Anastasia and Her Sisters (2 page)

On the day of the bazaar, people came by motorcar, carriage, horse, mule, or foot from surrounding estates and villages to buy items made by the imperial family. Ordinary Russians and poor peasants, even the rugged-looking Tatars coming down from the mountains, flocked to the bazaar for a look at the tsar and tsaritsa and their children. Papa was there, smiling and chatting, and Mama smiled and chatted, too, though she felt ill. The most popular person, drawing the biggest crowds, was of course Tsarevich Alexei.

There was even a bit of scandal, when a pretty young girl named Kyra Belyaevna, daughter of a good family, asked to take part in the event with a table of her own, selling fine linen handkerchiefs bordered with delicate lace. Some of the older ladies didn’t like her, saying that she dressed too daringly, was too friendly, and attracted too much attention with her bright eyes and musical laugh. When several of the ladies insisted that she not be given a table, she begged Admiral Chagin to intervene. The admiral gallantly took her request to Mama,
who thought Belyaevna was being judged too harshly and sent word that she must be allowed to stay. A number of gentlemen and naval men suddenly found themselves in need of a lace-trimmed handkerchief, and crowded around her table. Even the old admiral seemed to be enchanted. I decided the ladies must be jealous.

The bazaar went on for three days and raised lots of money for Mama’s cause, but Mama herself was so exhausted that she spent the rest of the week in bed. Even Lili Dehn, who was always full of energy, looked weary.

•  •  •

None of us wanted to leave Livadia, but early in December we said good-bye to the officers of the
Standart
and boarded the imperial train for the long, monotonous journey north into winter. The great black locomotive moved s-l-o-w-l-y—a horse could run almost as fast—across the flat, treeless steppe, a distance of a thousand miles. I was always excited at the start of a train trip but thoroughly tired of it by the end.

Our train was a rolling palace in miniature. Mama and Papa’s private car contained a bedroom, a sitting room for Mama, a study for Papa, and a bathroom. My sisters and I and our brother shared bedrooms and a bathroom in another car; the bathtub was specially constructed so that water didn’t slosh out when the train rounded a curve. A third car was for Mama’s ladies-in-waiting and Papa’s aides and our governesses. The dining car seated twenty at a long, narrow table; at one end were a kitchen and a little room where Papa and his friends gathered before dinner for
zakuski
—hors d’oeuvres, Mama called them, preferring the French term—while the
train chuffed through the darkness. A car for the servants and a baggage car completed the train.

A second train that looked exactly like the first—dark blue cars with the double-eagled Romanov crest embossed in gold on the sides—traveled either ahead of us or behind us. It was actually a dummy train. A revolutionary or an anarchist planning to throw a bomb would not know on which train the tsar was traveling. I had no idea then what a revolutionary or an anarchist was, but I did understand there were men who hated my father because he was the tsar, and who might cause something terrible to happen to him, just as they had blown up Papa’s poor uncle Sergei a few years earlier. What I did not understand then was why they hated Uncle Sergei enough to kill him. I simply could not fathom why all of us had to be guarded wherever we went—four girls and a little boy who had nothing to do with the government. And how could anyone possibly hate Papa, the kindest man in the world?

No one could answer any of those questions to my satisfaction.

•  •  •

Keeping a diary, making an entry every single day, was something all of us were expected to do. Mama kept a diary, and so did Papa. I therefore assumed that everyone did. At some time during the summer of 1911, I had become curious about what my sisters were writing in their diaries. Marie’s lay on a shelf near her bed, and in less than a minute I had leafed through it and discovered there wasn’t a thing in it that wasn’t almost exactly like mine. Tatiana’s was hidden but easy to find—under her pillow—and it was full of lists of things to do, birthdays
and name days of family and servants who might require gifts, various projects she had dreamed up and intended to organize. Olga’s, lying in plain sight on her desk, included notes about books she was reading—she was particularly interested in English writers, like Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters—and the latest piano piece she’d been working on. Hardly worth the trouble of reading.

Boring. Every single one of the diaries was boring. I didn’t bother to look at them again for months.

