Alexander Palace, Tsarskoe Selo, Russia
June 18
Today is my sixteenth birthday, and I have spent the afternoon making our tutor, Pierre Gilliard, curse in Latin. Or at least I think he’s cursing. Latin is the one language I cannot stomach. However, we are put out of our misery when Dova summons me to the imperial bedroom. I hear the words “your mother” and “birthday present” and rush off without thanking Gilliard for his time.
Of all the things I might expect, it is not to find Mother sitting on the floor of her bedroom surrounded by her entire collection of jewels. And not just hers, but Father’s as well, along with a number of infamous family heirlooms. I can barely see the carpet for shiny, glittering items. There are ropes of pearls and strings of diamonds. All three of Mother’s diadems. Every size and shape broach you can imagine. Rings and bracelets and necklaces. Opals. Emeralds. Sapphires. Rubies. Diamonds. Pearls. Teardrop earrings. Hoop earrings. Chandelier earrings. Diamond, pearl, and gemstone studs. Everywhere I look something sparkles, and each item is more magnificent than the last. Here, a feather fan with a rock crystal handle inset with diamonds and there, a gold and emerald pin in the shape of a bow. Seven Fabergé eggs. A crown, known as the “splendid diadem,” that Mother wore to the opening of the Duma. At least four dozen solid silver flowers, set with diamonds and pearls, that can be sewn onto any item of clothing for a special occasion. A stunning broach with a Siberian aquamarine placed in an open lattice with a diamond-set trellis, which Father gave to Mother upon their engagement.
It is a dizzying display, and I stand gaping at it for a full two minutes without uttering a word. I’ve seen many of these jewels through the years, but they have always been attached to people. And I’ve never been allowed to play with them.
“What are you doing?” I finally ask.
“Taking an inventory.”
“Why?”
“The Americans would call it an insurance policy,” she says. There is a blanket across Mother’s knees and a corset in her lap. It looks like one of Olga’s—the waist is too small to be mine. She holds a seam ripper in her hand and is methodically plucking at a row of stitches, loosening them for some reason I can’t fathom. “But that has nothing to do with why I called you here. I want you to pick a pair of earrings. Something small. A pair of studs.”
I brighten immediately. “Is this my birthday present?”
“Of course, silly girl. Dr. Botkin is going to pierce your ears. But you have to choose something little or your ears won’t heal correctly. It will be months before you can wear anything heavier.”
I look at the sea of jewels, overwhelmed.
“Pick something. Quickly. Botkin needs to get back to Alexey. He’s fallen off the garden wall again.”
I look up sharply. “Is he—”
“No. Just a bruise. But it needs more ice. His shin is swollen.”
It might be just a bruise, but that doesn’t mean Alexey isn’t bleeding. It’s simply on the inside. But Mother doesn’t want to discuss the realities of anatomy. This latest injury is just another proof of Rasputin’s lie. She gives me a smile filled with false assurance and motions to the pile of baubles at her feet.
If I consider everything I’ll be here all day. There’s too much. In the end I choose a small pair of diamond studs— each roughly one carat—that lie near a magnificent collier russe. Compared to the two-foot spray of Indian and Brazilian diamonds, my earrings seem plain and boring.
Once I’ve made my selection, Botkin orders me to sit on a small stool. I watch with growing dismay as he holds a sewing needle over a candle flame for several minutes. I watch as the thin sliver of metal turns black. He lets it cool on a porcelain saucer while he pinches my right earlobe between two small cubes of ice. One minute. Two. Three. Four. It tickles at first. And then the cold begins to bite and hurt, but I’m determined not to protest. I abhor whining. So I take long breaths through my nose. I squeeze my eyes closed and force myself not to wiggle my feet. Finally, I feel nothing.
“Keep your eyes closed,” Botkin says.
But I can’t help opening my right eye just a crack and observing with horror how he lifts that needle from that saucer and drives it through my earlobe without the slightest hesitation. There’s a hard, prolonged pinch and then he wipes blood from my ear with his handkerchief. I don’t feel him put the earring in at all. It’s a bit worse the second time but only because I know what to expect.
