The Mysterious Alexandra Tarasova-Yusupov

by Carl Douglass

  Tarasova House, No. 71 Pekinskaya Street, Vladivostok, Far Eastern Russia, March 4, 1882

  Freezing March winds howled down out of the canyons and off the ice bound lake surfaces as Boris drove his three horses to their limits to get home before dinner was served at Tarasova House on this the coldest day on record. The family was seated at the great table but had not yet been served when Boris burst through the two fourteen feet tall entryway doors. He was disappointed when he saw that there was no empty seat by Alexandra. He was distraught when he saw her look away from him intentionally. He took the seat kept empty in memory of the ancestors, thereby eliciting looks of frank disapproval from everyone in the family. He had done the equivalent of dropping his cigar into the punch bowl as the tzar was about to be served. He knew all of that, and he did not care. All he thought about was his wife—his icicle of a wife, at the moment—sitting in her chair with her father on her right, and Abram’s elderly aunt on her left. He had to talk to her this evening, or all was lost.

  The meal was excellent, as usual. The conversation was stilted and empty, the stuff of empty cocktail party prattle. Although the fireplaces kept the room snugly warm, there was a chill in the room. Though this was a gathering of family, it felt to everyone there that it was a meeting after a funeral of a hated great-grandfather that was about to descend into internecine strife with an unyielding squabble over expected inheritances.

  Finally, Boris could not tolerate the pretenses of civility, and he would not permit a continuation of him being frozen out from his wife and family. He spoke first.

  “Abram and Irina, it is time for Alexandra and I to have a serious talk. I ask that you do us the courtesy of allowing that conversation to be held in private and now. I know you have heard things about me and my work. However, you do not know the whole thing. After tonight, I hope that will all be cleared up.”

  He turned towards Alexandra.

  She had an expressionless face, as devoid of caring and emotion as if it had been carved from alabaster.

  “I have no desire to talk to you, Boris. Now or ever. It is time for you to go, find a new place to live, find new relationships among your aristocratic friends.”

  “We must have a real understanding, Alexandra. Silence is the same as ignorance, and almost equal to lies. Do me this one–perhaps one last–courtesy of hearing me out; and I will listen to what you have to say without interrupting you.”

  “If I agree, will you agree never to trouble me again?”

  “If–after I have had my say–you do not want to have anything to do with me, I will absent myself entirely and without rancor.”

  “All right. We can go into the withdrawing room and have this talk. I want my father and mother to be right outside of the door so that they can come if I call.”

  “Are you actually afraid that I might or that I could do you physical harm, my dear little wife? That is the most unkindest cut of all.”

  “Oh, cease the drama, Boris. I am no Julius Caesar.”

  “And I am no Brutus, Alexandra. And this is no Shakespearian drama, nor is our conversation on the level of a mass stabbing. It is a misunderstanding between husband and wife.”

  “Then, let us repair to the withdrawing room and get it over with,” she said gritting her teeth and rising from her chair in such a way as to put the greatest possible distance between her and Boris.

  Five minutes later, they sat facing each other on chairs situated ten feet away at Alexandra’s insistence. The gulf was such that they might as well have been separated by an ocean.

  “I request the opportunity to go first, and to have the courtesy of you hearing me out until I have finished. After that, you may say whatever you wish; and I will respect your privilege,” Boris politely requested all the while fighting back his sorrow and his anger.

  “Go then.”

  Her face was a marble statue of pure hate and implacable disgust.

  “What you saw is not as simple as you think, Alexandra…” he began.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Please hear me out,” he repeated.

  She nodded her head.

  “I was a general mayor, a decorated hero, an aristocrat in the best of standing with the tzar and his family. His brother is—or probably, was—my godfather. I had the attention of the general staff of the imperial Russian army with every likelihood that I would be promoted shortly to general lieutenant and find my place on the general staff. The future was bright; I was a prince, scion of the wealthiest and most influential family in all the Russias.”

