The Kitchen Boy (13 page)

Though I was never to read the smuggled letter, I did see its effects, and exuberant effects they were. Gathered around the tea table that afternoon, the Romanovs ate their slices of bread and drank their black tea and surreptitiously passed the note from father to mother to daughter to sister… and so on… each of them not glancing at the words, but quickly holding the envelope to his or her nose and drinking in its scent. A marvel it was to them, something like a drug, something like a beacon that led back to the brightness of the dear past. I, who had driven the Heir in his chaise into the room, saw it all, saw their faces light up with shock and pleasure.

“Here, Leonka,” Aleksei Nikolaevich whispered to me, handing me the envelope at the very end of the line, “smell this.”

I held the paper to my nose, deeply inhaled, and… and my head bloomed like a flower, so rich, so sweet that… that I couldn’t help but sneeze like a horse. They all burst into laughter, every member of the Imperial Family and those few of us who were left of their fifteen thousand servants.

“Boodtye z’dorovy,
Leonka.” Be healthy, blessed Nikolai Aleksandrovich.

One by one the others mumbled a similar blessing, while I wiped my nose and quickly handed back the note to Aleksei, who tucked it hidden by his side there in the wheeling chair.

Day passed into evening, and supper was served at eight. After the meal, the Tsar read aloud to Botkin, while Aleksandra wrote furiously on a pad, and Tatyana, Olga, and Nyuta pretended to darn some undergarments, but really “arranged.” Eventually too Nikolai laid aside his book and took pen to paper writing not his diary, but a note, or more specifically a reply.
Da, da
. The following day when I carried out the reply to the third note I also carried out two replies to Mademoiselle Vyrubova’s letter. Sure, both the Tsar and Tsaritsa wrote back, notes that still exist by the way, for rather than destroying them, the sentimental cow carried them all the way out of Russia, whereupon they eventually made their way to the preserves of Yale University in America.

To his friend Anya, the Tsar wrote:

Thank you so much for your kind wishes, which we received only today. Our thoughts and prayers are always with you, poor suffering creature. Her Majesty read to us all your lines. Horrid to think all you had to go through. We are all right here. It is quite quiet. Pity we have not seen you in so very long. Kisses and blessings without end from your loving friend, N. Give my best love to your parents.

The Tsar’s reply, of course, took him some time to compose. Yes, he was the careful one. Everything in its place, including words on a page. The Empress, however, was all heart, all emotion, and her reply, written in English, came out in one long gush:

My Darling, My Dear Little Owl, I kiss you tenderly. You are in all our hearts. We pray for you and often talk of you. In God’s hands lie all things.

We received your letter, and I thank you from my heart. It was such a joy to hear from you. One has so much to say that one ends by saying nothing. I am unaccustomed to writing anything of consequence, just short letters or cards, nothing of consequence. Your perfume on the note quite overcame us. It went the round of our tea table, and we all saw you quite clearly before us. I have none of my “white rose” to scent this. Thanks for your own. The children and Father were so touched.

They say that life in the Crimea is dreadful now. Still Olga A. is happy with her little Tikhon whom she is nursing herself. They have no servants so she and N.A. look after everything. D., we hear, has died of cancer. The needlework you sent me so long ago was the only token we have received from any of our friends. Where is poor Catherine? We suffer so for all, and we pray for all of you. I read much and live in the past, which is so full of rich memories. I have full trust in a brighter future. He will never forsake those who love and trust in His infinite mercy, and when we least expect it He will send help, and will save our unhappy country. Patience, faith and truth. I won’t speak of what you have gone through. Forget it, with the old name you have thrown away. Now live again.

I am writing this in my bedroom. Jimmy is sleeping on my feet, makes them hot.

