'You were good at it too, much better than I ever was Tatya. You certainly were bossier than me.'
'Well, yes, I agree, I was.' Tatiana laughed gaily, the sound carrying across the quiet yard.
Papa looked back at them and smiled. He kept walking.
'Seriously though, Olishka, you weren't well when we were nursing, and the hard work exhausted you. Remember those horrible arsenic injections they used to give you every day for your anaemia?'
Olga shuddered at the memory. 'I hated them. They made me smell like garlic! Ugh!'
'I've been reading my old diary,' Tatiana said, 'and remembering all the things I wrote about those days at the hospital and of our loves. Do you still have your diaries, Olishka?'
'Yes, I do, but I don't read them, as I think doing so would cause me too much pain.'
'I understand how you might feel like that, dearest one, but you should read them. I have found that doing so has brought me some comfort, and it might be the same for you. See, let me tell you what I wrote about Mitya in my diary; I wrote that he is so sweet, such a darling little dear! See! That made you smile, just as I knew it would!'
'Maybe you are right, Tatya, maybe I will reread them.' Olga replied.
'I also think a lot about those long hot summers we spent in the Crimea, at Livadia, it was our real home, because we were happiest there; do you remember them?' Tatiana asked. 'I have such a vivid memory of Papa in his whites, playing tennis. Everyone was too scared to beat him! And us, on the lawn with Mama, playing grown-up ladies, serving tea while wearing our summer dresses and hats! Swimming at our little beach, gathering mushrooms, Oh, I would give anything to go back there one day.'
'Or Mama's magnificent lilac bedroom at Tsarskoe Selo. I loved that bedroom; everything was decorated in every shade of Mama's favourite lilac imaginable, and the smell of flowers, especially when they used to send them especially from Livadia for her.' recalled Olga. 'Remember the hours that we spent there sitting at the great window writing letters to Papa when he was away at the front?' She sighed. 'I am so glad that we still have the photographs that we took in that room, especially the ones of us in her big corner chair. Some of them are ridiculous!'
'We had to leave so many of our things behind when we were sent to Tobolsk.' Olga reflected dispassionately. 'Do you ever wonder what happened to them? When I think about all of the things that we had then, compared to now, it makes me realise that we didn't really need it did we?'
'That's true,' Tatiana replied, but I could do with some new clothes, I mean, would you look at this skirt? It's almost worn through.'
'Well, our chests of clothes are still here in one of the outbuildings. The problem being that Yurovsky won't let us have any of them. He won't even let Papa have a new pair of boots, even though his ones are almost completely worn through at the soles.'
'I don't know why they have to be so mean.' Tatiana replied, motioning towards where the guards stood, quietly watching them. 'It's not as if we cause them any trouble or anything, all we want is to be left alone.'
'They hate us,' Olga said bluntly. 'I can't say that I completely understand why, but they do. They are dangerous and can't be trusted. We would be fools to think otherwise.'
'You are right as always.' Tatiana replied.
She stopped walking, swung around. 'Oh! Look what you have done, you minx! You have managed to completely change the subject from Mitya!'
Olga laughed; she knew it wouldn't take long for the sharp Tatiana to notice what she had done.
'But aren't you glad that we had this conversation and that we have so many wonderful memories of our lives to talk about and laugh about to help us pass the time and dispel some of the gloom?'
'Well, yes, of course! But…..well, don't think that I am going to give up asking you about him. So, when did you know you loved him? How did you feel?'
'It was so long ago now, Tatya, just over three years. I think that I loved him from the first time I saw him when he was first admitted. He was so handsome, of course, but it was more than that. He was so sweet.'
'What did you love about him the most?'
'It was his eyes, Tatya. They were so big and brown; when he looked at me, I felt as though I was drowning as if I had fallen into a deep pool and couldn't get out.'
'And you missed him so much when he got well again and left the hospital. You became so sad and quite unlike our Olga.'
'Did I? Could you notice?'
