Authors: Mary Jane Staples
‘Why?’ asked Mr Gibson.
The eyes, the hands, the little characteristics and the knowledge of life at Tsarskoe Selo, these were the things that convinced her. And they were the things that convinced others. In addition, descriptions of events and intimacies that only Anastasia could have known. But most of these people subsequently declined to stand by their original declarations.
‘Why?’ asked Mr Gibson again.
There were many suggestions as to why. The Tsar’s hoard of gold, supposedly in the keeping of the Bank of England, and Anastasia’s right to inherit it. Her claim to the Russian throne, by no means popular with the Grand Duke Kyril, or the Supreme Monarchist Council. And her disclosure, out of the blue, that she had seen her uncle, the Grand Duke of Hesse, at Tsarskoe Selo during the war. This was a dramatic disclosure, and even her closest supporters felt her memory was playing tricks on her. When they asked her what her uncle could possibly have been doing in visiting Tsarskoe Selo during the war, she said he wanted to persuade her family that they should leave Russia or make peace with Germany. She said her uncle could confirm she spoke the truth. This was a bombshell, said the princess, and one that would shatter the world of the Grand Duke. It was unheard of, a German of his stature visiting the ruler of an enemy country in an attempt to use family connections for the secret arrangement of a peace treaty. The disclosure must have infuriated him. It must also, continued the princess, have caused him to think seriously about whether or not his niece, Anastasia, actually had survived the massacre.
‘Why?’ asked Mr Gibson yet again.
The princess, animated by the rapt attention he was paying her, said because relatives of the Grand Duke agreed he had gone secretly to see the Tsar in 1916. Therefore, if the claimant knew this, she could not be other than who she said she was. But the Grand Duke not only refused to comment on the bombshell, he also refused to take one step in the direction of Berlin to confront the author of the disclosure. There it was, said the princess, the possibility that his niece had survived, and yet he did not make the slightest move to see the claimant. His only reaction was to declare it was impossible for any of the Imperial family to have survived. He was now his niece’s implacable enemy.
‘You are convinced she is his niece?’ said Mr Gibson.
Princess Malininsky said that while a thousand people might recant, she never would. The claimant was definitely Anastasia.
‘Well, what you’ve said about the Grand Duke of Hesse, her mother’s brother, tells me at last why he has turned a blind eye on the claimant.’
‘There are many blind eyes,’ said the princess.
‘So I’ve discovered,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘However, despite the discomfort of her uncle, the chief reason why Anastasia will remain tragically unacknowledged is the existence of her child.’
‘It’s correct, I believe,’ said Mr Gibson, ‘that she had a son by the Red soldier responsible for bringing her out of that house in Ekaterinburg when he found she was actually alive. That, at least, is what she has said. He managed to get her to Romania, to Bucharest, where he married her. That made her child legitimate.’
‘The marriage gave the child a father, yes, but the right father?’ Princess Malininsky smiled cryptically, and pointed out that the Tsar and his family and servants were murdered in July 1918. The child was born five months later, in December, and in Bucharest. Five months. So badly injured had Anastasia been that her life had hung by a thread for weeks. Alexander Tschaikovsky, the Red soldier in question, could not possibly have made love to her during that time, and even if he had, was it to be suggested that any woman could give birth to a live child of only five months? Perhaps even less than five months? Obviously,
said the princess, the child was conceived before the execution of the Imperial family, while Anastasia was imprisoned with the others in Ekaterinburg, that dreadful, dreadful pit of iniquitous Bolshevism. The conditions of their imprisonment must have been frightful, the Red soldiers as brutal and unfeeling as Moscow could find. Tschaikovsky, perhaps, although no angel, had shown some pity, and in return for that had asked Anastasia for the kind of favours she was forced to give. Perhaps, in a drunken or less charitable mood, he had demanded them. Or perhaps it had been another of the loutish guards, one completely indifferent to all sense of decency. Perhaps Anastasia – and her sisters – had been forced to favour several of the guards. Will the world ever know, the princess asked, the full story of what the Imperial family suffered at Ekaterinburg?
‘My God,’ said Mr Gibson, and thought of a Bolshevik commissar who had murdered Natasha’s family.