I keep myself occupied ceaselessly. I read “good books” a great deal, love the Bible, and from time to time read novels. I also sew, embroider, paint, with spectacles on because my eyes have become too weak to do without them. I am so sad because they are allowed no walks except behind the house and behind a high fence. Father is simply marvelous. Such meekness while all the time suffering intensely for the country. A real marvel. The others are all good and brave and uncomplaining, and Aleksei is an angel. Many things are very hard… our hearts are ready to burst at times. The children are healthy. I am so contented with their souls. I hope God will bless my lessons with Baby. The ground is rich, but is the seed ripe enough? I do try my utmost, for all my life lies in this.

I am knitting stockings for The Little One, like those I gave the wounded, do you remember? I make everything now. Father’s trousers are torn and darned, the girls’ underlinen in rags. Dreadful, is it not? I have grown quite gray. Anastasiya, to her despair, is now very fat, as Marie was, round and fat to the waist, with short legs. I do hope she will grow. Olga and Tatyana are both thin, but their hair grows beautifully.

I feel utter trust and faith that all will be well, that this is the worst, and that soon the sun will be shining brightly. But oh, the victims, and the innocent blood yet to be shed! Oh, God save Russia! That is the cry of one’s soul, morning, noon, and night. Only not that shameless peace. I feel so old, oh, so old, but I am still the mother of this country, and I suffer its pains as my own child’s pains, and I love it in spite of all its sins and horrors. No one can tear a child from its mother’s heart, and neither can you tear away one’s country, although Russia’s black ingratitude to the Emperor breaks my heart. Not that it is the whole country, though. God have mercy and save Russia.

I find myself writing in English, I don’t know why. Be sure to burn all these letters. It is better. I have kept nothing of the dear past. Just burn these letters, my love, as at any time your house may be searched again.

We all kiss and bless you. May God sustain and keep you. My heart is full, but words are feeble things.

Yours, A.

P.S. I should like to send you a little food, some macaroni for instance.

Pathetic, is it not? A dethroned empress, herself a prisoner, wanting to send macaroni from Siberia. My eyes burst with pity even now. Odd this woman was, our Empress Aleksandra. So complex. As I’ve said, her greatest crimes were both her pride and her insecurity – which caused her to hold herself aloof from everyone but her husband and children – while her greatest gift was her compassion. I find it strange that such wildly different aspects could live within one soul, but then again a dog can be both black and white. I find it ironic as well that the Russian people of all classes merely wanted a tsaritsa of intense love and emotion, which was exactly their Tsaritsa Aleksandra Fyodorovna… and yet the more they disdained her, the more frightened and cold and distant she became.

Oi,
such dark times were those, but over the months of captivity I shared with them, these were the Romanovs I came to know, and yes, the Romanovs I came to love. It was a captivity that grew more and more intense, from Tsarskoye Selo to Tobolsk and finally Yekaterinburg. And it was really only toward the end that I developed the clearest of pictures of the Imperial Family. I do remember in Tobolsk when one of the Tsar’s aides-de-camp, a certain General Tatischev, commented on the very same thing, how he was surprised to find the family so intimate and sweet on each other. And to this the Tsar replied with that gentle, ironic smile of his:

As my aide-de-camp over the years, you have had many such chances to observe us. Yet if you only now recognize us as we really are, how could we ever blame the newspapers for what they write of us?

A summer night in Siberia only comes with great hesitation. And that late June day was no different, for the evening passed ever so slowly. There was a brief but heavy evening shower that rode across town, a gust of cool wind, and a clear dusk that never wanted to give up the day.

That far north and that close to the summer solstice, it didn’t fall dark until shortly after eleven, yet the Imperial Family retired well before that, which was odd. Shortly after nine the Heir Tsarevich was the first to bed, followed somewhat later by the girls. Often Nikolai would sit up reading in the drawing room, or Botkin and he would play draughts, the checkered black and red board opened upon the tea table, while Aleksandra would sit at the nearby large desk, laying patience. But not that night. By ten they were making their way to bed. I was thus quietly instructed as well.

