“He healed my Artipo,” I said loudly. “And I have seen him heal Alexei many times.”
“All lies! Delusions! Imaginings of the superstitious Russian soul!” I had never seen Grandma Minnie so agitated.
“Enough!” papa suddenly shouted in his loudest voice, a voice I had rarely heard during my entire life because he was usually the mildest of men. “I will not hear any more! Away, all of you!”
The others in the family hastened to obey, and soon the room was almost empty. But Olga and I stayed where we were, sitting on the sofa, and Grandma Minnie hesitated to leave. She opened her mouth as if to say more, but at a glare from papa, she shut it again, folding her papers and putting them back in her pocket. With dignity she walked to the double doors leading to the corridor beyond. When she reached the doors she turned back.
“This is my house, Nicholas. You would do well to show me courtesy here. And as to your precious Father Gregory, and your precious German wife—who, by the way, may soon be certified as mad by a respected doctor—you can be sure I have more to say, and that more action will be taken.”
“What about Adalbert?” I asked, but Grandma Minnie had already swept out and papa sank back into his chair, his head in his hands, so my question went unanswered.
Twenty-three
I had a lot to talk over with the elephant in those days. I went to his enclosure often and he came slowly up to the fence and extended his withered grey trunk toward me, hoping I would give him some tender leaves. I confided everything to him—my feelings for Constantin, the troubles in our family, my worries about mama and, deepest of all, my hopes that I would grow up to be a good and honorable woman and my fears that I might not.
The elephant trumpeted now and then, and shook his shaggy head when the flies gathered around his eyes, but he never listened to me for very long and soon he was ambling off toward the opposite end of his paddock where the mahout slept in his hut.
One reason I sought the company of the elephant was that I wanted to avoid seeing Adalbert. I knew he would be returning to Petersburg with his Young People’s Peace Initiative soon, and that he would want an answer to his proposal. What would papa tell him? If the answer was no, would I have to see him again? What would I say?
But in the end all was well. Adalbert sent me a note asking if he could see me, and I had to say yes—how could I not? He came alone, and as soon as he was shown into the small sitting room I felt all my old affection for him return. He was so handsome, his eyes full of a gentle tenderness and with a hint of wistfulness.
“I only wanted to say goodbye, dear Tania,” he began after kissing my cheek. “Your father explained to me that after consulting with his ministers, it was decided that a marriage between us would not benefit Russia. I had hoped very much that the answer would be different.”
I felt great relief.
“Dear Adalbert, can we be friends?” It was all I could think of to say.
“Of course. Warm friends—for life, if you will have me.”
“You know I will. I value you so much. Will you promise to write often?”
“As often as I can. My father is eager for me to go to sea again, and long voyages make correspondence difficult.”
I was aware that there was a strain between us.
“Adalbert, I—”
“No need to say more, Tania. All has been said and decided. We will go on as we were.” He hesitated, then added, “Or perhaps not quite as we were.”
“Oh?”
“You see, I have met a lovely young woman, one of the delegates on our Peace Initiative. She is of noble blood, and she has a sweet nature and shares my hope for greater understanding between peoples. Her name is Adalheid.”
“Adalbert and Adalheid! You were fated to be together!” We both laughed, and the strain was eased.
We said our goodbyes, and assured each other that we would write. Then I set off to meet Constantin at the Workers’ Clinic, taking a wagonload of food.
I had begun distributing the food I brought from the palace at the clinic instead of at Daria’s old lodgings. A room was set aside for my use, and Avdokia and I, sometimes aided by volunteers at the clinic, handed out loaves of bread and plates of meat and fowl, vegetables and pastry to all who stood in line patiently waiting to receive them. There was always a crowd at the clinic, and Constantin, overworked and tired, struggled valiantly to see as many patients as he could. He had great reserves of vitality, but he was not made of iron, and I often saw him trying to snatch a few moments of rest between patients, only to give up because the demand was too great.
