Anastasia's Secret

by Susanne Dunlap

  “Why are there so many soldiers around the palace?”

  “Mama was arrested.”

  I gasped. “Arrested? Why?” It seemed so odd to have her calmly sitting as she was when the Provisional Government had basically accused her of being a criminal.

  “They say she is a traitor, that she conspired with Grigory against Russia.”

  “It is time for your lessons, Anastasie,” my mother said, interrupting our muted conversation before I had time to comprehend what Tatiana told me.

  “Must I yet?” I asked. “Can’t I have a few days just to rest?”

  “Come, Anastasie. We can do some drawing today.” Trina had risen on Mama’s cue and held out her hand to me as she had when I was ten. I knew she meant to be kind, but I felt quite angry about being dismissed to the schoolroom. Doubtless Mama wanted me to go away so she could talk to Tatiana about things she thought I was too young to hear. But I didn’t want to make a scene, so I went with Trina—without taking her hand. As soon as we reached the schoolroom I took out my drawing pad and pencils and sketched a soldier I could see from the window, who was asleep at his post.

  After a long silence I asked Trina, “Who is left here? Please tell me. I know what’s going on.”

  “Do you indeed?” Trina said, not really asking a question.

  “Yes. I do. I know Papa had to abdicate, and Mama has been arrested. Now I’d be grateful if you would stop treating me like a baby and tell me the rest.” I laid down my pad and pencil, crossed my arms over my chest, and put my feet up on another chair.

  Trina looked quite uncomfortable, but she did as I asked. “There is your family of course,” she began. “And M. Gilliard, although they won’t let Mr. Gibbes in because he was at the Catherine Palace in his apartments when the arrest was made, and since then they’ve been strictly controlling who may come and go. So Alexei’s lessons have been somewhat curtailed. Baroness Buxhoeveden, Lili Dehn, Countess Hendrikova, Count Fredericks, Count Benckendorff, Count Apraxin …” She stopped to think for a moment. “And oh yes, Prince Dolgorukov has come to stay with your papa. And Anna Demidova is still here to take care of your mama, along with Dr. Botkin and Dr. Derevenko, and the maid Madeleine Zanotti. Then there are the officers …” She held up her fingers, counting off the members of the household, who were once too numerous to list in that way. “… General Voyeikov and Colonel Grooten, and the valets—Chemodurov, Volkov, Sedner. There are enough cooks and footmen to do for us, as well as the barber, butler, and wine steward. The faithful servants have remained.”

  And I knew that Anya was in the sickroom, having gotten measles herself and still suffering from them terribly.

  As I continued to gaze out the window, I saw Papa and Prince Dolgorukov walking in the garden. Papa looked small next to the tall, thin prince with his clipped mustache. The prince had a way of loping elegantly, like a wolfhound. Papa took about one and a half steps to every one of the prince’s, yet somehow he managed to look more regal and remain unhurried. They were followed by a motley group of half a dozen soldiers who kept right behind them whichever way they turned. How could Papa stand it? I thought. He loved to take his exercise outdoors. Now he had to wait for the soldiers to accompany him.

  I felt very alone while Mashka was still sick. I went to sit by her and read to her, but she was often delirious with fever. At those times, I would tell her all my secrets, as one would do with a favorite doll, feeling the relief of getting them off my chest, and the security of knowing they would go no further. I told her about Sasha, and how worried I was about him, that he had kissed me once, although sometimes I thought he still considered me a child. I wished I could have seen Sasha then, for things to go back to the way they had been. But I realized that would never happen.

  In fact, the more we tried to pretend everything was normal, the stranger it all became. One morning I went into Mama’s sitting room to find her kneeling by the fire, her correspondence scattered around her in piles. Isa was trying to help her sort it out. Mama was never very organized, but I had never seen a mess like that.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Paul—Count Benckendorff—has advised me to burn all my letters. He says they could be used against me if I am taken away. But I shall only burn the most personal ones. The others I intend to preserve so that my loyalty to Russia and your father’s loyalty might be proven by what we wrote to each other while we were tsar and tsaritsa.” Every once in a while Mama said or did something that reminded me she had officially been arrested and was a prisoner here in her own home. I tried not to think about the possibility that she might actually be taken away to be tried or imprisoned. It was inconceivable.

