1918
Even after the guards had forced the prisoners down the stairs, the cries and the sobbing still seemed to echo back up the stairs and into the window alcove.
Earlier, this had felt a bit like an adventure – like the start of something from one of Katya’s storybooks – but it was not an adventure at all, it was a nightmare. Might it actually be a nightmare? Might it be possible to wake up? If so, it might even be possible to forget the faces of those young girls and the helpless boy carried in the man’s arms. But there was the girl who had sung with her mother to help the boy’s fear – even if she was only part of a dream, it would never be possible to forget her.
The curtains made a rattly sound when they were cautiously pulled aside and the old boards of the stairs creaked a bit, but no one seemed to hear. The thing to do was to go very quietly all the way down to the hall – it was still filled with the craftily watching shadows and it would be like going down into a black swirling well. But there did not seem to be any guards around, and there were only seven stairs to go now … Five stairs, three … Almost there.
As the bottom step was reached, from somewhere deep within the house screaming began – terrible screaming that went on and on, and went deep into your body, and even seemed to cause the shadows to shudder and cower back.
Just when it seemed that the screams could not possibly go on for any longer, the shots came. Not just a single shot, but guns – rifles – being fired over and over again. It was dreadful. Unbearable. Those people – that man, the boy, those girls – that girl – were all being shot by the guards. Their servants were with them, and they were all screaming with terror and pain. There had been the sharp, spear-like knives fastened to the rifles as well – they had been like giant skewers. Were the guards using those, too …? There was a lurch of sickness at this last thought – feeling sick could not be paid any attention, though. The screams and the gunshots must somehow be shut out. The only way was to keep thinking none of it was real. That it really was a nightmare, and that eventually you woke up from nightmares.
There was no longer any sense of running across the hall, but somehow it had been done, and the hunched shadows had been got past, and here were the scullery steps. Here was the scullery itself with its familiar shapes of tables and wooden chairs and pans, and the scents of cooking. It was safe, and safest of all was the tiny room with the narrow bed, and the door that could be shut tight against the sounds and the terror.
But after the door had been shut and the sheets pulled up, a different terror began to creep up. Someone was creeping down the stone steps – soft footsteps were coming slowly towards the scullery. Coming to this room? Have the guards realized I saw them take those people away? If they have, they’ll shoot me as well! A faint rim of light appeared around the edges of the door – someone was opening it very slowly and carefully, and looking in. Don’t move … It might be a trick – pretend to be asleep. The rim of light widened and fell across the foot of the bed, then Katya’s voice said, very softly, ‘Are you asleep?’
Katya! It was Katya who had stolen down here so softly and quietly, and she would make everything all right again. She would make the world safe once more.
‘I’m not asleep.’ There was no need to tell her – not yet anyway – about going upstairs, and seeing the man and the boy and the girls. ‘Um – bad things are happening, aren’t they?’
‘I’m afraid so. But you’re safe down here – they won’t hurt you.’ She glanced over her shoulder into the scullery. ‘And because I know you’re safe in here – that there are people in the house who’ll look after you – I’ve come to say goodbye to you. I have to go away. It’s all very secret and it has to be very quiet.’
‘No. Oh, no!’ This was terrible. If Katya went away, the world would splinter and nothing would ever be safe, not ever again. ‘Please don’t go away.’
‘I must. It’s breaking my heart, but there’s someone …’ Again the backward glance to the half-open door, and the shadowy scullery. She sat on the edge of the bed – it was very clear she did not have much time, but she sat there anyway, and reached out her hand. ‘You heard the screams?’
‘Yes. I wanted to—’
‘To try to save them? Even if it could just be one of them?’
‘It sounds silly. Except when you say it, it doesn’t sound silly at all.’
‘I am going to save one of them,’ she said. ‘That’s what I’m doing now. And afterwards I’ll come back for you, and then there’ll be a journey – a really exciting journey it’ll be, both of us together, and there’ll be marvellous things at the end of it.’ Her eyes shone for a moment, and it was suddenly possible to believe her.
There was a quick hard hug, and the familiar scent of Katya’s hair and her skin, and then she was out of the room before anything else could be said.
But she did not completely close the door, and a second figure was in the scullery – a figure who was standing very still, with its head turned towards the steps, as if fearful of what might appear. As Katya went across the floor, the light fell across this figure. It was the young servant girl who had shouted that the guards were brutes and had been hit across the face. The bruise showed clearly, even in this light. So it was true what Katya had said – one of those people might be saved after all. This was a good thought
Katya took the girl’s hand, and pulled her towards the little garden door. ‘Once outside we’ll be safe,’ she said to her.