All evening long there had been much discussion, to which I was not privy, but which I could imagine. Simply: was it possible that the rescue attempt would come as early as tonight? Yes, and on the sly we were all advised to be ready to flee, for the Romanovs were determined not to abandon us, the last of their faithful. It was, of course, most gentlemanly, most old worldly, of Nikolai to decide on this course, but it certainly wasn’t practical. Seven posed a cumbersome enough problem, let alone twelve. Nevertheless, the decision came down the ranks, from Nikolai to Botkin to Trupp to Kharitonov to me.

“Sleep fully dressed,” cook whispered to me. “Be ready at any moment.”

“You mean, I should wear everything to bed?” I replied as I made my bed in the small hall between the kitchen and the dining room.

“Everything.”

“Even my shoes?”

This threw him, and he thought for a long moment. Cook Kharitonov was a master at making a meal out of nothing – wild mushrooms folded into a blanket of blini, leftover rice and cabbage tucked into the warm, doughy heart of pierogi – but a strategist of deceit he was not. For a long somber moment he pondered my question before answering.

“Nyet,
that would surely attract the guards’ attention.”

“Then I’ll just have them nearby.”

“Good. But if anything starts, we’re supposed to run to their room and help barricade the door.”

“Sure.”

The electric light was extinguished, and I settled into one of the most uncomfortable, anxious nights of my life. Sure, it had cooled somewhat, but I was completely clothed down to my socks. Within moments I was broiling. I started tossing and turning, and grew all the hotter. I dared not cast aside my blanket, however, lest one of the guards make a sudden check. My mind began to spin, and so did Kharitonov’s, I could tell, for on the other side of the tiny room the large man tossed and rolled as much as I.

So how would it happen? Would a band of loyal Cossacks ride into town, hooping and hollering, screaming and shooting into the sky? Would monarchist officers appear out of the woodwork and slit the throats of the Red Guards, one by one? I tried to imagine the scenario, if our secret rescuers would first take out the machine gun positioned on the roof, next storm the house, or if they would first attack the Popov House across the alley way, killing all the reinforcements. Then again, maybe an airplane would appear out of nowhere and the pilot would lean out, take careful aim, and let drop a bomb on the Popov House, blowing all the
Bolsheviki
to bits. A surprise from the air like that might be best, particularly since The House of Special Purpose had been rigged with an electric warning bell to summon all the guards.

Whichever way it happened, I was sure there would be much blood, and I pictured myself the hero, leading the grand duchesses out the window and down a rope of bed linens. On the other hand, the window might be too dangerous, for it overlooked the side yard and the Popov House. So… so I might have to lead the girls down those twenty-three steps and to some waiting horses or a motor vehicle of escape. I might even get a gun, I might even have to kill one of the Reds. And I imagined the Romanovs and me escaping with our lives – perhaps I’d be wounded, but not terribly so – and then the Tsar would make me a count or a prince or something. Sure. All night I stirred with the possibilities. All night I imagined killing someone. And all night I heard the handful of guards posted in the cellar directly below, heard their shouts, their laughter, their drunken bouts. Each time I thought it was the beginning of the end and my heart was fully roused, making it impossible to get any rest.

None of us slept. Or slept little. Once I heard a distant dog howl to the moon. Or was it a wolf who’d ventured as close as the city dam? Eventually Kharitonov began to snore and the guards below fell into complete silence, while outside the night slowly returned to the dead. I had no idea what time it was – only the landed gentry and the aristocracy carried watches – but it must have been close to two or three before my eyes fell shut.

While I later learned from a book that the Romanovs had all slept fully clothed and fully bejeweled that night, I have often wondered what they were thinking when darkness finally came. The girls, the boy, their parents – did they lie in their beds and pray for salvation? Did they smile at the thought of what might soon come their way? Did they weep with anxiety? I’m sure that Aleksandra, always plush with anxiety, spent the whole of the night worrying about her babies, her husband. If an escape attempt was made, would the guards pounce first and foremost on their hated Nikolashka, killing him dead? If the family fled in a mad rush, would The Little One bump a knee or an arm, thereby plunging himself into nightmarish pain and even death? Playing through every scenario from successful escape to hellish failure, the Empress recorded in her diary how sleep was not of interest.

