The Romanov Empress

by C. W. Gortner

  “I see.” I did not, but I’d take him at his word. What did it matter if an unwashed self-proclaimed holy man mumbled a few prayers and offered solace, if he did no other harm? I might not like it, but it wasn’t anything I could reasonably object to, no matter how disturbing it might be. Hope was essential for a sick child, even if with an illness like Alexei’s, it could be dangerous to hope too much. The disappointment would be all the more difficult to bear.

  “Can I see him?”

  “Father Grigori left. You did see him. He never stays here. I wouldn’t allow it—”

  “No.” I touched his hand to reassure him. “Alexei.”

  “Yes, of course. He’s in his room. I’ll take you to him.”

  * * *

  —

  HE WAS ASLEEP, his elfin face pallid but without visible pain, his leg hoisted up by a sling so the trapped blood could drain from his knee, which was very discolored and, it seemed to me, still horribly inflamed. As I glanced at Derevenko standing vigil in the corner, I pulled up a stool by my grandson’s bedside and watched as he slept, his eyelids fluttering. Biting back tears, I brushed his fine gold-brown hair from his forehead as I whispered, “Our precious boy.” His skin was warm to the touch but not feverish.

  His gray-blue eyes opened. Nicky’s eyes. “Grandmère.”

  I smiled. “I came as soon as I could. How do you feel?”

  He paused, as if taking stock of his body. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  “That’s a good sign. A very good sign. Before you know it, you’ll be up and running again.” I wouldn’t chastise him for behaving like any boy. Alexandra did that enough, seeking to instill in him constant awareness that he stood apart, not only by rank but because he was ill.

  “I was running,” he said. “That’s why I slipped. Is Mama very upset with me?”

  “No, no.” I caressed his cheek. “She’s worried. Not upset. Never with you. Rest now. Your papa is here. See?” I shifted away as Nicky stepped in. He’d been tarrying in the corridor.

  “My son.” He spoke with such composure, I had to avert my face. Nicky’s concern for Alexei ran so deep, I knew it was all he could feel. Yet he never showed it, stalwart as he sat upon the stool I vacated to take up a book from the bedside table. “Shall I read to you?”

  I tiptoed out. Though his knee looked awful, Alexei didn’t appear to be in discomfort. Nicky stayed with him while I went to see the girls. I found their apartments empty, a maid changing the sheets. She suggested I wait in the drawing room, as Their Highnesses took their dogs outside for a walk at this hour.

  In the drawing room, I found Anastasia on the window seat with her scrapbook.

  At eight years of age, my youngest granddaughter had grown, though she would be short, taking after my side of the family. And very pretty, too—not ethereal like Tatiana or as arresting as Olga, but with a liveliness to her wide-spaced blue eyes and with tousled ringlets of red-gold hair like her mother’s, drawn back from her round face with a crumpled bow. Her simple white frock with its lace hem was stained with what looked like plum jam from breakfast. The moment she saw me, she leapt up to embrace me, then proceeded to show me her scrapbook, in which she’d pressed dried petals, scraps of leaves, and a crow’s feather, all surrounded by her determined scrawl.

  “What does this say, Malankara?” I asked, using my nickname for her as I peered at her indecipherable writing. I had to resist my sorrow, comparing Anastasia’s robust bloom to Alexei upstairs.

  “A prayer,” she said.

  “In Cyrillic? No? But it’s not French, either.”

  “English,” she said with pride, as she should. She was still quite young to attempt the language, which both her parents spoke fluently.

  “An English prayer.” I smiled. “For what do you pray, my child?”

  “For whom.” Anastasia’s chin lifted in uncanny resemblance to Alexandra when she heard something she didn’t like. “For my brother. Our friend tells us that prayers can heal him. Writing our prayers down is the best way for God to hear us.”

  “Oh?” My stomach plummeted. “Does your friend often give you advice?” I tried to keep my voice placid, for Anastasia was sensitive, despite her youth, and after the suffering Alexei had endured, she’d be even more attuned to any undercurrents.

