Anastasia's Secret

by Susanne Dunlap

  But even with all our effort, we could not ignore the constant rumblings of disquiet outside the palace. Olga asked Papa about his command of the armies one evening, and we all expected him to say that he would soon be returning to Mogilev with Alyosha. But instead he said, “I have been advised … I believe … that it is more important for me to stay here at Tsarskoe Selo than return to the front. Much is happening with the government, and we have better men in command now. It’s vital that we have the unflagging support of all Russians in order to vanquish our foreign foes.”

  We took him at his word, and expected that he would be with us for a long time. Mama was visibly relieved, and even regained some of her strength to go and visit the hospitals. But one afternoon after dinner Papa came into Mama’s boudoir, where I sat reading while Isa was taking instructions from Mama about the sklady on the southern front.

  Papa looked annoyed and a little confused. “They insist I depart immediately for Mogilev!” he exclaimed, waving a telegram. He paced back and forth, talking all the while. “I cannot understand what is suddenly so urgent that I must leave matters here in a dangerous—”

  “Hush, Nicky!” my mother said, glancing in my direction. I had looked up, but I immediately pretended to pay the most rapt attention to the book whose pages I had only been skimming before.

  “Nonetheless, it is a bad time. But I suppose I must go.”

  Mama sighed and reached out her hand to him. “Aren’t you the tsar, darling? Can’t you give the orders?”

  He frowned. “I’m not obeying orders. I’m responding to the situation, which is clear.”

  Mama stood and approached Papa. “Don’t stay away a moment longer than you have to,” she said, drawing him to her. He kissed the top of her head.

  I often thought of that moment in the coming weeks.

  CHAPTER 14

  While Papa was gone to headquarters, Mama did something I had not known her to do in a very long time. Because of her shyness and her frequent illnesses, Mama only attended state functions when she had to. But something must have spurred her to push herself. She held two diplomatic receptions, one after the other on two days in early March. She invited all the foreign ambassadors and their assistants. Although I was not yet officially of age, I was allowed to go with my three sisters, I think because Mama needed the support of her entire family. I don’t remember very much specifically about those occasions except that they weren’t like balls, and there were no young officers waiting to ask a grand duchess to dance. So other than stand by and smile, enjoying the feeling of the long gown that Mashka had worn to her debut, and that only had to be taken in a little so that I could wear it, I kept my eyes trained on Mama.

  She was calmer than I had seen her for a long time. She had something to say to each of the guests, and I could read the surprise on everyone’s faces when she turned out not to be a haughty schemer but a gentle, interested lady. It was just like occasions I remembered watching from afar when I was little: the master of ceremonies, servants in satin livery with gold lace, and runners wearing feathered caps. I imagine the diplomats, who weren’t all from countries as wealthy as Russia, must have been very impressed.

  We heard about the strikes in Petrograd, of course, but all of us—Mama included—thought they would be resolved as soon as the government was able to get more food into the people’s hands. Protopopov had come several times to the palace to assure Mama that this was so.

  Then, in our own private world, disaster struck.

  My sisters and Alyosha and I were playing a game in his playroom, which consisted of trying to shoot each other with very realistic toy pistols.

  “Bang! I think I killed you, Alyosha,” I said. My brother stopped and was about to pretend to fall down, when his face became very pale. All of us stopped what we were doing at once.

  “Are you unwell?” Tatiana asked as we rushed over to him as a group.

  “I don’t feel good,” he said. He was almost white. I immediately thought he was having one of his attacks.

  “Do you have pain anywhere?” I asked, getting ready to fetch Nagorny from the next room, where we had banished him during our game.

  “All over. I can’t stand up.”

  He slid to the floor.

  “Nagorny!” I screamed and within an instant the sailor was with us.

  “He’s burning up with fever!” he said.

  “I’ll fetch Mama,” Tatiana said.

  “Olga, we should get Dr. Botkin.” I hadn’t realized how quiet Olga was until I noticed that she was sitting in a chair and looking very pale herself.

