From beyond the tomb, had Rasputin sent his dagger to keep me safe?
The next day the three of us boarded the train. After securing us seats and stowing our bags away, Stefan picked up his own and spoke. ‘Now we must say goodbye.’
‘What?’ Galena swayed with the shock of his announcement.
My own heart turned over. Had Stefan found out my family name? I searched his face for the answer. ‘You don’t want to travel in my company?’ I asked him.
‘Nina,’ he replied, ‘you have no idea how happy I’d be to travel with both of you, but I am going in a different direction. Now I must tell you something very sad. Eugene is dead. He was killed some weeks ago, before Dr K died. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to cast a mood of melancholy over the household. Do not try to dissuade me, for my mind is made up. I am going to take Eugene’s place on the ambulance trains.’
‘Beloved boy!’ Galena enfolded him in her arms.
He allowed her to shower him with kisses. Then, by almost lifting her bodily from the floor, he set her back a pace.
‘Nina.’ He kissed me swiftly and lightly on both cheeks. ‘I’ll miss our conversations.’
I couldn’t speak. I stared at him, trying to memorize his features, the flop of dark hair over his forehead, his amber eyes, his mouth …
Stefan stepped down from the train and saluted us both. ‘Look after her,’ he said.
Chapter 49
I burst into tears when I saw Dmitri standing on the station platform at Yekaterinburg.
‘Nina! Nina!’ He was crying too, and holding me and kissing me, on both cheeks and on my forehead and my hair and on both cheeks again and again. ‘You have grown. Ah! You are as tall as I am! How can that be? But so thin. And pale, too pale. Never mind, we will feed you up. How was your journey? Was it exhausting? You must be hungry. Are you hungry?’ He broke off listing his questions and, looking around, said, ‘Were not four of you supposed to be travelling together?’
I hugged Dmitri tightly and tried to answer him, between great rending sobs which I couldn’t control. I told him of the death of the good doctor and explained the absence of Stefan.
The stationmaster produced a large handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to me. He rubbed a tear from his own eye so I gave him a hug too.
‘Enough! Enough!’ Dmitri called us to order. ‘I have a cart for you and your luggage. No carriage, I’m afraid. That went long ago.’
‘A cart is very fine,’ I told him. With a pang I realized that it was the same cart Papa and I had used to travel about the countryside. I introduced him to Galena, who had been standing silently looking at a company of the Red Guard assembling outside the station.
Dmitri took Galena’s bag from her hand. ‘Follow me, lady,’ he said.
‘Mr Dmitri,’ Galena replied. ‘You should not call me “lady”. The Bolsheviks have abolished all titles.’
‘They cannot abolish good manners,’ said Dmitri.
As we went along the road I began to feel a sense of belonging. I pulled off my shawl so that the wind might blow through my hair and I breathed in sweet, clear air that I’d not tasted for almost two years.
Dmitri flicked the reins and clicked his tongue to encourage the horse. He grinned at me. ‘When we say “Siberia is beautiful” the rest of Russia laughs. But there is nowhere like it on earth.’
‘Beautiful,’ I repeated as the rooftops of my family home appeared on the horizon. And I couldn’t speak another word until I was on the porch and wandering through the house. My bedroom was as I’d left it; my father’s study tidier than it had ever been.
‘I had to rearrange your father’s books and papers because the lawyer, Viktor Ilyich Volkov, made a mess of them.’ Dmitri looked at me attentively as he told me this. ‘He was searching for something …’
‘Thank you, Dmitri,’ I replied, ignoring the unspoken question. ‘Dr Konstantin ensured that the lawyer won’t trouble us again.’
In typical fashion, the first thing Galena did was put on her apron and go straight to the kitchen. I found her there, standing in the middle of the floor, and could see that she was unsettled in her new surroundings.
‘I hope everything is to your satisfaction.’ Dmitri smiled at her. ‘We have food in this part of Russia – which I think you will agree is a good thing to have.’
‘You also appear to have the Red Army stationed in Yekaterinburg.’ Galena was not to be won over so easily.
