The Lost Crown (27 page)

“Hush a minute. I want to see Dr. Derevenko’s face when he comes out of Aleksei’s bedroom.” Perhaps he notices the two of us peeking round the door jamb. He keeps his back to us as he speaks to Mama in the corridor, but even with his thick beard muffling his words I see Mama cross herself, and that is all I need to know.

“What will she do without
Otets
Grigori?” Olga whispers.

I shake my head. It hardly bears thinking about. “We have to do the best we can without him, for both Mama and Aleksei.”

There is nothing I can do about the Bolsheviks, nor the order from Moscow for all our people but the doctors to move out of the Kornilov house and submit to house arrest with us. What I can do is relieve Mama and Nagorny at Aleksei’s bedside. I can hold his hand when he cries, and the basin when he retches.

In spite of what Olga must think, doing these things does not empty my mind of the troubles outside Aleksei’s bedroom, especially the talk we have all heard about this so-called extraordinary commissar, a man named Yakovlev who is expected to arrive in town with orders from Moscow. Rumor has it he can have anyone who disobeys him executed without trial.
Bozhe moi
, not even Papa could do that! But I must not burn energy Aleksei and Mama need today on worrying over tomorrow. There is nothing I can do about Yakovlev until he arrives.

“I thought Baby would like it if I read to him,” Olga says, a blanket and a book clutched in her arms. She wears a sweater fastened to the neck over her black and gray tricot blouse, the one with the amethysts hidden in the buttons, and her face tightens when she tries to smile at Aleksei.

I go to the door and touch her hand. Cold, though her face is flushed. “
Dushka
, are you all right?”

“Colonel Kobylinsky has let four men inside to inspect the house,” she whispers. “I don’t think they’ll come in here. So if you don’t mind company …?”

“
Konechno
, come in. The pains stopped last night,
slava Bogu
, but he has not slept. Maybe reading will relax him.” I watch her perch on a chair beside Aleksei’s cot and tuck the blanket tightly round her legs, down to the toes of her tall leather boots.

“My feet won’t get warm today,” she says when she catches me looking at them. Our jewels are hidden in our buttons and sashes, not our shoes, but the way Olga’s eyes leap to the door and back makes me think she is covering up more than her boots. When Joy crawls out from under Aleksei’s cot to lay his head in her lap, I’m certain something is wrong.

“The medicines are all in order,” I reassure her. She nods, but not one centimeter of her relaxes until Papa comes in to tell us the men have gone.

“Are the men satisfied now?” Olga asks, her fingers combing nervously through Joy’s ears.

“I certainly hope so. Mama said no one bothered the medicines, but they’ve confiscated the dagger from my Cossack uniform.”

Aleksei’s face darkens. Olga’s goes white. “Your dagger,” Aleksei mourns. “Why?”

Papa pats Aleksei’s hand, but he looks at Olga when he answers. “To calm the riflemen, the colonel says. They aren’t keen on the idea of us keeping weapons.”

My voice flashes out before my thoughts. “How absurd! They call themselves soldiers, yet they cannot tell the difference between a common weapon and a ceremonial dagger?” One look at Olga and Aleksei and I regain myself. Carrying on this way is no help to anyone, least of all my delicate brother and sister.

Within the week the extraordinary commissar himself arrives, taking tea with our parents that same evening. “Polite,” Mama says afterward, “and he spoke to Monsieur Gilliard in French. Tomorrow when he returns I’ll make arrangements for walking to church during Passion Week.” She sounds satisfied with this Yakovlev, but that night, instead of their usual card game, Mama and Papa begin feeding their latest letters from Anya and our family into the tile stoves in Mama’s drawing room. Without a word, my sisters and I fetch our bundles of letters and do the same. Maria and Anastasia even burn their diaries.

As we suspected, Yakovlev arrives to inspect the house early the next morning. So early, in fact, that Mama is not ready to receive him and shuts herself into her room with Olga. The Little Pair and I join Papa in the corridor to greet the extraordinary commissar, just as we did for Commissar Pankratov’s arrival in September. I plant my feet and hold my chin perfectly parallel to the floor when I see the three men with him. I will not face Reds looking anything less than imperial, no matter how shabby my clothes have become.

“You remember Commissar Yakovlev,” Colonel Kobylinsky says to Papa, “and these are his comrades Rodionov, Avdeev, and Khokhryakov.”