  Mama stopped what she was doing and looked around. I thought perhaps she would cry. But instead she just sat silently, very pale, her hands shaking a little. “Be a darling, Nastya, and bring Tatiana to me. You can take her place with Marie and Olga.”

  It hurt me to be sent away, but I knew that Mama got more comfort from Tatiana’s practical presence than from any of the rest of us—not counting Alyosha, of course, who was with Zhilik having his lessons.

  I went as Mama asked to the sickroom. It was rather restful in its way. Wherever else they went in the palace, the soldiers never entered the darkened room where the measles sufferers lay.

  On my way back to our floor, I saw through a window my father and Prince Dolgorukov setting out on their habitual walk through the park. They were flanked by eight soldiers with their rifles, bayonets fixed. Papa looked so harmless and vulnerable there, wearing a plain coat and a fur hat. They began to take their usual route, but then another soldier came running up and stopped them. I could not hear what was said, but they were turned back, and came trudging dejectedly toward the palace. I gathered they were no longer being allowed the run of the garden. Our garden. It was unbearable.

  There was still quite a lot of snow on the ground, and with few servants to care for the grounds anymore, it lay in drifts all around, except on the paths worn by the soldiers, and Papa’s daily walks. But what I saw next surprised and saddened me. Papa said something to one of his usual guards, who turned and spoke with the others around him. After some conferring, they apparently agreed on something, and one of them went off in the direction of the stables. A few minutes later he returned bearing two snow shovels. My father and Prince Dolgorukov reached out for them, and to my complete astonishment, began with great energy to shovel the snow from the courtyard area into large mounds.

  There was my father, bending his back like the meanest peasant, and yet he looked contented doing it. I moved on, continuing to the sickroom to deliver my message to Tatiana.

  Something about our situation brought the peasant songs of Russia into my head at the oddest moments. Perhaps it was because I no longer felt as if we were royalty living in a palace, but that the walls that separated us from the rest of the world had been torn down. I so wanted to bring out Sasha’s balalaika—half glad that Mashka had never conveyed my message to him, for what could he have done anyway?—but I was afraid that it would be taken away from me by the guards, who were suspicious of anything unusual. Once I accidentally created a great furor by sewing next to a window in the evening, and covering and uncovering a red-shaded lamp as I reached for my scissors. The guards burst in with their pistols out in search of the person who was sending a “secret message” out the window. They were a little embarrassed, to be fair, when they discovered what had actually happened. But that didn’t stop them.

  One morning I heard Joy’s excited yapping outside the schoolroom door, and an instant later Alyosha came bounding into our schoolroom and said, “Let’s play at being spies. I’ve got some clever guns in my playroom, and we can wear cloaks and sneak around trying to evade the soldiers.”

  Except for lesson times, it was very tedious reading and knitting and sewing all day. I knew I was too old for Alexei’s silly games, but he so enjoyed them, and it would be fun to try to beat the awful soldiers a
t their own game. “All right,” I said. I put down my book and ran with Alyosha to his playroom, which was bigger than ours, even though there was only one of him and four of us. But it didn’t matter, because we all played in both rooms at different times.

  As we approached, Joy started growling and baring her teeth. Alyosha opened the door and stopped so suddenly I nearly crashed into him. He grabbed Joy up into his arms to stop her from running in. “What are you doing in my playroom!”

  About half a dozen soldiers were methodically going through all the toy cupboards and chests, turning out their contents onto the floor. They had made a pile of toy guns and other weapons. “We have orders to confiscate all weapons or weapon-like items in the palace,” said one whose cheeks flamed red as he said it.

  “Weapons!” I cried. “These are toys! What use is there in taking them away?”

