Then it flashed before me, the image of the tiny service door tucked in the side of the palace. All at once I was on my feet, tearing down the snowy sidewalk. The courtyard gate was locked, so I ran right up to the short stone wall, gathered up the folds of my skirt, and clambered over. Slipping as I swung my feet over the top, I fell onto the ground inside. Frantic, I scurried to my feet and rushed like the maddest of fools to the small door. It never occurred to me that it might be locked, it never occurred to me what I might find within if I did gain access to the palace-or what I would do.
When I reached the unremarkable door, I pulled on it with all my force and it did indeed come flying open. All at once I found myself standing on a small landing inside the Yusupov Palace itself. Carefully pulling the door shut behind me, I stood there quite still, gasping for breath. I’d gotten inside, now what? To my left a set of rather steep, narrow stairs curled around and up to the main floor; to my right they curled downward. I was just about to rush to the cellar when I heard a door open below. All at once an abundance of deep, even jubilant voices came bellowing upward. It was a group of men, and the next moment they started up the stairs, their heavy boots beating the wooden steps. I didn’t even consider fleeing outside-what if I couldn’t get back in?-and instead clambered ahead of them, my feet moving quickly and softly.
As the stairs turned and curled upward, the sounds of “Yankee Doodle” grew ever louder. Within a half flight I came to a door that I slowly pushed open, to emerge in the smallest and oddest of rooms, not much more than a landing, really, and hexagonal in shape. Stranger yet, each of the six walls was actually a door, and to make matters more confusing, each door was covered with mirrors.
Standing there in my cloak, I froze. Which door led to safety?
As the pounding steps from below grew closer and closer, I lunged at one doorknob and twisted it. Nothing. It was, I realized, a false door. I tried another. It too was false. Flushing with panic, I tried a third. The knob twisted, I pulled the door open, and I was immediately struck by the overwhelming beat of the American march from the gramophone. I was about to step through the door and into a salon of sorts when I thought I heard footsteps in that room. Was someone in there? Fearing discovery, I let go of that door and leaped at the next. To my great relief, the next one opened as well, revealing a shallow closet, into which I quickly pressed myself. I didn’t even have time to pull the door fully shut behind me before the men emerged from the stairs. Through a slim crack I saw them all, and I was not surprised that I knew most of them.
“Thank God that reptile is no more,” said a handsome young man, emerging and passing just inches in front of the closet.
It was, of course, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, the Tsar’s own nephew, dressed smartly in military uniform. Behind him came his dearest friend, Prince Felix, who was nervously brushing his small black mustache.
“Why in the devil didn’t he eat the pastries or at least take some wine?” demanded the prince, his voice shaking. “You don’t think he knew about the cyanide, do you? I mean, he couldn’t have, could he?”
“It doesn’t make any difference, he’s gone now. And obviously very mortal, after all.”
Huddled in the closet, I nearly fainted. So I’d been right about these two. I’d been right about their hatred and their intent. And now my father was dead. Good God, why hadn’t I warned him sooner? Why had I waited even a minute or two, let alone all these hours?
A man dressed, I thought, in a lieutenant’s uniform followed next. Then came a fourth, this one dressed in plain clothes. I didn’t recognize either of them, but the fifth, a bald man with a reddish beard and pointed mustache, wearing a khaki military jacket, was entirely familiar. It was none other than Vladimir Purishkevich, who was known across the country from his portrait, which regularly appeared in the journals.
“We shall celebrate, gentlemen, the end of the Elder,” said Purishkevich, “and give thanks to God that the hands of royal youth have not been stained with that dirty blood.”
Oh, God. Oh, Lord in Heaven. What had happened down there? What had those men done to my father?
Wanting nothing more than to attack them, I nearly burst out of the closet right then and there. Instead, I held myself back and only leaped from the closet once the five men had disappeared through the mirrored door and into the salon. Shaking so terribly I could barely walk, I charged back down the stairs. Reaching the very bottom, I came to a heavy oak door, which I hurled open. The first thing that hit me was the smell of fresh paint. The room, a sophisticated bonbonnière, had obviously only just been completed, yet it looked straight out of an ancient Russian palace, with its low arched ceiling, a thick carved column, heavy moldings, and walls painted dark brown and red.
