The Fabergé Secret

by Charles Belfoure

  But not everyone was patriotic. Because of the war, the social season and six balls were canceled, to Lara’s bitter disappointment. ‘We need balls and parties to lift our spirits,’ she exclaimed. Alexandra canceled all her social events and began knitting circles for the female members of court in the ballrooms of the Winter Palace. To the consternation of the society ladies, she invited women of all classes to join them. They would make scarves, socks, and bandages for the soldiers at the front. Even the Grand Duchesses, including little Anastasia, worked. The Tsarina came every day and sat down to sew. Lara had no choice to participate; Dimitri demanded that she attend. She was absolutely terrible at sewing and knitting, but showed up daily.

  It amused Dimitri to see Lara stuck in such a situation, but it was better than volunteering to be a nurse. Many society women went to work in hospitals in St Petersburg, to allow the trained nurses to go to the front in the Far East. It wasn’t long before wounded Russian soldiers were sent back to the west. Katya soon had beds full of men at St Igor’s to be cared for. Seeing the maimed bodies made her furious over what seemed an unnecessary war. When she and Dimitri were together, she always cursed the Tsar for trying to steal Korea from the Japanese, and getting Russia into this fix.

  In April, when the Far East fleet tried to move out of Port Arthur, Admiral Makarov’s flagship was sunk, killing him and seven hundred men. The Russian navy was completely bottled up. It was the first inkling that victory for Russia wasn’t guaranteed. Although the newspapers were heavily censored, over the next months, Russians could tell from the constant stream of wounded and dead that things weren’t going well. The Tsar felt guilty for staying in St Petersburg. He wanted to go to the front and be at the head of army, but his uncles and his mother dissuaded him. He toured military camps, reviewed troops, and handed out images of St Seraphim to departing soldiers at the train station.

  The spring brought news from the Far East of defeat after defeat for the Russian army fighting the Japanese on the Chinese mainland which they had invaded. Dimitri saw how sad the Tsar was, and tried to keep him involved in the Tchaikovsky Memorial. His feelings for Nicky were complicated; he couldn’t dismiss his long friendship with him and his closeness to his family, but he had lost all respect for Nicholas as a ruler. He hoped that by remaining close, he could eventually talk some reason into him regarding treatment of the workers and the Jews.

  ‘Nicky, did you see Lara’s latest pair of socks she knitted for the soldiers?’ he asked as they had tea in the Tsar’s study.

  ‘No, what did they look like this time?’

  ‘Well, she knitted one for a man who must have a three-foot-long foot. The matching one was two feet long.’ This got the Tsar laughing. ‘They can use them for mittens,’ he said.

  ‘Remember the first ones? They were size of baby booties.’ Nicky laughed even harder.

  As the Tsarina entered the study, she heard this and frowned. ‘Lara’s doing the best she knows how,’ she said testily. ‘But it’s the effort that counts most. Look at these beautiful pair of socks our Miss O’Brian knitted in her spare time. Even she does her bit.’ The nanny had come up behind her, smiling proudly.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  ‘The time for talk is over,’ said Evigenia in a grave voice.

  The arts circle sat still as statues in her drawing room. Only the crackling of the fire was heard. Dimitri glanced over at Katya, who wore a serious expression.

  ‘The Social Democratic Party has given me permission to create a revolutionary cell. All of you are welcome as members. Only a united assault on the autocracy will bring victory and rights for all Russians – workers, peasants, and Jews.’

  People stood up, clapped, and smiled at each other. Dimitri rose hesitantly, wearing a blank expression. After what he’d seen in Sebezh and after witnessing Nicky’s reaction, he couldn’t stand by any longer, even if it meant destroying the only kind of life he’d ever known. But part of him wanted to flee the room. Going over to the side of the revolution had very personal consequences – it meant betraying Nicky, his life-long friend, and his wife, Alexandra. He felt like a shit for doing this to the two kindest people in the world. What the hell was he doing? Maybe I shouldn’t do this, he thought.

  Katya came up and hugged him. He held her for a few seconds, then stepped back.

  Dimitri swallowed hard and said with a grim expression, ‘I guess there are things bigger than oneself. If I do nothing … then I am nothing.’

