The Secret Daughter of the Tsar

by Jennifer Laam

  Charlotte made Laurent walk next to her to the house while she slung Luc’s arm around her shoulder and helped him through the front door. Once she’d settled them both on the love seat she moved to the kitchen. She bent down to reach the cabinet doors under the stove, moving clanging pots and pans aside to reveal the small metal safe where her parents kept important documents. She twisted the black dial to the right numbers until the lock clicked.

  Frantically, Charlotte rifled through the old papers, family letters, and bank notes. Her parents’ travel passes and the deed to the farm were gone. In their place, Charlotte found a yellowing envelope and a large leather photo album. Charlotte and her mother had spent many hours bent over it, using a pot of glue to paste family pictures onto its pages. But her mother usually kept the album on one of the bookshelves. Charlotte was surprised her mother hadn’t brought that with her as well.

  Charlotte gathered everything in her arms. She brought the papers, along with the photo album and envelope, into the living room. Laurent had fallen back asleep on the flowered quilt, the sedative still overwhelming his system. Luc stared at her, pale. She shouldn’t waste time with the papers in the safe, not when he looked this way. “I need to take care of your leg. My mother usually keeps medicine upstairs.”

  “It can wait a few more minutes. What is that?”

  “Our family pictures. Some paperwork.” Her voice trembled. She felt her hands shake under the weight of the heavy album. She dropped the papers to the floor and they scattered at her feet.

  “Luc, you do it. I want to see if they left clues to where they went, but I can’t focus.” She handed him the photo album and began to pace the living room, stepping carefully over the fallen papers, biting her lower lip. Luc frowned and flipped through the pages of the photo album, his face a mask of concentration. Then he stopped abruptly. Charlotte rushed to his side to see.

  He was staring at a page filled with pictures of Charlotte taken before performances. She wore all manner of costumes: a short tutu and a tiara in one picture, a flowered cape and tightly bound corset in another. A faint smile played on Luc’s lips. “You were always a looker.”

  “So you’re not focused either.”

  “I’m not focused? What’s in your hand? What’s in the envelope?”

  Charlotte looked down. She was still clutching the yellowing envelope from the safe. She broke the seal. Inside, there was a sepia postcard of four girls in identical white sundresses. They had gathered around a handsome boy of about twelve. Charlotte held the picture up to the moonlight streaming through the window. She didn’t recognize any of the faces.

  “Let me see,” Luc said.

  Charlotte handed him the postcard. Luc took a moment to examine the picture, and then tapped the card triumphantly.

  “I’ve seen them in books,” he told her. “Those are the tsar’s children. Your parents are definitely trying to tell you something.”

  Charlotte felt a cold chill. She stroked the chain around her neck and the three bars slicing through the cross. Then she saw it in the photograph, small and fuzzy. The same type of cross hung from a chain around the neck of one of the girls.

  “That must be the Russian Orthodox crucifix,” Luc said. “Maybe the German officer was right about you.”

  Charlotte’s thoughts scattered once more. She sat down, hard, on the arm of the love seat. If everything Herr Krause had said was true, how could her parents have kept this secret? Her pulse started to race. She would turn forty next year and they still treated her as a child who couldn’t be trusted with important information. She gulped in a deep breath. “I need to talk to them.”

  “I know.” Luc reached up and squeezed her shoulder. “They’ll come back. Or else you’ll find them. You’ll see them again.”

  Charlotte nodded desperately. If she believed, perhaps it would be true. She had to see them again.

  “For now, let’s concentrate on what they left you,” he said.

  Luc sounded so calm, so sure of himself. Charlotte tried to concentrate. She looked again at the postcard. One of the older girls in the back row captured her attention, the same one wearing the cross. The girl leaned forward on one elbow and looked solemnly at the camera. She was tall and slim with an elegant neck, a long nose, and thin but pretty lips. The photograph was black and white, but Charlotte wondered if the girl had auburn hair, like her own. Her lips trembled.

  Luc stared at the photo and then at Charlotte. “That could be your sister,” he said. “She looks just like you.”

  “Doesn’t she?”