“Papa?” I called into the dimly lit space, softly and hesitantly.
Stepping in, I entered an otherwise cozy room. My eyes scanned this way and that, somehow taking it all in: a warm fire burning quaintly in the granite fireplace, a gorgeous ivory crucifix placed on the center of the mantelpiece, a hand-carved chest, red brocade curtains draping from the small windows, and a tea table covered with an assortment of petits fours, little pink and brown pastries that had obviously been chosen because they complemented the colors of the room.
The first thing that crossed my mind was how stupid these men had been. My father would never have touched any of those little cakes. Of course, poison had always been the favorite weapon of the higher-ups, for well-bred people hated the mere thought of soiling their hands with death. But if these children from the higher stratum of society thought they could kill the infamous Rasputin by feeding him poisoned pastries, that proved how little they knew or understood my father and his convictions.
In the flash of a second, I pictured Prince Felix offering my father the plate of petits fours and heard Papa’s disdainful response: “I don’t want any of that scum. It’s too sweet, it darkens the soul!”
Seeing the untouched glasses of wine, I was perplexed. If they had dropped poison into the glasses, why had my father avoided that as well? Had he had a vision? If he had indeed refused the wine, I was sure Prince Felix had flown into a panic and the rest transpired quite quickly.
My voice quivering, I called again. “Papa? Papa, are you here? It’s me, your Marochka!”
Taking another nervous step forward, I saw that the room was actually divided into two parts. The front half with the fireplace was more like a tiny dining room, while the back served as a sitting room. Looking through the arch into the rear, I saw a settee and, on the floor in front of it, a white polar-bear skin. And crumpled next to the white hide lay a dark figure.
“Papa!”
He didn’t respond, didn’t even flinch. With tears gushing from my eyes, I rushed to him, dropping to my knees. He was rolled on his side, his front facing away, and touching him carefully I felt something warm and sticky.
“God, no!” I wailed, staring at my sodden-red fingers.
I held my hands above him, slumping onto the floor. And then, without even thinking, I did exactly as we had done at the palace when Papa had healed the Heir. Simply, I splayed my fingers wide and laid my hands directly upon my father. Emptying my soul, I closed my eyes and pointed my head to the heavens.
“Dear Lord, please have mercy! Please don’t take him! Please, Heavenly Father, give him back to us!” Bowing my head over my father, I beckoned, “Papa, come back! It’s me, Maria, your Marochka-come back to me!”
And he did just that. He returned.
Whether it was the Lord Our Father who infused life back into him, or whether Papa himself was able to summon the last of his strength, I didn’t know. But he gasped terribly, spit some blood from his mouth, and then-with one horrible tremor-started breathing once again.
“Papa!” I called, bending down and smoothing his hair.
“Dochenka? Dochenka maya?” Little daughter? My little daughter?
“Da, da, Papa! It’s me, your Maria!”
“Oi,” he moaned. “I just saw my own father. He was right here. Did you see him?”
I shook my head but had no doubt of my father’s claim. Papa was dying and had crossed over to the other side, where he’d been greeted by his loved ones. Only my pathetic pleading had pulled him back to us, the living.
Moaning deeply, Papa said, “Felix…he betrayed me…”
“Yes, Papa, he shot you! I know. But I’m here now. I’m going to take care of you. I’m going to get you out of here!”
“Da…must leave…”
So the prince and his group had tried to poison Papa by offering him tainted sweets and wine. When that hadn’t worked, Prince Felix had simply shot him. In any case, somehow my father still lived, but if I didn’t get him outside and find help, he would certainly bleed to death from the bullet wound.
Invoking the age-old fear of every Russian peasant, I said, “Papa, you have to get up. The prince and the grand duke are going to come back-and they’ll kick and beat and whip you!”
As if he’d seen it a hundred times in his worst dreams, my father’s eyes widened in panic, and he reached up to me with one weak hand, begging, “Help me, Maria!”
As far as I could tell, my father had been shot in the stomach. As he struggled to rise, I clutched him around his back, helped him first sit up, then climb to his knees. With each movement he bit his lip and groaned.
