The Fabergé Secret

by Charles Belfoure

  ‘Shit!’ When Lara went to retrieve the book the next morning, it was gone.

  FORTY-NINE

  ‘What are all these people doing here?’ Dimitri asked.

  Normally, the streets on Sunday mornings in the winter in St Petersburg were empty. Except for going to church, people stayed out of the fierce cold on their day off. But on this windy, cloudy day with the snow swirling about, masses of men, women, and children holding ikons, crosses, and portraits of the Tsar walked slowly down the streets from all directions. Many were singing hymns. They were a ragged lot; peasants and workers, women in babushkas and men in felt visor caps. All had ruddy faces from the cutting wind. It was almost ten, and Dimitri and Katya were on their way to a luncheon and a musicale at a mansion on the quay. They stood in the doorway of a bookseller and watched the procession pass by.

  Katya didn’t seem surprised at the crowds. ‘It’s that workingman’s group headed by the young priest, Gapon,’ she said. ‘I remember Evigenia mentioning it in a cell meeting.’

  ‘Yes … but I didn’t realize it had such a huge following. Look at all these people.’

  Revolution had spread across Russia like wildfire in the weeks after Port Arthur fell. There was no violence yet in the cities, but out in the countryside, peasants had gone berserk, killing landowners, burning and looting property.

  ‘Where are they going?’ Dimitri asked in an amazed voice.

  ‘I heard that they’ll meet Gapon at one place and then march to the Winter Palace, where he’ll hand their demand of rights to the Tsar personally.’

  ‘What?’ Dimitri shouted. ‘The Tsar isn’t even at the Winter Palace today, he’s at Tsarskoe Selo. He hates living in the Winter Palace in the winter, it’s too damn cold!’

  ‘Grandmother,’ Katya called to an old crone passing them. ‘Where are you all off to?’

  ‘To see the Tsar and ask him to help us,’ the woman cried in a hoarse but happy voice. ‘Our Little Father is going to come out of his palace and talk to us.’

  ‘He will listen to our pleas,’ said a middle-aged man behind her. ‘Over a hundred fifty thousand have signed Father Gapon’s petition.’

  Dimitri looked at Katya in horror. ‘I don’t think the Tsar knows anything about this.’

  ‘The poor devils actually believe their beloved Tsar will take care of them,’ said Katya with a pitying laugh. ‘They don’t realize that he’s the one responsible for their misery.’

  ‘This is madness,’ Dimitri muttered.

  Dimitri and Katya tagged along at the edge of the crowd, which was now singing patriotic songs like ‘God Bless the Tsar.’ There was no shouting, no violent threats; just a solemn march. They walked beside a couple with two children, bundled up in what they considered their Sunday best. The mother was carrying a long stick that had a portrait of the Imperial Couple nailed to it. Ahead of them, an old man carried a homemade Orthodox cross. None of the marchers talked to one another; they just looked straight ahead with dead serious expressions. They had marched down Gorokhovaya Avenue and were now approaching the Alexander Garden, where they would take a right to the Winter Palace.

  Except for the low murmuring of hymns, it was eerily silent. Suddenly, Dimitri began to hear the distant sounds of boots running and the clatter of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones. To his horror, he could see over the heads of the marchers mounted troops off in the distance. His eyes widened. They were Cossacks with drawn swords. That could mean only one thing – they and the infantry were here to put a stop to the protest.

  ‘Wait, don’t go any further, there are soldiers up ahead!’ he yelled. With a look of terror on her face, Katya grabbed him and pulled him out of the procession.

  ‘Stop! Stop right where you are!’ he shouted at the marchers. ‘Turn back!’

  An old man replied, ‘The Tsar is waiting for us. We can’t be late.’

  ‘No, he’s not there!’ Dimitri called out frantically. ‘Please stop! There are Cossacks and soldiers with guns waiting for you! Don’t go on!’

  ‘This is a peaceful march, we’re not here to hurt anyone,’ said a young man to Dimitri’s right.

  ‘We’re carrying no weapons,’ added the woman walking next to him.

