by Laura Rose
I chastised myself—was I a child who needed praise? This situation was far too serious to allow me to indulge in such infantile feelings. It was enough that Mama had requested me, that she wanted me near her at the gates and now in her own bed. For whatever necessary reason, I had been singled out, and now I had succeeded in my new role. I had not given way to tears and hysteria or fainted. Still, I found myself feeling hollow, wanting more. The fear for Papa rose up and I gave in to gnawing worries — was he all right? Was he even alive?
There had been no word from Papa in days, a silence which was so unlike him. Papa and Mama were always in unbroken communication. They exchanged letters, phone calls or telegrams every day, often more than once a day. He called her “Sunny” and she signed “Wifey.” They loved each other as the young sweethearts they once were. We children were warmed by their love for one another and hoped to someday know the same devotion.
I prayed the rumors were true—that Papa was delayed in the Imperial train only by the heavy snow on the track. I conjured his sweet face, his kind blue eyes, his endearments, the scent of his tobacco. When Papa returned, our world would be restored. I knew it.
The weight of the bedcovers and the warmth of Mama’s body beside mine was more physical comfort than my fatigued body could resist. I plunged into oblivion, a depth of sleep below dreams until the sun rose and woke me with a start to my new situation and the new order.
Mama was watching me sleep. Her gaze had the same fixed stare as the icon—colorful and cracked, mosaic blue and red. I could tell she had had no rest. The whites of her eyes were vermilion-veined; her face bore a clammy sheen of sweat. Her hair, damp on her fine white forehead, curled in wisps and escaped from her upswept coiffure. She wore no jewels.
We rose in silence. I had the sense of her thoughts ticking like the wound clock on the mantel. What would this day bring? Papa’s return or the appearance of the mob, distant last night but perhaps now almost upon us? The volleys could be heard; they seemed closer, coming from the direction of our mock Chinese Village, one of the most enchanted sections of our palace park. I imagined our miniature pleasure palaces. The Wendy House, our playhouse, occupied not by pretend pirates but by actual enemies with real rather than rubber swords and guns that actually fired. Would the hooligans invade the Chinese Theater? I feared this meant the rebel mob was inside the pagodas and even the theater that was built for our galas and theatricals. Surely, the Palace Guard below us in the souterrains and the soldiers who stood in the courtyard would protect us and the palace itself? I knew these were the last lines of defense but last night’s visit to the gates had reassured me that the battalions would stand fast. Or so I thought.
I parted the white lace curtaining Mama’s windows and stared outside. At first, my tired eyes thought that I saw white birds flying amongst the soldiers. When I blinked, the “birds” were transformed into white handkerchiefs tied round their wrists. What was the meaning of the white scarves? I wondered. I would know the answer soon enough…
At least for a brief time, we experienced a reprieve. The sunlight brought reassurance; the dawn itself was beautiful. As the sun rose, it shone on a glass forest; every twig encased in ice. When the wind blew, the trees chimed. Inside, the house bells also chimed and the remaining servants appeared on schedule and bustled on their usual routines. The fire was re-laid and stoked; maids entered the bedchamber to help us dress and were startled by our appearance. Mama dismissed them but accepted our most loyal nanny Shura’s offer of café au lait. A tray was fetched from the kitchen, and Lili Dehn joined us. We took our café au lait in Tatiana and Olga’s usual sitting room. The taste of warm cream, hot frothed French coffee did wonders to restore us all. For Mama, the café au lait was medicine; there was no question her heart required its stimulus. As I felt my own optimism rise, I thought, perhaps I was the same. I too needed the coffee to confront what we had to face—the revolutionaries and the invalids.
We began with the rounds of the sick. No one had recovered but no one had worsened, either. We, the well—Mama, Lili Dehn and I—ran up and down the stairs, back and forth through the curtained doorways, bearing trays of medicines and the last of the blood oranges from the Crimea. Mama had faith the oranges could cure. She squeezed out the scarlet juice and held the cup to their lips.
Even as we imagined we were winning the war against disease inside the palace, we heard a new and terrible cry outside. Who would have thought the word “Freedom!” screamed by a ragged man would mean its opposite to a small band of women and girls and one sick boy?
