The Last Romanov (24 page)

The flames coil, twirl, and embrace like lovers in the throes of passion, changing color from cobalt to ruby to liquid gold. Without warning and without exhibiting any sign of losing its intensity, an enormous belch emanates from the fire.

The alarmed revolutionary soldiers flee into the park, abandoning their backpacks, knives, vodka, and stolen spoils.

Rabbits and squirrels scramble out of holes and bushes, their fur standing on end, their fleeing paws marking the snow.

The red bird of paradise flutters overhead, tempted to take flight behind the blanket of ominous smoke overhead, but instead it circles and settles on a frozen branch.

Rasputin's prediction that his corpse would be disinterred and his body tormented after death has come true.

Not long after the Big Fire, as the disinterment of Rasputin came to be known, hope arrives in the person of Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, the Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government.

The unassuming, clean-shaven man who has vowed to deliver the Romanovs to safety steps down from the deposed Tsar's automobile that has been selected at random from the imperial garage. At the wheel is the Tsar's chauffeur, who hurries to open the car door. He salutes Kerensky as if he were the Tsar himself, then leads him in through the kitchen door.

Wearing a blue buttoned-up shirt without cuffs, his right hand thrust into his jacket, Kerensky appears as uncomfortable as a peasant in Sunday attire. He is tense, abrupt, the creak of his boots announcing him at every turn.

He stops to assess the surroundings, his restless feet tapping. He talks loudly, incessantly, now to Count Benckendorff. “Assemble the soldiers of the guard, the servants, and every person who works here.”

The count removes and inspects his monocle as if the solution to these never-ending horrors might be projected on the surface of the lens. He is caught in yet another thorny situation. Having no recourse, he scrambles to gather everyone in the hall. But not the Empress, Alexei, or the grand duchesses. He will spare them the humiliation. Dr. Botkin, the chef, a few servants, even Vasiliev and his men, congregate around the new Minister of Justice.

Kerensky's voice can be heard throughout the palace, the salons, the Portrait Hall, the Red Room, and the dining room, where the Imperial Family is having lunch.

“You no longer serve your old masters. You are the servants of the people now. They pay your salary and expect you to keep your eyes open and report anything suspicious. Consider yourselves under the order of the Commandant and the officers of the Guard.” Having ended his speech in this revolutionary manner, Kerensky addresses Benckendorff. “I am here to see how you live, inspect this place, and talk to Nicholas Alexandrovich.”

“I shall put the matter before his majesty,” Benckendorff replies curtly, having no intention of disturbing the family at lunchtime.

“A tour of the palace first,” Kerensky says, running ahead like a squirrel with his tail on fire. He opens random doors, enters rooms, then rushes out again, as if unable to make up his mind why he entered the space in the first place and what he is searching for. He steps into the Emperor's private quarters, stands in the center of the room to assess the surroundings. He opens every drawer, inspects every corner with great curiosity, glances under the furniture, the large writing desk, the bookcase, shifts leather-bound books around to peer behind them.

Then, without warning, Kerensky turns to Benckendorff and addresses him in an uncharacteristically low voice. “The woman with the opal eye.”

“Tyotia Dasha?”

“Yes, yes. I want to see her!”

“Allow me to inform her,” Benckendorff replies.

But Kerensky is already marching into the hall, and Benckendorff is forced to run ahead and lead him to Darya's quarters.

“Pardon us,” Benckendorff gestures to Kerensky, who marches behind him into the room. “The Minister of Justice, Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky.”

Kerensky lifts a hand to the brim of an invisible hat.

Darya ignores his salute. She confronts him with her unwavering opal gaze.

The Tsarevich is at the other end of the room, watching a movie the Pathé Film Company gave him during better times. Darya had installed a projector she secretly took from the screening room, and a wall is used as a makeshift screen to project a scene of a royal entourage with liveries and dogs hunting for the legendary aurochs.

Kerensky coughs, shoves his hand inside his coat, taps his nervous feet, and turns toward the Tsarevich as if to put him at ease, then says, “Everything is going well.”

“May the Tsarevich be excused, sir?” Darya asks.

“The
former
Tsarevich,” Kerensky corrects with a frown. “He may leave. I need answers to some questions the party has.”

“What could I add, sir, beyond what the party already knows?” Darya asks him after she shuts the door behind Alexei.

“A great deal, of course. You've lived with the family for more than twelve years. You're very close to them. But the family is a separate matter. This is about the Artists' Salon. Why was it terminated? What were the political inclinations of the artists?”

She digs her fingernails into her palms and struggles to keep her composure. “Are they under investigation, sir?”

“Yes, yes, they are.”

“But why, sir?”

“For different reasons, among them, suspicious contact with the Romanovs and their close attendants. And there's the matter of a certain painting of the Tsarevich in the arms of the Madonna. The authorities have been searching for it. Where is it?”

“I know nothing about such a painting, sir,” she replies, having no intention of guiding him to the Lilac Boudoir. “Why in the world, sir, is having a relationship with the Imperial Family a suspicious activity?”

