The Secret Wife

by Gill Paul

  Eventually he handed over the jewellery box. ‘Will you at least give this to my daughter? She should take what she wants and send the rest to Nicholas’s wife.’

  Stanley tucked it under his arm. ‘I know there are more things she wants from the house. Perhaps you could make yourself scarce while she collects them? Tomorrow afternoon, maybe?’

  ‘Whatever she wants, she can have,’ Dmitri agreed, and he kept to his word, going to spend the day with Tatiana. On his return, he looked around, trying to see what was missing: a few ornaments here and there, a painting, some kitchen items. He didn’t notice till much later that Marta had taken the old brown leather suitcase in which he kept Tatiana’s diary. Rosa had begun to store the family photos in there, not realising the significance of the diary at the bottom, not realising that suitcase dated from a time before he met her when he was still searching for Tatiana. Asking for its return would only inflame the situation, so he let it be.

  He hoped that Nicholas might be able to intercede with his sister and placed a call to California one evening, but Pattie came on the line and said he was too drunk to come to the phone. She was worried about his drinking but supposed it was just his way of dealing with grief. Pattie promised she would have a word with Marta when she spoke to her next, but did not sound particularly optimistic.

  Dmitri and Tatiana often discussed the estrangement but they could find no solution. When his children’s birthdays rolled around, he sent thousand-dollar cheques, which he was pleased to see both of them cashed. He wrote telling them he planned to sell the house, which was too big for him, and asking if they wanted any furniture, but there was no reply. In truth, he couldn’t bear to live there any more without Rosa’s warmth. In the old days, they used to gravitate to whichever room she was in, whether she was cooking, ironing, or sewing by a sunny window. She had been the centre of the home, but now it was just a series of rooms without any focus.

  He moved into Tatiana’s cottage, but her garden was not big enough for Trina, a lively dog who needed a lot of exercise. One day while they were walking by Lake Akanabee they spotted a cabin for sale and straight away Dmitri wanted it. The location was stunning, at the remotest end of the lake, not overlooked by any other properties. He went to the real-estate agent and paid cash for it that afternoon. It was just four walls and a roof but he hired a carpenter to build a covered porch and a dock sticking out into the lake; he got it plumbed into a well further up the slope and had a septic tank and bathroom fittings installed. Tatiana chose a bed, a table, a sofa and armchair, a thick rug and curtains, pictures for the walls. A pot-bellied stove gave off enough heat to cook, to warm water, and keep the interior cosy. And Dmitri bought a fishing rod, planning to fish from the end of the dock.

  ‘Is this the equivalent of a hairshirt?’ Tatiana asked as she bathed in lukewarm water on a frosty autumn morning. ‘I hope you are not trying to do penance for your sins by coming here.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I want my life to be simpler. I’m sixty-four years old and I’ve had enough of other human beings – apart from you, of course.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can stay here all year round,’ Tatiana laughed. ‘It’s beautiful, but I shall keep my cottage for the months when bugs fill the air and torment me with their bites, and for the winter when it is impossible to get warm.’

  Dmitri had written to his children giving them his new address and when Christmas came around, Pattie sent a Christmas card. He telephoned from Tatiana’s house to thank her and to ask if there was any news.

  ‘Marta is pregnant,’ she told him. ‘Her baby is due next April.’

  Dmitri was moved. ‘Perhaps, with the arrival of the little one, it might be a good time for me to try and make the peace.’

  Pattie hesitated. ‘I’ve tried, but she simply refuses to talk about you. She has a very one-track approach: her mother was a saint and you were a sinner. I don’t think Stanley helps, to be honest.’

  Dmitri sighed. ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Are you and Nicholas happy?’

  ‘He’s still suffering from the loss of Rosa. I don’t know how to snap him out of it,’ Pattie confided, ‘but I’ll keep trying.’

  ‘Tell him that he still has a father and that I’m here if ever he wants me.’ Dmitri had no advice to give her because he realised he hardly knew his adult son, could see few similarities between him and the little boy they had raised. It didn’t occur to him to pass on the advice that was helping him through his own grief: solitude, long walks, and the beauty of the outdoors.

