Vasiliev sneers, revealing his rotting teeth. “You, Citizen Darya Borisovna, unlike Mr. Colonel here, are free to go.”
“Where are you taking my family?” she asks.
“None of your business! Grab your fucking luck and run!”
“To what do I owe this honor?”
Vasiliev holds up three fingers. “One! To the Big Fire you put out. Two! You have a way of scaring the fucking daylights out of my comrades, and they want you gone. And three! To rumors that you are an evil witch. So, go! Get the fuck out of here!”
Darya squares her shoulders. Crosses her arms in front her chest. “I will accompany Their Majesties to the end of the world.”
Vasiliev doubles over with laughter. Finally, he straightens and sucks in his breath. The laughter is replaced by loud hiccups. “Well, well, Comrade Spiridova! Don’t be shocked then if you do find yourself at the end of the world.”
“Nothing shocks me these days. Not even the dreadful future inscribed across your forehead,” Darya replies calmly.
Vasiliev’s hiccups die in his chest. “And what is that future?”
“I see Rasputin’s spirit looming over you, haunting you the rest of your life. I see you and yours forever burning in fires far worse than the Big Fire you experienced that night. I see your entire family—”
“All right! Stop this nonsense. Stay, if you’re that stupid!” Vasiliev shouts as if reining wild horses. “Move! Collect your personal belongings. I’m talking to you, Comrade Spiridova! What are you waiting for?”
Darya hurries to her quarters, her most pressing concern the logistics of transporting the ambergris without attracting attention. Kerensky has promised to allow the family to take their portable valuables with them. But how is she to explain the ambergris without alerting potential thieves? She decides to divide the ambergris in two, stuffing the pieces into pillowcases she sews tightly. She places the pillows at the bottom of two suitcases and piles layers of clothing on top. She drags out a trunk from storage and sets it next to the suitcases. With the stubborn determination of a rebellious child, she crams the trunk with colorful clothes of all shapes, velvet and ermine and sable stoles, jewel-encrusted gowns with gossamer trails, the lightest embroidered damask skirts, and buttery kid gloves ordered by the Empress from Paris. Even if she is exiled to the heart of Siberia, Darya vows, where spit will freeze in her mouth and winters will snap her opal eye in two, she will make a point of flaunting imperial opulence that has become a thorn in the side of the revolutionaries.
The train that is supposed to transport the Imperial Family and its retinue to the unknown destination does not arrive. The sleepless night stretches into dawn. Boxes, trunks, and suitcases are piled outside the main entrance of the palace.
Dry-eyed, hair pulled back, Alexandra is seated in a chair in the foyer, Alexei’s head in her lap. She tugs at a strand of hair tumbling over his forehead, pulling and coiling it around her forefinger. Every now and then, she attempts a sad smile at her daughters, who, huddled around her, doze off and on. They are beautiful young ladies. A world of possibilities await them. Olga is twenty-two; Tatiana, twenty; Maria, eighteen; and Anastasia, already sixteen. God willing, they would be allowed to settle in England with their British cousins, enjoy a peaceful life, wed, and raise their own families.
Darya sits on top of her trunk next to her suitcases. She grieves silently, bidding farewell to Tsarskoe Selo, to the twelve wondrous years she spent here, to the red bird of paradise that refused to flee the night of the Big Fire. But she is not ready to bid Avram farewell. The knot that binds them tightens with each passing day.
What will happen to him now? What will happen to all of them?
Kerensky is in the process of yet another endless argument on the phone, which was reconnected in the foyer for his personal use.
“Sir, where is the provisional government sending us?” she asks when he ends the call.
“To Tobolsk,” he replies absentmindedly, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “The people of Tobolsk will not object to the family’s move there. They remain loyal to Nicholas Alexandrovich.”
“But for how long, sir?”
“Until the Constituent Assembly meets in November. Then you can all return here. Or go anywhere you like.”
“When will the train arrive?”
Kerensky fidgets with his hands as if noticing them for the first time, thrusts one in his pants pocket, the other into the front of his jacket.
