The Kitchen Boy (20 page)

When I lifted aside the boughs I’d placed over the hidden den, the light of God cut through the day and struck her face. Immediately the girl’s eyes opened and the slightest of smiles graced her face.

Upon seeing us Maria said, “What, brought others to see me, have you, Leonka?”

“Everything’s going to be all right,” calmly replied Sister Antonina.

At once the sister, so short and round, descended into the den, and with her merciful hands she started treating the wounded young woman. First she carefully examined the gash on the side of Maria’s head, next she checked the bullet wound in her leg.

“You did very well, Leonka, very well, indeed,” muttered Sister Antonina with approval, for somehow I had managed to stem the flow of blood.

She then turned to Aleksei, his head covered by my jacket. And it was just as I had told her, the poor boy was hopelessly dead. This she verified. The sister lifted up a corner of the jacket, gasped, made the sign of the cross, and covered him once again. There was no time to waste in grief, this the old sister clearly knew, and she beckoned her assistant into the den.

“Come, Marina.”

The young novice descended, and thereupon the two of them set upon Grand Duchess Maria, cleaning her wounds, bandaging her arm and thigh, and comforting her with their few supplies. The two women of the cloth made an easy team, and their hands worked quickly and confidently. Much to my surprise, it was soon apparent that Sister Antonina knew about the corset of diamonds.

“Let’s get this thing off you,
dorogaya moya
,” my dear, said the nun, untying Maria’s undergarment. “Lying on all those stones can’t be comfortable.”

Immediately Maria twisted to the side, and she protested, “But…”

“Don’t worry, they’ll be perfectly safe, just like the rest.”

At first it didn’t make sense. Sure, I knew that Maria, like her sisters, was covered in
brillianty
. But I didn’t understand how Sister Antonina knew about them as well, not at least until the following day. Only then did I learn about everything else, all the jewelry that had been hidden away. The suitcases of Romanov jewels. While one had remained in Tobolsk, the second, weighing over a
pood
– some thirty-eight pounds – had already been brought to Yekaterinburg.

Without turning to me, Sister Antonina ordered, “Leonka, my young one, we’re going to have to cut away the young woman’s corset. Please turn away.”

I wasn’t in the little den. The space just wasn’t that big. I was simply looking in through the roots. But rather than turn away, I covered up the little entrance. I laid branches back on the opening and left the sister and novice to attend to the Grand Duchess, which they did very well. They spent a long time cleaning and dressing her wounds and administering what medicaments they had brought. They fed her water too. And broth. And bread.

During this entire time I hid in the wood, but I did not sleep.
Nyet, nyet, nyet
. I watched. I hid in brush and watched for the Reds, who were sure to sweep the area, searching for the two missing young ones. But the Reds never did come. No. They furiously searched the road and the town, but they never ventured that far into the wood. And in an attempt to cover up his gross error – imagine, he’d lost two bodies! – Yurovsky conceived of the famed Yurovsky Note in which he claimed to have burned the two missing bodies. This, however, was yet another clean lie, for virtually no sign of any bodies was ever found, not even a single bone. It was a stupid lie too, for it is impossible to completely burn bodies over an open flame.

I finally settled against a birch, slumping against its peeling bark. Nearly an entire hour passed before Sister Antonina and Novice Marina emerged from the hidden den.

“How is she?” I asked, rushing up to them. “Will she live?”

“She rests comfortably now,” replied Sister. “And with the grace of God, all will be well.”

“Slava Bogu.”
Thank God.

“Now it is time to bury The Little One. Would you be so kind as to fetch him, Leonka?”

And that I did. I fetched the body of my friend and master, the Heir Tsarevich Aleksei Nikolaevich. His sister Maria had fallen into the deepest of sleeps, and so it was just the sister, novice, and I who blessed him and gave him back to the earth. I carried him out of the den and laid him on the ground. As the two women cleaned and comforted his horribly damaged body – Sister Antonina ripped away part of her own garments and wrapped him in it – I carved his grave in front of a clump of three white birches. But it was not a deep grave, merely adequate, a shallow wound, since all I had to dig with were several branches and my bare hands. Then as the sister chanted prayers and blessings, Novice Marina and I buried the boy, though we did not make a cross.

