Lena’s foot tapped the floor in a furious rhythm. She thought about Alexandra alone in her bedroom, at the mercy of Marie and Vachot.
“Shame on you,” she sputtered. The words came out louder than she anticipated. “Playing cards when your sovereign needs you.” For good measure she repeated the words in English. Lena knew Alexandra preferred English doctors.
At first they sat in stony silence. Then the men began to laugh and that scared Lena even more. “I thought all young people were radicals now,” one of them said.
Lena scanned the table for a familiar face, her gaze finally resting on the gentle brown eyes of the court physician, Dr. Ott. He regarded her kindly, like a teacher waiting for a struggling student to sound out a difficult word in a spelling book.
She appealed to him directly. “The empress lies unconscious with only one physician and her mother-in-law.”
“Why worry your pretty head about it?” another man said. He had a deep, booming voice and a birthmark the size of a kopeck on his neck. “Do you know how to play poker? Konstantin learned in America and he wouldn’t mind teaching one more.”
Lena bristled at the suggestion. The men started to laugh again. “Please.”
Dr. Ott rose and placed his long, delicate surgeon’s fingers on her shoulders. It was an overly familiar gesture, yet executed with great tenderness. “There’s nothing we can do.” He guided her gently away from the others, lowered his voice, and spoke in English. “The dowager empress doesn’t want us in the room.”
“The dowager has no right to keep you away.”
Lena waited, hardly daring to breathe. The men exchanged glances. Lena imagined the hard face of the policeman who would come to arrest her for speaking against a member of the royal family, and the metal handcuffs slicing her wrists. Still, no one stood to arrest her. These men were no government spies.
“Talk to the tsar,” she pleaded. “He’ll let you into the room. At least look in on the empress and make sure everything is all right.”
Dr. Ott shook his head and dropped his hands. “We have to follow the family’s orders, just as you do.”
“I don’t believe the tsar understands the gravity of this situation,” Lena said.
“But the dowager understands,” Dr. Ott replied sadly, “and she’s in control of the family’s affairs now.”
* * *
Lena lurked in the back of the room, twisting the ends of her skirt in her hands. The orange glow of sunrise revealed the deathly pallor of Alexandra’s face. Whatever Vachot had injected knocked the empress unconscious. She couldn’t communicate and her body’s natural contractions had weakened.
Vachot mopped his broad forehead with a handkerchief already soaked with sweat. “Don’t worry, little mother. All is well.”
“You said you delivered many babies,” Marie snapped. The corners of her eyes looked pinched and in the morning light she appeared to have aged ten years overnight.
Vachot fumbled through his bag. “She’s older than most of my patients.”
“She’s hardly thirty. I was past thirty when I bore my youngest children and had no difficulties. Perhaps I was blessed with more competent hands at my bedside.”
“She’s dilated five centimeters with little cervical thinning. A caesarean section—”
“You want to get paid, don’t you?” Marie shot back. “Or have you decided at long last to tell your wife of your gambling debts.”
Vachot and the dowager glared at each other. Then Vachot removed his spectacles, cleaning them with the end of his shirt. “The longer this takes, the greater the risk. If forceps become necessary … if you could bring in the other doctors…”
“We can’t do that.” Marie touched her fingers to her forehead, and then added quickly, “This girl worked as a midwife. Will she do?”
Lena’s knees felt weak. She stumbled over her words, trying to form a coherent sentence. “I helped my mother. That’s all.”
“No one expects you to deliver the baby,” Marie said abruptly, “only to assist as needed.” She turned to Vachot. “You want her help, don’t you?”
He nodded wearily. “An extra pair of hands would be invaluable. Yes.”
“Wash up,” Marie told her.
Lena moved to the free-standing marble sink in the opposite corner of the room. Her hands shook as she turned the lever. Water rushed over them, so hot her skin turned red, yet the pain scarcely registered. She soaped three times. An image of her mother’s face, scowling in disapproval, was locked in Lena’s mind. The room started to spin around her. Lena grabbed hold of the cold basin for support. Marie eyed her wearily.
