The House of Special Purpose

by John Boyne

  Nicholas Nicolaievich was perhaps twenty feet away, no more, when I saw Kolek’s left hand reach inside his tunic and remain there for a moment, trembling slightly.

  Fifteen feet away, when I saw the wooden handle of the gun emerge slowly from its hiding place, my friend’s fist wrapped tightly around the grip, his finger hovering over the trigger.

  Ten feet away, when he drew the gun, unobserved by any but I, and released the safety catch.

  The Grand Duke was only five feet away when I shouted my friend’s name – ‘Kolek! No!’ – and tore through a gap in the passing riders, running across the street as the heads of the soldiers, aware of something untoward taking place, turned in my direction to see what was happening. My friend saw me now too and swallowed nervously before lifting the gun in the air and aiming it in the direction of Nicholas Nicolaievich, who was before him now and had finally deigned to turn his head to look at the young man to his left. He must have seen the flash of steel in the air but there was no time for him to draw his own gun, nor to turn his horse and make a quick escape, because the pistol went off almost immediately with a loud thunderclap, sending its murderous gunpowder in the direction of the Tsar’s cousin and closest confidant at the very moment when I, failing to consider the consequences of such an action, leapt in front of it.

  There was a sudden flash of fire, a piercing pain, a scream from the crowd, and I fell to the ground, expecting to feel the shod-hooves of the horses crush my skull beneath their enormous weight at any moment, even as a pain unlike any that I had ever felt before seared through my shoulder, a feeling that someone had taken an iron rod, smelted it in a furnace for an hour and driven it through my innocent flesh. I landed hard on the ground, experiencing a sudden sensation of peace and tranquillity in my mind before the afternoon went dark before my eyes, the noises became hushed, the crowds appeared to vanish into a misty haze, and there was only a small voice left whispering to me in my head, telling me to sleep – sleep, Pasha! – and I obeyed it.

  I closed my eyes and was left alone inside an empty, soporific darkness.

  The first face I saw when I awoke was that of my mother, Yulia Vladimirovna, who was pressing a wet rag across my forehead and staring down at me with a mixture of irritation and alarm. Her hand was trembling slightly and she seemed as nervous to be offering maternal consolation as I was to receive it. Asya and Liska were whispering in a corner while the child, Talya, was watching me with a cold and disinterested expression. I did not feel a part of this unusual tableau at all and simply stared back at them, confused as to what had taken place to inspire such a display of emotion, until a sudden explosion of pain in my left shoulder caused me to grimace and I let out an anguished cry as my hand reached across to ease the pressure on the injured area.

  ‘Be careful there,’ said a loud, deep voice from behind my mother, and the moment it spoke, she jumped noticeably and her expression transformed into one of frightened anxiety. I had never seen her so intimidated by anyone before and thought at first that it was my father, Daniil, who was ordering her to make way, but the voice did not belong to him. My vision was slightly blurred and I blinked several times in quick succession until the haze began to dissipate and I could see clearly again.

  I realized then that it was not my father who was standing over me; he was positioned towards the back of the hut, observing me with a half-smile on his face, a look that betrayed his confused emotions of pride and hostility. No, the voice which had addressed me was that of the supreme commander of the Russian military forces, the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich.

  ‘Don’t try to move,’ he said, leaning over me and examining my shoulder, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized the wound. ‘You’ve been injured, but you were lucky. The bullet went straight through the soft tissue of your shoulder but missed the arteries and the vein. It just shot directly out the other side, which was fortunate. A little more to the right and your arm might have been paralysed or you might have bled to death. The pain will continue for a few days, I imagine, but there won’t be any lasting damage. A small scar, perhaps.’

  I swallowed – my mouth was so dry that my tongue stuck uncomfortably to my palate – and I asked my mother for something to drink. She didn’t move, just stood there with her mouth open as if the scene playing out before her was one in which she was too terrified to take a part, and it was left to the Grand Duke to take the hip flask from around his waist and fill it from a barrel that stood near by before handing it across to me. I was almost too intimidated by the finery of the leather to drink from it, particularly when I noticed the Imperial seal of the Romanovs that was stitched in golden thread across its casing, but my thirst was so extraordinary that my hesitation did not last long and I gulped it down quickly. The sensation of the ice-cold water entering my body and making its way along my gut helped to alleviate the pain of my shoulder for a few moments.

  ‘You know who I am?’ asked the Grand Duke, raising himself to his full height now, filling the room with his imposing figure. At least six feet and the same number of inches in height. A large, muscular body. Handsome and imposing. And that extraordinary moustache which served to make him look even more dignified and majestic. I swallowed and nodded my head quickly.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied weakly.

  ‘You know who I am?’ he repeated, louder now, so I thought that I was in trouble of some sort.

  ‘Yes,’ I said again, finding my full voice now. ‘You are the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich, commander of the army and cousin to His Imperial Majesty, Tsar Nicholas II.’

