Rasputin's Revenge (9 page)

(
OCTOBER
14, 1916.)

L
ast night’s dinner must, indeed, have been a special occasion. Supplies here in the city are so low that Paleologue and his staff share their meals and their servants with the English embassy!

I have nothing against the British. They are brave fighters and loyal allies. What they lack in élan and panache is more than compensated for in their contributions to, among other things, world literature, for example.

But their food! Ugh!

It must be one of Paleologue’s greatest hardships to bear with this arrangement in the name of international cooperation. I was invited to lunch, but upon seeing the greasy sausages, cold toast, radish or beet sandwiches, tea with milk poured into it, not a green vegetable in sight, I said that I had just come from a huge breakfast and couldn’t eat a thing.

When we left the dining room, Maurice told me that the kitchen prepares English food one day, French the next, and that I had arrived on the wrong day. Not, he added, that the French food was that much better.

“Surely there must be a huge difference,” I remonstrated. We were in his office having cigars. Fortunately, he had somehow contrived to have his samovar play a part in creating a passable blend of coffee. After merely viewing the British clotted cream, I was happy to drink something strong and black.

Paleologue stroked his pointed chin. “No, Giraud, there is not much difference. We don’t have supplies, you see.”

“But surely last night …”

“Last night was a state dinner for the Czar.”

“But the food was excellent.”

“Sublime,” he agreed. “But come here. Look.”

I stood and walked over to his desk. With a key, he opened a cabinet that had been built into it. Within was a platter laden with many of last night’s staples—a bowl of sugar lumps, another of butter, three loaves of bread, several apples and pears, a brick of cheese. At my questioning look, the ambassador smiled. “Our greatcoats are good for more than fighting the cold.”

I was shocked to see the official representative of my country stooping to such levels, and probably did not hide my feelings adequately. But Paleologue was immune to my scruples. He closed and locked the cabinet, motioned for me to sit again, and gave me a little speech.

“Don’t make the mistake which is ruining this country, Giraud. Don’t let yourself be cut off from reality. The palace is an unreal world where nothing is wrong, there is plenty of food, the Czar makes no mistakes, and the people are all happy and simple peasants.

“There is no way that I can overemphasize the seriousness of the situation here. There is very little food. The people are quite close to revolt. Mismanagement, incompetence, plain stupidity are rampant here, as are greed, fear and panic. What you see at Tsarkoye Selo and here at the Winter Palace is the last flicker of the nineteenth century, of the world you and I grew up in.

“Now it is not merely a new century—it is a different world, and there is no place in it anymore for the finer sensibilities—gentility, honor, charm. It pains me to say it, but what we are doing, especially here in St. Petersburg, is slogging through, trying our best to survive, and survive alone.”

“But surely,” I said, alarmed at his pessimism, “survival alone is no goal. Without what you’re calling the finer sensibilities, what is the point to living?”

“Ask that question and you won’t live to enjoy the answer,” he said. Then, realizing his harshness, he continued. “Giraud, I don’t mean to attack you. Maybe I’ve been here too long. I forget that there is another world—a Paris, for example, even a …” But, choked with emotion, he couldn’t finish.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He waved it off, puffing at his cigar. “And now to business. The offer?”

“First there is something else that might bear upon it. Have you heard about Minsky?”

He thought a moment. “I don’t believe I know a Minsky.”

“He is a Commissar, one of the Czar’s equestrian guard. I met him last night. In his own words, he is the last personal friend of Nicholas at court—all the rest defer to Rasputin.”

“Well, what of him?”

When, I told Maurice of the murder, he first had no response other than to close his eyes and draw reflectively on his cigar. He remained in that attitude so long that I wondered if he had perhaps forgotten my presence.

“Sir?” I asked.

Slowly, it seemed unwillingly, he pulled himself up and out of his reverie. With a deep sigh, he forced himself to speak.

“You are correct, Giraud. This will bear upon your mission.”

“What do you think I ought to do?”

He stood and began pacing back and forth from the bookcase to the fireplace. “It is hard to say Initially, I was going to tell you to get to Nicholas and force a commitment as soon as possible. He is newly back from Spala, and in the past it has been after those tours as Commander-in-Chief that he has been most enthusiastic for the War. Now, though … now I am not sure.”

“You think it might be wiser to wait?”

“Not exactly I think he simply may not be prepared to make decisions. And there’s no point in showing our hand until we can bet it.”

“But now would seem ideal to me. If we present a strong argument, in his preoccupied state he might commit before realizing all the implications.”

Paleologue sat on the edge of his desk. “No, no. You don’t know Nicholas. He doesn’t act that way. These murders—there have been three before this, you know—have worked on his will. Of all rulers, he is the least aware of the position he is in. His immediate family is his life. In mentality, he is extremely petit bourgeois. Have you seen his apartments? The furnishings?”

He stopped, checking himself. “Well, that is irrelevant. But he rules Russia as though he were running a small business. This is not to say he is a bad man. To the contrary, he is simple goodness personified.”

“But they call him ‘Bloody Nicholas.’”

“He has had bad luck.” Perhaps realizing how apologetic that sounded, the diplomat covered himself. “Not that he hasn’t made mistakes, Giraud. He has. But they almost always have been out of naiveté, out of wanting to do the right thing and simply lacking the sensitivity to see what it is.

“It began,” he continued, “on the day of his coronation. The peasants showed up in such numbers for the celebration that they couldn’t fit into
the area arranged for them. Then the word went out that they were running out of beer. You know how that is. Well, hundreds of people were killed in the ensuing crush.”

