“Thank you, Vladimir.” She went to make her grandmother a cup of tea, and when she slipped back into her room she found her almost delirious. Her face was white-hot, and her whole body seemed to have shrunken in a matter of hours. Zoya realized suddenly how much weight she had lost recently. It wasn't as apparent when she was dressed, but now she looked desperately frail, and when she opened her eyes, she had to struggle to see who Zoya was.
“It's me, Grandmama … shh … don't talk.” She tried to help her sip the tea, but Evgenia only pushed it away, muttered to herself, and then slept again. And it was daybreak, before she stirred and spoke. Zoya had been sitting in the chair, watching her, and she hurried to her side to hear the words. Her grandmother had been waving her hand, and Zoya approached quietly, gave her a sip of water for her parched lips, and gave her some of the medicine the doctor had left, but she could see that she was much worse.
“… You must …”
“Grandmama … don't talk … you'll tire yourself.”
The old woman shook her head. She knew better than that. It didn't matter now.“… You must thank the American for me … tell him I am very grateful to him … I was going to pay him back….”
“For what?” Zoya looked confused. Why was she grateful to Clayton? For leaving them? For abandoning her and going back to New York? But Evgenia was waving weakly toward the tiny desk in the corner of the room.
“… Look … in my red scarf….”
Zoya opened the drawer, and found it there. She pulled it out, put it on the desk, untied it, and gasped. There was a fortune there. Almost five thousand dollars when she counted it out. “My God … Grandmama, when did he give this to you?” She was stunned and she didn't understand. Why would he do something like that?
“He sent it when he left … I was going to send it back … but I was afraid … if you needed it … I knew he meant well. We will return it to him when we can….” But she was fumbling behind her bed as she spoke, looking for something she thought was concealed there, and Zoya saw that she was becoming agitated and was afraid it would do her more harm.
“Grandmama, lie down … please …” She was still stunned by the veritable fortune Clayton had sent. It was a grand gesture, but it made her angry at him again. They didn't need his charity. It was too easy to buy them off … but at what price, and then suddenly she frowned at the old wool scarf her grandmother held in her trembling hands, as she seemed to pull it from behind her pillow. It was the scarf she had worn the day they left St. Petersburg, she remembered it well, and now her grandmother held it out to her, a small smile on her pale lips.
“Nicholas …” she could scarcely speak, as tears filled her eyes,”… you must keep it safe, Zoya … take good care of it … when there's nothing left, sell it … but only when you are desperate … not before … there is nothing else left.”
“Papa's cigarette case, and Nicolai's … ?” she asked, but the old woman shook her head.
“… I sold them a year ago … we had no choice,” but Zoya heard the words like a knife to her heart. There was nothing left of them now, no trinket, no souvenir, only memories, and whatever it was that her grandmother now held in her hands. Zoya took it from her carefully and unwrapped the scarf on the bed, and as she did, she gasped … she remembered it … it was the Easter egg Nicky had given Alix when Zoya was seven years old … it was incredible, made by Fabergo, it was a veritable work of art. The Easter egg itself was of a pale mauve enamel, with diamond ribbons circling the enamel gracefully, and a tiny spring opened it revealing a miniature gold swan on a lake of aquamarine, and crying softly, she touched the lever she remembered beneath the wing. The swan spread its tiny golden wings, and walked slowly across her palm. “Keep it safe, precious one …” her grandmother whispered, and closed her eyes as Zoya wrapped it in the scarf again, and then gently took her grandmother's hand.
“Grandmama …” Evgenia opened her eyes again, with a peaceful smile. “Stay with me … please don't go …” She sensed that the old woman was more comfortable, she seemed to breathe more easily.
“Be a good girl, little one … I have always been so proud of you …” She smiled again as Zoya began to sob.
“No, Grandmama …” The words were a farewell, and she wouldn't let her die. “Don't leave me alone, Grandmama … please …” But the old woman only smiled and closed her eyes for a last time. She had given her final gift to the child she had so loved, she had brought her safely to a new life, had watched over her, but now it was over.
