The Lost Crown (7 page)

Frustration vaults me to my feet so fast the empty chair rocks behind me. I’m going to speak with Mama about all this. “Just make sure Aleksei gets out of that uniform.”

With Anastasia scowling in my wake, I run downstairs to see if I can talk sense with someone.

“Olga, darling,” Mama cries, reaching out for me from her chaise, “have you heard the news? Isn’t it glorious?”

“But Mama—,” I begin between kissing both her cheeks.

“That dreadful Nikolasha has been going over your papa’s head for months,” she interrupts. “And his hatred for our Father Grigori is intense. Now everyone is in his proper place again. God is with us.”

I want to believe her. Of course I do. I want to believe my papa can turn the war around, that the lazaret will stop filling with broken young men. Instead Mama’s delight wrings me with shame. I should have more faith in my papa the tsar. God himself has chosen Papa to lead Russia. Who am I to question either of them?

No one wants to blame the person they love best when things go wrong. If Mama had been in the playroom only a few minutes ago, she would have chided me to make my brother behave instead of scolding her Sunbeam herself. Who will she criticize for Russia’s next loss, now that “dreadful Nikolasha” has been stripped of his position? For that matter, where will I aim my frustration but at my own papa? But there’s no talking to Mama when she’s this way, blind with her own rapture.

“Christ be with him,” I say into the first gap in her rhapsody. She beams at me, squeezing my hand as if victory is already ours. I want to snatch my fingers back, flee all the way upstairs to my desk, and twist my letter to Papa up in my two fists.

9.

ANASTASIA NIKOLAEVNA

September 1915
Tsarskoe Selo

“H
ow do I look?” Aleksei twirls in his new uniform. We all stand back and admire him as if he’s a painting.

“Like a ballerina,” I tease. “Stand still. Soldiers don’t pirouette.” He snaps his heels together and stands to attention. “That’s better. You look as drab as any army private.”

“You’ve got much fancier uniforms,” Maria says. “You’re so handsome in the others.”

“This is your brother, not an officer, you goose,” Tatiana says. “You cannot make eyes at everything in a uniform.”

“I like this one best,” Aleksei insists, looking a little hurt. “Those others are just for show.” As if he doesn’t care a whit for all the gold braiding and epaulets on his honorary dress uniforms. “
Stavka
is no place for showing off. At head quarters I’ll be a real soldier.”

“Not quite a real soldier,” Olga reminds him. “But you do look like a proper young man,” she says, straightening his cap and brushing off his shoulders to hide the catch in her voice. “You’re not a gilded toy soldier in a borrowed uniform anymore.”

Tatiana starts in on a lecture. “This will not be easy for Mama, Aleksei—”

“Oh hush, Governess,” I scoff. “They don’t allow mamas at the front.”

Aleksei smirks. “Or sisters,” he adds. “Only men.”

“And I’ll be stuck here with Maria, who’ll be too busy scheming up a way to get into
Stavka
to be any fun at all. If you wake up one morning and find someone hanging outside the gates, drooling like a plump puppy dog, that’ll be our Mashka!” I clap my hands and dance around her as her rosy cheeks turn darker yet. Everyone says Tatiana’s the beauty, but I think Maria’s really prettiest, because she doesn’t even know it. Olga frowns at me, and I pinch Maria’s face like an old auntie so I can get close enough to wink and whisper, “I’ll make it up to you, Mashka.”

“Report to Mama for inspection, Private Aleksei Nikolaevich,” Olga commands.

Aleksei salutes and shoots off down the hallway, his boots clattering on the steps.

“Careful, Aleksei,” Tatiana calls after him.

I turn on her. “Why do you do that to him? You’re as bad as Mama.”

“He has to learn to be careful, Anastasia.” She sounds like a wagging finger.

“He’s got plenty of people to be careful for him,” I fire back. “Nagorny and Dr. Derevenko and Monsieur Gilliard. And Mama. Always Mama! He doesn’t need anyone else hovering over him. He’s finally getting out, and he shouldn’t have to worry about her. Aleksei knows better than any of us that Mama’s never been apart from him. Just let him be.”