  “I feel rather peculiar,” she said. I went over and felt her forehead. It was very hot.

  “I think you’re sick too. Come, I’ll help you to your room.”

  “I’m just too tired to walk,” she said.

  “You can’t stay here. Come.”

  Nagorny had already carried Alyosha away, and Olga leaned on my shoulder so I could support her to her room. Dr. Botkin came and visited both of them, and what he said surprised us all.

  “Alexei is not having one of his attacks.” The doctor paused to sip his tea while Mama, Tatiana, Isa, Nastinka, and I waited for him to continue. “It’s measles. And it will make its way through all the susceptible very quickly. I suggest you make an infirmary so that when they succumb, the others can be tended easily alongside their family.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Mama looked relieved at first, then switched into her nursing mode. Within another day or two, Tatiana and Anya were also sick. That left only Mashka and I who had not had measles, and the other members of the suite, who had. We did what we could to help Mama, knowing that at some point we’d be occupying the remaining two beds in the infirmary.

  During a brief respite, Mama and I were sitting in her boudoir with Isa, reading letters. Nastinka, who would normally have been there too, had gone away to tend to a sick relative.

  “Isa,” Mama said, as she rested on a couch with a moist cloth on her forehead, “I must not ignore my friends at this time. It is vital that I help my husband at least insofar as I can. Please, telephone Mme Sazonova and ask her to come to lunch at the palace today.”

  The baroness nodded and sat at the telephone table, waiting for the exchange to put her through to the wife of one of our chief generals. I wasn’t really paying attention at first, but something in the expression on Isa’s face caused both Mama and I to sit up and watch her end of the conversation.

  “I see. No! It cannot be … Truly? I—we had no idea. Yes, yes, of course I’ll tell the empress. Immediately.”

  She replaced the phone in its cradle and held on to the mouthpiece for a while, as if trying to draw some strength from it. I always liked Isa. She was intelligent and kind, and devoted to Mama. But she also treated her court appointment as what it was—a job. She was always businesslike and practical, and one knew that if she said something, it wasn’t idle gossip or exaggerated to make an effect.

  When she turned her wide, frightened eyes upon us, I felt a chill deep inside. “She says she cannot come.”

  “What are you saying, Isa? What has happened?” Mama stood now and walked over to her.

  “She says that it would be impossible for her to reach the station. The—the Preobrazhensky Guards have mutinied. As have the Pavlovsky and the Volinsky regiments. Last night. They’re shooting outside with machine guns.”

  Mama was silent for a moment. Then, in a calm voice, she said, “Fetch Colonel Grooten to me. Perhaps it is not so bad as it sounds.”

  Isa left to do as Mama said. I sat holding my breath, hoping she would forget I was there so that I might hear what the colonel had to say. She sat at the desk and scribbled a note. Within minutes, the colonel and Isa had returned.

  “Tell me. Spare nothing. I need to know.”

  Colonel Grooten had always been a strong, kind man. But I could see that he was nervous talking to Mama then. “What precisely do you know, Your Majesty?” he asked,
listening closely while Mama told him what Mme Sazonova had said on the telephone.

  When she finished, she asked, “Is it true? How can this be and I not know of it?” Mama seemed more angry than frightened.

  “I wanted to tell you, only—” He stopped himself, as if he didn’t want to get someone else in trouble. “All I can say is that yes, indeed, it is true. We have been aware of the troubles for some time, and keeping a close watch on developments. Only certain of the regiments have mutinied. The palace guard and the Semyonovsky are still utterly loyal. There is nothing to be concerned about. The emperor has already sent troops to help the police restore order.”

  What he said seemed to reassure my mother. Perhaps, with her children and dearest friend so ill, she wanted to believe whatever good she could. But I could see that the colonel was hiding something. “Please send this telegram to the tsar,” Mama said to Isa. I breathed a sigh of relief, expecting that within a few hours as usual, a telegram would come from Papa explaining everything and telling us that all would be well.