“Better that we not mark the spot,” recommended Sister Antonina.

And she was right at that. We put the boy to rest there in the soil of his Holy Mother Russia, the very soil which he himself had been born to protect, then covered him and hid the grave beneath branches and leaves so that the Reds could never find him, never bother him again. And he lies there hidden in that wood, undisturbed today, of that I am quite sure.

Then Sister Antonina scurried off to check on Maria. Like a mole dressed in black, the sister crawled into the hiding spot beneath the tree roots. When she emerged a few minutes later, however, the concern was rippling across her face.

“She rests well, but her wounds weep oddly and I worry of infection,” reported the old nun. “I must return to town for more medicaments. Marina, you are to stay by the girl’s side. And, Leonka…”

“I will guard them both.”

“Excellent.” She turned to go, and over her shoulder called, “I will be back before the fall of night.”

That was her promise, but sadly those were her last words to us. Neither Novice Marina nor I were ever to see her again, for someone informed on Sister Antonina. Some Red spy saw her creeping back into the town, saw her torn, dirtied habit, and knew something was up. And so Yurovksy sent his henchmen, those thugs from the Cheka, the political police of the Reds, to question her. They found fear in her eyes and blood on her garments, and they brought her in. Not a thing would she tell them, however, not even when they tortured her. They asked and pushed and cut on her, but she didn’t say anything about the Heir or Grand Duchess, of course, or even the fortune of gems. Two days later, rather than waste a bullet on her, the Reds tied a heavy metal stove grating to her and dropped her to the bottom of the River Ityesk.

Yes, such terrible things that went on…

Ever hopeful, however, Novice Marina and I waited, watching and attending to the Grand Duchess’s every need. Night came and passed. So arrived the next day. Still there was no Sister Antonina. We knew something was wrong, terribly wrong, and yet by sun fall we had even a worse problem: Grand Duchess Maria had developed a very sudden, very high fever. Within an hour’s time she started to burn up.

“Get me some fresh, cool water, Leonka!” demanded Novice Marina. “Quickly!”

I rushed to a nearby stream and fetched nice, cold water, which we fed the Grand Duchess and used to cool her brow. But it was not enough. Her temperature kept rising. The very following day we were so worried that I snuck into town myself. I left Marina and the Tsar’s daughter, and went off in search of the medicaments. Of course I was very careful, and in my own secret way I found the path to the Church of the Ascension. I wanted to speak to Father Storozhev, but he was off at the jail, trying in vain to win the freedom of Sister Antonina, who was then still alive. Not trusting anyone else, I left, having found nothing with which to heal the Grand Duchess. My thought was that I would return to the church the next day, and so I headed back to the wood, bringing with me only some cheese and bread. Our only hope, it seemed, was to keep Maria strong enough that she might live yet another twenty-four hours. Instead, her temperature kept rising and she ceased taking even water.

By the following morning her breathing had grown more difficult and she was lingering on the very edge of life itself. Both Marina and I understood the end was at hand. Kneeling beside the Grand Duchess, I clutched her hand. Novice Marina knelt next to me, chanting prayers and crossing herself repeatedly.

“Leonichka,” Maria said, opening her eyes and using the softest diminutive of my name, “thank you for watching over me…”

“This is all my fault!” I confessed, my eyes flooding like the mightiest of Siberian rivers. “Your father entrusted me with a note, which I failed to deliver. I’m sure it fell into the hands of the Reds and-”

“Sh, my friend, there’s no need for that…”

My tears came stronger than ever, and I bowed my head before the last of the Imperial Family. Did she not know, did she not see what role I had played in the end of her entire family? Had the shock of that night wiped clean her memory?

“You don’t understand, Maria Nikolaevna!”

