Angel on the Square

by Gloria Whelan

  “You will not be a special friend. You will be her glorified sluzhanka, spending all your time bowing and scraping like a servant.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “Mama says the Tsar’s daughters are very nice girls. Lidya is friends with one of their governesses, who says they are not spoiled at all. I happen to know they take cold baths every morning, which is more than you do.”

  “Living in the Alexander Palace will be like living in a prison,” Misha warned. “You won’t be able to go anywhere without soldiers guarding you.”

  Irritated that Misha was trying to spoil everything, I snarled at him in French, for a footman had come into the room. “You’re just jealous.” I knew it infuriated Misha when people spoke French in front of servants so they could not understand. I was so angry, I wouldn’t even give Misha half my dessert, something I always did, because he loved sweets so and because I wanted a waist as small as Mama’s when I grew up.

  Misha relented. I think he sometimes got tired of taking himself so seriously. After supper, instead of disappearing into his room with his books or going off to see friends, he played chess with me in the little parlor. The warmth from the great porcelain stove that stretched to the ceiling, the French carpet woven with roses, and the tapestries with their summer scenes of people frolicking in the woods all made winter seem far away. Because Misha was so good at chess, he usually gave me little hints and even let me take back moves. This time he was ruthless.

  “You must get used to losing, Katya,” he said. “At the palace the royals always win.” With a grin, he added, “Since you will be such good friends with the Tsar, you must ask him when everyone can vote and when we will have freedom of speech, and when the peasants will get a decent piece of land of their own.”

  “The Tsar is too busy for such nonsense,” I snapped.

  Misha’s grin disappeared. The serious look I had grown to hate came over his face. I prepared myself to be scolded, but he only kissed my forehead and sent me to bed.

  “I won’t spoil your dreams,” he said. “Plenty of time for that. If you are a good girl, I’ll take you tobogganing tomorrow on the hill across from St. Isaac’s Cathedral.”

  That night, as I lay warm under my comforter, half listening for Mama’s return from the ball, my excitement wore off. It would be a very great privilege to live in the palace, but here in the Zhukovsky mansion everything centered around me. Misha called me spoiled, but it wasn’t my fault that Papa had died in a war and Mama had only me and Misha to love. As a lady-in-waiting, Mama would have to spend her days doing what the Empress wished. There would be little time left over for me. I would have to say good-bye to Lidya as well, since I would be having my lessons with Anastasia and her tutor.

  And what would Anastasia be like? I did not mind the thought of playing with Anastasia and her sisters, but would I have to kneel down to them? Would I have to let them win at chess because they were the daughters of the Tsar? What if I had to take cold baths?

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE WINTER PALACE

  Spring 1913

  We learned that we were to go to the palace in September. In early May the Tsar and his family traveled south to the Crimea in search of sun and warmth. Even the Tsar of all the Russias could not warm St. Petersburg while jagged chunks of ice from the north made their way down the Neva River. In June the imperial family would go sailing on their yacht.

  That spring I coaxed Lidya to go about the city with me. I was saying good-bye to my favorite places. We walked along the river and canals, watching the ferries and the barges loaded with firewood brought from the forests of Finland. Trees were scarce on the swampland on which St. Petersburg is built. After the barges were unloaded, we saw the barges themselves taken apart and made into firewood.

  We spent afternoons in the Summer Garden, where army officers, along with the best of St. Petersburg society, exercised their horses. I sniffed the roses that grew there and cooled my hands under the water that tumbled from the fountains. While I wandered about, Lidya sat stiffly on a bench, holding her green parasol over her head like a small tree to protect her fair complexion from the sun.

  June brought the beliye nochi, the white nights when it was light until two or three in the morning. Coax as I might, Lidya made me go to bed at my regular time, drawing the heavy draperies against the daylight. But there were evenings when Mama, just home from some reception or ball, would allow me to stand on the balcony of her bedroom in my nightdress. There, long past midnight, the whole city was parading cheerfully up and down the prospekt, as if the extra hours of daylight were a lavish gift to be recklessly squandered.

