Anastasia (5 page)

“I see,” said Alexei gravely. But he didn’t, because later I heard him ask Papa the same question.

Papa explained it this way: Powerful people are often disliked. The tsar, like all powerful men, has enemies, and it’s possible that someone might try to harm him. So as a precaution, there are two trains. But Papa told Alexei that he wouldn’t like to travel in the other one, because the food is not nearly so delicious.

16/29 March 1914

We’re crossing the steppes of Ukraine, a huge area far to the south of Tsarskoe Selo and St. Petersburg. Outside the windows of the train I can see the beginnings of spring. The train moves slowly, about the speed of a galloping horse, but it won’t be long now until we cross into the Crimea.

Papa has been making this long journey to the Crimea since he was a young boy, with Grandmother and Grandfather and Papa’s brothers and sisters. Grandmother has told us stories about the old days, when Grandfather was still alive. Tsar Alexander III was “big as a bear and twice as gruff,” she always says, sounding proud. One day in the fall of 1888, the entire family was aboard when, suddenly, the train came off the rails and the cars tumbled over. The roof of the car in which they were riding was completely caved in. Imagine how frightened everyone must have been!

But Grandfather was so strong that he pushed up the roof of the car and held it while everyone crawled out.

It’s hard for me to picture my grandfather, who was more than six feet tall and very surly at times. My dear papa is not like that at all. He is just five feet seven inches tall but very handsome, and he is the kindest papa and the kindest tsar in the whole world. That’s why I don’t understand why anyone could ever be angry at him.

18/31 March 1914

Livadia Palace

Here at last! It’s so sunny that the light hurts our eyes. All around are steep cliffs, little Tatar villages tucked in the mountainside, gleaming white mosques, and the sparkling Black Sea. (It’s not black at all. I don’t know why they call it that.)

Livadia is Mama’s favorite palace because she and Papa built it just a few years ago. Everything is new and lovely and bright, and we have beautiful views of the beach and the sea.

In November of 1911, soon after the palace was finished, Mama and Papa celebrated Olga’s sixteenth birthday here with a grand ball. She dressed in a pale pink gown, with the necklace of diamonds and pearls they had given her (the rest of us were in white). She wore her hair up for the first time and looked very grown up and beautiful. I told her she looked fat and ugly as mud, but instead of getting angry, which she should have, she hugged me and said that Papa and Mama will do the same for each of us as we come of age to be presented. (I don’t want to be presented. It sounds like what our chef does when he brings the Easter lamb to the table.)

When the dancing ended at midnight and a buffet supper was being served, the moon rose and reflected on the sea below us in a silvery pool. It was so lovely. I was sorry I told Olga she was ugly as mud, for she is not.

19 March/1 April 1914

It’s still too cold to swim in the sea (Papa doesn’t think so; he goes in every day, regardless, always with a loud whoop when he hits the icy water), but we’re to go for a horseback ride after our lessons tomorrow.

20 March/2 April 1914

My
derrière
hurts! Tatiana gets practically blue in the face when I say that word. It’s almost as bad as
bosom
. I told her it’s a French word and therefore perfectly proper, but she still disapproves. So I’ll say it this way: That part of my anatomy that was in contact with the saddle of a horse for six hours is
sore
.

Even so, it was a good ride, back through the pine forests to a pretty waterfall. The farmers were plowing their fields for the spring planting, and they were very friendly. Papa says a swim in the sea would relieve my aches and pains. Mama says a warm bath is better.

22 March/4 April 1914

Tennis lessons have begun. Again. My tennis tutor says that I have a “natural swing,” but swing as often as I do, I don’t manage to hit the ball very often.

I would much rather watch Papa, who has a natural swing
and
hits it every time. He plays with some of his aides and others in his suite. Some of Mama’s friends like to play, too, but Mama says her great joy is sitting quietly in the sun and watching the rest of us madly running after balls.

24 March/6 April 1914

Anybody would think we might have a few days off from our lessons while we are here in Livadia. But our tutors are merciless!

When Monsieur Gilliard and Professor Petrov at last dismissed us today, Papa took us for a very long walk. We met some Turkish-speaking Tatar women who dye their hair with henna and hide their faces behind long veils. I think someday I’ll dye my hair bright red and wear a veil and no one will know who I am. Won’t Mama be appalled!

