I Was Anastasia

by Ariel Lawhon

  Tanya looks at her brother with suspicion. He’s nearly bursting at the seams with enthusiasm. “You’re here early,” she says.

  “I thought we’d get a head start.” He turns to Anna. “Are you ready?”

  “Do I have to go?”

  He does that thing with his lip that Anna finds charming, where he pulls the bottom left corner between his teeth and chews lightly in an awkward half smile. “You said you would.”

  She grunts, entirely unladylike. “Remind me why I agreed?”

  “Because I want you to?”

  “Unlikely.”

  “Because I asked?”

  “Blackmailed.”

  “Cajoled. Really, it was more like a gentle prompt if we’re being honest. Besides”—he grins, widely—“this will help our cause. It’s just a few days in Wasserburg. This man can help us establish your identity. With any luck we’ll have it wrapped up before Dmitri returns.”

  “What’s his name?” Anna asks. “The one you’re bringing me to meet? You’ve been very secretive about him.”

  “Martin Knopf.”

  “And what does he do?”

  “He’s a private investigator. And he will, I am certain, help us prove your identity once and for all.”

  “And how exactly did you meet him?

  “We have been corresponding for some time. He has been looking into your claims at my request.”

  “And you trust him?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  SIXTEEN MONTHS EARLIER

  Mommsen Clinic, Berlin

  January 1926

  Gleb sets the folded newspaper down carefully on the table beside Anna’s bed. She’s been in the clinic for months, unable to fully heal from a tubercular infection in her lungs. But even with the fever and the infernal ringing in her ears she can hear him sigh. It’s a sound that has grown familiar in the last few years: he’s gotten some news that he doesn’t want to tell her.

  “What?” she asks and her voice is raspy, her throat swollen and raw from coughing.

  Fingers lightly brush the hair away from her forehead. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t. Now tell me, what are you reading?”

  “The Nationaltidende.”

  “I’m not familiar with that paper.”

  “It’s out of Copenhagen.”

  “Ah. The City of Liars.”

  “Don’t you mean spires?” Gleb asks.

  She curls her lip in response. “No, I do not.” Anna lets her body go limp into the pillows again. After weeks of fever and coughing, with her lungs heavy with fluid, even the smallest things, like sitting up, feel overwhelming. “So what’s the bad news?”

  “The tsar’s older sister has been quoted in an article.”

  “Saying?”

  “Very unflattering things.”

  Anna reaches for a rose-colored silk shawl beside her pillow and runs the fabric through her fingers. “That doesn’t make any sense. She sent me this for Christmas. A month ago.”

  “Let’s just say I doubt you’ll be getting any more gifts from her.”

  Anna studies the shawl dispassionately. She runs her thumb over the tiny stitches along the seam. It’s handmade. Expensive. Luxurious. Four weeks ago she considered it a sign that the tsar’s sister had made up her mind about her identity. “Read it,” she says.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Then just read the worst part. That’s all that matters anyway.”

  Gleb clears his throat and begins to read, “ ‘Frau Anderson leaves the impression of a poor, highly strung invalid who believes in her story and is confirmed in the belief by the people around her. We hope that she can be freed of this idée fixe in the Berlin clinic where she is now being treated.’ ”

  “How did they know I was here?”

  “Pierre Gilliard, I believe.”

  “And how does he know I’m here?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  Anna coughs again and she can taste blood in her mouth. The spasm lasts for nearly a minute, and she is thoroughly winded afterward. “Remember what”—she takes a shaky breath—“exactly?”

  “That he came to interrogate you in October.”

  Anna stares at the ceiling. There is a vague memory that presses against her mind. A man in dark clothing. Endless questions. A sharp, raging headache. But nothing concrete. She shakes her head. “No.”

  “Of course you don’t. You were bedridden with fever. Delirious, in fact. Not that he cared. But he made his judgment about you in that condition and will not be moved from it now. I could kill the staff for letting him in to see you.”

