She removed her soiled coif. “We are at war,” she said, making me realize I always underestimated her fortitude. “My patients can’t be moved and my nurses are under my supervision. If you must leave for Gatchina, do so. I will not.”
I would not leave her, so I sent to my estate for provisions. While she and Kulikovsky kept residence in the palace, I went to live on my train, which was more easily heated and would allow me to survive the winter. At my age, I felt the cold more keenly than ever. As my equally aged Sophie and Tania attended me, swathed in shawls and wearing bulky mittens, I had to laugh. “Look at us, like three beggar women. Who would have thought we’d reach such a pass?”
I laughed to conceal the pain of it, the humiliation that I, who’d graced the grandest court in the world, had been reduced to bedding on my train. As determined as I was to be of service, I’d be no use to anyone dead. I telegrammed my staff at the Anichkov to inform them that I was planning to return soon, then sent another telegram to Miechen.
I was preparing for departure when an urgent letter from Miechen arrived. She warned me to stay put. The situation in Petrograd was deteriorating. Bread shortages had provoked violent riots; factory workers were on strike again, with daily demonstrations and irate speeches in the squares, denouncing both the war and our tsarina, as word spread that more than half of Nicky’s cabinet had resigned, forced out by her. At Rasputin’s recommendation, she’d filled the empty posts with sycophants indebted to the mystic, who told her only what she wanted to hear. Popular hatred had fallen upon her with such spleen, it astonished me that she could still think her mystic was worth all the uproar he caused.
Still, I did not expect it when on New Year’s Day 1917, Xenia’s husband, Sandro, whom I’d thought still on leave in Petrograd visiting his family, arrived unannounced at Mariinsky Palace as I was breakfasting with Olga.
“Rasputin,” Sandro said breathlessly. “He’s dead.”
We sat frozen, staring at him. The dreadful silence extended until I managed to whisper, “How…?”
Sandro glanced at Olga, who didn’t budge from her chair. His very reluctance to impart before her what must be grisly details made me brace myself.
“Felix, and Paul’s son, Dmitri,” he finally said. “They killed him.”
“What?” I half-rose to my feet in incredulous horror.
“According to Felix, he conceived the entire plot. He enlisted Dmitri and a senior member of the Duma who’d spoken out against Rasputin. They lured the mystic to the Yusupov Palace, on the pretext that Irina and Felix required spiritual advice, where they served him cyanide-laced cakes.”
“They poisoned him?” The revulsion in my voice caused Sandro to flinch.
“Poisoning was the least of it,” he said, looking more discomfited with every word he uttered. “Hours later, he still hadn’t died, so Felix took up Dmitri’s pistol and shot him repeatedly. Then they dumped him in the Neva. They must have been desperate. They were seen; witnesses came forth after Rasputin went missing and Alexandra demanded an investigation. The police dragged the river. The mystic had water in his lungs.” He shuddered. “After all the poison and bullets, he drowned instead. He was still alive when they threw him under the ice. Can you imagine it?”
“I cannot,” I whispered. But I could imagine the grief in Tsarskoe Selo, Alexandra’s wails for vengeance. Remembering my one and only sight of him in the Alexander Palace vestibule, those piercing eyes and craggy reproach—Matushka, why do you fear me? I wish you no harm—I gripped the edge of the table. “God help us, we’re in for greater trouble now.” I met Olga’s stare. “She will clamor for their heads.”
“She already has.” Sandro’s voice wrenched my gaze back to him. “Alexandra wanted Felix and Dmitri arrested and shot. The Duma accomplice fled the city, and Felix fled to his estate in Kursk. But poor Dmitri has been conscripted for duty at the Persian front.”
“Not to mention poor Zenaida,” said Olga. Her remark, the first she’d made, was emotionless, as if Rasputin’s demise was inconsequential. “She must be beside herself.” My daughter stood, folding her napkin and setting it aside. “I must go to work.”
“You will not,” I said sharply. “This is a family crisis we must attend to.”
