Yuri did not often have visitors at the hospital. The last time was when Katya had come to take him ice-skating. Thus when he saw Daniel approach, he was both puzzled and concerned. Katya’s visit had been good, but Yuri was too much of a pessimist to believe he could have two such visits in a row.
“What’s wrong?” he said without preamble.
“I’m sorry, Yuri—”
“Dear Lord! It’s Mama.”
“No, no—please, there is nothing wrong, honestly!” Daniel flashed a smile to punctuate his earnest words.
Yuri gave the chart he was holding to the nurse he had been talking with. “I wonder if I’ll ever become an optimist again?”
“You never were, Yuri,” Daniel said good-naturedly. “Do you have some time to talk?”
“There is something wrong.”
“No. It’s just that I so seldom find you home that the only way to corner you was to come here.”
“All right.” Yuri turned to the nurse. “Keep up the warm compresses for another twenty-four hours. Cleanse the wound three times a day with the iodine solution. I’ll look at it again tomorrow.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
The nurse left and Yuri turned back to Daniel. “I have to be in surgery in an hour. Will that be enough time?”
“I’ll make do. Is there some place private we can go?”
Yuri led Daniel to the elevator, which for once was functioning. They rode to the sixth floor, exited, and walked down a corridor to Yuri’s office.
It was a small room packed with a desk, several filing cabinets, and a couple of metal chairs. The furnishings were shabby, and there was no carpet on the floor nor curtains on the single small window that looked out on the wall of the next building. A pungent musty odor pervaded the cramped quarters. It was hardly the kind of appointments one might expect the Chief of Surgery of a large metropolitan hospital to have. Besides this, the room was quite messy with stacks of charts falling all over the desk and books and other miscellany piled on the floor.
Daniel glanced around, a bemused look on his face.
“I’m lucky to have an office at all,” Yuri said apologetically. “The hospital is so overcrowded. And there is no money for an assistant, so the paper work piles up on me.” He motioned Daniel to a chair. “I didn’t want the job as Chief of Surgery in the first place, and said I would not sacrifice direct patient care to the tyranny of paper. The board of directors really didn’t care. Someday, I suppose, there will be a new and efficient bureaucracy in Russia, and I will probably be tossed into the Fortress for not filling out forms in triplicate. But for now, the disorder of society is my ally.” He dropped into a seat adjacent to Daniel, not behind the desk.
“You look tired, Yuri.”
“As do you.”
“I suppose we are both slaves to our work.”
“Do you think we’d be that way if there wasn’t such a huge need?” Yuri realized it had been so long since he’d had a friendly chat with anyone that he found himself relishing it and wanting to prolong it. He knew Daniel must have a special purpose for this visit but saw no harm in taking advantage of the moment.
“I fear we would be,” Daniel replied. “My hardest task is to force myself to stop and spend time with Mariana and the children.”
“They seem well-adjusted enough, so you must have found a proper balance. My only salvation is that Katya is wonderfully understanding. And Irina never had a father, so she is content with anything I do.”
“Well, we must be thankful for the small things.” Daniel paused.
After a minute of silence, Yuri chuckled. “Have we run out of things to talk about already?”
“Only if we want to avoid talk of the news and medicine.”
“What else is there in our lives? Perhaps we ought to take up a hobby. Can you picture us lolling by the side of a lake, fishing?” Yuri paused, but only for a brief moment before he added, “Are you sure you didn’t have something specific to talk about?”
Daniel smiled. “Yes, but friendly conversation happens so little these days.”
“I was thinking the same thing. How about when this cursed revolution is over, and life returns to normal, you and I buy a couple of fishing poles, find a lake, and see what we can catch?”
“I’ll look forward to it, Yuri.” Daniel tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Now, about this ‘cursed revolution’ . . .”
“Yes, how is it going, Daniel? You probably know more about it than anyone I know besides Uncle Paul.”
“Lenin is stirring up things—and just when the Provisional Government was beginning to get a handle on the situation. Before Lenin arrived most Bolsheviks were content to take the part of the peaceful opposition party. When Lenin published his April Thesis in Pravda—which uncompromisingly denounced the war, calling for an immediate peace, and which also called for the Proletariat to oppose the Provisional Government any way it could—the editors quickly informed their readers that those were the personal opinions of Lenin and were in general unacceptable to them.”
“If his own party doesn’t support him, he doesn’t have a chance.”
“Lenin does not give up that easily. I have seen the man in action. He can bend the will of even the most obstinate adversary. But I didn’t interrupt you from your important work to discuss Lenin, though he might well have an effect on everything in the future. I really wanted to talk to you about the royal family.”
“I have recently spoken to Dr. Botkin, and he tells me they are holding up well.”
“I’m glad to hear that. You must know, of course, that there are those who are especially concerned with their safety—”
“According to Uncle Paul, Kerensky is one of those.”
“Yes. He is committed to their protection. But what if someone rises to power who is more easily swayed by the oft-heard cries of the people to make the tsar stand trial and answer for his crimes?”
“As Mama would say, Daniel, why borrow trouble?”
“True, but your mother would be the first to be prepared for trouble should it come.”
“What are you getting at, Daniel?”
“Sorry for being so cryptic. Been around too many politicians lately. Here it is clearly. I have been contacted by a small group of men in Britain who are interested in preserving the safety of the royal family. They were especially appalled by King George’s refusal to grant asylum. They would be prepared to mount a rescue.”
“That’s quite noble, but why them? There are many monarchists in this country who talk of the same thing—and they are Russian.”
“Yuri, you know I love the Russian people as I do my own people. But they are a notoriously disorganized and disjointed lot. One look at the way the revolution has been run is proof. Many groups talk of a rescue, but few are able to agree on a single plan. I think my British contacts believe a little Anglo order might be called for.”
“All right, then, I applaud them.” Yuri leaned back in his chair, shaking his head, puzzled. “I still don’t see what you are getting at.”
“They—the Brits, that is, would . . .” He hesitated. “Well, they would like some inside intelligence.”
“Inside Russia?”
“Inside Tsarskoe Selo.”
There was a long silence as Daniel’s intent began to dawn on Yuri. His brow wrinkled, and he just stared at his brother-in-law, waiting for him to continue.
“Yuri, you are the only man I can trust who can do this job.”
“Even if I agreed to do such a thing, you know yourself I am at the hospital sixteen out of twenty-four hours. I haven’t time for my own family. How would I find time to spy on the tsar?”
“You wouldn’t have to go there on a regular basis. An occasional visit would suffice, bolstered by your communiqués with Botkin. You have already established yourself as a consultant in the care of the tsarevich—”
“That was before the abdication. In fact, I haven’t been to the palace since . . . the monk died.”
“Since your involvement in that matter never became known to the tsar, it would be far simpler for you to reestablish yourself there than it would be, say, for me to do so.”
“True.”
“That’s all you need to do for now. If and when an actual rescue were to occur, there might be more—relaying messages in and out of the palace, that sort of thing.”
“I don’t know. . . .”
“Yuri, you once sacrificed a great deal to save the tsar. I know you thought it was all for naught when the revolution came and he was forced to abdicate. But what if this is a chance to redeem yourself, to make your former sacrifices mean something after all?”
Yuri shook his head. “It’s too late for that, Daniel—” When Daniel opened his mouth to protest, Yuri raised his hand. “But there is another reason for me to do what you ask. I need to have some purpose in life that is more positive than the pain and death I face every day. It’s a more selfish motive, to be sure, but then I never did wear altruism very well.”
“I think it’s a perfect reason,” Daniel said, smiling. “I’ve heard too many platitudes from politicians lately to trust altruism much, anyway.”