“Don’t worry. Everything will get back to normal once the war is over. Right now, everything’s just a little crazy and there are so many problems-there’s not enough food, and this winter has been so horribly cold! Once God has granted us victory over the Germans, all will be well, you’ll see. Trust me, you have many wonderful days and years ahead.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Why, just the other day your father confided that he’d had a vision of you-he said you would live a long and healthy life, and you would give him grandchildren, and you would accomplish many interesting things. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Really?” I replied, wondering if that meant I would marry for love and one day publish a book of poetry.
“Yes. He even said you would travel and live abroad.”
“Live abroad? In another country?” I said with a bitter laugh as I wiped my eyes. “That’s impossible. I don’t ever want to leave Russia.”
Dunya took me and held me and hugged me as warmly as the large oven that heated the core of our village home. But then out of nowhere our doorbell rang, making us jump apart.
“Gospodi!” gasped Dunya. “I told the security agents your father would receive no one today-and not to let anyone even into the building. Evidently, it must be something important.”
There might be agents posted in and around the building for our security, but no one ever passed through our door without Dunya’s permission, and today was to be no exception. Wiping her hands on a towel, she smoothed back some loose hair and headed straight to the front hall.
Who could it be? Who had got by the agents stationed in the lobby, let alone those posted on the stairs? As soon as I thought that, it struck me: Were the agents even here? What if they had abandoned their posts, just as they had done last night? Bozhe moi, I hadn’t told Dunya that we’d been left unguarded. If the agents were gone again, who could that be outside our door, one of father’s ordinary petitioners, some important personage-or assassins sent by my father’s grand ducal enemies?
Wasting no time, I charged after Dunya, out of the kitchen, through the dining room, and down the hall. I feared a squadron of muscular men in black leather jackets, who, brandishing guns and brass knuckle-dusters, would tear through the rooms, gun down Papa, and beat him into a bloody pulp.
“Dunya, wait!” I shouted. “Don’t open the-”
But it was too late. Dunya was already pulling open the heavy door. Standing there was neither a small herd of men nor a grand duke or prince, or even a prime minister, but a lone woman, perhaps in her late twenties. As I studied her plain black cape flowing from her shoulders and noted her hands buried deep in the folds of a tired muff, my panic subsided only slightly. After all, if a small woman whose nose had been eaten away by syphilis could nearly kill my father with one lunge of a knife, what damage could an attractive healthy-looking woman like this one do?
“What is it you wish?” asked Dunya of our visitor.
“Please, I’m seeking Father Grigori,” said the seemingly gentle woman, her eyes misty with tears. “My name is Olga Petrovna Sablinskaya, and I am in terrible need of help.”
“I’m sorry, my child, but you should not have been admitted into the building. Father Grigori is receiving no one today.”
“He must see me! Please, I beg you!” she exclaimed, pulling one hand from her muff and wiping her eyes. “I need Father Grigori’s aid on behalf of my husband, who is an ensign. He was gravely wounded and now lies in Princess Kleinmichel’s hospital. Tomorrow, however, they’ll move him out of the city to a terrible sanatorium, and I fear for his life. Can’t Father Grigori do something for a young man who has taken a bullet for the sake of the Motherland?”
Dunya started to press shut the door. “I’m sorry, my dear, but you will have to come back tomorrow. Father Grigori is totally spent and assisting no one.”
“You don’t understand, you-”
From the back of the apartment came my father’s voice, sleepy but booming. “Dunya, who calls on us? If it’s a woman visitor and she’s pretty, by all means let her in!”
Dunya studied the young woman, who was actually quite attractive, her skin pale and pure, her face sweet with a small mouth and nice blue eyes. And our housekeeper, who never could disobey my father, knew she had no choice.
“God has heard your plea…and so will Father Grigori,” Dunya said, swinging open the door. “Please, come in.”
“Slava bogu,” said Olga Petrovna. “I’m so afraid that my husband will die if they move him, and-”
“Please, child, save your words for Father Grigori’s ears. I myself can do nothing.”
