The yellow silhouette of Prince Yusupov’s palace, like a grand ghost ship anchored by the Moika, rises up against the dark skyline.
Rasputin chuckles with glee. He cracks his thick-knuckled fingers. He is impressed. The gates, the car door, the tall, heavy doors to the palace, all swing open to accommodate him as if by invisible, welcoming hands.
He follows a cherub-faced servant through halls lined with dimly lit sculptures and antiques, down a flight of stairs, across a stone hallway, and into a cellar of low-vaulted ceilings and gray stone walls. A white bearskin rug is splayed on the granite floor. A silver samovar hums on a table covered with embroideries. Cakes are set in ornate plates, two Madeira bottles on a silver tray. A cabinet inlaid with ebony and cut mirrors multiply his jovial image. At the sight of a rock crystal and silver crucifix above the cabinet, he straightens his spine and crosses himself.
“Yankee Doodle” is playing on a Gramophone somewhere upstairs.
He remains standing, hesitant, pupils contracting, nostrils flaring to identify an unfamiliar smell.
Prince Yusupov steps out of the shadows. He is slender, beautiful in an effeminate way, his long lashes enhanced with mascara. He embraces Rasputin, kisses him on both cheeks. “Welcome, my friend. Make yourself at home. Here, please, come sit. My chef baked your favorite cakes.”
“Where is your lovely wife?” Rasputin chuckles, unable to contain his joy.
“She’s upstairs at a party. She’ll be down shortly,” the prince assures him with an exaggerated wink that shows off his long lashes.
“And your servants?” Rasputin asks. “None to serve us?”
“Irina gave them the evening off. Why tonight, I don’t know.”
But, of course, Rasputin thinks, Irina must have taken all precautions for their meeting to be intimate and confidential. She is the Emperor’s niece, after all, and word of their meeting should not leak out. He settles down in a carved wooden chair in front of the cabinet, leans back, and rubs his hands in anticipation.
“Please enjoy some cake,” the prince offers.
Rasputin reaches out for the tray of cakes, hesitates, then drops his hand back in his lap. “No, I must not spoil my appetite. Well…maybe one or two.”
He devours two cakes. Drinks two glasses of Madeira. He asks for another. The tune of “Yankee Doodle” turns louder upstairs. He coughs, his unhinged eyes acquiring a ghostly pallor. He is having a hard time breathing. “You should avoid the cellar, Felix. This humidity is not healthy. Some tea to clear my head, yes? Thank you. Please sing for me, will you?”
The prince fetches his guitar that leans against a wall. He likes to flaunt his beautiful voice, but not tonight. He wants this to be over. He hugs his guitar to his chest, his fingers strumming feverishly, his feminine voice filling the cellar. He sings song after song, one melody after another.
Rasputin’s eyes feel disjointed in their sockets, his head becomes as heavy as lead, his breathing shallow. Perhaps he had too much Madeira, he thinks. He pours himself another cup of tea, drinks the hot liquid as if he is immune to heat. He drinks another cup. He is feeling better. He smiles, snaps his fingers, taps his feet, sways to the strumming of Yusupov’s songs.
The prince’s vocal cords are raw, his fingers ache. He glances at the monk. “Another glass of Madeira?”
“Tea perhaps. Don’t stop, Felix. I love your songs.”
Felix puts his guitar down. “Excuse me for a minute, I will be right back.” He leaves the cellar and climbs the stairs two at a time to find his cronies. They have abandoned their idea of simulating a party and now huddle upstairs on the landing.
“What’s happening downstairs? Why are you singing?”
“He is still alive!” the prince whispers urgently. “What shall we do?”
Lazovert, who already fainted twice from fear, slumps down again.
“We better drop the plan and go home,” Grand Duke Dmitry suggests.
Purishkevich, the most senior and most levelheaded of the group, reminds them that they cannot afford to leave the half-dead Rasputin here.
“But you don’t understand. He is not even half dead,” Yusupov utters, rubbing his hands in desperation.
“Did he eat the cakes…drink the Madeira?”
“Yes, yes, many,” Felix replies urgently.
