The Secret Wife

by Gill Paul

  ‘Why do you work for them?’ Dmitri asked.

  ‘I am an army officer; this is my life. Besides, I hope to be able to exert some influence to moderate the extremists.’

  ‘I hope that may be the case but what I hear makes me gloomy.’

  They were silent for a while, each with their own thoughts, when Yakovlev mentioned, almost casually, ‘There is a reason why I was sent here at this time. The Romanovs are to be moved soon to a secret destination and I am to supervise their transfer.’

  Dmitri’s chest tightened. ‘Will they be safe in this destination, wherever it is?’

  ‘I am not convinced they would be safe in the place that has been suggested,’ Yakovlev continued carefully, ‘so I am considering taking them to Omsk instead. Do you know Omsk? A very pleasant town.’ He walked with his eyes downcast, not meeting Dmitri’s surprised glance. He knew that Omsk was not under Bolshevik control and wondered at Yakovlev’s motives in telling him this.

  ‘When must they leave?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah, that is a secret,’ Yakovlev continued, ‘but it will be soon. Later this month, probably. That should give time for plans to be put in place.’ His tone was strange. He would not state his intentions outright but it was clear he hoped Dmitri would pick up on his subtext.

  ‘I should think plans could be made in that time,’ he agreed, and Yakovlev nodded and murmured, ‘Good. I hope so. Perhaps it would be doing our new leaders a favour if circumstances prevented them from showing their worst face to the watching world.’

  It couldn’t be clearer, Dmitri thought. He was asking him to arrange a rescue from Omsk.

  ‘How is your mineral hunting, my friend?’ Yakovlev continued in a brighter tone.

  ‘Very fruitful,’ Dmitri agreed. ‘I am certainly glad I came.’

  They chatted about old acquaintances from wartime, about the peace treaty that had surrendered the Baltic states to Germany, and about the slow rise in temperature as spring arrived in Siberia. They acted for all the world as if this were an innocent meeting between two old army comrades but Dmitri knew there was an underlying agenda in which each would play a role.

  As soon as they parted, he hurried to send a telegram to Malevich saying that the cargo they had discussed would be arriving in Omsk before the end of the month and asking if he could deal with its onward dispatch. Suddenly, rescuing the Romanovs seemed a real possibility. From Omsk, they could be spirited by automobile to Crimea and taken by boat to Constantinople without having to pass through Bolshevik-held territory. It was a perfect location.

  His heart sang and he longed to tell Tatiana, but it was too dangerous to risk putting it in a letter. The less she knew, the safer she would be.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Tobolsk, Siberia, April 1918

  Dearest Malama,

  We had a visit yesterday evening from the very charming Commander Yakovlev. Papa trusts him and I hope he is right to do so. He tells us that we are to be moved but yet again he will not say where, although he hinted we would go north and west. The trouble is that Alexei is not well enough for the journey. He has a haemorrhage in his groin, which has been causing excruciating pain. Papa explained this and Yakovlev tried to overrule him but after seeing Alexei with his own eyes he reluctantly agreed that some of us may stay behind to nurse him. Mama was torn: should she go with her husband or stay with her sick son? Eventually she decided that Papa needs her most, so Olga, Anastasia and I will remain behind with Alexei, until he is sufficiently recovered.

  Dmitri gasped with horror – ‘No!’ She should have told him Alexei was ill. Why had she not? He supposed she was trying to spare him from worry, just as he had spared her by not telling her of his father’s death, but it ruined his plans. He snatched up his pen to reply:

  My love, I beg you to reconsider. It is essential that your family stick together at a time like this. Believe me when I tell you I have reasons that I cannot share in a letter. Please do not be alarmed but consider whether it might be possible to make Alexei comfortable enough to travel with cushions spread all around him. Any comforts that would help, you can rely on me to find. Please do this for me, Tatiana. Please keep the family together.

  She replied that she was alarmed by the tone of his note but maintained that it would be impossible to move her brother. Dmitri clutched his head in despair. If only he could see her face to face for just one minute, he could explain this was their only hope of rescue. But it was impossible.

