“He’s that widely”-I could barely say it-“he’s that widely hated?”
“Yes. I’m sorry to say that, among proper society, most definitely.”
My eyes welled up, and for a moment I was speechless.
Elena Borisovna, unable to look at me, continued staring out the small barred window. “You should be aware that people in the highest society talk openly of the need to do away with your father. They speak not only openly but also of how it should be done. And soon.”
“Do you mean the grand dukes?”
“Yes, exactly. They consider your father a great stain on the House of Romanov, a stain that must be forcefully and quickly removed. They believe your father has not only ruined the prestige of the Sovereign Emperor himself but of all of them as well.”
“Does this include Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich?”
She turned slowly yet purposefully toward the door. Could someone be on the other side? Not daring to risk it, Elena Borisovna simply looked right at me and nodded.
“I see,” I replied.
“Even worse, there’s gossip that German spies have infiltrated your home and surround your father.”
“I’ve heard that too, but it’s nothing but lies!”
“I know, but such is the talk.”
Gathering my courage, I broached a subject two women were never supposed to address. “Can you tell me, please, what is the true relationship between the grand duke and Prince Felix?”
The old woman’s face blanched at the question; then she returned to me, gently taking my hands again in her grasp, and in almost a whisper, said, “The grand duke, of course, is a lover of many women, and the prince, of course, is married to the Tsar’s own niece, but…” She paused, drinking in her own breath as if afraid of speaking the words. “But under this very roof I have seen the passion the two men have for each other. There is frequent touching and mutual kissing, that much all servants in the palace have seen with their own eyes. I believe, however, that the real nature of their relationship is darker, even…lascivious.”
So now it was confirmed by an eyewitness: The prince and the grand duke were lovers. But how did that make them dangerous to my father? Or were they not? Wasn’t there something far more worrisome-the plot by the elder Romanov uncles seeking to dispose of the peasant who had penetrated their family? Of course, the danger posed by the young grand duke could be of a far more carnal nature. Yes, most definitely. As horrible as it sounded, Grand Duke Dmitri could be seeking to destroy Papa for reasons of the flesh. He could see my father as some sort of competition for the object of his own affection, Prince Felix. Or were things even more twisted than I could fathom? Could the grand duke and Prince Felix be working in conjunction, not to kill my father but perhaps to bed him? I knew of many women who fawned over my father, who begged to be taken by him. Then again, it could be something altogether different. Perhaps it was really true, perhaps the much-rumored Khlyst ark of nobles, headed by the fabled Prince O’ksandr, did exist, meeting secretly beneath some palace, and these two young men belonged to that clandestine group. But even in these dark, desperate days of war, could these young nobles really be trying to draw my father into their mysterious world? Quite possibly. And yet…though I could see the three points-my father, Prince Felix, and Grand Duke Dmitri-I couldn’t connect them in a triangle, at least not one that made any sense.
“But, Elena Borisovna, is this simply all a game for Grand Duke Dmitri and Prince Felix? Are they merely playing with an innocent peasant, seeing what they can make him do or what they can get out of him?”
“Absolutely not,” she said, quite sternly. “Please, the dangers are very real. Everyone knows the country is about to boil over. There’s talk of nothing else, and I have no reason to doubt it. In more than one salon, I’ve heard that the grand dukes have formed a cabal intent not only on killing your father, but…but on kidnapping the Empress and banishing her to a monastery in Siberia.”
“Bozhe moi,” I said, quickly crossing myself.
“There’s worse.” She hesitated, clearly afraid of the treasonous words that were about to pass her lips. “They talk of deposing the Emperor himself and crowning the little Heir Tsarevich, with one of the grand dukes as regent.”
I couldn’t imagine such treachery and deception in any family, let alone our royal one, and I quickly crossed myself yet again and again and again. Was this how low Russia had fallen, that to preserve its power the House of Romanov felt it necessary to obliterate a mere peasant?
