Natasha's Dream (26 page)

The captive Imperial family were brought to Ekaterinburg. In April, the Tsar and Tsarina, together with their daughter Marie, arrived. In May, their other daughters, Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia, and their sick son, Alexis, were brought. Natasha, in the street, saw three young ladies being hurried into the house of a merchant called Ipatiev. She also saw a boy being carried. One of the young ladies turned her head, and Natasha, who knew the faces of all the family so well because of her album cuttings, recognized the Grand Duchess Anastasia, her brilliant blue eyes bewildered and unhappy.

Everyone spoke little about the imprisoned
family. One had to be very careful. The Bolsheviks hated and despised the Romanovs, and it was said that there was a Bolshevik ear in every home in Ekaterinburg. Natasha’s parents were disturbed by such hatred and the menace it had. They did not believe the Revolution needed to be conducted with so much intolerance. Her father said it was the intolerance of revolutionaries who suspected there were dissidents under every bed. It was a bad time for dissidents.

There was a man whom Natasha had come to know, a man called Heinrich Kleibenzetl. He was an Austrian prisoner of war who had been allowed to work as an apprentice to a tailor named Baoudin. Baoudin lived with his wife opposite the house in which the Imperial family were imprisoned. Kleibenzetl lodged with the Baoudins. He was a cheerful and ebullient little man, and Anna Baoudin was a kind and warm-hearted landlady to him. He helped with the repair of the uniforms worn by the Red soldiers guarding the Imperial family. He had entrance to the Ipatiev house, fetching and delivering uniforms, and frequently saw the Tsar and his daughters taking what exercise they could within the high walls of
the courtyard. There was, however, never any opportunity to speak to them, to offer them sympathy. They needed sympathy, he told Natasha. Rolling his eyes theatrically, he said the Red guards were not the kind of men one would invite home for supper. They made life very unpleasant for the Romanovs, heaping humiliations on all of them, even the poor sick Alexis.

The news that broke in July was terrible. The Imperial family, all of them, had been put to death. So had their servants. Natasha could not believe it. Her parents were appalled, and her father sat down in the evening to begin writing letters to various people in Kiev, asking if there was a suitable post open in any of the schools there.

It was hot and humid. Natasha wandered out, but the atmosphere in the streets was no less oppressive. She saw her cheerful, friendly acquaintance, Heinrich Kleibenzetl, the Austrian tailor. For once, however, he was not at all cheerful.

‘Terrible, terrible, little Natasha,’ he said.

‘Awful,’ said Natasha, a great leaden weight on her heart.

‘Murderers,’ he breathed vehemently, and
shook his head as if quite unable to understand such inhumanity.

‘I have cried very much,’ said Natasha, ‘and said prayers for their souls.’

Heinrich Kleibenzetl looked over his shoulder before whispering, ‘Say a special prayer that one may live.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I am walking about, going round and round, because there’s no room for me in my landlady’s house at the moment.’

‘What do you mean?’ Natasha asked again.

‘Little Natasha, one of them did not die. No, she is not yet dead, and she may survive.’

‘Oh.’

‘It is true,’ whispered the Austrian.

‘But the soldiers—’

‘Hush. They don’t know. Come, I’ll show you, but you must swear not to give her away. Come, Natasha.’

He seemed intense in his desire to have her see what he had seen, and with her heart beating fast, she went with him. Cautiously, and making sure they were not observed, he took her into the house. The Baoudins were in their kitchen, preparing supper. Silently, he led Natasha up the stairs to his lodging room.
Opening the door, he brought her in on tiptoe. In his bed lay a young woman, covered by a sheet. She was unconscious, her eyes closed, her breathing heavy and painful. Her white face looked terribly bruised and broken.

‘Oh,’ breathed Natasha, stricken with pity.

‘You see who it is?’ whispered Kleibenzetl.

‘Yes – yes.’ Natasha saw too a bowl of water and clean rags. ‘You have saved her?’

‘Not I. A soldier brought her here – one of the guards, my landlady said. There were wounds all over her. Terrible, yes. So my landlady told me to go away and to keep quiet. Little Natasha, don’t speak of this. You see how she lies there, and who knows whether she’ll live or not? If the soldiers find her, she’ll surely die. But for you to have seen her, to know there’s one who might survive, perhaps that will make your heart not quite so sad. You must say nothing, not to anyone, anyone. Pray for her, Natasha, pray silently. Come, we must leave her.’