“Schwibsik,” Mother says.
“Yes?”
There is sadness around her eyes when she smiles. “It would be best if you wore your hair down for a while. Especially when you’re outside or anywhere near the guards. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Good. Now come here so I can see how they look.”
Mother examines me from all sides and clucks with appreciation. Then she gives me a gentle kiss on the cheek, wishes me a happy birthday, and sends me back to whatever remains of my lessons.
Alexander Palace, Tsarskoe Selo, Russia
July 10
“You will be leaving Alexander Palace on July 31,” Kerensky announces. This time, Kerensky has summoned us to Father’s study to deliver his bad news. We’ve been in the garden all morning, hard at work planting a late crop of cabbages for winter. Our skirts are dingy, our boots caked with mud, and dirt clings beneath our fingernails.
Kerensky sits behind the enormous oak desk, his face inscrutable. His hands rest casually behind his head. Father stops short in the doorway, startled by this audacious intrusion into his personal space.
“What are you doing at my desk?” Father asks.
“It’s not your desk. Not anymore. Sit down. We have things to discuss.”
I love Father’s study. It’s smaller and cozier than the formal reception room and always smells of pipe smoke and old books—ink and leather and cracking paper. I settle onto the couch beside Tatiana and kick off my dirty boots. My entire body aches from hours spent picking rocks from hard soil, so I drape myself over the arm of the settee. On the table beside me is a small paper knife with a mother-of-pearl handle. I pick it up and run my finger along its hard, flat edge, then carefully tap the point with the pad of my finger. With any pressure at all it will slice through not just paper but skin as well.
The day that Father returned to the Alexander Palace, his study was searched and all of his weapons seized. Kerensky took his revolver, a Mauser pistol, a long rifle, six knives, two ceremonial swords, and a variety of other blades, handguns, and weapons. Kerensky insisted that the protection provided us by his soldiers was more than sufficient and that as prisoners we no longer had a right to bear arms. With such obvious weapons at hand Kerensky must have overlooked the paper knife. Yet it has an edge and a point that might come in handy. So I lower my hand slowly and drop it into my boot while no one is looking.
“What do you mean we’re leaving?” Mother demands. “For how long?”
I suspect that Kerensky has long since lost patience with my mother, but he still tolerates her inane questions with relative good grace. “Permanently,” he says.
Father takes a step toward the occupied territory of his desk. “Unacceptable. This is our home. You cannot force us out.”
Kerensky gives him a humorless smile. “As we’ve discussed before, this residence is owned by the people of Russia. And they want you removed.”
“I am not willing to concede the fate of my family to the mob, Chairman.”
“Your other option is less appealing, I’m afraid.”
“What option is that?”
“The same fate that your beloved Sammi suffered.”
A small, keening sound escapes Alexey’s throat as he drops into the chair beside Maria. “What did you do to him?” my brother asks.
“I put a bullet in his skull two days after your father came home.”
We haven’t been allowed to visit Sammi, the African bull elephant we keep as a pet, since we were put under house arrest. But there are a hundred things we haven’t been able to do and, honestly, we have given the elephant little thought. We assumed he, like all the other animals in Alexander Park, has been cared for by the gamekeepers.
Alexey feels that Sammi is his. This isn’t far from the truth. For the last one hundred years an elephant has lived on the palace grounds and is a required part of the education of all future tsars. Father and Alexey have regularly visited the elephant enclosure for years. They feed Sammi and watch him swim. He is gentle and enormous and, odd as it might seem, Sammi was an integral part of our childhood. Now, four months after the fact, we learn that he has been dispatched as though he were a lame horse or a rabid dog.
My sisters are pale. Appalled. Mouths open, eyes wide and rimmed with tears. I cannot see Mother’s expression because she has turned her face to the floor, but I expect she is simmering with that helpless fury that has consumed her these past weeks.
