Dimitri’s beloved Capriccio Italien came next, but his mind began to wander, and he didn’t hear a note. He kept looking over at Nicky. With his whole heart, he didn’t want to believe what Katya had said – that the Tsar and the government had orchestrated the pogroms all along. She’d told him that the recent wave of violence across the country had been a counter-revolutionary action, instigated through blaming the Jews for the peasants’ misery. Hundreds had been murdered. And Katya was right. His old friend was responsible for Russia’s misery, but Nicky didn’t have the faintest idea he was to blame – or even know of the abject misery. Dimitri felt angry – and sorry for him.
The orchestra segued into the last two minutes of the 1812 Overture, the Tsar’s favorite Tchaikovsky piece. The crowds started cheering like mad. If all Russians loved Tchaikovsky, then this was their favorite piece, which commemorated the great victory over Napoleon. Dimitri continued to look for Katya, expecting to see her squirming through the audience to stand at the very front. A dramatic crescendo ended the piece. When it was finished, he would walk down to the Imperial Box and present his Fabergé design to the Tsar.
Dimitri unwrapped it from its green velvet cloth. The blue enamel and gold music box glowed in the afternoon sun. He smiled with pride at his creation. He had shown it to the Tsarina yesterday morning, and she’d absolutely loved it. The gift had been left in the palace for safekeeping, and he had picked it up this morning.
As the final notes were dying out, he made his way down. He didn’t see Moncransky and his entourage following right behind him. He was at the bottom tier, when he saw a figure moving forward through the crowd. He looked down so he wouldn’t lose his footing and trip. When he looked up, to his delight, he saw Katya standing there. He’d known she would never miss this special moment and would steal away from the hospital to see it. He beamed a big smile at her. Then a woman in a light blue dress shoved roughly past Katya and came running straight at him.
‘Miss O’Brian?’ Dimitri stammered.
The nanny had a wide-eyed look of horror on her face that frightened him.
‘It’s a bomb,’ Miss O’Brian said in hushed voice. He followed her eyes down to the box. For a few seconds that seemed like two months, he stood paralyzed with fear. Listening closely, he could hear the faintest ticking coming from the gift. Slowly, the cobweb of panic cleared from his head, and he knew what he had to do. From his left, he could see Moncransky was approaching. Dimitri was about to take off with the box when the General clamped his hand on his shoulder.
‘Prince Dimitri,’ the General shouted in a voice all could hear, ‘in the name of the Tsar, I am …’
‘It’s after two,’ shrieked the nanny.
Before Moncransky could say another word, Dimitri twisted away from his grasp and began to run. He had taken just two steps when Miss O’Brian snatched the gift out of his hands and started running away from him. With confused expressions, the Tsar and Tsarina watched the goings-on taking place right in front of them. There was a ten-foot-wide space on Griboedova Street between the crowd and the grandstand for security, and she ran down the middle of it. Policemen in plain clothes started chasing after her.
Dimitri watched her figure become smaller in the distance. Ten seconds later, there was the sound of a muffled explosion. The crowd screamed as a cloud of smoke erupted, and Miss O’Brian was gone from view. The police ran up to a blackened spot that was spattered with pieces of flesh among fragments of light blue cloth.
Dimitri just stood there stunned watching in amazement.
‘Prince Dimitri is an assassin! He tried to kill our Tsar!’ Anna Vyrubova screamed.
‘Murderer!’ shouted someone else.
‘Revolutionary!’
‘Seize him!’ Anna Vyrubova yelled at the top of her lungs.
‘No! That’s not true!’ Dimitri shouted back at his accusers in the grandstand. His eyes locked with Nicky’s, who was standing in the box staring at him with an astonished look.
The crowd began to panic, screaming and scattering like mad in all directions. Katya fought her way through the mob to get to him.
‘Dimitri, what’s going on?’ she asked in a stricken voice. ‘Who was that woman that grabbed the gift from you?’
As Dimitri was about to answer, he saw Moncransky and his men. They had been caught up in the panicked crowd, but now had regrouped and were heading his way.