“I must speak with you,” Lena whispered.
The dowager nodded sharply and tilted her head to the door. Lena followed her into the hall. She looked down at the tiles lining the floor. She might swoon. She might vomit all over Marie’s tiny satin shoes.
“I can’t help.” The words spilled out before Lena could determine how best to arrange them. “When I assisted my mother…”
Lena felt Marie’s hand, soft but cold, on her shoulder. For the first time, the dowager regarded Lena with something other than contempt. Her eyes widened like a little girl’s. “What is it?”
“A breech birth.” Lena’s corset pinched her waist. She gasped for breath, water from the basin still dribbling down her arms. “My mother turned the baby inside the mother’s womb.” The words came faster now, like purging her body of a virus. “It took too long. There was too much blood.”
Marie fingered the fichu lace on her collar. Underneath, Lena spotted a delicate chain with a simple silver cross hanging at its end. She tried to focus on the cross. But Marie began to fade into the distance and then disappeared altogether.
Lena was back home in the northern woods. Perspiration trickled, salty and hot, down the sides of her face, but she didn’t dare move her hands away from her mother’s bulging black bag of instruments and ointments. She remembered the oppressive stench of the fields mingled with the heaviness of body odor. The father had been drinking all morning and shouting at them. He called Lena’s mother a slut and told her he’d kill her if anything happened to his son. Her mother’s hands shook as she pointed to a spatula-shaped instrument. “Come on. Come on,” she hissed in Lena’s face, her breath stale.
“The woman was in agony the entire time,” Lena told Marie. “When the baby came, he had physical strength, but was addled in the mind. It was my fault. I took too long to hand my mother the instruments she needed. He didn’t receive a proper flow of oxygen during delivery. His brain was damaged.”
Marie rested her small white hand on the moldings along the edge of the wall. Lena watched the rise and fall of her slim shoulders. “How old were you?”
Lena bowed her head. “Eight.”
“I see.” Marie touched the fringe of bangs on her forehead. “All right. I don’t have time to put this delicately so I’ll say it straight out. Look at me.” Wearily, Lena obeyed. “Your mother is a fool. No child should be given such responsibility. She only wanted someone to blame for her own mistakes.”
Deep in her soul, Lena knew Marie was right. A part of her had always known. How could her mother have expected a young girl to handle the pressures of a difficult birth? Why had she taken her frustrations out on her daughter? Lena only needed to hear someone else say it.
“Put this out of your mind now,” Marie said. “You must have confidence.”
Lena knew she should feel better. Still, her stomach coiled like a knotted rope.
“The empress requires your confidence,” Marie said. “I require it.” Lena felt the gentle pressure of Marie’s hands pressing into her shoulders. “Ready?”
For the first time, Lena realized, she felt something other than fear in Marie’s presence. The feeling almost resembled gratitude. She nodded and stepped forward to open the door. The dowager stopped her. “Keep your hands clean. I’ll open the door.”
Back in the room, Lena shook her hands unti
l the beads of water evaporated, and then wiped them down with a clean towel.
“I’ll remind the dowager empress that a caesarean section is advisable in these cases,” Vachot told Marie. “Especially when the mother is past thirty.”
Marie shook her head. “Lena, what do you think?”
Lena regarded her mistress’s still body. She didn’t want to think about her mother right now, but she needed to utilize the midwife’s expertise. She thought back to what her mother told her about doctors, how eager they were to cut a woman open and mangle the newborn with forceps when patience often produced better results. She tried to remember what her mother gathered to help speed the birth. Clean rags and towels. Lubricants from her bag. An icon of the Virgin.
“Let’s get more oils and towels and keep going,” Lena said. “This will take time.”
