The Secret Wife

by Gill Paul

  A doctor came by who spoke some French and he explained to Dmitri: ‘Our former patient, who is known as Anna Tschaikovsky, has moved out of the asylum and is living with a Russian émigré by the name of Baron von Kleist.’

  Dmitri asked if he had the address, but the doctor said it would be unprofessional of him to give it, although he added, ‘I suggest you ask around.’

  ‘But where would I ask?’

  The doctor wrinkled his forehead: ‘Try the cafés of Charlottenburg, where there are more Russians than Germans. Good luck, my friend.’

  Everything was a struggle in this foreign land. Trams trundled past on electrified lines but none of them had the name Charlottenburg on the front, and when Dmitri asked for directions he found few who understood him. Eventually one woman directed him onto a bright yellow tram and told him to ask for Prager Platz.

  Night was beginning to fall when the conductor called out that they had reached Prager Platz and Dmitri descended into a bustling square with a grassy area in the centre. All around brightly coloured electric signs were being illuminated outside cafés and restaurants. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry.

  He chose the busiest café, called the Prager Diele, and immediately heard a group of men conversing in loud Russian.

  ‘Excuse me …’ he interrupted, ‘but do any of you know where Baron von Kleist lives?’

  ‘Another one looking for Anastasia.’ A man in a purple cravat rolled his eyes at his companions then turned to Dmitri. ‘They won’t let you see her. The Baron is fiercely protective. But I have a friend who spoke with her while she was in the asylum and he swears it is not her. She doesn’t even speak Russian, for God’s sake.’

  Dmitri’s spirits plummeted. ‘She doesn’t?’ He had pinned too much hope on this meeting, full of optimism that he might soon find his wife. What a fool he was.

  ‘Come, have a glass with us. My name is Boris.’ The man poured a generous measure of ruby wine into a glass and handed it to Dmitri. ‘You’ve just arrived in Berlin, I suppose.’

  Dmitri nodded his head and accepted the wine, feeling devastated. The men scraped their chairs closer together to make room for him. ‘All the same,’ he continued, ‘I’d like to see her for myself. I knew Anastasia in St Petersburg when I …’

  Boris held up a hand to stop him. ‘The first rule here is that you must be careful not to identify yourself as a monarchist. Keep your counsel. There are many Bolshevik spies in town and you can never tell who you are speaking to, especially after a few glasses of good Burgundy.’

  ‘Thank you. I appreciate your advice.’ Dmitri introduced himself and learned the names of the other four at the table, all of them Russian. He could tell from their accents that two were from the St Petersburg area, one from Moscow, two from Siberia, but he did not ask their backgrounds. They refilled his glass and when the bottle was empty Dmitri bought the next one.

  At around midnight, when Dmitri’s words were slurred and his head spinning, Boris took him to a nearby apartment block and introduced him to the landlady, who fortunately had a small apartment available. Before he left, Boris pushed a piece of paper into his hand. ‘The address you wanted,’ he whispered. ‘But don’t get your hopes up.’

  Next morning, after Dmitri had held his head under a cold tap to clear a thumping headache, then eaten a filling breakfast of sausage and sauerkraut in a café, he set off to find Baron von Kleist’s apartment. Boris’s note said it was on the fourth floor at number 9 Nettelbeckstrasse, which he found with the help of a street map borrowed from his landlady.

  He rang the bell and when it was answered by a black-suited butler he asked, ‘I wonder if I might see Anna Tschaikovsky? Tell her it is Cornet Malama.’ His stomach was twisting with nerves. Was he about to learn the truth about what happened to Tatiana?

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. She is unwell and not seeing anyone.’

  ‘If I write a note, will you give it to her?’ he asked, and the butler agreed with a slight shrug.

  Dmitri scribbled a message then and there, saying he was delighted to hear Anastasia was alive, and wondering if she had any news of the others. He said he would be happy to perform any services she might require of him and signed it ‘Malama’. ‘I’ll wait in the park across the road in case she changes her mind about seeing me,’ he explained.

  He paced up and down, checking his pocket watch, looking up at the windows of the Baron’s apartment. Would she glance out to see if it was him?