  Katya hugged him again as people came up to shake his hand. Grigory affectionately pounded him on the back. ‘So glad you’re with us,’ he cried.

  Dimitri knew that the cell liked having an aristocrat on their side, because it gave the cause credibility. He wondered if there were any other aristocrats in other cells, or was he the only one?

  Vodka was being poured. Evigenia called for attention.

  ‘Our task is to use mass propaganda and secret meetings to incite revolution. The proletariat must be convinced that they can capture the political power to improve their everyday lives. It’s up to us to persuade and guide them. The upper classes must be shaken up as well.’

  The group applauded and murmured in agreement.

  Evigenia raised her hand. ‘There is one more thing to tell you, and it’s most important. As a revolutionary, you can never tell anyone of your activities, especially your family members. If they know, the Okhrana will consider them co-conspirators, and if you’re caught, they will be exiled to Siberia along with you. The only offense that is punishable by death is assassination of a government official, but we have chosen a non-violent path. From now on, we’ll meet in secret apartments in the city.’

  Evigenia held up a flyer: A Constitution for Rights for All. The text explained the coming new order in Russia.

  ‘We must coat St Petersburg with propaganda like snow. No inch of the city can go uncovered. Because you can be arrested for distributing subversive material, you must paper the city at night.’

  ‘Excuse me, I must use the men’s room.’

  Lara turned to Dimitri.

  ‘I warned you about drinking too much vodka before the show, Dimitri. He drank the equivalent of the Baltic.’ Princess Betsey and her husband, Prince Paul, giggled along with Lara. They were sitting in a box at the Alexandrinsky Theater watching a performance of The Hunt, a Russian drama. Dimitri quickly went down the narrow corridor.

  He had learned a lot designing his first concert hall for the Tchaikovsky Memorial. Despite the war with Japan, the project continued, and he was now doing the construction drawings and specifications. Besides acoustics, the most important thing in the design was ventilation. He had become very well-versed in this type of mechanical engineering. Thousands of people watching a concert gave off a lot of heat and humidity that had to be expelled from the space every few minutes. This process happened directly above the audience through vents in the ceiling – which was where he was now.

  He stood on a catwalk, one of many that crisscrossed the theater’s attic space. He had drunk so much vodka tonight for a good reason; to steady his nerves for what he was about to do. Down on his knees, he stretched out and quietly opened a large ventilation grille close to the center of the ceiling. He could see the tops of the heads of the audience and could hear the actors on stage reciting their lines. Suddenly, his sweaty right hand slipped, and he fell forward. Desperately, he reached out for the other side and caught himself before he plunged into the auditorium. The top of his body was actually hanging below the ceiling. His heart pounding, panicked, he took a deep breath and eased himself up. On the catwalk was a canvas bag he’d hidden in the theater the day before. He reached in and pulled out the pile of flyers that Evigenia had provided. In two batches, he flung them into the ventilation opening. They fluttered down like autumn leaves onto the audience below.

  ‘They wanted me to shake up the upper classes – so I did,’ he said out loud while noiselessly shutting the grille. As he ran off, he could hear the murm
uring of confusion from the theatergoers.

  Back in the box, he saw Princess Betsey was holding a flyer with a puzzled look on her face.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ exclaimed Dimitri, out of breath.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘Dimitri, the peasants are the heart and soul of Russia. They are the real people of Mother Russia,’ Alexandra said. ‘There are millions of hardworking, pious, humble people who fall on their knees every day to pray to God and their beloved Tsar. I saw their love for us when we went to Serov.’

  Dimitri could see in her eyes that she truly believed what she was saying. His heart sank to the bottom of his stomach. What planet did Nicholas and Alexandra live on?

  ‘Nicky is their “little father,” and he knows what’s best for them,’ she added.

  ‘Sunny is their “little mother,” who cares for them,’ said the Tsar proudly. ‘God Himself wants me to rule them; not any parliament or Duma.’ He explained this to Dimitri in the patient manner used with a dim-witted child.

