I Was Anastasia

by Ariel Lawhon

  I’m cold now, well and truly cold, and I rub my hands together as we hurry up the front steps and into the house. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I whisper. “We are all friends with the guards.” The fact that I have a strong preference for Tomas is not something I admit, however.

  We pull off our hats and gloves and shrug out of our long coats and return to the schoolroom, where we expect to spend several excruciating hours at our lessons. Pierre Gilliard is there, along with the rest of our family and all the staff.

  “Oh no,” I groan. “Am I to be punished publically? I’ve already apologized to Gilliard. And I’ve taken a walk. I really didn’t—”

  “Schwibsik,” Father says. “Sit down. We’ve had news from Petrograd.”

  Maria grabs my hand as we drop into our seats. “What news?” I ask.

  “The Bolsheviks have taken control of the government.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It is a second revolution,” Mother says.

  “I still don’t understand what it means.”

  “To begin with it means that Alexander Kerensky is no longer there to protect us,” Father says.

  If he had said that Satan was our benefactor and hell our actual home he would not have received a louder outburst. The litany of Kerensky’s sins against us begins. Father patiently endures this for a moment before raising his hand.

  “The man is no friend of mine,” he says. “But we might all be dead if not for him.” The fact that Father has mellowed in his opinion of Kerensky only makes me angrier.

  Alexey will never forgive Kerensky for what he did to the elephant, much less consider him a hero. “He killed Sammi,” he protests.

  “Yes.” Father kneels before Alexey and takes his small, frail hands in his large calloused ones. “Sometimes mercy is severe.”

  “Do not defend that monster,” Mother says.

  “I do not defend him. I am only trying to explain that I understand now what he has done. Why he has sent us here.”

  I hated Alexander Kerensky from the moment I saw him. Hated how he treated us. How he took every precious thing from us. How he took such delight in demoralizing us. To hear Father justify any of his actions feels like a betrayal.

  “And is this a mercy too?” I demand. “This muddy hell that we’ve been forced into?”

  “Do not curse, Schwibsik. It is unbecoming of you.”

  “I’m not cursing. Hell is a location. A noun,” I say, looking at Gilliard, and I am gratified to see that he is struggling not to grin.

  Father chooses not to fight that particular battle. “Do not forget, child, that there is a great deal of difference between mercy and kindness. Gilliard can school you on the differences later—and yes, I heard about your lesson this morning. I will not argue that Alexander Kerensky showed us no kindness. But it was a mercy that he did not throw us out the palace gates and into the hands of the mob that very first day. It was a mercy that he forced us to work in the garden for months—”

  “How—”

  “Because there are horrible food shortages in Petrograd right now. He made us grow that food so we would not starve. And yes, in a way, sending us to this swamp at the edge of the world was also his way of showing mercy. Back in July he knew those Bolshevik buzzards were circling, and he realized that if he did not evacuate us they would be more than happy to render their own bloody form of justice. So here we are, in a town that is closed off from the rest of the world for eight months of the year. The river is freezing and the mud is turning to blocks of ice beneath our feet. We are removed from all civilization and also from harm. At least for the time being. In his own harsh way Kerensky helped us in the only way he could.”

  “He could have sent us to England,” I say.

  Father smiles, sadly. “But would we have gotten there alive, Schwibsik?”

  It doesn’t matter. None of this matters to me. “I won’t forgive him. And neither should you.”

  Father still kneels before my brother so he cannot rise quickly enough to stop me from running from the room. “Schwibsik!”

  “Let her go,” Mother says. “She has a right to be upset.”

  Upset isn’t the right word for what I feel as I stomp through our quarters and up the stairs, where the soldiers are housed, and out onto the balcony. I am overwhelmed. Upended. To hear father assert that Kerensky had been our protector is insanity. To hear that we no longer have a protector at all is terrifying.

