Anastasia's Secret (13 page)

Kerensky entered at exactly the time we were told he would arrive, followed by several guards. He was not a tall man, but stood very straight. His face was sallow and there were bags under his eyes, as if he had not slept for a considerable amount of time. He spoke fast—sounding almost angry—and yet seemed nervous. Papa greeted him with respect that was almost cordial. Mama remained haughty. Kerensky held out his hand to her to shake, but I knew she did not want to touch him. Papa looked at her and she slowly extended her hand in return. She barely let him grasp it before she withdrew it again. Tatiana, Alyosha, and I stood quietly by, listening to every word.

“This is the new commander of the palace, Colonel Korovichenko,” Kerensky said. Papa saluted the man who stepped forward, but everyone ignored him. “His men will take a tour of the rooms, and see that the regulations are being obeyed,” Kerensky continued. He snapped his fingers, and four more soldiers with rifles and bayonets entered.

At first I didn’t recognize Sasha. He wore the uniform not of the Semyonovsky Guards, but of a common soldier. His face was unshaven, and his expression was hard. If it hadn’t been for the patch over his eye, I might not have known it was him. I found myself staring at him, until I realized that it would be a mistake to let on that we knew each other at all. With a great effort, I looked away, willing my face not to turn bright red and my heart to slow its pumping.

“Make sure there are no weapons or counterrevolutionary propaganda in the palace,” Kerensky told them. They turned to leave, but not before I caught the quickest glint of an expression in Sasha’s eyes. He acknowledged me. That was something. But what was he doing here?

“Are you all right, Nastya? Perhaps you should still be in bed,” Tatiana whispered, taking my hand. “You’re trembling!”

I shook my head. “I’m all right,” I whispered back. I shuddered to think of these men searching Mashka’s and my room, finding the hidden balalaika and making Sasha take it away.

We heard their heavy boots on the parquet hallways as they marched off. Kerensky turned to my parents. “The ex-tsaritsa is under investigation for anti-Russian activities.” I saw my father stiffen and his face turn red. Mama just became paler and paler. “I am instructed to remove all correspondence from your possession. If you will accompany the colonel.”

Papa went with Colonel Korovichenko and the two remaining guards to his study. I soon saw soldiers passing the doorway of the parlor with boxes and boxes of papers. I knew that some of them were family photographs and letters Papa had received from us on those rare occasions when we were not together—something that had happened only when he was commander of the armies.

While Papa was gone, Kerensky spoke directly to Mama. “I thought you would be pleased to learn that I have abolished the death penalty.” A quiver went through Mama’s frame, as if his saying that had some direct bearing upon her. “I hear from the soldiers that Mme Vyrubova is still here in the palace. She is a traitor to Russia.”

“Anya is no such thing!” Mama said. She would not raise her voice in her own defense, but let someone she loved be accused and she sprang at the accuser like a lioness.

“That is for the court to decide. We are going to arrest her.”

“We are all under arrest here, as I understand, M. Kerensky.” Mama’s voice was even but tense.

“She must go before the court. I have orders to remove her from the palace.”

“But she is very ill! She is still in her sickbed.”

“Does a doctor attend her?”

“Yes, Dr. Botkin. Our physician.”

“Have him brought here,” Kerensky commanded. It was jarring to hear someone order my mother to do anything.

With no servants to ring for, Mama looked at Tatiana and nodded. Without a word Tatiana lifted her chin and walked out of the door. It took only a few moments for her to return with Dr. Botkin, whose eyes were round and frightened.

“I understand you have Mme Vyrubova in your care,” Kerensky said, without making any introductions.

“Yes, she is recovering from a dangerous case of the measles.”

“You say recovering. Is she, in your opinion, able to be moved without peril to her health?”

I wanted to say something so that Dr. Botkin would know that Kerensky wanted to move Anya to imprison her, not to protect her, but I could say nothing. I listened helplessly as he answered, “Yes, I believe she is well enough to move, provided she does not have to exert herself too much.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Kerensky inclined his head to him, showing more respect for a working man than for us, who until a few short weeks before had been the family to whom he was required to pledge his loyalty.