“Grandmama …” Zoya whispered in the silent room, but Evgenia's eyes were closed. She was resting peacefully. Gone with the rest of them. Evgenia Peterovna Ossupov had gone home.
CHAPTER
26
They buried her in the Russian cemetery outside Paris, and Zoya stood silently beside Prince Vladimir, and a handful of people who had known Evgenia. She hadn't been close to any of them. Her years in Paris had been spent mostly with Zoya, and she had no patience with the complaints and depressing memories of the other émigrés. She was occupied with the present and not obsessed with the past.
She died on the sixth of January, 1919 in the tiny apartment, the same day Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep, and Zoya sat staring out the window, stroking Sava.
It was impossible to absorb the events of the past few days, more incredible still to think of a life without her grandmother. She was still amazed by the imperial egg her grandmother had concealed for almost two years, and the money Clayton had given her when he left. It would be enough for her to live on for the next year, if she lived carefully, and for the first time in years, she had no desire to dance now. She never wanted to see the ballet again, never wanted to do anything again. She just wanted to sit there with her dog and die quietly. And then she thought guiltily of how angry her grandmother would be at her for those thoughts. Her grandmother had been committed not to death, but to life.
She lived quietly for a week without seeing anyone, and she looked thinner and very pale, when Vladimir knocked on her door. He looked quiet and strained, and he was obviously worried about her, and she was startled when she saw that there was someone standing just behind him in the dark hall when she opened the door. Perhaps he'd brought the doctor to check on her, but she didn't want to see anyone, and the doctor least of all. She was wearing black wool stockings and a black dress, her red hair pulled severely back in sharp contrast to her ivory face.
“Yes?” Vladimir hesitated as he spoke. He had almost been afraid to bring him there, afraid the shock would be too great for her, but he knew that they had to come. “Hello, Vladimir.” Without saying a word, he stepped aside, and she gasped as she saw Pierre Gilliard behind him.
His eyes filled with tears as he looked at her, it seemed a thousand years since they'd last met on the day she left Tsarskoe Selo. He took a step toward her and she fell into his arms. And then she looked up at him, begging him, barely able to speak through her sobs.
“Have they come at last?” Gilliard was the tutor the imperial daughters had studied with all their lives, and Zoya knew he had gone to Siberia with them, but unable to speak, he only shook his head in answer.
“No …” he answered finally. “No … they have not… ” She waited for more news from him, and feeling her body turn to stone, she walked inside to the ugly living room, as he followed her. He looked thin and worn, and desperately pale. Vladimir left them alone then. He closed the door softly as he went, and with head bowed, walked slowly down the stairs to his taxi.
“Are they all right?” Her heart pounded as she waited for Pierre Gilliard to speak, and as they faced each other in chairs, he reached out and took her hands in his own. Hers were like tiny icebergs, as Gilliard began speaking.
“I have only just now come from Siberia … I had to be certain before I came … We left them in Ekaterinburg in June. They told us we had to leave.” It was as though he wanted to apologize, but all she wanted to hear was that Mashka and the others were
all right. She sat in stunned silence, amazed just to see him there, as she clung to him with her icy hands trembling.
“You weren't there then when … when Nicholas …” She could not bring herself to say the words to him, but he understood and miserably shook his head.
“Gibbes and I had to leave … but we went back again, in August. They let us into the house, but there was no one there, mademoiselle.” He couldn't bring himself to tell her what they'd found, the bullet holes, and the pale traces of washed blood. “They told us they had moved them somewhere else, but Gibbes and I feared the worst.” She waited for the rest with a pounding heart, sure that there would be a happy end to it. After all this time, there had to be. Life surely couldn't be so cruel as to let the Bolsheviks kill the people she loved so much … one frail little boy, and four girls who had been her cousins and friends and their mother who loved them. It was bad enough that their father had died. It couldn't possibly get any worse than that. She watched his face as he went on, he closed his eyes, and fought back tears. He was still exhausted from the trip, and he had arrived in Paris only the night before, determined to see her.
