The Last Romanov (25 page)

Midnight. Drenched from a continual drizzle, Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia, and Alexei huddle close to Darya, their trembling bodies seeking warmth from each other. They can hardly keep their eyes open from lack of sleep and fatigue from the long journey from Tobolsk to Ekaterinburg. The girls are scared, their aching legs trembling. A letter from their mother directs them to “dispose of all the medicines as had been agreed,” a previously devised code and plan to bring along the gems they carried from Tsarskoe Selo to Tobolsk, which, having been ordered to depart on an hour's notice, the Imperial Couple were forced to leave behind. It took the girls several days to complete their task. Now, weighted down by their clothing heavy with diamonds, emeralds, pearls, and rubies sewn into them, they can hardly stand on their feet.

The wind smacks a burst of rain like gravel onto their faces. Darya wraps her arms around them. The thought occurs to her that the wretched Vasiliev might have been right in the end. After thirteen months of detention—five in Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo and eight in Tobolsk—it appears they have reached the end of the world.

Nicholas, Alexandra, and Maria were transported to Ekaterinburg a month before. Unfit to travel, Alexei remained with Darya and his three sisters. Nagorny (the sailor in charge of carrying Alexei), Dr. Botkin, Kharitonov the cook, Troup the footman, and Leonid Sednev the kitchen boy now form a silent wall around Darya and the Romanov children.

The house looking down on them exhales a putrid breath. The façade's white stones, coarse with the city's violence and chewed up by time, are ominous in the dark of night.

“Welcome to the House of Special Purpose!” a revolutionary commandant—another of the many they have encountered in these months in exile—barks.

They are puzzled. What is the man saying? What is the House of Special Purpose?

Darya steps forward. “The last I knew, this was Ipatiev's house. What is the House of Special Purpose?”

He pokes a finger in his hairy ear to ease an itch. “Ipatiev is kaput! Gone! Ordered out by the office of the Ural Soviet!” He snaps his hand up in a mock salute. “Nicholas the Blood Drinker and his German woman are here now.”

The house looks different, Darya thinks. With its window bars, painted panes, and surrounding high wooden fence, it resembles a prison rather than the handsome mansion it once was. Its first story overlooks the busy Voznesensky Prospekt. The second level faces a prominent hill in the distance on which the Entertainment Palace is perched.

She is unaware that fate will grab her by the throat soon and lead her back to the Entertainment Palace, where for year after long year, hundreds of butterflies will herald a new day and the aroma of Little Servant's coffee will force her out of bed. She is unaware that, made of a stronger mettle than she can imagine now, her relentless persistence and stubborn memories will carry her far into old age.

The revolutionary guard pulls back his lips, revealing a row of silver teeth. “Boy! Step forward for a thorough inspection.”

Darya feels the girls squeeze closer to her, hears the rushing blood in their veins, the pounding of Alexei's heart, hears Joy, the boy's spaniel, skipping around and yelping.

Not once did she leave Alexei's side, not throughout the river voyage aboard the steamer
Rus
, nor at the Tyumen railway station when the commissar tried to separate her from Alexei, nor when Nagorny was there, able and ready to help. She carried the boy into the steamer's cabin, into the fourth-class carriage, all the way at the rear of the train. She is not about to part with him now. She glares at the commandant. He glares back. Her voice is sharp as a blade. “Search
me
, if you dare! Or step aside and let us in.”

The commandant retrieves a smooth pebble from his pocket, turns it around as if his decision is inscribed in the stone. He bounces the stone from one hand to another, then drops it back in his pocket for later use. “You must be tired,” he tells Alexei. “It's been a long night. All right then, go in, if you want. Your sisters will do.” He rubs his cold hands. “Step forward, girls!”

Olga and Tatiana seem to diminish as if the heavy jewels are squeezing and shrinking them from all sides. The rain has gathered force, soaking their clothes, threatening to reveal the outlines of the precious stones.

Darya steps in front of the grand duchesses. Lifting her arms up toward the wet skies, she aims her cracked opal eye at the commandant, sucks her cheeks in, puckers her mouth, and spits out a burst of fire sparks at the man's face.

