Romanov

by Nadine Brandes

  “Greetings, Commandant.” Papa extended his hand.

  Yurovsky shook it once. “How is the tsarevich’s knee?”

  Papa’s eyebrows jumped at the inquiry. “Not yet well.”

  Yurovsky gave a singular nod and appraised the room. “There will be an inspection and recording of your belongings as well as your quarters.” There was no question. We would comply. He was our new warden.

  And with his arrival . . . everything changed.

  * * *

  We never saw Avdeev again. Yurovsky completed his inspection of our quarters and took note of our items that had been stolen by the guards. Papa commented on how thorough Yurovsky was. He seemed optimistic. I was not, especially as Yurovsky eyed me every time he crossed my path.

  He knew I had the doll. And he wanted it back.

  I grew edgy. During the change in command we were not allowed out in the garden and Zash was not on duty on the landing. I wanted to see him. I wanted to ensure he was okay since Ivan’s death.

  As dawn rose on Yurovsky’s first full day in command, I woke to the sound of boots on the stairs. I crept from my bed, sliding my hand out of Maria’s tense grip of sleep. I tiptoed to the door of the landing and listened. The boots stopped at what sounded like Yurovsky’s office. A knock. A muffled, “Da.” The door creaked. The boots clicked. The door shut.

  Then silence.

  I sat by the door, listening as I once did when Maria and Ivan were flirting out on the landing. Five minutes passed, the light brightened against the whitewash, and then the door opened. The footsteps left. Just a meeting. Possibly with a guard. Yurovsky was gathering intel as the new commandant, but why so early in the morning?

  I was about to push myself from the floor and return to my room to change, but then another set of boots came up the stairs. Another knock. Another whisper. Another meeting. Every five minutes this happened. Every five minutes the pattern of boots was different. Different men meeting with Yurovsky. What were they telling him? Were they loyal to us?

  The day went on and at breakfast we had our daily inspection and roll call. No cocoa was served. The time for our garden outing came. And went. Perhaps Yurovsky was not yet aware of our previous schedule.

  My throat ached for the fresh air. My skin wept as it imagined the sun upon it. I needed light. I needed open sky. I’d not breathed fully since before Beloborodov pulled into the drive.

  A half hour later, Yurovsky entered our space. Papa stood from his chair. “Are we to go into the garden?”

  “Not today.” Yurovsky consulted his pocket watch, then glanced at me. “The guards are being replaced. During this transition you are to stay in your quarters.”

  My heart lurched with an awful spasm. “Which guards? Why?”

  His dark eyes narrowed. “All of the guards are being replaced. I expect you know why.”

  Maria sat with glassy eyes, untouched mending in her lap. Yurovsky was replacing the guards because he believed they’d been compromised. That meant they were leaving. Zash was leaving. He might already be gone.

  I couldn’t swallow. No. Please don’t let him take Zash from me. I understood, to an extent, how Maria had felt when she looked at Ivan for the last time and what she must have seen. She must have known, in that moment, that she would never see him again.

  Would I get a good-bye with Zash? Where were the soldiers being sent? If Yurovsky thought they were compromised, they might be sent to prison. Or even executed! We’d heard the gunshots in Ekaterinburg. Every day.

  The rest of the afternoon passed in agony. Our food from the convent sisters was even more limited. Mamma’s headache worsened. I sat by our one open window—far enough away to be safe from the eyes of the guards waiting to shoot at me but close enough to watch the string of soldiers tromp away from Ekaterinburg, group by group. The clank of their packing and the scuffle of their departure reached our ears through the floor.

  I watched. And watched. And watched. Watching for his midnight hair. For his straight spine. For the elegant eyes that winked at me. For his glance over his shoulder toward my window. For a good-bye. But everyone wore budenovka hats. They left in groups too large and too swift for me to sift through.

  By the end of the day, when the old guards were gone and the new ones had walked in carrying a chill in their posture strong enough to freeze out the July sweat, I knew I’d missed him. Zash had slipped away. We didn’t get our good-bye. I had lost him in the madness.