With the clinic drawing more and more people from the surrounding Vyborg district, not only for medical aid but for food as well, it became a gathering place where political speakers—rabble-rousers, as my father called them—addressed the factory laborers from the ironworks and mills. Under the greenish-yellow fog that never seemed to disperse but hung like a shroud over Smokestack Town, representatives of Petersburg’s radical organizations harangued the crowd.
That day, the day Adalbert came to say goodbye, the number of workers assembled in front of the clinic was so large that Avdokia could not urge her spavined old horse through to reach the front door. We were stuck, enmired in bodies.
A speaker was holding forth, drawing much interest in the gathering. Shouts of agreement, occasional applause, whistles greeted her words. She was a tall woman with a red jacket and scarf over her head. She had a strong voice that carried well, and she spoke with force and verve.
“Workers!” she was saying, “I bring you word this afternoon of a bright dawn that is arising—coming closer and closer with each passing day. A bright dawn, I tell you, when tyranny will be no more! When exploitation will be no more! When we will own all the factories, and we will run the government, and we will share the wealth of Russia and not let the exploiters take it all away!
“Just imagine, my friends, waking up to the dawn of freedom!”
A huge cheer went up at these words, and I felt a surge of emotion in the crowd around me. It seemed as though more people were gathering, more bodies pressing in all around the cart. Avdokia didn’t mind, in fact she was shouting and clapping at the speaker’s words like everyone else.
“Now I bring you the best news of all. We, yes, all of us, have the power to bring the bright dawn of a new day of freedom to Russia! We have only to reach for it: it is within our grasp. Ours is the force, ours are the numbers, ours is the will!
“Nothing can stop us, when we all work together. When our minds are set on one goal, and our will is directed in one way!
“And our goal is: freedom!”
Once again a huge roar went up from many throats, until voices all around me were strained, some breaking from the strain as they shouted again and again.
I could not help remembering, at that moment, the immense roaring from the crowd on that long-ago day when I stood with my family on the balcony of the palace, listening to the shouts of “Batiushka, Little Father, may you live forever!” Back then, when I was a little girl, my father had been loved—we all had—and Russia had been at war with Japan. Now, all these years later, the workers wanted everything to change. My father was an obstacle in their way. They wanted to rule all. It was both thrilling and terrifying: the speaker’s words ignited a powerful vision of improvement and betterment, yet every word was a menace to our way of life, and especially to my family.
Something was happening. The woman in the red jacket and scarf was being muscled aside by a large baldheaded man. I heard angry words, a slap, laughter. Soon the baldheaded man began to speak.
“Enough of this talk of bright dawns and new beginnings!” he roared. “These are fairy tales for babies! What we want are actions, not words. Guns, not dreams. I say, to arms! Take out your knives, your clubs, your old rusty spears! Leave your machines and your looms and march on the palace! March on the garrisons! Seize the police stations!
“Let the cannon roar against us, and the
bullets fly and the long sabers slash at us! We are stronger. We can fight on, to take what is ours, until all the enemies of the people are dead and Russia belongs to us!”
And to emphasize his words he held up a long knife, the blade gleaming in the thin sunlight that filtered through the yellow fog.
Through the roaring of the increasingly agitated crowd I could hear him cry, “Blood! Revenge! Death to the exploiters!”
The cart began to rock from side to side as the agitation increased. Avdokia tried to stand, shouting for the people around us to stop their restless pushing and shoving, but she could not keep her balance and was thrown to the floor of the cart, dropping the horse’s reins.
I picked them up and tried in vain to hold the cart steady.
“Blood! Revenge! Death to the exploiters!” All around me the cries went up. Fists were shaken near me—at me, as it seemed.
“Quick! Avdokia! The food! Throw the food out into the crowd!”
We began lightening the cart of our baskets and bags of food, handing out what we could—many hands were thrust forward to snatch it from us—and tossing the rest out into the sea of moving bodies, waving fists, scowling, angry faces.
The poor horse neighed in fear and stamped his feet. I was afraid the cart would tip over but the horse’s weight and ours kept it barely stable.
