The House of Special Purpose

by John Boyne

  It was unthinkable, but the most likely explanation. Even to consider it left me in a state of depression. The hours went by, the sun set, I left the café and roamed the streets again, walking an hour in one direction in order for it to take me another hour to return again. I didn’t grow tired, for tonight I was entirely alert. Nine o’clock came and went, ten o’clock, eleven o’clock. Midnight approached. I could wait no longer.

  I went back.

  If the house did not seem particularly oppressive during the daytime, it adopted a different characteristic at night, for the speckled shadows of the moon falling down upon the walls and fences that surrounded it unsettled me. The guards who had worked in shifts, casually walking up and down the driveway, apparently taking little notice of who was observing their movements, were now nowhere to be seen. The gate was unlocked and a lorry stood in the centre of the driveway, its cargo – if it had one – hidden from view by a tarpaulin sheet. I hesitated on the grass opposite, looking around nervously as I wondered what was taking place inside. After a few minutes, wary of the soldiers returning and finding me standing there, I made my way across to the cluster of trees where I had told Marie that I would wait and hoped that Anastasia would soon emerge to find me.

  It was not long before the lights in the ground-floor parlour were turned on and what appeared to be the entire complement of soldiers entered the room. They were not wearing their Bolshevik uniforms now, but had changed into the simple clothing of local farmers. Their rifles were slung over their shoulders as ever, but rather than splitting up as I expected – some to sleep, some to work, some to watch – they took their seats around the table and turned their attention to an older man, a soldier who seemed to be in charge, who was on his feet talking while the rest sat silently and listened.

  A moment later, I heard an unexpected sound on the gravel of the driveway. I crouched further back into the woodland, while raising my head to try to see who had emerged. It was dark, however, and the lorry stood in my way, so I could distinguish no one in the distance except the guards in the parlour. I held my breath and yes, there it was again – feet walking carefully upon the stones, crunching them underfoot.

  Someone had left the house.

  I squinted and tried desperately to see whether it was Anastasia, but was loath to call out her name, even in a raised whisper, in case I was wrong and my presence was discovered. There was nothing I could do but wait. My heart pounded inside my chest and despite the chill of the hour a line of perspiration broke out across my forehead. Something felt wrong. I wondered whether I should take a chance and make my way across the road, but before I could decide, the guards stood up in unison and extended their right arms forward into the centre of the room, placing their hands on top of each other’s in a great pile before lifting them off once again and standing very quietly in a row. Two of the men, the one who had been speaking and one other, left the parlour; through the half-open front door I watched them ascend the staircase that ran through the centre of the house.

  Glancing again towards the driveway, I hoped to identify the person who had come outside, but all was silence now. Perhaps it had just been the Tsaritsa’s terrier, I reasoned. Or another animal. Perhaps I had only imagined it. No matter; if there was someone there a moment before, he or she was gone now.

  A light went on in an upstairs window and I turned quickly to look in its direction. I could hear voices from above, a low murmur, and then a shadow appeared through the pale curtain of a group of people standing as one, huddled together, then separating and making their way, one by one, towards the door.

  I moved quickly to my left and peered through the trees at the staircase. A moment later the Grand Duchess Olga appeared, followed by a small group whose identities I had difficulty making out in the darkness, but who I was convinced must be her brother and sisters, Marie, Tatiana, Anastasia and Alexei. I saw them only briefly before they turned a corner and vanished. All five of them were being separated from their parents to be taken elsewhere, I decided. They were young, after all. They had committed no crimes. Perhaps they were being permitted to leave.

  But no, the hallway stood empty for only a minute before the Tsar and Tsaritsa appeared and began to make their way down the stairs too, walking slowly as they supported each other, apparently both lacking strength, followed by two soldiers who led them in the same direction as their children had gone.

  Absolute silence followed. The remaining soldiers in the parlour stood up and left the room slowly, the final one turning off the light, and then they too turned the corner and disappeared out of sight.

