NEXT MORNING, PETER VASNETSOV WAS ONCE AGAIN guarding the top of the second staircase and Maria greeted him as she passed on her way to bathe.
“Have you been there all night? I do hope they let you sleep sometimes.”
He gave a shy smile. “I was off duty from midnight till eight, but now I will be here till two.”
“Oh, good. After breakfast, might I come and take your photograph? It is a particular hobby of mine. I love to collect portraits and you have a strong face.”
His cheeks colored. “I don’t know about that.”
“You don’t know that you have a strong face? Or are you worried that it’s not allowed? Personally, I can’t see any harm.”
He bit his lip before answering. “What would I have to do?”
She almost laughed, but stopped herself. He had clearly never had his photograph taken before. “Just what you are doing anyway: stand still. I’ll come back in an hour and explain more.”
In fact, it was slightly longer than an hour because her father read to them from the scriptures after breakfast, but when Maria skipped out to the hallway carrying her leather photograph album and her precious Kodak Autographic, Peter was there, standing very erect.
“Do you want to look through my pictures while I set up the camera?” she asked.
He glanced at his hands before accepting the book, and she guessed he was checking that they were clean. He flicked to the first page. “Is this your little brother?” he asked.
She nodded. “Alexei, yes. He was the most adorable baby. We all doted on him. Mama and Papa had long given up hope of an heir, so they were beside themselves with joy.” She didn’t tell him how disappointed her father had been when she was born. One daughter was delightful, two was still acceptable—and Tatiana quickly became his favorite—but he did not attempt to hide his despair when a third turned up. As a child, Maria had noticed it in the way he avoided looking at her and seldom made any personal comment to her. By the time Anastasia arrived, he seemed resigned to only siring girls.
Peter turned the page. “And these are your sisters?”
“We call ourselves OTMA,” she explained. “From our names: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia.”
“You must miss them.”
“I do, very much! I can’t wait till they join us. You’ll like them.” She set the camera aperture to the indoors setting and looked through the lens, sliding the bellows in and out to focus. Her sisters had Box Brownies, which were simple to operate, but Maria preferred the sharper results she got with her more sophisticated model.
Peter seemed uncomfortable, clutching the album tightly as if afraid he might drop it, hunching his shoulders and leaning toward the lens.
“Why don’t you put the album on that side table?” she suggested. “Then try to stand naturally, as you would if I were not here. Look directly at the camera.”
He still appeared stiff, but his gaze was direct and unwavering as she pulled down the lever and took the picture. It would come out dark, but the light spilling from the window illuminated the right side of his face in a way that she hoped would seem artistic.
“Thank you.” She smiled, winding on the film. “I will let you see the picture once I am able to get it developed.” She wondered when that might be. Perhaps they would be overseas by then; in Great Britain, maybe. She knew that George V, her father’s cousin, had invited them a year ago and couldn’t understand why they had not left yet. “There are protocols and procedures,” was all her father would say.
Commissar Avdeyev came out of his office and scowled at them. “What are you doing? Citizen Romanova, go back to the family rooms immediately.”
She picked up her camera and album and obeyed, hoping that Peter would not be chastised for talking to her.
In the sitting room, her mother was sewing, her father was reading, and the air was thick with dust and dullness. They had not been there twenty-four hours, but already she felt the confinement weighing on her soul. She picked up a pen to write to her sisters, to tell them about Konstantin Ukraintsev and Peter Vasnetsov and the house that was nothing like a home.
* * *
There was a clock on the mantel in the drawing room and Maria rationed herself: she would only look at it again when she had finished writing one page of her diary, or sewing a hem of her petticoat, or reading a chapter of a book to her mother. Inevitably, when she did look, the hour was less advanced than she had expected. The minutes crawled interminably, so slow she suspected the clock had been tampered with in order to torture them.
Their days were punctuated by meals, scripture readings, exercise sessions in the cramped yard where the tall fence blocked much of the sunlight, card games, and then bed. There was little to look forward to, and yet she counted the minutes until Sednev, their footman, announced luncheon, or a guard came to accompany her and her father downstairs to the yard. Her mother seldom went with them as her sciatica was crippling and her headaches frequently left her bedridden. Leaving the house was forbidden; they were not even allowed to attend services at the local church.
Maria’s only distraction was chatting to the guards whenever she could make an excuse to slip out of the family’s rooms. She befriended several of them and learned about their childhoods, their interests, their ambitions, even their sweethearts. She asked about the countryside around Ekaterinburg, and heard that they were close to the Ural Mountains, the great chain that divided Russia into two halves, where brown bears, wolves, and elks roamed and there was dense forest up to the snowline. She asked about the jobs they had done before coming to the Ipatiev House and learned of the Zlokazov brewery, the Makarov cloth factory, and the steam mills that ground wheat, steel, or gunpowder. Most of the guards were friendly, with only Commissar Avdeyev remaining aloof.
Maria had always enjoyed male company. As a child, she’d had several friends among the officers who crewed the royal yacht, the Shtandart, and she’d enjoyed playing billiards, quoits, or deck tennis with them. During the war, she’d befriended the staff at Stavka, her father’s headquarters, and had spent many evenings in Tsarskoe Selo visiting wounded soldiers in the hospital. It was there she developed a particular fondness for an officer called Kolya Demenkov. Oh, Kolya. She still sighed to think of him. She used to describe herself in letters to friends as “Mrs. Demenkov” and go to sleep every night dreaming of him, imagining what it would be like to be his wife. Where was he now? She had no idea. She couldn’t remember his face clearly anymore; it had all been so long ago.
She had always prided herself on her ability to make friends, and worked hard to make people feel at ease in her company. In part it grew out of a feeling that she was an outsider in the family. Olga and Tatiana were the big pair, and they were usually inseparable, whispering secrets they could never be persuaded to share. Anastasia and Alexei were babies, still happiest when giggling and playing the fool. Maria was neither her father’s nor her mother’s favorite; she was stuck in the middle, the odd one out in family affiliations. She had once written to her mother, all teenage seriousness, saying that she felt she wasn’t loved. Her mother had replied that she was “just as dear as the other four,” but it was difficult to believe. Actions spoke louder than words.
Why had she been the one chosen to accompany her parents to Ekaterinburg while her other siblings stayed behind? Her mother only wanted her because she was willing to run errands; she had overheard her telling her father, “Maria is my legs.” She was not there for her scintillating conversation or ready wit or adorable nature, but because she was obedient. And clearly she was the one her siblings felt they could most readily manage without.
Maria’s dream was to fall in love and marry. Her husband need not be a foreign prince, although a couple had shown an interest. She would be perfectly happy with a dashing Russian officer who would sweep her off her feet. Often when she lay in bed at night she would picture the scene. He’d bring a gift: perhaps her favorite Lilas perfume or some pretty bijou. She would smile and extend her hand, letting him press his lips to it. He would fall to his knees, swearing he could not live without her, then begging permission to ask her father for her hand in marriage. She would hesitate for a few moments, so overcome with emotion that she could not at first speak, then she would blurt out, “Yes, oh yes, my dear!” And he would stand and take her in his arms, and kiss her so passionately that she would almost swoon.
This future husband did not at present have a face, but Maria dreamed he would be strong and true, and most important that she would be his great, enduring love, the one and only woman he could not possibly live without.