Tatiana laughed again, 'You are so unaware, Olishka! Everyone commented on how pale and tearful you had become, so sad looking.'
They walked on in silence for a while, got to the end of the small exercise area, turned, and started back again. Papa had, by this time, passed them twice.
'And then he came back, wounded, and you were delighted.'
'Not delighted that he was wounded, Tatya!'
'Of course not.' Tatiana responded cheekily. 'But delighted to see him again.'
'Well, of course. And extremely worried as he was wounded so badly; his leg and hand shattered. I remember how naughty he was, up and out of bed when he wasn't supposed to be!'
'That was because he was constantly following you about the wards, just like a puppy dog!'
'Oh, Tatya!' Olga laughed out loud.
Again, Papa looked up, startled, but pleased to hear his eldest child sound so happy for once.
'Well, he did, everyone said so!'
'We spent so much time together then,' Olga reminisced quietly, 'every spare moment I had I spent with him. I rushed through my duties just to be with him. I was so happy, Tatya.'
'And that's when you fell in love?'
'I think it was from the first moment I spoke with him.'
'Did he love you?'
'I hope he did Tatiana, as holding on to the love that we had for each other is all that I have now.'
Tatiana was alarmed to see tears gently welling in Olga's eyes and was astonished at how quickly her sister could go from being happy and laughing to sad and morose, and she clasped her arm even tighter to her side, hugging her close.
'I absolutely know that he loved you, Olga, it was quite plain for everyone to see.'
'He told me that he did many times. And I told him that I loved him back.'
'Did you….?'
'We kissed and embraced, but nothing more than that. I yearned for more, I had the strangest sensations, but it was impossible and Mitya…'
'He would never have done anything while you were a Grand Duchess.'
'A Grand Duchess - how long ago that all seems now, Tatya.'
'It does, certainly from here anyway,' she laughed ruefully. Olga looked around the miserable yard, at the ever-watchful guards who were never far away. Papa had stopped walking and was now doing chin-ups on the metal bar he had installed as part of his simple exercise regime.
'I don't miss that life though,' Olga said quietly, 'all I want is to be free.'
'And then Mitya had to leave again.' Tatiana said, in an attempt to get Olga back on subject, 'and you had to go through it all again.'
'Yes, we had so many goodbyes, each one so much harder than the last, but then the joy at receiving his letters!'
'You'd jump up and down like a child!'
'I know; they were so precious to me, and how I hated having to burn them. Mitya's letters were the only thing of him that I had.'
'You still have that photograph of us all at the hospital though, don't pretend that you don't! I have seen you looking at it when you think that nobody is looking!'
'Sometimes I worry that I will forget what he looks like.'
'That will never happen, silly! I also remember how perfectly miserable you were the whole time that he was gone. Poor Mama despaired of you. I can never be sure whether she knew what was making you so miserable, though.'
'Yes, she knew how I felt about him, and she told Papa.'
'Really? How do you know, has Papa said something to you?
'Yes. The other day when we wer
e walking out here. He indicated that he would not have been averse to us getting married if things had been different.'
'Would you have married him if he had asked?' Tatiana queried, stopping to remove a piece of grass from her shoe.
'In an instant.' Olga laughed. 'Mitya read my palm once you know, and he told me I was going to have twelve children! I so wanted them to have been his.'
'And would you have stayed here? In Russia, I mean?'
'Oh yes, certainly, and we would have lived quietly in the countryside, just like ordinary people. I don't think that I could ever leave Russia.'
'You had it all planned out then!'
'Well, you must agree that I have had a lot of time to think about it these last few years!'
'I think we might have to go in soon.' Tatiana said, looking nervously at the guards. Papa had stopped exercising and was standing by the palisade, smoking a cigarette.
'Tatya, I have to tell you, I have been in such agony,'
'What is it?'
'The last time I spoke to Mitya, he rang me at Tsarskoe Selo. It was just before I got sick with the measles, and I think he knew that things were going badly with the war and for Papa. He told me again that he loved me and called me his girl with the crystal soul.'