  An hour later, when there had been no word, he rang the bell at number 9 once more. ‘Did she read my note?’ he asked.

  ‘As I said, I’m afraid she will not see anybody,’ the butler repeated, expressionless.

  Dmitri felt shattered. He had come so far and invested so much hope in this encounter that it was unbearable to have hit an impasse. There was nothing more he could do so he stopped in a café down the street to ease his disappointment with a tumbler of vodka.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Berlin, 1922

  Dmitri spent long hours in the café near Baron von Kleist’s residence, watching the door in case the woman who claimed to be Anastasia might emerge, but there was no sign of her. One morning as he waited he found a copy of a Russian newspaper called Rul – ‘Rudder’ – lying abandoned on a table and flicked through it. Produced in Berlin, it reported on matters of interest to the city’s Russian community. From just a cursory read, Dmitri realised there were many factions: there were the pro-monarchists, the Bolsheviks, and the Constitutional Democrats, who thought Russia should enter into the modern age with free elections. The Whites accused the Bolsheviks of being Jews seeking global domination, and argued about the best way to wrest Russia from their control, while spies from the Cheka, the secret police, infiltrated their number and assassinations were not uncommon. He could see why Boris had recommended that he keep his counsel.

  Dmitri had saved some money while working in Constantinople but he would need to earn more to keep himself, and the newspaper gave him an idea. He bought a notebook and wrote an article about the last stand of General Wrangel in Crimea, and his evacuation of the last remnants of the White Army from Sevastopol on the 14th of November 1920. The Bolsheviks had executed those they captured by tying their hands and feet and dropping them overboard into the Black Sea. Dmitri had seen many trussed-up corpses in the water, eyes bulging grotesquely, as he sailed to Constantinople. When he had finished, he walked to the offices of Rul and sat across a desk while the editor, a man named Burtsev, read his piece.

  ‘You write well,’ Burtsev told him, ‘and I have not seen a more compelling account of the final evacuation. I’ll pay you 5,000 marks for this story.’

  That sounded good. ‘Can I write more for you?’ Dmitri asked.

  ‘Sure. If I like your articles, I will pay you. But get yourself a typewriter first.’

  Dmitri bought a second-hand typewriter and taught himself to type with two fingers. He studied each issue of Rul, as well as its rival paper, Golos Rossii – ‘The Voice of Russia’ – which was edited by a man who had been Minister of Agriculture in the government of March to October 1917. Burtsev liked Dmitri’s work, and began to give him commissions, which Dmitri asked him to publish under the family name Yakovlevich so that he would not be identified; back home everyone had known him as Malama.

  He was sent to interview musicians and choreographers, writers and artists, men who had been prominent back in Russia but who struggled to find work in this modern city. Many were living in poverty, having spent any money they managed to bring with them on the journey. Some were working in menial jobs simply to feed their families: counts served as waiters, princesses as secretaries. Dmitri wrote about the sights of Berlin through the eyes of an émigré, describing the men who dressed as women to work in cabaret shows, the skinny prostitutes with sunken cheeks and haunted eyes, the street sellers with goods that looked too good to be true and broke at first use.

  Gradually he began to trust Burtsev and asked him if he m
ight write a story about Anna Tschaikovsky. He explained that he had known Anastasia in St Petersburg. Could the editor perhaps arrange an interview?

  Burtsev eyed him thoughtfully. ‘All my requests for an interview with Miss Tschaikovsky have been refused but I hear that Princess Irene of Hesse, the sister of Tsarina Alexandra, is arriving in town to visit the girl. Did you ever come across her?’

  Dmitri had to say no, he hadn’t.

  ‘But can I say you are a family friend?’

  Dmitri nodded. ‘Certainly.’

  ‘I will ask if you can talk to her after she has met the girl. There is bound to be a story in that.’

  Somewhat to Dmitri’s surprise, Princess Irene of Hesse agreed to be interviewed by him, asking that he come to her suite at the Adlon, the town’s most luxurious hotel. He dressed with care, polishing his shoes and getting a close shave and a haircut in a barbershop.

  On arrival, Dmitri was kept waiting for over an hour in the sumptuous hotel lobby, with square marble columns and a fountain of water gushing from the trunk of a stone elephant.

