“Maybe at Christmastime they’ll allow us a brief visit,” Mama said. “Just a few minutes. Surely that’s not an excess.”
We labored for weeks making simple gifts for each of the loyal servants who’d bravely and unselfishly chosen to share our fate. And we had a Christmas tree, a small one cut for us by Anton Ivanovich, the soldier who, I thought, must have succumbed to “Marie’s saucers.” We spent hours devising decorations for it made from bits of colorful wool and Mama’s tiny paintings of holly and berries.
“It’s possibly the handsomest tree we’ve ever had,” I declared, and my sisters were kind enough not to call that an outright lie.
On Christmas Eve, surrounded by guards, we crunched through the most recent snowfall to the little nearby church for Mass. We were hopeful that Baroness Buxhoeveden might be there, too, and we would be able to see her and perhaps even to exchange a Christmas kiss. I wished desperately that Dr. Botkin and his son and daughter would be allowed to attend the same Mass. But none of the people we longed to see were there—just the usual sullen soldiers with their rifles and bayonets.
Our situation worsened when the priest made the mistake of praying for the tsar and his family. That prayer had always been the custom, but it had been eliminated since Papa’s abdication. When the soldiers heard it, they were furious. After that, we weren’t allowed to go back to the church at all, at any time.
One more thing to break poor Mama’s heart.
CHAPTER 22
Prisoners
TOBOLSK, WINTER 1918
As the bleak winter wore on, we decided to build a snow mountain like the one our servants had once helped us make at Tsarskoe Selo. We set to work shoveling snow into a great heap in the exercise yard, stopping occasionally to fling snowballs and to chase each other around our little mountain as it grew higher. With everybody helping—even a few soldiers—it took almost two weeks to build our mountain and then to carry water from the tap in the kitchen, some thirty buckets of it, to pour over it. Sometimes the water froze before we could pour it over the piled-up snow, but eventually we managed to create a toboggan run. Chef Kharitonov supplied roasting pans and metal trays, and we immensely enjoyed sliding down on our improvised toboggans.
We learned that the regiment of older soldiers—the ones we got along with best—was being sent away. Some of them came secretly to say good-bye. On the day the regiment left, Papa and Alexei climbed to the top of the ice mountain, from which they could look out over the fence and watch as the men marched off. Guards immediately spotted them. Within an hour a detachment of soldiers stormed in with shovels and picks and tore down our lovely little mountain, while we watched helplessly.
New soldiers, young recruits, arrived. Most were revolutionaries who made it plain that they hated us. Guards were now posted inside the house as well as outside. They drew disgusting pictures on the wooden fence that we couldn’t help seeing. Even “Marie’s saucers” and her engaging ways didn’t make things any better, and she stopped even wanting to try.
Some of these hostile new soldiers demanded that Papa remove the epaulets from the shoulders of the army uniform he wore every day. These were the insignia of a colonel, the only rank he’d held, even when he was in command of the Russian army. Papa, who was usually very agreeable in order not to upset anyone, stubbornly refused to take them off. His father, Tsar Alexander, had awarded him those epaulets, and he was going to wear them, no matter what. When Prince Dolgorukov told him that it would be better for everybody if he obeyed the order, Papa finally gave in—sort of. He wore a cape concealing them whenever he went out into the exercise yard.
Mama sent a message to Baroness Buxhoeveden through Dr. Botkin that she would stand at her window every day at one o’clock and asked Sophie to stand at hers. Day after day, that is what they did, bundled in their warmest coats and wrapped in scarves, the windows open for a few minutes. I heard Mama speaking, and I could just make out that Sophie was also speaking, but I couldn’t make out a word either one said.
“I have no idea what she’s saying,” Mama said. “The sentries will not allow us to have an actual conversation, and so we simply pretend we do.”
Each week brought us new worries and new hardships.
Colonel Kobylinsky, looking ten years older than he had only a few months before, told Papa that he wanted to resign. He explained that he didn’t have control over the soldiers anymore and felt he could no longer help us.
