She bent over again, her small lips pressing through my father’s greasy hair and planting a hesitant, horrible kiss on the top of his forehead, right above that little bump that was reminiscent of a budding horn.
“Yuri, that’s my husband, is a very loyal man,” she continued, chattering nervously. “You would like him, Father Grigori. He comes from a respected family, too. Very hardworking. And-”
“Ach!” roared Papa, suddenly angry, pushing her back onto the pathetic leather sofa.
“What? What did I do wrong?”
“Enough with this talk! Get your clothes, be gone! You make me angry!”
“But, Father Grigori-”
“Leave me!”
“But my husband! The note!”
My father slumped to the side and closed his eyes. “Come back tomorrow morning, and we will see!”
Now Olga Petrovna finally cried. She could stand it no more. And as she reached to the floor for her clothing, a pathetic sob erupted from her throat. In a flash of a second, her entire pale body blushed a shameful crimson.
“God help me!” she cried. “Please, Father Grigori, I beg you! Please help me!”
“Oi!” shouted my father, clasping his hands over his ears as he leaped from his chair. “I thought you were a cute little kitten, but you’re nothing but an awful cat! Such noise! Such gabble and crying! I can’t stand it!”
And with that Papa stumbled for the door and charged out of the room. Olga Petrovna, hysterical and more desperate than before, couldn’t stand it, couldn’t bear to see her only hope flee from her grasp. Scrambling, she scooped up her bits of clothing and raced naked after him.
“Wait, Father Grigori! Please, wait!”
“You’re the devil! Nothing but a squealing devil! Be gone, I tell you!”
Hurrying after him, she disappeared out the door, crying, “I promise I’ll be quiet! I promise I won’t say a thing! Help me, Father Grigori! For the sake of God, please help me!”
They vanished from sight, but I could hear them. I could hear my father’s bellowing and Olga Petrovna’s screaming as she charged naked after him, the two of them hurrying this way and that through our entire apartment. Within moments I could hear Dunya yelling too, first locking my sister in her bedroom so she wouldn’t see, then chasing the woman who was chasing my father. From my dark spot I could hear them all, three mad people tearing through our rooms, one holy man, one naked petitioner, and one furious housekeeper. Despite her shrill pitch, Dunya’s was the only voice of sanity, the only one who could shout at my father and herd him into his bedroom, the only one who could admonish our pathetic visitor to get dressed and leave.
And during it all I stayed right where I was, hidden in the closet of my father’s study, crumpled on the floor of that tiny space, sobbing because I had never before known I could hate my own father.
CHAPTER 7
Oddly, as I sat there crouched in revulsion, I was flooded with memories of better times. Just last winter a great honor had been bestowed upon me: I had been invited to join Papa for tea at the palace. Dunya, overwhelmed with pride and joy, had spent an entire day shopping for a new frock for me, finally selecting a blue dress with a white collar, tied neatly at the waist. The morning of the tea, Dunya spent nearly two hours reviewing my curtsy and how I held a teacup, explaining how I should address the Empress and coaching me on interesting points of conversation. Toward one o’clock, Papa came out of his room wearing black velvet pants, boots that were freshly polished, and a lilac silk kosovorotka with a sash embroidered by the Empress herself. When it finally came time to go, it seemed the entire building came to see Papa and me off. We even took a horse cab to the Tsarskoye Selo train station, though it was only a few blocks away, just to keep my dress clean.
But of course before tea there was playtime with the children. Once I had curtsied to the Empress and been allowed to kiss her hand, and once the Empress, the ever-present Madame Vyrubova, and Papa retired to the Maple Room for conversation, an equerry in a red cape and a hat feathered with ostrich plumes led me to the rear door. My young hosts, it seemed, were waiting for me outside, and no sooner had I stepped into the cold than I was pelted by a handful of powdery snowballs.
“Surprise!” shouted Anastasiya Nikolaevna, the youngest of the grand duchesses, who was so covered in snow she looked as if she’d been rolled in confectioners’ sugar.
