The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “Indeed I do, comrade. But there is a moral core within me that I must remain loyal to above all else.”

  Yakovlev paced a few more minutes, then went to the door. “I’m going to send a telegram to Moscow. In the meantime, commandeer a first class coach on the eastbound train and see to it that our charges are settled aboard.”

  “Yes, comrade,” Andrei replied with enthusiasm.

  Andrei did as he was told, then went in search of a waterfront tavern, with Talia’s book, wrapped in newsprint, in hand. On the flyleaf of the book, he indicated the Omsk destination. Returning to the station after he had left the book with a suitable tavern keeper, he looked into the telegraph office, where Yakovlev was once again pacing. It had been nearly an hour since he had sent the message to Moscow.

  “No word from Sverdlov,” Yakovlev said to Andrei. He handed him the message he had sent. “Don’t you think this would demand an immediate response?”

  Andrei read the telegram, which was quite lengthy. One part in particular blared out at him:

  THE EKATERINBURG MEN HAVE ONE DESIRE, THAT IS TO DESTROY OUR BAGGAGE AT ALL COSTS. THEY MADE ONE ATTEMPT HERE IN TIUMEN AND BLOODSHED WAS BARELY AVERTED. IN MY OPINION IT IS MAD TO GO TO THE CENTER OF THEIR STRENGTH. I PROPOSE TO TAKE THE BAGGAGE TO OMSK AND THENCE TO A SECURE PLACE IN THE MOUNTAINS SUCH AS SIMSKY GORNY IN THE UFA PROVINCE. I AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE BUT TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE FOR I CANNOT PREDICT IF THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTEMPT HERE. YAKOVLEV.

  Andrei handed back the paper. “How long will you wait?”

  “Come outside with me, Andrei,” said Yakovlev. When they were out of earshot of the telegraph operator, he continued, “I believe Sverdlov is ignoring me by design. He wants the tsar in Ekaterinburg, but he wants to be absolved of responsibility should anything happen.”

  “Does he want the tsar dead?”

  “I don’t know. He wants him out of reach of the Germans.”

  “Vasily,” Andrei said with emphatic familiarity, “we must take the tsar east. We must. I have fought the emperor all my life. I have despised all he has stood for. Yet I do not want his blood on my hands.”

  “Nor do I.”

  “Then we have no other recourse.”

  “I will give Sverdlov another half hour,” hedged Yakovlev. “If I haven’t heard anything by then, we will leave.”

  A half hour later, before dawn tinted the morning sky, there was still no response from Moscow. The train pulled out of the station heading east with Andrei, Yakovlev, and their very important prisoners aboard.

  Several hours later, in Moscow, Sverdlov received this telegram from the Chairman of the Ural Soviet:

  COMMISSAR YAKOVLEV, WITH HIS BAGGAGE, IS AT THIS MOMENT ON THE EASTBOUND TRAIN TO OMSK. OUR UNDERSTANDING IS THAT THE BAGGAGE IS TO BE TAKEN TO EKATERINBURG. WE DO NOT KNOW YAKOVLEV’S PURPOSE IN HIS PRESENT DIRECTION AND THUS CONSIDER THIS ACT TO BE TRAITOROUS. THE REGIONAL SOVIET HAS VOTED TO WAYLAY THE TRAIN AND ARREST AND DELIVER BOTH YAKOVLEV AND HIS BAGGAGE TO EKATERINBURG.

  In response, Sverdlov sent this to the Ural Soviet:

  YAKOVLEV IS ACTING ON MY ORDERS. TRUST HIM COMPLETELY.

  Then he sent another message, this to the first station after Tiumen where he knew Zaslavsky of the Red Urals would be waiting anxiously for word from him.

  WAYLAY BAGGAGE AT ALL COST AND CARRY TO ORIGINAL DESTINATION BUT DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT HARM IT.

  Sverdlov was careful to use a telegraph operator he could trust implicitly. After the message was sent, he burned the original; Zaslavsky was instructed to do the same. Sverdlov knew he was playing a tricky and dangerous double game. And if all worked according to his devious plan, the tsar would be well out of the clutches of the Germans, while he, Sverdlov, would be absolved of any complicity in deceiving them. After all, what could he do if some renegade Reds overwhelmed his prisoners and took them in hand? If any harm came to the tsar, he would be absolved of that also. Personally, he felt the demise of the deposed monarch must come sooner or later. But there might still be some use for the man if he could prolong the inevitable just a while longer.