27 March/9 April 1914

I found Mashka’s diary. I
swear
I wasn’t even looking for it — it was simply lying there, open, on her table. Naturally, I looked. Here’s what she wrote:

Someday, when I am grown up, I shall marry a Russian soldier and have twenty children.

She must be crazy.

29 March/11 April 1914

Papa’s sister, Aunt Xenia, and her husband, Uncle Sandro, have arrived with our cousins. Irina is still on her honeymoon with Felix, but all six boys are here. Alexei is beside himself with happiness to have some boys to play with, but Mama doesn’t like them any more than I do, because they’re rowdy. I plan to stay as far away from them as possible,
especially
Nikita.

30 March/12 April 1914

Palm Sunday

Today begins the holiest week of the year. Mama spends a great deal of time in her little chapel praying before her dozens of icons, holy pictures of the Virgin Mary and Jesus and the saints. Sometimes Papa or — more often — Tatiana goes with her. I usually manage to be somewhere else when she’s looking for one of us to accompany her.

31 March/13 April 1914

I’m decorating eggs to give to my family. First, you make a tiny hole in each end of the egg and blow
very hard
. (The chef takes the blown-out insides to make cakes for the Easter feast. He doesn’t believe in waste.) I don’t want to mention how many eggs I squashed until I had an entire row of empty eggshells to decorate. I’ve finished two: The first is dyed deep red with bits of gold-colored straw glued on in an intricate pattern. That one is for Papa. The other is dyed mauve, painted with purple irises, and shellacked, for Mama.

1/14 April 1914

We had our last fitting today with the seamstresses making our Easter dresses. They’re silk in a misty kind of green that Mama calls
celadon
.

She says we’ll look extremely sophisticated when we wear them to church on Easter Eve. I say “Faugh!” to
sophistication
, but not out loud in front of Mama.

3/16 April 1914

Shura had to help me with my sisters’ and Alexei’s eggs to get them finished in time. I used one of the leftover eggshells to make a false nose, which I wore to tea to see if anyone would notice. Papa pretended not to, but Mashka laughed, Alexei shrieked, and — imagine! — Mama was appalled!

Easter Day 1914

Last night, the sophisticated Romanov grand duchesses and all of Papa’s and Mama’s guests crowded into the silent, darkened church. At midnight, the bishop knocked loudly on the door of the church and shouted, “Christ is risen!” and the crowd roared back, “He is truly risen!” The bishop entered carrying three huge candles, from which the priests lit their candles and passed the flame to ours, until hundreds of candles flickered. Mama’s face glowed with joy, and so did my sisters’, but I was having trouble with my garters and expected my stockings to fall down around my ankles. So, the only glow from me was my red face.

After the service we came back for a wonderful feast. Lent is over, so we can eat all those things we weren’t allowed for the past forty days. The best is the
paskha
, sweetened cottage cheese mixed with candied fruits and nuts, then baked in a mold shaped like a flowerpot. I told Olga I could eat
paskha
every day, and she said that if I did I would soon
look
like
paskha
(like a flowerpot, she means). She is rotten, and to get back at her, I told her I know she secretly tried some of Dunyasha’s rouge on her lips. She grew quite red in the face, so I know she probably had. Mama does not allow
anyone
to wear rouge.

Later

Everyone was here for Easter dinner. Another feast! Butter, molded in the shape of a lamb, sat in the center of the table. It’s the dearest thing! There were platters of cold veal and wild boar and so on, and of course
kulich
, the most delicate bread. Yesterday, I watched the chef lay the loaf on its side on a pillow to cool so that it doesn’t get flat or out of shape, because it’s as tender as a cloud. The chef carried our
kulich
to church last night to have it blessed.

The food was delicious, but the guests were not, at least not all of them — our dreadful cousins, for example. Mama invited Mrs. Phelps, that English lady who wears hats that look like a nest of birds. She has a voice like a bird, too. After Mrs. Phelps fluttered off, I did a little imitation of her, cawing exactly the way she does. Papa and my sisters were laughing so hard that tears were rolling down their cheeks, but Mama said my manners were frightful.

Papa said, “That’s our
Shvibzik
.” And winked at me.

As usual, Papa presented Mama with the most glorious Easter gift: a jeweled egg. I’ll describe it tomorrow. Now I’m going for more
kulich
and
paskha
.

