Anastasia (4 page)

Mama is afraid I’ll have a red nose and look clownish in our portrait. If I cross my eyes, then I will look
truly
clownish.

6/19 February 1914

Thank goodness that’s done! Mama finally settled on white dresses. Then there was a crisis of which jewels we should wear (first it was pearls, then sapphires, then pearls
and
sapphires, and finally just pearls).

Anyway, Kremikov, the photographer, came with his great box and tripod. Every time he snapped the shutter and stopped to put in a new glass plate, the four maids would rush forward with brushes and combs and powder puffs. Extremely tedious. And Kremikov or Mama or one of the maids was always whispering loudly, “Anastasia, please be still!” Not an easy thing, with a dripping nose.

8/21 February 1914

The pictures I took of Alexei and my sisters are finished. Last evening we pasted photographs in our photo albums, with Papa supervising as usual. He is so fussy, the least little smudge of paste disturbs him. I always seem to have more smudges than all the rest put together.

The picture of Alexei and Vanka turned out best — Alexei’s expression is quite imperial, and the old donkey, probably shivering under his thick gray hide, appears completely miserable.

I also took perfectly dreadful photographs of Olga and Mashka, in which Mashka looks fat and Olga looks stupid. I shall threaten to send them to their future husbands if they don’t treat me nicely. No matter how I try to catch her off-guard, Tatiana
never
looks fat and stupid.

9/22 February 1914

Today is the first of Butterweek, a whole week of eating the richest, most delicious food before Lent begins. Once Lent starts, no meat, no milk, no butter, no cheese, and no eggs, for seven weeks. Even at teatime the menu will have one small change: Instead of a slice of buttered bread, Papa will have a small handful of nuts.

So for eight days there will be plates and plates of
blini
, little pancakes swimming in melted butter. I love them. I can eat more than anybody, and Tatiana says that if I put even one more in my mouth I will turn into a
blin
. That could prove interesting.

10/23 February 1914

Shura must have spoken to Papa about Father Grigory, because Papa told him that he must not come to our rooms at any time when we are not dressed to receive visitors. Then Father Grigory told Mama that he’s going back to St. Petersburg and won’t spend so much time here at Ts. S.

Now Mama is upset. I heard her tell Papa that Father Grigory is a true man of God who lives in poverty and offers himself as a guide to people who are suffering. Papa says that may be true, but that even a man of God must not give cause for talk. I agree.

Besides, Father Grigory no longer looks like a man in poverty. Mama made him a whole wardrobe of silk blouses that she embroidered herself, and he wears black velvet trousers tucked into leather boots as handsome as those Papa wears. Maybe someone will give him some bath soap.

13/26 February 1914

The photographer brought our portraits this afternoon, and I must say, they are very nice. We all look quite beautiful. You can’t even tell my nose is dripping. My fear is that Edward the Welshman will see this and fall hopelessly in love with Olga and she will leave us.

14/27 February 1914

Snow, snow, snow. The world is completely white. We’ve built a wonderful snow mountain for sledding. The servants helped us carry buckets of water to throw on it. The water froze instantly, and soon we had an icy hill to throw ourselves down at breakneck speed.

Mama doesn’t come out in the snow with us the way Papa does, but in the afternoons she sometimes bundles up and goes for a drive in her sleigh with Baroness Buxhoeveden or Anya Vyrubova. They wear so many furs and bury themselves under so many rugs that all you can see are their bright eyes.

“Time for spring,” Mama says with a sigh, and I know that she’s already dreaming of Easter in the Crimea.

16 February/1 March 1914

Aunt Olga came yesterday and took me to St. Petersburg for the day. Since the weather was fine, we rode in her open carriage, accompanied by several of the palace guards on horseback. We drove along Nevsky Prospect, a beautiful boulevard bustling with automobiles and trolley cars alongside elegant carriages. We passed shops with displays of dresses and hats and jewelry in the windows, and a glass-roofed shopping arcade as big as a cathedral.

Girls my age were strolling past the shops with their mothers or aunts, chatting and pausing to look in the windows. I pleaded with Aunt Olga to stop.

