Rasputin moved on to the tsar. “Little Father,” he declared, throwing himself once more to the floor. “I kneel before you and all of Russia.”
“Please sit, Grigory Yefimovich,” said Nicky, placing his hand on the top of Rasputin’s head. “Sit, sir. We have heard so very much about you.”
But Rasputin did not sit. Instead he paced around the room, explaining how excited he was that God had seen fit to send him here, how his journey had been so long and arduous, and how now he’d been filled by the Holy Spirit by the very fact that he was standing before them. He went on to say how very much the people loved their “Little Mother” and “Little Father,” how they were the soul and spirit of the true Russia and the absolute opposite to these new government officials inhabiting the Duma.
“They are the true charlatans, they are the leeches on the soul of the true Russia. You were put there by God, you rule by the will of God!” he said, walking up and down in front of the fireplace. “There is a Chukchi saying,” he added. “‘A brother is not only he whose face and form are like ours. A brother’s he who knows our joy and pain and understands.’”
He finished by fixing Alix with his pale eyes. She slowly lowered her gaze, uncomfortable under the scrutiny.
IT WAS A TOUR DE FORCE: THE PACING AND THE PROCLAIMING, the sheer vitality of the man bursting into their quiet, introspective world. Nicholas and Alexandra could not take their eyes off him. By the time he finally sat down to drink a cup of tea with a teaspoon heaped with the jam, Alix was a convert. She sat up, her back straight, her eyes shining. Militza had not seen her this alive and alert since she and Stana had introduced her to Philippe, all those years ago.
“Tell them about your impressions of St. Petersburg,” enthused Stana.
“Little Father and Little Mother don’t want to hear about that,” he replied, licking his spoon. “Why don’t I tell them about their own land, the land that stretches as far as the eye can see?” He smiled, pointing out of the window with his spoon. “Where the horizons are wide and the sky touches the earth; the coldest inhabited place on earth, where a mound of snow can change into a girl hiding from the moon and a young boy can change into a whale, his spear into a fin. Where trees have souls and the woods whisper with the sounds of the spirits?”
“I have been to Siberia,” said Alix. Nicky looked at her, a little surprised. “Sarov.”
“It is nearly there, Little Mother. Not quite. But close.”
“The canonization.”
“I was there!”
“You were?”
“I was walking barefoot with the pilgrims. I touched the coffin of the holy saint before he was placed into the giant marble-and-granite sarcophagus, and while you bathed in the river at midnight I announced to the congregation in the church that the long-awaited heir to the throne would be born within a year!”
“And he was!”
“He was.” Rasputin paused. “And he is well?”
“Quite well, thank you,” said Alix. “In fact,” she added, “you must come and visit us at Selo.” Nicky looked across at his wife, but she ignored him. “I would love for you to meet him. He is a very dear, beautiful boy, with great big cheeks and huge blue eyes. Everyone loves him.”
They sat and talked for another twenty minutes before Alix announced they must leave. She wanted to find out how the girls had coped with their new tutor, and she didn’t like to leave her boy for too long.
“I am always worried about him,” she said, allowing Rasputin to kiss her good-bye. “He is so very precious to all of us, you see.”
“And upon him rest the hopes of all of us,” agreed Rasputin.
AS SOON AS THEY LEFT, RASPUTIN DEMANDED A BOTTLE OF Madeira wine, which he proceeded to drink one whole glass at a time.
“I think they liked me,” he said, draining a glass. “She is a nervous, skittish thing who appears to have the worries of the world on her shoulders. She needs to relax a little more, have some amusement in her life. She has a sadness that I can’t quite yet put my finger on.” He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand and then chuckled. “And His Imperial Majesty is so small! Nothing like your stallion, Mamma!” He grinned at Stana. “Now that is a man! I bet he is an enthusiastic ride.”
“Do you mean the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich? Commander of the St. Petersburg district?” she asked. “My very dear, close friend?”
“A very close friend, Mamma. But when your husband lives abroad, what are you to do except make close friends?”
