By the following morning her breathing had grown more difficult and she was lingering on the very edge of life itself. Both Marina and I understood the end was at hand. Kneeling beside the Grand Duchess, I clutched her hand. Novice Marina knelt next to me, chanting prayers and crossing herself repeatedly.

“Leonichka,” Maria said, opening her eyes and using the softest diminutive of my name, “thank you for watching over me…”

“This is all my fault!” I confessed, my eyes flooding like the mightiest of Siberian rivers. “Your father entrusted me with a note, which I failed to deliver. I’m sure it fell into the hands of the Reds and-”

“Sh, my friend, there’s no need for that…”

My tears came stronger than ever, and I bowed my head before the last of the Imperial Family. Did she not know, did she not see what role I had played in the end of her entire family? Had the shock of that night wiped clean her memory?

“You don’t understand, Maria Nikolaevna!”

“I understand everything…”

“No, no you don’t! I was supposed to deliver that note, I was supposed to rally the three hundred officers!”

“Yes, and this you tried to do with all your heart. The Lord God sent you to try to save us, and this you attempted. Father was most grateful for your help.”

“No, Maria Nikolaevna! No, you don’t understand!” I pleaded, bowing my head over and over to her. “I failed! You do not understand!”

“I understand that you blame yourself for events beyond your control.”

“Please forgive me!”

“There is nothing to forgive.”

“But…!”

I clutched Maria’s hand as tightly as I could. As she faded away, I tried to tether her to this world. But she did not want to be kept here.

Maria’s eyes then closed and slowly opened, and she said, “Three hundred years ago my family made this country strong and stable… but we should have left long ago. Better I should die. Better we should fade away.”

“No!” pleaded Novice Marina, breaking her chanting. “Do not leave us, Your Highness!”

Yet perhaps she was correct. Perhaps Maria was wise in her words, for she clearly understood that the time of the Romanovs was finished. Besides, who knew what would have happened had the last daughter of the last Tsar survived? I don’t think she could have rallied the troops, for she was too young. Rather, I think she would have rallied only confusion and despair. Meanwhile, every Bolshevik on earth would have hunted her and any future offspring down.

The Grand Duchess faded into delirium, and just when I thought we’d lost her, she rallied her strength. Beckoning the novice and me closer, Maria Nikolaevna commanded us with what would be the greatest tasks of our lives.

“Marina,” began the Grand Duchess, her voice so very faint, “you perhaps know where our riches are hidden here in town?”

“Da-s, Vashe Velichestvo.” Yes, Your Highness, replied the young woman. “I am aware of what we have guarded at our monastery.”

“Then this you must do – you and Leonka must gather it all. Every bit that is here in Yekaterinburg and, if you can, that which is still in Tobolsk. You must then bury it all away again. You must keep it someplace safe. And once this terror has left our land and once my family has had a proper Orthodox burial, then I beg you to return all of these treasures to the people of my country. It is to be a gift from my family to our people. Understood?”

“Da-s,” both the novice and I replied.

And so it was that Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, third daughter of Nikolai and Aleksandra, married the Novice Marina and me in both duty and fate. Which is to say that we both escaped that time and place with one entire suitcase of Romanov jewels, which we have ever since guarded so carefully. You see, as we fled through the Siberian woods to Shanghai and eventually America, I, Leonka, became Misha, whereas Marina became May, and jointly, in time, we became husband and wife.

But that fateful morning, Maria Nikolaevna lasted only moments longer. She who was born in a golden palace expired shortly thereafter on a pile of leaves, there in that filthy den of tree roots. I myself was clutching her hand when she opened her eyes for the last time. Our eyes met and held and I understood she was leaving.

“Nyet!” I cried, falling upon her.

This was how I caught her last breath. She exhaled… I breathed in… and she was gone. That peacefully. That easily. And so ended the family of the last Tsar, the humble Tsar Nikolai II, and his devoted consort, Tsaritsa Aleksandra.

Ah-min.

21

“But, Katya, moya dorogaya vnoochka…” Kate, my dear granddaughter, continued Misha, seated at his office desk and clutching the microphone in both hands, “that’s not quite the end, for the Romanovs have now been buried a total of three times. In other words, Rossiya still does not know what to do with her last Tsar and where to place him in her ugly history. Yes, such devilish things have been done to the bodies of the Tsar and his family.”

Misha sighed, caught his breath, and gazed at his wall of books on the Romanovs. He was almost done, almost to the end, determined to make his granddaughter understand the complexities of the revolution and the fall of the Tsar. And he was doing just that, wasn’t he?

“Well, the very day after they were dumped down that mine, the Tsar and his family were brought back to the surface of the world again. Yes, it’s true, we learned all this not only from the Yurovsky Note of 1920, but also from those guards, who were later thoroughly interrogated by the Whites. And that next day the Romanovs were indeed resurrected. Because so many townspeople knew what had happened and where the bodies of Nikolai, Aleksandra, and the others were buried, the Komendant Yurovsky recognized the necessity of transferring the corpses to another location. On top of that, Yurovsky’s idiots, those Reds, had made such a mess of the area at the Four Brothers Mine that even a blind man could have found the bodies! So Yurovsky and his men returned to the mine and fished out the Romanovs. One of the Bolsheviki was lowered to the bottom of the pitshaft, where he stood in freezing water up to his waist. He started with Tatyana, tying a rope around her young, naked body. Giving a signal, the young princess was then hoisted up. And so it went, one by one. And because the bodies had been in this chilled, fresh water, they were all pink and fresh looking, like naked babies, their cheeks nice and rosy. They were all pulled out, of course, except the tiny dog, Jimmy, who was found only months later, nearly perfectly preserved.

“Oi, it was such a farce! What idiots those Reds were! They tossed the murdered ones in the back of a truck and headed off, intending to bury them in a deeper mine near the Siberian Highway. Along the way, however, the motor lorry kept sinking in the mud because, of course, it had rained so much. Finally it went in up to its axles, becoming hopelessly mired. The Reds jumped out of the truck, scratched their stupid heads for a few minutes, and then pushed and pushed to no avail. Eventually Yurovsky decided they needed to lighten the load, and so they pulled off the bodies, tossing the Tsar and his family on the side of the road like a pile of logs. Again they pushed and pushed, this time freeing the vehicle. By then it was dawn of yet another day, and Yurovsky and his idiots were so exhausted, do you know what they did? They threw the Romanovs and their retinue in the shallow muddy hole left by the truck! True, it’s true, Katya! Yurovsky thought himself so smart, pleased that they were killing two hares with one shot. And so they tossed them in the shallow hole, Romanov and servant piled this way and that, and then they doused them with sulfuric acid to make them unrecognizable. Finally, they covered them with mud and clay, threw some railroad ties over this grave, and ran the motor lorry back and forth to pack everything down. Can you imagine? And it worked. It worked for almost seventy-five years! Investigator Sokolov searched the entire area and even had his picture taken standing atop those very railroad ties – but never thought to look beneath them!”