The Lost Crown (34 page)

Even with the soldier in earshot, I tell Isa everything I can about the last eight months, sliding in a mouthful of English or French here and there when the guard’s attention seems to wander. In bits and pieces, I make her understand about Rodionov’s daily roll calls, the humiliation of the clergy, and even the jewels we’re carrying.

“You poor, brave things,” Isa says. “It’s no wonder you’re looking so tired and pale.”

“Tatiana and I have been keeping up a brave face, for Papa and Mama as much as the little ones. I think that tires me more than anything.”

“I don’t trust these men in the least. I was roughly searched myself when Commissar Yakovlev arrived in town. Almost the whole time I sat shivering in my nightgown while they rifled through my things. They even made me brush my hair to prove I wasn’t hiding anything in it. And today, when I went below to put my luggage in my cabin, there were soldiers in my dressing room! It took a good deal of complaining to have them dislodged. If I were you, I wouldn’t undress tonight.”

I nod, feeling as though I’ve swallowed a bottle of thick black ink.

Before I can even think about how to warn my sisters not to undress, Rodionov shuts Aleksei in his cabin and locks the door.

Nagorny bangs from the inside. “A sick boy—he can’t even get out to the lavatory!”

“He can’t walk anyway,” Rodionov retorts. “Let him use the chamber pot.”

Nagorny shouts and swears, demanding that at least Dr. Derevenko should be allowed in and out.

“I’ve had enough of your imperial insolence,” Rodionov yells back, and stalks down the passage, locking one door after another until all our men are trapped in their rooms. At our cabin, he stops. “You are still under arrest,” he informs my sisters and me. “As in Tobolsk, your doors will stand open at all times.”

God in heaven! Trapped on a steamer swarming with guards, and all our men locked away in their own cabins? The jewels sewn into my underthings cling to my ribs like strips of hot metal.

I don’t have to say a word to Tatiana and Anastasia—not one of us will consider undressing with that door hanging open. I think of the poor nuns and priest, of the soldiers inspecting Isa’s room right down to her hair, and I know I cannot let Rodionov’s guards near us. If we’re discovered hiding these jewels, God only knows what will happen.

As the night wears on, laughter and gunfire echo from the decks above. Between the ringing of boot heels come seagulls’ squalls punctuated by limp thuds over our heads. When the machine gun rattles, it startles the three of us so, we all shriek and then giggle sheepishly at one another. Our laughter sounds as out of place as the gunfire, but it will splinter us if we hold it in.

Khokhryakov’s voice carries down the passage, “Don’t be afraid, Aleksei Nikolaevich. The men are only shooting at birds.”

Why doesn’t he come to reassure my sisters and me, too?

Sentries pass before our open door, but they are not the men of our household like they were in Tobolsk. I can’t stop thinking of how Rodionov told Aleksei,
The master is gone. It is all ours
. I have a feeling that if they searched us, they might not stop at our layer of jewels.

My back straightens. Whatever these men might think they are entitled to, I will not let them take it from my sisters. I wish to God I hadn’t let Colonel Kobylinsky convince me to leave my little gun behind in Tobolsk. What good it would have done against so many rifles, bayonets, and hand grenades, I don’t know, but it made me feel I had some speck of control over my own fate.

“Go to sleep, you two,” I tell Tatiana and Anastasia. “I’m going to sit up awhile and read.” I prop a pillow against a chair, lay my copy of
L’Aiglon
on the table, and hide my trembling hands in my lap. Thinking of the chat Mr. Gibbes and I could have about the irony of an ex-tsar’s daughter reading a drama about the son of Napoleon brings on a small smile to help put my sisters at ease. As slight a man as he is, even Mr. Gibbes would be a comfort now.

Once Tatiana and Anastasia surrender to sleep, I turn my chair to face the passage. Within a few minutes, Ortipo and little Jemmy pad out of my sisters’ bunks to take up posts on either side of the door frame. Each time a soldier approaches our cabin, the dogs’ low growls warn me.

Fixing my gaze, I meet the eyes of every man who passes. Forcing them to see me, making sure they know I’m watching, is all the defense I have.