She paused, regarding me. “It’s not my affair, Mama. I feel for Dmitri, but Felix? He took advantage of some archaic law that an only-son in a family is exempt from military service, though only-sons without his wealth are indeed serving. Now at least he has bestirred himself to serve, unpleasant as it may be.”
“How can you…?” I returned her steady gaze in utter dismay. “You are Irina’s aunt. Felix is her husband. They have an infant daughter. Should Alexandra—”
“She will not,” interrupted Sandro hastily. “I’ve spoken to Miechen, Cyril, and others in the family. We will sign a joint letter to Nicky, requesting leniency. Nicky must grant it. He cannot afford to harm our own while we’re at war.”
“You should sign the letter, too,” Olga said to me. “I don’t like that the mystic was murdered, but they indeed did us a service.” Without another word or awaiting my leave, she walked out to return to her infirmary.
I turned to Sandro. “We don’t expect you to sign it,” he said. “We know that for Nicky’s sake, if not Alexandra’s, you mustn’t appear to condone this.”
I met his blue eyes, this still-handsome but now war-weary man I’d known since he was a boy, Nicky’s best friend, whom Xenia had loved and fought to marry. I’d nursed fury toward him for taking a mistress and causing my daughter pain, but as he stood before me in his uniform, obviously distraught by what had occurred yet with our duty foremost in his mind, a solution already at hand, I couldn’t do anything but nod.
“I will sign it,” I said quietly. “For Felix and Irina, and for Dmitri, whom Ella raised. But it is a horror. I never wished such a fate upon anyone, not even Rasputin.”
Sandro lowered his eyes and said nothing more.
* * *
SANDRO ACCOMPANIED ME to the Yusupov estate in the countryside of Kursk, south of Moscow, a long trip on my train that left me in no better temper. I found Zenaida indeed beside herself. After having avoided overt scandal all her life, she was now submerged in it. But Felix, while visibly perturbed, was also defiant when I questioned him.
“He was a devil,” Felix declared. “A blight on Russia. Someone had to act. I only did what no one else dared to do.” He glanced at his mother, who was mute with despair. “If we must, Irina and I can go abroad and live in exile. My fortune is my own. They cannot touch it.”
“Did you have to involve Dmitri?” The anger in my voice turned him paler than he already was. “What were you thinking? He’s been dispatched to Persia, on military duty in one of the most inhospitable posts on earth. He is a Romanov. He doesn’t have your recourse.” And to make sure he understood, I added, “The worst is death. The law is clear. A murderer can be tried and executed.”
“No,” cried Irina. “You must stop it! Talk to Nicky. Tell him—”
“We’re sending him a letter,” I said, easing the bite in my tone. Irina had to keep her wits about her; she couldn’t afford to become hysterical. “We’ve all signed it. None of us want to see Felix or Dmitri harmed.”
Sandro gave grim assent. “I’ll take our letter to Nicky in person. I will get down on my knees if I must to persuade him.”
“But until then Felix must remain out of sight.” I stared directly at my grandson-in-law, wanting to berate him, to shout and slap him as I might an errant child caught in a mischief, for it was clear to me that he’d acted on impulse, without thinking of what he might unleash in its wake. “No boasting. No running about claiming you killed the mystic to free us from his tyranny. Nicky will not want a trial, for Dmitri’s sake, but…”
“She will.” Felix bowed his head. “Yes,” he muttered. “I never meant to cause
trouble.”
Had I felt any mirth, I might have laughed in disbelief. He spoke as if he had no idea that murdering the tsarina’s mystic would bring her wrath down upon him. Looking at his slim fingers caressing my granddaughter’s hand, it was almost impossible to believe he’d taken Rasputin’s life. How had he found the courage?
“It’s done now,” I said. “Stay here and do nothing. Let Sandro see to the rest.”
* * *
BACK IN KIEV, I busied myself with Olga. For once I was grateful for her reticence; she did not ask about my visit to Felix, and I did not offer. The mystic who once loomed like an inescapable shadow in our lives was no more, yet his shadow remained, prompting me to send a personal letter to Nicky, telling him I’d signed the family appeal for leniency because it was how we must behave. To strike against one of us would be a strike against all of us. While I did not approve of the deed, I assured my son, neither could I allow a grand duke and my granddaughter’s husband to be arrested and shot at Alexandra’s behest.
