by Ariel Lawhon
By the time Xenia is done giving her a tour of the house, the staff has already unpacked her belongings and hung them in a cedar closet. There are fires burning merrily in all three fireplaces in the suite—one each in her bedroom, bathroom, and parlor—and lunch is set out in the small dining area.
“I thought you might want to eat in your rooms today. I imagine you’re still exhausted from your trip.”
Normally the smell of roast beef, baked potatoes, fresh bread, and strong coffee would be impossible for Anna to ignore. But her attention has been arrested by something in the middle of the room.
“Oh! Those are for you. A gift. Something I bought for you on our trip to the West Indies last month. You’re welcome to name them. I haven’t gotten around to that yet. They’re both female.”
In a cage on a round table in the middle of the room sit two gorgeous green parrots.
Xenia laughs at the look of stunned delight on Anna’s face. “Neither one of them can talk, I’m afraid. But I remember how much you love animals, and I thought you might like to have some company in this corner of the house.”
“Thank you,” Anna says, a bit overwhelmed. “I love them.” She gently lifts the bar that secures the door and slides her hand into the cage. Anna pets the soft feathered head of one bird, and then the other. They are identical in size and color. Twins perhaps. Or at least sisters. Finally, Anna looks at her host, inspiration written on her face. “They will share a name. I will call them both Janus.”
· 20 ·
Anastasia
TOGETHER NO MORE
1918
Tobolsk, Russia
April 23
I’m the last one to enter Father’s study. There’s static in the air, an almost palpable electric charge as my parents sit, tense and furious, before Yakov. He paces the room, fingers laced behind his back, looking at each of us in turn. My sisters are on the verge of tears. Leshy is in attendance as well. Those odd, feral eyes of his are slightly pinched. Anger perhaps. Or alarm. I can’t decide what, exactly, he’s feeling. So I take a seat in the corner of the room on a hard wooden bench beneath the window and wait for Yakov to deliver whatever bad news awaits us.
I wonder how thin he really is beneath that baggy uniform. The way his jacket hangs from his shoulders and flaps at his thighs makes me think that his arms are rails and his legs spindles. I wonder whether I’m strong enough to smother him in his sleep. Probably not, I decide; little men are quick and ruthless and they often fight dirty. That’s what Father says. They fight like mercenaries. Yakov would likely stab me in the eye before I could get the pillow over his face. Such thoughts! Only a year ago I was planting cabbages and now I’m plotting murder.
Yakov finally comes to a stop before Father. His smile is eager, his eyes shadowed by that pronounced, heavy brow. “Citizen Romanov,” he says, “I have been assigned to remove you from Tobolsk.”
Father blinks at him as though trying to make sense of what he has just heard. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you are to be put on trial and I am to take you to another location so preparations can be made.”
Father grinds out his next question between clenched teeth. “What. Location?”
“I am afraid I cannot reveal that.”
“No,” he says. “I will not leave my family.”
“I never said you had to leave your family. They will accompany you.”
It is here that Leshy steps forward, dwarfing Yakov with every inch of his impressive height, and his impassive face finally turns to granite. “Alexey is too sick. He won’t be well enough to travel for many weeks yet.”
My brother’s tumble down the stairs nearly killed him. There was nothing Botkin could do to stop the bleeding. We have taken turns sitting by his bedside, terrified he would die at any moment. Though the worst has passed, Alexey is still bedridden, bruised, and unable to eat or even roll over without assistance.
While Yakov considers the situation his eyes tighten and release several times as he weighs the benefits and disadvantages of a dead thirteen-year-old heir. “We do not have weeks,” he says finally. “Nicholas and Alexandra will leave first thing in the morning. They will bring one daughter and half the servants. The others can stay to care for the boy until he is recovered.”
* * *
—
My parents spend the rest of the day with Alexey, hugging him, kissing him, and saying good-bye. My brother sleeps through most of it, still too weak to raise his head or speak. Meanwhile, they leave the decision of who will go with them up to us. While they weep in the next room, we sit on our beds and settle the issue the way we have settled all other disputes since we were children. We draw straws. Maria argues, in vain, that my straw is shorter than hers, that I should go and she should stay. But Olga orders us to lay them down side by side on the floor and it is clear that I will remain in Tobolsk. I would like to think that Maria’s devotion to Alexey is what drives her to tears, but I suspect it is Ivan she does not want to leave.
My parents’ trunks are packed quickly and thoroughly with the basic necessities while Cook hustles to make a last meal of borscht and hens stuffed with rice and hazelnuts. I wish, morbidly, that he had cooked D’Yavol, but I don’t say it aloud. My parents are not in the mood for jokes tonight. So we eat our dinner quietly, without fanfare. None of us have much of an appetite.
“What will we do while you’re gone?” I ask, finally, unable to bear the silence around the table any longer.
“Exactly what you’re doing now, Schwibsik,” Father says. “You will do your lessons and run the house and care for your brother.”
“But—”
“Alexey will be well soon,” Mother interrupts. “Then you will join us.”