  He quickly sent a telegram to Malevich, who had already arrived in Omsk, telling him that the cargo they had discussed was being sent in two batches. Would there be any way to keep the first batch safe until the second arrived in a month or two? Malevich replied that it would be difficult but he would endeavour to do as he was asked.

  Dmitri had planned to travel close behind the Romanovs and to help with the operation to smuggle them out of Omsk and overseas. Once they were on board ship, he hoped to have time to visit his mother and sisters and to arrange their escape as well. But now all his plans would have to be changed. A car came to pick up the Tsar and Tsarina along with their middle daughter, Maria, leaving the remaining children inside the Governor’s House with their guards.

  ‘I am reading to Alexei from Tales of Shakespeare,’ Tatiana wrote immediately after the departure.

  He is especially fond of Julius Caesar, in particular the murder scene. Why do boys relish violence?

  I have a feeling from your letter that you know more than you are telling me about our parents’ destination and I wish you would share it with me. I wonder if they are headed for Sweden or Norway, since Yakovlev hinted they were to go north and west? But he also said the journey would take five days, so perhaps that is too far. I hope it is not to Moscow. This new government does not seem well-disposed towards us. Do tell me what you know, Malama, or else I will be fearful.

  Dmitri was more than fearful: he was terrified that when the Bolshevik government realised Yakovlev had taken the royal couple to Omsk, outside the territory they controlled, they would take revenge on the remaining children. He replied to Tatiana’s letter, trying to calm her fears, but at the same time he bought several rifles and distributed them amongst monarchist sympathisers in the town in case it became necessary to storm the compound. He watched the house night and day for any change in routine that could signal trouble and he wrote to Tatiana suggesting that she stow her valuables securely in case a journey became necessary sooner than expected. If they could have spoken directly, he would have trusted her with all, but he could not risk writing anything that would give the game away should the guards decide to search Trina.

  The poor communications between Tobolsk and the outside world were infuriating, especially when Dmitri received a telegram from Malevich saying that the expected cargo had not arrived in Omsk. What had gone wrong? Where were Tsar Nicholas and his wife?

  Dmitri’s nerves were in tatters. If only Yakovlev would send him a telegram; but he supposed he would not dare, since all telegrams were routinely read by the local soviets.

  A week after the royal couple’s departure from Tobolsk, Dmitri was walking along the street when he heard a news vendor crying out the day’s headline: ‘Tsar and Tsarina moved to Ekaterinburg.’

  Ekaterinburg! There could be nowhere worse. It was a town in the country’s industrial heartland, home to the most militant workers, who were fiercely hostile to the monarchy. His heart sinking, he grabbed a paper to read the story: it said the royal party had arrived in the city two days earlier and had been jeered by crowds at the railway station. They were being accommodated in the merchant Ipatiev’s house, to be known henceforth as the ‘House of Special Purpose’. Everything about it sounded ominous.

  Dmitri wondered what had happened to Yakovlev’s plan? It had obviously failed, because rather than taking the Romanovs to a city where they would be among supporters, they were now surrounded by fervent supporters of the Revolution. Dmitri punched a wall in frustration; the chanc
e of rescue from there seemed remote.

  Back at his lodgings he fingered one of the rifles he had bought. With a lover’s selfishness, he wondered whether it would be possible to rescue Tatiana on her own: to sneak in by night, rouse her from her bed on some pretext and spirit her away. But he knew she would never forgive him. She would be furious at being tricked and desperate to return to her family.

  Was she safe inside the Governor’s House without her father’s protection? Would the guards treat her with respect? He wrote telling her where her parents and Maria were staying and asking if all went well for them. ‘If you have any concerns, I will immediately make my status known and offer my protection,’ he wrote pointedly.

