by Laura Rose
This was his last message. I will pass the note to the nuns as soon as possible—I hope tomorrow, as my birthday fast approaches. I have copied it here, should our first attempt to pass this information fail. Papa wrote:
The second window from the corner facing the square has been slightly opened for two days and nights, day and night. The seventh and eighth windows facing the square next to the main entrance are always open. That room is occupied by the commandant and his aides, and there are also inside guards—up to thirteen persons at least—armed with rifle, revolvers and bombs. None of the doors have keys (except ours). The commandant and his aides come into our rooms whenever they want. The one who is on duty does the outside rounds twice every hour of the night, and we hear him chatting with the sentry beneath our windows. There is a machine gun on the balcony and another downstairs in case of alarm. If there are others, we do not know of them. Do not forget we have the doctor, a maid, two men, and a little boy who is a cook with us. It would be ignoble of us (although they do not wish to inconvenience us) to leave them alone after they have voluntarily followed us into exile. The doctor has been in bed for three days with kidney trouble, but he is getting better. We are constantly waiting the return of two of our men (Ivan Sednev, my valet, and Klementy Nagorny, who cares for Alexei), young and robust who have been shut up in the city for a month—we do not know where or why. In their absence, the little one is carried by his father in order to move about the rooms or go out in the garden.
Our surgeon, Dr. Derevenko, who comes almost daily at five o’clock to see the little one, lives in the city; do not forget. We never see him alone. The guards are in a little house across from our five windows on the other side of the street, fifty men. The only things we still have are in the shed in the interior courtyard. We are especially worried about A.F. no. 9m, a small black crate, and a large black crate, no. 13 N.A. with all his old letters and diaries. Naturally, the bedrooms are filled with crates, beds, and things, all at the mercy of the thieves who surround us. All the keys and separately, no. 9, are with the commandant, who has behaved well toward us. In any case, warn us if you can and answer if we can bring our people. In front of the entrance, there is always an automobile. There are bells at each sentry post, in the command room, and some wires go to the guardhouse and elsewhere. If our other people remain, can we be sure that nothing will happen to them? Dr. Botkin begs you not to think about him and the other men, so that your task will not be more difficult. Count on the seven of the woman and us. May God help you; you can count on our sangfroid.
Papa has written this, but of course he cannot sign, or use the pronoun I.
We are very aware that if we try to escape and fail, it is most likely a swift death. We whisper endlessly of this choice—
To break out and possibly die? To be shot in the courtyard? Or executed in some other fashion for this attempted escape? Or stay and hope our White Army, which we know to be close, will win out and free us? But if the White Army seizes the city, might not our captors move us, or…shoot us? So, is it not better, in all cases, to attempt to flee? And, oh, if we did escape—how glorious that would be! To be free!
I am so restless at night, in this heat, I sometimes think any action is preferable to none!
My vote is to leap! Shvybz’s is to leap!
I face another challenge if we remain. “My” officer who may or may not be the secret “friend” of the letters—we never have a chance to discuss this. Peter has made only one message certain—his love. I return his devotion, and we must be together. But the challenge is extreme—I am always watched. My single hope is that there will come a moment when he is the only one watching me.
What will happen then? I entertain myself by the hour to imagine what he will do to me. I appear to be sewing, and I am sewing, sitting beside Mama and my sisters, but I have such thoughts and images in my mind.
My secret vow is to not mark another birthday in this chaste condition. If I must die, let me at least have loved.
Letter from the “officer”:
Do not worry about the fifty or so men who are in a little house across from your windows—they will not be dangerous when it comes time to act. Say something more precise about your commandant to make the beginning easier for us. It is impossible to tell you now if we can take all your people; we hope so, but in any case they will not be with you after your departure from the house, except the doctor. Hoping before Sunday to indicate the detailed plan of operation. As of now it is like this: once the signal comes, you close and barricade with furniture the door that separates you from the guards, who will be blocked and terror-stricken within the house. With a rope specially made for that purpose, you climb out through the window. We will be waiting for you at the bottom. The rest is not difficult; there are many means of transportation and the hiding place is as good as ever. The big question is getting the little one down: is it possible? Answer after thinking carefully. In any case, the father, the mother, and the son come down first; the girls, and then the doctor, follow them. Answer if this is possible in your opinion, and whether you can make the appropriate rope, because to have the rope brought to you is very difficult at this time.
