The Lost Crown (22 page)

Olga comforts herself reading psalms late into the night, but even after she turns off her bedside lamp, neither of us can sleep. “This Lenin isn’t good for us, is he?” Her voice drifts across the darkness between our cots like smoke from a censer. “I saw your face when Papa read his name, and I’ve overheard enough about the Bolsheviks to know Russia is never going to be the same.”

“No. Lenin has been in exile for years, printing his newspaper and stirring up the Jews with his Bolshie nonsense about Communism. He grew up in the same town as Kerensky.” I pause, wondering how much to worry her, even though I know she will worry no matter how much I say.

“You can tell me, Tatya.”

I sigh over Mashka’s soft snoring. “His older brother was hanged for trying to assassinate Dedushka in 1887.”

“He hates us, then.”

“I think so.” I hear the swish of her short hair against the pillow as she nods, then nothing. “Please try not to worry,
dushka
. God will watch over us.”

“
Konechno
, Tatya. But now Lenin is watching too.”

What can I say to that? Alone in the dark, I rub my St. Nicholas medal on its chain and drift off to sleep with Olga’s words buffeting my prayers like waves against the
Standart
.

25.

ANASTASIA NIKOLAEVNA

November 1917
Tobolsk

“M
y diary looks like a big white yawn every time I open it,” I gripe at Maria. “Listen to this week so far:

“‘Monday: Morning prayers. Breakfast. Lessons in the hall with M and A. Walked in the garden with Papa. Olga sat with Mama. Lunch. Walked in the garden. Tea. Lessons. Painted an ugly portrait of Jemmy. Supper. Coffee and bezique in the hall. To bed at ten o’clock.

“‘Tuesday: Morning prayers. Breakfast. Lessons in the hall with M and A. Walked in the garden with Papa. Maria sat with Mama. Lunch. Chopped and sawed in the garden. Tea. Lessons. Bible readings. Supper. The others played cards in the hall again while I wrote letters. To bed at ten o’clock.

“‘Wednesday: Morning prayers. Breakfast. Lessons in Aleksei’s room with M and A. The usual walk. I sat with Mama and looked at photo albums. Lunch. Walked in the garden while Papa sawed. Tea. More lessons. Papa read psalms out loud. Supper. Coffee and dominoes(!) in the drawing room(!) To bed at ten o’clock.

“‘Thursday: Morning prayers. Breakfast. Lessons in Aleksei’s room with M and A. Walked. Tatiana sat with Mama and patched our underwear (again). Lunch. Sawed with Papa. Tea. Lessons again. Knitted up a hole in my sock while Papa read. Supper. Coffee and bezique in the hall. To bed at ten o’clock.’”

I whap the book shut and give it an extra shove for good measure. “How utterly boring! Who would ever want to read this?
I
don’t, and it’s my own life. I can’t wait for Sunday, so I can write ‘singing’ instead of ‘lessons.’”

Maria looks at me like I’m pitiful as a three-legged kitten. “I think it’s cozy, the way we seven are finally all together all day long with nobody bothering us,” she gushes. “We have Papa all to ourselves, Mama can rest as much as she likes, Aleksei’s been healthy for months and months….”

I must be making quite a face if it’s enough to derail one of Mashka’s fancies of hearth and home. “The world is bigger than the inside of a house, you know.” I twiddle my pencil a minute, then reach for my diary again. “Maybe I’ll do it this way instead: Papa chopped a stack of wood three
arshins
high, walked eighteen circles around the garden, then spent forty minutes in the loo—hemorrhoids again?! Mama wrote seventeen pages of letters and humphed at Nikolsky and Pankratov twice. Olga read so much, I can’t even pretend to count how many words. Tatiana sewed eight hundred fifty-six stitches (maybe more) and read one hundred eighty-seven Bible verses. Maria sighed and batted her eyes at four soldiers. Aleksei collected two greenish stones and one bent nail, and played with seventy-five toy soldiers. The dogs made two messes each in the garden, except for Ortipo, who ‘did the governor’ three times. All us girls took a bath, so the place reeks of perfume. I was too busy counting to do anything except fit six pieces into Aleksei’s jigsaw puzzle.”

“You can’t do that!” Mashka’s saucers go so wide, you’d think I’ve been drawing filthy pictures or something.

