A smoking cigarette dangles from the mouth of the guard at the door, standing watch over the brothers.
Alexandra pretends to look out the window. Her core is twisting with grief and fear. The absence of facts frightens her most. Where will they be tomorrow? The day after? How is it possible for their world to have collapsed with such speed?
A few fat raindrops land on the windowsill. A bird of paradise is huddled among the dappled leaves outside. Coarse laughter can be heard from somewhere by the gate.
Nicholas holds his younger brother at arm’s length, unable to bear his haggard look, the deep pain on his young face, the silence that speaks more than any word.
Michael touches Nicholas’s arm as if to hold onto him just a bit longer. He tugs at a button on his brother’s coat. “Where will you go?”
“Our fate is in God’s hands.”
The Empress crosses the room and comes to Michael, crushing him against her chest, resting her wet cheek on his shoulder. She counts the seconds by the frantic beat of his heart.
He wipes her tears with his handkerchief. His forced smile is sad. “You’ll have time to travel now. Enjoy the children. Nicky might even care for his teeth.”Alexei runs in, his spaniel yelping at his feet.
Darya follows behind. “My apologies, Your Majesties. Alyosha wanted to say hello to Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich.”
“Come give your uncle a kiss, big boy,” the grand duke says, then hugs the boy, kisses him on his forehead.
“But why are you crying, uncle?”
“Politics, big boy. Nothing to trouble yourself about.”
“Is it because papa abdicated and I’m becoming Tsar?”
“No, not at all, big boy. I’m sure you’ll make a great Tsar,” Michael replies. Then he adds, “I don’t know what to say. Everything happened so fast.”
In the span of one horrific day his brother passed succession to his son as prescribed by law, and for a few hours the twelve-year-old Alexei became the autocrat of all the Russias. Then he, too, passed the throne to Michael Alexandrovich, who became Emperor for an hour before he was forced to renounce the already crumbling throne. The country was left at the mercy of the provisional government that is itself in disarray.
“We are all in a state of shock, big boy. It will be a long time before you become Tsar. We’ll see what happens. What the future brings.”
There is a heavy stillness in the room, the pungent taste of unspoken words. The biting odor of gunpowder makes its way from the windows. Grand Duke Michael raises Alexei’s hands and plants a kiss on the back of each. “Be well, Your Majesty, take good care of yourself.”
Michael turns on his heels and nearly runs out the door.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The medicinal smell of camphor and alcohol levitates inside the Alexander Palace. The sweet, tangy odor of the poultice Darya prepares from dried lemons, ground cloves, honey, turmeric paste, essence of chamomile, and sour oranges permeates the children’s quarters.
Olga, Tatiana, and Alexei have all come down with the measles. Maria is delirious. She has developed pneumonia on top of measles, and Darya is rubbing the poultice to her chest.
Outside, in place of the imperial Cossacks, sentries march back and forth at the palace gates, their antimonarchist cries replacing the honking of swans and the trilling of birds of paradise.
Drunken laughter and pops of gunfire can be heard inside the palace corridors, where revolutionaries amble about in muddy red boots, march unannounced into bedrooms, and spew obscenities at the few servants who remain in the palace.
All telephone lines but the one into the guardroom have been disconnected, and the commandant rarely permits the Imperial Family to use that telephone. When they do, they must communicate in Russian, not French or English, and in the presence of a guard. All incoming and outgoing letters must remain unsealed. Food brought into the palace is inspected by dirty fingers, sampled, and the best is confiscated by the revolutionaries.
Only a handful of the Imperial Family’s supporters—two of the Empress’s friends, Count Benckendorff and his wife, two ladies-in-waiting, the children’s two tutors, and Doctor Botkin—having refused immunity, remain in the palace.
A cup of warm passionflower and tincture of hawthorn in hand, Darya shuts the door behind her and walks across the corridor to Alexei’s room.
“Where have you been, Darya,” he asks. “Why can’t we take the ponies out? When will the guards leave? What are they shooting at out there?”