But she shook her head, explaining that grand duchesses do not go into shops. When I asked her why not, she said, “Because it isn’t done.” And then she told me not to annoy her with so many questions.

17 February/2 March 1914

Last evening we put on a musicale for our parents and all the usual — Anya, the countess, Dr. Botkin, M. Gilliard. It’s maddening that Tatiana practices the least and still plays best of the four of us. She swept through her Tchaikovsky as though the palace were on fire. And Mashka played the “Moonlight Sonata” very well, and Olga played “Claire de Lune,” a modern piece by the French composer Debussy.

Then there was my Chopin. I’ve been working on the preludes for weeks and thought I was making progress, but my fingers turn thick and clumsy the minute I have an audience. When I finished, I announced that the Polish composer would have been pleased to know that his piece could be played by ten Russian sausages. (Mama was
appalled
, as usual.)

Alexei had a surprise for us. He’s been taking lessons on the
balalaika
, a traditional Russian stringed instrument shaped like a triangle. He played “Kalinka,” one of Papa’s favorites. Papa jumped up and began to dance to it, and we had a terrific time.

Later

The Great Fast began today. My stomach has been growling since early morning. Mama suggested that I spend time in prayer to take my mind off my stomach. And then I got a lecture.

Mama reminded me that before she married Papa and became Russian, she was a Lutheran. She said she wasn’t sure she could marry Papa, because that meant giving up her Protestant faith and becoming Russian Orthodox. Yet she believed that she was meant to be Papa’s wife. So she prayed and prayed, until at last God spoke to her, and she understood that she could best serve Him as an Orthodox believer.

Mama says that fasting is good for the soul. (She must have an excellent soul, because she eats hardly anything, anyway.) I’m not like Mama. Neither is Mashka, whose lips are still shiny with yesterday’s blini. And I’m still hungry.

19 February/4 March 1914

Something very funny happened today. Mama usually rests all morning in her boudoir, reading and writing, with Eira, her shaggy little Scottish terrier, at her feet. Then the maids help her dress in her gown and jewels. Tatiana goes to comb her hair. Mama has beautiful hair, and no one can arrange it as well as Tatiana. Alexei and Mama lunch together, and we four sisters join our father and his guests for a formal luncheon.

But today Eira somehow got loose and went racing down the hall, chased by all six of Mama’s wardrobe maids. She managed to get as far as the dining room just as Papa arrived with his aides and some visitors. Father Vasilev, our family priest, who always blesses the noon meal, was coming in the opposite direction. Eira took one look at the old priest with his black beard drooping down to his waist, and began yapping madly. Father Vasilev began flapping the huge sleeves of his long black robe and shouting at the dog to go away. He looked like a giant crow. That made Eira even more frantic. I started laughing, but finally one of Papa’s secretaries managed to catch the dog and take her back to Mama. Mama just adores that silly dog. Most people can’t stand the animal.

Father Vasilev composed himself and shouted out his blessing of the food in his old, cracked voice, just as he always does. And our luncheon proceeded as though nothing at all had happened.

21 February/6 March 1914

The wind is howling with such force that even Papa decided not to go out into the teeth of the storm.

Instead, when lessons were finished this morning, Mama allowed me to come to her boudoir to paint. She says I’m like my aunt Olga in my talent with pens and brushes. It’s very cozy here. Everywhere you look are vases filled with flowers from the greenhouses in the imperial park.

When they were first married, Mama and Papa lived with Grandmother in St. Petersburg. Later, they moved here to Tsarskoe Selo, which means “the tsar’s village.” There are two palaces, and we live in the smaller one, the Alexander Palace. It has over one hundred rooms. (The Catherine Palace, which I can see from Mama’s window, has more than two hundred.) I haven’t even been in them all. In one wing of Alexander are the apartments of all Mama’s ladies-in-waiting, like Baroness Buxhoeveden, and Papa’s suite of aides, and other people who help us, like Alexei’s doctors.

In the center section are the official rooms where Papa receives important visitors. The halls are very long — I once tried roller-skating in one of them, but they are made of marble, and my skates made such a clatter that people came rushing out to see what was going on. From every ceiling hang enormous chandeliers that must be cleaned, one little crystal at a time. It takes a lot of people to keep the chandeliers sparkling!