Mama did not cry out, but in a quiet, desperate whisper, said, “No. Not Anya. She would not hurt a fly. She is my dearest friend.” The tears I had not seen her shed through all the dangers she had faced now coursed down her cheeks. Tatiana went to her and took her hand. Mama sank onto a chair, no longer able to support herself. Dr. Botkin rushed over to her as well.

“Madame! What do you mean? Are you unwell?”

She looked into his eyes. “You couldn’t have known.”

Kerensky cleared his throat and said, “Anna Vyrubova is being confined in a place of safety prior to being put on trial for crimes against Russia.”

At that moment the soldiers who had accompanied Kerensky, including Sasha, came back, having removed all my father’s correspondence and papers from his study. I discovered later that they had removed everything Mama hadn’t already burned from her boudoir as well. But that seemed somehow much less important than the gradual tightening of bonds, the diminishing of our circle, that began then.

I could no longer prevent myself from looking imploringly in Sasha’s direction. He gave me the merest glance, but in it was something beyond what I saw in the other soldiers’ eyes, which was only hatred combined with curiosity. And as Kerensky took leave of us and prepared to arrest Anya, I noticed Sasha hang back a little. He casually put his hand in his pocket—something that would have been impossible in the days of the old army, when strict discipline was the rule—and placed his hand on a table by the door as he left. I saw the scrap of paper he deposited there, and waited until the doctor and Tatiana had taken Mama away to her room before rushing over and picking it up, hiding it quickly in my own pocket.

C
HAPTER
16

“Let me help you,” I said to Anya, who stood looking forlornly at an open valise, two stern-faced soldiers waiting by the door. “You will need some clothes.” I quickly found underthings and a few simple dresses, guessing that she would not need very much. She gathered up her tooth powder and brush and a bottle of eau de cologne, a few icons, and a cross. The valise was not very heavy, but Anya was still so weak from her illness that she had to walk with her crutches. “I’ll carry it for you,” I said, lifting the case.

“I must take my leave of the empress,” she said to the soldiers.

“Our orders are to remove you immediately,” said one, whose beard was straggly and greasy with that morning’s breakfast. He was not one of the men who had come in with Kerensky.

“Not without saying good-bye to my dearest…” She could not continue.

“Please,” I entreated, “what harm can it do?”

They turned to one another and spoke quietly. One of them walked away. The other said nothing, leaving us to guess what was happening, but I assumed his compatriot had gone to ask someone’s permission to allow the “dangerous” Anna Vyrubova to see the tsaritsa one more time.

A few short minutes later, the guard returned with two more soldiers, again men I had not previously seen. I began to understand that the palace swarmed with them.

“You are to come with us.”

“To see the tsaritsa?” Anya asked, her voice shaking with fear and emotion.

They did not answer. I started to follow.

“Not you. Just her.”

“But her bag! She cannot manage it alone.”

“I’ll take it,” said the youngest of the guards, and as I handed it to him I saw one of the others give him a black look.

I watched Anya hobble off, trying to keep up with her captors, barely able to support herself after her illness. But the most horrifying moment of all was when one of the other guards took Anya’s case out of the young soldier’s hands and left it sitting in the corridor. So, I thought, they’re saying she will not need any personal effects at all. She was really going to prison.

I have no idea how Anya and Mama said their good-byes, especially in front of those cold and angry men. All I knew then was that this act of taking a few people away to prisons of which we knew only horrible tales materially changed our entire mood. It was not lightened when we discovered that Lili Dehn was arrested as well, although we heard later that they only kept her for twenty-four hours. Anya, though, was locked up for months in the Peter and Paul Fortress, an ancient, airless prison on an island in the Neva. I could not imagine what she must have suffered.

