Anastasia's Secret (12 page)

The next day brought even more changes. I heard the band and the drums outside, and begged Mashka to tell me what was happening.

“The Garde Equipage has been recalled to Petrograd.”

“The colors are leaving the palace?” I asked, not really able to believe it. The standards of the guard regiments that flew wherever we were in residence were to go away. It was to be as if we were not there anymore.

“Has Papa returned yet?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Where is he?” I felt the tears start in my eyes. It was the illness. Normally I never cried. I had begun to feel a bit better but was still very weak. “How are Olga and Tatiana doing?” I asked.

“They are still not well. Tatiana has abscesses in her ears, and Olga has developed pericarditis.”

Why was God doing this to us? Weren’t there enough troubles without all this sickness in our family? “At least you are well,” I said. Mashka smiled, but not with her usual cheerfulness.

No time seemed to pass before the next day, when Mashka joined us in the sickroom. Her fever was so high she was delirious. Lili Dehn took over her place as mother’s nurse-helper, and I then had to persuade her to tell me what was going on.

“There’s nothing any of us can do now, especially when we’re sick,” Lili said.

“But I must know!” I cried. “I can’t bear it.”

She sighed deeply, pulling a chair up to my bedside. “Your father was intercepted at Pskov, where a delegation met with him. They told him that the only way to avoid civil war was to abdicate in favor of the tsarevich.”

“He did not do it!” I exclaimed. Sasha’s words echoed in my mind. But Lili’s downcast eyes told me otherwise.

“Not exactly everything they asked. He refused to give the tsarevich to them, saying that at least they might grant him his family.”

“So … Papa is …”

“No longer the tsar.”

“Then who is?” I could not imagine Russia without a tsar. It was inconceivable.

“He gave the crown to the Grand Duke Michael.”

That could have been much worse, I remember thinking. Things would change, but the empire would survive. The Romanov dynasty. Yet Lili still did not look happy.

“What? What more is there to tell me?”

“We have just been told that your uncle has refused to reign. There will be no tsar, only a provisional government until something can be decided.”

I closed my eyes against the news. I could not fathom what it would mean. It was too much to take in at once. When I am well, I thought, I shall think about it then.

C
HAPTER
15

By the time Papa was able to come home after many delays, I was strong enough to get out of bed. It felt very odd the first time I dressed and walked—feeling rather wobbly—to my mother’s boudoir. It didn’t take very long, though, to see that much had changed.

The first thing I noticed was the difference in the palace guard. Soldiers from the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Rifles came to replace the Composites, who simply didn’t exist anymore. The new guards were very different from the ones we used to have, some more than others. Their uniforms were sloppy, they slouched at their posts, and they didn’t really seem to have any officers, although Zhilik told me that the officers were supposed to have been elected by the men. No one showed Papa much respect, and we were likely to come upon soldiers wandering the halls at any time.

At first, I was more bewildered than anything else. It was as if I had fallen ill in one world and awakened in another, where everything was upside down.

“Where did all the servants go?” I asked Tatiana one morning as we sewed in Mama’s boudoir, with Alexei looking at a large photograph album.

“Most of them ran away when they heard the news of Papa’s abdication, and that the soldiers had mutinied.” We spoke in hushed tones; I mouthed the words so Tatiana would understand me despite the fact that she was nearly deaf in one ear because of the abscesses they had to drain. So long as we were quiet and secretive about it, it seemed as if we could keep everything at bay. Saying the words out loud would make the changes all too real.

“Why are there so many soldiers around the palace?”

“Mama was arrested.”

I gasped. “Arrested? Why?” It seemed so odd to have her calmly sitting as she was when the Provisional Government had basically accused her of being a criminal.

“They say she is a traitor, that she conspired with Grigory against Russia.”

“It is time for your lessons, Anastasie,” my mother said, interrupting our muted conversation before I had time to comprehend what Tatiana told me.

“Must I yet?” I asked. “Can’t I have a few days just to rest?”

