The Romanov Bride (15 page)

When the war broke out, well, that was when I thought the Revolution was absolutely lost forever and ever. On all the streets there were crowds waving flags and singing “God Save the Tsar!” and everywhere there was this joy, this sense of pride and love for the Motherland. I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe that the oppressed would feel such passion for the Tsar and his lying ministers who had done nothing but walk all over them for centuries and centuries. Why, even the lowliest of workers were tripping over themselves as they rushed to enlist in the Tsar’s army. How was this possible? How could they not see what my Bolshevik leaders did, that this stupid business was simply a war of kings and empires, namely German, English, Austrian, and Russian? Sure, it was nothing but a stupid imperialistic affair spurred on by the capitalist warmongers who would make big profits from the sale of guns. And who was going to do the actual fighting? The nobles themselves, those princes and counts who for centuries had bought and sold us pathetic serfs? The rich factory owners who would grow fat and rich from the sale of their guns and bullets? Absolutely not! No, it was the poor and downtrodden who would be out there on the front lines, massacred one after another, their bodies crushed into the mud.

The last of my leaders were so discouraged that they had all left by the time war broke out. They said that new guy, Lenin, was in Switzerland and that that writer, the famous one, Gorky, was off sunning himself in Italy. But not me. I had nowhere to go, no one to see, so I just disappeared into my own country, sleeping in haystacks or train stations, stealing food from here, there, and what did I do when I needed a ruble or two? Why, that was easy, I just robbed someone, the old babushkas were the easiest, the donation pots in the churches a cinch, too. Actually, I never went hungry because fortunately it was a great sin to refuse bread to a beggar. And I begged a lot.

Oddly, one fall day in 1915 I found myself outside her white walls.

I didn’t know quite why I decided to walk halfway across the city, let alone how I had got back to Moscow in the first place, but suddenly there I was, staring at the thick vines creeping up the walls of the Marfo-Marinski Obitel. Yes, just standing there, my belly empty, admiring how the leaves on the vines were so yellow and orange and red. So pretty. But sure, these colors meant it would be winter before too long, and I wondered if maybe the sisters would feed me here today, or at least offer me a cup of tea with nice sugar. That was what I really wanted, hot tea and a sugar cube I could hold in my teeth as I drank.

I certainly never expected to see her, but I had been skulking about outside the women’s monastery for, who knew, an hour, maybe more, when not the large carriage gates but the small brown side gate suddenly swung open. First came two sisters dressed in long gray habits, which was strange to me because I had never seen anything like this, a sister dressed in anything but either all black for regular days or all white for feast days. And yet here were these freshly scrubbed girls in something so different, so modern-imagine, gray robes!-and with white cloth around their pink, healthy, and plump faces. Even that was strange, for all the other sisters I had ever seen were all pasty and pale, as if they barely ate and never saw the sun. But not these two! Accompanying them, hanging on to their arms, actually, were two men with bandages over their eyes. I knew the story of these men immediately, as did anyone from the country-these two had been soldiers fighting in the dirty war and their eyes had been burned away by gases in the trenches. They were everywhere in the country now, thousands of blind men like them, and I watched as the two young sisters escorted these men along, either getting them out for fresh air and a stroll or, perhaps, teaching them how to get about town with no eyes.

And then to my astonishment Matushka herself came through the small gate as well.

I couldn’t see her face at first, but of course it was her, my heart knew it immediately, for even though she too was draped in long gray robes, the figure was as tall and elegant as a real dama. Sure, and a moment later she turned slightly and I saw the lovely face that I had glimpsed only once but would recognize anywhere, for I had seen it time and again in my dreams. Like the young sisters, she wore not a scrap of black, which was so strange. She was carrying a basket, too, and just as she pulled shut the gate a slight wind came up, catching her garments, and even I was touched, really it was beautiful, this vision of her, so light in such dark times. Somehow she was set apart, so different, but then again, that was the way she had been when I’d seen her sitting in that carriage all dressed up in her fine clothes and all those expensive stones. Yes, though her clothing was now completely different, clearly marking her as a bride of Christ, there was something that was absolutely the same about her. Perhaps it was those eyes, so soft, so sensitive and kind, and I remembered that night when she had looked out the carriage window right at me, how her gaze had disarmed me, and how in that way she had saved her life and those of the two children as well. Again today she glanced my way, and again I lost my breath, stunned by something, I really didn’t know what. She seemed to smile at me, but no, it wasn’t at all possible that she remembered me from the night when our fates had passed each other like desperate boats in a violent storm.