When Sandro returned from Tsarskoe Selo, he was so tired and drawn that he dropped onto the nearest chair before me, shaking his head.
“No?” I said in alarm. “He will have them brought to trial?”
“No trial. There will be no charges. But Dmitri must remain in Persia and Felix is banished. He can never reside in Petrograd again.” Sandro lit a cigarette, swallowing smoke and coughing, avoiding my gaze. “It took me three days to convince Nicky. He was so…strange. I’ve never seen him like that; he told me that because we had all signed the letter, he would not proceed further. He’s under so much strain, I fear he might be suffering a nervous collapse. Alexandra is giving him herbal tonics to restore his health, but he looks terrible.”
“Is he ill?” I lifted my hand to my throat, my collar suddenly cutting off my breath. I didn’t want to get anywhere near Tsarskoe Selo; it was the last place I wanted to tread while she mourned her mystic, but if Nicky had fallen sick over this…
“In his mind, perhaps.” Sandro hesitated before he said, “I reminded him that he bears the blame for what’s happened, as he allowed her to encourage the mystic. I also advised him to send her away, to Livadia or somewhere else, remove her from influence and reinstate the Duma. He refused. And she knew it.”
“Was she there?” As much as I’d come to admire Sandro for his stalwart defense of Felix and Dmitri, I couldn’t conceive of him suggesting Alexandra’s banishment from Nicky’s side while she herself was present.
“She wasn’t, but she has spies everywhere in the palace. The new telephone line in her mauve room—she listens in on every call Nicky receives. She allows him no privacy.”
I shuddered. “Did she say anything to you?”
“Not a word. But the next morning, Nicky refused to receive me. They left me to wander the palace alone. I visited with Alexei and the girls, who, as you can imagine, are very upset. The atmosphere there—it’s thick. Like ash in the air. She has them in constant dread of her moods.” He finally lifted his eyes to me. “She buried Rasputin on the grounds of the palace. Alexei told me that he and his sisters go out every day to pray at the grave site, as though that cretin were a saint. She is mad. There’s no other explanation. She sends her own children out in the cold to honor her dead mystic. I left the following afternoon. Nicky didn’t say goodbye; he had closeted himself in his study. Only Alexei came to see me off. The poor boy—he kept asking me why his friend had been killed. What could I say to him?”
“God have mercy on him.” All of a sudden, I started to cry. At the awkward touch of Sandro’s hand on my shoulder, I swallowed my grief, my outrage that my grandchildren and my son had been plunged into this tragedy because of Alexandra.
Sandro murmured, “God have mercy on us all. Should Nicky not bestir himself and assume control while he still can, I fear we’ll lose more than this war.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The end came suddenly. Or so it seemed to me.
In Kiev, we underwent another lethal winter. We found some of our soldiers frozen to death in the infirmary, while outside our doors crowds of women, clutching frostbitten children, lined up for hours in front of the bakeries for crusts. Across the rest of Russia, it was far worse: By March 1917, shortages of food, fuel, and other necessities had become endemic. Inflation reached such an incredible level that the entire economy, brought to the brink by the war, collapsed. As a result, the people staged mass demonstrations in Petrograd and Moscow. There was no dissimulation now. As word reached me of furious marchers pouring down the avenues, waving the red flag and bellowing, “Down with the tsar!” I knew that what we’d long feared, that unthinkable possibility foretold by both Miechen and Sandro, was again upon us.
Revolution.
The glacial winds and snows had toppled wire lines and cut off telephone services; communication was sporadic at best, yet I barraged Nicky at Mogilev with cabled entreaties to return to the capital to restore order. He must make a personal appearance, reassure his subjects that he would fight for their survival. Instead, he sent Nikolasha to clear the streets by force. When the news reached me that open shooting in the city had killed over two hundred civilians, I broke down, sobbing; Olga went white, and Sandro frantically telephoned Xenia, demanding she leave Petrograd with their sons to take refuge in Kursk with the Yusupovs.
