The Last Romanov

by Dora Levy Mossanen

  “Pull his fucking body out!” Vasiliev shouts. “What are you waiting for?”

  They jump into the grave. Struggle under the unexpected weight of the coffin. Curse with every unsuccessful attempt to haul it out of the hole.

  “There’s a rotting corpse inside, for heaven’s sake, not lead,” Vasiliev hollers.

  More men step down to help. But the coffin refuses to budge.

  Vasiliev jumps down to lend a hand.

  As if Rasputin has been waiting for the commandant himself, the winds settle outside, the coffin shudders and sighs and reluctantly yields, at last, and is successfully raised and rolled out of the grave.

  Covered with sweat and grime, the exhausted commandant sits on the coffin to catch his breath. He pulls out a nail clipper from his pocket and trims his nails. He is in a nasty mood. Why, he is not certain. It might be the cold. It might be the mere existence of the Romanovs. He licks his chapped lips and continues snipping his nails. He drops the clipper in his pocket, unfastens the dog bone and digs it between his teeth to dislodge leftovers. The wooden planks under him shift, a series of dry crackling pops. The coffin collapses.

  Vasiliev falls into Grigori Rasputin’s putrefied remains.

  The men recoil from the stench, from the bones, some still sheathed in flesh. The matted long hair, the bared teeth in the grinning skull.

  An ooze of indescribable color is bubbling out of the coffin.

  Vasiliev crouches down, retching all over himself, drenching his coat with vomit. The stench is awful.

  He straightens up, draws in a big gulp of air, wipes his mouth with his sleeve. He reaches out for an icon and a note tucked between the corpse’s thighbones. He checks the icon, turns it around. It is signed by the Empress, a farewell gift to the monk:

  My dear martyr, give me thy blessing that it may follow me always on the sad and dreary path I have yet to follow here below. And remember us from on high in your holy prayer. Alexandra.

  Vasiliev crumbles the note and tosses it back into the grave with the icon. “Go outside! Now! Find logs to start a fire!”

  The men spill out of the chapel. The cold is a welcome change from the putrid air inside. They scramble to fashion makeshift thongs from branches to gather a few of the scattered disintegrating remains in the chapel and pile them next to Rasputin on an intact slab of the coffin. They carry the plank with its load out and toss it on pine logs they gather from the many stacks around the park used for the palace fireplaces. Vasiliev empties his vodka onto the tinder. He tosses one match, then another, into the weak fire. The men step back. They wait. Fan the fire with their coats. The blaze will gather force.

  But the instant the flames hit the wooden slab they sputter and die.

  Vasiliev yanks down his pants. He aims a strong stream of urine at the fire. “What are you waiting for?” he shouts at his comrades. “Feed Rasputin! Feed him crude gasoline!”

  The men hesitate, glance at each other, check their surroundings. Finding no other course but to follow orders, they aim their penises at the fire, attempting to encourage the flames with jets of urine the winds blow back in their faces.

  A raging hiss rises from somewhere underground. Tongues of fire explode. Livid blue tips sparkle into millions of furious darts that bloom into a grand display of fireworks.

  Rasputin is coming to life, his waist doubling over. He is sitting in the fire. His legs straighten, and what is left of his arms jerk down to propel him upright, his bottomless eye sockets aimed their way.

  The terrified men spring away, scrambling to take refuge behind the trees.

  “Come back!” Vasiliev orders. “Rasputin is dead! His tendons are shrinking in the heat, contracting his body.”

  One by one, the men reappear from behind the trees, their stares glued to Rasputin’s corpse, which is recoiling and melting into itself. The relieved men pull up their pants, lock arms, and dance around the fire as it devours what the worms have left of the monk—hair, flesh, and bone—until nothing is left.

  The commandant spits into the blaze, wipes his soot-blackened face. He is pleased. The mad monk is silenced, at last. “Well done!” he encourages his men. “Get the hoses and put the fire out.”

  The men scrabble around the park, collect hoses the gardeners have left unattended, and attach them to faucets. They attack the flames with powerful streams of water.