  Tatiana wrote back in the strongest of terms:

  Do not even think of it, not for one second. I need you exactly where you are. Knowing you are there is the one thing that gives me strength. If ever we are threatened, Trina will let you know. For now we are treated well enough, although the food is poor and Alexei does not have all the medicines he needs. The warmer weather gives me hope that there are better times ahead. I miss you with a constant ache. I sometimes think it must be even harder to be you than it is to be me, because you are alone while I have my siblings. But this is how it must be for us. Only think how much sweeter it will be, having experienced this hardship, when we are finally together once more.

  Dmitri hurled his boot across the room. It was unbearable for a man of action, a soldier, to be unable to help the women he loved most in the world. He was failing his mother and sisters because he dare not leave Tatiana, and he was failing Tatiana because he had not managed to rescue her family and get them out of Russia after more than a year of house arrest. Reluctantly he had to accept that this was how it had to be for now, but it made him feel like a failure as a husband, a son and a brother.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lake Akanabee, New York State, late August 2016

  Dmitri Yakovlevich was never far from Kitty’s thoughts as she worked on the cabin or sat by the lakeshore, gazing out across the dazzling beauty of the wilderness. What had brought him to live here? Why was he alone? Had he found contentment in the tranquillity? She wondered yet again why her mother had never mentioned there was a writer in the family, even when Kitty had told her of her own ambitions to write. Surely she must have realised she would be interested? But then her mother had never encouraged her to write: it wasn’t a prestigious enough career for her only daughter.

  She thought back to the suitcase full of family photos in her bedroom closet in London. Were there any of Dmitri? She had dipped into it when looking for pictures to reproduce on the order of service at her parents’ joint funeral but had never explored further. She knew there were albums stretching back through the twentieth century from both her mother’s and her father’s sides of the family and wished she had them there, to study. If only there were someone she trusted who would send that suitcase out to her without any questions asked. Someone who had a key to the house. Someone who wouldn’t tell Tom.

  All of a sudden the answer came to her: their cleaner, Marion, was a dependable type. She would do it. The more she thought about it, the more compelling the idea became. Kitty leapt into her car and drove to the vacation park. While her mobile phone charged up, she opened her email account and sent a mail to the enquiries address at Random House publishers in New York, asking if there were any remaining members of staff who had known her great-grandfather. She explained that he had been published by them between the 1930s and 1970s. An automatic reply bounced back saying her enquiry would be dealt with shortly.

  She switched on her mobile phone, ignoring all the bleeps indicating texts and voicemail messages, and dialled Marion’s number. It was early evening back in London and when she answered, Kitty could hear her children squabbling in the background. She had no idea how Tom had explained her absence to Marion and decided not to offer any more information than she had to.

  ‘I’m out in the States and need a case sent over by courier. Do you think you could do that? And would you mind not telling Tom? It’s a surprise.’ She held her breath.

  ‘Of course,’ Marion replied. She was a single mother whose husband had abandoned her and she did not have a high opinion of men in general. ‘Let me find a pen.’ There was a pause and a shuffling sound before her voice came back on the line. ‘Fire away!’

  Kitty described the whereabouts of the suitcase. It was an old brown leather one but appeared sturdy enough and just had to be labelled with the address. There was a Fedex office locally and Kitty would call them to pay with her credit card. Marion would have to fill out the export forms and get a receipt.

  Marion wrote down the address of the vacation park, then asked: ‘Is it urgent? I wasn’t due at the house till Friday but could stop by tomorrow if you want.’

  ‘Oh please … that would be amazing.’ Suddenly Kitty wondered whether Karren had taken advantage of her absence to move in with Tom. Did she ever spend the night there, in her bed? Would Marion tell her if that was the case? Did she want to know?

  ‘Are you OK?’ Marion asked.

  Kitty paused, then decided to leave it. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

  The suitcase arrived at the vacation park two days later and Kitty couldn’t wait to get back to the cabin and examine the contents. Marion had wrapped so much tape around it that she needed to cut it open with a Stanley knife. Inside there was a mixture of photograph albums, framed portraits and loose snaps, all muddled together. No care had been taken as to the order, everything shoved in higgledy-piggledy with the decades mixed up, so Kitty began by sorting them into piles according to age and which side of the family they came from.

