The Curse of the Romanovs

by Staton Rabin

  Still, there was one thing I was not happy about.

  “Papa, I want to fight for Russia like the rest of our soldiers!”

  “You are much too young, Alexei. And besides, you must stay safe. Your country needs you to be tsar one day.”

  “They will think I’m a coward if I don’t fight! Father Grigory’s son is a soldier! How can we ask the people to send their sons if you won’t send yours?”

  Papa did not answer me.

  “Maybe I will die young anyway.”

  “Alexei! Who told you that?”

  “Nobody. I heard Dr. Botkin and Dr. Derevenkot talking about me.”

  “They do not know. They are doctors, da, but they are just men. Only God knows What the future will bring. You are young and strong. Mama believes you will get well. And you know it is always as the tsarina wishes. Now go to sleep.”

  The next day we visited a field hospital. Maybe Papa hoped this would change my mind about wanting to be a soldier. The place smelled of rotting flesh. But I didn’t dare hold a babushka over my nose. It would have been impolite.

  Papa walked on ahead. A soldier with a bloody rag around his head and a bandage on his bare chest reached out from his bed as I was passing by. He grabbed me by the edge of my uniform jacket so that I could not move.

  Nagorny roughly batted the man’s arm away.

  “No!” I said to my diadka. “I will speak to this man.”

  I sent Nagorny on ahead, despite his protests.

  “What is your name?” the wounded soldier said to me.

  “Alexei Romanov.”

  “You are tsarevich?”

  “Yes.”

  He laughed, then coughed, as if the laughing hurt him.

  “I thought so. You excuse me if I do not get up and bow.”

  “How is your health?”

  “Very good. Till I got this Hun bullet in chest. Wait—don’t go.”

  His big hand closed over mine, completely circling my wrist.

  “Skinny mal’ chik. Are they starving you, too?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You will give your papa tsar a message?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell him, ‘The people fight to the death for their tsar and Mother Russia. But at home time is running out.’ Do you understand?”

  The man suddenly fell back, looking pale and weak. He grabbed me by the sleeve again and whispered so quietly that I had to lean close to hear.

  “Tell him … just that.”

  “’Time is running out.’ I will tell him.”

  The man closed his eyes. And with a final, deep sigh, the steady rise and fall of his chest stopped.

  ‡Military headquarters

  This Derevenko is not the same one as my sailor-nanny.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BY THE SPRING OF 1915 our army had captured Przemysl, Austro-Hungary’s strongest fortress. A month later we held most of the Carpathian Mountains. But when Germany came to Austria’s aid with heavy guns, we Russians lost fifteen thousand soldiers in as long as it takes to go for a sleigh ride. When our soldiers retreated from Galicia, the servants said they heard Papa up pacing the floor half the night.

  By the end of summer, Warsaw fell. And by the time leaves dropped from the trees, we had lost nearly one-and-a-half million soldiers in the war. Almost a million more had been taken prisoner. So Papa took over from Dread Uncle as head of our army.

  Once the war began going badly, Mama sought help. She called for the one sent by God to save Russia and Papa. And that was how Father Grigory came back into our lives.

  I was back in Tsarskoye SeIo for a while.

  “Ah, my dear boy!” my Cousin Felix said, as he saw me walking toward the mauve room. He hugged me a little too closely to his slender body, and I could smell his lavender perfume. “Up and about, I see, and looking charmingly innocent as ever. You really must come to my palace, and let your cousin Irina and me corrupt you!”

  It was never easy to tell when Cousin Felix was joking.

  “I have just come from seeing your friend Rasputin.”

  “Father Grigory?”

  “Yes, but I prefer the name Rasputin: ‘Debauched.’ It suits him so much better, don’t you think?”

  He glanced from side to side to make sure nobody was near. Then he put his arm around my shoulders and led me to a corner next to a potted palm. Felix whispered and I felt his soft lips on my ear.

  “Listen well, Alexei, for I will tell you this only once. When Rasputin has something to gain from you, you will have no finer friend in the world. But the moment you are no longer useful to him …”

  Felix’s finger slashed across my throat like a knife.

