Angel on the Square (7 page)

At the end of our voyage we did not return at once to Tsar’s Village but remained in St. Petersburg, for the President of France was making a state visit and must
be entertained. Still the beast continued to creep about. Austria, furious over the assassination of its crown prince, made impossible demands of Serbia, hoping to provoke it into war. At first Serbia refused the demands, but Serbia could see that Austria wanted to invade their country. So they accepted the demands, hoping to keep Austria out. Still Austria was not satisfied. Austria began shooting at Serbia.

As far as I could see, all of Europe was like a children’s playground, with everyone choosing sides. Austria and Germany were best friends. France, England, Russia, and Serbia were the other team. If Serbia were attacked, Russia had promised, we would come to Serbia’s aid. All at once everyone hated everyone else. In St. Petersburg, right across from St. Isaac’s Cathedral, a mob attacked the German embassy.

Signs posted along the Nevsky read:
His Majesty the Emperor has been graciously pleased to order the army and the fleet to be placed on a war footing.

The word “
voina
,” war, frightened me. When we were alone in our rooms in the Winter Palace, I asked Mama, “What do all these preparations mean?”

Mama sighed. “I’m afraid, my darling, that they mean war.”

I could not help remembering that Papa had been killed in Russia’s last war. I thought of Misha in the army and prayed that war would not come.

It did come. One of the Tsar’s cousins, Kaiser Wilhelm, the Emperor of Germany, demanded that the Tsar stop preparing for war. Though the Tsar cut back, some preparations continued. The Tsar said Russia must be prepared. When he saw the preparations continuing, the German Kaiser declared war on Russia.

We were all at dinner waiting for the Tsar to join us. It was August first, my fourteenth birthday, and a dinner was planned with my favorite dessert, blackberry ice cream specially made by Toma from
fragrant wild blackberries.

It was unusual for the Tsar to come late to a meal. They say punctuality is the virtue of kings, and so it was with the Tsar. If someone was a moment or two late, he pulled out his heavy gold pocket watch and looked at it, even shaking it, as if it must be the watch and could not possibly be someone’s carelessness. His lateness at the dinner table worried the Empress. When at last he walked into the dining room, it was with a heavy step. His voice was hoarse, as if the words scorched his throat. “Germany and Austria have declared war on Russia.”

The Empress and the girls all burst into tears. “This is the end of everything,” the Empress moaned.

I cried with the others, but I must confess part of the sadness was because in all the excitement my birthday had been forgotten. It was not until Misha’s letter came that I began to understand what war meant.

Now at last I understood what war meant. It meant I might never see Misha again.

Summer 1914–Fall 1915

In St. Petersburg a hundred thousand people gathered around the column with the angel in Palace Square. They were there to show their support for the war. Alexei, too ill to join the family, was left behind. To amuse him I found bits of yellow cloth, and together we fashioned a flag and on it, using black ink, we drew the imperial double-headed eagle. After proudly pinning it up in his room, Alexei brought out his war game. Though I had little heart for it, I agreed to play. Polite as always, Alexei said, “First I’ll take Russia’s
part. Then we’ll change off, for each of us must have a chance to beat the Germans.”

When the family returned from the square, Stana was flushed with excitement. “Katya, there were so many people! They shouted out their love for Papa and fell to their knees to show their devotion to him. Papa looked splendid in his uniform. He took an oath before the miraculous icon that saved Russia from Napoleon. Raising his right hand, he pledged: ‘I will not make peace as long as a single enemy remains on Russian soil.’ Oh, Katya, you never heard such cheering or saw so many tears. We wept too, even Papa and Mama.”

Russian soldiers marched into Germany. In St. Petersburg thousands of volunteer soldiers paraded with their regiments. The prospekt was lined with cheering crowds throwing flowers at the soldiers. Only when I looked closely did I see the weeping wives and mothers of the departing men. After that I could not cheer.

Though the Empress had been born in Germany, I saw that her whole heart now belonged to Russia. She wanted nothing more than a victory for Russia. At the palace she put us to work knitting wool socks for the soldiers. “But Mama,” Stana said, “it’s so hot out. Why must we make socks of wool? Surely the war will be over by the winter.”

Alexei said, “No, no. The war must go on until I can join the army.”

“You are both mistaken, my dears,” the Empress said. “Stana, I fear the soldiers will still be fighting in cold weather. Germany is a large country, and there is Austria besides. But Alexei, sweetheart, much as you may want to be a soldier, do not wish for a long war. We must pray the war will be over as soon as possible. There is cheering now, and there will be many brave deeds, but there is also pain and suffering. We must be prepared for that.”

