The Curse of the Romanovs

by Staton Rabin

  “Wake up, Little Peasant!”

  “What? What is it?” she said groggily, looking up at me. “Hey! You’re standing!”

  All my life, I had thought that it was Father Grigory’s visits that had made me well. I’d look inside myself when I was ill, and find nothing of any use to me. But when I’d looked inside myself earlier that day, certain I’d reached the end of my strength, I looked harder—and found more. And when even this determination was gone, I reached deeper—and found more. My strength was like Anastasia’s matryoshka doll: open it up, and inside there’s another. Open that one, and there’s another, and another.

  In my mind I had imagined myself building a dam against the great wave of blood that had come crashing over me—and the dam had held!

  Still, I knew that my strength and imagination alone could not explain how I had survived that day. Father Grigory could heal himself, as he had when that crazy woman had stabbed him in Siberia. Perhaps he had passed some small portion of this gift down to me through his blood—as surely as he had given me the color of my eyes. And perhaps, at least in this way, I was truly my father’s son.

  “I told you you could do it!” Varda said, standing now right beside me. She felt my forehead. “Your fever’s gone. Can you walk?”

  I leaned on her shoulder at first, but was able to walk much better as we went along. By the time the sun was directly overhead, I could manage well enough without assistance, and we had come many versts.

  “Look!” Varda said, pointing. “There’s a church steeple. A town!”

  “Ascension Cathedral,” I said. “It’s Ekaterinburg!”

  But off in the distance there was a faint thudding noise—and then we saw smoke, perhaps fifty versts from the other side of town.

  “What’s that?” Varda asked me.

  “Artillery fire. Anti-Bolshevik White Army must be getting closer.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it? Maybe they’ll reach Ekaterinburg and free your family.”

  “Nyet, not good,” I said, shaking my head. “If Bolsheviks think White Army arrive soon, they will kill my family so can’t be rescued.”

  We entered Ekaterinburg and came to a large building on the corner of Voznesensky Prospekt: Hotel Amerika.

  “Let’s try there,” Varda said. “A lot of people come through hotels. Maybe somebody knows where in Ekaterinburg your family is being held.”

  “Da,” I replied. “But must be very careful how ask questions. We do not know which side of civil war these mouzhiks are on.”

  The man at the hotel’s front desk was watering potted plants, polishing brass desk lamps, and sorting letters into little pigeonholes—all at the same time. His sweat made small oily pools on the desk, and his hands shook so much he knocked a plant over.

  Without turning around, he seemed to sense we were standing there.

  “What is it! Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  Muttering to himself, the man used a newspaper to sweep spilled dirt from the desk into a little trash can.

  “We were wondering—”

  The telephone rang. The man picked it up.

  “Privet, Hotel Amerika,” he answered the telephone, sounding bored and annoyed. He listened to the voice on the other end for a few seconds, then suddenly snapped to attention.

  “Oh, it’s you, Comrade Beloborodov!” he said nervously. “How nice to hear from you! … Da, everything is under control. Two o’clock sharp, lunch for twelve, room 3, it’s all confirmed—Absolutely! … Change the reservation to one o’clock? As you wish, no problem at all. We have the finest chef in Ekaterinburg—only the best for the Ural Soviet!” The local Bolshevik leaders! Coming here! “… Da, comrade, I understand. Do not worry. You have my word that all will be ready in time for your arrival.”

  He rang a little bell on the desk and two maids—identical twins wearing sparkling white aprons and black bows in their hair, like toy terriers—appeared within seconds.

  “I want room 3 spotless in fifteen minutes,” the man commanded the maids.

  “But our mother is home sick, and you gave us permission to leave by twelve thirty to care for her!”

  “Well, I change my mind!” their boss replied. “Do what I say or you’re both out of a job!”

  Looking frightened, they nodded in unison, then trotted off.

  “Now, what do you want?” the man at the desk asked us.

  “Uh … There’s been a train crash on the Trans-Siberian route a few miles north of town. Many people are hurt. Will you send help?” I said.