“A transfer to Murmansk?” Papa whispered to him. “Is that no longer a possibility?”
Kobylinsky shook his head.
Papa pleaded with him not to leave. Finally the colonel agreed to stay on, at least for a while. Soon after, the two civilian commissars, Pankratov and Nikolsky, were dismissed. We had no idea what to make of that.
• • •
Someone had decided that it was costing the new government too much money to feed us. We had to let go at least half of our servants, and that was sad because many of them had families here and would now have no way to support them. Most of the kitchen staff was dismissed. Only Kharitonov and the kitchen boy, Lenka, would stay. Also, we were going to be put on soldiers’ rations. No more butter or coffee, they announced sternly, and that made me laugh because it was almost the start of the Great Fast, when we never ate butter anyway. And we all drink tea, not coffee.
Intolerable, we whispered among ourselves—but we had to tolerate it.
One of those let go was my dear Shura. Gilliard arranged for her to move out of her cubicle in the fish merchant’s house and into a small apartment nearby. I think it was an arrangement they both liked, and of course we teased them mercilessly. Shura promised to come to see us every day, but we quickly learned that was forbidden.
A new rule was imposed. No one in the fish merchant’s house could go anywhere unless accompanied by a guard. “The guards dislike it and sometimes refuse,” Gilliard told us. “I have to bribe them to take me to see Shura.”
• • •
“If we’re going to be rescued, I hope it happens soon,” Alexei said one evening.
That’s what we’d prayed for, and Mama believed that our prayers were about to be answered. Her maid, Anna Demidova, repeated a rumor that she’d heard whispered in one of the shops: A man named Boris Soloviev who had married Rasputin’s daughter was raising money to arrange a rescue—armed guards hired, a riverboat or several sleighs secured, depending on the time of year, to take us to a train that would also have to be secured, to carry us all the way to Vladivostok. That it was Father Grigory’s son-in-law in charge of the plans convinced Mama we were soon to be saved.
We waited tensely. The days dragged on. We heard nothing, but Mama’s faith didn’t waver.
The cold deepened. I could hardly wait to rush back inside at the end of the hour we were allowed for outside exercise. At least inside the governor’s mansion it was slightly above freezing. Still, despite the privations, we were all fairly healthy—even Alexei—although everyone was bone-thin except me, the dumpling on legs.
Every day Dr. Botkin came to look at our throats, take our temperatures, and listen to Mama’s heart. He looked weary. His elegantly tailored blue suits hung on his large frame, his immaculate white shirts were frayed and yellowing, and he had apparently exhausted his supply of French cologne that had always been the clue that he was somewhere nearby.
We asked if he had brought another story about Mishka Toptiginsky and more of Gleb’s paintings, and sometimes he had. I waited for the doctor to say something, anything at all, about Gleb. I was glad when Mama asked about him.
“I have spoken again to him about entering the priesthood, once this situation has come to an end and we leave here,” he said.
Mama beamed. “Such a lovely boy!” she said. “So good and pure! I believe he’s well suited to become a priest. He would minister well to those who were in his care.”
“But now he claims to have changed his mind about it. He seems to have become more interested
now in pursuing the life of an artist,” said the doctor. He reached in his medical bag for the pills Mama took for her heart. “Or perhaps there is some other reason that he hasn’t mentioned.”
I felt my face grow hot—even in that freezing room. Was I the reason? That was too much to hope for, but the one thing I had clung to during the dark weeks of our imprisonment was the notion that Gleb might care for me as I cared for him. I wondered if he thought of me, and I had to believe he did.
When I sometimes caught a glimpse of him, after staring for an hour or two through a small opening I’d melted in the thick frost covering the window, I imagined the conversations we might have as we walked along together. We would talk about art, of course, and share our memories of Livadia, the Standart, the beach at Peterhof where he found the sea glass as green as his eyes. And maybe we’d even talk shyly about our dreams of the future. But these conversations existed only in my mind.
