Trans-Siberian Railway, Halfway to Ekaterinburg
May 24
Once, before the revolution, my siblings and I studied ancient Rome. Gilliard led the expedition beginning with the conquest of the Sabines in the eighth century BC and ending when Rome burned to the ground in AD 64. He took that opportunity to foist Latin upon us, insisting it was the foundation of literature and without it we would be illiterate. I might have taken to the language if not for a single word learned early in our review of the Sabines: raptio.
Rape.
The Rape of the Sabines. A singular moment in history made famous by Renaissance painters and sculptors: Romulus’s mass kidnapping of women from villages surrounding Rome. The poor daughters of Sabine were lured to a festival hosted by the men of Rome and, once there, were taken away and compelled to marry their captors. Human plunder. Along with the Latin and the history, we studied the paintings themselves. Gilliard argued—supported by the writings of a number of scholars, Livy among them—that what transpired in Rome was better translated as conquest than violation. And to prove his point he took us on a field trip.
It took days to reach Paris on the imperial train, but upon our arrival, Gilliard wasted no time in shuffling us directly to the Louvre, where he had arranged a private viewing of Nicolas Poussin’s The Abduction of the Sabine Women. So obsessed was the artist with this subject that he painted it twice in his lifetime. And to Poussin’s credit, I respected the fact that he depicted the women fully clothed. Pietro da Cortona, Jacques Stella, Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, and Peter Paul Rubens all rendered the women in various stages of voluptuous nudity. Almost all of them titled their paintings The Rape of the Sabine Women.
Raptio.
Rape.
Rapacious.
Rapine.
Raptor.
Ravish.
Only in Latin can one root word be the basis for myriad appalling descriptors. Horrible, vulgar, violent words. Brutish and masculine. I hate them all and the language from which they originated. Latin deserves to be a dead language, and I do not mourn it.
Now, as the train rattles west toward Ekaterinburg, I think it’s a pity that Nicolas Poussin and his contemporaries did not open their fields of artistic expression to women. I am certain female painters would have eradicated the themes of masculine valor from those bright, chaotic canvases. They would have illustrated, as legend did in the end, that the Sabines and not the soldiers were the saviors of Rome.
The train is silent now, and the night’s terrors are replaced by an eeriness that settles heavily in the air. Beside me the thin cushion shifts and the soldier who lies there slides from the berth. Pretending to be asleep, I listen as he slips quietly from our compartment. Only when he is gone do I roll over and look out the window. The sky is cold, the color of gunmetal, and I can see only broken glimpses of it as we pass through a towering forest. Above me Alexey and Joy snore in soft, whistling harmony. My brother fell asleep in the night, too exhausted and traumatized to stay alert any longer. It was a relief, to be honest. He could offer no protection, and I didn’t want him remembering anyway.
I lie awake until Semyon slides the door open and shoves Olga back into the compartment. She flinches when the door slams closed again. Olga seems like a ghost, standing there in the gloom, wringing her hands. When she finally looks at me, her eyes are glassy, bottomless.
“Are you okay?” I whisper, knowing that she’s not. I want to embrace her. I want to weep. But she appears so fragile in her rumpled clothing, so temporal that I am afraid she will disintegrate at the slightest touch.
“No,” Olga says and crawls into the berth directly across from mine. She draws the thin blanket across her shoulders, pulls her knees into her chest, and closes her eyes. Sleep is her only refuge and she races toward it. Within seconds the rise and fall of her chest is slow and rhythmic.
“Please, God,” I whisper. “Do not let her dream.”
Tatiana stumbles in on her own a few minutes later. She goes straight to the window, her face slick with tears, her lips swollen. Tatiana adjusts her clothing, checking the buttons on her blouse, and then straightening her skirt. She runs her hands through her tangled hair, combing it with her fingers, then spreads them across the fabric of her blouse, over and over, trying to press the wrinkles away. Finally, when her sobs became so hard she cannot catch a breath in between, she lays her forehead against the window. I fear she might shove it aside and throw herself out.
“I am so sorry about Ortimo,” I say. My voice is ragged from all the crying I’ve done myself, but I have to say something, and everything else feels unmentionable.
“I wish I’d drawn the short straw,” Tatiana says, her voice empty of all emotion. “I wish I’d been the one to go with Mother and Father.”
I had wished this for myself a hundred times during the night and cannot escape the guilt I feel for having done so. The only comfort I can offer Tatiana is to confess it. “So do I.”
