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history,
to doom human faces to remain forever suspended in time.  The attendant snapped
the group of canes and they fell into a sort of stand upon which Ella placed
the camera.  She stooped to look through an aperture in the box.  Whatever she
saw must have displeased her, for she stood and moved the camera and its stand
to another part of the railing and then looked again.
    “Pardon
me,” Ella said, rising up and calling down to the men on the floor.  “I must
request that you all stand back.”
    “Stand
back?”  The bald man now looked up at the three women with open annoyance.  It
was one thing for the ladies of the court to come here out of curiosity, rising
early from their beds to gape and stare. One thing for them to wish to witness
the scene, for death is exciting, even a bit sexual, and sometimes the most
unlikely of people are drawn to stand witness to its power.  God knows, he had
felt the pull himself.  But it was entirely a different matter for one of these
women, no matter how well dressed, to order him to stand back.
    “I
intend to take a photograph,” she said.
    “For
what?”
    “For
my own edification,” she said icily and then, just before he gave way to a
sputter she added, “and of course my husband the Grand Duke Serge also takes an
interest in my photography.”
    At
the words “my husband the Grand Duke Serge,” the entire scene before them
changed.   The officers on the floor stood, looked up, took a beat to absorb
the identity of the woman above them with her camera, and then, to a man, leapt
back.  The two bodies on the floor suddenly lay in the center of an empty
circle, looking small and pitifully alone.
    Ella
lowered her head and looked through the lens.  “It would be better if I had my
cloth,” she murmured, “but this will do,” and then there was the loud pop of a
shutter closing, followed by another.  With a satisfied sigh, Ella carefully
lifted the camera from the triangular stand. 
    “Thank
you,” she said to the men below. “You may carry on now.”
    She
is the kind of woman, Tatiana thought, who says phrases like “Pardon me” or
“thank you” in a tone of voice that makes even words of supplication sound like
an order.  The men below seemed somehow shamed by her surface politeness.  They
moved back around the body but silently, almost furtively.  What would it be
like, Tatiana thought, to have that sort of power?  To be able to not only
change people’s behavior but to change how they feel about themselves, to level
the proud and correct the arrogant, all with a few casually spoken words?
    The
grand duchess and her lady in waiting proceeded up the staircase, Ella carrying
the camera and the woman carrying the stand.  As she reached the step where
Tatiana waited, Ella paused. 
    “Our
discussion has captured my interest, Tatiana Orlov,” she said.  “I believe we
shall meet again, very soon.”
    Tatiana
curtsied and the two women swept past her, Ella holding the camera out in front
of her as if it were a crown, the lady in waiting clumsily banging each step
with the wooden stand as they ascended.  Tatiana waited until she was sure they
were gone to slip the rest of the way down the stairs to the railing.
    “Will
there be an investigation?” she called to the bald man.
    With
Ella gone from the room, his attitude had reverted back to its previous level
of charm. “An investigation of what?” he asked roughly. 
    No
one will ask about these dancers, Tatiana thought sadly.  No one will wonder
why the knife lies in the girl’s hand and not the boy’s, or why they would kill
themselves when the ballet will be over by the end of next week and presumably
they could renew their courtship then.  No one will ponder if they knew each
other before they came here, to the Winter Palace, or what their futures might
have held.  The tsar’s guard and the palace police, for all their differences,
exist to protect the imperial family.  If a crime is