Anastasia and Her Sisters

by Carolyn Meyer

  • • •

  Late in the spring we made a journey to places in the countryside important in the early life of Mikhail Romanov, the first Romanov tsar. We traveled by imperial train from Tsarskoe Selo eastward to Nizhny Novgorod. There we boarded the steamer Mezhen and journeyed up the Volga River to visit Kostroma, the village where Mikhail Romanov was born. Aunt Olga and a crowd of other Romanov relatives traveled with us. We stood on the deck in the chilly wind and waved to the cheering peasants crowded along the riverbanks. “God save the tsar!” they shouted, and “May he live forever!” Some even waded into the freezing water to get a glimpse of their tsar and the tsarevich.

  Olga must have been wrong. This was so different from St. Petersburg! Here was proof that the common people truly loved Papa, and Mama, too, and maybe it was just some of those wicked noblemen and their snobbish wives in St. Petersburg who delighted in criticizing. Or maybe the rainy, cold weather had put them in a sour mood.

  We boarded our train for the final leg of the journey to the outskirts of Moscow. Our destination was the cathedral where the first tsar had been crowned. Papa rode into the city on horseback, alone and in advance of his Cossack escort, the rest of us following in open carriages: Mama and Grandmère Marie in one carriage, Alexei with Nagorny in the next, followed by OTMA, and then all the other Romanov relatives in the procession behind us. People cheered and the bells of dozens of churches began to peal when we reached the Kremlin. I hoped that Olga would see how thrilling it was, that our parents were indeed loved.

  But Olga didn’t see.

  I’m not the only one afraid something terrible will happen. I sat next to Father in the dining salon of the train on the way to Moscow. General Spiridovich, who’s in charge of his security, sat across from us, drinking vodka and eating zakuski. The general pleaded with Father not to go through with his foolish idea of riding ahead of the Cossacks into the city. Hundreds of thousands of workers are on strike, he said, and the mood is ugly and growing worse. At any moment a revolutionary could throw a bomb or fire a gun at the tsar, and there would be no one to protect him. Two years ago during a visit to Kiev, Papa took Tanya and me to the opera and a revolutionary walked up to Prime Minister Stolypin and shot him. We were watching from the royal box and witnessed the whole thing. Tanya cried the whole night after it happened.

  But Father told General Spiridovich that the Tsar of All the Russias must show himself to his people and he would ride unprotected into Moscow. Thank God nothing happened.

  I saw Fr. G standing near the entrance to the Kremlin. I’m sure it was the starets, but when I tried to point him out to Tanya, he had melted into the crowd. It seemed to me a bad omen, though Mother would think just the opposite.

  Olga seemed determined to see the dark side of everything. Marie, on the other hand, always saw the bright side. I felt stuck in the middle. How could we be so different?

  • • •

  Two thousand people attended a grand ball at the Hall of the Nobles in Moscow the night after our arrival. Aunt Olga said the hall was the finest ballroom in all of Europe. Marie and I were not invited, but Olga and Tatiana were. Mama wouldn’t let them wear ball gowns, just the usual white dresses and pearls. Tatiana’s hair was growing back after her illness. She tied it with a velvet ribbon.

  “We look like schoolgirls,” Olga complained, studying her image in a tall mirror. “Mama still wants to dress us like children.”

  Marie and I were waiting for them when they came back. “Tell! Tell! Tell!” we begged.

  “Mother and Father opened the ball with a polonaise,” Tatiana reported, stripping off her long gloves.

  “They weren’t actually dancing,” Olga said. “They just walked in a stately kind of way through the ballroom. It was quite splendidly decorated—lots of ferns and huge urns filled with flowers.”

  “Ferns in urns,” I said, enjoying the sound of the words, “and urns of ferns. Who were your partners?”

  Tatiana wrinkled her nose and flung herself down on her bed. “Army officers. My captain waltzed rather well, but he smelled of cigars.”

  Olga laughed. “Mine, too. And his hands were clammy. So, you see, you two didn’t miss anything.”