  “He’s our friend, Amama,” she said, as if puzzled by my ignorance.

  “Yes, but I do not know him,” I reminded her, recalling his leering smile and how his strange gaze had lingered on me. “Therefore, he’s not yet my friend.”

  “Oh.” Her frown cleared. This made sense to her, but she’d forgotten my question. I set her scrapbook aside, taking her hands in mine. Looking at her little fingers, marred from playing with the family dogs, the palace cats, and other mishaps, I was taken aback to see how thin and spotted my own were under my rings. The weight of the years seemed to fall upon me as I gazed into her eyes. “What else does your friend tell you?”

  I wasn’t sure why I was so concerned. Miechen had relayed that the man was hardly a paragon of virtue, but it was impossible to conceive he’d done anything untoward here. Alexandra had never tolerated the slightest infraction at court; she’d not abide it in her own abode. Yet he’d evidently met my granddaughters. He’d been allowed to visit Tsarskoe Selo not only to tend to Alexei but also to see the girls.

  “His name is Father Grigori. He says prayers are how we can help Alexei.” She hesitated. “He says God will heed us because He loves us so.”

  It was the expected childish response, but something in her voice, a slight quaver, made me ask, “Has he ever said anything else to you or your sisters?”

  She didn’t reply. I saw it then, a secret in her wary eyes, and when I said sharply, “Answer me,” she whispered, “Mama says we mustn’t speak of our friend to—”

  Her voice cut off. She pulled away, looking toward the drawing room doors, which stood ajar, as though she anticipated someone lurking there. The stiffening of her shoulders sent a wave of anger through me. I started to my feet, about to demand that whoever was hiding come out, when Anastasia said, “Mama.”

  And as I strained to listen past the thud of my heart in my ears, I heard what she already had: the approaching creak of wheels.

  Anastasia snatched the notebook from the window seat and tugged at her bow, which only tangled more in her hair. Before I could reach out to straighten it, Alexandra rolled in through the doors.

  She sat in a wheeled chair like the one my mother had used in her final days, her mauve shawl draped over her shoulders, and one of her ladies pushing the chair from behind. In the sudden hush at her entrance, Alexandra’s gaze swept immediately to me, standing by the window, with her daughter.

  Alexandra pursed her lips. “Nastya, why aren’t you outside with your sisters? It is the hour for exercise, not for dawdling indoors.”

  As if on cue, distant laughter and excited barking were heard through the window. Olga, Tatiana, and Maria strolled past on the outside terrace, swathed in matching blue coats, with their dogs straining at the leashes. Anastasia stood as if petrified.

  “I asked her to stay.” I set a hand on my granddaughter’s shoulder. She was trembling. “I wanted to hear about everything she’s been studying.”

  Alexandra waved her lady out, without taking her gaze from me. Her appearance disturbed but did not surprise me. The quiet beauty that first won Nicky’s heart was no more, submerged by her poor health and cares; I hadn’t known, however, that her lumbago had grown so debilitating, she required that chair. Had she nursed Alexei until she collapsed? Again, anger surged in me. How could she abandon herself so completely? Did she have no sense to take proper rest, to remain strong for Nicky and her daughters? The hostility between us must have been noticeable, for Anastasia kissed me quickly and, after an obligatory peck on her mother’s cheek, bolted out the doors.

&
nbsp; “Please walk,” Alexandra called after her. “Do not run.” It was probably an admonishment she uttered every hour of every day, intended to restrain Alexei, and futile in Anastasia’s case, as the pounding of my granddaughter’s retreating feet demonstrated.

  I did not move as Alexandra staked her place by the gilded table, cluttered with framed photographs and assorted knickknacks, including an incongruous porcelain thimble. Looking at her as she settled into the space cleared to accommodate her chair, I had to resist the impulse to berate her.

  “You’re unwell,” I said, moving to a chair opposite her. “I didn’t know.”

  “You’ve been away.” As she rang a bell on the table, I wanted to retort that my annual trips abroad were no reason to keep important family business from me. Instead, I sat, my outrage knotting my throat.