‘Unfortunately … yes,’ Dmitri spoke with mock sadness. ‘However’ – he smiled mischievously – ‘we also have the White Army and every other colour of army and anti-Bolshevik faction closing in on us – including a Czech army who arrived from I know not where.’
Galena gave him a level look. ‘Your friend the stationmaster was wearing a red armband. As were you – on the coat which you have since taken off.’
‘Everyone wears them,’ Dmitri said. ‘It is the latest fashion in Yekaterinburg.’
They regarded each other for a moment.
‘I should explain,’ said Dmitri. ‘Without a red armband no shop will serve you. No food tokens are given out. No business transaction is possible. So yes,’ he said, ‘in order to keep this estate running, the workers fed, and enough produce to fill the bellies of our villagers and their children, I will wear a red armband.’ He spread his hands expansively on either side of his body. ‘I will wear a dozen red armbands.’
‘If I have been crass, then I apologize,’ said Galena. ‘I make these enquires because I am here to protect Nina.’
‘There is no need to apologize,’ said Dmitri. ‘I understand perfectly. I felt exactly the same when I put her on the train for St Petersburg.’
A smile curved Galena’s lips. It was the first I’d seen her smile since the death of Dr K. She indicated the apron she was now wearing. ‘I have come ready to work,’ she said.
‘You are a guest,’ said Dmitri. ‘I cook meals.’
‘I will not interfere in the running of anyone’s kitchen,’ she said. ‘I can clean as well as cook.’
‘Oh, no!’ said Dmitri. ‘A lady like yourself should not be sweeping up after a peasant like me. The floors here are cleaned and polished to my high standards.’
‘So there is no way I can contribute to the smooth running of this household?’ There was a note of resigned sadness in her voice.
‘Unless …’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘I can manage the stew, but the dumplings I find challenging.’
‘If you will permit me?’ And Galena began to open cupboards and assemble utensils and ingredients.
Behind her back Dmitri put his fingers to his lips to warn me to say nothing. His dumplings were as good as any I’d tasted, but he understood that Galena would be happier cooking than having a meal served to her.
It was Dmitri’s turn to be surprised when I began to take plates and cutlery from the drawers to set the table.
‘You must eat with us,’ I told him when the meal was ready. He shook his head. ‘It is their custom,’ I whispered to him. ‘An insult if you do not.’
Galena flashed a sharp look at him when he clumsily lifted a fork in his large hands. ‘Nina,’ she said, ‘you forgot to lay out spoons when you set the table.’
With relief Dmitri took the spoon she handed him and began to eat his food. ‘Is St Petersburg as mad and bad as we hear it is?’ he asked. ‘Tell me all the news. Your letters can’t have covered everything. What about Moscow? Are those crazy Bolsheviks holed up in the Kremlin yet? Did you stop there?’
‘My friend Tomas met our train at the station and we chatted during the stopover,’ I told him. ‘Our new Soviet Government is worried because the White Army and those who support it are banding together as you said.’
‘The combined forces are heading towards Yekaterinburg. That is why you saw Red Guards there this morning. I have stockpiled enough supplies that we seldom need to visit the town. Let the world get on with its own bus
iness and we will live quietly here.’
Chapter 50
For a while we did live quietly.
I ate and slept and wandered through the meadows, and even rode the few older horses that were left on the estate after the army requisitions. I lit candles before my mother’s icon and prayed that Stefan would not come to harm. I also wrote several letters.
I wrote to Eugene’s parents, sending them my condolences and telling them of the times I’d spent with their son and how much I’d respected his decision to serve his country. I wrote to Tomas, thanking him for being so kind and understanding when we’d met up in Moscow, and I had told him that I could not accept his marriage proposal.
And I wrote to Stefan.
I told him that even though I’d discovered that I wasn’t illegitimate, I had now refused Tomas’s proposal. In addition, I wrote of pleasant things – how healthy Galena looked and how she and Dmitri were becoming fond of each other. He wrote back to both of us, saying that his unit was to be reassigned and he intended to go home. I walked around the estate with his letter in my hand, reading and rereading it.
