The Secret Wife

by Gill Paul

  His notebook was sitting on the table next to the typewriter – thank goodness it hadn’t got lost – and he sat down with a cup of coffee to read through his notes from the previous day. Suddenly he remembered telling Rosa that he was writing a novel. Why not? He had recently started reading novels again, borrowing them from Rodina’s bookshop, which stocked Russian-language books. Many works by émigrés were self-indulgent laments, with little plot or characterisation; he was sure he could do better.

  He went out to the local bakery to buy some warm pastries, then came back to eat them with another cup of coffee, and he began to jot down ideas for his novel: a boy and a girl meet in their teens and fall in love but are torn apart by civil war when their families are sent to opposite ends of Russia; then he would write of the boy’s long search to find her again. Tatiana was in his head every moment and he decided to try and define the effects of love on body and soul. He found the first scene was clear in his mind: the boy, whom he would call Mikhail, watches the girl – Valerina, after his beloved sister – falling off her bike and trying desperately not to cry at the pain of grazed hands and knees. At that moment Mikhail feels the beginnings of the empathy, basically an insight into another person’s emotions, the first step that will lead to love. He began to write, and the words flowed from his pen, bringing a sense of tranquillity.

  Two nights later he went back to the café where Rosa worked and asked if she would like to have dinner with him on her night off.

  ‘Well, of course I would,’ she replied, rolling her eyes as if she couldn’t understand what had taken him so long.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Dmitri had only seen Rosa in her tight black-and-white waitress’s uniform so he was somewhat taken aback when she met him for their dinner date wearing her own rather eccentric clothes. Her frock of a yellow and purple pattern was a couple of sizes too large, as if she had borrowed it from her grandmother’s wardrobe then belted it round the hips so it didn’t fall down. She wore strings of multi-coloured beads round her neck and multiple bracelets that clattered as she moved her arm, while on her head there was a cloche hat with a knitted purple flower attached. When he looked closely, he saw there was a knitted bee inside the flower. It was like a parody of the flapper style worn in the more expensive clubs of Charlottenburg, but somehow it worked. While they talked, her dress slipped down to reveal the creamy flesh of her shoulder and she ignored it for a while before pulling it up with a wink.

  They ate in a medium-priced restaurant, and he ordered steak for them both, followed by a rather good apfeltorte. Rosa asked about his life in Russia but he didn’t feel like talking about that, so instead he questioned her about her own background. Born in the countryside, she said she had always longed to swap the sound of cows outside her bedroom window for the traffic and bustle of the city. She moved to Berlin when she was eighteen and shared a tiny apartment with three other girls, one of whom was her cousin, a dancer. She was now twenty-one and she loved dancing, eating good food, and meeting new people. Especially people.

  ‘So you enjoy waitressing?’ Dmitri asked.

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘For now. The tips are good, but some customers are rude. They look down on me for the job I do without knowing anything about me. I could be a ballerina or a scientist, an artist or a pearl diver, but they don’t see past the uniform to my magnificent brain and sparkling personality.’ She flung her arms out dramatically like a compére at a cabaret announcing the star guest.

  Dmitri laughed. ‘Tell me then, what are you?’

  She cocked her head to one side and thought before answering. ‘I don’t entirely know yet, but I like looking after people. I want to have dozens of babies one day; hundreds of them.’

  ‘I sincerely hope you achieve your ambition.’

  ‘Well, at least I can have fun trying,’ she twinkled.

  Dmitri marvelled at the freedom of this woman’s life, so unlike those of women in Russia. She could do what she wanted, say what she felt without fear of repression. It was refreshing.

  After dinner they strolled through Charlottenberg, which she told him Germans were now calling Charlottengrad because of the high percentage of Russian immigrants.

  ‘How did you learn to speak such fluent Russian?’ Dmitri asked, because that was the language they conversed in, although she sometimes switched to English mid-sentence if she didn’t know a word.

  ‘I picked it up as I went along. You’ll find I’m very chatty. Some cruel folk say it’s hard to shut me up.’