‘We have to get the hell out of here!’ he yelled, yanking Katya by the arm. In the chaos, they were able to push their way through the crowd, leaving Moncransky behind. At the edge of the mob, they burst free and ran to the next street over. Dimitri spied a man about to get into a carriage. He ran up to him and shoved him aside.
‘Go!’ he shouted to the driver as he pulled Katya in behind him and slammed the door.
‘What are we going to do?’ Katya said in a frightened voice. She was sitting across from him with a look of dread on her face.
‘I didn’t try to kill the Tsar,’ Dimitri gasped, catching his breath. ‘But once the Okhrana find out I’m part of the revolution, they’ll say I did. And you’ll be connected too.’
‘You’ll be hanged! We’ve got to get out of the country. We have no choice!’ Katya cried.
Dimitri stuck his head out of the carriage window. ‘Faster!’ he yelled to the driver.
In the middle of a swarm of frightened people, Asher Blokh stood as still as a statue with his head bent. This had to be a nightmare, he thought. The bizarre scene he’d witnessed was just a bad dream that he would wake up from. The assassination was mere seconds from being carried out, when this crazy woman came out of the crowd to thwart it. He started walking away from the mob as if in a trance. What the hell happened?
Blokh shuffled over to the stone parapet of the Griboedova Canal and stared into the still, gray water which was partially frozen. The woman was obviously trying to ditch the bomb in the canal, but she didn’t make it. He couldn’t believe his bad luck. Feeling like a whipped dog, he walked along the parapet. He was still convinced he’d been doing the right thing. The Tsar was a dictator destroying the lives of millions, especially his own people. If he died, Russia would be free. But after four unsuccessful assassination attempts, maybe the old Russian saying that ‘the eviler a man is, the longer he lives’ was true.
Shaking his head in disbelief, he lit a cigarette and walked home. He was going to do something he’d never imagined: he was giving up. He tried to remember where he’d put Hersch’s American address.
FIFTY-SEVEN
When his bedroom door burst open, Dimitri felt as though he would faint. He expected a volley of gunfire from the Imperial Police. Lara rushed into the room.
‘Dimitri, you idiot, do you know what you’ve done?’ she screamed at him. ‘And what you’ve done to me?’
Dimitri, who had been packing a bag on the bed, gaped at his wife.
‘And you, little doctor. Did you think you would get away with your lover?’
Dimitri and Katya gave Lara puzzled looks.
Lara smiled at her husband. ‘Dimitri, my love, I could sense what was going on between you two when you introduced me at our ball. No one has better intuition about these things than me!’
Dimitri took a step forward. ‘I’m sure you won’t understand this, Lara, but I’ve given up my life of privilege to stand up for the oppressed.’
‘No, I don’t understand. The only explanation is that you’ve gone insane,’ Lara spat out in disgust. ‘You’re a goddamn traitor to our class. You’re a shit to turn against us – and Nicky, your best friend. And all for a bunch of ignorant peasants and Jews. How could you do such a rotten thing?’ she yelled, her face red.
‘I did feel like a shit to turn against him, but I had no choice,’ Dimitri said. ‘Nicky is a good-hearted person, but a terrible Tsar. His head is stuck in the sand, and millions have suffered for it. I just couldn’t stand by. It’s all about a belief in something bigger than oneself.’
Lara sh
ook her head in repulsion. ‘What a load of horse manure!’
There came a fierce pounding on the front door downstairs. Voices shouted to open up and let them in.
‘Ah, they were looking for you around the grandstand. I knew the police would be here soon,’ Lara said with a smile.
She dashed out of the room and ran down the curving marble stair. She waved off the footman to open the door herself. There stood General Moncransky, along with a half-dozen policemen. Two had revolvers in their hands.
‘Your Highness, we’ve come to arrest Prince Dimitri Markhov for attempting to murder the Tsar, and for revolutionary activity against the Imperial government,’ the General announced in a stentorian voice, a look of triumph on his ruddy face.
‘Yes, he is a traitor! I want him to hang!’ Lara said in a loud, angry voice. The General smiled at her.
Upstairs, Dimitri could hear Lara from the bedroom. He went over to Katya and put his arms around her.