  At the sound of the low female voice, Charlotte spun around. Someone was on the staircase, watching them. The woman took a few steps down, but her face remained shrouded in darkness.

  “Who’s there?” Luc called, his voice still rasping.

  The sound of the voices startled Laurent awake. His eyes blinked slowly open as he gazed up at Luc and then looked at the staircase. He frowned, still blinking. Then his lips parted suddenly into a huge smile. He jumped off the sofa, running toward the figure in the dark and hugging her knees.

  “Madame Kshesinskaya,” he cried. “You found us.”

  “Yes,” Kshesinskaya said, stepping into the light, stroking Laurent’s hair. “I thought your mother might want to hear more about her four sisters.”

  Seventeen

  BRIGHTON BEACH

  PRESENT DAY

  Veronica tried to still her fingers. They kept twitching at the sight of the small black revolver Grigori was pointing at her head, a sleek Glock pistol. He’d be surprised she knew enough about guns to name it. She’d even seen one before. All of Jess’s brothers worked for the sheriff’s department.

  Her gaze moved to Grigori’s face. His cold glower seemed overly practiced. He’d seen plenty of Scorsese movies, she’d give him that. Or maybe he was more of a Tarantino style gangster, all chatter and swagger and stifling cologne. His affectations were hopelessly out of place among Natalya Rubalov’s doilies and the comforting smell of cinnamon tea. Without the Glock in his hand, Veronica would have been more irritated than frightened.

  Veronica’s thoughts continued to zip around uncontrollably, little pulses of subatomic energy. She drew in a deep breath, counting silently to three in Spanish, Russian, and English. Then she gazed imploringly in Michael’s direction. She needed him to come up with something, anything, to explain the results of the DNA test, to explain why he lied.

  Michael had backed slowly away from Grigori. Now he stood next to Natalya, gaze still focused on the revolver. He didn’t say a word.

  “I certainly didn’t agree to any of it,” Romanov was huffing. “And besides, what is the point? Without proof, no one will believe a word of this tall tale.”

  Grigori chuckled. “In Russia, anything is possible.”

  “The proof is in the pudding. I should say it isn’t there. Mikhail is not the one.”

  “We want who we want. Mikhail is our tsar. Not you.” Grigori pointed to Romanov, then to Michael. “Who do you think?” he asked Veronica. “Who plays better on television? This is what my people want.”

  Romanov’s shoulders sagged under the weight of his wounded pride. Veronica had to admit, she understood Grigori’s point. Anyone with the slightest romantic inclination would prefer Michael as tsar. She felt sure Russian monarchists would prefer the direct descendant of a fifth Romanov daughter, even if it wasn’t true.

  “He’s never declared his claim,” Romanov said. “He’s made my life unpleasant, I’ll grant you that. Planting seeds of doubt in everyone’s minds.”

  “He will have the backing now,” Grigori replied calmly. “We tell the story.”

  Natalya straightened her back and fixed Grigori with a death stare. “It’s not a story. It was my mother’s life.”

  Grigori focused on Veronica. “What do you think? You want to believe, I see this. You can publish story, make you famous.”

  Veronica’s thoughts were still buzzing. Her mouth felt dry. At last s
he found her voice. “I’ll tell the story about the fifth daughter of the tsar, but I won’t say Michael is the heir when he’s obviously not.”

  “But that’s the best part,” Grigori purred. “Don’t you think so, Mikhail?”

  Michael held his hands straight in the air. Too straight. She wondered if he would explode again and lunge for Grigori, or grab Alexei Romanov’s skinny neck and shake him until his teeth rattled. But Michael remained calm. He gave her a slight nod and then looked pointedly at Grigori. He wanted her to distract Grigori. “Can we put our hands down?” she heard herself ask.

  Grigori motioned for her to lower her arms. An unpleasant tingling replaced the numbness as she rubbed her biceps.

  “I won’t agree to this either,” Michael said.

  “You will. You want to keep people you care for safe,” Grigori replied easily.