  ‘He’s right, stop!’ Katya yelled. ‘The Tsar has sent—’

  Katya’s warning was interrupted by a deafening volley of bullets that ripped through the crowd. Men, women, and children crumpled in agony. Their banners and ikons dropped to the ground. The air was filled with ear-piercing screams and moans. The trusting marchers were now panic-stricken, and tried to run away in any direction. The wounded lying in the street were trampled. Dimitri pushed Katya into a shop doorway and shielded her with his body as the next volley of bullets whizzed by like angry bees. He twisted his head around to see more bodies drop to the snow-covered street. Then he heard the roar of another volley slice through the cold air, and more people were mowed down. The gunfire stopped. He thought the action was over, but when he looked up the street, he saw an even more horrifying sight. Long, curved sabers raised high, the Cossacks in their black and scarlet coats charged the crowd. It was to be a massacre. The front ranks of the marchers that were still standing broke to the left and right, providing a lane down which the Cossacks drove their horses, steam churning from their nostrils. As the Cossacks charged, they slashed anyone on both sides, showing no mercy for women and children. Dimitri and Katya saw the continuous lifting and falling of the sabers dropping people like logs to the street. Curses, screams, and moans filled the air. When Dimitri saw the pools of scarlet blood on the white snow, it immediately reminded him of the pogrom in Sebezh. In front of him, people were being cut down by the Cossacks and bleeding out into the snow. He unbuttoned his wool coat, took his muffler off, and wrapped it around the sliced neck of a man, tying it tightly.

  ‘This will stop the bleeding,’ he said to the man, who was still conscious. Katya had leapt into action as well. Though she didn’t have her doctor’s bag, she used her wool shawl to bandage the shoulder of an old woman. She began tearing the hem of her dress to make a bandage for a man shot through the shoulder. Between screams of pain, he kept asking about his daughter. More volleys of rifle fire rang out.

  Dimitri looked behind him, and saw the Cossacks preparing for another charge from the opposite direction. He dragged the man into a shop doorway. He then went over to a woman had a terrible slash across her face from her eye down to her chin. While tying his silk handkerchief across the hideous wound, he saw that her right eye was gone. Instinctively, he looked about the snow for the eye, but didn’t see it. After pulling her out of the way, he turned his attention to a boy of about twelve. By the time he got to him, the Cossacks had begun their charge and were coming right at him. For a second, he thought of ordering them to halt, but the Cossacks didn’t seem to take into account social standing. They would just as well kill a grand prince as a factory worker today. He dragged the boy to the base of a storefront just as the soldiers stormed by. A horse trampled a man, and he screamed in agony. When Dimitri bent over to tend to the boy, his gray-blue eyes were open as though he was gazing up at the cloudy sky. Blood trickled out of his mouth and his head flopped to the side; he was almost completely beheaded. Dimitri went to Katya’s side while she treated a young woman whose scalp had been slashed.

  ‘The Tsar did not help us …’ murmured the girl in a state of shock.

  ‘Don’t talk any more, just stay still,’ Katya said in a kind quiet voice.

  ‘He’s a murderer,’ the girl gasped, sitting up. ‘My grandmother is dead. Why would the Little Father do this to us?’

  Katya wound strips of cloth around the girl’s head and gently laid her down in the snow. For the first time, Dimitri realized his coat was covered with blood, and his hands looked as though they had been dipped in red paint. He raised them to his face and stared at them. Bodies were strewn in the snow along with banners and portraits of the Tsar. Tears stung his eyes, and he clenched his fists. At the
end of the street by the Alexander Garden, he could make out Cossacks still chasing after people, their swords slashing. He went over to a canvas banner crumpled in the snow that had the words ‘God Bless Our Tsar’ painted in crude letters. He knew that besides these people laying in the blood-drenched snow, the Tsar had killed something far greater this morning – the workers’ devout belief that they could receive justice and help from their Little Father. He has killed their love for him, Dimitri thought. After today, nothing in Russia would be the same. Mad with rage, he placed his blood-soaked hands on the side of his head, and let out a scream.

  Katya was sitting on the ground, holding the head of an old bearded man in her lap. She knew there was nothing she could do for him; many times she’d seen people minutes from death. The only thing left was to give him a little comfort. Stroking his mane of white hair, she whispered to him that God was waiting to welcome him.

