by Ariel Lawhon
“You’ll just have to figure something out then, won’t you?”
“It’s against policy.”
“Hospitals do it all the time. She’s been in my care for weeks and I still don’t know her name.”
“What did you call her, then?”
“A pain in the Arsch.”
“Funny.”
“If you’re looking for sympathy you won’t find it here. I’ve done what I can. Now it’s your turn.” Dr. Winicke lifts his fedora from where it rests on his knee and places it back on his head. He is ready to be gone from this stark institution.
Anna watches Dr. Winicke prepare to leave and feels a twinge of sadness. His kindness has been purely professional in all things except one: rather than handing her over to the Berlin police he has sent her here in the hopes that she will get better. He wants her to have a chance. Even though he doesn’t understand what drove her to jump from that bridge, he doesn’t want her to attempt it again. That is what he said on the drive to Dalldorf this morning, his hands gripping the steering wheel and his eyes locked on the winding road ahead. Anna did not answer; she simply stared out the window and tried to loosen the restraints at her wrists without success.
The Clerk looks at the file again and sighs. “What kind of diagnosis is ‘melancholia’?”
Dr. Winicke offers an exasperated sigh. “It is a mental illness of a depressive character. Like I’ve written in the chart. As you can plainly see.”
“But what of her sanity? This is an asylum for the mentally insane.”
Dr. Winicke appraises Anna with his keen, dark eyes—she has seen him change his mind about whether or not she is mad at least a dozen times in the last few weeks—but if he has come to a conclusion he does not share it with the Clerk. “As you will note, in the chart, I have offered no opinion about her sanity. That is for your doctors to determine.” He rises from his chair and lays his coat across his arm. “But do let me know if you ever learn her name. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.”
“If she won’t declare her name then I will give her one.” The Clerk scratches two words on the front of Anna’s file: Fräulein Unbekannt.
Miss Unknown.
* * *
—
“I don’t need another examination.” Anna stops abruptly in front of a door labeled infirmary. After Dr. Winicke left, Anna thought she was being taken to her room. But as the Clerk lifts a key ring from the loop at his waist and unlocks the door, Anna realizes she was mistaken. He holds it open and motions for her to walk through. “All new patients are required to undergo a physical examination. It’s policy, Fräulein Unbekannt.”
“Do I have a choice in this?”
“Of course you do. If you choose not to cooperate I will call the orderlies and you will be placed in restraints. The examination will happen regardless.”
Anna has a sneaking suspicion that the Clerk would like nothing more than to call the orderlies. And to observe her exam. For administrative purposes no doubt. He seems like the sort of man who likes to watch.
She is then turned over to another physician and his attending nurse to be subjected to another invasive exam. She can feel the muscles in her arms and legs begin to coil in defiance. The nurse is short and squat and stands beside the exam table, her hands folded behind her back. She looks strong and capable, but Anna can’t tell from the expression on her face whether or not she is compassionate as well. Her nametag reads “Thea Malinovsky” and her demeanor reads indifferent.
“Please,” Anna begs, turning to the nurse, “look at my chart. Tell him I don’t need another exam.” The nurses at Elisabeth Hospital were efficient and kind and there is a chance this woman might sympathize with her as well. Anna offers her most hopeful, pleading expression. “Dr. Winicke took thorough records. Nothing new has happened to me in the last two hours. Look at his notes. Tell this doctor what you think.”
“I think you should do exactly what Dr. Reiche tells you,” she says.
Duckmäuser, Anna thinks. Coward.
“It would be best if you cooperated with this exam, Fräulein”— the doctor looks at the chart—“Unbekannt? Don’t you have a name?”
Anna is so tired of that stupid question.
Dr. Reiche lifts the stethoscope from where it hangs around his neck. “I assure you the exam will go quickly and will be painless if you cooperate.”
“I don’t need an exam,” she says.
