by Laura Rose
All to be kept under guard in the city of Ekaterinburg.
While we stood waiting at this freight station, amidst great crates of goods, and sacks of semi-precious mineral and stone, I watched as the rest of our suite was registered as “delivered.”
Dr. Botkin, Nyuta, Sednev, and old Chemodurov passed through the checkpoint and rejoined us. But Valia was stopped, and his papers and suitcase seized.
Valia signaled to us, not to worry. “I will rejoin you,” he cried as he was led away last year. He tried to pass his coat to Mama, but the guards blocked him. Papa was disturbed and asked, “Why is Valia being separated from us?”
“I cannot tell you because I do not know,” was Commissar Vasily Yakovlev’s reply. “Perhaps he will be detained elsewhere. Be glad you are with your family and allowed the rest of your suite.” And so, we were led to an alley beside the railings where we were told to get into an open motorcar, which was part of a small motorcade that had been waiting, engines idling. Mama, Papa and I shared one car; the servants and Dr. Botkin were taken in separate cars. We did not see where Valia Dolgoruky was taken.
What would happen to us now? Were we going to the special house?
After leaving the train station, the cars turned slowly onto the one main thoroughfare, and we saw the crowds lined up to watch. The new Commandant Aveydev was in our car and ordered us: “Lie down on the floor of the motorcar! Do not raise your heads.”
We did as ordered but as I lay on the cold surface, holding Mama to me, I could hear that collective voice, the animal machine voice of the crowd no longer human. They were screaming our names: “Show us! Show us the Romanovs!“
“The Bloodthirsty! Nikolai the Bloody! Give them to us!” “Let us spit in their faces!”
Give them to us. At that, I pressed lower on the floor of the automobile, hugging Mama hard and fast. I hoped she had not heard the insults and threats. She moaned. She heard the curses—“German bitch, whore, and spy.” I wished I could cover her ears. I held Mama so she would not feel the ruts under the wheels. Her poor bones, so painful always—what this must be? How would she ever be able to rise, and walk again? I felt she could expire in my arms. Her breathing was ragged, and I reached in my bag and held a small vial of salts to her nostrils.
ARRIVAL
The car pulled up to an imposing house on the wide boulevard. They had already erected a fence, a palisade of fresh pine, similar to the fence that surrounded the house in Tobolsk. The palisade blocked all access to the new house, save at the open gate, where a guard post stood. In front of the fence there was an old existing structure—a fanciful shrine to St. Nicholas, a tiny chapel with an onion dome.
“Mama,” I whispered, “they have a shrine.” She crossed herself. I followed suit. I knew we all regarded the shrine to St. Nicholas—how uncanny! —as the single powerful omen of good, that perhaps this turn of events need not be dire. This house was protected, perhaps sacred.
There were more sentries; there seemed to be a dozen or more guards positioned at every corner, beside every door. I turned my head and caught sight of two more guards with rifles—across the street, positioned at another house at the window, weapons pointed. I shivered, seeing so many sentries. It was not merely their numbers; these guards were different.
I did note that the guards here were younger, many of them even younger than I was. Papa remarked on their poor, mismatched “uniforms.” This detachment must have been hastily assembled.
“These are not soldiers,” Papa muttered as we passed through the gate.
Yet I was secretly relieved that they were not soldiers—they were boys, and as such not so threatening as their commandants. They were watching us with great curiosity. I could not help but be curious also—a few of the boys looked sensitive, even handsome, with the high color of the people here. I had the impression of their rosy cheeks, their interested gaze. Two young men had the near-Asian look of the native Siberian people; the others were classic “Russians”—with thick blond hair, blue eyes and wide cheeks, full lips.
The young guards looked healthy and strong—I was not scared of them and a few boys looked at me in outright admiration, almost awe, even in my bedraggled state. I knew how I must look wearing my mussed, muddied dress, the Persian lamb coat and the peasant’s old boots. When I entered this so-called House of Special Purpose, I had to cross the courtyard. The detail of guards lined up—not very impressively—at attention.
