Rasputin's Revenge (16 page)

Lupa sighed deeply, and suddenly his own fatigue seemed to match mine. “Jules, let’s get some sleep. If it makes you any happier, I don’t suspect Alexandra. Or, for that matter, Rasputin, though I don’t come away from my first sight of him very impressed. In fact,” he added lightly, though there was no misreading the venom in his voice, “I would gladly strangle the man for what he did to Varya Panina.”

“It was insensitive,” I agreed.

Lupa eyed me with a strange intensity, as though a thought had just struck him. “Do you think it was Rasputin in the limousine?”

I’d of course heard stories of the starets driving a black automobile through the streets of St. Petersburg at night, shooting beggars at random, setting fire to houses, raping women and defiling churches, but his notoriety in the city and at court was such that those types of rumors were inevitable, and I told Lupa as much.

He seemed to find that explanation reasonable. Tomorrow, he said, he was going to interview Katrina Sukhomlinov. And after I saw Borstoi, we could meet again and see if we’d made any progress.

Exhausted, I finally said good night, walked to my suite, and immediately fell asleep.

9

“I
‘ve been thinking,” Alyosha said, “and I’m not so sure that Rasputin is good for my mother.”

When I’d arrived to see the Czarevitch that morning, he’d delighted me by bowing as he greeted me. Now we were up in the “secret place,” even though a light snow was falling. Alyosha had already cleared away the night’s drifts with his shovel—it was a task he never overlooked, he said. Clearly, it was very important for him to be outside and away from the presence of Derevenko rather than sit in the warm and airless study. Also, I think the act of escaping was a game he rather enjoyed, and selfishly I realized that sharing it with him created a bond I couldn’t manufacture any other way.

“How is that?” I asked.

Alyosha scratched a smooth chin, no doubt imagining himself with a Vandyke like his father’s. “I remember what we were talking about yesterday, how for someone in my father’s position, or even in mine, the truth is the hardest thing to know.”

“Yes?”

“Well”—he hesitated, as though this discovery were a difficult thing for him—“I think Grishka”—he smiled—“Rasputin, not the horse, wants to protect my mother too much. In the same way that she wants to protect me.”

“Why do you think that?” I asked, impressed with the boy’s insight.

“I don’t know for certain. Or I’m not sure.” He grinned disarmingly.
“Sont-elles les mêmes choses?
Are they the same thing?”

“Not exactly. Go on.”

“Well, I know Gregory is a great solace to my mother, but it somehow doesn’t seem right to me that an Empress seeks solace over understanding.”

“And what should an Empress seek?”

He stomped around in the light snow. “That’s what I’ve been wrestling with. With Papa at Spala, my mother has been running the government, or controlling appointments, which amounts to the same thing.”

“And you think Rasputin has….?”

“I know,” he interrupted. “I know that Rasputin has no political training, and that he still tries to persuade my mother over appointments. And then she writes to Papa and the things are done.” He shook his head, as though trying to understand something beyond him. “With Papa trying to direct the War, Monsieur Giraud, he has come to rely on Mama’s intuitions and advice. And that was all right when it was Mama speaking for herself. But now I believe she is afraid—afraid for me and afraid for Papa. And Gregory makes her feel better.”

“And there is something wrong with that?”

He pondered a moment, then smiled. “Ah,
la methode Socratique
.” It was a joy to watch him switch from boy to man, from prince to student. The man-prince continued: “No, not in itself. I just wonder if the truth gets hidden when there’s only one version of it.”

“And your mother only chooses to see one?”

“I think so. That’s what concerns me.”

It was my turn to pace across the enclosure. Last night’s vision of Rasputin, drunk and obnoxious, threatened to crowd out my other thoughts. Suddenly it was very obvious to me why the monk was so roundly hated. Society saw him as I did last night and also knew that he had the Empress’ ear. The relationship did not inspire confidence in the wisdom of the Romanovs. “Alexis,” I said at last, “if you remember one thing when you become the Czar, this would be a good one.”

“It’s the same thing my father says, but why can’t he see that he’s not doing it?”

I looked at the confused face, so serious and so aware. He will be a good Czar someday, I thought, if only he could live so long. His hands were in his pockets and he was starting to shiver in the cold. “As you said, it may be up to you to tell him. Will you be seeing him soon?”

He said that his parents were coming into the city for Minsky’s funeral, and that he had already requested a private, formal audience with his father. Oddly enough, that seemed entirely appropriate to me, though I’m certain that only days before I would have scoffed at the idea as childish bravado.

I said that I was getting cold and asked Alexis if he would mind if we went back down to the study where it was warmer. In some strange way, I sensed that he was putting on the mantle of Czar with me—it wouldn’t do for him to admit that he was cold. That would be weakness. Or, more exactly, it would be showing weakness. If his struggling was telling him anything, it was that rulers are allowed moments of vulnerability in private, but in public they are not.

If only his father could make that distinction, I mused. Perhaps Alexis, in his formal interview, could begin to get the point across. If it could be done at all, I was sure Alexis would find the way to do it.

Back in the study, I changed the subject. Did he know Elena Ripley? I asked casually. Had he heard about the fight between her and Tatiana?

He seemed almost relieved to gossip, as though the burdens of his future responsibilities were weighing heavily on him. He hadn’t heard about it yet, but volunteered the opinion that Tatiana was too sensitive and far too headstrong to take criticism well.