“Fire! Fire!” His shrill voice precedes him as he staggers back, slapping his face, his head, his ears. Lurching toward a muddy puddle, he plunges his head in as if his hair is on fire.

“Stop it, Darya,” the frightened Alexei implores. “He won't let us see Papa and Mama.”

“Don't worry!” Darya says. “I had to teach him a lesson, or he'd make our life miserable here.” She bends and picks up some red seeds from the ground. “Pomegranate seeds I keep in my pockets for such occasions. I tossed them in my mouth when he wasn't looking. An innocent man would have acted differently.”

She grabs her charges by the hand and leads them into the House of Special Purpose.

***

The summer months in the house progress to days of increasing horror. The occasional letters from relatives and friends in exile no longer reach the family. Local newspapers, which Nicholas once eagerly anticipated, even if few and far between, no longer arrive.

Their only source of knowledge is old newspapers wrapped around bread and eggs the local nuns send them, cut out magazines in the lavatory, a note from a friend concealed in a basket of fruit, but mostly stale information and rumors from the guards.

They learn that the German kaiser, cousin of Nicholas, facilitated the exiled Vladimir Lenin's entry back into Russia, and the man is wreaking havoc, encouraging uprisings, calling for all workers to take up arms. Civil war is raging, Red troops against White troops. No one knows who is murdering whom and who is winning the war.

The faraway rumble of artillery can be heard day and night.

The revolutionaries, afraid that someone inside the house might signal for help to a friendly White soldier or a monarchist crossing the Voznesensky Prospekt, do not allow the family to open any doors or windows and have coated the glass panes with lime, which traps the heat, turning the rooms into hellish furnaces.

Alexei is losing weight and spends most of his time in bed, Joy curled at his feet. His miniatures having been confiscated by Vasiliev at Tsarskoe Selo, he amuses himself with bits of wire, metal scraps, and a broken model of a ship.

The concoction of ambergris Darya rubs on his atrophying legs is not as effective in the absence of aged Livonian wine, sweet almond oil, vetivert, hashish, or ginger root. Desperate for a cure, she spends hours mixing whatever stale ingredients she finds in the kitchen—dried eucalyptus leaves, a clove of cinnamon, lemon peel, even salt—adding them to melted ambergris, until the pots and pans turn black and the smell alerts a guard, who marches in to order her out of the kitchen.

Alexandra and Nicholas hold classes for their children. They study the classics, practice French, discuss politics. The girls knit, crochet, embroider, or mend clothes.

They pray together—the family, servants, doctor, cook, and Darya.

They pray for food other than black bread and tea. They pray for an extra pair of boots for Alexei. They pray for the privilege of visiting the lavatory without being harassed and hassled by obscenities, without being assaulted by crude caricatures on walls of the Empress and Rasputin in appalling poses. But most of all, they pray for salvation, pray for the success of the anti-Communist White Army, pray that if any relatives and friends remain, they will hear their prayers and deliver them from this indignity.

And they all mourn together. They mourn Nagorny, Alexei's faithful guard who, arrested for having prevented another guard from stealing the boy's gold chain, was imprisoned and then executed.

They mourn when the revolutionaries celebrate the collapse of the provisional government that consisted of liberals from the last Duma. They mourn the fall of Kerensky and the rise of Lenin, who is systematically shattering their last hope of freedom.

They also celebrate together. Not birthdays. Those come and go without much fuss. The Empress turns forty-six, the Emperor fifty. Alexei is thirteen. They celebrate small daily freedoms. Being allowed afternoon walks in the garden, even if under the hooded eyes of the guards. Even if Alexei, all but crippled, sits quietly in a chair with his spaniel companion snoring at his feet. They celebrate walking, which oils their rusting joints. Nicholas wears his officer's coat, but the epaulets have been removed. Alexandra leans on a cane, her pulled-back hair almost all gray, deep lines framing her mouth.

They celebrate the blessing of being together.

Yakov Yurovsky marches up the stairs to the second level of the House of Special Purpose. His hands are deep in the pockets of his military coat, which is buttoned up to his chin, his mouth pursed tight. The bush of dark curls on top of his head, his thick eyebrows, and carefully trimmed mustache and goatee cast dark shadows on his thin face.