  I gulped, then shoved him away.

  “You cannot know him! Father Grigory, he is kind, he is generous,” I said. “He helps me because he is a man of God! What—what could he possibly have to gain from me?”

  “Not from you, perhaps. But from somebody else.

  Someone who cares about you more than life itself, and who would do anything—anything!—for your sake. Take it from me, my dear boy. As cousin to cousin.” Felix smiled and bowed slightly. “And if you ever find yourself in need of assistance, you know where to find me. The little yellow palace next to the Moika River. Where things people discard and have no further use for tend to wash up onshore.”

  With a grand sweep of his cape, and a final bow, like an actor finishing a performance, Felix left me alone on the stage.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT ALL STARTED WITH A SNEEZE.

  We have a saying that when the tsar sneezes, all Russia has a cold. And as you will see, this may be true of the tsarevich as well.

  It was now December 1916, and the war had dragged on far longer than anyone had hoped. I was with my father again at general headquarters in Mogilev. I’d caught a cold the day before, and had a heavy catarrh in the head.

  As we were leaving to visit regiments of the guard, I sneezed. This started a nosebleed. Papa had already gone on ahead without me. But for someone with my illness, a nosebleed is no simple matter. We tried rags and ice on my nose, but nothing worked. It was as if someone had opened a faucet in my head, and the red contents spilled out, along with my courage.

  Papa was away, and Doctors Botkin and Derevenko were back at Tsarskoye Selo. My situation was desperate. Professor Fiodrof could do little to help me. At last the professor sent an emergency telegram, calling Papa back to Stavka. My father came at once.

  By the next day things looked hopeless. Gilliard bundled me onto the imperial train, taking me home to be cured—or to die. We sent our “dummy” train, the decoy, in the other direction to fool assassins.

  Papa read urgent dispatches from the front in the forward car. But he kept coming back to my compartment to see if he still had a son. Nagorny held me propped upright in bed on the train. I remember little of what happened that night. But later I was told that twice I had fainted, and both times Gilliard was sure I was dead.

  Mama and the girls met us on the train platform in Tsarskoye Selo the following morning. Mama was very relieved to see I was still breathing. My hemorrhage had slowed but not stopped.

  “My darling boy!” Mama said on seeing me. “How I wish I could hold you! I embrace you not with my arms, but with my heart.”

  The slightest movement might start a gush of bleeding again. Nagorny carried me carefully into the palace, like a nervous apprentice chef carrying a thin-shelled egg. Mama put me in bed.

  “We have no chloroform,” Dr. Botkin said to Mama. “There is no time to waste. Give him vodka. And plenty of it.”

  She stared at him with wide, terrified eyes. Then she nodded, understanding what he meant.

  Mama filled a tea glass with vodka.

  “Drink, baby,” she said, holding the glass to my lips as Dr. Botkin propped me up on pillows. “Yes, that’s right. Quickly now. I know it tastes dreadful.”

  Vodka rushed to my head like a freight train. The icons on the wa
ll spun in a blur of color, like my toy kaleidoscope. Dr. Botkin heated up a long thin metal poker in the fireplace. Nagorny held me down.

  “Courage, my boy,” Dr. Botkin said, bringing the white-hot poker toward my face. And suddenly I understood what they were about to do.

  “No!!”

  Desperate, I struggled to get away from them, but Nagorny and Derevenko held me down. Mama bit her lip in anguish, then turned away. She could not bear to look.

  “Hold still, Alexei! Ouch!—he bit me!” Dr. Botkin sucked on his bleeding hand. “Grab him—before he gets away! You little fool! Do you want to bleed to death? It’s for your own good!” Dr. Botkin said.

  I bolted for the door. Nagorny caught me before I leaped out, pinning me against the door jamb with tattooed arms as big around as tree trunks. It was impossible to get free.

  Defeated, I stopped fighting. Nagorny carried me back to bed and held me down once more. I braced for what was to come.