“We arrived back in Ekaterinburg on Alexis's birthday, but they were gone by then,” he sighed. “We've been there ever since. I was certain, even when I saw the bullet holes in the house, that they were still alive.”
She felt her heart stop and stared at him. “Bullet holes. Did they shoot Nicky there in front of the children?”
“They killed Nagorny three days before … he tried to stop a soldier from stealing Alexis's medals. The Tsarevich must have been heartbroken, he'd been with him all his life.” Faithful Nagorny, who had refused to abandon them. Was there no end to it?
“In the middle of July the Bolsheviks told them that their relatives were going to try and rescue them and they had to be moved before their whereabouts could be discovered.” Zoya thought of Mashka's letters before that, telling her where they were. But who was it who tried to save them? “The bloody revolution had been raging since June, it was almost impossible to go anywhere. But they got them up at midnight and told them to dress.” His voice caught and Zoya clutched his hands so tightly, they ached, as his eyes reached into hers, two people left on a deserted island, the others gone … but where? She waited for the rest without saying a word. Soon, soon he would tell her that they were on their way to Paris. “They went downstairs, the Empress, Nicholas, and the children … Anastasia still had Jimmy with her,” Alexis's little spaniel, Pierre Gilliard began to cry again at the thought of it,” … and Joy …” Sava whined as though she knew her mother's name and he went on,”… The Tsarevich could no longer walk by then, he had been very ill …. They told them to dress and took them to the basement to wait for transportation … Nicholas had them bring chairs for Alexandra, and Alexis, and he was …” He could barely go on,“… he was holding him, Zoya, across his lap, when they came in … he was holding him when they opened fire.” She felt her heart turn to stone, it must have been the moment when they killed Nicholas, but Gilliard sobbed as he went on. “They shot them all, Zoya Konstantinovna … they opened fire on all of them, only Alexis lived a little longer than the rest of them, they beat his head in with rifle butts as he clutched his father … and then they murdered little Jimmy. Anastasia had fainted and when she screamed, they killed her with bayonets, and then,” he went on as Zoya cried silently, unable to believe what he told her. “They put them all into a mine, and covered them with acid … they are gone, little Zoya … gone … all of them … even poor, sweet Baby.” Zoya took him in her arms then and held him there as he cried. Even now, months later, he himself was unable to believe it. “We found Joy, one of the solders had taken her in, she was almost starved when they found her near the mine … crying for the children she loved. And oh, Zoya, no one will ever know how dear they were, or how much we loved them.”
“… Oh, God … oh, God … my poor little Mashka … murdered with rifles and bayonets … how frightened she must have been. …”
“Nicholas stood to stop them … but there was no stopping them. If only they had let us stay … but it would have made no difference.” He didn't tell her the White Russians had come to liberate Ekaterinburg eight days later. Only eight days. It might as well have been eight lifetimes.
Zoya looked at him with empty eyes. Nothing mattered now. Nothing would ever matter again … not to her … or to them … she buried her face in her hands and cried as he held her.
“I had to tell you myself … I'm so sorry … so very sorry …” Such small words for the loss of such extraordinary people. How little they had understood on that last day at Tsarskoe Selo, and she knew then that she should have stayed with them, the Bolsheviks could have killed her too … should have … killed her with bayonets and bullets, as they had killed Mashka, and all of them … and Baby….