She sits at the edge of his bed, takes his hand in hers. “I don’t know how long they’re going to be here, Loves. Not long, I hope. Before you know it, everything will go back like it was before.”
How is she to tell a thirteen-year-old boy that members of the New Revolutionary Council of the village of Tsarskoe Selo are hunting the beloved family of deer the grand duchesses had tamed and fed for years? Or that Derevenko, the sailor and attendant who for ten years had been following the boy on his outings to make sure he does not have an accident, had fled at the first sign of trouble?
Darya hands Alexei the cup of elixir. “Here, Loves, it will help you to fall asleep.”
She walks to the window, gazes out. Lost in thought, she twirls her wedding band around her finger, takes it out, toys with its opal stones, circling her forefinger around each smooth dome. It has become a habit of hers to glance out one door or another, one window or another, expecting Avram to amble through the gates with his feline stride and lopsided grin, expecting him to appear as unexpectedly as he disappeared eight months ago. Was it unexpected, his leaving as he had? Perhaps not. He had loved her far longer than any other man would have patience to do. As for her, she can still feel the bounce of his pulse when she held his wrist, count the thump of life in his veins. “I’m waiting for you,” she mumbles, her voice hardly audible.
She gasps, clutching the windowsill, bending out to take a better look.
A gang of rebels in makeshift uniforms clamber up the steel turrets surrounding the grounds.
“Stop them!” she calls out to the palace guards. “They’ve no business here!”
The disheveled, unorganized guards glance up, offer her an indifferent smile.
Why, Darya wants to shout, did the imperial Cossacks turn their backs on their Emperor? Where was their devotion? Their vow to serve their monarch?
The rebels jump down into the park, come scrambling around the circular driveway. They skip around like possessed monkeys, raising their fists and shouting antimonarchist slogans.
“Shame on you!” Darya calls back. “Go away!”
“Come down from your throne, woman!” they yell. “Come down for a good fuck!” They grab their crotches, double over with laughter.
The young leader of the intruders keeps pushing away the mane of curly hair flopping over his face. His large brown eyes seek Darya with a mixture of reverence and curiosity. He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, “By orders of the Soviet, we are here to take the Romanovs to the Fortress of Peter and Paul.”
Darya steps back and shuts the windows.
Alexei has fallen asleep, his bed scattered with the collection of his miniatures.
She runs out and takes the steps down to Count Benckendorff, grand marshal of the court and the man in charge of the Tsar’s safety.
“Sir, at least fifty men broke into the grounds. They want to take the Tsar away. Do something, please.”
“I am trying, my dear. Trying very hard,” he replies, his eye misting behind his monocle. “It is anarchy, I’m afraid. Go back to the children. Say nothing to the Imperial Couple.”
Count Benckendorff straightens the lapels of his jacket, tugs at his handlebar mustache, passes a palm over his bald head. Every day a different group of self-proclaimed revolutionaries descends on the Alexander Palace. Men who are not answerable to a higher authority, free to abuse their newfound power, men who refuse to leave unless their unreasonable requests are met.
He
steps outside, marching toward the young leader. “Gentlemen, it is unacceptable and unnecessary to intrude upon the family like this. I beseech you to leave immediately.”
“Good day!” The leader raises his hand in a semblance of a salute. “Where is his Imperial…I mean…Romanov?”
“In the palace. The provisional government has him under strict house arrest. You have my word that he is not going anywhere. That small fenced-off area out there is the only open space he is allowed to walk around. He poses no danger. Kindly leave.”
The leader wipes sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “It has been concluded that an inspection must be conducted. Right away!”
“An inspection?” Count Benckendorff asks, a muscle jumping in his left cheek. “Of what?”
“Of the deposed Romanov.”
“To what purpose?”
“That is our business!”
Despite the cutting cold, Benckendorff’s face breaks into a sweat. He turns on his heels and enters the palace that was once fragrant with lilac but now smells of the letters and satin-bound diaries the Tsarina destroyed in the fireplace.