  Never uncomfortable with silence, Alexandra waited, plucking stray threads in her shawl. Her reddish hair was coiled in a chignon, and, I noted, tarnished with gray. She looked ten years older than her thirty-seven. At her age, I’d been dancing all night till dawn, clad in my splendid gowns—a whirlwind in my zest for life. Again, I quelled the aggravation that beset me whenever I was with her. I hadn’t endured the circumstances that she did.

  “Did Anastasia show you everything she’s studying?” she abruptly said. “She cannot have,” she went on, preempting my reply. “She had that one notebook with her, and if I’m not mistaken, it wasn’t one of her grammar lessons. An ideal student, alas, she is not.”

  She missed nothing. This, too, had not changed.

  “Anastasia showed me enough,” I said, and she glanced away.

  Her lady arrived with the tea service and set it before us. Alexandra said, “We’ll let it steep.” Her lady curtsied and left. Once the requisite time passed, I waited for my daughter-in-law to check the pot. When she leaned forward, a spasm crossed her face, and I had to assume the duty, though I couldn’t recall the last time I’d served anyone.

  She sighed. “It is better now.”

  I understood. Everything was better now that her son was on the mend. I should have agreed; she must have been frantic. Instead, I recalled her friend’s rude stare and probing question, the hot tea scalding my tongue. Finally, after another lengthy silence, I could abide no more.

  “She told me about your friend,” I said, making certain she heard my emphasis. “It seems he’s been teaching a child how prayers are the only way to help her brother.”

  Alexandra paused, her cup at her lips. “I assume you came here for a purpose. Say what you must, Maria.”

  Not Mother dear. Not Minnie. Maria: my adopted Russian name. Something about the way she uttered it vanquished my pity, my understanding that she’d been fighting for Alexei and was confined to that chair because of it. In that moment, my anxiety for my grandson, the residue of my upset over my own children, and my talk with Miechen surged to the surface. All of a sudden it bothered me very much that this holy man of hers would have free rein over a place to which I must send advance word of my arrival.

  “How can you permit it? Who is he to enjoy such liberties? There is talk of how he flaunts his association with you, pandering your name to all and sundry. Would you allow this friend to do and say whatever he likes?”

  Though I was braced for it, she didn’t launch into indignant denial. “I do not take kindly to gossip,” she said. “I never have. And what he does is cure my son the tsarevich.”

  God help me, I wanted to fling my tea in her face.

  “He does not. He cannot.” I heard the fissure in my voice, betraying my eroding composure. “What the child has is incurable.”

  Her tone was flat. “What did they tell you?”

  “You know already. Don’t ask me to repeat it.”

  “It doesn’t matter. God sent Father Grigori to guide me in my trials.”

  “Did God also send him to guide your daughters?”

  “Never.” Her hands constricted on her chair arms, as if she might rise to her feet. “He has never done anything improper here. I am always present when he visits,” she said, confirming that, as usual, she knew far more of the gossip than she let on.

  “Tell that to St. Petersburg,” I replied. “Tell that to Miechen, who claims he’s—”

  “I don’t care what Grand Duchess Pavlovna claims. I don’t care and I will not hear it.” Her stare bored through me. I found her fervor frightening, as if she were daring me to say aloud what she claimed she wouldn’t hear.

  “You cannot ignore society and think people won’t talk,” I said, repressing the urge to toss out into the open what Miechen had cited. “They will always talk, regardless.”

  “How is that my concern? Father Grigori saved Alexei. It is all I need to know.”

  Another burst of laughter echoed from the gardens. The girls trotted past the window again, going the other way, the wind billowing their scarves.

  “Hurry up, Nastya,” I heard Olga chide Anastasia, and I realized then what Alexandra must see—her girls, partaking of the morning air, mocking her with their exuberance, while her son, the one she felt most deserving, would never enjoy a carefree youth.

  “You cannot know what it is to suffer as I do,” she murmured.

  It was a stab to my heart. “I lost my son George. Have you forgotten?”

