The Kitchen Boy

by Robert Alexander

  I never learned who discovered the envelope I hid in the bathroom, but it soon fell into Komendant Yurovksy’s hands, who in turn sounded the bloodthirsty alarm. And the discovery of that note from the Tsar to his would-be rescuers, his “Officers,” caused a terrible fright among the kommunisty. Expecting imminent defeat and seeing monarchist spies in every shadow and around every corner, some of the Reds fled into the forest and hills. Others slipped out of town and secretly crossed over enemy lines, where the double-crossing bastards swore allegiance to the Whites. Yet others, a core group of Reds, gathered at the American Hotel, a fine brick building down by the train station. It was there, in room number three, that these bloodthirsty Bolsheviki celebrated, for at last here it was, their excuse, and to Moscow they issued an urgent request:

  … to destroy him and the family and relatives of the former Tsar… In case of refusal… we have decided to carry out this decree using our own forces.

  Gospodi. Dear Lord. It was my fault that the note was found, that the plot to rescue them was exposed, and that the Tsar and his family were executed before they could be rescued. When I question myself, when I begin to doubt or even perhaps forgive myself, I take out my dossier. And I read these documents, and in each line I see the truth:

  The Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government is at the telegraph apparatus:

  In view of the enemy’s proximity to Yekaterinburg and the exposure by the Cheka of a serious White Guard plot with the goal of abducting the former Tsar and his family… For this reason: In light of the approach of the counterrevolutionary bands toward the Red capital of the Urals and the possibility of the crowned executioner escaping trial by the people (a plot among White Guards to try to abduct him and his family was exposed and the compromising documents have been found and will be published), the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet, fulfilling the will of the revolution, resolved to shoot the former Tsar, Nikolai Romanov, who is guilty of countless bloody, violent acts against the Russian people…

  We ask for your sanction… The documents concerning the plot are being expedited by courier to the Sovnarkom and the TsIK. We are waiting by the apparatus for advice. We urgently request an answer; we are waiting by the apparatus.

  Facts cannot lie, and in them I see that the stupidity of a young boy hastened the murder of the Imperial Family of Mother Russia and their four loyal attendants. Eleven people in total. But my guilt is even greater, for the Romanovs were more than simply people. Nikolai, Aleksandra, and their five children were the ultimate symbols, both good and bad, of all that was Russia, and their brutal murders unleashed such chaos and darkness. Yes, regicide opened the door to fratricide, matricide, and patricide of unimaginable proportion. Some twenty, thirty, forty million souls perished under the Reds, helped along in part by me, Leonka Sednyov, the kitchen boy, for if the plot to save the Tsar had succeeded, what corner might history have turned? Might Nikolai have rallied his troops in the depths of Siberia and gone on to defeat the Bolsheviki? Would that gentle, misdirected Tsar have finally found the good direction he had searched for all along, and would he then have been able to lead his people and country back to sanity? I burn with the thoughts of what needn’t have been and what might have been. And yet in a corner of my tired heart I still believe in the Russian people, that given the light, the life, and the opportunity a great future awaits them.

  Meanwhile, of course, Yurovsky and the others were greatly dedicated to the destruction of the bourgeoisie and the creation of a workers’ paradise, and yet… while they were most eager to murder the family to cement their cause, there was great hesitation on their part to take any definitive action. After all, Yurovsky, unlike many of those beneath him, was a professional revolutionary, and orders had to be issued and obeyed, the chain of command had to be followed. Consequently, many urgent communications were sent to the Red tsars in Moscow.

  To Moscow, Kremlin, to Sverdlov, copy to Lenin.

  The following has been transmitted over the direct line from Yekaterinburg: “Let Moscow know that for military reasons the trial agreed upon… cannot be put off; we cannot wait. If your opinions differ, then immediately notify without delay.”

