“No,” papa said firmly. “You know how badly you could be hurt.”
“But this is the last day of the carnival. I won’t get another chance until next year.”
“Then it will have to be next year.”
Alexei went on complaining and cajoling. Mama continued to grumble about her sore leg. Olga, who suddenly thought she saw her old flirt Victor in the crowd, dashed off to speak to him, and shrieked in complaint when three of the guards went after her and roughly brought her back.
It was all too much for papa, who went up to the nearest booth where many flavors of vodka were for sale and asked for black currant by the yard.
I watched as the row of small shiny glasses was lined up along the front of the booth and the vendor filled each one with the dark fragrant liquid. Drinking flavored vodka “by the yard” was an old custom, calling for a man (I had never seen a woman attempt it) to prove his fortitude by downing an entire yard-long array of liquor-filled glasses. It called for a strong stomach and it nearly always brought forth clapping and chanting from the onlookers.
I looked over at Michael as my father began to drink from the small glasses and those around us began to applaud and cheer him on. Michael and I both sensed trouble coming. We knew only too well that when feeling overwhelmed papa drank—far too much. Then he withdrew into a somnolent silence. We needed him to be alert, not groggy—but we dared not tell him why. We dared not tell him the truth about what was going to happen that night, knowing that his reaction would be negative.
As a distraction I encouraged Marie and Anastasia to join in a contest to see who could eat the most blinis. Anastasia, who was always hungry, joined in eagerly and soon the front of her green frog prince costume was daubed with dripping butter. Marie too began eating blinis, but at a more moderate pace, and less messily. Before long she drifted away and joined in some arm-wrestling. Papa and mama went to sit side by side on a bench and it was then I noticed that Alexei was missing.
I knew at once where he was likely to be: sliding down the ice mountain, in defiance of papa’s orders.
“Michael! I think Alexei may have gone back to the ice mountain. We can’t let him try to climb it!”
We ran as quickly as we could toward the glistening crystal mound that towered above all the other structures in the town. Children were clambering up the back side of the steep edifice, dragging sleds, holding on to ropes and using stairsteps carved into the ice. When they reached the top they lay down on their sleds and careened down the slippery face of the mountain, gathering speed and shrieking with excitement and fear until they bumped to a stop in the snow.
We did not see Alexei at first, and for a moment I thought I might be wrong about his disobedience; maybe, I hoped, he has just gone to buy some gingerbread or to look for Olga, who had left the rest of us once again to try to find Victor. But then, going around the back side of the mountain, I saw the furry brown of his bear costume and the gleaming golden crown. It had to be Alexei. He was limping badly, he could hardly drag himself to the top. Evidently he had borrowed a sled, and was doing his best to pull it along as he climbed.
With an agility that never failed to amaze me Michael was on the mountain in a moment and managing to weave his way in and out of the crowd of climbing children, doing his best to reach the top in time to stop Alexei before he got on his sled. He very nearly succeeded. But then— I was horrified to see Alexei standing on top of the mound, then lying down on the sled, and then disappearing from my sight as he began his descent.
Slipping on the frozen snow beneath my boots, I ran around to the front side of the mound and arrived just in time to see Alexei crumple into a brown heap in the snow, screaming in pain.
Fifty-nine
At a little before six o’clock that evening we went in through the high carved double doors of the cathedral of St. John of Tobolsk, unaccompanied by our guards who remained outside on the broad wooden steps. We were all tired and hungry, for though the day had been an exciting one it had also been very long—and very tense. Our guards had grown increasingly inebriated and belligerent, restricting us more and more as to where we could go and what we could do, and had even refused to allow Michael to go back to the Governor’s Mansion to get Dr. Botkin after Alexei hurt himself sliding down the ice mountain.