“Getting out of where?” Tatiana demands.

“Of here! Outside! And it won’t hurt him a bit to meet some people who can start a sentence with something besides ‘don’t.’ He doesn’t have half the freedom we do, and that’s not saying much. I’d chop off my hair and dress up in khaki in a heartbeat if it meant I could go with them.” My cheeks go hot enough to boil my eyeballs, but I won’t cry.
I am Anastasia Nikolaevna, Chieftain of all Firemen
, I tell myself, clenching my fists and stamping a foot.

Tatiana only stares at me. Mashka, too. But Olga smiles sadly, and I can tell that she of all people understands. “You’d make a fine soldier, Shvybzik,” she whispers, grinning fiercely through her own watery eyes.

I run into Olga’s arms and hug her tight, so tight. She strokes my hair, but after a moment I feel her chest bounce beneath me as she starts to laugh. I blink up at her. “Oh, Shvybs,” she says, taking my chin in her hands and kissing my forehead, “can you imagine how terrified our boys in the lazaret would be if they knew what a fighter you are? You’re a regular Ivan the Terrible.”

Tatiana was right, of course. She always is. At the station, Mama and Tatiana stand twisting their handkerchiefs, trying not to cry. Aleksei leans out of the train’s window, smiling and waving so furiously, we ought to feel the breeze from his flapping arms. Mama clutched and petted and squeezed him so much I think he’s just happy to be able to move again. As the train pulls away, he runs from window to window, waving and throwing us kisses. Nagorny shadows close as a watchdog, but Mama still flinches every time Aleksei throws himself against another sill.

“Careful, my treasure,” she calls. “Don’t bump!”

With Mama so distracted, I march along beside the train, calling out, “Hup, hup, hup,” so Aleksei won’t hear her fussing. The train picks up speed, and I can’t keep up without hiking up my skirts and running pell-mell. No matter how worried Mama is over her precious Sunbeam, I know she’d notice that and give me an imperial scolding. I dare to jog a few
sazhens
beyond Aleksei’s window, then freeze at attention.

“Ten thousand kisses and a victory salute to Private Aleksei Nikolaevich!” I shout over the clank and roar as the train passes. “And Christ be with you!” I stay rooted to the spot until the caboose disappears, then sigh and trudge back to Mama’s end of the platform.

My sisters cluster around her, looking like a pack of weepy white rabbits with their pink-rimmed eyes and wobbly noses. Tatiana’s got her arm fastened around Mama’s waist like a corset. Honestly, sometimes Tatiana acts as if Mama’s no more sturdy than a flap of flowered chintz. I march right up to Mama and throw my arms around her neck, kissing both her cheeks.

“He’s so happy, Mama!”

“He is, isn’t he?” she says, smiling a little bit. “He didn’t even cry, that brave little treasure.”

“Bah! Soldiers don’t cry.”

Mama takes a great breath and squares her shoulders. “Neither do soldiers’ mothers,” she says. “Come along, my girlies.” And away we go.

Back home, we all go our separate ways. Mama settles into her lilac boudoir, and my sisters and I wander to our bedrooms. Maria mopes in an armchair with a box of chocolates and her photo album spread across her lap as if it’s been days, not minutes, since we’ve all been together. Not a sound comes from the Big Pair’s room next door. Probably sniveling onto their knitting needles. What a bunch of ninnies we are. But even I can’t pretend everything’s all right. The place feels dull and hollow as a bread crust with Aleksei and Papa both gone.

Tucking Jemmy under my arm, I wander into the playroom to kick at some of the toys we left scattered about. Nothing looks like any fun. Anyhow, if any of my sisters caught me playing with Aleksei’s toys all by myself, they’d think I was a great big baby. Instead I look once over my shoulder, then burrow into the wigwam to sulk until the heavy feeling lets go of my throat.