Stefan was going home.
I remembered the evening when he’d said, ‘Things will never be the same again.’ He’d known then that Eugene was dead and had been under the impression that I might marry Tomas. He would be aware that Petrograd was too dangerous a place for him now as the Bolsheviks associated his name with Dr K.
So where might he go?
That night I sat down and wrote a second letter to Stefan. And I knew what my first words must be:
I am a Romanov.
And I told him my life story, and I told him the reason why I was not going to marry Tomas.
I told him that I loved him.
Stefan did not reply.
I contained my sorrow and did not discuss it with anyone else. I’d made it clear that I would understand if he wished to have no more contact of any kind with me. So now I had to accept his decision.
Galena and Dmitri were sensitive to my mood and vied with each other in producing elaborate meals to raise my spirits.
But then, at the end of April, there was news which meant that the business of the world intruded upon us, and we could ignore it no longer.
The Imperial Family – the Tsar and the Tsarina with their five children – had arrived in Yekaterinburg to be kept as prisoners in a merchant’s house in the town.
‘It must be because the White Army is advancing,’ said Dmitri. ‘The talk is that Lenin and his Bolsheviks are beginning to panic at the amount of ground they are losing to the supporters of the Tsar. Even in Yekaterinburg you can hear the rumble of distant guns.’
‘I hope and pray the Tsar and his family will be rescued,’ said Galena. ‘I wish we had something of value to smuggle in to them that they might bribe their guards to help them escape.’
Over two months passed and no rescue was attempted.
‘They are miserable in their harsh captivity,’ Dmitri reported from one of his rare visits to Yekaterinburg. ‘A single visitor is allowed per week, usually the town priest. The boy is ill, but the local peasants have shown pity and send in presents of eggs and milk for him.’
In order not to upset Galena – for he knew she was a Tsarist – Dmitri told me privately that, if the White Army moved much closer to Yekaterinburg, then the Imperial Family would be taken to Moscow, where the Tsar would be tried for treason.
It was mid-July now. The weather was warm and the evenings bright with late sunsets. I thought of Alexei, cooped up indoors, and imagined how bored he would be.
‘I could let them have some of Papa’s story booklets,’ I said. ‘It will be an outing for me if I ride in with them myself. I will not stay,’ I reassured Galena. ‘I will hand over my gift and leave.’
Dmitri and Galena were forced to accept that they could not stop me.
As I put the folk tales into a satchel I had a sudden thought. I would give the Rasputin dagger to the Tsar! In truth it belonged to him. If the old, old stories were true it might even save his life. When the Imperial Family were free again he could sell it. Depending on what happened they might have need of money. Crossing the hall to my bedroom, I took Rasputin’s sash from my travel bag and unwrapped it on my bed. I recalled that on my first visit to the Alexander Palace I’d feared the soldier on duty might search my bag – but he hadn’t. The guards in Yekaterinburg would be more wary. I would have to hide it well.
Drawing a deep breath, I made to pick up the dagger. ‘I must be strong,’ I said aloud. I seized the dagger, quickly tucked it inside the top of my skirt and folded the waistband over several times.
When I reached Yekaterinburg I left my horse in the care of the stationmaster. He’d hardly time to acknowledge me, as an army supply train was long overdue from Moscow and the tracks were jammed with carriages full of soldiers arriving to be deployed towards the zone of fighting. I wrapped my green and purple shawl around my head and shoulders and covered most of my face as I walked past their ranks. They looked like farmers and peasants recently taken from the land to make up hastily formed battalions. The Bolsheviks must indeed be worried that their regime could be overthrown if these men were all they could muster for defence against the more experienced forces of the White Army.
The merchant’s house was easy to find, for it stood on the slope of a hill. It was obvious that this was where the prisoners were being kept as there was a high fence around it and the windows had been painted with whitewash. Possibly this was to give privacy to those inside; more likely to stop any signal for help being seen from outside. Poor children! What wrong had they done? By accident of birth their lives were pre-destined. I thought of Alexei – despite his infirmity he loved to play in the open air. I shuddered as I realized how confined and claustrophobic he must feel.