  “Train crash! Bozhe moj! Just what I need on a day like this! All right,” he said, scowling and picking up the phone again to dial a number. “I’ll notify the Red Cross.”

  “We’ll come back again when you’re not so busy.”

  Varda whispered in my ear. “Did you ask him about your family?”

  “Nyet, he can’t be trusted. I have better idea. Come with me.”

  I followed the maids, and Varda followed me.

  “Excuse please,” I said to the maid on my left. “We have much experience cleaning very fussy rich man’s home before revolution.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “The tsar himself!”

  The women crossed themselves, then looked at each other.

  “The tsar!”

  “Yes, he had very messy children. We’d be happy to clean that room for you while you go home to take care of your mother. We wouldn’t want to see you get in trouble.”

  She grasped my hand.

  “Would you? Spasibo! You’re a godsend! It’s room 3.”

  She opened the door for us with her key.

  “Here are the cleaning supplies. Just polish the table, sweep the rug, clean the windows, and set out the silverware and glasses. The food is already in there.”

  “Alexei!” Varda said, taking the rags I handed her and eyeing me suspiciously. “What did you tell these women about us?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  IT TOOK US ABOUT HALF AN HOUR to set up room number 3 for the Ural Soviet’s arrival.

  “This is, like, so not going to work!” Varda said, setting up the hotel’s fancy silver forks and gold-edged wineglasses. “Where do these little gold soup spoons go—to the right of the plate, or above the bowl?”

  “Shh! Quick—they’re coming!”

  For an instant we listened to the heavy tramp-tramp-tramp of footsteps approaching. Grabbing Varda, I dived under the narrow table, where the heavy linen tablecloth barely hid us from view. There was almost no room for us to move under there without being seen.

  The door sprang open. I peeked out of the gap between the edge of the tablecloth and the floor. About a dozen pairs of polished boots strode into the room.

  “Take your seats, tovaristchy, we have the people’s work to do!” the most forceful pair of shiny boots said.

  The men sat down around the table in gilded armchairs. From underneath the table we heard forks clanging on plates, then crude chomping and slurping as they wolfed down food and drink.

  The man in front of me suddenly crossed his legs. I snapped my head back—just in time to avoid getting my nose smashed by the tip of his boot.

  BAM! Somebody had pounded a hard object—a gavel?—on the table, right over my head. My hand flew over my sore ear, but I did not cry out.

  “This meeting of the Presidium of the Ural Soviet and the Ekaterinburg Cheka is called to order!” Mr. Shiny Boots said from the head of the table.

  Suddenly the door burst open and another pair of boots stormed in.

  “Comrade Avdeyev!” Mr. Shiny Boots said to the newcomer. “What are you doing here?”

  The man plunked himself down at the table in an empty chair right in front of where Varda was hiding.

  “I’ve heard about your plans for my charges! I cannot allow it! I have a sacred responsibility to protect—”

  “The Ural Soviet has a special purpose in mind for the residents of Ipatiev House,” Shiny Boots interrupted. �
�This purpose involves extreme measures that are at the forefront of our plans for them. You do not fit in with these plans. Comrade Avdeyev, you are dismissed from your position as commandant of Ipatiev! Effective immediately.”

  “But I—”

  “No arguments, Avdeyev! You are too soft, you’re a drunk—you have allowed too much familiarity with the prisoners.”

  Avdeyev stood up and angrily stomped his foot—right on Varda’s knuckles! I quickly clapped my hand over her mouth, watching helplessly as her face turned red. She bit her lip and tears of pain ran down her cheeks.

  “Dismiss me if you like,” Avdeyev said, “but the whole world will condemn us as monsters if any harm comes to them!”

  At this I listened even more closely. Could he be talking about my family?

  “I do not need your permission to dismiss you, Comrade Avdeyev. Nor would I need your permission to send you and your wife and children to a labor camp in Siberia! Do you understand my meaning?”

  We heard Avdeyev sigh, defeated.

  “Yes, Comrade Beloborodov” Avdeyev turned away from the table, then shuffled slowly across the marble floor like a beaten dog. He slipped out the door.