• • •
Alexei hadn’t been bleeding for some time, but there was a wildness in him that could not be controlled. He took it into his head to try using one of Kharitonov’s metal trays as a toboggan and the staircase as a toboggan slide, now that the snow mountain had been destroyed. No one saw what he was up to until it was too late. We heard the clattering as he made his first run, and then his cry when he fell off. The bleeding started inside his body, and the pain increased until it must have been unbearable. It was like the terrible time at Spala all over again. I stopped my ears against the sound of his screams, but Mama never left his side. The two doctors did what they could, but there was no Father Grigory to perform a miracle. Eventually, though, the pain eased, and slowly Alexei got better. Mama said our prayers were responsible.
The news from beyond our prison got worse. When Papa learned that the new Bolshevik government had signed a peace treaty with Germany, he broke down in tears. “A disgrace!” he sobbed. “Suicide for Russia, the death of my beloved country!”
Moscow was now the capital instead of Petrograd, and a new commissar was coming to take the place of the two who’d been dismissed. We speculated who this new commissar would be—Papa thought it might be Leon Trotsky, who was running the Bolshevik government with Lenin. Then one day, when the spring thaw was turning the frozen ground to muddy slush, a government official rode into Tobolsk escorted by dozens of horsemen. We watched them pass, their horses and their uniforms covered in mud, and a little later Vasily Vasilyevich Yakovlev sent a message asking if he might have tea with Mama and Papa. We studied him carefully as he arrived. He was tall and strong looking, dressed in a clean uniform and polished boots, and he made a good impression by bowing and addressing Mama and Papa as “Your Majesty.” They took him to meet Alexei, and he seemed truly concerned when he saw that my brother wasn’t able to bend his leg.
My parents were nervous about this man. He didn’t tell them why he had come. Every change seemed to be a bad omen, and not knowing what was about to happen kept us on edge.
“Vasily Vasilyevich speaks well,” Papa said. He was nervously smoking one of the last of his cigarettes. “He seems like an educated man.”
“I don’t trust him,” Mama said. “I don’t trust what he’s been sent here to do. There is a shifty look to his eye that I don’t like.” She turned to Tatiana. “Perhaps you girlies can find something to do in your room while I discuss matters further with your father.”
Tatiana, Marie, and I rose obediently and started to leave, but Olga didn’t move. For months Olga had said little, dispirited and sunk in her own dark thoughts. Now suddenly she rebelled. “We want to know what’s happening,” she announced. “We are no longer children. We might have been ‘girlies’ in Tsarskoe Selo, but we are not ‘girlies’ in Siberia—not any of us, neither Tanya nor I, and not Mashka, and not Nastya, either. And Lyosha, too, must know—he’s not ‘Baby.’ These months as prisoners have made us adults.”
Mama looked shocked. “All right,” Papa said, and smiled wanly. “I agree. We will keep nothing from you. Yakovlev brought a telegraph machine with him and a telegraph operator who keeps him in direct communication with Moscow. His orders come from there. I believe he has come to take us to Moscow and put me on trial. But so far he has told us nothing.”
Mama sighed. “We must have faith that God will see to it that we are rescued. Our fate is in His hands.”
One day when sleet pounded relentlessly against our windows and we decided to forgo the hour of outdoor exercise, Yakovlev came again to the governor’s mansion. This time he was blunt. He had received orders to take our family from Tobolsk to an undisclosed destination, but because Alexei still could not walk and was clearly an invalid, only Papa would be taken. “The rest will stay behind.”
“I refuse to go,” Papa said. “I will not be separated from my family.”
Yakovlev tried to reason with him. “If you do not go willingly, you will be taken forcibly.” He didn’t call Papa “Your Majesty” this time, but he did promise to be personally responsible for Papa’s safety. Then he added, “You may take anyone with you that you wish, but you must be ready to leave at four o’clock tomorrow morning.”
