The Lost Daughter

by Gill Paul

  “You were always strong, Maria,” he interrupted. “And I will tell you. But not today. Today is for celebrating. We’ve been cheated out of sixteen years and now all I want is to make the most of the next sixteen.”

  It felt odd climbing into bed together, Maria in her voluminous nightdress and Peter in flannel pajamas borrowed from Stepan. She wondered if he would want to make love and whether her old body was still capable of it. Instead he looped his arms around her and fell asleep with his face buried in her neck so she could feel his breath on her skin. She was used to her grandchildren hopping into bed in the morning, their firm, warm flesh smelling faintly of soap, but this was different. Peter felt sharp and angular, but he smelled the same as he always had, and slept just as soundly.

  Maria couldn’t fall asleep for hours but lay awake looking at the stars through the gap in the curtains and thanking God for this extraordinary miracle.

  Chapter 58

  Leningrad, summer 1976

  FOUR DAYS LATER THAN EXPECTED, BILL, VAL, AND Nicole arrived at the boat dock in Moscow for their sailing to Leningrad. Bill lied that he had been suffering from a stomach upset; their tickets were exchanged and a new cabin allocated. It was lovely to be able to sit on deck and watch the countryside go by, and it gave Val time to discuss with Bill what she had discovered in Ekaterinburg. No wonder her father had been secretive about his past if he had been a guard at the Ipatiev House. He was only nineteen when the Romanovs were killed and it must have been harrowing. Something like that could scar you for life.

  After 1918, when he was searching for Maria, he had used identity papers in the names of several of his fellow guards. But if the museum was correct—and she assumed it must be—his real name was Anatoly Bolotov. Since seeing that photo at the house, she hadn’t been able to get the question out of her head: why had he claimed to be Ivan Skorokhodov? And then changed his name to Irwin Scott? It was as if he was running away from something.

  They sailed along canals through farming country, sitting out on deck to catch the sun. The boat edged into Lake Ladoga and Nicole listened in awe when Bill told her that during the Second World War trucks full of people used to drive over the ice.

  “Why didn’t it break?” she asked.

  “They waited until it was eight inches thick and laid down tracks,” he replied. “Then it was strong enough.”

  “Could you skate on it?” She looked at the blue water sparkling in the sunlight.

  “I don’t think many people tried in the middle of a war,” Bill replied, “but in peacetime they probably do.”

  Val’s first impression of Leningrad was of fancy buildings in bold colors decorated with gold trimmings. Every street she glanced along seemed to have its own splendid multi-domed church, and there was a network of canals around the historic district, crisscrossed by bridges flanked with heroic statues.

  “It’s like living in a museum!” she exclaimed.

  “You can certainly see where the Romanovs spent the nation’s wealth,” Bill agreed.

  Their hotel was near the Winter Palace, a mint-green, white and gold building overlooking the River Neva. In every direction there were glorious views.

  “I simply can’t believe I’m here!” Val gasped, twirling around. “I’ve read so much about it, but the reality is miles better than I expected.”

  Their official guide, a middle-aged woman with dark hair striped with silver like a badger’s, was waiting for them at the hotel. “Tomorrow we start at nine,” she said, “with a walking tour of this district. Please wear sensible shoes. In the afternoon we will tour the Hermitage Gallery.”

  Val glanced at Bill and he replied, “Can’t we choose where we go? We only have a few days and are keen to see the palaces.”

  The guide consulted her schedule. “Thursday is the day we go to Petrodvorets and Friday to Detskoye Selo.”

  “I appreciate you have your routine,” Bill said. “But can’t we change it and go to Petrodvorets tomorrow?”

  There was a long pause. “You don’t want to see the Hermitage? It has a world-class art collection.”

  “Maybe later in the week,” Bill said firmly. “See you at nine.”

