Eye of the Red Tsar (17 page)

Before he knew it, he had been swept out into the street
.

Pekkala ran around the side of the station, and from a street just off the Nevski Prospekt, he watched the train pulling out. The windows were open. Passengers leaned out, waving to those they had left behind on the platform. The carriages rattled past. Then suddenly the tracks were empty
and there was only the rhythmic clatter of the wheels, fading away into the distance
.

It was the last train out
.

The next day, the Reds set fire to the station
.

“WHAT IS IT you want to tell me, Katamidze?”

“I know where they are,” he replied. “The bodies of the Romanovs.”

“Yes.” Pekkala nodded. “We have found them.” For the moment, he said nothing about Alexei.

“And did you find my camera?”

“Camera? No. There was no camera in the mine shaft.”

“Not in the mine shaft! In the basement of the Ipatiev house!”

Pekkala’s face went suddenly numb. “You were in the Ipatiev house?”

Katamidze nodded. “Oh, yes. I’m a photographer,” he said, as if that would explain everything. “I’m the only one in town.”

“But how did you come to be in the basement?” According to Anton, that was where the bodies of the guards had been found. Pekkala tried to sound calm, even though his heart was racing.

“For the portrait!” said Katamidze. “They called me. I have a telephone. Not many people in town have one of those.”

“Who called you?”

“An officer of the Internal Security, the Cheka. They were the ones guarding the Tsar and the family. The officer said they wanted me to take a formal portrait, to prove to the rest of the country that the Romanovs were being well treated. He said it was going to be published.”

“Did he give his name?”

“No. I didn’t ask. He just said he was Cheka.”

“Did you know the Tsar was staying at the Ipatiev house?”

“Of course! Nobody saw them, but everyone knew they were there. You can’t keep a secret like that. The Guards built a temporary fence around the house and painted the windows so that no one could look in. Afterwards, they tore the fence down, but when the Romanovs were there, if you so much as stopped and
looked
at the place, the soldiers would pull a gun on you. Only the Red Guards came and went. And I got the call! A portrait of the Tsar. Imagine it. One minute I am taking pictures of prize cows and farmers who have to pay me in apples because they don’t have the money for a picture, and then next minute I am photographing the Romanovs. It would have made my career. I planned on doubling my fees. The officer said to come right over, but it was already after dark. I asked if it couldn’t wait until morning. He said he had just received orders from Moscow. You know how those people are. You can’t get them to do anything but, when they want something, it all has to happen yesterday. He told me there was a room in the basement which had been cleared out and that this would be a good place for taking the family portrait. Fortunately, I knew that the Ipatievs had electricity in their house, so I would be able to use my studio lights. I barely had time to pack. There’s all sorts of things involved. Tripod. Film. I had just received a new camera. Ordered it from Moscow. Only had it for a month. I would like to have it back.”

“What happened when you arrived at the Ipatiev house?”

Katamidze puffed his cheeks and exhaled noisily. “Well, I almost got run over on the way there. One of their trucks went racing past me. They had two, you know. I was carrying all my photography equipment. I barely had time to get out of the way. It’s a miracle nothing got broken.”

“Where was the other truck?”

“It was in the courtyard behind the house. I couldn’t see it, because the courtyard has high walls, but I could hear the engine running. I smelled the smoke of its exhaust. When I knocked on the door, two Cheka guards came to answer it. Both had their guns drawn. They looked very nervous. They told me to go away, but when I explained about the photo, and that the order to take it had come from one of their own officers, they let me inside.”

“What did you see when you walked in?”

Katamidze shrugged. “I’d been in there before. I’d done portraits for the Ipatiev family. It looked about the same, except there was less furniture on the ground floor. I never made it upstairs. That’s where the Romanovs were staying. There’s a staircase to the right of the front door, and a big room to the left.”

“Did you see the Romanovs?”

“Not at first,” said Katamidze, and in the silence which followed his lips continued to shape the words.
At first. At first. At first
. “I could hear them upstairs. Muffled voices. There was music, too. It was playing on a gramophone. Mozart. Sonata number 331. I used to play that tune when I was studying piano.”