  At that moment, I felt utterly alone. The world seemed a perfectly silent and peaceful place, save for the light rustle of the leaves overhead, stirred by the summer breeze. There was a certain beauty to the place, a civilized expectation that all was well in our country and all would be well, now and ever after, as I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to drift away in the silence. The Ipatiev house was in darkness. The family had vanished. The soldiers had disappeared. Whoever had been walking along the gravel driveway was out of sight and earshot. I was all alone, scared, uncertain, in love. I felt an overwhelming rush of exhaustion that hit me suddenly with the force of a hurricane; I thought I should simply lie down on the grass, close my eyes, go to sleep and hope that eternity would come. It would be very easy to lie down now, to offer my soul into the hands of God, to allow the hunger and deprivation to catch up with me and take me to a place of peace, where I could stand before Kolek Boryavich and say I’m sorry.

  Where I could kneel before my sisters and say I’m sorry.

  Where I could wait for my love to come to me and say I’m sorry.

  Anastasia.

  For one final moment, the world was in perfect silence.

  And then the shots rang out.

  First one, suddenly, unexpected. I jumped. My eyes opened. I stood, frozen to the spot. Then, a few moments later, a second, and now I gasped. Then a series of shots, as if every gun that every Bolshevik owned was being discharged. The noise was tremendous. I couldn’t move. A bright light flashed on and off a thousand times to the left of the staircase as the guns sounded. My mind raced with possibilities that crashed together. It was so unexpected that I could do nothing but stay where I was, unable to move, wondering whether the entire world had just come to an end.

  It took fifteen, twenty seconds perhaps before I was able to breathe again, and just as I did so my feet found purchase on the ground and I tried to stand up. I had to see, I had to go there, I had to help them. Whatever was happening. I lifted myself up, but before I could move a great commotion sounded in the trees before me and a body threw itself at me, flattening me, sending me falling to the ground, dazed for a moment, wondering what had happened. Had I been shot? Was this the moment of my death?

  But that foolishness lasted only a moment and I scrambled backwards, straining in the darkness to see who was lying next to me. I stared and gasped.

  ‘Georgy,’ she cried.

  1918

  IT WAS A MOMENT I had never conceived of in my imagination. I, Georgy Daniilovich Jachmenev, the son of a serf, a nothing, a nobody, crouched in a thicket in the darkness of a freezing-cold Yekaterinburg night, holding in my arms the woman I loved, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaevna Romanova, the youngest daughter of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Tsar Nicholas II and the Tsaritsa, Alexandra Fedorovna Romanova. How had I got here? What extraordinary fate had taken me from the log huts of Kashin into the embrace of one of God’s anointed? I swallowed nervously, my stomach performing revolutions of its own within my body as I tried to understand what had happened.

  In the distance, the lights of the Ipatiev house were being turned on and off and I could hear the conflicting sounds of angry shouting and manic laughter emerging from within. Narrowing my eyes, I saw the Bolshevik leader standing in an upstairs window, opening it, leaning out and stretching his neck in an almost obscene manner to observe the panorama from left to right,
before shivering in the cold, closing it once again, and disappearing from sight.

  ‘Anastasia,’ I whispered, forcefully pulling her a few inches away from my body so that I could observe her better; she had spent the last few minutes pressed painfully against my chest, as if she was trying to burrow her way through to my very heart and find a hiding place within. ‘Anastasia, my love, what has happened? I heard the gunfire. Who was shooting? Was it the Bolsheviks? The Tsar? Speak to me! Is anyone injured?’

