Anastasia and Her Sisters (28 page)

The news from beyond our prison got worse. When Papa learned that the new Bolshevik government had signed a peace treaty with Germany, he broke down in tears. “A disgrace!” he sobbed. “Suicide for Russia, the death of my beloved country!”

Moscow was now the capital instead of Petrograd, and a
new commissar was coming to take the place of the two who’d been dismissed. We speculated who this new commissar would be—Papa thought it might be Leon Trotsky, who was running the Bolshevik government with Lenin. Then one day, when the spring thaw was turning the frozen ground to muddy slush, a government official rode into Tobolsk escorted by dozens of horsemen. We watched them pass, their horses and their uniforms covered in mud, and a little later Vasily Vasilyevich Yakovlev sent a message asking if he might have tea with Mama and Papa. We studied him carefully as he arrived. He was tall and strong looking, dressed in a clean uniform and polished boots, and he made a good impression by bowing and addressing Mama and Papa as “Your Majesty.” They took him to meet Alexei, and he seemed truly concerned when he saw that my brother wasn’t able to bend his leg.

My parents were nervous about this man. He didn’t tell them why he had come. Every change seemed to be a bad omen, and not knowing what was about to happen kept us on edge.

“Vasily Vasilyevich speaks well,” Papa said. He was nervously smoking one of the last of his cigarettes. “He seems like an educated man.”

“I don’t trust him,” Mama said. “I don’t trust what he’s been sent here to do. There is a shifty look to his eye that I don’t like.” She turned to Tatiana. “Perhaps you girlies can find something to do in your room while I discuss matters further with your father.”

Tatiana, Marie, and I rose obediently and started to leave, but Olga didn’t move. For months Olga had said little, dispirited and sunk in her own dark thoughts. Now suddenly she
rebelled. “We want to know what’s happening,” she announced. “We are no longer children. We might have been ‘girlies’ in Tsarskoe Selo, but we are not ‘girlies’ in Siberia—not any of us, neither Tanya nor I, and not Mashka, and not Nastya, either. And Lyosha, too, must know—he’s not ‘Baby.’ These months as prisoners have made us adults.”

Mama looked shocked. “All right,” Papa said, and smiled wanly. “I agree. We will keep nothing from you. Yakovlev brought a telegraph machine with him and a telegraph operator who keeps him in direct communication with Moscow. His orders come from there. I believe he has come to take us to Moscow and put me on trial. But so far he has told us nothing.”

Mama sighed. “We must have faith that God will see to it that we are rescued. Our fate is in His hands.”

One day when sleet pounded relentlessly against our windows and we decided to forgo the hour of outdoor exercise, Yakovlev came again to the governor’s mansion. This time he was blunt. He had received orders to take our family from Tobolsk to an undisclosed destination, but because Alexei still could not walk and was clearly an invalid, only Papa would be taken. “The rest will stay behind.”

“I refuse to go,” Papa said. “I will not be separated from my family.”

Yakovlev tried to reason with him. “If you do not go willingly, you will be taken forcibly.” He didn’t call Papa “Your Majesty” this time, but he did promise to be personally responsible for Papa’s safety. Then he added, “You may take anyone with you that you wish, but you must be ready to leave at four o’clock tomorrow morning.”

As soon as Yakovlev had gone, Papa sent for Kobylinsky. “Where do you think they’ll take me?” he asked.

Kobylinsky shrugged helplessly. “I have been told only that the journey will take four or five days.”

“Moscow, then?”

“Perhaps.”

I had never seen Mama so upset, so torn. On the one hand, she felt compelled to go with Papa, to be with him for whatever he faced. If he was to be put on trial in Moscow, then she wanted to be at his side. On the other hand, Alexei was still unable to walk and was far from well. How could she bring herself to leave him?

“For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do,” she said, burying her fingers in her hair—it had turned completely gray in the past months. “I’ve always felt inspired by God in making a decision, but now I simply can’t think!”