  In the flurry of telegrams speeding back and forth between several different geographic points, there was bound to be confusion. The Omsk Soviet heard only of Yakovlev’s treasonous act and were thus convinced to join forces with Zaslavsky’s Urals. So when the train made a brief stop at the Kulomzino Station some sixty miles from Omsk, they were surrounded by a large force of hostile troops.

  A fleeting look was quickly exchanged between Andrei and Yakovlev, silently questioning the wisdom of putting up a fight. Words about protecting the tsar with one’s life seemed far less prudent now when faced with the actual prospect of having to kill one’s own people, or be killed oneself. And this time Yakovlev’s forces were soundly outnumbered.

  “There’s got to be a way out of this,” Yakovlev said. “I’m going to wire Moscow again,” he said with resolve.

  He left the train, returning an hour later wearing a defeated expression. “Sverdlov has told me to let the Urals take the tsar to Ekaterinburg. He says there is no way around it, and he has assurances from Ekaterinburg that the tsar will not be harmed.”

  “Do you believe that?” asked Andrei. There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He could tell that Yakovlev, never completely resolved to deceive his masters in Moscow, was going to capitulate, convincing himself that the Urals would honor their word to Sverdlov.

  “I have done everything I could. I cannot jeopardize my men, nor can I ask them to kill their comrades.”

  The most difficult task was informing the tsar of the situation. Nicholas responded, “I would have gone anywhere but to Ekaterinburg. They are deeply bitter toward me there.”

  When Ambassador Mirbach lifted his ringing telephone later in the day, he could hear the smug satisfaction in Sverdlov’s voice as he informed him of the unfortunate turn of circumstances.

  “I did all that I could,” said Sverdlov, his voice dripping with false regret. “But alas! The central government has not firmly established itself in Siberia. Thus we often must give the local Soviets their way.”

  Mirbach was furious. Not only had he lost the tsar, but he had been duped by that arrogant upstart in the Kremlin. Yet the ambassador was not ready to give up completely. Perhaps another ploy would work. There were still several royal relatives at large. One among them might be tempted to sign the Brest-Litovsk Treaty if offered the monarchy for himself. It was a tantalizing idea, at the very least.

  39

  Nicholas, who seldom made an astute judgment during his reign, was sadly right in his estimation of the citizens of Ekaterinburg. When his train pulled into the station, a mob greeted him shouting vicious epithets.

  “Give us those dirty Romanovs! We’ll thrash them good!”

  “Let me spit in that scoundrel’s face!”

  “We have them at last!”

  The train had to be shunted to a loading dock away from the crowd. Then the prisoners were unloaded and quickly transported to their new prison, one of the more substantial houses in town, requisitioned from a wealthy merchant named Ipatiev. The two-story house had received recent renovations in preparation for the new arrivals—an indication that it had been planned all along that they would end up here. One of the additions had been a tall, wooden fence around the entire perimeter of the house—officially called “The House of Special Purpose.”

  Not many among the Soviet members, a majority of whom were unschooled, knew of the small irony in the historical significance of the house they had chosen. But Nicholas, an avid student of Russian history, must surely have noted that it had been in the Ipatiev Monastery three hundred years earlier that the first Romanov had been installed as tsar of Russia. Now the last tsar was imprisoned in a house by the same name.

  The Ural Soviet was placed in charge of guarding the Romanovs, and Andrei managed to get himself assigned to that duty, though his Moscow ties prevented him from ever being in the inner circle. Yakovlev faced s
everal hours of intensive questioning by the Soviet but was eventually released when Sverdlov came to his support. Yakovlev then departed for Moscow to have a personal interview with the President of the Presidium.

  Andrei hoped and prayed that Daniel, Talia, and Bruce would figure out that his message left in Tiumen was a mistake. They might end up in Omsk, but once there, Daniel’s expert investigative skills would surely uncover what really happened.

