Olga stepped off the train, her stomach swooping as her foot traversed the unexpected distance between the carriage and the platform. Feeling as though she’d missed a stair, she stumbled onto the muddy platform, relieved to be on solid ground. Though they’d arrived in Ekaterinburg at two o’clock in the morning, their train had shuttled between the city’s two stations for hours: now, at nearly nine, Matveev had finally consented to release them from their nausea-inducing crawl at the industrial depot outside the city center. Surrounded by stone-faced guards, the platform was sparse and utilitarian, hemmed in by trees bent beneath the weight of the driving rain.
She looked back up at the train, tightening her grip on her suitcase: within, Pierre Gilliard stared back at her, the glass in his spectacles glinting in the morning light. Matveev had forbidden him from accompanying Olga and her siblings onto the platform—he’d forbidden any of the remaining entourage from disembarking, though they’d made the journey from Tobolsk too, first in the same rickety tarantasses that had conveyed their parents away months earlier, then on board the Rus, which had brought them downriver to Tyumen. Finally, they’d journeyed by rail from Tyumen to Ekaterinburg, in a third-class carriage smeared with grime from its previous occupants.
She held Gilliard’s gaze as Tatiana, Anastasia and Alexei disembarked; beside him, Isa Buxhoeveden, one of Mamma’s ladies-in-waiting, dabbed away her tears with a handkerchief. Though they’d been separated from their retinue for the last leg of their journey, Olga had felt some small comfort that people she’d known her whole life—people who’d helped raise her—were only a stone’s throw away, both in Tobolsk and on board the train. Now, the thought that she was taking leave of them permanently threatened to overwhelm her. Resolving not to cry, she lifted her hand in farewell before turning to face the guards that flanked their path to a waiting lorry.
Unaccustomed as they were to carrying suitcases, Olga and her siblings struggled with the weight of their belongings as they walked toward the lorry, the bad weather adding challenges to an already challenging morning. Beside her, Tatiana carried not only her suitcase, but hefted Ortipo under her opposite arm: with his bowed legs and solid bulk, the little bulldog was unsuited to the terrain, but Alexei’s spaniel, Joy, bounded through the mud as if it were so much snow, her paws black as she strained at her leash.
Anastasia let out a cry and Olga turned: the clasp of her suitcase had come loose, and she stopped at the foot of the platform to try and fasten it once again. Olga let out a breath, resisting the urge to snap at her youngest sister: why did Shvybzik not take more care with her belongings? She rested a hand on her midsection: her corset, reinforced with Mamma’s jewels, had been digging into her stomach for the duration of the journey and she yearned to remove it, yearned for a room where she could escape from the prying eyes of their guards. Escape, just for a moment.
Alexei caught up; wordlessly, he handed Joy’s lead to Olga and doubled back to retrieve Anastasia’s suitcase.
“Grand Duchess?” Olga looked up. Matveev was waiting at the idling truck. “Inside, if you please.”
She circled to the lorry, using her suitcase to steady herself as she climbed into the cargo bed. Black and belching nearly as much exhaust as the train, it was utterly unlike Papa’s elegant vehicles back in Tsarskoe Selo: his touring cars and landaus; his sleek Mercedes and striking Silver Ghost. At least the lorry had the benefit of being dry. Olga climbed in, recalling the gilded carriage she’d once traveled in for the tercentenary; Pavel’s hand, lifting her up into the chassis.
Ekaterinburg was utterly different from what Olga had expected it to be. Under different circumstances, she would almost call the city, its wide boulevards and sweeping rivers visible through the lorry’s open end, beautiful. As they climbed the gentle slope toward the house, Olga looked out over the river. Given the rain, the vista was hardly inspiring, but after nearly a year of Freedom House’s monotonous views, Olga drank in what she could see: the long, gray neighborhoods bordering the wide river; the green forest beyond.
Ipatiev House—their new home—was immense and charmless, a heavy, hulking structure carved into the side of a sloping hill. As Olga climbed out of the lorry, she took in the building: only its top windows were visible above the double fence that had been built around the perimeter, its roof slick with rain. Her heart pounded as she walked past the barricade, the scent of the fresh-cut wood still sharp: the fence was twice as tall as the one at Freedom House, and looked much more solidly built. Out of the corner of her eye a flash of red caught her attention. A small child was standing on the roof of the house next door, his sweater a punctuation of color in the gray as he attempted to make a sodden kite fly.
She watched Matveev’s narrow back as he led her and her siblings to the door. What reason did they have to bring Mamma and Papa to Ekaterinburg rather than Moscow, after all? She eyed the mansion, unwilling to look at the guards that flanked her path—with a jolt, she realized that all the windowpanes had been painted over with white.
Guards opened the double doors and Matveev ushered them into a dark vestibule and up a narrow set of stairs. Unlike at Freedom House, which always felt restless with sound—footsteps and motorcars; snatches of conversation—this new residence was silent: guards stood at attention in every room, their eyes fixed firmly above Olga’s head as she passed.
They’d been allowed to bring their own belongings to Tobolsk, furniture and paintings which gave Olga some sense of constancy—some sense that Freedom House, for all its limitations, had been a home. Here, the rooms were sparsely furnished, the belongings no doubt left over by the individual from whom the home had been requisitioned.
It had been a home once, Olga thought, eyeing a stuffed brown bear as they passed through to the sitting room. Perhaps it could be again.
Within, Papa was pacing in front of an unlit fireplace. He turned as Anastasia dropped her suitcase and flew into his arms with a cry.
“They’re here?” Maria rounded the corner, stopping short at the lintel. “Alexei! Olga!”
Olga gripped Maria tight, not realizing, until this moment, how very difficult the past few months had been. She’d walled away her worries for her parents, for her sister, as a means of necessity—a means of survival. She’d hardened her heart to the possibility of disaster, numbed her fears as best she could; on seeing Maria, all her fears returned as her heart softened with knee-sagging relief at their reunion.
She released Maria. “Where’s Mamma?”
“In bed,” Maria replied, pointing. Tatiana dropped her suitcase and ran in the direction she indicated. “Around the corner and to the left.”
Olga turned to Papa, her stomach lurching as she noticed how much thinner he’d become. She’d walled away, too, her guilt over their last conversation—pushed it deep within her in a futile attempt to stop her own words from haunting her at night. There was little use for remorse: not when nothing could be done to alter circumstances; not when Alexei had needed her to be strong in their parents’ absence.
But what thoughts had plagued Papa in the long weeks of their separation?
Papa released Alexei, clapping him once more, genially, on the back. “Go say hello to your mother,” he murmured.
She hesitated as Alexei left the room. What if Papa hadn’t forgiven her? But Papa held his arms open, and Olga crossed the space between them to fall into her father’s arms.
He pulled her close, and Olga realized that there was nothing, in Papa’s mind, left to forgive.