Colossal heat tho’ rained a little… I went early to bed, but slept only 3 hours, as they made so much noise outside.

To this day I imagine the Romanovs lying there sleepless as they drank in every step, cough, word, bark, and stir of wind. I’m quite sure they tossed all night long, wondering, hoping, fearing. And a horrible night it was, followed by a long, horrible, hot day, which was in turn followed by another terrible night of heated worry, for on the twenty-seventh she recorded:

8:00 Supper. 23 degrees in the room. Scarcely slept.

Perhaps it was Aleksandra’s bitter dealings with the aristocracy of Sankt-Peterburg that made her paranoid – high society thought her much too prim and constantly mocked her – but she was quite correct not to write all in her diary. In the old days, everything that could be used against her certainly had been. Consequently, she understood the dangers of writing a diary that was too specific. She had to be most careful, and for this reason it had become not so much a personal account, but a logbook of day-to-day events. Hence she recorded her work with her pounds and pounds of diamonds as “arranged medicines,” and her mention of scarcely sleeping, of so much noise outside, refers to those nights when we all waited for the rescue that did not come.

At the same time, Nikolai Aleksandrovich proved himself not as savvy as his wife:

27 June. Thursday. Our dear Maria turned 19 years old. The same tropical weather held, 26 degrees in the shade and 24 degrees in the rooms; one can hardly stand it! We spent an anxious night and sat up dressed.

All this was because we had received two letters in the last few days, one after the other, in wh. we were told that we should get ready to be abducted by some sort of people loyal to us! The days passed and nothing happened, but the waiting and uncertainty were quite torturous.

But why? Why in the name of God would he have recorded such things for the
Bolsheviki
to find and read? Was Nikolai Aleksandrovich so naive? That… that stupid? Or was he simply too much of a gentleman, too much an aristocrat of the Old World, too much of a tsar to even imagine that such a personal intrusion and affront was even possible?

So there we were, the morning of the twenty-seventh. The day was sunny and hot – twenty-two degrees by early morning – but there was no summer brightness from any of us.
Nyet
, we’d just woken from fitful dreams of hope and were still groggy with disappointment. For better or worse, our emancipation had not been attempted during the depth of the night and the waiting was, as Nikolai wrote, torturous. Whatever was to come, we all clearly understood it was the beginning of the end. Of course Nikolai and Aleksandra wanted their family to be rescued and carried to safety, but when they were faced with that very possibility they realized how utterly foolish and dangerous such a rescue would be. And when it didn’t take place in those first few days, Nikolai could see the darkness rumbling toward them, so much so that within a week or so he stopped writing his diary altogether, the very diary he’d faithfully written every day since boyhood.

We gathered under a gloomy cloud for our morning inspection and ate our bread and drank our morning tea with few words, but all of that was shoved aside for Maria’s birthday celebration at eleven. The Tsar insisted, for both as a good father and a good soldier he was concerned about the morale of his little troop. Seeing how heavy our hearts were, he recognized that our spirits needed attention. Hence he issued a decree, beckoning Romanov and servant alike to wish the Sovereign’s number-three daughter everything sweet and beautiful.

“A tea table in the late morning… how unusual,” said Aleksandra Fyodorovna, surveying the spread before her in the drawing room.

“And why not?” pressed a beaming Maria, her eyes as big as saucers.

“That’s right, why not?” seconded the Tsar. “After all, there’s been a revolution.”

“Oh, believe me, I know that.” Aleksandra shook her head in bemusement. “Just imagine, everyone else used to have such interesting afternoon teas, but not us. We always had the same tea with the same breads, served on the same china, presented by the same footman. And it all happened precisely at the same time everyday. Why, I don’t think anything had changed since Catherine the Great.”

“No, I think you’re quite right, my dear,” replied the Tsar. “The palace ran on tradition alone.”