He stops outside Nicholas and Alexandra's room, the bedroom they have shared with their son during the five months they have been here. He stares at the door. He is not pleased. He is a member of the Bolshevik Secret Police, respects order, expects to be obeyed, yet despite strict instructions for all doors to remain open, this one is closed. Order seems illusive, although he has been in charge for twelve days now, after firing the previous inefficient commandant and his disorderly men.

He removes his left hand from his pocket. Knocks with a clenched fist. Steps away from the door before plunging his hand back in his pocket to stroke the hard, comforting coolness of his Colt revolver. He waits. Tugs at his coat sleeves. Whistles a tuneless war march under his breath.

The door is opened halfway. Nicholas peers out with alarmed eyes. Unwilling to awaken his wife and his sick son, he whispers, “Yes? What is wrong?”

“I apologize for the intrusion,” Yurovsky replies with an exaggerated show of respect. “Because of the unrest in town, it's necessary to move everyone downstairs. It's dangerous to be upstairs while there's shooting in the streets. Please get dressed as soon as possible.”

“New developments?” Nicholas asks.

“The White Army crossed into Siberia. They are regaining territory from the Red Army.”

“Siberia is very large, my friend. It will take a long time for the Whites to get here.”

“They
are
in the city,” Yurovsky replies quietly, regretfully, discreetly.

Nicholas makes every effort to conceal his joy. It appears that the
thump-thump
of artillery, keeping them awake in recent nights, belongs to the White Army.

A note concealed in a basket of eggs the nuns sent them the day before yesterday brought news of the White Army's advance. But Ekaterinburg's geographical position deep in the heart of Siberia, and its large population of Bolshevik Reds, put the White Army in a difficult position, and victory seems unlikely.

Yet, tonight, the tall commandant's exaggerated politeness affords Nicholas a measure of hope. He turns on his heel and steps back into his room, sits down at the edge of the bed, caresses his sleeping wife, and squeezes her shoulders. “Sunny! Sunny! I have good news.”

Alexandra is startled awake from yet another nightmare. She rubs her eyes, lifts herself on one elbow.

“Quickly, we must get ready. The Whites have invaded the city. See, didn't I tell you? Didn't I say our generals would save us? They are on their way. Hurry up. Get dressed.”

“Could it be?” she asks as her husband helps her to her feet. “Our Friend is looking after us up there. Bless his soul.”

Yurovsky proceeds to knock on all five half-open bedroom doors, awakening the rest of the family and their staff, ordering them to dress and congregate in the hall.

Having done his job, he coughs twice, slides his tongue over his thin lips, leans against the landing balustrade, and waits. Every now and then he tugs at his mustache and taps on the balustrade with his long fingernails, an impatient rap, rap, rap that can be heard in the bedroom of the grand duchesses, causing them added alarm.

As if she is about to attend an imperial soirée, Darya takes her time selecting a dress of fine damask, an embroidered guipure shawl, and a wide-rimmed feathered hat. Slowly, leisurely, she slips the dress over her head, feels the rich damask slide against her skin, the shawl caress her bare shoulders, the hat embrace her like a long-lost lover. Her Avram! One by one, she removes the hat, the shawl, the dress. What did she wear fifteen years back when they first bathed in the banya? She riffles through rich, colorful fabrics, beaded dresses, embroidered cloaks, crepe de Chine shawls, soft suede and leather shoes, until she finds what she is looking for. She buries her face in the gossamer shawl, inhales the scent of eucalyptus and desire, buttons the beaded silk chiffon dress that hugs her as gently as Avram did, slides her feet into the pearl-studded suede shoes, digs her hands in her hair and frees the curls into which he whispered. She avoids the mirror. She does not want to witness the damage the last months have inflicted on her thirty-one-year-old self.

Retrieving one of the pillows of ambergris she has transported from one place to another, she hugs it to her chest like a protective shield before stepping out of her room. She does not trust Yakov Yurovsky, does not believe one word he says, does not know where he will take them. Sixteen months of exile have taught her the importance of being on her guard and ready.