When he smiles, Yakovlev’s bare cheeks gleam with embarrassment. His hair is as black as Chef Kharitonov’s. Although they are not large, his ears seem to flare out at the bottom. Now and then, he fiddles with the lobes as if he wants to tuck them back like a stray lock of hair. Yakovlev speaks as if he and Papa have not met before.

“Are you satisfied with your guard and accommodations?” he asks. “Do you have any complaints? I understand your son is ill. May I be permitted to look in on him?” He reminds me of Kerensky, always moving and rushing from one thing to the next, but this man seems more deliberate. “It is extremely important that I see him,” Yakovlev insists.

Papa turns to me. Aside from Mama, I have spent more time at Aleksei’s bedside than anyone during this crisis. In the last week the hemorrhage has eased, but he is still bedridden, weak from blood loss and crippled by the pressure the hematoma puts on his hip. For now, our Sunbeam can do nothing but wait for his body to reabsorb all the blood accumulated in the joint. None of this seems reason enough to deny the commissar’s request, though. As long as Aleksei remains quiet, he is in no danger. I nod, once.

“All right, but only you alone,” Papa agrees. Yakovlev fairly runs down the hall to our brother’s room, leaving Maria, Anastasia, and me awkwardly in front of Kobylinsky and the three other Bolshies. After a few moments, Yakovlev reappears at the end of the corridor and hurries in and out of each room in turn.

“He looks like a cuckoo bird, poking his head in and out,” Anastasia snuffles. A snap of my fingers behind my skirt hushes her just in time.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Yakovlev tells us. “My apologies for the interruption.”

“The empress would like to speak to Commissar Yakovlev about attending Easter services in town,” I remind Papa.

“Very well. I will return the day after tomorrow.” Yakovlev adds after a pause, “To make the necessary arrangements. What time will be most convenient?”

“After luncheon,” I tell Papa. “The empress will be ready then.”

“Are you able to come after luncheon?” Papa asks.

“Konechno.”
Yakovlev pulls out a small datebook to make a note. “Thank you again for your cooperation. Do you have much luggage?” he asks, stuffing the booklet back into his shirt pocket. Papa shakes his head absently, but Yakovlev’s parting question ruffles my brow. The two sides of this conversation seem not to match, as if he and Papa are passing two different threads through the same needle.

Before Mama has a chance to say the words “Passion Week,” Yakovlev announces, “Nikolai Alexandrovich, I have been assigned by the Council of People’s Commissars to remove you from Tobolsk. Departure is set for four o’clock tomorrow morning. Please be ready by that time.”

Across from me, Mama cries out as if she has been slapped, but I cannot break loose from my own shock to go to her. Even Papa’s mouth moves blankly before any words emerge. “And where am I being transferred?”

“I do not know myself. My orders will come when we are on the road. I should have liked to transport your whole family at once, but Aleksei Nikolaevich is obviously too ill to travel by carriage.”

Papa looks at Mama and strokes his beard. “I will not go.”

Mama’s voice surges up. “What are you doing with him? You want to tear him away from his family. How can you? He has an ill son. He can’t go, he must stay with us!”

The sound of Mama’s frenzy pries me from my seat, but my voice still sits trapped in my throat, as if I have swallowed one of our cotton-wrapped jewels.

“If you persist in this refusal, I will have to use force,” Yakovlev says, disregarding Mama’s tone. I watch his eyes, and they neither shift nor narrow as he speaks. Despite what he is saying, his steady tone reassures me. “I am responsible for your safety with my own life. You may bring any of your family and people that you choose,” he continues, gesturing round the room with both palms open. “The rest will follow by ship when the boy is well enough and the rivers have thawed.
Izvinite.
” He sneezes. “You have my word.”

My sisters would call me silly, but that sudden sneeze lends me another morsel of reassurance. Sneezing in the middle of a conversation means someone is telling the truth.

Papa replies as though he has heard not one word. “I have an ill son! How can I be separated from my family? I can’t go.”

“The departure is scheduled for four a.m.,” Yakovlev repeats. “Everyone who is going must be ready by that time.”

“This is too cruel,” Mama insists. Her voice is ragged with oncoming tears. I press my hand on her shoulder to steady both of us. “I don’t believe that you’ll do this.”

Yakovlev leaves without a word of argument.