But then, just after we’d returned from Livadia to Tsarskoe Selo, I needed an address book that I thought one of my older sisters had left somewhere. Olga was practicing in the music room and Tatiana was with Mama in her boudoir, and not wanting to disturb them I went alone into their bedroom to look for it. On a shelf among Olga’s prayer books I noticed a book with a black leather cover stamped with a gilt cross. I thought it was a book of devotions. I have no idea what led me to open it, but what I found was a notebook disguised to
look
like a book of devotions. It was not. It was another kind of diary. The rest of us kept diaries so dull that anyone could read them without finding anything the least bit shocking. But the first few lines were enough to tell me that Olga’s notebook was not for the eyes of anyone but Olga. I began to read.

Livadia, 4 November 1911

What happiness! I am sixteen, and last night at my birthday ball I danced three times with Pavel Alexeyevich. For a few moments we stood on the balcony, and he took my hand. We were surrounded by people, we dared not kiss, but I was happy. For one perfect night I could allow myself to be in love and to know that Pavel returns that love. For one perfect night we danced and let our eyes speak the words that we could not say aloud.

Pavel Alexeyevich was Lieutenant Voronov, and Olga was in love with him!

I knew I should not read the diary. The contents were private. I worried that I would be caught and she would be very angry. It was
wrong
to read it!

I closed the book and returned it carefully to its place among the prayer books, promising myself that I would not look at it again.

Within days I had broken my vow. I found Olga’s secret notebook, and from then on I could not stay away.

Livadia, 10 November

We will be here for another month, and it is pure bliss! I see Pavel nearly every day, and we have even had a few moments alone to talk when everyone was busy at the bazaar. P. gave me a lovely lace handkerchief as a gift—of course I know that he bought it from that girl everyone was making such a fuss over.

Livadia, 12 November

Tanya has noticed. We were in our bedroom dressing for dinner, when she asked suddenly, “Do you think I don’t see how you look at him?” I pretended not to know whom she was talking about.

She calls him “your lieutenant” and says I gaze at him like a sick puppy! She also reminded me that there’s no future for me with him. “You won’t ever marry Pavel Alexeyevich or anyone else of his class.” Her words exactly.

I asked who had said anything about marrying him, and assured her I am not contemplating marriage at the age of sixteen, any more than she is at fourteen.

She said that if my crush on Pavel is obvious to
her
—she insists on calling it a “crush”—then it is surely obvious to Mother as well.

I asked if Mother had said anything. Tanya said no, but then she said, “I’m warning you—if she does take notice, you can be sure it’s the last you’ll see of him. Lieutenant Voronov will be transferred to Vladivostok before you can snap your fingers.”

I know that Tanya is right, and I have resolved to be more careful.

Livadia, 14 November

The afternoon tennis matches continue, and I follow darling P. with my eyes and ache for a few minutes alone with him. But that does not happen. I hate the thought of leaving here, for it will be spring until I see him again.

I put the notebook back where I had found it. I could hear Olga practicing on the piano, but there was a chance that
Tatiana might come in and find me. I wondered if she knew about the notebook-disguised-as-prayer-book. When did Olga even have time to write in it?

A little further investigation revealed that she slept with the lace-trimmed handkerchief under her pillow. Poor Olga! I worried about her and how her heart might be broken.

CHAPTER 2

Family Secret

TSARSKOE SELO, 1912

T
he snow lay deep at Alexander Palace, and the Neva River, winding toward the Baltic, was thick with ice. Days in Tsarskoe Selo were short and bitterly cold. We settled in for the long winter, dreaming of spring, of returning to Livadia and cruising again on the
Standart
.

In the meantime we looked forward to Christmas. My sisters and I knitted scarves and embroidered handkerchiefs to give as gifts to servants and friends. The palace was decorated with huge fir trees trimmed with ornaments and lit with tiny candles, a German tradition. There was one tree in our playroom, another in Mama’s sitting room, a third in the dining room.