  * * *

  The next morning, the guide arrived at nine on the dot and agreed to take them to Petrodvorets, although she intimated that it had caused her a lot of trouble to change the arrangements. They caught a boat just outside the Winter Palace and motored downriver, past the docks, and out into the Gulf of Finland, where fishermen were casting their nets. They were sitting next to some Russian tourists who tried to teach Nicole a few words in their language. She gamely repeated what they said—“Pree-vee-et,” “Spa-seeba”—and didn’t mind when they laughed and corrected her pronunciation.

  Val was bowled over when their boat docked at a jetty and she looked up toward a mustard, white, and gold building set along a ridge, just visible through the trees.

  As they walked toward it, the guide began her talk in a droning voice. “In 1705, Peter the First chose this site for his official summer residence, because the sea is deep enough for ships to dock. Within ten years he had built the original palace and laid out the Upper and Lower Park . . .”

  Val tuned out her words and drank in the atmosphere instead: the smell of flowers in the breeze, the tinkling of fountains, the murmuring voices of other visitors.

  “Now you must appreciate the Grand Cascade,” the guide ordered.

  Val glanced at Bill and they shared a smile at her authoritarian tone.

  Even Nicole was impressed by the spectacular chain of fountains splashing around shiny gold statues, leading down from the palace. One was designed to soak anyone who tried to take a piece of artificial fruit from a tabletop; another jet of water leaped twenty feet into the air from a lion’s mouth. Their guide explained that none of the fountains used pumps; instead they had been designed to operate using the gradient of the site.

  Val wondered if the Romanovs had taken these surroundings for granted. Was this simply one of their many homes, or did they appreciate how glorious it was?

  “We will look at the Upper Park now and stop for lunch before we enter the palace,” the guide said, checking her watch. She led them around to the other side of the building, and Val saw acres of immaculately kept formal gardens with rows of fountains and parterres. There wasn’t so much as a leaf on the ground or a dead head on a flower. The gardeners must patrol regularly, checking for decay and correcting every imperfection immediately.

  They stopped on a bench to eat a picnic lunch. The guide unpacked slices of stodgy bread, hard-boiled eggs (at which Nicole wrinkled her nose), cold meats, and cheeses. As they ate, Val took the opportunity to show the woman her gold Fabergé box. She had brought it with her because she knew the company had been based in St. Petersburg during the time of the Romanovs and it seemed likely someone there might know about it.

  “I’m trying to find how it opens,” she said.

  The guide narrowed her eyes, peering at the inscription and trying without success to force it. “Perhaps we can ask one of the curators,” she said. “I will make inquiries.”

  When they were eventually ushered inside, at the exact time printed on their tickets, they found the palace interior awash with gold and ornament. It was almost too much, Val thought. No surface was left undecorated. The overall effect was of fabulous, unlimited wealth, which was probably what the designers intended.

  In each room, a guard sat on a chair in the corner, watching that they did not touch any of the priceless items. Their guide spoke in Russian to a woman guarding the Yellow Banqueting Hall, then turned to Val.

  “There is a curator here who is a Fabergé expert. We can show him your box. Follow me.”

  “Nicole and I will stay and explore, if that’s OK,” Bill said.

  The guide was unhappy about leaving them, but agreed with a sniff that she would take Val to meet the curator, then return straightaway.

  * * *

  The Fabe
rgé expert, whose name was Stepan Alexandrovich Dubov, smiled when he saw Val’s gold box.

  “Ah! It’s a sun, moon, and stars box,” he said, in perfect English, with an accent that was only slightly foreign. “I haven’t seen one of those for a while.” He looked at the hallmark on the back. “Henrik Wigstrom was the workmaster.”

  “What is a sun, moon, and stars box?” Val asked.

  Stepan pointed to the jewels on the top. “This big diamond represents the Pole Star, the next largest is the moon, while the topaz is the sun and the smaller diamonds are stars. To open it, you hold the box so that the Pole Star is in the north, move the sun from east to west, as it would travel in the course of a day, then as the sun goes down, the moon rises.” He moved the jewels as he spoke. There was a distinct click and the box sprang open.

  Val leaned forward. Inside there were two rose-gold wedding rings. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “That’s what was rattling.”