  While Mama and I waited for the Tsar’s return, we began preparations for our new life. Madame LaMott came with her sewing machine. Madame, who was plump, looked like a porcupine with a pincushion tied to one wrist and pins bristling from her mouth. She spat out a pin or two with every word. Though Madame’s taste in clothes for Mama was excellent, she herself wore dresses that looked as though they had once been piano shawls or window draperies. I was glad to see her, for she always brought me chocolates from Paris.

  You could not move in the sewing room without tripping over paper patterns and snippets of ribbon and lace. Soon a trunk was filled, and then another and another.

  Misha watched our preparations with disdain. He had his own life. Mama was so taken up with packing, she didn’t notice his late hours or the strange appearance of the young men who called for him. Some of them were a year older than Misha and already at the university. Their clothes were shabby, and they talked in low, conspiratorial voices, calling one another “tovarich.” When I asked Misha about them, he said, “Their heads are filled with ideas, Katya, not clothes.” That wasn’t a nice thing to say about me, or a true one, for my head was full of ideas about how my life was going to change.

  The second week in June Mama and I were to meet the Tsar and his family and to spend the night at the Winter Palace. Mama was to attend a court ball there given by the Tsar and the Empress. The Alexander Palace had only a hundred rooms, none of them suitable for a ball, while the Winter Palace had a thousand rooms spread over twenty acres. The Tsar and Empress could give as many balls there as they wished.

  Strolling along the banks of the Neva River with Lidya, I had passed the Winter Palace many times. It was one of our favorite walks. When the sun shone a certain way, the reflection of the palace lay quivering on the water as if there were a second palace inhabited by mermaids. The other side of the palace overlooked a great square, and in the center of the square a granite column soared heavenward. At the top of the column, which celebrated Russia’s victory over Napoleon, was a bronze angel. Lidya promised me, “Difficult times and even wars may come to the city, but as long as the angel watches over St. Petersburg, the city will survive.”

  I had longed to see the inside of the Winter Palace, but now that the moment had come, I cowered behind Mama. The palace entrance hall, with its white marble stairway, was three stories high. Right away I felt small. The walls were mirrored. I couldn’t avoid seeing my insignificant and puny self dwarfed by all the grandeur.

  In a parade of three, Mama and I followed behind a footman wearing a shako, a high hat trimmed with a feather. He led us though rooms whose walls were covered with damask and hung floor to ceiling with paintings. Overhead were crystal chandeliers that might have been carved from ice, under our feet were rugs that seemed too beautiful to step on, and everywhere was the kind of carved and gilded furniture that was torture to sit on. It was more museum than palace, and I wondered how I could sleep in such a place.

  At last we came to the wing where the imperial family lived. The Empress and her children were taking tea in a room whose walls were decorated with malachite pillars. I knew how precious the green stone was, for I had a treasured ring with a tiny chip of malachite, and here was a whole room of it!

  The Empress herself greeted us. I thought her very beautiful. She was tall, with a wide forehead, and an a
ristocratic nose. Her eyes were large and friendly, with no trace of the frightened look she had worn in the carriage. Yet I thought I glimpsed a wistful sadness, as if she were used to putting on welcoming smiles for strangers, like putting on a new dress over worn-out petticoats.

  After Mama and I curtsied, and kissed her hand, the Empress put her arm around Mama. “Irina Petrovna, you are most welcome.” She turned to me. “And this is dear Ekaterina Ivanova! What a charming creature, with eyes like a June sky. The girls and I are having our tea. You must join us. The Tsar will be here later. It is terrible how he is bothered by the state ministers. If only his critics knew how he sacrifices his life to the country.” She shook her head angrily, as if the state ministers had no other purpose than to torment the Tsar.

  Grouped around a small tea table were four girls and a boy: the Grand Duchesses and the Tsarevich, Alexei. The girls, all dressed alike, rose from their chairs in welcome, so I immediately gave up any fear of having to kneel down before them. As I was introduced to each girl, a simple curtsy seemed all that was required.

