Nest of the Monarch

by Kay Kenyon

  46

  CLARIDGES, MAYFAIR, LONDON

  CHRISTMAS EVE, 8:10 PM. In the bar, Julian was well into his third drink, waiting for a little numbness to arrive. The whisky was having no affect whatever. Just as well, he thought, since he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.

  Women in fine dresses made their entrances, conscious of their stagey moment, embracing waiting friends. They were escorted by men in cashmere coats and opera scarfs, snow dusting their shoulders. From across the hall, the strains of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” from the string quartet. Ohhh, tidings of comfort and joy . . .

  E had graciously offered to share his Christmas Eve in London. He wouldn’t be going down to Litchfield, as Lydia was visiting her mother in hospital, giving him a chance for yuletide with his mistress, Ida Mae. Would Julian come for a drink? He almost accepted, but then Olivia caught his eye on her way out of E’s office, raising her chin. Come by my desk. He must have looked worse than he’d thought, because after his meeting with E she offered to join him for a drink at Claridges.

  Everyone was offering him a little company on Christmas Eve, knowing he was staying in London until Kim came home. They were all careful, even Julian was, to say “when” and “until.”

  But she was in a Nazi stronghold in Bavaria. . . .

  Olivia appeared at the lounge door, looking for him and then spotting him at his table near the window, the one he had been anchoring since six thirty. He stood, taking her coat and seating her, trying to appreciate her gesture of meeting him. But seeing a former lover on Christmas Eve wasn’t likely to bring comfort and joy. Although he was grateful; or he should be. Perhaps another whisky.

  “It’s a madhouse out there,” Olivia said as she got settled. Wearing a soft suit that emphasized her waistline, she had come straight from the office. Working late on Christmas Eve. And now she would be even later getting home to Guy, so he steeled himself for the brief, obligatory drink.

  When her gin fizz arrived, he raised his glass to wish her a Merry Christmas, but she beat him to it, saying, “To our brave Kim.”

  Very decent of her. “Kim,” he repeated.

  She stared at her drink.

  A mistake to meet? “How are you, Olivia?”

  A wry smile. “Oh, good. You know; the same as always.” She turned toward the hall, noting the Christmas music. “What does ‘Adeste Fideles’ mean?”

  “I certainly didn’t take a first in Latin, but I believe it’s all you faithful.” He watched her for a moment, seeing dark pools around her eyes, unless it was the dim lights of the bar throwing shadows. “Olivia. You’re not all right, are you?”

  She sipped her drink. “You have so much on your mind.”

  “Then take my mind off it. If I can help, or even if not, I’ll listen.”

  A pause. “I’ve left Guy.”

  He absorbed this, letting it filter into his fogged brain as he tried to figure out how to express what he was feeling without giving offense. No, he wouldn’t express what he was feeling. Relief. Shame. Joy.

  “Olivia,” he said, finally ending the long silence. “How awful for you. Life is so bloody unfair.”

  “I suppose it is. I’m not really sure if I expected fair, just a little luck.” A lovely smile, fleeting but stellar.

  “What happened with Guy?”

  “Oh, I can’t blame him. We were both miserable. We had made our decision too fast, and nothing between us worked.” She made a small, helpless smile. “He hated that I couldn’t share my work life with him. It felt like withholding secrets. As, in fact, it was.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’d feel better not talking about it right now. I just wanted to tell you.” After a moment she asked, “How are you doing?”

  He knew she was referring to Kim and how the Office had decided it was too dangerous to send a plane to pick her up.

  “I’m so sorry, Julian. About the plane.”

  “The weather,” he said, needing to say something sensible, but unable, unwilling to pour out his worries in a bar in Mayfair.

  “Right up until the last,” she murmured. “Right up until the last moment, they might have approved it. I’m just so sorry.”

  “The German Alps in the snow.” He shook his head. “No, we can’t send a plane.”

  She put her hand on his. A light touch, and withdrawn.

  “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” drifting into the lounge. He nodded at the waiter to bring another round.