  A soldier whose uniform was dirty and face unshaven stepped forward slowly, tossing aside Alyosha’s favorite stuffed dog as he did so. At that gesture, Joy struggled free of Alyosha’s arms and flew at the man, her teeth bared. I knew Joy was in danger if she attacked any of our guards, so I ran forward and took hold of her collar, pulling her back as she struggled to lunge for the soldier.

  “I insist you leave this instant,” Alyosha said. He could put on quite a commanding voice when he chose to.

  The soldier that Joy had almost attacked glowered at Alyosha. “We don’t take orders from your papa anymore, and we won’t take orders from you. Men, complete the search.”

  We stood there, helpless, and watched them remove the most harmless of toys, anything with moving parts, including a train that Alyosha especially loved to play with. They threw them all into sacks and gathered in front of us. We were blocking the door.

  “You have more toys than a whole city of children,” the surly guard said. “There’s still plenty for you to amuse yourself with.”

  He marched forward, forcing us to step out of the way so they could all pass. Neither Alyosha nor I had the spirits to play after that.

  The day after Alyosha’s toys were taken, we received a visit from Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, who Tatiana told me was the minister of justice in the Provisional Government. The guards made a great fuss about the fact that he was coming, and those of us who were not ill had to wait for him in the small parlor the suite had made out of the rooms they were allotted within the palace.

  Kerensky entered at exactly the time we were told he would arrive, followed by several guards. He was not a tall man, but stood very straight. His face was sallow and there were bags under his eyes, as if he had not slept for a considerable amount of time. He spoke fast—sounding almost angry—and yet seemed nervous. Papa greeted him with respect that was almost cordial. Mama remained haughty. Kerensky held out his hand to her to shake, but I knew she did not want to touch him. Papa looked at her and she slowly extended her hand in return. She barely let him grasp it before she withdrew it again. Tatiana, Alyosha, and I stood quietly by, listening to every word.

  “This is the new commander of the palace, Colonel Korovichenko,” Kerensky said. Papa saluted the man who stepped forward, but everyone ignored him. “His men will take a tour of the rooms, and see that the regulations are being obeyed,” Kerensky continued. He snapped his fingers, and four more soldiers with rifles and bayonets entered.

  At first I didn’t recognize Sasha. He wore the uniform not of the Semyonovsky Guards, but of a common soldier. His face was unshaven, and his expression was hard. If it hadn’t been for the patch over his eye, I might not have known it was him. I found myself staring at him, until I realized that it would be a mistake to let on that we knew each other at all. With a great effort, I looked away, willing my face not to turn bright red and my heart to slow its pumping.

  “Make sure there are no weapons or counterrevolutionary propaganda in the palace,” Kerensky told them. They turned to leave, but not before I caught the quickest glint of an expression in Sasha’s eyes. He acknowledged me. That was something. But what was he doing here?

  “Are you all right, Nastya? Perhaps you should still be in bed,” Tatiana whispered, taking my hand. “You’re trembling!”

  I shook my head. “I’m all right,” I whispered back. I shuddered to think of these men searching Mashka’s and my room, finding the hidden balalaika and making Sasha take it away.

  We heard their heavy boots on the parquet hallways as they marched off. Kerensky turned to my parents. “The ex-tsaritsa is under investigation for anti-Russian activities.” I saw my father stiffen and his face turn red. Mama just became paler and paler. “I am instructed to remove all correspondence from your possession. If you will accompany the colonel.”

  Papa went with Colonel Korovichenko and the two remaining guards to his study. I soon saw soldiers passing the doorway of the parlor with boxes and boxes of papers. I knew that some of them were family photographs and letters Papa had received from us on those rare occasions when we were not together—something that had happened only when he was commander of the armies.

  While Papa was gone, Kerensky spoke directly to Mama. “I thought you would be pleased to learn that I have abolished the death penalty.” A quiver went through Mama’s frame, as if his saying that had some direct bearing upon her. “I hear from the soldiers that Mme Vyrubova is still here in the palace. She is a traitor to Russia.”