Nicholas and his son, dressed in simple military shirts, trousers, boots, and forage caps, are waiting in the hall. Alexei is in his father's arms, holding the pillow his mother instructed him to carry with him at all times.

“Where's Joy?” he asks Darya. “Will you find her?”

“Not now, Loves. Later.”

“But Joy hates to sleep outside.”

“Just for a few hours, Loves, promise.”

Dr. Botkin, Demidova, Kharitonov, the cook, and Troup the footman join the family.

The doctor stands next to Nicholas. “Your Majesty,” he whispers, “what is happening?”

Nicholas taps him on the arm, his composure reassuring. “Nothing bad.”

“Please follow me!” Yurovsky's tone is level, polite. “We will walk down.”

The hopeful exuberance of the procession sends a chill down Darya's spine. The Emperor's eyes have regained their youthful air, and he smiles at his son's attempt to brush away the last cobwebs of sleep. The tall, willowy Empress is regal, and despite relying on her cane, she carries herself with grace. The grand duchesses—Olga, twenty-two, Tatiana, twenty-one, Maria, nineteen, and Anastasia, seventeen—in wrinkled white dresses, resemble a garland of sleepy angels.

They are silent. No one complains. No questions are asked. They are drawing strength from Nicholas and Alexandra's demeanor, reminiscent of imperial days.

Darya steps behind the rigid Yurovsky, scrutinizing his detached manner, stiff back, hands deep in his pockets. She counts the twenty-three stairs they descend toward the cellar, counts them with the fanaticism of a lover, a religious zealot, a madwoman clinging to her last shreds of reason. They are led to another staircase, down into the bowels of the house.

She slows down, falls in step with Nicholas. “Your Majesty, I don't like this. Wherever we're going can't be good. There are eleven of us. We can ambush him. Flee into the streets.”

“Follow orders!” Nicholas replies sternly. “Help is on the way.”

“I beg of Your Majesty, permit us to try. It's not good at all! My mouth is stinging with bitter ash. This man is dangerous. Please, Your Majesty, please listen to me.

“Can I be of assistance?” Yurovsky asks, turning back.

Darya looks him straight in the eye. “I offered to carry the Tsarevich. He is not well.”

“May I carry him?”

“Thank you. I can manage,” Nicholas assures the commandant.

They cross a long corridor that leads toward a room in the basement.

Yurovsky stops behind the door. His dark eyes stare at the procession, counting them in an even voice. He opens the door and steps back, gesturing for them to enter.

“Everyone, please. Thank you, yes, very well. You, too, Comrade Spiridova. Please hurry. Do not keep the others waiting.”

They file into a small, wallpapered, empty cellar room. Graffiti is scrawled on a wall. The Empress in lurid poses with Rasputin. The grand duchesses in the arms of strangers. The moonless sky can be seen through a single barred window. A swarm of mosquitoes beat their wings against the rain-stained windowpane. The howl of a mounting summer wind makes its way through the cracks.

“What? No chairs?” The Empress utters, exhibiting the first sign of alarm. “May we not sit?”

Yurovsky thrusts his head out the door and calls out for two chairs. He grabs the chairs through the half-open door and sets them in the center. The Empress settles in one chair and the Emperor gently sits his son on the other.

“People in Moscow are worried that you might have escaped,” Yurovsky says. “A photograph to prove that you have not. Comrade Spiridova, please remove your hat. I can't see your face. Thank you. This is better. You stand here and you here, there, across the back wall, thank you. Slightly further to the right, please,” he says, kicking the hat Darya tossed at his feet.

Darya is assigned a place behind Alexei's chair.

Glaring at Yurovsky, she plants herself in front of the boy. “His Majesty does not like to be photographed,” she growls. “What is the purpose of a photograph? He won't be escaping without his parents.”

“Darya!” the Tsar orders. “Behind Alexei. Now!”

She tugs at her necklace that has survived the many thieves and robbers they encountered on the way here, pulls hard until the chain cuts into her skin, drawing blood from the back of her neck. She takes her time to walk around and position herself behind Alexei's chair. Nicholas is standing next to her, behind the Empress's chair.