Mozart had been one of the Tsarina’s favorite composers. Pekkala remembered the way she tilted her head while she listened. She would hold the thumb and index finger of her right hand joined in an O, tracing seagulls in the air as if conducting the music herself.

“I carried my equipment down to the basement,” continued Katamidze. “Then I brought down some chairs from the dining room. I set up my light and the tripod. I was just checking the film in the camera when I heard a noise behind me and a woman appeared at the bottom of the stairs. It was the Princess Maria. I recognized her right away from pictures I had seen. I didn’t know what to do, so I got down on my knees! Then she laughed at me and said I should get to my feet. She said she had been told about the portrait and wanted to know if everything was ready. I told her it was. I said they should come right away. Then she went back up the stairs.”

“What did you do then?”

“What did I do? I checked the camera about twenty times to make sure it was working, and then I heard them coming down the stairs. Soft as mice. They filed into the room, and I bowed to each one and they nodded their heads at me. I thought my heart was going to stop!

“I arranged the Tsar and the Tsarina in the two middle chairs, then the two youngest, Anastasia and Alexei, on either side. Behind them stood the three eldest daughters.”

“How did they seem to you?” asked Pekkala. “Did they look nervous?”

“Not nervous. No. I wouldn’t say that.”

“Did they speak to you?”

Katamidze shook his head. “Only to ask if I wanted them to move or if the way they were standing was acceptable. I could barely answer them, I was so nervous.”

“Go on,” said Pekkala. “What happened then?”

“I had just taken the first picture. I was planning on several. Then I heard someone knocking on the front door of the house, the same one I’d used to come in. The guards opened the door. There was some sort of conversation. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then there was shouting. That’s the first time I saw the Tsar looking nervous. And the next thing I heard was a gun going off! Once! Twice! I lost count. There was a regular battle going on upstairs. One of the princesses screamed. I don’t know which one. I heard the Tsarevich Alexei ask his father if they were going to be rescued. The Tsar told them all to be quiet. He got out of the chair and walked past me to the door and closed it. I was frozen to the spot. He turned to me and asked if I knew what was happening. I couldn’t even speak. He must have known that I had no idea. The Tsar said to me—‘Do not let them see you are afraid.’”

“And then?”

“Footsteps. Coming down the stairs. Somebody stopped outside the closed door. Then the door flew open. Another Cheka guard came into the room.”

“A different one?”

“Yes. I hadn’t seen this man before. At first, I thought he had come to tell us that we were safe.”

“Just the one man? Can you describe him?”

Katamidze screwed up his face, trying to recall. “He was neither tall nor short. He had a thin chest. Narrow shoulders.”

“What about his face?”

“He had one of those caps which the officers wear, the kind where the brim comes down over their eyes. I couldn’t see him very well. He was holding a revolver in each hand.”

Pekkala nodded. “And then?”

“The Tsar told the man to let me go,” continued Katamidze. “At first, I didn’t think he would, but then the man just told me to get out. As I stumbled from the room, I heard the man talking to the Tsar.”

“What were they speaking about?”

“I couldn’t hear. Their voices were muffled.”

“Did you hear the Tsar call him by name?”

Katamidze stared up at the lightbulb in the ceiling, teeth gritting with the exertion of remembering. “The Tsar called out a word when the man first entered the room. It could have been a name. I remembered it for a while, but then it went out of my head.”

“Try, Katamidze. Try to remember it now.”

The prisoner laughed. “After so long trying to forget…” He shook his head. “No. I don’t recall. The next thing I remember is that the Tsar and the guard began to argue. Then the guns went off. There was screaming. The room filled with smoke.”

“Why didn’t you run?” asked Pekkala.

“I was so petrified I couldn’t get my legs to take me up the stairs. I just stood there and watched. I couldn’t believe what was happening.”

“What did you do then?”