They stole silently out of the house, and Natasha, assuring the tender-hearted little Austrian tailor that she would indeed pray, went quickly on her way home. Before she reached her home, she was stopped by Tanya, a schoolfriend of hers. Tanya was herself quite
tearful, and carried on so emotionally about the terrible fate of the Tsar and his family, that Natasha yielded to an impulse.

‘Oh, but there’s one who isn’t dead – I saw—’ She checked.

‘Not dead?’ said Tanya. ‘Who? Who?’

But bitterly regretting her impulsiveness, even though no one could have said Tanya was a Bolshevik, Natasha whispered, ‘No, it was no one, no one.’ And she hurried away.

Tanya, however, mentioned to her parents what Natasha had said, and her parents wondered about it because of rumours already circulating. And when Bolshevik commissars, accompanied by soldiers, began searching houses for a woman they said was wounded, fright caused the parents to tell a certain Commissar Bukov what Natasha had said to Tanya. Bukov confronted Natasha and asked her to explain. He asked her in his own way, with his eyes like cold grey stone, his face impassive and his hands bruising her flesh. But she could not betray the young woman who lay in the room of the house where Heinrich Kleibenzetl lodged, she could not deliver that poor tragic creature to such a man as Commissar Bukov. Nor could she betray the
friendly, compassionate Austrian tailor, or the Baoudins. She could not. And so the commissar deliberately broke her finger, flung her to the floor and murdered her mother, her father and her two brothers ten minutes later.

She escaped. She fled. She eluded Commissar Bukov for years.

‘But all my life,’ said Natasha, the pain on her face, ‘all my life I shall never know whether or not I might have saved my family by telling Commissar Bukov what he wanted to hear.’

‘Natasha,’ said Mr Gibson very gently, ‘your family would not have wanted you to tell. I feel sure of that, and if I do, then you must be quite certain. I have seen your torment. You have carried it with you for too long. Give your mind peace. In your courage you were all your family could have wished. You are God’s bright gift to a world full of darkness. Weep no more for your family. Stand on your bravery. What else is there to tell?’

Natasha fought her tears. She fought the emotions that came from her susceptibility to his warmth and kindness.

It was 1923, she said, when she went to some Russian monarchists in Berlin to tell them what she knew about Ekaterinburg, about the
young woman shown to her by her friend, Heinrich Kleibenzetl. Count Orlov was among the men who listened to her. It was he who told her first that she was lying, then that she was mad. She protested. She begged him to try to find Heinrich Kleibenzetl, whose home was in Vienna, and who might still be alive. Count Orlov said that if such a man existed, if he had ever existed, he would have come forward and spoken. He told Natasha not to repeat her story to anyone. If she did, he would have her certified as a lunatic, and locked away. He also told her not to leave Berlin, but to stay there. She could not get regular work after that, she could not get any kind of real work. Many times she was close to starvation. Not until she saw Count Orlov for the last time a month ago did he admit that influence had been used to ensure no one would employ her, and that it was frankly hoped she would die an uncontentious death from starvation. She supposed the count eventually thought she was taking far too long to disappear from life, for if Mr Gibson was right about the incident on the bridge, then it seemed as if someone had received orders to precipitate her end by drowning her.

Mr Gibson knew the rest, she said.

Mr Gibson did know, but could not understand why sadness had returned to her, why she had a strangely lonely look about her. He felt deeply moved. She had been overjoyed when they had landed safely in England a month ago.

‘Don’t be so unhappy,’ he said. ‘You are no longer alone, you know.’

‘Everyone has been so kind,’ she said.

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘for there’s still something I don’t know, still something you haven’t mentioned. Who was the young woman who lay in the Austrian tailor’s room, looking as if her face was broken?’

‘The Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaievna, the youngest daughter of the Tsar,’ said Natasha quietly but firmly.

‘Anastasia, yes,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘Before God, Heinrich Kleibenzetl knows the truth of this, if he is still alive,’ said Natasha.

‘Anastasia is being rejected, Natasha, because of the child she conceived.’

‘It is wrong,’ said Natasha.

‘Should you not speak out?’

‘I cannot,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I swore I would not.’