  I had memorized the Grand Duchesses’ ages. Olga, who was eighteen, had her hair waved and pulled back into a grown-up knot. She appeared a little haughty and had a stubborn mouth. I could see she wished to be treated as an adult, for she kept herself a little apart from her brother and sisters. Tatiana was sixteen, dark-haired and, like her mother, tall and slim with a classic beauty. Marie, fourteen, was like a painting of an angel, with golden hair and enormous blue eyes. Anastasia, who was eleven, was plump, with long curls and a fringe across her forehead. She had a mischievous look, as if she were thinking up some devilment. Alexei, not quite nine, very pale and with a sweet smile, did not get up. The Empress quickly explained, “You must excuse Alexei. He has not been well. This is his first day out of bed.” There was that sad look on her face again.

  To cover the awkwardness of our first meeting, we all turned eagerly to our buttered bread and our glasses of tea, served in silver holders. I wished that Misha were there to see how simple the tea was, how there were none of the cakes and sweet biscuits we had at home for our tea. Mother and the Empress chatted away, but the girls and Alexei said little. The girls had embroidery hoops on their laps, and from time to time they would take them up and work a few stitches. After what seemed hours, but was only a few minutes, the Empress turned to Anastasia and said, “Take Ekaterina Ivanova and show her a bit of the palace, dear.”

  Anastasia appeared as relieved as I was to be dismissed and half walked, half skipped out of the room, while I backed awkwardly out after her, for I had been warned that it was impolite to turn your back on the Tsar or the Empress. As soon as we were out of hearing distance from the others, Anastasia asked, “What do your friends call you?”

  “Katya,” I said.

  “Then that is what I will call you, since you are to be my podruga. As my close friend, you can call me Stana. Would you like to see my papa’s bathroom?”

  I thought that was a very strange place to begin a tour, but I was too shy to say so. In one of the rooms she paused to show me a golden Easter egg, which opened at the touch of a button to reveal a tiny train that could be wound up. “It is just like Papa’s train that we take on all our trips.” Stana unfastened another egg, and there was a miniature of the scarlet-and-gold carriage in which Misha and I had seen her parents riding. Scattered over the tabletops were small gold boxes set with precious stones and, best of all, tiny vases fashioned of crystal with enameled and jeweled flowers. “Krasivo,” I said, sighing, for it was very beautiful. I would have been content to stay and examine such treasures, but Stana pulled me along.

  I held my breath as we entered what must have been the imperial bedroom. I was so awed at being in the room that I crossed it on tiptoe, trying to keep out of my head any disrespectful pictures of the Tsar and Empress in their nightshirts. The room was covered with lilac-and-white striped silk. Garlands of flowers were painted on the ceiling, and the walls were hung with portraits of Alexei and his sisters and with hundreds of icons, paintings of Jesus or Mary or the saints. I felt like all of heaven was looking down on me and frowning at my trespass.

  Stana opened a door with a flourish, and there was not just a bathroom but a kind of swimming pool. A swimming pool inside a house! I had never heard of such a thing. The floor of the room was white marble. The pool itself was a kind of tank with a marble bottom.

  Stana closed the door behind us. “Let’s go for a swim,” she said, “only we mustn’t get our hair wet or they’ll know.” Stana was already slipping out of her dress and petticoats. I was sure I shouldn’t follow her example, but I was tempted, for I had never gone swimming inside a house before. The next thing I knew, I was shedding my own petticoats.

  No one but Lidya and Mama had seen me without clothes, but Stana seemed to think nothing of slipping naked into the pool. In a moment we were splashing around in water warm as soup. The walls of the room were hung with paintings of seascapes and naval battles, so I imagined that I was swimming in an ocean.

  We both tried very hard to keep our heads out of the water, but a few minutes later, when we climbed out of the pool and into our clothes, I was alarmed to find we both had wet curls!

  On the way back Stana and I wandered up and down stairs, and from one wing of the palace to another, taking our time in the hopes that our hair would dry. In one hallway we found two footmen, felt pads on their feet, skating back and forth, buffing a wooden floor.

