Anastasia's Secret

by Susanne Dunlap

  These were just comforting fancies. My other comfort, the warmth of Sasha’s arms, had been denied me since the beginning of the year. The heavy snow made it more and more difficult for us to meet, since I could not make the short walk outside at night without anyone noticing. At the very least, opening a door or window let in such a blast of cold and snow that the entire house felt chilled by several degrees, and it often took a long time to clear up the snow that had blown in, requiring buckets and mops and a lot of noise.

  During our enforced separation, I composed letters to Sasha in my head, since I did not dare write them down. The letters gradually evolved into poetry. I wanted my mind and heart to leap across the barrier between us. Those twenty or so feet could have been an ocean requiring a long voyage to cross, for all the contact we were able to have during that Siberian winter. I remember some of the poems I wrote. Perhaps they are silly. Here’s one:

  A curtain of snow between us,

  Soft, white, and pure.

  That such beauty can separate us

  Makes life impossible to endure.

  Silly, yes. But I ached so to see Sasha. The only times I was able to were when he happened to be among the guards who would come in and make what they called a domiciliary visit, which was only a less offensive way to say house search. They would go in pairs and dig through drawers and shake out books, looking for messages or for evidence that we had somehow broken the rules of our imprisonment. They always managed to find something suspicious: a letter Mama was writing in Old Church Slavonic; one of Alexei’s few toys, kept more for sentiment than use but that might have been employed to carry a message; books in English and French that they could not understand and were thought therefore to contain counterrevolutionary propaganda. I particularly remember one of the more unpleasant guards picking up a copy of Martin Chuzzlewit with his first finger and thumb and dropping it as though it had a bad smell into the satchel full of “evidence” they would bring back to the commander to pore over and sift through. Sometimes the books made their way back to us via Pankratov, but he had less and less influence as time went by.

  “The personal life is now of no importance,” Nikolsky announced one day, as if by a wave of his hand he could change millennia of human behavior and create a new order in the world. I wondered if he knew how imperious he sounded, and that my father, the supposedly evil tsar, would never have presumed to force his will on his subjects in such a way.

  The snow eventually stopped falling, leaving piles and piles of whiteness. In our small space outdoors, we began to build our own mountain to slide down and climb over. We made it quite gigantic. We brought buckets of water out from the house to solidify it. It was so cold sometimes that the water would freeze in the buckets on the way, so it became a game to run as quickly as possible and throw the water, watching some of the droplets crystallize in midair. It was our only project, and all of us with the addition of our tutors and Kolya Derevenko attacked it with determination and concentration. Some of the guards we had played draughts with helped us too. I noticed a few flirtatious gestures, and once thought I surprised a guard trying to give Tatiana a surreptitious kiss. I pretended not to notice, but she blushed so obviously that it was plain enough for anyone to see.

  Often we would end by throwing snowballs at each other and competing to build the mountain to its highest point before it was crushed down by clambering feet. When our mountain was done, we made makeshift toboggans out of wooden slats, and passed many hours in the winter sunshine sliding down its slope.

  Soon enough, life began to change and shift around us. In February, we learned that many of the guards from Tsarskoe who had become friendly with us were to be sent back to Petrograd, and a new division would replace them. On the eve of the guards’ departure, Nikolsky came to pay a visit to Papa.

  “The ice mountain must be destroyed,” he said.

  “Why on earth?” asked Papa, who had enjoyed seeing our progress as much as anyone.

  “You and Marie Romanova were seen climbing to the top of the mountain and looking over the fence into the town. This disturbs the townspeople.”

  “That’s absurd!” Papa replied and shook his head. Nikolsky didn’t look at any of us. No doubt he didn’t want to confront our disappointed faces.

  We gathered at the window to watch some of the same soldiers who had helped us create our whimsical ice slide now hammer it to pieces with picks and shovels. They looked as disappointed as we felt. What startled me most, though, was to see that Sasha was the soldier assigned to watch over the destruction. He stood by passively, only occasionally pointing out a vulnerable place that would undermine the structure and save some work for the men. I couldn’t help staring out the window, willing him to look up in my direction so that a silent signal could pass between us. But he didn’t. I hoped it was because he couldn’t trust himself to do it. I prayed it was not because he no longer wanted to see me, or wanted to forget what we had been to each other.

  “It’s sad, isn’t it?”

  Mashka had come up behind me and passed her arms around my waist, resting her chin on my shoulder. “Yes,” I answered, knowing that I was responding to more than she probably meant.

  “Let’s have some music this evening,” she said. “Alexei’s not feeling well, but you could play the balalaika. Not the sad songs, the lively ones. It always cheers everyone up.”

  “All right,” I said. “After dinner.”

  “Ah yes, dinner! How many courses will the servants bring us this evening?”

  It was a game we played, pretending that the meager rations we now had were in fact sumptuous feasts. “I believe we shall start with the soup.”

  “A clear soup for the first course, yes. And then a bread roll for the second course,” Mashka said, giving me the cue to continue.

  “And Papa will carve.” This started us laughing at the idea of our father ceremoniously carving up a roll into small portions for our large family, plus the suite and the doctors and the tutors.