  Veronica shuddered, but she needed to keep him talking. “What does it matter if I publish any of this about the fifth daughter anyway? I’m not even tenured. I’m an academic fraud.” As she babbled, she hopped between Russian and English and a little Spanish to find the right words. “My college is research level two. Do you know what that means? We’re nothing. The best of the rest. I remember being excited when I saw Alameda University at the top of a list in U.S. News and World Report, and then I realized the list was in alphabetical order. We’re not even ranked.”

  Grigori made a dismissive gesture.

  “Never mind,” Veronica said, settling back into English. “All that’s important is no one will care about any article just because my name’s on it.”

  “She’s right,” Romanov chimed in. “We only wanted her to get to Mikhail. No one in their right mind would care what she says.”

  Veronica shot him a dirty look. Romanov compressed his lips, not quite contritely enough for her taste.

  “People believe what they believe.” Grigori shrugged. “Pretty face will help.”

  “Restoration is a sketchy proposition at best,” Veronica said, “even with a legitimate heir.”

  “That’s true,” Natalya said. “Why risk it all?” Veronica noticed when Natalya spoke, Michael stopped inching toward Grigori.

  Grigori smiled, almost kindly, at Natalya, but ignored her question. “You could make money, you know.” He gave Veronica a sly wink.

  “Not as much money as you, I bet,” Veronica snapped.

  “I try to help. What is problem here?”

  “The government will discover the truth eventually,” she said.

  “Exactly.” Alexei Romanov had briefly retreated to a corner to pout, but now he pounced on Veronica’s comment like a cat. “There’s no point to this charade.”

  “You visit our country?” Grigori asked Veronica. “Perhaps you pay bribe or two? Get to front of line? Get cab before others? Buy tin of caviar on the cheap?”

  “That’s a far cry from perpetuating this type of hoax,” Romanov blurted.

  “A DNA sample can be faked,” Grigori replied. “Easy to bribe technician. Some people think bones of blessed royal family are faked.”

  Romanov folded his arms in front of his chest. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Will it be so hard to taint a small portion of DNA for money? And not for harm, but for high purpose?”

  Veronica tried to laugh again, but it came out as a snort. “What high purpose? Alexei Romanov is a true believer. You’re just after cash.”

  “Common good, financial rewards … these two motivations can be reconciled.”

  “But why do your people need Michael? Why do they need a tsar at all?”

  Grigori gave another one of his big Russian shrugs. “Property of Russian government should be in rightful hands of private citizens. Rightful owner is tsar. If tsar part of government, tsar decides who gets what.”

  “I can attend to those matters better than Mikhail is able,” Romanov insisted. “Why, if that’s the concern—”

  “You think I’ll help a few oligarchs make a little more money?” Michael cut in.

  “It is hardly a little.” Grigori sounded offended at the suggestion. “Real estate worthless in your country now, not ours. Not in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.”

  “Did you know about any of this?” Natalya asked Romanov sharply.

  “We talked about restoration of real estate to rightful owners,” Romanov said.

  “And then there is public land. In your country, men make millions of dollars from oil. We do too. Worth fighting for. Worth keeping.” Grigori struggled to maintain his game face. The shaded hollows under his eyes betrayed his exhaustion. He looked like he wanted this all to be over. “The people I work for believe tsar will smooth negotiations between Russia and U.S. Putin make mess. But Americans make mistakes too. Afghanistan. Should have let Soviets have their way.”

  Romanov made a guttural sound. “True monarchists do not let the Soviets have their way. No one was gladder—”

  “—for the demise of the Soviet Union than your family. I know.” Grigori rolled his eyes. He’d done a pitch-perfect impersonation of Romanov. He turned back to Veronica. “If the Americans had worked with Soviets, everything different. No Taliban. No bin Laden.”

  “This marvelous new world order will come to pass if you prove that Michael is the Tsar of all the Russias?” Veronica said. “Forget it. He won’t cooperate.”

  “I think he will. You are key. Watch.”

  Grigori stepped toward her, gun raised. He nudged the gun to her temple, cold and hard. Veronica jumped back, gasping for air, and covered her head with her hands. She closed her eyes and waited, struggling for breath.

