The Curse of the Romanovs

by Staton Rabin

  Felix just stared down at Father Grigory. Lips moving, my cousin muttered angrily to himself as if remembering some long-ago conversation. Then suddenly he grabbed a dumbbell and smashed it over and over again against Our Friend’s face and body.

  “No!” I pulled at Felix with all my small strength. Somehow, of all the horrible and terrifying things I’d seen that night, this was the worst.

  “Felix! Stop!” Dmitri said, pulling him off of Father Grigory. “Have you gone mad?”

  Felix stood there with a strange gleam in his eye. Like a wild animal after a kill, splattered with blood.

  Dr. Lazovert returned.

  “Here’s some rope from the toolshed,” he said.

  Lazovert and the others bound Father Gregory’s arms together at the wrists, then tied his legs.

  “That policeman who was here,” Lazovert said, “do you think he will say anything to his superiors?”

  “Go get him and we shall find out,” Purishkevich replied.

  Officer Vlassiyev stood by the stairs in Yusupov Palace, staring in horror at the mutilated body of Our Friend.

  “Have you heard of Purishkevich?”

  “I have,” said the officer.

  “I am Purishkevich. Have you ever heard of Rasputin?”

  The policeman nodded.

  “Well, Rasputin is dead. And if you love our Mother Russia, you’ll keep quiet about it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Officer Vlassiyev was escorted to the door.

  It was now almost dawn. Felix went upstairs to clean himself off. He was in some kind of daze. Talking to himself, laughing, and no use to anyone anymore. The others carried Father Grigory out to the car in a sheet.

  “Come, Alexei,” Cousin Dmitri said, motioning to me. He was the first of any of them to address me since the brutal murder of Our Friend had begun. “You cannot stay here anymore.”

  It was very cramped in the car with the three of us. Four, if you count Father Grigory. I sat in the back.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To the Petrovsky Bridge on the Neva,” Lazovert answered.

  We hit a bump in the road. I felt a hand touch my shoulder. Someone was offering me comfort—thank God, how much I needed this!

  I turned to look at the hand, and screamed.

  It was Father Grigory’s hand!

  The sedan swerved, nearly going off the road into the river.

  “He’s—he’s not dead!” I stammered. “His hand—it—it moved!”

  “What? That’s impossible! Look at him—a corpse if ever I saw one!”

  I felt like I was going to be sick.

  “Stop the car, Lazovert,” Purishkevich said. “Check his pulse.”

  “I tell you, he’s dead!”

  “It was just the bump in the road, silly boy,” Lazovert said to me kindly. “That’s what moved his hands.” He turned to the others. “There’s no time to stop. It will be light out soon!”

  We drove another verst or two, then stopped the car, hiding it behind some pine trees near the bridge. The Neva River was frozen solid.

  “Here!” Purishkevich said, handing a heavy wrench to Dmitri. “Step out onto the ice and make a big hole.”

  “But it’s still dark! I might fall through!”

  “Shut up and do what I say!”

  After the hole was made, they dropped Father Grigory’s body through it. He sank slowly under the ice, disappearing into the dark waters. Going down, down—maybe all the way to hell.

  “Leave the wrench behind, Dmitri, we don’t want any evidence. Hurry up, Alexei!” Lazovert called out as he and the others piled back into the car.

  “In a minute!” I shouted. I wanted to say good-bye, a real good-bye, to the man who had been Our Friend. I needed to be alone with him.

  “I am sorry,” I said to the hole in the ice. My tears formed crystals on my cheek. “So terribly, terribly sorry. You must believe me! I never knew it would come to this. You have children, I know. A wife. Dear God, what will Mama say?”

  I reached inside my pockets. All I could find was a few kopecks, and my lucky Swiss franc, which Gilliard had given me. Shutting my eyes, I made a prayer, then threw the franc toward the hole in the ice. It made a ker-plunck! as it sank.

  “God be with you, Father Grigory.”

  I turned to go. It was a long way back to the car. I trudged slowly up the riverbank, my heart and feet made of lead.

