The Last Romanov (3 page)

The raging animal emerges from a narrow path between two massive firs. With his harplike horns, flaring nostrils, and fur dark as obsidian, he lumbers toward Sabrina.

She aims her rifle and fires a single bullet between the animal's eyes. An excruciating howl reverberates through the woods, alerting the huntsmen that the first aurochs has been felled. The animal shudders, disturbing the wet underwood and raising the stench of decay. She finishes off the aurochs with a second shot.

Cheeks flushed, face beaded with perspiration, a drop of blood blossoms on her lower lip, which she has bitten in her excitement. She pulls out a hunting knife from her belt and slowly, calmly, approaches the aurochs and severs the right forehoof, a strong, clean cut through skin, bone, and sinews.

Boris steps out from behind the trees and strides toward her. She holds his gaze, reaches out for his hand, and places the forehoof in his palm, closing his fingers around her trophy.

He wipes her lips with his thumb, raises it to his mouth, and licks her blood.

She lets loose laughter that hums like a hundred harps. The moment she saw him on his black stallion with his wide chest and big hands against the backdrop of that great cliff, she knew he would belong to her.

She unbuckles her belt, lifts her skirt, and tucks the hem into her waist.

Boris falls to his knees and slides his hands up her thighs to her linens and slips them low, his caressing tongue between her breasts as she eases herself onto him and the humid carpet of moss and earth.

***

Nine months later, mother and father hold their newborn daughter in the Belovezh Estate they have made their home since the day of the imperial hunt. Half-naked among pine trees, comfortable with the wild animals and a population of aurochs that continues to diminish since Sabrina and her borzoi arrived, they gaze at their daughter until the half dome of the sun rises above the jagged edge of the dolomite cliff and the skies turn into a fury of colors.

She is beautiful, they whisper to one another. Look at her golden eyes, they murmur. But God works in strange ways. What, they wonder, is the Lord attempting to tell them? Why is their daughter born with an opal eye? Not dull and lifeless as mined opal can be, but gold-colored, vibrantly translucent, observing them with the unexpected wisdom of second sight.

Boris tells Sabrina that this child, their daughter with an opal eye, must be a punishment for some unknown sin he might have committed. Sabrina will not hear of it. She is certain that their daughter is a blessing that will further embellish their love.

Sabrina Josephine holds her seven-year-old daughter's face between two hands and kisses her on her opal eye. “You are special, my darling. Different than other girls. You'll change our world one day. This I know. But to do that, you'll have to keep evil at bay. Come, I'll teach you a secret. Turn and spit three times behind your left shoulder to ward off the evil eye.”

Darya plants her hands on her hips, cocks her head, and replies that she does not believe in the evil eye or any other such superstitious nonsense and that she will certainly not spit like a fool behind her shoulder. She is unaware that in a few hours, she will do just that, and in ten years, she will spit not only in the face of bad luck trailing behind, but here, there, and everywhere, each time she is ambushed by a looming sense of foreboding.

Sabrina adjusts her rifle behind one shoulder, bunches up her ruffled skirts, and plunges her suede boots into a stream running the length of the Belovezh Estate. Her carefree laughter peals about the forest as she wades across the stream, water hissing and splashing around stones and boulders. She skips past a rock, down one corner, winds her way around a pebbled path, then climbs a set of planks set to divert the stream toward a wide meadow. She does not care that her suede boots are darkening with mud, water rising up her legs and the hem of her velvet skirts. She likes all manners of stylish attire but also this freedom, the Belovezh Forest, and to live as one with wildlife, lush vegetation, birdsong, and the call of animals. Home for more than seven years, this is where she and Boris continue to plan vast hunting expeditions for the pleasure of Nicholas II, who is the Emperor now. And to his wife's endless joy, the billing and cooing birds of paradise, with their vibrant colors, flowing feathers, and penchant for procreation have multiplied, their love chatter bouncing around the forest. The demanding females are drawn to the most eccentric costumes: the goldie with its narcissistic mating cry that sounds like a trumpet, the
Carola
parotia
with its wiry whiskers and exaggerated courting rituals, the ribbon-tailed
astrapia
with its cumbersome diaphanous tail that has a way of attracting numerous mates, and the whispering blue bird of paradise with its modest ways that is especially endearing to Empress Alexandra.

