by John Boyne
And at that moment, like two lovers engaged upon the most graceful of dances, I spun her around so that her back was pressed against the tall oak door that loomed behind us. We stood together in the shadows, a place where we could be observed by no one, and stared into each other’s eyes until I saw hers begin to close and I leaned forward and pressed my cold, chapped lips against the warmth of her soft, rose-coloured mouth. My arms wrapped themselves around her, one pressing firmly against her back, the other becoming lost in the fine softness of her auburn hair.
I could think of nothing at that moment other than how much I wanted her. That we had yet to exchange a word did not matter at all. Nor did the fact that she was a Grand Duchess, a daughter of the Imperial blood, while I was a mere servant, a moujik come to offer some small degree of security to her younger brother. I didn’t care whether anyone could see us; I knew that she wanted this as much as I did. We kissed for I know not how long and then, separating only a moment for breath, she placed a hand against my chest and looked at me, half frightened, half intoxicated, before turning away and looking at the ground, shaking her head as if she could not even begin to understand how she had been so bold.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, my first words to her.
‘For what?’ she asked.
‘You’re right,’ I replied, shrugging my shoulders. ‘I’m not sorry at all.’
She hesitated for only a moment and then smiled at me. ‘Neither am I,’ she said.
We looked at each other and I felt ashamed that I didn’t know what might be expected of me next.
‘I have to go in,’ she said. ‘We dine soon.’
‘Your Highness,’ I said, reaching for her hand. I struggled with a sentence, having no clue what it was that I intended to say to her, only that I wanted to keep her here with me a little longer.
‘Please,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘My name is Anastasia. And I can call you Georgy?’
‘Yes.’
‘I like that name.’
‘It means farmer,’ I replied with an embarrassed shrug and she smiled.
‘Is that what you are?’ she asked me. ‘What you were?’
‘It’s what my father is.’
‘And you,’ she said quietly. ‘What are you?’
I thought about it; I had never asked myself such a question before, but now, standing in the freezing cold beneath the colonnades with this girl before me, there seemed to be only one truthful answer.
‘I’m yours,’ I said.
I was still a newcomer to the royal household when I boarded the Imperial train to travel towards Mogilev, the small Ukrainian town near the Black Sea where our Russian army headquarters were located. Seated opposite me, excited by the prospect of leaving behind the closeted world of the palace for the more rugged environment of a military base, was an eleven-year-old boy, Alexei Nicolaievich, the Heir, Tsarevich and Grand Duke of the House of Romanov.
At moments like this, it still seemed very strange for me to consider how dramatically my life had altered. Just over a month before, I had been a moujik like any other, chopping wood in Kashin, sleeping on a rough floor, starving and exhausted, dreading the freezing cold winter that would shortly arrive to stifle any chance of happiness. Now I was clothed in the tight-fitting uniform of the Leib Guard, preparing for a warm and comfortable journey, with the certainty of a lavish lunch and dinner to come and with God’s anointed one sitting only a few feet away from me.
It was my first time to travel on the Imperial train and while I had started to grow more accustomed to extravagance and conspicuous consumption since arriving in St Petersburg, the opulence of my surroundings still had the power to astonish me. There were ten carriages in all, including a saloon, a kitchen, private studies for the Tsar and Tsaritsa, as well as apartments for each of the children, the servants and the luggage. A second, smaller train followed an hour behind and was populated by an extensive retinue of advisers and servants. Typically, the lead train held only the Imperial family, along with two doctors, three chefs, a small army of bodyguards and whichever of his counsellors the Tsar chose to honour with an invitation. As I had been by the Tsarevich’s side for three weeks now as his protector and confidant, my place on the train was a matter of protocol.
Naturally, every floor, wall and ceiling was covered with the most lavish materials that the train’s designers could lay their hands on. The walls were constructed from Indian teak, with stamped leather upholstery and a golden silk inlay. Beneath our feet, a rich, soft carpet ran the length of the carriages, while every item of furniture was built from the finest beech or satinwood and covered with a sparkling English cretonne, set with carvings or gilding. It was as if the entire Winter Palace had been transported on to a mobile platform so that no one travelling on board would ever have to consider that beyond our windows lay towns and villages where the people lived in abject poverty and were growing increasingly disillusioned by their Tsar.
‘I’m almost afraid to move in case I damage something,’ I remarked to the Tsarevich as we swept past the labourers’ fields and the small hamlets, where the people came out to wave and cheer, although they looked miserable as they did so, their lips curled with distaste, their bodies gaunt from lack of food. There were almost no young men among their number, of course; most of them were either dead, in hiding, or fighting for the continuation of our curious way of life at the Front.
‘How do you mean, Georgy?’ he asked.
‘Well, it’s so magnificent,’ I said, looking around at the bright-blue walls and the set of silks which hung on either side of the windows. ‘Don’t you realize it?’
‘Aren’t all trains like this?’ he asked, looking across at me in surprise.
‘No, Alexei,’ I replied with a smile, for what was astonishing to me was quotidian life to the son of the Tsar. ‘No, this one is special.’