For the briefest of moments I wanted to burst into tears-I had never been dressed in finer clothes. But then, of course, my young sensibilities took hold, and I dashed into the fray, joining the younger sisters-Anastasiya Nikolaevna and Maria Nikolaevna, who was my age-and their young brother, the heir, Aleksei Nikolaevich, in a brawl of winter fun that was just like those back home. The only difference was that the snowballs were formed and handed to me.
“Here, my child,” said Nagorny, the dyadka-bodyguard-to the Heir Tsarevich, as he handed me a feather-light ball of snow, “you may throw only those that I give to you.”
I didn’t understand until much later, but of course I did exactly as I was told. And after a half hour of merriment in what had to be the softest snow, we were led inside. As the daughters dressed in fresh white frocks with blue sashes and the Heir Tsarevich in a sailor suit, a maid took me into a private room and combed my hair and straightened my clothing. Finally, I was led to a large set of doors guarded by a pair of huge Ethiopians, the blackest men I’d ever seen, dressed in gold jackets, scarlet trousers, and white turbans. Entering the Maple Room, I found the Empress, Madame Vyrubova, and Papa.
“I see it all, understand it all,” said my father, his voice booming and his eyes wide. “Papa must give the order as I see it: Whole trains must be given up to food.”
The imperial children-all five of them, including the older pair, Olga Nikolaevna and Tatyana Nikolaevna-joined us minutes later. As the Heir Tsarevich, Anastasiya, and Maria settled on the floor with great picture books, the likes of which I had never seen, the older daughters, fashioning themselves as young women, sat down in chairs and picked up embroidery. As for myself, having neither book nor needle, I listened to my father rant on.
“Each wagon of the train must be filled with flour and butter and sugar. All the passenger trains should be halted for three days-three days!-and this food should be allowed to pass to the capital! It’s even more important than ammunition or meat! People must have bread! People will grow angry without bread!”
“But what about all the passengers?” asked Madame Vyrubova. “Don’t you think people will scream?”
“Let them scream! I saw all this in the night like a vision! Mama, you must tell Papa. I beg you, you must tell him! You must write to him at once of this.”
“Yes, of course. I see your point quite clearly,” said Aleksandra Fyodorovna, nodding pensively as she gently twiddled with her long necklace of large pearls.
“Three days-no other trains except those carrying flour, butter, and sugar,” my father repeated. “Otherwise there will be great unhappiness. And into this unhappiness will rush a flood of problems. It’s quite necessary!”
“Yes, essential.” The Empress nodded. “I will tell my husband, and he will make it so. It is his will, and he is master.”
Papa puffed out his lower lip and bobbed his head in agreement and approval.
Vyrubova spoke up. “Now, what of the new minister? The position of Minister of Internal Affairs is quite-”
“I know, I know!” Papa rubbed his hands together. “Now…well, the Old Chap came to see me, this Boris Stürmer, but I had an interesting vision of this other fellow, Protopopov!”
“Really?” said the Tsaritsa in amazement.
“Yes, a vision from on high!”
Precisely at four, right on cue, the doors opened and the Empress and her small cabinet of advisers ceased conversation. As we watched, a bevy of liveried footmen with snow-white garters swept in and spread a tablecloth over two small tables, then set out glasses in silver holders and plates of hot bread
and English biscuits. Had the Tsar not been at the front, where he had taken personal command of the troops, he would certainly have joined us.
“We shall continue these discussions later,” commanded the Empress, rising from her chair. “First let us refresh ourselves.”
Aleksandra Fyodorovna paid Papa and me a great honor by pouring our tea with her own hand. Accepting my glass, I carefully eyed the bread and biscuits.
With a wry smile, the Empress said warmly, “I’m sure, my child, you’ve been to many more interesting teas than this one. Others, I know, serve different cakes and sweetmeats, but, alas, I am unable to change the menu here at the Palace. All runs on tradition and is the same since our great Catherine.”
But it was an interesting tea. Amazingly so, I thought, as I carefully took a biscuit and found my seat. Just imagine, my father giving so much help and advice, so many of his visions, to Empress Aleksandra Fyodorovna, who would pass it all on to the Tsar. Just imagine Papa emerging from the depths of Siberia and coming to the aid of the Motherland. Incredible, I thought, beaming with pride at my father, as he slurped his tea and munched on a biscuit and the crumbs flew.
