The House of Special Purpose

by John Boyne

  Eventually, however, after two, maybe three hours, I knew that we had to stop. My body was protesting with every step. We had a great distance to travel and needed to rally our energy. The sun would be coming up soon and I did not want us to remain where we might be seen, although to my surprise there did not seem to be any sign at all that we were being followed. I spotted a small animal-hut about half a mile ahead, and determined that we would break our march there and sleep.

  It smelled terrible inside, but it was empty, the walls were solid, and there was enough straw on the floor for us to rest in reasonable comfort.

  ‘We will sleep here, my love,’ I said. Anastasia nodded and lay down without protest, staring up at the roof, that same haunted, hollow look in her eyes. ‘You do not need to tell me anything,’ I added, ignoring the fact that she had spoken only one word, my name, since we had met that night and showed no sign of wanting to tell me what had taken place. ‘Not yet. Just sleep, that is all. You need to sleep.’

  Again the small nod, but on this occasion I felt her fingers close around mine a little more tightly, as if she wanted to acknowledge what I was saying. I lay beside her, wrapping my body around hers for warmth, and knew that sleep would overtake me in seconds. I tried to stay awake to watch over her, but looking at her eyes as they stared up at the roof of our hut hypnotized my spirit and my exhaustion quickly got the better of me.

  It was three days before Anastasia spoke again.

  The morning after we awoke we were fortunate enough to secure transport on a wagon heading in the direction of Izhevsk; the journey took an entire day, but the farmer who granted us carriage sought no more than a few kopecks for his kindness and offered us bread and water along the way, which we accepted gratefully, for neither of us had eaten since the previous afternoon. We slept fitfully in the rear of the vehicle, stretched out flat on the wooden slats, but every bump in the road jolted us back to consciousness with a start and I prayed that this torture would end soon. Every time Anastasia awoke, I noticed how it took her a moment to recollect where she was and what had brought her to this place. Her face would appear relaxed and untroubled for the briefest of seconds and then it would cloud over, a sudden eclipse of her brilliance, and her eyes would shut firmly once again, as if she was willing sleep – or worse – to take her. Our driver made no conversation and did not recognize the princess of the Imperial line who sat silently behind him, her back to his. I was grateful for his silence, as I did not think that I could bear to feign friendliness or sociability in the circumstances in which we found ourselves.

  At Izhevsk, we stopped and ate at a small café before making our way to the train station, which was much busier than I had expected, a fact that pleased me, as it meant that we could blend into the crowd without difficulty. I was concerned that there would be soldiers waiting at the entry-ways, watching out for us, looking out for her, but nothing out of the usual appeared to be taking place. Anastasia kept her head bowed at all times, and covered her blonde hair with a dark hood, so that she looked like any other farmer’s daughter who passed us by. I still had most of the roubles I had found the previous afternoon and made a reckless decision to spend almost twice as much as necessary in order to secure us a private compartment on board the train. I purchased two tickets to Minsk, a journey of over a thousand miles. I could think of nowhere further for us to go. From Minsk, I knew not where we might travel next.

  There are curious moments of joy in life, unexpected pleasures, and one such instant occurred as we pulled away from the station. The guard blew his piercing whistle, a series of cries to urge any final passengers on board was heard, and then the steam began to rise as the railway buffers cranked into gear. A few moments later, the train was accelerating to a decent speed, heading westwards, and I looked across at Anastasia, whose face was a sudden picture of relief. I leaned over and took her hand in mine. She appeared surprised by the unexpected intimacy, as if she had forgotten that I had even boarded the train alongside her, but then she looked at me and smiled. I had not seen that smile in eighteen months, and I returned it gratefully. Her smile filled me with hope that she would soon return to her former self.

  ‘Are you cold, my darling?’ I asked, reaching up and taking a thin blanket from an overhead shelf. ‘Why not place this across your legs? It will keep the chill away.’

  She accepted the blanket gratefully and turned her head to look through the window at the stark countryside passing us by. The land. The crops. The moujiks. The revolutionaries. A moment later, she turned to look at me again and I held my breath in anticipation. Her lips parted. She swallowed carefully. She opened her mouth to speak. I saw her throat rise gently in her pale neck as the signal passed from brain to tongue to talk, but just as she was about to summon words for the first time, the compartment door opened violently and I turned my head in fright, relieved to see the conductor standing there.

  ‘Your tickets, sir?’ he asked, and before reaching for them I glanced at Anastasia, who had turned away from us both. She was looking out of the window again, clutching the neck of my greatcoat around her chin, and trembling. I reached across, unsure where to touch her.

  ‘Dusha,’ I whispered, before being interrupted.

  ‘Your tickets, sir,’ repeated the conductor, more insistently this time. I turned and glared at him, my face expressing such sudden fury that he took a half-step backwards and looked at me nervously. He opened his mouth to say something more but thought better of it, remaining silent as I slowly removed the tickets from my pocket and handed them across.

  ‘You’re travelling to Minsk?’ he said a few moments later, as he examined them carefully.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You must change at Moscow,’ he replied. ‘There will be a separate train for the final leg of the journey.’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ I said, wanting him to leave us alone. Perhaps I had not intimidated him quite as much as I thought, however, because rather than hand the tickets back to me and leave us in peace, he held on to them, hostages to his curiosity, and stared across at Anastasia.