“If you’ll excuse me,” said Stana, a little riled. “I must check on the children.”
Rasputin laughed as he watched her go, then helped himself to some more Madeira.
“Tell me . . .” He paused to drink from his glass. “I hear you have an icon of St. John the Baptist? Given to you by a Maître Philippe.”
“How do you know about that?” asked Militza.
“Bishop Theofan likes to talk.”
“Well, he shouldn’t.”
“He couldn’t help himself. It is famous,” he said. “It protects whosoever owns it.”
“From what?”
“Evil. Death. Assassination.” He smiled. “I’d like to have a look at it.”
“It is not here.”
“Another time,” he said, taking another large sip of Madeira. “We have plenty of time, you and I, plenty of time. Don’t we, Mamma?” He paused. “I have an icon I want to give the tsar and tsarina—Righteous St. Simeon of Verkhoturye. It’s not quite like yours, but it is also one of the most powerful icons I know.” He looked at the floor and belched through the back of his teeth. He was lost in his own world for a second. “I can’t help but feel they might need it. There is a rocky and difficult path ahead for them. I see it.”
He looked morose for a second, as if what he had just witnessed disturbed him.
“But tonight,” he announced, getting out of his seat, “tonight, I dine with the gypsies!”
“You do?” Militza was a little surprised.
“That lovely little actress with the milky shoulders, from the other night, has suggested we dine at the Cubat.”
“I am not sure that is sensible for a man in your position,” said Militza.
“What position?”
“You’re a priest.”
“I am a man of God, Mamma, not a priest.”
“All the same.”
“Are you jealous, Mamma?”
“Of course not!” snapped Militza, feeling her cheeks flush a little. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“As you wish,” he said, taking another large gulp of wine.
“But there is one thing you have to promise me.”
He looked at her, his eyes narrowing. “I don’t like making promises.”
“You must not—and I repeat, must not—go and visit the tsar and tsarina alone. You must only go with Stana or me.” She paused, then said, “It’s for your own good. We need to be there to help, you understand. I don’t want you to make a mistake. I don’t want you to overstep the mark, do something wrong.”
“Are you saying that a peasant doesn’t deserve to dine at the court of the king?”
“No, no. Of course he does. But there are many enemies out there. Take it from someone who knows the pitfalls and traps of the court. You have to be smart and you have to play clever.”
“We’ll see,” he said, turning to walk away.
“We will not see!” Militza raised her voice. “You will do as I say.”
“Do as you say? Or what?”
“Or I will destroy you!”
“Destroy me? You barely know me.”
“I made you and I can just as easily destroy you!” she pronounced dramatically, then immediately felt a little foolish.
He looked at her quizzically. “You did not make me, Mamma, and neither can you destroy me,” he whispered as he stared at her, his eyes unblinking. “I’m a strannik, a wanderer from the steppes of Siberia. I am at no one’s beck and call.” He started to walk
out of the door. Then he stopped and turned. “Have you not heard the story of the fisherman who makes a man out of clay?” She shook her head. “Well, let me tell you.” He smiled and he walked slowly back towards her. “So the fisherman fashions a man out of clay and leaves him outside to dry, and when the clay man is finally dry, he sits outside the house and then he tap-tap-taps on the windowpane. At first they ignore him, hoping he’ll go away. But he won’t stop tapping. Tap. Tap. Tap. On and on. Until eventually the fisherman’s wife lets him in.”
“And then?”
“And then—he swallows them both up whole: arms, legs, even the fishing nets, all in one go.” He clapped his hands together. “The end.”
“Actually,” interrupted Stana, appearing right behind him, “I am not sure that is the end of the story.”
“Really?” said Rasputin.
“Doesn’t the clay man get too greedy? Doesn’t the clay man eat half the village, the milkmaids with their yokes and their pails, the old women with their baskets of berries, only to try and eat the beautiful elk? But the beautiful elk charges into the clay man’s open, greedy, expectant mouth, making him explode into a hundred little tiny clay pieces, never to be seen again . . . ?”
There was a pause.
