The Last Days of the Romanov Dancers

by Kerri Turner

  Everything was a mess. Items from Valya’s dressing table were scattered all around, many of them broken. Strings of pearls decorated the floor, and the swan brooch Maxim had given her lay at the toes of Luka’s boots. And feathers. White feathers coated the room.

  But it was Valya his eyes went to. Valya, lying in the middle of those feathers, eyes closed, impossibly still.

  ‘Valya?’ It was a whisper, childlike and scared.

  He stepped over the mess and went to her, kneeling by her side. His hands touched her face, her shoulders; his fingers brushed her dark lashes. Still she didn’t move.

  Luka’s mind tried to lock itself in a little compartment where the truth of what he was seeing wouldn’t reach him. But it wasn’t fast enough. An anguished cry broke from his chest and rushed up his throat. He bit his lips so hard he tasted blood. A satisfying sting accompanied the metallic taste, making him bite harder. The blood gave him something to focus on as he bent to lift her into his arms.

  The physical pain kept at bay the greater agony that threatened to overwhelm him. But it couldn’t stop him noticing how heavy she was now that her limbs had stiffened and cooled. This had to be some kind of nightmare. But as he lay her down on the bed, he knew it wasn’t. The feel of the fabric of her dress on his arms was too real. The smell of her perfume filled his nostrils in a way no dream could. He saw the vibrant purple of the bruises that ringed her neck. Felt the iciness of her lips as he touched them with his fingertips. Luka kneeled next to the bed, picked up her cold hand. He began to chafe it in his own, then realised there was no point. He let his movement still, staring at her torn fingernails. They had never been like that before. Something was caught on the edge of one nail, and Luka carefully picked it off. It was a tiny piece of a feather, just a few downy white strands.

  The memory of another white feather hit him, and he cried out, his control escaping him briefly. He desperately clawed it back. The pain was too much, too overwhelming; he wasn’t ready for it.

  He pressed his forehead against the bed, shutting his eyes so he could no longer see her, and concentrated on breathing. He couldn’t let himself think; he just needed to hold on to her hand, squeeze it as tightly as he could, but not think of it. It was his lifeline. If he let go, if he opened his eyes, if he even breathed too deeply, it would all come crashing down.

  He couldn’t allow that. Not now. Not ever, please, God.

  When he awoke some hours later, heart beating rapidly and sweat coating his forehead, he reached out for Valya. Those few seconds when he held her in his arms, thinking she would wake, were bliss. The moment he registered the stiffness of her form, the memory was a gunshot through his chest. He howled with rage, scrunching handfuls of her dress to his face to muffle his screams.

  But he wouldn’t sit here and cry; oh no. Not when the person who had done this to Valya was still out there.

  He stood, knees protesting from the prolonged time he’d spent on them, and brought Valya’s hand to his lips. He kissed her fingers, trying not to notice how cold and stiff they were, then folded her hand on her chest. He brushed the hair away from her bruised eyelids, as if it might bother her.

  ‘I will not let this go unpunished. I promise you.’

  He pushed the words through tight lips, then after one lingering look at the necklace of violence on her white skin, he was out the door, taking the stairs two at a time.

  As he strode along the chaotic streets of Petrograd, he had no sense of time; only blurred impressions of broken building facades decorated with red revolutionary flags, and white snow, and grim faces shouting slogans he didn’t hear. There was no point going to the police—those that were left had been newly instated from the ranks of former criminals. Maxim wouldn’t go to jail for what he’d done. If anything, he’d likely be celebrated for destroying a woman who’d embodied all the revolution was against. Just as Rasputin’s murder had been celebrated.

  Luka reached Mathilde’s house. A commotion made him pause outside, holding his anger tight in his heart like a closed fist. Marchers neared the house, and the front doors flew open. Luka’s breathing stopped; for a second he thought it was Mathilde, facing up to the revolutionaries in a suicidal display of bravery. But it was her housekeeper, Madame Roubtzova. She was wearing one of Mathilde’s fur coats, and spoke to the marchers in a triumphant voice.