  Alexandra had not heard this before, and her face registered her growing curiosity.

  “Then a series of unfortunate incidents occurred to ruin all of that, not of my doing except the very first one, which I could never have imagined would bring me down…it was so innocent.

  “I will be brief, because the story has so little to it. My only fault was to make a boyish error. While I was in the general staff academy, I chose to share an apartment with some people I should not have. They were Alexander Soloviev, Andrei Zhelyabov, and Alexander’s girl-friend, Sophia Perovskaya, all of whom were flirting with the philosophies of Mikhail Bakunin and his Land and Liberty reformers party. I was peripherally interested…curious, really…but I did not subscribe to any of their theories, and most certainly not to any of their subsequent actions.

  “I presume you have heard of these people, Alexandra?”

  “Who hasn’t?” she snapped, but without the rancor that she displayed earlier in the conversation.

  “Yes, well, I could never have imagined the trouble they would bring to me, to the tzar, and to the empire. Let me give a little summary: In October, 1879, the Land and Liberty group split into two factions with a majority of members–who favored a policy of active terrorism—going on to establish a violent organization, the infamous Narodnaya Volya [People’s Will]. Those maniacs decided to assassinate Alexander. The next month, my presumed great friends, Andrei Zhelyabov and Sophia Perovskaya hatched a plot to use nitroglycerine to destroy the Tzar Train. However, the volunteer terrorist made a fool’s mistake and destroyed another train instead. The People’s Will’s next plot was an attempt to blow up the Kamenny Bridge in St. Petersburg as the tzar was passing over it. They were bumblers from the beginning; so, that attempt was also a failure.

  “Because Alexander II and the Russian government dragged its feet about writing a new constitution, the People’s Will made plans for still another assassination attempt on the tzar’s life. It will be of no surprise to you that the plotters were: Sophia Perovskaya, Andrei Zhelyabov, Gesia Gelfman, Nikolai Sablin, Ignatei Grinevitski, Nikolai Kibalchich, Nikolai Rysakov and Timofei Mikhailov. My only association was with Sophia and Andrei of that deadly group and that very minimal and temporary.

  “At any rate, on February 17, 1880, one of their associates—Khalturin—built a crude bomb in the basement of the building under the dining-room where Alexander was scheduled to eat. The bomb was scheduled to explode at exactly six-thirty in the evening. This time, their planning and execution were almost perfect. The bomb exploded precisely when they wanted it to. The People’s Will were certain the tzar would be in the middle of his meal with the bomb went off. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for Alexander; his main guest, Prince Alexander of Battenburg, arrived late; and dinner was delayed. When the bomb exploded, the dining-room itself was empty; and Alexander was unharmed. However, he was enraged because sixty-seven people were killed or badly wounded by the explosion.

  “In his fury, Alexander gave the Okhrana carte blanche to find and to destroy all of the plotters and their associates. Perhaps, Alexandra, you can see where this is leading. By early February, 1881, the Okhrana discovered that the People’s Will had developed another plot led by Andrei Zhelyabov to kill Alexander. The secret police foiled the plot, and Zhelyabov was arrested but refused to provide any information on the conspiracy. He brashly told the police that nothing they could do would save the life o
f the tzar.

  “On March first, 1881, the tzar traveled by carriage from Michaelovsky Palace to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. An armed Cossack sat with the coach-driver and another six Cossacks followed on horseback. Behind them came a group of police officers in sledges. It was deemed a fairly serious set of security precautions. However, all along the route he was surveilled by members of the People’s Will. Near the Catherine Canal, Sophia Perovskaya gave the signal to Nikolai Rysakov and Timofei Mikhailov to throw their bombs at the tzar’s carriage. The bombs missed the carriage and instead landed amongst the Cossacks. The tzar was unhurt but unwisely insisted on getting out of the carriage to check the condition of the injured men. While he was standing with the wounded Cossacks, another terrorist–Ignatei Grinevitski–threw the bomb he had been saving for just that opportune moment. Tzar Alexander II was killed instantly and the explosion was so great that saboteur Grinevitski also died from the bomb blast.

