The Lost Crown (40 page)

13 June 1918

Nearly a week after his first letter, the officer finally lets us in on his plan:

As of now it is like this: once the signal comes, you close and barricade with furniture the door that separates you from the guards, who will be blocked and terror-stricken inside the house. With a rope especially made for that purpose, you climb out through the window— we will be waiting for you at the bottom. The rest is not difficult; there are many means of transportation and the hiding place is as good as ever. The big question is getting the little one down: is it possible. Answer after thinking carefully. In any case, the father, the mother, and the son come down first; the girls and then the doctor follow them.

An officer

Papa first, then Mama, Aleksei, and finally “the girls,” he says. I have never chafed at my position the way Anastasia does, but being placed in a lump at the bottom of the list pricks at me like a syringe under my skin. Papa would never put his own safety before ours, yet there is no question whom this officer values most.

Looking up at our windows from the yard, I ask Olga, “What do you think?”

“This will never work. Never mind getting Aleksei down without Nagorny’s help, can you picture Mama dangling from a rope over the street?”
Konechno
, Olga is right, but something in the way she says so jerks my exasperation straight to the surface.

“It must work,” I insist.

She gives me a look my face recognizes instantly, even though I have never seen it myself: It is the expression I so often aim at Anastasia. No wonder my little sister scowls back at me so fiercely. “How many times has Mama even walked down the stairs to the garden?” Olga continues. “And what about Dr. Botkin and old Trupp? I’m not sure I could do it myself. What about the rope? We can’t very well petition the Central Executive Committee for one.”

“If the officer is willing to risk his life, we must try.”

“His life is his own business—I don’t see why he should chance ours as well.”

“You have written him yourself at least twice that no risk should be taken unless he is absolutely sure of the result, and both times he has given his word.”

“How can he be sure? There’s risk in everything, even carrying Aleksei down the stairs.”

I have no answer. “
Dushka
,” I ask instead, “you make it sound as if you would rather stay here.”

Olga wipes the perspiration from her temples. “I don’t know which is more dangerous, remaining here or risking escape. All I know for certain is I’m tired of other people deciding what will happen to us.”

“You must not speak a word of the officer’s plan near the guards or the commandant,” I tell Leonka. “Do you understand?”

“
Konechno
, Tatiana Nikolaevna. But what about my uncle Vanya?”

“The emperor is doing everything he can to insist on the safety of all our people.” Leonka peers at me with his small, deep eyes until I realize I am speaking to a child, not a minister of the court. A child who has shown more bravery and loyalty than half of Russia these last weeks. I put my two hands on his shoulders. The coarse gray fabric has gone almost as thin as the silver tissue our court gowns were made of. “My papa will not let the officer leave your uncle behind, if he can help it.”

“What about the dogs?” Anastasia wants to know.

I spin round. “What?”

“When the officer comes, how will we get them down?”

Bozhe moi
, the dogs! How could I have overlooked my fat Ortipo, little Jemmy, and Aleksei’s Joy? My mind gropes for a way to fill this gap in our plan. Perhaps if we had sacks to lower them in, but so far we do not even have a rope for ourselves. My face must tell Anastasia all she needs to know.

“I’m putting Jemmy in my blouse.”

“Anastasia, we must not complicate things.”

Her arms tighten round the poor thing until the tip of Jemmy’s tongue peeps out. “I’m putting Jemmy in my blouse,” she insists, and I know there is no use arguing unless I want a shouting match.

Kneeling, I clap for my Ortipo to come, then heft her into my lap. Nosing through the rubbish has made her potbellied as a pumpkin. Joy is even larger. My chest cinches with guilt. We cannot carry them. Not with Mama and Aleksei already needing so much help.

“Maybe one of the better guards would look after them,” Anastasia says. “Maria would know who to ask.”