  “Are you coming to Mama’s sitting room? It’s so cold in here,” Mashka said. I was watching from the one room in the house I knew would be empty just for that reason.

  “I’ll be along soon,” I said. Mashka knew enough to kiss me lightly on top of my head and leave without asking any more questions.

  In fact, it was always Mashka who could read the mood of the house. I was too involved in my own feelings to notice the changes in those around me. And I did not feel much like strumming cheerful dance tunes and comic songs on Sasha’s balalaika that evening. It would remind me too much of him. When we were seeing each other every second or third night, it used to make me feel as though he were touching me even when I was in the midst of my family. But now it had been almost a month, and he hadn’t even looked at me directly, let alone met me or spoken to me or touched me. Now the hollow wood of the balalaika seemed empty and forlorn, not full of unspoken promises.

  But Mashka was right. I had to be the one to keep everyone’s spirits up. They all expected it of me, and for me to appear hopeless or downcast would make everyone feel worse.

  It was while we were playing and singing in Mama’s sitting room one evening about a week later that Pankratov and Nikolsky came in to see us, not wearing uniforms, but in ordinary street clothes.

  After some clearing of his throat, Pankratov spoke. “It has been decided… we are obliged to … well, we wanted to tell you ourselves—”

  “We have been asked by the new soldiers to resign, and we are to be replaced by a Bolshevik commissary from Moscow,” Nikolsky interrupted, having bristled with impatience at Pankratov’s stuttering and stammering.

  Papa stood and approached them. We all had our eyes upon him as he walked forward. “When must you leave?” he asked.

  Pankratov, having got over the news itself, found his tongue again. “We’re leaving tomorrow. We have no desire to be here when the new commissary arrives. Things are so uncertain.”

  Papa nodded. Then
he put out his hand to each of them. “You have been fair, and treated us with respect. I—we—shall miss you.”

  Nikolsky stood erect, but I could tell even he was affected. Pankratov sank to his knees and kissed Papa’s hand.

  “No, no, that is all at an end. I am no different from you or from any of the men in the guardhouse. Go with God.”

  We all felt unaccountably sad about the departure of our principal captors in Tobolsk. They had been the authors of many petty regulations that had made our lives less tolerable. And yet, we knew them, and now once more we had no idea what would happen next.

  Mama spoke from her couch just before the two men left. “Will Kobylinsky stay?” He had somehow managed to remain as the commander of the guards, and had become more and more our friend and protector.

  “He remains, but will no longer be in command. The soldiers have elected Lieutenant Galliapin to take over the day-to-day operations.”

  I couldn’t help myself, and I gasped aloud. Everyone looked at me. Thinking quickly, I said, “I think he is much to be feared.”

  “Galliapin? He’s a bit severe, but fair nonetheless.”

  “Which one is he?” Mama asked.

  “The one with the patch over his eye. He was wounded in action, at Tannenberg.”

  Papa nodded. “Then he has sacrificed something of himself for Russia. We shall trust him as much as we can.”

  I tried not to look at Alyosha, but he sauntered over to where I sat and positioned himself so that he could give me a sharp pinch on the arm. I ignored it.

  “I think it is clear that we need to watch what we do. I want you girls to keep your distance from the guards from now on.” Papa swept his eyes over us, still lumping us together as a group rather than as individuals. I saw that all my sisters looked down or away from him. Perhaps their hearts had been touched in some way too by the young men who were the only familiar faces we ever saw besides the suite.

  But if they had been, what they felt was nothing to what was going through me at that moment. My heart spun around in my chest to hear Sasha talked over like this in Mama’s parlor. I wanted to jump up and say, “You don’t know him! He is the best, the bravest, most honorable man and I am in love with him!” But I knew I could never admit it now. He had become too visible, too important. I suddenly felt that our love was ruined. How could he meet me now, even when the weather improved?

  I was almost grateful that there had been other news to dampen everyone’s enthusiasm for music and laughter, because I didn’t think I could bear to pluck another string on Sasha’s balalaika that evening.

  CHAPTER 29

  I can hardly bear to think about that month when Sasha and Colonel Kobylinsky shared control of the guards. Sasha distanced himself more and more from us, while Kobylinsky did the opposite. The colonel had become a representative of the old regime to the men, and they paid almost no attention to what he said. He became more and more friendly with us, and I began to realize that he would have liked to do something to help us escape.

  In fact, one evening after the members of the suite had been escorted back to their house across the street and Kolya Derevenko had gone home to his mama in the town, Kobylinsky returned to speak with Papa and Mama. We were all on our way to bed, but when I heard the colonel come in, I hung behind, pretending to look at the moon out of the window in the darkened hall.

  “There are people on the outside who want to help,” he said very quietly to Mama, Papa, Trina, and Zhilik, who still stayed up with them, finishing a long game of bezique.

  “What would they do? How could it be arranged?” Papa asked.

  “There is not yet a Bolshevik presence here in Tobolsk. The townspeople are on your side. If you would consent to be taken out of the country, to Japan or Afghanistan, you could make the journey before the Bolsheviks get here.”