  Nothing happened. She opened her eyes. Michael had moved between them, jaw set, arms spread wide to shield her.

  Grigori raised his eyebrows, looking supremely pleased with himself. “You see. Brave Cossack.” He turned to Michael. “That will play well on television.”

  Romanov turned his accusing finger to Michael. “He’s not a Romanov at all. He may not even be Russian.”

  “We want fantasy here,” Grigori said. “This story is like fairy tale.”

  “In fairy tales, true blood triumphs.” Romanov sounded haughty, even for him.

  Grigori gave a foxlike smirk. “How many tsars descend from true bloodline? Your precious Romanovs—shaky fellows.”

  Romanov began to huff again. “Ridiculous,” he muttered.

  “You think I am buffoon?” Grigori said to him. “You think I do not know our history?” He turned to Natalya. “Matushka. Elegant place you keep. I think you have bottle of red wine in house. Not for you, of course, but for guests?”

  “I have wine,” Natalya said uncertainly.

  “Indulge me,” Grigori said. “Great poet Alexander Pushkin used to do trick at dinner parties, to sweet talk ladies. I will show you. I need wine, pitcher filled with water, and eight glasses.”

  Natalya nodded at Michael, who immediately headed for the kitchen. Veronica heard the clink of glass on glass and a rush of tap water from the sink. She frowned, confused. How did he know where everything was kept in the kitchen?

  Michael returned quickly, keeping his eyes on her the entire time, as though he were afraid something might have happened while he was gone. When Michael passed Natalya, Veronica’s breath caught. Their eyes were the same shape and nearly the same color. The resemblance crystallized in her mind now, not only their eyes, but the shape of their noses and the elegant span of their hands.

  Michael set the wine bottle and a pitcher on Natalya’s dining room table, atop a runner crocheted with songbirds. Then he went back and forth until he had eight wine glasses lined up.

  “Fill one and hold it up,” Grigori ordered.

  “Why?” Michael said.

  “Do it,” Natalya told him.

  “Yes, please.” Grigori seemed to be enjoying this. “Soon you will have all servants you desire. This will teach humility.”

  Michael glared at him, but splashed the wine into a glass.

  “Th
is glass of wine represents Peter the Great.” Grigori assumed a professorial tone. Under different circumstances, he would have fit right in at Alameda University. “The great Romanov. Pure Russian blood. Who did he marry?”

  “His second wife was Lithuanian,” Veronica offered. “Of course we’re not exactly sure of her origins, since she was a peasant. Some people think—”

  “Wonderful,” Grigori said, cutting her off. “So Russian bloodline weakens. Mikhail, pour half of that glass into the next glass.”

  Michael held up the second glass, its color pinkish and weak.

  “Keep going. Fill half water and half glass before. Get to last. See what happens.”

  Michael did so sloppily, keeping one eye on Grigori and the gun.

  “Last glass represents tsar of blessed memory, Nicholas II. How does he look?”

  Michael held up the glass, filled mostly with water. The remaining wine gave the liquid only the faintest hint of a blush.

  “So who cares?” Grigori concluded. “Mikhail will do as well as any other.”

  Romanov looked like a little boy who’d had his favorite toy crushed to pieces in front of him. “It is my birthright,” he whispered.

  Veronica found herself unwillingly sympathizing with Alexei Romanov. He’d dedicated his entire life to this goal and now that it was actually within his grasp, he couldn’t have it. Like her academic career. All that work all those years, for nothing.

  “It is not for you anymore.” Grigori spoke to Romanov, but took another step toward Veronica. Michael cut between them. Grigori pointed the gun to her head. Michael went pale and stopped.

  “Stop threatening the girl.” Natalya reached, grabbing Michael’s hand.

  Grigori gave a quick, regretful glance in Natalya’s direction. “It can’t be helped, little mother. We need Mikhail to cooperate.”

  “This isn’t Russia.” Veronica couldn’t stop looking at the gun. Each tortured beat of her heart must have shaved another year off her life. “You can’t get away with this.”

  “You people make it easy,” Grigori said calmly. “You all act as little children, think nothing bad can happen. You want open society? We find anyone we want.”