In all the distress and commotion, I didn’t have a chance to look at the note Sasha had left for me until just before I went to bed. I was in my room alone, since Mashka was still being nursed in the sickroom. I hardly dared to open the scrap of paper, afraid that it would tell me that we would no longer be able to see each other, even in secret. I took a deep breath and steeled myself for yet more disheartening news.

I had to follow the men and join the Provisional Government’s forces. It was the only safe thing, the only way I have a chance of being able to save you. Meet me in the cellar just after dawn tomorrow if you can, by the back stair that leads to the kitchen
.

That’s all it said. So at least I knew Sasha wasn’t completely against us. But I had no idea what he could possibly do to help us—”to save you,” he said. Did he mean just me, or my whole family? Did we need saving? Were things really so dire? And in any case, how would Sasha be able to make any difference? We were watched constantly if we weren’t in our private apartments, and sometimes even then. I didn’t hold out much hope that a meeting near the kitchen would go undetected.

I hardly closed my eyes that night, even though I hadn’t completely recovered my strength yet. I didn’t want to sleep too long and miss what might be my only opportunity to find out what had happened with Sasha, and whether he knew something that could make sense of what was happening.

As soon as I saw the faintest lightening of the sky, I slipped out from between the covers and put on a dark skirt and sweater, opened my door as noiselessly as I could, and crept down to the stairs that led to kitchens. Our movements within the palace were not technically restricted. It was only that there were few rooms where we weren’t likely to be disturbed by soldiers who considered themselves to have more right to our home than we had. If someone discovered me, I might claim to be going in search of a glass of milk.

It was still dark. No one had turned on the lights yet. In earlier times, there would already be a bustle of activity as the kitchens prepared the breakfast for the suite and any guests who were staying. But now we generally had only bread and tea in the morning, the cooks not being allowed to fire up the ovens before noon.

At first I saw no one. It hadn’t occurred to me that Sasha would not be there, that something might have prevented him from keeping his appointment with me. But just as I was about to give up and return to my room, he emerged from the shadows.

I didn’t know what to say to him at first, how to greet him. What if he had actually turned against us and this meeting was a trick? He had mentioned the Bolsheviks the last time we met. Could he have joined them? I resisted the impulse to run to him and embrace him as I would have done in earlier times. Our last meeting had been strange and awkward compared to when we were younger.

“Nastya! What’s wrong? It’s me!” Sasha spoke quietly but urgently, and walked right up to me and pulled me to him. His uniform didn’t have the fresh smell it always used to, even when I had gone to see him in his camp. I could see it was dirty, quite frayed at the sleeves. But I buried my face in his shoulder anyhow, and did something so unlike me. I started to cry. “Oh, now this isn’t the little grand duchess I used to know.” Sasha reached into his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at my face with it.

“I know, I’m sorry,” I said. I took his hankie and blew my nose in it.

“Besides, we don’t have much time. I have to go on guard duty soon.”

“You mean you’re staying here?” I could hardly believe it.

“I managed to get the posting. You mustn’t think I’ve turned against you. It was either this or go to prison myself. I figured I might be able to help if I at least appeared to be on their side.” I was no longer wrapped in Sasha’s arms, but he still held on to my hand as if he didn’t want to let go of it.

“How can you help? We’re entirely in their power here. Mama and Papa have said they might be willing to go away, possibly to England, which they both love. But nothing’s been settled. And I won’t go without them.”

“You have more friends than you realize. It’s just dangerous for them to be very public about it. You will all eventually have to be moved, and with your help, something might be arranged.”

“With my help? Why mine?”

“Because no one will be expecting you, the youngest girl, to do anything. They are not watching you as they are your parents or your brother.”

“I still don’t see how it will be possible.” I struggled to tamp down the surge of hope I felt just then, that our situation truly was temporary, as Mama tried to convince us when her spirits were not too depressed. “Might they take Papa back as tsar?”

“He would have to be a very different sort of tsar.”