“Please refrain from asking questions. The salon, in my understanding, was a façade for exploiting impressionable men and women into deceiving the masses with all types of bourgeois and religious art.” He spits the last two words out as if he discovered a cockroach in his mouth. “And I have been told that the Madonna painting conceals political messages.”

Darya smiles bitterly. “You have the wrong information, sir. The freedom and encouragement the artists received during that time was priceless. Do you know that
Murderous
Gods
and
Their
Victims
remains the Russian State Museum's most cherished acquisition? That sculpture was the work of Rosa Koristanova and was created right here in the Portrait Hall. And
The
Red
Aurochs
in the Mariinsky Theater was the longest-running ballet in our history. That, too, Igor Vasiliev shaped in our salon. I don't need to tell you, sir, about the international fame of Avram Bensheimer's portraits, I assume. So if giving birth to some of our most important contemporary art is a sin, then blame it on me, not the Imperial Couple. And as far as their political inclinations, if anything, the artists proved to be budding avant-gardes who found a forum to air their revolutionary ideas. That, I assume, would not displease you.”

Kerensky gauges her with a suspicious stare. “You are fond of the artists, even more so than the Romanovs, it seems—”

“Of course not, sir,” she interrupts. “It's just that I'm fond of art and what it has done for our country.”

He glances at his watch. “Before speaking to you further, I ask that everything we say will be kept secret. Is that understood?'

The room is silent. The rumbling of an armored car can be heard outside the palace gates. Someone is attempting to haul the bridge over the private island, the metallic screech of its locks evidence of damage. Darya rests her hand on her heart. Her old scars refuse to heal; they throb and flare with every ignited memory of Avram. He had mastered the art of hauling that bridge with soundless speed and efficiency so as to startle neither man nor swan, nor deer, nor bird of paradise. Will the bridge operate again one day? Too tired to speak now, she assures Kerensky she understands his concern.

“An important resolution has been passed by the council of ministers. No one outside the family must learn of it. The family is to leave Tsarskoe Selo.”

“Why, sir? Why? They like it here.”

“Yes, I understand, but nothing can be done now. They will have to leave.”

“Then perhaps they'll be allowed to settle in the Livadia Palace.”

“No! The Crimea is too close to the capital. It will be dangerous. I am responsible for them and shall do everything in my power to send them as far as possible from danger. I don't want to become the Russian Marat,” he says, referring to Jean-Paul Marat, the radical French revolutionary who was the cause of much bloodshed. “Our autocratic rule must be eliminated, no doubt, but without bloodshed.”

Darya tries to swallow the lump forming in her throat. “Then send them to England, to the Tsar's cousin, if you have to. It's far enough.”

Kerensky passes a hand over his full head of hair. “We will see. That is a possibility, it certainly is. Tell them to begin packing but do nothing to arouse any suspicions.”

Say bye-bye to your palace,
Gospodin
Polkovnik
!” the oily-faced, unshaven Vasiliev shouts to the Tsar.

Nicholas II averts his eyes from Vasiliev's red armband. In the past months, Nicholas was called worse names than
Gospodin
Polkovnik
—Mr. Colonel—and he will not react now, in front of his family congregated in the foyer, awaiting the train that will, according to Kerensky, transport them to safety, wherever that might be.

The Imperial Family has developed an odd friendship with Kerensky, who has made every effort to assure the provisional government of Alexandra's loyalty to Russia and has ordered the newspapers—
Russkoe-Slovo
,
Russkaia-Volia
,
Retch
,
Novoe-Vremia
, and
Petrogradsky
Listok
—to end their campaign against her. Kerensky is not a bad sort, Nicholas thinks to himself, not bad at all.

Vasiliev raises his rifle and jabs the butt into the ribs of Nicholas II.

The startled Emperor groans and stumbles back a few steps, clutching his cane to break his fall.

Darya's hand flies up to her left eye. A crack is forming in the opal, a thin fissure in the center of the orb. For decades to come, every time she will gaze at her cracked opal eye in the mirror, she will be reminded of this shameful moment: the moment Russia lost her soul.

Vasiliev sneers, revealing his rotting teeth. “You, Citizen Darya Borisovna, unlike Mr. Colonel here, are free to go.”

“Where are you taking my family?” she asks.

“None of your business! Grab your fucking luck and run!”

“To what do I owe this honor?”

Vasiliev holds up three fingers. “One! To the Big Fire you put out. Two! You have a way of scaring the fucking daylights out of my comrades, and they want you gone. And three! To rumors that you are an evil witch. So, go! Get the fuck out of here!”

Darya squares her shoulders. Crosses her arms in front her chest. “I will accompany Their Majesties to the end of the world.”

Vasiliev doubles over with laughter. Finally, he straightens and sucks in his breath. The laughter is replaced by loud hiccups. “Well, well, Comrade Spiridova! Don't be shocked then if you
do
find yourself at the end of the world.”

“Nothing shocks me these days. Not even the dreadful future inscribed across your forehead,” Darya replies calmly.

Vasiliev's hiccups die in his chest. “And what is that future?”

