Nearly ten minutes later I finally heard some feet slowly shuffling toward me. The old man emerged around the corner and beckoned me with a brusque wave of his arm.
“This way.”
I got up and hurried after him, following him through a maze of brick passageways, each one smaller than the last. At last he opened a door framed with cobwebs and showed me into a small chamber. My eyes darting about, I saw that the only light came from a small barred window set in a wall that was as thick as the bastions of a fortress.
“Wait here,” he said, his breath like steam in the cold room.
He disappeared, shutting the door behind him. It was near freezing, and when I touched the white tile stove in the corner, I found it as cold as a cobblestone. Looking around, I saw ancient blue-and-gold wallpaper peeling in great sheets from the walls, a brown horsehair couch covered with thick dust, a crooked table on which stood a terribly dented samovar, and an ash bucket overflowing with gray grit.
Minutes passed again before I heard another set of steps. Finally the door creaked open and Elena entered, her gray hair covered by a scarf, which she carefully removed and folded. Slightly heavy, with a round, sweet face, she wore a pale yellow dress that dragged on the ground behind her.
“Hello, my child,” she said in a hushed voice, as she extended her hand. “I’m so sorry to receive you in such a horrid manner.”
I understood. Of course I did. If her mistress the grand duchess found out that she had contact with us, the Rasputins, Elena would more than likely lose her courtesy room in the palace. This was why we were meeting back here in this lost chamber and why she had covered her head with a scarf: she didn’t want anyone to notice her back here, she didn’t want any tongues to start fluttering. It was also why I hadn’t gone to the main entrance on Nevsky. There might be only a single young grand duke in residence, but palaces such as this were nothing less than small hotels, housing upwards of several hundred courtiers and servants. Naturally, the fewer who saw us the better.
“How is your grandson, Elena Borisovna?” I began.
“Spasibo, xhorosho.” Thank you, well. “I’m happy to say he’s fully recovered. My gratitude a thousand times over to your father.”
“He was only doing his duty.” I reached into my pocket, pulled out one of my father’s small notes, and held it toward her. “I need some help.”
“Please, child, I don’t know what you have there, but it’s not necessary,” she said, folding my fingers around the note and pressing it back. “I am forever indebted to your father. What can I do for you?”
“I’m afraid I’ve come here because I have every reason to believe my father’s life is in great danger.”
Elena stepped closer and wrapped both her hands around mine. She looked at me tenderly, softly, her eyes moist with sympathy.
“My child, your father’s life has been in danger for years.”
“Yes, but last night an anonymous letter was delivered to Papa, threatening his life. It was sent by a group of men, ten of them, and-and I was wondering if you might-”
“I’m sorry. I know nothing about any such letter.” With a sad smile, she added, “But you’re right, it’s worse now. I know.” The older woman sighed and shook her head, then stepped away and peered out the window. “Everyone’s talking about him-everyone in the salons of fashionable homes, everyone in the stores, almost everyone on the street.”
“He’s that widely”-I could barely say it-“he’s that widely hated?”
“Yes. I’m sorry to say that, among proper society, most definitely.”
My eyes welled up, and for a moment I was speechless.
Elena Borisovna, unable to look at me, continued staring out the small barred window. “You should be aware that people in the highest society talk openly of the need to do away with your father. They speak not only openly but also of how it should be done. And soon.”
“Do you mean the grand dukes?”
“Yes, exactly. They consider your father a great stain on the House of Romanov, a stain that must be forcefully and quickly removed. They believe your father has not only ruined the prestige of the Sovereign Emperor himself but of all of them as well.”
“Does this include Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich?”
She turned slowly yet purposefully toward the door. Could someone be on the other side? Not daring to risk it, Elena Borisovna simply looked right at me and nodded.
“I see,” I replied.
“Even worse, there’s gossip that German spies have infiltrated your home and surround your father.”
“I’ve heard that too, but it’s nothing but lies!”
“I know, but such is the talk.”
Gathering my courage, I broached a subject two women were never supposed to address. “Can you tell me, please, what is the true relationship between the grand duke and Prince Felix?”