Sabrina gestures behind with an open palm to Darya, who quietly slips her hand into hers. They walk like that together, hand in hand, ducking under branches of ancient oaks and white firs spread out in all directions. A squirrel scurries past, startling them both. Darya does not like to be surprised. She would rather know what is around, be prepared for the unexpected. Their surroundings become spare, almost bare, a sliver of sun appearing between congregating clouds until, wet and satiated from their long walk, they step out of the stream and into an open meadow dotted with tiny daisies, all types of foliage, and beaten-down wild herbs.

Darya pulls her hand out of Sabrina's. “Look, Mama! Why are they all staring?” A distance away, in the center of the meadow, all types of animals—deer, rabbits, squirrels, foxes, even rats—have emerged from their hiding places as if summoned by order of the Emperor himself.

“Remarkable,” Sabrina mutters, struggling to conceal her alarm. “Why would all these animals come out in full view in this open field when they are surrounded by predatory beasts?”

But this is not what concerns Darya. She is certain they have come out to punish her, come out as one to reprimand her for being a bad girl, for doing something very wrong.

“Do you see it, Mama?” she asks Sabrina, turning up to the sky as if the darkening clouds hold an inexplicable threat.

Sabrina detects nothing. All she sees are clouds the shade of metal, hanging low and heavy in the horizon. But she has learned to trust Darya's instincts, especially when it has to do with animals. She has learned early on that Darya, with her gaze that can travel far and bore into hidden places, can see things others don't.

“A storm is on the way, darling. We better return before the animals become nervous and Papa sends a troop looking for us.”

It has happened before to Darya, this sense of fear that makes her self-aware as if she were standing outside her body, observing herself with critical eyes and not liking what is revealed. Or is it the way the animals glare at her with their kohl or red-rimmed eyes and the rest of their faulty design, which leaves all their proportions disturbingly out of balance. Long or short, skinny legs folded at awkward angles. Thick or thin twitching whiskers. Piercing eyes of all shapes that grab and hold her in a condemning grip.

Then she sees it. A deer in the center of the crowd, splayed in an awkward position, its gaze fixed on her.

“Mama, look,” she cries out. Even from this distance, she can tell that all four hooves are skinned and raw as the bloody chicken livers their cook fries with red peppers and heaps of diced onions. She runs around the meadow, kneels to check one plant after another, breaks a flower off the stem, yanks an herb by the roots, tastes and sniffs the leaves. “Weeds, just weeds!” she complains, crushing a flower in her fist.

“Dasha! Stop digging in there,” Sabrina calls out to her daughter. “Now! Before something bites your fingers off.”

“Oh! Mama, can't you see it needs help?”

“What, darling, what needs help? Be careful, I said!”

But Darya hears nothing but the faint reverberations in her head, the secrets of identifying hawthorn berries, calendula leaves, lavender petals, and arnica in the forest. How to extract their essential oils to create a healing paste.

Sabrina shakes the water off her skirt, adjusts the rifle over one shoulder, and tightens her wide belt. Her loop earrings dance in a fury of copper shades as she runs to catch up with her daughter, who has cut a path through the animals and is already kneeling by the deer.

“It happens in the forest, Dasha, because of the carnivorous pitcher plants. They secrete a sticky substance that lures the animals into a puddle of enzymes and acid that eats into their skin and flesh. It's a wonder this one escaped. There's nothing we can do but put the poor soul out of its misery.”

But Darya will not hear of death. Neither will beast nor nature. The surroundings become still, paralyzed, stilted and heavy with what might happen if Sabrina fires her rifle. Not one leaf or petal moves. The birds of paradise are mute. The drone of insects has ceased. Not one single roar or warning grunt can be heard from the aurochs. Sabrina does not notice the frozen surroundings, but Darya does. She records the stillness. Suffers a sharp pain in her opal eye. Fear squeezes her insides, crawls up to claw at her throat, and rises to coat her tongue with the pungent taste of ash. This is the moment she will always remember, a moment of discovery when bad luck might have crept up on her from behind, cold and silent and hair-raising.

She turns and spits three times behind her left shoulder. “There, Mama, will this kill the evil eye?”

Sabrina locks the rifle and slings it back across her shoulder. “This is what I've been told, Dasha. I see you've become a believer.”

Darya touches her opal eye. “Is this the evil eye, Mama?”

“Oh, darling, don't say that! On the contrary. It's magic. The reason you are different in a beautiful way. I could hardly bear to think that part of you might be living in the dark.”

“But what is wrong with me, Mama? Why is my eye different?”