Olga, Marie, and I sat close to her, weeping helplessly, but Tatiana—always the strong one—immediately took charge. She ran downstairs and returned with Monsieur Gilliard.

He kissed Mama’s hand. “Alexei’s crisis is past,” he assured her. “Go with your husband with the complete assurance that I will take responsibility for the care of your son.”

Mama gazed at Gilliard for a moment or two, and then her face became calm. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, you’re right. I’ll go with Nicky, and you will stay here.” She looked at each of us thoughtfully. “One of you must come with me.”

“But which of us, Mama?” I asked. My head was spinning. I did not want to go, but I also did not want to be left behind.

“Decide among yourselves,” she said.

We looked at one another. I thought it should be Olga, because she was the eldest. But she seemed to know what I was thinking and shook her head. “Tanya,” Olga said. “Tanya should go.”

“No,” Tatiana said. “No, I think it best if I stay here to oversee the household and help Zhilik with Lyosha. Mashka is the most cheerful of the four of us, the most reliable, and therefore best able to be helpful to Mama. She should go.”

I agreed with Tatiana’s choice. “Yes, it must be Mashka.”

Marie closed her eyes. “All right then,” she said when she’d opened them. We each nodded. “Of course I will go.”

More decisions were made. Anna Demidova, Mama’s maid, would accompany them, although she was plainly terrified. So would Papa’s valet, Trupp.

Dr. Botkin, Prince Dolgorukov, and General Tatischev came to take tea with us, as they did every evening, and listened as Papa explained the plan they’d agreed upon. Dolgorukov immediately announced that he, too, would go, and Papa gripped his hand gratefully.

“Certainly I will accompany you,” Dr. Botkin said quietly, and I stopped crying into my handkerchief long enough to stare at him. “Dr. Derevenko will remain here as Alexei’s physician.”

Mama was surprised, too. “But your children? Gleb and Tatiana? You will leave them?”

“I will make arrangements for them. My duty has always been with Your Majesties.”

What arrangements?
I wanted to ask, but I dared not.

•  •  •

The hours passed much too quickly. Clothes were packed and repacked, last-minute instructions given, good-byes said, rivers of tears shed. We still didn’t know where they were being taken, or when we would be able to join them. Yakovlev shouted orders, directing people into the clumsy peasant carts lined with straw swept up from a pigsty. Mama was bundled in Dr. Botkin’s fur coat, and someone went to fetch another coat for him. Marie was to ride with Mama. Papa was ordered into an open carriage with Yakovlev. Prince Dolgorukov, Dr. Botkin, and the others were directed to carts. Guardsmen mounted on restless horses waited for the order.

A signal was given and the carts jolted forward and clattered away, leaving the street deserted and eerily silent. We climbed upstairs, numb with fear. I remember hardly anything about the rest of that day, but the following day I read this in Olga’s notebook:

The world is a dark, dark place. Our family now wrenched apart, parents and one sister taken away, who knows to where, for what purpose? Tanya stands ready to keep us going here until the next terrible thing happens. She’s so much stronger than I am. Even Nastya is stronger. Father and Mother continue to cling to the belief that we will be rescued, somehow, by someone, but who? I have no hope of rescue. I have no hope of anything good happening. The only hope I have is that I am wrong about everything.

CHAPTER 23

Love and Fear

TOBOLSK, APRIL 1918

K
obylinsky himself delivered the telegram from Mama. They’ve been detained in Ekaterinburg, somewhere on the eastern slope of the Urals. No explanation. We discuss it, wondering why there and not Moscow. Even Kobylinsky seems puzzled. But now we know where they are.

At Easter our sad little household gathers to worship together. We can’t help remembering how it used to be, the glorious midnight service with candles and incense and a choir singing, and the magnificent feast afterward. Kharitonov somehow procures a few eggs and a little cheese and makes a
paskha
for us, and we weep with gratitude. Tatiana and Olga have grown thin as knife blades—Alexei, too. Even I am no longer “round as a barrel” or “a
pirozhok
on legs.”