Count Benckendorff steps into the study. Nicholas is sitting behind his writing desk, his head of graying hair in his hands. A thin film of dust covers the desktop. Benckendorff draws a painful breath and quietly shuts the door behind him. He clicks his boots and salutes formally.
The Tsar raises his head. He is haggard. Dark circles frame his eyes. “No need for such formalities,” he says with a sad smile.
Benckendorff holds on to his formal posture. “Your Majesty, another group of rebels has broken into the palace. They will not leave unless an inspection is conducted. I await your orders.”
“An inspection?” Nicholas’s eyes dart around the room. “Of what?”
“They want to inspect Your Majesty. Brute curiosity, I suspect. I apologize.”
“A dethroned Tsar on display like some circus curiosity. Somewhat humorous, don’t you agree? But you are not to blame, my dear man. It was my decision to abdicate, and I shall comply with their demand. Tell them I will be down in fifteen minutes.”
His eyes burning, Benckendorff leaves the room to order the few remaining officers left in charge of the Tsar to post themselves along the corridor walls so as to buffer him from further insult.
Fifteen minutes pass and Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov appears at the top of the stairs.
Hands clasped behind his back, he descends the stairs with the calculated precision of a commander in chief. The silent hallway is brightly lit, the odor of sweat and fear stinging. He paces the hall in front of the young revolutionary and his men, back and forth, back and forth, taking great care to slow his steps. He takes solace in the conviction that he is suffering this humiliation for the sake of protecting his family.
He comes to an abrupt stop in front of the leader and raises his eyes to meet the man’s. “Why, my friend? What have I done?”
The young leader clears his throat, coughs twice. He is a common man with no political aspirations, a man at the mercy of his empty stomach. But now, face to face with the dignified Nicholas, he wants nothing more than to pray for the Emperor’s health, to fall on his knees, and to ask forgiveness from the once omnipotent Tsar, who receives his authority from God.
The leader steps back, clicks his boots. He is about to salute the Tsar but thinks better of it. He turns to his men, his voice loud, cracking at the seams. “Citizen Romanov is not going anywhere!” he announces.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Commandant Vasiliev, the latest revolutionary assigned by the provisional government to watch over the palace, is unable to sleep. His bladder is full, but he is having a hard time giving up his warm spot under his coarse blanket. He checks his platoon of five men, fast asleep under blankets around him. They are volunteers—Chechens, Tatars, and Daghestanis—hard to discipline, but strong, effective fighters, and accustomed to this brutal cold. An unexpected winter snowstorm arrived out of nowhere, taking them all by surprise; snow so heavy, it weighs down his eyelashes.
The commandant inspects the ashen sky, the sinister outline of the Alexander Palace not too far off, the man-made pond, a frozen, dark stain in the distance.
A movement behind bushes catches his attention. He jerks the blanket off, sprints to his feet, his rifle aimed at the snow-covered bushes. He lets loose a volley of bullets.
A family of rabbits scrambles out, dispersing into the night.
His men, awakened by the excitement, burst into laughter that travels through the park and echoes in the grand square, where Catherine II once watched her regiments march in parade.
“Form a line!” Vasiliev shouts. “Follow me! Bring your backpacks. What are you waiting for? It’s time to take back what the Romanov bastards stole from us.”
A small, bony man with a skeletal face, Vasiliev twists his handlebar mustache into nervous knots as he reflects upon the treasures these vast imperial gardens might yield, a wealth of forgotten knickknacks that would fetch good money in the market as Tsarist souvenirs.
Their boots crunching on the snow underfoot, the men march deep into the park, across lagoons, inlets, and canals. Occasionally Vasiliev rummages in his backpack, pulls out a bottle of vodka, and takes a swig.
He leads his men across the Marble Bridge with its blue and white balustrades. He touches the tip of his pointy nose, bends it down toward his chin. Which path should he take? He flips a coin, decides to take the narrow path to the left that leads to an arbor with a four-sided granite pyramid. He holds one hand up. Signals to his men to stop behind the pyramid at the bank of a frozen stream.
