Romanov

by Nadine Brandes

  “Ah, you’ve met this rascal?” Ivan chuckled.

  “Only as was necessary,” Zash was quick to add, as though not wanting Ivan to think of us beyond the roles of captor and captive.

  Ivan gave Zash a side glance. He looked seconds away from commenting on Zash’s brusque manner but then seemed to reconsider.

  “How do you two know each other?” I pointed between the men.

  But Ivan had tamed his playful manner, respecting his friend’s obvious desire for distance.

  A wooden groan split the air. The palisade gates opened and a Russo-Balt automobile drove in, shining black beneath its open cloth roof. Commandant Avdeev paled and then pushed Papa away from him.

  A man in a Soviet uniform climbed out of the car. He squinted up at the house, the sun revealing a friendly face not quite thirty years of age. Then he spotted us, and whatever friendliness I’d caught on his round-cheeked visage melted into a cool indifference—one that appeared far more natural to him than friendliness.

  Avdeev shook his hand, then pointed to each of us in turn, speaking low. He made no introductions but kept one side of his body pressed against the wall as though for support. Even in his mildly intoxicated state he seemed to know to put on a front. This round-cheeked man was important.

  The stranger surveyed our family, glossing over each of us as though taking note of numbers and not humans. “How long have they been outside today?”

  Avdeev muttered something in response, then gestured to the house. The new man nodded and they went inside. Mere seconds after they disappeared, Ivan spoke to Maria in quiet, gentle tones.

  Zash had put a few more feet of distance between us. I closed the gap. “Do you know who that new man is?”

  Zash stared resolutely forward, his chin high and spine straight. I made it a little more personal and gently used his name. “Zash?”

  His gaze darted to me.

  “Is he a new . . . guard?” I didn’t like playing dumb, but I’d do what was necessary to get answers.

  Zash pulled his pistol from his belt and held it between us as a barricade. As though I were posing a threat. “Return to your garden activities, Citizen.”

  I stumbled back, instinctively putting up my hands. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

  He looked fierce. Formidable. Like the other guards who had granted us not a single moment of softness.

  “Oy, Zash!” Ivan hissed, bodily moving Maria to a safer spot away from the weapon.

  Someone took my arm from behind and I spun. Papa led me toward the tiny group of birch trees against the palisade. “The new man is Alexander Beloborodov, the chair of the Ural Regional Soviet. He is likely here for a surprise inspection. He did the same thing a few days after your mamma, Maria, and I arrived.”

  So Beloborodov was the big shot. And with him on the premises we were endangering any Bolshevik soldier we dared to speak to with any familiarity. Zash was likely trying to protect himself. I darted my gaze to Maria and Ivan. She knelt and pruned wildflowers from the tiny garden corner while Ivan watched. Entranced.

  Beloborodov did not stay long. But the moment he zoomed away in his automobile, Avdeev commanded us back inside. We didn’t visit the garden again that day. I suspected his bloodshot eyes had bought him no favors with his superior. Alcohol was not forbidden to soldiers, but it certainly wasn’t encouraged in large amounts. Particularly when you were guarding the Imperial family that one army wanted to rescue and another army wanted to murder.

  * * *

  Morning came with a summons from Avdeev.

  We rose, changed from our sleeping clothes, and congregated in the sitting room. My sisters and I squished together on the sofa while Mamma, Papa, and Alexei took the freestanding chairs.

  Avdeev stood inside the doorway with two soldiers on each side. He clasped his hands behind his back. “From now on, you will rise at eight. You will be washed and dressed for breakfast at nine, at which time I shall be present to take roll. Your clothing will no longer be sent out for laundering—you can do that on your own. Lunch will be at one in the afternoon and dinner delivered at eight.”

  “And what of fresh air and exercise?” Papa asked with firm cordiality.

  “One half hour of recreation in the garden will be permitted twice daily—once in the late morning and once in the afternoon.”

  “A single hour?” Papa asked, aghast. “May I ask the reason behind this sudden change in routine?”

