The Kitchen Boy (3 page)

Walking so very carefully lest I spill a drop, I passed from the dining room into the drawing room, where the manservant, Trupp, was putting away his bed things. I proceeded quickly past him to the alcove at the far end, where Dr. Botkin slept on a cot next to a wooden desk. When I walked in, the doctor was standing next to a large potted palm and fastening his suspenders.

I was almost too afraid to speak, but in case there were any guards nearby, I forced myself to loudly say, “I brought the water you requested, Yevgeny Sergeevich.”

He was a tall man, a big fellow with a goatee, small gold specs, and little eyes, whose granddaughter, by the way, still lives in Virginia. Well, this Dr. Botkin just stared at me, surprised at my impudence. Without hesitation, I went up to the wooden desk and set down the glass of water, managing of course to spill a bit in the process. As I frantically mopped aside the water with my hand, I glanced about the drawing room. There were no soldiers, so I jabbed my hand in my pocket, pulled out the small folded piece of paper, and dropped it on the desk next to the glass.

“This was hidden in the milk stopper,” I whispered, my voice trembling.

Studying me, he screwed up his eyes and then quickly snatched the note from the desktop. I know he wanted to ask me what in the devil’s name I was talking about, but only his eyes dared question. I turned and scurried out, just like that, and returned to the kitchen where cook Kharitonov was preparing the tiny pot of concentrated tea and slicing black bread, yesterday’s of course, which was no longer so moist but still nice and sour.

Despite my worries, I was exactly right in what I did, in how I handled the note. Going that early into Nikolai Aleksandrovich’s bedchamber might have attracted attention. However, directly approaching Yevgeny Sergeevich did not. And I trusted the doctor would know exactly how to handle the situation, for he was not only the Tsar’s personal physician, not only his close adviser, but at this point in their captivity also his dear friend.

I didn’t know then if Dr. Botkin could read the letter since it was written in a foreigner’s tongue, but he immediately passed it on to the Tsar and his wife. Aleksandra Fyodorovna, a woman of tightly strung nerves, never slept well, and hence was always loath to rise in the morning, particularly by eight-fifteen for the morning inspections. Such were the rules, however, and in the twenty or thirty minutes that passed between the time I gave Dr. Botkin the note and when the
komendant
viewed the household, Dr. Botkin must have entered the Tsar’s personal room. The Emperor and Empress shared the corner room with their ailing son, the Heir. And Dr. Botkin must have gone there under the pretext of checking Aleksei or perhaps the Empress herself – she had a bad heart, not to mention bad legs – and then slipped them the piece of paper.

By the time we were gathered for inspection it was obvious the Romanovs had read the note. Ever since the Heir’s lackey, Nagorny, had been hauled off to prison, we had been using the Empress’s rolling chaise, a large wicker device on wheels, to carry the Heir, for Aleksei was still recovering from a recent bleeding episode. And as I pushed Aleksei into the dining room and around the end of the table, I burned red with embarrassment akin to fear as the Tsar and Tsaritsa stared upon me, Leonka, the kitchen boy. Had I done wrong? Was I in trouble?

Even though Aleksei Nikolaevich was ill, even though he had lost so much weight, everyone kept saying he was growing as fast as a mushroom after a spring rain, and it was true. Tsar Nikolai, who took after his diminutive mother, was the exception in the family, for he was no taller than five feet six or seven inches. On the other hand, the Heir Aleksei, had he not been murdered, would have been a real Romanov, tall as a tree and big as a bear. And that summer the two of us were nearly the same height. He had dark hair, bright, sharp eyes that seemed to drink in everything, and as usual he wore a white bed shirt and his legs were covered with a blanket. That day, though, he told me he’d slept poorly – truly, this handsome lad was as pale as the moon, his skin almost translucent – because hours ago he had been woken by Red troops marching past the house.

“The Whites are on the way!” he whispered with excitement as I positioned him next to his mother.