“Takes too much after her mother,” he said sardonically.

“Do you think Elena will be let go?”

He laughed, as though at himself. “Do you think we are consulted over those things? Do you think I’d request a Rudi Derevenko? No, it will all blow over. It always does.” He sighed. “It seems to be the nature of our little closed-in world that these flareups occur. I think they’re the only things that keep boredom from killing us.”

Karel Borstoi was setting type in the tiny back room of what had been his father’s newspaper office. It was early afternoon, and I’d left Alexis—reassured over Elena’s security—about forty minutes before, crossing the city on foot under still-overcast skies.

In spite of the cold outside, in Borstoi’s shop it was sweltering. He worked shirtless and his wiry body glistened in the light of several bare electric bulbs. He was a small man, but his muscles rippled like a thoroughbred’s as he lifted heavy trays of type from the set table to the press. I stood in the doorway watching him for several minutes before he noticed me.

“Eh, what do you want?” he said in almost-guttural Russian. Then, “Do I know you?”

I stepped into the brighter light of the room, loosening my coat. “We’ve seen each other before.”

He moved back a couple of steps, while I continued unbuttoning my coat. I looked down for a second, and when I faced him squarely he was holding a hand ax, evidently prepared to use it.

“I’m here as a friend,” I said. “I was at the Czar’s kitchen the other night.”

Still wary, he glanced behind me. “You’re alone?”

I took my coat off and draped it over a chair, then sat down. “Yes, of course. And unarmed,” I added, raising my hands, “as you can see.”

“What do you want?” Poised and tense, he stood on the balls of his feet, the ax gripped so hard his knuckles shone white. “Did Max Pohl send you?”

“Would Max Pohl send a friend? I said I was a friend.” I used the word
priyatel
‘, friend. Then I smiled thinly, taking a chance. “In fact, I am
tovarishch
, a comrade.”

His eyes darted from me to the open room behind me.

“If you’re so worried about it, why do you leave the doors open? Come, sit down, we should talk. It’s Karel, isn’t it?”

He nodded, and I introduced myself.

“How is it you were with Pohl?” Still, his stance didn’t change. He was ready to attack or defend in an instant.

“I might ask you the same thing.”

“Stay right there,” he commanded. Giving me as wide a berth as the small room allowed, he checked the front office. I admit that while he was behind me, I was not altogether sanguine. The small breeze of his passing made the hairs stand on the back of my neck. If he was a murderer, if he thought I was hunting him down, it would be a short work for him to end his worries.

I felt him reenter the press room, and sensed him hovering behind me. “Listen to me,” I said, as casually as I could, “my position at court can be very helpful to you. If I’d wanted to harm you I could have done it easily when I arrived.”

He came around the front of me again and I let myself breathe. Though he still held the ax, now it was more as a prop than a weapon. He pushed himself up backwards onto the edge of the press and relaxed. I reached into my breast pocket, took out a cigarette, and offered him one, which he took, smelled, put in his mouth.

As I struck a match, he smiled coldly. “Do you mind if we switch?” He gave me his cigarette and took mine.

I laughed. “At some point, this becomes ridiculous.”

He inhaled deeply, nodding. “You’re right,” he said, “and we are not at that point.”

I shrugged.
“En tout cas
, I came here. I thought we could help each other. Perhaps I was wrong.” Standing up, I took my coat.

“What are you doing?”

“I am leaving. There are other cells. It will just take a little more time.” I started to turn for the doorway.

“You know about the cells?”

I stopped. “We have a Party in France.”

He considered that. Then, “How can you help me?”

“I am at court. I have an official position. I am tutor to the Heir. The question is, how can you help me? The other night, you seemed very bold. Today I meet a man terrified of a cigarette. I made a mistake. Good day,” I paused, spitting out the last word,
“tovarishch.”

He wrestled with it so long that I thought it hadn’t worked. I walked out of the back room and through the front office, and was already preparing how to word my failure to Lupa, when he caught up with me on the street. A dirty brown woolen shirt was his only protection against the cold, but he seemed immune to it.

“It’s not unnatural that I should be cautious,” he said, hurrying along next to me. “My father was abducted out of that office, and now Max …”

“Max let you go the other night,” I said harshly. “That’s the reality. We must think clearly at times like these. Paranoia stifles action. It’s the mother’s milk of cowards.”

“I’m no coward!” he answered hotly.

I stopped and faced him. “All right, Karel, perhaps not. But I am not a spy for Bloody Nick.”

“And I have no proof of that.”

I conceded the point. “All right, I’ll get you proof. In the meanwhile, don’t you think that someone with my access at court might be worth knowing?”

It was his turn to smile as if he were hiding something. That smile bothered me. In it I could read the bitterness of his struggle—here was no dreaming idealist fueled by hopes of a new Russia, a better society, but a profoundly hate-filled and unhappy young man, driven by thoughts of revenge and violence.

“Yes,” he said, “it’s good to know people at court.” All at once he started to shiver as the freezing wind gusted around us. I suggested we return to his shop.

In the sweltering press room, he poured himself a cup of tea, holding it in both hands, blowing on it and inhaling the warm steam as it rose. When he’d finished, he put down the cup, gave one tremendous final shiver, and boosted himself back onto the press, facing me. “Now, comrade,” he said, “how can we work together?”