I realized when Sasha said it that I had no concept of what sort of a tsar Papa was. He met ministers, made decisions, appeared at public ceremonies. But when he was with us, he was just Papa. He did not speak of politics unless something directly affected us—which hadn’t been often until recently. We got most of our news through the maids of honor or the servants. And now, with no one friendly coming or going, we had little idea of what was actually happening in the outside world.

“Tell me what you need me to do.”

“Trust me, first of all. And try not to draw attention to yourself just for now.”

“Do you have a plan? Truly?” Before the war and the revolution, it would never have occurred to me to question Sasha’s loyalty or judgment. But now I didn’t know what to think. I would have said the servants were fond of us as well, yet most of them vanished at the first sign of trouble. Even one of Alexei’s faithful attendants, the sailor Derevenko—a servant who shared a name with Alexei’s doctor, but nothing else—took pleasure now in ordering him about and abusing him verbally. Fortunately, Nagorny was still there to protect him.

“It’s too early to say for certain. But do you remember the way we got out of the park that morning, a few years ago?”

“I think so, but I never went through that gate again.”

“I can’t look for it. I need you to see if it is there and unlocked.” He bent down a little, so that his face was level with mine. “If you think you have the courage, you could steal out at night sometime and try to find it. Do you think you could do that?”

I could tell he was serious, that he wasn’t lying to me. Even in his different role, I felt I could trust him. Yet how could I get out at night? They locked the doors tight. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if I could leave the palace. But, Sasha, really, why do we have to think of running away? Count Benckendorff says the Duma may let us live as private citizens. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Just to be able to come and go like other people?”

I searched Sasha’s face for something, some response. Although he seemed the same as ever in many ways, even to the persistence of a few freckles on his nose that made him appear much younger than his twenty years, something was different. Perhaps it was not being able to look into both his eyes that gave me some misgivings. I knew, although I had never seen it, that the patch hid a horrible scar where his left eye had been. Yet I had the sense that he could see differently now, that he might be hiding some dark secret too terrible to reveal to me. His visible expression was trustworthy. But what about the one that was hidden?

The sound of a door opening in another part of the cellar made me jump.

“The guards come and go through the cellar. Come with me.” He led me down a twisting corridor to the far end of one wing of the house, the one, I guessed, with my grandmother’s empty rooms above it. He pointed to a low door at the end of the hallway. “That door is not often used. They won’t notice if I leave it unlocked,” Sasha whispered. “What do you say? Your futures may depend on it.”

“I’ll try,” I whispered. He kissed me quickly on both cheeks, more like a brother than like the man whose kiss a year ago had left me breathless, then ushered me quickly back to the stairs that led up to our wing. I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed as I skittered noiselessly back to my room.

I was preoccupied all day with what Sasha had said. How was I to leave my bed in the middle of the night without anyone noticing? I was not even allowed out for exercise yet because I was still convalescing.

I assumed Sasha was assigned duty in the grounds outside of the palace, because I did not see him for the remainder of that day, which passed more quietly, if also more sadly, after the terrible events of the day before. We ate our meals and said our prayers, Alexei had his lessons with Zhilik, and after dinner we played a six-handed game of bezique, while Tatiana read aloud. Dr. Botkin came to report that Mashka was getting much better, but that it might be necessary to shave her head because of a skin disorder that had developed as a complication.

“Poor Marie!” said Mama.

“She’ll look just like an egg, but without all the jewels!” Alyosha said, referring to the beautiful eggs M. Fabergé made for Mama at the holidays.

Tatiana and I looked at each other, and I think in that moment we both had the same idea. But we didn’t say anything about it then. Like so many things in those early days of captivity, we all had a feeling that the bad events would come to an end and the world would somehow right itself.

I went to bed, realizing that possibly in a few short days I would no longer have my room to myself. I was glad—Mashka and I had shared a room all my life, and I missed her being there—but if I was to see if I could get out of the palace and find that hidden gate, I would have to do it soon.