  But no telegram arrived. Our dinner that night was quiet and tense. At every little sound, Mama expected the arrival of a message. Yet nothing came, and eventually we all went to bed.

  Mama returned to her nursing the next day, but I had a strange ache in my head. I thought at first it was only my anxious worry about what was going on in Petrograd, and the horrifying thought that the guard regiments had mutinied. But by that evening, to my annoyance, I had become ill with the measles too. While so many dramatic events occurred over the next week, I was only dimly aware of them. My fever rose and fell, the sores came and went. Mashka remained well for a few days longer before she too was stricken, and so she witnessed much that she was able to tell me later.

  What I do remember clearly, though, was Mama coming into our sickroom to tell us that the guards were practicing maneuvers, and we mustn’t be frightened if we heard gunshots. It seemed odd to me that they would do such a thing at night, but in the half-light of my sickness, the odd felt almost normal.

  I later discovered that Mama told us this after Isa had given her the distressing news: now the Composites themselves had mutinied and were on their way to the palace to seize her and Alexei.

  Mashka was with Mama the whole time. I didn’t hear about what had happened until the day after, when Mashka came to my bedside and whispered to me, “Count Apraxin and Count Benckendorff have come to stay at the palace and help us. Mama sent for them and requested that they ensure that the palace guard be instructed not to fire on the mutineers. She did not want any blood shed on her account.

  “Mama took me down to the basement to meet with the guards as they came in to warm themselves in groups. I was afraid, but Mama didn’t seem to be.

  “We went from room to room, talking to all the guards, Mama telling them that she knew they would be loyal to her, but that they mustn’t fire on the mutineers. There was to be no shooting. All would be well if only they did not shoot.

  “After that, we went outside. It was dark. The only light was from the snow, and all I could see was the metal on the guards’ rifles in the courtyard, all twelve hundred of them. It was quite a sight, Nastya! There they were, in battle order, the first row kneeling with their rifles aimed, the others standing behind them. They were so still, they looked like Alexei’s lead soldiers.”

  “Where were all the servants during this?” I asked.

  “They vanished. One moment they were here, the next—gone. Mama’s staff remains, though, of course. But they cannot do everything.”

  “But the attack. We’re here, so it must not have happened.” I was confused. I could understand what she was saying, but I was just ill enough not to be able to put it all together.

  “I don’t know what stopped it. No one fired a single shot.”

  “And so?” I asked.

  “We have heard that Papa is on his way back to us at last. His train was held up, though, and Mama is so anxious I fear she will make herself very ill. She telephoned Uncle Paul, who is supposed to be in charge of the defense of Petrograd. I heard them talking. Mama yelled at him, called him incompetent for leaving no better than factory worker reservists available to counter what is clearly becoming a revolution.”

  I think the word “revolution” was the last thing I heard her say before sinking into something between sleep and semi-consciousness. All I know is that it seemed as if no time at all passed before she came back.

  “Has Papa returned?” I asked, dredging up from my memory something she had said last time we spoke.

  “No.”

  I couldn’t understand it. “Why not?” I asked.

  “They keep promising he will come and then there are delays. But you’ll never guess what happened today,” she said, taking a quick look around to make sure Olga and Tatiana were asleep. “A deputation came, with a paper for Mama to sign. It was a manifesto, granting a constitution. Mama was furious. She said, ‘Me? You want me to sign this? On what authority?’ ‘You are the tsaritsa,’ Uncle Paul said. And she answered, ‘But I have no authority! I am not the tsar. If I sign this, I will be doing precisely what they accuse me of, and that I have not done.’ And she has refused to sign.”

  “Mashka,” I said, having only vaguely comprehended her news, “You must do something for me.”

  “You know I’ll do anything, darling,” she said, taking the cloth off my brow and soaking it in fresh, cool water.