Olga was irritable, Anastasia sick to her stomach from eating too many blinis, Alexei in pain and mama, I’m sorry to have to say, was badly in need of her Veronal drops (which she had not thought to bring with her) and was nervous and edgy and full of complaints. Yet the carnival was reaching its end, it was the eve of the Lenten observance and all pious believers were obligated to attend the pre-Lenten mass. Not to go to the service was unthinkable.
We had no sooner taken our places than a man in a harlequin costume came up to us.
“Georgy Kochetkov, of the Brotherhood of St. John, here to serve you, Little Father,” he whispered to papa. “And my family as well,” he added, indicating a cluster of costumed figures standing together in a nearby side chapel.
Papa looked, turned away—and then looked back again. There in the chapel were a red and orange firebird, a grey cat, a silvery ice princess, a brown bear with a gold crown—in short, a duplicate of each of us.
“What’s this?” he said aloud. “Why are they—”
“Come with me, papa, and I’ll explain,” I interjected before he could complete his question. I drew him toward an archway through which I could see a stairwell rising upward. This must be the stairway leading up into the bell tower, I reasoned. The bell tower from which we could exit onto the roof.
“There is something very important I must tell you. I have waited until now because I wanted to make certain all would go according to plan. I’m sorry to have kept the plan from you, but I felt I had to. Please forgive me, papa.”
It was hard to tell his reaction, his mask concealed all but the look in his eyes. The slight quaver in his voice betrayed his fatigue and the aftereffects of the yard of vodka he had drunk earlier in the day.
“Go on, Tania.”
“Georgy and his family are here to take our places, so that instead of going back to the Governor’s Mansion at ten o’clock we can remain here in the church until Adalbert and his men rescue us. It has all been arranged.”
“And the Brotherhood’s plan to attack Tobolsk in force?”
“Was never more than a hope. Besides, the commissar says we are all in far more danger than we realize. We must go now, if we are to save ourselves.”
He seemed to sway slightly on his feet, and I reached out to steady him.
“I must think. I must think,” he murmured.
“Papa, you must act. We can talk more later. For now, you must go back to the others and tell them firmly to come to this staircase, quietly and without drawing attention to themselves. Right away. Michael will help you.”
He hesitated. “I don’t trust them, Tania. Your Adalbert and that commissar.”
“As far as I can tell, they are the only ones we can trust now.”
“I don’t like it,” he said, but he went back to where the others were waiting. I stood where I was, watching. The cathedral was filling up, the choir members taking their places. Some of the worshippers were dressed in the warm clothing they would wear to any important mass, but most were in their carnival finery, which made the event surreal, even grotesque. We were real people, trapped in real and very dangerous circumstances. Yet at the same time we were fantastic beings, fairytale creatures occupying a realm of myth and imagination. Dual bodies, dual selves.
I could tell, from my vantage point, that papa was having difficulty persuading the others to leave the sanctuary and come to the alcove where I was waiting. Finally Michael separated himself from the others, carrying Alexei, and shortly afterward papa came, supporting Mama who looked peevish and resistant, like a fractious child. Marie, Anastasia, Olga and Daria trailed along behind, Daria looking around the vast room searchingly. There was no sign of Iskr
a, I presumed she was still with Niuta and Nikandr.
At last we were all together at the bottom of the staircase and I saw that Georgy and his family had joined the congregation, standing where my family had been.
“Tania! What’s going on!” Olga wanted to know.
“We’re going up into the bell tower, where we can be safe.”
“What? Why?”
“You mean up those steps?” came mama’s querulous voice. “You know I can’t climb those steps!”
“We’ll help you mama.”
“What’s going on?” asked Marie. “I don’t understand.”
“When we get where we need to go, I’ll explain.”
Alexei, who had so far been quiet, now began to moan.
“I’ll take him up first,” Michael said, beginning to climb upward with Alexei in his arms.
“Follow Michael,” I told the others. “I’ll come last.
I’ll help mama.” But when papa and I tried to begin the ascent, with mama between us, each of us holding an arm, she angrily wrenched herself free and I was afraid she would start to scream, as she did when feeling nervous and uncomfortable.