‘Do you not see, my friend, how unacceptable are the implications to the exiled Romanovs? Leaving aside Olga, Tatiana and Marie, whose souls may God preserve and cherish, Anastasia’s conception of a child in circumstances
unspeakable is the chief reason why she will never be acknowledged. Consider the attitude of the person one might call the all-highest – Anastasia’s grandmother, the Dowager Empress. It is unimaginable to her that a daughter of the Tsar could allow illiterate peasant soldiers into her bed, and even more unimaginable that she could conceive a child by one of them. Neither the Dowager Empress nor any other of the more exalted Romanovs will ever accept such an act, irrespective of what the circumstances were. And even if they did accept, they would never forgive. What do they care for the terrible nature of the Imperial family’s imprisonment, when all their concern is for the honour of the Romanovs? Honour? Not one of them lifted a finger to help the Tsar. That pretender, that caricature of honour, the Grand Duke Kyril, was among the first to swear allegiance to the revolutionaries who overthrew the Tsar, his own cousin. He is the last one who is ever going to acknowledge that Anastasia survived, for if he did, her claim to the throne, and that of her son, would come before his. Yes, my friend, her child, her son, what Romanov is going to accept the claims of a boy whose father is a matter for conjecture? She gave the child up, and I think
she did so because it was no child of love, and because she herself may not have known who the father was. Even so, that child is the chief reason why Anastasia will spend the rest of her life being rejected by her family.’
‘May I suggest,’ said Mr Gibson, ‘that the Dowager Empress might sincerely believe that Anastasia, because she was the Tsar’s daughter, would have killed herself rather than submit, or killed herself afterwards? That any other woman might have submitted and endured, but not a daughter of the Tsar?’
‘You are the right kind of man to have been sent to ask questions,’ smiled the princess. ‘The truth might have been squeezed out of the soldier, Tschaikovsky, but he was killed in a brawl in Bucharest. Anastasia will not speak in detail of Ekaterinburg. It still terrifies her, the mere mention of it. She was terrified, when she first arrived in Berlin, that the Bolsheviks would kill her if she disclosed her identity.’
‘You truly believe she’s Anastasia?’
‘Has not every word I’ve spoken convinced you I’m in no doubt she is? I’ve heard a rumour that there was an Austrian who has a story to tell about Ekaterinburg and the massacre, but whether he is real or imagined, I don’t know,
and whether the story would favour or disfavour Anastasia, I also don’t know.’
‘If she is Anastasia, it could not disfavour her,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘There are people, Mr Gibson, whose names are so illustrious that if they threw mud into the fair face of truth, Berlin would allow the mud to stick. Have you heard of a man called Adolf Hitler?’
‘Vaguely,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘The Russian monarchists are courting Adolf Hitler. Mud is becoming very popular in German politics, and Hitler is Germany’s number one mudslinger. He has no time for Anastasia.’
‘Why?’
‘He dislikes women except for breeding purposes.’
‘Poor fellow,’ said Mr Gibson. ‘What does he want, a world without enchantment?’
‘What a delightful man you are,’ said Princess Malininsky.
Mr Gibson stood up. ‘I really must go now,’ he said. ‘Thank you for bearing with me and for being so interesting and informative. And thank you for a most intriguing hour.’
‘I hope you will call again. I shall always be
happy to be at home to you, even in the mornings, when I am not at my most brilliant.’
‘You’ve been charming,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘I may have charming ways,’ said the princess, ‘but I am not a charming woman. I have been torn from my love, and it has made me not very nice.’
‘Who is your love?’
‘Old St Petersburg. I am a woman dying of a broken heart.’
‘The condition suits you, Princess. You are radiant.’
‘How delicious you are.’ Her smile was a richness. ‘I hardly know how to part with you. Auf Wiedersehen, however. Do remember my telephone number.’
When Mr Gibson arrived back at the apartments, Hans had information to impart. No, no one had come to look at the car, but a funeral hearse had been and gone.
‘A funeral hearse?’
‘Yes, Herr Gibson. With wreaths on the coffin. Has the young lady suffered a bereavement?’
‘Explain what you mean, Hans,’ said Mr Gibson, sensing trouble.