‘This is it, my sweet,’ Dimitri whispered, looking deep into her blue eyes. ‘Always know that I loved you.’
Suddenly, Katya put her index finger up to her lips, motioning for him to be quiet.
‘But you’re too late,’ Lara announced in a frantic voice. ‘Prince Dimitri has left the city, but I know his plan. He’s on his way by train to the Black Sea, to catch a boat to Constantinople, arranged by his fellow conspirators. He’s dressed like a peasant in a black cap and dark green jacket. And he’s carrying a cat.’
Moncransky’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘You must hurry! There’s not a moment to lose,’ Lara shrieked.
The last detail about the cat seemed to flummox the police, but they and the General ran back to their carriage. ‘Get the bastard!’ Lara yelled after them.
Dimitri and Katya heard the front door close, then footsteps coming slowly up the stair.
Lara strode into the bedroom.
‘Do you have everything you need?’ Lara asked in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘What about Katya? She can take some of my things.’
Dimitri and Katya stood still, jaws dropped in disbelief. Dimitri tried to speak, but no words came out of his mouth.
‘I called my servant … he’s on his way with my bag and passport,’ Katya said in a halting voice.
Lara looked down at Tolstoy sleeping on the bed through all the commotion.
‘Dimitri, I’ll take care of your cat. I promise, I won’t drown it in the Neva,’ Lara said. ‘You can get another one where you’re going. By the way, do you know where you are going?’
‘Well, all this has happened quite suddenly, so I haven’t exactly made definite travel plans.’ He was still having trouble comprehending this turn of events.
Lara regarded him coolly. ‘You can’t escape by the Black Sea, that’s where they’ll be looking. You have to go north.’
She walked over to the window and thought for a moment.
‘You have to cross the Gulf of Finland by boat to Stockholm,’ she said in an authoritative voice. ‘Then to America.’
‘America?’ he repeated.
‘Yes, New York. Isn’t that where all the Jews are heading these days? It’s the new promised land, I hear. I don’t picture you in Palestine, Dimitri, sitting on a camel.’ She smirked.
A servant knocked on the door and brought in Katya’s suitcase and her black doctor’s bag.
‘We’ve been to New York a few times,’ Lara continued. ‘There are friends there to help you. You two stay down in the wine cellar while I make the arrangements for your passage. You must be out of here in a few hours, before the police come back – and they will.’
‘But what about you?’ asked Katya.
‘Oh, my husband will cause me a lot of embarrassment in Court, but nothing I can’t handle. I’ll say I’d been duped, and everyone will feel sorry for me. And if this isn’t grounds for divorce, I don’t know what is,’ she replied with a laugh.
She crinkled her brow. ‘Do you have enough cash?’
‘Not much, but it will do. I have funds in Zurich,’ Dimitri said.
‘Here, take this just in case.’ Lara unfastened her favorite pearl and diamond necklace and placed it in his bag. ‘You can use it to set yourselves up in America. Take those Fabergé trinkets on the mantel; they could be worth something.’
Dimitri went over to Lara and grasped her hand.
‘Larissa, have you grown a woman’s heart?’
‘No, I’m still just a monstrously vain aristocrat. But coming back in the carriage from the ceremony, I realized that you must really believe in what you’re doing, to throw your whole life away for it. You’re sacrificing everything. But you always were such a blockhead.’ She placed her arms around Dimitri and kissed him on the cheek.
‘We had some good times together, Prince Dimitri. On my list of my ten best lovers, you rank number three,’ she added with a smile.
‘I’m honored.’
‘Good luck to you, my handsome prince, and to you, little doctor,’ Lara said. With a wave, she strode out of the room.
‘Lara,’ Dimitri called out, and she stopped in the stair hall. ‘Take care of yourself.’
‘You know I will,’ Lara replied with a sly smile.
Dimitri gave her hand a squeeze, and Lara turned to go down the stairs.
‘I’m happy you’re in love again, Dimitri,’ she called over her shoulder.
He ran back to the room and finished packing his bag with Katya’s help. Just before he left, he grabbed his framed architectural degree off the wall and tossed it in.