  Stepan took out the rings and examined them under a magnifying glass. “They are both engraved with Russian letters,” he said. “They’re not very clear but one looks like an M and the other an A. Where did you come across the box?”

  “My father left it to me,” she said. “He was Russian. But my mother’s initial was H, so it can’t have been her ring.”

  “Do you think your father brought it with him from Russia?” The man leaned forward with friendly interest. Val warmed to him. He had an honest face and kind eyes.

  “I’m not sure where he got it, but I know he was obsessed with the Romanovs. I wondered if it might have belonged to one of them? Could the rings have been Maria’s and Anastasia’s?”

  Stepan raised an eyebrow and looked at the box again. “Many of their possessions were sold on the black market in the years after they disappeared, so it’s possible.”

  “You say they disappeared,” Val challenged. “Don’t you believe they were executed?”

  He shrugged. “I have read the reports of some of the men who claim to have been their executioners, but there are contradictions in the stories. I think no one will ever know for sure unless the bodies are found—and I suspect they never will be. The Sokolov report in the 1920s concluded that they had been dissolved in sulfuric acid.”

  Val was surprised he was prepared to talk so openly. “I had been warned that the Romanovs were a taboo subject here,” she said. “I’m writing a thesis about them so I’m fascinated to learn all I can, but I didn’t like to ask our guide.”

  “I would be happy to answer any of your questions,” Stepan said. “It is not such a taboo subject as it was, say, twenty years ago.”

  “OK,” Val asked. “Do you believe any of the Romanovs escaped from Ekaterinburg?”

  He looked startled for a moment but quickly regained his composure. “There have been many stories over the years but there is no evidence to back them up.”

  “What do you think?”

  He tilted his head to one side. “I think it is possible. But we may never find out, because if any of them did escape, they would have kept a low profile. Even if they were living overseas, there would have been a risk of assassination. A few people who claimed to be Romanovs were killed back in the 1920s.”

  “So you think the truth might never emerge?” That wasn’t what Val wanted to hear.

  “I’m convinced it won’t. History is not a neat narrative written by Gorky or Chekhov where everything falls into place at the end.” He smiled. “But you are a historian. You must agree.”

  “It’s human nature to try to look for patterns in life,” Val said, “but I suppose most things are random.”

  “I think there are patterns in human behavior,” he said, “but not in fate.” He smiled. “Can I offer you a cup of tea? I am privileged to have a kettle in this office.”

  While he made the tea, Val fingered the envelope of photographs in her handbag. Bill had told her not to bring them with her to the Soviet Union in case their belongings were searched, but she couldn’t resist slipping them into her bag. She felt sure this man, Stepan, was not a government spy because he was far too frank. It would be fascinating to hear what he thought of them.

  “No milk, I’m afraid,” he said as he put a cup of steaming black liquid in front of her.

  “Can I show you something?” she asked, making a spur-of-the-moment decision.

  He looked puzzled. “OK.”

  Val pulled out the prints. “My father had a camera among his possessions. An old Kodak Autographic. There was some film inside that had not been developed, so after he died I got the pictures printed.” She passed them across the desk and he began to flick through them. “The quality is not very good,” she continued, “but I think it shows the Romanovs in the Ipatiev House.”

  Stepan did not respond but continued examining the images. He stopped at one and she heard an intake of breath, but she couldn’t see which had affected him. He had gone very quiet.

  “Do you agree?” she asked.

  Stepan looked shaken, as if he’d seen something that disturbed him, and he paused before he spoke. “I wonder if I might borrow these to show a colleague, who is more of an expert than me? If you tell me the name of your hotel, I will return them before you leave.”

  “Of course you can,” she agreed. “I have another set at home, so if your colleague wants to keep them for historical research, that would be fine.”

  He kept flicking through, shaking his head in astonishment.

  “Do you know how your father got this camera?” he asked.

  Val bit her lip. Should she trust him? What was the worst that could happen?