“I don’t see why not. Who cares what the youngest ex–grand duchess puts in her own diary?” With a harrumph, I scoop Jemmy up and head out for a run in the yard.

“Hurry up.” I fumble my mittens at Maria’s sleeve and tug her along the frozen path. “I don’t care how cold it is. If I have to go back in that house I’ll howl ‘God Save the Tsar,’ and if we stand still we’ll freeze.” We stumble and shiver over the rutted mud as if our legs aren’t any longer than Jemmy’s. Our hair is finally long enough to brush, but no matter how many scarves or hats we wrap around our heads, the cold always marches right up our necks to our ears. At least the fence cuts the wind. “Besides, I’m getting fat as an elephant, lazing around in this place.”

“You’ll grow out of it,” Maria pants, her breath huffing out in clouds ahead of us. “I did. My waist was thick as a bowl of cream for our formal portraits in 1914. Maybe you should chop wood with Papa, or pull Aleksei on the sled like Olga.”

“If we had nothing but news to eat, I’d be thinner than a rifle barrel,” I grumble. Since the river Irtysh froze, only telegrams and horsecarts can get through. “Meanwhile Lenin and his men are strutting all over Petrograd and Moscow, those Red Bolshie pigs.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“What, ‘Red Bolshie pigs’? From Tatiana.”

“Tatiana said that?”

“They aren’t bad words, you know. Not like swearing. Anyway, she ought to know. She reads those old newspapers so much.”

Maria glances at a sentry standing along the fence, thumbing his frosty earlobe as if it’s a balalaika string. “You’d better not let the Second Regiment hear you talk like that. Or Commissar Nikolsky.”

“Now
you
sound like Tatiana. What kind of an
idiotka
do you think I am?” I drop Maria’s elbow and stomp ahead, suddenly warm enough to yank the scarf away from my neck. We tramp silently around the whole yard—silently except for the sound of Maria tripping over our own frozen footprints, anyway—before I cool down enough to turn around and ask, “Mashka, do you still want to marry a soldier?”

“
Konechno.
Why shouldn’t I? Auntie Olga did, and now she’s got a darling little baby of her own.”

How obstinate! And they think I’m the dope. “Who says he’s darling? We haven’t even seen a picture of Tikhon. He could be ugly as a monkey for all you know.” Her face starts to twist, but I’m so sick of her dreamy nonsense I can’t shut up. “Soldiers aren’t the same as they used to be, you know.”

She doesn’t even shout back, and that makes me so mad I stab at her with the only thing I’ve got: “You think any man in the army will want to settle down with the ex-tsar’s daughter and have your twenty children now that Lenin’s in charge?”

It’s worse than kicking a puppy. A whimper rises up in Maria’s big blue eyes, but she doesn’t make a sound. Instead she wraps her arms around herself and dashes into the house. Jemmy follows without even looking behind. Alone in the yard, the wind slaps the blaze from my cheeks, but not half as hard as I deserve.

“What’s wrong, Shvybs? Your turn with ‘Madame Bekker’?” Olga asks when I stalk into our bedroom without Maria and burrow into a corner of our couch.

“Mind your own business.” As if the whole household doesn’t know when one of us is into the sanitary napkins. Stuffing my nose into a book is enough to keep Olga off my back, but there’s no hiding from Tatiana when she comes swishing through the door.

“Out with it,” she demands.

I don’t know how anyone so thin can manage to look bigger than a Cossack standing over me. “What?” I ask, trying not to squirm. I don’t look up, either.

“Anastasia Nikolaevna, if you want me to believe you are reading that book, at least have the sense to move your eyes back and forth. Mashka is curled up on the sofa in Mama’s drawing room looking like the Second Regiment has drowned all our dogs, and here you sit playing innocent. What is going on?”

Oh, for the love of borscht. There’s no getting around Tatiana when she’s like this. “She’s being ridiculous, that’s what. Still blabbering about marrying a soldier and having her dozens of babies as if nothing’s happened.”

Olga covers her mouth with her hands. “Oh, Shvybs. How could you?”

I’d like to smash my face into the pages and scream. “You’re not going to tell me that’s ever going to happen, are you? Everything we can’t do is because we’re the tsar’s daughters, and Papa isn’t even tsar anymore.”

