by Ariel Lawhon
Anna glances at Gleb and then back at the Private Investigator. “And they hired you.”
“Correct.”
“And you hid this fact from Gleb?”
“Yes.”
Gleb offers a miserable groan and waves the barmaid over. He orders a pint of Schwarzbier and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Shit. How could I be so stupid?” and then, “Anna, what would you like?”
“I hate beer.” And she does. All her years of drinking have not changed this absolute reality. Beer tastes like horse piss marinated in despair.
“Pear cider, then? I know how you love pears.”
“Sure,” she says, dryly.
The Private Investigator waits politely for them to receive their order before continuing. Gleb’s lager, which comes a few moments later, is so thick and rich it’s almost black. It looks like tar to Anna. She takes a tentative sip of her cider. It is surprisingly sweet and refreshing, and she takes another pull at the frosted glass, summoning a bit of courage for whatever comes next.
“Mr. Botkin believed I was working on his behalf,” the Private Investigator says. “This artifice, though unfortunate, was necessary to ascertain the truth.”
“Because you knew I would refuse to attend this meeting otherwise? Especially considering that I am without recourse or legal representation.”
He shrugs. “I am afraid that is your concern, not mine.”
“How very churlish of you.”
Dmitri Leuchtenberg sets his elbows on the table and leans toward Anna. “You might have my father convinced, but not me. Or my mother. Or anyone else in my family. I knew you weren’t who you claimed to be the moment I saw you, and now I can prove it.”
Dmitri has been like sand in her underwear from the moment she arrived at Castle Seeon. Abrasive. Constantly grinding on her nerves. He is arrogant and contentious. He protests every mark spent on her care. He resents his father’s devotion and the staff’s enchantment. Dmitri’s mother alone shares his disdain, and they nurse their grievances by pen and telephone with “the family” at every possible opportunity. It was her understanding that Dmitri and his mother would be in Copenhagen this week, arguing their case directly before the dowager empress.
Dmitri leans back in his chair and motions for Felix to speak. “Tell them who you are.”
“Felix Schanzkowska.”
“And who is this woman?”
He hesitates only a moment before turning to Anna, his eyes dark and pleading. Desperate. “This woman is my sister, Franziska, a Polish factory worker, missing these seven years.”
“You are lying!” Gleb says, slamming his stein down on the table. He flings lager from his fingers and Anna dodges the spray.
“I ought to know my own sister.”
“Then you are mistaken. Or in the pay of Dmitri.”
“That is uncalled for!” Dmitri shouts, slamming his own mug down on the table.
“What’s in it for you?” Gleb asks. “Has the dowager empress promised you a title? Or a trust fund? Why are you working so hard to discredit Anna?”
“Because the memory of my cousin shouldn’t be dishonored by a charlatan!”
Anna hates the barbaric nature of men. The way they long to fight and draw blood. The way they need to prove their point with brute force. So when both Gleb and Dmitri push back from the table she also rises.
“Enough,” Anna says. “I have had enough of all of you.”
She does not say good-bye to any of them, offers no formalities or polite excuses. She simply leaves the inn and lets them think what they will. It will be used against her at some point, no doubt, another bit of circumstantial evidence that she is not courtly enough to be a grand duchess.
Anna is halfway down the street before Gleb catches up with her.
“We’ll go to America,” he declares. “We’ll prove your case there.”
“You don’t ever give up, do you?”
He grabs her arm and stops abruptly before a flower shop. Directly across the street is the little antique shop she visited with Tanya yesterday. “Is that what you want?” Gleb asks, his hand softening on her arm. “Do you want me to give up? Like everyone else?”
“No.”
“Then let me help you. Let me make up for this damned fiasco. Let me find other sympathizers. Other means of support. You need to get out of Europe for a while. You need to find a fresh audience. The Russian loyalists here are too jaded. Too political.”
“I don’t know anyone in America.”
“You know me.”
Anna’s head swims a bit. Too much has happened in too short a time. She drank her cider on an empty stomach and her eyes feel heavy, like they might roll out of her face at any moment. She needs a nap. Or food. Or both. Something, anything but this incessant scheming.
“Nothing will come of this, Gleb,” she says, shifting away from his touch.
“But if it does? If I can raise support will you come?” He is pleading, desperate to fix his mistake. “Please?”
“If you are able to arrange the details I will come to America.”
ONE DAY EARLIER
Wasserburg am Inn, Germany
May 10, 1927
“Here,” Tanya Botkin says, pulling Anna toward a small shop whose signs reads simply “Antiques.” “This is the place I was telling you about.”
From the outside it hardly looks like a black market emporium for imperial Russian goods. Nor does it on the inside. As they enter a little bell rings above the door announcing their arrival, and bits of dust whirl through a patch of sunlight on the worn wooden floor. The shop is long and narrow with a tall ceiling that makes Anna feel as if she has just stepped into a tunnel. The space is filled with old rugs and heavy pieces of ornate furniture; the walls are covered with gilded mirrors while half the flat surfaces showcase Tiffany lamps in primary colors.
“May I help you?” a pretty young shop girl asks. Anna would guess she’s not a day over twenty. Too young to be dealing in stuffy antiques and expensive home accessories.