  “It is so that your life at the Ipatiev House more closely resemble a prison regime.” Avdeev punctuated this with a hard stare. “You are no longer permitted to live like tsars.”

  I rose before eight the following morning and took a peek through my secret fortochka window. I sucked in a rebellious breath of free air and then released the breath toward Avdeev’s office, as though taunting him.

  In the main room I pulled the small cord beside the landing door and a bell rang on the other side of the wall. A soldier opened the door and escorted me to the bathroom. “Dobroye utra,” I greeted in Russian, trying to show friendliness. He didn’t respond. I didn’t try again.

  Inside, I washed and ignored the rude political comments scraped on the wall by the nastier soldiers. An hour later, my family and I sat around the dining table for a breakfast of tea and black bread. “No longer permitted to live like tsars,” Avdeev had said. As though coffee and eggs were living like tsars! Beloborodov must have been displeased with his inspection.

  Papa prayed over our food and we helped ourselves to the bread. At least the tea was hot. Cold tea, even on a hot day, always left me chilled.

  In a ridiculous contrast, our bread and tea were served on our fine china, bringing a semblance of our old life to this new dirty one. It felt pretend—like one of the plays I used to put on for the family. A fancy princess eating on fancy china . . . in a rotting prison cell void of direct light.

  The mental image made me giggle. It wasn’t a funny scenario, being too close to the truth. But I’d learned that when I felt like despairing, a well-timed giggle could infuse a measure of strength. It could also lead straight to tears if I wasn’t careful.

  This morning, I was careful. And I soaked in the smile that passed from me to Alexei to Maria to Tatiana to Papa. It skipped Mamma and Olga.

  The click of Avdeev’s boots mixed with the clink of small spoons on china cups, stirring the tea though there was no sugar or lemon to mix in. He stopped in the doorway and watched us for a moment. My giggling stopped, but Papa turned his smile to Avdeev. We all followed suit. We would show him that his new regime could not dampen the bond of our family.

  Avdeev held the folded Ekaterinburg paper under his arm. His blond hair was mussed, as though he had slept poorly and then bypassed a mirror. Red eyes again. Avdeev was en route to poisoning himself into a grave.

  “Ah, thank you, Commandant.” Papa rose from the table to receive his paper.

  Avdeev shook his head, which caused him to stumble briefly, but he caught himself on the doorframe. “No, Citizen Nikolai. You will no longer receive newspapers.”

  Avdeev’s bloodshot gaze slid to meet mine. He held it. And somehow I knew this had to do with the fact Papa and I had carried on a secret conversation behind the paper two days ago. Avdeev must have seen the guilt on my face, because he straightened. His message had been sent.

  “I will, however, allow you to hear this morning’s local announcement.” He flicked the paper open. “‘All those under arrest will be held as hostages.’” He looked up. Those under arrest meant us. The Romanovs. “‘The slightest attempt at counterrevolutionary action in the town will result in the summary execution of the hostages.’” He snapped the paper closed. Then he entered his office and turned on the gramophone that used to be ours.

  Not a breath. Not a word. Not a clink of silverware on china. Just that crackling record spinning in betrayal, sending out music that used to send us dancing. Mocking us.

  Then the pop of a cork being yanked out of a cheap bottle
of vodka.

  We would be executed if anyone tried to rescue us. If there had been any members of the White Army hidden in Ekaterinburg, this surely would have silenced them.

  I was the first to turn back to my dense black bread. I whispered, “I’m sorry, Papa.”

  June 5

  “What is our purpose in living, Nastya?” Alexei lay in his bed while the rest of the family went outside for the first excursion into the garden. I opted to stay inside and keep Alexei company—not because I didn’t care for the fresh air, but because I cared for my brother even more.

  I lifted Joy carefully onto his lap. She licked the toy soldiers that lay facedown on his sheet. “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged and tugged a toy soldier from Joy’s mouth, then wiped it clean with the corner of his sheet. “What am I now? Even if they release us and we live in a village somewhere, forgotten to Russia . . . what am I? I won’t be tsar. I can’t be a soldier because of all this.” He gestured to his body. “Why is it important to survive?”

