Nicholas makes every effort to conceal his joy. It appears that the thump-thump of artillery, keeping them awake in recent nights, belongs to the White Army.
A note concealed in a basket of eggs the nuns sent them the day before yesterday brought news of the White Army’s advance. But Ekaterinburg’s geographical position deep in the heart of Siberia, and its large population of Bolshevik Reds, put the White Army in a difficult position, and victory seems unlikely.
Yet, tonight, the tall commandant’s exaggerated politeness affords Nicholas a measure of hope. He turns on his heel and steps back into his room, sits down at the edge of the bed, caresses his sleeping wife, and squeezes her shoulders. “Sunny! Sunny! I have good news.”
Alexandra is startled awake from yet another nightmare. She rubs her eyes, lifts herself on one elbow.
“Quickly, we must get ready. The Whites have invaded the city. See, didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say our generals would save us? They are on their way. Hurry up. Get dressed.”
“Could it be?” she asks as her husband helps her to her feet. “Our Friend is looking after us up there. Bless his soul.”
Yurovsky proceeds to knock on all five half-open bedroom doors, awakening the rest of the family and their staff, ordering them to dress and congregate in the hall.
Having done his job, he coughs twice, slides his tongue over his thin lips, leans against the landing balustrade, and waits. Every now and then he tugs at his mustache and taps on the balustrade with his long fingernails, an impatient rap, rap, rap that can be heard in the bedroom of the grand duchesses, causing them added alarm.
As if she is about to attend an imperial soirée, Darya takes her time selecting a dress of fine damask, an embroidered guipure shawl, and a wide-rimmed feathered hat. Slowly, leisurely, she slips the dress over her head, feels the rich damask slide against her skin, the shawl caress her bare shoulders, the hat embrace her like a long-lost lover. Her Avram! One by one, she removes the hat, the shawl, the dress. What did she wear fifteen years back when they first bathed in the banya? She riffles through rich, colorful fabrics, beaded dresses, embroidered cloaks, crepe de Chine shawls, soft suede and leather shoes, until she finds what she is looking for. She buries her face in the gossamer shawl, inhales the scent of eucalyptus and desire, buttons the beaded silk chiffon dress that hugs her as gently as Avram did, slides her feet into the pearl-studded suede shoes, digs her hands in her hair and frees the curls into which he whispered. She avoids the mirror. She does not want to witness the damage the last months have inflicted on her thirty-one-year-old self.
Retrieving one of the pillows of ambergris she has transported from one place to another, she hugs it to her chest like a protective shield before stepping out of her room. She does not trust Yakov Yurovsky, does not believe one word he says, does not know where he will take them. Sixteen months of exile have taught her the importance of being on her guard and ready.
Nicholas and his son, dressed in simple military shirts, trousers, boots, and forage caps, are waiting in the hall. Alexei is in his father’s arms, holding the pillow his mother instructed him to carry with him at all times.
“Where’s Joy?” he asks Darya. “Will you find her?”
“Not now, Loves. Later.”
“But Joy hates to sleep outside.”
“Just for a few hours, Loves, promise.”
Dr. Botkin, Demidova, Kharitonov, the cook, and Troup the footman join the family.
The doctor stands next to Nicholas. “Your Majesty,” he whispers, “what is happening?”
Nicholas taps him on the arm, his composure reassuring. “Nothing bad.”
“Please follow me!” Yurovsky’s tone is level, polite. “We will walk down.”
The hopeful exuberance of the procession sends a chill down Darya’s spine. The Emperor’s eyes have regained their youthful air, and he smiles at his son’s attempt to brush away the last cobwebs of sleep. The tall, willowy Empress is regal, and despite relying on her cane, she carries herself with grace. The grand duchesses—Olga, twenty-two, Tatiana, twenty-one, Maria, nineteen, and Anastasia, seventeen—in wrinkled white dresses, resemble a garland of sleepy angels.
They are silent. No one complains. No questions are asked. They are drawing strength from Nicholas and Alexandra’s demeanor, reminiscent of imperial days.
Darya steps behind the rigid Yurovsky, scrutinizing his detached manner, stiff back, hands deep in his pockets. She counts the twenty-three stairs they descend toward the cellar, counts them with the fanaticism of a lover, a religious zealot, a madwoman clinging to her last shreds of reason. They are led to another staircase, down into the bowels of the house.