  “Ouch!”

  Something hard had hit me in the back of the head. Strange. I picked it up. A coin.

  My coin.

  I turned, knowing with horrifying certainty what I’d see.

  “Father Grigory!”

  “Twinkle, twinkle, little tsar. Now I know just what you are.”

  He stomped toward me, blood and water dripping down his hand that held Dmitri’s wrench. The rope, ripped in two, dangled from each wrist. His beard hung in icy black tentacles from his mangled face, like some mythical beast from the river. I tried to yell out, to run, but his voice had cast a spell over me.

  “Don’t dawdle, Alexei!” Dmitri called again from the car. They could not see us from there.

  Step by bloody step, Father Grigory stomped toward me. I couldn’t force my wobbly legs to move. Even if they could, I knew I wouldn’t get far.

  He was only ten steps from me now. Just ten steps till I met my sudba, and joined Grandpa Sasha in the other world. I shut my eyes and counted. Odin, dva, tri …

  Holy Mother, have mercy on my soul. Please, take care of my family and Gilliard.

  Chetyre, pyat, shest … Is it really true, Mama? That nothing hurts in heaven?

  I pictured myself in a flowing red river, a place beyond pain. Sem, vosem, devyat … desyat!

  I felt Father Grigory’s cold wet hand grab me by the throat. I knew the wrench was raised over my head. I braced for the impact, my moment of death.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MOTHER OF GOD, Blood of the tsar, I have no fear, Now take me far!

  The words came back to me suddenly—like some miracle sent by Saint Serafim.

  I waited for the wrench to strike my skull, but felt nothing. There was no pain. Spasibo, Holy Mother! Was I in heaven?

  Then an icy chill ran through my body. I opened my eyes.

  It was morning. Rasputin had vanished. Or maybe I had.

  I found myself alone and shivering, carried along by the current in a freezing river, the water stained bloodred by a sunrise. But it did not look like the Neva. It did not look like any place I had ever seen before. And it was real, I was sure of it. Chunks of ice floated past my head. On both sides of the river I saw buildings, taller than any in Petrograd.

  I dog-paddled furiously, trying to keep my head above water. I knew how to swim, but my limbs were weak. The undeniable fact was that I was drowning.

  “пOMOґиTe!” I called out for help, waving frantically to a passing barge. “пOMOґиTe!”

  But no one heard me.

  My arms and legs were exhausted. My meager supply of blood froze quickly. I was sleepy, so sleepy. …

  How cruel my sudba, to survive the day’s many horrors—only to drown in the end! I tried to mumble a prayer, but my lips were too frozen to move.

  And then at last, my strength was at its end. The frozen river took me into its cold embrace.

  “… twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.”

  I felt something pressing again and again on my chest. Then soft lips, breathing right on mine.

  I opened my eyes, and saw an inch in front of my nose the blue eye of a giant—the same one from my dream!

  A girl giant, with long black eyelashes. When she pulled back, I saw she was just a normal-size girl. A little older than I, and more beautiful than an angel of God. She pressed her hands on my chest again.

  “One, two, three, four …”

  Coughing up water, I gasped for breath. I pushed her hands away and sat up. “MeHяЯ зOByT Aлeκceй POMaHOB. BbI ґOBOpиTe иO-pyccκ
и?”‡ I said. She pushed me down.

  “Look, dude, I don’t know your language, but we gotta get you to a hospital, pronto.”

  “Peasant, you don’t speak Russian?”

  “’Peasant’?” She put her hands on her hips. “Where are you from? Park Avenue?”

  I grabbed her by the arm and spoke through coldrattling teeth.

  “No! C-c-cannot go to hospital! No one must know the ts-ts-tsarevich is ill.”

  “The who?” She took her coat off and covered me with it.

  “I am Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov, son of Nicholas Alexandrovich, emperor and autocrat of all the Russias.”

  “Yeah. And I’m the Queen Mary 2. Just relax while I call 911.”