  In February 1956, on the first anniversary of Rosa’s death, Dmitri wrote heartfelt letters to both his children. He described his own strict upbringing back in Russia and apologised that he had been an emotionally distant father. He had tried to be different but somehow the childhood influences were too deeply ingrained and he found himself acting in ways that reminded him of his father, for which he was sorry with all his heart. He told them about the losses he had suffered during the Russian Civil War, including the disappearance of his wife, Tatiana, and the bouts of depression he had battled ever since. He tried to explain his sorrow at having to leave his homeland. It didn’t look as though he could ever return now that the Communist regime was so firmly rooted. It was even possible that Russia and America might try to blow each other to smithereens with their deadly atom bombs.

  He told them that he and Rosa had loved each other dearly and been good partners to each other for over thirty years. And he explained that she had known from the early days he was already married to Tatiana, and had accepted the situation, had even wished them happiness after she had gone. Finally, in his letter to Marta, he wrote: ‘I know I have been a failure as a parent to you, but I did the best I could. I hope with all my heart that I will be allowed to meet the grandchild you are carrying. Please know that I love you deeply and will always be here if you want anything from me.’

  From Nicholas there was no acknowledgement. Marta’s letter was torn into tiny pieces and sent back to him in the original envelope marked, in Stanley’s handwriting, ‘Return to sender’.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Brno, Czech Republic, 16th October 2016

  As she sat in Stansted Airport waiting for her flight to Brno, Kitty listened to all the voicemails that had filled her phone. Most were pleading messages from Tom, left early in the summer, and there was a long, heartfelt one from her friend Amber.

  Kitty, I’m so sorry you found out about Tom’s fall from grace the way you did and I wish to God I had told you straight away. It was complete fluke that I saw them together in a bar in Kings Cross station when I was collecting my mum from the train. It was obvious they were more than friends so I charged up to Tom and yelled at him. To give him credit, he was mortally ashamed, said he had made a huge mistake and begged me not to tell you. He promised it was over – in fact, he told the woman in front of me that he wouldn’t be able to see her again. She shrugged and didn’t seem bothered, so it’s not as if it was some big romance. I told Tom I would be watching him like a hawk, that he needed to sort himself out, and if he put a foot wrong again I’d be on the phone to you faster than he could pull up his zipper. But in retrospect I should have told you anyway. We girls should stick together. I’m sorry for getting it wrong. I just didn’t want you to be hurt. Please call me, Kitty.

  Her flight began to board just at that moment so she quickly texted Amber: ‘I’m an idiot and don’t deserve a friend like you. Going to Brno for a few days. You’ll have to Google it to find the correct pronunciation, as I had to. Will call and tell all on my return.’

  She took her seat on the plane and was about to switch off her phone for take-off when a message came back: ‘I love you. Always have, always will. Text me your return flight time and I’ll collect you from the airport.’

  It was late afternoon when Kitty arrived in Brno and caught a bus to the town centre, then a taxi to the address Hana Markova had given. It drew up outside an old-fashioned brick-built house that
opened directly onto the street. When Kitty knocked it was flung open by a big-boned woman wearing an apron, who looked to be in her fifties or possibly sixties. She had a ruddy complexion with sparkling blue eyes and short brown hair streaked with grey.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ she cried, stepping back to let Kitty pass. She gestured for her to go through to an oak-panelled kitchen with windows looking out over a children’s play park. Kitty sat down at an oak table scarred by the scorch marks of generations.

  ‘I feel as though we are family,’ Hana said, ‘but I can’t quite work out the relationship. Welcome to my home!’

  She put the kettle on to boil and produced a plate of apple cake, although Kitty could smell something aromatic cooking in the oven, presumably dinner.

  ‘It’s very good of you to invite me,’ she said. ‘The mysteries of Dmitri’s life have got right under my skin and I’m desperate to find the truth. It all started when I found this at the cabin.’ She held out the oval pendant she wore round her neck. ‘A jeweller told me it’s Fabergé.’