I started to interrupt, but he stopped me. “No, that wasn’t all. What made our Czar ‘Bloody Nicholas’ is that he was advised to attend the Coronation Ball that night. The smart move, of course, would have been to have canceled it in sympathy for the dead, but Nicholas’ uncles persuaded him that it was essential that he not disappoint the visiting foreign guests who were looking forward to the ball. Needless to say, the peasantry took his attendance there as the utmost callousness on his part. Hence, Bloody Nick.”

“And that, I take it, isn’t an isolated case.”

“Not at all. The man just moves along from crisis to crisis, always seeking to do what is right. But the nature of government is that it needs a guiding policy, and he has none, other than belief in the autocratic principle that he can do no wrong and, astoundingly, that he doesn’t want his wife mad at him.”

“You must be exaggerating.”

“How else do you explain Rasputin?”

I thought about it and conceded that he might have a point. “But where does that leave me and my offer?”

Maurice went back around his desk and sat down. “I think it makes us very vulnerable. He might very well refuse.”

“But why?”

“Because, Giraud, he is sick of this war. He is losing in the North and he knows it. And now his friends are being killed. Remember what I just told you—his family life, his intimate circle, is his reality. And now the War is encroaching on that.

“This latest murder—though any of the previous ones might as well have done it—might be the nudge he needs to sue for a separate peace. Once that is concluded, then at least he could concentrate on his family again and, to a lesser extent, on the reforms this country needs so badly. It is ticklish. I’m not sure he’ll react that way, but I think it’s possible that if we urge him too strongly in the one direction, he’ll feel like he’s being manipulated and go the other way out of contrariness, or, as he’d put it, out of exercise of the Royal Will. But I’d bet my last franc that pro-German forces are behind these killings.” He paused. “And it seems to me they know their man.”

I considered mentioning Lupa’s presence to Maurice, but decided to hold my tongue. My knowledge of the moods and intrigues of the court is still extremely limited. Even Paleologue, in spite of his official position, is
untested. He might have known the Czar’s chess partner or hunted with the Lord of the Hunt. No, until I had a little more background, I would keep Lupa to myself.

Suddenly Maurice swore violently and pounded his small pudgy fist on his desk. “Damn Sukhomlinov and his meddling! If you’d presented our case to Nicholas only yesterday you might be on your way home today.”

“And now?”

“Now it seems we’re forced to take his advice and wait. We can’t push Nicholas. Maybe in a week or so he’ll be receptive again, but now I can’t permit it.”

It may have been good policy, but hearing his decision, I was struck with a disturbing sense of déjà vu. “Excuse me, Maurice,” I said, “but that, nearly word for word, was exactly what Sukhomlinov recommended. And last night you violently opposed it.”

Paleologue chewed thoughtfully on his cigar. Finally an ironic glint appeared in his eye. “It’s galling, I admit. My only defense is that since last night we’ve had another murder. It’s changed things, at least for the short term. We’d be foolish to deny it, and doubly foolish to push Nicholas just at this time.” He looked at me across his desk. “We can only hope to get some hiatus between now and the next disaster.”

“Or that the murderer is found.”

“Yes,” he said, “or that.”

Outside, the gray sky matched my spirits. Flakes of snow had begun to fall and the heavy clouds portended a major storm. I found myself wishing Lupa had accompanied me into the city. The more I was learning about Nicholas, the more these murders loomed as the major stumbling block to my mission, and no one was better equipped to get to the bottom of them than my friend Auguste Lupa.

My thoughts turned back to our earlier adventure together in Valence. When that had begun, I hadn’t known the man at all, other than by reputation. But that reputation was impressive. Though working as a chef and not yet 25 years old, Lupa had already established himself as the best espionage agent in Europe. When my friend and fellow agent Marcel Routier had been killed, Lupa and I were forced to work together, to confide in and trust one another, and out of that experience was forged a mutual respect and—perhaps unlikely, but true—a friendship.

Now, in this foreign setting, I felt that Lupa had been on the verge of confiding in me again while we talked at the train station, but that for some reason he had held back. That was cautious and reasonable, but
given the importance of my role here, and the necessity to understand the Czar and his court, it is also frustrating.

He must have his reasons. And, as everyone seems to agree, I must be patient.

But walking back to the train in the swirling snow, thinking of the shopkeeper mentality of the ruler of one sixth of the earth, I once again encountered a crowd in the street. Everyone was rapt with attention, though unnaturally quiet.

“What is happening?” I asked a woman who craned her neck to see over the heads in front of her. I could make out a phalanx of Cossacks on horseback but beyond that, nothing.

“They’ve arrested four men for stealing.”

She climbed to the parapet of a lamppost. Over the bitter wind, I heard a hoarse voice giving what sounded like military orders.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Peasants,” she answered, then added with heavy sarcasm, “The Czar loves his peasants.”

The voice of the commanding officer carried over the crowd, informing the people that theft in wartime is treason.

“What did they steal?” I asked the woman.

Then came the terrifying word. “Prigotov’tes’. Gotovy? Ready, aim …”

“Bread!” the woman shouted down at me. “They stole bread.”

“Ogan! Fire!”

The volley shattered the afternoon’s peace.

A moment of utter stillness was broken by the woman above me. From her perch above the street, she raised an arm into the air and let forth a call, thick with rage, that was taken up by the mob. As I backed away, the smell of gunpowder stinging my nose, my ears rang with the cries. “Long live the revolution! Down with the Czar! Down with Bloody Nicholas!”

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