  “He says I am a fraud?”

  “Oh, he says worse than that.” Gleb shakes the newspaper and then stabs it with the end of one finger. “He says you are a vulgar adventuress and a first-rate actress. Pierre Gilliard has become the lead witness in their case against you.”

  THREE MONTHS EARLIER

  Mommsen Clinic, Berlin

  October 1925

  It feels as though someone is standing on Anna’s chest, as though she has to fight for every breath. She can hear the swamp beneath her ribs, the air moving and bubbling inside her damp lungs. Anna can’t lift her head from the pillow or her hands from where they lie at her sides. Her temples throb and her eyes water. She wants to sleep but there is someone talking loudly beside her bed.

  “Do you know who I am?” a man demands.

  Anna turns her head. Tries to focus. His head is there. Dark hair. Pale skin. His voice seems familiar, but she can’t make out the features of his face. She tries to tell him this, but the words won’t form properly, and he takes the shaking of her head as a no.

  Anna is freezing despite the three heavy blankets that cover her. Wave after wave of chills wash over her body, raising goose bumps on her skin and making her muscles seize. She wants to curl into a ball and sleep. She wants this man to go away. But still he interrogates her, one question after another, a relentless stream.

  “Tobolsk,” he says. “Tell me what you remember of Tobolsk.”

  “Tell me about our last conversation.”

  “Do you remember why you were punished in the schoolroom that day?”

  “Tell me what you remember of your Latin.”

  “The Anastasia I knew was fluent in French. Tell me something in that language.”

  “What was the last thing I said to you on the train platform in Ekaterinburg?”

  On and on and on he goes, the hard notes of each syllable matching the fractious pounding in her skull.

  “Why are you here?” Anna whispers.

  He leans close to her ear and she can feel the warmth of his breath against her skin. “I want proof.”

  “Look…at…me.” Anna heaves each word from her burdened chest. “That…is…all…the proof…I have.”

  She sees his head turn as he takes in her small, emaciated form. Her jutting collarbone. Her spindled arms. Sunken cheekbones. Unable to eat, unable to sleep, she has lost weight in recent weeks.

  “The Anastasia I knew was round and pretty. You are something else entirely.”

  There is a whoosh and a clang as the infirmary door swings open and slams shut, and a nurse is standing at her bedside. “You have to go now, Monsieur Gilliard. Your time is up.”

  · 22 ·

  Anastasia

  THE BAGGAGE

  1918

  Tobolsk, Russia

  May 3

  “Your parents were not taken to Moscow,” Pierre Gilliard says as soon as we enter the schoolroom. “Yakov has them imprisoned in Ekaterinburg, about five hundred and sixty kilometers southeast of here.”

  Tatiana shakes her head. “No. That can’t be right. Ekaterinburg is in the heart of…”

 
“The penal colonies,” Gilliard finishes for her. “I know. I find this alarming as well.”

  “So you’ve heard from him?” Tatiana asks, hope and desperation lighting her eyes.

  Gilliard pulls a letter from his coat pocket. He stares at it for a moment but does not open it, deciding, I think, to summarize it instead. He has the look of a man who is trying to withhold something, to soften a blow. “They arrived safely four days ago. Word had gotten out, of course, and there was an angry horde of protestors waiting for them at the station, demanding they be hung on the spot. To his credit, Yakov refused to hand them over. After a three-hour impasse they were taken to the Ipatiev House by military escort.”

  I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until it comes out in a rush. “They are safe, then?”

  “Yes. But all of their trunks were thoroughly searched upon arrival.” Gilliard says this carefully, gauging our reaction.

  So there it is. The jewels. I dare a glance at Olga, but her face has gone pale, drained entirely of color. “And what of the…contents?” I ask.

  Gilliard knows precisely what I mean. “Confiscated,” he says. “Along with a set of maps, a significant amount of cash, and a series of coded letters your father kept hidden in an extra pair of boots. It would seem they were planning to escape. Whatever the plan, it was meant to be executed from Tobolsk, and Yakov has put an end to it.”

