by JG Hampton
prisoners with few rights, totally dependent on our guards. At least we were still alive.
Our meals were simple now, coffee, tea, and porridge for breakfast, stew or soup with bread for lunch which was the big meal of the day. Afternoon tea was simply a slice or bread with no butter, and then we had a light dinner of pancakes, or a little fish. I dreamed of our lavish dinners of times past with eight courses and was always ravenously hungry. My voice was changing and I was shooting up like a young sapling. My chest had gained three inches and I tried to keep to my habit of swimming in the pool with Papa, rowing, and lifting weights, but the ice floes were still rather dangerous on our lake.
26 March 1917 - 9 April 1917 - We were permitted to continue with our Russian Orthodox services and our confessor was allowed to offer us the Easter service, but things were much simpler than in the past. Our Faberge Easter eggs were now only a memory, the plain enameled white egg with its red cross and pop up surprise of pictures of Mama, my sisters, and Cousin Marie in their nurses' uniforms was the last of its kind. We mourned this beautiful tradition as we adjusted to our plebian way of life. The most costly eggs in Mama's cabinet soon disappeared having been requisitioned by the workers. Mama and my sisters began hiding their jewels and other expensive treasures packing them away so that they wouldn't disappear, too. My sisters sewed them into the seams of their underwear and corsets when the guards were not looking.
We learned that Monsieur Faberge had fled to France when the throne collapsed and when his business had been taken over by the workers. Many aristocrats had fled to Paris. Word about our Romanov relatives was hard to come by. Were Uncle Michael and Aunt Ella still alive? We heard that some of my uncles and cousins had been imprisoned in the fortress of Peter and Paul. Rasputin's prophecy had come to pass when we received word that Uncle Michael had been shot. It was open season on Romanovs. Many had fled Petrograd for their safer Crimea estates or had escaped Russia altogether. I so wished that we could. We were advised that plans were still being made for us without realizing that many doors had been permanently locked against us including England and Denmark since the kings there did not want to upset their constituents. But ignorance was bliss since we were unaware of this.
I told Papa that killing Rasputin had actually saved Felix and Cousin Irina's lives. He'd banished them to the Crimea, or they might have been imprisoned now in their Petrograd mansion, like we were. Had Grandmother Dear gone abroad from the Crimea? We prayed that she had escaped to England and that King George would save her, Aunt Olga, and Aunt Xenia if he wouldn't save us.
My sisters and I made papier mache goose eggs and large Ostrich eggs by covering some of my balloons with newspaper and strips pasted with flour. After they dried we painted them with water color to put in our Easter baskets to present to Mama and Papa. Although not as sumptuous as the eggs created by Monsieur Faberge, they were beautiful because my sisters and I are all artists at heart. I even made a pop-up surprise picture of myself and enclosed the best shots of each of my bald sisters in the eggs for the surprise, just like M. Faberge would have done. Mama and Papa laughed uproariously when they were given the baskets with the elaborate handmade eggs. A tiny parachute and man was included in Papa's egg which he could drop off the balcony and have Joy retrieve for him. Mama and Papa said that it was their best Easter ever; proving that wealth and power weren't everything nor did they have an exclusive hold on happiness.
"Well done, son!" said my proud Papa delighted with my efforts. We Romanovs were proving resourceful and resilient in our poverty.
1 April 1917 - 14 April 1917 - Anastasia played her usual pranks this year, only our targets were the guards. We applied our old trick of the sheer sheet of paper taped under the toilet seat just before a guard was entering the main bathroom and waited in the background for his curses. My how Russians can swear! Brave Anastasia yelled out naughtily: "Does you mother know you swear like that?" The guard came out with his wet pants that he'd tried to clean and looked at us angrily as if he wanted to shoot us just before we yelled: "April Fools! And then he actually laughed.
One of the place guards that repeatedly called my Mama "The Tyrant's Wife" was given a glass of wine with paregoric which stops one's bowels. That should make him speedily more contrite. Perhaps he'll learn to think before he speaks again. He'd emptied the glass before we yelled: "April fools!" That serves him right for being so greedy.