  With his eyes closed, he mumbled, ‘I’m food for the worms.’

  Surprised at his blunt honesty, she leaned over and kissed his forehead.

  With great difficulty, the old man wheezed out some words. ‘I’m a Jew. Please have someone say Kaddish for me.’ She held his limp body closer as he took his last breath.

  Dimitri stood over her and the dead man. Katya looked up at him. Gazing at the carnage in the street, he said, ‘Like I said, there are things bigger than oneself. If I do nothing … then I am nothing.’

  Katya reached up and grasped his blood-spattered hand.

  FIFTY

  ‘But, Dimitri, I didn’t order the troops to fire at the demonstrators.’

  ‘All of Russia thinks you did, Nicky,’ Dimitri replied calmly. He had to control himself from shouting at the Tsar. Even though they’d been friends for years, one never raised their voice to a royal, no matter how furious one was.

  ‘The whole incident is so incredibly painful and sad. I was stunned when Mirskii told me what had happened. It was the first I heard of it. But the troops were obliged to fire. The crowd were told repeatedly to halt, but they kept on coming.’

  Nicky took a seat next to Dimitri in his study.

  ‘I was there, Nicky. It was a peaceful march,’ Dimitri said in a tense voice.

  The Tsar lit a cigarette and offered one to Dimitri. ‘You were there? Not as a demonstrator, I hope,’ he said with amusement.

  ‘I saw it with my own eyes. Women and children were slaughtered. It was a bloodbath.’

  ‘I know, it’s most unfortunate. Over a hundred were killed, and hundreds more wounded,’ Nicky said in annoyed tone.

  ‘Unfortunate’ wouldn’t have been Dimitri’s description of the event. He was incensed by his friend’s response but didn’t show it.

  ‘When I met with my ministers, they suggested that I isolate myself from the tragedy by saying the army fired without orders from me. But I refused.’

  Dimitri couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Why?’

  The Tsar was vexed by the question.

  ‘I refuse to cast unfair aspersions on the army.’

  ‘But they did a terrible thing, Nicky!’

  The Tsar shook his head. ‘At heart, I’m a military man. I could never betray the army or the navy. They are the backbone of Mother Russia.’

  Crestfallen, Dimitri slumped back into his chair. ‘Nicky, your security was the love of your people. Now it’s gone. They think you betrayed them.’

  ‘They still love me,’ Nicholas snapped. ‘And I did take action. I immediately met with a delegation of thirty-four workers at Tsarskoe Selo. Like father to son, I advised them to support the army, and never listen to the lies of the wicked Jewish revolutionaries. They all agreed that they would remain loyal to me and fight the radical traitors.’

  Downhearted, Dimitri blew smoke rings and watched them float away. There was nothing he could do to help his friend. You couldn’t talk to a sleepwalker. Nicky was a man trapped in the past. He had the unshakable belief that he was the ruler chosen by God, answerable only to God and his own conscience. While he waffled on every decision in government, on this point, he never, ever wavered. And Dimitri had to face the fact that Nicky hated Jews. He had been brought up by his father, Alexander III, to despise them, and Jews supposedly had plotted his grandfather’s assassination. To curry favor with him, his ministers pushed for more Jewish restrictions and promoted anti-Semitism in Russia. No one in the government except Mirskii had the moral courage to stand up for the persecuted group.

  ‘Let’s go over the Tchaikovsky drawings. I want to make a change in the paneling in the music library. It should be malachite instead of wood,’ the Tsar said, always eager to avoid unpleasant subjects. ‘You must be excited; the laying of the cornerstone is coming up soon. I know I am.’

  Alexandra came into the study. How tired and worn out she looked, as though she’d aged twenty years. Dimitri stood and bowed, and she kissed him lightly on the cheek. Worry over the Tsarevich’s disease had left a look of permanent sadness on her beautiful face.

  ‘You’ve been a stranger when we need you most,’ she said in an almost pleading voice. ‘My poor Nicky’s cross is heavy to bear, and he has no one to rely on except true friends like you, Dimitri. I pray on my knees every day to God to give me wisdom to help him in these terrible times.’