  ‘Come in, come in. The bird has flown!’

  The crowd cheered and surged forward. They worked quickly, ransacking the mansion from top to bottom. Out of the front door came two revolutionaries dragging a man between them. His feet stumbled, unable to gain purchase on the ground. It was Mathilde’s porter, Denisov.

  ‘Who are you? Another of Her High-and-Mighty’s lovers?’ The man had to speak loudly to be heard over the screaming of the porter’s wife from one of the upstairs rooms.

  ‘No! I’m just her porter. That’s all. Just a porter.’

  ‘Well, porter, tell me. Where has your employer gone?’ The man pressed a gun to Denisov’s forehead.

  ‘Ya nye znayu. I don’t know!’

  His answer was met with a round of laughter. Denisov began to cry, ugly sobs that stuck in his elderly chest. His breath came in little white clouds, obscuring his face.

  ‘She’s gone,’ he said. ‘She went in the night. I don’t know where. No one told us.’

  ‘What a shame,’ another man jeered as he raised his own gun. ‘We were going to kill her. But if she’s not here, I suppose you’ll have to do instead.’

  Luka turned and ran. There was nothing he could do for the porter, except get himself killed in an attempt to defend him. And he couldn’t die, not yet. He had to find Maxim first.

  Valya had mentioned where Maxim lived that day they’d watched the protesters march down her street. Luka knew the street name but not the specific building. It wasn’t hard to guess, though. There was a carriage waiting outside one mansion, its door flung open. The horses tossed their manes, eyes rolling wildly at the noise that surrounded them. The street wasn’t under siege the way Luka’s own had been, but the blazing roar of fires and the cracks of gunshots were inescapable all over Petrograd.

  Luka moved towards the carriage, his feet slowing, his chest getting tighter and tighter.

  Maxim was at its door, helping his valet fling into it items that clearly weren’t his. Ruffled dresses, velvet bags that clinked with the sound of jewellery inside, silk petticoats and furs. And worst of all, dance shoes. All flung into the carriage as though they were something dirty Maxim wanted to get away from him.

  ‘You,’ Luka snarled.

  Maxim turned. His eyes were wild, and underneath his furlined coat his shirt hung to his knees. Two red scratches flared across his cheek, and Luka couldn’t take his eyes off them. Noticing, Maxim put his hand to his face; Luka saw that his fingers were trembling.

  The man licked his lips once, twice, and when he tried to speak his words caught and he had to start again. ‘What do you want, Malysh?’

  ‘I think you know.’

  Maxim glanced at his valet, who was watching them. ‘Go inside. Make a pile of everything that is left, but don’t bring it out. Come only if I call for you.’

  The man nodded and went inside, leaving the door ajar.

  ‘It’s your fault for putting ideas in her head,’ Maxim said, as soon as they were alone. He rubbed his face, and winced as his fingers ran over the scratches. ‘You made her betray me and the safety I offered.’

  Anger burned Luka’s throat; he vibrated with it, only just holding himself back.

  ‘A strange kind of safety! I’ve seen the bruises. The mess of feathers, her broken fingernails. That was no scene of safety!’

  Maxim shrank back. There was a moment of silence, the unspoken accusation hanging in the air.

  ‘You did this!’ Luka screamed. He didn’t know how, but suddenly he had Maxim pinned against the carriage, his hands making fists in the other man’s clothing. Rage pulsated through him, hot and painful. It was
almost comforting after the battle to keep those other feelings—a hopeless, overwhelming sense of loss and longing—at bay.

  ‘You found out what she—what we were planning, and you couldn’t stand the thought that another man could have for free what you paid for. More than what you paid for.’ His voice hurt in his throat, a metallic taste filling his mouth.

  He slammed Maxim against the carriage for emphasis, expecting him to fight back. He relished the thought. He needed to hit him, to make some of the pain he felt on the inside show itself on the outside. He knew he could cause some damage before Maxim’s valet came to his rescue.

  But instead of fighting back, or calling for help, Maxim choked out, ‘You don’t know how difficult it was to love someone the way I loved Valya.’