We did prepare. The linen sheets with their imperial crest, still smelling of lavender, were taken down
from the closet shelves of the palace. The Empress took a deep breath and began to rip the sheets into strips. There was something terrible about the sound of the linen ripping, as if more than the imperial sheets were being torn apart. From the strips the girls and I made bandages, hundreds of them.

Tatiana, who had a soft heart and would weep over a wounded bird, asked, “Mama, why so many bandages? Will they all be needed?”

In a gentle voice the Empress said, “We pray that they will not, Tatiana, but it is better to be prepared.”

All the time I made the bandages, I thought of the weeping wives and mothers. Always I thought of Misha. I did indeed pray that the bandages would never be needed and wondered why there had to be wars. Why couldn’t countries settle their quarrels as simply as Stana and I settled who would get the larger piece of cake—one person cut the cake, the other person got first choice. If the Tsar was so powerful, why could he not have stopped the fighting? I did not
see how he could sleep at night for thinking of all the soldiers on the battlefields.

In spite of the war our life went on as usual. It was important that the imperial family show itself going about its duties, so that the Russian people would feel confident. We attended theater and ballet performances. Stana and her sisters and I gathered in one another’s rooms to try on our newest dresses and hats. I had grown-up hats now instead of straw sailors. The hats, with their wide brims wrapped with yards and yards of veiling and decorated with silk flowers, looked as if they had come from a confectionery shop. Yet even as I put on my new elegant dresses and hats, a small voice inside me asked how I could rejoice in my clothes when soldiers were marching off to war.

Not all the clothes were frivolous. Both Olga and Tatiana were made honorary members of regiments and given uniforms to wear on special occasions. Olga was the honorary commander-in-chief of the Third Hussars Regiment. Tatiana was honorary
commander-in-chief of the Eighth Lancers Regiment. Olga’s skirt was bright red, and her jacket was blue with golden fastenings and large pearls for buttons. There was a high military collar and a smart cap with a black patent-leather visor. Tatiana’s regimentals were navy blue with gold trimmings, brass buttons, and shoulder tabs.

“Mama,” Marie and Stana begged, “why can’t we have uniforms?”

Alexei was angry as well, for now he was not the only one with a uniform. “They are girls,” he complained. “Why should they look like soldiers?”

The Empress tried to soothe him. “Now, sweetheart, don’t take on so. You will only make yourself sick. Someday you will be in the real army like your papa, but your mama and your sisters will not.”

I did not know about Olga and Tatiana, but from what I had seen of the Empress, I thought she would make a very good soldier, even a general.

By the middle of August we were back at the
Alexander Palace. On August fifteenth, the Feast of the Assumption, when the ascension of the Virgin Mary into heaven was celebrated, we heard the first bad news of the war. Because it was a fast day, we did without milk or cream at breakfast. When the Tsar looked about for the cream, Alexei was quick to say, “
Nyet
, Papa, you have forgotten what day this is.”

The Tsar smiled at Alexei. “So I have, Son. I’m afraid my mind is on other things.” He began to sort through a stack of papers. As he turned them over, his face became more and more grave. Though we tried not to show it, we were all watching him. At last he stood up to leave.

Almost as an afterthought he turned to us. “There is worrying news from the front. We must not forget our brave soldiers in our prayers.” With that he left us.

Indeed, the newspapers, which had been so encouraging, were now gloomy. The Russian army had marched into German territory. German soldiers had fled. But once the Russian army was well into
enemy territory and far from the supplies it needed, the German army had turned and attacked. My heart sank, for I had not prepared myself for bad news. I learned the sad story a few weeks later in a letter from Misha. The letter did not come through the mail but was delivered by a soldier from Misha’s regiment. As I read the letter I understood why. Even I knew that an army censor would never have allowed such a letter to be sent.

Misha wounded! I read and reread his letter. How
could the Tsar let his soldiers go without food and rifles? What had the Tsar thought when he heard his own general had killed himself? What if he didn’t know? What if it was like the child ragpickers all over again? I remembered how Misha had said the Tsar preferred to close his eyes to unpleasant truths.

I was afraid to repeat Misha’s words, but when we were alone, I asked Stana, “Why should so many men be injured and killed?”

“It’s very sad,” she answered. “Still, Russians should be proud to die for their country.”

I told myself Stana could say that because no one she knew had been hurt.

That soon changed. The imperial family itself began to suffer losses. Friends and relatives of the Tsar and Empress were wounded or missing. Before, as we knitted or rolled our bandages, we had chatted and gossiped. Now we were so silent at our work that the Empress asked the girls to take turns reading aloud from foreign novels.

