Nikolai embraced his daughter, wishing her birthday greetings, followed by Aleksandra, who made the sign of the cross over Maria and kissed her as well.
Usually birthdays were observed at a luncheon with many distinguished guests, a lavish table of much food, entertainments, and great gifting, for Russians are among the most generous sort, particularly when it comes to their children, whom they love to spoil and do so endlessly. In earlier times a young girl of the nobility would be showered with sable hats and coats and muffs, pearl necklaces and diamond earrings and so on and so forth. And even though such a celebration was impossible that summer day, hardly anyone seemed to notice.
The Empress poured the tea by her own hand, an event once seen as a great compliment to a guest but was now commonplace. Since the fine china was long gone, Aleksandra filled tall, thin glasses perched in metal standards with handles. There was no lemon, no cream. The cunning Empress, however, had secretly managed to preserve a few cubes of sugar, and that morning we were all issued one. I followed Aleksei’s lead, pinching the cube between my front teeth as I sipped the tea, something that caught his mother’s glare, to be sure, for it was a peasant’s habit, something Aleksei had seen one of the guards do.
The krendel was cut and served. And then the gifting began.
Olga presented a novel in French, Tatyana a bookmark that she had painted with her own hand, Aleksei a rock he had polished like a sultan’s jewel. A tablet of drawing papers came from Botkin, hand-knit stockings from Demidova, and a small bunch of flowers from Trupp. The baked delight, of course, was the gift from cook and me. And after all of us had made our presentations came the finale, several packages from Maria’s parents.
“Here, my love,” said Aleksandra. “Open this first.”
The young woman did, finding enclosed a religious title, Complete Yearly Cycle of Brief Homilies for Each Day of the Year. Maria opened the volume, silently cherished the inscription, and then read it aloud.
“To Our Dear Darling Daughter from Your Very Own Loving Parents, Mama & Papa +, 27 June 1918.” She folded the book shut, and leaned forward and kissed her mother. “Spacibo, Mama. Ya ochen tebya lubloo.” Thank you, Mama. I love you very much.
“And what about me?” asked her father.
“Papa, of course!” she said, jumping up and planting a kiss upon his bearded cheek.
Nikolai embraced Maria, kissed her, and held forth a small box. “Here, my child. You must have something beautiful too, you know, otherwise good fortune will not follow you in the year to come.”
“Oi!”
It was this gift that Maria had been waiting all morning to receive, for she was not simply a Romanov, not simply a Grand Duchess, but most importantly a young woman, who was well schooled enough to know how these things worked, that the prettiest gift always came last. And while what Maria found was no Romanov treasure, it was most certainly a thing of beauty, particularly during such dark days of imprisonment. The other daughters crowded around, and Maria lifted out a fine gold bracelet from which hung a simple charm of love carved from green stone.
“Oi, kakaya krasota!” Oh, what beauty, exclaimed Maria.
“Do you like it?” asked her father.
“I love it and I shall never, ever take it off!”
Maria jumped up and kissed first her father, then her mother, who fastened the bracelet on Maria’s left wrist.
We all finished our sweet treat and single glass of tea. Conversation dissipated, and we servants, knowing our places, retreated. Only Dr. Botkin remained with the family in the withdrawing room, and soon we heard the sounds of the piano. It was a little program, first featuring the voice of Anastasiya as well as the Empress, whose contralto was so beautiful that she might have pursued a career in singing had she not been of such high estate. That was followed by the older pair, Olga and Tatyana, who played fourhand a beautiful piece, so sweet, so melodic, that it washed away any ill purpose from that house. Hearing the flow of the keys, the gush of the tune, I froze in the kitchen, gazed out the window, and thought for a few brief moments that maybe everything would be fine. Da, da, even the guards momentarily lost their anger, their burning zeal, for I noticed a few of them pause in their random patrol and gaze off in uncomplicated thought. All at once, and only that once, did things within The House of Special Purpose seem at peace.
But there were important duties to be done, namely there were “medicines” to be dealt with. And looming in everyone’s mind was the essence of time, as promising as it was threatening. In short, the celebration of Her Greatness Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna’s nineteenth birthday soon concluded and the feminine hands of the house resumed their deceitful needlework. By noon the rooms took on the air of a sweatshop, albeit a secret one.
Meanwhile, I wheeled about the Heir Aleksei, driving him from room to room. We played troika for hours, finding everything of interest when in fact there was nothing. Given our common age we were able to see things others could not, however, and as such the route around the dining room table became a troika track, the large potted palm in the drawing room became an oasis in the Sahara, and later the dogs, Jimmy and Joy, chasing and barking after us, were transformed into rabid wolves. Truth be told, we occupied ourselves for hours with a talent I have long since lost.
During all of this the Tsar negotiated a victory of sorts. Claiming that the hall where Kharitonov and I slept was insufferably hot, he successfully petitioned and received permission for the two of us to move to the other side of the house – to a room initially occupied by the Heir Tsarevich, who had since moved into his parents’ room. While this small room was notably cooler than our little hallway, our comfort was not the Tsar’s motive.
“It won’t do to have me and all the women on this side of the house,” whispered Nikolai Aleksandrovich with a wink as we carted our few possessions to our new chamber.
Sure, the Tsar needed all the muscle he could gather. And while I assumed that we were preparing for a fight or battle, we were instead retreating. After lunch the Tsar quietly pulled me aside.
“Hide these envelopes as you did before, molodoi chelovek,” young man, instructed the Tsar with a soft smile. “One is a reply, the other contains letters to be carried on to Sankt-Peterburg. Deliver them as you did before and you will have served us well.”
So that was what I did. I hid the two envelopes in my undergarments, and when I went to the Soviet for more food from the cafeteria, I stopped briefly at the Church of the Ascension. Meanwhile, the Empress remained indoors with her oldest daughter, Olga, the two of them madly stitching their corsets, and the Tsar and others descended into the rear yard where they paced in the tropical heat of the Siberian summer. And I… I went out, delivering the envelopes to Father Storozhev. One contained letters to their dear Anna Vyrubova, while the other contained the reply to the loyal officers, in which I much later learned the Tsar tried to call off the liberation attempt:
We do not want to, nor can we, escape, We can only be carried off by force, just as it was force that was used to carry us from Tobolsk. Thus, do not count on any active help from us. The komendant has many aides; they change often and have become worried. They guard our imprisonment and our lives conscientiously and some are kind to us. We do not want them to suffer because of us, nor you for us; in the name of God, avoid bloodshed above all. Find out about them yourself. Coming down from the window without a ladder is completely impossible. Even once we are down, we are still in great danger because of the open window of the komendant’s bedroom and the machine gun downstairs, where one enters from the inner courtyard. If you watch us, you can always come save us in case of real and imminent danger. We are completely unaware of what is going on outside, for we receive no newspapers. Since we have been allowed to open the window, surveillance has increased, and we are forbidden even to stick our heads out at the risk of getting shot in the face.