  Luka’s fist drew back and slammed into the other man’s face. A satisfying crunch sounded as pain resonated through his knuckles. Then he had Maxim by the throat and was squeezing. He couldn’t call for help now, even if he wanted to.

  Maxim’s eyes bulged, his toes only just touching the ground as Luka lifted him up. Luka’s strength pulsated through him, fuelled by anger. The comparatively slight weight of Maxim assured him he could kill him. He tightened his grip, snarling in the other man’s face. His eyes focused on his rigid hands around that neck, Maxim’s smaller ones clawing ineffectually at them. And he remembered Valya’s torn nails, the pattern of bruises on her white neck. His hands tightened even further, and then with a roar that sounded as though his very soul was ripping from him, Luka let go.

  Maxim crumpled to the ground, making animal sounds as he gasped for air.

  Luka was panting. White-hot rage still surged through him, the desire for blood almost impossible to suppress. He was shaking as he grabbed Maxim by the hair and pulled his head up. The sight of blood streaming from his broken nose gave Luka grim satisfaction, and it was hard not to go for more. But Pyotr hadn’t died so good men could become beasts.

  ‘I won’t make myself like you,’ he said. ‘Not even to avenge Valya.’

  Luka let get of Maxim’s hair, and the man scrambled away towards the portico of his house, calling out for his valet. Luka spat after him, his rage dying into cold embers that left only emptiness in their place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  After Valya’s death, Luka spent most of his time at The Wandering Dog. He hid from the world, and himself, in alcohol. He ignored anyone who tried to talk to him. He barely ate, unless food was pushed in front of him, and even then he didn’t taste it. He didn’t change his clothes. He hadn’t cried, and he couldn’t understand it. Perhaps his heart didn’t believe she was gone, despite the emptiness inside him, despite returning to hold her cold body in his arms, stroking her lifeless cheek with knuckles that still bore the blood of the man who had killed her. Outside, the world continued to change. Former courtiers, gendarmes, generals and policemen were packed into trucks and locked up in the Peter and Paul Fortress, recently emptied of prisoners by soldiers who had changed sides during the revolution. The Tsar was no longer a Tsar. Lenin, the exile, was rumoured to be returning to Russia.

  Propaganda against Mathilde was everywhere. Luka knew members of the Imperial Russian Ballet—now no longer imperial but some new and unfamiliar company—had been asked about her whereabouts. He probably would have been asked too, if he’d bothered to show up to classes. But he couldn’t stand to be in the same place where Valya had danced.

  The morning of the burials, however, he forced himself into action. He woke early and rose from bed immediately. He forced down some food, and put on the clean clothes he’d picked out the night before. He concentrated on these simple tasks, not allowing himself, even for a moment, to dwell on the significance of the day.

  They were burying all the victims of the revolution in the Field of Mars, Valya included. Luka had decided it was best. Let her rest among all those who were wronged, her legacy fading into history as a tiny bit of a greater tragedy. At least she would have dignity in that.

  He made his way to the large park, his numb feet keeping time with the crowd around him. The sound of ice cracking in the Neva was reminiscent of the gunfire that had filled the streets during the past weeks; and would no doubt begin again once this day of respect was over.

  The mourners at the Field of Mars were numerous, solemnity resting over them in stark contrast to the revolution that had taken so many lives. The crowds made it difficult to see much, but the coffins—hundreds, thousands of them?—stood out brightly against the drab surroundings. Instead of the usual black, they were painted red, the colour of the revolution.

  Members of the provisional government that had taken power after the Tsar had abdicated stood with their eyes downcast and the corners of their mouths tucked in as they shook hands and greeted people with slow, understanding nods. Watching their faces, Luka’s stomach churned. They were pretending not to be gleeful in their victory; pretending that Russia was a better place now, where the people were safe, happy and, for once, equal; instead of the truth—that the country was still besieged with looting, arson and murder.

  Luka shifted his gaze to the lines of red coffins. His Valya was laid out in one of them, never to dance or love or laugh again. Entombed in the colour of the people who would have killed her if they’d got to her before Maxim.