  “Comrade Yurovsky!” Shiny Boots Beloborodov announced. Another man, presumably Yurovsky, sprang to his feet. “You will take over as commandant of the House of Special Purpose—beginning today.”

  “Thank you, comrade! I intend to prove myself worthy of the Ural Soviet’s trust.” He sat down.

  The man they called Yurovsky dropped his fountain pen, and it rolled under the table. His stubby hand patted the floor under the table in all directions—but the pen was just out of his grasp. I saw the tablecloth rustle.

  Oh, no! He was going to duck his head under the table!

  Thinking quickly, I nudged the pen toward his hand with the tip of my foot.

  He got it! Thank God!

  “Now. On to our primary order of business,” Shiny Boots said.

  Somebody in the room was wearing so much cologne it smelled like an explosion in a perfume factory. An uncontrollable tickle started inside my nose. Panicking, I nudged Varda, pointing toward my twitching nose. Now she looked panicked too.

  KA-BOOM!

  Artillery fire! Perhaps only a few dozen versts away!

  Varda and I flinched at the sound—and she struck her head on the vibrating “ceiling” of the table. The glasses and silverware above us rattled like the ghost of Peter the Great walking on the bones of the dead. A trickle of red wine dripped steadily from the table, forming a thick red pool on the floor in front of me.

  “As you can hear, the White Army and Czech Legions are getting nearer Ekaterinburg by the hour,” Beloborodov said to the others. “The Revolution is in mortal danger! We can no longer wait for central authority in Moscow to act.”

  Finally I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I looked at Varda helplessly—and I sneezed.

  “God bless you!” several of the men said to each other at once. I was terrified that they’d look under the table—or that I’d have a nosebleed. But, fortunately, neither thing happened.

  “Safarov!” Beloborodov said. “Have you drawn up the resolution?”

  “Yes, comrade!”

  “Then read it to us.”

  We heard the rustling of paper. Then a man stood and recited to the group.

  “‘The Ural Regional Soviet categorically refuses to take the responsibility for transferring Nicholas Romanov in the direction of Moscow as has been suggested, and considers it necessary therefore to liquidate him.’”

  Varda grasped my hand, her eyes seeking mine. She could not understand what the man had said, but there was no mistaking the look of horror on my face.

  “’There is grave danger that Citizen Romanov will fall into the hands of the Czechoslovaks and other counterrevolutionaries and be used to their benefit. We cannot ignore this question. We face a critical moment in our revolutionary path: We must move forward. We cannot turn away from our duty to the revolution. Romanov’s family and those who have elected to remain with him and share his imprisonment must all be liquidated at the same time….’”

  My sisters and mama, too—just as Varda had said! Holy Mother of God!

  “‘These liquidations will take place no later than July 16.’”

  July 16? That’s only three days from now!

  “Good, comrade,” Beloborodov said. “All in favor of the resolution, say ‘aye.’”

  “Aye!” repeated a chorus of strong voices.

  “All opposed?”

  Silence.

  Then the BAM! of the gavel—like an arrow through my heart.

  “The resolution is approved. I will sign on behalf of the presidium.” We heard the sound of a paper sliding across the tabletop, then a pen scratching.

  “Goloshchokin, bring this resolution to Moscow for immediate approval by Lenin and Sverdlov.”

  “Yes, comrade!” came the reply. “I will go without delay.”

  BAM!

  “Meeting adjourned!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Ekaterinburg

  Saturday, 13 July 1918

  WE SPRINTED DOWN VOZNESENSKY PROSPEKT, pausing only to catch our breath. I turned my ear to a sound so foreign that I barely remembered or recognized it.

  Music!

  A band in the gazebo played a romantic waltz. Couples strolled the Ekaterinburg Municipal Gardens arm in arm, gazing into each other’s eyes. They laughed, cooing to each other like doves. Some of them even danced!

  Life seemed so normal it might have been any Saturday in a small Russian town before the revolution. Didn’t these foolish mouzhiks know that their country was in the middle of a bloody civil war, with armies pounding at their gates? How could they ignore the dull distant thudding of heavy guns, marking the downbeat of their waltz like a big bass drum? Didn’t they know that their tsar and his family were about to be murdered—da, murdered in cold blood right under their ignorant noses!—their sudba written in blood?