  ‘Would you like to come back to my apartment?’ he asked.

  ‘That sounds mar-r-vellous,’ she replied in English, rolling her ‘r’ with a broad smile.

  Soon after climbing the stairs, they were undressing each other and jumping into Dmitri’s bed. Rosa made love enthusiastically and expertly, rolling him over onto his back so she could sit on top. It was clear she was not a virgin and afterwards, he rather ungallantly asked about her previous lovers.

  ‘There was just one before you,’ she said. ‘He was also Russian. I liked him but he disappeared one day and several weeks later I got a postcard from Paris. He said he thought Bolshevik spies were following him and had to flee. I don’t know if it was true or not.’

  ‘You didn’t want to join him in Paris?’

  ‘He didn’t ask,’ she said in a small voice, and Dmitri felt compassion for her.

  ‘I apologise on behalf of my countryman,’ he said. ‘He was a fool to lose you.’

  She turned and kissed him on the mouth, an urgent kiss that moved him deep down inside.

  The next day, while he worked on his novel, Rosa went to the market and bought a cheap cut of meat and some vegetables from which she produced a delicious pot of stew. They ate bowls of it for lunch, along with big chunks of bread, and before leaving to start her shift in the café she even cleaned his bathroom. She hummed as she worked so Dmitri didn’t feel the need to stop her; or at least when the thought passed through his mind he was able to overrule it.

  ‘Will I see you later?’ she asked as she pulled on her coat.

  A little warning bell rang in Dmitri’s head. He didn’t want to feel an obligation towards her. But at the same time, she was a cheerful soul and it was pleasant having her around. Besides, he could hardly say no after all she had done for him.

  ‘I’ll pick you up after your shift,’ he said, kissing her goodbye. As soon as the door shut, he went back to his novel.

  Before long Dmitri and Rosa slipped into a pattern of sleeping together three or four evenings a week. On her night off, she liked to drag him along to the Eldorado nightclub, which had opened in Charlottenburg earlier that year. Her cousin worked there so they could usually secure a good table from which to watch the transvestite dancers, the striptease artists and the comedy burlesque acts. Rosa often got up to dance on the tiny dance floor and Dmitri laughed to watch her in her oversized frocks, like a little girl playing at being grown-up. She mimicked movie stars with flirtatious flicks of her hemline, her mouth rounded in pretend shock at her own audacity.

  Berlin couldn’t have been less like the high society of St Petersburg with its unbreakable rules and strict formality. Dmitri didn’t think he had ever seen a homosexual man in Russia – perhaps they did not exist; perhaps it was not in the national character – but here they were everywhere. He felt a little uncomfortable around them, not sure how to talk to them so that they would know he wasn’t available. He’d often slip his arm around Rosa’s waist to be doubly sure they got the message.

  Sometimes, after making love with Rosa, Dmitri lay awake feeling guilty about his affair. He was a married man; he should not be in bed with another woman. How could he be happy when his wife was missing? But there was no question that if Tatiana appeared one day he would quietly explain the situation to Rosa and beg her forgiveness for leading her on. He would have no hesitation in choosing between them.

  Dmitri often asked Burtsev, his editor, if there was any further news
of Anna Tschaikovsky. It seemed she had left Baron von Kleist’s apartment some time in the autumn and returned to hospital with a range of ailments that required medical treatment. She was not staying at the Dalldorf Asylum this time but at the Westend Hospital in Charlottenburg, not far from his apartment.

  One evening, he asked Rosa if she ever heard any customers in the café talking about her, and straight away she replied: ‘No, but my friend Klara is a nurse at Westend. She tells me Anna Tschaikovsky is very timid and barely talks to anyone. She has a badly infected arm.’

  Dmitri stared at her, eyes wide with excitement. ‘Do you think your friend would be able to get me into the hospital to see her? Can you ask?’

  Rosa seemed surprised at the intensity with which he spoke. ‘Yes, of course, I’ll call on her tomorrow if it means so much to you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He squeezed her hand tighter than he had meant to and she flinched.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Berlin, January 1923

  It transpired that Rosa’s friend Klara was unwilling to help Dmitri sneak into the hospital to spy on their famous patient.