For a fleeting instant, Sabrina wonders if her daughter is being punished for the sin of her parents, for their having consummated their relationship out of wedlock. But her daughter was born of love, Sabrina muses, and as such, she must be rewarded, not punished.

So, in the forest, surrounded by all types of beasts with obstinate glaring eyes and a sickly deer with skinned hooves that Darya cures with a soothing touch and a concoction of healing plants—Sabrina tells Darya, “I don't know, my darling. I don't know why you were born with an opal eye, why you are different. I wish I knew. What I know is that you are our special blessing, mine and your father's. You are magic, my darling. You will change the world one day. That's all I know. Perhaps one day you'll find out the truth.”

Sixteen-year-old Darya has been summoned to the Livadia Palace, the summer residence of the Imperial Family. The Empress is not well. Dr. Eugene Botkin, the court physician, has determined that in addition to sciatica, the Empress suffers from an inherited weakness of the blood vessels, which can lead to progressive hysteria. He has ordered her to visit the Nauheim spa for a cure, but the Empress will not hear of it. Convinced that nothing short of a miracle can cure her, she refuses to follow Dr. Botkin's orders, take medication, or be subjected to any further medical procedures.

In a letter to Sabrina Josephine, the Empress acknowledges she has been ill nearly all the time. She can rarely appear at formal events, and when she does, she is afterward long laid up. Overtired muscles of the heart, her letter states. “I have rested,” the Empress writes, “but am not cured. I need to get well for the sake of my family. I have decided to travel to Yalta to rest at my beloved estate. You wrote that Darya Borisovna seems to possess a healing touch. Perhaps she might heal me too. Bring her to me.”

Having traveled to Yalta by train for long, dreary hours, surrounded by nothing but the flat emptiness of the Ukrainian steppe, the lush Yalta panorama is a welcome sight as Darya and her parents make their way to the Livadia Estate. Stretches of beach glitter like crushed glass. A replica of a Greek boat on shore is reminiscent of a long ago past, when Greek sailors settled here to sell handmade gold jewelry that remains buried in plains and ancient burial mounds. All around the pine-lined boulevards, venders hawk red garlic, the popular snack of the region. Families stroll under the shade of ancient
zemlyanichnik
, the red-bark, broad-leafed evergreens. The tropical park of Prymorsky looks down upon the dark waters below, unaware that in less than two decades the entire political and cultural geography of the region will change and a statue of Lenin will be erected here.

Darya flips her shoes off and digs her toes into the warm sand. Suddenly her mouth fills with the taste of bitter ash. It has happened before. Each time she feels a sense of foreboding, originating in her belly and rising like bile to coat her tongue.

“What is it?” Sabrina Josephine asks. “Is it visiting the Empress?”

“I'm not certain, Mama,” Darya replies. “I think I am ill myself.”

Boris presses his thumb to his daughter's wrist to count her pulse, checks her eyes and the color on her cheeks. Her pulse is fast, but other than that she seems to be in good health. “Come, it's nothing that a moment's rest won't cure,” he says, leading her to a seaside bench.

They sit there, all three, facing the sea. Darya is in deep thought, fearing she will fail to help the Empress. It is true that she has cured animals such as the deer with the skinned hooves by applying a concoction of leaves, wild flowers, and roots and the aging borzoi with valerian roots steeped in chamomile. She also treated the scurvy that inflicted the grooms with a pomade of beeswax and essence of lemon peel, relieved the stable hand of miserable spells of hay fever with syrup from the sap of trees, and eased the ache in her father's muscles after a hunt with salve from the marrow of exotic flora and fauna crushed with feverfew leaves and chickpea paste. She had even saved her father from the lethal venom of the fierce snake. But it is different with the Empress. The problems Her Majesty suffers from seem to stem from her heart. This is what Boris and Sabrina say. This is what all the newspapers claim. What does she, Darya, know about the human heart?

Sabrina unlocks her necklace, cups her hands around the jeweled Fabergé egg, and tells her daughter that it has helped her at times of difficulty. Snapping the egg open, she says, “Come closer, darling, and inhale.”

The marvelous scent emanating from the enameled belly of the egg strikes Darya with unexpected force. Against her will, she finds herself reaching out as if to touch some pockets of past pain, some powerful emotions she does not yet understand. She is crying uncontrollably, eye-stinging tears that startle Boris and Sabrina.

“Why, darling?” Sabrina asks. “Ambergris is pure magic! Take advantage of its healing potential.”

