The Final Fabergé (2 page)

Rasputin shook his head as he all but disappeared beneath a huge coat of beaver and fox. “Felix has insisted on this evening. I'm very tired, brother Fabergé, but I've been promised that Irina will be there with her friends.” Irina was Yusupov's recently acquired wife, a distant cousin of Czar Nicholas and a beauty who had confided privately that she was anxious to meet the infamous monk.

It was after ten o'clock when Rasputin reached Yusupov's palatial home on the Moika River, where music blared from a distant room, a gramophone playing “Yankee Doodle.” A house steward, a young, bearded man, gathered in Rasputin's heavy coat and reached for the box he carried under his arm.

“I should keep it with me,” Rasputin said.

“Nonsense,” a small man said, approaching. “It will be safe with Nikolai. You don't want to spend the evening clutching some bit of shopping you brought along.”

Felix Yusupov was short and slight with a high-pitched sibilant voice, but assertive nonetheless. He took the box, instructing Nikolai to take it and fold the great coat over it and take both to the master's bedroom.

“There now, we will go downstairs for a while, then I will take you to meet Irina.”

Downstairs was a room the size of the ballroom above it, furnished with heavy pieces from Paris and rugs from Ankara. One wall was covered with big and small icons and in direct contrast, the adjoining wall held the strange works of a young painter named Picasso. It was a room
befitting every ruble of the Yusupov fortune. Even though young and small, Prince Felix Yusupov Sumarokoff was someone to reckon with. His family represented prominence, prestige, and power. He seemed to be studying Rasputin, eyeing his velvet pantaloons, silk blouse, and thick yellow cross that hung from a heavy chain. Rasputin had shown his friendship on recent occasions, aware perhaps that Yusupov had made complaints about the monk's continuing influence over Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna.

“The wine has a fruity flavor,” Yusupov said, offering a glass to his guest. “It's from my cousin's vineyard near Yalta. Or would you prefer vodka? Or brandy?”

Rasputin took the glass and it seemed he quickly crossed himself before he drank nearly all of it. He sighed heavily, finished the wine and sat in an upholstered chair overflowing with fat cushions. Yusupov refilled Rasputin's glass, then took his own to a chair next to his guest. “Have you had news of the war?” he asked.

Rasputin shook his head and answered slowly, “There should be no war.”

Rasputin had long been rumored as sympathetic to the Germans, and had been accused of persuading Nicholas to wait dangerously long before moving into action. Yusupov also knew that Rasputin had a deep influence over Alexandra. Now the “little man” had invited Rasputin into his home for a soiree, a late evening entertainment with Irina and her friends.

“Chocolate or cream?” Yusupov asked, proffering a tray filled with sweet cakes.

Rasputin stared blankly at the desserts, then put up a hand and declined.

“But you must,” Yusupov said, popping a chocolate cake into his mouth, watching Rasputin carefully, waiting patiently and moving the tray closer. Rasputin drank the second glass of wine, then accepted one of the cakes, eating it immediately. Yusupov smiled. The music from the floor above grew louder; another American song.

Rasputin said, “They are dancing.” It was half a question, half a statement, as if he knew that Irina's guests were drinking and enjoying a party. He added, “We should join them.” Then, almost absently, he took another cake and held out his glass. “I like your brother's wine.”

Yusupov went for the wine bottle and stood by the table while Rasputin ate the sweet. He poured a fresh glass and returned with it,
handed it to Rasputin, and stared closely at the monk's eyes and hands. After eating two of the cakes Rasputin showed little change from when he first appeared, and in fact seemed to be in an even lighter, happier mood.

Yusupov knew that should not be.

Little more than an hour before, the room in which Rasputin was now sitting had been a scene of frantic activity. Yusupov and four associates, Vladimir M. Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, Anton Sukhotin, and Dr. Feodor Lazovert, had been gathered for the single purpose of planning the assassination of Rasputin. Purishkevich was a flamboyant politician known for his public disavowal of the Czar and open hostility toward Rasputin. Pavlovich was his obsequious protégé and held similar views. Sukhotin was a military officer and would be a link to high-ranking and sympathetic members of the army. Because Yusupov retained the right to determine how Rasputin would be killed in his own home, Dr. Lazovert, a neo-revolutionist, had been recruited to secure and implant potassium cyanide crystals in the dessert cakes. Lazovert had declared that he had brought sufficient poison to kill Rasputin several times over. “A single cake should do it,” he had said confidently. “However, if you encourage him to have two cakes, there will be no question the cyanide will do him in.”