  His mouth is pinched as he says this, and I know Gilliard is anguished at the news. He spent many hours poring over those same maps with Father, and I suspect he was at the heart of this plan.

  “Who was planning to escape?”

  None of us noticed Alexey enter the schoolroom. He is barefoot and wears nothing but a frayed tunic and a confused expression. He stands there, eyes large and curious, hair sticking out in all directions. His voice, unused for weeks, is deep and hoarse and altogether unfamiliar. It’s the voice of a man who has woken from a deep sleep.

  But he is awake! And standing on his own! I reach him first, but the others pile on within seconds. It’s a wonder we don’t crush him in our delight. However, as with all blessings these days, this one is mixed. Alexey is well enough to stand, which means that soon he will be well enough to travel. And that means the rest of us are headed for the penal colonies in Ekaterinburg as well.

  THREE WEEKS LATER

  Tyumen Train Station

  May 23, 1918

  We travel on the Rus, once again, from Tobolsk to Tyumen. Another three days aboard that dank, smelly ship, locked in the hold, under constant watch by Semyon and his soldiers. Thirty Red Guards sent from Ekaterinburg arrived the day before with the single purpose of escorting us to join our parents in the red Ural Mountains. These soldiers are different, even from the ones Yakov brought from Moscow. They are Latvian workers and Hungarian prisoners of war conscripted into service by the Bolsheviks. Men angry at their lot in life, and angrier at us for representing a job they do not want to do. They are frightful looking, with their lewd stares and dirty, ragged uniforms. They smell of sweat and coal mines and look as though they would cut our throats sooner than speak to us.

  We carry our most precious items out of Tobolsk in a small trunk. The corsets and camisoles, the belts and hats that we have so carefully stuffed and sewn back together. We keep them near at all times, not daring to let them out of our sight for a moment.

  The entire contingent of the Red Guard piles onto the Rus, along with the twenty men stationed in the house. The hold feels every bit as claustrophobic as it did a year earlier. The heat is oppressive, the noise of chattering guards enough to make our heads pound. Semyon instructs us there will be no wandering around the ship this time, no loitering on deck or chatting with the crew. We are to stay below, out of sight, and bide our time in a way that will not cause him trouble. Our small retinue once again takes the far corner of the hold. I commandeer a lower bunk and laugh when Jimmy leaps up beside me and licks my face. He lingers at my side constantly, ready to growl and bare his teeth anytime soldiers drift near.

  Yet Jimmy remains oddly silent when one of the guards steps into the aisle and claims the bunk directly opposite mine. Such an intrusion would typically be enough to at least raise the hackles along his spine. But he stays, curled up next to me, chin on his paws, and watches the soldier, tail thumping happily against my leg.

  Tomas.

  I lie back on my pillow, arms crossed behind my head, and stare at the underside of Tatiana’s bunk. Her legs dangle over the edge and I see that she’s worn a hole straight through the sole of one boot.

  “I’m surprised Yakov hasn’t sent you away already,” I say, barely loud enough for him to hear.

  “He assumes that we all hate you the way he does.” Tomas sits on the edge of the bed, chin propped on his elbows, looking for all the world like a bored soldier settling in for a long voyage.

  “And do you?”

  “I think you know better than that. Or at least I hope you do.”

  The hold is lit only with bare lightbulbs screwed into fixtures in the ceiling and set at fifteen-foot intervals. There are no portholes or other means of letting in natural light. The space is dim and murky, but Tomas sees my smile anyway. The one he returns is enough to make my stomach flip.

  His presence makes the journey to Tyumen bearable. And when I emerge into the fresh, early evening air three days later he isn’t far behind.

  The train is waiting, but Semyon refuses to let us board until our belongings are loaded into one of the freight cars. It is dark, and we are hungry by the time we follow him down the platform to a dirty third-class carriage near the rear of the train. Gilliard, Botkin, and Cook move to follow us up the stairs, but Semyon stops them.