But Darya is inconsolable. She tells Sabrina that the scent evokes the woman who came to her last night in her sleep. She appeared at midnight like a warning, teetering at the fringes of Darya's dream. Appeared with a certain unnerving calmness, a prayer book in her hand.

I
am
the
Ancient
One,
she said
. I come to you from long ago and far away. I will be here to guide you, warn you of looming misfortunes, of births and deaths and blessings.
She held her book up and told Darya to see her name inscribed in fiery letters.
Do
not
be
afraid
, the Ancient One encouraged.
Come
closer.

But Darya did not move. “This is not my name,” she whispered.

You
are
both
women
, the Ancient One replied. Then, one by one, she lifted the churning veils concealing her to reveal a dazzling smile.

Darya was comforted. The woman had a kind face. Then, as suddenly, her features began to soften and melt and drip. Her windblown blouse and skirt, which Darya had found beautiful, began to stiffen, shrink, and tighten like metal chains, hampering her fluid movements. She walked with great difficulty, as if fighting tidal waves, struggling ahead toward a ritualistic fire into which she disappeared. Darya startled awake, chilled to the bone, her opal eye throbbing in its socket.

“Listen to the Ancient One, darling,” Sabrina advises her daughter. “Pay attention. She must be wise beyond our understanding. What was the other name in the book the Ancient One showed you?”

“I don't remember, Mama, I was scared. My nightgown was stuck to my body when I woke up. I felt like a prisoner. I couldn't breathe.”

Sabrina presses the jewel into Darya's hand. “The scent calms me, maybe it will do the same for you. It was a gift from the Empress when she introduced me to your father. Come, darling, look at the valuable piece of ambergris embedded here. The scent is still strong after sixteen years. Cherish it. You can't find it anywhere. Once gone, even the Empress won't be able to replenish it.”

The Livadia Estate is resplendent under the warm sun, brimming with pine clover, its lush parks sloping toward the Black Sea with its iodine-rich breezes. The imperial summer home occupies most of the peninsula, nineteen kilometers west of Yalta, where the southern coast of the Crimea spreads over the shores of Mount Moghabi. The unfortunate death of the Emperor's father, Tsar Alexander III, in the smaller palace here, prompted Tsar Nicholas II to set a future date to raze both palaces and replace them with ones better suited to the taste of the Imperial Couple.

For now, gardeners are busy pruning, shearing, clearing the ponds dotted with water lilies, scooping out a stray leaf, petal, or dead bee from the pond. Cossacks on horseback patrol the perimeter of the park. They wear red tunics, sabers swing at their sides, and black boots flash in sunlight. They raise their ushanka caps to salute Darya and her parents.

The Byzantine-style Church of the Exaltation of the Cross looks down upon the palaces below. A flock of boisterous crows circle above the Greek cross on top of the steeple as if mourning a death. The taste of ash is thick in Darya's mouth.

On the horizon, whale humps bob on the surface of the Black Sea. Boris Spiridov tells his daughter that the ambergris in the jeweled egg she now wears around her neck comes from a sperm whale like the one out there. “Did you know that sperm whales suffer from terrible indigestion, sweetheart? Their belching sounds like volcanic eruptions that echo around the hills and startle the people.”

Darya smiles for the first time that day.

She is unaware that in a few years, once the construction of the new Livadia Palace is completed, she will walk the same path and explain the same phenomenon to her beloved young charge, the Tsarevich, Alexei Romanov.

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna is in her private chambers, playing Bach on the piano. Maria and Anastasia, the four- and two-year-old grand duchesses, flank her on the bench. They are all in white, encircled by luscious folds of whipped silk and organza. The embroidered silver threads in the Empress's sleeves and high collar are dazzling; the pearls around her throat and diamond-studded golden red hair are magnificent.

Margaretta Eagar, Irish governess to all four grand duchesses, stands behind the piano, ready to take the children away for their afternoon nap before settling down with her newspapers.

At the sight of guests being led in, Miss Eagar claps twice, announcing nap time. But the grand duchesses hop down from the piano bench and run toward Darya, who whisks them up into her arms. The Empress holds on to the piano and pulls herself up to greet Darya and Sabrina with a hug. Boris bows and plants a kiss on her hand. He steps back into the shadows, relinquishing the arena to the ladies. His main responsibility on this trip is to look after the safety of his wife and daughter on the long travel here and back home.