Everyone else might be having a cozy Christmas at home, but not the Tsar of All the Russias, whose obligations never
end. Papa had to attend several Christmas celebrations—at the military hospital, the nursing school, the home for disabled soldiers. The biggest celebration was for the men of our family’s personal guard—those Cossacks who were always following us around! Mama wasn’t feeling well, but Papa’s younger sister, Olga Alexandrovna, came from St. Petersburg and took her place. Aunt Olga, who was cheerful and fun-loving, never seemed to mind filling in for Mama when she was feeling out of sorts. Alexei looked adorable in his white uniform and white fur hat. A gigantic tree had been set up in the horse ring and decorated with hundreds of little electric lights.

Next to the tree, tables were piled with Christmas gifts. Each Cossack saluted Papa, took a numbered slip and presented it to Aunt Olga, kissed her hand, and accepted the gift from the pile, a silver spoon or cup with the imperial seal. A balalaika orchestra played, followed by a chorus of Cossacks in their brilliant red coats, singing “Absolute Master of our great land, our tsar,” followed by Cossack dancers leaping and whirling and throwing their daggers. This went on for three long hours! The Cossacks were splendid, but
still
! And then, after we’d had tea, there was yet another Christmas tree party for the officers, this one at our palace.

“I can’t bear it,” my sister Olga muttered.

“It’s our duty,” Tatiana, “the Governess,” reminded her.

Daughters of the tsar couldn’t argue with duty. Duty was duty, and we had no choice.

When the official obligations were over and the first star gleamed in the sky, we gathered by the light of a single candle for our own quiet Christmas Eve supper. The table was spread
with the twelve traditional Russian dishes—bowls of
kutya
made with wheat grains mixed with honey and nuts, mushrooms served in several ways, almond soup, pickled herring, and roast carp stuffed with buckwheat—but it was the last of the forty days of fasting, and there was no meat or eggs or cheese, and no sweets. Papa loved the meal, and we ate it because Papa did. Mama hardly touched it.

A crowd had gathered, as they always did, in front of Alexander Palace to wish our family a joyous Christmas. We stepped out onto Mama’s balcony to acknowledge their joyful shouts and cheers, as we always did. At midnight we attended Mass in the chapel, and the next day, the Great Feast of the Nativity, we exchanged gifts and presented our handmade presents to our servants and friends.

Papa believed in a strict routine—rising at a certain hour, eating at set times, working and studying and exercising during certain periods. In Tsarskoe Selo we rose at seven and joined Papa for breakfast at eight. He always had the same thing, tea and two rolls, buttered. After breakfast he disappeared into his study to receive visitors and read reports and do whatever else a tsar does, and we dragged ourselves to our schoolroom to spend the morning at the mercy of our tutors. Our tutors arrived at nine o’clock. Alexei was taught separately. Hour after tedious hour we were at our lessons.

An Englishman, Charles Sydney Gibbes—we called him Sydney Ivanovich; I’m not sure why—instructed us in English. When I was seven, our family made a summer visit to England as the guests of King Edward VII. He was an uncle of both Mama and Papa—it’s a very complicated family tree; you really
need a chart to keep it all straight—and we called him Uncle Bertie. He informed our parents that their daughters spoke English with “atrocious accents.” Papa speaks English beautifully, almost as though he was born and raised there, and Mama does also but with a German accent. They must have agreed with Uncle Bertie, because when we arrived home in Russia, Mama hired Sydney Ivanovich to correct the problem.

Monsieur Pierre Gilliard, a Swiss with an upturned mustache and a well-trimmed beard, taught French. We called him Zhilik, our Russian version of his name. My sisters read French rather well, but I’m the only one who actually spoke it well. I may not have gotten the grammar right, but my accent was impressively good. Gilliard’s explanation: “Anastasia is a born mimic. She imitates perfectly what she hears.”

Dear Trina—Catherine Schneider—tried valiantly to teach us to speak German. When Mama had come from Germany as a girl engaged to marry Papa, Trina was hired to teach her Russian. Poor Mama struggled; she had a terrible time with it. “It’s very hard to learn a foreign language when one is an adult,” Mama told us. “And that’s why you girlies—and Baby, too—must learn while you’re still young.” She always called Alexei “Baby” or “Sunbeam.”