The old woman’s face blanched at the question; then she returned to me, gently taking my hands again in her grasp, and in almost a whisper, said, “The grand duke, of course, is a lover of many women, and the prince, of course, is married to the Tsar’s own niece, but…” She paused, drinking in her own breath as if afraid of speaking the words. “But under this very roof I have seen the passion the two men have for each other. There is frequent touching and mutual kissing, that much all servants in the palace have seen with their own eyes. I believe, however, that the real nature of their relationship is darker, even…lascivious.”
So now it was confirmed by an eyewitness: The prince and the grand duke were lovers. But how did that make them dangerous to my father? Or were they not? Wasn’t there something far more worrisome-the plot by the elder Romanov uncles seeking to dispose of the peasant who had penetrated their family? Of course, the danger posed by the young grand duke could be of a far more carnal nature. Yes, most definitely. As horrible as it sounded, Grand Duke Dmitri could be seeking to destroy Papa for reasons of the flesh. He could see my father as some sort of competition for the object of his own affection, Prince Felix. Or were things even more twisted than I could fathom? Could the grand duke and Prince Felix be working in conjunction, not to kill my father but perhaps to bed him? I knew of many women who fawned over my father, who begged to be taken by him. Then again, it could be something altogether different. Perhaps it was really true, perhaps the much-rumored Khlyst ark of nobles, headed by the fabled Prince O’ksandr, did exist, meeting secretly beneath some palace, and these two young men belonged to that clandestine group. But even in these dark, desperate days of war, could these young nobles really be trying to draw my father into their mysterious world? Quite possibly. And yet…though I could see the three points-my father, Prince Felix, and Grand Duke Dmitri-I couldn’t connect them in a triangle, at least not one that made any sense.
“But, Elena Borisovna, is this simply all a game for Grand Duke Dmitri and Prince Felix? Are they merely playing with an innocent peasant, seeing what they can make him do or what they can get out of him?”
“Absolutely not,” she said, quite sternly. “Please, the dangers are very real. Everyone knows the country is about to boil over. There’s talk of nothing else, and I have no reason to doubt it. In more than one salon, I’ve heard that the grand dukes have formed a cabal intent not only on killing your father, but…but on kidnapping the Empress and banishing her to a monastery in Siberia.”
“Bozhe moi,” I said, quickly crossing myself.
“There’s worse.” She hesitated, clearly afraid of the treasonous words that were about to pass her lips. “They talk of deposing the Emperor himself and crowning the little Heir Tsarevich, with one of the grand dukes as regent.”
I couldn’t imagine such treachery and deception in any family, let alone our royal one, and I quickly crossed myself yet again and again and again. Was this how low Russia had fallen, that to preserve its power the House of Romanov felt it necessary to obliterate a mere peasant?
“Please, child, I beg you, pass these words to your father and see that he passes them to the very highest personages,” continued Elena Borisovna, obviously referring to the Tsar and Tsaritsa. “And remember: Once an angry tiger is released from its cage and tastes fresh blood, it’s almost impossible to recapture it. Instead, the beast prefers a knife to its heart.”
She took my hand in hers and kissed it, then spread her scarf over her head and headed out the door. Just before she disappeared, she turned back with a sorrowful smile.
“God bless you and yours, child, for I doubt we shall meet again.”
I stood there barely able to move. The Empress locked away in some distant monastery? The Emperor dethroned and perhaps-dare I even think it-executed? It was too hard to imagine such heinous events in such modern days. After all, this was not a drama of Shakespeare and we were not living in ancient Muscovia, where tsars killed their own sons and disdained wives were thrown to the wolves.
However, if all this came to pass, if the frail Heir Tsarevich were placed on the throne, who would rule as regent, one of the Tsar’s uncles, those towering, aged men now in their sixties and seventies? No, in these days of turmoil and war, the common people wouldn’t accept that. An ancient Romanov, one of the brothers of Aleksander III, would mean a complete return to autocracy and authoritarianism. If that were to happen, there was no doubt in my mind that a regent like that, one of the “dread uncles,” as they were commonly known, would ignite revolution.