  At last, he was shown up to Princess Irene’s suite and found her sitting by a window sipping tea. She was a stout woman in her fifties, her brown hair streaked with grey, and her Germanic features bore a strong resemblance to those of Alexandra. Dmitri was overcome for a moment: this was Tatiana’s aunt! He had written to her two years earlier asking her to let him know if there was news of the family but had received no reply.

  ‘Please sit.’ She waved him to an armchair, and began to speak. ‘I assume you wish to hear of my meeting with Miss Tschaikovsky, and I must tell you I am afraid to say she is not Anastasia. There is no resemblance with my niece. The position of the eyes, the bone structure, both are quite wrong.’

  ‘When did you last see the Grand Duchesses?’ Dmitri asked, scribbling in his notebook in an attempt to hide his disappointment.

  ‘I admit it’s been nine years, but Alexandra used to send me photographs right up until they were taken into captivity’ – she spoke the word with distaste – ‘and I am quite certain. This girl is rude and thoughtless, in a way my nieces would never have been, and what’s more she spoke no Russian. Not a word.’

  ‘How did she explain that?’ Dmitri asked.

  ‘Baron von Kleist told me that she suffered some kind of trauma that caused her to lose her memory, and along with it her mother tongue.’

  ‘What kind of trauma?’ Dmitri reddened and his pulse quickened.

  ‘I presume he means the murder of the rest of the family.’ She took a sip of tea.

  ‘You believe they are dead?’ Dmitri held his breath.

  ‘I have it from very credible sources that they all died in the Ipatiev House at the hands of the Red Guards.’

  Dmitri opened his mouth to speak but instead a sob burst from his throat. Princess Irene regarded him with surprise as he struggled to regain control.

  ‘Did you know them personally?’ she asked.

  He nodded, unable to speak at first, then managed to say, ‘I was a good friend of Grand Duchess Tatiana.’

  The Princess peered at him through narrowed eyes. ‘Are you Malama?’ He nodded. ‘Alexandra thought very highly of you.’ Dmitri covered his face with his hands. ‘Come, come. Pull yourself together, man.’

  She rang a bell and asked for a cognac, which was quickly supplied by a uniformed servant. Dmitri took a gulp and felt it burn its way down.

  ‘Have you entirely given up hope?’ he asked in a strangled voice.

  ‘I’m afraid so. If my sister were alive, she would have found a way to get word to me over the last four years. She could have asked someone to send a note. None of the family has heard: Nicholas’s mother and sister in Denmark, the English family – no one knows any more than I do. We’re all furious with Bertie, of course. He could easily have brought them to London back in 1917 but he got cold feet. He’s such a coward. He worried about who would support them, how the order of precedence would work – Lord knows what went through his selfish brain, but the upshot is my sister is dead.’

  ‘You just assume the worst because there has been no word; you haven’t heard this from people in Ekaterinburg, have you?’ Dmitri asked, clutching at straws.

  ‘I had a letter from the British Consul Sir Thomas Preston. He has spoken to many local people, including Mr Sokolov, who has escaped overseas and is still preparing the report that he was commissioned to produce by the leader of the White Army. I believe it will be published within a year or so.’ She offered Dmitri another cognac but he shook his head.

  ‘Will you please let me know if you should hear any more news of Tatiana, or the family?’ he begged.

  ‘Well, of course.’ Her expression was sympathetic. ‘But you mustn’t live in the past. Get on with your future. It’s a terrible tragedy, but you are still young and you will recover. I, on the other hand, will mourn them till the day I die.’

  Dmitri left the hotel clutching his notebook, headed into the nearest bar and ordered a vodka. Despite what Princess Irene had said, he vowed that unless someone presented him with absolute proof that Tatiana was dead, he would never give up hope. Never.

  Chapter Forty

  Dmitri filed his article about Princess Irene’s meeting with Anna Tschaikovsky and it was published in Rul. A week later they received a letter from Tsar Nicholas’s sister Olga in Denmark saying that she disagreed with Irene and thought Anna genuinely was her niece Anastasia. The controversy made Dmitri even more determined to meet the girl, but no matter which avenues he tried, he could not find a way through the heavy oak doors of Baron von Kleist’s apartment.