Kerensky notes our long silence, then asks, “Do you know how difficult it is to kill an elephant?” When no one answers, he proceeds to give us the ghastly details. “There are rifles so large they are, in fact, called elephant guns. The Americans and British specialize in making them. They do love their safaris. The best I could do on short notice, however, was a Fedorov Avtomat. It is an automatic rifle that barely did the job given the thickness of an elephant’s skull. But thankfully it took only one shot. Your beast never felt a thing.”
Father screams, “Stop! It’s bad enough you’ve committed the act. Must you torture them with the details?”
“Sanctimonious words from a hunter such as yourself.” There is an earnestness to Kerensky’s face when he says, “And yes, I must. You and your family live in a world disconnected from all reality. Your children in particular need to understand what is happening on the other side of the palace wall so they will understand the choices I make going forward.”
Tears run down my brother’s face. “Why!” he sobs. “Why did you have to kill him?”
“Because it costs the Russian government eighteen thousand rubles every year just to feed him. Did you know that, boy?”
Alexey wipes snot on the back of his sleeve, then shakes his head.
“And do you know how much the average family earns per year in this country?”
Again my brother shakes his head.
“Approximately four thousand rubles. Your pet is an offense to every family in Russia that eats one meal a day. The people are tired of paying for your luxuries and your frivolities. The sooner you understand that, the better off you’ll be.”
“Where is he?” Alexey demands. “I want to visit his grave.”
“There is no grave,” Kerensky says.
“But what—”
“Would you really like to know?”
“No,” Father interrupts. “Enough.”
Kerensky squats down in front of my brother. He balances on the balls of his feet and rests his forearms on his knees. “All that is left of your elephant are the tusks. I sawed them off myself. At the moment they are hanging on my office wall, but once they’ve cured, I plan to have them carved into a chess set.”
Alexey collapses into a sobbing heap while Kerensky stands to look at each of us in turn. “You might think me a monster,” he says. “But believe me when I say that killing your pet was a mercy. He would have starved to death otherwise. It would have been long and painful and excruciating to watch. You would have heard his screams echoing through the park. And, without my protection, this is exactly the sort of treatment you will receive from the people who want you handed over to them.”
Father snorts. “You’re sending us away because you think we’ll be starved or shot?”
“Or worse.” Kerensky studies my sisters with concern. “I know you find this hard to believe, but I am not your enemy.”
“You’re certainly not a friend,” Mother says.
Kerensky’s mouth settles into a grim line. “I’m not here to make friends.”
Mother clamps her mouth shut and retreats once again into her anger.
“Alexandra,” Kerensky says.
“Yes?” The word is small and tight and ends with a slight hiss.
“I have other news that might be of interest to you.”
“Little beyond this room is of interest to me.”
“It concerns Grigory Rasputin.”
Her eyes narrow. “What of him?”
“On my orders five soldiers of the First Rifles went into Tsarskoe Selo before dawn and removed his body from display.” His face is impassive as he relates the next details. “I had them burn his remains with gasoline and rebury them in the woods.”
Mother swallows a sob and gives Kerensky a single nod. It looks like gratitude.
I cannot get beyond the grisly image, but she clearly considers this a mercy. The body of her friend will no longer be abused or mocked.
“Where will you send us?” Father demands, deftly changing the subject. He disdains all talk of Rasputin. “To Crimea?”
“I’m afraid I cannot divulge that information,” Kerensky says. “You will go where I deem it safe. In the meantime I suggest you begin gathering your possessions. Take only what can be easily transported by train. Take only what is meaningful to you.”
Then, with a flick of his wrist, we are dismissed. But none of us moves. We sit in Father’s study, in the piles of dirt we’ve tracked in from the garden, staring at him and then at one another in confusion. Alexey crawls into Mother’s lap, his narrow, bird-like shoulders still shaking as he sobs. She pats him as she would a baby and whispers soothing, nonsensical things into his ear. Finally, she gathers her wits enough to speak. “Come, children. To your rooms. It would appear we have packing to do.”
“No,” Kerensky says. He looks at the clock for confirmation. “Back to the garden. You still have work to do.”