He left her then, promising to return the next day after he had slept. He couldn't bear to look at her as he left, the broken eyes, the empty face. And when she was alone again, she clutched Sava to her, and rocked her back and forth in her arms as she cried, shouting into the emptiness, ‘Oh, Grandmama … they're gone … they've killed them all….” And in the end only one whisper left in the silent room as she said her name for the last time. … She would never be able to bear saying it again … she whispered softly … “my Mashka …”
CHAPTER
27
Zoya felt as though she were in shock for several days after she heard the news from Pierre Gilliard. Added to the pain of her grandmother's death was the agony of the knowledge of the execution. Dr. Botkin had died with the rest of them, Pierre told her the next day when he returned, which explained why none of her letters had gotten through, but there was no one to answer them anyway. And she knew that Grand Duke Michael had been shot too, a week before the execution of Nicholas and Alexandra and the children. Four more grand dukes had been murdered after that. The list was seemingly endless. It was as though they wanted to destroy an entire race, a whole chapter in history. And the details were brutal beyond description.
In the face of what she now knew, it was understandable that the Versailles Peace Conference meant little to her. For her, the war, and even its end, no longer held any meaning. She had lost her parents, her brother, her grandmother, her cousins, her friends, and her homeland, and even the man she loved had abandoned her. As she sat in the tiny apartment day after day, staring out the window, her life seemed like a wasteland. Pierre Gilliard came back to visit her several times before he left. He was going home to Switzerland for a rest, before returning to Siberia to help continue the investigation. But even that didn't seem important to her anymore. Nothing did. For Zoya, it was all over.
By the end of January, Paris was in high spirits again, and American soldiers seemed to fill the streets. There were parties and special performances and parades, all in honor of the dignitaries arriving from the States to confer at Versailles and celebrate the end of the Great Adventure, and usher in the new era of peace that was dawning.
But for Zoya, there were no celebrations. Vladimir came to visit her several times, after Pierre Gilliard left for Bern to join his wife, but Zoya barely talked as Vladimir sat watching her, afraid now for her sanity as well as her safety. The news had slowly spread to all of the émigrés, and there were endless tears, and silent mourning. The Romanovs would be sorely missed, and to those who had known them, never forgotten.
“Let me take you for a drive, little one. It would do you good to go somewhere.”
“I have everything I need here, Vladimir.” She looked at him sadly, and quietly stroked little Sava. He brought her food, as he had done when they first arrived. In desperation, he even brought her vodka. Perhaps, if nothing else, she could at least drown her sorrows. But the bottle remained unopened, the vodka untouched, like most of the food he brought her. She seemed to be wasting away, it was almost as though she was willing herself to die, anxious to join the others.
Several of
the women he knew dropped in on her as well, but more often than not, she didn't answer when they knocked. She just quietly sat there, waiting for them to go away, and sitting alone in the dark apartment.
By late January, he was frightened, and had even spoken to a doctor. There seemed to be nothing for them to do, except wait for the tides to turn. But he was afraid she would do something drastic before that
He was still thinking about her late one afternoon, as he drove his taxi to the Crillon, hoping for one of the important Americans to hail him. And then, as if it were an answer to a prayer, he looked across the street and saw him. He honked frantically, and waved, but the tall man in uniform disappeared into the hotel, and as Vladimir leapt out of his car, he prayed that it hadn't been an illusion. He dashed across the street and into the hotel, barely catching him as he stepped into an elevator. Clayton Andrews turned with a look of amazement as Vladimir called him. He stepped slowly off the elevator then, afraid that something terrible might have happened.
“Thank God it's you.” Vladimir sighed with relief, hoping that he would still be willing to see the girl. He wasn't sure what had happened between the two, but he knew that there had been some kind of estrangement before Clayton had left Paris.
“Has something happened to her?” It was all Clayton could think of as he saw the look on Vladimir's face. He had arrived the day before, and had had to force himself not to go and see her. But he knew there was no point in torturing himself or Zoya. They were better off like this. He wanted her to have a new life, and hanging on to her wouldn't help her to find it, no matter how much he missed her. He had barely reached New York, when they asked him to return to Paris to assist with the many meetings associated with the treaty at Versailles before leaving the army forever. And he had come back with considerable trepidation. He didn't know if he was strong enough to go back to Paris and not see her. “Is it Zoya?” he asked the tall Prince, frightened by the look in his eyes. It spoke volumes.
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