Rasputin's Daughter (10 page)

“Oh, what a pretty one you are,” mumbled Papa, as he reached up with one of his big gnarled hands and plucked at one breast, then the other. “I think I like you, my little Olga Petrovna. Kiss me!”

Papa hadn’t moved from his little chair, and as she bent over, he reached up and cupped both her breasts that swung, like pendulums, forward. First he cupped those breasts in both his hands, coddling them like a naughty boy, then giving them a firm squeeze. Next he pawed at her stomach, massaging that buttery skin as if it were a fine piece of meat. And finally he splayed the calloused fingers of his right hand and reached at the patch between her legs, poking there once, twice. Our guest flinched and whimpered, but not with joy, only painful sublimations.

“Just a note, that’s all I need,” Olga Petrovna begged, pulling back slightly from my father. “Something from you saying they must keep my husband here in Petrograd until he’s well. That’s all I…all I need, really. And that’s all I’m asking for, a short note.”

“I have a whole stack of such notes right here on my desk. Make it so!-that’s what they say! Now stop your talking. Just kiss me, little one, and I will give you this note! Yes, I love you, I do!”

She bent over again, her small lips pressing through my father’s greasy hair and planting a hesitant, horrible kiss on the top of his forehead, right above that little bump that was reminiscent of a budding horn.

“Yuri, that’s my husband, is a very loyal man,” she continued, chattering nervously. “You would like him, Father Grigori. He comes from a respected family, too. Very hardworking. And-”

“Ach!” roared Papa, suddenly angry, pushing her back onto the pathetic leather sofa.

“What? What did I do wrong?”

“Enough with this talk! Get your clothes, be gone! You make me angry!”

“But, Father Grigori-”

“Leave me!”

“But my husband! The note!”

My father slumped to the side and closed his eyes. “Come back tomorrow morning, and we will see!”

Now Olga Petrovna finally cried. She could stand it no more. And as she reached to the floor for her clothing, a pathetic sob erupted from her throat. In a flash of a second, her entire pale body blushed a shameful crimson.

“God help me!” she cried. “Please, Father Grigori, I beg you! Please help me!”

“Oi!” shouted my father, clasping his hands over his ears as he leaped from his chair. “I thought you were a cute little kitten, but you’re nothing but an awful cat! Such noise! Such gabble and crying! I can’t stand it!”

And with that Papa stumbled for the door and charged out of the room. Olga Petrovna, hysterical and more desperate than before, couldn’t stand it, couldn’t bear to see her only hope flee from her grasp. Scrambling, she scooped up her bits of clothing and raced naked after him.

“Wait, Father Grigori! Please, wait!”

“You’re the devil! Nothing but a squealing devil! Be gone, I tell you!”

Hurrying after him, she disappeared out the door, crying, “I promise I’ll be quiet! I promise I won’t say a thing! Help me, Father Grigori! For the sake of God, please help me!”

They vanished from sight, but I could hear them. I could hear my father’s bellowing and Olga Petrovna’s screaming as she charged naked after him, the two of them hurrying this way and that through our entire apartment. Within moments I could hear Dunya yelling too, first locking my sister in her bedroom so she wouldn’t see, then chasing the woman who was chasing my father. From my dark spot I could hear them all, three mad people tearing through our rooms, one holy man, one naked petitioner, and one furious housekeeper. Despite her shrill pitch, Dunya’s was the only voice of sanity, the only one who could shout at my father and herd him into his bedroom, the only one who could admonish our pathetic visitor to get dressed and leave.

And during it all I stayed right where I was, hidden in the closet of my father’s study, crumpled on the floor of that tiny space, sobbing because I had never before known I could hate my own father.

Oddly, as I sat there crouched in revulsion, I was flooded with memories of better times. Just last winter a great honor had been bestowed upon me: I had been invited to join Papa for tea at the palace. Dunya, overwhelmed with pride and joy, had spent an entire day shopping for a new frock for me, finally selecting a blue dress with a white collar, tied neatly at the waist. The morning of the tea, Dunya spent nearly two hours reviewing my curtsy and how I held a teacup, explaining how I should address the Empress and coaching me on interesting points of conversation. Toward one o’clock, Papa came out of his room wearing black velvet pants, boots that were freshly polished, and a lilac silk kosovorotka with a sash embroidered by the Empress herself. When it finally came time to go, it seemed the entire building came to see Papa and me off. We even took a horse cab to the Tsarskoye Selo train station, though it was only a few blocks away, just to keep my dress clean.

