Anastasia's Secret (23 page)

Mama spoke from her couch just before the two men left. “Will Kobylinsky stay?” He had somehow managed to remain as the commander of the guards, and had become more and more our friend and protector.

“He remains, but will no longer be in command. The soldiers have elected Lieutenant Galliapin to take over the day-to-day operations.”

I couldn’t help myself, and I gasped aloud. Everyone looked at me. Thinking quickly, I said, “I think he is much to be feared.”

“Galliapin? He’s a bit severe, but fair nonetheless.”

“Which one is he?” Mama asked.

“The one with the patch over his eye. He was wounded in action, at Tannenberg.”

Papa nodded. “Then he has sacrificed something of himself for Russia. We shall trust him as much as we can.”

I tried not to look at Alyosha, but he sauntered over to where I sat and positioned himself so that he could give me a sharp pinch on the arm. I ignored it.

“I think it is clear that we need to watch what we do. I want you girls to keep your distance from the guards from now on.” Papa swept his eyes over us, still lumping us together as a group rather than as individuals. I saw that all my sisters looked down or away from him. Perhaps their hearts had been touched in some way too by the young men who were the only familiar faces we ever saw besides the suite.

But if they had been, what they felt was nothing to what was going through me at that moment. My heart spun around in my chest to hear Sasha talked over like this in Mama’s parlor. I wanted to jump up and say, “You don’t know him! He is the best, the bravest, most honorable man and I am in love with him!” But I knew I could never admit it now. He had become too visible, too important. I suddenly felt that our love was ruined. How could he meet me now, even when the weather improved?

I was almost grateful that there had been other news to dampen everyone’s enthusiasm for music and laughter, because I didn’t think I could bear to pluck another string on Sasha’s balalaika that evening.

C
HAPTER
29

I can hardly bear to think about that month when Sasha and Colonel Kobylinsky shared control of the guards. Sasha distanced himself more and more from us, while Kobylinsky did the opposite. The colonel had become a representative of the old regime to the men, and they paid almost no attention to what he said. He became more and more friendly with us, and I began to realize that he would have liked to do something to help us escape.

In fact, one evening after the members of the suite had been escorted back to their house across the street and Kolya Derevenko had gone home to his mama in the town, Kobylinsky returned to speak with Papa and Mama. We were all on our way to bed, but when I heard the colonel come in, I hung behind, pretending to look at the moon out of the window in the darkened hall.

“There are people on the outside who want to help,” he said very quietly to Mama, Papa, Trina, and Zhilik, who still stayed up with them, finishing a long game of bezique.

“What would they do? How could it be arranged?” Papa asked.

“There is not yet a Bolshevik presence here in Tobolsk. The townspeople are on your side. If you would consent to be taken out of the country, to Japan or Afghanistan, you could make the journey before the Bolsheviks get here.”

“Would the family remain all together?” Zhilik asked, in his still-not-very-good Russian.

“We might have to separate some of you to avoid suspicion,” Kobylinsky answered.

“I’m afraid,” Papa said, “that we cannot consent to have our family split up even for a short while.”

Silence followed. Then I heard the low voices of Trina and Zhilik earnestly entreating Mama and Papa to consider the plan.

“No.” It was Mama. “I know you are trying to help, but our family, and Russia … it would mean leaving everything we cared about and fought for. It would be death for both of us.”

“I very much fear, Your Majesties, that staying will be death for certain.” Kobylinsky clicked his heels together, and I knew from having seen him do it many times before that he bowed to them. He would have to cross the hall to leave, so I ran through it to our bedroom, where my sisters were already covered in blankets and trying to get to sleep.

“What did Kobylinsky come back for?” Tatiana asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I didn’t hear what they spoke about.”

Tatiana leaned up on one elbow. “I know that’s not true, Nastya. You have to tell us.”

She was right. I couldn’t keep such important matters from them. They had as much right to know as I did. I repeated the conversation as accurately as I could.

“You mean, we could be free?” Olga said.

“Except Papa and Mama won’t agree to it, because they don’t want to leave Russia or split us up.”