  It is one of those dismal, overcast days that feels dreary and lethargic. I should have grabbed my coat. I’m still cold from my walk. Or maybe I shouldn’t have come at all, but I refuse to go back inside until all evidence of my tears is gone. If I am going to become a weeper then I am determined to do it in private.

  “Anastasia?”

  Tomas. Of course.

  “What?” I wipe my sleeve across my face before I can look at him.

  “I was in there playing cards when you ripped through the room—”

  “I did not rip—”

  “You did. Girls always rip when they’re mad. I thought I’d see if you’re okay.”

  “Afraid I might jump from the roof?”

  He takes one step forward, then another. And when he’s confident I mean no harm to myself or to him, he sits down beside me. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You think I’m really that stupid?”

  “I think you’re sad. I don’t think anyone else sees it because you try so hard to be brave for them. But it must be really hard to be a prisoner. I’d likely want to pitch myself off a roof too.”

  “I don’t want to kill myself, Tomas.”

  “Oh good!” He throws his arm across his forehead in mock relief. “Because they’d likely make me clean up the mess and I’m no good with blood.”

  I don’t laugh so much as snort. “But entrails are acceptable?”

  He shrugs. “I draw the line at blood and vomit.”

  Maria needled me about my friendship with Tomas, but he is easy to talk to and he makes me laugh. I never feel stupid or ugly or invisible when I’m around him. Tomas sees me. And Jimmy likes him more and more every day. I have always believed dogs to be wonderful judges of character.

  Tomas stretches his legs out in front of him. “What are you doing, then? Since you’re not up here to go tumbling over the rail?”

  I don’t know what makes me tell him the truth. Maybe I’m wrung out emotionally. Maybe I am desperate. Maybe I like him. Liking a boy can do strange things to the mind. “Thinking,” I whisper.

  “About?”

  “Escape.”

  No sooner is the word out of my mouth than I realize what a terrible mistake I’ve made. Tomas isn’t my friend. He can’t ever, really be my friend. His job is to make sure we don’t escape.

  He must recognize the look of terror on my face because he is quick to ask, “Is that a secret?”

  I nod like an imbecile.

  He pulls at the long, straight bone in the bridge of his nose. “Good thing you know how I feel about keeping secrets.”

  · 15 ·

  Anna

  THE GRANDANOR CORPORATION

  1929, 1928

  Metropolitan Opera House, New York City

  November 1929

  The playbill announces that tonight’s performance is Tosca, the famed Italian opera by Giacomo Puccini. They sit in the Heiress’s private box, to the right of the stage, and the seats below are filling up quickly with theatergoers in their evening finest. Below them is a sea of bow ties and feather boas, fur coats, cuff links, and lit cigars. The buzz of human chatter contrasts starkly with the occasional outburst of tuning from the orchestra. A handful of patrons have noticed their presence in the box and they gawk, pointing and lifting their chins in an effort to share the sighting with their companions.

  Anna keeps
her gazed fixed on the empty stage. She is cold but doesn’t dare drape her wrap around her shoulders again. The Heiress objected to her wearing it in the first place, so impressed was she with the Madeleine Vionnet gown Anna has chosen for tonight. The dress is a masterpiece. It is a beaded, cream silk—a slight departure from her standard white. It boasts thin straps and an open back, and gooseflesh has risen all along her arms from the chill. Cut on the bias, the dress has the magical properties of making Anna look exceedingly more glamorous and six inches taller than she really is—a thing she greatly appreciates now that she’s in her thirties and is starting to notice the effects of time.

  “I am glad to see,” the Heiress whispers in her ear, “that the recent financial debacle has not thinned the crowd. It would be such a shame on opening night.”

  For two weeks the Heiress has been obsessed with the stock market crash and all the news surrounding it. They call it Black Tuesday, and every morning the papers report some new tragedy: lives lost, institutions ruined, families bankrupted. Her host follows it with religious zeal, in much the same way she scours the society pages for news and insists on reporting the salacious details over breakfast. Anna stayed in her room this morning to avoid it altogether, excusing herself by claiming exhaustion when in reality she no longer had the stomach for every tawdry detail. Loss is loss and death is death, and everyone in this city is so surprised to learn of the existence of either.