  “No,” he says, barring the way. “You’re at the back, in the goods wagon.”

  Gilliard steps forward. His voice is drenched with offense. “You cannot mean to separate us from the children. It’s not appropriate.”

  As usual Semyon’s indecent stare falls on Olga. I think he looks her up and down purposefully just to make Gilliard furious. “Oh, they’re hardly children. But you have no say in the matter regardless. You can take your place at the back of the train or you can stay behind. It matters little to me what you decide.” Gilliard steps away from the train, hands raised slightly in defeat.

  Semyon turns to Tomas and says, “Go to the office and have the station master wire Ekaterinburg. Tell him to say ‘the baggage’ is loaded and will be delivered tomorrow.”

  On the way to Tobolsk we were given an entire car, but now we are confined to a single compartment. The other compartments in this car are occupied by Semyon and a handful of guards. The rest of the Red Guard files onto the remaining cars.

  There are four bunks in our compartment, and I notice immediately that the mechanism allowing us to lock the door has been broken off. All vestige of daylight is gone and there is no mention of dinner, so Alexey scrambles into one of the upper bunks without comment and reaches for Joy. I hand the little spaniel to him and they curl up beneath the threadbare blanket and are asleep in moments.

  It takes much longer for my sisters and I to settle in. It is nearly midnight by the time the train whistle blows and those rusty old wheels begin to clatter down the tracks. The movement is jarring at first, so different from the steamship, and I rock back and forth in my berth, trying to adjust. I know my sisters are awake, but we don’t speak. They are stacked in the bunks across from me, Tatiana on the bottom with Ortimo beside her, and Olga on top. I can barely see my sisters in the darkness over Jimmy’s huge, snoring body.

  After an hour we start to drift off but are startled awake by raucous bursts of laughter from the other compartments.

  “Do you think they’re drinking?” Tatiana asks finally.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Do you think they’re dangerous?”

  “Yes,” I say again.

&nb
sp; We force ourselves back to sleep, but I wake when Jimmy’s snoring becomes a dangerous rumble. It is matched within seconds by growling from Ortimo and Joy. My eyes are wide but my body is still as a brick when the door to our compartment slides open. The light from the hallway reveals three men standing in silhouette.

  “We thought you girls might like to play,” comes Semyon’s deep, oily voice.

  The three of us remain completely silent as the growling of our dogs grows more urgent. I shrink back against the wall, claiming every inch of distance I can. In the bunk above me I can hear Alexey moan in that high-pitched, terrified way of his. Be quiet, I will him silently.

  Ortimo, bless his brave little heart, is off Tatiana’s bunk and on the floor barking madly the moment Semyon sets foot within the compartment. When Semyon takes another step, Ortimo shrinks back, afraid of him once more. But Semyon is drunk and bold and he reaches down and grabs Tatiana’s little bulldog by the collar before teeth can meet flesh. He lifts Ortimo in one hand and shakes him.

  “I should have shot you months ago,” Semyon hisses, rattling him again, harder, and Ortimo yelps, legs flailing as he tries to fight his way free. Semyon laughs. “Not such a fierce guard dog after all, are you?”

  “Put him down. Please!” Tatiana begs, crawling to the edge of her bunk, a note of desperation in her voice. It makes me sick to my stomach. I hate to hear her beg that man for anything.

  Semyon’s grin is malicious. Tatiana pulls back. “I’d be happy to,” he says, and then crosses to the window. He opens it with his free hand and, without another word, pitches Ortimo into the darkness. The wind howls at the open window but it isn’t enough to drown out the little dog’s terrified yelp.

  I did not know my sister could make such a noise, but she throws herself at Semyon, scratching and clawing and shrieking. She may as well have been beating a brick wall for all the good it does. He bats her hands away and then grips them tightly, grinding her wrists together. Tatiana cries out in pain and her knees buckle.