“I understand everything…”

“No, no you don’t! I was supposed to deliver that note, I was supposed to rally the three hundred officers!”

“Yes, and this you tried to do with all your heart. The Lord God sent you to try to save us, and this you attempted. Father was most grateful for your help.”

“No, Maria Nikolaevna! No, you don’t understand!” I pleaded, bowing my head over and over to her. “I failed! You do not understand!”

“I understand that you blame yourself for events beyond your control.”

“Please forgive me!”

“There is nothing to forgive.”

“But…!”

I clutched Maria’s hand as tightly as I could. As she faded away, I tried to tether her to this world. But she did not want to be kept here.

Maria’s eyes then closed and slowly opened, and she said, “Three hundred years ago my family made this country strong and stable… but we should have left long ago. Better I should die. Better we should fade away.”

“No!” pleaded Novice Marina, breaking her chanting. “Do not leave us, Your Highness!”

Yet perhaps she was correct. Perhaps Maria was wise in her words, for she clearly understood that the time of the Romanovs was finished. Besides, who knew what would have happened had the last daughter of the last Tsar survived? I don’t think she could have rallied the troops, for she was too young. Rather, I think she would have rallied only confusion and despair. Meanwhile, every Bolshevik on earth would have hunted her and any future offspring down.

The Grand Duchess faded into delirium, and just when I thought we’d lost her, she rallied her strength. Beckoning the novice and me closer, Maria Nikolaevna commanded us with what would be the greatest tasks of our lives.

“Marina,” began the Grand Duchess, her voice so very faint, “you perhaps know where our riches are hidden here in town?”

“Da-s, Vashe Velichestvo.”
Yes, Your Highness, replied the young woman. “I am aware of what we have guarded at our monastery.”

“Then this you must do – you and Leonka must gather it all. Every bit that is here in Yekaterinburg and, if you can, that which is still in Tobolsk. You must then bury it all away again. You must keep it someplace safe. And once this terror has left our land and once my family has had a proper Orthodox burial, then I beg you to return all of these treasures to the people of my country. It is to be a gift from my family to our people. Understood?”

“Da-s,”
both the novice and I replied.

And so it was that Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, third daughter of Nikolai and Aleksandra, married the Novice Marina and me in both duty and fate. Which is to say that we both escaped that time and place with one entire suitcase of Romanov jewels, which we have ever since guarded so carefully. You see, as we fled through the Siberian woods to Shanghai and eventually America, I, Leonka, became Misha, whereas Marina became May, and jointly, in time, we became husband and wife.

But that fateful morning, Maria Nikolaevna lasted only moments longer. She who was born in a golden palace expired shortly thereafter on a pile of leaves, there in that filthy den of tree roots. I myself was clutching her hand when she opened her eyes for the last time. Our eyes met and held and I understood she was leaving.

“Nyet!”
I cried, falling upon her.

This was how I caught her last breath. She exhaled… I breathed in… and she was gone. That peacefully. That easily. And so ended the family of the last Tsar, the humble Tsar Nikolai II, and his devoted consort, Tsaritsa Aleksandra.

Ah-min
.

“But, Katya,
moya dorogaya vnoochka
…” Kate, my dear granddaughter, continued Misha, seated at his office desk and clutching the microphone in both hands, “that’s not quite the end, for the Romanovs have now been buried a total of three times. In other words, Rossiya still does not know what to do with her last Tsar and where to place him in her ugly history. Yes, such devilish things have been done to the bodies of the Tsar and his family.”

Misha sighed, caught his breath, and gazed at his wall of books on the Romanovs. He was almost done, almost to the end, determined to make his granddaughter understand the complexities of the revolution and the fall of the Tsar. And he was doing just that, wasn’t he?

