by Ariel Lawhon
A stairwell.
The thump of limbs against steps as she’s guided down.
Warmth.
The penthouse.
Her bed.
A horrendous banging as someone nails the window shut.
The slamming of her bedroom door.
Darkness.
· 14 ·
Anastasia
UNDER ARREST, ON FREEDOM STREET
1917
Tobolsk, Russia
October 10
The glare makes me wince. But I cannot protest or move seats because Pierre Gilliard is in one of his moods. I can see it written there on his furrowed brow, in his clouded eyes. His long limbs snap with quick, jerky movements. His fingers drum incessantly on his desk and then on the chalkboard. Our tutor has grown increasingly anxious since his arrival in Tobolsk, and though Gilliard is only in his late thirties, he frets like an old man.
Tatiana insists that he is only cranky because he’s frightened for us, and this strict, unrelenting dictatorship in the classroom gives him a sense of control over our deteriorating circumstances. Olga believes he is simply humorless and doesn’t know how to be anything but a curmudgeon. Both of them are proud of their observations and have taken to discussing them as we lie in bed at night. How worldly they consider themselves to be. How wise and studied in the nature of men. For the most part I think they just like the sound of their own voices, and I wish they would be quiet and go to sleep.
“Sit still,” Maria says, driving her elbow into my ribs, “or you’ll get us all in trouble.”
Maria cannot see Gleb Botkin sitting on the stone wall at the edge of the yard. Nor can she see the shard of mirror in his hand or the way he uses it to reflect the sunlight into my eyes. And they call me Schwibsik! He’s the imp. Blasted little troublemaker.
Gleb and his sister, Tanya, arrived in Tobolsk in mid-September after being summoned by their father. The turmoil in Petrograd has made him uneasy and he wants them close at hand. So they stay with Dr. Botkin in his rented rooms several blocks away. Although they are not allowed to visit us, they often come to the Governor’s House and eat their lunch on the wall and wait to catch a glimpse of our family. Sometimes they wave or dance to get our attention when they see us in the yard. Often I see Gleb searching the windows, looking for me, I think, in that innocent puppyish way of his. Normally the distraction is welcome, appreciated even. I can’t fault his loyalty or enthusiasm. But Gleb has chosen a poor method of getting my attention today. I would throw open the window and scold him if I wasn’t worried that I would get my knuckles rapped by Gilliard.
Gleb has been at it for half an hour and my eyes are sore. So I close them. But even with my eyes squeezed tight I can feel the bright little flashes of light, as though someone is turning an electric torch on and off, again and again, an inch from my face. What I do not see, however, is the look of exasperation on Pierre Gilliard’s face, so it is a shock when he crosses the room and brings his ruler down firmly on the knuckles of my right hand.
I yelp and jerk my hand away. “Why did you do that?”
“No sleeping in class, Anastasia.” His lips press into a tight, thin line.
“I wasn’t sleeping!”
“Do not lie, child. I saw you myself.”
“I was trying to rest my eyes!” I hate the way my voice pitches higher when I’m angry, how hysterical I sound.
Gilliard laughs, but there is nothing kind or amused in the sound. “Resting your eyes from what, precisely?” he asks.
“Him.” I point to where Gleb ought to be, where he was only minutes earlier. “Gleb was reflecting sunlight at me with a mirror.”
The wall, of course, is empty, and that little green-eyed troll is nowhere to be seen. I’ll throttle the boy with my bare hands the next time I see him.
Pierre Gilliard clasps his hands behind his back and leans over the table. “It is unbecoming of a tsarevna to make up stories just to get out of Latin.”
I clench my teeth. “I am not lying.”
“There was no one on the wall, Anastasia. There was no one distracting you. You were napping in class. You were being lazy.”
“I’m not lying! And I’m not lazy.” It’s unfair of him to accuse me of this. I think he knows it too because he winces a little.