I hear the note of obstinate belief in her voice and I don’t argue. There’s no point upsetting her more. I’ve been afraid since Yurovsky’s announcement but now I am angry as well because I want my mother to comfort me and she doesn’t. She is drowning in her own fear and cannot be bothered to assuage mine. This, I suppose, is what it means to be grown. I add this feeling to the list of things I hate.
The day soon evaporates, and then there is nothing left to do but whisper good night and go to bed. My sisters and I toss and turn in our beds that night, listening to one another fret while the dogs snore at our feet.
Yakov comes to collect our parents, Maria, Dova, and Trupp in the morning, but he doesn’t allow us to accompany them to the dock. As we have every other time, we are forced to say our good-byes at the house. They are quick, stoic, and tearless. We all stand in a dismal circle on the front porch as my parents and sister are wrapped in lambskin coats and driven away without comment. Behind them rattle two carts, loaded with trunks carrying the last of Mother’s hidden treasure, all the large pieces that were too cumbersome and heavy to sew into our clothes.
* * *
—
Yakov is gone, at least, but he leaves Semyon in command. The first thing that odious man does, once the Rus steams away from Tobolsk, is to dismiss Leshy from his service.
“I have performed my duties faithfully!” Leshy argues as they stand in the hallway between Father’s study and the schoolroom.
Semyon shrugs. He cannot match Leshy’s physical presence so he relies on his rank instead. “Your services are no longer required. You and your men are to pack your things and report to the garrison commander in Petrograd immediately.”
Leshy dares not look to where I am standing, just inside the study, listening. “You cannot send us all away. You will be grossly understaffed.”
“I’m not. You will leave the twenty men stationed in this house. And you will remind them that all forms of insubordination will result in a visit to the firing squad.”
“It is a pity,” Leshy says, his voice heavy with contempt, “that Bolshevik diplomacy always equips one man with a
rifle and the other with a blindfold.”
Semyon laughs at him. “Do you know why Lenin was able to wrest control from the provisional government? Because he understands that a revolution is useless without a firing squad.”
“So you are Bolshevik now? Pity I did not know your loyalties sooner.”
Again, Semyon laughs and I cringe at the sound. “If you had been paying attention you would have realized that I have no loyalties.”
* * *
—
We don’t see Semyon again until after dinner when he barges into the study—now rather bare since being stripped of several pieces of furniture and Father’s personal effects.
While he speaks to all of us his eyes are on Olga. Her face burns and she stares at her lap as he says, “Things will be different under my command. It’s time the three of you learned to respect authority. You will report all household expenses to me directly for approval. Your tutor will also be required to submit his lesson plans on a weekly basis so I can determine whether your education has become subversive.”
It is so hard not to lose control, to scream or throw something at this cruel, arrogant bastard. But that’s what Semyon wants. He is looking for an excuse to punish us. Looking for a way to make our lives even more miserable, to shrink them further, to crush every last scrap of joy—and I will not give him the satisfaction.
Olga remains still, avoiding him altogether, but Tatiana’s hands tremble as she holds needle and thread in her pinched white fingers. Thankfully we have long since finished our work with the corsets. Tonight we are simply mending skirts and blouses that have grown threadbare from too much wear and washing.
“Well?” he demands, eager for an argument.
Imperiousness is our only weapon and we use it to good effect, refusing to acknowledge his pronouncement. Tatiana and I regard him with every bit of disinterest we can muster. There are ways to make a man like Semyon feel small. You look at him with pity—it’s far more effective than disdain. You cooperate with his demands but in a way that makes him feel you’re only doing so because he is weak and must be cosseted. The goal is to make him hate himself for being a man unworthy of respect. We learned all these techniques in the years we spent in the imperial court, and we unleash them on Semyon as he stands before us in the study.
He does not take it well.
The remaining staff is busy—Botkin with Alexey, Gilliard in his rented rooms, Cook in the kitchen—so we are left alone to hear Semyon’s final threat.
“And you will no longer be allowed to lock your bedroom doors at night.” He reaches for the doorknob and strokes it obscenely. He flicks his tongue between the gap in his teeth. “The locks have already been removed. On my orders.”
* * *
—
I wake sometime in the middle hours of the night to the deep warning sound of Jimmy’s growl. As usual he sleeps at the foot of my bed, and I feel the rumble in my legs like a train picking up speed. I blink heavily and peer into the darkness. It takes a moment for me to see the shadow, charcoal against the blackness of the room. My heart begins ticking faster when the shadow moves and my breath catches in my throat as the figure takes a step toward Olga’s bed.
Slowly, quietly, I slide my hand beneath my pillow and feel the cold metal of the paper knife I smuggled out of Father’s study at the Alexander Palace. I have slept with it beneath my pillow every night since Yakov came.
There in the darkness I can see Semyon’s profile outlined against the window. I can see him lean over Olga and tug at the front of his trousers. I can hear his breath, heavy and filled with lust.
“You cannot be in here,” I say, gripping the handle of my paper knife a little tighter. Jimmy leaps to the floor with a thump, his growl deeper and more menacing now. “Go. Or I will turn him loose.”