‘You have sworn an oath?’ said Mr Gibson. ‘Dear girl, why?’

Natasha told him why. She told him of her conversation with Count Orlov at police headquarters, and how she had taken the Bible in her hands and spoken the words he demanded of her.

‘You were my salvation, you were the kindest man I had ever known,’ she said. ‘I could not let them harm you. I have failed the Grand Duchess, I know. Please forgive me.’

How heartbreakingly sad she was. Mr Gibson shook his head at her. ‘Natasha, do you really think anyone has anything to forgive you for? You are a young lady of great courage and faith. You and I, we have both been fighting the savaged Imperial eagle of Russia. Yes, the Revolution savaged the Romanovs beyond all their expectations. But they think they can repair the damage and claw their way back, with the help of the German Nationalist Socialist Party under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. A sick and suffering Anastasia, with a child, represents an unwanted embarrassment to them. Well, you took an oath under duress. I think you can stretch it a little. You can tell your story to a solicitor. He’ll draw it up in the
right way for your signature so that it can, if necessary, be presented as an affidavit to any court that may grant a hearing to Anastasia’s claim for official recognition. You wouldn’t have to appear in person, and that is the main requirement of the oath. So let all your worries rest, Natasha.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You have given me a friendship and a kindness I will always remember, always cherish.’ She drew a breath. ‘Mr Gibson, could you do me one last kindness? Gould you help me to go to America and begin a new life there?’

Mr Gibson looked stunned. ‘Would you repeat that?’ he said.

‘I would like to go to America. Is it possible you could help me?’

He stared at her. There was a tragic, heart-wrenching look of loneliness about her.

‘It’s possible, yes,’ he said, ‘but it’s highly unlikely.’

‘Oh,’ said Natasha, hurt as well as unhappy, ‘you are refusing me?’

‘I am saying, quite frankly, that under no circumstances am I going to be responsible for putting you on a ship to America.’

‘I – I have offended you?’ she said.

‘You have taken the wind out of my sails,’ said Mr Gibson. ‘America? I won’t hear of it. My dear girl, what’s wrong? Life has been desperately cruel to you, I know, but you’re still young, and the twins aren’t making things hard for you, are they? I wanted to talk to you yesterday, at length and in private, but had no time to. I had to be in London by ten thirty to report on the blanks I drew in Copenhagen and Lausanne, and to listen to comments on what you and I achieved in Berlin. In London again this morning, I was advised that if you wished to apply for a permanent resident’s permit, you’d get it. I said I had hopes of a happening that would render such an application entirely unnecessary. It doesn’t include letting you go off to America. Natasha Petrovna, angel of Berlin, don’t you like England?’

‘Yes – oh, yes.’ Natasha cast her unhappy eyes downwards. ‘But now that you are going to be married – no, it’s impossible for me to stay. I couldn’t bear it. It was different when I thought you already had a wife and family. I would have been—’ Her voice failed her.

Mr Gibson was painfully aware that her unhappiness was a desperate thing. ‘Who am I getting married to?’ he asked.

‘To Miss Thornton. Oh, she is beautiful, yes, but—’

‘Mildred is marrying George Wadsworth. That might upset me if I loved her, but I don’t. I can’t love two women at once, I’m far too conservative.’

Natasha put a hand to her throat. ‘Mr Gibson?’

‘Natasha, surely you know it’s you I love.’ He forgot she was Russian, and added incautiously, ‘So what are you trying to do to me with all this nonsense about going to America?’

Natasha was Russian indeed, very much so, and for all that she was resurgent with new life, she was not going to let him get away with that. Furthermore, he had plucked once too often at her heartstrings. She rose in a rush, and attacked in a rush.

‘Trying to do to you? Have you thought of what you have done to me? You went away, you left me—’

‘Left you?’ Mr Gibson knew he had put his foot into his mouth.

‘Yes. In Berlin, I was with you all the time, cooking for you, asking questions for you and loving you with all my heart. Then you brought me here, to England, and almost at once you
left me to go to Denmark and Switzerland. You did not say, Natasha Petrovna, I love you, so you must come with me. No, you left me, and when you came back you did not even bother to see me. So, you cannot possibly love me. So, I will go to America. Yes.’

‘Very well,’ said Mr Gibson.