“I see Rasputin's spirit looming over you, haunting you the rest of your life. I see you and yours forever burning in fires far worse than the Big Fire you experienced that night. I see your entire family—”

“All right! Stop this nonsense. Stay, if you're that stupid!” Vasiliev shouts as if reining wild horses. “Move! Collect your personal belongings. I'm talking to you, Comrade Spiridova! What are you waiting for?”

Darya hurries to her quarters, her most pressing concern the logistics of transporting the ambergris without attracting attention. Kerensky has promised to allow the family to take their portable valuables with them. But how is she to explain the ambergris without alerting potential thieves? She decides to divide the ambergris in two, stuffing the pieces into pillowcases she sews tightly. She places the pillows at the bottom of two suitcases and piles layers of clothing on top. She drags out a trunk from storage and sets it next to the suitcases. With the stubborn determination of a rebellious child, she crams the trunk with colorful clothes of all shapes, velvet and ermine and sable stoles, jewel-encrusted gowns with gossamer trails, the lightest embroidered damask skirts, and buttery kid gloves ordered by the Empress from Paris. Even if she is exiled to the heart of Siberia, Darya vows, where spit will freeze in her mouth and winters will snap her opal eye in two, she will make a point of flaunting imperial opulence that has become a thorn in the side of the revolutionaries.

The train that is supposed to transport the Imperial Family and its retinue to the unknown destination does not arrive. The sleepless night stretches into dawn. Boxes, trunks, and suitcases are piled outside the main entrance of the palace.

Dry-eyed, hair pulled back, Alexandra is seated in a chair in the foyer, Alexei's head in her lap. She tugs at a strand of hair tumbling over his forehead, pulling and coiling it around her forefinger. Every now and then, she attempts a sad smile at her daughters, who, huddled around her, doze off and on. They are beautiful young ladies. A world of possibilities await them. Olga is twenty-two; Tatiana, twenty; Maria, eighteen; and Anastasia, already sixteen. God willing, they would be allowed to settle in England with their British cousins, enjoy a peaceful life, wed, and raise their own families.

Darya sits on top of her trunk next to her suitcases. She grieves silently, bidding farewell to Tsarskoe Selo, to the twelve wondrous years she spent here, to the red bird of paradise that refused to flee the night of the Big Fire. But she is not ready to bid Avram farewell. The knot that binds them tightens with each passing day.

What will happen to him now? What will happen to all of them?

Kerensky is in the process of yet another endless argument on the phone, which was reconnected in the foyer for his personal use.

“Sir, where is the provisional government sending us?” she asks when he ends the call.

“To Tobolsk,” he replies absentmindedly, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “The people of Tobolsk will not object to the family's move there. They remain loyal to Nicholas Alexandrovich.”

“But for how long, sir?”

“Until the Constituent Assembly meets in November. Then you can all return here. Or go anywhere you like.”

“When will the train arrive?”

Kerensky fidgets with his hands as if noticing them for the first time, thrusts one in his pants pocket, the other into the front of his jacket.

“They are not sending a train, sir. Are they?” she asks.

“The railway personnel are being hostile,” he replies, turning on his heels and marching away noisily in search of the Emperor, who, hands clasped behind his back, paces back and forth by the main door.

“I apologize for the delay,” Kerensky tells him. “But you have my assurance that the provisional government has guaranteed your safety.”

“Thank you, my friend.” Nicholas says, stepping out and gesturing to Kerensky to follow him. “I want you to know that you have done your best for us. And whatever happens in the future is the will of God.”

The wail of an arriving train can be heard in the distance.

Nicholas offers his hand to Kerensky. “I feel tired and old these days and look forward to spending the rest of my life in peaceful anonymity with my family. I will pray for your success.”

“The train is at the station!” Kerensky announces to the group inside the palace.

The servants are ordered to transport the trunks and suitcases to the station.

The morning sun struggles to penetrate the blanket of smoke that continues to cast a gloomy shadow over the village. Trees stand at attention like sentinels adorned with worthless medals. Ruby-eyed hawks take flight in the distance.

Inside, Olga and Maria awaken Tatiana and Anastasia, pat their hair into place, and tell them it's time to leave. Olga crushes a damp kerchief in her fist, turns her face away from her younger sisters, and attempts to swallow her tears.

Alexei has fallen asleep in his mother's lap, and his spaniel snores at his side.

Darya, eager for a resolution to this endless waiting, gently shakes him awake. “We're leaving, my Tsarevich. Say good-bye to your home. Take your time. Don't let the guards frighten you.”

“Are you coming, Darya?”

“Of course I am. I'll always be at your side wherever you go.”

The family and their entourage enter the automobiles that will transport them to the train station. Kerensky takes his seat in the imperial car at the head of the motorcade. Mounted Cossacks flank the retinue as the automobiles roar into gear and speed through the gates, spitting gravel across Alexander Palace, the imperial home of twenty-three years.

Count Benckendorff stands at the door to the palace, one hand raised in a formal salute, the other clutching a medal of St. Nicholas of Bari given to him by the Empress as a token of her gratitude.

He will remain behind to look after the personal affairs of the Tsar until the family returns—keeping the palace in order, paying the few servants staying behind, and assuring the remaining valuables and artwork are not plundered.