When Yusupov offered the tray of dessert cakes again, Rasputin all but pushed it out of his hand. He drank the wine, then got unsteadily onto his feet and went to the door leading to the stairs and up to the music.

“It's getting late, little one,” Rasputin said. “Let's go to the party with the music and women. There is no party here. Only those sweet cakes and the wine that tastes like berry juice.”

Having said this, Rasputin doubled over, nearly falling to the floor. Yusupov started toward him, certain that the poison was taking hold, afraid it would be a painful death, one he hadn't the stomach to watch. It was also distressing that he would soon see the most famous monk in Russia writhing in pain, staring up with his black eyes, damning him, and threatening a terrible revenge.

But as quickly as it seemed he had collapsed, Rasputin straightened, took a guitar from a shelf next to the door, and suggested that Yusupov play a tune. Yusupov took the instrument and ran for the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, shouting back to Rasputin, “Stay there! I'll find Irina.”

Purishkevich met him at the top of the stairs and they were immediately joined by Dr. Lazovert, who stared expectantly at Yusupov, waiting for the proclamation that Rasputin was dead. Instead, Yusupov screeched the words that he had escaped from a fiend: “He's not human! Two cakes with the cyanide and he thinks only of when he can join Irina's party. He asked me to play this damned thing!” Yusupov dropped the guitar and began breathing so rapidly that Lazovert feared he would hyperventilate.

Purishkevich said, “We'll go with you. I have a revolver.”

“This is my responsibility,” Yusupov said, and went to his study, returning with a pocket Browning. He continued noiselessly down the stairs and slowly went into the room where he found Rasputin standing at the table on which were the cakes and wine. The monk had filled his glass again. He turned and faced Yusupov.

“You're back, little one,” he said cheerfully. “That is very good. Let me fill your glass, and after we've had the wine, we will join Irina.” He filled a glass and offered it to the little man.

Yusupov now stood less than ten feet from Rasputin. In his left hand was a bronze crucifix, his arm extended and rigid. “Say a prayer, Grigori Efimovich. You must do that.”

Rasputin stared wonderingly at the cross, then at the barrel of the gun Yusupov had brought from behind his back and pointed directly at the monk's chest. A word formed in his mouth, then the gun exploded, a loud snapping noise that echoed with rapid reverberations off the walls. Rasputin crumpled, then fell. Yusupov took several tentative steps toward him, looked down at the body, then ran like a frightened schoolboy back up the stairs to the waiting conspirators. This time they were all gathered, all talking at once, asking if Rasputin was dead and where he had been shot, demanding to know how many bullets Yusupov had fired.

“I killed him!” Yusupov said. “For the good of Russia.” He clutched the gun with both hands, his body shaking, his face white and wet from sweat. He said, his voice high and shrill, “I never killed anyone before.”

The others, led by Purishkevich, pushed past him and went below and into the room where they found Rasputin had fallen onto his back and lay sprawled on a bearskin rug. Dr. Lazovert bent over him and put his hand beside the growing splotch of blood high up on Rasputin's chest. He pressed fingers against the monk's neck, searching for a pulse, and apparently not finding one, looked up to the others and nodded.

Purishkevich took control, ordering Sukhotin to personally report Rasputin's death to the military command, and for Pavlovich to go forward with the plan previously agreed to for the disposal of Rasputin's body. To Lazovert he said without a shred of conviction, “You've done your work, go home,” making it plain that the good doctor had botched his assignment. Purishkevich edged closer to the prone body, lit a cigar, and spat out shreds of tobacco on Rasputin. He turned and said, “I must use the telephone.”

Alone, Yusupov sat in a straight-back chair, facing the body, eyes fixed blankly on Rasputin's face, lips forming words to a childhood prayer. Then he saw an almost imperceptible movement in the dead man's face. Not possible, his nerves playing tricks, he thought. It had been like a twitch, and then it happened again. One eye opened. Yusupov scrambled to his feet, searching for his Browning, sick with the fright that Rasputin was not dead. Now both eyes were open and the monk rolled half a turn and struggled to his feet and was coming at Yusupov, roaring in anger, blood trickling from his mouth.