  She took a small metal square out of her back pocket and opened it up into a rectangle. I pointed to it.

  “What is this?”

  She just shook her head and touched the silver object a few times, then put it to her ear and talked to it.

  “My emergency? I just pulled a kid out of the river; I need help. … Yes, he’s breathing now. I did CPR. … Me? I’m fine. I didn’t have to jump in to rescue him, he just washed up near the shore…. Suicide? I don’t know. Maybe he just fell off a vodka boat. … I said a vod—oh, never mind! Just hurry up with the ambulance, okay? He must have hypothermia, he’s talking crazy. …. I’m near pier—”

  I snatched the metal object away from her.

  “Please! I beg you. It will mean the end of Mother Russia. Please—no hospital!”

  I saw kindness in her eyes as they met mine. She sighed, then nodded, folding up the silver rectangle and putting it away.

  “All right, it’s your funeral. But I gotta get you warmed up. You’re coming home with me.”

  ‡ “I am Alexei Romanov. Do you speak Russian?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “SEVENTY-NINTH STREET near West Side Drive,” the girl said to the driver after she helped me into the backseat of the strange yellow automobile. There was a big pane of glass between us and the driver. He turned around in his seat and spoke to us through the glass.

  “I don’t want no drunks throwing up in my cab!”

  “He’s not drunk!” the girl replied.

  “He throw up, you pay for mess!”

  We drove through the streets of the city. All the signs were in English. But this place did not look like the pictures I’d seen of England.

  “We are in America?”

  “Last time I looked,” she said.

  “Conditions must be very bad here for peasants.”

  “What makes you say that?” I pointed to a big poster on top of a tall building. It had a photograph of five beautiful ladies on it. I read to her the words on the poster: “Desperate Housewives.”

  She laughed.

  “Da, you laugh now,” I said, “but maybe they make revolution.”

  “I think they already have.”

  A little while later the automobile stopped at a building. I leaned on her shoulder as she helped me up the stairs.

  “My mother’s at work,” she said, picking up a newspaper from the stairs, then opening the door with a key. “We’ve got to get you into some warm clothes.”

  I looked at the newspaper and stumbled. 2010!

  “Are you all right?” she said.

  “What calendar you use in America?”

  “Huh? The one with the hunky firemen on it. Why?”

  I grabbed the sleeve of her jacket.

  “Please! No joke! You must tell me. Nicholas is still tsar of Russia, da?”

  She crossed her arms.

  “You say you’re his son. You tell me.”

  I showed her the newspaper.

  “‘Paris Hilton Caught in Sex Scandal,’” she read, shrugging. “So what else is new?”

  “No—this one.”

  “’Russian President Visits U.S. to Discuss Chechen Problem.’ So?”

  “We have Chechen problem. We don’t have president.”

  “You’re shivering!”

  The girl went went to a drawer and took men’s clothing out of it. She returned to me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Unbuttoning your shirt so you don’t freeze your butt off, what’s it look like I’m doing?”

  I pulled away.

  “You do not touch tsarevich. It is forbidden!”

  She backed off and bowed low.

  “Okay, Your Highness, King of Hypothermia. Suit yourself. You didn’t seem to mind my touching you when I was saving your life.”

  “You save my life?”

  “Yeah-like, duh!”

  I felt myself blush. “You were kissing me.”

  “In your dreams!” she said. “I was doing CPR. You’re, like, what? Twelve? Get real! Your voice hasn’t even changed yet.”

  “CPR?”

  “Maybe your alphabet is different where you come from and it’s got different letters there.”

  “What is your age?”

  “Old enough to be your big sister. I’m fifteen.”

  “My big sisters are older than you. I change clothes now. Turn your back.”

  She scowled at me and sighed, but turned her back.

  I began changing into the clothes. They were too big for me, but they made me warm. I rolled up the pants legs so they would be shorter.

  “Who belongs to these clothing?” I asked.

  She did not reply.

  “Who belongs?”