Whether I turn my mind toward the future or the past, my thoughts give me no more peace than the guards. I cannot read my books about Napoleon and the French Revolution and pretend not to know how it came to this. Anger doesn’t grow this thick and fast without soil rich enough to root in. For over twenty years my parents carried the fate of an entire nation in their hands. Now, we seven are in the hands of the Russian people. For all Papa and Mama’s good intentions, we are paying the price for whatever they did to cost their subjects’ happiness.

But what could they have done, my gentle papa and my sick mama, to make men desperate enough to organize mutinies and throw bombs? Those revolutionaries back in Petrograd, the ones Mama called hooligans, must have been trying to make their voices heard in the only way they knew how. If I thought it would make someone see what we’re enduring on this very ship, I would light a bomb myself.

The evil in the world now will be stronger still before this is all over,
Papa said.
It is not evil that conquers evil, but love.

If Papa is right, I do not want to be part of the evil. And if I can forgive Papa and Mama for their part in this, I must forgive our captors, too. Papa and Mama and Tatiana believe the revolutionaries must be forgiven for disrespecting the Romanov dynasty. It seems to me their real sin is disregarding our humanity. No matter what happens tonight, there is a part of me our jailers cannot touch. Papa has his meekness, Mama her pride, Tatiana her faith, and the Little Pair and Aleksei their innocence. I will hold on to my humanity. No matter what.

“
Dushka
, did you sit up all night?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” It’s close enough to the truth—if Tatiana wants to understand, she will. “Let’s go up on deck. The fresh air will do me good.”

Out in the open, I doze against Isa’s shoulder, letting the wind rinse my face until Khokhryakov slips on a ladder and lands sideways on his foot, right next to us. Bolshevik or not, I’m on the deck beside him before his pain seems to register. He steps back and winces. “I was a nurse,” I explain. “Please, let me see it.”

Khokhryakov glances over my shoulder. “It’s nothing,” he insists, and limps off.

Turning to Isa, I spot a group of Rodionov’s Latvian guards loitering along the rail. “Poor fellow,” I say loudly enough for them to hear. “His ankle will swell up like a baked potato if he keeps walking on it like that.” Maybe spattering kindness with defiance isn’t wise, but I’ll take the risk if they might begin to think of us as anything other than the children of Bloody Nikolashka.

At the dock in Tyumen, Rodionov orders everyone into the main salon. Outside the window, a train looms along the riverbank.

“Buxhoeveden,” Rodionov calls from the doorway. “Derevenko. Kharitonov. Trupp.” One by one, our people are escorted out. The seams of my valise bite harder into my palms with each name he calls. Then it’s our turn.

“Romanov: Aleksei Nikolaevich. Romanova: Olga Nikolaevna, Tatiana Nikolaevna, Anastasia Nikolaevna.” Nagorny’s name is not called, but the faithful
dyadka
lifts Aleksei from his chair and leads us past Rodionov without incident. Behind us, Monsieur Gilliard, Mr. Gibbes, their maids, and a few others still wait.

Along the railroad siding, people have gathered like a flock of crows to watch us pass. Some of the women throw flowers, but the guards shuffle and kick the blossoms from the platform. One by one, an armed soldier puts us into the second-class compartment. They examine our bags and make us turn out our pockets before we can board, but they don’t touch us. Isa, Dr. Derevenko, and a few others are already in the rail car. A soldier shoves Monsieur Gilliard back as he tries to climb in next to Aleksei.

“Nyet,”
he barks, gesturing toward the end of the train with his rifle. “You ride fourth class, with baggage, or not at all.”

By the time we arrive in Ekaterinburg, a rain fine as a veil is falling. The train halts on a storage line, far from the station, with armed guards posted around it. Their rifle barrels shine in the drizzle. All night long the cold seeps into our rail carriage like whispers.

In the morning it pours rain while our boxes and crates are unloaded. People on the platform push and clamor to watch, their faces running like wax behind the wet windows. One box breaks open, spilling out half a dozen pairs of Papa’s boots.

“I go barefoot, and the tsar has six pairs of boots?” a man shouts. “Death to the tyrant!”