Hans explained. A few minutes after he had arrived to take up his watching brief, a man in a dark suit had come out of the block. He walked swiftly up the street and disappeared. The funeral hearse entered the street several minutes later. It stopped outside the block, in front of the car, and the same man got out, only this time he was wearing a long black coat and
top hat, like an undertaker. He went into the block and came out again after a little while, with another man in a hat and black raincoat. They were escorting the young lady, who seemed very distressed, as if her mother or father had died, perhaps. Hans said he waved to her from across the street, but she did not see him, and he did not like to intrude, because it was a funeral. But he thought he ought to mention he had seen both men before, when the man in the raincoat had shown him a photograph of the young lady. She was only a girl in the photograph, but Hans felt sure it was her. The man had asked him if he knew her or had seen her. Hans had said no, for not until later had he connected the photograph with the young lady. Anyway, she had gone off in the hearse, sitting on the front seat between the two men.
‘How long ago was this?’ asked Mr Gibson, liking none of it.
‘Over half an hour, I should say.’
‘Stay there, Hans,’ said Mr Gibson, and ran up to his apartment. It was empty. Natasha was not there. He looked into every room. He found nothing. He checked her clothes in her bedroom wardrobe. Most of them seemed to be there, except those she was wearing. He
ran down to speak to Hans again. Charging through the hall, he almost knocked over the porter, a dour-faced man whose job equalled that of a French concierge.
‘Sorry—’
The porter gave him an offended look, but said nothing.
Outside, Hans imparted more information, for a good businessman needed to be observant, and he had noted down the name of the undertaker. Thomas Schmidt. He had seen it in gold lettering on the side of the hearse.
‘Do you know the address, Hans?’
‘Yes, mein Herr. I can take you there, if you wish.
‘I’ll take you. In the car. You can direct me.’ Mr Gibson was grim-faced in his worry. Natasha could not have gone willingly. God help that unhappy girl if she could not be found. He unlocked the car. ‘Get in, Hans.’
The boy, having stowed his little pushcart inside the hall of the apartment block, climbed in beside Mr Gibson and began to give him directions. Mr Gibson drove through the streets. Berlin, which had an impressive quota of appealing features, was nevertheless only a depressing greyness to him at this particular
moment. It seemed a city that held no hope for Natasha. Anglo-American loans were helping to stimulate Germany’s economy at last, but there was still a demoralizing amount of poverty and unemployment in the capital, and this was all too evident. Mr Gibson could have wished for an aspect bright and shining, and for an air of optimism. That might have made him feel less hopeless about finding Natasha. As it was, Berlin seemed a place that encouraged dark deeds rather than heroic deliverance. He had not been unaware of the undercurrents relating to the desperation of workless émigrés, and to the cheapness of life. The disappearance of Natasha brought the unpleasantness of those undercurrents nearer.
At the office of the undertaker, he was advised that both Herr Thomas Schmidt and his son Fredric were available to deal with enquiries. He asked if either of them spoke English. The soft-spoken clerk said that Herr Fredric did. Mr Gibson asked if he might be permitted to speak to Herr Fredric. Herr Fredric Schmidt proved courteous and gentle, as befitted his profession. He lifted an eyebrow, however, when Mr Gibson said he was not there to engage his firm’s services, but to enquire about one of their
hearses, whether it had been hired out or not, and if it had, to whom?
Herr Fredric said it was not usual to give out information of a confidential nature. Mr Gibson said the matter in hand was so serious that it should be referred to the police. However, if his questions could be answered, a call on the police might not be necessary. Herr Fredric, impressed by Mr Gibson’s manner, consulted a large, leather-bound office book. He pursed his lips, talked to himself for a few moments, then made up his mind. He informed Mr Gibson that one of the firm’s hearses had indeed been hired out, at the request of the Soviet Embassy.
‘The Soviet Embassy?’ said Mr Gibson.
Herr Fredric assured him this was so, and that they had instructed him to place the hearse in the care of a Soviet citizen, one Igor Vorstadt. This had been done three days ago, and the necessary papers had been signed by Herr Vorstadt. The hearse was required for a maximum of two weeks, and a coffin was paid for and included.
Mr Gibson’s blood ran cold. It was not the Russian monarchists who had Natasha. It was the Bolsheviks. The man in the black raincoat, described by Hans, was the man Natasha hated,
the commissar who had murdered her family and who she declared would have murdered her too.