Up close, I saw the curiosity deepen in some of the boys’ eyes, lust in not a few. I gathered my Persian lamb coat tighter, held my head up. I tried to minimize my bosom—at that moment, I wished for less distinct feminine attributes. My hourglass, as Mama calls my figure, draws attention, and the wrong sort. I wondered if the men would bother Tatiana and Olga. I feared they would. Shvybz is so impish, the boys leave her alone, save for pranks. It would be me, Olga and Tatiana as the objects of their desire. Most of the male attention has always gone to Tatiana and to me. It has always been that way—with the officers on board the Standard—everywhere. I seemed to excite the carnal urges, while Tatiana inspired more chaste admiration. Was this because she was thin? Now I was also thin, perhaps my admirers would also be more cerebral.
What a silly girl I was, under these grave circumstances, to even remember flirtations. My obligation was to Mama and Papa. And Mama had instilled in all of us a severe fear of being attacked, the need to never fully undress.
This house, the Ipatiev Mansion renamed by the Bolsheviks as the House of Special Purpose, was different. I observed the house was more decorated and ornate than the Governor’s Mansion. There were fanciful window arches and rococo stonework. A beautiful wrought iron and glass canopy overhung the doorway.
It was time to walk inside. Would Mama be able to stand? Or would we have to beg for her wheeling chair to be found and brought round? Could Mama summon her ultimate strength again?
“Let me walk in…” she said. “Do not ask for the wheeling chair.”
She wanted to show her pride, to give us strength. With an inhuman ability, she stood and walked unassisted—she would not let even Papa hold her arm, as she proceeded up the walkway toward the new house. She walked quite a distance—from the car to the doorway. We passed through a small courtyard. Papa’s concern at that moment of entry was for Mama. He knew the effort the walk cost her; she could barely set her weight down on the right side. She buckles. I have seen her reach out and hold the wall. Papa stood close to her; she insisted that she walk without assistance, but I knew he was ready to catch her if she should stumble.
I walked right behind them. I could still hear the insults and threats from the train depot. Although I admired the style and obvious quality of the house and I was most grateful for the draft of warmth as the door opened, I still felt an unmistakable tremor as I crossed the threshold. It is said we each have an inner voice, a voice from our soul which whispers to us. I heard this voice as I entered the House of Special Purpose, but I dare not contemplate what the voice said.
LAMPLIGHT
The house itself was smaller than the Governor’s House in Tobolsk but better kept. The outside stone and stuccoed walls were cream-colored. The Ipatiev House was a well-appointed mansion.
“This was the home of one of the wealthiest men in town,” Yakovlev informed us, “the engineer Nikolay Ipatiev.” Vasily Yakovlev told us that the house had just been confiscated and the owner, Nikolay Ipatiev, and his family had departed only hours before our arrival.
In their absence, I felt sorrow for this family. Where had the Ipatiev’s gone? Why had the Bolsheviks changed the name from the Ipatiev Mansion to this strange Bolshevik title? And what had become of the owner, who furnished his home so well? Yakovlev would not tell us more. We were grateful for the grace of the Ipatiev home; perhaps it was a prison but this was a prison that offered comfort and hope in its design. We felt Ipatiev’s recent presence—the heat of his home fire remained in the corner porcelain stoves. Potted palms flourished
in the parlor; the formal dining room, with its great gleaming table and straight-back, carved high chairs, was illuminated by lamp and firelight. Chandeliers throughout were lit and aglow. The bedroom featherbeds were plumped.
Unlike the situation we discovered upon our arrival at the Tobolsk house, where the filth was inches deep and mouse droppings dotted the floors and filled the drawers, The Ipatiev house was still fresh and clean—heated and ready for supper.
What a difference the light and warmth made. My fingers were no longer stiffened from cold. I concluded that being cold is akin to feeling fear—the shivering and trembling exaggerate that very emotion. The freezing drafts we suffered on the river accentuated symptoms that were already there. It was impossible not to feel a welcome in this warmth—my tremor stopped. I noted a handsome gleaming samovar in the dining room, its brass teapot set atop the drum, a glowing fire already lit below in the brazier. I imagined we would enjoy a restorative tea after we unpacked.