  I pulled myself as upright as I could and gripped her arm. “You must get a message to the Semyonovsky barracks. It’s for Alexander Mickhailovich Galliapin. Write that I want to return his balalaika.” I lay back, exhausted from the effort.

  “I don’t know, Nastya! In these times, it seems rather silly.”

  “I can’t explain.” My mind was becoming foggy again after such a long stretch of concentration. I just hoped she would see that I meant it and do as I asked.

  The next day brought even more changes. I heard the band and the drums outside, and begged Mashka to tell me what was happening.

  “The Garde Equipage has been recalled to Petrograd.”

  “The colors are leaving the palace?” I asked, not really able to believe it. The standards of the guard regiments that flew wherever we were in residence were to go away. It was to be as if we were not there anymore.

  “Has Papa returned yet?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Where is he?” I felt the tears start in my eyes. It was the illness. Normally I never cried. I had begun to feel a bit better but was still very weak. “How are Olga and Tatiana doing?” I asked.

  “They are still not well. Tatiana has abscesses in her ears, and Olga has developed pericarditis.”

  Why was God doing this to us? Weren’t there enough troubles without all this sickness in our family? “At least you are well,” I said. Mashka smiled, but not with her usual cheerfulness.

  No time seemed to pass before the next day, when Mashka joined us in the sickroom. Her fever was so high she was delirious. Lili Dehn took over her place as mother’s nurse-helper, and I then had to persuade her to tell me what was going on.

  “There’s nothing any of us can do now, especially when we’re sick,” Lili said.

  “But I must know!” I cried. “I can’t bear it.”

  She sighed deeply, pulling a chair up to my bedside. “Your father was intercepted at Pskov, where a delegation met with him. They told him that the only way to avoid civil war was to abdicate in favor of the tsarevich.”

  “He did not do it!” I exclaimed. Sasha’s words echoed in my mind. But Lili’s downcast eyes told me otherwise.

  “Not exactly everything they asked. He refused to give the tsarevich to them, saying that at least they might grant him his family.”

  “So … Papa is …”

  “No longer the tsar.”

  “Then who is?” I could not imagine Russia without a tsar. It was inconceivable.

  “He gave the crown to the Grand Duke Michael.�
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  That could have been much worse, I remember thinking. Things would change, but the empire would survive. The Romanov dynasty. Yet Lili still did not look happy.

  “What? What more is there to tell me?”

  “We have just been told that your uncle has refused to reign. There will be no tsar, only a provisional government until something can be decided.”

  I closed my eyes against the news. I could not fathom what it would mean. It was too much to take in at once. When I am well, I thought, I shall think about it then.

  CHAPTER 15

  By the time Papa was able to come home after many delays, I was strong enough to get out of bed. It felt very odd the first time I dressed and walked—feeling rather wobbly—to my mother’s boudoir. It didn’t take very long, though, to see that much had changed.

  The first thing I noticed was the difference in the palace guard. Soldiers from the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Rifles came to replace the Composites, who simply didn’t exist anymore. The new guards were very different from the ones we used to have, some more than others. Their uniforms were sloppy, they slouched at their posts, and they didn’t really seem to have any officers, although Zhilik told me that the officers were supposed to have been elected by the men. No one showed Papa much respect, and we were likely to come upon soldiers wandering the halls at any time.

  At first, I was more bewildered than anything else. It was as if I had fallen ill in one world and awakened in another, where everything was upside down.

  “Where did all the servants go?” I asked Tatiana one morning as we sewed in Mama’s boudoir, with Alexei looking at a large photograph album.

  “Most of them ran away when they heard the news of Papa’s abdication, and that the soldiers had mutinied.” We spoke in hushed tones; I mouthed the words so Tatiana would understand me despite the fact that she was nearly deaf in one ear because of the abscesses they had to drain. So long as we were quiet and secretive about it, it seemed as if we could keep everything at bay. Saying the words out loud would make the changes all too real.