  Dimitri smiled wanly at her.

  ‘We were discussing the demonstrators,’ the Tsar said grimly.

  ‘It was ghastly, but the crowd would not listen, and the army had to shoot,’ Alexandra insisted. ‘The crowd would have grown colossal, and thousands would have been trampled to death. Like at the coronation celebration.’

  Dimitri remembered the huge open-air festival scheduled for the people in the Khodynka Field outside Moscow, back in 1896, the day after Nicholas was crowned Tsar. Free packets of treats, gifts, and beer from the Imperial Couple to the people were to be given out. Thousands assembled in the field the night before, but a stampede broke out, and fifteen hundred men, women, and children were trampled to death. The dead were buried in a mass grave.

  But as horrible as the Khodynka Field disaster was, at least it was an accident. Dimitri knew that ‘Bloody Sunday’ – what the January 22 massacre was now called – was a deliberate act of slaughter.

  ‘They just wanted to present a petition to Nicky, to improve conditions for the working man,’ Dimitri said quietly.

  ‘That petition had only two questions concerning the workers. The rest was sheer nonsense; separation of Church and state, a constitution, an elected assembly,’ the Tsarina shot back.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Nicky agreed. ‘If anyone is to blame for this, it’s the Jewish radicals that filled their heads with such nonsense.’

  ‘Gapon, the man who led the march, was an Orthodox priest, not a Jew,’ Dimitri replied.

  ‘Then he should be excommunicated,’ Alexandra snapped. ‘I’m going to see to it.’

  ‘But, Nicky, the people believe that you’re a murderer,’ Dimitri said in a beseeching tone. He couldn’t let it go; he desperately wanted to help his friend understand the significance of what had happened.

  ‘The Russian people are deeply and truly devoted to me. You saw them cheering me at the Blessing of the Waters just a few days earlier,’ Nicky replied in a loud voice.

  Every January 19, the Tsar came to the bank of the Neva for a traditional religious service of the Blessing of the Waters. Dimitri knew full well that it was a tightly stage-managed event, with hundreds cheering the Tsar as he rode by. Of course, it looked like everyone loved him. Nicholas and Alexandra lived in their own fantasy world, a million miles from reality. They simply couldn’t understand the truth. This saddened him because he was so fond of both of them. What would happen to the Imperial Family, when their world was taken from them? And very soon, the revolution would sweep away Romanov rule.

  He changed the subject, albeit to an even sadder matter.

  ‘How is Alexis?’ he asked.

  ‘He was in agony the day before yesterday. But t
he bleeding finally stopped, and he’s our happy baby boy now,’ the Tsarina said with a smile.

  ‘Have more specialists been to see him?’ Dimitri truly hoped there would be one doctor in the world who could save the boy. He loved playing with him on the thick white and mauve carpet of Alexandra’s boudoir. Alexis had a golden smile and such beautiful deep blue eyes. It killed Dimitri to picture the boy lying in bed, groaning piteously for hours on end.

  ‘Yes, but it’s always the same answer,’ Nicky said in a subdued voice. ‘Sometimes, I believe that because I was born on the feast day of Job, I’m destined for unhappiness and tragedy,’ he added, staring out into space.

  Dimitri had noticed an increasing tone of fatalism in his friend since the beginning of the Japanese war and the discovery that Alexis was ill.

  ‘There is more to healing than doctors,’ Alexandra said. ‘Anna Vyrubova tells me there are holy men who can work miracles.’

  Dimitri’s head snapped up at this remark. He knew that after Alexis’s diagnosis, Alexandra had built a small chapel in a church in the Imperial Park and prayed for hours every day, asking for God’s help in curing Alexis. She was such a devout woman that she couldn’t believe God had deserted her. But this was the first he’d heard of miracle-workers. Alexandra could never give up hope; she would naturally turn to unconventional solutions. The Tsarevich’s disease was still a secret to most of those in the Imperial Court, since his parents didn’t want them or the Russian people to know that the future Tsar was an invalid under the constant shadow of death. But members of the Court now had the feeling something was amiss in the Imperial Family. The boy would be out of sight for weeks, then briefly reappear. No children of court members were ever invited to play with him.