So there we all were, gathered in the dining room, the seven Romanovs, Botkin, maid Demidova, cook Kharitonov, valet Trupp, and me. Lining up behind the heavy oak table, we automatically assumed our positions, first the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, the Heir Tsarevich, the four daughters from oldest to youngest, and then the five of us, from Dr. Botkin down to me, the last. That was the way it always had been at court before the revolution and still was in this house, everyone perfectly aware of their rank and automatically assuming their preordained position. And what a handsome family they were. As always Nikolai wore a khaki field shirt with the epaulets ripped off – cut away by order of the
Bolsheviki
– khaki pants of coarse cotton, worn brown leather boots, and of course that cross of Saint George on his chest. Sure, he was short, sure his nose was a bit stubby and his neck not too long, but he was trim, his arms surprisingly strong, his beard so beautiful, his eyes so sweet, his voice deep and rich. And Aleksandra? She was quite tall, quite imposing and regal, and that morning she wore little jeweled ornamentation and the same loose, dark blue cotton dress she had been wearing for many days. Though she was by then painfully thin, in her youth she had been a true beauty, her hair light, her complexion pure and white. It was no wonder their girls were so beautiful, their son such a treasure.

Waiting for the Bolshevik leader, all of us stood silent except Anastasiya Nikolaevna, the youngest daughter. In her arms she held her little black and tan dog, Jimmy, the tiniest of King Charles spaniels, and the young Grand Duchess kept saying little bits of nothing into the creature’s ears as she rocked him back and forth.

Finally Komendant Avdeyev came in – a fat man with a greasy beard and dirty shirt – who always went beltless. He suffered from the Russian disease, which perturbed the Tsar, because he couldn’t abide that, such inveterate drinking. Or disorder for that matter. Nikolai Aleksandrovich was a tidy man by nature, and he hated Avdeyev, particularly since Avdeyev had been allowing the other guards to slowly loot the shed where the Romanovs had their trunks stored. The
komendant
said they needed to examine everything, but in reality they were pilfering linens and table services and selling these fine goods in the town market. When this was later discovered, Avdeyev was rightly sent to the front.

As ever, the
komendant
was a mess, an awful sight. More than likely he’d polished off an entire bottle of vodka the night before, and that morning he must have just gotten up because his hair went every which way, his eyes were all swollen, and even his shirt was unbuttoned. I glanced at the Empress, who was glaring at him with disdain. Anastasiya started to giggle, but then her mother gave her the eye.

Avdeyev, who could barely focus, rubbed his eyes, and grumbled, “So, Nikolashka, are all of you here?”

All of us flinched – using that form of Nikolai’s name was incredibly rude, especially for the country’s number one person – but the Tsar, good soldier that he was, not to mention former commander in chief of the world’s largest army, calmly replied, “
Da-s
, all of us are present.”

I thought that would be it, that we would be dismissed, but then this slob of a man leaned on the table with both hands, cocked one of his fat eyes, and turned to me and said, “Tell me, Leonka, no one plans to secretly escape, now do they?”

Suddenly I had to pee just terribly. It flashed through my mind that they’d caught Sister Antonina and tortured her. Was this a trap? Did they know about the note?

“Speak up, Leonka,” commanded Avdeyev. “You’re young, but I’m sure you have big eyes. You haven’t seen anything suspicious going on, have you? Hey?”

“Well, I…”

Everyone in the room, from the Tsar on down, turned and stared at me, the little kitchen boy with the big feet. I thought the Empress was going to faint right there. The first serious attempt to save them, and she thought I was going to blow it.

“Nyet-s,”
I replied, which was short for
“nyet-soodar”
– no, monsignor – for that was how proper people of that day spoke.

He eyed me, studied me for the longest moment. I swear he was going to ask me more questions when all of a sudden Aleksei’s dog, Joy, a black and white English spaniel, came bolting into the room with a squealing animal in its mouth.

Demidova, the Empress’s maid, tall and chubby, screamed, “Oi, the dog has a rat!”

“Bozhe moi,”
my God, “it’s alive!” exclaimed Botkin.

Well, you should have heard the girls scream. Those grand duchesses had lived an extraordinarily sheltered life. Sure, the entire family had been imprisoned ever since their father’s abdication eighteen months earlier, but they’d all been more or less imprisoned in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye their entire lives. Rarely had they been exposed to the world beyond the golden walls of their nursery, which is to say I’m sure that no daughter of
Evo Imperatorskoye Velichestvo Nikolai V’toroi
– His Imperial Greatness Nikolai the Second – Tsar of All the Russias, Poland, Finland, and so on and so forth had ever seen a big fat dirty rat before that moment. And all hell broke loose. No Bolshevik guard could control those white princesses, and they went running and screaming out of there so very fast. That in turn scared the dog, who had simply brought to his masters a wonderful trophy, this big fat rat with a long, skinny, pink tail. And when the girls screamed, Joy dropped the rat, and Aleksei… Aleksei…

Well, the
Naslednik
, the Heir, seeing the rat scamper in terror around the dining room of The House of Special Purpose, suddenly came to life, and he led the charge, sounding like his mightiest ancestor, the terrible Ivan, as he shouted, “After it, Leonka!”