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty, I do understand,’ Dimitri replied meekly. He knew the conversation about democracy and a constitutional monarchy had ended. Aside from distributing propaganda and attending cell meetings, he had truly believed he could slowly convince Nicholas that Russia must change, because many were suffering. He’d tried to do it in a subtle way. But the Tsar was a person of unchanging conviction. It was hopeless; like talking to a rock. The idea that Russians were in misery was completely alien to his thinking.

  The Grand Dukes Sergei and Alexis nodded vigorously in agreement.

  ‘Democracy is all bosh,’ growled Alexis, blowing a ring of cigar smoke.

  ‘Total horse manure!’ Sergei shouted. ‘Nicky is our divine leader, answerable to no one but to his conscience and God!’

  The Imperial Family were waiting in a parlor of the Malachite Hall in the Winter Palace for supper to start. But they couldn’t go into the Rotunda to be seated because the guest of honor, Prince Henry of Bulgaria, hadn’t arrived. Time-honored Court etiquette meant they had no choice but to wait for him.

  ‘His Majesty is absolutely right, Dimitri. Russia doesn’t need any democracy,’ Lara crowed. His wife was making a rare appearance with him. She’d run out of excuses to back out; one could have only so many stomachaches or headaches. Dimitri knew she’d come tonight to show off her new violet chiffon gown. The Tsar and Lara got along well with each other, often good-naturedly teasing each other, which irritated the Tsarina. But Alexandra was being civil to Lara tonight, telling her about nursing the wounded soldiers from the Far East. Wearing a matron’s uniform and cap, Alexandra went to the hospital daily to personally minister to the wounded, giving sponge baths and changing dressings. Russia was getting crushed by Japan, and the country felt humiliated in front of the world, but Lara couldn’t care less. She had given up knitting socks; even the Tsarina saw that she was hopeless at the task. Since she was not a lady-in-waiting, Alexandra couldn’t force her to do war work.

  ‘It is wonderful of Your Majesty to look after those brave boys. I hear some of them are quite handsome; I just may pay a visit to the wards.’ Lara gave a wink at the Tsar, who chuckled. Alexandra frowned.

  ‘Yes, you must go see them, Larissa. The sight of such a beautiful woman will lift their spirits,’ said Nicky.

  The four children bounded into the Malachite Hall, followed by Miss O’Brian.

  The cheerful expression vanished from Nicky’s face. ‘I pray to God every day for a victory,’ he said solemnly. ‘We’re planning to break through the north-western sector in Port Arthur. I wish I could be there with my troops.’

  Dimitri looked down at the floor. He knew the Tsar was in agony over the war. He was so upset that he hadn’t commissioned Fabergé to make the Imperial Easter eggs for his mother and wife this year, saying it wasn’t right to give such extravagant gifts when Russian soldiers were dying in the Far East. Others in Court didn’t feel that way, and had Fabergé continue to make eggs and gifts for themselves. Lara, who wasn’t the least bit patriotic, kept buying even more Fabergé objets.

  ‘Your daughters would like to say good night, Your Majesty,’ said Miss O’Brian. Marie jumped into the Tsar’s arms and kissed his cheek.

  ‘We will pray for a victory against the Japs, Papa,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, Lara, what a magnificent gown.’ Olga came over to touch it. ‘You look so beautiful in it, doesn’t she, Mama?’

  Alexandra nodded.

  ‘Feel how soft it is.’ The other girls joined Olga, and Tatiana climbed into Lara’s lap to play with her diamond necklace.

  ‘I hope I’ll be as beautiful as you when I’m grown up,’ said Marie wistfully.

  ‘You’re already more beautiful,’ Lara replied, stroking her rosy cheek.

  The Tsarina felt that Lara was no proper role model. ‘Off to bed, my little bears,’ she announced.

  Olga came up to her mother and placed her ear against her stomach. ‘How is my little brother doing in there? Are you getting enough to eat, little one?’

  Each girl had to take turns listening. Anastasia said she heard him singing.

  The Tsar beckoned a tall blond-haired footman who was holding a gold tray filled with glasses of sherry.

  ‘Thank you, Leonid.’