“Is Albert in today?” Tanya asks. Gleb’s sister is the sort of woman who is pretty, but only when she smiles, and she turns on the charm for this young shopkeeper, showcasing a row of straight bright teeth.
The girl runs her hand through her ponytail, letting the strands fall between long, thin fingers. “Perhaps. May I give him your name?”
Tanya hands the girl a card, folded in half with her initials embossed on the outside. The girl turns elegantly, her hair and the hem of her skirt swirling out behind her, and retreats through a door at the back of the shop without another word.
A dancer, Anna thinks; she has to be a dancer. Most likely a ballerina. Normal women can’t move like that. The girl returns minutes later and motions them to follow. They pass through a heavy wooden door, down a hallway, around a corner, and into what appears to be a broom closet.
Anna stops short, confused, but the girl tugs on a sconce attached to the back wall and a panel slides aside.
“Watch your step,” the Shop Girl says, “the stairs are quite steep.”
And rickety.
And poorly lit.
They go down, single file, holding on to the wall for balance. Anna has an innate fear of cellars. She would turn and bolt back toward the daylight if Tanya were not blocking her escape.
“Go on,” her friend whispers. “I promise you it’s safe.”
“We shouldn’t have come without Gleb.”
“He’s meeting with the Private Investigator. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”
“I hate it when people tell me that. It never turns out to be true.”
And then they step into an opulent well-lit basement. The room is filled with lamps and cabinets. There are ample places to sit— couches and chairs and divans, all of them padded and covered with rich brocade. Anna has never seen
so many knickknacks and paintings and chests. There are at least a dozen swords mounted to the walls, jewelry cases, shelves upon shelves of books. An entire case of knives. One Fabergé egg on a marble column in the middle of the room. And any number of wooden boxes, baskets, and bins.
“Welcome!” announces a voice filled with age and gravitas, in Russian.
Anna suspects that the man who offers them a stiff, formal bow is older than anything in this room. He is as thin as a table leg and as wiry as a billy goat. He has a long white beard but not a single hair atop his head. His teeth remain—all of them straight—but he is in possession of only one milky eye. Or so she assumes, for the other is covered with an embroidered patch. And clearly the man has a sense of humor because the image stitched on the patch in gold thread is an evil eye.
“Albert.” Tanya steps forward to clasp his hand. “Thank you so much for seeing us. I have heard that this place is astonishing, but the rumors do not do it justice.”
He receives this compliment silently. Waits a beat and says, “Tatiana Botkin. Daughter of Eugene Botkin, physician to the imperial family of Russia. How may Albert assist you today?” He asks this, bizarrely, in the third person.
Tanya elbows Anna in the ribs and shakes her head slightly, indicating it’s best not to ask. “I would like you to meet my friend…Anastasia,” she says.
Albert peers at Anna with that single eye for a great length of time. She feels as if her skin will peel away under the examination. And then, suddenly, the old man drops into another stiff bow. “Tsarevna,” he whispers. “I am at your service.”
She is at a total loss, but Tanya eases between them to tell Albert the reason for their visit. “I have been told that you trade in certain…items. Small things of sentimental value to those loyal to the old regime. My friend would like a memento to take with her. Something to remind her of happier days.”
“What you have heard is true. But I deal not only in small things. I can acquire almost anything, large or small, if time and resources are not limited.”
Anna laughs and Tanya clears her throat. Clarifies. “Unfortunately we are only here for a couple days and funds are…ah…finite.”
Albert nods, unruffled by their predicament. “This is not a problem. I have many things that might be of interest to you.” He offers Anna his arm as though helping her into a carriage. “May I?”
Tanya gives her an assuring nod, and Anna places her hand on the fine silk of his sleeve. He leads her, like a military escort, through the cavernous basement. Albert says nothing, points out nothing in particular. He simply watches Anna’s face for any signs of interest and when she slows or looks at something for more than a second or two he elaborates on the provenance of an item or, in some cases, gives an explanation of the item itself.
When Anna lifts an ornate ivory pawn from a chess set Albert sighs. “Yes. You have good taste. Do you play?”
“Not in many years.”
“This was carved by hand from the tusks of an African bull elephant. At one time the animal was a pet of Tsarevitch Alexey. The elephant was killed at the beginning of the revolution, under orders of Alexander Kerensky. The traitor took the tusks for himself and commissioned this set.”
Anna holds the pawn in her hand, running her thumb over its edges and curves lovingly. There is no emotion in her voice. “A beastly thing to do.”
“War is beastly, Tsarevna. But do not fret, the chess set was confiscated from Kerensky’s office when the Bolsheviks took power.”
“The Bolsheviks were worse.”
“True. But at least Kerensky did not have the satisfaction of keeping his prize.”
“And how did you come by this?”
He moves on, taking her with him. “Albert never reveals how he comes by his treasures.”
They drift through the room, Tanya at their heels, until they come to a crowded shelf at the back. It is filled with smaller, tattered items. An ink drawing ripped from a sketch book. A broken fountain pen. A chipped hand mirror. Anna lifts an old, worn icon from the shelf. She raises it to her mouth and blows away a thin layer of dust.