He was a rascal, that boy. A real imp. He’d been deathly ill, but he’d also been deathly bored, just lying around in a hot, stuffy house in Siberia, the windows painted over with lime so that he couldn’t even look out. What could be worse for a child? And this rat was surely the most exciting thing Aleksei had come across in months.

Following my orders, I shoved the wheeled chaise along, charging around the heavy oak dining room table. Everyone was yelling, the dog was barking, the girls screaming, and this rat… well, I drove the chaise as if it were the wildest of troikas, dashing this way and that, following each and every order of my young master – turn to the left, the right, there over by the sideboard, Leonka! Wait, no, next to the fireplace, go! Charge! The Empress didn’t budge – she wasn’t terrified of the rat, she just stood there, hands clasped to her cheeks, terrified lest anything happen to her beloved son, that I might crash him and an entirely new bleeding episode would begin.

After a few short moments we had this fat, juicy rat cornered, Aleksei and I did. The dog was ready to bolt forward, but Aleksei leaned from his vehicle and grabbed Joy by the scruff of its neck, and we all stood staring at the big rat, and it curled back its teeny lips, exposed its little teeth, and snarled back at us.

And then Aleksei,
Naslednik
to the House of Romanov and the throne of imperial Russia, released his dog, screaming, “Get him, Joy!”

And what did the rat do? Well, it took off not toward the Tsar and Tsaritsa, but toward Komendant Avdeyev, who stood on the other side of the room. Avdeyev – big, old, fat, sleepy, hungover Avdeyev – yelped like a pig and turned and bolted into the hall, the rat chasing after him, the dog chasing after them both, all the way down those twenty-three steps and into the courtyard out back.

Aleksei burst into hysterics – can you imagine, a rat chasing away the Bolshevik pig? It was too perfect. In fact, I had never seen the Heir laugh so long, so carelessly, and that in turn started a chain reaction. The Empress was only somewhat amused by the scene, but she was overjoyed at seeing her sickly son so… so
vivant
. And then the Tsar started laughing, as did Botkin and the others. We all started and then we just couldn’t stop.

“Bravo, Aleksei Nikolaevich!” called Botkin in a hushed voice so that the guards in the hall wouldn’t hear.

It was the one and only time that I ever saw the Empress just let loose and laugh and laugh. And when she did she was so beautiful – that pure skin, those radiant blue-gray eyes. Before the war, all the best society and almost everyone at court had grown to disdain Aleksandra, calling her haughty and aloof. But that just wasn’t so, that wasn’t the Empress I knew. Instead, from what I saw back then and from my readings since, I’ve come to understand not only how nervous Aleksandra became in public, but how shy and reticent she was with anyone except her immediate family. In truth, I think, she was horribly depressed and insecure, for her soul was damaged, having lost her parents at a young age, and she was ever fearful of losing her son from a bleeding attack or her husband from an assassin’s gun. But right then she clasped one hand over her mouth, one around her waist, and she rocked back and forth with such mirth. It’s my guess that that was the last true laugh of her life.

“Nicky, can you believe it?” she managed to say in Russian, because of course those were the
komendant
’s orders, that they speak in the language understood by the guards.

Almost always the Tsar called her “Alix” but right then he said, “
Solnyshko
,” Sunny, he said, using his pet name for his wife, “I… I…”

But lacking words, he came over and bussed her. He wrapped his strong arms around her and kissed her ever so passionately.

And even though there were others present, she spoke her heart, saying, “I love you. Those three words have my life in them.”

Yes, this I know without a doubt: never have a king and queen loved each other more than Nikolai and Aleksandra.

Katya, do you know what is as asinine as
kommunizm
? Autocracy. One man, one person, cannot rule the hearts and minds of millions. Liberty, freedom, truth – this America can be such a silly place, so fickle and naive – sometimes so childish! – but it saves itself because of those first three things.