When Tatiana finally turns from the window she looks hollowed out. Whereas Olga’s eyes were filled with sorrow, hers are altogether empty. My sister stands before me, but she is missing somehow, removed from her body. So I lift my blanket and she climbs in beside me, rigid and straight, as though fearing human contact. We lie there, back to back, unspeaking, as the train slowly rocks her back to sleep.
I think about the daughters of Sabine as I drift away myself. The purpose of art, Gilliard had said as we stood on the polished marble floors of the Louvre, is to tell the truth. He waved an arm at the canvas, at the boldly painted forms of tangled humans crowding that Roman courtyard. Without those women there would be no Rome, he said. The greatest empire on earth would never have existed. That great city would have been left to decay within a generation. Yet I knew now that both Gilliard and Nicolas Poussin were mistaken about the most fundamental aspect of the story: There is nothing artistic about rape. Taking a woman by force makes a man no better than the rooster in Tobolsk. It simply makes him an animal.
We arrive in Ekaterinburg at midnight. The soldiers immediately file from the train and crowd onto the platform for instruction. Within moments dim electric lights flicker on and we can see them head to the freight cars and begin to unload our belongings. We watch, faces pressed to the window as they grab boxes and trunks and pieces of furniture and toss them onto the droshkies— open, four-wheeled carriages pulled by enormous draught horses. It begins to rain within the hour, and the temperature drops soon after. Twice I catch a glimpse of Tomas and Ivan, shivering in the cold, their lips forming curse words that I am forbidden to speak aloud.
At some point my siblings and I fall asleep again, huddled together for warmth on one of the lower berths. We are woken intermittently by the stomping and cursing of the soldiers. Every time the door to our car slams open we cringe. Every time we hear footsteps in the hallway we grab one another tighter. But the soldiers leave us alone that night, and when morning dawns, hours later, we get the first real glimpse of our new home.
Despite it being late May, snow is still on the ground in Ekaterinburg. It is piled high against the sides of buildings and shoveled into dirty heaps in the gutters. The streets are filled with mud and the sidewalks lined with spectators. Beyond the train station is a sprawling city of square stone buildings with small windows and sloping roofs. The city is built, not on a grid as one would expect, but on a system of meandering streets and narrow dead-end lanes that remind me of the deer trails outside Tsarskoe Selo. The Iset River runs through the middle of the city, forming a respectable lake at its widest point, and then narrows again as it turns to the south. Around this lake are built the wealthiest homes. But we can see only the barest glimpse of the broad, silver water from where we stand on the platform.
Alexey holds on to Olga and Tatiana, and I think that the three of them look like a tiny, despondent island amid the activity. Heads bent together. Eyes downcast. Shoulders rounded. Exhausted. Weepy. Hungry. Demoralized. My siblings are broken, and the only thing that can help is being delivered safely into the arms of our parents.
Gilliard stands beside me and I turn to ask how much longer we have to wait, but his attention is at my feet, his frown causing that spectacular mustache to droop at the corners. He blinks three times, then bends his mouth to my ear and asks quietly, “What is that? Please, for the love of God, do not say it is a knife.”
My laces have come undone, and in the process Father’s paper knife has come loose from its hiding spot, the mother-of-pearl handle standing out against the black leather of my boot. “No,” I say, shaking my head slowly so as not to draw attention from the guards who swirl around us. “It is a paper knife.”
“A letter opener? Have you lost your mind? Do you think these men will make a distinction between a paper knife and a regular knife? They will only see a weapon. And they will punish you for having it.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should. Your life is worth more than you think. And angering these men to make a point is unwise.”
“You have a high estimation of my life. I do not think these men share it.”
“Then that is all the more reason for you to guard it ferociously.”
“Now you want me to be ferocious. I wish that freedom extended to the schoolroom.”
“I fear your lessons have come to an end, Tsarevna. Now is the time for you to put them into practice.”
I nod toward my boot. “Pity sword fighting wasn’t part of your curriculum.”
“I’d hardly call that a sword. And besides,” he lets go of my wrist and taps my temple soundly with one finger, “this is the weapon I expect you to use going forward.”
He is a good man. Sturdy and steadfast, and I haven’t given him enough credit. He looks so somber that I feel a rush of affection for him. “Any sharpness therein is a credit to you.”