7/20 April 1914

Long ago, Grandfather began the custom of ordering a jeweled egg every year from the court jeweler, Carl Fabergé, as an Easter gift for Grandmother. Now Papa orders two eggs, one for Grandmother and one for Mama. This egg is much bigger than an ordinary hen’s egg, or the egg of any other kind of bird (why am I now thinking of Mrs. Phelps?), and is made of gold and lots of precious jewels.

There’s always a surprise inside the egg that’s revealed when you push a secret button. For instance, it might be a basket of wildflowers made of pearls. We each have a favorite egg: Tatiana loves the one that has miniature portraits of her and Olga and Papa inside. I love the one with a little crowing cock that pops out of the egg. Alexei likes the one called the Great Siberian Railway Easter Egg. Inside it is a tiny exact model of the Siberian Express, made for Easter in 1900, the year the railway was finished.

Papa leaves the design of the eggs up to Fabergé, who always has to be careful that Mama’s Easter egg is just as beautiful and clever as Grandmother’s, and the other way around.

I absolutely love the egg Papa gave to Mama this year. It’s called the Mosaic Egg. It’s completely covered with tiny diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires that form intricate flower designs. The surprise inside is a cameo with the profiles of OTMA and Alexei carved on a pink stone that’s mounted on a golden stand and surrounded by pearls. We all admired it, but Alexei says his favorite is still the Siberian Express.

Papa put the egg I made for him in his study.

9/22 April 1914

Our cousins have gone! Thank goodness!

12/25 April 1914

Papa took us on another long walk. Mama and Alexei joined us later for a picnic, although Mama was feeling weak and needed her wheelchair. An odd thing happened. My sisters and I were picking wildflowers in a meadow, and Alexei was lying on a blanket nearby, staring up at the clear blue sky, when suddenly he said, “I wonder what’s going to happen to us?”

We asked him what he meant, and he couldn’t explain it — just that he had a strange feeling that something was going to happen, and that next year we wouldn’t be here.

“Nonsense,” Mama said, but I wasn’t at all sure that he was speaking nonsense. Alexei has a way of sensing things.

17/30 April 1914

Edward the Welshman is not going to ask for Olga’s hand after all! I don’t know why — it can’t have been because of the portrait — but I do know that Mama is annoyed. She wants Olga to go to England when she marries and leaves us.

Olga is relieved. She insists that she doesn’t want to leave at all, and I don’t want her to go.

19 April/2 May 1914

Of all the important people who come to visit Papa because he is the tsar of Russia, my favorite is the emir of Bokhara. He’s the most fantastic-looking man — very tall and dark, with a long black robe, and a white turban that glitters with diamonds and rubies. The emir’s mouth peeks out like a little red bird from the nest of his thick beard and mustache, not nicely trimmed like Papa’s but lush as a raspberry thicket. He speaks to us in a droll manner and always brings us sweets and small carved animals from his country.

23 April/6 May 1914

Papa told a story at dinner today that had everyone laughing but me. Years ago, when I was only five, my sisters and I had gone swimming in the sea with Papa. Suddenly a great wave came along and swept me off my feet. The next thing I knew, I was being tumbled under the water, wanting to scream but not able to. I was sure I was drowning. Then I felt a yank on my hair. It was my dear papa, holding me by my long hair and towing me to the beach. But I thought it was Neptune taking me to his kingdom beneath the sea.

For the rest of that day I stayed by Mama and baby Alexei and refused to go back in the water. The next day Papa said I must come in with him. I did, and soon I forgot all about what had happened.

Today as I dashed into the water, Papa called out, “Watch out that Neptune doesn’t grab you!” He loves to tease me.

28 April/11 May 1914

We have lots of birthdays coming up soon in our family. Papa’s is next week, and then Mama’s, and then Tatiana’s. Mashka’s is in June, after mine. We get such a tiny allowance, only twenty rubles each month, that it’s hard to buy much. I bought Tatiana a pair of gloves recently when Madame Gheringer brought her cases of scarves and hosiery and other things for Mama to make her choices. I wanted to buy the white kidskin, but had enough only for lace. I plan to buy Mashka a bottle of her favorite scent, Lilas, when I’ve saved up some money.