“You’d better be having great fun, Mr. Private Romanov,” I tell the wooden sentry posted beside the doorway to Aleksei’s bedroom, and swipe the back of my hand across my nose. Jemmy wriggles free and licks happily at my dirty hand. I kiss her nose. “Filthy little dear.” At the sound of footsteps in the corridor, I scoop Jemmy up and duck behind the flap of the wigwam. Mama’s skirts swish through the playroom, past the wooden sentry, and disappear into Aleksei’s rooms. I wait a minute, then stuff Jemmy into my sweater and crawl out. The smell of rose oil burning tells me Mama’s lit Aleksei’s icon lamps. I creep behind on all fours for my own sniff-around.

When I get to the bedroom, I find Mama on her knees in front of the six-paneled iconostasis. There’s a quiver in her voice as she prays. The clock chimes, and I realize with a little tickle in my stomach what’s happening. Mama always says Aleksei’s evening prayers with him. She’s saying his prayers as if he was still beside her. The room feels so strange, I squeeze Jemmy against me without realizing it until her little body squirms. I let her go just before she yips, but I can’t take my eyes off Mama. When she turns around, she looks as small and worried as I feel myself. As soon as she sees me she tries to paste on a smile.

“Anastasia, darling,” she says, dabbing at the corners of her eyes. “I was afraid Baby would forget. All the excitement on the train.”

For the first time in my life, I wish for an instant to be Tatiana, just so I’d know what to say.

10.

OLGA NIKOLAEVNA

October 1915
Tsarskoe Selo

“O
lga,
dushka
?” Tatiana’s fingertips brush my shoulder like the starlings that swoop by our bedroom windows. The thought comforts me for a moment, until I remember where those hands were just minutes ago— painted nearly to the wrists with some poor soldier’s blood. My stomach convulses, and I clap the towel to my mouth as I retch.

“It was the operation, wasn’t it?” Tatiana pulls a fresh towel from the shelves crowding around me. “Did you eat this morning?” I shake my head. There’s only a sorry little stain on the towel to show for all my misery. “You have to eat in the morning, Olya,” she says, rubbing my back as I shudder. “It makes your stomach even weaker in the operating room if you skip breakfast, and you are so thin anyway.” She leads me out of the little linen closet and into the window-lined corridor. “We could arrange it so you do not have to see the operations at all. They always have plenty of work to do in the office. Come now, be brave,” she soothes. “God will see you through it.”

How can I explain it to her? Yes, the operations leave my hands and stomach quivering, but it isn’t only the torn and ragged wounds that fray my nerves. The soldiers’ thoughts trouble me as much as their broken bodies. The men are changing before my eyes.

At first the soldiers were our pets. They jostled to be near us, their faces brightening when we spoke with them. With Aleksei away at the front, Mama took a few of the tenderest recruits under her wing, feeding them the attention she usually lavishes on our brother. In their last moments, many of them called for her. It was like a fairy tale, those brave boys dying by their empress’s side.

But with the war dragging on and the newspaper headlines turning grim, I’ve seen the way some of the men have begun looking at Mama. I hear them whisper
Nemka
— German bitch—behind her back. If she heard them, she would weep with shame.

The soldiers who still revere us are even worse, sometimes. When country boys fresh from the front find themselves in a palace tended by a princess, two grand duchesses, and the empress herself, their eyes grow round with awe. Some of them try to bow under their blankets. I could cry at the deference they show me, these young men willing to give their limbs and their lives to Mother Russia, when all I’ve done is bring them a pillow or a glass of water. But even the plain Red Cross uniforms can’t always hide who we are. Our faces are on postcards and placards all across Russia. Many of the soldiers carry images of Papa into battle for protection. We’re different in other ways too. With food and fuel shipments becoming erratic in the city, some of the men eye the gold bangles on our wrists with expressions that make my stomach fold with guilt. I wish I could strip mine off and give it away, but it won’t fit over my hand.