“Well, Mamma,” he replied eventually, with a nod of his head. “I commend you on your knowledge of Siberian folktales.”
Chapter 21
March 12, 1906, Tsarskoye Selo
IT WASN’T LONG BEFORE TRAGEDY STRUCK.
Out playing with his sailor bodyguard, Derevenko, and Derevenko’s own son, the Tsarevich Alexei had fallen in the garden. Everyone had been watching, everyone had been paying attention, but still the child had managed to trip over and land hard on his knee. He’d stood up quickly enough, only to fall backwards, pale as death, into the arms of Derevenko.
Alix had been at his side for three days and three nights, nursing him. She had not slept, or washed, or eaten. She would not, could not, leave her son. There were blue swellings, a sign of an internal hemorrhage, as the boy lay crumpled in agony, clutching at his knee, his small white face poking out above the covers like a corpse in the morgue. Doctors came and went, and Dr. Badmaev arrived with brown packets of herbs and potions, elixirs and an herbal poultice to ease the pain. Nothing made a difference.
It was as if God had abandoned both the tsarina and her son.
Day followed night and there was no respite. The boy cried and moaned constantly, gradually becoming more exhausted by the pain, gradually moving one step closer to death. But still his mother didn’t move. No one dared enter the sickroom for fear of what they might see. There was one moment when the tsar himself approached his son’s bedside, only for the child to say:
“Papa, it hurts.”
Nicky left the room and was soon heard weeping farther down the corridor.
IT WAS NICKY WHO TELEPHONED MILITZA.
“You have to come,” he’d explained very quietly down the line. “She can’t be on her own any longer. For if it is God’s will that Alexei dies tonight, she will need her friends.”
It was Peter who suggested that Militza take Rasputin along.
“If the situation is as grave as you say, then at least he might prove to be something of a distraction,” concluded Peter as Militza was rushing out of the door.
“But can we trust him?”
“He might be able to help.”
IT WAS MIDNIGHT, ON THE THIRD NIGHT, WHEN MILITZA, Stana, and the muzhik arrived. They left Rasputin in the carriage outside, fearing his presence might spook Alix, and entered the palace through the back entrance, not wanting to go through the numerous guards who would spend too long entering them into official registers. Every step the royal couple was taking these days was recorded, and there were spies and informants everywhere. After walking up the back stairs, they entered the private apartments, where they knocked three times on Alix’s door. There was no response, so Militza knocked once more and entered the room, leaving Stana in the corridor. Inside, she found Alexandra prone on her bed. Exhausted, she had long since given up on God and was staring, unseeing, at the ceiling, waiting for the dawn and the inevitable death of her son.
Militza bent down and, placing her face close to Alix’s on the pillow, she started to whisper in her ear. She told her help was at hand, that they had brought Rasputin with them. She reminded Alix that he’d cured a dog and had recently saved a child in the village, said that they had so much more evidence of his powers, that the stories were coming thick and fast from Siberia all the time.
“He is a true miracle worker,” she hushed. “Let him see Alexei—I know he can help. He’s outside, waiting in a carriage, and has a message for you: ‘Just tell the empress not to weep. I will make her youngster well. Once he is a soldier, he will have red cheeks again!’”
Alix lay still as she listened; at the mention of Alexei’s cheeks turning red, she smiled. “Red cheeks,” she whispered, and a single tear snaked down her cheek.
“Remember, my darling, remember what Philippe said,” Militza continued to whisper. “That someone will come, someone who is more powerful than he, someone who is a friend. He will make your son well. He will save Russia. God has sent him to you.”
Nicky finally entered the room with a lamp. His wife turned to look at him; her eyes appeared glassy.
“My darling,” she said slowly, “let the muzhik in, bring in Rasputin. He has been sent by God. By Philippe. Only he can help us now.”
Nicky hesitated. Few but this intimate circle even knew his son was ill. Could he trust this man? This man they hardly knew? They’d met him once and now he was about to become privy to their innermost secret. But his son’s life was slipping away from him, faster than the melting snow. He had very little choice.