  But rather than extinguish the fire, the water seems to feed it. They attempt to stifle the flames with snow and mud, then with their coats. But the inferno gains strength and momentum, climbing beyond the treetops and blinding them with ash and smoke.

  An hour passes, and the priest in a neighboring chapel is awakened by the roar of fire and the wafting stench. Afraid that an unfortunate mishap might have struck the Romanovs, he drags himself out of bed.

  Disheveled, the smell of mothballs emanating from his faded habit, a container of holy water in one hand and the holy book in another, he makes his way into the park.

  “How can I help?” the priest asks in a birdlike stutter. “Is the Imperial Family safe?”

  The commandant checks the priest’s pockets to make sure he is not carrying a weapon. “They won’t be,” he says, “if you don’t send up some prayers, do something, anything to put out this hell.”

  The priest retrieves a container from a paper bag, dips his hand in holy water, and sprinkles the flames, reciting the requiem once, then again and again, the repetitive act of a desperate man.

  “Don’t you see it’s not working?” Vasiliev shouts. “Do something else!”

  “And if thy hand offends thee, cut if off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched.” Having said his piece, the priest hurls the container of holy water into the fire, turns around, and runs toward the palace.

  An oily residue bubbles up from under the fire, a slimy liquid meandering around snow-heavy trees and bushes, slinking under thickets and dormant flower beds, snaking its way toward the Alexander Palace.

  A sudden sense of horror, an unfamiliar emotion, shakes Vasiliev into action. He scrambles to gather his men and move them out of harm’s way.

  Darya is assaulted by the rising stench of burning flesh. A pillar of putrid smoke can be seen from every window, sulfuric plumes that spiral up and erase any demarcation between earth and sky.

  She runs down the stairs and crosses the lower hall toward Count Benckendorff’s bedroom. She bangs on the door. “Wake up, sir! You must call for help!”

  A large squadron of fire fighters arrives at midnight. They toil for hours to smother the flames with water, salt, soil, and all manner of chemicals. With four-meter-long pikes they attempt to separate the fire into smaller, more manageable fires. But the flames join back like magnetic curtains. At dawn, defeated and drenched in sweat and soot, the firemen gather their hoses and tools. “The palace is in danger,” one says quietly. “Evacuate the family.”

  A ghostly figure materializes from behind the forest of trees, ethereal in a sheer nightgown the shade of her pale face, her glowing eye cutting a path in the dark. She walks toward a petrified fireman, seizes his water hose with one hand, and waves him away with the other. Her hair darker than night, she secures herself against a tree trunk, the outline of her thighs fluid under her breezy gown. Hose anchored between her legs, she aims a strong jet of water at the fire, the hose twisting like a tortured being, the force thrusting her from side to side, her wet gown swirling around her slender figure, her hair flapping about her shoulders like so many raven wings.

  The flames coil, twirl, and embrace like lovers in the throes of passion, changing color from cobalt to ruby to liquid gold. Without warning and without exhibiting any sign of losing its intensity, an enormous belch emanates from the fire.

  The alarmed revolutionary soldiers flee into the park, abandoning their backpacks, knives, vodka, and stolen spoils.

  Rabbits and squirrels scramble out of holes and
bushes, their fur standing on end, their fleeing paws marking the snow.

  The red bird of paradise flutters overhead, tempted to take flight behind the blanket of ominous smoke overhead, but instead it circles and settles on a frozen branch.

  Rasputin’s prediction that his corpse would be disinterred and his body tormented after death has come true.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Not long after the Big Fire, as the disinterment of Rasputin came to be known, hope arrives in the person of Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, the Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government.

  The unassuming, clean-shaven man who has vowed to deliver the Romanovs to safety steps down from the deposed Tsar’s automobile that has been selected at random from the imperial garage. At the wheel is the Tsar’s chauffeur, who hurries to open the car door. He salutes Kerensky as if he were the Tsar himself, then leads him in through the kitchen door.