  I finally allowed myself to cry into my pillow. Until the sun had gone. Until my appetite had gone. Until my hope had gone.

  17

  “You must come eat, Nastya.” Alexei served food onto my plate and I crawled from my bed. I couldn’t drift away like Maria had. Alexei needed me. My family needed me. Zash was not central enough in my life for me to allow him to derail it.

  I needed to move on. To face forward.

  So we ate—rather, we picked at our food because we were all so exhausted. But we’d starve without it. The moment the last fork was set down, Yurovsky entered our space. Avdeev had never come in after supper. What did Yurovsky want? I couldn’t meet his eyes—not because of the doll, but because of Zash’s departure.

  “Citizen Nikolai, I will speak with you in my office, please.” Yurovsky didn’t wait for Papa’s response. He left our rooms and entered his office. Papa followed. The rest of us sat at the table, staring after him.

  “What does he want?” Alexei whispered.

  “Likely to question him,” I said. “Yurovsky inspected our belongings. It’s time to inspect us.” I didn’t miss the fact that Yurovsky had waited until all our allies were sent from the Ipatiev House and we were at our lowest morale. Hopelessness and exhaustion were part of his inspection—to place us under his spyglass when we were weakest.

  “He will likely question all of us.” Tatiana rubbed Ortipo behind the ears but didn’t dare pass her any of our precious rations.

  Mamma’s head snapped up. “I cannot undergo an interrogation.” She rose gingerly, her food untouched, and retired to her bed. “If he wishes to question me, he can come in here.”

  I stared at the closed door separating us from the opportunity to eavesdrop. My heart slammed against the Matryoshka doll. I needed to hide it. Or maybe Yurovsky would expect me to hide it, so I should leave it on my person. I still had Alexei’s relief spells in my pocket.

  Papa returned, escorted by a soldier I’d never seen before. Yurovsky stepped in, his gaze fixed on me. “Citizen Anastasia.”

  I rose slowly. He wasn’t giving me time to hide the doll. My feet carried me after him as I tried to maintain a semblance of obedience and suppress my panic. As I passed Papa, he gave me a nod—a nod to be strong. To not cower before this man.

  Yurovsky’s office was the same mess Avdeev’s had been. I didn’t know if it was him or leftovers from Avdeev. Empty bottles lay everywhere with stacks of papers and latched boxes. Only the bed across the room had been cleared and replaced with Yurovsky’s belongings. The same belongings I had ransacked before leaving Tobolsk.

  Yurovsky gestured to a chair. To sit would be to humble myself. To lessen myself. To reduce my courage because sitting spanned half the distance to bowing. A princess never sat in submission.

  But I sat because Yurovsky sought compliance. And any tickle of rebellion would do me no favors.

  “We did not spend much time together in Tobolsk, but I feel I know you, Nastya.” His use of my nickname pinched my throat. It felt too intimate—like he knew my secrets. Which he likely did.

  “The feeling is mutual, Commandant.”

  “Where is the Matryoshka doll?”

  He certainly didn’t waste time. “Pardon?”

  “The doll. You took it from my satchel. Don’t deny it.”

  A flush rose to my face. I could barely hear through the blood in my ears. I swallowed hard. “I do not deny it, sir. It was wrong of me to take it.”

  He paced before me. “Where is it now?”

&nb
sp; “It was confiscated when I arrived in Ekaterinburg, upon my first search.” I tried to sound helpless, as though I wished I could help him more.

  His pocket watch lay open on the desk in front of him and he examined it for a moment, as though wondering how to make me comply like the gears in his timepiece. “Do not lie to me, Citizen.”

  “I am not lying, Commandant.” I was so lying.

  As though to indulge me like a child, he gave a sickly smile. “Spells are illegal. Why did you want it enough to risk infuriating the Soviet?”

  I let out a gust of breath. “I didn’t know what the doll held, but I figured it could be helpful for Alexei’s illness.”

  He rose from his desk. “Where is the doll, Nastya?”

  My voice spiked up a notch. Insistent. “It was confiscated! We and our belongings were searched. A soldier took it. I assumed he reported it to Commandant Avdeev.”