People up and down the street, upon recognizing the Grand Duchess, stopped and bowed and crossed themselves.

“Good morning, Matushka!” cried two or three of them almost in unison.

“God bless you and your work, Matushka!” hollered a man, a knife sharpener who’d set up his grinding wheel on the corner.

“Thank you, Matushka!” called an old woman, bowing at the waist as she marked her forehead, stomach, right shoulder, left. “My son lives because of you!”

There was only one comrade, a one-legged man balancing on cracked crutches, who looked at this royal abbess as if she were nothing but a dog. He was leaning against a tree just a few paces from me, and he turned his dirty, worn face to me.

“You know, don’t you, that that bitch of a woman and her sister are nothing but dirty German whores?”

I quietly replied, “So I’ve heard.”

“It’s true, I tell you, and it’s only because of them that we’re losing the war!”

Obviously he’d been a soldier, and nodding toward his missing leg, I asked, “When?”

“Last winter.” He shrugged, and added, “I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones-I was wounded, they pulled me back from the front, and a week later all my comrades were wiped out, every last one of them. I should be dead like the rest of ’em, but instead I’m just a gimp.”

I should have said something, like maybe talked about the Organization and the need for revolution. I should have grumbled about the bourgeoisie, about exploitation of the lower classes, or, really, about any of the things I had been taught. I’m sure the soldier would have listened eagerly, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the beauty in robes, the wind and the light curling around her as she stood there across the street. In reply to all her well-wishers, she simply and meekly bowed her head in thanks and hurried on, quite alone, basket in one hand while with the other she pulled her robe close to her face as if hiding herself, as if the last thing she wanted was to be recognized.

I didn’t know why, but as soon as she started off I knew that I would follow her. I mumbled something to the one-legged comrade and then hurried along until I was some twenty or thirty paces behind her. All these questions were tripping through my mind. Where was she going, what was she doing, and, most important, was there food there in that basket that I might take from her? Or was it money, eh? After all, she was heading north on Bolshaya Ordinka, so perhaps she was headed straight toward the Kremlin, perhaps she had taken a basket of money from her church and was giving it over to the ministers. Yes, that was likely, and it occurred to me then that I could kill her now, thereby finishing the job I’d neglected so long ago. I could jump on her and beat her and make myself rich at the same time, too.

But then she veered off the wide cobbled street, soon crossing Solyanka Street and weaving her way through a maze of lost alleys, ducking through one archway, past the falling-down house of a half-ruined noble, and eventually emerging onto another street. She continued up this way and then cut to a boulevard. What was this all about? By then I could tell she was not hurrying toward the Kremlin, so what in the name of the devil was this holy princess doing? Where was she headed, this sly cat? Perhaps instead of taking money to the Kremlin she was delivering a basketful of rubles to German spies. Now, I thought, wouldn’t that be wonderful if the stories passing from tongue to tongue were really true! And how great it would be if I caught her in the act, right in the middle of a secret meeting! Ha, I could report it and maybe then the people would get so mad that finally and at long last they would rise up!

Trailing her, I couldn’t stop, didn’t dare.

She had remarkable energy, that one, for she was moving so quickly that I had to trot along to keep up with her. She was all business, and yet people smiled and nodded at her as they passed, perhaps not recognizing how high and mighty she really was, only seeing the strange light robes and knowing that she was from there, that community that had become so well known and, too, so well loved throughout Moscow. Pure and simple, she was a vision of Godliness to all who laid eyes upon her, that much I could tell. Or perhaps she was just a simple reminder that some still believed with all their hearts in a better world. And yet still I couldn’t tell what she was doing, just where she was going in such a rush.