His lip curls in irritation. “Very well. If that’s how you want to proceed.”
She decides then and there that the man is an utter Arschloch. Asshole.
He has not threatened her with the orderlies, but she knows they linger nearby. They always do in places like this. Anna doesn’t fight him, not at first, but she does record the details of this new indignity with clinical precision, listing them in her mind as though writing in a chart of her own. She labels it: Dr. Arschloch and Nurse Duckmäuser. The Duck, for short. There, she has nicknames for them now. Easy enough to remember.
Dr. Arschloch’s hands are freezing. His voice is too high for a man of such advanced age. It rises at the end of each sentence as though he’s asking a question. He is immediately curious about the scar at her temple.
“How did you get this?” He looks to her file for details.
Anna says nothing.
He rattles off her physical details like she is a specimen in some lab that must be catalogued. He hands her file to the Duck to record his findings. “Weight one hundred and ten pounds. Height, exactly five foot one…” he looks at his tape measure, “…and one half inches.
“The patient is reticent and refuses to give a name or any details about her age, occupation, and family history. The patient is impossibly stubborn.” He pauses to make sure the Duck has gotten all of this information. When she concurs he looks to Anna and asks, “Do you hear voices or have hallucinations?”
Anna shakes her head. “Of course not.”
“You know, I wasn’t sure that you could speak when Dr. Winicke called yesterday to warn us about you. Did you know he called?” he asks.
“How would I possibly know that?”
“He told me, off the record, that he does not think you are insane. He believes you are unspeakably frightened, though he does not know of what. Are you frightened, Fräulein Unbekannt?”
“Not of you.”
“Who then?”
Anna says nothing.
“Dr. Winicke also said that when you feel threatened you use the silent treatment. Do you feel threatened now, Fräulein Unbekannt?”
“I feel angry.”
“At what?”
“At being asked stupid questions.”
Dr. Arschloch looks to her file again. “It says here that you are not a virgin. How did you lose your virginity?”
Anna hates that she cannot hide the feral note to her voice or the rage that rolls across her face like a wave. “That is none of your business.”
“It is, actually.”
Anna says nothing.
“Dr. Winicke believes you are a prostitute and that the shame you carry over this drove you off that bridge. But I don’t agree with him. I see a lot of prostitutes in this facility. They’re often here because they’ve been beaten or abused to the point of insanity. You, however, are too clean and well spoken and demure for that profession. You have all your teeth—nice, pretty, straight ones at that. Your skin is unwrinkled, and that leads me to believe that you neither smoke nor drink in excess. Your German is perfect but you have a Russian accent. There’s crispness to your speech that I can’t quite identify. Your diction is strong. No, I believe you are something else.”
“And what is that?”
If the corner of his mouth wasn’t twitching in a victorious grin he would seem disinterested as he answers, “Jilted.”
“Y
ou know nothing about me.”
“I’m an educated man. I make educated guesses.” He pushes his glasses a little farther up his nose. “If I had to guess, I’d say that you are— or at least you were— engaged to be married. Perhaps your fiancé called off the wedding? Perhaps he found another woman? One who is not prone to manic episodes? How close is that to the truth, Fräulein Unbekannt? Should we call your fiancé? Or should we simply continue your physical examination and you can tell us where these appalling scars came from?”
The shaking starts in Anna’s hands. She isn’t sure whether its source is rage or terror, but it spreads across her body regardless, and in a matter of seconds she has to clench her jaw to stop her teeth from rattling.
Dr. Arschloch lifts a thin cotton hospital gown from the shelf at her side and holds it out to her. “You can change into this,” he says. “You can remove your clothing or I can have the orderlies remove it for you.”
Anna feels the panic clawing up her throat and she grips the edge of the exam table. Her fingertips begin to throb. “You already know what you will find. It’s all written there in Dr. Winicke’s file.”
“I must confirm it for myself.”
“You want to confirm it!”