  The Heiress, however, has missed her daily dispensing of gossip and won’t be so easily thwarted. “Do you remember John Hammond?” she asks.

  Anna knows better than to answer but it would be rude not to. She chooses a lie instead of the rather complicated truth. “I don’t believe so, no.”

  “He was that handsome young banker who joined us on the yacht this summer.”

  “Oh. Yes,” Anna says. “A charming man.” She drops her gaze to her lap and this movement does not go unnoticed by the Heiress.

  “I’ve been told he jumped out of the twelfth-floor window of the Bank of the United States on Black Tuesday. Lost everything, they say. Was ruined by a particularly bad investment. Such a shame. He was a lovely young man. Had a bright future ahead of him.” Anna looks straight ahead now, unmoving, unwilling to betray her emotions or return the meaningful glance the Heiress directs her way. John Hammond took his life because of a bad investment. She refuses to cry or give way to the explosive sense of guilt that rattles around the back of her skull when the Heiress adds, “I rather thought he took a shine to you.”

  The lights dim and the cacophony in the orchestra pit grows more urgent and intentional. The buzz of human voices lessens to a murmur as the crimson swath of velvet curtain rustles with some movement backstage. Quiet laughter in the box next to them. The crackle of paper as the Heiress inspects her playbill for the names of familiar singers. Oh, God, please don’t let her drag me backstage afterward, Anna thinks. I cannot be put on display tonight, not now. Anna can hear the blood rushing through her ears with each beat of her heart. Her hands remain where she left them, folded in her lap. Her eyes blink furiously, pushing away the unwanted emotions.

  It is only at intermission that Anna finally relaxes enough to clap with the rest of the crowd, but she does not retreat to the lobby with the Heiress, insisting that women’s troubles have left her feeling poorly this evening. Not even Annie Burr Jennings— decades removed from her childbearing years— can argue with that. The moment she’s alone, Anna pulls the wrap around her shoulders and draws into herself, eyes closed, desperate to become master of her own emotions again. She tries to assure herself that John Hammond’s death is not her fault.

  And then the Heiress returns and the curtains are pulled back once more and the stage fills with opera singers performing Puccini’s classic saga of torment and murder and suicide, all wrapped in the reverberating sound of his legendary, melodic arias.

  Suicide.

  Suicide.

  Suicide.

  A theme, it seems, she cannot escape, in life or theater. Anna survived her own attempt, but it seems not everyone is as fortunate as she. A memory surfaces. John Hammond, naked, in the starlight.

  There is a darkness that creeps into Anna’s peripheral vision, the harbinger of her old nemesis, that creeping, desperate panic whose grip has been loosened only in recent years. But now that it has arrived, there is no keeping it at bay. Her only choice is whether or not to surrender in the company of others.

  “If you will excuse me,” Anna says, rising to her feet and drawing the wrap tighter around her shoulders, “I think I’m going to be ill.”

  FOUR MONTHS EARLIER

  Siasconset Beach, Nantucket Island

  July 1929

  It is midnight and the sky is clear, but the only light that reaches the sleek, spacious yacht comes from the stars, for the moon has waned to a mere sliver. The Heiress has gone to bed in her cabin below, as have a small handful of guests, and the boat lies still and placid in the water, anchored several hundred yards from shore.

  Anna is alone on deck with a gentleman, some banker from Manhattan, and she’s had enough champagne to have forgotten his last name. John something or other. Not enough to fall down drunk, but certainly enough to lose her typical buttoned-up demeanor. And speaking of buttons, several of hers seem to be missing. No, not missing. Undone. Funny, she has no idea how it happened.

  “Oh, don’t get shy on me now,” the Banker says when she moves to slip the little mother-of-pearl buttons back through their holes. “It’s just a bit of fun. No harm intended. The water’s warm. We should go for a swim.”