“Felix! Felix!” he screamed with a mad voice, saying only the name over and over. “Felix! Felix! Felix . . .” He locked an arm around Yusupov's head, but the smaller man wriggled free and ran upstairs, finding Purishkevich in his study.

“He's alive, God save us!”

Purishkevich ran quickly, making his fat short legs move with unaccustomed speed, tugging his own revolver from his coat pocket. The basement room was empty, and he hustled back to the main floor, and out to the courtyard, where he found Rasputin stumbling over the banks of snow, shouting, “Felix, I'll tell the Czarina!”

Purishkevich fired twice, missing, then moved closer and put a bullet in Rasputin's back. He moved closer and aimed more carefully. The last bullet tore through the monk's neck and once again he lay sprawled. Purishkevich went to him and kicked him fiercely in the head.

Yusupov came into the courtyard, his steward, Nikolai, next to him. The steward bent down over the body. “I think this time he is dead.”

“Get his coat,” Yusupov ordered. “We'll wrap his body with it, then put him in my car. Later, when the streets are empty, you will take it to Petrovsky Bridge and drop it in the water.”

Nikolai Karsalov did as he was commanded. It was proper for him to obey orders given by every member of the powerful Yusupov family. He retrieved the coat and as he draped it over his arm, the package that had
so concerned Rasputin fell to the floor. Nikolai hesitated, then tore away the wrapping and opened the box. He held the
Egg of Eternal Blessing
in his hand, dazzled by the jewels and shining blue enamel. He could not guess its value, nor in that brief moment did it occur to him that the infamous monk may have put a curse on the egg. But he was aware that in all the excitement, Felix Yusupov would not remember that Rasputin had appeared with a package under his arm. He put the egg back into the box, wrapped it, then ran to his room and took a high boot from the bottom of his armoire and crammed the box inside it.

LENINGRAD, DECEMBER 16, 1941

S
omeone had fixed the first day of the siege by the German North Army, which included the 56th Motorized Corps of the 4th Panzer Group, as August 10. After 128 days, Petersburg, as the stalwarts called it, had all but run out of food, fuel, and most other basic necessities, and was encountering one of the cruelest winters in memory. Cold and death; no conversation went without mention of either word, no radio broadcast—erratic as they were—failed to pile horrifying statistic upon chilling detail, and no one escaped the miserable piles of bodies that could not be buried in the frozen, concrete-hard earth. Rations were officially posted but meant nothing when there was no power to heat the ovens to bake a bread made from rye, flax, wood cellulose, and skimpy portions of wheat flour. Many citizens would argue over when the siege actually began, but the hard fact was the city was strangling and upward of ten thousand men, women, and children died every day from the appalling conditions, an unalterable fact no matter how much quibbling over when the siege began.

Nikolai Karsalov hugged his son tightly and inched forward in the line before the bread shop, his mittened hand cradling the small head, pressing his cheek against the boy's cheek to keep him warm. Two weeks earlier Marie Karsalov had stood in the same line with her nine-year-old daughter, Nina, who had been giddy with delight that on the very next day she would become ten. It had been a rare, sunny day before the dreaded cold had come when mother and daughter had gone happily to collect bread and a meat ration and a birthday gift Nina would select from one of the few shops that somehow had remained open and sold recycled household items and a paltry selection of books.
Darkness had come as it would in winter—in mid-afternoon—and as they returned home, a roving pair of young thugs waited, demanding food, and when they were denied, surrounded Marie and drove a knife deep into her chest. She was stabbed again and thrown to the snow, the bag of food and the ration cards in her pocket taken. Nina had tried to help her mother but had been severely beaten and left lying limp across her mother's body, a pink-covered package beside her. An hour later Karsalov had gone to find them and it was he who discovered his dead wife and desperately injured daughter. That Nina was alive was a miracle; she was one of the fortunate who had received hospital treatment and though she had lost toes on both feet from the cold, she was making a determined recovery.