'The men in the hospital called you that; they said that it was because your soul is as clear and pure as a crystal, and yet so fragile.'
'Did they? I never knew that. I have always wondered why Mitya called me that.'
'Well, I don't think that there's any harm in telling you now, but they talked about you and Mitya quite a bit at the hospital.' Tatiana said mischievously.
Olga stopped dead. 'They did? What did they say?' her cheeks had flushed bright red with embarrassment.
'Oh, don't worry, darling, it was only ever good things, the men would say how brave an officer Mitya was, that he was the best friend anyone could have, and so good-natured. And of course, they all thought he was devilishly handsome and wore his uniform with distinction. I also overheard one saying that Mitya was completely in love with you and that his cheeks always flushed red when he looked at you!'
'Really? Really Tatya? Oh…….'
'Anyway, what were you saying before about your last phone conversation with him?'
'Oh,' breathed Olga, collecting her thoughts. 'Well, that last phone call, the last time I spoke with him, he told me that no matter what happened, he would find me that he would come for me.' She stopped, choking back a sob. 'But he hasn't come, Tatya! I have been waiting and watching for him every day since then, and he hasn't come. What if he is dead? Killed in the war, and I don't know? What if I never see him again?'
Tatiana had no reply, she didn't know what to say to comfort her beloved sister.
'Or worse, what if he doesn't love me anymore; that he has forgotten all about me, or found someone else?'
'He would never forget you or stop loving you, darling, you have to believe that. If he could have come, he would have. He still might! He could arrive here any day, maybe even tomorrow!'
'Oh, I do hope that you are right, Tatya. Every night, when we hear the guns, I hope and pray that it is an army coming to rescue us and that Mitya is with them,' Olga said, wiping away her tears, and they hugged each other tightly before making their way past the leering guards and back inside.
She dreamt that night that she was back at the hospital annexe at Tsarskoe Selo and that Mitya was her patient once more. She sat beside his bed, reading to him and showing him her photograph albums. They laughed together a lot over the funny little things she told him about her childhood, things that were captured in the photographs. When he grew tired and slept, she continued to sit beside him as she watched him his dreams chasing shadows across his face. She knew that she had other duties to attend to within the hospital, but was loath to leave him; she didn't know how long he would be here for.
And then the dream changed and she was outside, watching him walk down the long drive, his back to her. She called him over and over, 'Mitya, Mitya.' Needing him to turn and come back to her so that they could say goodbye to each other properly, but he wouldn't, he just kept walking, his uniform covered back ramrod straight. So, she started running after him, but her feet were clumsy, and her heavy shoes kept tangling in the hem of her long skirt, tripping her, until she fell, the palms of her hands and knees scraping across the gravel driveway.
'Stop, please.' She called, but he was gone, and she knew that she would never see him again.
She woke, gasping for breath, the shouted words ringing in her ears and filling every one of her senses. The tears were rolling down her face and had soaked the sides of her pillow. She sat up, and Tatiana was there, her hand held out, almost touching.
'I was just going to wake you; you were crying so loudly. Are you alright?'
Olga closed her eyes. 'Just a bad dream. Go back to bed.'
She desperately wanted to go back to the dream, to the first part, where she and Mitya were together, laughing and happy but was desperately frightened that if she fell asleep again, she would just relive losing him all over again, and she could not bear that.
So she lay awake for the rest of the night, by herself, through the long lonely hours before daybreak, until she heard the birds singing their morning chorus outside her window, and the sounds of the house; her prison beginning to stir, and she knew then that the dream was a portent, that despite Tatiana's brave and encouraging words yesterday, she was never going to see her Mitya again.
Seventeen
Ekaterinburg, Russia
1991
On their arrival back in Ekaterinburg, May and Agni found that the American forensic team had arrived a couple of days earlier than expected. Their team was led by Professor Howard Barnes, a bespectacled middle-aged man whom May took an instant liking to. He seemed professional and astute, and May found herself enjoying working with him.