“I would never want to leave Mama and Papa,” Mashka said. “I’d rather stay here and face whatever is coming with them.”

The three others of us sighed almost in unison. Of course we loved our parents and Alexei and each other, and none of us could imagine being separated. But as conditions continued to worsen for us, we realized that we were all in danger. The soldiers could decide anything any day. Most of those who knew us and felt kindly toward us had gone, and the new ones barely smiled, let alone talked to us.

“Would you ever think of running away if someone helped us?” I asked Tatiana.

She thought awhile before answering. “No. I could not leave Mama. She is too unwell. It would kill her. And Alexei could not do it because of his illness, and it would be unfair to leave him.” The analytical Tatiana had thought it all through.

“What about you, Olga?” I asked my oldest sister, who at twenty-three no doubt had imagined quite a different life for herself by this time.

Olga just stared at me with her wide eyes, letting me read her thoughts there. They seemed much like my own: there was no way to choose. Either thing was completely unthinkable. We were doomed if we remained. We would be desolate if we left.

We blew out our evening candle and jointly pretended to go to sleep.

The next day was Carnival, the night before the solemn season of Lent began and the world went into a period of mourning for the life of Jesus. Carnival used to be one of our favorite days. We always had performers and acrobats come to the palace, and we dressed up and acted silly. It was a joyous day, even though it ushered in weeks of abstinence and quiet. The city of Tobolsk was no exception when it came to celebrating Carnival. Whatever the Bolsheviks were trying to do elsewhere, in these small, remote Siberian cities, religious life was still strong. When we heard the sound of loud, joyful music and cheers and laughter, we all went to the windows to look out. We watched as beribboned carts went by and the townspeople blew whistles, rang bells, and sang. Acrobats tumbled, jugglers tossed balls and other objects in the air, and the atmosphere of crazy revelry infected everyone—even the soldiers.

Everyone, that is, except those of us imprisoned in the Governor’s House. The contrast between what was happening in the town and the quiet monotony of our life was intense. Most other times, we could pretend what we did was normal. We took family photos as though we were on vacation in Livadia: Here’s Papa and Zhilik sawing wood; there we all are sunning ourselves on the roof of a greenhouse; there is Mama in her chair, knitting. Except for the sadness that none of us could entirely banish from our eyes, we were simply a family like everyone else. We awaited the photographs just as we always did. Only now, instead of having one of the servants take the roll of film to the palace darkroom, we gave our roll to Kobylinsky and he sent a guard to a local chemist’s shop to get it developed for us. We didn’t take as many pictures as we used to, now that we were living on such reduced means. But we couldn’t give up the practice entirely. Mama kept most of the family photographs when we came to Tobolsk—nineteen albums. She browsed through at least one of them every day.

When I was younger, I would have eagerly taken pictures of the Carnival spectacle as it passed, looking for that moment when the elements would come together and tell a story. The little boy refusing to smile, dressed up like a clown and being tossed into the air by his papa, who has already been at the vodka. The bear on a chain, head hanging down, obviously cowed by his mean owner, who pretends for the sake of the crowd that the bear is a fierce and dangerous animal. And if I caught just the right moment, you would see the look in the bear’s eyes that says he knows he is stronger than that oaf who feeds him or denies him food at his pleasure, and that he is waiting for the day he will turn on the man and destroy him.

Like the Bolsheviks and Papa. But Papa wasn’t mean. Not intentionally. Yet the people must have had some feeling that it was he who caused famine and privation. Or they had been told that, anyway, by those who wanted to seize power.

The shouting and singing went on into the night. The guards themselves had been given an extra ration of vodka, and we could hear the laughter from the guardhouse all through the day, while we ate our quiet dinner and as we were preparing for bed.

It was then, just before I put on my nightgown, that we heard a disturbance outside our window.

“Oh, princesses! Let us sing you to sleep!” Variations of these words were yelled, chanted, screamed in the small yard so that it would be impossible for anyone to sleep. “Come on! Come out and dance with us! We won’t hurt you!”

“I wish they would go away,” whispered Mashka, who was always rather fearful of the soldiers.

“Don’t pay any attention to them and they will stop,” Tatiana said in her practical way.