He bends to brush snow off a marble slab, reads an inscription. He falls on all fours and begins to smash his fists on the marble. “Dogs! Dog tombs! What are you waiting for? Get to it! Destroy them! Bastard Romanov bitches.”
The men attack the tombs with switchblades, rifle butts, and curses. They tie ropes around the broken corners and begin to heave and tug until the slabs break loose from their foundation. The earth underneath is wet and worm-infested. Vasiliev sweeps off a layer of soil with his boot, certain he’ll unearth something valuable, a jewel or gold coin left with the dead to pay for transit to the other world. His boot catches upon something hard. He wiggles the tip until it snags the object. He carefully lifts his leg. The toe of his boot is stuck in the socket of a canine skull. He smashes his foot down. The skull shatters. Splinters of bone scatter. A sharp one lodges on the back of Vasiliev’s hairy hand. He pulls it out and pins it like a medal of honor to his collar.
They reach the private island with its moving bridge, attack the metal joints, cables, and anchor, and smash the motor, rendering the bridge inoperable. They continue on their quest, deep into the park, leaving behind piles of smashed metal, marble, mud, and bleached dog bones.
Vasiliev’s dark eyes narrow into greedy slits. He detects something red and shiny, poking out of the snow. He whistles, narrows his eyes, his mouth watering with anticipation. As silently and as quickly as a slinking cat, he thrusts his hand into the snow, closing his fist over his find. His back turned to his men, he unlocks his hand. On his palm gleams a miniature car, its steering wheels, spokes and studs, a tiny chauffeur, Nicholas and Alexandra in the backseat, everything intact, save for one of Alexandra’s pearl earrings. Detached from its gold wire, it is buried in snow under Vasiliev’s boot.
“A huge fucking ruby toy,” he mumbles under his breath, dropping it into his coat pocket.
They continue their search, wander around the park, in and out of galleries, around leafless arbors and trellises, snoop into every nook and corner, uproot smaller sculptures, pile up deer carcasses hunted for food, and pilfer lilacs from the Empress’s greenhouses to take home to their women.
Deep in the park, Vasiliev gestures for his men to halt again.
They are facing a small chapel.
The commandant aims his rifle ahead, taking a long time to assess the situation. He does no
t like the sense of eerie forlornness hovering over the place, the way steam curls out of its windows, the relentless way all types of hard-shelled and spike-legged insects hit themselves against the few intact windowpanes.
“What are you waiting for?” he yells to his men. “Come in!”
They are confronted by sad, condemning eyes in the damp chapel. Icons on shelves, on walls, painted on the ceiling. Sad eyes everywhere. A ghostly shaft of moonlight cuts a path through the broken glass of an upper window, illuminating a block of marble at their feet. Set flat in the ground in the center of the chapel.
The men are silent, paralyzed, afraid to breathe. They pull up the collars of their coats to shield their ears from the howling wind that forces its way inside. They do not fear God, or His saints, whose presence they certainly feel in this chapel. They are terrified of the mysterious man whose incriminating gaze is boring through layers of earth and stone, drilling its way into their chests.
They look down at Grigori Rasputin’s grave.
Vasiliev yanks at his mustache. “What are you waiting for? Get to work.”
The puzzled men shuffle in place. What is the order? What does their leader expect of them?
They have all heard about Rasputin’s death. They know the Tsar’s cousin murdered the monk, heard about the monk’s prophetic letter. Like all Russians, they have lived to see his prophesies come true. They’re afraid to disturb his grave, fearful that to do so might unleash his vengeance.
Vasiliev aims his rifle at the dark marble at his feet and fires round after round.
The men jump out of the way of bullets that ricochet off the headstone. They position themselves against a wall and continue to fire. One bullet after another pockmarks the marble slab.
Slowly, leisurely, like a geographical phenomenon that might take centuries to transform the shape of nature, veinlike fissures appear in the headstone and widen into arteries. A colossal groan shakes the small chapel and the arteries split to reveal an oak coffin in the ground.
The Last Romanov Page 22