The problem with having a temper is that my body often moves faster than my mind. It’s far too easy to react with action instead of intellect. I don’t realize that I’ve slammed my fist down on the table in fury until pain radiates from the bottom of my pinky up through the heel of my hand. I cannot keep my stupid, traitorous tears at bay so I press my hand to my chest and scowl at Gilliard.
Maria sits to my left and I can feel her stiffen as he looms over me. “Stop,” she hisses. “You’re only making it worse.”
Gilliard’s voice is calm and quiet, and I should be more frightened than I am. He reaches into his pocket, draws out a piece of chalk, and places it carefully on the table in front of me.
“To the chalk board,” he says. “The ablative case is characterized by three broad uses. You will write an example of each use, in your best handwriting, along with their definitions and parts of speech. Prove to me that you were not napping, Anastasia.”
I push back my chair, stand slowly, and pick up the chalk with two fingers. The schoolroom is silent as Alexey and my sisters stare at me in dismay. I snap the chalk in half and throw it against the wall.
“I. Hate. Latin!”
Gilliard, even calmer now, draws another piece of chalk from his pocket and sets it before me. “Then your hate is misplaced, Tsarevna. I am not your enemy. And if you will not learn temperance under my tutelage, I fear you will learn it in other, harsher ways. But your punishment stands. The three uses of the ablative case. On the board. Now.”
“Or what?” I hiss. “What will you do if I refuse?”
* * *
—
“You should have just done what Gilliard asked,” Maria says, setting the bucket on the ground with one hand while she covers her nose with the other. She stands inside the kitchen door, unwilling to cross the threshold into the frozen yard. “You got us both in trouble.”
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t force you to interfere.” I step aside as Jimmy bolts through the door and into the yard. The chickens run, squawking in terror, but I don’t call him off. Jimmy won’t hurt the stupid little birds, and they deserve a good fright.
“Ugh.” Maria stomps her foot. “You can be such an ungrateful pest. Be glad Father didn’t agree to Gilliard’s original suggestion or you’d be cleaning the soldiers’ bathroom upstairs.”
“Gilliard should be the one getting punished. He rapped my knuckles for no reason!” I lift the bucket with a grunt and watch as the ghastly contents send white ribbons of steam into the air. “He may as well work for the provisional government.”
“Sshh. Don’t say that,” Maria hisses. “He’s here, isn’t he? And he’s terribly loyal to Father. That alone puts him at risk. He’s just trying to do his job. You weren’t making it very easy for him, telling stories and all.”
“It wasn’t a story!” I set the bucket of kitchen slops at my feet. It’s heavier than it looks, and the handle cuts into my sore hand. I have no idea how I’ll carry the thing all the way to the refuse pit at the far end of the yard. “Gleb was out there, being a little scourge. This is all his fault.”
Maria steps backward into the kitchen and shakes her head. “You have to stop looking for trouble, Schwibsik. We have enough as it is.”
She kicks the door shut with her foot, leaving me to finish the nauseous chore by myself. I can’t look at the contents of the bucket without gagging, so I lift it in both hands and begin shuffling across the yard to where the chickens scratch and peck at the contents of the refuse pit.
It wasn’t long after our arrival in Tobolsk tha
t I realized chickens are, in fact, the most odious animals ever created. They are loud and mean. Not to mention horribly stupid and yet ridiculously proud—squawking like Harpies every time they lay an egg. They molt. They defecate everywhere, and the stuff is like tar, impossible to scrape from your shoes or your skin, and the smell is enough to make your eyes water. Their mating is so horrific and loud and violent I am stunned the species has survived. I had the great misfortune of witnessing the act one afternoon when I drew the short straw (none of us would volunteer) and went to collect the eggs for Cook. The rooster had that poor hen pinned to the ground, her wings flailing helplessly, as he ripped feathers from her head and pounded her until she couldn’t walk. I asked Father later, with burning cheeks, whether the hen had been raped. He assured me that no, it was just the way chickens went about their business. I, for one, thought it very unfair to the hen, and I had named the rooster D’Yavol. Devil. The hens aren’t his only victims, however. That evil little red-feathered monster launches himself at us whenever we gather eggs, and we live in fear of his vicious spurs.