Mama and Papa and I decided that we would share the largest bedroom—a corner room on the first floor atop the stairway. The room was beautiful, a white square chamber with a bridal feeling. There was one great bed, a lovely lace coverlet upon it, and more lace at the windows. There were ample dressers and space for our clothes. I found the closet and drawers clean and emptied. The true nature of this house was rising to greet us, like a dog that has been patted and groomed. Christ had shown his mercy to place us in this beautiful home.
As soon as we were settled inside our large bedroom, Papa turned to Mama with a small sad smile: “Do you recall that name Ipatiev?”
“Of course,” Mama said. “Ipatiev was the name of the monastery where the first Romanov was crowned tsar—three hundred years ago.”
What a strange coincidence, I thought.
Of course, Papa saw the name as a divine sign.
“Ipatiev,” Papa repeated with a sigh. “Oh, it comes fully around then—Ipatiev again. The beginning and the end.”
Then Mama sighed. Papa had nothing between this sudden despair and his odd cheerful disconnection. He was either gloomy or rejoicing in insignificant detail such as the food or the weather. He murmured then, the way he did when he was at his most mournful. He took out a cigarette, one of his dark hand-rolled ones from home, from the precious pouch he carried with him, lit it and exhaled defeat.
Oh, what were we to do with him? Papa’s sorrow mingled with the exhaust of his smoke.
How I longed for one puff!
“In the end, we reprise the beginning,” he said, sighing and smoking.
“It is a coincidence, nothing more,” I told him. Only now, in Papa’s mind, the name portended an ending. I knew he was going to say it again, that he was born May sixth, the Day of Job. This was his fate then, suffering upon suffering, such as Job’s in the Bible. Job suffered more than any one man can endure.
I knew how to change this subject. I reminded him that we would all have our birthdays here, in this house—and soon! Our family birthdays cluster as a bouquet of spring and summer flowers. On May sixth, Papa would reach the half-century, an age he has never believed he would live to achieve. Mama would be forty-six years old on June sixth, Tatiana twenty-one on June tenth and Shvybz seventeen on June eighteenth and then, I at last should turn nineteen, on June twenty-sixth! Almost a spinster! I could hardly believe it.
Poor Olga’s birthday stood alone in autumn—so far ahead on our uncertain calendar—our “oldest” spinster, Olga, to be twenty-four in November. Where would we be in November? May we be free, and perhaps she affianced, by then.
I won’t think of autumn, only spring and summer.
“We have days and days to celebrate,” I told Papa and kissed him, and then he smiled at Mama and me. We all sat down on the great big Ipatiev bed, and for the first time in so long, we were smiling.
Papa reached back into his pocket for the tobacco, and rolled a second cigarette and offered it to me; how I enjoyed that smoke, puff after puff. I matched Papa with his own inhalations, exhalations. Mama sat down on the large bed with its pretty pillows and took out a treat from her own bag—one of her English tea biscuits—and nibbled.
We looked about our new bedroom, so reminiscent of our rooms at home, and I imagined all of us—Alexei and OTMA, reunited. Sleeping here, again like kittens. I longed for the dogs; I summoned their funny faces—ugly Ortino, cuddlesome crunch-face Jemmy, exuberant spaniel Joy, with his sad eyes and happy tail.
I prayed and counted the days until Alexei and the OTMA could be reunited again under the same roof. As soon as Baby was well to travel they would rejoin us and I prayed their journey would be easier than ours had been. The ice should be melted in the anticipated three weeks’ time.
I didn’t expect Mama to comment on the house but she said, “It is not exactly to my taste but I admire the lace at the windows.” She asked for her icons and the tablecloths she had carried all this way from our chapel at Tsarskoe Selo.
I knew from past history that she would establish an altar so that we might all pray. She turned to prayer for solace and found it. Papa descended into his private well of sadness but then he would emerge and look for the best, always planning for redemption, for the greater joy that springs after sorrow.
He looked out the bedroom window, spied the garden below and he brightened.
“I can plant radishes, cabbage and beets.” I was glad to hear this—he had been so disappointed twice now. He had started a garden at Tsarskoe Selo last spring, only to abandon it in August in full bloom just short of the best harvest and again at Tobolsk, he was planning to work the land and had established seedlings in the rooftop greenhouse, and of course we left while the ground was still frozen. Given a chance to work the earth or cut wood as he did all winter in Tobolsk, Papa would find a measure of contentment.