  The servant bowed, then backed slowly away after the Tsar took a glass. Dimitri pictured the elegantly dressed servant standing in the hut of the peasant he and Katya had gone to. Resplendent in his uniform, he made the filth of the room seem even fouler. Katya was right; he had never seen such degradation in his life. Here in this Imperial world, he and Nicholas had been cut off from real life in Russia. The plight of that peasant woman and those injured and dead Jews remained vivid in his mind. He was still shaken by the experience in Sebezh. He hadn’t forgotten the dead child in Kishinev, either.

  ‘Dimitri, you and Lara come say good night,’ Olga cried out, snapping him out of his thoughts.

  ‘Prince Henry is never punctual,’ griped Nicholas, checking his pocket watch. ‘He’d be late for his own funeral.’

  ‘I’m as hungry as a bear. We’ve waited long enough, let’s eat, for God’s sake,’ said Grand Duke Vladimir.

  ‘You know the rules, Uncle,’ replied Nicholas testily. ‘He’s the guest of honor; we have to wait.’

  Dimitri and Lara went upstairs to say a quick good night to the children, and then returned to the room. Thirty minutes had passed the appointed time for supper in the Rotunda. Dimitri’s stomach was now growling.

  ‘I’m sure he will be here any minute now,’ Alexandra said in a reassuring voice. ‘Henry may have …’

  An ear-splitting explosion was heard in the direction of the Rotunda. Dimitri, the Tsar, and Grand Duke Alexis ran to the room. A large smoking hole now stood where the supper table had been. The bodies of several servants could be seen in the wreckage.

  Lara and Alexandra came up to the hole and peered through the smoke.

  In bewilderment, Alexandra put her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Who would want to hurt us?’ she gasped.

  ‘Damned Jew revolutionaries,’ the Grand Duke exclaimed.

  THIRTY-SIX

  ‘This is exquisite, Your Highness. You wouldn’t want to quit the Court and become one of my designers, would you?’ said Peter Carl Fabergé jovially. ‘As you know, my best man, Perkhin, has passed away. He made twenty-eight Imperial Eggs.’

  Dimitri was brimming with pride to get a compliment from the world’s most famous jeweler. He was sitting with Fabergé at the table in his private study in his St Petersburg mansion.

  ‘I worked quite a long time to get it right. I know it doesn’t compare to your work, but …’

  ‘Oh, but it does. I can help you with the selection of jewels and the enameling.’

  ‘Even though it’s not an egg, I wanted it to have a surprise.’

  Fabergé ran his fingers across Dimitri’s four watercolor sketches, one for each side of the gift. It was to be a ten-inch-h
igh model of the Tchaikovsky Memorial, set on a green marble base, lined with alternating pearls and diamonds. The building itself was simplified in form almost to the point of abstraction. The key color was a deep blue iridescent enameling on engraved gold that Dimitri had designed that mimicked the Style Moderne. The great arch was to be solid gold with the top and bottom edged with tiny square-cut diamonds. The infill below the arch held an oval miniature of Tchaikovsky outlined in tiny pearls. Above the arch in solid gold was the double-headed emblem of the Tsar. The domes of the towers were in white opalescent glass.

  A fifth watercolor drawing was a perspective that showed the surprise inside. The roof of the building hinged up and became a music box lined with velvet. The inside of the lid was silver and engraved with all the titles of Tchaikovsky’s major works.

  ‘I thought the music box would play the last part of the 1812 Overture, one of the Tsar’s favorite pieces,’ Dimitri said.

  ‘That can be easily done. There’s more than enough room beneath the compartment for the mechanism. The gift has a nice practical aspect, it’s deep enough so that His Majesty can also put things in it,’ Fabergé replied. ‘Have you shown the Tsarina your sketches?’

  ‘No, I wanted to go over them first with you. You can draw on top of the sketches if you like.’

  ‘Yes, that would make it easier to refine the piece. You have an enormous talent for drawing, Your Highness. I saw the exhibit of the renderings at the IARA. I also heard that they want you to contribute sketches to their weekly publication. Quite an honor. Your father was wise to let you develop your skills at the Academy.’

  Dimitri smiled at this comment. Most aristocratic fathers would have dismissed his artistic ability as feminine.

  ‘Yes, he wanted me to have a life of substance and have a skill.’