  “No.” She returned her violet gaze to me. Violet, the color of her gown and shawl—a melancholic taint that clung to her, seeping into her pores, like smoke from a lavender pyre, quenching all joy. “I will never forget. Neither can you. Would you wish the same upon me?”

  My tears crested. I forced them back. I would not weep before her.

  “I would have died for my son,” I whispered.

  She looked away again, back to the window, where her daughters had passed.

  “I wish I could,” she said.

  * * *

  UPON MY RETURN to St. Petersburg, my brother-in-law Vladimir, Miechen’s husband, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Though disconsolate at his loss, in a typical display of her courage Miechen refused to vent her grief, seeming almost impervious as she dressed her husband’s corpse in his uniform—he’d died over lunch, smoking a cigar—and oversaw the funeral arrangements. All of us were in attendance as Vladimir was entombed beside his parents and brothers in the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral.

  For me, it felt like the end of an era. I recalled Vladimir’s embrace of me after Nixa died, his ebullient charisma. Even when contentious, he’d been a loving brother-in-law and, in spite of his occasional dalliances, a devoted husband to Miechen. I knew widowhood wouldn’t change her, but it would redefine her, as it had redefined me. And his death resurrected my grief for Sasha, so that one morning I ordered my coachman to take me over the frozen Neva to the fortress and the cathedral.

  Under the painted vaults, I knelt before Sasha’s tomb. I’d avoided visiting as often I should, his marble sarcophagus, so solid and impartial, too stark a reminder that I would never again see him in this life. It was too painful, all the tombs of those I loved—my husband, my infant boy, my George, Nixa, my father-in-law and his long-suffering wife, and now Vladimir. It served as evidence like nothing else could of how fleeting time was, of how we moved through our days without knowing which hour might be our last.

  “I miss you,” I whispered. “I miss you even when I’m not thinking of you. I miss your voice, your appetite. Your smile. Russia misses you, Sasha, so very much. Russia needs you, and you’re not here. Our children are like strangers to me. Nicky is lost. He doesn’t know what to do, how to stand up to the revolutionaries, to his ministers or his uncles. To his own wife. He tries so very hard. I see him struggling, but I cannot help him. And his son, his beautiful boy—” I lowered my face, a tear slipping down my cheek. “He is not well, Sasha. He suffers so. They are crushed by sadness over him, with worry and fear. So much fear. What will becom
e of him? What will happen to Russia if he dies? What will happen to us?”

  The tomb reproached me with its silence. We were taught that the dead watch over us, that even after the body decays, the soul endures. They never truly leave us, alive in our hearts and in heaven above. I believed it. But I never felt him near. I never had the sense he protected me. He was a memory, already fading, so that I found myself forgetting his favorite sayings, the things he loved. Other times, an image of him came rushing into me like a deluge, and I tried to hold on to it, to retain him with me, but it was like grasping at water—he slipped through me and vanished, back into the pool of the past.

  “Where are you now?” I said. “Where are you when we need you so?”

  I heard Tania behind me. “Majesty, the time…Your train for Gatchina is waiting.”

  Wincing at the crick in my back, I rose, handing her the little velvet pillow she carried for me in her bag, for there were no worldly comforts provided here in God’s mansion. God did not want us to feel at ease, lest we forget the vale of thorns outside.

  On the train ride to Gatchina, Tania left me alone in my compartment to smoke, gazing out my narrow window at the landscape. Pressing my hand to the glass, I felt impending winter’s chill like flame on my fingertips, without heat.

  By the time I reached Gatchina, I decided to go abroad again in the early spring. Ahead of me stretched months of winter, a subdued Christmas because of Vladimir’s death and Alexei’s recovery, his leg encased in an iron brace to keep him from bending his knee. He’d be confined to sedate activities, watched always by Alexandra and his sailor. The girls would read to him, draw and paint with him in his playroom, but they’d also treat him as if he were made of spun glass—recruits in the conspiracy of silence that now smothered Tsarskoe Selo, never asking what they already knew.