  • • •

  At the end of May we went home—at last!—to Tsarskoe Selo. Tatiana’s sixteenth birthday came two days later, but there was no celebration like Olga’s. Mama had decided that another formal ball was not necessary.

  Tatiana agreed. “I’ve had enough balls. I’d rather have a party on the Standart,” she said. “Or a picnic on our special island.”

  Olga would be happy no matter which Tatiana chose. Pavel Voronov would be there.

  I’m counting the days until I see Pasha again. It has been nine months since we were together and that magical night when we kissed THREE TIMES.

  I would have to keep a close watch, or I would miss everything.

  CHAPTER 7

  Olga in Love

  BALTIC SEA, SUMMER 1913

  The Standart cruised along the coast of Finland. Papa and Mama were both tired from all the balls and receptions and dinners and ceremonies and happy not to have any official duties.

  Tatiana celebrated her sixteenth birthday on the Standart, just the way she wanted. Mama decreed white dresses, pearls, and colored sashes—Olga was right, we did look like little girls instead of young ladies. Tatiana received her pearl and diamond necklace. It was a tradition in our family that each of us was given a diamond on our birthday and a large pearl on our name day, so that when we turned sixteen, we would each have a complete necklace of thirty-two beautiful gems. Chef Kharitonov produced a delicious meal, the balalaika orchestra played, and we danced on the deck with the officers, including Lieutenant Voronov.

  I turned twelve on the fifth of June (twelve each, diamonds and pearls, kept in a velvet case), and nine days later Marie was fourteen, with more treats and dancing (and one more diamond). I was the only sister who did not yet have a bosom, but Marie promised that I would very soon. “Madame Becker is likely to make her appearance, Nastya,” she said. “Madame Becker” was their name for their monthly cycles.

  Everyone was in a happy mood. Mama kept remarking on how successful the three hundredth celebration had been, how people had cheered and applauded wherever we went, especially the peasants in the countryside. “The real Russians,” she said, “not like those overstuffed, overdressed counts and countesses who look down their noses at everyone, at us, and at each other. How I despise them!”

  Every day there were chances for Olga to see her Pasha. So often during the long winter and spring Olga had seemed sad and distracted, as though she wished she were somewhere else, or maybe even someone else. But that summer she was lighthearted and gay, laughing and joking, and not just when Voronov was around, but with all of us.

  We went ashore for picnics and hikes, we swam, and I tried to improve my tennis. In the evenings we danced mazurkas and polonaises on the deck with the officers. Tatiana was good at flirting. So was Marie. You could see it was just a game with them, a merry way of passing the time, and the young officers played along. But Olga was a serious girl, and you had only to look at her face. It was as though somebody turned on a light switch the minute Lieutenant Voronov appeared.

  I was sure Mama and Papa knew very well what was happening. Olga tried to pretend that nothing was going on with Pavel Voronov, but too often I heard her slip and call him “Pasha.” Voronov was much better at acting reserved and formal when others were around.

  I felt sure her notebook would reveal what was happening out of my sight.

  After so many months apart, we are at last together for a few precious weeks—except that we’re not! My darling P. fills my heart and my dreams but it’s so hard to find a place where we can be alone, to kiss and speak privately. I yearn to be with him, but he is cautious, and I must be, too—especially around Tanya. My sister and I share every secret except this one, but she is the perfect daughter, closer to Mama than I coul
d ever be. If she notices anything at all, she’ll feel she must report it to Mama. And so I say nothing.

  I also said nothing. I remembered what Aunt Olga had told me about “inappropriate” marriages and crossed my fingers for Olga.

  • • •

  Alexei injured himself again. The poor boy had to wear a brace to try to straighten the leg he’d hurt the year before at Spala. He got around by hopping on one foot, and they let him take off the brace only when it was just too awfully hot. Then, after a month of cruising, we left the Standart in the port of Kronstadt and were taken to Peterhof on the Alexandria, a smaller yacht that could maneuver in shallow water. We had barely settled in at our summer dacha before Alexei somehow hurt his elbow and was in the most horrible pain. His pitiful moans were more than anyone could bear.