  ‘It could cost her her job,’ Rosa explained.

  ‘I’ll make sure it doesn’t. Please – you have to convince her.’ Dmitri was determined. ‘Won’t you try again?’

  When Klara once more refused to help, Dmitri grew angry and threw his notebook to the floor. ‘She’s not much of a friend, is she? Why won’t she do as you ask?’

  Rosa looked at him closely. ‘This isn’t just about writing a story for Rul, is it? Did you know Grand Duchess Anastasia in Russia?’

  Dmitri couldn’t talk about that part of his life. ‘Slightly,’ he said, turning away. ‘Only slightly.’

  After that Rosa somehow succeeded in persuading Klara. Dmitri didn’t ask how. It was arranged that they would meet her one lunchtime at a side door of the huge, sprawling hospital with its red-tiled roofs and towering spires. She would give him the overalls of an orderly, along with a broom and dustpan, and direct him to the ward. Once there he could go in and sweep round the bed in Anna Tschaikovsky’s private room, but if she panicked and started to scream, as she sometimes did at the sight of strangers, he must pretend he let himself in and must not mention Klara’s name.

  As they walked to the hospital, Rosa chatted about everyday matters – her boss’s secret girlfriend, a new recipe for meatloaf – and for once her conversation annoyed him, interrupting the flow of his thoughts. It was almost five years since he had seen Anastasia but he was positive he would know her straight away, even if those chubby girlish cheeks had thinned out and the long curly locks had been trimmed. People have an essence, something in the eyes that makes them recognisable.

  What if it was her? He would feel compelled to ask what had happened to the rest of the family, to Tatiana. As if reading his mind, Rosa remarked, ‘Seemingly she speaks no Russian and very little English. Do you think you can converse with her in German? You’ve improved a lot.’

  ‘I thought Klara didn’t want me to speak to her?’

  ‘But if it’s her, I’m sure you will.’

  Rosa seemed sad but he didn’t have time to wonder why before they reached the hospital building and followed Klara’s directions down a side alley to the workers’ entrance.

  She appeared at the appointed time carrying an overall and broom. Dmitri thanked her.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ Rosa promised as he hurried inside.

  He felt strangely calm once he was in the hospital, about to meet the woman for whom he had left Constantinople and travelled to Berlin. Klara pointed down a corridor and told him to take the first staircase on the left, climb to the second floor, then go into the fourth room on the right. He thanked her and walked off, broom and dustpan in hand.

  He hesitated outside the door of the private room, gathering his nerve, then pushed it open and saw a young female patient lying back on the pillows, eyes closed. He did not look at her directly at first, but when he did his heart leapt. It could be her. It might be. His face burned.

  He swept the other side of the room first, around the window with its view across the rooftops of the city. When he turned to sweep near the bed, Anna Tschaikovsky opened her eyes suddenly. Her hair was short and brown, her eyes blue, and she had a wide mouth and a long nose. The similarity was definitely there. His heart beat faster.

  ‘May I sweep under your bed, ma’am,’ he asked in German and she nodded her consent.

  ‘Do I know you?’ she wondered, watching him work.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he replied. ‘Do you think you do?’

  She sighed. ‘Oh, I can’t tell. I see so many people from the past and have no memory of them. You are Russian, are you not? You look Russian.’

  ‘Yes, I am. There are many of us in Berlin.’

  ‘Did you know my family? The Romanovs, I mean?’ Her voice was deeper than Anastasia’s but that could have happened with age.

  ‘I did, and was horrified to read speculation that they were killed. But perhaps if you have escaped, then some of the others might too?’ This was the moment. This was when he would know. He held his breath.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘They were all butchered. Brutally butchered. Apart from me.’

  ‘So you remember a little bit now? I heard you had forgotten …’

  ‘I remember flashes of scenes, people’s faces, but nothing links up. It’s all a muddle.’ She swept a hand across her forehead. Her other arm was heavily bandaged.