FIFTY-EIGHT
‘Your Highness, it’s time to leave. Please follow me.’
‘Thank you, Firs.’
Katya and Dimitri grabbed their bags and followed the servant through the cavernous cellar to the rear courtyard. A wagon loaded with a huge pile of hay, hitched to a single horse, was backed up to the mansion. It was still a sunny afternoon.
‘Thank you, Firs,’ Dimitri whispered while embracing him.
Josef, the Markhovs’ old coachman, waved for them to come forward.
‘Lie flat on the bed of the wagon, Your Highness, with your heads pointing toward the back,’ he whispered. Dimitri and Katya did as they were told. Josef and Firs buried them and their bags with thick layers of hay. Then they placed several wooden crates and sacks of meal on top of the hay. Firs raised the backboard of the wagon, and they rumbled off. Dimitri tried to get a sense of the direction they were headed, but Josef was going in and out of a maze of streets.
‘You there! Halt!’ came a command ten minutes later.
‘Halt, damn you!’ a different voice yelled.
Dimitri couldn’t see Katya’s face because of the hay, but he reached out and grasped her hand. Dimitri’s heart was in his throat when he heard the clatter of horses’ hooves coming toward them. The horses pulled up alongside the wagon.
‘You old idiot. Didn’t you hear me tell you to stop?’
Josef turned to his right to face a large Cossack in a scarlet tunic on a dappled gray horse. On his left was another Cossack on a chestnut mount.
‘One of your crates fell off the wagon. It’s lying back there in the middle of the street,’ the Cossack on the right said in a gruff, impatient voice.
Josef with his leathery face and white mustache stared at the Cossack.
The soldier got angry when Josef didn’t respond.
‘Did you expect me to go back and fetch it for you, you stupid fool?’ thundered the Cossack.
‘Get down from the wagon and go get it!’ the other Cossack yelled. ‘You can’t leave it in the road!’
Josef looked behind him and saw the crate about thirty yards away. Slowly he got down from the wagon.
‘Don’t worry, grandfather. We won’t let your horse walk off.’
Josef trudged off to retrieve the crate.
The two Cossacks began talking across the wagon bed.
‘So, what did you think of Andrushka?’ the one on the left asked.
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‘Splendid pair of jugs on the girl.’
‘You should see her ass, it’s a work of art.’
The soldiers laughed hilariously.
As they talked, their horses smelled the hay in the wagon. They stretched out their necks and began eating it. The Cossacks took no notice and continued talking.
‘Remember Eva? Now she had a great set. All girls from Kiev do,’ announced the Cossack on the left.
‘I was garrisoned in Kiev for six years, and I never noticed that,’ said the other soldier.
Josef was only halfway to the crate. The two horses had begun gorging themselves on the hay, their heads sticking into the wagon bed as though it was a trough. Because he owned horses, Dimitri knew that chomping sound well. Their mouths seemed just inches away from them. Sweat poured off his body. The hay between the sacks and crates was being devoured. Josef was now trudging back with the fallen crate.
‘When are you going on leave?’ one Cossack asked.
‘In three weeks. I can’t wait. Going home first to Minsk, then to the Black Sea.’
‘Had a girl once in Minsk. Nice little thing.’
Huffing and puffing, Josef finally made it back to the wagon. The thick pile of hay was thinning out in places. Dimitri and Katya scrunched closer to the middle of the wagon bed. The Cossacks’ horses were like eating machines; looking up through the hay, Dimitri could see glimpses of the chestnut’s muzzle.
‘Give me the crate, I’ll set it back on,’ volunteered the Cossack on the right. He backed his horse up a few steps and reached out for the crate, which Josef reluctantly handed over.
‘The problem is, old man, you don’t have the load properly distributed. No wonder it fell out. Here, let me show you how it should be done.’
Leaning out from his horse, the soldier began moving sacks and crates around. The chestnut horse kept eating away. The right sleeve of Dimitri’s jacket and the bottom of Katya’s blue dress were now discernible. Sensing this, Dimitri eased Katya even closer and squeezed his eyes tight.
The Fabergé Secret Page 27