If only Nikolai hadn’t so ardently believed in divine rule. If only he’d loosened the reigns. If only Aleksandra’s first child had been a healthy boy. The whole country was waiting for an heir, and when she finally gave birth to a boy, her fifth child, and he turned out to be so sickly, it all but killed her, it truly did. You know, it’s really so odd they called her
nemka
, the German. True, she was born a minor German princess, but after her young mother’s death Aleksandra was raised primarily by her “darling Granny,” as she called her beloved grandmother, Queen Victoria. So she was essentially English. And then during the Great War there was so much gossip and slander against the Tsaritsa. The newspapers printed such terrible things, they threw so much gas on the flames of discontent. Why, they wrote that she, the most prudish of all tsaritsas, slept with Rasputin, that mystical monk from Siberia whose hypnotic eyes alone eased the pain of Aleksandra’s sickly son. Yes, Rasputin was a scoundrel of the first degree – his debauchery ruined the reputation of the Imperial Family and, no doubt about it, his horrendous advice to the Tsaritsa hastened the revolution – but did she ever have sexual relations with that tall, brutish man with the animalistic stare? Absolutely not. The papers also wrote that Aleksandra kept the Tsar perpetually drunk and had a direct telegraph cable line from her mauve boudoir to her relations in Berlin. And the Russian people – both the nobility and the masses – came to believe it all, that not only was she Rasputin’s mistress, but that she was a traitor to the war and the fatherland. In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. Why, after her husband’s abdication they dug up her rooms, searched for that cable, and what did they find? Nothing! Aleksandra hated the Prussians, thought her cousin, the Kaiser, a fool, which he was. Her truth is revealed in a letter to her dearest confidant, Anna Vyrubova:

What a nightmare, that the Germans are supposed to save everyone and establish order. What could be worse and more degrading than that?… God save and help Russia!

Actually, it wasn’t Aleksandra but Lenin himself who dealt secretly with the Kaiser. It was the Germans who secretly smuggled Lenin back into Russia in a sealed train car, it was Lenin who signed away all of Poland and a third of European Russia in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, it was…

Ouf, what’s been spilled by buckets cannot be retrieved by droplets.

Now where was I? Ah,
da
, the rat and the
komendant
. The gray rat was chasing the red pig, and the black and white dog was… was…

What a delicious scene!

Well, soon thereafter cook Kharitonov, the maid, Demidova, and I put out the tea. Kharitonov had made the tea concentrate, which he poured into each cup, then added the hot water from the spout of the samovar itself.

“Nice, hot, black
chai
.” Tea. “Again, no sugar. Again, no
limon
. But the children will love this!” said cook Kharitonov, reaching for a small bowl of fruit preserves.

“Strawberry jam – what a delight,” exclaimed the maid, a woman with a round face and big body who was most devoted to her mistress. “Wherever did you get it?”

“Sister Antonina brought a jar a few days ago and I’ve been saving it as a surprise. One of the sisters made it from their own fruit. Now, go on you two. On your way.”

Demidova carried a tray with the teacups, while I followed behind with the small bowl. Once she served the tea, she took the jam from my hands and placed it on the table with great flourish.

“What a nice treat we have for you this morning!” she said.

“Sweet preserves! Me first!” pleaded Anastasiya.

Aleksandra issued her dictum: “That will be fine, dear, but you must wait until everyone is seated.”

As we took our places, we were overcome with awkwardness, for the
komendant
had ordered that we must all sit at one table, master and servant alike. The family and Dr. Botkin were already seated at the large, oak table, and one by one we sat, Demidova, Trupp, me, and cook Kharitonov, who came in bearing eggs for the Heir. The Romanovs accepted the brutal affront to rank more quickly than we, the last of the thousands upon thousands of attendants who had formerly waited upon them hand and foot. And even though we’d been doing this for weeks, it didn’t feel right, the likes of me sitting right across the table from Nikolai Aleksandrovich, even if he was now the former Tsar.

Once we were all at the table, we waited for
Batyushka
, the Dear Father, to make the first move, signaling the start of our meal. When Nikolai Aleksandrovich reached for his spoon, however, he found nothing.

“Here, Papa,” said Olga, the eldest daughter, unable to hide a smile.

But that’s the way it always was. We were always a spoon, two forks, or a few knives short, because in addition to banishing silver and linen from the table as too decadent, the
komendant
had purposely ordered a deficit of cutlery.

“Thank you, my dear,” said the Tsar to his daughter.

I thought the shortage of utensils very mean, very humiliating, but Nikolai and Aleksandra dealt with such rudeness without complaint, they did. Nikolai simply accepted it as his fate, for his saint’s day was the day of Job, the long suffering, while Aleksandra found it her duty to follow her husband’s example. And those five royal children likewise complied, never once complaining.