Tatiana quivers so hard, I’m sure she’s going to smack me until I spin.

“She’s right, Tatya,” Olga says. “In more than one way.” Tatiana sinks to the couch beside me and nods. “You might as well let our Mashka dream, Shvybs.”

“Remember when Maria had her tonsils removed?” Tatiana asks.

My lip rumples and I squint at her. It’s like she’s swapped scripts in the middle of a play. “
Konechno.
She laid in bed and ate ice cream for a week. I wished someone would take
my
tonsils out.”

“She almost died. She hemorrhaged so badly the doctor panicked and ran out of the room.”

“What does
that
have to do with anything, Nurse Romanova?”

“Think of how easily Aleksei bleeds and bruises. Great-Uncle Leopold was the same way. Mama’s brother Frittie died of it when he was a little boy. Two of Auntie Irene’s boys had it, and Heinrich was dead before Aleksei was born. Hemophilia spreads through our family from mothers to daughters, from Queen Victoria all the way to Mama….” Tatiana trails off. She can’t even look at me.

Everything in me goes still. “And probably to us?”

“Yes. Sons bleed, but daughters carry the disease. Any one of us might have it, Mashka most of all, Christ be with her. You know what it does to Mama, having just one son with hemophilia. Now think of our poor Mashka with her twenty children. See, Nastya? Who she marries is beside the point. Even if God is merciful enough to give her healthy babies, it does not change the fact that giving birth to any one of them could kill her if she hemorrhages like that again.”

For a moment I wonder if it’s crueler to let Maria dream for nothing, or to tell her the truth. But only for a moment. Olga’s right. Without her fancies, our sweet Mashka’d be as forlorn as a flagpole without the imperial colors, and life here is dull enough already.

Before I know it I’m snuffling against Tatiana’s shoulder. I never wanted a soldier of my own, or twenty children, but I feel like it’s my own dream that’s been yanked out from under me, not Mashka’s.

What is my dream, anyway? Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been straining on tiptoe to see what’s behind the gates and railings and fences between me and the world. But I haven’t ever once thought about what I’d do if I actually got to the other side.

Even though I know it’ll only mean more lessons, I’m glad when one of our other tutors, Mr. Gibbes, arrives. If we can’t leave the yard, at least it’s nice to see a new face once in a while. Maria is so excited, her hug lifts him right off the floor. Mashka’s never one to nurse a grudge, but I wonder if she’d be doting on our tutor this way if I hadn’t been such a brat out in the yard. I still haven’t told her I’m sorry.

Anyhow, it’s funny to see Mr. Gibbes’s face when Maria hoists him up, like he’s a fancy vase worried about getting himself broken. He’s such an odd little fellow, I’ll bet he’s looked serious as an old man ever since he was five years old. Instead of squeezing in with Monsieur Gilliard or boarding in town, he sets up housekeeping for himself and his toothless maid, Anfisa, in one of the sheds in our yard. “Do you think she’s his girlfriend?” Maria whispers.

I shrug. “If she isn’t, she’s going to get awfully cold out there.”

He’s supposed to be improving our English, but every time Mr. Gibbes overhears an exciting episode from one of Aleksei’s history lessons, he comes across the corridor eager to tell us the story. Anything that smacks of drama stokes him up like a chimney fire. From Mr. Gibbes we learn about Princess Tarakanova, who claimed to be the daughter of Empress Elizabeth but died of tuberculosis as a prisoner in the Petropavlovskaya Fortress, and the three false Dmitris, who pretended to be the dead son of Ivan the Terrible. “How stupid. How could three different people pretend to be one dead boy? Didn’t anyone recognize him?” I ask.

“Perhaps his personality was not as … vivid as yours, Anastasia,” Tatiana chimes in. Mr. Gibbes’s eyebrow goes up, and he leans back to watch us like we’re actresses in a play.

A smirk slices across my face. “No one could pretend to be me and get away with it. I am Anastasia Nikolaevna, Chief—”

“Chieftain of All Firemen,” Tatiana finishes. “We know.”

I ignore her and fan through the pages of my own history book. It ends with Tsar Alexander III, our
dedushka
, who died before any of us were born. “What do you suppose they’ll write about Papa in the history books when this is all over?” I ask.