  His shoes are off, as are his socks, and at this pronouncement, the Banker takes a swig of champagne right from the bottle and unbuttons his own shirt. The man has reason to be confident, and Anna struggles not to stare.

  “Your turn,” he says, handing her the bottle with an aggressively charming smile. “Double-dog dare you.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “I promise I don’t bite,” he says, flashing those lovely white teeth, “unless you want me to.”

  Anna cannot remember the last time she felt heat like this in her belly, the last time a man looked at her like that, not as a threat, or a claim, but as a challenge. An invitation. It feels good, and Anna lifts the bottle to her lips. She lets the fizzy liquid settle on her tongue and then swallows a mouthful of courage. And then another. Anna has found her drug of choice, and it comes corked, in a bottle, with a thousand tiny bubbles that tickle her nose. Champagne. Nectar of the gods. She swigs again, deeply. The wonderful thing, she decides, tipping the last of it into her mouth, is that you never feel it coming. She has never been a heavy drinker and abhors most hard liquor— can’t stand the harsh, burning fire in her throat, the feel of a million suns on her tongue. But this is different. Special. Sweet. Even better than pear cider. And it ever so easily lifts her mood and strips her inhibitions away. Before she knows it, her white silk blouse comes off, revealing a thin chemise with no bra underneath—the Heiress assured her this was the fashion, and she stands there, uncertain what to do next.

  The Banker whoops in approval and drops his trousers to the deck. The ridiculous man knows he’s worth looking at because he does not break eye contact while he loses the one remaining garment on his body. Then he steps to the deck rail, all long and silver in the starlight, and swan dives over the edge. She’s at the rail quickly enough to catch part of the splash on her face. The boat rocks gently with their movements and her stomach roils in response. When the Heiress suggested they go boating earlier in the evening Anna was terrified she’d spend the entire trip belowdecks holding a bucket in her lap. Thankfully, her host’s idea of “boating” was simply to drop anchor several hundred yards off shore and throw a party on the deck. That’s easy enough to live with if she doesn’t think about it too hard.

  “Jump in!” the Banker shouts as he sends a spray of water onto the deck.
This stranger, this man she has known for less than twelve hours, beckons her with that muscled arm. Anna considers her scars, what he will think if he sees them. But it is dark, the champagne is going to her head, and for once she doesn’t care.

  “Don’t leave me hanging, pretty lady,” he shouts off the starboard side.

  Surely he’s far enough away. Surely in the dim light he won’t be able to see the wreckage of her body.

  “Look away!” Anna orders.

  “I think you’re missing the point of this little exercise, madam.” He laughs, long and seductive, and Anna lifts the hem of her chemise without even realizing. “But if you insist, I’ll turn around.”

  The rest of her clothing joins his in a pile on the deck. She’s unsure if this is an act of bravery or stupidity, but she goes over the rail anyway, feet first, with a graceless splash. Anna isn’t sure how he defines warm water, but to her this doesn’t qualify. It’s cool enough to shock her into full sobriety, and she treads water a little faster than necessary to stay warm.

  The Banker is at her side in moments and they stare at each other, their bare shoulders bobbing above the water.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asks.

  “I think I’ll survive.”

  And then she feels a warm hand on the cool skin of her waist as he pulls her closer. The press of full, confident lips against her own. His voice, only a murmur: “Life is too short, madam, for that kind of attitude. Who wants to just survive. Wouldn’t you rather live?”

  Some of us don’t have the luxury of that choice, Anna thinks, but then she is lost in the other, urgent questions the Banker is asking with his hands.

  SIX MONTHS EARLIER

  Law Office of Edward Fallows, Long Island, New York

  January 1929

  “You want me to do what?” Anna says, utterly baffled when Edward Fallows slides the papers across his desk for her to sign.

  “Form a corporation,” he answers, as though it’s nothing more complicated than baking a loaf of bread.