“But it doesn’t make sense. They have enough cyanide to fell a stable of horses.”
“He is immune to poison. Something else must be done. Hurry, think, think…”
The men exchange glances, curse under their breath.
The prince adjusts his cravat, squares his shoulders. “Very well then, I will finish the job.”
“Where did you go, Felix?” Rasputin complains as soon as Yusupov returns to the cellar. “Pour me some more wine.” He has put Irina out of his mind and has other plans for the night. “What do you say we visit the gypsies?”
Felix positions himself in front of Rasputin. Hands behind his back, he observes Rasputin’s face to see what it registers. Fright? Confusion? But all he sees is a drunk. No! Not even that, the man is just slightly out of sorts. He is nodding to signal for more wine.
“Look up at the crucifix on top of the cabinet, Grigori.”
Rasputin leans forward, rests his chin on his hairy hands. “I like the cabinet better,” he proclaims. He checks himself in the mirror, rearranges a wisp of gray hair, pushes it back, raises an eyebrow as if questioning his image. Something shatters upstairs. The thumping of footsteps on stone. Silence!
“Grigori Yefimovich, you better look at the crucifix and say a prayer.”
Rasputin’s eyes dart up to the crucifix then back to Yusupov.
The prince is aiming a Browning revolver at the monk.
Two shots echo around the cellar.
Rasputin lets out a savage scream. His entire body bounces out of the chair like a loosened coil. An instant of hesitation, as if wondering which direction to take, where to go from here. He topples backward onto the white bearskin rug.
Yusupov stares at the smoking revolver in his trembling hand. He stands over the prostrate body at his feet. Rasputin’s eyes are open, his sizzling gaze aimed at his murderer. What type of a person, the prince wonders, could be immune to such large amounts of alcohol and poison? For a frightful moment there, he thought he might be immune to bullets too.
The prince’s cronies burst into the cellar.
“He is dead!” Yusupov shouts, “Dead, at last!”
He tosses his revolver onto the table. It crashes against the bottle of Madeira and shatters it into small pieces that scatter. He succeeded, at last, succeeded in eliminating the mad monk intent on destroying Russia and her three-hundred-year-old monarchy.
He kneels down, checks Rasputin’s corpse that seems to be made of iron and steel. How else could it have endured so much cyanide? Yusupov bends closer to the corpse. Plucks out a shard of crystal embedded in the right cheek. A drop of blood bubbles out of the wound. Yusupov’s lips part in a self-congratulatory smile. He turns to his conspirators. “Look, the mad monk is made of flesh and blood, after all. All right, think now, what shall we do? We have to get rid of him before the police come. Go upstairs and bring something to wrap the body.”
He picks a napkin from the table and folds it around the piece of crystal, tucking it in one of the cabinet drawers, a reminder of his courage in the face of evil. The Duma will applaud him. The ministers will reward him. And the country will exalt him for his courage.
He lingers in front of the cabinet to admire his reflection in the cut mirrors, pats his pomaded hair into place, wets two fingers with saliva, and passes them across the length of his lashes. He steps back and congratulates his image in the mirrors. “Well done, Felix. Bravo, my boy!”
Two hands seize him from behind. Grab his throat and begin to squeeze.
“You bad boy,” Rasputin whispers in his ear, his venomous eyes staring from the mirrors.
The prince jerks back. Struggles with all his migh
t. He is not a strong man. He can’t breathe. His lungs are bursting. He is going to die. Die by the hands of this madman!
He bends one foot back and kicks Rasputin in the crotch. He breaks loose with a series of coughs, sprints out of the cellar and up the stairs. “He is alive. He is getting away!”
Rasputin scrambles on all fours up the stairs behind the terrified Yusupov, who dashes into the safety of his parents’ apartments. Rasputin crawls ahead, toward the front door, into the snow-covered courtyard and the gate. He pulls himself up, grabs the gate’s lock. His voice tears through his throat. “Felix! Felix! I will tell everything to the Empress!”
A shot shatters across the night. Then another shot.
Purishkevich stands at one end of the courtyard, a revolver in his right hand. His left fist is stuffed in his mouth.
He has missed with both shots.