  THE AERIE

  CHRISTMAS EVE, 9:50 PM. Polina set a cup of hot chocolate on her side table and sat on the edge of her bed, pulling her hair onto her breast to plait it into a long braid. How terrible the last two days had been! Irina, frantic with grief, but insisting to go to the Christmas Eve gathering. Poor Evgeny Borisov, dead by his own hands, God rest his soul. He had been a sour, mad old man, but to die like that! And poor Nikolai, crying himself to sleep. And all this among the German barbarians here on this cold mountaintop.

  What had the tsarina and old Evgeny fought about two nights ago that he would take such a terrible step?

  She shoved her feet into her slippers and went to check on Nikolai as was her custom before bed. Turning on the hallway light—always a miracle, these electric lights—she padded past the tsarina’s room, noting a light still under the door. The poor thing, never a good sleeper, now less than ever.

  Pushing open Nikolai’s door, left ajar for Lev, she crossed the room to his window, pulling the blinds against the stark light of the full moon, appearing now and again through scudding clouds. Moving to the bed to pull up the covers that the tsarevich had tossed off, she stumbled over something, nearly falling.

  In the dim light of the room she saw a belt protruding from under the bed. She bent down and tugged on it, finding that it was a strap attached to something. Drawing it out, she saw a knapsack.

  By the feel, it appeared to be stuffed with clothes. Slipping her hand inside the flap, she took hold of a book and pulled it out. She could not read the English, but did not need to. It was that dreadful tract by the American writer, Edgar Poe. What on earth Nikolai would want with a knapsack, she did not know, but tomorrow was soon enough to suggest to His Highness that he not leave out things for people to trip on.

  As she left, Lev jumped off Nikolai’s bed and followed her out.

  In the hallway, the tsarina in her dressing gown was waiting for her.

  “Polina, my stomach is upset. Perhaps your special peppermint tea?”

  “Yes of course, Your Majesty.”

  A cup of tea that could not have been asked for earlier? When the tsarina went back to her room, Polina allowed herself an exasperated sigh and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  As always, when one wished a teakettle to boil, it took twice as long. And now here was the puppy, looking up at her, as though he would be fed at this time of night!

  Then up the stairs, and getting Irina settled in bed, and finally her own bed, soft and waiting after such a long day. Christmas Eve, observed only with prayers, except for the small package from Her Majesty, containing the lovely lace handkerchief. A keepsake, for Polina would never wipe her face with a present from the tsarina.

  She sipped at her hot chocolate, but it had gone cooler than she liked and seemed too bitter. Her little night table just had room for a lamp and her bible. She placed the cup on the floor, telling herself not to be so clumsy as to kick it over in the morning. No hot chocolate for old Polina tonight, but she was tired, and tomorrow would be busy with a special breakfast for her charges.

  11:37 PM. Kim lay awake listening to Erika snore. Every few minutes she sat up in bed, pressing her face against the window to see if it had begun snowing again, but it had not. More luck. Snow had been a constant worry.

  Each time she sat up she pressed her hand against the window to soothe where she had cut it on the champagne flute.

  She must not sleep tonight. Annakova would send for her, but when, Kim didn’t know. If only she had her Helbros! It wo
uld have been a small comfort, and in some way would have anchored her. Hannah had it. She hoped Hannah would remember to bring it tomorrow.

  Down the hill at his Festival Hall quarters, von Ritter would be retiring soon. He thought she was under control in her barracks room, watched over by Erika. There was no reason he would be outside now, watching her barracks from the tree line. But if he thought she had the ability to further her plans, he would never have let her spend the night in the relative freedom of the bunkhouse.

  Sleep, Erich, sleep. And by breakfast, when people would expect to see me, I will be gone. Having not said goodbye. I am sorry.

  She didn’t let herself think about all that could go wrong. Hadn’t the worst already happened, and it had not been able to touch her? Von Ritter recognizing her at the party. Von Ritter, returning from the dead, the only one who could identify her as SIS. And still, her plans survived. She survived.

