“How will it all end?” sighed Yuri, not really expecting an answer.
“I am more certain than ever that things don’t look good for Kerensky,” said Daniel. “And, if you are up for it at this hour, perhaps we can talk about the business with the tsar.”
“Why don’t I leave you two men to yourselves,” Katya said, rising. “But, Yuri, don’t be too long. You need your rest.” She kissed her husband’s forehead and exited the kitchen.
“The most peculiar thing about it,” Daniel continued when they were alone, “is if you get away from these political meetings, life in Russia continues almost as usual. You can still get a good meal at Constant’s or the Bear. The elite continue to have their dinner parties. The khvosts are still present. Workers go to their jobs and weave cloth or make war material. Mingling with common folk, I get the sense no one really wants another uprising. But, Yuri, it’s going to come. I can practically feel it in my bones like an old man can feel the coming of a storm.”
“And from what I hear you saying,” said Yuri, “and indeed, many saying, Kerensky will probably not survive the next coup.”
“At this point, I believe the workers, the soldiers, the people in general will support anyone who can guarantee peace.”
“That won’t be Kerensky, then.”
“Not unless he makes a one hundred and eighty degree turn—and that is not likely to happen. That is why we must begin to act more aggressively in our quest to free the tsar. I’ve had a note from Bruce responding to the information you gave me about the tsar’s move to Siberia. He agrees it is time to act. He doesn’t want to be like so many of the other rescue organizations—all bark, no bite. He is ready to come to Russia. And now that we know the tsar is in Tobolsk, I’m certain we will set up our organization there.”
“Organization?” Yuri said. “There are only three of us, aren’t there?”
“That is another matter Bruce would like to see remedied. We ought to be considering others to bring in with us. I’ve got some feelers out, but it isn’t easy to find appropriate individuals, especially in the present political climate. If you speak to the wrong person, you are likely to find yourself in hot water.”
“I’ll give the matter consideration,” said Yuri.
“We need to find people we can really trust. If only we could find Andrei,” Daniel mused.
“We have looked everywhere since Talia saw him. I even ran into Stephan Kaminsky who said he wondered for months what became of Andrei.”
“To be honest,” Daniel said, “I’m beginning to think poor Talia had been seeing ghosts.”
“She, too, is beginning to doubt what she saw. But, regardless, Daniel, what help do you think Andrei could be? He would be the last person eager to rescue the tsar. Wouldn’t he see him as the supreme enemy?”
“Perhaps, but I’ve been thinking that if he is alive, and if he is suffering from amnesia as Talia reports, and if he does get his memory back—”
“Those are a lot of ifs.”
“True, but I believe God can use such experiences to change men. I have been praying for that. Andrei was never a hardened Bolshevik, nor was he a hard man. He was certainly never dogmatic about politics—”
“I recall a few discussions with him that certainly bordered on the dogmatic.” Yuri almost smiled. Such memories now seemed pleasant ones.
“He wasn’t that way in spiritual matters.” Daniel rose and drew himself another cup of tea. “He could never deny the existence of God entirely. The faith taught to him by your parents was just too integral to be ignored. And for that reason I truly believe God can and will work in him. Just as we can’t give up hope that he is physically alive, we can’t despair about his spiritual life. If Andrei were here, and if he thought innocent people were in danger, he would do what he could to save them.”
“Well, he isn’t here, so it is no use even discussing it.” Yuri paused, then shook his head sadly. “I wish he were here. I truly miss him. We had our differences, but there was always a deep bond between us that nothing could sever.” He glanced down at the fading scar on his index finger where he and Andrei and Talia had sealed a childhood pledge. “Oh, Andrei,” he sighed, “come back to us. . . .”
“Amen,” said Daniel reverently, realizing Yuri’s words were also a fervent prayer.
At that moment, a knock sounded at the front door. The two men exchanged bemused looks. Could their prayers be answered so quickly? Saying nothing, Yuri jumped up and hurried to answer the door lest it wake the rest of the household.
On opening the door, he beheld not the face of his brother, but rather that of a stranger. At least he appeared a stranger on first glance, then there did seem something vaguely familiar about him.
“Forgive me for intruding at this late hour,” said the man.
“What can I do for you?” asked Yuri.
By now Daniel had come into the foyer also and was looking on.
“Of course, I can’t expect that you should recognize—”
“Peter!” Yuri exclaimed, finally realizing who it was. He was his grandfather Viktor’s faithful servant.
It had been years since he had seen him, though it had only been two years since Yuri had seen his grandfather on that wonderful Christmas holiday in 1915. Only two years! It seemed so much longer. Viktor had been to the city again, but Yuri had been at the Front and had missed him. Since then, Viktor, now eighty-two, had not been up to much travel and had remained peacefully ensconced on his Crimean estate.
Suddenly the full implications of Peter’s visit alone struck Yuri. “Peter, is Grandfather—?”
“No, dear boy. He is well. May I come in so that we can talk?”
“How thoughtless of me!” Yuri motioned the servant in as Daniel stepped forward and took his hat and coat.