  “Trial” was the code word for “murder,” and the confirmation thereof did not come from Moscow until midnight, which was why the family was not led down those twenty-three steps until after one in the morning on July 17. In the meantime, Yurovksy went about preparing and arranging it all, getting everything ready. He chose a room in the cellar with no exit, a barred window, and soft plaster walls that might prevent ricochets. He ordered a truck ready to transport the bodies. Just in case any guards of the outside detachment might disagree with the executions, he had their commander, Pavel Medvedev, confiscate their Nagant revolvers, some twelve in total. So confident was Yurovksy of Moscow’s approval that he even told Medvedev: “Tonight we will shoot them. Alert the detachment so they won’t be alarmed if they hear shooting.”

  In my books I have since learned that earlier that afternoon Yurovsky and the murderers, all of whom were volunteers, not only agreed upon who was to shoot whom, but decided in an almost kind way that they should aim for the hearts so the victims wouldn’t suffer. My fate was also decided then. Yurovsky and his Red comrades had no way of knowing that it was I who had been the secret courier all along, they had not an inkling that it was I who had hidden the note in the WC. Had they even suspected I would surely have been killed as well. Instead, they misperceived me as an “innocent” and decided there was no need to kill me, a mere boy, simply because of my association with the royals. Hence, my fate was cast, I was “saved,” assigned instead to this long life of memory.

  Some have written that it was the morning of the sixteenth that I was taken away, others the afternoon, but, no, it was that evening, just after dinner. Of course it was after dinner. I was washing the dishes in the kitchen when in came the guard, the young one with the blond beard, who was one of the few who’d survived the recent change in komendanti.

  “The komendant requires you.”

  I all but panicked. “Wh-what?”

  “Follow me.”

  Bozhe moi! My God! My first thought was the note, that I had been found out, and I all but dropped the dish in the metal tub. Too scared to say anything, I turned to cook Kharitonov, who stood stirring tomorrow’s soup on the oil stove.

  He stared at me, wiped his hands on his apron. “Well, go on, boy.”

  Demidova, the maid, came in just then, a stack of soiled plates in hand, and seeing the odd scene, asked, “Has something happened?”

  “Leonka has been summoned by the komendant,” explained Kharitonov with a shrug.

  I pulled my hands from the dishwater and dried them on a towel. Was I to be interrogated? I was so afraid, so scared, but said nothing.

  “Come,” ordered the guard.

  Trembling, I looked at Kharitonov and Demidova, yet knew I had no choice but to go, not realizing that my fate – life! – would be worse than anything I could yet imagine. And so I left the Imperial Family without the slightest farewell, which in turn has left my entire life incomplete. I followed the guard from the kitchen, through the back hall and out another door into the front of the house. He led me right into the komendant’s room, where Yurovsky himself sat at the table, drinking his evening tea. I expected to be given quite a dressing down, but instead Yurovsky spoke quite calmly and evenly, not a trace of suspicion in that unpleasant voice of his.

  “You are being removed from this house, young man. You are to follow this guard outside and through the gates. He will escort you to the Popov House, where you are to remain until further notified. Is that clear?”

  This was the last thing I had expected, and I struggled to understand, struggled to make sense of this, and asked, “But… but why?”

  “You are to wait for your uncle, who will come for you. He will then escort you back to your hometown.”

  Although I had no idea a
t the time, this was a lie, a very clean lie, and I said, “But… but, Comrade Komendant, what about…?”

  “Your services are no longer required.”

  “What about my things?” I asked, though I had but few possessions.

  “One of the guards will bring them to you.”

  “May… may I say good-bye to the family and others?”

  Yurovsky slurped at his tea. “Nyet.” And then to the guard, he imperiously ordered, “Take the boy away.”