  The lies felt like saltwater across my tongue. I was not in the habit of lying—my old mischief was more sophisticated than that. But truth was a gift that Yurovsky didn’t deserve. My family was the one thing I would lie for. Especially if it saved them. Forgive me, Iisus.

  Yurovsky stopped in front of me, snapping his pocket watch closed, then open, then closed. “There is no record of it.”

  “Perhaps you should ask your Bolsheviks.” I stared at the opening and closing of his pocket watch, hypnotized. Only then did I realize why it captivated me so. The hour and minute hands were loose. Instead of telling the time, they pointed sharply as one toward the edge of the watch.

  Toward me.

  Yurovsky stepped so close, I smelled the disgust on his breath. “You are not as good a liar as you are a pickpocket.” He gave me a mighty shove. My foot caught on a loose trunk and I sprawled onto the ground with a cry.

  Yurovsky checked his watch and triumph crossed his face. I didn’t need to see the face of the timepiece to know . . . its hands had followed my movement.

  That pocket watch didn’t tell time. It detected spells.

  That was how Yurovsky found the doll in Tobolsk. That was how he knew I still had it on my person. All this time I thought he’d been checking the hour, to ensure his clockwork soldiers ticked and tocked and chimed to his will. But instead he was hunting for spells.

  He shoved the watch in his pocket. Then he advanced. I scrambled backward, terror flowing through me. “Papa!”

  I threw items in Yurovsky’s path—boxes, vodka bottles, whatever my hand could reach. Then, when I’d crawled into a mess of papers and boxes and crates near a cabinet, I curled into a ball. The position brought a sense of safety, but mostly it allowed me to shove a hand into my corset and pull the Matryoshka doll free.

  Yurovsky stopped beside me. “You’re pathetic.”

  I uncurled and lay before him like an animal exposing its belly in submission. But in my movement, I let the doll loose underneath the worn cabinet. I adjusted my position among the crinkled paper to mask the sound of the doll rolling across the floor to the back of the cabinet shadows.

  Yurovsky’s nose wrinkled as he stared at me. “I could call a guard in here to tear every stitch of clothing off your body until we find the doll. No one would stop him. No one would stop me. You are nothing, Citizen. Nothing but an inconvenience to the Soviet.”

  He held out his hand. “Now. Would you rather give me the doll on your own, or do we need to see how many bruises it takes?”

  I thought of Papa on his knees in front of Avdeev. I thought of Zash swallowing his sorrow to comply with Beloborodov’s wishes. I clamped a fist down on my pride and slipped my hand into the pocket of my skirt. I allowed my fear and emotions to create tears. They weren’t a facade—they were a shield.

  “This . . . this is all I have, Commandant. Please.” I held out the tin of relief spells.

  He eyed the tin before snatching it from my hand. I scrambled to my feet and put distance between me and the doll. When Yurovsky looked at his pocket watch next, his eyebrows popped in the barest display of surprise.

  So I was right—the pocket watch pointed toward spells. And since I no longer had a spell hidden on my person, it didn’t point toward me. It pointed toward the tin in his hand. Maybe that meant it pointed to the spell nearest it?

  I wanted to flee the room, but I needed Yurovsky to believe I was a frightened, obedient rabbit. I needed him to believe he broke me. Instead, I seemed to have broken him—or his composure, at least. He glanced back at the watch, then me, then the watch. Not very subtle, Mister Dark-Eyed Bolshevik.

  He opened the tin, set the lid aside, and squinted to read the words. Wrong move.

  The wiggly relief spells popped out of the tin, flopping to the ground like unnested birds, then bouncing into crevices and hidey-holes. He clapped a hand over the mouth of the tin with a curse, trapping what was left of the spells.

  But several were already loose—wiggling their way to freedom where they’d possibly fade or expel their magic on some useless piece of wood. And they would send his pocket watch spinning.

  “They are relief spells,” I said meekly. “For Alexei’s knee. That is all I have on me. He was in such pain . . . I couldn’t help but try to relieve it.”