  He smiled a little and his body jolted slightly as he offered me a small laugh. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, dismissing the grandeur of my response. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your memory then, boy, is there? If you remember so well, can you recall what happened to you?’

  I sat up a little, ignoring the shooting pains that were exploding along my left side from the top of my shoulder to the crook of my elbow, and looked down at my body. I was lying on the small hammock that functioned as my bed, wearing trousers but no shoes, and I was embarrassed to see the layer of filth from the floor of our hut that clung to my bare feet. My clean tunic, the one that I had worn especially for the Grand Duke’s parade, was lying in a bundle on the floor beside me, and it was no longer white, but a malevolent mixture of black and dark red. I wore no shirt and my chest was streaked with blood from the wound on my arm, which was wrapped tightly in bandages. The first thought I had was to wonder where these dressings had been found, but then I remembered the soldiers who had been trooping through our village and assumed that one of them had attended to my wound with their own army supplies.

  Which in turn led to a sudden recollection of the events of the afternoon.

  The parade. The white charger. The Grand Duke seated astride it.

  And our neighbour, Borys Alexandrovich. His son, my best friend, Kolek Boryavich.

  The pistol.

  ‘A gun,’ I cried suddenly, leaping up, as if the events were taking place once again, directly before my eyes. ‘He has a gun!’

  ‘It’s all right, boy,’ said the Grand Duke, patting me on my uninjured shoulder. ‘There is no gun now. You committed a great act, if you can recall it.’

  ‘I … I’m not sure,’ I replied, struggling to remember what I might have done to earn such a compliment.

  ‘My son has always been very brave, sir,’ said Daniil, stepping forward now from the rear of the hut. ‘He would have given his life for yours without question.’

  ‘There was an assassination attempt,’ continued Nicholas Nicolaievich, looking directly at me and ignoring my father. ‘A young radical. He aimed his pistol at my head. I swear that I saw the bullet preparing to quit its chamber and plant itself in my skull, but you rushed before me, brave lad that you are, and took the bullet in your shoulder.’ He hesitated before continuing. ‘You saved my life, young Georgy Daniilovich.’

  ‘I did?’ I asked, for I could not imagine what might have i
nspired me to do such a thing. But the fog in my mind was beginning to lift and I could remember rushing towards Kolek in order to press him back into the body of the gathered crowd, so that he would not commit an act that would cost him his life.

  ‘Yes, you did,’ replied the Grand Duke. ‘And I am grateful to you. The Tsar himself will be grateful to you. All of Russia will be.’

  I didn’t know what to say to such a remark – he certainly had a high regard for his importance in the world – and lay back, feeling a little dizzy and desperate for more water.

  ‘He doesn’t really have to go, does he, Father?’ asked Asya suddenly, stemming her tears for a moment as she asked the question. I looked in her direction and was touched that she was so upset by what had happened to me.

  ‘Quiet, girl,’ replied my father, pushing her back against the wall. ‘He will do as he is told. We all will.’

  ‘Go?’ I whispered, wondering what she could have meant by that. ‘Go where?’

  ‘You’re a brave lad,’ said the Grand Duke, putting his gloves back on now and taking a small purse from his pocket, which he handed to my father; it immediately disappeared inside the mysterious caverns of his tunic, out of sight of any of us. I have been sold, I thought immediately. I have been traded to the army for a few hundred roubles. ‘A boy like you is wasted in a place like this. You were planning on joining the army this year, of course?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied hesitantly, for I knew that day was approaching quickly but I had hoped to delay it for a few months yet. ‘It was my intention, only—’

  ‘Well, I can’t send you into battle, where you will only face more bullets. Not after what you have done today. No, you may stay here and recover for a few days and then follow me. I will leave two men to escort you to your new home.’

  ‘My new home?’ I asked, thoroughly confused now and attempting to sit up again as he stepped towards the door of our hut. ‘But where is that, sir?’

  ‘Why, St Petersburg, of course,’ he said, turning around to smile at me. ‘You have already proved that you would be willing to step in front of a bullet for a man such as I. Just imagine how much loyalty you would show to one even greater than a mere duke.’

  I shook my head and swallowed nervously. ‘Even greater than you?’ I asked.

  He hesitated for a moment, as if he was unsure whether to let me know what he had in mind, in case the shock of the revelation caused me to faint away entirely. But when he finally spoke again, he behaved as if this most extraordinary idea was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘The Tsarevich Alexei,’ he said. ‘You will be one of those assigned to protect him. My cousin, the Tsar, mentioned in his most recent communication how he was looking for just such a young man and asked whether I knew anyone who might make an appropriate companion. Someone closer to his own age, that is. The Tsarevich has many guards, of course. But he needs more than that. He needs a companion who can also tend to his safety. I believe that I have found what he is looking for. I intend to make a gift of you to him, Georgy Daniilovich. Assuming that he approves of you, that is. But stay here for now. Recover. Get well. And I will see you in St Petersburg at the end of the week.’

  And with that he stepped outside our hut, leaving my sisters staring at him in awe, my mother looking as scared as she had ever been, and my father counting his money.