“They are not sending a train, sir. Are they?” she asks.
“The railway personnel are being hostile,” he replies, turning on his heels and marching away noisily in search of the Emperor, who, hands clasped behind his back, paces back and forth by the main door.
“I apologize for the delay,” Kerensky tells him. “But you have my assurance that the provisional government has guaranteed your safety.”
“Thank you, my friend.” Nicholas says, stepping out and gesturing to Kerensky to follow him. “I want you to know that you have done your best for us. And whatever happens in the future is the will of God.”
The wail of an arriving train can be heard in the distance.
Nicholas offers his hand to Kerensky. “I feel tired and old these days and look forward to spending the rest of my life in peaceful anonymity with my family. I will pray for your success.”
“The train is at the station!” Kerensky announces to the group inside the palace.
The servants are ordered to transport the trunks and suitcases to the station.
The morning sun struggles to penetrate the blanket of smoke that continues to cast a gloomy shadow over the village. Trees stand at attention like sentinels adorned with worthless medals. Ruby-eyed hawks take flight in the distance.
Inside, Olga and Maria awaken Tatiana and Anastasia, pat their hair into place, and tell them it’s time to leave. Olga crushes a damp kerchief in her fist, turns her face away from her younger sisters, and attempts to swallow her tears.
Alexei has fallen asleep in his mother’s lap, and his spaniel snores at his side.
Darya, eager for a resolution to this endless waiting, gently shakes him awake. “We’re leaving, my Tsarevich. Say good-bye to your home. Take your time. Don’t let the guards frighten you.”
“Are you coming, Darya?”
“Of course I am. I’ll always be at your side wherever you go.”
The family and their entourage enter the automobiles that will transport them to the train station. Kerensky takes his seat in the imperial car at the head of the motorcade. Mounted Cossacks flank the retinue as the automobiles roar into gear and speed through the gates, spitting gravel across Alexander Palace, the imperial home of twenty-three years.
Count Benckendorff stands at the door to the palace, one hand raised in a formal salute, the other clutching a medal of St. Nicholas of Bari given to him by the Empress as a token of her gratitude.
He will remain behind to look after the personal affairs of the Tsar until the family returns—keeping the palace in order, paying the few servants staying behind, and assuring the remaining valuables and artwork are not plundered.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
— 1918 —
Midnight. Drenched from a continual drizzle, Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia, and Alexei huddle close to Darya, their trembling bodies seeking warmth from each other. They can hardly keep their eyes open from lack of sleep and fatigue from the long journey from Tobolsk to Ekaterinburg. The girls are scared, their aching legs trembling. A letter from their mother directs them to “dispose of all the medicines as had been agreed,” a previously devised code and plan to bring along the gems they carried from Tsarskoe Selo to Tobolsk, which, having been ordered to depart on an hour’s notice, the Imperial Couple were forced to leave behind. It took the girls several days to complete their task. Now, weighted down by their clothing heavy with diamonds, emeralds, pearls, and rubies sewn into them, they can hardly stand on their feet.
The wind smacks
a burst of rain like gravel onto their faces. Darya wraps her arms around them. The thought occurs to her that the wretched Vasiliev might have been right in the end. After thirteen months of detention—five in Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo and eight in Tobolsk—it appears they have reached the end of the world.
Nicholas, Alexandra, and Maria were transported to Ekaterinburg a month before. Unfit to travel, Alexei remained with Darya and his three sisters. Nagorny (the sailor in charge of carrying Alexei), Dr. Botkin, Kharitonov the cook, Troup the footman, and Leonid Sednev the kitchen boy now form a silent wall around Darya and the Romanov children.
The house looking down on them exhales a putrid breath. The façade’s white stones, coarse with the city’s violence and chewed up by time, are ominous in the dark of night.
“Welcome to the House of Special Purpose!” a revolutionary commandant—another of the many they have encountered in these months in exile—barks.
They are puzzled. What is the man saying? What is the House of Special Purpose?
Darya steps forward. “The last I knew, this was Ipatiev’s house. What is the House of Special Purpose?”
