Well, our midday meal was indeed a thin cabbage soup, followed by a second course of vermicelli sprinkled with dillweed. And after we had eaten and Demidova and I had cleared the table, I immediately went to the Tsar’s bedchamber, finding it occupied by both my master and mistress.
“How may I assist you, Nikolai Aleksandrovich?” I asked, standing in the doorway with my hands folded before me.
“Ah, Leonka. Excellent.” He gazed at me with those remarkable eyes, then winked, which gave my heart a start. “I just realized this morning that the evening light would be much better for writing if I situated my table a bit to the left. After all, the electric lamps have not been so reliable as of late.”
No, they most definitely hadn’t. Not only was the power supply from the city dam most unreliable, so was the wiring of the house itself. Just last week several electricians had spent two whole days trying to correct the problem.
From the cushioned chair where she sat, needle in hand, Aleksandra Fyodorovna said in a distinctly loud voice, “Leonka, I have a small present for the father who gave us the obednitsa yesterday.” She held up a small handkerchief on which she was stitching the twice transversed cross of Russian Orthodoxy. “I wonder if you would be so kind as to drop it by the church the next time you go for food?”
“With pleasure, Madame. I am to go this afternoon.”
“How convenient. I shall be finished within the half hour.”
The Tsar glanced toward the door, saw no guard, then reached for a book on his table. He flipped through the pages, coming to the very note the sister had brought earlier, and withdrew it.
“Hide this well on your body, young man. Our response is written on the same note,” he said, his voice low. “Do it now, place it in your undergarments.”
I did as ordered, opening my clothes and hiding the note on my body. As I buttoned up my pants, I looked up.
“You know what to do?” he asked.
Speaking words that the Yekaterinburg Soviet had strictly forbidden, I replied in a hushed voice, “Da-s, Vashe Velichestvo.” Yes, Your Greatness.
The Tsar and I then played out the charade of moving the writing table, a fine piece of polished wooden furniture with a green leather top. And then I retreated. Toward two-thirty they all went out into the garden, including Yevgeny Sergeevich, who was greatly improved. They all went out except the Empress and one of her daughters, the second, Tatyana Nikolaevna. They remained indoors, where they conducted their spiritual readings, Daniel 16 to the end, as well as Hosea 1-5. This I know because the Empress herself told me, whispering that she would be praying for me.
And so it was that after I helped the Tsar’s footman, Trupp, carry the wheeling chaise down into the garden, and after the Tsar himself carried down his fourteen-year old son, I returned to the kitchen. Shortly thereafter, I was escorted out of the locked rooms, past the guards, through the double palisades, and out the gates into the square of the Church of the Ascension. It never occurred to me to run, to flee, not then, nor any other time. I don’t know why, but somewhere in my heart I felt my place was in there, with them, in that house that was so full of evil intent.
Well, that afternoon I again fulfilled my task. I encountered no problems. As instructed, I stopped by the church and delivered the handkerchief embroidered by the Empress herself. And I handed over the note dictated by the Emperor and handwritten by his daughter, Olga Nikolaevna. I gave it to Father Storozhev, and it reads:
The second window from the corner facing the square has been opened for 2 days – day and night. The seventh and eighth windows facing the square next to the main entrance are always open. The room is occupied by the komendant and his aides, who are also the inside guards – up to 13 at least – armed with rifles, revolvers, and bombs. None of the doors have keys (except ours). The komendant or his aides come into our room whenever they want. The one who is on duty does the outside rounds twice every hour of the night, and we hear him chatting with the sentry beneath our windows. There is a machine gun on the balcony and another downstairs in case of alarm. If there are others, we do not know about them. Do not forget that we have the doctor, a maid, two men, and a little boy who is a cook with us. It would be ignoble of us (although they do not want to inconvenience us) to leave them alone after they have followed us voluntarily into exile. The doctor has been in bed for three days with kidney trouble, but he is getting better. We are constantly awaiting the return of our men, Ivan Sednyov and Klementy Nagorny, young and robust, who have been shut up in the city for a month – we do not know where or why. In their absence, the little one is carried by his father in order to move about the rooms or go into the garden. Our surgeon, Derevenko, who comes almost daily at 5:00 to see the little one, lives in the city; do not forget. We never see him alone. The guards are in a little house across from our five windows on the other side of the street, 50 men. The only things that we still have are in crates in the shed in the interior courtyard. We are especially worried about A.F no.9, a small black crate, and a large black crate no. 13 N.A. with his old letters and diaries. Naturally the bedrooms are filled with crates, beds and things, all at the mercy of the thieves who surround us. All the keys and, separately, no. 9 are with the komendant, who has behaved well enough toward us. In any case, warn us if you can, and answer if you can also bring our people. In front of the entrance, there is always an automobile. There are bells at each sentry post, in the komendant’s room, and some wires also go to the guardhouse and elsewhere. If our other people remain, can we be sure that nothing will happen to them??? Doctor B. begs you not to think about him and the other men, so that the task will not be more difficult. Count on the seven of us and the woman. May God help you; you can count on our sangfroid.
And here I must pause in my story…
8
Misha pushed the stop button on his tape recorder, listened as the little machine clicked to a halt, and then sat back in his leather desk chair. The old man took a deep breath, held it, and finally exhaled. From this vantage – Lake Forest, Illinois – and this time – August 1998 – it was all going fine, wasn’t it? He was telling the story just as he should, right?
Oh, how he wished May were here. She would know. His wife who always had a word on her tongue would tell him whether or not he was saying too much, too little, or if he was getting it just right. Bozhe moi, my God, how he couldn’t wait until this life was over.
He pushed back his chair, grabbed ahold of the edge of his desk, hesitated, and pushed himself to his feet. Then he just stood there. Everything used to be so automatic, now he had to think about every little step. He started to move his left leg, but then a bolt of pain stabbed his bad knee. Wincing, he leaned on the desk with one hand, hesitated, tried again. It was always like this, at first walking seemed impossible, but after the first few steps he seemed to be able to walk out of it. And so he proceeded.
He’d always been amazed that the slaughtered bodies of the Romanovs had remained hidden for so many, many years, and in fact he had often wondered if they’d ever be found, particularly within his own lifetime. And it wasn’t until July 11, 1991, the day after Boris Yeltsin’s inauguration, that a squadron of detectives, colonels, epidemiologists, and forensic experts headed out of Yekaterinburg toward the village Koptyaki. It was there, behind a fence, underneath a tent, and in the glare of all these lights, that the herd of Russian officials pulled more than a thousand smashed and crushed bones out of the mud. Even then they weren’t sure what they found. Seeking the truth but lacking DNA technology, the Russian scientists developed a sophisticated technique of computerized superimposition, whereby their mathematicians matched photos of the Romanovs to the skulls they found. And that was how, Misha had read, they determined that skull number four – the very one that contained a desiccated brain shriveled to the size of a pear – was none other than Tsar Nikolai. Skull number seven, meanwhile, proved the easiest to identify because of its extensive and beautiful dental work. It was that of the Empress Aleksandra.