The group of eleven is arranged in two orderly rows, distance between them carefully measured, the two chairs shifted closer and slightly to the center.

Yurovsky steps back, cocks his head, evaluates his choreographed setting. “It will be a very good photograph. Very good indeed. The people will see that you are safe. No one escaped. Yes, you are ready.”

He shoves his head out the door and calls out for the photographer.

Darya rests her hands on Alexei's frail shoulders. “Listen to me, Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov. Don't you worry, not for a single second. I am here, right behind you. When we get out, I'll take you to Petrograd to visit the Hermitage Theater. We'll dine at the
Podval
Brodyachy
Sobaki
. You'll meet famous artists and poets and we will…”

The door opens. In burst eleven armed men.

Darya lets out a small gasp of pain. She grabs her head as if she is being pulled away by her hair, as if her eye is on fire, her flesh melting off her bones. There is the Ancient One, back after seven years, not whirling or churning in veils, but an embossed outline on the wall. Why did you abandon me? Darya is screaming in her head. How could you just say good-bye and leave me after revealing Athalia's deeds? You promised to guide me and watch over me. You promised to forewarn me of looming tragedies. Didn't you see our bleak future?

The Ancient One's sad gaze is on Darya. A single teardrop glistens like a crystal bead at the corner of her left eye. Her pale lips hardly move, but Darya can hear her loud and clear, see her gesture toward the pillow of ambergris in Darya's arms.

She snatches Alexei's pillow from behind and drops her own in his lap. “Hold it like a shield, Loves, press hard to your chest. The ambergris will protect you.”

Yurovsky steps into the center of the crowded room that reeks of sweat, fear, and hatred. He holds a note in his left hand, his right hand stuffed in his pocket. He confronts Nicholas II. “In view of the fact that your relatives continue their attacks on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has ordered your execution.”

“Lord, oh, my God! Oh, my God! What is this? I can't understand you,” Nicholas cries out, turning to his family, then back to the commandant. The veins in his neck stand out, his face white as the pillowcase on his son's lap.

Yurovsky jerks his right hand out of his pocket and aims his Colt revolver at the Tsar.

A point-blank bullet propels Nicholas's head backward and smashes his skull. His body wobbles in place before toppling sideways on Darya. She clutches the body, anchors the dead load against her, refusing to let go, her screams mingling with other cries.

The entire squad opens fire. Smoke and the acrid stench of gunpowder fill the room. Alexandra and Olga attempt to make the sign of the cross. A violent spatter of their blood blinds Darya. She releases the body of Nicholas.

Bayonets come crunching in on skull and bone. Bodies topple on top of one another. Guts spill, skulls crack, brain matter splatters. Necks and extremities bend and twist into lurid angles. Bullets ricochet against the pillow Darya clutches to her chest, hurtling her backward. She tumbles onto her side. She is being buried. Buried under a pile of bodies, her face jammed to the hardwood floor, the taste of blood and ash in her mouth, smoke in her eyes.

Footsteps shuffle everywhere. The door bangs shut. Silence. Darya struggles to remove a lifeless hand from her face. Alexandra's manicured fingers. Darya drops it with a silent cry. She struggles to breathe, to move under the load of bodies, search for a pistol, a bayonet, something to end her misery. Fragments of bone pierce her cheek. A foot presses into her armpit. Time passes. The pillow is jammed against her face. Emeralds, rubies, and diamonds are visible through bullet holes. Lord! What did she do? What in the world did she do! She should not have exchanged her pillow with the Tsarevich's.

The jewels in the pillow managed to shield her from the bullets.

What if the ambergris didn't save Alyosha?

She hears the creak of the opening door, the squeak of approaching boots, bodies being shuffled around. She opens her mouth to invite them to finish her with a bullet, but only gurgling inhuman sounds tumble around her throat.

She is assaulted by a whiff of stale air. Someone grabs her by the shoulders. Removes the pillow from her face. A strand of pearls dangles from a hole in the pillowcase.

She grabs the pillow and plunges her face back in it, unable to face the smoke, the stench, the cursed world.