But then I heard mixed in with the yelling an occasional shout of “Nastya!” as the noise became more and more wild and impossible to ignore. “I’ll go and tell them to go away,” I said, pulling on the heavy sweater I had just taken off and wrapping myself in a warm blanket.

“Nastya, don’t!” cried Mashka, but I pretended that the sound of the door shutting behind me drowned her voice out.

I knew he would find a way!
I thought with barely suppressed joy as I ran through the darkened house to the door that led out to the back. Without hesitating, I threw the door open.

There in front of me were about twenty of the guards, all looking red-eyed and disheveled. I had never seen a group of men leer like that before, and suddenly realized how unwise it had been to go charging outside just because I thought I heard Sasha among them. I scanned the faces, and could not see his. The men began to inch forward toward me. I tried to run back through the door, but someone slammed it shut before I had a chance. “It’s not the tall one, but she’ll do.” “She’s a pretty little thing.” “Come here and make me feel good.” “Give us a kiss.” I shrank back until I was pressed against the door. I didn’t know what to do. I was on the verge of screaming, not caring that I would awaken the whole house for something that I had brought upon myself, when I heard a familiar voice in the back.

“Stand aside! This is not what we agreed upon. Let me through.”

I had never been so relieved to hear Sasha’s voice. He pushed through the crowd, pulling on his heavy jacket, his hair mussed as though he had been awakened from sleep. So it hadn’t been Sasha who had called my name. The blood in my veins turned to ice.

He took me a little roughly by the arm and pulled me away from the door, which he opened. “Get back to your quarters, all of you!” Even though officers were a thing of the past in the new regime, Sasha’s tone of command sent everyone scurrying. He pushed me inside and closed the door behind us. We stopped in the dark. He took hold of my shoulders and held me arm’s length away. “What were you thinking! They might have torn you to shreds!”

“I—I thought I heard you,” I murmured.

“You think I would do such a thing as rouse this rabble to an unlawful action?”

“I—I thought…” I couldn’t continue. I couldn’t tell him that I thought he had engineered a situation where we could meet in the most logical way possible, given the times. Clearly, he had planned nothing of the kind.

“You have to understand. I’m doing all I can to protect you, and right now, that means being harsh and distant and making the soldiers and those who are coming soon to take over command believe that I have the same goals as they have.” Sasha’s arms had relaxed, and we gradually drew closer to one another, until he let his hands drop from my shoulders and twine around me and I passed mine around his back, and rested my head against his shoulder, tucked safely under his chin.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I whispered.

“You have to understand, more is at stake than a schoolgirl romance. It is your life, and the lives of your family.”

“You think my feelings for you are childish? How can you say that, after all we’ve done. I don’t want to live without you!” I cried. He hushed me by putting his finger on my lips.

“You are so young. You are beautiful. There will be many others, some one of whom might deserve you. But there will be no one if you do not live to meet them.”

I knew in my heart that what he said was true. But I didn’t want to hear it. I knew I was being selfish wishing only for his love, because to continue as we had could have some terrible effect upon my entire family. I had seen how they dealt with anyone who showed obvious softening toward us. Kobylinsky would be the next to go, no doubt.

“Nastya? Are you there?” It was Olga, coming through from our bedroom. She hadn’t seen us yet.

Sasha kissed me hard and fast, then slipped out the door. I leaned against it and let the tears flow. Olga found me like that. “We were worried, we heard the men disperse, but then you didn’t come back. Why are you crying?” She put her arms around me and stroked my head.

“Because, nothing… no one … we can’t ever…” I couldn’t continue.

“Hush, darling. I know.”

Together we went back to our room where Mashka and Tatiana sat up, wide awake, and flooded with relief when they saw us. “Let’s try to get some sleep,” Olga said, taking on her role of mother to us, as she was accustomed to doing when Mama was too overwhelmed with Alexei’s illness, or too unwell herself to do anything. I wondered if it was easier or more difficult to be Olga, who had been able to see more of life and the world before our imprisonment. I suspected it was equally difficult for all of us—a thought that did not comfort me as I fell asleep that night.