He pokes a finger in his hairy ear to ease an itch. “Ipatiev is kaput! Gone! Ordered out by the office of the Ural Soviet!” He snaps his hand up in a mock salute. “Nicholas the Blood Drinker and his German woman are here now.”
The house looks different, Darya thinks. With its window bars, painted panes, and surrounding high wooden fence, it resembles a prison rather than the handsome mansion it once was. Its first story overlooks the busy Voznesensky Prospekt. The second level faces a prominent hill in the distance on which the Entertainment Palace is perched.
She is unaware that fate will grab her by the throat soon and lead her back to the Entertainment Palace, where for year after long year, hundreds of butterflies will herald a new day and the aroma of Little Servant’s coffee will force her out of bed. She is unaware that, made of a stronger mettle than she can imagine now, her relentless persistence and stubborn memories will carry her far into old age.
The revolutionary guard pulls back his lips, revealing a row of silver teeth. “Boy! Step forward for a thorough inspection.”
Darya feels the girls squeeze closer to her, hears the rushing blood in their veins, the pounding of Alexei’s heart, hears Joy, the boy’s spaniel, skipping around and yelping.
Not once did she leave Alexei’s side, not throughout the river voyage aboard the steamer Rus, nor at the Tyumen railway station when the commissar tried to separate her from Alexei, nor when Nagorny was there, able and ready to help. She carried the boy into the steamer’s cabin, into the fourth-class carriage, all the way at the rear of the train. She is not about to part with him now. She glares at the commandant. He glares back. Her voice is sharp as a blade. “Search me, if you dare! Or step aside and let us in.”
The commandant retrieves a smooth pebble from his pocket, turns it around as if his decision is inscribed in the stone. He bounces the stone from one hand to another, then drops it back in his pocket for later use. “You must be tired,” he tells Alexei. “It’s been a long night. All right then, go in, if you want. Your sisters will do.” He rubs his cold hands. “Step forward, girls!”
Olga and Tatiana seem to diminish as if the heavy jewels are squeezing and shrinking them from all sides. The rain has gathered force, soaking their clothes, threatening to reveal the outlines of the precious stones.
Darya steps in front of the grand duchesses. Lifting her arms up toward the wet skies, she aims her cracked opal eye at the commandant, sucks her cheeks in, puckers her mouth, and spits out a burst of fire sparks at the man’s face.
“Fire! Fire!” His shrill voice precedes him as he staggers back, slapping his face, his head, his ears. Lurching toward a muddy puddle, he plunges his head in as if his hair is on fire.
“Stop it, Darya,” the frightened Alexei implores. “He won’t let us see Papa and Mama.”
“Don’t worry!” Darya says. “I had to teach him a lesson, or he’d make our life miserable here.” She bends and picks up some red seeds from the ground. “Pomegranate seeds I keep in my pockets for such occasions. I tossed them in my mouth when he wasn’t looking. An innocent man would have acted differently.”
She grabs her charges by the hand and leads them into the House of Special Purpose.
***
The summer months in the house progress to days of increasing horror. The occasional letters from relatives and friends in exile no longer reach the family. Local newspapers, which Nicholas once eagerly anticipated, even if few and far between, no longer arrive.
Their only source of knowledge is old newspapers wrapped around bread and eggs the local nuns send them, cut out magazines in the lavatory, a note from a friend concealed in a basket of fruit, but mostly stale information and rumors from the guards.
They learn that the German kaiser, cousin of Nicholas, facilitated the exiled Vladimir Lenin’s entry back into Russia, and the man is wreaking havoc, encouraging uprisings, calling for all workers to take up arms. Civil war is raging, Red troops against White troops. No one knows who is murdering whom and who is winning the war.
The faraway rumble of artillery can be heard day and night.
The revolutionaries, afraid that someone inside the house might signal for help to a friendly White soldier or a monarchist crossing the Voznesensky Prospekt, do not allow the family to open any doors or windows and have coated the glass panes with lime, which traps the heat, turning the rooms into hellish furnaces.