  The sky was clear, the plane would come. And if it didn’t, there would be a car and the forest service road. Hannah had said. By the time the SS found their tracks in the snow outside the tunnel, Kim’s group would have a good head start.

  The thought came round again: Erich von Ritter was alive. He had not turned her over to the SS. Strange miracles. He had every cause to hate her, but he did not. She thought he loved her, at least a little. But more so, his country. He would do what honor demanded.

  As she lay in bed, the moon, that great cold eye, passed through the trees and shone on her bunk. Reaching up, she pressed her palm against the frosted window again. For comfort. To keep from falling asleep.

  But lying back down, and despite everything, despite her agitation, she dozed.

  A thunderous noise. A pounding on the door. Kim shot up to sitting position, momentarily terrified.

  Someone stood in the doorway, the light of the corridor throwing a soldier’s form into harsh relief. He barked an order. Erika scrambled from her bed. Outside, it was still full dark.

  The soldier said Kim was to come immediately; the tsarina wished to speak with her.

  Kim quickly dressed as the soldier waited in the hall.

  “Why does she call for you?” Erika asked. “What have you done?”

  “She likes to hear stories of America.”

  “America. Why?”

  “Erika, go back to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “But are you in trouble?” Erika’s nightmare: to be in trouble with the SS. Of course, that was everyone’s nightmare.

  “No, don’t worry. The tsarina has trouble sleeping, that’s all.”

  Down the hill they went, she and her escort. The snow lay on the compound in an opal sheath, burnished in the bluish, fey light of the moon. At this moment, when her fear might have overtaken her completely—thoughts of the SS waiting for her—she felt nothing but a preternatural calm. Now it would be what it would be. She had done everything that she could, everything that honor demanded, everything that Robert would have done if he had been on a mission and knew the sacrifice required to carry it through.

  At the chalet, Annakova answered the door. She dismissed the soldier but beckoned to the one who stood nearest her on the plaza, the one who watched over the chalet.

  In halting German she explained that Nora Copeland would sleep on the divan and keep her company tonight because she could not sleep.

  The guard nodded a bow. “Jawohll, Eure Majestät.”

  Annakova closed the door. They regarded each other solemnly.

  “And so we begin,” Annakova said.

  “Where is the maid?” Kim asked.

  “Upstairs. She sleeps very well tonight with powders in her drink.”

  Kim looked down the hallway leading to the living room. At her right, the kitchen, and on the left the staircase leading to the upper floor. “Where is the hidden way out, then?”

  Annakova led her into the kitchen, where a window looked out toward the garden and the gun emplacement beyond. She pointed to the shed in the midst of the garden.

  “When they build lift shaft, they make twice as wide as needful. Then they split shaft. Make two, by building big wall between, of brick and then plaster it over. But only a few know the second one, and that it goes belowground in tunnel to forest.”

  “Another lift? They will hear the gears.”

  “No, is stairs. No one hear.”

  Kim looked out on the small garden, the shed a mere thirty yards from the bunker where the big guns were trained on the road, manned day and night by soldiers.

  Annakova murmured, “Today, I ordered my walkways cleared. It is for safety of His Highness, against falling. They do not see our footsteps leading there.”

  Kim smiled. “Well done.”

  Annakova flicked a look at her for dropping the honorific. But her tsarina days were over.

  From the porch of his cabin, Captain Adler had watched Nora Copeland escorted to the chalet. He took a last draw on his cigarette and flicked it into the snow.

  47

  THE AERIE

  DECEMBER 25, 4:05 AM. The three of them stood in the dark downstairs hallway of the chalet, out of sight of the stairway.

  Annakova supplied a coat for Kim, lined in fur with a hood. Kim sweated in the bulk of it as they waited to set their escape in motion.

  “Maman,” Nikolai whispered to his mother. Then he remembered to speak English, since she had said they must speak it in front of Nora Copeland. “I did not say goodbye to Lev. I could not find him.”

  Annakova snapped a look at the stairs, then knelt down in front of him. “Yes, Kolya, is hard. He may be in Polina’s room, but we must not wake her.” She lifted his knapsack and helped him into it. “So heavy! I did tell you, bring only what is necessary. You have sweater? Extra socks?”