THE END OF THE EMPIRE
True to its astronomical force for betrayal, the Ides of March brought a series of disastrous messages. As the new day began, Mama, propped up on the chaise in the Red Room, was forced to receive the dreaded news. The first bulletin came from Count Benckendorff and I knew from the way the old man’s face sagged that he bore a message he was loathe to deliver. He indicated to Dr. Botkin that the doctor should stand by and fortunate that he did—Mama fainted at once, falling forward. Dr. Botkin caught Mama in his arms, and tried his best to support her; she was regaining consciousness. I could see her eyes dilate, trying to absorb the information. Dr. Botkin held the salts to her fine nostrils. She revived and said, “Tell me then—the truth.”
It fell to Count Benckendorff to tell her that the Equipage de la Garde had been recalled to Petrograd, and that the elite Garde would be leaving the palace grounds momentarily.
“Who ordered this?” Mama demanded.
The answer was no surprise—we knew Papa felt betrayed by the Grand Dukes and it was indeed Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich who commanded the guard return at once to Petrograd. Mama and Papa were estranged from Grand Duke Cyril but it was still a shock that he turned over his battalion to the rebels. Grand Duke Nicholas’s disloyalty was a particular affront. He shared Papa’s name but Grand Duke Nicholas was distinguished from my father Nicholas by his nickname “Nikolasha” and his great height—the Grand Duke was six foot six inches tall and always called “The Tall Nicky” while poor Papa was forever “the Short Nicky.” The tall Nicky, Nikolasha, had long been campaigning in the Duma for constitutional rights and had wanted the ouster of “our friend” Grigory, whom he called by his notorious name of Rasputin.
“Suddenly they are revolutionaries,” Mama said.
She almost hissed their names, but there was no time for her to vent her furies; events had overtaken emotion. There are moments, unspoken, when the truth of a situation tolls like a church bell. “The changing of the guard” took on its new and final meaning for us—it would be the last ceremonial salute of our dynasty. That morning, the soldiers removed the Colours, the Imperial flags for the troops that had always been kept at the palace. As the Colours were lowered, we all knew within our hearts that the unstoppable terror would soon overtake us. Yet old Count Benckendorff brought some dignity and resolve to this event: “They shall not skulk out with the Colours,” he declared.
Mama understood at once. The Romanovs had always held the Colours high. Our love for Russia must come first; the respect must be paid. The count directed that the usual ceremony of presenting the Colours be followed even as they departed. And we, the former Imperial family as we would henceforth be known, wished to salute our Russian flag even as we lost power forever. I knew what Papa wished—that we honor Russia above ourselves.
The Garde Equipage drew up in the courtyard and the band began to play. “Open the draperies wide now,” Mama told me.
Mama chose to present herself for this final viewing. She posed in the window, where the men could see her. Mama wore her white Red Cross nursing uniform, complete with the pinafore and high white headdress. I always admired her in the clothing of the nursing Sister of Mercy; she appeared as a stern but beautiful angel. Mama stood tall, as always, and raised her hand. I stood slightly behind her and watched. My eyes smarted. The men we knew best of the Standardt, the handsome officers who had accompanied us on so many joyous sa
ilings, were the first to march out of the courtyard and our future. Yet I too straightened—Mama’s pride entered me, as her fearlessness had when the siege began. The drums beat and with them our hearts. The scarlet and gold flags of the Romanov dynasty were carried out in formation by the smart marching guards.
The band played “God Save the Tsar.”
We all felt this song might never be heard again, nor such a ceremony take place. The Garde, still visibly loyal—their eyes shone with tears in the cold morning and their postures went as rigid as ours with pride—marched out of the palace grounds in their best formal formation. I could not help but be stirred and disheartened at the same time. If the Garde left, would the other battalions remain? Who would protect us?
Mama telephoned our other stronghold in Petrograd, The Winter Palace. I stood beside her and I knew we were both imagining the vast three-story white and green Baroque building on the bank of the Neva River, with its crystal-chandeliered halls, gilded receiving rooms and ballrooms. The Winter Palace was so vast—more than a thousand rooms, so coldly ornate that it had never appealed to Mama and Papa, who preferred the intimate feeling of our family apartment at the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, which we all considered our true home, where we were all now held captive.