‘My grandfather built it,’ he told me with the air of someone who assumes that everyone’s grandfather was a great man. ‘Alexander III. He had a great fascination with the railways, I am told.’
‘There’s only one thing I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘The speed at which it travels.’
‘Why, what’s wrong with it?’
‘It’s just … I don’t know much about these things, of course, but surely a train such as this can travel much faster than it does?’ I made the remark because ever since we had left St Petersburg, the train had been moving at no more than about twenty-five miles an hour. It was maintaining that speed almost perfectly, neither growing faster nor slower as the voyage continued, which made the journey extremely smooth but slightly frustrating too. ‘I’ve known horses who could outstrip this train.’
‘It always travels this slow,’ he explained. ‘When I’m on board, that is. Mother says that we can’t risk any sudden jolts.’
‘Anyone would think you were made of porcelain,’ I said, forgetting my place for a moment and regretting my words immediately, for he looked across at me, narrowing his eyes in disapproval and offering an expression that made my blood run cold, and I thought that yes, this boy could be Tsar one day. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I added after a moment, but he appeared to have already forgotten my transgression and had returned to his book, a volume on the history of the Russian army which his father had given him several nights before and which had been occupying his attentions ever since. He was a highly intelligent boy, I had already realized that, and cared as much for his reading as he did for the outdoor activities from which his protective parents were constantly trying to shield him.
My first introduction to the Tsarevich had taken place the morning after my arrival at the Winter Palace and I had liked him immediately. Although pale and dark-eyed, he had a confidence about him which I put down to the fact that he commanded the attention of everyone who passed through his life. He extended his hand to greet me and I shook it proudly, bowing my head out of respect as I introduced myself.
‘And you are to be my new bodyguard,’ he said
quietly.
I immediately looked across at Count Charnetsky, who had delivered me into the royal presence, and who nodded quickly in assent. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘But I hope I will also be your friend.’
His brow furrowed a little at the word, as if it meant nothing to him, and he considered this for a moment before speaking again.
‘My last bodyguard ran away with one of the cooks to get married, did you know that?’
I shook my head and gave a small laugh, amused by how seriously he took the offence. He might as well have said that he had tried to smother him in his sleep. ‘No, sir,’ I replied. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘I imagine that they must have been terribly in love to betray such a position, but it was an inappropriate match, for he was a cousin of Prince Hagurov and she was a reconstituted whore. Their families must feel great shame.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I agreed, hesitating for only a moment, wondering whether these were his own words or phrases he had overheard from his elders and which he was passing along now as his own. The frown on his face, however, suggested to me that he had been close to this bodyguard and regretted his loss.
‘My father believes strongly in the propriety of an equitable marriage,’ he continued. ‘He won’t countenance anyone who makes a match below their station. Before him, there was a fellow whom I did not like at all. His breath smelled, for one thing. And he could not control his bodily functions. I find such things vulgar, don’t you?’
‘I suppose so,’ I said, anxious not to disagree with him.
‘Although,’ he continued, biting his lip a little as he considered the matter, ‘sometimes I found it funny too. Like when Uncle Willy came to stay with Father and he made terrible noises when my sisters and I were brought in to say hello the following morning. That was comical, actually. But he was dismissed for it. The bodyguard, I mean. Not my uncle.’
‘It does not sound like very appropriate behaviour, Your Highness,’ I remarked, shocked to think that anyone could refer to Kaiser Wilhelm, with whom our country was at war, as Uncle Willy.
‘No, it wasn’t. It cheapened him in my eyes, but my sisters and I were told to ignore his vulgarity. And then there was the bodyguard before him. I liked him very much.’
‘And what happened to him?’ I asked, expecting another curious story of illicit love affairs or unpleasant personal habits.
‘He was killed,’ replied Alexei without emotion. ‘It was at Tsarskoe Selo. An assassin threw a bomb at the carriage I was riding in, but the driver saw it in time and drove on before it could land on my lap. This bodyguard was seated in the carriage directly behind us and it landed on him instead. It blew him up.’
‘That’s terrible,’ I said, appalled by the violence of it and suddenly aware of how my own life might be in similar peril while I looked after such an illustrious charge.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Although Father said that he would have been proud to have died like that. In the service of Russia, that is. After all, it would have been much worse if I had died.’
Coming from any other child, the remark might have seemed thoughtless and arrogant, but the Tsarevich delivered it with such compassion for the dead man and a thoughtful understanding of his own position that I did not despise him for it.
‘Well, I don’t plan on eloping, farting or getting blown up,’ I said, smiling at him, imagining in my naivety that I could speak plainly, taking into account only his age and not his position. ‘So hopefully I shall be here to guard you for some time to come.’
‘Jachmenev,’ said Count Charnetsky immediately and I turned to look at him, ready to apologize before noticing how the Tsarevich was staring at me, his mouth wide open. I didn’t know for a moment whether he was going to burst out laughing or call the other guards to have me hauled away in chains, but finally he simply shook his head, as if the common people were a source of endless interest and amusement to him, and in this manner we began our new roles.