“Saint Anna of Kashin,” Albert says. “The holy protector of women. This icon once belonged to Viktor Zborovsky, captain of the Imperial Guard, and held a message, written by Empress Alexandra, begging the British monarchy for help during the revolution. I am told that Zborovsky was stopped on his way to Petrograd shortly after being dismissed from the palace. The icon was taken from him and the message destroyed. As you know, help never arrived for the imperial family.”
“Yes,” Anna says, her voice a whisper. “I know.”
Albert pats her hand and moves forward again, but Anna stops him. “How much for the chess set and the icon?”
He looks at her, his eye clouded and watery. “For you, Tsarevna, nothing.”
ONE DAY EARLIER
Castle Seeon, Germany
May 9, 1927
Castle Seeon was once a Benedictine monastery but is now a sprawling lakeside castle occupied by a family that cannot decide whether Anna is friend or foe. The father champions her cause while the mother and son thwart it at every opportunity. They are a house divided. For her part, Anna tries to avoid the lot of them whenever possible. This is easy enough, given the size of the estate, and she spends most of her time reading in her room or exploring the grounds.
Built over a thousand years earlier, Castle Seeon has been a medicinal spa populated by bohemians, a barracks used to house any number of Russia’s armies during any number of her wars. It has seen countless lives and been witness to countless stories. It has spied on chaste monks and wanton artists. These walls have been built and burned and razed and built again times without number. They have housed Haydn and Mozart. Priests and soldiers. Scholars and lunatics. At the moment, however, the duke of Leuchtenberg and his acrimonious family claim ownership.
Anna loves to wander the spacious confines of these ancient walls, visiting the crypt and then the oratory. The chapel and the ballrooms. The library and the now-vacant infirmary. But the towers, with their onion-shaped copper roofs, are her favorite place, and she climbs them on clear days to look across the lake. Occasionally she wanders through the cemetery and counts the gravestones of the long-dead abbots who gave their lives in service to God, and now their bodies in service to the flowering bushes that line the castle walls. The walls are white and the roof is red and the lake reflects this image in perfect, upside-down symmetry. If it were not for its occupants, the castle would be nothing short of magical. It sits on an island in the middle of Lake Seeoner Seen and is connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway. The water is deep and blue, peppered with lily pads and cattails along the shore. There is a small dock beside the boathouse and sometimes, when the weather is warm, Anna sits on the edge and dangles her feet in the water.
When Anna first arrived at Castle Seeon she had a steady stream of visitors: either skeptical aristocrats maneuvering themselves into position for some future advantage, or extended members of the Romanov family peering at her with suspicion, looking for reasons to reject her out of hand. These days she entertains few people who are not friends. Mostly she sees Gleb and Tanya Botkin.
Today she sits with Tanya in the tidy kitchen garden on a carved stone bench between fragrant bushes of rosemary and lavender. Anna doesn’t cook—can’t in fact remember the last time she stood in front of a stove—but she does enjoy being in this place. Watching things grow. Nibbling on the herbs.
Tanya plucks a sprig of rosemary from the bush and rolls it between her thumb and forefinger. She inhales the scent and then flicks the twig away. “Have things gotten any better with Dmitri?”
Anna cranes her head to look at the terrace three floors above them. Dmitri Leuchtenberg’s suite overlooks the garden, and sometimes, when she knows that he is in residence, she sits here to torment him.
“What do you
think?”
Tanya laughs. “Still being an odious prick, is he?”
“And recruiting others to his cause.”
“Meaning?”
“He left for Copenhagen two weeks ago.”
Tanya groans. “Spiteful bastard.”
“With his mother,” Anna adds.
“To make their case with the dowager empress in person? What could you have possibly done to light that sort of fire under him? Expose his sexual proclivities to the press?” When Tanya smiles, her face is transformed from unremarkable to the sort of pretty that makes a man trip over his own feet. She knows this, of course, and has developed a wicked sense of humor that gives her ample opportunity for laughter. It’s a pity she doesn’t have her brother’s cheekbones, Anna thinks; they would match her smile perfectly.
“I know nothing of his proclivities,” Anna says, “nor do I want to.”
“Well, you must have done something. He’s usually content to fester in private.”
“We got into an altercation the day before he left.”
“About?”
“The otkritie navigatie.”
Tanya shakes her head, confused. “That’s a new low for him. Why on earth would he want to argue about the Opening of Navigation?”
“Because I knew what it was and what it meant. Because I got it right, and every time I explain something correctly it infuriates him. He doesn’t like being proven wrong. He hates the fact that his father believes me, so he is determined to see me proven a fraud.”
“Such a pity the man has the disposition of a hemorrhoid; he’s devilishly handsome.”
“Well, the devil can take him as far as I’m concerned.”
The garden gate swings open and Gleb steps onto the gravel path. “The devil can take who?” he asks.
“Dmitri.”
“Fair enough. But I’d like to get my fists on him first.”
“Then you’ll have to go to Copenhagen,” Anna says. “He’s currently maligning my character almost a thousand kilometers away.”
“Excellent! He won’t be able to meddle in our plans.”