Alexei is losing weight and spends most of his time in bed, Joy curled at his feet. His miniatures having been confiscated by Vasiliev at Tsarskoe Selo, he amuses himself with bits of wire, metal scraps, and a broken model of a ship.
The concoction of ambergris Darya rubs on his atrophying legs is not as effective in the absence of aged Livonian wine, sweet almond oil, vetivert, hashish, or ginger root. Desperate for a cure, she spends hours mixing whatever stale ingredients she finds in the kitchen—dried eucalyptus leaves, a clove of cinnamon, lemon peel, even salt—adding them to melted ambergris, until the pots and pans turn black and the smell alerts a guard, who marches in to order her out of the kitchen.
Alexandra and Nicholas hold classes for their children. They study the classics, practice French, discuss politics. The girls knit, crochet, embroider, or mend clothes.
They pray together—the family, servants, doctor, cook, and Darya.
They pray for food other than black bread and tea. They pray for an extra pair of boots for Alexei. They pray for the privilege of visiting the lavatory without being harassed and hassled by obscenities, without being assaulted by crude caricatures on walls of the Empress and Rasputin in appalling poses. But most of all, they pray for salvation, pray for the success of the anti-Communist White Army, pray that if any relatives and friends remain, they will hear their prayers and deliver them from this indignity.
And they all mourn together. They mourn Nagorny, Alexei’s faithful guard who, arrested for having prevented another guard from stealing the boy’s gold chain, was imprisoned and then executed.
They mourn when the revolutionaries celebrate the collapse of the provisional government that consisted of liberals from the last Duma. They mourn the fall of Kerensky and the rise of Lenin, who is systematically shattering their last hope of freedom.
They also celebrate together. Not birthdays. Those come and go without much fuss. The Empress turns forty-six, the Emperor fifty. Alexei is thirteen. They celebrate small daily freedoms. Being allowed afternoon walks in the garden, even if under the hooded eyes of the guards. Even if Alexei, all but crippled, sits quietly in a chair with his spaniel companion snoring at his feet. They celebrate walking, which oils their rusting joints. Nicholas wears his officer’s coat, but the epaulets have been removed. Alexandra leans on a cane, her pulled-back hair almost all gray, deep lines framing her mouth.
They celebrate the blessing of being together.
&
nbsp; Chapter Thirty-Eight
— July 16, 1918 —
Yakov Yurovsky marches up the stairs to the second level of the House of Special Purpose. His hands are deep in the pockets of his military coat, which is buttoned up to his chin, his mouth pursed tight. The bush of dark curls on top of his head, his thick eyebrows, and carefully trimmed mustache and goatee cast dark shadows on his thin face.
He stops outside Nicholas and Alexandra’s room, the bedroom they have shared with their son during the five months they have been here. He stares at the door. He is not pleased. He is a member of the Bolshevik Secret Police, respects order, expects to be obeyed, yet despite strict instructions for all doors to remain open, this one is closed. Order seems illusive, although he has been in charge for twelve days now, after firing the previous inefficient commandant and his disorderly men.
He removes his left hand from his pocket. Knocks with a clenched fist. Steps away from the door before plunging his hand back in his pocket to stroke the hard, comforting coolness of his Colt revolver. He waits. Tugs at his coat sleeves. Whistles a tuneless war march under his breath.
The door is opened halfway. Nicholas peers out with alarmed eyes. Unwilling to awaken his wife and his sick son, he whispers, “Yes? What is wrong?”
“I apologize for the intrusion,” Yurovsky replies with an exaggerated show of respect. “Because of the unrest in town, it’s necessary to move everyone downstairs. It’s dangerous to be upstairs while there’s shooting in the streets. Please get dressed as soon as possible.”
“New developments?” Nicholas asks.
“The White Army crossed into Siberia. They are regaining territory from the Red Army.”
“Siberia is very large, my friend. It will take a long time for the Whites to get here.”
“They are in the city,” Yurovsky replies quietly, regretfully, discreetly.
The Last Romanov Page 24