I decided I would try to go inside and speak to him.
The guard at the house gate made me empty my pockets and searched my satchel most thoroughly. He was a surly old fellow, but I remembered Dmitri’s words of long ago and let slip my shawl so that my hair came down over my shoulders as I made my request to exchange a few words with the children.
‘By your favour, not many minutes.’ I smiled my widest smile. ‘Just to talk about the storybooks.’
‘Uh,’ the guard grunted. ‘Have you identification?’
‘She is Nina Ivanovna, the daughter of the man who was the story collector,’ a voice called from the scullery door.
‘Denis!’ I recognized a young lad from our village. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I am the kitchen boy,’ he spoke proudly. ‘Apart from preparing the meals I do everything that is needed.’ To the soldier he said, ‘Nina Ivanovna is a friend of the people. She and her papa fed us when we were starving. I can take her inside the house.’
‘Don’t be too long.’ The guard stepped aside to let me pass.
Chapter 51
By ill luck I’d been posted to a unit serving in a remote area of the Front and it took weeks for our mail to reach us.
Nina’s first letter, telling me that she was not marrying Tomas, made me decide to declare my own feelings. With the terms of the Armistice between Russia and Germany finally agreed in March, the ambulance trains began to be decommissioned and the medical staff disbanded – and so my intention was to tell her in person that I loved her.
I replied to say that I was coming home.
As soon as I received Nina’s second letter I knew I had to get to her as fast as possible. The moment I read the words I am a Romanov I realized that she was in the most extreme danger.
She and Galena and Dmitri must be unaware of what was happening in the wider world or the letter would never have been sent through the public postal service. The superintendent of the Hospital Train Service distributed the mail to the staff. Officers and medical personnel had privileges, which included uncensored letters. Even so, I was relieved to see that the seal on mine was unbroken, for there was no guarantee that out
going or incoming correspondence wouldn’t be read. This superintendent was a Bolshevik from the top of his head to the toes of his boots. His enthusiasm for the cause made Fyodor appear lukewarm. During the day he’d compile lists of superior officers who’d slighted him in some way, or whom he suspected were sympathetic to the Imperialist cause. He’d send these to the Cheka Secret Police and report with glee if he got word that their execution squads had used his information. At night he would drink himself stupid and chant the names off with sadistic satisfaction.
That’s how I learned that the Romanovs were to be exterminated.
All of them. Not one member of any branch of the family was to be left alive. Every person bearing the name of Romanov was to be sought out, captured and killed. There was to be no chance of restoring the monarchy in any shape or form.
With deepest regret I burned Nina’s letter. But first I tore out and kept the part where she’d written:
Then I hitched a ride to Yekaterinburg on a troop train, stole a horse from the army stable, and rode the beast into the ground to reach Nina’s house.
Her home was easy to find. A long, low building set back from the road, with a paddock, an orchard, and a meadow full of flowers – the places I’d heard her speak of many times.
How brave she must have been to undertake such a long journey to find Dr K, immediately after her papa died, after living here in isolation all her life! My cheeks burned with shame at the way I’d treated her, and the things I’d said when she’d first arrived on our doorstep. I dismounted from the horse, combed my fingers through my hair and wiped my face with my hands. I expected she wouldn’t care about my appearance, but I didn’t want to look like a ragamuffin when I asked her to marry me.
There was no response when I knocked upon the front entrance, and I recalled her saying that the door to their kitchen stood open in the summertime. I hurried to the rear of the house.
Galena, and an older man I didn’t recognize, stood close beside each other at the sink. She was naming ingredients while she placed them in a mixing bowl and he made a reply which caused her to laugh. My heart rejoiced when I heard that sound. It was so long since I’d heard Galena laugh, or indeed anyone enjoy a light-hearted moment.
The Rasputin Dagger Page 24
