by John Boyne
Now he was dead.
Within the hour he was gone. We carried him, the three of us, to the banks of the Neva and threw him in. He sank quickly, his awful face staring up at us as he receded into the black depths, his eyes still open as we took our last sight of him.
That night was one of the coldest in memory and the river froze over for almost a week.
When the ice began to thaw a little and Rasputin’s body was discovered, his arms were extended from his sides, his hands curled into claws, the nails white with scrapings of ice. He had tried to get out. He still hadn’t been dead. He had clawed away at the thick ice for who knew how long. The cyanide hadn’t killed him, four of the Prince’s bullets, drowning. None of it had worked.
I don’t know what it was that took him in the end. All that mattered was that he was gone.
1924
WE FOUND WORK easily in London; both Zoya and I were settled with respectable positions within a few weeks of our arrival from Paris, enough to keep food on our table, enough to keep our minds from dwelling too long on the past. My interview with Mr Trevors took place on the same morning that Zoya was offered employment at Newsom’s textiles factory, which specialized in the production of women’s undergarments and nightwear. The next morning, and every morning that followed it, she left our small flat in Holborn at seven o’clock, dressed in the grey, drab uniform of the shop floor, a similarly dowdy cloth cap covering her hair, not a strand or a stitch or a thread able to diminish her beauty by the slightest degree. Her tasks were monotonous and she rarely had an opportunity to use any of the skills she had perfected in Paris, but she took pride in her work nonetheless. A part of me felt that she was wasting her talents engaged in such menial work, but she seemed content with her position and sought no greater opportunities for now.
‘I like being in the factory,’ she said whenever I suggested this. ‘There are so many people there, it’s easy to become lost. Everyone has a single, simple task to undertake and everyone does it quietly and without fuss. No one pays any attention to me. I like that. I don’t want to stand out. I don’t want to be noticed.’
Sometimes when she came home, however, she complained about how hard it was to endure the chatter of the other women, for her station was situated at the centre of a long row of machinists who opened their mouths when the whistle blew in the morning and barely closed them again until they were safely back home at the end of the day. There were eight women to her left, a further six to her right, with five rows both behind and in front of her. The conversation of the workers was enough to give anyone a headache, but, if nothing else, at least it distracted from the incessant buzz and hum of the sewing machines.
There was a great deal more interest in our accents in England than there had been in France, where the presence of different nationalities had become the norm after the war. The fact that we had spent more than five years in the French capital meant that our enunciation had developed a curiously hybrid tone, located somewhere been St Petersburg and Paris. We were regularly asked where we came from and when we replied, truthfully, there was often a raised eyebrow and sometimes a cautious nod of the head. But we were treated civilly by most people for, after all, this was 1924 and we were between the wars.
Zoya became an object of interest for a young woman named Laura Highfield, who operated the machine next to hers. Laura was a dreamer and found the fact that Zoya had been born in Russia and had spent so many years of her life in France to be both romantic and exotic, and she quizzed her relentlessly on her past, with little satisfaction. On one particular evening in late spring, when a week’s worth of snowfall lay on the ground to remind me of home, I finished work early at the library and strolled towards the factory to meet Zoya and take her to dinner at one of the inexpensive cafés that lined her route home. As we were leaving, Laura caught sight of us together and called my wife’s name, waving her arms frantically at her as she ran towards us.
There must have been two or three hundred women emerging from the gates at that same moment, all lost in chatter and gossip, but the great sound from the factory horn that repeatedly signalled the end of the working day sent me into a peculiar reverie. It reminded me very much of the horn that would echo from the Imperial train as it traversed the Russian countryside, transporting the Tsar’s family on their endless pilgrimages throughout the year. It sounded once and I pictured Nicholas and Alexandra seated in their private salon, their gold crests emblazoned on the thick carpet as the train brought them from St Petersburg to the Palace of Livadia for their spring holiday; it sounded again and there was Olga studying her languages as we travelled to Peterhof in May; again, and I saw Tatiana lost in one of her romantic novels as the train roared onwards in June towards the Imperial yacht and the Finnish fjords; again, and I thought of Marie, staring out towards the hunting lodge in the Polish forest; once more, and there was Anastasia, desperately trying to attract her parents’ attention as they returned to the Crimea; one final time, and it is November now and the train is making its way at a snail’s pace towards Tsarskoe Selo for the winter, under strict instructions from the Empress not to exceed fifteen miles an hour, lest the Tsarevich Alexei suffer another of his traumas with the jostling of the buffers along the tracks. So many memories, all rushing towards me, every one reborn by the sound of a klaxon sending a group of workers home to their families.
‘You look distracted,’ Zoya said as she took my arm and rested her head against my shoulder for a moment. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Perfectly fine, Dusha,’ I said with a smile, kissing the top of her head lightly. ‘Just some silliness on my part, that’s all. I thought for a moment—’
‘Zoya!’
The voice calling from behind made us turn around to where Laura was dashing towards us, a group of women following her. They were going for a cup of tea, she told Zoya, looking me up and down judgementally as she spoke; did she want to join them?