  I tried to detect the deeper question, instead of simply despairing at the hopelessness in it. He asked it logically. Calmly. The least I could do was respond in kind. “I see why it’s hard for you.” He’d lost his throne. Everything he grew up learning and training for no longer applied to his life. “But what do your people—the Russian people—live for? They don’t have thrones. Not all of them are soldiers. So what would you tell them their purpose is?”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Very perceptive, Sister. I suppose they live to care for their families. To follow dreams.” He rubbed Joy behind the ears and she curled herself into the blankets by his side. “I still have my family. And though I am ill—always ill—I can think of new dreams. If Papa can, I can.”

  “Papa’s goal is to care for the Russian people . . . as a fellow citizen. Through love, forgiveness, and humility. Perhaps that is the sign of a true tsar. One that doesn’t change whether he has a throne or not.”

  “This is why you’re my favorite sister.” Alexei winked and I laughed. He’d said that to all four of us sisters, but I liked to think he truly meant it with me. “Oh, and happy birthday.”

  I startled. “Birthday?”

  “Well . . . according to the old style.” He withdrew a small scroll of paper bound with a linen ribbon. “I suppose, under the new Gregorian, calendar you don’t turn seventeen for another thirteen days.”

  I’d wholly forgotten about my birthday. When Lenin changed the calendar from Julian to Gregorian, I’d abandoned keeping track of most dates. But today, on June fifth, I was now seventeen.

  I took so long in accepting the scroll, Alexei finally tossed it into my lap. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a smart remark.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Thank you, dear Brother, but I shall celebrate your birthday according to the Gregorian calendar, which now makes me thirteen extra days older than you.” I slid the ribbon from around the thick paper, already detecting the nature of the gift as it unfurled. “A play?”

  “One you’ve not yet performed because I snitched it on our first day in Tobolsk so as to save it for your birthday.”

  He’d brought it all the way here, to Ekaterinburg, even when so ill. I took in the gift—a one-act playlet farce. Alexei knew how I loved to make people laugh. “It’s truly the best gift I’ve ever received.”

  “Khorosho. Good.” He tapped the parchment. “You’ll notice there are three roles. I demand that you include me in one of them.”

  “As if I would consider anyone else worthy.”

  * * *

  Lunch was a simple serving of soup broth with small bits of meat, delivered to the gates from the Ekaterinburg Soviet. I didn’t feel full once the entire day. And poor Mamma—a vegetarian—barely got any nutrition as she picked at the soup.

  When Avdeev announced our garden time, everyone but Mamma and Olga rushed into the fresh air. I took up the rear. As the rest of my family descended the stairs at the lead of a Bolshevik, I took a detour . . .

  . . . into Avdeev’s office.

  The space smelled strongly of cigarette smoke and alcohol. Boxes, papers, trunks, trinkets, and rubbish filled the room the way a rat might build its nest. I wrinkled my nose but scanned with my eyes. Where would a drunken commandant hide spell items?

  I crossed to the cabinet beneath our gramophone. The small door was locked. A thrill struck my chest. This must have been it.

  I glanced in his desk drawers—only papers. I riffled through a stack of boxes on the floor by his desk—more papers and empty liquor bottles. Then, beneath a chest of Papa’s journals, I found a small rusted key. Why would he have left it lying there?

  It fit perfectly into the cabinet lock. I gave it the slightest turn. Snick. The door opened and . . . vodka. Bottles and bottles of vodka.

  No spell items. No spell ink. No books of spell mastery.

  I shut the door, locked it, and returned the key to its spot on the desk with an exasperated sigh.

  “What are you doing?”

  I snapped my head up. Zash filled the doorway, arms folded, pistol glinting at his side. How had I not heard him? My senses had been on high alert. I tried to shrug off the situation, but I’d crossed a line. “Just a bit of mischief.”

  “This is more than mischief. This is rebellion.”

  I stood by the desk, running through excuses or lies, but this was too much. Too deep. And when improvisation couldn’t rescue you, the best bet was to spill the truth. Honesty was the most efficient—and the most dangerous—rescuer.