We put a bucket of sawdust above the doorway to my sisters' room and the guards were liberally dowsed with the debris when the nosy buggers opened the door to see what the older pair were up to. We'd warned my sisters and they'd hidden themselves in the room wanting in on the trick also. They were so tired of being oogled when they dressed in the morning and when they undressed at night. They were sick of their corsets, brassieres, garter belts, stocking and chemises being manhandled. Was nothing sacred? I thought Anastasia would die from laughing when the bucket emptied over the fools heads. "April Fools!" we both shouted as the guards inhaled the fragments and wiped their eyes. My sister is almost as brave as Mama and so naughty! What would the guards do to us? Our revenge tasted sweet as the buffoons ran outside.
We left our coffee cups still full on the dining room table knowing that the guards would finish them off, because they usually helped themselves to our meager breakfast, but this time we'd liberally laced the dark brew with salt and left a rotten chicken egg as contents for them to savor.
One odious guard who repeatedly blew harsh smelly cigar smoke in Mama's face was given a package of Papa's cigarettes which had been doctored with gunpowder from one of Papa's bullets. When he lit them during his break he'd be in for a surprise. We left another package of cigarettes on the breakfast table knowing that he'd steal them. These cigarettes had been doctored with gunpowder and bran. Just desserts for the thief, hadn't he broken one of the ten commandments by stealing the cigarettes in the first place? Too bad we wouldn't be around to see him light up. How would he explain his powder marks to his superior officer? The guards had been ordered not to steal anything of ours.
One malevolent guard stuck a saber between the spokes of Papa's bicycle while he was riding it and Papa was thrown over the handlebars almost breaking his neck; he was our next target. Anastasia had left a small jar of candy by the chair he usually sat in while propping his legs up on Mama's ottoman, the brown taffies were really Mama's terrier's poop wrapped in used silver toffee papers. Some of Mama's French perfume in a beautiful spray bottle was left nearby filled with my urine which I'd happily supplied for the prank along with a tall glass of delicious iced tea mixed with agua de Alexei.
My kaleidoscope was nearby which had been primed with black grease on the eye piece as well as the turn mechanism. We hoped he'd sample all of the surprises we'd prepared for him.
To our delight, we were not disappointed; he'd tried them all. The ring around his eyes and his hands indicated that he'd sampled my kaleidoscope which was not easily removed, especially without soap. We'd removed this necessity from the bathrooms. Without a mirror, the dummy didn't realize that he looked like a fool until his comrades laughed at him. We offered to help him clean up and in doing so Anastasia slapped a sign on his back stating: "Kick me please." The other guards laughed until they cried when they realized what the two of us had done. We then yelled: "April Fools!" Then we shouted: "Ivan, we hope there's no hard feelings and walked away. We felt that we'd more than revenged our Papa. When Papa heard about our antics from the presiding officer, he said simply: "Perhaps my young ones are out of control; it appears that not only am I a failure as czar, but as a parent as well. What's a man to do?" He said with a wink. "Perhaps they should be drawn and quartered and hung from the balcony. Will you see to it?" said Papa while laughing and walking away.
15 April 1917 - 28 April 1917 - By mid April most of our mail wasn't being delivered to us with the exception of the evil hate mail being sent to Papa and Mama in order to demoralize us. Even our yogurt was stirred by a guard's dirty finger checking
for lumps which might contain messages before it was given to us.
However, a lovely letter from Aunt Xenia slipped through to Mama. My mother did have one valiant guard who had befriended her after he'd observed her a while and found out that he'd misjudged her; perhaps this was why she was allowed the letter. He'd discovered for himself that Mama was not the cold blooded, selfish German Bitch of the newspapers, but instead she was a caring, kindhearted Russian woman who had delivered, nursed, and raised five children, like a common peasant woman and one who had taken the time to learn the difficult Russian language.
The letter was shared by all of us and greatly lifted our spirits relieving our angst about the whereabouts of some of our relatives. Xenia and Xandro were safe in the Crimea with Grandmother and Auntie Olga.
Kerensky, the new minister of the government, came to the palace and questioned Mama. Word had gotten out that she was instigating a counter revolution. By now all of Mama's papers had been burned and there was simply no evidence to confirm this. Mama answered every one of the minister's questions boldly and concisely. A weaker woman than