An officer.
THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS
My birthday! Nineteen, at last! A fateful day, a day and night of passion and fury. I feel scalded, burnt!
Papa has done something outrageous! He has stopped our escape. I am so furious. I must do something myself, no matter what. I would never abandon my family, but I will make an escape without leaving, if you understand…
All day, we sat, fully dressed. It was so hot and uncomfortable, especially with all our “medicines and candy,” our hidden jewels, sewn into our under things. I felt stiff and itchy…
And it was all in vain. Papa and Mama changed their minds, I swear a thousand times. Alexei and I and Anastasia were all in favor. Tatiana and Olga did not express a desire to leave. Nyuta wept and said she was too scared to go from the window. Dr. Botkin begged to be left behind, even if to die. “I will only be a hindrance,” he said. We did not discuss the escape with Kharitonov, the little Sednev boy, or Trupp. Papa said he would tell them, if we decided to take the chance, to descend from the window.
When we could stand the suspense no longer, Papa penned the following note:
We do not want to, nor can we, escape. We can only be carried off by force, just as it was force that was used to carry us from Tobolsk. Thus, do not count on any active help from us. The commandant has many aides; they change often and have become worried. They guard our imprisonment and our lives conscientiously and have been kind to us. We do not want them to suffer because of us, nor you for us; in the name of God, avoid bloodshed above all. Find out about them yourself. Coming down from the window without a ladder is completely impossible. Even once we are down, we are still in great danger because of the open window of the commandant’s bedroom and the machine gun downstairs, where one enters from the inner courtyard. Give up then on the idea of carrying us off. If you watch us, you can always come save us in case of real and imminent danger. We are completely unaware of what is going on outside, for we receive no newspapers or letters. Since we were allowed to open the window, surveillance has increased and we are forbidden even to stick our heads out, at the risk of getting shot in the face.
***
So, we ate my birthday cake, which the infatuated guard Ivan had secured, but none of us were so very hungry—although we had not seen such a cake in a long while. It was filled with cherries, and he had secured some sweet cream.
I think Mama and Papa both wanted to weep when they saw this cake. “Our angel,” they call me.
I know what they were thinking—what awaited me, what awaited us all? Did we see another birthday—any of us? Where would we be?
That was when I decided to make my own escape of sorts. I had my own message. And now I believe my note is from a different officer, for he offered an entirely opposite plan that involved only me
.
I accepted. God help me. Pray I return to record my newfound joy.
June 27/28, 1918…two a.m.
Oh, my day of days, my night of nights…I am not the girl who wrote last night. I do not recognize myself in the mirror or in this most recent reflection of memory. Is this Marie now? Was I also the girl who tippy-toed by midnight to the lower, forbidden level, and met with my lover in the garden hut of the House of Special Purpose? Was that indeed me? The girl with her skirts raised, lying back upon our improvised lovers’ bed? Was I so wanton, the one who lifted her own dress? Did I, in my new persona, part the hidden slit of my own bloomers?
Oh, yes, this is who I am now, in this house. How completely I allowed him inside me; I felt the pressure more than the break. I did not notice my bleeding until later. I have heard there is a line between pain and pleasure and I have crisscrossed this border a dozen times…yes, there was pain as my flesh was torn at his entrance, but as Mama has said regarding the other female rent and rip of childbirth—this agony I welcome.
Do I dare write this note to him? I want to. We are forbidden to speak, and who knows if we can steal another such moment, or an hour?