“No! We cannot risk saying a word to any of them, not before we escape.” I smooth the wrinkles on Ortipo’s stubby snout, rub her pointed ears between my fingers. Her black eyes close, her sides heaving with blissful pants. I can hardly swallow, much less speak. “Nastya,
dushka
, would you please write a pair of notes for me to tuck under their collars?”

“In my very best penmanship,” Anastasia says, so solemnly I have to bury my face in Ortipo’s neck to hide my tears.

By midnight, nine of us sit dressed and ready in Mama and Papa’s room, waiting for the officer’s signal, whatever it may be. In the adjoining room my sisters and I share, Dr. Botkin, Trupp, and Chef Kharitonov wait, ready to bar the door with furniture. Sheathed in our jewel-lined chemises, Olga, Anastasia, Aleksei, and I can only dream of slumping into a doze like Mashka. Again and again, my fingers check that Anastasia’s note is wrapped securely round Ortipo’s collar.

The dark is too deep to see anything except the glow from Papa’s cigarettes, but I can hear the ticking of all our wristwatches. In time with them, my mind ticks off all the sounds we have heard outside in the night since we arrived here: bells at the sentry posts, shots in the cellar, hand grenades in the garden, guards talking under our windows. How will we recognize the officer’s signal if it comes?

Beside me Olga whispers, “I wish I could see the future, so I’d know what to hope for tonight.”

“No one can know the future,
dorogaya
.” Even in the darkness, she cannot hide her trembling. I take her hand in mine and spread it open, tracing the lines of her palm. “Do you remember back at the lazaret, when we had our palms read?”

“
Konechno.
The fortune-teller said I would live to be an old virgin. Better me than Mashka, I suppose. I don’t remember yours, Tatya.”

“My lifeline swerved so abruptly to the right, she did not know what to make of it.” My sister turns our hands, searching with her fingertips for the crooked furrow on mine, then brings the back of my hand to her cheek to feel the gentle pull of her smile. I lean in. Together we wait and wonder until dawn, with nothing but God to comfort us.

42.

MARIA NIKOLAEVNA

14 June 1918
Ekaterinburg

“P
sst!” The whisper zings across the hall, just as I’m about to go into the water closet. “Maria Nikolaevna.” One of the guards peeps through the door from the kitchen. It’s the one who let me bring the hair ribbons from the shed two weeks ago. He jerks his head the tiniest bit to motion me inside, then disappears like a turtle.

Maybe the officer sent another letter?

I use the toilet, then stand nibbling at my little fingernail to think how to get into the kitchen without attracting attention. With the guards in the hall, there’s no way but winding through the whole house to the other door.

“I think I’ll have a glass of cold water,” I announce on my way across the drawing room.

“Don’t be long,” Anastasia calls. “Leonka and I are preparing the best canine pantomime ever, just for you.”

In the kitchen, the young man bounces from toe to toe with his hands behind his back. We look at each other, not saying a thing.

“Has there been, that is, do you have something to say?” I ask.

“My name is Ivan Skorokhodov, and, I—I wanted to wish you a very happy birthday, Maria Nikolaevna.”

I squeal, “My birthday!” then clap my hands over my mouth. “But we’ve almost all had birthdays here already. Why me?” I whisper.

He cocks his head at me like I’ve said something stupid. “Well, you’re our favorite. My comrades and me.”

“Me? But Tatiana is so much prettier, and Olga and Anastasia are the clever ones. Everyone knows that. I’m no one special.”

“You are. The way you talk to us. You’re like any of us, a real Russian girl.”

My heart swishes like a fishtail in my chest. “We’re all just Russian girls. Olga wouldn’t even marry the crown prince of Romania because it meant leaving Russia.”

“One of my comrades wants to rescue you,” Ivan blurts. “He’s said he’d like to marry you.”

“Marry me?” Every inch of my skin seems to lift, like there’s a thousand tiny wings rising inside me. I can’t feel the floor under my feet or my tongue in my mouth, but my lips say, “Who? Who is it?”