  ‘Let me have a closer look.’

  Kitty removed the chain and Hana held it by the window to examine the markings on the back in the best light.

  ‘Do you know what this says?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m told it is the maker’s mark.’

  ‘No, above that. It says “Ortipo”.’

  Kitty was none the wiser. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Ortipo was the French Bulldog that your great-grandfather gave to Grand Duchess Tatiana back in 1914, soon after they met. She was nursing him in a military hospital in St Petersburg. The piece you are wearing is a ludicrously expensive dog tag.’ She handed it back with a smile. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Wow! Was Dmitri her lover?’ Kitty’s eyes widened.

  Hana smiled. ‘They were in love, yes. But they were not lovers in the physical sense as you and I understand it today.’

  ‘That’s why he had Tatiana’s diary, then.’ Kitty opened her handbag, pulled the diary out of the padded envelope in which she had been protecting it, and passed it to Hana. ‘I’ve had this translated into English, if you want to see the translation?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I speak Russian.’ Hana scanned the pages, then checked the date on the last page: 14th July 1918. ‘I have the diary she wrote immediately after this one. The handwriting, the style of placing the dates above the entries is the same.’

  Kitty was puzzled: ‘But she died two days after this was written. Did she write another diary in her final days?’

  Hana offered her a slice of cake, but Kitty shook her head, totally captivated by the story. ‘Here is the truth that you have flown all the way over to hear: Tatiana did not die in the Ipatiev House. Dmitri helped her to escape.’

  It crossed Kitty’s mind to wonder whether she was visiting a crazy person. There had been many conspiracy theories about the Romanovs, with dozens of impostors popping up through the decades, but scientists had proved categorically that they all died. ‘Surely that’s not possible? I read that forensic scientists have proved the exact number of people who were in the graves, and their heights and ages all fit. They cross-matched bone samples with people who have Romanov DNA, including our Prince Philip. How could the weight of so much scientific evidence be wrong?’

  Hana was nodding. She knew all this. ‘If you’ve read about the investigation, you’ll know how badly the samples were contaminated over the years. What the scientists won’t admit is that they kept finding DNA they couldn’t match and they brushed it under the carpet, deciding it must belong to someone working in one of the labs that handled the material. But it didn’t. There was another girl in there, the same height as Tatiana, just a local farm girl whose disappearance didn’t warrant a police investigation during the upheaval of the times. She had taken Tatiana’s place on the 15th of July, and it was her who died in the brutal slaughter of the night of the 16th. Tatiana lived.’

  Kitty couldn’t take it in. ‘So if Dmitri rescued her … where did she go?’

  ‘Let me read you the story from Tatiana’s diary. My father found it in a drawer long after she had gone. It is distressing but you are Dmitri’s direct descendant and you deserve to know.’

  She walked across to a sideboard and pulled a tattered notebook from one of the drawers. It was flimsy, unlike the solid leather-bound one Kitty had found in the box of family photographs, but the handwriting inside was exactly the same.

  Hana began. Although she was translating from Russian to English, she spoke without hesitation. It was clearly something she had read many times before.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  A Tent East of Ekaterinburg, July 1918

  I asked Vaclav to find me a pencil and notebook because in the past writing a diary used to help me order my thoughts. Somehow I need to pass the hours until I leave this world and perhaps I should make a record so that historians of the future will know what became of the last and most wretched of the Romanov grand duchesses.

  It seems incredible that just five days ago Mama, Papa, OTMA and Alexei were all together for that emotional service led by Father Storozhev, where he said the prayer for the dead. If only we had taken poison that night and died in each other’s arms, it would have been a better end. I don’t think any of us had hope any more: the guards were too disrespectful, their behaviour towards us too callous for us to believe we would be allowed a dignified and peaceful exile. But then came that note from Malama on Sunday afternoon and for a short while hope was renewed.