  I was thus herded out of The House of Special Purpose, too scared, too confused, to question or protest. What did this mean, that Yurovsky hadn’t found the note after all? That I wasn’t suspect? That I was really dismissed and was being sent home to Tula province? I knew the times, how difficult and hateful they were, and so I kept my mouth shut as I was escorted out of the house, down the outside steps, and through the double palisade. But, oh, how I wish I could have said good-bye, at least that, yet there was no way. Even then I understood. I was helpless, powerless, and as I followed the guard along the edge of Ascension Square and down the little lane to the Popov House, I realized that protest was as useless as… as trying to strip a naked man.

  So I had no choice. I left. I was taken to the Popov House, where all the outside guards were billeted, shown a cot in a side room, and ordered not to leave. Years later, when all the books started coming out and the archives were opened, I learned how much my disappearance disturbed the family. Even Yurovsky commented on this, later writing:

  … the boy was taken away, which very much upset the R-ovs and their people.

  So they were fond of me, more than I could have ever imagined. Apparently they thought of me as one of their own, and Aleksandra herself was so concerned when I was taken away that she sent Dr. Botkin to speak with Yurovsky, who in turn recorded this conversation as well.

  “But what about the boy,” asked the good doctor. “Where is he? When is he coming back? His father is at the front, and Nikolai Aleksandrovich and his wife feel very responsible for him.”

  “You have nothing to worry about,” replied Yurovsky, calming him down with another of his easy lies. “Leonka is visiting his Uncle Vanya.”

  By then, of course, Uncle Vanya was already long dead, killed Bolshevik style, that is, shot in the back of the head like a mad dog and dumped in a ditch.

  Later, while her parents were playing cards, Grand Duchess Maria apparently went to the komendant as well, pleading, “Can you tell us, sir, if Leonka will be returning yet tonight?”

  “He will not.”

  “Then tomorrow morning perhaps?”

  “Perhaps…”

  I sat terrified in my new quarters until one of the guards brought me my few things, whereupon I finally lay down. I curled up, using my jacket as a blanket, but of course I couldn’t close my eyes, couldn’t succumb to the lingering twilight of the Siberian night. And while the billeted guards were laughing and drinking in the other room of the Popov House, I crawled out of bed and went to the window. Across the alley and up the slight hill, The House of Special Purpose, massive and white, sat entirely dark, save for one window. It was the front room, that of the Emperor and Empress, and the limed panes glowed like a moon behind a slight veil of clouds. It was in that room and about at that time that Aleksandra Fyodorovna sat at the small writing desk, recording her simple last words in her diary:

  Yekaterinburg 16 JULY

  Irina’s 23rd B.D.

  11°C Tuesday

  Grey morning, later lovely sunshine. Baby has a slight cold. All went out 1/2 hour in the morning, Olga and I arranged our medicines.

  3:00 Tatyana read Spir. Readings.3. They went out, T. stayed with me & we read: Book of the Pr. Amos & Pr. Obadiah. Tatted. Every morning the komend. comes to our rooms, at last after a week brought eggs again for Baby.

  8:00 Supper.

  Suddenly Leonka Sednyov was fetched to go & see his Uncle & flew off – wonder whether it’s true & we shall see the boy back again!

  Played bezique with Nicky.

  10:30 to bed. 15 degrees.

  Not quite two hours later the sound of a simple electric bell signaled the beginning of the end.

  17

  Even though I had been removed from The House of Special Purpose, I have read so many eyewitness accounts and studied so many documents, that in my mind’s eye I can picture it all as if it were a movie. We know, for example, that by eleven o’clock Nikolai was asleep, having escaped into the depth of darkness, for sleep was his only refuge from depression. And I am certain that Aleksandra, who had been sleeping so poorly, was tossing and turning next to him, madly listening for that midnight whistle that was never to be heard. Otherwise, we know that the only other prisoner who was awake was Dr. Botkin, who sat at the large desk off the living room, writing a prophetic letter to some friend, a certain Sasha. Botkin never finished the letter, of course; it languishes in the Moscow archives, exactly where the doctor broke off…