So I give the chicken coop a wide berth as I struggle with the bucket, muttering about my punishment. I have to stop every few minutes to move my skirt out of the way lest I trip over my own hem and end up covered in refuse.
“Do you need help with that?”
Tomas stands behind me, hands stuffed deep in his coat pockets, trying not to laugh. His hair is too long and his military cap too big, but he still looks charming, cute even. I can feel an unfamiliar heat rising in my cheeks, so I set the bucket down and look away from him.
“Yes, please. It’s very heavy.”
Tomas peers into the bucket and curls his lip in distaste. “Entrails?”
“Disgusting, isn’t it?”
He leans in a bit closer. “And feathers. So —”
“Cook is roasting chickens for dinner tonight. These are the extra parts. I’m pretty sure that gray blobby thing is a gizzard.” I shudder. “Pity he didn’t pull D’Yavol from the coop. I wouldn’t mind seeing his gizzard in a bucket.”
“D’Yavol?”
“The rooster.”
The corner of Tomas’s mouth turns up in a grin. “That bad?”
“He’s the spawn of Satan. And”—I hold up one finger as Tomas lifts the bucket, and we begin walking toward the far corner of the yard—“he’s a cannibal as well. Just watch when we dump this out. He’ll come running. Little monster loves nothing more than gobbling up his friends.”
“All chickens are cannibals,” Tomas says. “They’ll eat anything. They’re worse than pigs.”
The back portion of the yard slopes downhill slightly, and we walk in silence as Tomas balances the bucket carefully in one hand, trying to make sure the revolting contents don’t slosh over the edge and onto his boots.
“How did you end up with this chore?” he asks when we reach our destination.
“Haven’t you heard? I am belligerent, quarrelsome, and incorrigible.”
“Then I am glad to have made your acquaintance. That’s the only sort of person I associate with,” Tomas says. “You might want to look away for this part.”
For once I don’t argue. I wander off a few feet and keep my back to Tomas as he tips the bucket over and sends the contents sliding into the pit. I can hear the wet, splattering sound, and I gag despite my determination not to.
I squeeze my eyes tight and draw in several long breaths of frigid air through my nose to regain control of my roiling stomach. A short temper and an easy gag reflex. My list of flaws grows by the day.
Jimmy has abandoned the chickens in favor of something at the wall. He’s digging furiously at a small mound of frozen dirt. His tail lashes back and forth, and he grunts, desperate to reach whatever quarry lies hidden in the soil. A mole no doubt. Or some other small rodent.
“So who did you upset?” Tomas asks. He holds the empty bucket in his other hand, the one farthest from me, and leads the way back to the house.
“Gilliard.”
“Your tutor?”
I nod. “He called me a liar. I didn’t take it very well.”
Tomas casts a sideways glance at me, and I think he smiles. “I can’t imagine you would.”
I offer him a curtsy and a wry smile. “My reputation precedes me, I see.”
“Not at all.”
I question him with a glance.
“Observation,” he says. “You are different from your sisters. More spirited.”
“A polite word for ‘poorly behaved.’ ”
“I like to think it means ‘interesting.’ ”
“A good answer.” I flash him a bright smile and am rewarded with one from him. “But that doesn’t mean I believe you.”
I call and Jimmy comes running, but not to me. He goes directly to Tomas and receives a scratch between the ears as a reward. I glare at Tomas, but he laughs and we tromp back toward the house. It is very strange to befriend a boy whose job it is to keep you under lock and key. Yet Tomas doesn’t feel like a captor. He’s not an officer. He has never ordered us around like Semyon or Leshy. He is simply there, constantly in the background. Patrolling the yard or playing cards with the others upstairs. He often helps Cook in the kitchen—he isn’t stupid; Cook frequently hands out samples— or walks Joy when Alexey is too weak to go outside. The boredom that afflicts us torments the guards as well, and as time goes on the lines between us have begun to blur. These days we barely notice the uniforms.