  ‘Is she quite well?’ he asked me a moment later.

  ‘She’s fine.’

  ‘She seems troubled.’

  ‘She’s fine,’ I repeated without hesitation. ‘My tickets are in order?’

  ‘Madam?’ he said, ignoring my question. ‘Madam, you are travelling with this gentleman?’ Anastasia said nothing, but continued to stare out of the window, refusing even to acknowledge the conductor’s presence. ‘Madam,’ he continued in a harsher tone. ‘Madam, I asked you a question.’

  What felt like a very long few moments followed and then, as if no greater insult had ever been sent her way, Anastasia turned her head and stared coldly at him.

  ‘Madam, can you confirm that you are travelling with this gentleman?’

  ‘But of course she’s travelling with me, you fool,’ I snapped. ‘Why else would we be seated together? Why else would I have both our tickets in my pocket?’

  ‘Sir, the young lady seems troubled,’ he replied. ‘I wish to satisfy myself that she has not been brought here under duress.’

  ‘Under duress?’ I said, laughing in his face. ‘Why, you must be mad! She is simply tired, that is all. We have been travelling for—’

  Before I could finish my sentence, Anastasia had reached across to me and laid her hand against my arm. I looked at her in surprise and watched as she took it away again and, no longer trembling, stared at the conductor defiantly. I turned to look at him and could see that he was taken aback by two things: her sudden composure and her dignified beauty.

  ‘I have not been kidnapped, if that is what you are implying,’ she said, her voice croaking a little as she spoke in reaction to how long it had been out of use.

  ‘I apologize, madam,’ he replied, looking a little embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest that you had. You looked uncomfortable, that was all.’

  ‘It’s an uncomfortable train,’ she s
aid. ‘I wonder that your People’s Government does not invest some of its money in improvements. It has enough of it, does it not?’

  I held my breath, unsure of the politics of such a remark. We had no idea who the conductor was, after all, who he answered to, where his allegiances lay. Anastasia, who was accustomed to answering to no man save her father, had clearly rediscovered her own inner strength through his insolence. Silence filled the compartment for a few moments – I was unsure whether the conductor would challenge us further and felt concerned that if he did, we would come off the worse for it – but finally, he handed the tickets back to me and looked away.

  ‘There is a dining car at the end of the train if you are hungry,’ he said gruffly. ‘The next stop is Nizhniy Novgorod. Have a pleasant journey.’

  I nodded in reply and he took a final look at the two of us – Anastasia was still staring at him, daring him to challenge her further – before turning away, closing the compartment door and leaving us alone together. I let an enormous sigh escape my body, feeling my chest collapse in tension before me, and then looked across at Anastasia, who was smiling weakly at me.

  ‘You have found your voice,’ I said.

  She nodded a little. ‘Georgy,’ she whispered, her voice filled with sorrow.

  I took her hand in mine.

  ‘You must tell me,’ I insisted, betraying no note of urgency in my tone, but rather kindness and sympathy. ‘You must tell me what happened.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will tell you. And only you. But first, you must tell me something.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘But of course!’

  ‘You will never leave me?’

  ‘Only death could separate me from you, my darling.’

  Her face fell at these words and I knew that I had chosen badly. I held her hands tightly in mine and urged her once again to tell me, to tell me all. To tell me everything that had happened at the Ipatiev house.

  The guards did not treat us as if we were prisoners. In fact, they permitted us to wander the grounds at will, even to take long walks in the surrounding countryside on the understanding that we would return to the house afterwards. Of course, we obeyed them. There was nowhere for us to go, after all. We would not have been able to conceal ourselves in any town or village in Russia. They said that we were safe in Yekaterinburg, that they were protecting us, hiding our location from a country filled with people who hated us. They said that there were people who wanted us dead.

  They were friendly, too, which always surprised me. They spoke to us as if they did not control our lives. They acted as if we were free to stay or go and never questioned any of us when we went outside, but the guns on their backs told a different story. I wondered whether the day would come when I would walk to that door and they would raise a hand to stop me.

  Marie told me that you had come for me. I couldn’t believe it at first. It was like a miracle. She swore that it was true, that she had seen you and spoken with you, and I was almost out of my mind with happiness, but Mother wouldn’t let me leave the house, insisting that I stay and continue with my lessons. Of course, I couldn’t tell her why I wanted to go. She would never have permitted me to leave again if I had. The idea that you were so close made me happy, though, especially when Marie said that you would come again that night. I could hardly wait, Georgy.

  When it was dark I slipped downstairs. I could hear the guards talking together in one of the parlours on the ground floor. It seemed curious to me that they were gathered together like that, as one of them was nearly always stationed by the door. The grounds were empty, but I walked slowly. I was frightened that the sound of my shoes on the gravel would alert someone to my absence. It’s strange to think of it, Georgy, but my concern was not the guards discovering where I was going, but Father or Mother learning who I was going towards.