  My dear, good friend Sasha,

  I am making a last attempt at writing a real letter – at least from here – although that qualification, I believe is utterly superfluous. I do not think that I was fated at any time to write anyone from anywhere. My voluntary confinement here is restricted less by time than by my earthly existence. In essence I am dead – dead for my children, for my work… I am dead but not yet buried, or buried alive – whichever, the consequences are nearly identical… My children may hold out hope that we will see each other again in this life… but I personally do not indulge in that hope… and I look the unadulterated reality right in the eye… The day before yesterday, as I was peacefully reading Saltykov-Shchedrin, whom I greatly enjoy, I suddenly saw a vision of my son Yuri’s face, Yuri who died in battle in 1914. He was dead, lying in a horizontal position, his eyes closed. Then yesterday, again while reading, I suddenly heard a word that sound like Papulya – dear Papa – and I nearly burst into sobs. Again, this is not a hallucination because the word was pronounced, the voice was identical, and I did not doubt for an instant that my daughter, Tatyana, who was supposed to be in Tobolsk, was talking to me. I will probably never hear that voice so dear or feel that touch so dear with which my little children have so spoiled me. If faith without works is dead, then deeds can live without faith. This vindicates my last decision. When I unhesitatingly orphaned my own children to carry out my physician’s duty to the end, as Abraham did not hesitate at God’s demand to sacrifice his only son-

  Hard and shrill, the electric bell rang with a chill just then, shattering the peace of that midsummer’s night and interrupting Botkin midsentence. He immediately put down his pen without the slightest thought that he would never pick it up again. Instead, he focused on the bell, understanding that something was quite wrong, for that was the alarm that roused them for morning inspection, yet here it was now approaching one at night. Concerned, Botkin slid back his chair and stood. He adjusted his gold wire-rimmed spectacles and pulled at his leather suspenders. He could hear noises from beyond – noises from the room of the guards – and he glanced into the living room, where the manservant, Trupp, had been roused from his sleep and was now propped up on his elbows.

  “What’s happening?” asked Trupp, his eyes puffy with sleep.

  Botkin shrugged and ran one hand over his round balding head. “Bog znayet.” Only God knows.

  The door leading from the front halls rattled and opened, and Yurovsky emerged into the living room.

  Botkin stepped forward, and asked, “What’s the matter?”

  The komendant calmly replied, “The town is uneasy tonight and it’s too dangerous for all of you to remain upstairs. Would you kindly wake up Citizen Romanov and his family and ask them to dress as quickly as possible? For safety reasons all of you will be moved downstairs. This will only be for a short period, so instruct them not to bring anything at all along.”

  “Yasno.” Understood.

  As if he were inviting friends to the dinner table, Yurovsky’s summons to
mass murder was that easy, that simple. When the komendant disappeared, Botkin turned to Trupp, and the two men silently stared at each other, both of them wondering what this really meant.

  Finally, Botkin took a deep breath, screwed up his eyes, and said, “I’ll go wake them.”

  Wearing just an undershirt and his suspenders and pants, he crossed into the dining room, where he turned the switch for the electric chandelier. No sooner had the lights burst on than Nikolai appeared in the doorway on the opposite side of the room.

  “What is it?” asked Nikolai, wearing his nightshirt. “We heard the bells.”

  “By orders of Komendant Yurovsky we are to dress and move downstairs. He says it’s for our own safety – apparently there’s some sort of unrest in town.”

  “Unrest? What kind of unrest?”

  “This I cannot say, Nikolai Aleksandrovich. He simply told me to wake you and the others, and that we are to dress as quickly as possible and move to the cellar. He also said this will only be for a short while and that we are not to bring anything.”

  Nikolai hesitated in thought before beckoning Botkin forward. “What do you think, could this be it? Could our friends be on the way?”

  “Quite possibly, but it’s difficult to say.”

  “Have you heard anything – shots, horses – anything at all?”