  “This is what became of the surviving conspirators: Nikolai Sablin committed suicide before he could be arrested, Gesia Gelfman died in prison, and my so-called friends, Sophia Perovskaya, Andrei Zhelyabov, Nikolai Kibalchich, Nikolai Rysakov, and Timofei Mikhailov, were hanged on the third of April, 1881. You might ask, what has this to do with you, and more, what has it to do with what you saw at Balagansk Prison a week ago, Alexandra? On the surface, you might ignore the cause and effect involved. But my associates and I did not have the luxury of escaping attention of the Okhrana.

  “The government issued an edict condemning everyone who had had any association with the monsters in the People’s Will Party or with any of the plotters individually. The commandant of the General Staff Academy realized that if the Okhrana caught up with me, my life would be forfeit, no matter all my service, high born birth, family influence, or great wealth. He told me as a friend and ordered me as a superior to leave at once for the Far East. He saw to it that I be placed in a position befitting my rank. Just before I left, his final words to me were, ‘This is not over. The Okhrana will hunt you and make every effort to find some flaw or mistake on your part. I will see to it that you are given orders from time to time that will be found favorable to you by the general staff, and the government. Have no communication with your family, or they will fall under your same condemnation.’”

  He paused and took a drink of bottled sparkling Evian water–the French curative elixir won in conflict from Switzerland–to soothe his scratchy dry throat, then continued, “So, each time a group of political prisoners was delivered to Balagansk, I was required to demonstrate that they were being treated as criminals. This last group of one hundred came with specific orders: I was to whip each person—young or old, male or female, healthy or sick—with eighteen strips with a single strap rawhide whip. I was given the right to use a cat-o-nine-tails if I thought the prisoner deserved harsher punishment. I did as little as I could and still escape a negative report being sent back to Moscow by a spy, and I never resorted to the cat. My orders included a personal threat. If I was weak in carrying out the punishment, I would take the prisoner’s place hanging from the stake. With the possibility of facing twenty-four separate beatings, I knew I would never survive. That brings me to what you saw.”

  There was a long pause after Boris said his piece.

  Then, Alexandra quietly asked, “Is that all you have to say, Boris?”

  “Not quite, Alexandra. I want you to understand and to accept me back as your husband in every sense of the word.”

  “I presume it is my turn now, Boris. Try as I might, I cannot forgive what you have done or what you stand for—the cruel tsarist government and all its wicked servants. I was going to demand a divorce before I heard what you had to say, but your information has given me a chance to rethink my position. The church forbids divorce, and I and my children would suffer if I made the effort. I will continue our marriage in name only. You must find new quarters, new friends, and a new life. Because our business matters are contracts set in stone, I cannot force you out of the family business or from the business with Jardine-Matheson Company. But, you and I will not work together, sleep together, eat together, or make new business contracts together, for as long as we both live.”

  Her face was livid, and her brow was sweating from her passion. Boris recognized the finality of her statement, and his attitude changed to the opposite of his previous placating requests. His face turned to stone—the face of the implacable warrior about to lay waste to Ottoman Turks. She would live to rue this day.

  He took a breath and said simply and calmly, “Alexandra Abramovna Tarasova-Yusupova, you will regret this decision of yours for the rest of your days. Never forget that I am a Yusupov and that I have enormous resources at my command. Pray as much as you want, I will reappear in your life.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  THE FINAL BREAK AND NEW LIVES

  In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.

  —Robert Frost

  The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn.