  I crouched down as I passed the window of the parlour and something made me hesitate for a moment. They sounded as if they were arguing. I tried to listen and one voice was raised above the others and they all stopped to listen to what it had to say. I thought nothing more of it and walked quickly towards the gates with only you on my mind. I longed to be in your arms. I even imagined, I dreamed that you would take me away from Yekaterinburg, that you would reveal our love to my father and that he would embrace us both and call you his son, and that everything we had been, we would be again. Perhaps Marie was right. She said I was foolish to think that we could ever be together.

  By the time I reached the gate, I realized how cold I was. My heart told me to run on, to find you, that your arms would warm me soon enough, but my head said to go back to the house and bring a coat. There was one hanging in the hallway by the door – Tatiana’s, I think, she would not miss it. I walked back and noticed that the room where the guards had been talking was empty now. I thought this strange and hesitated, wondering whether my desire for the coat would lead to my discovery. I expected that some of the soldiers would emerge from the door at any moment and stand outside as they smoked. But no one appeared. I didn’t want them to, Georgy, and yet it disturbed me that they did not.

  A moment later, I heard the heavy thud of boots on the stairs, many boots, and I ran quickly through the front door and around to the side of the house, crouching low beneath a window. A light went on above my head and a crowd of people entered the room. I could hear my father’s voice asking what was happening and one of them replied that it was no longer safe in Yekaterinburg, that in order to protect our family it was imperative that we be transported somewhere else immediately.

  ‘But where?’ asked my mother. ‘Can it not wait until the morning?’

  ‘Please wait here,’ he replied, and then all those heavy boots left the room once again and only my family remained within.

  By now, I was torn between duty and love. If they were to be transported to a different city, then surely I should be with them. But you, Georgy, you were waiting for me. You were so close. Perhaps I could see you once more and tell you where we were going, and then you would follow us and find a way to save me. I was trying to think what to do for the best when I heard a soldier enter the room again and ask a question I could not hear, and my father replied, ‘I do not know. I have not seen her this evening.’ I guessed that they were talking about me, that the soldiers were looking for me, but I stayed where I was and after a few moments the room went silent again.

  Finally, I stood up. The window was high, so only that part of my face above my mouth would have been visible to anyone on the inside. I looked at the room that I had seen on so many occasions in the past. It had always been bare, but now there were two chairs by the wall. Father was sitting in one of them, with Alexei on his knee. My brother was half asleep and dozing in his arms. Mother was seated beside them, looking anxious, her fingers twirling the long row of pearls around her neck. Olga, Tatiana and Marie were standing behind them and I felt guilty that I was not there too. A moment later, perhaps sensing the intensity of my gaze, Marie glanced towards the window, saw me, and said my name.

  ‘Anastasia.’

  Father and Mother turned to look in my direction and my eyes met theirs for only a moment. Mother looked shocked, as if she could not believe that I was outside, but Father … he shot me a look of fierce intensity, his eyes strong and determined. He lifted his hand, Georgy. He held the palm out flat, telling me to stay exactly where I was. It felt like an order, a Tsar’s command. I opened my mouth to try to say something, but before any words could come the door of the room was flung open and my family turned quickly to look at their captors.

  The soldiers were standing together in a row and no one spoke for a moment. Then their leader removed a piece of paper from his pocket. He said that he was sorry but our family could not be saved, and before I could even comprehend the meaning of his words, he pulled a gun from his pocket and shot my father in the head. He shot the Tsar, Georgy. My mother blessed herself, my sisters screamed and
turned to hug each other, but they had no time to speak or to panic, for every soldier drew a gun at that moment and slaughtered them. They shot them like animals. They killed them. And I watched. I watched as they fell. I watched as they bled and as they died.

  And then I turned.

  And I ran.

  I remember nothing other than wanting to reach the trees, to leave the house behind, and I focussed on the copse, where I knew you would be waiting for me. And as I ran I tripped over something and fell. I fell and I landed in your arms.

  I found you. You were waiting for me.

  And the rest … the rest, Georgy, you know.

  It was almost two days before we arrived, exhausted, in Minsk. We stood in the train station, staring at the timetable and the list of destinations, dreading having to spend more time in a railway carriage but knowing that we had no alternative. We could not stay in Russia. It would never be safe for us there.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ Anastasia asked me as we looked at the list of cities to which we could make connections. Rome, Madrid, Vienna, Geneva. Copenhagen, perhaps, where her grandfather was king.

  ‘Anywhere you like, Anastasia,’ I replied. ‘Anywhere you feel safe.’

  She pointed at one city and I nodded, liking the romance of it. ‘To Paris, then,’ I announced.

  ‘Georgy,’ she said, taking my arm urgently. ‘There is just one thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My name. You must not call me by it any more. We cannot risk detection. They won’t be looking for you, no one knew of our relationship except Marie and she …’ She hesitated, composed herself and continued. ‘You cannot call me Anastasia from this day.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, nodding my head in agreement. ‘But what shall I call you, then? I cannot think of any better name than your own.’

  She bowed her head for a moment and considered it. When she looked up, it was as if she had become a different person entirely, a young woman embarking on a new life for which she had no expectations.