She slows down, falls in step with Nicholas. “Your Majesty, I don’t like this. Wherever we’re going can’t be good. There are eleven of us. We can ambush him. Flee into the streets.”
“Follow orders!” Nicholas replies sternly. “Help is on the way.”
“I beg of Your Majesty, permit us to try. It’s not good at all! My mouth is stinging with bitter ash. This man is dangerous. Please, Your Majesty, please listen to me.
“Can I be of assistance?” Yurovsky asks, turning back.
Darya looks him straight in the eye. “I offered to carry the Tsarevich. He is not well.”
“May I carry him?”
“Thank you. I can manage,” Nicholas assures the commandant.
They cross a long corridor that leads toward a room in the basement.
Yurovsky stops behind the door. His dark eyes stare at the procession, counting them in an even voice. He opens the door and steps back, gesturing for them to enter.
“Everyone, please. Thank you, yes, very well. You, too, Comrade Spiridova. Please hurry. Do not keep the others waiting.”
They file into a small, wallpapered, empty cellar room. Graffiti is scrawled on a wall. The Empress in lurid poses with Rasputin. The grand duchesses in the arms of strangers. The moonless sky can be seen through a single barred window. A swarm of mosquitoes beat their wings against the rain-stained windowpane. The howl of a mounting summer wind makes its way through the cracks.
“What? No chairs?” The Empress utters, exhibiting the first sign of alarm. “May we not sit?”
Yurovsky thrusts his head out the door and calls out for two chairs. He grabs the chairs through the half-open door and sets them in the center. The Empress settles in one chair and the Emperor gently sits his son on the other.
“People in Moscow are worried that you might have escaped,” Yurovsky says. “A photograph to prove that you have not. Comrade Spiridova, please remove your hat. I can’t see your face. Thank you. This is better. You stand here and you here, there, across the back wall, thank you. Slightly further to the right, please,” he says, kicking the hat Darya tossed at his feet.
Darya is assigned a place behind Alexei’s chair.
Glaring at Yurovsky, she plants herself in front of the boy. “His Majesty does not like to be photographed,” she growls. “What is the purpose of a photograph? He won’t be escaping without his parents.”
“Darya!” the Tsar orders. “Behind Alexei. Now!”
She tugs at her necklace that has survived the many thieves and robbers they encountered on the way here, pulls hard until the chain cuts into her skin, drawing blood from the back of her neck. She takes her time to walk around and position herself behind Alexei’s chair. Nicholas is standing next to her, behind the Empress’s chair.
The group of eleven is arranged in two orderly rows, distance between them carefully measured, the two chairs shifted closer and slightly to the center.
Yurovsky steps back, cocks his head, evaluates his choreographed setting. “It will be a very good photograph. Very good indeed. The people will see that you are safe. No one escaped. Yes, you are ready.”
He shoves his head out the door and calls out for the photographer.
Darya rests her hands on Alexei’s frail shoulders. “Listen to me, Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov. Don’t
you worry, not for a single second. I am here, right behind you. When we get out, I’ll take you to Petrograd to visit the Hermitage Theater. We’ll dine at the Podval Brodyachy Sobaki. You’ll meet famous artists and poets and we will…”
The door opens. In burst eleven armed men.
Darya lets out a small gasp of pain. She grabs her head as if she is being pulled away by her hair, as if her eye is on fire, her flesh melting off her bones. There is the Ancient One, back after seven years, not whirling or churning in veils, but an embossed outline on the wall. Why did you abandon me? Darya is screaming in her head. How could you just say good-bye and leave me after revealing Athalia’s deeds? You promised to guide me and watch over me. You promised to forewarn me of looming tragedies. Didn’t you see our bleak future?
The Ancient One’s sad gaze is on Darya. A single teardrop glistens like a crystal bead at the corner of her left eye. Her pale lips hardly move, but Darya can hear her loud and clear, see her gesture toward the pillow of ambergris in Darya’s arms.
She snatches Alexei’s pillow from behind and drops her own in his lap. “Hold it like a shield, Loves, press hard to your chest. The ambergris will protect you.”