It is not uncommon for Dr. Botkin to join us in the garden. Like Father, he is a firm believer in the benefits of physical labor. He is also quite handy with a spade. And wherever Botkin goes, Gleb follows. He finds me the moment we enter the garden. And I might be flattered by this if I didn’t find it insulting that, compared to my sisters, I cannot attract the attentions of a man. Each of them has been proposed to at least four times while tending soldiers in the infirmary. But I am left to evade the sappy gestures of a boy, a puppy who follows me up and down my garden row, constantly asking if he can carry my spade or my seed sack. Offering to fetch me water or jumping up to give me what little shade is produced by the Krazulya pear tree at midday.
I go in search of that sparse green canopy every day at the end of our work session, watching the fruit, waiting for it to ripen. It won’t be ready for another few weeks, but already parts of the glossy green skin are beginning to turn pink. Unlike most pears, the Krazulya is round and has slick skin, giving it the appearance of an apple. The boughs are heavy with fruit but, according to Kerensky, we won’t be here to eat it. The Krazulya pear has a uniquely short harvest season—a single, decadent week—but I look forward to it every year. The flesh of this particular pear is soft and sweet and infused with a certain spiciness that lends itself to jams and pies. If eaten too early the fruit puckers your mouth and gives you a bellyache. If eaten too late it’s mealy and riddled with worms. The Krazulya season comes and goes all at once the second week of August, but we will already be in some other, unknown location when the pears ripen and hang warm and heavy on their branches.
I plop down beneath the tree to watch Joy and Jimmy chasing each other through the garden like puppies. They are covered in leaves and clumps of dirt, and we’ll have to brush them before letting them back in the palace, but it’s worth the trouble considering how it makes me smile. The dogs are rowdy today and they bolt toward the garden gate. The young dimpled guard is stationed there, and I see him lunge for Jimmy and catch him by the collar so he doesn’t run off through the grounds. The guard kneels down and rubs Jimmy’s ears, and then I see him sneak a bit of bread from his pocket and feed it to my dog. The little traitor wags his tail as though they’re friends.
“Just because you like him doesn’t mean I have to,” I mutter, picking at a leaf until it’s shredded in my palm.
I turn my gaze upward, looking into the branches at one pear that show signs of early ripening. I think of Sammi and wish I could go comfort my brother. Mother took him away and put him to bed the moment we left Father’s study. It will likely take him days to recover.
“Would you like me to fetch that pear for you, Tsarevna?” Gleb asks. He follows my gaze to the low-hanging fruit, ready to scramble up the trunk and across the branch.
I shake my head. “No. Let it be. And don’t call me that. I’m not a tsarevna anymore. Haven’t you heard?”
“I have heard nothing that will convince me otherwise.” And with that he offers one of his obnoxious bows.
Gleb is going to be a very handsome man one day and, I suspect, dangerously charming as well. But encouraging him at this age will only make him incorrigible, so I shake my head and roll my eyes and then I look for Jimmy, who is still at the gate seeking affection from the guard. I smile at the sight of Jimmy’s tongue-wagging joy, but when I turn back to Gleb he’s frowning at both the dog and the soldier.
Dr. Botkin sits down beside me, polishing the edge of his spade with an oiled cloth. “This stops it from rusting,” he explains, apropos of nothing.
I don’t bother to tell him that I’ve chucked my spade into the ditch beside the garden and won’t retrieve it until we come back tomorrow. Nor do I tell him that I don’t care one whit if it rusts.
“Gleb,” he says without looking up. His short, capable fingers continue rubbing oil onto the steel in small circular motions.
“Yes, Father?”
“The household staff was told about Kerensky’s decision a short time ago. Most of them are leaving before I send you back to your mother at week’s end. You’ll take the train with any who are left.”
Gleb splutters in disgust, then shakes his fist with righteous indignation. “How can they leave?” His eyebrows clench together in fury, and I think he’s trying, desperately, to think of an impressive insult. After a few seconds he says, “What an orgy of cowardice and stupidity!”
I can’t tell whether Botkin is going to laugh or choke. Mostly I try not to say anything that will get me in trouble later.
“Do you even know what an orgy is?” he asks.
“No,” Gleb says.