On March 12, our fall began. Our elite regiments, now comprised of factory workers and others not fighting on the battlefield, defected, shooting their commanding officers and joining the mobs. In the barracks and fleets, where over sixty thousand awaited deployment, mutinies ensued. Those slated for the front killed whomever tried to detain them, to march in solidarity with their “fellow comrades,” as they styled themselves.
“Moscow and Petrograd are in chaos,” Sandro told me, having been in contact with our beleaguered prime minister, even if the news he managed to obtain was days old. “Government buildings are being ransacked and set ablaze. The Duma has assembled for an emergency session and agreed to a provisional government with the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, ostensibly to limit the Soviet power and curtail the revolt.”
I gazed at Sandro, my senses dulled by sleepless nights. “Nicky prorogued the Duma because of the war. They cannot make any changes to the government if the tsar suspended them. And who is this Soviet to reach arrangements with the Duma?”
He went silent for a moment. “The Soviet is the representative body of the people, Minnie. They call themselves Bolsheviks. They are demanding Nicky’s abdication.”
I felt the word like a thrust in my gut. Bolsheviks, those adherents of Lenin whom Witte had warned me about years ago.
“Abdication?” I said. “For what? To give them free rein over us?”
“The abdication would be in Alexei’s favor. But they’ll require a regent until he reaches his majority of age. From what I hear, Nicky hasn’t yet responded.”
I had no doubt. My son must remain unaware of how dire the situation was. He’d barely known the extent of the massacre in Moscow’s Khodynka Field after his coronation and he’d been less than an hour’s carriage drive away. Separated by frozen distance, under the weight of his command as the Germans pummeled our troops, how could he know his throne was about to be ripped out from under him?
“And if he agrees? Whom do they propose as regent for Alexei?”
When Sandro replied, “Misha,” I moaned in despair. “But they have to summon Misha to accept the charge,” he tried to reassure me. “He’s on duty with his corps. There’s still time.” He pressed my hands in his, though mine were so numb that I barely felt his grip. “You must go to Nicky, tell him to negotiate an honorable agreement. The Duma has placed Alexandra and the children under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo, for their protection. They’ll not be harmed for now, but should the Bolsheviks overrule the Duma and gain control of the state…”
“Yes, I know. I will go.” But I hesitated, unsure of how to proceed, and then Olga said in an enraged tone to Sandro, “Are you mad? You cannot send her into the jaws of the wolf.”
I turned to her, my blood chilled by her words. I heard Zenaida in my mind.
One doesn’t need to meet the wolf to know when to bolt the door.
“You cannot.” Olga turned to me. “Nicky hasn’t been seen since this started. Where are you supposed to speak with him?” She glared again at Sandro. “Tell her.”
“Tell me what?” I felt faint, my legs weakening under my skirts.
“He left Mogilev,” said Sandro. “To pay a visit to Tsarskoe Selo. But revolutionary soldiers are blocking the tracks, so he couldn’t have gone there. We don’t know where he is.”
I dropped onto my chair. “You must find out,” I whispered. I couldn’t lift my voice.
He nodded. “I am trying. I’m doing everything I can.”
* * *
NICKY HAD BEEN taken back to Mogilev. Apprehended by the Petrograd Soviet, he’d been allowed to return to his base camp to collect his personal effects and bid farewell to his troops. When we received official confirmation by a week-old telegram smuggled to us, my son had already been served with the fait accompli: The provisional Duma and Soviet government had assumed charge of his state. Left with no choice, my son abdicated, in both his and Alexei’s names, giving over his throne to his brother. Yet when Misha was located and summoned to Petrograd, he refused the charge, declaring he wasn’t the rightful emperor and would only accept if elected by constitutional assembly. To me, it was a double stab to the heart. Both my sons had betrayed their sacred duty to Russia.
“I am going to see him,” I told Olga, after Xenia sent us a telegram from Felix’s estate, relaying Misha’s refusal and decision to return to his regiment. “Nicky needs me now.”
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