  Wearing a blue buttoned-up shirt without cuffs, his right hand thrust into his jacket, Kerensky appears as uncomfortable as a peasant in Sunday attire. He is tense, abrupt, the creak of his boots announcing him at every turn.

  He stops to assess the surroundings, his restless feet tapping. He talks loudly, incessantly, now to Count Benckendorff. “Assemble the soldiers of the guard, the servants, and every person who works here.”

  The count removes and inspects his monocle as if the solution to these never-ending horrors might be projected on the surface of the lens. He is caught in yet another thorny situation. Having no recourse, he scrambles to gather everyone in the hall. But not the Empress, Alexei, or the grand duchesses. He will spare them the humiliation. Dr. Botkin, the chef, a few servants, even Vasiliev and his men, congregate around the new Minister of Justice.

  Kerensky’s voice can be heard throughout the palace, the salons, the Portrait Hall, the Red Room, and the dining room, where the Imperial Family is having lunch.

  “You no longer serve your old masters. You are the servants of the people now. They pay your salary and expect you to keep your eyes open and report anything suspicious. Consider yourselves under the order of the Commandant and the officers of the Guard.” Having ended his speech in this revolutionary manner, Kerensky addresses Benckendorff. “I am here to see how you live, inspect this place, and talk to Nicholas Alexandrovich.”

  “I shall put the matter before his majesty,” Benckendorff replies curtly, having no intention of disturbing the family at lunchtime.

  “A tour of the palace first,” Kerensky says, running ahead like a squirrel with his tail on fire. He opens random doors, enters rooms, then rushes out again, as if unable to make up his mind why he entered the space in the first place and what he is searching for. He steps into the Emperor’s private quarters, stands in the center of the room to assess the surroundings. He opens every drawer, inspects every corner with great curiosity, glances under the furniture, the large writing desk, the bookcase, shifts leather-bound books around to peer behind them.

  Then, without warning, Kerensky turns to Benckendorff and addresses him in an uncharacteristically low voice. “The woman with the opal eye.”

  “Tyotia Dasha?”

  “Yes, yes. I want to see her!”

  “Allow me to inform her,” Benckendorff replies.

  But Kerensky is already marching into the hall, and Benckendorff is forced to run ahead and lead him to Darya’s quarters.

  “Pardon us,” Benckendorff gestures to Kerensky, who marches behind him into the room. “The Minister of Justice, Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky.”

  Kerensky lifts a hand to the brim of an invisible hat.

  Darya ignores his salute. She confronts him with her unwavering opal gaze.

  The Tsarevich is at the other end of the room, watching a movie the Pathé Film Company gave him during better times. Darya had installed a projector she secretly took from the screening room, and a wall is used as a makeshift screen to project a scene of a royal entourage with liveries and dogs hunting for the legendary aurochs.

  Kerensky coughs, shoves his hand inside his coat, taps his nervous feet, and turns toward the Tsarevich as if to put him at ease, then says, “Everything is going well.”

  “May the Tsarevich be excused, sir?” Darya asks.

  “The former Tsarevich,” Kerensky corrects with a frown. “He may leave. I need answers to some questions the party has.”

  “What could I add, sir, beyond what the party already knows?” Darya asks him after she shuts the door behind Alexei.

  “A great deal, of course. You’ve lived with the family for more than twelve years. You’re very close to them. But the family is a separate matter. This is about the Artists’ Salon. Why was it terminated? What were the political inclinations of the artists?”

  She digs her fingernails into her palms and struggles to keep her composure. “Are they under investigation, sir?”

  “Yes, yes, they are.”

  “But why, sir?”

  “For different reasons, among them, suspicious contact with the Romanovs and their close attendants. And there’s the matter of a certain painting of the Tsarevich in the arms of the Madonna. The authorities have been searching for it. Where is it?”

  “I know nothing about such a painting, sir,” she replies, having no intention of guiding him to the Lilac Boudoir. “Why in the world, sir, is having a relationship with the Imperial Family a suspicious activity?”