PARIS
OCTOBER 1941
The officer’s timeline swung like a pendulum through Charlotte’s mind. She bent over, banging the sides of her head with her fists, and still came no closer to a plan. Another roach, fat as her thumb, scuttled past them and through a crack in the wall. She looked down at Laurent, nestled against her thigh, asleep once more.
Doubt wormed its way into her every thought. Every decision she’d made had been wrong. She should have followed Luc’s original advice and remained in his flat. They could have waited for the occupation to end. And now what would happen to Luc? The swelling around his cheeks had forced his left eye almost completely shut. Underneath his torn shirt, dark purple bruises splattered his chest. In the German’s eyes, he was expendable. Luc remained alive only to force her hand and make her cooperate.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Luc opened his eyes as best he could manage. He blinked twice and straightened his back against the wall. Once he sat upright, he winced in pain. She wanted to brush his hair back from his eyes, stroke his cheek gently. But she could scarcely look at him; the guilt was too much to bear.
“What happened, rose petal?” he asked.
The tenderness of the old endearment brought back the tears. He’d begun to call Charlotte rose petal after she devised a dance by that name for a recital she’d planned. It reminded her that once the world had been right. Everything had once made sense and she’d felt something other than hopelessness. She bit her lip and a hot burst of tears flowed, streaming down her cheeks.
Luc waited patiently, touching her hand softly. Stress brought out the worst in him, but trauma the best. She stared at the crumpled bags of sugar and flour on the shelves, the threads of cobweb behind them. “This is my fault,” she said at last. She tried to wipe her face, but her hands shook. “You were right. We should have stayed in Paris.”
“We don’t know it would have made any difference.”
She rubbed her fingers back and forth over the sleeves of the old corduroy jacket Luc had given her. Soon, it would be all she’d have left of him. She drew it tighter around her shoulders, caressing the patches at the elbows. “If we stayed in the city, I could have found a way to keep Laurent safe. I shouldn’t have listened to Kshesinskaya. I shouldn’t have brought you into this. Now they’ve hurt you.”
“What did they tell you?” His voice remained strangely calm. His expression was intense underneath the bruising, his gaze steady.
“They want Laurent and me.” Charlotte stroked Laurent’s lower back, making small circles with her fists. “I don’t know why. That’s why he brought us here. I’m so sorry they hurt you, Luc. But I don’t think they’re going to hurt Laurent after all. The officer wants me to go with him willingly. That’s all. He said he’ll keep Laurent safe.”
“Go willingly? Where?”
“They’ll take him to the Ukraine,” Charlotte said. “I don’t know why. He said they’ll take good care of Laurent.”
Luc withdrew his hand from hers. “You think the German army will take good care of our son? In the Ukraine?”
The calm had vanished. His condescending tone had returned, making Charlotte’s face burn even more than the heat of her tears. She knew how this conversation would proceed. Luc would criticize her, but ultimately leave the decision in her hands. Then her decision would remain subject to even more criticism. “You were the one who told me I wasn’t taking good care of him,” she shot back, “that he looked sick. If the Germans can take better care of him, maybe we should go. They’ll make sure he gets enough food.”
Charlotte lowered her head, inhaling the mold and sawdust surrounding them in the cellar. She couldn’t take care of her own son. Luc touched her arm, but now Charlotte scarcely felt the pressure, as though a thick layer of insulation protected her skin. Laurent stirred, his head making little bobbing motions, but he didn’t waken.
“You’re exhausted and hungry,” Luc told her. “You’re not thinking straight.”
“Look at Laurent! I can’t care for him properly. You said so yourself.”
Luc shook her gently. “Don’t let them take him. Do you hear me?”
The effort to speak made Luc choke. He leaned over and coughed abruptly into his sleeve. When he raised his head again, she saw spots of blood dotting the spittle on his arm. She’d loved him so much once. He was the father of her child. And she’d reduced him to this. “I don’t have a choice,” she said.
Luc covered his mouth before he spoke again. “Is it me? Did they threaten me? Try not to think about that. Neither one of you can go with that officer. They’ll use Laurent. They’ll use you.”