Over the heads of the crowd I could see the door of the clinic open. Constantin stood in the doorway, waving his arms, apparently shouting to the people nearest him (though I could not hear his words for all the din). I waved to him. As I watched, I saw the woman in the red jacket and scarf detach herself from the angry, clustered knot of workers and run to Constantin, pressing against him for protection. He put one arm around her while with the other he returned my wave.
I wanted to go to him, but we were separated by so many people, so much noise and tumult.
The baldheaded man was speaking again.
“Workers! There is not a moment to lose! I say we seize the Putilov factory!” And he set off in the direction of the nearby plant, walking briskly, the crowd parting to give him room, then falling in behind him.
But just as the baldheaded man began his march, I could see, at the opposite edge of the crowd, that the first of the police had begun to arrive.
Now there was a renewed upsurge of emotion from the gathered workers, a volatile mix of anger and fear. Women screamed as the police approached the crowd. People began running in panic. It was as if our cart was the still point at the center of a maelstrom. Avdokia and I crouched on the floor of the cart, our eyes shut, clutching each other, while around us boots pounded on the cobblestones, voices rang out, more shots were fired.
But the knot of workers was dispersing, running in all directions, and the cart no longer rocked and heaved. Cautiously I lifted my head and looked out over the side. A pathway was clearing before us, a pathway to the clinic’s door.
“Avdokia!” I called out and she too raised her head.
“We can get to the clinic now. We can get Constantin away.”
Nimbly for such a large woman, Avdokia climbed onto the driver’s seat and flicked the horse with her whip. Old and tired as he was, he sprang forward and in a moment we were with Constantin, who lifted the slender woman in the red jacket into the back of the cart and climbed in behind her.
“Tania! Avdokia! Thank heavens you are here!”
Avdokia drove into the dingy alley at the back of the clinic and down along narrow streets that took us away from the sounds of the rioting.
“The police will protect the clinic,” I heard Constantin say from the cart bed. “I’m not worried about that. We’ve had demonstrations here before and they have always guarded the building. To safeguard the patients.”
We said little on the long ride back to Tsarskoe Selo. Once we reached the outskirts of the city and knew we would be safe from any more disturbances, I could hear Constantin snoring in the back of the cart. From his companion there was only silence.
Was she a bomb-thrower, I wondered. She was certainly a radical, but was she a violent one? Her inspiring words had not spoken of violent acts, only of a vision of a happier future. Yet there was violence in the air in those days, when I was in my fifteenth year. The chief minister of my father’s government, Stolypin, was assassinated and other ministers were attacked. The secret police were out in force, Constantin had told me. They had eyes and ears on every street corner, hoping to prevent more attacks. Even so, the radicals continued to shoot at governors in the provinces and burn down the mansions of the wealthy and issue manifestos proclaiming the advent of a new nation of workers arising out of the ashes of the old order.
Who was this courageous woman, I wondered, who had delivered a strong speech before hundreds of people, only to be thrust aside by a cruder, more incendiary voice?
I turned to look over my shoulder into the back of the cart. There, sprawled on the bare boards, was the snoring Constantin. And next to him, leaning against the side rails, her eyes shut, was the woman, her red jacket open, her red scarf fallen back off her face, no longer veiling her features.
It was Daria!
Twenty-four
Are you going to have me arrested?”
Daria confronted me as soon as we arrived at Tsarskoe Selo and were admitted through the high iron gates (for Avdokia the milk woman was a familiar figure to the guards and servants, the Cossack Nikandr among them, and they never stopped her cart) into the courtyard and stables beyond. Daria stood before me, slight, small, but with a fierceness in her expression that belied her size and a new determination in the tone of her voice.
“Should I? Are you dangerous?”
“Only if it is dangerous to raise people’s hopes, and spur their ambitions.”
“My father and Monsieur Gilliard say that some radicals are only ambitious to destroy.”
“I am not one of those.”
We regarded one another for a moment.
“Have you ever thrown a bomb?” I asked.
“No.”
I believed her, I decided to trust her, but then immediately doubted my belief.