  He turned his back and walked away.

  He moved through a city now bare of the imperial eagles. He passed soldiers wandering aimlessly, their epaulettes torn, buttons missing from their tunics. They were shabby, dirty and hungry, yet still hoping for the freedom and land the revolutionaries had promised them. They should have known better by now.

  Luka used the window he’d broken to enter Valya’s house. Memories accosted him, and he held his breath against their sharp pain.

  With heavy feet, he went upstairs, then flung open the door to Valya’s dance studio. He almost expected to find her there, practising fouettés in front of the mirror. But of course there was only empty space in front of him.

  He stepped inside and kicked his boots off. In one corner lay a pair of Valya’s pointe shoes, their satin dulled with age. He tried not to look at them. Instead, he twisted his torso and arms, the movements familiar yet stiff.

  But the pointe shoes kept drifting into his vision, and the fierceness he’d been fighting wouldn’t be held at bay any more. He felt the walls within crack and then break, and suddenly he was a madman—flying jetés took him across the room, double tours en l’air spinning him like a child’s top. He ran and he jumped, careless of how the movements tore at muscles that weren’t yet warm. Sweat poured down his body and still the rage consumed him.

  He moved into a series of grand jetés en tournant, the quick turns followed by a soaring leap taking him in a wild circle around the edges of the room. Faster and faster he went, the leaps becoming more out of control until it was their momentum that carried him forward.

  And then he was on the floor. His chest ached from breathing so hard and the backs of his legs were alive with pain, but the rage was no longer there. There was only a gnawing hollowness.

  Luka sat up and looked at himself in the mirror. He saw a man he didn’t recognise.

  He lifted one arm up in fifth position. Standing, he lifted the other arm to join it. The movements were slow, in time with the aching beat of the heart he’d often wished would just stop. As he carefully stepped into an arabesque a tear rolled down his face. His eyes rested once more on the pointe shoes in the corner, their pink laces curled around them like a frame; and this time he didn’t look away.

  Never again would they be filled with Valya’s lyrical steps.

  Luka’s movements became softer as he continued to dance; there was no more wild leaping. His limbs stretched and contracted; his torso lengthened even as it curled. Soon, he was as fluid as the tears that ran, unchecked, down his cheeks.

  Luka’s thighs cried out in protest with each step he took down the hallway, and the sweat that soaked his clothes was turning
cold. But the discomfort was worth it. He reached the blue reception room where he and Valya had first made love. It was cold and empty now, no more a part of Valya than the coffin she’d been buried in. He left without touching anything.

  Unable to make himself exit the house just yet, he paused at the door to her bedroom. He’d pushed it closed behind him when he’d carried her out of there for the last time. He couldn’t bear to reopen it now and be reminded of her last moments.

  Instead, he opened the door next to her bedroom. Behind it was a small room containing an octagonal table coated with a thick layer of dust. On top of the table stood a candle in a silver holder, burned almost to a stub, and a plain photo frame.

  Luka stepped forward, his heart pounding. He grabbed the photo, hoping it might be of Valya. Instead an angry, dark-eyed woman in a sombre hat stared back at him. Cracks marred the surface of the glass, and she looked annoyed by them. He ran his fingers over the cracks, wondering if Valya had done the same.

  He replaced the photograph and turned to leave, when something caught his eye. On the floor next to the table stood a suitcase. Draped over one end was a full-length fur coat, a pair of gloves perched neatly on top. He sank down next to them, his legs screaming against the movement.

  They’d come so close.

  He picked up one of the gloves and pressed it to his cheek with a futile hope of feeling human warmth emanating from it. It was, of course, cool. He wondered if he’d ever noticed before just how small Valya’s hands were; he couldn’t remember.

  The hollowness created by his dance was filling with pain again, and he gritted his teeth to keep it at bay. He put down the glove, and traced a finger over the corner of the suitcase and down its side. It left a clear trail through the dust. He stopped when he saw a small faded box next to the case, half hidden by the fur coat.