Waves of nausea roiled in and out, clouding Charlotte’s concentration. “What happened in the other room?” she asked. “What did they tell you?”
“I didn’t want to scare you. I wanted to wait until we found your parents.”
Her parents? “What do you know?” Charlotte cried, louder than she intended.
Luc sighed, his face sunken from exhaustion. “The man I got the car from this morning is part of the Maquis. Many members of the resistance follow Soviet politics closely. Half of them are Communists, you know. They believe Hitler made a grave miscalculation when he broke the pact with Stalin.”
She gave a hoarse laugh. “I’ve seen no evidence of that.”
“Now that the Eastern Front has opened, the Nazis are lost.”
“They’re fine.” Charlotte shook her head, defeated. “We’re lost.”
“I know you listen to the broadcasts from London. The Russians will suffer, but there are so many of them.”
She forced the fear and the sickness to harden inside of her so she could think straight. “The officer mentioned the Red Army. He told me Laurent would be treated badly if they took him. Why would the Red Army want a little boy?”
“What if the Nazis found a way to withdraw from Russia and save face?”
“They would never do that.” Her words were sure, but somehow they came out sounding more like a question.
“What if the Germans were backing a new government?”
Luc slumped back against the wall and closed his eyes. Charlotte took his hand. She was shocked at how cold it felt in hers, but she couldn’t let him see her reaction. She squeezed his fingers. “Stay with me, Luc. I need to know what’s happening.”
He opened his eyes once more. “The Maquis believe the Nazis want to destabilize the Soviet government from the inside.” His voice dropped. Charlotte inclined her ear closer to his lips to hear. “The Nazis want to restore the Russian monarchy as a puppet regime. They think they can do that from the Ukraine.”
Charlotte’s limbs began to numb. “But the Russian royal family was murdered.”
“Not everyone believes it. They never found bodies.”
The gears in Charlotte’s mind began to turn once more. “The officer brought a box in with him. He showed me lace and linen and toys and teapots. He asked me if I recognized anything. He mentioned Madame Kshesinskaya again.”
“How did you come to work at her studio?” Luc asked. “You never talk about her much.”
“She approached me one day after a performance of Coppélia. I’d heard of her, of course. Everyone had.” Charlotte remembered that cold and wet winter morning, dreary as any. And yet she’d been entranced by the bright-eyed little woman before her.
“She took pity on me, I guess,” Charlotte continued. “I was getting older. My performing days, even in the corps, were numbered. She likes to take in stray cats. I think she thought of me the same way. She rambled on, complaining about Nijinsky for nearly thirty minutes, and then offered me a position as a teacher at her studio. It was generous.”
Luc stared at her intently. “Maybe Kshesinskaya sought you out. She’s Russian. She had connections to the royal family, didn’t she?”
Charlotte gave another sharp laugh. She hoped Luc might laugh as well, but his expression remained focused, his lips tilted down. “When the officer came to your door, did he say anything that would make you think you were connected to the royal family?”
“I’m some long-lost princess? That’s your theory?” Charlotte twisted the thin chain of her necklace around and around in her hands, feeling the cool metal cross in her hands, remembering her mother hanging it around her neck on her tenth birthday. Her thoughts began to swim, and yet she heard Herr Krause’s voice ringing clear, flirting with Kshesinskaya through the closed doors. “He asked Kshesinskaya if she knew me as Grand Duchess, if I used that title.”
Luc paused to suck in his breath, blinking from the pain. “When the gendarme beat me, he said the German code word for you is ‘the Lost Grand Duchess.’”
Charlotte’s pulse raced. Laurent stirred beside her. She couldn’t remain still. Gently, she maneuvered Laurent’s head to Luc’s lap, and then worked her way upright, her muscles cramped from sitting so long. She shook her legs to stretch them.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “My parents would never have kept that secret from me.”
The Secret Daughter of the Tsar Page 18