  When we reached the kitchens, I saw what appeared to be half a cow, roasting on a spit. Stana dipped her finger into a bowl of custard and licked her finger, then coaxed two pieces of cake from one of the cooks. “Come, Toma, we are starving. The bread at tea was sliced so thin, you could see through it, and there was no jam.”

  Toma, a stout woman with kind eyes and hair tied back in a kerchief, must have been used to such pleadings, for she laughed and handed us each a large slice of butter cake. “Here, then, but no word to the Empress or there will be trouble for both of us.” I thought it odd that the daughter of the Tsar should have to beg for food.

  After we left the kitchens, we entered a billiard room, where Stana picked up a cue and, with an expert poke, shot a ball across the table. As we passed a closed door, she said, “This is Papa’s office, where all day long he signs important papers. One day, if he lives, my brother, Alexei, will be Tsar and sign papers in there.”

  “If he lives? What’s wrong with your brother?”

  Stana gave me a quick look. “We’re not supposed to say, but since you’re to be my podruga, I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell anyone else. The Russian people mustn’t find out the heir to the throne is very sick.”

  I promised to say nothing.

  “My brother has hemophilia. If he suffers the least little bump or fall, he begins to bleed, and the bleeding won’t stop. Sometimes the bleeding is inside of Alexei’s body, and then he is in pain, which makes poor Mama cry. Mama blames herself, because the hemophilia was inherited from her grandmother Queen Victoria’s family. Mama’s little brother, Frittie, had it, and he died when he was only three, so she worries about Alexei all the time.”

  I was shocked. I could not imagine the tall regal Empress crying. “Can’t the doctors do something for Alexei?”

  “Nyet.” She shook her head. “There is no medicine. The doctors can’t do anything. Only Rasputin can help him.”

  “Rasputin?” I remembered Mama’s disgust when she mentioned his name.

  Stana nodded. “Yes, the holy peasant. Mama and Papa call him Father Grigory, but he is nothing like a priest. When he fixes his eyes on Alexei, and speaks to him in a soothing voice, Alexei gets better. I don’t like Rasputin. He is like a dog we once had that groveled when Papa or Mama was there but bit you when no one was looking. Worse, Rasputin smells like a barnyard. Now we had better go back, or Mama will send someone after us.”

  We found the Tsar sitting between the Empress and Mama, chatting away, a glass of t
ea in his hand. I could hardly believe this slight man with gentle blue eyes and a soft mouth, nearly hidden in his silky brown beard and mustache, was Nikolai II. I remembered seeing him in his scarlet-and-gold coach, and once I had stood with Mama and seen him mounted on a horse reviewing his troops. The soldiers had fallen on their knees before him. He had looked much larger then.

  The Tsar smiled at me. “So, you are to be the companion to my little Stana. We are very pleased to have you.” He reached over and patted Stana’s damp curls and then mine. He gave us a knowing look, and with horror I saw that he guessed we had been splashing in his bath. There was no scolding. He only smiled and said, “I hope, Katya, that you will be a good influence on Stana. She does not always think before she acts.”

  I had been in the palace for only a few hours, and already I had let down the Tsar of all the Russias. I was mortified, and I resolved I would not let Stana talk me into more mischief.

  The Tsar turned back to Mama and the Empress and went on with his conversation. Now his words were no longer gentle, as they had been to us. “There will always be people out there who dare to question the authority of the Tsar,” he said in a stern voice. “I let the people have a parliament and even let it meet in my own palace. What is my reward? The members of that Duma begin to tell me how to run my country—me, the Tsar. My grandfather freed the serfs, and what were his thanks? They murdered him! This is an autocracy and always will be. It is not some mindless democracy where the people act like spoiled children and do just as they please. In such countries the people vote for those who shout the loudest and promise them the most. I mean to strike down with a firm hand anyone who attacks the empire.”

  At these words I trembled for Misha. What if someone had overheard him criticizing the Tsar? I did not want Misha to be struck down with a firm hand.