Since Mama’s instructions to “dispose of the medicines,”
we’ve been working diligently. Sometimes we sing songs or tell stories to try to keep our spirits up, while we sew the jewels into our corsets or wherever else we can think to conceal them. We brought chests of jewels with us from Tsarskoe Selo—not to wear, but to provide the money we’ll need when we are finally rescued. No one bothered to search us, but Mama and Papa were taken away from here so suddenly that there was no time to hide the jewels in their clothes. We may not be so lucky next time.

Then a letter came from Marie, describing how they were searched when they arrived in Ekaterinburg:

We weren’t allowed to unpack our suitcases until hours after we arrived, because they went through everything, including the medicines and candy. Prince Dolgorukov was arrested almost as soon as we arrived when it was found he was carrying thousands of rubles. We have not seen him and don’t know what’s happened to him.

We have constructed “double brassieres,” sewing two together with jewels wrapped in cotton batting from Dr. Derevenko’s medical supplies and stitched between the layers. We try on these strange garments and double over with laughter at the big bosoms we have suddenly developed. It’s been a long time since we’ve had something to laugh at.

“Do you remember, Tanya, when I didn’t yet have a
bosom
and you insisted I must not use that word but say ‘figure’ instead, because it was much nicer?”

“I was simply trying to make you more ladylike,” she says.

“Well, you failed miserably,” I tell her.

•  •  •

This type of sewing is boring. It occupies my hands but gives me too much time to think. Mostly I think of Gleb. He and his sister are alone across the street, their father in Ekaterinburg with our parents. Before he left, Dr. Botkin brought two more of Gleb’s paintings of Mishka the Bear to show us, but he took them back again. I wish that I’d been allowed to keep one of them—something of Gleb’s to have, besides the piece of sea glass.

It’s impossible to guess what is going to happen next. Soon we will be leaving here to join Papa and Mama and the others. I wonder if Gleb and his sister will be permitted to come with us. I wish I could see him again, even for just a few minutes. Sometimes when I can’t sleep, or when I’m tired of “disposing of the medicines,” I stand at the window, hoping he’ll pass below and that he’ll look up at the right moment and wave.

If he does, I will blow him a kiss.

A kiss. I have never kissed Gleb, and that’s what I have begun to wish for:
one kiss.
If I told Olga and Tatiana, they would certainly laugh at me, or tell me how foolish I am even to think of such nonsense. Yet I can’t help thinking of it. I awaken in the night thinking of it, and I think of it while I stitch jewels into my clothes.

•  •  •

We have almost finished disposing of the medicines. Two days ago I unstrung the diamond and pearl necklace, jewels given to me on each birthday and name day, and I have concealed most of them in my corset. When just one pearl was left, I had an idea. It’s a dangerous idea, but it won’t go away. I turn it over
and over in my mind, examining it from every angle. I drop the pearl into my pocket. It will be easier to sell than a diamond.

I think of Anton Ivanovich, the guard who has a crush on Marie. Anton’s crush is on my sister, not on me, but I wonder now if I can persuade him to help me. It would be a grave risk to offer Anton the pearl as a gift. Suppose he accepts the pearl and then reports my attempt to bribe him to his commanding officer? Or doesn’t accept, and still reports me?

Anton Ivanovich is not my only problem. What if Olga or Tatiana finds out? Olga probably wouldn’t care; she might even be sympathetic. But Tatiana would no doubt be horrified.

I decide to risk it all. I will do anything to be with Gleb, if only for a few minutes.

The guardhouse where Anton is on duty is by the front entrance of the mansion. I wait and watch for an opportunity. Three days pass. Then one day when we’re in the salon, about to go down for luncheon, someone knocks and shouts up the main stairs that he has a letter for us.

“It’s that guard who’s in love with Mashka,” Tatiana says.

I’m already on my feet. “I’ll go and see,” I volunteer, and run out of the salon and down the stairs.

“Good morning, Anastasia Nikolaevna,” he says politely, and holds out a letter.