‘Yes.’ It came on a breath of sound, but then, with sudden eagerness, ‘Is he outside? Is he waiting for us?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. He won’t let us down.’
For an instant it was as if a light shone in the eyes of both of them, then they were going across the scullery towards the garden door. They were almost there when there were the clattering footsteps of the guards in the hall, and shouts about one of the females having escaped.
‘That wretched little servant,’ cried a voice. ‘The one who shouted curses upstairs earlier. But now she’s slipped the net – slithered out of our hands like the Romanov rat-slave she is!’
‘We’ll find her,’ said a second voice, hard and angry. ‘She must be in the house – it’s sealed. We made sure of that.’
‘Drag her down to the cellar – she’s as bad as her masters; she can share their fate.’
‘That other one’ll get a worse end,’ said the hard voice. ‘That bitch who got her out. That kitchen maid. The crowd’s already yelling for her. If we throw her out to them, she won’t last long. They’ll tear her to pieces. They already know she’s a traitor to her own kind – helping those cursed Romanovs. She’s been up to her ears in an escape plot, and she’s a traitor to the Bolshevik cause.’
‘How do you know all that? The crowd have been yelling their heads off all day, but you can’t tell what they’re shouting most of the time.’
‘I do know,’ said the hard-voiced guard. ‘Listen.’
There was a sudden listening pause, and into the pause …
There it was. The thing so much dreaded. The cold, terrible music, filtering into the house.
‘You hear it?’ said the guard. ‘That’s the “Temnaya Kadentsiya”. They call it the “Traitor’s Music”, and they’re playing it for that kitchen maid – Katya, that’s her name. And once they get their hands on her …’
Katya gave a gasp, and grabbed the girl’s hand, pulling her towards the garden door. She was going to take the girl through it with her, and they were going to meet whoever had made their eyes light up with such hope and courage. That was why Katya had unlocked it earlier – ready for this.
But it was not unlocked, because it had been locked again earlier. I locked it. I locked it because of what the guards said, and because of keeping out the music. But now it would keep Katya and the other girl in, because the guards were coming and there was no time to climb on to the stool for the key … Katya would be thrown to the crowds and they would kill her while the music was played.
It took two seconds to bound from the bed, and call that the door was locked. ‘But there’s a hiding place …’
‘Where?’
‘Here. Quickly …’
Of all the hiding places that had been found and kept secret – of all the places the guards had not known about and that perhaps no one in the house knew about – this was by far the best, and it was the one that had never been used. It was as if it had been necessary to save it for something. For this – yes, of course for this.
Katya was saying, ‘But that’s only the larder. That’s not a hiding place – they’ll only have to open the door to find us.’
‘No – I’ll show you. Only you must be quick.’
Once the larder door was shut, it was almost impossible to see anything, but it was possible to feel a way along – to feel the marble shelves with the bread crocks and the covered dishes of leftover food. There was a smell of food and it was dark, but it was possible to feel the way along.
Katya said, in a fearful whisper, ‘Where are we going?’
‘All the way to the back. Don’t let them hear you.’ For the guards had clattered into the scullery, and they were opening the little bedroom door – something was said about there being a pesky child, who must have run into hiding.
‘Don’t bother about the child – it’s those two women we’re after.’
Katya’s whisper came again. ‘How is this a hiding place?’
‘There’s a place at the back – a bit like a large cupboard. A slab that pulls away and a space beyond. You can both go in there, and I can put the stone back. No one will know.’
‘And then you’ll go back to face the guards? I won’t let you!’
‘It’s all right, really it is. I’ll be in the ordinary larder, and if they open the door, I’ll have been stealing some food – I’ll have some bread or something in my hands. They aren’t interested in me anyway – you heard them say so. And once they’ve gone away you can get the key and get out.’
There was a moment when it seemed that she would refuse, but then she said, ‘Yes. But we have to be quick.’
For a bad moment it seemed that the section of stone that could be pulled away was no longer there – that it had been a dream. But it is there, I know it is. The wall’s flat, and you have to run your hands across the surface, but it’s here … About level with your waist, remember …
And suddenly it was there. The two sets of holes, four on each side, positioned so that fingers could be thrust in, and the whole section of the stone pulled back. It did not pull very easily – it had not done so all those weeks ago when it was originally found, but then there was a slow groan of sound, like old, dead bones being forced into life, and the feeling of flakes of dust and dirt showering down, like shrivelled scales falling away from an old snake.