They tear into another carton. “Mama’s gowns,” Tatiana whispers.

A man climbs on top of a crate and shakes one of Mama’s dresses over the crowd. “Comrades! We work our lives away, and they turn our sweat into ball gowns? Now it’s their turn!”

“Hang them! Drown them in the lake!”

The ugly words burn my eyes, nose, and throat, but Rodionov’s men only laugh as the crowd works itself into a frenzy. Finally Khokhryakov elbows his way in and begins to clear the platform. Most of the crates go one way, but a few stay behind to be loaded onto droshkies.

“Where are they taking our things?” Anastasia asks.

“Where are they taking us?” I answer. Tatiana frowns and shakes her head at me.

“Well, why not?” I snap. “We’re all thinking it.” No one answers.

At ten o’clock Commandant Rodionov appears in our carriage with another man. “You four bring your luggage outside,” he orders us. “The rest of you stay behind.”

“Nagorny, please carry Aleksei Nikolaevich out first and settle him in the droshky,” Tatiana says. “We will manage the bags.”

The rest of us stare at one another once Nagorny goes out with Aleksei’s arms wrapped around his neck. My feet have seized up like cement in my boots at the thought of leaving Isa, our tutors, and Dr. Derevenko behind.

“What is the use of saying good-bye?” Tatiana asks in her bright-side voice. “We will all be rejoicing together in half an hour’s time. Leaving a place in the rain is a good omen, after all.” Putting bags in our hands, she shoos Anastasia and me out ahead of her.

As always, two lines of sentries mark the path to the covered droshkies. The mud rises thick as pudding over our boots as we slosh toward the carriages. Ahead of us, Nagorny tries to come help, but the soldiers push him back. When I turn around, Tatiana’s struggling with a big leather suitcase and Ortipo under her arm. Monsieur Gilliard gets another shove for his trouble when he steps out of his carriage to lend a hand.

When the door opens and Papa and Mama and Maria are all sitting there like a picture in a storybook, the sight splits me open, and I cry at last.

36.

ANASTASIA NIKOLAEVNA

May 1918
Ekaterinburg

M
y hug swoops Maria off
her
feet and twirls us across the room. When my head stops spinning, there’s a sea of hugs and kisses and questions. I’ve never been so glad to feel Papa’s beard on my cheek, or smell the tobacco on his clothes. Mama holds Aleksei on her lap like a giant china doll while Olga snuffles on Papa’s shoulder, and Jemmy and Ortipo bark like mad. Tatiana just stands there, crossing herself with a wide, wet grin on her face. Even Dr. Botkin’s cologne smells homey.

After we’ve squeezed and cried ourselves runny, I make Mashka show me the house. In five minutes, we’ve seen everything there is to see.

“Before, Papa and Mama and I shared the corner room, but now that you’re all here, they can be alone again.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen Maria smirk in my whole life, but she’s stifling one now. “You know …?” she presses, her lips twitching like two fat worms on a hook.

My nose wrinkles up all by itself. “Of course I
know
,” I tell her with a swat. “But I’m not going to stand around here thinking about it. I’m not that bored. Yet.”

Just like in Tobolsk, our bedroom’s right next to Papa and Mama’s, except nobody can get into their room without marching straight though the middle of ours. At least it’s prettier than Tobolsk, with flowered wallpaper in pink and green, two corner stoves, and even a painted screen like we used to have back home. Our camp beds are still at the station, so Maria gives up her cot for Aleksei, and we four sisters sleep on the floor, smothered in overcoats like puppies in a heap.

In the other room, Aleksei insists on climbing into bed without any help, and ends up knocking his knee. Again. And since there’s no door between our room and Papa and Mama’s, all night long we have to listen to Mama croon and dote while our brother moans.

By the next morning Aleksei’s knee has swelled up badly enough to keep him in bed, and there’s no one but Dr. Botkin to help look after him. Until this, I’d almost forgotten Nagorny, Dr. Derevenko, Monsieur Gilliard, Mr. Gibbes, Isa, and all the rest. Out of all the people on the train, only Chef Kharitonov and Leonka Sednev came in with us.