He laughs at this. “You foolish young women always think that I enjoy looking at the ways you’ve damaged yourselves. Let me assure you, Fräulein Unbekannt, I am not attracted to suicidal madwomen who mutilate their own bodies.”
“I will tell you nothing. I will show you nothing. You can go to hell!” Anna spits the words at him and scrambles backward on the table. The edges of her vision begin to darken, and Anna can feel that old, hated memory pressing in on her, demanding her attention, demanding to be replayed for the thousandth time.
“Have it your way,” he says. And then he turns to the nurse. “Call the orderlies.”
· 28 ·
Anastasia
LOSING COHESION
1918
Ipatiev House, Ekaterinburg, Russia
July 10
“Your daughter is a whore,” Yakov says, his hand knotted in Maria’s hair, turning her from side to side, making sure we can properly see her shame. Her hair is mussed, blouse unbuttoned, corset loose, and breasts exposed. Semyon stands behind them, grinning, as he holds a pistol to Ivan’s head. The boy is stricken with terror as he stares at Maria and the consequences of their tryst.
The sight of Maria, sobbing and half naked, startles my family into silence. But Jimmy bounds to his feet, hackles stiff along his spine, teeth bared, and a rumble building in his chest.
I grip his collar carefully. “Nyet,” I whisper. “Stay.” The growl dissolves but Jimmy remains tense, ready to leap at the intruders.
Yakov shoves my sister so hard she lurches into the room and stumbles to her knees. “Cover yourself,” he says.
Maria collapses into a heap, too ashamed and terrified to meet our eyes. She fumbles with the buttons of her blouse, unable to push them through the holes. The harder she tries, the more her hands shake. When she can no longer catch a breath between sobs I go to her.
“Let me do it,” I say, gently pushing her hands away. I make quick work of the buttons, then wrap my arms around her, pulling her close.
Not once has Ivan taken his eyes from my sister, and only when she is fully clothed does he relax. Semyon’s pistol is still pressed into the pale skin of Ivan’s temple, but he lets out a long, shaky breath. That is when I realize Ivan Skorokhodov truly loves my sister.
“What is the meaning of this?” Father asks, finally gaining enough composure to rise from the table where he was playing a game of dominoes with Alexey. He steps forward, barely containing his rage.
“It’s obvious enough, don’t you think? I found her in the cellar playing the harlot with this fool. Shall I tell you the exact position they were in? Or would you rather young Ivan give you the details? He experienced them firsthand.”
Mother and Olga sit together on the couch, knitting needles limp in their hands, expressions of pure disgust on their faces. They glare, not at Yakov but at Maria. Tatiana and Olga have grown more and more distant from Maria since we arrived in Ekaterinburg. It is hard for them to accept that she was spared even though they would never wish such violation on her. I see this in the way they look at her sometimes, jealousy and then guilt written in the line of their brows, or how their lips pinch at the sight of her. This is how the human heart beats, a twisted staccato of love and envy, of anger and relief. I doubt that Maria can define this loss of affection with our sisters, but I am certain the estrangement has driven her further into Ivan’s arms.
Mother, of course, knows nothing of the silent bitterness among her girls. “How could you do this?” she hisses at Maria.
“It was my fault,” Ivan says. “Please don’t be angry with her.” The words tumble out distraught and desperate.
Father steps closer, his finger shaking in Ivan’s face. “How dare you touch my daughter?”
Yakov laughs at this, and the sound of utter disdain makes my stomach hurt. I hate him for enjoying this. “She is not innocent.”
“Of course she is! She’s only a girl. She has no idea what she’s doing.”
“You didn’t see her in the cellar. You daughter is not a little girl. Nor is she virtuous. How long has this been going on right under your nose?”
Maria stiffens beneath my arm and I shush her, patting her hair, trying to quietly assure her that I will not reveal what I know.