  “Would the family remain all together?” Zhilik asked, in his still-not-very-good Russian.

  “We might have to separate some of you to avoid suspicion,” Kobylinsky answered.

  “I’m afraid,” Papa said, “that we cannot consent to have our family split up even for a short while.”

  Silence followed. Then I heard the low voices of Trina and Zhilik earnestly entreating Mama and Papa to consider the plan.

  “No.” It was Mama. “I know you are trying to help, but our family, and Russia … it would mean leaving everything we cared about and fought for. It would be death for both of us.”

  “I very much fear, Your Majesties, that staying will be death for certain.” Kobylinsky clicked his heels together, and I knew from having seen him do it many times before that he bowed to them. He would have to cross the hall to leave, so I ran through it to our bedroom, where my sisters were already covered in blankets and trying to get to sleep.

  “What did Kobylinsky come back for?” Tatiana asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “I didn’t hear what they spoke about.”

  Tatiana leaned up on one elbow. “I know that’s not true, Nastya. You have to tell us.”

  She was right. I couldn’t keep such important matters from them. They had as much right to know as I did. I repeated the conversation as accurately as I could.

  “You mean, we could be free?” Olga said.

  “Except Papa and Mama won’t agree to it, because they don’t want to leave Russia or split us up.”

  “I would never want to leave Mama and Papa,” Mashka said. “I’d rather stay here and face whatever is coming with them.”

  The three others of us sighed almost in unison. Of course we loved our parents and Alexei and each other, and none of us could imagine being separated. But as conditions continued to worsen for us, we realized that we were all in danger. The soldiers could decide anything any day. Most of those who knew us and felt kindly toward us had gone, and the new ones barely smiled, let alone talked to us.

  “Would you ever think of running away if someone helped us?” I asked Tatiana.

  She thought awhile before answering. “No. I could not leave Mama. She is too unwell. It would kill her. And Alexei could not do it because of his illness, and it would be unfair to leave him.” The analytical Tatiana had thought it all through.

  “What about you, Olga?” I asked my oldest sister, who at twenty-three no doubt had imagined quite a different life for herself by this time.

  Olga just stared at me with her wide eyes, letting me read her thoughts there. They seemed much like my own: there was no way to choose. Either thing was completely unthinkable. We were doomed if we remained. We would be desolate if we left.

  We blew out our evening candle and jointly pretended to go to sleep.

  The next day was Carnival, the night before the solemn season of Lent began and the world went into a period of mourning for the life of Jesus. Carnival used to be one of our favorite days. We always had performers and acrobats come to the palace, and we dressed up and acted silly. It was a joyous day, even though it ushered in weeks of abstinence and quiet. The city of Tobolsk was no exception when it came to celebrating Carnival. Whatever the Bolsheviks were trying to do elsewhere, in these small, remote Siberian cities, religious life was still strong. When we heard the sound of loud, joyful music and cheers and laughter, we all went to the windows to look out. We watched as beribboned carts went by and the townspeople blew whistles, rang bells, and sang. Acrobats tumbled, jugglers tossed balls and other objects in the air, and the atmosphere of crazy revelry infected everyone—even the soldiers.

  Everyone, that is, except those of us imprisoned in the Governor’s House. The contrast between what was happening in the town and the quiet monotony of our life was intense. Most other times, we could pretend what we did was normal. We took family photos as though we were on vacation in Livadia: Here’s Papa and Zhilik sawing wood; there we all are sunning ourselves on the roof of a greenhouse; there is Mama in her chair, knitting. Except for the sadness that none of us could entirely banish from our eyes, we were simply a family like everyone
else. We awaited the photographs just as we always did. Only now, instead of having one of the servants take the roll of film to the palace darkroom, we gave our roll to Kobylinsky and he sent a guard to a local chemist’s shop to get it developed for us. We didn’t take as many pictures as we used to, now that we were living on such reduced means. But we couldn’t give up the practice entirely. Mama kept most of the family photographs when we came to Tobolsk—nineteen albums. She browsed through at least one of them every day.

  When I was younger, I would have eagerly taken pictures of the Carnival spectacle as it passed, looking for that moment when the elements would come together and tell a story. The little boy refusing to smile, dressed up like a clown and being tossed into the air by his papa, who has already been at the vodka. The bear on a chain, head hanging down, obviously cowed by his mean owner, who pretends for the sake of the crowd that the bear is a fierce and dangerous animal. And if I caught just the right moment, you would see the look in the bear’s eyes that says he knows he is stronger than that oaf who feeds him or denies him food at his pleasure, and that he is waiting for the day he will turn on the man and destroy him.

  Like the Bolsheviks and Papa. But Papa wasn’t mean. Not intentionally. Yet the people must have had some feeling that it was he who caused famine and privation. Or they had been told that, anyway, by those who wanted to seize power.

  The shouting and singing went on into the night. The guards themselves had been given an extra ration of vodka, and we could hear the laughter from the guardhouse all through the day, while we ate our quiet dinner and as we were preparing for bed.