  —David Russell

  Tarasova House, No. 71 Pekinskaya Street, Vladivostok, Far Eastern Russia, October 28, 1882, Midnight

  The straw that broke the camel’s back for Boris came in the form of orders from General Staff Headquarters on October the 27th. He was ordered to board the Imperial Navy Ship The Potemkin for transportation back to Port Arthur two days hence to assume the position of post commander and director of military operations in Manchuria. This was to be for the duration of hostilities, and he was directed to bring his entire family with him to occupy permanent quarters on the naval base. He had only two days to determine what the rest of his life was going to look and feel like. He had long since ceased even to have thoughts about reuniting with his stubborn and unforgiving wife. His previous passionate love for her had turned to ashes and evolved into an equally passionate hatred. Boris had promised to cause Alexandra to rue the day she threw him away. No one did that to a Yusupov. Now, his goal was to inflict a hurt that would not heal.

  It was approaching midnight when Boris and two of his sergeants major approached Tarasova House. The first—and most important obstacle—to getting into the mansion was to get control of Abram’s borzois [lit. fast]. He had a generally affectionate relationship with the Russian wolf hounds—very much like greyhounds–which were ferociously protective of the house and its occupants whom they knew by smell. He had prepared in advance. The three men cleared the back fence and cautiously approached the rear entrance to Tarasova House. There were no human guards; neither Abram nor Irina considered that necessary in those times of peace and plenty.

  Twenty yards before the men reached the rear entrance, Boris heard the borzois tearing towards them, and knew that the thin, powerful, and fleet of foot animals would be upon them in a matter of seconds. The two sleek creatures reached the three men hell bent on tearing them to pieces. Boris held out thick steaks–dripping with fresh blood–one for each dog. Before taking the steak, both dogs rushed up to Boris and took his hand gently in their mouths, thus conveying smell and taste of one of the people who belonged in the house. They devoured the steaks, ripping and tearing the meat apart and swallowing large chunks whole. Boris had laced the beef steaks with small pellets of opium and soaked them in tincture of chloral hydrate. In a few minutes, both dogs were drowsy and stumbled about aimlessly. Shortly, they lay down on the hard ground fast asleep, a condition Boris had been assured with persist for hours. He only required minutes. There was a soft snoring coming from the dogs and a steady susurrous whispering of the white birches in the gentle breeze. Otherwise there was silence.

  The three men surreptitiously made their way through the unlocked servants’ entrance and into the dimly lit lower floor hallway. Like their opinion that armed guards were unnecessary, the lord and lady of the house—like all of their neighbors–were conspicuously lackadaisical about other simple security measures like locking doors
. The intruders removed their boots and padded on the shining parquet and stone floors in their heavy stocking feet. Boris knew the way to his sons Nikita and Orals’ bedroom so well that he could have made it there in pitch dark. He had his sergeants major move slowly and as silently as humanly possible past the governess’s bed chamber next door to the twins’ nursery.

  The soldiers were relieved to hear nothing but the soft puffing breaths of little boys who were fast asleep. Boris and one of the sergeants major picked up the boys gently and cuddled them in their strong arms. The three men and their precious cargo slipped back out the way they had come in and exited the rear door without making a sound or disturbing the sleeping household. The dogs remained where they had dropped from the sleeping potions they had eaten–alive, but dead to the world in slumber.

  Neither child awakened as the three kidnappers lifted them over the back fence of Tarasova House and into Boris’s droshky. He held them on his lap while one of his men drove to the wharf. The other took the gig in which they had ridden from Balagansk back to the prison. Sergeant Major Ustrefski helped Boris and the two children onto The Potemkin along with the copious—perhaps excessive–personal possessions the general mayor had brought along for his prolonged stay in Lyushunkou District/Port Arthur and Dalian City on the tip of Liaodong Peninsula of Manchuria–for all intents and purposes–a planetary distance away from Alexandra and the Tarasovas in Vladivostok. His important assignment was a state secret and would not be divulged by anyone who knew about it, and that was a precious few anywhere and no one in Vladivostok or the Irkutsk oblast. There were no written records in the oblast.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  PARTING OF THE WAYS

  “The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.”

  —C.S. Lewis

  There is a destiny that makes us brothers. None goes his way alone. All that is sent into the lives of others comes back into our own.