Demidova, who stood next to me, volunteered, “I quite remember, Madame, when you tried to change a few things.”

“I do too. Only too well, as a matter of fact. And wasn’t that a disaster?”

“Wasn’t it though!”

Later that day Demidova went on and on about all this, explaining that before the war the Tsar’s tea, like everything else, had been an amazingly regimented thing: the doors opened at five, the Tsar came in, buttered a piece of bread, and drank two glasses of tea, not one more, not one less. On the other hand, Demidova had heard from other maids that the teas of the nobility had been infinitely more creative and extravagant, for it had been all the vogue to have a minimum of six different cakes at the tea table – chocolate, nut, berry, meringue, and so on.

Now looking down at the large knot-shaped sweet bread on the table, the Empress smiled in delight, and asked, “Tell me, cook, where on earth did you get such a beautiful
krendel
? Did the good sisters bring it?”

“Nyet-s,
madame. I made it.”

“Really?”

“Look!” exclaimed Anastasiya. “It even has raisins.”

Aleksandra smiled. “You’re a magician, Vanya. How on earth did you make it in such a small kitchen and how on earth did you come up with all the ingredients?”

Kharitonov humbly bowed his head, and said, “Leonka and I, well, we make do. We make do.”

The truth of the matter was that while we had scrounged up a few raisins over the past few weeks, the
krendel
was missing cardamom as well as candied orange peel, items that had vanished from the markets months ago. Nevertheless, the entire household recognized the creation as quite a feat, particularly because it was made of the precious white flour we’d brought from Tobolsk and had carefully hidden in trunks and walls and even the back of the piano, all this lest it fall into the hands of the guards. However, the recent spat of fresh eggs and milk, not to mention a bit of
vanille
secretly brought by Sister Antonina last week, was more than Kharitonov could creatively resist. For days he’d been looking for an excuse, finally seizing upon Maria’s birthday. Making do without an oven, the master of improvisation had cooked the sweet bread atop the oil stove just this morning, baking it between two iron pans that he had carefully cupped together.

Following the Tsar’s lead, we rose to our feet, held hands, and bowed our heads as he intoned, “Gracious Lord, look down upon our dearest Maria with all of Your infinite kindness and wisdom. We beseech Thee to bestow upon Maria good health, long life, and great happiness.”

“What about a husband, Papa?” interjected Anastasiya. “She wants to get married, you know, and have scores of children!”

“Anya, don’t interrupt your father,” chided her mother.

“But it’s true, she wants to get -!”

“Anya!”

Nikolai Aleksandrovich crossed himself. “Hear our prayers, O Lord, and in these trying days protect our cherished daughter.
Ah-min
.”

All of us, even the one guard who stood in the doorway, likewise followed the Tsar’s example, crossing ourselves and muttering a solemn chorus of, “
Ah-min
.”

Nikolai embraced his daughter, wishing her birthday greetings, followed by Aleksandra, who made the sign of the cross over Maria and kissed her as well.

Usually birthdays were observed at a luncheon with many distinguished guests, a lavish table of much food, entertainments, and great gifting, for Russians are among the most generous sort, particularly when it comes to their children, whom they love to spoil and do so endlessly. In earlier times a young girl of the nobility would be showered with sable hats and coats and muffs, pearl necklaces and diamond earrings and so on and so forth. And even though such a celebration was impossible that summer day, hardly anyone seemed to notice.

The Empress poured the tea by her own hand, an event once seen as a great compliment to a guest but was now commonplace. Since the fine china was long gone, Aleksandra filled tall, thin glasses perched in metal standards with handles. There was no lemon, no cream. The cunning Empress, however, had secretly managed to preserve a few cubes of sugar, and that morning we were all issued one. I followed Aleksei’s lead, pinching the cube between my front teeth as I sipped the tea, something that caught his mother’s glare, to be sure, for it was a peasant’s habit, something Aleksei had seen one of the guards do.