by JG Hampton
as my dead grandpapa Czar Alexander III who was taller than Abraham Lincoln who was six foot four inches. Grandmama says her husband, the love of her life, looked like a huge Russian bear.
Now Papa can spend more time with me and Mama can relax again. Soon, he's going to test the new uniforms the soldiers will be wearing himself as well as the rifles they'll be shooting.
I hope he invites me camping with him. I'll request a matching uniform just like the new one he is wearing. Mama and Grandmama insist that we dress alike so that the people will visualize me as a chip off the old block and as the next czar.
Mama hates going to balls, dreads going out in public, and detests Grandmama. Public appearances make her face all splotchy and red and she stammers and stutters awkwardly whenever she must recite poetry in front of relatives or perform at the piano, she does so stiffly. Grandmama is her worst enemy; I’ve caught them glaring evilly at each other often. Grandmama whispers to her court ladies that Mama loves putting on airs and looking imperious. Could her words be undermining Mama's power base? Why are the two rivals? Shouldn't they love each other since my Papa and I both love them? Shouldn't family members support each other?
Mama pampers and spoils me according to Anastasia since I'm the only boy and one who is not too sturdy. When Mama lovingly tucks me in, I don't want to let her go, so she stays with me and tells me the story again, the one her gangun, or grandmother, Queen Victoria, told her when she was a young girl in Buckingham Palace about a troll, but this time she made me come up with a new ending while she finished knitting a wool sock for the poor. When I marry, I shall find someone as beautiful and tenderhearted as my mother. Papa came in and fetched her to bed saying that he was lonely in bed without her and that he needed her more than I did.
5 January 1914, 18 January 1914 – Olga is teaching me how to mind my manners. She says that I humiliated her and made Mama mad. Grandmother caught me licking my plate when I was at her elegant palace and complained about my boorish manners to Mama.
“How could I be such a crude boor!” said my oldest sister when mama wasn’t listening. She even called me a little pig and oinked. I happened to like the French pastries that Grandmama dear served us for dessert. They were filled with raspberry jam and rich whip cream and chocolate. Our cook doesn’t bake such delicious treats very often, especially for tea. I wanted to lick up every last crumb and then she scolded me when I burped. I heard that papa’s father Czar Alexander often burped after a meal. I was trying to please Grandmama dear and imitate him and show her, like a true Russian, that I appreciated the meal. Besides, I’m going to be the czar and my sisters can’t boss me around. I shall do as I like-- when my Grandmama dear isn’t looking.
Anastasia is designing military jackets on jackets for paper dolls that she intends to send to Kaiser Wilhelm, mama's first cousin, who is still in love with our Aunt Elizabeth, Mama's older sister called Aunt Ella, who has recently entered a holy order. Anastasia has heard the adults say that Wilhelm cares too much about his clothes. He does have magnificent uniforms, rooms full of them, which he likes to parade around in with frequent changes. Auntie Ella and Mama think he's trying to over compensate for his limp arm which was injured at birth from the use of forceps by a physician wrenching him from his Mama. But he refuses to let this gimp arm handicap him in anyway.
Anastasia's efforts should please him. He's one of her favorite relatives and mine because he always sends us superb toys and gifts on our birthdays and holidays. I received a full battalion of lead soldiers, toy horses and stables to go with them in addition to the toy replica train and large Steiff jointed bear that my parents bought for me.
Mama still dislikes cousin Willy who takes credit for her marriage to Papa as if love had nothing to do with it. He did tell Papa not to take no for an answer when Mama refused him the first time and that several proposals might be necessary. Mama feels that her cousin is a pompous boor, a war monger, a clothes horse, who is much too conceited and those are just a few of his flaws.
I had a good soak in papa's silver tub and it made me feel much better. Anastasia even put scented toilet water which bubbled in my bath water. I enjoyed making a bubble beard thinking I looked just like Uncle Nickolai, the tall soldier. I stayed in until the water went cold and my skin looked like prunes. All my sisters wanted me to hurry, but I didn't, because I am the czarovitch. Papa will have to go back to his ice cold baths in the morning. Perhaps I will join him. He says that will toughen me up. His papa insisted on cold baths and no pampering, not even a pillow to lay one's head. Is this why my sisters sleep on beds that are almost as small as comp cots here in the palace?