The Winter Palace had been the official residence of the tsars since 1760. As my mother telephoned, I mentally reentered its vast halls. I could almost feel the echoes. The phone was answered by Prince Ratief, who had been left in charge to defend the palace when the unrest began in the city.
“We are surrounded,” he reported, “but no one has yet entered or fired upon us.”
Mama and I almost heard what he did not add—“yet.”
Mama added more frequent stops in the telegraph room beside Papa’s study to her rounds of the sickbeds. She was ceaseless, sending message after message to Papa. I did not have to read the telegrams to know what she wrote. Where was he? Was he injured? Was he ill? Was he coming home? When? Urgent. Urgent he return. Situation grave.
During the day, from every quarter, the news worsened, as the revolution gained its terrible momentum. Mama expressed her fears for the loyalists at the Winter Palace. Too weak now to telephone herself, Mama and I stood by, as Lili Dehn, with trembling hand, phoned the Winter Palace. At first, we were relieved—Prince Ratief again answered. I imagined him, young and mustachioed, standing in the great gilt and white hall.
Our relief was short-lived and ended with his answer to Lili Dehn’s question as to his situation there: “The mob is even now within the gates of the palace courtyard. I beg you, Madame, to present my assurances of fidelity and devotion to the empress; I may not be able to do so again. Madame, it distresses me to appear discourteous but I fear I am about to be killed. The doors of this room are being forced!” His voice ceased. There was a terrible crash—so loud we all heard it in the telegraph room. Then silence.
Instead of Papa, Mama heard next from the commander of the Duma, Mikhail Rodzianko, who telephoned and ordered, not suggested, that we all leave our home at the Alexander Palace and Tsarskoe Selo at once for our own safety. “It’s impossible,” I heard Mama say. “The children are too ill; they cannot be moved.”
“When the house is burning, the invalids must be the first to leave,” Rodzianko replied.
Who was Rodzianko to command my mother, the empress, the tsaritsa? I knew him from his visits here, which were never welcome.
“He was one of our own,” Papa once said, referring to Mikhail Rodzianko’s noble birth, “but he prefers the other side.”
To us children, Rodzianko was a figure of mirth, and girth. He called himself “the fattest man in Russia” and he may well have been—bursting buttons from his uniform. Now, he was not at all funny; Rodzianko led the Duma and the Duma wanted Papa to surrender his powers to their governing body, to make the changes that they claimed would prevent something worse.
Mama’s agitation increased. I held her by the elbow as she went to and from the rooms. She was in constant motion and Dr. Botkin expressed fear for her heart. The tap-tap-tapping of the telegraph machine continued almost uninterrupted now. I escorted Mama in and out of that small chamber a dozen times in an hour. There was no reply. Her breathing was shallow beside me. I imagined I could hear her heart, staccato as the telegraph machine, with too many suspenseful pauses.
Then, when we had despaired of news, Lili Dehn cried out as she looked out the window in the Red Room. “Come quickly!” I heard her from where I stood in the doorway of Mama’s bedroom.
I started to run to the Red Room. Mama’s voice cracked at the back of my neck. “Help me, Marie.”
How could I have been so inconsiderate? I had failed to realize the walk back to the window in the Red Room now represented a challenge. I held Mama’s arm, and supported her as we half ran to back to the scarlet music room. In the courtyard below, we saw a courier—the messenger’s horse appeared near-frozen, lather turned to ice on his flanks. The man himself was red-purple in the face. He held a dispatch case.
“Allow him at once,” Mama said.
In a moment, the boy stood before us. Up close, the guard was half-dead; his purpling skin spotted black with frostbite. His eyes had the glaze of the “frozen eye,” when the orb itself becomes frozen in its socket. His hands did not function as he tried to give over the letter from Papa, just before he collapsed. The boy was taken to the right wing, occupied by the officers, and he was placed in a bed with stones heated from the fire. What later became of him we never knew, but he was a hero to us.