‘I can’t,’ she said, failing to introduce me and rushing us along. ‘Sorry. Some other time, perhaps?’
‘Friends of yours?’ I asked, surprised by how quickly she was trying to get away from them.
‘They try to be,’ she said. ‘We just work together, that’s all.’
‘I can go home if you want to go for tea with them,’ I said. ‘We don’t know many people in London, after all. It might be nice to have—’
‘No,’ said Zoya quickly, interrupting me. ‘No, I don’t want that.’
‘But why not?’ I asked, surprised. ‘Don’t you like them?’
She hesitated and her face took on a certain anxiety before she replied. ‘We shouldn’t make friends,’ she said finally.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I shouldn’t make friends,’ she said, correcting herself. ‘They don’t need to be involved with me. That’s all.’
I frowned, unsure what she meant by this. ‘But I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What harm could it do, after all? Zoya, if you think that—’
‘It’s not safe, Georgy,’ she snapped, her words rushing out quickly as her temper flared. ‘It will do her no good to befriend me. I’m bad luck. You know that. If I get too close …’
I stopped in the middle of the street and stared at her in amazement. ‘Zoya!’ I cried, taking her by the arm and turning her round to face me. ‘You can’t mean it.’
‘Why can’t I?’
‘No one is bad luck,’ I said. ‘The idea is preposterous.’
‘To know me is to suffer,’ she replied, her voice deep and grave, her eyes darting back and forth as her forehead wrinkled into a painful furrow of lines. ‘It doesn’t make sense, Georgy, I know it doesn’t, but it’s true. You must see the truth of it. I don’t want to be close to Laura. I don’t want her to die.’
‘To die?’ I cried, turning to glare quickly at a man who had pushed past me, my sudden fury enough to make me want to chase after him and challenge him. I might have done it, too, had Zoya not grabbed my elbow ti
ghtly and forced me to look at her.
‘I am a person who should not be alive,’ she said, her words dissolving the crowds around us into dust so that there were only the two of us left alone in the world, my heart racing at the expression of utter belief and unhappiness on my wife’s face. ‘He saw it in me,’ she continued, looking away now and focussing on the tall banks of snow which were building behind us. I could hear the laughter of children as they kicked their way through the mounds and made snowballs to throw at each other, the shouts of dismay as they buried their small hands in the flurry to numb their fingers. ‘Poor child, he said. They all come to harm when they are near you, do they not?’
‘Zoya,’ I said, shocked, for she had never mentioned this to me before. ‘I don’t … how could you …’
‘I don’t want friends,’ she hissed. ‘I don’t need anyone. Only you. Think of it. Think of them all. Think of what I did. It never ends, does it? They’re the price that I pay for life. Even Leo—’
‘Leo!’ I could scarcely believe that she was mentioning his name. Neither of us had forgotten him, of course – we would never forget him – but, like everyone else, he was a part of the past. And Zoya and I, we buried the past, deep. We never spoke of it. It was how we survived. ‘What happened to Leo was nobody’s fault but his own.’
‘Oh Georgy,’ she said quietly, laughing a little and shaking her head. ‘To be as simple-minded as you. What a joy that must be.’
I opened my mouth to contradict her, not insulted by what she had said but devastated. For she was right. I was simple-minded, a virtual half-wit when it came to arguing this subject with her. I wanted to express my love for her but it seemed so empty, so trivial, compared to what she was saying. I had no words left.
‘But look!’ she cried a moment later, clapping her hands together in delight as she spotted her favourite café opening its doors along the street, her sudden enthusiasm, reflected in the darkening night, reminding me of the innocent girl with whom I had fallen in love. It was as if the last few minutes of our conversation had not even taken place. ‘Oh, they’re open again, I thought they had closed for ever. Let’s go in, Georgy, can we? We can have our dinner there.’
She ran out on to the road so quickly, without looking in either direction, that she just missed being hit by a bus that sounded its horn violently at her as she ran past. My heart jumped in horror as I pictured her being crushed under its wheels, but as it drove on I could see her stepping quickly into the warmth of the café, entirely oblivious to the just-avoided accident.
Five months later, she made her first suicide attempt.
The day started much like any other, except for the fact that I was suffering from a sick headache and complained of it over breakfast; it was an unfamiliar sensation to me for I almost never became ill. I had woken from a colourful and dramatic dream, the type you hope to retain in your memory for later consideration, but which quietly slips away and dissolves, like sugar in water. I decided that it must have involved a marching band or percussion orchestra, for the migraine, a dull pounding in my forehead that blurred my vision and sapped my energy, was present from the moment that I opened my eyes, and threatened to get worse as the morning progressed.
Zoya was still wearing her nightgown during breakfast, unusual in itself, for she typically dressed for work while I was taking my bath. Her boiled egg with toast was missing too and she sat opposite me with a distant expression on her face, ignoring the cup of tea that I’d placed before her.
‘Is everything all right?’ I asked her, almost resenting having to speak, for it only provoked the drum-beats behind my eyes. ‘You’re not feeling ill too, are you?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ she said quickly, offering a half-smile and shaking her head. ‘I’m just running late, that’s all. I feel quite tired this morning. I suppose I should get ready.’