But of course before tea there was playtime with the children. Once I had curtsied to the Empress and been allowed to kiss her hand, and once the Empress, the ever-present Madame Vyrubova, and Papa retired to the Maple Room for conversation, an equerry in a red cape and a hat feathered with ostrich plumes led me to the rear door. My young hosts, it seemed, were waiting for me outside, and no sooner had I stepped into the cold than I was pelted by a handful of powdery snowballs.

“Surprise!” shouted Anastasiya Nikolaevna, the youngest of the grand duchesses, who was so covered in snow she looked as if she’d been rolled in confectioners’ sugar.

For the briefest of moments I wanted to burst into tears-I had never been dressed in finer clothes. But then, of course, my young sensibilities took hold, and I dashed into the fray, joining the younger sisters-Anastasiya Nikolaevna and Maria Nikolaevna, who was my age-and their young brother, the heir, Aleksei Nikolaevich, in a brawl of winter fun that was just like those back home. The only difference was that the snowballs were formed and handed to me.

“Here, my child,” said Nagorny, the dyadka-bodyguard-to the Heir Tsarevich, as he handed me a feather-light ball of snow, “you may throw only those that I give to you.”

I didn’t understand until much later, but of course I did exactly as I was told. And after a half hour of merriment in what had to be the softest snow, we were led inside. As the daughters dressed in fresh white frocks with blue sashes and the Heir Tsarevich in a sailor suit, a maid took me into a private room and combed my hair and straightened my clothing. Finally, I was led to a large set of doors guarded by a pair of huge Ethiopians, the blackest men I’d ever seen, dressed in gold jackets, scarlet trousers, and white turbans. Entering the Maple Room, I found the Empress, Madame Vyrubova, and Papa.

“I see it all, understand it all,” said my father, his voice booming and his eyes wide. “Papa must give the order as I see it: Whole trains must be given up to food.”

The imperial children-all five of them, including the older pair, Olga Nikolaevna and Tatyana Nikolaevna-joined us minutes later. As the Heir Tsarevich, Anastasiya, and Maria settled on the floor with great picture books, the likes of which I had never seen, the older daughters, fashioning themselves as young women, sat down in chairs and picked up embroidery. As for myself, having neither book nor needle, I listened to my father rant on.

“Each wagon of the train must be filled with flour and butter and sugar. All the passenger trains should be halted for three days-three days!-and this food should be allowed to pass to the capital! It’s even more important than ammunition or meat! People must have bread! People will grow angry without bread!”

“But what about all the passengers?” asked Madame Vyrubova. “Don’t you think people will scream?”

“Let them scream! I saw all this in the night like a vision! Mama, you must tell Papa. I beg you, you must tell him! You must write to him at once of this.”

“Yes, of course. I see your point quite clearly,” said Aleksandra Fyodorovna, nodding pensively as she gently twiddled with her long necklace of large pearls.

“Three days-no other trains except those carrying flour, butter, and sugar,” my father repeated. “Otherwise there will be great unhappiness. And into this unhappiness will rush a flood of problems. It’s quite necessary!”

“Yes, essential.” The Empress nodded. “I will tell my husband, and he will make it so. It is his will, and he is master.”

Papa puffed out his lower lip and bobbed his head in agreement and approval.

Vyrubova spoke up. “Now, what of the new minister? The position of Minister of Internal Affairs is quite-”

“I know, I know!” Papa rubbed his hands together. “Now…well, the Old Chap came to see me, this Boris Stürmer, but I had an interesting vision of this other fellow, Protopopov!”

“Really?” said the Tsaritsa in amazement.

“Yes, a vision from on high!”

Precisely at four, right on cue, the doors opened and the Empress and her small cabinet of advisers ceased conversation. As we watched, a bevy of liveried footmen with snow-white garters swept in and spread a tablecloth over two small tables, then set out glasses in silver holders and plates of hot bread and English biscuits. Had the Tsar not been at the front, where he had taken personal command of the troops, he would certainly have joined us.