CHAPTER 8
So what was I now to do with those memories of my father the hero? Burn them, stomp them, rip them to shreds?
Tormented by confusion, I fled the closet and ran to my room, where I leaped into bed and fell into a black hole. When my sister wanted to know what on earth was wrong, I shouted at her to get out, and then my tears came so quickly, so heavily, that by the time I finally stopped crying my eyes were practically swollen shut. I just lay there, hidden and huddled under the down comforter, my arms and hands clasped around my knees. But I could find no comfort, no matter how hard I hugged myself. I simply cried and cried.
Many in the highest society, including the Tsar and Tsaritsa themselves, clung to the myth of the Russian peasant, believing that only in the huts of the poorest of the poor lived the true spirit of Christ. And yet now I knew what even the Tsar did not, that in my peasant father there dwelled both the spirit of Christ and also, at the very least, the spirit of a fool-not a holy fool but a simple one. We should leave the capital. For his own protection, not to mention ours, I should force Papa out of the city. He should abandon any pretense of holiness and simply melt away into Siberia and her endless forests. A life of fasts and visions and ragged clothing-that was what was meant for my father.
My head buried beneath my pillow, my body protected by the billowing feathers of the comforter, I lay curled up for hours, drifting in and out of misery and sleep. Finally, toward six, I heard Dunya beckoning us all to the table, for like all Russian women, she believed in the sanctity of coming together around food. Rising, I made a feeble attempt at brushing my hair and went to the dining room.
Dunya and Varya had obviously been busy. Our brass samovar, polished until it glowed like gold and boiling with water, sat by the window, and our heavy oak dinner table, the kind so popular among the city bourgeoisie, was covered with plates of cold zakuski: pickles, sour cream, salted herring garnished with onions, grated carrots mixed with mayonnaise and garlic, salted tomatoes, pickled mushrooms, smoked fish, stuffed eggs, and Papa’s favorite appetizer, jellied fish heads. Tonight, it was obvious we would feast not on fancy city things but real food.
“Girls, please take your places while I fetch your father,” Dunya said.
As she scurried off, the two of us stood behind our chairs, and my sister looked up at me, asking softly, “Are you all right, Maria? Why were you so upset?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
I stared at Varya, who was so proud of studying at middle school here in the capital that even now she wore the black-and-white frock of the gymnasia. She had my father’s blunt chin, his dark hair, his large full lips, and short black bangs, which she kept flipping back. She worshiped Papa, and to her, it wasn’t unusual at all that our humble father should be telephoned once or twice a day by the Empress herself, let alone summoned at any hour to the palace.
“What happened this afternoon?” she asked, not particularly concerned as she scooped up some carrot salad with her finger. “I heard a woman screaming.”
I shrugged. “You know how people are always after Papa for things.”
For the first time ever I was dreading a family meal. What was I going to say to my father? How would I even be able to look at him? But when he came in a few moments later it was not with his booming voice and quick step. Rather it was with a shuffle, for he was walking only with the aid of Dunya, who held him by the left arm.
“Papa, what’s the matter?” gasped Varya, rushing to his side.
He looked awful, as if he’d just aged twenty years, and for a brief moment I felt a pang of worry. His hair fell every which way like a field of wheat after a summer storm, his face was pallid, and his eyes were red. He was dressed terribly too, wearing a dirty pair of baggy pants and an unbelted tunic of coarse cotton.
“I had another dream…another vision…”
“Please, Father Grigori,” coaxed Dunya. “Just tea and a little food. Then you’ll feel better, I promise.”
They led Papa along, Dunya on one side and Varya on the other. Back home there was a bent old man who lived in a falling-down hut, and we taunted him mercilessly, calling him a starii xhren-an old piece of horseradish. Right here and now, that was my father. Had he fallen into a pool of remorse? Had he begged God’s forgiveness for the way he’d treated that woman? I could only hope so.
I stood motionless behind my chair as Dunya poured some tea concentrate from the small pot atop the shiny samovar, to which she added hot water from the spigot. As if it were nothing but cool water from a stream back home, he downed the glass in one gulp. Dunya then poured him another, which he likewise drank to the bottom. And another. Papa sometimes drank as many as fifty glasses of tea in a day, but never like this, as eagerly as a sunburned man just in from the desert. Finally, with his fourth glass in hand, he sat down. Only then did the three of us take our seats.