“Are you all right?” I asked as he struggled to his feet.
He nodded hesitantly. “We must go…bistro!”
The first few steps were the most difficult. Papa stumbled badly and moved only with great effort. I feared, of course, that we might make it to the stairs but not up the steps. Fortunately, each movement seemed to get easier. Passing through the heavy oak door, we made it to the bottom of the staircase, where we paused, bathed in the distant rhythm of “Yankee Doodle,” which had been started over yet again. All would be lost if any of them came back down.
“We only have to go halfway up, Papa. That’s all. Just lean on me. There’s a side door, and a troika is waiting for us.”
He nodded. “Xhorosho.”
I took a step up, and Papa, clutching the railing, did likewise. I moved higher, and he did as well. And so we proceeded, bit by bit, up and up. Within a few long minutes we reached the side door, which I kicked wide open. A flood of freezing air poured over us.
“Breathe in, Papa! Take in some nice night air! That’s it, doesn’t it feel good?”
Although he could barely swallow even a bit of air, he nodded. “V’koosno.” Tasty.
We stepped directly from the palace into the flat courtyard. Glancing toward the gate, I wanted to pull my father along faster. I wanted to cry out for Sasha. I wanted a doctor. There was hope, always hope. Papa had been horribly wounded when that madwoman stabbed him, his entrails pouring out of his body. And yet he’d survived. Now he’d suffered just a single bullet wound, so couldn’t he…he…
“I see it so clearly now, Marochka,” muttered my father. “I see my mistakes-”
“Shh. It’s okay, Papa. Just keep going. Don’t stop. That’s it, one foot after the other.”
“I forgot. I became vain.”
“Shh. Just keep moving.”
“My mistake was simple. It wasn’t me. Not me who healed people. Not me who…who…”
“Of course it was, Papa. You’ve helped hundreds, even thousands, of people, people who were horribly sick, people who were dying! Even the Heir Tsarevich-you saved him! I saw with my very own eyes how you stopped his bleeding and brought him back!”
“Nyet! It wasn’t me who saved the boy, it was God! I was just the vessel. And I forgot that. I forgot I was just the earthly vessel for the Lord Almighty to do His work!”
I looked up and saw we were halfway to the gate. “That’s it, Papa. Just keep walking, one foot after the other.”
“Da, da, da…that’s what I did wrong. I became vain. I…I took personal glory in my achievements.”
“Don’t stop, we’re almost there!”
“But it wasn’t me…it was Him, Our Father, who saved the boy and all those other suffering souls. It was God who healed them, not me! They were His miracles, not mine, yet I took advantage of it all. The power, the money, the women…I had it all, took it all! And now I’m being punished…punished for my vanity!”
“No, Papa, that’s not true! You gave to so many-you gave and gave! Think how many you helped, think how much money you passed to those in need!”
All of a sudden my father stopped and grabbed his stomach. “Ah!”
Wincing in terrible pain, he tumbled into me, and if I hadn’t clutched him just then, he would certainly have fallen over.
“Just a little farther, Papa,” I said, holding him by the shoulders and begging him onward. “We have to keep moving.”
“I…I…”
He could say no more. Nor could he move. Was it the bullet biting into him? Had it shifted about inside?
“I’m here,” I coaxed. “And you’re going to be okay. Just a little bit farther. Just a few more steps!”
“Ohhhh…,” he moaned.
Oh, God, I couldn’t lose him now, could I? We’d made it out of the palace, we’d come this far. If we could just make it to the troika, if we could just-
“I…I-”
“Calm down, Papa. Catch your breath. We’ll rest here for a minute.”
“I…I fear that my time…has come,” he said sadly, looking up at me.
“No, Papa, you mustn’t give up!”
“When it…it…”
“Shh. Don’t talk. Just be quiet and catch your breath.”
“When it does, my sweet daughter, you…you must let me go.”
Tears welled up in my eyes as I held him. How could I ever let my father go? Overwhelmed, I stared up at the dark heavens above me. It was starting to snow again, the flakes fat and heavy. Was this how it was all to end, here in a courtyard of a princely home? I’d had a vision of something like this, but why, dear God, why hadn’t my gifted father?