Maria apparently doesn’t notice the uniforms at all, because when I pull open the kitchen door, Tomas on my heels, I find her in the hallway between the kitchen and the pantry, partially hidden in shadow, whispering with a guard.
In the seconds before the cold blast of wind hits her cheeks and she notices our presence, I see the way she looks at him. Not just flirtatious, but adoring. He leans close, one forearm resting on the wall above her head, their faces inches apart. They pull away quickly, fluidly, and if I hadn’t seen the way her lips were parted and how round her eyes were I might have believed her when she says, “No, I can manage quite well on my own, thank you.”
Maria turns and saunters away, chin up, shoulders stiff, as though she is offended rather than tempted. The guard too is gone, up the stairs before I can say anything to him. Tomas stands behind me, bucket still in hand, and I know by his expression that I’m not mistaken. The look on his nicely angled face is one of revelation, as though he didn’t know such a thing was possible. A soldier and a tsarevna.
“What is his name?” I ask. There are so many guards and I know so few of their names.
“Ivan Skorokhodov,” he says.
“Do I need to worry about my sister?”
Tomas lifts a hand slowly and then, after drawing a deep breath as though to summon a bit of courage, brushes one finger along my chin. “No more than you need to worry about yourself.”
TWO WEEKS LATER
Tobolsk, Russia
October 25
“Don’t you think it’s ironic that we live on Freedom Street yet we’re under house arrest?” Maria asks.
We stand at the corner of the yard peering up at the battered street sign. “Freedom is a word I no longer know,” I say.
“Don’t let Gilliard hear you say that! He’ll have you writing vocabulary cards in Latin all morning.”
“Gilliard,” I groan. “He hates me.”
“He does not hate you,” Maria argues. “He is trying to civilize you.”
“He told me to shut up in class this morning.”
“To be fair, you talk too much. And you were being rather dreadful.”
“Well, you would be dreadful too if he’d written those notes on your paper.” We continue walking slowly through the yard. The wind bites our noses and earlobes, but we take our time. Once back inside we will resume Gilliard’s mind-numbing history
lesson on the Samoyedic people group of western Siberia. “He said that I am lazy in my lessons and that I am ill-mannered.”
“But you are.” Maria grins, showing there is no malice in the jab.
“No. I’m bored.”
“We’re all bored, Schwibsik. It’s no excuse to be a pest in the classroom.”
The boredom is something we all deal with in different ways. There are endless games of dominoes and bezique and whist. We read all the books we brought with us from Tsarskoe Selo and then we read them again. I’ve just gone through Ivanhoe for the third time, and I think I might lose my mind if I have to spend one more day in medieval England. We write in our journals. We write letters. We write terrible poems and short stories. Last week Alexey declared he was going to write a novel but never got more than a page or two into his swashbuckling pirate adventure before stopping to illustrate one of the pages. Then he gave up altogether.
Meanwhile, Olga and Tatiana retreat into their books and needlework. Mother knits and unravels and knits again. Or she works on the corsets. Father, unable to curb his need for physical exercise in any other way, has taken to spending hours each day chopping wood in the yard. He is so obsessed with the activity, in fact, that Leshy sent in great piles of birch trunks from a local saw mill for him to chop. Maria has found a more troublesome way of diverting her boredom. She flirts.
We finish our final lap and turn back toward the house when I catch her smiling at Ivan Skorokhodov.
“Is that why you offered to keep me company during this forced exercise? I thought you were just being nice.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do. I see the way you look at him. What’s his name anyway? And don’t pretend like you don’t know.” I want her to admit it. I want to hear her say it out loud.
“Oh, you’re one to talk. I see the way you flirt with Tomas.”
“I do not flirt with Tomas. He is only a friend.”
“So you can make friends with the guards but I can’t?”