  In the meantime, Andrei took up his duties as guard. He learned as much as he could about the “House of Special Purpose.” The family would be kept upstairs where all the windows were painted white so they could not see outside, and to prevent signaling for help. The downstairs of the house was for the guards, who were under orders to be especially vigilant. Guards were stationed both outside and inside the house. By now most of the original guards from Tsarskoe Selo had been replaced, but the remaining ones were now also replaced by locals and by men from the Cheka. Andrei felt as if he might be the only sympathetic guard left.

  But worse than the extreme vigilance was the manner in which the guards tended to treat their captives. Their belongings, to Nicholas’s vehement protests, were thoroughly searched; their walks in the garden were strictly limited; they no longer could carry their own money but had to ask their guards whenever they needed cash; and they had little privacy, with guards bursting in on them at any time with no notice. The celebration, if it could be called that, of the tsar’s fiftieth birthday, on May sixth, was a dreary one indeed.

  It would have made that birthday even more miserable had the Romanovs known that shortly after their arrival in Ekaterinburg, the Ural Soviet had voted unanimously for their execution. The only thing preventing this was lack of orders from Moscow. Apparently Trotsky was pushing for a public trial of Nicholas and Alexandra.

  In the middle of May with the spring thaw, Nicholas and Alexandra were reunited with the rest of their family. The separation had been a terrible hardship on all of them, and so with the spring sunshine, the reunion brought a ray of joy for the Romanovs.

  There was, however, a dark side. Two of their suite in Tobolsk, a general and a lady-in-waiting who had faithfully stayed with them during the entire captivity, were placed under arrest. Several others, including the tutor Gilliard, were released. Gilliard and two or three others remained in Ekaterinburg, even though they were not allowed to rejoin the family. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to these moves by the Bolsheviks. Why arrest some, let others go free, while permitting still others to remain with the Romanovs?

  For Andrei, May brought Talia, along with Daniel and Bruce. Soon Talia, who had left a pseudonym at the trade union hall, was called to assist the cook at the Ipatiev House. Since almost all the guards were new, she had no problem with being recognized from Tobolsk, but Andrei worried nonetheless. Still he was able to see her often and even talk on occasion. No one thought anything of a guard flirting with the pretty kitchen girl. Of course other guards also tried to flirt with her, which was unsettling to Andrei, but Talia handled herself well, as she had in the tavern.

  Time alone, quality time when they could be themselves, was much harder to come by. But one night a few days after Talia arrived, they arranged a rendezvous at an abandoned barn Andrei had found about a versta out of town. The weather had started to warm up, but it was still a bit chilly at night. That particular night it was threatening to rain, so they took refuge inside the barn.

  Andrei wasted no time in embracing Talia and kissing her, but wishing to avoid the temptation of her nearness, he did not linger long in this. He steadied himself by talking business.

  “What are Daniel and Bruce up to?” he asked.

  He spread his coat out on a mound of hay and they sat there as they talked.

  “Daniel has made contact with Gilliard, the royal tutor,” Talia replied. “And there are other monarchists in town with a view to rescue the tsar.”

  “I don’t know why they can’t get together.”

  “This group doesn’t trust that group, or that group doesn’t want to share the glory, or the other group doesn’t want to share money. It’s frustrating. Gilliard is willing to work with us but he is closely watched. He has been appealing to the French and British consulates. But, as you well know, there is little to be done.”

  “The guard is too tight,” agreed Andrei. “I’m certain any attempt made now would result in a bloodbath—on both sides.”

  “But in time the guard may relax.”

  “Moscow plans frequent changes of the guard to prevent that.”

  “Then we just wait.”

  “Watch and wait.” Andrei sighed.

  Smiling, Talia reached up and fingered a lock of his hair. “Poor Andrei. Patience is not your best thing.”

  “And I have to be patient about so much these days.” He brushed his hand gently against her soft cheek. “It’s almost more than a man can bear.”

  “You are bearing it well, though I know it is hard. Andrei, when this is all over, what will we do?”

  “Get married, of course. Right away!”

  “No more worries about how you will support me?”

  “We’ll manage somehow.” His old fears seemed so trivial now.