  She spoke not a word, but continued to stare at me as if I was not a man at all, but a figure from a nightmare that would dissolve into a thousand fragments at any moment. It was as if she did not recognize me, she who had spoken of love to me, promised a lifetime’s devotion. I reached for her hands, and as I took them in my own it was all that I could do not to release them again in fright. They could not have been colder had she been destined for the grave. At that very moment, her composure left her and she began to shake violently, allowing a deep guttural sound of tortured breathing to emerge from the back of her throat, the threat of a great scream to come. ‘Anastasia,’ I repeated, growing alarmed by her extraordinary behaviour. ‘It is me. It is your Georgy. Tell me what has happened. Who was shooting? Where is your father? And your family? What has happened to them?’ No response. ‘Anastasia!’

  I began to experience the sensation of horror which succeeds the recognition of a slaughter. As a boy, I had been present while villagers in Kashin had suffered and died, their bodies wasted by starvation or disease. Since joining the Leib Guard, I had witnessed men being led to their deaths, some staunch, some terrified, but never had I observed as much contained shock as that which lay before me in the trembling body of my beloved. It was clear that she had witnessed something so terrible that her mind could not yet process the fact of it, but in my youth and innocence, I knew not how best to attend to her.

  The sound of voices emerging from the house grew ever louder and I pulled us both deeper into the cover of the woodland. Although I was sure that we could not be seen where we lay, I grew concerned that Anastasia might suddenly return to her senses and expose us; I wished that I had a weapon of my own, should one be required.

  Three Bolsheviks stepped out from the tall red doors at the front of the house, lighting cigarettes, speaking in low voices. I saw the glow of matches being struck over and over and wondered whether they were nervous too or whether the breeze was extinguishing the flames before they could take. I was too far away to hear their conversation, but after a few moments one of them, the tallest one, let out a cry of anguish and I heard these words break the tranquillity of the night:

  But if it is discovered that she has—

  Nothing more. Eight simple words that I have pondered many times over the course of my life.

  I narrowed my eyes, attempting to decipher the expressions of these men, whether they were cheerful, excited, nervous, penitent, traumatized, murderous, but it was too difficult. I glanced down at Anastasia, who was clutching me painfully tight; she looked up at the same moment, caught my eye, and a look of such terror crossed her face that I feared that whatever had taken place inside that cursed house had made her lose her reason. She opened her mouth, drawing in a deep breath, and, fearful that she would begin to scream and betray us both to the soldiers, I placed my hand across her mouth, as I had with her older sister two nights earlier, and held it there, every fibre of my being revolting against such an offence, until finally I felt her body slump against my own and her eyes look away, as if she had the lost the will to fight any longer.

  ‘Forgive me, my darling,’ I whispered into her ear. ‘Forgive my brutality. But please don’t be afraid. They are out there, but I will protect us both. I will take care of you. You must remain silent though, my love. If we are discovered, they will come for us. We must stay here until the soldiers return inside.’

  The moon emerged from behind a cloud and for a moment I saw Anastasia’s face bathed in a pale glow. She appeared almost serene now, calm and tranquil, the way I had always imagined in my fantasies that she would appear in the stillness of the night. How many times had I dreamt of turning in my bed to find her there, sitting up to watch her as she slept, the only thing of beauty I had known in my nineteen years? How often had I awoken in a sweat, shamed, as her image dissolved from my dreams? But this serenity was in such conflict with our situation that it scared me. It was as if she had lost her mind. I feared that at any moment she might cry or scream or laugh or run through the woods, tearing at her clothes, if I was foolish enough to release her.

  And so I held her tightly against me and, youthful as I was, indiscreet as I was, lustful as I was, I could not help but take pleasure in the sensation of her body pressed so close against my own. I thought, I could have her now, and loathed myself for my perversion. We were faced with a terrifying situation, where discovery could mean extinction, and my primary emotions were base and animal. I disgusted myself. But still, I did not let her go.

  I watched through the trees, waiting for the soldiers to leave.

  And still, I did not let her go.