“Well, the very day after they were dumped down that mine, the Tsar and his family were brought back to the surface of the world again. Yes, it’s true, we learned all this not only from the Yurovsky Note of 1920, but also from those guards, who were later thoroughly interrogated by the Whites. And that next day the Romanovs were indeed resurrected. Because so many townspeople knew what had happened and where the bodies of Nikolai, Aleksandra, and the others were buried, the Komendant Yurovsky recognized the necessity of transferring the corpses to another location. On top of that, Yurovsky’s idiots, those Reds, had made such a mess of the area at the Four Brothers Mine that even a blind man could have found the bodies! So Yurovsky and his men returned to the mine and fished out the Romanovs. One of the
Bolsheviki
was lowered to the bottom of the pitshaft, where he stood in freezing water up to his waist. He started with Tatyana, tying a rope around her young, naked body. Giving a signal, the young princess was then hoisted up. And so it went, one by one. And because the bodies had been in this chilled, fresh water, they were all pink and fresh looking, like naked babies, their cheeks nice and rosy. They were all pulled out, of course, except the tiny dog, Jimmy, who was found only months later, nearly perfectly preserved.

“
Oi
, it was such a farce! What idiots those Reds were! They tossed the murdered ones in the back of a truck and headed off, intending to bury them in a deeper mine near the Siberian Highway. Along the way, however, the motor lorry kept sinking in the mud because, of course, it had rained so much. Finally it went in up to its axles, becoming hopelessly mired. The Reds jumped out of the truck, scratched their stupid heads for a few minutes, and then pushed and pushed to no avail. Eventually Yurovsky decided they needed to lighten the load, and so they pulled off the bodies, tossing the Tsar and his family on the side of the road like a pile of logs. Again they pushed and pushed, this time freeing the vehicle. By then it was dawn of yet another day, and Yurovsky and his idiots were so exhausted, do you know what they did? They threw the Romanovs and their retinue in the shallow muddy hole left by the truck! True, it’s true, Katya! Yurovsky thought himself so smart, pleased that they were killing two hares with one shot. And so they tossed them in the shallow hole, Romanov and servant piled this way and that, and then they doused them with sulfuric acid to make them unrecognizable. Finally, they covered them with mud and clay, threw some railroad ties over this grave, and ran the motor lorry back and forth to pack everything down. Can you imagine? And it worked. It worked for almost seventy-five years! Investigator Sokolov searched the entire area and even had his picture taken standing atop those very railroad ties – but never thought to look beneath them!”

Caught up in his anger, Misha fell silent. He could go on for hours. So many stories. So many horrors. But enough. He was so tired… so very, very tired.

“But here,
dorogaya
, I must draw to a close.” He took a deep breath, gathered all his energy just to hold himself together. “And so this is my story, the one I’ve never been able to tell. I apologize. I apologize for my lies, but we were so afraid, your grandmother and I. You must understand that she was but a simple novice, so sweet, so pretty, and I was but a plain kitchen boy. And these things we could not tell you because we were ever afraid of the
Bolsheviki
, ever afraid that they would not only come after us, but later, after both you and your father. This was a real danger too because the Reds were doing this, they were going after Russians everywhere, even killing one of their own, that
kommunist
Trotsky, in Mexico. This is exactly why the Tsar’s sisters fled so far as well – Ksenia to England and Olga eventually to Canada, where of course she died above that tiny barber shop.

“But I apologize both for me and your Baba Maya. Because of our fears we presented ourselves to you as a lie. Yes, my beloved wife was none other than the young, innocent Novice Marina.

“Well, my dear, I shall end now. I’ve instructed my lawyer not to give you this tape, nor the key and combination to my vault, until I have died. Which means that by the time these words reach your ears I will have left this earth to join your grandmother. Be confident, my sweet one, in our love for you. Be strong in our faith in your abilities. There is nothing more precious in the world than you, our lovely granddaughter – not even the Romanov gems that you will soon see. Since the early death of your father, my son, seventeen years ago, you have burned like a bright star in our lives, your grandmother’s and mine. Our sincerest thanks for restoring in part our belief in the goodness of the world.