Outside my blank white window, the storm still cracks lightning, groans thunder. The chink of sky I can view from the bedroom window is lime green. I feel but cannot see the thrash of the trees outside my window. This summer storm is violent—the saplings bend and their mother trees sway and some limbs snap under pressure. The world’s gone wild this night, as if in chorus to my own moans and cries of but an hour past.
I want to write you a letter. Dare I? What will it cost us if this note is found? Does death mean anything to us now?
My letter, unsent, later burned.
I write by lightning. Inside, I feel the delineation of you. I am still filled with electric shivers. The ache surrounds my now liquid center. I feel the aftershocks; these shivers reverberate and wish to continue… One touch, one motion and I would surrender myself again. Oh, you have marked me, now and forever. Your Mashka
My memory:
Can I ever have a moment more suspenseful?
When the storm began, the electric light extinguished, and Mama and Papa, conserving their candle for the next game of bezique, retired earlier than their custom. They closed themselves into the corner bedroom, with Alexei. If anyone suspected anything, they would have suspicions regarding the wrong guard—the boy Ivan, who brought me the birthday cake. I know they think I flirt with Ivan, but he was only the messenger and under the cake doily were my instructions: “You will have a signal from me at midnight. My friend is the guard; he will be certain we are safe.”
I knew at once which friend he meant—Mikhail L., the freckled guard who is here with his older brother. Mikhail is the one whose face is like a child’s, but he stands over six feet tall—a boy’s head on a spindly body. He is kind but so shy he cannot meet my eyes. What luck—he is the sentry assigned to the balcony. We would be watched—but only by a friend who wishes us to secure this secret happiness.
I heard the tap-tap at our bedroom door. Miracle—all three of my sisters lay asleep, although fitful, clutching one another, in unconscious response to the thunderstorm. Tatiana and Olga share their bed; Anastasia, my little Shvybz, sprawls alone across the camp bed where I would also lie…if I was not stealing from this room. Her little dog, Jemmy, lies against her breast, as if he is, indeed, her baby. He is on his back, soft belly turned upward, panting in the heat, his mouth open, pink tongue out.
The dogs were wise to me. Jemmy, hot and tired as he was, looked at me as if to ask, where could you be going? Ortino bared his teeth—I fed him one of Mama’s biscuits, and another to Jemmy. Joy must have been asleep between Mama and Papa with Alexei in their room.
Ortino, Tatiana’s bulldog, is overheated too, and lay on the floor, his hind legs splayed flat against the wooden boards. He looked at me, but without concern. What trust these animals have. He doesn’t entertain the thought that I would risk my life, perhaps their lives….
It seemed to me Olga’s eyelids flickered. Did she see me as I crept, holding my shoes, from our room? If she did see, was her silence my permission to go and do as she would have enjoyed, had she had the chance with her long-vanished lover, Mitya? Or does she want me to know love in some kinder guise than we fear she experienced on board the Rus? We all sense the events on that boat changed our sister. I have yet to learn the details; Tatiana says she will never tell. No mind, tonight is my night…
Little Shvybz snored, like a kitten purring, nuzzling her pillow, oblivious to my stealthy passage… Oh, she will be spiteful when she realizes that I have seized love, and she has none, of this sort. Tatiana curled in a ball, facing away from the others— retreating as she has of late, into her own dream. She would not wish to know what Peter and I have done, I think.
All was still enough—as if my family and our suite slept under a shared spell—long enough for me to steal the best hours of my life. I carried my shoes so as not to clack my heels on the floor. Mikhail L. stood outside my door; the hall sentry was, as we had hoped, asleep, slumped in his chair. We passed right by him. I tiptoed, soft as I could, down the main stairs, and then, as you instructed, took that side door to the walled garden.
Mikhail L. held the door, and gave me a hand signal: Run now! This was the most dangerous moment—we all knew that we would die if we were caught just then—if, by chance, the two men stationed across the street, in the top floor of the Popov House, were awake and alert enough to watch me dart the few yards across the garden.