“What is it, Papa? What did you see?” begged Varya, her smooth young brow wrinkled with concern.
“Blood. I have seen the entire River Neva running with blood.”
Her eyes suddenly beading with tears, Varya pressed, “Whose blood, Papa?”
“The blood of the grand dukes.”
“Oh,” Varya said, not without a bit of relief.
Dunya spoke up softly. “Please, Father Grigori, you mustn’t say such things. Talk like that will only scare the girls, it will only-”
“I’m not scared,” I interjected defiantly.
“Let us pray!” intoned Papa, reaching out.
Beneath the heavy bronze chandelier, with Papa at one end of the table and Dunya at the other, we clasped hands and bowed our heads.
“Dear Heavenly Father, I beseech you to come to the aid of us, your miserablest children who seek Thine forgiveness. We will sin no more. I pray unto you, Thou, to grant us salvation, to drive away our enemies, both those within our borders and beyond. O God, O Wondrous Lord, how can one fail to believe?! The street is crooked, but ahead layest only one destination, and we struggle there on foot. We believe heartily, Thine Lord, and woe unto those who does not! The waves of calumny can only be stilled by good deeds, but it is true, there is far more sickness on land than in your great sea. So in you, Thee, O Lord, O God, help us rejoice, so that in your miracles of forgiveness we find everlasting peace. Ahmeen.”
“Ahmeen,” chimed Dunya and Varya in chorus.
When I failed to speak, Dunya glared at me, and I reluctantly muttered, “Ahmeen.”
As a child I never understood my father’s prayers. Nor did I this evening. What was different about tonight, however, was that I no longer felt awed by my father’s words or his supposed wisdom. I only felt something…something sad, even pathetic.
Papa took a piece of bread in his hand, put a single large pickle on it, and stuffed it into his mouth. It was gone in two bites.
&
nbsp; “Wine!” Papa commanded.
“Yes, Father Grigori,” replied Dunya, pushing back her chair and getting up from the table.
Disappearing into the kitchen, Dunya quickly returned, not with a mere glass of wine but with a full bottle. As she poured Papa a glass, however, I could tell it was not with pleasure. Of course Dunya understood that Papa’s physical pain was as great as his mental anguish, but I knew it hurt her terribly to see Papa drink as many as twelve bottles of Madeira in a night, as he had done a number of times in the last month alone. How, I thought for the first time, could my father consume so much and still stand? Indeed, how could he claim to be so blessed and have so many gifts and yet be blind to his gross mistakes, which even I could now see so clearly?
Papa grabbed another piece of bread and piled it with salted herring, an entire stuffed egg, and a ring of onion, all of which he gobbled down like a wild animal. Next, still with his bare hand, he reached into the bowl of jellied fish heads, pulled out a whole cod head, and swallowed it.
“The other day I greatly offended a woman because I ate with my hands and didn’t use a napkin. She even gasped out loud when I wiped my mouth with my beard like this.” Papa chuckled as he pulled up the bristly ends of his beard and cleaned his mouth. “Tell me, girls, does it bother either of you?”
Varya, who was eating a salted pickle dipped in sour cream, grinned and shook her head.
I, on the other hand, blurted out, “Of course it does. It’s awful and…and embarrassing. Why haven’t you ever learned how to eat like a normal civilized person?”
“Maria!” gasped Dunya, horrified. “You mustn’t speak to your father like that!”
Papa only laughed. By court standards, let alone the etiquette of good society, his manners were atrocious, no better than a dog’s. He knew it, exulted in it, and flaunted it, particularly in the presence of the proper titled folk of Petrograd. Any number of times I had watched him wipe his filthy hands on the fine silk dresses, fur coats, or ties of his guests. Any number of times I had watched him order a princess to lick his filthy fingers clean. After a while his devotees understood and even begged for such treatment. Yes, they pleaded for Papa to do such rude things to them. Like washing the feet of Christ, it was all about meekness, submission, and mortification of the flesh.
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