“Come, Anastasie. We can do some drawing today.” Trina had risen on Mama’s cue and held out her hand to me as she had when I was ten. I knew she meant to be kind, but I felt quite angry about being dismissed to the schoolroom. Doubtless Mama wanted me to go away so she could talk to Tatiana about things she thought I was too young to hear. But I didn’t want to make a scene, so I went with Trina—without taking her hand. As soon as we reached the schoolroom I took out my drawing pad and pencils and sketched a soldier I could see from the window, who was asleep at his post.

After a long silence I asked Trina, “Who is left here? Please tell me. I know what’s going on.”

“Do you indeed?” Trina said, not really asking a question.

“Yes. I do. I know Papa had to abdicate, and Mama has been arrested. Now I’d be grateful if you would stop treating me like a baby and tell me the rest.” I laid down my pad and pencil, crossed my arms over my chest, and put my feet up on another chair.

Trina looked quite uncomfortable, but she did as I asked. “There is your family of course,” she began. “And M. Gilliard, although they won’t let Mr. Gibbes in because he was at the Catherine Palace in his apartments when the arrest was made, and since then they’ve been strictly controlling who may come and go. So Alexei’s lessons have been somewhat curtailed. Baroness Buxhoeveden, Lili Dehn, Countess Hendrikova, Count Fredericks, Count Benckendorff, Count Apraxin …” She stopped to think for a moment. “And oh yes, Prince Dolgorukov has come to stay with your papa. And Anna Demidova is still here to take care of your mama, along with Dr. Botkin and Dr. Derevenko, and the maid Madeleine Zanotti. Then there are the officers …” She held up her fingers, counting off the members of the household, who were once too numerous to list in that way. “… General Voyeikov and Colonel Grooten, and the valets—Chemodurov, Volkov, Sedner. There are enough cooks and footmen to do for us, as well as the barber, butler, and wine steward. The faithful servants have remained.”

And I knew that Anya was in the sickroom, having gotten measles herself and still suffering from them terribly.

As I continued to gaze out the window, I saw Papa and Prince Dolgorukov walking in the garden. Papa looked small next to the tall, thin prince with his clipped mustache. The prince had a way of loping elegantly, like a wolfhound. Papa took about one and a half steps to every one of the prince’s, yet somehow he managed to look more regal and remain unhurried. They were followed by a motley group of half a dozen soldiers who kept right behind them whichever way they turned. How could Papa stand it? I thought. He loved to take his exercise outdoors. Now he had to wait for the soldiers to accompany him.

I felt very alone while Mashka was still sick. I went to sit by her and read to her, but she was often delirious with fever. At those times, I would tell her all my secrets, as one would do with a favorite doll, feeling the relief of getting them off my chest, and the security of knowing they would go no further. I told her about Sasha, and how worried I was about him, that he had kissed me once, although sometimes I thought he still considered me a child. I wished I could have seen Sasha then, for things to go back to the way they had been. But I realized that would never happen.

In fact, the more we tried to pretend everything was normal, the stranger it all became. One morning I went into Mama’s sitting room to find her kneeling by the fire, her correspondence scattered around her in piles. Isa was trying to help her sort it out. Mama was never very organized, but I had never seen a mess like that.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Paul—Count Benckendorff—has advised me to burn all my letters. He says they could be used against me if I am taken away. But I shall only burn the most personal ones. The others I intend to preserve so that my loyalty to Russia and your father’s loyalty might be proven by what we wrote to each other while we were tsar and tsaritsa.” Every once in a while Mama said or did something that reminded me she had officially been arrested and was a prisoner here in her own home. I tried not to think about the possibility that she might actually be taken away to be tried or imprisoned. It was inconceivable.

Mama stopped what she was doing and looked around. I thought perhaps she would cry. But instead she just sat silently, very pale, her hands shaking a little. “Be a darling, Nastya, and bring Tatiana to me. You can take her place with Marie and Olga.”

It hurt me to be sent away, but I knew that Mama got more comfort from Tatiana’s practical presence than from any of the rest of us—not counting Alyosha, of course, who was with Zhilik having his lessons.

I went as Mama asked to the sickroom. It was rather restful in its way. Wherever else they went in the palace, the soldiers never entered the darkened room where the measles sufferers lay.