  But then I thought I heard a strange sound coming from her. And then she said in a quiet voice: “Nobody.”

  “Look at me,” I said. She did nothing, so I added: “The tsarevich commands it.”

  Slowly, she turned around to face me. Her eyes looked red.

  “Vy ochen’ krasivy.”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘You are very beautiful.’ Even when you weep.”

  I moved close to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked at me with grateful eyes. I spoke softly to her.

  “I am very sorry to make you cry, Little Peasant. Thank you for saving my life.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I NOTICED THAT THIS girl’s emotions changed very quickly and without warning, like the weather in Moscow. Within moments her tears had dried up and her attention was focused on looking at a glass slide through a microscope, like the one that Dr. Botkin has. She scribbled notes busily on a page, as if she’d completely forgotten I was standing there.

  “What is your name?” I asked her.

  “Varda. Varda Rosenberg.”

  “You are Jew?”

  “Yeah. You got some problem with that?”

  “Nyet. Why were you at the river?”

  “Homework. I was taking a water sample for my biology class. We’re studying flagellates—to see how they survive colder temperatures in wintertime.”

  “Ah—you study Khlyst priests who beat themselves with tree branches? Why are they in river?”

  “Not flagellants, flagellates! Tiny one-celled animals that swim using their tails.”

  “Da,” I said, not really understanding at all. “You look at little animals now through microscope?”

  “No, that’s just for school. I’m working on something much more important—on my own. I’m looking at blood, under the microscope. Want to see?”

  I shook my head. “Spasibo, nyet.”

  “You all right? You look pale.”

  “Da-I-I am well.”

  “I’ll tell you a secret. Not even my mother knows, she’d just say I’m crazy. I’m trying to find a cure for a disease. For hemophilia. Do you know what that is?”

  I gulped and nodded.

  “Hemophiliacs have a busted gene that won’t instruct the body to make factors VIII or IX. Those factors are proteins that make blood clot so you won’t bleed to death when you injure yourself. The disease often runs in families—it’s carried on the X chromosome. Usually only boys have hemophilia, the girls are just carriers of the disease who can pass it along to their
children.” She noticed my puzzled look. “You’re not getting any of this, are you?”

  I shrugged. “I never hear of girl who have hemophilia.”

  “Yes, it’s pretty rare,” she said. “See, all people have inside their bodies something called chromosomes, and they inherit one type of chromosome—X or Y—from each parent. All boys have one X and one Y in each pair of their chromosomes, so boys are “XY.” But girls have two X chromosomes in each pair—girls are “XX.” Blood clotting factors are located only on the X chromosome. So girls get two chances to inherit a normal gene for blood clotting, since they inherit an X chromosome from each parent. And usually it takes only one healthy gene for clotting factors to prevent symptoms of the disease. That’s why girls are hardly ever hemophiliacs—unless both their parents carry the defective genes for the disease, or there’s a spontaneous gene mutation, which is pretty unlikely.”

  “Da?”

  “But boys get a crummy break. They only have one X chromosome. So boys only need to inherit the hemophilia gene from one parent—their mother—to get the disease. That means hemophilia is pretty common in boys—about one in five thousand births. You’ve got that blank look again. Am I getting too technical for you?” ’

  Of course, I understood very little of what she was saying, but I shook my head and asked her a question.

  “So. Is mother’s fault boys are hemophiliac?”

  “I wouldn’t call it ‘fault,’ exactly—but, in a way, yes. Here, I’ll draw you a picture. This is what happens when a normal, healthy guy marries a woman who carries the defective gene that causes hemophilia, and they have kids….”

  “I’m working on a new gene therapy treatment to cure the disease. Every person is born with about thirty-five thousand genes in their bodies, which are carried on their chromosomes. Stop me if you know this stuff.”

  I just looked at her, puzzled, so she continued.

  “Genes give your body all the instructions for what you’ll look like, what color your hair and eyes will be, what diseases you might get—maybe even what you will grow up to be.”

  “You mean like me growing up to be tsar?”