“Please, child, I beg you, pass these words to your father and see that he passes them to the very highest personages,” continued Elena Borisovna, obviously referring to the Tsar and Tsaritsa. “And remember: Once an angry tiger is released from its cage and tastes fresh blood, it’s almost impossible to recapture it. Instead, the beast prefers a knife to its heart.”
She took my hand in hers and kissed it, then spread her scarf over her head and headed out the door. Just before she disappeared, she turned back with a sorrowful smile.
“God bless you and yours, child, for I doubt we shall meet again.”
I stood there barely able to move. The Empress locked away in some distant monastery? The Emperor dethroned and perhaps-dare I even think it-executed? It was too hard to imagine such heinous events in such modern days. After all, this was not a drama of Shakespeare and we were not living in ancient Muscovia, where tsars killed their own sons and disdained wives were thrown to the wolves.
However, if all this came to pass, if the frail Heir Tsarevich were placed on the throne, who would rule as regent, one of the Tsar’s uncles, those towering, aged men now in their sixties and seventies? No, in these days of turmoil and war, the common people wouldn’t accept that. An ancient Romanov, one of the brothers of Aleksander III, would mean a complete return to autocracy and authoritarianism. If that were to happen, there was no doubt in my mind that a regent like that, one of the “dread uncles,” as they were commonly known, would ignite revolution.
Another possibility might be the Tsar’s younger brother, Grand Duke Mikhail. And yet while he might be acceptable to the people, he wouldn’t be to the Romanov clan, because he had married morganatically-breaking strict family laws, he’d not taken a bride from another royal house. Worse still, he’d not even wed a woman of title but rather a mere commoner, the divorced wife of a cavalry captain.
So who would be an acceptable regent? It would have to be someone young, someone who could offer hope to the Russian people and symbolized a promising, progressive future. But who was that? Who could the powerful Romanov uncles control and dominate, even manipulate?
Of course: none other than the young and dashing Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, who suffered from such horrible “grammatical errors.”
Which one of us, I thought standing in that freezing room, was a greater fool, my father or me? Just last month, a treacherous speech had been made at the Duma, and my father had not only brushed it away like an annoying hornet, he had persuaded me to do so as well.
“There’s no need for me to hear it!” Papa had insisted.
“But, Papa, listen!”
“The only thing to the right of Purishkevich is the wall!”
Copies of this speech made by the notorious monarchist Vladimir Purishkevich were already all over town, and it came as no surprise that one had been slipped beneath our door. My voice trembling as much as my hands, I stood in my father’s study, reading aloud.
“‘The disorganization of the rear is without doubt being manipulated by the enemy, and it is being accomplished by a strong, relentless hand. I take here the freedom to say that this evil springs from the Dark Forces, from those who push into high places people who are not worthy or capable of filling them. And these influences are headed by Grishka Rasputin!’”
“Lies!” shouted my father, pounding on the table. “Nothing but lies!”
I continued reading.
“‘These last nights I could find no sleep, I tell
you in honesty. I lay in bed with eyes wide open and saw a series of telegrams and notes which this illiterate peasant writes, first to one minister, next another, and finally, frequently, to Aleksander Protopopov, demanding that his actions be fulfilled.’”
“Evil dogs!” snapped my father. “Black evil dogs! No more reading, daughter of mine. That’s it. Enough! I will hear no more!”
“But, Papa, listen!” I begged as my eyes flew to the last lines. “Listen to this:
‘The Tsar’s ministers have been turned into marionettes, marionettes whose strings have been taken confidently in hand by Rasputin, whose house and home have been infiltrated with German spies and by the Empress Aleksandra Fyodorovna-the evil genius of Russia and her Tsar-who remains a German on the throne, foreign to country and people!’”
“Enough, I tell you!” shouted my father, grabbing the speech from my hand and ripping it to pieces. “It’s nothing but lies! No one will pay attention to this…this Purishkevich! How dare he speak of the Tsaritsa like that! In fact, it’s treason. No doubt about it, he will be in jail by tomorrow! Now forget it!”