In the weeks that followed, we developed a pleasant informality with each other. He instructed me to call him Alexei, which I was glad to do, as to spend my day referring to an eleven-year-old boy as ‘Your Highness’ or even ‘sir’ would have been almost too much for me. He called me Georgy, which he liked because he had once owned a pup by that name, until it had been run over by one of his father’s carriages, a fact that I considered a grim portent.
He had his regular pastimes and wherever he went, I went too. In the mornings he attended Mass with his mother and father and then went directly to breakfast and on to private tuition with the Swiss tutor, Monsieur Gilliard. In the afternoons he went outside to the gardens, although I noticed that his parents, busy as they were, kept a close eye on him and he was not permitted to indulge in any activity which might be considered overly strenuous; I put this down to their worry about anything untoward happening to the heir to the throne. In the evenings, he ate dinner with his family, and afterwards he sat with a book, or perhaps we might play backgammon, a game he had taught me on our first evening together and at which I had yet to beat him.
And then there were his four sisters, Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia, whose rooms he invaded at every opportunity, and whose lives he tormented as much as they loved and fussed over him. As Alexei’s bodyguard, I was in the company of the Grand Duchesses throughout the day, but they mostly ignored me, of course.
Except for one, that is, with whom I had fallen in love.
‘Forget about the horses,’ I remarked to Alexei as I sat there, staring out of the window. ‘I could run faster than this train.’
‘Then why don’t you, Georgy Daniilovich? I’m sure the driver would stop and let you try.’
I made a face at him and he giggled, a sure sign that he may have been many things – educated, well-spoken, intelligent, the heir to a throne, the future leader of millions – but at his heart he remained what every Russian man had been at some point in his life.
A little boy.
The Tsaritsa, Alexandra Fedorovna, had been opposed to this trip from the very beginning.
Of all the members of the Imperial family, she was the one with whom I had enjoyed the least contact since my arrival in St Petersburg. The Tsar himself was always friendly and personable, even remembering my name most of the time, which I took as a mark of great honour. He suffered greatly over the progress of the war, however, and this was reflected on his face, which was lined and dark-eyed. His days were spent in his study in consultation with his generals, whose company he relished, or with the leaders of the Duma, whose very existence he seemed to loathe. But he never allowed his personal feelings on any given day to spill out into his dealings with those around him. Indeed, whenever I saw him, he always greeted me courteously and asked how I was enjoying my new position. Of course, my awe of him never lessened, but I also found that I was presumptuous enough to like him personally and I took great pride in being near his side.
Alexandra was different. A tall, attractive woman with a sharp nose and enquiring eyes, she considered a room to be empty if it was populated only by servants or guards, and conducted herself at such times, both in action and in conversation, as if she was alone.
‘Never talk to her,’ I was told late one night by Sergei Stasyovich Polyakov, a member of the Leib Guard with whom I had become friendly owing to the proximity of our quarters, which were adjacent to each other, our beds separated only by a thin wall through which I could hear him snoring in the night. At eighteen years of age, he was my senior by two years but was still one of the youngest members of Count Charnetsky’s elite regiment, and I was flattered that he had adopted me as his friend, for he appeared much more worldly and comfortable about the palace than I. ‘She would consider it a great mark of disrespect if you tried to engage her in conversation.’
‘I never would,’ I assured him. ‘But sometimes we catch each other’s eye in a room and I don’t know whether I should greet her or bow.’
‘She might catch your eye, Georgy,’ he told
me, laughing a little, ‘but trust me, you don’t catch hers. She sees right through people like us. We’re ghosts, every one.’
‘I am no ghost,’ I insisted, surprised to find myself insulted by the charge. ‘I’m a man.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, extinguishing half a cigarette on the heel of his boot as he stood up to leave me and placing the unsmoked portion in his jacket pocket for later. ‘But you must remember how she was brought up. Her grandmother was the English queen, Victoria. Such an upbringing does not make you a sociable person. She never speaks to any of the servants if she can avoid it.’
Of course, I believed this to be perfectly reasonable. I had no kings or princes in my genealogy – I did not even know the names of some of my grandparents – so why should the Empress of Russia deign to hold discourse with me. Indeed, my trepidation for the Imperial family was such that I never expected any of them to notice me at all, but when I took into account how gracious her husband was, and her son, and her daughters, I wondered at times whether I had done anything to offend her.
I had seen her on my first night in the palace, of course, although I had not at the time realized who the lady kneeling at the prie-dieu with her back to me was. I could still recall how feverishly she prayed, how devoted to her God she seemed to be. And I had not forgotten that terrifying vision of darkness who stood before her, the priest who grinned his malevolent smile in my direction. Although our paths had yet to cross again, his image had haunted me ever since.
The downside of her refusal to notice me was that she thought nothing of behaving in a less than regal fashion while I was in the room, something that embarrassed me on occasion, such as two days before I boarded the Imperial train, when the Tsar had proposed taking Alexei to Army Headquarters in the first place.