“Oh, but I hesitate to say good-bye…” Suddenly he felt hot tears flood his eyes, and he crudely blotted at them. “There are so many more stories. So much more to tell.” His voice began to quiver. “But enough… enough…
ya tebya ochen lubloo
. I love you very much.”

Realizing that he could no longer control himself, the old man quickly flicked off the tape recorder. He mopped his eyes, then slumped forward, resting his forehead in the heels of his worn hands. It had been harder than he thought, but he’d done it, gotten through it all. Yes, he’d given his granddaughter a thousand truths.

He wanted to sit there, basking in his memories, both horrific and wonderful. But now was no time to linger. He was so close, so very close, and he had so little left to do.

Pushing himself on, Misha popped the cassette out of the small black machine. He picked up his gold pen, gathered his thoughts and energy, and on the tape itself, wrote, “For Our Katya.” He then slipped the tape into the envelope he’d already addressed to his granddaughter, sealed it, and placed the packet in the center of his desk. Sure, he thought. Everything was in order. He’d gone through all his papers, all his files. He wanted to leave behind as clean a trail as possible. There was no sense in making this difficult for Kate, no sense making it more complicated than it already was or would be.

Misha rolled back his chair, braced himself, and then pushed himself to his feet. He sensed himself teetering and leaned over, placing both hands on his desk. So old, he thought. So much time had passed, so many things had happened. Sometimes he felt like he could live another century, other times, like now, he felt as if he had but minutes left.

As he carefully moved to his built-in bookcase, a jolt of pain bit his left knee, his bad one, and he stood still. Then proceeded. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a key, one that he always carried on his person. He next reached up to the wall of books, where he pushed aside two volumes and revealed a brass lock. When Misha inserted his key and turned it, a well-oiled and well-balanced three-foot section of the entire bookcase, stretching from floor to ceiling, began to swing out. He pulled it fully open, revealing yet another door, a metal one, with a brass handle and a dial lock. He’d had this hidden vault installed sixty years ago when May and he had bought this house. Now he spun the dial to four numbers – 1-8-9-4, the year of the Tsar’s ascension to the throne – and immediately there was a gentle, pneumatic sound and the door moved slightly. Misha pulled on the handle, swinging forward the thick, heavy door. The first thing he did was hit a light-switch, revealing a walk-in safe some six feet deep and five feet wide. The only other person in the family to know of its existence was, of course, May, and together they had come in here three or four times a year, not simply to check on things, but to marvel at the treasures and bathe in bittersweet memories.

Misha had never worried about being robbed. If the house had been broken into, the thieves would have gotten only the inconsequential stuff – the silver flatware, the tea set, some of May’s day to day jewels – but not this, the secret heart of his life’s work. At first glance the contents of the vault seemed pathetic, for on the left hung a rack of old clothes, a raincoat, suit, and pants for him, a dress, hat, and a coat for Maya. On the right stood a rack of shelves filled from floor to ceiling with boxes, some small, some large. Beneath them, resting on the floor were three bankers’ boxes that contained sundry documents.

In the beginning, May and he had sold hardly any of it, no more than a small bag or two of insignificant diamonds. They’d used that money not only to escape Russia, but to launch their lives in America. Later on, of course, Misha had sold more of the loose gems, none of them of historical value, using the cash to buy sundry Fabergé items that the cash-poor Soviets – not to mention the defrocked Russian princes – were selling all across Europe.

Oh, yes, thought Misha, reaching for a box on the fourth shelf. He quite liked this one, and he pulled the cardboard box halfway out, opened the lid, and revealed a gray jewelers’ bag inside. Flipping that open, he gazed upon a Fabergé box some twelve inches long and four inches deep that was covered with lapis and diamonds. Before it was hidden away here it had sat for several decades on Tsar Nikolai’s desk. Fabergé had been a master of combining styles from different periods, turning objets d’art into functional things of beauty, what he termed
objets de fantaisie
.