As soon as Yakovlev had gone, Papa sent for Kobylinsky. “Where do you think they’ll take me?” he asked.
Kobylinsky shrugged helplessly. “I have been told only that the journey will take four or five days.”
“Moscow, then?”
“Perhaps.”
I had never seen Mama so upset, so torn. On the one hand, she felt compelled to go with Papa, to be with him for whatever he faced. If he was to be put on trial in Moscow, then she wanted to be at his side. On the other hand, Alexei was still unable to walk and was far from well. How could she bring herself to leave him?
“For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do,” she said, burying her fingers in her hair—it had turned completely gray in the past months. “I’ve always felt inspired by God in making a decision, but now I simply can’t think!”
Olga, Marie, and I sat close to her, weeping helplessly, but Tatiana—always the strong one—immediately took charge. She ran downstairs and returned with Monsieur Gilliard.
He kissed Mama’s hand. “Alexei’s crisis is past,” he assured her. “Go with your husband with the complete assurance that I will take responsibility for the care of your son.”
Mama gazed at Gilliard for a moment or two, and then her face became calm. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, you’re right. I’ll go with Nicky, and you will stay here.” She looked at each of us thoughtfully. “One of you must come with me.”
“But which of us, Mama?” I asked. My head was spinning. I did not want to go, but I also did not want to be left behind.
“Decide among yourselves,” she said.
We looked at one another. I thought it should be Olga, because she was the eldest. But she seemed to know what I was thinking and shook her head. “Tanya,” Olga said. “Tanya should go.”
“No,” Tatiana said. “No, I think it best if I stay here to oversee the household and help Zhilik with Lyosha. Mashka is the most cheerful of the four of us, the most reliable, and therefore best able to be helpful to Mama. She should go.”
I agreed with Tatiana’s choice. “Yes, it must be Mashka.”
Marie closed her eyes. “All right then,” she said when she’d opened them. We each nodded. “Of course I will go.”
More decisions were made. Anna Demidova, Mama’s maid, would accompany them, although she was plainly terrified. So would Papa’s valet, Trupp.
Dr. Botkin, Prince Dolgorukov, and General Tatischev came to take tea with us, as they did every evening, and listened as Papa explained the plan they’d agreed upon. Dolgorukov immediately announced that he, too, would go, and Papa gripped his hand gratefully.
“Certainly I will accompany you,” Dr. Botkin said quietly, and I stopped crying into my handkerchief long enough to stare at him. “Dr. Derevenko will remain here as Alexei’s physician.”
Mama was surprised, too. �
�But your children? Gleb and Tatiana? You will leave them?”
“I will make arrangements for them. My duty has always been with Your Majesties.”
What arrangements? I wanted to ask, but I dared not.
• • •
The hours passed much too quickly. Clothes were packed and repacked, last-minute instructions given, good-byes said, rivers of tears shed. We still didn’t know where they were being taken, or when we would be able to join them. Yakovlev shouted orders, directing people into the clumsy peasant carts lined with straw swept up from a pigsty. Mama was bundled in Dr. Botkin’s fur coat, and someone went to fetch another coat for him. Marie was to ride with Mama. Papa was ordered into an open carriage with Yakovlev. Prince Dolgorukov, Dr. Botkin, and the others were directed to carts. Guardsmen mounted on restless horses waited for the order.
A signal was given and the carts jolted forward and clattered away, leaving the street deserted and eerily silent. We climbed upstairs, numb with fear. I remember hardly anything about the rest of that day, but the following day I read this in Olga’s notebook:
The world is a dark, dark place. Our family now wrenched apart, parents and one sister taken away, who knows to where, for what purpose? Tanya stands ready to keep us going here until the next terrible thing happens. She’s so much stronger than I am. Even Nastya is stronger. Father and Mother continue to cling to the belief that we will be rescued, somehow, by someone, but who? I have no hope of rescue. I have no hope of anything good happening. The only hope I have is that I am wrong about everything.
Anastasia and Her Sisters Page 21