  Yurovsky set the tin on the cabinet shelf, beneath which the Matryoshka doll lay in hiding. Then he slipped his watch into his pocket. With a deep breath through his nose, he said, “You may go, Citizen.”

  I didn’t wait for him to repeat the order.

  18

  Yurovsky confiscated our finery. All jewelry upon us—rings, bracelets, necklaces. Well, all jewelry except that in our corsets. Mamma was furious, but Yurovsky allowed Papa to watch him place the items in a box and lock it for safety. “This is standard for prisoners.”

  I wasn’t bothered by any of it . . . except the doll. I eyed Yurovsky during his confiscations, watching for any sort of triumphant grin or sign that he’d found the doll. So far . . . nothing. It was safe in the enemy’s lair. My family’s salvation, a hairsbreadth away from being taken away. Not only that, but I’d lost the relief spells for Alexei’s knee.

  I needed to get the doll back, but not until I had a plan. Because if I retrieved it, his pocket watch would betray me again.

  The second day of Yurovsky’s command arrived, as well as the new schedules and rhythms of the guards. I didn’t have the energy to befriend new Bolsheviks. I didn’t have the will to hope for the arrival of the White Army. We’d heard nothing from the White Army officer since our declination of rescue.

  A grey morning greeted us, feeling little different from the dark night. Storm clouds turned the whitewashed windows into dark drapes. The rain pattered against the glass. I moved to the open window and let the rain spray my face for a few seconds until Mamma beckoned me away before I got shot.

  For a mere second, I felt life. Then it was gone.

  I changed into day clothes and rang the bell to the landing to use the toilet. The door opened. I avoided eye contact with the new Bolshevik soldier. The soldier who would mock my fuzzy head, who would scratch nasty messages on the bathroom wall, who would whisper something about Papa that would turn my blood to angry embers.

  So I entered the toilet and did my business, trying not to breathe in the stench of new and old soldiers. Trying not to think of the many times I had passed Zash on my way to this same location—a glimmer of hope and friendship inside a relentless prison. I missed him.

  Did he think of me at all?

  I could’ve used his help to sneak back into Yurovsky’s office. But when was the right time to retrieve the doll? Papa said to use the spell at the last possible moment. That moment loomed closer and closer now that Yurovsky was at the helm.

  The seam on the doll had started to show. It wanted to be used.

  Despite Papa’s strange advice, I’d always trusted him. But what if he’d been compromised? He’d been here a long time. Maria had been unable to think safely after her time here. She gave in to Ivan, causing this new mess. Mamma’s headach
e had become her new cell and she showed no will left to live. Even I had cracked beneath the sorrow of losing Zash, losing Ivan, even losing Avdeev. And now Yurovsky was determined to find the doll. It was only a matter of time.

  Could I trust Papa’s advice? He’d shown humility to the commandants for so long, perhaps he was growing to accept our fate and imprisonment and death. He never asked for the Matryoshka doll back from me. He let me keep it, because he knew I could use it as the family’s salvation.

  When was I supposed to take it into my own hands? Surely it would be better to use it than to allow Yurovsky to take it from us. I imagined retrieving the doll from his office. I imagined opening it and seeing the spell. Saving us.

  A fist pounded on the door. I jumped and finished my business. It had been nice to have a solitary space for a minute. My time was up, but my mind had been sparked with something new to dwell on. A new plan, perhaps.

  I splashed water on my face and opened the door.

  Zash stood before me.

  My hands flew to my mouth to stifle a gasp. “Zash!” I almost jumped into his arms. But then I took in his appearance.

  He wasn’t smiling. His smooth brown eyes did not sparkle. He stood as rigid as when I’d first met him. And he wore a crisp new Bolshevik uniform.

  “Zash?” It came out as a whisper this time.

  “Return to your quarters, Citizen.” His face betrayed no softness. I stared into it, searching for my friend. For the man who was the only one who could send my heart pounding in something other than fear.

  No twitch. No blink. No kindness. The gears in my head whirred, connecting the pieces. He must be under watch. I must not cause a scene. I did not want him to get shot in the head like Ivan.

  I nodded. “Of course, sir.” He took my arm and led me through the door and back into our five-room cell.