As the stone came away there was the sense that something had breathed out – something that was so cold it would burn your skin if you touched it. Katya and the other girl both shuddered, but they stayed where they were, although there was the sense of the unknown girl glancing nervously back to where the larder door and the scullery were.
The stone was quite heavy, but it could be set on the ground, and there was the square, gaping hole.
‘Can we get through that?’ said Katya, suddenly sounding doubtful.
‘Yes. You’ll have to squeeze through, but you’ll manage it. And it’ll be safe in there.’
‘It looks a bit like the opening to a tunnel,’ said the other girl, her voice uncertain.
‘It isn’t a tunnel. It doesn’t go anywhere.’
‘How do you know? Did you explore?’
‘Yes.’ There was no need to explain about cautiously climbing through with the oil lamp and seeing that this might one day be a really good hiding place, because one day it might be necessary to hide – properly and completely – from the guards.
‘We’ll do it,’ said Katya. ‘You go back and pretend you’ve been raiding the bread bin, and we’ll be safe in here. You can put the section of stone back so it won’t be seen, can’t you?’
‘Yes. And I’ll come back as soon as I can, and let you out. But I’ll have to wait until the guards have gone and it’s safe.’
‘I understand that. I trust you.’
They climbed through, first Katya, then the girl.
‘Tight squeeze,’ said Katya. ‘But we’re through. It’s horrid though – and dreadfully cold and dark.’
‘I took some candles and a tinder box from the shelf just inside the larder. Here …’ And Katya’s words about raiding the bread bin had sparked an idea. There was just time to dart back along the larder, to seize from the shelves some pieces of rye bread, and a slab of cheese. What else? The dish of apricots that had been left under a cover. And something to drink. There was a stoppered flagon of milk.
‘Take these—’
‘A feast,’ said Katya, gravely, taking them. ‘You’re an exceptional child.’
‘I’m not.’ There was no more time left; the guards were just beyond the larder door, and the stone slab had to be put back. It was difficult to do it in such haste, because it was heavy and it had to be kept absolutely level with the opening in order to slide it back in place. But it was finally scraping back into position, and as it did so, Katya’s voice came from the dimness. It was quite close, as if she was pressing against the wall on the other said. She said, ‘I love you very much. Please remember it.’
‘I will. I love you too. And I’ll come back as soon as it’s safe.’
There was no way of knowing if she had had heard this, but it was a good feeling to know they were both safe for the time being. Feeling the way back to the scullery, managing to find a chunk of bread and a piece of cheese from beneath a crock, it was important to remember that although they would be cramped and cold, they had the candles which would provide some light, and they had food and milk.
Out in the scullery the guards were prying into cupboards and opening doors. They spun round at once and demanded to know what was happening.
It was surprisingly easy to put on a bewildered voice; to say, ‘The shouting woke me up and I was hungry. So I got some bread and cheese from in there.’ A vague pointing to the larder. ‘I’m allowed to do that.’ This came out defiantly, which was good.
The men went into the larder, of course, and moved around suspiciously. But they came out again, shaking their heads.
‘A mouse couldn’t hide in there.’
‘It’s not a mouse we’re looking for, remember; it’s a couple of female rats.’
‘Whatever you’re calling them, they’re not in there. You’ – a finger was jabbed angrily – ‘you get back to bed in your own room. It’s no time for children to be around. And don’t come out again. There’ll be one of us nearby, watching. I’ll stay down here for a while in any case.’ As the other man nodded and went back up the stairs, the guard opened the larder door again and went inside. It was all right, though. He came out again with food in his hands and a bottle of something that was probably wine. But he did not go up the stairs. He sat down at the table.
The music was still being played outside – the ‘Traitor’s Music’, the guard had called it. It was trickling through the house, cold and cruel, like shards of ice getting in through the cracks in the bricks and stones, or dripping down from the ceilings.
It would be all right, though. The guard would not stay down here for ever. Presently it would be possible to get Katya and the other girl out, and they would unlock the garden door and escape.
Even like this, in the midst of the fear and with the crowds still shouting and playing the music, it was possible to reach for Katya’s words, and feel them like a warm shawl.
‘I love you very much,’ she had said. Those were good words to hold on to.