I took a deep breath. Was Papa right? Were these just the rantings of a fanatic? They had to be because the speech was just that: unequivocally treasonous.
“Everyone knows how terrible this Purishkevich is,” continued my father. “Why…why, he’s part of the Black Hundreds, and just look at what they did to the Jews! The pogroms!”
“I’m so worried, Papa-”
“Nonsense. Just hornets, mettlesome hornets! If you aren’t used to it, even kasha is bitter. Now take a piece of paper and write this down. I want to send a telegram to the Tsar at the front.”
My hands still shaking, I snatched a piece of paper and pencil.
“19 NOVEMBER 1916,” dictated Papa. “god gives you strength. yours is victory and yours is the ship. no one else has authority to board it. Do you have that down, Maria, just as I’ve told you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. Now go and see that it is sent. And then forget it. Forget all about that stupid little man’s stupid little speech.”
Now, waiting for the old man with the milky eyes to escort me out of the Sergeeivski Palace, I started shuddering violently. At the time, Papa had persuaded me to dismiss the speech, but I no longer could do so. All too easily I could imagine the entire scene: the fury of Purishkevich’s rhetoric, and the cries of Bravo!, A disgrace!, and How true! that were said to have erupted from the other Duma members.
CHAPTER 12
Fearful of spending any more time in the grand duke’s palace, I finally opened the door and stepped into the dark corridor. But which way should I go, right or left? Better yet, I thought, as my eyes searched the low vaulted passage, which was the quickest way out?
I turned right and immediately felt a fine silky veil over my face and entire head. I cried out and grabbed the strands of a spiderweb from my cheeks and hair. Feeling a creature crawl up my neck, I nervously swiped at something, and a spider, large and black, fell to the floor. Wasting no time, I ceremoniously stomped on it with my leather boot.
I wanted nothing more than to be out of here, out of these lost rooms of a ducal palace and back in our simple apartment. I wanted nothing more than to be not in my father’s massive arms but pounding on his large chest, screaming and demanding to know what in the name of the Lord he was doing. How had he wandered into this minefield? What was he doing to all of us, his entire family and everyone else in the nation? Didn’t he see that the Motherland was one huge tinderbox and he, sitting upon it like a kroogli durak-a round idiot-was the perfect fuse, which he himself had already lit? Was Papa really so naïve as not to know that everything could blow at any moment? There was only one way to save Holy Mother Russia and our Tsar: Papa had to be removed.
With this realization, I practically broke into tears, for I had arrived at the same conclusion as the powerful grand dukes. Yes, Papa had to be got rid of. The very noble relatives of the Tsar, who had disposed of countless serfs over the centuries, were probably discussing it this very moment at the Yacht Club, that hotbed of aristocratic dissent. The thought horrified me. Would they do it the way our masters always disposed of problem serfs-run him over with a troika? Or would they tie a rock to him and toss him in the river? Before they acted, I had to make Papa do what everyone wanted and no one had succeeded in doing: make him go back whence he had come, the unimaginably deep and the untouchably distant forests of Siberia.
But how?
The pleading of a youthful daughter would not be enough. Could I hire some banditi to drag him away? Could I slip him narkotiki, bundle him off, and lock him up in a monastery until the political winds shifted? No, neither would work. There was no way I was strong enough to overpower Papa’s sheer physical strength, let alone the will of the mightiest and the most powerful person in the entire country, the Empress herself. Sadly, I had to recognize the truth: There was no way Aleksandra Fyodorovna would let Papa out of her desperate and hysterical grasp. By all but imperial decree, she required that he be no farther from her than a short phone call. To remove Papa from Petrograd, I would have to battle not only him but also the strong will of the powerful Empress.
As I stopped and brushed away the last of the cobwebs, I knew that, no matter my determination, there was little I could actually do. I was just going to have to be clever. Perhaps I could get my mother to send an urgent telegram, saying Dmitri had been seriously injured and, because of his mental limitations, needed his father at once. Maybe I could convince my mother to write that she herself was just days away from death and begged for her husband’s presence. No, I realized as I slumped against the stone wall. None of that would work, for, just as my father was unable to tell a lie, so was my dear innocent mother.