Yurovsky steps into the center of the crowded room that reeks of sweat, fear, and hatred. He holds a note in his left hand, his right hand stuffed in his pocket. He confronts Nicholas II. “In view of the fact that your relatives continue their attacks on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has ordered your execution.”
“Lord, oh, my God! Oh, my God! What is this? I can’t understand you,” Nicholas cries out, turning to his family, then back to the commandant. The veins in his neck stand out, his face white as the pillowcase on his son’s lap.
Yurovsky jerks his right hand out of his pocket and aims his Colt revolver at the Tsar.
A point-blank bullet propels Nicholas’s head backward and smashes his skull. His body wobbles in place before toppling sideways on Darya. She clutches the body, anchors the dead load against her, refusing to let go, her screams mingling with other cries.
The entire squad opens fire. Smoke and the acrid stench of gunpowder fill the room. Alexandra and Olga attempt to make the sign of the cross. A violent spatter of their blood blinds Darya. She releases the body of Nicholas.
Bayonets come crunching in on skull and bone. Bodies topple on top of one another. Guts spill, skulls crack, brain matter splatters. Necks and extremities bend and twist into lurid angles. Bullets ricochet against the pillow Darya clutches to her chest, hurtling her backward. She tumbles onto her side. She is being buried. Buried under a pile of bodies, her face jammed to the hardwood floor, the taste of blood and ash in her mouth, smoke in her eyes.
Footsteps shuffle everywhere. The door bangs shut. Silence. Darya struggles to remove a lifeless hand from her face. Alexandra’s manicured fingers. Darya drops it with a silent cry. She struggles to breathe, to move under the load of bodies, search for a pistol, a bayonet, something to end her misery. Fragments of bone pierce her cheek. A foot presses into her armpit. Time passes. The pillow is jammed against her face. Emeralds, rubies, and diamonds are visible through bullet holes. Lord! What did she do? What in the world did she do! She should not have exchanged her pillow with the Tsarevich’s.
The jewels in the pillow managed to shield her from the bullets.
What if the ambergris didn’t save Alyosha?
She hears the creak of the opening door, the squeak of approaching boots, bodies being shuffled around. She opens her mouth to invite them to finish her with a bullet, but only gurgling inhuman sounds tumble around her throat.
She is assaulted by a whiff of stale air. Someone grabs her by the shoulders. Removes the pillow from her face. A strand of pearls dangles from a hole in the pillowcase.
She grabs the pillow and plunges her face back in it, unable to face the smoke, the stench, the cursed world.
She is lifted up from a sticky pool of blood, squeezed hard against a rough coat, the buttons pressing into her breast, coarse beard bruising her cheek, her ear, a hand digging into her hair.
“Put me down!” She yells to the man with the yellow beard, unkempt hair, and wild eyes. “Alexei! Answer me. Loves! Where are you, Alyosha?” She directs her rage at the man, slapping him, kicking him.
She frees herself and lunges toward a bayonet leaning against the wall.
He grabs her around the waist and pulls her back. He is crushing her against him, his powerful hands imprisoning her in their grip, his breath on her neck. She spins around and pounds on his chest with her fists, her head, biting his neck.
“My love, my love,” he cries into her hair, his tears wetting her neck. “It’s me, Avram. What did they do to you! I came to save you. Come! I’m taking you away.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The moonless night rattles with the nearby pound of artillery. Now and then, the black skies overhead ignite with a burst of cannon fire. The sound of marching boots, vehicles, gunshots, and troops grow louder, the rotting smell of refuse stronger.
Avram Bensheimer carries Darya over one shoulder as he maneuvers the city’s back alleys and byways to avoid roadblocks, armored vehicles, and dangerous thoroughfares. He steps over something slippery and loses his balance, crashing against a nearby building.
She lets out a cry of pain.
He regains his footing and continues to sprint ahead, his breath coming fast, the impact of his steps on the asphalt underfoot constant in his chest.
She grunts, clawing at the air, at herself, at the world. “Where is Alexei, Avram? Where is he?”
“I don’t know, Darya. I really don’t,” he murmurs into the dark. “I’m taking you to safety. I knew you’d be in Ekaterinburg with the Romanovs. So I joined the White Army regiment that made its way here.”