  15th July, Monday

  Papa was concerned about me leaving the house while the cleaner took my place but he trusted Malama. We all did. She was a sweet girl, by the name of Yelena, and she was terribly nervous as she slid off her blouse, skirt and headscarf and swapped them for my gown, while Olga and Maria kept watch by the door. I thanked her for her loyalty and promised that I would see her in the morning. As I walked out with the other girl, Yelena’s friend, I saw Anton, the vilest of the guards, watching us and kept my head down, fiddling with my sleeves, waiting to feel a hand on my shoulder at any moment. Suddenly we were on the street and it seemed so bright and open, I was dazzled by the light. I didn’t know where to go but the girl led me to a street corner and there was my beloved Malama and he was smiling. Oh, the joy of that moment, when all my fears were momentarily banished! We rode back to a cottage he had rented and we embraced and talked and talked and embraced, and it was beautiful. I loved him more than ever that afternoon. Such sacrifices as he has made for me could never be repaid.

  I didn’t want him to leave the cottage that evening – perhaps I had a premonition of what was to come – but he was confident of his plan to rescue us all. So I bolted the door and while I waited, I looked round at Malama’s few possessions. His spare clothes, the meagre bread and cheese in the kitchen, his tooth powder and brush, and I loved them for being his. Oh, I would give anything to leap back to those moments, the last moments of innocence.

  I heard horses approach and the door being rattled and I ran to hide in the wardrobe. Why there? It was the first thought that came to mind. There was nowhere else. With terror, I listened to the sound of the door being hacked down then there were men’s voices in the cottage. The wardrobe was pulled open and when I saw the ugly pockmarked face of Anton the guard, I knew I was doomed. He grabbed me by the hair to pull me from the wardrobe and spat in my face, calling me prostitutka and all kinds of awful words. I ordered him to let me go and he slapped me then threw me to the ground. He didn’t care if I was hurt, had no concern about what my father might say. ‘We followed you here, you and your boyfriend,’ he said. ‘Did you really believe you could get away? You royals think you are above the law.’

  He tied a dirty rag over my mouth so I could not scream for help, and secured my wrists behind my back. When he hauled me onto his horse’s back, I assumed we were returning to the Ipatiev House. At that stage I was not afraid for myself but for what they would do to Malama if they ca
ught him. The two men riding alongside did not look at me. They seemed to take orders from Anton. I suspect it is because he is a bully and they are scared of him.

  When the horses stopped, it was not at the familiar house but outside some dirty hovel. Anton pulled me from his horse and shoved me hard in the back to force me inside. There was no one in the street, nowhere to run. It was dimly lit but I could see there were two rooms with straw mattresses on the floor and little else. Anton pushed me into one of the rooms and shut the door and I stood there shivering, deeply shocked. Malama would be back at the cottage soon. What would he do when he found me gone? How would he ever discover my whereabouts? If only there had been time to write him a note, give him a clue – but it all happened so suddenly.

  I could hear the men drinking next door, their voices becoming increasingly raucous, and I wondered when Yurovsky, the commander of the guards, would arrive. I would appeal to him to return me to my family immediately. When Anton opened the door he laughed a truly evil laugh, and I could feel how much he despised me. All those times I spoke haughtily and reprimanded him had sown a deep hatred and now he wanted his vengeance. He hit me hard across the face, knocking me backwards onto the bed, then he fell on top of me, ripped at my clothes, and violated me. The pain was indescribable, his rancid smell utterly repulsive, but worst of all was the thought of Malama, my husband, and what it would do to him if he ever found out that his precious wife was no longer pure. I can’t bear for him ever to know.

  16th July, Tuesday

  While Anton slept I crept up and tried the door, but it was locked and there were no windows. I could feel blood between my legs where he had ripped me open and a dull ache in my belly as if he had damaged something deep within. I could see from a chink beneath the door that it was dawn outside and worried myself sick thinking about poor Yelena, the cleaner. If I could not get back to the house that morning, she would be stuck inside and my family would be terrified for my safety. Why had Anton not taken me there? Did Yurovsky know of my escape? For all that he was unsympathetic to our plight, I could not believe he had condoned this brutal attack. Anton must have planned this on his own and persuaded his two cronies to help.