Another possibility might be the Tsar’s younger brother, Grand Duke Mikhail. And yet while he might be acceptable to the people, he wouldn’t be to the Romanov clan, because he had married morganatically-breaking strict family laws, he’d not taken a bride from another royal house. Worse still, he’d not even wed a woman of title but rather a mere commoner, the divorced wife of a cavalry captain.
So who would be an acceptable regent? It would have to be someone young, someone who could offer hope to the Russian people and symbolized a promising, progressive future. But who was that? Who could the powerful Romanov uncles control and dominate, even manipulate?
Of course: none other than the young and dashing Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, who suffered from such horrible “grammatical errors.”
Which one of us, I thought standing in that freezing room, was a greater fool, my father or me? Just last month, a treacherous speech had been made at the Duma, and my father had not only brushed it away like an annoying hornet, he had persuaded me to do so as well.
“There’s no need for me to hear it!” Papa had insisted.
“But, Papa, listen!”
“The only thing to the right of Purishkevich is the wall!”
Copies of this speech made by the notorious monarchist Vladimir Purishkevich were already all over town, and it came as no surprise that one had been slipped beneath our door. My voice trembling as much as my hands, I stood in my father’s study, reading aloud.
“‘The disorganization of the rear is without doubt being manipulated by the enemy, and it is being accomplished by a strong, relentless hand. I take here the freedom to say that this evil springs from the Dark Forces, from those who push into high places people who are not worthy or capable of filling them. And these influences are headed by Grishka Rasputin!’”
“Lies!” shouted my father, pounding on the table. “Nothing but lies!”
I continued reading.
“‘These last nights I could find no sleep, I tell you in honesty. I lay in bed with eyes wide open and saw a series of telegrams and notes which this illiterate peasant writes, first to one minister, next another, and finally, frequently, to Aleksander Protopopov, demanding that his actions be fulfilled.’”
“Evil dogs!” snapped my father. “Black evil dogs! No more reading, daughter of mine. That’s it. Enough! I will hear no more!”
“But, Papa, listen!” I begged as my eyes flew to the last lines. “Listen to this:
‘The Tsar’s ministers have been turned into marionettes, marionettes whose strings have been taken confidently in hand by Rasputin, whose house and home have been infiltrated with German spies and by the Empress Aleksandra Fyodorovna-the evil genius of Russia and her Tsar-who remains a German on the throne, foreign to country and people!’”
“Enough, I tell you!” shouted my father, grabbing the speech from my hand and ripping it to pieces. “It’s nothing but lies! No one will pay attention to this…this Purishkevich! How dare he speak of the Tsaritsa like that! In fact, it’s treason. No doubt about it, he will be in jail by tomorrow! Now forget it!”
I took a deep breath. Was Papa right? Were these just the rantings of a fanatic? They had to be because the speech was just that: unequivocally treasonous.
“Everyone knows how terrible this Purishkevich is,” continued my father. “Why…why, he’s part of the Black Hundreds, and just look at what they did to the Jews! The pogroms!”
“I’m so worried, Papa-”
“Nonsense. Just hornets, mettlesome hornets! If you aren’t used to it, even kasha is bitter. Now take a piece of paper and write this down. I want to send a telegram to the Tsar at the front.”
My hands still shaking, I snatched a piece of paper and pencil.
“19 NOVEMBER 1916,” dictated Papa. “god gives you strength. yours is victory and yours is the ship. no one else has authority to board it. Do you have that down, Maria, just as I’ve told you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. Now go and see that it is sent. And then forget it. Forget all about that stupid little man’s stupid little speech.”
Now, waiting for the old man with the milky eyes to escort me out of the Sergeeivski Palace, I started shuddering violently. At the time, Papa had persuaded me to dismiss the speech, but I no longer could do so. All too easily I could imagine the entire scene: the fury of Purishkevich’s rhetoric, and the cries of Bravo!, A disgrace!, and How true! that were said to have erupted from the other Duma members.