  Mama sent a telegram to Father Grigory, begging him to come to Peterhof. He arrived the next day and went immediately to Alexei’s room with Mama. Our room was near my brother’s, and Marie and I could hear the starets’s low, quiet voice. Alexei’s moans quickly subsided.

  “Is it better now?” we heard Father Grigory ask. Alexei answered calmly, “Yes, yes, much better.”

  Mama and Father Grigory came out of the room, closing the door softly behind them. Right there in the corridor Mama fell on her knees, weeping, and kissed Father Grigory’s hands. Assured that the tsarevich was sleeping and in no pain, Papa left with them to talk and drink tea.

  Father Grigory stayed for a few days in Peterhof before we traveled back to Tsarskoe Selo for a short time and then continued to the hunting lodges in Poland. Mama really didn’t want to go back to Spala; she had such terrible memories of Alexei’s injuries the previous year. Father Grigory did not travel with us. He never did, and I didn’t understand why. Aunt Olga tried to explain it.

  “Your father and your mother, especially, are very fond of the starets. She truly believes he’s a holy man and the only one who can help Alexei. But there are many others who dislike him and mistrust him. Some even think he is a devil—Grandmère Marie, for instance, believes he is somehow playing tricks. And so your parents have decided it’s better not to make too much of him in public.”

  “What do you think of him, Aunt Olga?” I asked.

  “It’s not for me to say,” she replied, but she was not looking at me as she spoke.

  “You think he’s a devil, don’t you?”

  “If he helps your brother, who suffers so very much, then it doesn’t matter what I think.”

  She refused to say more.

  • • •

  The hunting season in Poland passed without much happening, except to the poor stags, and OTMA counted the days until we would board the train for Livadia. The Standart would be there, and Lieutenant Voronov. Mama would be more relaxed, and there would be lots of interesting visitors, like the emir of Bukhara and his red-bearded court.

  But once again Papa had to deal with Romanov family problems. Our cousin Maria Pavlovna, Dmitri’s older sister, had left her Swedish husband and gone to live with her father in France. Her father was Papa’s uncle, Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, who asked Papa’s permission to arrange for Maria Pavlovna’s divorce, explaining that she was ill.

  I scarcely knew Dmitri’s sister, and I wasn’t much concerned with whether or not Papa would allow her to divorce her husband. It seemed odd, though, that Papa should have to decide who was allowed to marry or get divorced, even if he was the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and God’s representative on earth. Didn’t Papa have enough to do without that?

  When I told Aunt Olga what I thought, she smiled and said, “I understand why you think as you do, my dear little Nastya, but that’s simply the way it is. When you’re older, I will tell you my own story.”

  “Why not tell me now, dear aunt? I’m twelve, and I think I’m quite old enough to hear it.”

  But she shook her head and hugged me, whispering, “Someday, but not quite yet.”

  Being told that I was too young to hear something obviously very important and interesting was maddening—and made me determined to find out what it was.

  Then in October, while we were at Livadia, we learned that our cousin Irina was going to marry Felix Yussoupov.

  We hadn’t seen Irina since the previous spring, when Dmitri was my escort at the celebration but flirted madly with Irina. Felix was Dmitri’s best friend—they were often together—and Felix had also been flirting with Irina.

  Mama was horrified when she heard about Irina’s plans. “I would never allow any of my daughters to have anything at all to do with Felix,” she said firmly. “And certainly not marry him!”

  Olga did not want to talk about it.

  The more I see of these engagements, the less I want one. I’ll soon be eighteen, and I know my parents are thinking of a suitable husband for me. But I am more than ever in love with my dear, sweet friend. I don’t need to name him. And he has made clear his love for me. He knows as well as I do that marriage is impossible, Father would never consent to it, but we have promised ourselves and each other that we will cherish each day, each hour, that we can be together until it is no longer possible. How I dread that day.

  Olga celebrated her eighteenth birthday in Livadia at a party with a splendid luncheon with dancing afterward, not in the palace but on the quarterdeck of the Standart. Naturally, Lieutenant Voronov was among her partners, but she danced with him only twice. I know they would have danced every dance if they could, but they behaved prudently and danced with others. I could see that he was always searching for her, and her eyes followed him wherever he went, but unless I missed something, there was no chance for them to slip out of sight.