  I forced myself to sit up even further and as I did so, I could see through the door on to the street beyond, where a yew tree stood, in full flower, strong and thick and hearty. But something was not quite the same. A great weight appeared to be swinging from its branches. I narrowed my eyes to identify it and when I finally focussed, I could do nothing but gasp.

  It was Kolek.

  They had hanged him in the street.

  1979

  IT WAS ZOYA’S idea to make one final journey together.

  We had never been great travellers, either of us, preferring the warmth and security of our peaceful flat in Holborn to the exhaustion of holiday-making. After we left Russia, we moved immediately to France; once there, we spent a few years living and working in Paris, where we married, before settling ultimately in London. When Arina was a child, of course, we made our best efforts to take a week away from the city every summer, but it was usually to Brighton, or perhaps as far as Cornwall, to show her the sea, to allow her to play in the sand. To be a child among other children. But we never left the island shores once we arrived. And I thought we never would.

  She announced her idea late one evening as we sat by the fire in our living room, watching as the flames diminished and the black coals hissed and spat for the final time. I was reading Jake’s Thing and set the book aside in surprise when she spoke.

  Our grandson, Michael, had left half an hour earlier after a difficult conversation. He had come for dinner and to tell us of how his new life as an acting student was progressing, but all the joy of the evening had been swept away when Zoya broke the news to him about her illness and the spread of the cancer. She didn’t want to keep anything from him, she said, although she didn’t want his sympathy either. This was life, after all, she suggested. Nothing more than life.

  ‘I’m already as old as the hills,’ she told him, smiling. ‘And I’ve been very lucky, you know. I’ve been closer to death than this.’

  Of course, being young he had immediately looked for solutions and hope. He insisted that his father would pay for any treatments that were necessary, that he himself would leave RADA and find proper employment to pay for anything she needed, but she shook her head and held his hands in hers while she told him that there was nothing that anyone could do, and there was certainly nothing that money could do either. This thing was incurable, she told him. She might not have many months left and she didn’t want to waste them searching for impossible cures. He had taken the news badly. Having spent so many years without a mother, it was natural that he hated the idea of losing his grandmother as well.

  Before leaving, Michael had taken me aside and asked me whether there was anything he could do for his grandmother to ease her comfort. ‘She has the best doctors, right?’ he asked me.

  ‘Of course,’ I told him, moved by the tears that were pooling in his eyes. ‘But you know, this is not an easy disease to battle.’

  ‘She’s a tough old bird, though,’ he said, which made me smile and I nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, she is that.’

  ‘I’ve heard of people that find a way to beat it.’

  ‘As have I,’ I told him, not wishing to offer him any false hope. Zoya and I had already spent weeks arguing over her decision not to seek any treatment but to allow the disease to work its way through her body and take her when it was finally bored of her. I had tried everything I could to dissuade her from this path, but it was useless. She had simply decided that her time had come.

  ‘Call me if you need me, all right?’ Michael had insisted. ‘Me or Dad. We’re here whenever you need anything at all. And I’ll stop by more often, OK? Twice a week if I can manage it. And tell her not to cook for me, I’ll eat before I get here.’

  ‘And insult her?’ I asked, chiding him. ‘You’ll eat what she puts before you, Michael.’

  ‘Well … whatever,’ he said, shrugging it off, running a hand through his shoulder-length hair and presenting that lean smile of his to me. ‘I’m here, that’s all I’m saying. I’m not going anywhere.’

  He has always been a good grandson. He’s always made us proud of him. After he left, Zoya and I both confessed that we had been moved by his thoughtfulness.

  ‘A trip?’ I asked, surprised by her suggestion. ‘Are you sure that you would be able to manage it?’

  ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘Now, I could, anyway. A few months from now, who knows?’

  ‘You wouldn’t prefer to stay here and rest?’

  ‘And die, you mean?’ she asked, perhaps regretting the words as soon as she said them, for she caught the expression of dismay on my face and leaned across to
kiss me. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. But think of it, Georgy. I can sit here and wait for the end to come, or I can do something with whatever time is left to me.’

  ‘Well, I suppose we could take a train somewhere for a week or two,’ I said, considering it. ‘We had some happy times on the south coast when we were younger.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of Cornwall,’ she said quickly, shaking her head, and it was my turn now to feel regret, for the name inspired memories of our daughter, and in that direction lay grief and madness.

  ‘Scotland, perhaps,’ I suggested. ‘We’ve never been there. I’ve always thought that it might be nice to see Edinburgh. Or is that too far? Are we being too ambitious?’

  ‘You can never be too ambitious, Georgy,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Not Scotland, then,’ I said, imagining a map of Britain in my mind and looking around it in my imagination. ‘It’s too cold there this time of year anyway. And not Wales, I think. The Lake District, perhaps? Wordsworth country? Or Ireland? We could take a ferry over to Dublin, if you think you could manage it. Or travel south, towards West Cork. It’s supposed to be very beautiful there.’