  “Anya is no such thing!” Mama said. She would not raise her voice in her own defense, but let someone she loved be accused and she sprang at the accuser like a lioness.

  “That is for the court to decide. We are going to arrest her.”

  “We are all under arrest here, as I understand, M. Kerensky.” Mama’s voice was even but tense.

  “She must go before the court. I have orders to remove her from the palace.”

  “But she is very ill! She is still in her sickbed.”

  “Does a doctor attend her?”

  “Yes, Dr. Botkin. Our physician.”

  “Have him brought here,” Kerensky commanded. It was jarring to hear someone order my mother to do anything.

  With no servants to ring for, Mama looked at Tatiana and nodded. Without a word Tatiana lifted her chin and walked out of the door. It took only a few moments for her to return with Dr. Botkin, whose eyes were round and frightened.

  “I understand you have Mme Vyrubova in your care,” Kerensky said, without making any introductions.

  “Yes, she is recovering from a dangerous case of the measles.”

  “You say recovering. Is she, in your opinion, able to be moved without peril to her health?”

  I wanted to say something so that Dr. Botkin would know that Kerensky wanted to move Anya to imprison her, not to protect her, but I could say nothing. I listened helplessly as he answered, “Yes, I believe she is well enough to move, provided she does not have to exert herself too much.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Kerensky inclined his head to him, showing more respect for a working man than for us, who until a few short weeks before had been the family to whom he was required to pledge his loyalty.

  Mama did not cry out, but in a quiet, desperate whisper, said, “No. Not Anya. She would not hurt a fly. She is my dearest friend.” The tears I had not seen her shed through all the dangers she had faced now coursed down her cheeks. Tatiana went to her and took her hand. Mama sank onto a chair, no longer able to support herself. Dr. Botkin rushed over to her as well.

  “Madame! What do you mean? Are you unwell?”

  She looked into his eyes. “You couldn’t have known.”

  Kerensky cleared his throat and said, “Anna Vyrubova is being confined in a place of safety prior to being put on trial for crimes against Russia.”

  At that moment the soldiers who had accompanied Kerensky, including Sasha, came back, having removed all my father’s correspondence and papers from his study. I discovered later that they had removed everything Mama hadn’t already burned from her boudoir as well. But that seemed somehow much less i
mportant than the gradual tightening of bonds, the diminishing of our circle, that began then.

  I could no longer prevent myself from looking imploringly in Sasha’s direction. He gave me the merest glance, but in it was something beyond what I saw in the other soldiers’ eyes, which was only hatred combined with curiosity. And as Kerensky took leave of us and prepared to arrest Anya, I noticed Sasha hang back a little. He casually put his hand in his pocket—something that would have been impossible in the days of the old army, when strict discipline was the rule—and placed his hand on a table by the door as he left. I saw the scrap of paper he deposited there, and waited until the doctor and Tatiana had taken Mama away to her room before rushing over and picking it up, hiding it quickly in my own pocket.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Let me help you,” I said to Anya, who stood looking forlornly at an open valise, two stern-faced soldiers waiting by the door. “You will need some clothes.” I quickly found underthings and a few simple dresses, guessing that she would not need very much. She gathered up her tooth powder and brush and a bottle of eau de cologne, a few icons, and a cross. The valise was not very heavy, but Anya was still so weak from her illness that she had to walk with her crutches. “I’ll carry it for you,” I said, lifting the case.

  “I must take my leave of the empress,” she said to the soldiers.

  “Our orders are to remove you immediately,” said one, whose beard was straggly and greasy with that morning’s breakfast. He was not one of the men who had come in with Kerensky.

  “Not without saying good-bye to my dearest…” She could not continue.

  “Please,” I entreated, “what harm can it do?”

  They turned to one another and spoke quietly. One of them walked away. The other said nothing, leaving us to guess what was happening, but I assumed his compatriot had gone to ask someone’s permission to allow the “dangerous” Anna Vyrubova to see the tsaritsa one more time.