Botkin clears his throat and, in the driest, most wooden voice I’ve ever heard, says, “It is a wild gathering in which many people have sex together, often while drunk or under the influence of an opiate.”
“Oh.” Gleb is so instantly red that it looks at if his head might burst into flames.
“Not the definition you expected?”
I didn’t think it possible, but the boy’s face grows even hotter. He staunchly refuses to look at me. “No.”
“Then perhaps think of another way to phrase your outrage.”
Gleb wrinkles his nose in thought and after a moment says, “That is a sickening display of shabby, contemptible disloyalty.”
“Much better. I see that you’ve been minding your vocabulary, though I daresay your assessment is wildly unfair to the staff. Kerensky has ordered them to go.”
“It is cowardly of them to obey.”
“An unfortunate sentiment, considering you’ll be among them.” Botkin sets his spade down and turns to his astonished son.
A firm shake of his head and one quick glance in my direction. “I won’t,” Gleb says.
“You don’t have a choice. It’s no longer safe for you here. You will return to your mother and sister in Petrograd.”
“No. I won’t allow it. You can’t force me.”
Botkin laughs and ruffles his son’s hair. “I can, in fact, if it comes to that. But I appreciate your loyalty, and I’m certain you’d rather have me send you home than Kerensky. He’d be far less gentle about it. Nor would he care for your feelings.”
Gleb’s height suggests that manhood is fast approaching, but he still wrestles with the emotions of a child. He’s only twelve after all. Gleb stomps one foot, hard. “My duty is here.”
“And my duty is to protect you.” Botkin leans over his son and cups the boy’s cheek in his palm. “I would not have you end up like the elephant.”
Alexandrovsky Train Station, Petrograd, Russia
August 1
Kerensky stomps into the formal reception room before dawn and says, “Your train has arrived.”
But he doesn’t lead us out to the courtyard as we expect. Instead we are lined up, single file, and walked through the kitchen and out the side door where four motorcars idle quietly with headlights off. The trucks holding our belongings are nowhere to be seen, having long since been spirited away to the train station. We are hustled into the vehicles, in sets of two Romanovs and two staff, along with various frightened pets. I ride with Maria and Dova in the backseat. Botkin sits up front with the young dimpled guard while my sister grasps my hand and cries when we turn, not toward the palace gates, but onto the lawn and around the house. With the headlights off, I doubt the guard can see much of where he’s going. We creep as inauspiciously as possible through Alexander Park to avoid the crowd at the gates. Word spread during the night that there was more activity than usual at the palace, so three rows of soldiers were sent to fortify the palace gates and hold back the crowd.
“Why are we taking this route?” Botkin asks.
“Kerensky says we’d have to shoot the protestors just to get through,” the guard says. “I’d rather not do that if it’s all the same to you.”
“Nor would I.” Botkin tilts his chin and looks at the boy curiously. “What is your name?”
“Tomas Popov.”
We bounce our way around the park and exit through a service entrance and onto the main road only to find that it is lined on both sides, from the palace to the train station, by hundreds of guards. Only now does Tomas flip on the headlights and I turn away from the window, unable to meet the hostile glares of those soldiers, or the sight of their rifles. If we can simply get through this journey, I tell myself, then we will never have to see them again. Jimmy sits on the floor at my feet, his chin on my knee, eyes round and ears peaked, alert. I find his presence, the great shaggy bulk of him, comforting. Once I look up to find Tomas staring at me in the rearview mirror. He is looking at me, not Maria, and this surprises me so much that I return his glance longer than is appropriate. He turns away first.
When we reach Alexandrovsky Station we find that the train is parked, not at the entrance, but farther down the tracks, near an open field. A small but vocal crowd is gathered on the platform, held back by only a handful of guards. I can hear them shouting and cursing as we pull up beside the train and scramble out of the cars.
I stand beside my brother and wrap my arms around his thin shoulders. He is exhausted and confused, and I brush the hair away from his ears to soothe him. “Don’t worry,” I whisper. “We’ll be able to rest soon.”
“Do svidaniya, Nikolashka-durachok!” The crowd begins to chant from the platform.