“It will pass the time,” the Empress said, “and improve your French and English.” So we rolled our bandages while listening to
David Copperfield
and
Les Misérables
. We held our breath as Jean Valjean hid from his stalker in the Paris sewers. We cried as Dora died in the arms of David Copperfield. While there was tragedy all around us, we escaped to the tragedies in books, which went away when the books were closed.

Stana refused to read any bad news about the war, but each day I made myself read the newspapers, where horrors of the war were revealed. Twenty thousand Russian soldiers had been killed. Seventy thousand had been taken prisoner by the Germans. In the newspapers they were only numbers, but I thought again of the tears of the mothers and wives. This was all happening because one country wanted a piece of another country. I thought that if I were the Tsar, I would call all my soldiers home.

To take care of the wounded soldiers, the Empress
and the Tsar turned the Catherine Palace into a hospital. The Catherine Palace, only a short distance from the Alexander Palace, was a strange place for a hospital. There were marble floors, decorated ceilings, priceless paintings, rooms covered with exotic Chinese wallpapers, and a great ballroom walled in mirrors. The hundreds of little gilded chairs in the ballroom were pushed aside, the mirrors covered, and row after row of iron cots moved in. The palace looked like a woman wearing an elegant hat with a dress of coarse homespun.

The Empress and all the ladies-in-waiting, along with Olga and Tatiana, took a course in nursing. When the course was completed, they were fitted with nurses’ uniforms: long gray gowns with headdresses that covered their hair and a part of their forehead. They looked like nuns. They were soon working in the wards, where Olga and Tatiana washed and bandaged the soldiers who were brought in, bloody, filthy, and infested with lice. The sisters never complained, and
they even fell a little in love with the young wounded officers under their care.

The Empress and Mama helped in the operating rooms where amputations were carried on. Olga whispered to Stana and me, “Mama took an arm from the surgeon after an amputation.” The Empress brought flowers for the wounded soldiers and sat by their bedsides for hours at a time, reading to them. Each evening when the Empress and Mama returned from the hospital, their uniforms were soiled with dirt and blood.

I saw a change in Mama. She no longer let Anya fuss with her hair. She gave no thought to her clothes. Her work at the hospital was her whole life. In the past she had curled up next to me before I fell asleep, curious about my day and whispering bits of palace gossip. Now, at the end of a day in the hospital, she was too tired to do more than pick at dinner and fall into bed.

I begged Mama to let Stana and me help at the hospital. Mama said we were too young. I did not
think that I could spend my days idly while soldiers were dying. More and more I was coming to hate the war. I begged Stana to ask her mother’s permission for us to go to the hospital, but Stana only shook her head. “Mama will only say ‘
nyet
.’”

Without a word to Mama, who would surely have forbidden it, I went myself to the Empress. “Madame,” I begged, “it is so hard doing nothing. Surely there is some small way Stana and I can help at the hospital?”

There were tears in the Empress’s eyes, “Oh, Katya, it is very sad there, and you and Stana are so young.”

“There are soldiers dying who are not much older than Stana and I are.” At once I regretted my words. Surely she would think I was impudent. She might even think I was criticizing the Tsar.

Instead she put her hand on mine, so gently I hardly felt it. “I’ll have a word with the head nurse, Katya, and we will see.”

A word from the Empress was law. We were allowed to go to the Catherine Palace. Though we had no uniforms, Stana and I visited the wards of the recovering soldiers. We wrote letters for them and gave them drinks of water. We played cards and chess with them and laughed when they teased us, calling us mischievous angels. Though I tried my best to be cheerful in the wards, I began to have nightmares, which I kept from Mama, for I knew if I told her, she would not let me return to the wards.

While I was with the soldiers, I tried not to notice their missing limbs. One young sergeant had lost his right arm. He was Misha’s age, with Misha’s yellow curls. I was drawn to him and often wheeled him about the palace gardens. His name was Yuri, and he came from a small village near Rostov, sixteen hundred kilometers south of St. Petersburg.

When I asked him about his village, he said, “As a boy I was lucky. When I was ten years old, the aristocrat who owned the estate on which my father worked
apprenticed me to the blacksmith. I would have been set for life, but when the war came, our master said we must do the patriotic thing and enlist in the army. I was proud to do it.” He looked down at his empty coat sleeve. “God willing, my master will find some other work for me.”

“Perhaps you could get work here,” I suggested, thinking I might speak to the Empress, for several of the palace servants had gone to war, and replacements might be needed.

“This place? Never. Never to hear the dove in the morning and the whippoorwill in the evening? Never see the wheat turn golden and the buckwheat flower? I can live without my arm, but I cannot live without the land.” After a moment he asked curiously, “Tell me, I have seen you writing letters for the soldiers and reading books to them, so even though you are a girl, you must be educated. Can you explain to me why we are fighting this war?”