I won’t nag you without need. But tell that Englishman that if he dare lays a hand upon you or shows any disrespect, I shall have his hand and his heart brought to me.”
“Aunt Genia,” I said, sighing. “You do love melodrama too much.”
She stared at me. “Fancy that,” she said after a few silent minutes. “Now I’m starting to think this is exactly what Pavel looked like.”
She dabbed at her eyes as I searched for something to say. “Don’t worry,” I finally managed. “I am not he. I will not die, I promise.”
She sobbed outright at that, and hugged my padded body to her chest. “You have no idea, Sasha, how frightened I am. The situation here now, the possible threat of war looming . . . you are too young to remember the Bonaparte, but I do. The terrifying thing is, if there is a new war, young people will be fighting it, and we, the old ones, we’ll mourn and watch and relive our past losses and then lose