“No! I’m staying right here!” And she sat down on the steps and refused to budge.
The service had begun and the voices of the choir, blending in the traditional harmonies of the sung mass, filled the cathedral. The ethereal music seemed to soothe mama a little. She listened, and was still.
But when we tried, shortly afterward, to persuade her to start climbing again she continued to sit where she was, a disheveled, dejected firebird, shorn of her wings (her costume had suffered damage during the day’s activities), head bowed, unresponsive. Presently Michael came down and, seeing her limp and listless, spoke gently to her.
“Let me help you up the stairs, madam,” he began, but she wriggled out of his grasp.
“The stairs are the way to rescue—to freedom,” he whispered.
At this she came alert, and sat upright.
“You mean we are to be taken out of this awful place?”
“Yes. This very night.”
“But I have none of my things.”
“All will be provided.”
“No! My icons! My Veronal! I can’t leave without it!”
But before she could protest further, Michael had scooped her up in his arms and was going up the stairs as fast as he could, and papa and I followed.
At the top of the bell tower was a small round room, cold and empty except for seven bells ranging in size from large to enormously large, hanging down from a metal device. Our voices echoed eerily, as from far below us drifted up the sound of the choir.
There was nowhere to sit, other than on the dusty stone floor.
“Now Tania, tell us what is going on,” Olga demanded once she had flopped down.
“Yes, tell us,” said Marie and Anastasia almost at the same time.
“It is very simple, really. All we need to do is to stay here, right here, until midnight, when Adalbert will come to get us, with an escort of soldiers and three troikas. The town guardsmen go home at midnight. There will be a few men on watch, but they will be sympathetic to us. They will let us go where we like.”
“Won’t the Bayonet come after us?” Alexei asked.
“He won’t know where to find us.”
“When the mass is over,” Michael added, “it will look to the guards as though we are leaving the church. Only it will be others dressed just like us that leave. The guards will follow them. They will think they are following us.”
“By the time they realize their mistake we will be gone,” I finished, smiling at the thought.
Anastasia clutched her stomach. “I’m going to be sick,” she said.
“Don’t be sick all over me!” Olga moved away, pulling at her furry costume. “You’re disgusting! You’ve already got butter all over your vest. Now you’re going to have sick on it too.”
Marie was nodding off.
“How will Niuta know where to bring Iskra now? I told her I would be in the sanctuary, not in the bell tower.” Daria was in distress.
“You can watch for her from the roof.” I looked around the circular room for the small door Georgy had told me about, the one he said led out onto the roof. It was not easy to find. It was not a true door at all, but a sort of trap door, painted in the same dull green as the walls, opening from the top, and without a handle. It looked barely wide enough for a single person to squeeze through. When I tried to open it I couldn’t.
“It must be frozen shut,” Michael said, and came over to help me. He took out his khinjal—which he had been wearing strapped to his waist, under his scaramouche costume—and used the blade to chip away at the ice that had formed around the edges of the door.
“How long do we have to wait?” Marie asked.
“Not long. Only until midnight.”
“Do we have any food?”
Daria produced some gingerbread wrapped in a sack. “I bought this for Iskra. You can have it.” She handed the gingerbread to Marie, who unwrapped it and ate it.
“I’m sure Niuta and Iskra will be here soon,” I told Daria. “Don’t lose hope. Maybe Niuta decided to wait until the mass is over before she comes to meet you.”
“Why would she do that?”
I had no answer for that question, and in truth I was concerned as well, though I tried not to show it.
Still, up to this point, our plan was working. Papa was distrustful, but he did not resist. I imagined that he was telling himself, as he habitually did, that all was in the hands of God. Mama was napping with her head on Olga’s shoulder. Poor Anastasia was lying down, her back against the cold stone wall. Marie was amusing herself playing hopscotch under the big iron bells, avoiding the ropes that hung down from them through holes in the floor and humming softly along with the choir.