  “Have you thought about what will happen . . . politically? Once the tsar is rescued, it won’t look good if you quit the Party immediately. But for that matter, what if we—you—are implicated?”

  “We’ll all get shot and that’ll be that,” he replied lightly but instantly regretted his words when he saw Talia’s face pale. “I’m sorry, Talia. I didn’t mean to make fun of something so serious. We will come out of this fine, I know it. The worst that will happen is that we might have to leave the country for a while. How do you feel about that?”

  “You and I have both lived away from Russia. We know how it is. But, Andrei, I love this country, I truly do. I would be sad to leave, and yet, if you and I are together, I could live anywhere.”

  “I love Russia, too,” Andrei said thoughtfully, “but if things keep on the way they are, we would probably be better off someplace else. Perhaps we could go to America. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

  “Remember when we were children and we daydreamed about traveling? You and Yuri wanted adventures with pirates and treasure and such.”

  “And you wanted peace and tranquility.” He smiled at her and wanted desperately to hold her again, but thought better of it in this dark, lonely place where they were so very alone. “I tell you honestly, Talia, I want only peace and tranquillity now, too.”

  “I always knew we were like-minded.”

  “Are you as afraid as I am that it won’t happen?” He was embarrassed at the admission, yet he was so accustomed to telling her everything, he found it hard to hold it back. When she nodded, he added, “That’s not all, Talia. It would be wrong to deceive you. I don’t have confident hopes about our mission. Had we gone anywhere but here, there might have been a chance.”

  “Do you think we should disband?”

  “I’m almost certain Daniel and Bruce won’t give it up, and I am honor bound to help them. But I do wish you would return to Petrograd—”

  “I won’t do that.”

  “I know.”

  “I will be very careful, though.”

  Sighing, he put his arm around her and drew closer to her. He needed to feel her near. “Could we pray, Talia? For the mission and for our future when it is over?”

  “Oh yes! What a perfect suggestion, and it is the best thing we can do.”

  They prayed for several minutes, mostly in silence, but Andrei said a few words aloud. Then they reverently crossed themselves and sat quietly for a few more minutes. Outside it had begun to rain, and the sound was so soothing and ordinary that Andrei felt sudden tears of longing rise in his eyes. He was glad Talia couldn’t see, for she might be disappointed, thinking the prayer hadn’t helped. Andrei himself wasn’t sure if it had or hadn’t. Only time would tell. And he prayed a final silent prayer
before they departed that place that God would give him the patience he would need to give both time and God a chance to work.

  40

  Seldom had there ever been a more bedraggled procession. Russian soldiers, recently demobilized after the treaty with Germany, made their way along the muddy roads and paths hoping soon to reach a railhead that would take them home. Some wore bandages or hobbled on crutches. All were dressed in rags, the proud uniforms they had once worn now scored with years of battle.

  Misha Grigorov looked little better than those around him. Nearly two years in a German prison camp had been as grueling as any battle he had ever been in. And he probably would still be there now, wading through red tape for his release, if he hadn’t escaped a week before the treaty was signed.

  His journey home had been slowgoing. First, he had walked through German-occupied territory. Once he entered Russian territory, he almost starved and encountered such disorganization he could not find his old unit. Finally, he had decided to head home, forgetting about trying to report in first. His wounded leg did not help matters. He’d been shot during his escape, and though the wound itself had finally healed, he still carried a bullet in his thigh as a constant painful reminder. He used a sturdy branch as a crutch and wondered if he would ever walk normally again. Perhaps Yuri would be able to fix it when he got home.

  Home. Anna!

  Those two words kept him going through the most difficult ordeal of his life. He desperately wanted to have a life with Anna. It seemed but a fading dream that they were truly married. He frequently had to remind himself of their wedding day and the brief few days that had followed before he had left for the war. He made himself reconstruct every detail of those wonderful days, but it was getting harder and harder to do.

  Soon though, very soon, they would be together again. He prayed she had not changed her mind about her decision, or given him up for dead. But he knew Anna better than that. Her love and commitment were not things she gave away carelessly. She’d be there. The whole world in Russia had changed radically—news of the revolution had trickled into the prison camp. But Anna would never change.