  The only thing I knew for certain was that we had to get away from there. What had been intended as a romantic tryst between two young lovers had been replaced by something else entirely, and if my alarm was less physically manifest than hers, it was no less real. I had anticipated Anastasia slipping into my arms filled with laughter, the same warm, giddy, affectionate creature whom I had fallen in love with in exalted surroundings, her radiance only slightly diminished by the time spent in Yekaterinburg. Instead, a traumatized mute had been my reward, and the sound of gunshots was the music that rang in my ears. Something terrible had occurred within the Ipatiev house, that much was obvious, but somehow Anastasia had escaped it. If we were to be discovered, I believed we would not survive until the morning.

  Although the night was dark and cold, my instinct was that we should make our way westward without delay and seek relief from the elements in a barn or coal-house, if such a place could be found. I bundled Anastasia to her feet – she seemed unwilling still to loosen her grip on me – and took her chin in my left hand, turning her face upwards so that our eyes would connect. I stared at her, attempting to draw her absolutely into my gaze and confidence, and only when I felt that she was alert and listening to me did I speak again.

  ‘Anastasia,’ I said quietly, my voice filled with purpose, ‘I do not know what has taken place tonight and this is not the moment to share confidences. Whatever has happened cannot be undone. But you must tell me one thing. Just one thing, my love. Can you do that?’ She continued to stare and gave no signal to me that she understood my words; I took it on faith that there was a part of her brain that remained sentient and responsive. ‘You must tell me this,’ I continued. ‘I want to take us away from here, to leave this place entirely, right now, not to send you back to your family. Anastasia, is this the right thing to do? Am I right to take you away from here?’

  Such a stillness existed between us at that moment that I did not dare to breathe. I was gripping her forearms between my hands, pressing so tightly against her skin that at any other moment she might have cried out in protest at the pain of it, but she did nothing now. I watched her face, desperate for any sign of an answer, and then – such relief! – an almost imperceptible nod of her head, a slight turning westward as if to indicate that yes, we should make our way in that direction. It allowed me to hope that the true Anastasia was present within this strange countenance somewhere, although the effort of making the tiny signal was too much for her and she slumped against my chest once again. My mind was resolved.

  ‘We begin now,’ I told her. ‘Before the sun comes up. You must find the strength to walk with me.’

  I have thought of that moment on many occasions throughout my life, and picture myself bending down to lift her from the ground and carry her not to safety, but in the direction of safety. This, perhaps, would have been the heroic gesture, the detail which wo
uld have made a fitting portrait or dramatic moment. But life is not poetry. Anastasia was a young girl of little weight, but how can I express the cruelty of the atmosphere, the impertinent froideur of the air, which bit at any exposed parts of our bodies in a manner reminiscent of the Empress’s loathsome puppy. It was as if the blood had stopped moving beneath the skin and turned to ice. We had to walk, we had to keep moving, if only to ensure that our circulation was maintained.

  I was wearing my greatcoat, and three layers of clothing beneath it, so removed this outer layer and wrapped it around Anastasia’s shoulders, buttoning it at the front as we began to walk. I focussed completely on maintaining a rhythm as I pulled the two of us along. We did not speak to each other and I became hypnotized by the sound of my footsteps, all the time maintaining a consistent pace so that we might not lose our momentum.

  Throughout this, I remained alert for the sound of the Bolsheviks behind us. Something had taken place inside the house that night, something terrible. I knew not what, but my mind reeled with possibilities. The worst was unthinkable, a crime against God himself. But if that which I dared not put into words had indeed taken place, then surely Anastasia and I were not the only two people running away from Yekaterinburg; there would be soldiers following us – following her – desperate to bring her back. And if they found us … I dared not think of it and quickened our pace.

  To my surprise, Anastasia did not appear to be finding this march in any way difficult. Indeed, not only did she match my consistent strides, at times she outpaced me, as if she was, despite her silence, even more eager than I to put as much distance between herself and her former prison as possible. Her stamina was beyond human that night; I believe I could have suggested that we walk all the way to St Petersburg and she would have agreed and never sought rest.