  I wondered who else in our family knew about her real feelings. Surely others must have noticed how she glowed like a dozen candles when he was nearby. I should have guessed it would be Aunt Olga.

  The only person in whom I can confide is Aunt Olga. She brought it up herself just yesterday. She said that Mother and Father are aware of my “attachment.” I asked if they want to end it, and she said it is very likely. I began to cry, and she was so kind and understanding and told me something I didn’t know about her marriage to Petya. She has never loved him, but Grandmère Marie insisted on the marriage, because she didn’t want Aunt Olga to leave Russia. It was a disaster from the beginning. “Our marriage is unconsummated,” she said, and that shocked me. I didn’t know what to say.

  I wouldn’t have known what to say either, because I didn’t know what unconsummated meant. It was probably another word to add to my list of words not to be used.

  Possibly, I thought, it had something to do with what happened between married people, and that was a totally forbidden subject. Whenever I asked a question—and I had lots of questions—Mama always told me the same thing: “Time enough for you to know all that, my girlie, when you are grown up and ready to marry.” Don’t even say the word! Better not even to think it!

  Shura, my nurse, had explained to me the changes that a girl’s body goes through as she becomes a woman, the “visits from Madame Becker,” but nothing beyond that. Marie was also completely uninformed, and our older sisters were not much help. Tatiana explained how babies grow inside their mothers, because she remembered when Mama was expecting Alexei, but not even Olga would say how the babies got there.

  Expecting was a proper word, according to Tatiana, but pregnant was not to be used, along with bosom and mistress. I made up a little song: “If a mistress has a bosom she might be pregnant.” It had the desired effect—Tatiana turned red and called me Shvibzik.

  Now I had a new word to spring on her: unconsummated.

  • • •

  Alexei, doing something silly and reckless, fell off a chair. This time he hit his knee, it began to swell all the way down to his ankle, and he couldn’t walk. The pain was even worse than usual. The new doctor, Derevenko, prescribed hot mud baths, and eventually he did get better—whether it was the mud or Father Grigory’s prayers, I could
n’t say—but we stayed in Livadia longer than usual.

  Olga, of course, didn’t mind at all that we lingered in Livadia, because that meant she would see more of Pavel Voronov. She didn’t even bother to pretend that she was not in love with him, and I was a little embarrassed to read in her notebook such romantic stuff as My tender darling smiled, and I could read the love in his eyes, and My dear, sweet friend rejoiced when I told him we could meet for a walk in the rose garden.

  But the roses soon faded, and we left Livadia to return to Tsarskoe Selo when Alexei’s pain was somewhat better. Then something went awfully wrong for Olga. Her eyes were red and swollen from weeping, and she wouldn’t say what had happened. I was sure it had something to do with Pavel.

  Marie asked me, “What do you think has upset Olya?” I shrugged and said I didn’t know. Marie said, “Well, let’s ask her.”

  I was with Marie when she spoke to Olga. Tatiana was there, too, also waiting for the explanation.

  “It’s quite simple,” Olga said sadly. She sat on the edge of her bed, smoothing her dress over her knees, pressing a row of lace that would not lie flat. “Mother and Father have informed me that I must break off my friendship with Lieutenant Voronov. He has become engaged to Olga Kleinmichel.”

  “Olga Kleinmichel!” Marie exclaimed. “She’s one of Mama’s ladies-in-waiting, and she’s not half as pretty as you, Olya!”

  I nudged Marie and whispered for her to hush. Tatiana bit her lip.

  Olga tried to smile and ended up choking back tears. “It really doesn’t matter. They’re friends. Her aunt has an estate near Livadia, and he’s been spending time there. He isn’t in love with her, I know that much, but I don’t know if she loves him or not. They’re to be married at the beginning of February, and then he is being given a leave of two months, for them to travel. They’re to live in St. Petersburg, I understand. Pasha”—she corrected herself—“Lieutenant Voronov has been reassigned to the yacht Alexandria. No more Standart. I think he’s sad about that. He loves the Standart!”