RASPUTIN WAS ESCORTED UP THE BACK STAIRS AND LED ALONG darkened corridors so as not to alert the guards. Finally he appeared at the door to the boy’s bedroom. Dressed in a black tunic, his hair unbrushed, he immediately embraced Stana and Militza, and then, turning towards the tsar and tsarina, he kissed them both three times on the cheek. The nurse attending to Alexei stopped mopping the boy’s brow and opened her mouth in shock. She had never seen such familiarity. Who was this man who entered the tsarevich’s room in the middle of the night?
Rasputin immediately fell to his knees in front of the wall of icons above the boy’s bed and began to pray. He then approached the bed, made a sign of the cross over the boy’s forehead, and said:
“Don’t be afraid, Alyosha, everything is all right again.”
The boy opened his eyes and stared at the strange figure above his bed. Rasputin proceeded to stroke the child, moving his hands slowly and gently over his arms, down his body and legs. They were little brushing movements, light as feathers, as if he were clearing crumbs off a table. At the very tips of Alexei’s toes, he appeared to flick and brush whatever it was he’d collected off his fingers and into the ether. And all the while he mumbled, all the while he muttered—and all the while everyone else in the room looked on in silence.
“There,” he said. “I have driven all your horrid pains away. Nothing will hurt you anymore. Nothing. Tomorrow you will be well and then see what games we can play!”
Instead of being scared by the large figure in black, Alexei was intrigued.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“A holy pilgrim,” replied Alix. “A holy man who will make you well again. God himself has sent him to your mama and your papa.”
Rasputin sat down on the bed. “I am from Siberia,” he said. “A land so vast and wide no one has ever seen the end of it. It is a land where bears roam, where the tigers are white; in the winter months even the sky dances at night.”
“Where is this strange land?” Alexei’s fever already seemed to have abated. He was so mesmerized by the extraordinary character at the end of his bed that he sat up. And then he smiled. At which point Alix let out an odd whimper and left the room.
“Shall
I tell you a story?” began Rasputin.
“Yes, please.”
“It begins like this . . . The Sun has many children—”
“Like Mama,” said Alexei.
“Just like your mother.” He smiled. “The Sun’s eldest son is Peivalke, then the Four Winds, the Storm Cloud twins, Lightning, Thunder, and Tempest. But most of all the Sun loves his three daughters: Golden Sunshine, Misty Shadow, and the youngest, Bright Sunbeam. The Sun’s daughters live fearless and free, chasing the wild reindeer over the tundra, dancing in woodland glades, darting like silvery fish in Lake Seityavr and reposing on its broad banks. One day . . .”
MILITZA AND STANA LEFT THE ROOM, CLOSING THE DOOR gently behind them. They walked down the corridor in silence, neither exactly sure what they had witnessed; all they knew was that a child on the verge of death had miraculously been brought back to life before their eyes. Had Rasputin hypnotized him? Was he a faith healer? A magician? A trickster? Had he brushed away the tsarevich’s pain like a shaman? Who was this man? Militza turned to her sister.
“Thank you!” came a quiet voice from the darkness. It was Alix, sitting slumped in a chair in the corner of the landing, her weary head in her hands. “He is saved,” she said simply, looking up, her eyes full of tears.
“Yes!” said Stana, crouching down next to Alix and taking hold of her shaking hands. “I know! We have witnessed a miracle! A powerful miracle! Here, in this palace, in the depths of the night, something happened. Something that we shall never forget.”
“Did God not forsake me after all?” asked Alix.
“He did not,” confirmed Militza. “Your prayers were answered.”
Alix laughed. “What are they doing now? What is my son doing now? My son, who I thought would never see the dawn again, what is he doing?”
“Rasputin is telling him stories about Siberia,” said Stana. “About wolves and bears and bubbling rivers and vast open steppes.”
“He’d like that,” Alix said, her voice weak as if she were in a dream. “He likes stories very much. But he must rest now,” she added, looking from one sister to another. “What time is it?”
The Witches of St. Petersburg Page 23