Ivan shakes his head and stutters at the floor. “I can’t say. I mean I shouldn’t have said anything at all. The Party men would be furious if they heard such talk. But please, I made you this, on behalf of my comrades.” He holds out his hands and offers me a brownish something, about the size of a saucer.

A cake. It’s bumpy and lopsided, and there’s no frosting or candles, but still—a cake!

“Where did you get enough sugar?” I whisper. “I hope your family didn’t have to go without! I couldn’t eat it if they had.”

“Taste it before you worry too much about that.”

“How did you ever get it in here?” I ask him, breaking off a big bite.

“Wrapped in paper and hidden under my hat. How is it?”

I’ve stopped chewing. It’s not quite awful, but close—a bit like a mouthful of sweet talcum. When I open my mouth to try to say something nice, a dry spray of flour shoots out instead.

“Is it that bad?” Ivan takes a bite himself. He makes the most dreadful face, and I giggle so hard I know I’d wet myself if I hadn’t just been to the toilet.

“You should see yourself. Even Anastasia’s never pulled a face like that!”

“Why is this door unlocked?” The door swings open from the corridor, boots rapping across the floor. “What is all this?”

“Commissar Goloshchekin,” Ivan coughs over the crumbs in his throat. It’s the same man who sneered at Papa and Mama and me the very first time we walked into this house, the one with the drooping mustache who called Papa “Citizen Romanov.” Beside him is Chairman Beloborodov.

“In the first place, your shift ended some time ago,” Beloborodov says, “and in the second place you are not authorized to be in the prisoners’ quarters.” Ivan swallows so hard his collar pinches at his neck. “Citizen Romanova, please return to your living quarters immediately.”

Withering with guilt, I scurry out, coughing at the flour coating my throat until my eyes stream. Once the tears start, I can’t stop them, not even when my snuffling brings Tatiana into the dining room to investigate.

“Maria, what is it? What happened,
dorogaya
?”

“I was in the kitchen, with one of the guards. He signaled me when I came out of the water closet.”

My sister trundles me straight into our bedroom and shuts the door. Out in the drawing room, I can hear Anastasia and Leonka’s dog-circus rehearsal. “Has there been another message from the officer?” Tatiana whispers.

“No, nothing like that. He—Ivan, he brought me a cake. For my birthday. But Chairman Beloborodov and Commissar Goloshchekin came in and found us together.”

Mama appears in the doorway, looking at me like Ivan and I were caught cuddling in the broom closet. “Did you tell this guard about the officer?”

I gulp. “
Nyet
, Mama.
Konechno, nyet.
” I didn’t, did I? My head feels like it’s sloshing full of water.

“Thank God,” Mama says, crossing herself. “Maria, I forbid you to speak with those guards until this is all over. I won’t have you endangering the officer’s chances with your chatter. Do you understand?”

I nod, too twisted up with shame to speak.

“Very well. Do not leave this room until you’ve gotten control of yourself. But be quiet about it—Aleksei is sleeping, and there’s enough noise already with Anastasia and Leonka provoking the dogs.”

That’s my fault too. And now Anastasia will be in trouble on top of everything else, all because of my birthday. Curled up in my cot, I cry and cry, but nobody understands why. I don’t really understand myself, until Olga tries to comfort me.

“Mashka, sweetheart, don’t,” she soothes, combing my curls with her fingers. “The officer’s plan is so risky, it might not work anyway.”

My belly goes cold, remembering what the officer’s last letter said about the guards being blocked and terror-stricken inside the house when the signal comes. After what Ivan told me about his comrades, how can I let the officer’s plan put the guards in danger too? If we escape, what will the Central Executive Committee do to him, and the others? “We’re putting everyone in danger,” I hiccup. “The guards, too….”

She looks at me hard, but it’s not the same kind of hardness Mama has. “Birthday cake or not, they’re stealing from us, Maria. You saw one of them reading one of our books in plain view yourself.”

“You cannot overlook the insulting rubbish they have scrawled inside the water closet either,” Tatiana adds.