He bites hard on his hand to stop the trembling. Another three steps and Rasputin will escape. That will certainly be the end of them all.
A third bullet lodges in Rasputin’s shoulder. The fourth finds his head.
Rasputin circles around himself like a dog chasing its tail. Blood spurts everywhere: on the bricks, the gate, the snow-covered courtyard. He topples backward onto the snow, a bloody hallow seeping around his prostrate body.
Purishkevich approaches the twitching body. Aims a hard kick at the temple. Grinds a boot into the face. Another hard kick between the legs, then another and another.
The hysterical Prince Yusupov runs into the scene. His face is blotched, cheeks smeared with mascara. He begins to batter the body with a club to the head, the stomach, between the legs until no sign of life is left of the man who had all but ruled Russia for the last few tumultuous years.
The men roll the body in a blue curtain and secure it with ropes. They take turns checking the knots, pulling, tightening, and fastening from all sides. They step back to observe their work. This is it, they think. Never again will the monk rise.
Torches in hand, they sneak through dark back alleys. The sky is a metal sheet overhead, the packed snow slippery underfoot. The alarming crunch of sleighs and carriage wheels can be heard in the distance. They stop every now and then to catch their breath, to curse the heavy load they carry like a rolled carpet on their shoulders.
They reach a secluded part of the Neva. Drop their load on the snow by the riverbank, stand back and gaze at one another.
Tall gas lamps cast a gloomy glow around them. At this time of the year the ice over the Neva is dense, troikas cross the river back and forth, people ice skate on the surface. How in the world will they manage to break the ice? The desperate Yusupov sticks his torch upright in the snow and falls exhausted to his knees, his vaporous breath coming out in gasps. Church bells chime in the distance. Not much time left before daybreak. One of the men stomps snow off his boots, rubs his hands, and blows out a cold plume of steam. “Let’s break the ice.”
“With our bare hands?”
The prince turns his torch upside down. The flame sputters and dies as soon as it comes into contact with the ice.
Purishkevich reignites Yusupov’s torch with his own, gathers the other torches, and groups them together like a small bonfire. One torch is saved in case of emergency. He kneels and carefully brings the flames to the ice, pulling away before the flames go out, repeating the process again and again, and reigniting the torches when necessary. A shallow pool of ice water appears at his feet. The men surround him, a barrier against the rising wind as he stomps his boots on top of a small area in the ice that heat might, or might not, have thinned somewhat. They gather closer, pounding with their boots, soft kid shoes, Italian leather loafers. The ice moans under their feet. A thin crack appears. They attack it with whatever strength is left. The sun is rising on the horizon. Danger comes with daylight.
Purishkevich squeezes his hands into a narrow opening between two sheets of ice, scraping his skin. Blood worms its way into the ice. They all come down to help him, anchor their hands between the ice plates and push with all their might, forcing the ice farther apart, refusing to let go, well aware that they might lose their fingers when all is done.
They look down at the fissure they’ve created in the thick ice.
They slide the body to the edge and squeeze it through the crevice.
It will take three days for the body to be discovered.
An autopsy will reveal that the lungs are filled with water.
In the end, Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin did not die from poison or from bullet wounds.
He drowned.
Chapter Thirty-Two
— March 1917 —
There is mutiny in Petrograd. Red banners flutter on rooftops and balconies. The roar of trucks and thump of artillery are constant. Large frenzied crowds populate the city, oblivious to giant-sized posters warning them to keep off the streets. Fists raised, red armbands flashing, they shout: “Down with the German woman! Down with the war!”
The Emperor scrambles to send reinforcements to the capital. But his diminished army, having suffered heavy military setbacks, is demoralized and useless. The Petrograd garrison, too, is unsuitable to fight back the sea of protesters. Sixty thousand of the Tsar’s most loyal soldiers have joined the revolution. The elite Volisky Regiment and the legendary Regiment of Guards, founded by Peter the Great, refuse to follow orders. The entire country seems to be in flames: the Ministry of Interior, police headquarters, military buildings, even the Fortress of Peter and Paul with its arsenal of heavy artillery.