The rest of his team included two other forensic experts, Blair Cullen and Martha Jones.
She saw immediately that there was tension between the two teams, in particular between Nikhil and Howard, and that the Americans had some significant issues with the initial findings of the Russian group.
'The thing that worries me the most,' Howard explained to May over lunch one day, 'is that they have misidentified a lot of the bones, and attributed them to the wrong skeletons. I have raised this with my colleague, Professor Berezin, of course, and without him outrightly saying so, he agrees with me. Unfortunately, however, he has not rectified the errors.' He ran his hand through his hair, tugging at its short, wiry ends. 'It's most frustrating.'
May had to agree with him; she had found the same thing during the time that she had spent there and welcomed Howard's opinion with a great sense of relief that she had not been mistaken in her assessment.
'I'll give you a fairly glaring example. Nikhil's team had the view they that skeleton one was Nicholas Romanov when quite obviously, the pelvic bones are that of a mature female.' He shook his head in dismay. 'That's fairly basic, isn't it? I wouldn't have expected such a glaring mistake, not at this level of forensics, at least.'
'It's because of the teeth Howard,' May explained. 'They believed that the teeth in that skull, with its extensive and expensive dental work and gold fillings, had to belong to an Emperor. I mean, could an Emperor really have had rotten teeth?'
They smiled at each other, wryly. 'Well, that makes perfect sense then, doesn't it?' He laughed mirthlessly.
She admired Howard's diplomacy and could see how hard he was trying to not make any disparaging or negative comments about the work being done by the Russian team. He was in an awkward position also, having been invited to participate, but having no authority regarding the process, and to an extent, the outcome.
Observing an exchange between Howard and his team one day during an examination, May considered their assessment to almost be tacit criticism of the way the excavation and recovery had damaged many of the remains.
'A
lright, let's start with skeleton two.' Howard said briskly, pulling on protective gloves. It was found within the grave at a depth of ninety to one hundred centimetres. During the exhumation, the skull has been wrenched with considerable force from the vertebrae, which is unfortunate as it has caused unnecessary damage. Such haphazard wrenching has meant that the skull has been crushed and collapsed into many separate pieces. This, of course, makes it harder to identify. A pity. We can see here that the upper jaw is entirely devoid of teeth. My view is that the deceased had been wearing dentures at the time of death; the teeth having been extracted some time ago.
'Luckily for us, the torso was partially intact, and we were able to extract two bullets from the soft tissue which remained, one bullet came from the pelvic area, the other from the lower vertebrae.' Blair took over from Howard. 'A third shot, fired from right to left, has gone through both legs, just below the kneecaps. In my view, the fatal shot was to the forehead, just below the hairline.'
They moved on.
'Skeleton three was found at a depth of ninety-two to one hundred centimetres, and the victim has suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head.' Blair continued.
'Skeleton four,' Howard remarked, 'is similar to that of number two. The skull had also collapsed to pieces when it was ripped forcefully from the ground. This victim was found at a depth of one hundred and seven to one hundred and nineteen centimetres, towards the bottom of the grave.'
'Victim five was bent double when found and was discovered along with number six at a depth of ninety-two to one hundred centimetres. Both of their skulls were found in plastic bags inside the wooden box that was reburied in 1980.' Martha read from her notes. 'Therefore, their skulls were recovered from a completely different area of the grave to the rest of their remains.
'Number seven was located in the middle of the pit at the shallowest depth of seventy-nine to ninety-six centimetres. The victim's jaws contained several crowns.' Howard paused to refer to his notes before continuing.
'The skull of number eight was found at ninety-nine to one hundred and thirteen centimetres and was all but missing. The only bones that remained were a few cranial fragments and a small section of the jawbone. The sacrum, which had, over time, become carbonised, fell apart when it was pulled from the grave. And finally, the skull of skeleton nine was found badly damaged at a depth of one hundred to one hundred and twenty centimetres.'
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