Good-bye, Little Nicholas the Fool. It echoes down the tracks, and Father’s face turns to granite.
He is staring, not at the imperial train but at a long, ramshackle set of cars marked RED CROSS MISSION.
“What is this?” he demands. “Where is my train?”
Kerensky shrugs. “You no longer have a train. Or a yacht. Or a home. You have only the mercy I choose to extend you. So collect your family, board this train, and be grateful that I did not send you off in your normal transport. Because you can be sure it would’ve been stopped five miles down the tracks, boarded by your disenfranchised people, and all of you would be shot dead on the spot.”
I should be frightened by these words, having been yanked from bed and shuffled to the train station in the middle of the night. But I, like my father, am simply angry that I am here in the first place.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Father says.
“He’s telling the truth.” A man steps forward to join Kerensky, and I can feel Alexey shrink away at the sight of him. Unnaturally tall. Daunting. His skin is smooth and ageless. But his hair and beard are black and bushy, like one of the Chechen highlanders. He has strange slanted eyes that look as though they belong to an animal. A lit cigar rests in the corner of his mouth, and a red handkerchief hangs limp and macabre from the pocket of his military uniform. He puffs on his cigar and blows the smoke in Father’s face. “I saw the crowds beside the tracks, waiting, as we traveled from Petrograd.”
“This is Evgeny Koblinsky,” Kerensky says, motioning to the bizarre newcomer. “He will accompany you on this trip. His word is law in my absence.”
“We are to be passed off again?”
“You should thank me, Nicholas. There are worse people I could pass you off to.”
Poor Alexey, drained and overwhelmed. I can feel the sob building in his chest. So I hush him, rub his back, and say in a low voice, “Don’t be afraid. Look at him. Who does he remind you of?”
He braves a peek from beneath my arm. “A monster.”
I laugh. He’s gotten the answer right whether he knows it or not. “Yes. But which monster? Think.”
“I don’t know.” Alexey stares at our new escort. His long, gangly arms wave in disagreement, as he argues with Father.
“Do you remember the legends about a peculiar man who travels the forest provoking pilgrims?”
Realization clicks and Alexey looks up at me. “The Leshy?”
I grin. “And what does the Leshy look like?”
Alexey creases his forehead, trying to remember the old folktales our governess read to us. “He’s always smoking or stealing tobacco.” His eyes drift to that cigar and the trailing line of smoke. “His hair is wild and his eyes strange.”
“What’s the last thing? How do you know you’ve found a Leshy in the woods and not just an old man? What does he always wear?”
He smiles weakly. “Something red. Like that kerchief in his pocket.”
“Smart boy. So let’s not worry, okay? He’s just a Leshy. Harmless really. Some people even believe they’re guardians sent to protect the unlucky traveler. Do you remember how to drive one away when you’re tired of it?”
“By praying.”
“Or?”
Alexey giggles and pulls away from me. “Cursing.”
“We can practice cursing on the train, yes? I’ll tell you all of the words that Cook has taught me.”
There are dark circles beneath my brother’s eyes and he looks as though he could be blown over by the slightest wind, but the fear is gone, so I consider the lesson a success. “We’ll call him Leshy. Just the two of us. It will be our joke. Yes?”
Alexey nods, then gathers Joy in his arms. Mollified, he wanders off to join Father beside the tracks.
“You are a very clever girl, Anastasia.” Botkin’s voice, low near my ear. “And a damn good sister.”
I shrug off the compliment. “I don’t like to see him afraid.”
“He’s lucky to have you. They all are.”
“You might be the only one who believes that.”
“They know it whether they admit it or not.” Botkin tugs the end of my braid affectionately. “But let’s keep the cursing to a minimum, yes? At least if your parents are within earshot.”
The whistle blows, loud and urgent. Kerensky looks to the platform in the distance and the growing crowd. He motions us toward the train, urging us to board.
It is my brother who notices the obvious. Alexey scans the compartments and the legion of curious faces peering back at us. “Father,” he asks, “where are we going?”
“They say we are headed to England.”
“Then why are there so many soldiers on this train?”