Oh, and this one, thought Misha as he closed up that box and reached for another. This one was May’s favorite. Lifting another jewelers’ bag into his hands, he felt something heavy and egg-shaped, which he slid into his palm. It was a large gold egg encrusted with a multitude of double-headed eagles – the emblem of Imperial Russia – that were fashioned out of platinum and hundreds of diamonds. And like all of the fifty-six eggs Fabergé had created for the Imperial Family, this one too contained a surprise: Misha tipped back the top of the egg and a diamond encrusted Orthodox cross popped up. It made him laugh, just like it always did. Created as an Easter present to mark Aleksandra’s conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, the egg had the year 1896 drawn in rubies on the back.

Upward of twelve Fabergé eggs had vanished during the flames of the revolution, and yet Misha and May had secretly managed to obtain seven of those. And all seven of them were in here. Reaching for the box to his right, Misha opened it, revealing another egg, this one in green enamel atop a solid gold pedestal. Flowers fashioned from gold and platinum, rubies, sapphires and, of course, diamonds, covered the egg. When Misha tipped back its lid he found a gold perfume bottle inside, its cupola top encrusted with a frosting of tiny diamonds. He gently laid it down, then quickly opened the lids of the next two boxes. Opening the inner boxes of each, Misha reached in and felt the shapes of two more eggs swathed in jewelers’ bags. Without even opening them, he turned his attention to the smaller box on the next shelf down. Opening the cotton bag inside, Misha slipped a diamond some two inches in diameter into his palm. He slid the diamond back in its bag and surveyed the wall of shelves. Five shelves, to be exact, all lined with similar boxes, some sixty or seventy. It was all here, the contents of the entire suitcase he and May had carried out of Russia, all of the gems carefully catalogued and packed. Many, he knew, dated back to the time of Peter the Great. One piece of jewelry, an emerald the size of a silver dollar that was in turn surrounded by a halo of 20-carat diamonds, had been a gift to Ivan the Terrible.

Incomparable treasures, all of them. Collecting and guarding them had occupied nearly his entire life, and now that he had succeeded in his duties he felt, surprisingly, a sense of pride. He had pledged to bury these things away not only until the fall of communism, but until his Nikolai and Aleksandra received a proper Orthodox burial. And now that these both had happened – what miracles! – he could rest with a degree of peace. His beloved Kate would have to oversee the final step, returning all of this to Russia, and he had every confidence that she would execute the transfer in a timely manner.

This room held the climax of his story and his life, thought Misha. Everything he recorded on that tape was to prepare his granddaughter for this room and its priceless contents. How much was all this worth, three, four, five hundred million dollars? A billion? Certainly somewhere in that range. And that was his reason for telling Kate his version of the final days of the Tsar – simply so that she could and would understand the meaning, the purpose, and the true value of all these jewels in this room. Misha was laying at Kate’s feet not unfathomable wealth, but overwhelming, mind-boggling responsibility, and he had to make sure she understood every ramification.

As much as he wanted to go through every box and admire every gem, there just wasn’t time. It had taken years for May and him to catalog it all, examining and weighing every stone, describing every
objet
, and then recording it all in a jewel book. May even insisted on drawing a facsimile of every piece, which she carefully did, and that log was there, right over there on the shelf.
Oi
, so many memories, mused Misha as he closed the boxes one after the other.

He even started laughing.

Turning, he looked at the rack of old clothes and chuckled aloud. May and he had been so very afraid, not just in the twenties and thirties, but especially right after World War II and into the fifties. Accordingly, they had taken every precaution, and Misha reached for his raincoat, finding it oddly heavy. Squishing the material between his fingertips, he sensed a band of small, hard objects running all the way around the neck. Stones. And not mere stones, but diamonds. Similarly, May’s dress over there held an entire panel of secret
brillianty
and the hem a great circle of them. Scattered through these clothes were some ten pounds of gems, hidden away like this in case May and he had suddenly needed to flee. In a separate codicil to his will he’d left note of this too, so Kate wouldn’t simply throw these clothes in a bag and drop them at the Goodwill.