Our rooms are in a separate wing, which Mama has fixed up nicely, like an English cottage, she says. Here in her boudoir the walls are covered with icons, beautiful Russian paintings of religious figures, and the portrait of Queen Victoria looking very stern — not at all like our grandmother, the dowager empress, who is very gay and witty.

24 February/9 March 1914

Papa says that when he was a boy Alexei’s age, he was instructed to keep a diary. And he has written in it every single day since!

I promised myself that I will write in my diary every single day, but this is hard because there isn’t much to write. My diary is every bit as dull as Olga’s. Every day is the same: get up, make my bed, eat breakfast with Papa, visit Mama, study with our tutors, go outside with Papa, eat lunch, practice the piano, more study, have tea. I want something
exciting
to happen!

26 February/11 March 1914

In two weeks we leave for Livadia, our palace in the Crimea overlooking the Black Sea. Now
that
will be a change! Mama is eager to get away from the extreme cold, and so are we all. The maids have begun pulling out our spring outfits and packing them in trunks, and our tutors remind us daily that even though we’re traveling to warmer climes, our lessons will continue, regardless!

M. Gilliard reminded us that Papa will continue working, just as if he were here in Tsarskoe Selo. He was looking directly at me when he said it.

7/20 March 1914

One of our door attendants, Jim, asked me to take a photograph of him in his uniform: scarlet trousers, a black vest embroidered in gold, and a white turban. This is the costume worn by the Ethiopians whose duty is to open and close our doors whenever someone goes in or out. Jim is going home to America for a vacation. (He is not really Ethiopian, but he is very tall, and black, like the other door attendants.)

I took the photograph and promised him several prints to take with him. He thanked me and said his mother is proud that her only son has such an important position. I think it must be dreadfully boring to stand there all day waiting for a chance to open the door, but Jim says he likes to see all the interesting people who come and go. And it makes him feel “big” to work for the most powerful man in Russia and probably in all of Europe and maybe in the whole world. But Jim says Papa is no more important than Mr. Woodrow Wilson, who is the president of the United States, elected by the people.

He explained how Americans choose someone to rule for four years at a time. It seems silly to do it that way, but I didn’t want to argue with Jim.

9/22 March 1914

Father Grigory came to give us a special blessing and to wish us a safe journey. Mama brightens up when he’s here, because he reassures her that all will be well.

He stayed to dinner with us. His table manners are appalling. If I ever behaved so, Mama would certainly scold me. But because he is a man of God, he is forgiven his manners — scratching himself, even picking his nose! I know I ought not to have done it, but when I saw him, I began to pick mine, too. Mama didn’t notice, but Tatiana shot me a murderous look, and Mashka kicked me under the table. No one shot a murderous look at Father Grigory and I’ll bet nobody kicked him, either.

12/25 March 1914

On the train

Servants spent the night loading our trunks, and we left this morning in the middle of a snowstorm. Everyone was in a good mood.

The imperial train is like a palace on wheels. There are nine cars, painted dark blue and pulled by a great black locomotive. Papa and Mama have their own car with a bedroom and sitting room, in Mama’s favorite mauve. Papa has his study with a big desk and leather chairs in another car. My sisters and I have a bedroom for ourselves — no camp cots, but real beds! And Alexei shares his room with Derevenko (not the dear doctor or his son Nikolai but one of the sailors who always watches over my brother).

The bathtub is the most cunning thing: It’s specially built so that when the train goes around a curve, the water doesn’t slosh out. All the ladies-in-waiting and Papa’s aides have their own compartments, and the servants have theirs. My sisters and I eat at the long, narrow table in the dining car with our papa and the other guests, and Mama usually takes her little meals with Alexei.

15/28 March 1914

Here is something curious: A
second
imperial train that looks exactly like this one is a few miles behind us. Alexei got the bright idea that he could have that one all for himself, and really his question was quite sensible: Why should all of us be on this train when there is another perfectly good train?

I could see that Mama didn’t want to answer Alexei’s question. Finally Baroness Buxhoeveden, who is very blunt and plainspoken, explained to Alexei that the second train is a decoy, to confuse would-be assassins, so they won’t know which train to blow up.