  “I only found out recently that my father worked at the Ipatiev House,” she said. “I think he must have stolen some of the Romanovs’ possessions from there. I have a photograph album back in Australia, along with a sketchbook and some icons.” She described them, and Stepan listened carefully, occasionally nodding his head.

  “You say your father worked at the Ipatiev House. Do you mean he was a guard?”

  She nodded, ashamed. “He was a complex man,” she said. “Not a great father. He never talked about his early life in Russia. I think he must have been traumatized by his experiences.”

  “What was his name?” Stepan asked.

  There was utter silence in the room as Val weighed up whether or not to tell him. “Anatoly Bolotov,” she muttered at last.

  Stepan scraped back his chair on the parquet floor. Val looked up to see that his entire expression had changed.

  When he spoke, his voice was frosty. “Bolotov was one of the killers,” he told her.

  “No!” Val exclaimed. “That’s not possible.” And then the memory flashed into her mind of her father in the nursing home repeating “I didn’t want to kill her” and talking about all the blood.

  “Yurovsky, the commandant at the house, named him in his written testimony.”

  Val clasped her chin in her hands in dismay. “But he was only nineteen!”

  “Age was no barrier. One of the other killers was only seventeen.” Stepan was staring at her now, his dark eyes boring into her.

  “Has Yurovsky’s testimony been published anywhere?” she asked. “I’d like to read it for myself.”

  “It is only available in Soviet archives.” His tone was definitely unfriendly; she wasn’t imagining it.

  “Is it possible to get a copy?”

  “No.”

  Val was stunned. “So you drop this bombshell that my father was a murderer then tell me I can’t even read the evidence against him. I just have to live with it?”

  “Sometimes that’s the only thing we can do,” he said, standing up, clearly keen to end their conversation. “Do you want me to return the photographs to you? If so, tell me the name of your hotel.”

  Val shook her head. “No. Please keep them. Thank you for the tea. I’m sorry.”

  Stepan didn’t offer to shake her hand as she left. She wandered out into the hall to look for Bill and Nicole, not sure wh
at she had apologized for. Because her father had helped to kill their royal family? Sorry didn’t even begin to cover it.

  Chapter 59

  BACK IN THEIR HOTEL ROOM, ONCE NICOLE WAS asleep, Val lay on her bed writing in her notebook about all she had seen and heard during the day. She was upset that Stepan had turned so hostile when he found out who her father was, but guessed that he felt a strong sense of loyalty to the erstwhile royal family. She was still reeling at the news that her father had been one of the Romanovs’ killers at the age of just nineteen. No wonder her mother found him crying in a park. And no wonder he became such an angry, bitter man in his later years.

  There were two single beds in the room and Nicole was tucked up on a folding camp bed. It didn’t look particularly comfortable but she had always been able to sleep anywhere.

  Bill came out of the bathroom, a speck of toothpaste in the corner of his mouth. “What were you and the curator talking about today?” he asked. “You were in his office for ages.”

  “First he showed me how the Fabergé box worked.” Val had demonstrated it over their meal in the hotel dining room and Nicole had been enchanted, begging to be allowed to take it to school to show her friends when they got home. “And then we chatted about the Romanovs,” she continued. “He was surprisingly open about them, saying that if one or more had survived they would probably lie low, even after all this time, because of the assassination risk.”

  Bill gestured urgently toward the light bulb on the ceiling and she remembered he had told her hotel rooms were often bugged. He beckoned for her to follow him into the bathroom, where he turned the taps on full.

  “I warned you not to mention the Romanovs,” he hissed, his voice barely audible over the noise of gushing water.

  “Don’t worry. He was very frank and I knew I could trust him.” She was surprised by the horrified expression on Bill’s face.

  “Did you tell him about us going to Sverdlovsk?”

  “No, but I gave him the photographs from my father’s camera.” Bill gasped and shook his head. She couldn’t understand why he was reacting so strongly. “I don’t see any harm in it. I’ve already sent copies to your colleague in New York, so it seemed natural to give them to Stepan. He’s going to show them to a Romanov expert here.”