She stood up and went into the bedroom to change. As I sat there, there was a part of me that recognized something different and awkward in her behaviour, but my head was pounding so badly that I didn’t feel able to ask her about it. The window was open and I could tell that it was a brisk, chilly morning; all I wanted was to go out on to the street and begin my walk to work, in the hope that the fresh air would clear my head by the time I reached Bloomsbury.
‘I’ll see you this evening,’ I said, walking into the bedroom to offer her a kiss goodbye. I was surprised to find her still sitting on the bed, staring at the blank wall before her. ‘Zoya?’ I asked, frowning, ‘what on earth’s the matter? Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘I’m fine, Georgy,’ she replied, standing up and reaching into the wardrobe to retrieve her uniform.
‘But you were just sitting there,’ I said. ‘Is there something on your mind?’
She turned to look at me and I could see her forehead wrinkling slightly as she struggled with something that she wanted to say. Her lips parted and she drew a breath, but then hesitated, shook her head and looked away.
‘I’m just tired, that’s all,’ she said finally, with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘It’s been a long week.’
‘But it’s only Wednesday,’ I said, smiling at her.
‘A long month, then.’
‘It’s the sixth.’
‘Georgy …’ she sighed, her tone growing irritable and frustrated.
‘All right, all right,’ I said. ‘But maybe you should get some rest. This isn’t to do with …’ It was my turn to hesitate now; the subject was a difficult one and not ideally suited to the early hour of the morning. ‘You’re not worried about …’
‘About what?’ she asked defensively.
‘I know you were disappointed on Sunday,’ I said. ‘On Sunday afternoon, I mean, when—’
‘It’s not that,’ she said quickly, looking a little flushed, I thought, as she turned away and smoothed down her uniform on its hanger. ‘Honestly, Georgy, not everything is to do with that. I knew it wouldn’t be this month anyway. I could tell.’
‘You seemed to think it might be.’
‘Then I was wrong. If we are to be blessed … then it will happen at the right time. I can’t continue to focus on it. It’s too much for me, Georgy, can’t you see that?’ I nodded. I didn’t want us to argue and even the effort of holding this conversation at all was affecting my headache so badly that I thought I might be sick. ‘What time is it anyway?’ she asked me a moment later.
‘A quarter past seven,’ I said, glancing at my watch. ‘You’ll be late if you don’t hurry up. We’ll both be late.’
She nodded and reached forward to kiss me, smiling a little as she did so. ‘Then I’d better hurry along,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you this evening. I hope your headache disappears soon.’
We parted and I went to the front door of the flat, but before I could open it, I heard her walking quickly through the kitchen towards me; as she grabbed me by the arm, I turned around and she threw herself into my arms. ‘I’m so sorry, Georgy,’ she said, the words muffled as she buried her face in my chest.
‘Sorry?’ I asked, pulling away from her a little and smiling in confusion. ‘Sorry for what?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, puzzling me even further. ‘But I do love you, Georgy. You know that, don’t you?’
I stared at her and laughed. ‘But of course I know it,’ I said. ‘I feel it every day. And you know that I love you too, don’t you?’
‘I’ve always known it,’ she replied. ‘At times, I don’t know what I ever did to deserve such kindness.’
On any other occasion I would have happily sat down with her and listed her attributes, the dozens of ways I loved her, the hundreds of reasons why, but the dead thumping behind my forehead was growing worse by the minute so I simply reached down, kissed her softly on either cheek, and said that I had better get some air quickly or I would collapse with the pain.
She watched me as I climbed the steps towards the street, but when I turned back to wave, the door was already closing behind me. I stoo
d there and stared at the frosted glass, through which I could make her out as she stood pressed up against it, her head bowed slightly. She held that pose for five, perhaps ten seconds, then walked away.
Contrary to what I had hoped, I was feeling even more unsettled by the time I arrived at the library, but I made an effort to ignore my pain and continue with my duties. By eleven o’clock, however, the pain had spread to my stomach and limbs and I became convinced that I must have picked up a bug somewhere, which would not be cured by a long day of activity. It was not a busy day, though – we had no acquisitions to catalogue and the readers’ room was unusually quiet – so I knocked on Mr Trevors’ door and explained my situation. The combination of my pale, perspiration-tinged face and the fact that I had not taken a day’s sick leave in all the time that I had been employed there ensured that he sent me on my way without complaint.
Leaving the library, I couldn’t face the walk back to Holborn and took a bus instead. Its movement as it shuddered along Theobald’s Road towards our home made me feel even more ill and I worried that I might either vomit on the floor in front of me or be forced to jump off the moving bus to spare my disgrace. At the end of my journey, however, lay the only thing of any interest to me at that moment – my bed – and I focussed on it and tried to ignore the suffering which was threatening to overwhelm me.
Finally, at half past eleven, I walked carefully down the steps towards our flat and opened the door, letting myself in with a great sigh of relief. It felt strange to be in the flat alone – Zoya was almost always here when I was at home – but I poured myself a glass of water and sat at the table, thinking of nothing in particular as I took a few cautious sips, hoping that it might help to settle my stomach.