Our attention was fixed upon the letter. So far as we knew, Papa was still marooned on the Imperial train, stopped by snow and the rebel Red armies. Mama screamed as she read the letter. She swayed and I tried to steady her. She spoke in French, “Abdique!”
I understood—abdicated.
Papa had surrendered the empire. He was no longer tsar, no longer emperor.
I too felt faint; the air dotted gold.
The Red Room spun round. I heard the gypsy music of the lost Romanian band. The great shadow swooped close and I too swayed and near toppled.
Mama sank to the divan.
Lili ran for Dr. Botkin, who appeared and administered the smelling salts. He mixed a composing draught for Mama but she refused it. She sat up, still pale and shaking.
“Abdique!” Lili repeated to the good doctor, who did not look shocked. Was it possible that most of our entourage expected this? Lili Dehn showed the letter to Dr. Botkin, who winced as he peered through his thick lenses to read the message.
“Be calm,” Dr. Botkin advised us as he read. “We don’t know what it means yet. Tsar Nicholas has abdicated in favor of his son, Alexei, who was next in line of succession.”
“Alexei!” Mama cried, and I have never heard such an anguished cry from any lips. “Alexei. They will take him now, take him from me.”
At that, Mama lost consciousness again and slid, limp, to the floor before anyone could catch her. Lili, Dr. Botkin and I lifted Mama, and stretched her out on the wider settee. The doctor administered the salts again.
It is curious what one notices at such moments—in the corner of my left eye, I saw the serving girl, Natasha, reach out for a silver candy dish and run from the room. I could make no sense of this but an hour later, I knew as my mother telephoned—most of the suite abandoned the palace at once, taking what they could grab.
When we summoned Mama’s six dressers, only one of the six women, our good, stout, tall Nyuta, appeared.
The best source of information in the palace is always the servants; from them, we learned more news of what was happening outside. Once word of Papa’s abdication spread, many on staff abdicated in their own fashion. The valet Trupp appeared in a fury—the other soldiers, who seemed so loyal last night, were leaving. The white kerchiefs we had witnessed on their wrists had signaled their surrender to the rebels. These soldiers would go over to the Duma, which had now usurped all of Papa’s powers and privileges.
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And what of Papa himself?
The courier reported that Papa had been delayed on the snowy train track and was now hostage on the Imperial train. The “good” news if it could be called that was that Papa had reversed his decision to abdicate in favor of Alexei. Mama guessed the reason was Alexei’s health. Instead, Papa had abdicated in favor of his brother, Michael, Misha, who, only a few hours after this decree, characteristically panicked and rejected the legacy of emperor. It was Uncle Michael, Misha, so weak and quiet, who in the end, surrendered the Romanov dynasty.
Mama sniffed and said, “The weakling gave away the world,” but I could see her relief. “Alexei will remain with me,” she said. I could hear in her voice that this was what mattered most. She then fixed her attention to Papa and began to demand more word of him from our captors. Papa’s message and the Provisional Government offered the same hopeful report—Papa was delayed only by the snow. He had been permitted a visit from his mother, my grandmother and namesake, the Dowager Empress Marie and she had spent time with him on the train. In a few days, when the tracks could be cleared, Papa would be allowed to return home. To what would he return?
And the mob?
Count Benckendorff had the unhappy duty of telling Mama that the gates were now undefended. Our soldiers had all fled or defected to the revolutionaries. The mob was contained beyond the gates by the foot soldiers of this new order, who wished to keep the wild crowd from the palace park and palace for their own reasons. Perhaps to protect the treasures within? To hold us for trial? Many of our own guards had joined the revolutionary troops—Rodzianko announced that a representative of the Provisional Government would soon arrive to see “the former Tsaritsa” and then we would know more.
And so, our fate turned. One day, we were members of a dynasty which ruled one sixth of the world; the next we were prisoners in our own palace, confined to our rooms. I was too uninformed then to know how much danger we faced, that like Marie Antoinette, we could face execution. I heard Trupp, the most loyal of the valets, whisper in the hall to the cook, Kharitonov that the crowd was screaming through the wrought iron gates, “Give us the Romanovs!”