  Once she had them in rough order, she focused on the oldest, sepia-coloured prints from her mother’s birth family. Someone had helpfully scribbled names in pencil on the backs of some: ‘Rosa, Nicholas and Marta, Coney Island, 1937’ – that was three years after they arrived in America. There was an amusement park in the background and they looked like any family on a fun day out. She imagined the photo must have been taken by Dmitri. Another showed the children peering out from the observation deck of the Empire State Building, looking slightly older. Kitty tried to remember her grandmother’s date of birth and reckoned it must have been around 1925 or 1926. Marta looked maybe thirteen or fourteen in the picture, with skinny legs, straight brown hair held in place by an Alice band, and teeth too big for her face. Nicholas was taller, his hair cut short, wearing long trousers and an open-necked shirt.

  Marta seemed more popular than Nicholas; in these childhood pictures she was usually surrounded by groups of friends, and as she got older there were boyfriends – dozens of them, it seemed. Her grandmother hadn’t been a great beauty but she was always smiling or laughing in her pictures, and she dressed with great style. Even as an old lady, Kitty remembered her wearing tailored trouser suits that made her look years younger than her age, often accompanied by a man’s trilby hat.

  Many pictures showed dark-haired Rosa with friends, smiling in the garden of a weatherboard house or sitting on the sofa with a dog by her side. Kitty had to search long and hard before she found one of Rosa with a man who looked as though he might be her husband, an arm around her waist. He was very handsome, with slicked-back hair and a white-toothed smile, like a matinee idol. Was this Dmitri? He was tall and well dressed, his posture erect. She found one more shot of the same man, this time standing in his garden, leaning on a hoe, with the same straight, almost military posture, although his hair was unruly from the effort of toil. She felt sure this was her great-grandfather and strained to make out details of his face: a high forehead, brows like a shelf beneath which dark eyes stared out, sharp cheekbones, full lips. A face that looked as though it had been carved from hardwood. Did he have a melancholy air or was she projecting? She thought she could see a family resemblance with her and her mother, perhaps in the shape of the face, the chin.

  Why were there not more photograph
s of him? The answer came to her that in those days men were the ones wielding the camera. Even two generations later, her father had been the family photographer, quipping that her mother always cut off the tops of heads.

  Amongst the photos there were postcards from holidays in Switzerland, Cornwall, Santa Barbara and Vancouver Island, with a variety of signatures, the ink old and faded. There were letters from people who appeared to be family friends, telling news of children and grandchildren, illnesses suffered and house moves. Kitty didn’t recognise any of the names.

  At the bottom of the suitcase she found a battered, ancient-looking notebook with black leather covers. Inside, every page was covered top to bottom in handwriting in what she assumed were Russian characters. Straight away she guessed it must be Dmitri’s. Perhaps they were notes for his novels. The writing was small and incredibly neat but she could not make head nor tail of it. Why keep this notebook but not more of the many notes and manuscripts he must have produced during his writing career? He must have had a reason, and Kitty decided she was going to find out. If only she had known her great-grandfather; somehow she felt they would have had a lot in common. Maybe this notebook would help her get closer to understanding him.

  Kitty drove to the vacation park coffeehouse for the second time that day and opened her laptop to search for Russian to English translators. There was one called Vera Quigley in the town of Gloversville, about seventy miles away. She called and made an appointment to drop by the following afternoon.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Gloversville, New York State, 1st September 2016

  Vera Quigley lived in a tiny two-storey house with a door that opened directly from the street. Inside it was like a dolls’ house, with bookshelves lining the walls from floor to ceiling and furniture crammed in so tightly there was barely space to squeeze between. She appeared to be in her sixties and she was short – under five feet, Kitty reckoned – with a cap of very soft, fine baby hair that looked as though it might recently have regrown following chemotherapy. Vera waved Kitty to an armchair and as she sat, she could feel the springs through the fabric.