  “It will only take a moment to cauterize the wound,” Dr. Botkin said.

  He brought the metal poker toward my face-closer, closer—my eyes widening in terror. Until the white-hot glowing point disappeared inside my nose.

  Mama did her sad duty as she had so many times before. She stuffed rags into my mouth to muffle my screams.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THEY TELL ME FATHER Grigory came to me several times while I drifted in and out of dreams. But I do not remember any of this.

  When I finally awoke, it was nighttime. I was alone; it was dark. The servants had gone to bed. My throat felt like I’d swallowed buckets of sand from the Gobi. I could not call out. I swung my feet around to the side of the bed, and my toes scrunched up when they touched the cold floor. There wasn’t enough blood in my head. It took me several tries before I could stay on my feet. The clocks all ticked together like the beat of army drums. I made my way unsteadily down the hall in search of water.

  As I rounded the corner, I heard voices. Quiet murmurs—at first unclear. I wasn’t supposed to be walking around by myself in the dark. I ducked behind a grandfather clock, then listened more closely.

  “Such beautiful hands, God’s work. Same God who make poor Alexei and his troubles, make your hands perfect.”

  I recognized Father Grigory’s voice. It got softer now, almost purring.

  “This long white neck. Perfect. All the way from here … to here.”

  “Please, Grigory …”

  The other voice. The voice of a woman. My mother!

  “Come with me, Alix. Da, just for moment. Palace has many rooms, we find one empty. No one know but you and me. And God. All sacred in his sight.”

  “Please—don’t—don’t hold me that way. Nicky will … I—I must go.”

  Suddenly I heard my mother yelp. Her voice came out like a rabbit strangled.

  “Stop! You’re hurting me!”

  Mama! Every inch of my weak body screamed out for me to help her. But I tell you, to my everlasting shame—I stood frozen like the Neva in January.

  “Grigory promise to help boy again. Grigory keep promise. Now is time to keep yours.”

  I heard the sound of a body pushed roughly against a wall. And then a sharp slap.

  “You dare strike a man of God?”

  “Leave now!”

  “As tsarina wishes. Da, I will let you go now, beautiful one. But sooner or later you must keep promise. Or you will be condemned before God and Holy Mother.”

  “No! You—you misunderstood. I promised you nothing but kindness—and our gratitude. You know I cannot betray my husband. You must not talk like this!”

  “You help Grigory. Or Grigory will help Alexei no more.”

  “What? You—but you must! My son will die if—”

  “Grigory does not feel welcome here anymore. Grigory will not return.”

  I heard the sound of his heavy retreating footsteps.

  “No—wait! Come back!”

  Another set of footsteps, lighter, following his. Both came to a stop.

  “Ah. Does tsarina wish to say something?”

  “Please! You must come back.”

  “Bow to me.”

  “What?”

  “Bow down! Kiss hem of my tunic, to show you are sorry…. Good. You kneel well. Are only woman, weak like any other. Beg me to stay!”

  “Please—please, Father. I beg of you! Do not leave us!”

  “And swear before the eyes of God you will keep promise to me. Now swear it!”

  The sound of a woman’s quiet weeping, and something mumbled.

  “What’s that? Do it, now! Grigory did not hear you.”

  “I said—I said, I swear.”

  “Da. Much better. Now stand. Stand and go, before someone see big tsarina weeping like little fool.”

  I heard my mother walking away, and then Father Grigory’s footsteps, moving in the other direction.

  My legs shook like our cook’s gelatin mold.

  Stepping out from behind the clock, I glanced down the hall in both directions. All was quiet. I was desperate to be alone—to think what to do. On wobbly legs I ran back to my room.

  Breathing fast, I stumbled my way through the near darkness and sat down in my rocking chair. LubdubLubdubLubdub—each rock of the chair followed the rapid beating of my heart. I picked up the scarf I was making for Mama, and knitted, knitted—calming myself. Lubdub, Lubdub …

  Suddenly the knitting needles were snatched from my hands. An arm gripped me tightly around the throat from behind, pressing on my breathing pipe.