  “You’re right.” My arms fell limp to my sides. “It wasn’t mischief. But I’m not trying to rebel. I’m trying to look out for my family.”

  “What, they can’t handle the soldier rations like the rest of us?”

  I could practically taste his bitterness. As my next words spilled forth, I didn’t meet his eyes. “Alexei is ill. I was hoping to find a healing spell that could help him.”

  Talk of spells could send a bullet to my heart, but Zash had spell secrets of his own, so I forged ahead. “I know it’s not allowed, but he’s my brother. Everything has been taken from us.” My throat tightened. “We have only each other. Can you blame me for wanting to do anything I can to keep my family from suffering?”

  I expected to meet his stiff gaze again, but the coldness was gone. Zash released a long exhale. “Nyet. I cannot blame you for that. If it is the truth, that is likely the only thing you and I have in common.”

  I made my way slowly toward the door. He stepped aside to let me out, then he closed the door behind me. I held my arms out from my body. “If you need to search me, please do. I promise I’ve taken nothing.”

  He conducted a swift search, and the same unspoken rule kept him from examining where the Matryoshka doll rested. “I’m satisfied.” He straightened.

  I clasped my hands in front of me, truly humbled. I wasn’t often caught in my mischief. “Will you . . . will you tell Commandant Avdeev?”

  “It is my duty.”

  “But perhaps you don’t need to tell him immediately, right?” I attempted a cautious grin. If I couldn’t convince him to keep my secret, I might have to threaten to reveal his. But blackmailing a Bolshevik guard was my absolute last resort.

  Zash seemed annoyed. “I am taking you to the garden.”

  “Of course.” I followed him down the stairs, palms sweating at what might await me in the garden. Would he take me straight to Avdeev?

  “Why is your brother always so sick? The doctor has plenty of medicines at his disposal.”

  A tiny little kit of morphine and a few other drugs were Zash’s idea of “plenty of medicines”? All the same, I grasped at the conversation. “It is his blood. It does not clot, so any cut or bruise can be fatal. It is called hemophilia.”

  We stepped into the light of the garden and I breathed in the freedom. Zash stopped at the edge of the grass. I did, too. He frowned at me. “When did he contract such an illness?”
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  Oy. There was no going back now. “Since birth. It has been passed through our bloodline. My uncle died as a boy from the same illness. We . . .” I wrung my hands. Too much truth was coming out, but I couldn’t seem to stop. “We kept it a secret from the public. Alexei was to be the next tsar. The people adored him, but they wouldn’t understand that his weakness was in body only. If they had known, they would think him unfit to rule.”

  “You did not have much faith in your people.”

  I folded my arms. “Do you wonder why none of us four girls ever married or even courted? Because some nobility heard of Alexei’s illness, and even though they did not know the details, they considered all us girls diseased. Infected. They denied us our futures because of their own speculation.”

  Zash raised an eyebrow. “Had you revealed the truth, they might not have.”

  “You are not very familiar with nobility.” I sniffed.

  “And you are not very familiar with the common folk.”

  I’d give him that one. “We always wished to be.” I could reminisce about my life of traveling and palaces as fondly as I liked, but there had always been a layer of frustration shared between us siblings. Frustration in never being allowed out. Not allowed to know our people. Not allowed to attend parties. Not allowed to live or learn or explore beyond our own family life. All at Mamma’s dictate.

  “You’d best join your family before your time ends.” Zash nudged me forward with his elbow.

  So surprised was I by his touch that I practically bounded away from him. But not before sending a quick thank-you. “Spasibo, Zash.”

  “For what?” he grumbled.

  I didn’t answer. For talking with me. And . . . for hopefully keeping my secret.

  Three days later, Avdeev had still said nothing to me. I could only guess that Zash decided not to share my trespassing. That meant I wouldn’t have to blackmail him. And maybe it meant we were becoming . . . friendly?

  The grumble of my stomach had stopped hurting, having accepted the new rations. But as I scraped the last of the broth from my lunch bowl, I still felt filled with little more than air.