  “Yes, Maman.”

  Their pockets were stuffed with food in case of need. In Kim’s jacket, a flashlight provided by Annakova.

  It was time.

  “I go first?” Annakova asked, confirming what they had discussed, or perhaps putting it off for just another moment. Kim nodded.

  “Nikolai, you wait with Nora; when she say it safe to go, you make your way. Very silent.”

  The boy seemed remarkably calm. Perhaps he would have made a good tsar, Kim thought. A better one than his namesake.

  Kim entered the kitchen with its garden door, noting the broom that Annakova had placed against the counter. She peered out the window. The bunker was on higher ground than the chalet and the garden. It made it difficult to see the soldiers and which way they were facing.

  Annakova looked to Nikolai and nodded at him. Then she was out the door, moving toward the toolshed. She went slowly, as they had discussed, stepping carefully. Kim saw the shed door opening and closing.

  Then Nikolai’s turn. As she opened the door for him, his knapsack swiped against the counter, sending a plate crashing to the floor.

  He looked up in alarm.

  “It’s all right. Follow your mother.” She pushed him toward the door, opening it softly. “Go.” Then he was a gray shadow on the narrow walkway. No alarms from the lookouts.

  Kim looked behind her, toward the hall and the stairs. Was Polina awake, or would the sleeping pills make sure that she was not? She couldn’t wait any longer. Taking the broom, she slipped out the door, closing it carefully.

  The world was cold silver. The sky, a tarnished gray, the garden in slumbering white, recently dusted by snow. Every three steps Kim turned and brushed the frosted sidewalk to hide their footprints. Her face was rigidly cold, but the rest of her body was bathed in a suffocating warmth. She worked carefully but fast, her breath catching in her chest unless she commanded herself to breathe. Her mind, in control of all things, leaving nothing to chance. Sweep, breathe, sweep. Checking the bunker for silhouettes—seeing none—she turned into the last, short stretch to the toolshed. Sweep, breathe, sweep.

  Then inside.

  Annakova and Nikolai were just lifting the trapdoor lid. Straw and rags were affi
xed to the top to disguise the lid outlines when it was shut. Kim moved forward to help them.

  4:10 AM. A loud cracking sound had awakened Polina. She sat up, trying to come fully wake. There was no help for it, she must go look. She threw off the covers and slid her feet into her slippers.

  She padded to the head of the stairs, ready to shout for the guards if, incredibly, there was an intruder. But it was probably Lev getting into mischief. She listened. Nothing further.

  Hurrying back to her room to turn on a light, she found the puppy lying on the floor. It had vomited and lay breathing heavily. The dog, sick all over her carpet!

  But then, it could not have been Lev who made the crashing sound.

  She returned to the hallway and knocked lightly on the door to the tsarina’s room. No answer. Opening the door, she found the bedclothes cast off and her mistress not there. Perhaps she had gotten up and gone to the kitchen. Polina bustled off to help her if she was making tea. It was unlikely that she would do so, but it was the middle of the night and she might not have wanted her old servant disturbed.

  Proceeding to the tsarevich’s room in order to make sure all was well, she pushed open the door. By the wan light of the moon through the window, she saw that his bed was empty as well. But why would the young master be up? She glanced down to the bed skirt. A terrible surmise began to form in her mind. But no. What a foolish old woman she was! Clearly, neither mother nor son could sleep, and now, the tsarina in the kitchen, fumbling the tea things.

  Still, she reached under the bed, slapping the floor as far as she could reach. Then on her hands and knees, bending over, not an easy thing to do. She could see nothing. Heavens, to be so stiff! She struggled to her feet and turned on the bedside lamp. Then down to look again, and no easier this time. She peered under the bed.

  The knapsack was gone.

  Polina’s heart beat so hard she thought she might be having an attack. Holding on to the side of the bed, she lifted herself to her feet and rushed to the stairs, slapping on the hall light as she went. She clambered down the stairs. All in darkness. The great room down the corridor lay in deep shadows.