Papa storms to the window. “They want to get me to Moscow to sign that Treaty of Brest. I would sooner have my hand cut off than do that,” he vows, slamming his fist into his open palm. Mama and I both jerk at the sound. Papa halts, looks a long time at us, and slowly unclenches his fingers.
“Sudba,”
he murmurs, and crosses himself. “The man gave his word,” he tells Mama. “You may come with me or stay with Aleksei. The decision is yours, Alix.”

Christ have mercy.

“Tatiana, run and fetch Monsieur Gilliard,” Mama says. I dash down the corridor to Aleksei’s room, aware for the first time of the tears streaking my cheeks. By the time we return Mama is alone, pacing and wringing her hands.

“Madame?” Monsieur Gilliard says.

Mama cannot even pause to explain. “The commissary says that no harm will come to the tsar, and that if anyone wishes to accompany him there will be no objection. I can’t let the tsar go alone. They want to separate him from his family as they did before.”

She talks in quick little gasps, the way a dog pants, leaving no space for us to answer her. Every time a thought seizes her, her hands flutter and she turns on a new path across the carpet. Too large for the room to contain, her anxiety vibrates through my own body like a tuning fork.

“They’re going to try to force his hand by making him anxious about his family. The tsar is necessary to them, they feel that he alone represents Russia. Together we shall be in a better position to resist them. I ought to be at his side in the time of trial. But Baby is still so ill—suppose some complication sets in? Oh, God, what ghastly torture!” She turns to us, and the look on her face makes me want to shut my eyes and fold my shoulders in like a shield over my heart. “For the first time in my life I don’t know what I ought to do,” she cries. “I’ve always felt inspired whenever I’ve had to make a decision, and now I can’t think!”

I have never in my life seen Mama like this—not at Spala, not when
Otets
Grigori was killed, not even when Papa abdicated. Sometimes her duty has frightened her, but she has always known what she must do. I step into her path, taking her by the hands. “Mama, you cannot go on tormenting yourself this way. If Papa has to go no matter what, then something must be decided.”

She blinks at me, suddenly still. “I’m going,” she says. “Without me there they’ll force him to
do
something again—that’s exactly what they’ve done already. Monsieur, please break the news to Aleksei. I must pack. Tatiana, tell your sisters.”

A wave crashes over me. Oh, my darling Mamochka, how can I? But I do not ask. I go and do it.

“One of us must go along to console her,” I tell them. “No matter how set her mind is, she will be completely worried and miserable without Aleksei.” My sisters look at me through tears and handkerchiefs. They know as well as I do that I am the best one of us at looking after Mama. But what about Aleksei? Someone must take care of him. I consider my three sisters, think of them left here alone without Mama, Papa, or me to watch over them, and my head swims. God help us.

Olga will be no good for Mama. The melancholy pair of them would only wallow and worry together. Anastasia would be a cheerful distraction, but Mama needs more than a
shvybzik
. Besides, Aleksei will be glad for Anastasia’s company. That leaves Maria and me to choose from.

Unlike Mama’s, my choice is painfully clear: We cannot both leave Aleksei behind. These last days, I am the only one Mama will allow to sit with him while she sleeps, and then only for a few hours. I will have to trust Mama to Dr. Botkin and Maria. Dear, sweet Mashka! How will we manage here without our fat little Bow-Wow?

“Mashka,
dorogaya
, you must go with Mama and Papa,” I tell her as I smooth her hair from her face and straighten her collar. Behind me, Anastasia bites back a sob. My chest twists. I have no choice but to be the knife that splits the Little Pair in two.

“Alone?” Maria whispers, looking first at Anastasia and then all of us with her wide, wide eyes. I can see her heart in them.

I nod, take a deep breath, and pray God will make me brave for Maria’s sake. “You are our good, cheerful, sturdy girl,” I tell her, squeezing her hands with each word, “and Mama needs you.”

“Not … not you, Tatya?”

My throat collapses, crushing what little I’d planned to say. I pull her into a bracing hug before she sees my chin quiver.

Like an angel of the Lord, Olga swoops in and saves me. “You are stronger than a Russian bear, sweetheart Mashka,” Olga says as I retreat to Anastasia’s side, “and more cheerful than Siberian sunshine. Remember what the princess in Nekrasov’s poem said? ‘Their lot by our presence we’ll brighten / By mildness we’ll soften their jailers, you’ll see / By patience their burdens we’ll lighten.’ Not one of us can do that as well as you. You’ll be better medicine for Mama than anything in Dr. Botkin’s black bag.”