As they went to the parlor, Peter said, “I know it is late. I just arrived by train and felt that with the uncertainty of life these days, I should not procrastinate my mission. However, would it be possible to wake Princess Anna?”
Yuri had not heard his mother referred to as princess for years. But Peter was from the old school. Yuri went to his mother’s room and, as gently as possible, woke her. He tried to allay her alarm before he returned to the parlor while she quickly made herself presentable in order to join them. Within ten minutes they were all seated in the parlor, and Peter began to explain his “mission.”
“There has been trouble at the estate down south,” Peter began. “It is nothing more than what has been happening throughout the country, but in the past, Prince Viktor has remained somewhat immune, probably because he has always limited his household staff to a very few faithful servants. Recently there was an uprising among the local peasantry, and some hooligans who were totally unconnected to the prince raised havoc on the estate. The stable was burned, as was one of the older vineyards. Princess Sarah was caught in the melee and suffered a broken arm. Otherwise she is well, as is everyone else, thank God. The incident made the prince consider a move he felt he could no longer avoid. He and the princess have decided to leave Russia. An opportunity arose through a contact of Princess Sarah’s who is with the British consulate in Yalta. They will travel to England, and, in fact, may be en route even as I speak.”
“I think that is a wise decision,” said Anna. “I wouldn’t say this to Prince Viktor, but the hardships of life these days are far too difficult for the elderly. I am relieved they will be safe.”
“He has not left without considering his family in the North—that is to say, you and your children, Princess Anna.” Peter paused and held out a leather satchel he had brought with him. “This is for you. It contains several family papers, as much money as he could spare, and a letter describing the whereabouts of other valuables that he secreted in a hidden vault on the estate. Perhaps one day he will return and retrieve his possessions, but he realizes he is no longer a young man and will probably live out his last days in England. In that case, perhaps you or one of his grandchildren w
ill someday be able to recover the items.”
“How sad to think we may not see him again,” mused Anna. “He is one of the finest men I have ever known. Even when he was a man of power and influence, he never lost his basic humanity. He was always kind even to a simple peasant girl.”
“I believe he would say, Princess Anna, that he was kind to that peasant girl because he always held a great deal of respect and admiration for her.”
Anna blushed but was pleased. “And what will you do, Peter?”
“I could not leave Russia, though Prince Viktor would have taken me with him. I have a sister in Moscow whom I would like to visit. Then . . . I don’t know. I am too old myself to support revolutions and such. I greatly miss the old days. I suppose I will just live out my days feeding pigeons in a Moscow park.”
“Do you have a place to stay tonight?”
“The prince gave me enough money to live quite comfortably for a long time, and he provided for my travel expenses here as well, including a hotel.”
“You are more than welcome to stay here and save your money,” said Anna. “But to be honest, I can only offer you a bed on the floor because all our other beds, and even some of the floor space, are quite full.”
“Thank you, but I rather fancy the luxury of a hotel for a night.”
They visited for a short time more, then Peter took his leave. Anna, Yuri, and Daniel sat in the parlor and just stared at the satchel for a few minutes. Then Anna pushed it toward Yuri.
“Why don’t you open it, son?”
With a certain amount of reverence, Yuri fingered the fine leather for a few moments before lifting the clasp.
22
The first thing Yuri withdrew from the satchel was an ink drawing of a young woman. He had never seen her before in person, but he knew who it was from photographs and a large oil portrait he had seen hanging at Prince Viktor’s Crimean estate. Yuri handed it to his mother.
Anna looked at the drawing and gasped with surprised pleasure. “How wonderful! It’s Princess Katrina.”
Daniel leaned forward to have a look. “She was beautiful, wasn’t she? And so like Mariana.”
Anna felt a paper attached to the back of the drawing and turned it over to find a letter. “‘The original oil is locked in my vault,’” Anna read out loud, “‘but I thought you might like this little sketch I made from the oil better than a mere photograph. However, I have also enclosed several family photographs for you.’”
Just then Yuri took a packet of about a dozen photographs from the satchel and passed them to Anna. She quickly looked at each photo, then handed them one by one to Daniel. Yuri looked over Daniel’s shoulder. There was a formal photograph of Viktor and his first wife, Natalia, and one of them and their children at about ages ten and fourteen. Another was of Sergei alone in his army uniform, just as Anna remembered him when he went to fight in the Balkan war. There were also more recent ones, of weddings, babies, and one Anna had never seen of Andrei standing next to one of his paintings at his one and only gallery showing. Anna tarried over this one a moment longer than the others and ran a finger gently over the face of her youngest son.
Sighing heavily, she said, “How kind of Prince Viktor to send these.” Her voice was shaky.
“Mama—” Yuri began.
“Yuri,” Daniel interrupted, “what else is in the satchel?”
Yuri glanced at his brother-in-law and received a silent but cautionary look. He knew they had firmly agreed not to tell Anna about Talia’s encounter. He reminded himself how awful it would be for his mother to have her hopes raised only to discover Andrei was lost to them again. Yuri was devastated himself, and he could only imagine how his mother might react.
He said no more and took another envelope from the satchel. Opening this, he found a thick bundle of rubles—easily several thousand. Another envelope contained a three-page letter written in Viktor’s precise hand. This he gave to Anna, who set it aside to be read later.