“We shall continue these discussions later,” commanded the Empress, rising from her chair. “First let us refresh ourselves.”

Aleksandra Fyodorovna paid Papa and me a great honor by pouring our tea with her own hand. Accepting my glass, I carefully eyed the bread and biscuits.

With a wry smile, the Empress said warmly, “I’m sure, my child, you’ve been to many more interesting teas than this one. Others, I know, serve different cakes and sweetmeats, but, alas, I am unable to change the menu here at the Palace. All runs on tradition and is the same since our great Catherine.”

But it was an interesting tea. Amazingly so, I thought, as I carefully took a biscuit and found my seat. Just imagine, my father giving so much help and advice, so many of his visions, to Empress Aleksandra Fyodorovna, who would pass it all on to the Tsar. Just imagine Papa emerging from the depths of Siberia and coming to the aid of the Motherland. Incredible, I thought, beaming with pride at my father, as he slurped his tea and munched on a biscuit and the crumbs flew.

So what was I now to do with those memories of my father the hero? Burn them, stomp them, rip them to shreds?

Tormented by confusion, I fled the closet and ran to my room, where I leaped into bed and fell into a black hole. When my sister wanted to know what on earth was wrong, I shouted at her to get out, and then my tears came so quickly, so heavily, that by the time I finally stopped crying my eyes were practically swollen shut. I just lay there, hidden and huddled under the down comforter, my arms and hands clasped around my knees. But I could find no comfort, no matter how hard I hugged myself. I simply cried and cried.

Many in the highest society, including the Tsar and Tsaritsa themselves, clung to the myth of the Russian peasant, believing that only in the huts of the poorest of the poor lived the true spirit of Christ. And yet now I knew what even the Tsar did not, that in my peasant father there dwelled both the spirit of Christ and also, at the very least, the spirit of a fool-not a holy fool but a simple one. We should leave the capital. For his own protection, not to mention ours, I should force Papa out of the city. He should abandon any pretense of holiness and simply melt away into Siberia and her endless forests. A life of fasts and visions and ragged clothing-that was what was meant for my father.

My head buried beneath my pillow, my body protected by the billowing feathers of the comforter, I lay curled up for hours, drifting in and out of misery and sleep. Finally, toward six, I heard Dunya beckoning us all to the table, for like all Russian women, she believed in the sanctity of coming together around food. Rising, I made a feeble attempt at brushing my hair and went to the dining room.

Dunya and Varya had obviously been busy. Our brass samovar, polished until it glowed like gold and boiling with water, sat by the window, and our heavy oak dinner table, the kind so popular among the city bourgeoisie, was covered with plates of cold zakuski: pickles, sour cream, salted herring garnished with onions, grated carrots mixed with mayonnaise and garlic, salted tomatoes, pickled mushrooms, smoked fish, stuffed eggs, and Papa’s favorite appetizer, jellied fish heads. Tonight, it was obvious we would feast not on fancy city things but real food.

“Girls, please take your places while I fetch your father,” Dunya said.

As she scurried off, the two of us stood behind our chairs, and my sister looked up at me, asking softly, “Are you all right, Maria? Why were you so upset?”

“Nothing,” I mumbled.

I stared at Varya, who was so proud of studying at middle school here in the capital that even now she wore the black-and-white frock of the gymnasia. She had my father’s blunt chin, his dark hair, his large full lips, and short black bangs, which she kept flipping back. She worshiped Papa, and to her, it wasn’t unusual at all that our humble father should be telephoned once or twice a day by the Empress herself, let alone summoned at any hour to the palace.

“What happened this afternoon?” she asked, not particularly concerned as she scooped up some carrot salad with her finger. “I heard a woman screaming.”

I shrugged. “You know how people are always after Papa for things.”

For the first time ever I was dreading a family meal. What was I going to say to my father? How would I even be able to look at him? But when he came in a few moments later it was not with his booming voice and quick step. Rather it was with a shuffle, for he was walking only with the aid of Dunya, who held him by the left arm.

“Papa, what’s the matter?” gasped Varya, rushing to his side.