On my way back to our floor, I saw through a window my father and Prince Dolgorukov setting out on their habitual walk through the park. They were flanked by eight soldiers with their rifles, bayonets fixed. Papa looked so harmless and vulnerable there, wearing a plain coat and a fur hat. They began to take their usual route, but then another soldier came running up and stopped them. I could not hear what was said, but they were turned back, and came trudging dejectedly toward the palace. I gathered they were no longer being allowed the run of the garden. Our garden. It was unbearable.

There was still quite a lot of snow on the ground, and with few servants to care for the grounds anymore, it lay in drifts all around, except on the paths worn by the soldiers, and Papa’s daily walks. But what I saw next surprised and saddened me. Papa said something to one of his usual guards, who turned and spoke with the others around him. After some conferring, they apparently agreed on something, and one of them went off in the direction of the stables. A few minutes later he returned bearing two snow shovels. My father and Prince Dolgorukov reached out for them, and to my complete astonishment, began with great energy to shovel the snow from the courtyard area into large mounds.

There was my father, bending his back like the meanest peasant, and yet he looked contented doing it. I moved on, continuing to the sickroom to deliver my message to Tatiana.

Something about our situation brought the peasant songs of Russia into my head at the oddest moments. Perhaps it was because I no longer felt as if we were royalty living in a palace, but that the walls that separated us from the rest of the world had been torn down. I so wanted to bring out Sasha’s balalaika—half glad that Mashka had never conveyed my message to him, for what could he have done anyway?—but I was afraid that it would be taken away from me by the guards, who were suspicious of anything unusual. Once I accidentally created a great furor by sewing next to a window in the evening, and covering and uncovering a red-shaded lamp as I reached for my scissors. The guards burst in with their pistols out in search of the person who was sending a “secret message” out the window. They were a little embarrassed, to be fair, when they discovered what had actually happened. But that didn’t stop them.

One morning I heard Joy’s excited yapping outside the schoolroom door, and an instant later Alyosha came bounding into our schoolroom and said, “Let’s play at being spies. I’ve got some clever guns in my playroom, and we can wear cloaks and sneak around trying to evade the soldiers.”

Except for lesson times, it was very tedious reading and knitting and sewing all day. I knew I was too old for Alexei’s silly games, but he so enjoyed them, and it would be fun to try to beat the awful soldiers at their own game. “All right,” I said. I put down my book and ran with Alyosha to his playroom, which was bigger than ours, even though there was only one of him and four of us. But it didn’t matter, because we all played in both rooms at different times.

As we approached, Joy started growling and baring her teeth. Alyosha opened the door and stopped so suddenly I nearly crashed into him. He grabbed Joy up into his arms to stop her from running in. “What are you doing in my playroom!”

About half a dozen soldiers were methodically going through all the toy cupboards and chests, turning out their contents onto the floor. They had made a pile of toy guns and other weapons. “We have orders to confiscate all weapons or weapon-like items in the palace,” said one whose cheeks flamed red as he said it.

“Weapons!” I cried. “These are toys! What use is there in taking them away?”

A soldier whose uniform was dirty and face unshaven stepped forward slowly, tossing aside Alyosha’s favorite stuffed dog as he did so. At that gesture, Joy struggled free of Alyosha’s arms and flew at the man, her teeth bared. I knew Joy was in danger if she attacked any of our guards, so I ran forward and took hold of her collar, pulling her back as she struggled to lunge for the soldier.

“I insist you leave this instant,” Alyosha said. He could put on quite a commanding voice when he chose to.

The soldier that Joy had almost attacked glowered at Alyosha. “We don’t take orders from your papa anymore, and we won’t take orders from you. Men, complete the search.”

We stood there, helpless, and watched them remove the most harmless of toys, anything with moving parts, including a train that Alyosha especially loved to play with. They threw them all into sacks and gathered in front of us. We were blocking the door.

“You have more toys than a whole city of children,” the surly guard said. “There’s still plenty for you to amuse yourself with.”

He marched forward, forcing us to step out of the way so they could all pass. Neither Alyosha nor I had the spirits to play after that.

The day after Alyosha’s toys were taken, we received a visit from Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, who Tatiana told me was the minister of justice in the Provisional Government. The guards made a great fuss about the fact that he was coming, and those of us who were not ill had to wait for him in the small parlor the suite had made out of the rooms they were allotted within the palace.