While Mother sits cold and pitiless across the room, Father’s rage grows hotter by the second. He turns his fury from Ivan to Yakov. “This is your fault! You should be able to control your soldiers. A good leader would never have allowed this to happen.”
“Are you going to lecture me about leadership, Citizen Romanov? Your leadership turned your own people against you. It inspired a revolution. They would tear you limb from limb if I handed you over today. And I for one would enjoy watching them do it.” He nods at Maria, still wrapped in my arms. “You deal with your daughter. I will deal with my soldier.”
“Your soldier deserves to be shot,” Father spits.
“No!” Maria pulls away from me and reaches toward Ivan, but I grab her arm and yank it back.
“Quiet,” I hiss in her ear. “You will only make this worse.”
“Look how she tries to protect him. Do you still think she is innocent?” Yakov grins, victorious, then adds, “The punishment I have in mind is far more effective than a bullet in his skull.”
* * *
—
Yakov makes us watch as Ivan is stripped to the waist and tied to a stone column in the courtyard; his feet are lashed together and his hands tied behind his back. It is an exquisite punishment, designed to torture everyone equally. Chairs are brought from the dining room and placed before the column at Yakov’s command. And then one by one, the soldiers are required to step forward and deliver their worst blow. If they fail to satisfy Yakov, he orders them to hit Ivan again. And again, if necessary, until the punch carries sufficient weight. Until the damage is visible. I am close enough to Ivan that I can smell the sweat and fear and blood. The soldiers have the worst of it, however. They are Ivan’s friends, his brothers-in-arms. Men who guarded him in the trenches. Reloaded his rifle. Shared a tent.
“A lesson,” Yakov says after Semyon gleefully takes his turn. “To teach all of you how dangerous it can be to forget your place. If it happens again we will use bayonets.”
Father’s rage is subdued thirty seconds into the ordeal when Ivan begins to moan. The thud of fist on flesh is nauseating. Unbearable. He is just a boy, barely older than Maria, and his only crime is falling in love with a pretty girl. Yet here he is, blood running down his chin, trying not to sob.
Maria is not allowed to leave her chair or Ivan will be shot. If she looks away Ivan will be shot.
�
��Stop,” Maria begs, after another blow splits open his bottom lip. She lifts a trembling arm, her voice raspy. “Please.”
“Hit him again. Harder,” Yakov says to the soldier at the front of the line. There is an audible crunch and when Ivan spits a tooth onto the ground, Yakov looks at Maria, his head tilted to the side. “Interrupt me again and your father gets to shoot him in the head. Isn’t that what he wants? To defend your honor.”
Maria sits by me since Mother and Olga will not speak to her. They are furious and disgusted. Mother is ashamed, but Olga, I fear, is drunk with outrage, appalled that my sister would freely offer something that was so brutally taken from her. But I don’t know how to explain this to Maria. She wasn’t on the train that night. She couldn’t understand. And the secret is not mine to tell. She collapses against my shoulder, gripping my hand so hard her fingernails cut into the tender skin of my palm.
I suspect Tomas hoped to spare himself by standing at the back of the line. Perhaps he thought the beating couldn’t possibly go on for so long. But he has only made things worse for himself. Tomas watches every blow with rising dread, and by the time he steps into position, Ivan is unrecognizable, his face is something other, inhuman and ghastly. He is a gasping, bloody mess. Both eyes swollen shut. Lips split open. Two teeth knocked out. Nose broken. He can no longer lift his head from his chest. Thin rivulets of blood run from his nostrils and splash onto the cobblestones at his feet.
“Do it!” Yakov screams at Tomas, spittle flying in a wide arc.
Tomas does the only merciful thing he can. Another blow to the head will likely kill Ivan, so he jabs him in the ribs instead, quick and hard. We all hear the sound of cracking bone. Ivan can’t see. He isn’t expecting a punch to his torso, isn’t able to brace for it, so he groans and coughs and spits blood on Tomas’s boot.