  But maybe, I realized, they did not care. Or maybe they danced so joyfully precisely because they did not know what doom tomorrow might bring. It is just as my mother said: Happiness is fleeting and must be grabbed with both hands while it lasts.

  “Did the Bolsheviks say where Ipatiev House is?” Varda asked me as we paused near the garden gate. I had already translated for her everything the Ural Soviet had discussed in room number 3.

  “Nyet. But should not be difficult to find out,” I said, grabbing her hand and pulling her along. “We must hurry!”

  We stopped a few people on the street to ask them where Ipatiev House was, but none of them seemed to hear my question.

  Then we passed a crooked-backed man who was carrying a heavy cloth sack on his shoulder. He was squinting at a pile of envelopes clutched in his hand. A toy-size dog was alternately yipping at him and boldly nipping at his heels, then backing away, terrified.

  “A mailman!” Varda said. “Ask him—he’ll know!”

  “Izvini, can you tell me where I can find Ipatiev House?”

  The mailman’s eyes darted from side to side. Then he stared down at the pavement, as if he expected to see ants crawling out from between the cracks.

  “I have never heard of this place. Never!”

  “But it’s right here in Ekaterinburg. Surely you must—”

  The man walked away from us—backward, like a picture show unspooling in reverse. Then he dropped his pile of letters, turned, and ran.

  “Wait! You forgot your—”

  Varda picked up the letters and handed them to me. I was about to toss them away, but noticed that one of them was addressed to Commandant Avdeyev—the man who’d just been fired by the Ural Soviet. And it was sent to him care of Ipatiev House!

  “Look! The address!” I said to Varda. Of course, she could not read it in Russian. “It’s here on Voznesensky Prospekt!”

  We bolted down the street.

  Across the square from Ascension Ca
thedral was a corner house with no number on it. But the other houses were numbered, so I was sure that this must be the place.

  One look at Ipatiev House and my heart dropped into my shoes. I knew that not even Joshua and his trumpet could make those thick stone walls come tumbling down. The two-story house was surrounded by a high sharp-pointed fence. I could barely see the tops of the second floor windows above it—and the glass had been whitewashed over, so we could not see in. Angry-looking guards carrying Mausers were posted at several locations outside the palisade. I had little doubt that other soldiers would be stationed within the gates as well.

  Bong! Bong! Bong!

  The cathedral bell tolled the hour. I glanced up at the church tower. A machine gun was set up there, aimed directly at Ipatiev House across the street. Had the House of Special Purpose been holding all the gold in the Russian empire instead of the Romanov prisoners, it could not have been better guarded.

  We walked around the house a few times, trying to seem like lovers out for a casual stroll. But in fact I was studying every inch of “Fortress Ipatiev.” There must be some way in! But there was not a hole in that fence big enough for a mouse.

  “Alexei,” Varda whispered, “that guard over there is giving us the evil eye. They’re getting suspicious. We’d better move along for a while.”

  “Nyet! I must think!”

  “You there!” the guard shouted at us. “What are you doing?”

  “Inspecting for termites!” I said.

  “Very funny. Move along!”

  I just scowled at him.

  “We’ll go somewhere else to think,” Varda whispered, pulling me away. “You can’t do your family any good if we get caught!”

  We crossed to the other side of the square, and I took a long look back at the House of Special Purpose.

  I was still the tsarevich—da! This, no revolution, no army could ever take away from me. But today I felt like just an ordinary boy. A boy in a world of men who were bigger, stronger, smarter than he. Just a sickly boy with the bleeding disease, skinny like a rooster on half rations. I was still two weeks short of my fourteenth birthday. And with my family held prisoner in a fortress that even God himself could not breach, it was suddenly I, not my papa the tsar, who held the whole miserable world up on his shoulders. My parents and sisters were in the hands of the devil. They had only seventy-two hours left on this earth—unless, by the grace of God, I could come up with some way to set them free.