I wondered of course if she had some kind of business in Kitai Gorod, the Chinese town, but after we crossed a kanal and turned to the right, it was clear she wasn’t going that far. No, we were descending into the lowlands in and around the Yauza River. And from the mist in the air and the stench that soon filled my nose, I understood that this stupid, foolish woman was heading straight into the Khitrovka, the famous slums of Moscow, which sprawled around a dangerous market selling rotten food and stolen goods, not to mention young girls, even young boys. Bozhe moi, my God, this was the most hellish corner of the country, and even I wanted to run up and tell her, No, stop, it’s too dangerous! Don’t go in! Word was that ten or twenty thousand pathetic souls lived in this Godforsaken area, a collection of thieves and robbers, beggars and murderers. If anyone escaped the labor camps of Siberia, they didn’t stay out in the forests. No, they snuck all the way back here, because both the police and the soldiers were too afraid to go into the depths of the Khitrovka and flush them out. Even my revolutionary pals told me that if I was ever found out, if I was ever chased, this was where I should run, straight into these slums. Of course, the lowlifes in and about might cut my throat for a ruble or plunge a knife in my back for pleasure, but at least the police wouldn’t catch me, oh, no!

But the nastiness of the Khitrovka seemed not to faze her in the least. In fact, the misery ahead seemed to draw her, and this sister of the Empress, this princess who had once danced the mazurka on the finest parquet floors in the greatest palaces, this greatest of European beauties, stepped through an open sewer along which slowly ran human waste of the nastiest sort. When she came to the corner of a crumbling building, she turned left, obviously certain of where she was going. Wasting no time, I hurried along, turned the corner, and nearly ran into her and three big, thick policemen, for there she stood, this woman in robes, talking to the giant men.

“Please, Matushka,” said one of the uniformed ones, “in a block or so you’ll enter the heart of the Khitrovka, and this is as far as the three of us dare go. We ask you again and again, please, no farther! If something happens in the streets ahead, we will not be able to go in to help you.”

“My dear men, you are always too kind to me and I so appreciate your good thoughts,” she replied in the gentlest of voices. “But, once again, I am needed in these parts.”

“Yes, but-” began another constable.

“Please, my boy, do not worry. My life is in God’s hands, not yours.”

With a kind wave and smile, she pressed on, going where certainly no princess had ever gone, deep into the filthy Khitrovka. I myself thought of turning back, but curiosity had hooked me, and I tailed her into a dark alley where the sun was all but blotted out. I couldn’t help wondering, if those policemen back there on the edge of the Khitrovka knew her by sight, just how often did she come here and what in the name of the devil was her business? Might it not be with spies and Germans?

As I traipsed after her, nearly losing her from sight, I heard screaming, then breaking glass. From another direction came drunken laughter and crying children. As I passed a traktir-the cheapest of taverns-its doors were shoved open by two men, laughing and stumbling, and a stinky cloud of stale beer and boiling cabbage overwhelmed me. A few steps later I came to a man slumped against a building, lying in a puddle of his own vomit. All this I saw, and a woman with a painted face who stood in a doorway marked with the required red lamp. When I glanced at her she pulled open the top of her dress and showed me her huge naked breasts.

“Right this way, handsome,” she called, licking her lips.

I looked away. This place was nothing but a pile of roaches feasting on one another, and like an insect myself I scurried on. Rounding a corner after the princess nun, I watched as she proceeded down a lane of disgusting shops, this one selling something that was supposed to be sausages, another grimy bread, and there, a guy chopping chickens on a huge stump and throwing the carcasses on the floor. Next I saw a handful of tailors working frantically away as they transformed stolen fur capes and coats into unrecognizable hats and muffs. Up and down the passage were gathered clumps of men, too, and great wafts of smoke from papirosi-the cheapest cigarettes-curled into the dark air, mingling with the scent of sour sunflower oil that came from every kitchen. Time and time again they greeted this lowly Romanov not with a sneer or snarl or the least bit of coarseness-let alone a threat of any kind-but with a simple and polite nod of the head.