There was a snapping sound as Michael managed to cut away the last of the ice around the trap door and pull it down into the room. Immediately Daria squeezed through it and went outside to watch for her sister.
Only a few hours to go, I told myself. Only a few hours, during which the guards would follow Georgy and his family, believing them to be us. Meanwhile we would only have to wait, in safety, for our rescuers to arrive.
Sixty
We were all drowsing when we heard gunshots and the angry shouts of many men and a sudden, ear-splitting crash in the sanctuary below.
“They’ve broken in the doors!” Michael said, looking at his watch. “It’s ten-thirty. They’ve come looking for us. Quick! Out on the roof! They won’t find us out there!”
Without warning the bells began to ring, the sound so deafeningly loud that it hurt our ears and we instinctively began running down the stairs to escape it.
Michael grabbed my arm. “No! No, Tania! Not that way! Out on the roof! It’s our only chance!” But his voice was all but lost in the din, and mama was screaming, loudly and continuously. More crashes came from downstairs, but the gunshots had diminished.
“Romanov! Romanov! We know you are up there! Come down at once!” I heard a gruff voice say. It was not the voice of the Bayonet.
Papa was shaking his head, as if to shake the painful vibrations of the horrible clanging bells out of his wounded ears. Mama’s screams seemed to get even louder.
“Romanov! Come down or we will come up there and shoot you! We know your family is there with you!”
“Give yourself up,” came another harsh voice, “or we will burn Tobolsk to the ground, and kill every soul in it!”
“Oh no! Oh no!” mama cried out again and again.
Michael was tugging at my arm, Alexei struggling to get up off the floor, and my sisters seemed frozen in fear, looking in papa’s direction, no doubt expecting him to tell them what to do.
“Stop that ringing!” papa shouted. “Stop it at once!”
Surprisingly, the ropes grew slack. The bells stopped their urgent pealing.
Slowly papa began descendin
g the stairs.
“Take off your mask, Romanov,” came the gruff voice.
“But you are not our guards!” I heard papa reply. “Who are you!” It was more an accusation than a question.
“Who we are is none of your concern, exploiter!”
“Are you the ones they call the Red Guards?”
“We are sent by the Ekaterinburg soviet, to arrest you all!”
“Are you sent by the commissar, Yuri Pyatakov?” papa was asking.
“The traitor Pyatakov has been shot. We are sent by the new soviet. Where are the others in your family?”
“They are of no importance to you. Take me. Let the others go.”
“My orders are to arrest every one of you. Husband, wife, one son and four daughters.”
So they don’t know that Michael or Daria or Iskra are with us, I thought. What has happened to Georgy and his family? Where are the guards from the Governor’s Mansion?
“Unless you all come at once we will burn the town. Beginning with this place of superstition. Torches!”
I heard a susurration of footfalls. I thought I smelled smoke, but it may have been my imagination, born of dread.
“Savages!” papa shouted.
“It is you, exploiter, who are the savage! I tell you for the last time, all of you, come at once or Tobolsk will be destroyed.”
“Tania!” Michael whispered urgently. “You must come now!”
Daria came through the trap door, shivering. “So many people out there in the street,” she said. “They came when the bells started ringing. I can’t see Niuta. What will become of my Iskra?” She wept.
“Quiet!” I said. “Papa is giving himself up. They don’t know you are here, or Michael. Go back outside!”
“But what is happening? Where are the others?” For mama, Alexei and my sisters had begun to go down the stairs, following papa. I felt a strong urge to go with them, but Michael held me in his strong grip.
“Quiet!” he whispered to Daria and me. “Don’t talk! Don’t move!”
“All of you!” came the gruff voice. “Take off your masks at once!” He paused, then said, “Where is the fourth daughter?”
The Tsarina's Daughter (Reading Group Gold) Page 31