6 January 1914, 18 January 1914 – Mama is mad: some of my boy cousins came to play along with some of Countess B.’s grandsons and I locked them up in one of the rooms of the palace. Mama has a memory like an elephant’s and she never forgets. Once, one summer day, I commanded my cousins to march into the lake with their wooden rifles. Their sailor suits were all wet and Mama said that I was a despot, just like Ivan the Terrible. A good Czar, like papa would never have done such a thing. A good czar thinks of his officers and soldiers first. She sent me to bed with only a piece of bread and butter and said that I must apologize to Aunt Xenia, Countess B. and the boys, or I may never play with my friends and cousins again. Where is her imagination?
Czars and Czarovitches shouldn’t have to apologize. It makes them look weak, besides my cousins were laughing and liked playing soldiers. I was only pretending to lock them up in the Peter and Paul fortress. Eventually, I would have let them out. Didn’t Mama realize that whoever controlled the fortress controlled Russia? Mama says that I must write a written apology to my aunt. Monsieur Gilliard, my French tutor, will help me write it in French. At least, she should let me write it in Russian. If I don’t, she’ll tell Papa. I shall do as she says, because I don’t want to disappoint or anger papa. I love him so much.
7 January 1914, 20 January 1914 – Monsieur G. says that I must focus and not daydream or doddle when I’m writing. I must write at least a page worth and show them all that I am a well mannered boy and not a klutz, or a barbarian, but a young gentleman. I shall finish this quickly so that I can go out and play with Anastasia. She wants me to tell her fortune using Auntie Annya’s crystal ball. I’ve thought of a good one, predicting that she’ll have at least seven sons whom she’ll name after me. I’ll let her pick out their middle names, but since I’ll be the czar, I’ll choose their Christian names, and I’ll name them all after me. I intend to be well remembered when I’m dead, because with my bleeding disease, I’m not going to live very long, but my Great Uncle Leopold lasted into his mid twenties, long enough to father children, and so shall I. Father Grigory, my healer, says if I live to the age of seventeen, I’ll be cured. He’s a prophet of God, but a stinky, ugly wretched one who I desperately need.
Mama tries to keep secrets from me. Still, I know about Mama’s brother Fritz, who bled to death when he was three after falling out of the second story bedroom window during roughhousing, and my other young cousin F. who just recently died. However, my cousin Waldemar and I are both still alive and suffering with our bleeding disease; we both have nearly survived our childhoods. I live, only because of Father Grigory, my staretz and his miraculous, healing powers which slow my blood. I must have enough faith that I will live to found my own dynasty. It is my mother's fondest hope and I long to please her.
Our imp, Anastasia was mad when I predicted she’d never marry, because she’s too short and no prince wants a short, plump princess. She stuck out her tongue and refused to share her caramels with me. I shall have to learn to think before I speak.
8 January 1914, 21 January 1914 – My leg is swollen again and I can’t bend my knee. Mama has read me detective stories from an English author which I have really enjoyed. I can hardly wait to get out of bed so that I can spy on my sisters, especially the imp. She likes snapping photos of us doing embarrassing things. She
even caught Marie picking her nose once She says that she’s saving it to show to her future boyfriend and that she’ll blackmail her for a month’s allowance. I plan on taking a compromising picture of her snoring with her mouth open when I get better. She’s a mouth breather and always snores like a peasant; that should get her goat. Mama wrote to Father G. who telegraphed back that all would be well. Sometimes I wish I could die because of the pain I suffer, even a loose tooth is life threatening, so are bloody noses, or a bleeding hangnail or a simple cut, yet I survived my hernia operation without complications. Explain that. I long to slide down the palace staircases on a warming pan with Anastasia, and run wildly through the halls, but know that I cannot.
Papa's barber came to trim my hair. I remember when Mama saved my curls. She still wears a brooch with one of my baby curls on a ribbon next to her heart. She says it makes her feel close to me. I used to have golden curls, but now my hair is straight and has darkened like Papa's. However, Papa is beginning to get silver in his beard. Mama used to pluck them out, but she doesn't any more. There were too many. Papa
