The Frantic Scramble for Survival

FOR DAYS ALEXANDER WALKED in gloom. “Don’t fret,” Albina tried to cheer him by counting his blessings, “we still have the farm, the foals will soon have value instead of consuming precious food, the children are healthy and we are alive, protected by you. Moreover, the general has promised protection for this village from thugs.” She smiled radiantly, encouragingly at him, “Soon it will be spring and the horrible hunger will subside.”

In this manner she tried to build him up. But ever since he had killed the thugs, he had lost his ease. He sought solace and hope from prayers to Albina’s sweet, forgiving Lord, a God so different from the pain-filled, living martyr he’d grown up with. The Orthodox church had defined their Savior by stigmata, dripping blood, dolorous tears and everlasting pain, forbidding hope and joy.

Oh, if he could only have moved into the blessed presence of the Redeemer in whom his wife’s mind dwelt.

Meanwhile, in the servants’ quarters of Katharina’s Thor, Victoria and Holger were frantically working and scheming to preserve the lives and the future of their family.

“We have to find a way to get the little boys out of the country. Another winter like this one, filled with hunger and starvation, and they might become the victims.”

“If they don’t get shot by blackmailing thugs or held for ransom,” cried Victoria spiritedly, her eyes flashing with righteous anger. Holger had ever so carefully taken back the reins of his company. Not a moment too soon, because Tumachevsky had been on sinking ground from the beginning. First of all, because no one trusted a Red Army general, everyone withheld goods and services. Secondly, the man had not the faintest idea how the business was to be run.

Therefore, after his return, Holger found that all the buyers seemed to have vanished and the suppliers seemed never to have existed at all. After the Hildebrandts had been ordered back to the estate, Tumachevsky received them very cordially. He returned a few nice pieces of their art and furnishings for their use and saw to it that they had decent food.

Holger worked in his old office as before. “Do you know why we are back so soon in the manager’s house?” he asked Victoria shortly after their return. Since she was clueless he explained, “Tumachevsky’s in-laws, together with a few of their sons, were living here until they all had a big row. It seems they lasted in peace only two days. So, the general sent a complement of soldiers into Katharinenstadt, and they confiscated the rich, beautiful house of the Fleischer, the wonderful sausage maker, by throwing him and his family into the street, installing instead Tumachevsky’s in-laws.

“Dear Lord, what will happen to these poor people? I recall that the Fleischer had small children,” cried Victoria, horrified.

“Now you know why the grandchildren must leave, and soon. Their parents can be made homeless tomorrow in the blink of an eye. I am unable to get our bodies out of the country, but the small ones – perhaps.”

“What do you have in mind? Send them away with a family of diplomats you know?”

“Your amazingly agile mind still works well. That is precisely what I have in mind.”

“And how do you think this will work?” Victoria could not sit still when she became excited. She left her comfortable chair in the small living room to pace to the primitive, diminutive kitchen and busied herself brewing coffee. Although absorbed in her conversation, she performed the everyday task of making coffee automatically, never breaking her concentration.

“Well,” said Holger, “I thought this through carefully and then checked with the party intended to carry out the plan, and they think it might work. The Swedish ambassador has two children, boys of almost the identical ages as ours. The Reds don’t know that these boys were sent home to their grandparents years ago. They left with their governess the moment the monarchy ceased to exist.”

While Victoria served the coffee in exquisite Meissen cups she had somehow kept out of the grasping hands of the general’s wife – a coarse person Victoria would have loved to have seen at a fishmonger’s shop – Holger painstakingly cleaned his spectacles and then continued to unravel his plan.

“As you know, Gustavus Holmgren is an old friend of mine.”

“You don’t have to elaborate, we have shared many fine events with the Holmgrens in Moscow and St. Petersburg.”

“Petrograd,” corrected Holger.

“Oh, pish! To me it will always be St. Peter. Are you saying that Gustavus is willing to take our boys? He is willing to risk his safety or an international incident on our behalf?”

“When I spoke to him about the children, his eyes got misty. ‘I think I can minimize the risk to my wife, your grandchildren and myself by employing the following plan,’ he said. He told me the plan and I told him that I would be grateful unto my death if he could carry the children to safety.”

“I will begin to pray this minute that your plan works, and may God grant us this favor.”