As we unpacked in the Ipatiev bedroom, we three felt this uplift in our spirits, as our separate dreams and plans resumed. I unpacked my toiletries and took one drawer. I should sleep on the floor, beside Mama and Papa, who shared the great bed.
I prayed that my own bed and my sisters’ would be shipped here in time for their arrival. I missed my bed, and my pale blue coverlet with the matching monogrammed bedcovers. The covers were more than a blanket for the body; I snuggled and even nursed—twisting the corner of the pillowcase in my mouth when I was a small child. I missed the blue duvet so!
The commandant promised more rooms would be made available when everyone else arrived. We would have four rooms on this floor—the drawing room, a dining room, and two bedrooms. I was sleeping with Mama and Papa in the main corner bedroom for now but I was promised another chamber, very pretty with a stained-glass ceiling chandelier with globes shaped as lilies. Vasily Yakovlev promised that room would be prepared when my sisters rejoined us.
These quarters were small but pretty and we liked to squeeze together. Papa pronounced, “This is a good house for us.” Tight quarters would be preferable to remaining apart. I was curious about the locked chambers that we passed on our way upstairs.
Meanwhile, the rest of our suite occupied the drawing room, dining room and hall. These were spacious chambers and there were divans in the drawing room and more beds would be carried in for Nyuta, Sednev, Chemurodov and Dr. Botkin. It was awkward that there was only one lavatory—off the hall, and this reached either by going round a back hall or passing the sentry guard office. The guards had headquarters downstairs; we understood we were not to go down there, or to the garden save on our appointed walk times.
After we unpacked, we filed into the dining room and gathered at the samovar in anticipation of the hot tea. The first shock—there was no hot water remaining. Old Chemodurov hobbled to the kitchen to request more, only to return with worse news: “The guards have used up the entire supply of potable water. We shall have no tea until tomorrow.”
From downstairs, later that night, we could hear their conversation, an occasional drunken roar. I imagined the guards sat by their drunken com
mandant, playing cards, gambling, drinking more vodka. I pictured the guns, strapped to their sides.
“It’s not so bad,” Papa said. “There will be tea tomorrow.”
MAY 1918 / WHITE LIGHT
Mayday, their new holiday. I could hear them marching, singing. A red flag with a golden star fluttered in the sky. More banners unfurled along the street. The street looked gay—dozens of smaller red flags snapped in the crisp wind against the white snowscape. They celebrated, but how could we? I said this to Papa and Mama, as they stood, both holding me, tight in our small circle.
“This,” Papa whispered, “is what we celebrate.”
A spring snow began to fall, slow with few flakes, far-spaced. Even the snow seemed weakened, as were we. The snow provided a sound buffer, muting the screech and whistles of the electric streetcars that scooted, almost like Alexei’s toy set, past this house. The first morning even the birds which had twittered incessantly were silent. The snow whispered of the passing winter; I longed for the true spring but I cherished the hush. I slept better than I had on the previous nights. I entered a dream that I was in my own bed, and it was a shock to awaken and reacquaint myself with this new arrangement.
How we wished we could have slept a bit later that morning; it was our first chance to recover from the journey and the shock of our arrival. But the commandant Aveydev decreed we rise at dawn for their insane roll call. I awakened, stiff on the floor, and saw Mama and Papa half-asleep, not yet risen from their bed. I saw that they were embracing each other and Mama was comforting Papa, holding him as a child to her breast. I thought Papa had tears in his eyes. I looked away.
One of the strangest aspects to our captivity was that I was now inside my parents’ marriage in ways I would never have envisioned. This was both comforting and disconcerting. I took refuge in their nearness, even the sound of Papa snoring. Mama made small moans; she suffered pain even in her sleep. This was their night duet—his soft snore, her low moans. I listened and it was a lullaby of sorts. Mama also often prayed aloud in her sleep. This too soothed me, and perhaps these unconscious mumbled pleas to God reassured Papa, who was the best sleeper amongst us. We said he would sleep through a bomb, but I prayed he wouldn’t have to.