He does smile then, proudly, but looks away when my eyes begin to cloud. “You have a remarkable disposition, Anastasia. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Oh, it’s been remarked upon. Endlessly.”
He snorts, but I’ve apparently enjoyed the last of Gilliard’s humor because he returns to his typical, stoic demeanor. “I need you to stand very still,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to tie the laces of your boot. And you are going to let me.”
I want to say that I need the paper knife, that its sharp blade and wicked point are a comfort in the night when every door is unlocked and wicked men roam the halls. But to explain that is to invite questions I am not ready to answer. So I nod and Gilliard goes down on both knees beside me. The sleight of hand is so swift I almost do not see that slim blade slide into his shirtsleeve.
“Is there something wrong with her boot?”
Gilliard ignores the question, his nimble fingers now tightening and looping my laces. I wait until he is done to lift my foot and show Semyon the hole in the end of my boot. He stares at the ripped leather and the stocking-clad toe that peeks out from beneath it.
“Indeed there is,” I say, anger pulsing in every word. “I will need new ones.”
Semyon knows that we have not told our servants what happened on the train. He knows, I am certain, because his teeth remain intact. They’d be knocked out otherwise. I do not doubt that Semyon considers this a victory, that he thinks we are ashamed. So he smiles, cold and cruel. “I believe that the ones you have will last until the end of your life.”
A single carriage comes to collect us. Even as we stare at the six available seats we do not immediately understand what this means. I think Gilliard knew all along, however.
“You will go no farther,” Semyon says when our tutor moves toward the carriage. “They go on from here alone.”
As women we are taught that bravery and valor exist in the grand gestures. We believe that kindness is weakness and arrogance is the same as courage. But it is not so. Sometimes restraint proves the mettle of a man’s heart more accurately. Gilliard could argue or throw a punch. He could slip the paper knife from his sleeve and drive it through Semyon’s throat. It would be satisfying, I won’t lie. But he takes the nobler course instead. He steps back and in so doing not only protects us but also saves his own life.
“Smart man,” Semyon hisses, the words whistling between his teeth. “Now leave while you can.”
Gilliard is circumspect in his farewells to each of us. A kiss to the cheek. A formal bow without regard to the consequences. And a single word whispered in our ears. “Tsarevna,” he says, face turned to stone, emotions squelched.
We watch him board the train and disappear inside the compartment before we climb into our carriage. When we left the Alexander Palace all those months ago we were accompanied by a skeleton crew. Now it is only the four of us, Cook, and Botkin in the carriage, followed by several dozen of Semyon’s guards. They jog steadily behind us as we rattle through the streets. Alexey holds Joy firmly in his lap, but Jimmy refuses to climb up with us. So he trots along beside, dodging puddles in the street and keeping clear of the wheels. Occasionally he looks up at me for encouragement, but he never lags behind. Once, when I glance over my shoulder, I see Tomas in the group of soldiers directly behind the carriage. He doesn’t look at me. His gaze hovers protectively over Jimmy. And I love him for it.
It is an unnerving thought to have in such a moment.
I love him.
It is a stunning, wonderful, entirely human realization at the worst possible moment. I am headed to prison, and I am in love with a boy. It takes a good five minutes before I am able to take in my surroundings once more. And then reality comes crashing in again. The rickety carriage, the bustling street, the stomp of soldiers’ feet behind me.
Whereas Tobolsk was utterly flat and nearly treeless, Ekaterinburg boasts rolling hills and numerous parks. The farther we travel into the city, the prettier it becomes. And the more attention we get. It must be odd, I suppose, to see our carriage clatter by, followed by ranks of armed soldiers. People stand on the streets and point. They stare from open doors and windows. They whisper to one another or dart out of the way when we draw close.
I spot our destination from the bottom of the hill. A giant wooden fence has been built across the front of a house, effectively blocking it from view. The fence is two stories high and made of rough-hewn wood. So new are those planks that they glow golden in the morning light. Once we pull up beside it, the smell of pine is pervasive, and I can see little rivulets of sap running down the boards and pooling in the knots.
Semyon kicks against the gate and it swings open a moment later, revealing a two-story stone building. It is the color of bisque and perfectly rectangular. The roofline is ornamented with corbels, and there is a fountain in the courtyard. But there are bars across the windows and armed guards stand at the front door.
“Welcome,” Semyon says, “to the House of Special Purpose.”