This stranger seemed genuine. Hospitals had been set up in palace ballrooms all across town, and her husband could very well be lying in one of them. But as she stepped across our threshold and into our home, I flushed with fear. Did she have a gun hidden in her clothing, perhaps a little pistol cradled in her muff?
From down the hall, I ordered, “Dunya, take her cape and her muff at once!”
Surprised by my imperious command, Dunya turned and glared at me. Nevertheless, she complied, taking the woman’s worn garments in hand. But there was nothing strange, no hidden dagger or gun. Relieved that at least this woman carried no weapons, I turned and hurried back down the hall, skirting the salon and hurrying around to Papa’s study. I still didn’t understand how she had gotten into the building, let alone all the way up. Why hadn’t the security agents stopped her? Had she somehow bribed her way, either with a fistful of rubles or an open dress?
Afraid that there was only one explanation, I dashed into Papa’s little study, raced past his desk, and went up to the window. Gazing down into the courtyard, I saw nothing and no one. Were the security agents simply hiding in the shadows, or had they left us-Rasputin, his two daughters, and their housekeeper-to our own pathetic defenses?
Good Lord…
In Papa’s perfect world, there existed little more than love and freedom, absolute faith, spiritual study, and a world devoid of material belongings. These were the things he sought for his own life, the frame of mind he chose to inhabit, and the very utopia he so dearly sought for his followers. So how had everything become so twisted; what had he done to make so many connive against him? Worse, even though Papa knew how dangerous things had become, he was just like most Russians, accepting fate as nothing less than God’s will. But not I. Like most everyone these days, I feared the future but I refused to see myself as a lamb predestined for slaughter. Always, always, would I struggle to shape my own path, no matter the heavenly will. And, yes, in this way I differed radically from my naïve father, whose world was one of blacks and whites with no shades of gray in between.
Leaning against the chilly panes of glass, I peered out, checking every nook and corner in the courtyard. As far as I could tell there was no one. Should I ring the palace at once? Should I call the Empress herself and report our vulnerability? Yes, absolutely. I couldn’t risk the alternative. What if this seemingly innocent visitor was instead a beautiful bee with a deadly sting? True, she wasn’t carrying any noticeable weapons, but what if she had a vial of poison tucked up her sleeve? Or what if someone else sneaked into our home on this, one of the darkest days of the year?
Turning away from the window of Papa’s study, I gathered up my skirt, determined to telephone the palace. I had never interceded in my father’s world before, but now I had no choice. While my father was infinitely wiser than I, I was beginning to realize I was more worldly.
No sooner had I started for the door, however, when I heard my father’s large voice coming down the hall. “Come with me and tell me all your troubles, my sweet young kitten.”
“Yes, Father Grigori. And thank you, Father Grigori. Thank you for seeing and hearing me.”
“It is not I who will hear you but the Lord God.”
“Yes, of course, Father Grigori,” replied Olga Petrovna meekly.
I did it not because I meant to spy on him. I did it not because I wanted to witness how he handled these things. I did it only because I was beginning to understand that my father had no idea how evil this world really was. Papa was always so eager to help people, always so eager to give away money or use his connections, that he rarely thought of the consequences. If he couldn’t protect himself, I would. So, ducking into the small shallow closet on one side of Papa’s study, I pulled the door nearly shut behind me. Hidden in cool darkness, I peered out a crack only a finger wide, realizing that for the first time I was about to witness how my father treated those in need.
From my hiding spot, I watched as my father escorted our unexpected guest into his private room and shut the door securely behind him. As always, the first thing Papa did was turn to the icon in the “beautiful” corner, bow slightly, and cross himself with three fingers-forehead, stomach, right shoulder, left. Then, his clothing and hair more a mess than ever, he half stumbled to the chair by his small wooden desk. Dropping himself into the narrow chair, he reached out and took Olga Petrovna by her small hand and pulled her close to him.
“Come closer, my beautiful one,” he said, peering up at the young beauty standing before him. “What is it you need from me on this cold afternoon?”