The Empress is indeed ill, Darya muses, appearing frailer than she has seen her on previous occasions. No color on her cheeks. Even her eyes have lost their gray-green spark. Darya's heart turns into a painful fist in her chest until the Empress begins to chat with Sabrina.

“Here you are, my dear missed friend. Come make yourself comfortable. How radiant you look. And you, Boris Spiridov, you must be tired, but Nicky is expecting you. He holds smaller meetings these days as he finds discussions and opinion exchanges more useful in small groups. Four ministers just left, so join him in the study. He is eager to take you for a swim. I have not been good company to my poor family these days. And you, dear Darya, how are you? Olga and Tatiana are here. They'll be happy to see you. I like that necklace on you; it brings back fond memories. Come, Sabrina Josephine, tell me all about your latest hunting adventures. We so enjoy the expeditions you arrange. And my birds of paradise? Are they well? No longer bothered by those vicious aurochs, I assume.”

The butlers serve cups of hot tea with cakes and English biscuits, sweet vatrushka, and sweetmeats set on small white-draped tables. Although it is not yet suppertime, an extra table is set with blinis and fresh caviar.

Darya dislikes caviar, nor can she bear to have hot tea, but to please the Empress, she accepts an offered cake, takes a bite, and offers the girls a bite each. What she craves are the wild berries heaped in a bowl on top of the piano that the imperial children pick for their mother.

Maria taps on Darya's necklace and attempts to open the enamel egg. Anastasia pulls on one of Darya's black curls, coiling it around one finger, then another. Darya wraps her arms around them, gives them an affectionate squeeze, plants a kiss on each of Maria's blue eyes, which the family affectionately calls Maria's saucers.

Anastasia reaches out and pokes Darya's opal eye.

The pain sends Darya reeling.

“Anastasia! No!” The Empress scolds the two-year-old. “You hurt Darya.”

Her eye on fire, Darya attempts to catch her breath. There she is again, the Ancient One, somewhere on the fringes of her pain, no more than a shadow, a fleeting imprint behind her eyelids. She is saying something, whispering words that Anastasia's whimpering snuffs out.

“Don't cry,” Darya attempts to soothe the child. “I did this once too, because I thought it didn't hurt. But it does.”

The Empress orders the children to nap. She kisses the tip of her two fingers and touches them to her daughters' cheeks, sending them away.

Finally, Sabrina asks the Empress about her health. “Not well, my dear, not at all. And the family is making it more difficult for me to recuperate. I suffered a miscarriage, my dear. Terrible. And Nicky's sisters are insinuating that the pregnancy was psychological, blaming Philippe Vachot. Poor chap, he's an innocent mystic who's been doing everything in his power to influence the gender of the baby. But alas! It was too early to know. Xenia went so far as to call it a minor miscarriage, and the other sister spread rumors that it was a hysterical pregnancy. So hurtful, my dear. I wish people would not meddle in my affairs.”

Sabrina shifts her chair closer to the Empress and drapes an arm around her shoulders. “My poor Alix. I didn't know. How you must have suffered. When did it happen?”

“Six months to the day. We were devastated.”

“You must come to us then, as soon as you're well enough to travel. The Belovezh air will do you good.”

“Yes, I promise. Now, tell me about yourself and all about Darya Borisovna. How is she doing in her studies?”

Sabrina tells the pleased Tsarina that Darya is fluent in English now and explains how well she is doing in her spiritual studies. So well, in fact, that in a short time she has become more knowledgeable than the mystic the Empress dispatched to the Belovezh Estate to counsel and hone Darya's healing powers.

“Come, my dear. Come closer.” The Empress gestures to Darya, sitting quietly, attempting to ignore her eye, which only makes it throb harder.

Darya takes the offered seat next to the Empress, suddenly content to be here, content to be close to the unexpected warmth emanating from the Empress. Darya's heart settles. The Empress is not ill. Lonely, perhaps, and craving the company of her friend. It is not easy, after all, to be disliked by her in-laws, who consider her arrogant and aloof and regard her as a German with an atrocious French accent who lacks the necessary vitality to produce an heir to the throne. In return, the Empress, in the spirit of the Orthodox faith, only trusts the common people who believe in the inalienable right of the autocratic system, not the aristocracy with their lack of faith and depravity and their unending criticism of her ways. They even critique her taste in art and clothing, which they find middle class and less than imperial, and they go so far as to count with lurid interest the number of times the Empress smiles in public.