The events of Bloody Sunday twelve years ago ignited a series of revolutions that exploded into an irrepressible tidal force. Now, the entire country is a boiling pot of dissent. The Duma and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies have formed a provisional government, demanded the Emperor’s voluntary abdication in favor of his son, with Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich as regent.
The provisional government decided to sacrifice Nicholas II in order to save the Romanov dynasty.
The Emperor signed the documents that would pass the throne to his twelve-year-old son.
After bidding his troops farewell at Mogilev, the Tsar boarded a train that brought him to Tsarskoe Selo, where his wife and children are at the mercy of the provisional government and under house arrest in the Alexander Palace.
He buries his face in his wife’s lap. His sobs can be heard across the palace corridors, in the rooms of the valets, by the aides-de-camp, and in the park, where revolutionary guards keep watch under the windows.
“Did you hear, Sunny? Did you hear what happened?”
She squeezes his icy hand, holds it up to her cheek. “You did the right thing, Nicky. You made the right decision. My poor dear, all alone out there. You showed such courage. You will become the proud papa of a Tsar one day.”
Nicholas lifts his head from Alexandra’s lap and directs his bloodshot eyes her way. “Sunny, I don’t think you heard everything.”
She dries his cheeks with the hem of her skirt. “So many rumors, Nicky! I don’t know what to believe.”
His face is bleached of color as he struggles to recount the recent events, to justify them to his wife. “Listen to me, Sunny. After I signed the papers, abdicating in favor of Alexei, I had six long hours to think. I summoned Dr. Fedorov. We had a conversation. He reminded me that there was no cure for hemophilia. That Alexei will always be subject to internal bleedings. He won’t be able to ride horses, travel long distances, do anything that would stress his joints. Never grow to be a strong, healthy leader.”
“Oh, Nicky! What do the doctors know? A cure will be found. Our son will become strong. He will rule our country.”
“That’s what I thought, Sunny. But Dr. Fedorov convinced me that the danger of exile loomed, and not to the Crimea.”
“No, Nicky! It will never come to that. Our people love us. They’ll fight for us. The riots are temporary. I promise you. We are not leaving our homeland!”
“But if it does
happen, Alyosha’s upbringing and fragile health would be left to strangers. He won’t survive. I had to think like a father. I was certain you would agree. So, a few hours after signing my abdication, I drew a different manifesto. I named Michael Alexandrovich as our Tsar. He is in the prime of his life, trained with a view to his possible succession.”
Alexandra lifts herself to her feet, goes to the window. Her stiff back is turned to her husband as she struggles to collect her emotions. At last, she turns to him, her face aching, her voice low. “But it must be temporary, Nicky. Michael will abdicate when Alexei comes of age.”
Nicholas holds his head in his hands. “This is not the end, Sunny. I sent a telegram to Michael in Gatchina. Explained why I took this step. Congratulated him. He immediately left for the capital. But rather than being welcomed, he faced fierce opposition. I suggested he meet with ministers of the provincial government to find a solution. But he was told that his life was in danger. Our people don’t want us, Sunny. They don’t want the Romanovs. They want a republic. Michael abdicated too.”
“No!” Alexandra’s head is tilted like a broken question mark. “Misha wouldn’t do that.”
“He did, Sunny.”
She pushes papers and writing paraphernalia off her desk, lifts the imperial basket of jeweled lilies of the valley. Gold. Diamonds. Pearls. Worthless rubbish! She drops it on the table. A pearl gets detached from the basket and rolls onto the carpet. They might as well have this too, the heartless fools who are robbing her of everything dear.
Nicholas is squeezing his temples. “I’m sorry, Sunny. I didn’t think separation from our son would be an option.”
“Of course not, Nicky. And I want you to know that, whatever happens, whatever our future holds, you are far dearer to me as husband and father of our children than as a ruler.”
The doors fly open and a revolutionary guard marches in, his boots leaving muddy imprints on the silk carpet.
Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich appears at the threshold. The buttons of his military jacket are open at the collar. The medal of the Cross of St. George, the one he always displayed with great pride, is missing. He strides to his brother, embraces him. They hold each other, their eyes locked, all their emotions encompassed in their gazes.
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