“I need your help, Father Grigori. Your intervention. My husband was severely wounded and he needs the best medical care. Unfortunately, they plan to move him from the city, and it scares me. I’m afraid his care will suffer, and I won’t be able to visit him more than once or twice a month during his recovery, and without my presence I don’t think he’ll recover so quickly. And, Father Grigori, I…I-”
Radi boga, I thought, what a groveler. How I hated the way she tiptoed, just like everyone else, around our ugly-sounding last name. People, particularly here in the city, went oddly out of their way to avoid using it, particularly in my father’s presence, for fear of offending the powerful peasant with access to the throne. Didn’t they know that the name Rasputin was not derived from the word rasputnik-a debauched, dissolute, immoral person-but from rasputiye-an intersection of roads? No matter what these learned city people said about the way Russian names were derived, that was where my family name came from. And not only ours, but half the village’s, for little Pokrovskoye was located at the intersection of two major roads, one leading to Tyumen, the other off into the never-ending Siberian wilds.
As the woman rambled through her story, Papa barely paid her any attention. Instead he ran his hand through his hair, tugged at his thatched beard, and started scratching, first his chest and then his lanky thigh. I was wondering if he was even paying any attention to her when he cut her off, waving his hand brusquely through the air.
“Take off your clothes!” he commanded.
“What?”
“Off with them!”
“But…but I have money. I have…”
Papa mumbled something incomprehensible, and then shouted out, “God will not hear your prayers until you humble yourself! Do you hear me? You must humble yourself before the eyes of God! Do as I say, child: Take off your clothes!”
I nearly leaped out of the closet right then and there, but my shame captured me, paralyzing me right where I huddled. No. Please, not this way. Clenching my fist to my mouth lest I cry aloud, I bit my knuckles. Papa was all strictness and propriety with us, his children. He knew where we were and what we were doing every hour of the day. So what was going on here? What in the name of the devil was he doing? This couldn’t be the way he treated all his visitors behind the closed door of his study, could it? Dear God, as my imagined truth collided with the real one now unfolding before me, it was more than I could bear. Peering from the darkness into the light, I stood as still as a rock frozen to the ground.
“Yes, Father Grigori, as you wish.” She pulled her hand free from my father and started unbuttoning the back of her dress. “You see…you see, all I need is a slip of paper, some kind of word from you. People say that you give out such things, a little note with your signature. I would be happy to pay generously for it, one of those pieces of paper.”
“Ach, money! People are always throwing money at me, but what good does it do? Nothing, I tell you! Money is worth nothing!”
“Yes, but”-as she began to strip, the pretty woman struggled to fight back tears-“I’ll do anything…anything for my husband, if only you’ll intervene. What…what is it you’d like from me?”
“Ach, what do I need but love? That’s all. I can have anything, I tell you, anything at all! And yet what do any of us have need of but sweet love?”
And so she went on. Her hands trembling, her voice shaking, young Olga Petrovna began to shed her clothes, piece by piece. She did not stop talking, not for a moment, nor did she stop undressing. Staring blankly at a wall, she unbuttoned the top of her dress, and the bottom, and dropped it to the floor. When she stood in nothing but her plain cotton camisole and tattered petticoat, she stopped. As if she were about to be devoured by a lion, she stood there trembling.
“Why do you hesitate, child? Take it off, all of it!” demanded my father. “Do you think God does not see your doubt? Of course He does! And do you know what doubt signifies to the Lord Almighty? A lack of faith! A lack of belief! That’s what He sees in doubt! Let me warn you, divine acts cannot take place in the presence of doubt!”
As if she were somewhere else, she continued staring at the wall, prattling on and on, her voice quite flat as she mumbled. “My husband is a very fine man. He has beautiful brown eyes, he’s very strong, and he loves his country and his tsar very much. Yes, and he’s anxious to get well so he can return to the army and be of further help…”
Continuing, she pulled off her camisole and then dropped her poor petticoat at the feet of the all-powerful Rasputin. Within moments the last of her garments fell from her body, and she stood there, pale and trembling, totally naked except for long tattered stockings that came up over her knees. Spying her perfect, slightly upturned breasts and full, shapely hips, I realized that whereas her tears failed her, mine did not. My face was awash.