  Dmitri spent his days writing articles, and his evenings in the cafés of Charlottenburg, drinking with crowds of Russian émigrés. They moaned to each other about Berlin, calling it a materialistic city where everything was for sale, with gaudy advertising all around and prostitutes openly hustling passersby on every street corner. Usually one or other of his drinking companions would end up in tears of homesickness for Mother Russia once they were a few bottles down.

  One evening, Dmitri was with a group who became rowdy and started smashing glasses on the floor, whereupon the doormen escorted them off the premises. Dmitri’s comrades headed straight into a neighbouring bar but he sat on the grass in the middle of Prager Platz to let the cold night air clear his head. A girl who had been working in the café came running across to him.

  ‘You left your notebook,’ she said in Russian. It had all his notes from an interview that day and he was relieved not to have lost it.

  ‘Thank you. You’ve saved my life,’ he said melodramatically.

  ‘I’ve seen you here before, haven’t I? My name is Rosa.’ She held out her hand.

  As he shook hands with her, he noticed she had a very full bosom for someone so petite, and that she had pretty eyes and short dark hair. ‘You’ve got a boy’s haircut,’ he remarked. He hadn’t noticed her when she brought their drinks to the table, but close up she was definitely attractive.

  She laughed. ‘I have it cut in a barber’s shop. It’s cheaper than a women’s hairdresser. Are you a writer?’ Her Russian was fluent but she had a German accent, which made it sound unfamiliar.

  ‘I write articles for Rul,’ he said, then added, ‘I’m also working on a novel.’ He had no idea why he said this except that every White Russian in Berlin seemed to be writing a novel and it sounded romantic.

  ‘What’s your novel about?’ she asked, sitting on the grass beside him.

  ‘It’s about love, of course. A great love affair that spans decades and continents but is ultimately doomed to unhappiness.’ He was in a maudlin state, thinking of Tatiana.

  ‘But why can it not have a happy ending?’

  ‘Because all love affairs end unhappily,’ he said, ‘like all wars.’ He wasn’t drunk enough because depression was creeping up on him. ‘Could you fetch another bottle of wine from your bar? I’ve got the money.’

  ‘No,’ she said fir
mly, ‘but my shift has finished so I will get my coat and take you home. Where do you live?’

  Dmitri considered. Suddenly it seemed a compelling idea to take comfort in a woman’s arms, to nestle his head against that full bosom and breathe in a female scent. He had not made love to another woman since meeting Tatiana back in 1914, and he felt guilty even thinking about it … but all the same it was tempting.

  He let Rosa help him to his feet and lead him the short distance to his apartment, with her arm linked through his. She helped when he fumbled with his keys, then steadied him on the way up the stairs.

  Will I be capable of sex? Dmitri wondered, shortly before he passed out.

  When Dmitri woke the next morning, he turned his head to see if Rosa was beside him. She wasn’t, but the bed had been neatly made, with the sheets tucked in, and he was lying beneath the covers in his underwear. Normally he did not make the bed from one day to the next, simply slipping into the hollow his body had formed the night before. And the other odd thing was that he could not remember getting undressed. Had Rosa taken his clothes off? He glanced round the room and saw them neatly folded over the back of a chair.

  On the bedside table there was a glass of water and a bottle of Bayer aspirin powder. The sight irritated him but he took a sip of water all the same, his mouth dry as cardboard and his breath rancid.

  He heaved himself out of bed, pulled on a dressing gown and went through to the tiny kitchen alcove. He had left the sink overflowing with dirty dishes but now they were washed and stacked away and the surfaces sparkled. His irritation grew. In the sitting room, everything was neat and tidy but there was no sign of the girl. How dare she come into his home and clean it without permission!

  He put on a pot of coffee then went to the bathroom to wash and shave. She hadn’t cleaned there. The bath had a greasy grey tideline, while the sink was grimy with bristles. He was still annoyed, and as he performed his ablutions he considered charging round to the café to remonstrate with Rosa for cleaning up. It was only when he planned the words he would use that he realised how foolish it would sound and began to chuckle.