“The shooting stopped suddenly. The door was half open. I could see the guard reloading the guns. Bodies were writhing on the floor. I heard groaning. A woman’s arm reached out through the smoke. I could see Alexei. He was still sitting in his chair. He had his hands held up by his chest. He was just staring straight ahead. When the guns were loaded again, the guard moved from one person to the next.” He fell silent, his jaw locked open, unable to find the words.

“Did you see him shoot Alexei?”

“I saw him shoot the Tsarina,” whispered Katamidze.

Pekkala flinched, as if the sound of that blast had just ripped through the air. “But what about Alexei? What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see how anyone could have survived. Finally, I came to my senses and ran. Up the stairs. Out the front door. As I left the house I nearly fell over the two guards who had let me in. They’d both been shot and were lying on the floor. There was a lot of blood. I assumed they were dead. I didn’t stop to check. I don’t understand it. If the Cheka were supposed to be guarding the Romanovs, why would one of them have murdered the Tsar and even some of his own people?”

“What happened next, Katamidze?”

“I ran out into the dark,” the man replied, “and I just kept running. First I went home, but then I realized it was only a matter of time before someone came looking for me, either the gunman or people who thought I’d committed the murders. So I left. I ran away. In the woods outside of town I have a little cabin, the kind they call a Zemlyanka.”

Pekkala thought of his own cabin, deep in the forest of Krasnagolyana, now only a silhouette of ash and rusted nails.

“I knew I’d be safe there,” continued Katamidze, “for a while at least. I had been on the move for about an hour when I passed by the old mine at the edge of town. It is a bad place. In the old language, it is called Tunug Koriak. It means ‘the place where the birds have stopped singing.’ The locals stay away from there. The people who worked in that mine had to be brought in from somewhere else. They all got sick. Most of them died.”

“What was mined there?”

“Radium. The stuff they use on watches and on compasses. It glows in the dark. The dust is poisonous.”

“What did you see at the mine?”

“One of the Cheka trucks. The same man who killed the Romanovs. He had unloaded the bodies next to the mine shaft. He was throwing them down one by one.”

“Are you sure it was him?”

Katamidze nodded. “The headlights of the truck were on. When he passed in front of the beam, I knew it was him.”

“But are you sure he threw in all of the bodies?”

“By the time I arrived, the truck was already there. I don’t know how many bodies he threw down.”

“Did he see you?”

“No. It was dark. I hid behind the old buildings where the mine workers lived. I waited until he climbed back in the truck and drove off. Then I started running. When I got to my cabin, I stayed there for a while. But I didn’t feel safe. I moved again. And again. Somewhere along the way, I read in the paper that the Romanovs had been executed on orders from Moscow. All nice and official. But that’s not what it looked like to me. After I read that, I realized I knew something I wasn’t supposed to know. Who can you trust after that? I kept moving, until I ended up in Vodovenko.”

“How did you end up here, Katamidze?”

“I was living on the streets in Moscow, in the sewers. Some tunnel workers found me. I don’t know how long I had been down there. It was the only place where I thought I might be safe. Do you know what that feels like, Inspector? Never feeling safe, no matter where you are?”

“Yes,” replied Pekkala. “I do.”

On the 2nd of March 1917, with riots in the streets of Petrograd and soldiers at the front in open mutiny against their officers, the Tsar gave up his power as absolute ruler of Russia
.

One week later, with negotiations under way to have the Romanovs exiled to Britain, the Tsar and his family were placed under house arrest at the Tsarskoye Selo estate
.

General Kornilov, the Revolutionary Commander of the Petrograd district, informed the staff at Tsarskoye Selo that they had twenty-four hours to leave. Any who chose to remain behind would be placed under the same conditions of arrest as the royal family
.

Most of the staff departed immediately
.

Pekkala chose to stay
.

The Tsar had given him the use of a small cottage on the outskirts of the estate, not far from the horse enclosure known as the Pensioner’s Stables. It was here that Pekkala waited, with a growing sense of helplessness, for events to unfold. The confusion outside the palace gates was made worse by the fact that within the imperial household, no one seemed to have any sense of direction
.