The final item was quite large. Actually, there were four books bound together by a cord. On closer inspection Yuri saw that three were bound diaries, and the fourth was a ledgerlike book. Opening this, he saw that inside were written diarylike entries. The handwriting was very familiar. He glanced up at his mother as he handed them to her.
“Your papa’s diaries,” she said. “I feel so bad that I lost track of these. You and . . . your brother should have had them long ago. Viktor took your father’s death so hard—you know, it came just as they had renewed and deepened their relationship. I thought these might help him through the difficult time. Then I forgot about them and I suppose he did, too. Ah, well, they are back where they belong now.” She gave them to Yuri. “These are yours, son. Your father always intended that when you were older he’d share them with you and Andrei. This must surely be the appropriate time.”
Yuri lay the books in his lap. He wanted to open them right then but wanted to be alone when he did so. Yet he didn’t want to be rude to his mother and Daniel. Anna must have sensed his dilemma.
“It is late,” she said. “Tomorrow’s visits to the khvosts will start early.” She rose and kissed her son and her son-in-law each on the cheek before departing.
Daniel also rose. “What about you, Yuri? You must be beat.”
“I’ll be along in a few moments. I just . . . need to be alone a minute.”
“Okay, see you in the morning.”
Alone in the parlor, Yuri opened the books and arranged them in order by the dates written on the inside covers. The earliest one was the ledger. The opening date was January 10, 1882. The entry read:
I have been feeling a great need lately to set my experiences to paper. Writing has always helped me to put my emotions and ideas into better perspective. And now more than ever, I have many emotions I must sort through. I asked Robbie for some paper, and he found for me instead this old, blank ledger. He said, laughing in that infectious way of his, “We never have money in this mission, so we have no need of this ledger.”
Ah, Robbie . . . meeting this man will surely change my life, but before I speak of him, I will write about my experiences before he came along. I will write about Siberia. In a way, I would like to forget that terrible time in my life, yet to do so would make it impossible to fully explain the progression of the changes that are beginning to take place within me . . .
For the next several pages Yuri read not only about his father’s imprisonment in the hard labor camp at the Kara Mines, but also about the preceding months. Sergei wrote about the crime he had committed—killing his commanding officer in order to prevent the execution of supposed enemy prisoners—including old men, several women, and even a child.
I do not justify my deed. I was crazed at the time, completely unhinged by the stench of death and battle. Yet, I must say that faced with the same choice, I might well have still pulled that trigger even had I been in my right mind. I don’t know. I’ll never know. All I know is that I killed a man, and that act has forever changed my life, not only the direction of my life, but the state of my heart and soul. Even in receiving absolution from God for my deed, I still must carry with me the awful knowledge that I am capable of such a deed. I suppose the image of what I did will always dwell within me at some level.
Yuri nodded and his chest tightened. He understood painfully well what his father was saying. And if Sergei’s crime sent him to the prison of Siberia, Yuri’s had sent him to a prison just as well, not of snow and ice, but of despair. He forced himself to read on and found himself weeping as he read of his father’s despair, accompanied also by such physical hardships Yuri could hardly imagine them. Yuri, of course, knew of his father’s experiences, but Sergei never dwelt upon them. He never said to his children, “You’re complaining about walking to school? I had to walk practically all the way across Siberia.” Or, “You will not eat these vegetables? I had to eat insects and roots when I was in Siberia, and I was grateful for them.”
No, Sergei would inst
ead get a faraway look in his eyes and a slight smile on his lips. Once when Yuri was complaining about some silly thing, he recalled his father saying, “Ah, Yuri, my dear boy, I am so thankful we are here together, and I can listen to you, even if you are not exactly happy. I once thought I would never be so blessed as to hear the voice of my own son. And I cherish it. I cherish you.”
The stories of Siberia, though they were few indeed, were always more like a soldier’s old war stories. Sergei stripped away the terror and utter desolation. He always tried to find the good of it. But the diary was not written with a child’s sensibilities in mind. Sergei must have felt the need to “pull no punches.” He even wrote that he hoped in writing it all down it would purify his heart a little of the experience.
Yuri exhaled a relieved sigh when he came to the part about when Sergei came to the mission in China.
I came to China as completely broken as a man could be. Even escape from Kara did not instill hope because I felt I had sunk so low that I could never be restored to my former life, not to mention my dear Anna. I had not exactly become an atheist, but rather I believed that if some Father in heaven existed to whom one might go for succor, what would it matter? The harsh realities of what my life had become would not change one iota. If there were some heavenly Savior, He would do better to expend His saving energies elsewhere. I felt that I was not only beyond saving, but that I did not deserve it. If only I were an atheist it would have been so much better, because then I would not know what I was losing. But it shows my state of mind that I forgot, or would not let myself remember, the simple truths of faith that I heard often from Anna and Yevno and others like them. I considered myself a man without a scrap of manhood left within me. I was less than nothing. I had failed in everything—with my family, with my father, with the only woman I ever loved. I failed my country, my career . . . everything!
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