From somewhere I heard a set of footsteps. At first I thought it was the old man, finally come to lead me out of this tangled mass of passages. But no, these were not the shuffling steps of a half-blind fellow feeling his way along. They were much too quick for that. In fact, they were even hurried. And when I listened carefully I could tell they were the footsteps of not just one person but two.
Knowing I dared not be found down here, let alone questioned, I scanned the corridor, spotting a dark archway just a few arzhini ahead. Picking up the folds of my cloak and skirt in both hands, I hurried to the opening, finding not a chamber but a steep set of stairs that curled down into darkness. Within seconds it was I who was feeling the walls for direction, and I moved downward with my right hand groping the ancient, crumbling brick walls. Beneath me, my feet sensed the smooth worn stone steps, one after the other. Wasting no time, I continued until I curled around a corner into a curtain of darkness. Below me I could see virtually nothing. Turning, I gazed upward at the last of the light leaking toward me.
The footsteps were drawing ever louder, ever heavier, ever faster. Finally they slowed, and I heard the squeal of a door as it was thrown open.
“She’s not in here!” shouted a man, his voice deep and coarse.
“We’ll be thrown in the fire for this,” groused another, his accent none too refined. “We’ve got to find her.”
“You go that way, I’ll go down here. Hurry!”
So it was indeed me they were after. But how did they know I was here? Had the old man betrayed me, or Elena Borisovna herself-or had someone else spied me?
Suddenly I heard footsteps echoing from every direction, one set from above, another somehow emerging from the darkness below, yet another ricocheting from…I couldn’t tell where. The opposite direction? Down another set of stairs? Gospodi, just how many men were hunting me? Panicking, I sank back against the wall, pulling the shadows over me like an invisible cloak. How was I going to escape from this place?
I heard it then, the rough, fatty breathing of a slothful soul. It was coming from up above. Yes, one of the men was right there at the top of the staircase. I closed my eyes and willed myself not to move, not even to inhale. If he descended
just ten steps, I would be found. Indeed, were he a wild dog, I would already have been sniffed out and torn to pieces.
The next instant something screamed into my left ear like a high-pitched aeroplane. Then it dove into my cheek, bit me, and took hold: a mosquito. Lord, here we were on Peter’s swamp, the waters of which leaked into the cellars of every building. Never mind that it was December and the air outside was well below frost, mosquitoes bred and lived year round in the subterranean territories of nearly every structure in the city. I nearly slapped it but didn’t dare. A mere rustle of my clothing would give me away, for the man, whoever he was and whoever had sent him, was still right up there, lingering, listening, shuffling, snorting. Though I had no physical image of him, it was almost as if I could sense the wheels in his thick head turning, wondering what kind of fool would have gone down these lost stairs.
Then the next moment he dashed off, big feet, heavy body, hard breath. As soon as I heard his steps charging away, I slapped the mosquito and felt a splatter of blood on my cheek.
My pursuer was gone from the top of the steps but still up there charging around with another man. I could still clearly hear their running, and they were quite correct in their assumption: I had not escaped, I was still somewhere in the rotting bowels of the palace. Sooner or later, when they couldn’t find me in any of the passages up there, they would return to this staircase-and this time they would come down. Turning and looking into the depths of nothing, I knew it was my only option.
I thought my eyes would adjust. And to a degree, they did. But there was simply no light with which to see. Though I could practically sense my eyes widening, there was nothing for them to drink in. And so I moved more slowly than ever, one foot after the other, feeling my way down the sloping well-worn steps, my hand dragging along the decaying brick wall like a claw. A few moments later I stepped off the last stair and sank immediately into the cradle of the mosquitoes: a vershok of water. Of course I couldn’t see it, I only felt it, as cool murky water flooded through my leather soles and reached almost to my ankles.
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