  ‘And Tatiana? Was she killed?’

  ‘Yes, I watched Tatiana die.’

  Dmitri flinched and stopped sweeping, for a moment unable to breathe. ‘When did she return to the Ipatiev House?’ he asked. ‘The night before she was killed?’

  There was a moment’s hesitation before Anna answered, puzzled, ‘But she never left. None of us were able to leave after we arrived there in the spring. We couldn’t even go to church.’

  Blood rushed to Dmitri’s brain, making him giddy. This was not Anastasia, but an impostor. Just to be sure, he asked: ‘What happened to Yelena, the cleaning girl?’

  ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about. Who are you anyway? Why are you here?’ She grew alarmed.

  ‘I’m a cleaner. Don’t worry. I have finished my work. I’ll leave you now.’

  He hurried to the door and out into the corridor, where he leaned against a wall to breathe deeply. Were she genuinely Anastasia, she would remember that one of the cleaning girls took her sister’s place for the second to last night they were in the Ipatiev House. He felt angry with Anna Tschaikovsky for pretending, but his anger didn’t last long. She was a poor creature, very nervous and hesitant, and clearly mentally ill.

  Most of all he felt a huge sense of deflation. Had it been Anastasia, he might have learned what happened during the family’s last twenty-four hours, might even have learned what became of Tatiana. But now he was back at the start, with no leads at all. He had come to Berlin for nothing … Although he supposed that wasn’t entirely true. The journey had been valuable in that it made him start writing, and he found a sense of peace when engrossed in his novel that had been lacking from his life in Constantinople.

  Once he recovered his composure, he retraced his steps downstairs to the side entrance, slipped off the overalls and left them in a corner with the broom. He pushed open the door to step outside, and somehow the sight of faithful Rosa waiting for him in her red wool coat and man’s grey trilby hat brought tears to his eyes. If only he could love her the way she deserved to be loved.

  ‘Was it her?’ Rosa asked, rubbing her hands and stamping her feet against the penetrating cold.

  He shook his head and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  ‘Now will you tell me what this is all about?’ she asked. ‘I think you owe me, don’t you?’

  Dmitri and Rosa went to the nearest café and sat at a corner table. They ordered hot chocolates and a slice of Black Forest cake with whipped cream to
share. Outside it was starting to snow, light flurries drifting past the window making passersby turn up their collars and pull down the brims of their hats. Rosa was uncharacte‌ristically silent, blowing on her hot chocolate to cool it while waiting for him to talk.

  ‘I used to be in the imperial guard in St Petersburg,’ he told her, ‘and I fell in love with Tatiana, the second-eldest of the Tsar’s daughters. She also fell in love with me and in 1916 we were secretly married.’

  Rosa gasped and her eyes widened with shock.

  ‘You understand why I haven’t told you this before … it could have made me a target for Bolshevik spies. On paper, the marriage puts me in line for the Russian throne, so they would be keen to eliminate me if they knew.’

  ‘Do you want the Russian throne?’ she asked, clearly flabbergasted.

  ‘No, of course not. But I desperately want to find out what has happened to Tatiana, and that’s why I was so keen to meet Anna Tschaikovsky.’

  ‘But your wife must be dead,’ Rosa said. ‘How could she possibly have lived? Where could she be? I understand it is hard to give up hope, but surely there can be none?’

  Dmitri felt cross with her. ‘Actually, I have reason to hope. She was not in the Ipatiev House the night before the family disappeared.’ He explained what had happened and Rosa listened carefully.

  ‘But if she were alive, she would have contacted her family by now. Princess Irene, Grand Duchess Olga … She would have tried to find you.’

  Dmitri spoke tetchily. ‘Anything could have happened. You don’t understand how dangerous the Bolsheviks are, even overseas. Just two weeks ago a distant cousin of the Romanovs was shot dead in his Paris apartment.’

  Rosa sighed. The cake lay untouched between them. ‘So you are telling me that you will wait until you find out what happened to Tatiana before you marry again? Did you not think I had a right to know this, since we have been lovers for four months, nearly five.’