“Alexei!” she cries out in her raw voice. “Alyosha!”
“Shh,” he warns at the sound of approaching boots. “Keep the jewels in the pillow.” He slips around a sharp turn and into an alley, ducking into a doorway.
A battalion of soldiers march by, a heavyset man at the head waving a red banner that otherwise hangs limp in the stagnant heat. A blast of artillery from somewhere nearby casts an eerie glow on the men’s faces, blood-veined eyes, spit-dried lips, sweat-matted hair. A blood-splattered dog limps behind the passing soldiers, attempting to keep pace with a riderless horse.
A gray dawn is settling on the surrounding hills when Avram, at last, sets Darya down and doubles over to catch his breath.
She recognizes the birch, linden, and cedars surrounding acres of breathtaking beauty, which in the grip of this sinister dawn appears more forlorn than a ghost ship in a mist.
“You’ll be safe here,” he says. “At least for now. Come, don’t stand here. It’s dangerous.” Finding her weak and unable to walk, he pulls her closer and leads her toward the Entertainment Palace, kicks the heavy door open, and helps her in.
A moldy smell meets them at the threshold. It is a long corridor, almost empty now. The Fabergé eggs in the glass cabinet are gone. The Persian carpets too. For now, a few paintings, a tapestry, and portraits of the Imperial Family remain in place. As does the entire collection of the family’s books: a biography of Peter the Great, volumes of Chekhov, Les Fables de La Fontaine, a volume of Tales of Shakespeare, and the children’s favorite fairy tale, The Fire Bird. These too, in the near future, will be plundered in front of her eyes, when she is still young and green and has not learned to use her opal eye and cursing tongue to scare away the enemy.
Avram gestures toward the pillow she clutches against her chest. “Put the jewels away.” He turns a light on. Stepping closer, he holds her by the shoulders. He gasps at the sight of her cracked eye. “Who did this to you? Who? Tell me!”
She covers her eye with one hand. “It doesn’t matter, Avram. Not now!”
“The Bolsheviks did it, didn’t they? I’ll kill them! I’ll shoot every one of the bastards!”
“Don’t bother, Avram. I said
it doesn’t matter now.”
He kisses the tip of his forefinger and presses it to her eye. “I’m going, Darya. I hate to leave you alone, but you’ll be safe here. Everyone thinks you are a witch. They’ll keep their distance. Listen to me. I’ll go back to the House of Special Purpose. I’ll look for Alexei.”
She does not turn away when he wraps his arms around her. She feels fragile in his arms as if the slightest pressure would shatter her into a million pieces. “I’m coming with you,” she says.
“No! It’s too dangerous. I’ll have to do this alone.”
She gazes at the door he shuts behind him, not caring to lock it, left behind in a palace she knows well, every corner, every room, the vast grounds she and Alexei once roamed, discovering miracles around every corner, the sweet-smelling herbs they crushed against their palms, the voracious squirrel they tamed with handfuls of walnuts, the banya they once converted into a grand pool of sailing toy ships, the sweet almond tree they climbed to scare away the mean-eyed cat that had a way of springing up from nowhere to frighten Alexei.
The need to wash off the blood, the visions, the stink of gunpowder is overwhelming. She wills her legs to take tentative, reluctant steps to nowhere. Her feet entangle in her skirts. She loses her balance, stumbles like a drunkard. She enters the guest bathroom opening to the garden, a shortcut to the banya. The alabaster sink is stained with the remnants of melted candle, shaving cream, hair. The sconce above the sink robbed of its crystals, the naked bulbs reflecting sorrow in the mirror below.
She confronts her image in the mirror, which she has been avoiding since their exile from Tsarskoe Selo. She stares at her unhinged, terror-stricken eye. Gazes hard and long at the opal, cracked like her heart and framed by a splattering of dried blood.
Their blood.
Chapter Forty
Two days pass and Avram is at the door, his arms loaded with two sacks he sets down at her feet. From one of the sacks, he plucks amulets, smashed icons, a broken emerald cross, bits and pieces of a lock, items of clothing, copper coins, nails, foil, and a Bible. “I found these in the Ipatiev House, thought you’d like to have them.”
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