Semyon takes a step back from Olga’s bed, hands up in surrender. “If that dog ever touches me, I’ll kill him.” His words are slurred but I think there is a note of fear there as well because he continues to move backward toward the door.
I lie there, smelling the scents of angry canine and drunk soldier long after Semyon is gone.
· 21 ·
Anna
ENTRAPMENT
1927, 1926, 1925
Wasserburg am Inn, Germany
May 11, 1927
The town of Wasserburg sits in the bulb at the top of a hairpin curve in the river Inn. It’s a teardrop-shaped peninsula surrounded by a natural moat and connected to the picturesque countryside by a narrow sliver of land. Like many cities in Bavaria it is filled with colorful buildings, old-world charm, and a sense of history that cannot be re-created in larger, more modern cities. Bicycles lean against walls, their small baskets filled with bread loaves and bouquets. The occasional horse-drawn cart clatters down the cobblestone streets. Flower boxes crowd the windows and clotheslines stretch across the alleys. There are statues and arched doorways and fountains around every bend. Anna thinks it is the most beautiful and delightful place she’s ever seen.
The Wasserburg Inn looks like something from a Bavarian postcard with its white plaster walls, dark timber accents, red roof, and climbing vines. The street smells of yeast, of bread and beer. She half expects to see a man in lederhosen when she and Gleb pass through the heavy double doors. What they find instead is far more troubling.
Dmitri Leuchtenberg, oldest son of her current sponsor, Romanov cousin, and a man who has been, for the last year, a continual thorn in her side.
Anna stops short and turns to Gleb. “Why is he here? He’s supposed to be in Copenhagen.”
“I don’t know,” Gleb mutters, but his eyes are on the other two men seated at the large round table. One of them Anna has met before, the other she hasn’t.
“Let me guess,” she growls, “that’s your private investigator?”
She takes his silence as an affirmation. Gleb talked her into this meeting by saying he’d met a detective who could help them gather irrefutable proof that she is Anastasia. Gleb has been corresponding with the man for months, trading letters back and forth, discussing their plan for bringing this business to a conclusion once and for all. But the way this man chats and laughs with Dmitri makes it obvious they have been betrayed. Anna knows this because she knows the face of the third man seated with them. She knows why he wandered into a mental institution near Berlin seven years ago.
“We should go,” Gleb says, placing a hand at the small of her back. It’s a protective gesture, an intimate gesture. He has taken to touching her like this since his arrival back in Germany, trying to make his intentions clear. He has grown familiar with her, and she is unsure how to feel about it. Anna does not know how to surrender to his affections. Nor is she certain that she wants to. But it’s too late to leave the inn now. They have been spotted.
Gleb’s private investigator approaches where they stand in the doorway. He extends a hand to Anna. “Martin Knopf,” he says. When she doesn’t accept the hand he motions them toward the table. “Please. We have much to discuss.”
They could run. Or refuse. Or make a scene. But that would only complicate the situation. Anna allows herself to be led by the elbow to the table. Martin Knopf pulls out her chair. Gleb slides into the one beside her with a curse.
The Private Investigator nods at each of them in turn. “Good to see you again, Mr. Botkin. I assume by now that you have realized my duplicity in getting you here. For that I would apologize—”
“It would be in vain,” he says.
“I cannot fault your animosity. Which is why I’ll get directly to the point.” The Private Investigator grins, not out of triumph, but because he is, strangely, a man of impeccable manners. He turns to Anna. “I assume you know these gentlemen? Dmitri Leuchtenberg and Felix Schanzkowska.”
There are half-empty frosted mugs on the table in front of each of them. Anna fears she has wandered into
a celebration. “I am well acquainted with Dmitri,” she says. “But I do not know this other man.”
Felix is going to speak but Anna glares at him. He looks to the Private Investigator instead.
“There appears to be a difference of opinion regarding that detail,” the Private Investigator says. “Mr. Schanzkowska has assured me, in great detail, that he does know you. That he has known you for some time, in fact.”
“Then Mr. Schanzkowska is lying.”
Unfazed, the Private Investigator continues. “I feel we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Please, let me explain my presence here—”
Anna snorts. “I believe they call it entrapment. Or are you unfamiliar with the term?”
“Are you currently in the act of committing a crime?” His voice is suddenly firm. Sharp. “Because if not, I’d say that’s the wrong word. I prefer to think of my work here today as unmasking.”
“I wear no masks.”
“Another point of contention, I’m afraid.”
“Speak plainly, Mr. Knopf. My patience is wearing thin.”
“Very well. Before I met your friend Mr. Botkin, my services were engaged by Dmitri, on behalf of his family, certain members of the Romanov family, to determine your true identity.”
“I have made my identity plain.”
“It is the belief of the Romanov family—”
“My family is dead—”
“Your family has nothing to do with the Romanovs. A point that Mr. Schanzkowska can attest to.” He gives Felix a pointed look. “The recognized, legal, and surviving family of Tsar Nicholas the Second believe that you are a fraud.”