  “Twinkle, twinkle, little tsar. How I wonder what you are.” The point of something sharp traced a thin line across my neck. “Friend? Or enemy?”

  Father Grigory’s rough hands released me. I gagged, then wheezed, gulping precious air into my lungs. I saw the glint of metal as he turned one of the knitting needles before my eyes. “I have always wanted to take up knitting. You don’t mind if I keep?”

  Frightened, I shook my head.

  “Of course, one needle not much good by itself. Not useful for most purposes. But very useful for some others…”

  I sat silent, motionless.

  “Let’s see throat.”

  He walked around to the front. I shook as he tilted my chin upward to examine my neck.

  “Good. No finger marks, no bruise. Are you my friend, Alyoshenka?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “And friends, they do not tell what overhear. They do not tell secrets?”

  “No.”

  Father Grigory lifted me up in his strong peasant’s arms, carrying me to bed.

  “Maybe Alexei just imagine what hear anyway, da? Was just dream.”

  He tucked me in, kissing me on the forehead.

  “Good night, Little One. Happy dreams.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE NEXT DAY I KEPT TO MYSELF. I was afraid that anyone who saw me could read the torment on my face, and guess the reason for it. There was a terrible war going on inside me, worse than one with bullets or grenades: to tell, or not to tell. But of one thing I was sure. Mama must never know what I’d witnessed. If she knew that I too was in danger from Father Grigory, it would kill her with worry.

  I found my mother in her mauve room, resting on a couch. She was reading one of her thousand books. This one was the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, love poems she’d gotten as a gift several years before from Papa. Mama forbade me to read the book till I got older. But of course this only made it more fascinating, so once I had sneaked a peek at the inside. I saw where Papa had written: “For my darling Alix Xmas 1912 fr. Nicky.”

  Mama peered over her reading spectacles as she saw me enter the room. She closed the book with a thunk. How pale and exhausted she looked! Until then I had always thought it was her heart palpitations, headaches, and sciatica that made her too tired to get out of bed till noon. Or all those nights she spent awake, worrying about me. But now I knew how great Mama’s sacrifice for my sake truly was—greater than I had ever imagined. She had s
omething far worse to fear than any of us. And it weighed as heavily on her frail shoulders as the fate of Mother Russia weighed on Papa’s.

  “Ah, you are feeling better! Come, Sunbeam,” Mama said, patting the corner of her chaise longue. “Sit by me and tell me a story.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course. Just a little tired … that’s all.”

  I sat down next to her. As always, she smelled of rose oil, from the icon lamps in the master bedroom.

  “Once upon a time in a land far away,” I began, “Fairy Spring and Father Frost had a baby daughter. She was beautiful, and had eyes as blue as the Baltic, and pale white skin like snow. And she really was made of snow, which meant she was very fragile. So her mama and papa called her—”

  “The Snow Maiden! I love that one. So different from my cold German fairy tales.”

  “And they hid her carefully from the Sun God, whose rays could hurt her. But the girl was very lonely, hidden in the forest. One day, the Snow Maiden decided to take a long walk in the woods. And after walking a long time, she heard beautiful music coming from a distance. She loved the music; she was drawn to it, and followed the sound. And soon she saw a handsome peasant standing in an open field—a shepherd, playing a flute.”

  “His name was Lyle.”

  “Yes. Don’t interrupt me, Mama.” She raised an eyebrow, then nodded for me to go on.

  “And the girl listened and watched him from under the shade of the forest trees. But she was jealous of all the other pretty girls who danced with Lyle, and who played with him in the open field. This broke the Snow Maiden’s heart. So she walked home, and went to her mother and said, ‘Mother Spring, how do I find real love?’ Fairy Spring understood that her daughter was talking about the shepherd. So she said, ‘You must leave the safety of the forest. You must go to the open field where the peasant boy who plays his flute can see you.’

  “So the next day the Snow Maiden followed the sound of the music again. And it led her to the shepherd. He took one look at her and was enchanted. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Then the—”