“Because I love your sister Niuta, who as you know, has served my family all my life, and for the sake of your little daughter Iskra, I will not have you arrested. Not tonight. You must give me your word, however, that you will never do anything to cause my family harm.”
She nodded. “I give you my word. I swear on my daughter’s head.”
“Very well.”
Her expression softened. “Thank you.” And greatly to my surprise she dropped briefly on one knee, making the traditional gesture of reverence from peasant to master or mistress. I reminded myself that she was a peasant girl from Pokrovsky, after all. The time-honored patterns of social obligation that had prevailed in her village were still at work in her. Yet the gesture continued to amaze me. Was she putting me off guard? I would have to watch her closely.
It was too much to hope that there would be no repercussions from the rioting by the Workers’ Clinic. Papa called me into his study and told me to sit down. He began rubbing his beard absentmindedly, as he did when unsure what to say.
“Your grandmother tells me,” he began, “that you were seen in a mob of radical workers. That you were listening to radical speeches. That you have been visiting a certain workers’ clinic instead of attending your dancing classes. And that you have, shall we say, formed an attachment to a young medical student, a man not of royal blood.”
“Constantin is related to Uncle Petya, father.”
Papa raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Is he? No one told me that.”
“Has Grandma Minnie been spying on me?”
“She was concerned to know where you were and what you were doing. She asked the imperial secret police to watch you—to watch out for you.”
“She wants to get rid of me. She wanted me to marry Adalbert so that I would go and live in Germany. She wants to get rid of Olga too.”
“Don’t talk
absurdities. Now, as to this Workers’ Clinic, I have decided to close it and I forbid you to go there again.”
“But papa—”
“Your mother and your Aunt Olga have many charities. Devote yourself and your good works to them. Meanwhile I will ask Monsieur Gilliard to give you extra lessons, to fill your idle hours. And I don’t ever want to hear that you have been seen listening to speeches by rabble-rousers! Don’t you know that they are enemies of all decency and humanity? Don’t you remember what happened to Uncle Gega? And to my own dear grandfather who was blown up by a bomb, all those years ago?”
His voice broke, and tears came into his eyes. Until this moment he had done his best to be firm, but now all his pretense of firmness fell away. I couldn’t help wondering whether he wept while conferring with his ministers. It was no wonder mama was always telling him to be stronger and more forceful.
“Off you go, Tania,” he said, his voice shaky, when he had wiped his eyes. “Be a good girl, won’t you.” And he lit a cigarette and gazed off into the distance.
My father was weak—and growing weaker, as it seemed to me. But the dynasty he represented, the proud Romanov legacy, was still held in reverence by many Russians—by nearly all Russians, he would have said, since he assumed that those who wanted to rid themselves of a tsar and rule on their own were only a small minority in the population. As the three-hundred-year anniversary of Romanov rule came closer, great preparations were made for official celebrations.
“The year 1913 will be a proud year,” papa said to us all one evening. “A year to remember. In 1613 the first Romanov came to the throne. Here we are, three centuries later, still revered by our people. Our family symbolizes this grand continuity. Three hundred years from now there will still be a Romanov on the throne of Russia. Alexei will rule after I am gone, and his sons and grandsons will succeed him, and so on and on through many generations.”
Despite papa’s optimistic words it was hard for me to believe that my fragile, charming brother would indeed live to succeed to the imperial throne. Only a month earlier he had fallen off a chair and hurt his right knee, and his entire leg swelled with blood that would not clot. He could not move, the leg was so distended; he lay on his bed, moaning and screaming, unable to sleep, the pain was so acute and his fever so very high. With each new attack quiet preparations were made for his death. His golden shroud was brought from its oaken chest and got ready to receive his body, the imperial casket that would hold his corpse (a new one was made each year, as he grew) was brought into an anteroom and fitted out with velvet lining and a velvet pillow bordered with wide gold lace. This attack was no exception. All the funeral accoutrements were laid out, though kept out of his sight, naturally.
The Tsarina's Daughter (Reading Group Gold) Page 13