  “Please refrain from asking questions. The salon, in my understanding, was a façade for exploiting impressionable men and women into deceiving the masses with all types of bourgeois and religious art.” He spits the last two words out as if he discovered a cockroach in his mouth. “And I have been told that the Madonna painting conceals political messages.”

  Darya smiles bitterly. “You have the wrong information, sir. The freedom and encouragement the artists received during that time was priceless. Do you know that Murderous Gods and Their Victims remains the Russian State Museum’s most cherished acquisition? That sculpture was the work of Rosa Koristanova and was created right here in the Portrait Hall. And The Red Aurochs in the Mariinsky Theater was the longest-running ballet in our history. That, too, Igor Vasiliev shaped in our salon. I don’t need to tell you, sir, about the international fame of Avram Bensheimer’s portraits, I assume. So if giving birth to some of our most important contemporary art is a sin, then blame it on me, not the Imperial Couple. And as far as their political inclinations, if anything, the artists proved to be budding avant-gardes who found a forum to air their revolutionary ideas. That, I assume, would not displease you.”

  Kerensky gauges her with a suspicious stare. “You are fond of the artists, even more so than the Romanovs, it seems—”

  “Of course not, sir,” she interrupts. “It’s just that I’m fond of art and what it has done for our country.”

  He glances at his watch. “Before speaking to you further, I ask that everything we say will be kept secret. Is that understood?’

  The room is silent. The rumbling of an armored car can be heard outside the palace gates. Someone is attempting to haul the bridge over the private island, the metallic screech of its locks evidence of damage. Darya rests her hand on her heart. Her old scars refuse to heal; they throb and flare with every ignited memory of Avram. He had mastered the art of hauling that bridge with soundless speed and efficiency so as to startle neither man nor swan, nor deer, nor bird of paradise. Will the bridge operate again one day? Too tired to speak now, she assures Kerensky she understands his concern.

  “An important resolution has been passed by the council of ministers. No one outside the family must learn of it. The family is to leave Tsarskoe Selo.”

  “Why, sir? Why? They like it here.”

  “Yes, I understand, but nothing can be done now. They will have to leave.”

  “Then perhaps they’ll be allowed to settle in the Livadia Palace.”

  “No! The Crimea is too close to the capital. It will be dangerous. I am responsible for t
hem and shall do everything in my power to send them as far as possible from danger. I don’t want to become the Russian Marat,” he says, referring to Jean-Paul Marat, the radical French revolutionary who was the cause of much bloodshed. “Our autocratic rule must be eliminated, no doubt, but without bloodshed.”

  Darya tries to swallow the lump forming in her throat. “Then send them to England, to the Tsar’s cousin, if you have to. It’s far enough.”

  Kerensky passes a hand over his full head of hair. “We will see. That is a possibility, it certainly is. Tell them to begin packing but do nothing to arouse any suspicions.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  — August 13, 1917 —

  Say bye-bye to your palace, Gospodin Polkovnik!” the oily-faced, unshaven Vasiliev shouts to the Tsar.

  Nicholas II averts his eyes from Vasiliev’s red armband. In the past months, Nicholas was called worse names than Gospodin Polkovnik—Mr. Colonel—and he will not react now, in front of his family congregated in the foyer, awaiting the train that will, according to Kerensky, transport them to safety, wherever that might be.

  The Imperial Family has developed an odd friendship with Kerensky, who has made every effort to assure the provisional government of Alexandra’s loyalty to Russia and has ordered the newspapers—Russkoe-Slovo, Russkaia-Volia, Retch, Novoe-Vremia, and Petrogradsky Listok—to end their campaign against her. Kerensky is not a bad sort, Nicholas thinks to himself, not bad at all.

  Vasiliev raises his rifle and jabs the butt into the ribs of Nicholas II.

  The startled Emperor groans and stumbles back a few steps, clutching his cane to break his fall.

  Darya’s hand flies up to her left eye. A crack is forming in the opal, a thin fissure in the center of the orb. For decades to come, every time she will gaze at her cracked opal eye in the mirror, she will be reminded of this shameful moment: the moment Russia lost her soul.