The storm was our blessing, our cover. The electric lightning, thunder booms and thrashings of the trees contributed to the play of light and shadow that disguised my motion. The drenching rain curtained my actions, and discouraged the sentry who might patrol our garden. No one was watching when I made my break for freedom—of a sort. If I could not escape to the outside, I told myself, I would at least free myself within these walls, within your arms. There are two great secrets—the promise or threat of our hereafter, death, and the nature of intimacy of the first time with a man, the promise of life. This night, I hoped to experience only one of the secrets.
The scent of the wet flowers and moist grass was intoxicating as I raced barefoot. I could feel the sun’s heat held in the wet stones; the rain itself was warm, and mists rose. I cannot describe how overwhelmed I was by joy—I had not been outdoors at night since April thirtieth, when we arrived. The sense of freedom enhanced my desire. Oh, how I ran, ran to be with my love.
He opened the door to the shed. I threw myself inside and into his arms. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, to see his face and also realize that he had removed his jacket and shirt. I fell against the bare skin of his chest—and felt its warmth, silken strength. I leaned into him for all the support and comfort I have craved these many months. Even though I knew consciously that this was the most perilous moment of my life, when I felt the warmth of his skin and the pull of his muscled arms, I felt…safe.
He peeled my soaked dress from me, and warmed me against himself, drying me with his own discarded jacket. We had to be quick, quicker than we would have wished.
My eyes, adjusting to the shadows, discerned the familiar shapes of our trunks from home. Of course, this was where the commandant has stored them. Oh, they looked like old friends; the worn leather, my own monogram.
Peter knew exactly what was needed. He did what I would have feared to do—cracked open the first trunk and removed the bedding. There it all was, stored from my own room at home. The silken coverlet, my dear old blue duvet, and my very own pillows, hand-stitched.
My trousseau bed, my bridal bed, of my own linen after all…
The scent of home filled the tiny shed, mingling with the aromas of earth, clay and old leather. I did not have time to waste imagining the wedding night that would have been…this was the night I was given.
We worked together to set down our bedding as if we’d lain he
re together a thousand times. Peter cleared the only space, the center of the floor, and placed my eiderdown and coverlets as a cushion.
This kissing, in this so-called House of Special Purpose, has the passion of my panic. Now, I know the desire of the trapped. His gasp and gaze were all the compliments I would ever need. He whispered something then that I almost could not decipher. Was it, “I could stare at you for a hundred years”?
I understand now, the expression beside myself—it was very much as if I was a bystander. There is a dispassionate me, and a passionate me. Marie who can observe, and Marie who is lost in sensation. The observer Marie sees the potting shed wall, the stacked pots, is aware that we lie on the earthen floor and that you have buttressed a log against the door, barring any interruption. The blind Marie gives herself…surrenders past pain and into new pleasure. Blind and moaning, moving toward a new conclusion…
What insanity seized me afterward? I was supposed to run fast back across the courtyard, return to the house—Mikhail Letemin stood by the garden door, and was ready to readmit me. The lightning flashed and thunder groaned. The rain sheeted, blown at me full force by the warm wind. Peter cried out, “Marie! Marie—what are you doing? You’ll be killed!”
I could not control myself—I stood in the courtyard and let the rain beat down on me, until Peter pulled me back against the shed…Then, he too lost control, and moved against me, braced by the wall. Could we be seen? I was past caring; I could only feel him, the shuddering fall that overtook us both. A tremble went through the center of me and my knees shook. He lifted me up to him.
“Come away with me tonight…we will just run.”
Leave here tonight? Leave Mama and Papa? My sisters? Baby?
Peter was talking, low and fast, and I wondered if he had given this idea some thought. He seemed to have a plan. Could it succeed?
I would leave with him through the guards’ entrance—in the heavy downpour, we might just be able to escape. He had his weapon—he would shoot if he had to…But where would we go from there?