After the Tsar stirred his tea, we all began. That morning we were minus not only one spoon, but one knife as well, and soon the cutlery and the bread and the bowl of jam were going this way and that among us.

“Tatyana,” commanded the royal mother, “make sure that Leonka gets some of the jam as well.”

“Yes, Mama.”

It was only for us children, that sweet heavenly mixture of fruit, and I was not to be excluded, nor was I ever, even though I was born of such lower state. They treated me with fairness and kindness at every turn that morning and every other.

Hardly a word was spoken during breakfast, and after we finished and were excused, I as usual assisted in the cleaning up. I was just wiping the crumbs from the table when Dr. Botkin appeared on the edge of the dining room.

“Leonka,” he said, beckoning me with a slight tilt of his head.

Once I was sure no guards were watching, I headed after the doctor, and was led into the drawing room, a long spacious room with heavy furniture. The Emperor and Empress were seated by the two windows, and as soon as I approached they turned their attention upon me. The Empress even stood, rising from her chair.

By then Nikolai’s beard was speckled with gray, and yet there was still a hint of blond or red around his mustache. He had recently turned fifty, and he was unusually fit, a firm believer in exercise, which I hasten to add had been curtailed. I mean, their walks and wood sawing and such. And while he had terrible teeth, all crooked and tobacco-stained, it was the eyes that I remember the most. The Emperor had the most amazing bluish eyes, and when he held you in his gaze he gave you the feeling that there was nothing more important than his conversation with you. And at that moment, right then and there, I suppose nothing was.

“
Izvolite-li vyui
,
molodoi chelovek
, Would you be so kind, young man,” said the Tsar, his voice hushed, “as to tell me the entire story of how you came upon this note? Only keep your voice low so as not to be overheard. Agreed?”

“Absolutely, Nikolai Aleksandrovich,” I replied, my voice faint and trembling.

Nikolai was very good at that, at making his subjects feel comfortable and not the least bit threatened. So I told them how Sister Antonina and the Novice Marina had come and had brought the milk and things.

As soon as I finished my story, the Emperor asked, “And do you know, Leonka, what it says, this note?”

“Nyet-s.”
So that he wouldn’t think me ignorant, I quickly added, “I can read, Nikolai Aleksandrovich, but that is a foreigner’s language.”

“Exactly.”

Aleksandra, her hands grasped nervously together, stepped closer, and eagerly, rather desperately, said, “Nicky, it’s from her, it has to be.”

Of course Aleksandra was supposing that the letters were the doings of Rasputin’s daughter, the one who eventually left Siberia and became a lion tamer in California, the very one who lived out her final years in a little house beneath the Hollywood Freeway. And it was under this belief – that the daughter of their sacred monk was organizing a group of soldiers to rescue them – that the Empress grew so excited, so hopeful.

“We must respond at once,” she said. “But who knows if we’ll ever see any of the nuns again?”

“Leonka,” said Dr. Botkin, who towered over me, “who was this soldier? The note says something about a soldier that we may trust, yet you say the note came in the stopper of the milk bottle from Sister Antonina?”

“Da-s, da-s,
Yevgeny Sergeevich,” I replied. “Sister Antonina brought the milk and eggs. As usual, she was accompanied by Novice Marina. There was a guard in the hall, but that was the only one I saw.”

“And which guard would that be?”

“The one with the blond beard.”

Of course there were many guards in and around The House of Special Purpose, but they all knew who I meant, for there was one guard whose beard in particular was very light in color. He was also the youngest, twenty at most. Just last week he’d made Tatyana Nikolaevna sit down and play revolutionary songs at the piano.

“Nyet-s,”
said Nikolai Aleksandrovich, brushing at his mustache. “Trusting one of them – it’s too dangerous. We simply can’t.”

“But-” the Tsaritsa began, her skin turning red and somewhat blotchy, because she was very strong willed, very determined.

“Absolutely not. I forbid it. What if it’s a trap of some sort?”

This didn’t please Aleksandra Fyodorovna much, for she was quite eager to make contact with the letter writer, and she said, “But, Nicky, if you don’t think we can trust any of the guards, then surely we must find someone else to take our reply to them.”

There’s been much speculation as to how these replies were smuggled out of The House of Special Purpose. Some have suggested that there was in fact a guard loyal to the Tsar working in the house – some have suggested it was indeed him, the young one with the blond beard – but they’ve never been able to identify him by name. And that doesn’t make any sense, because if there’d been such a hero wouldn’t he have presented himself to the Whites once they took over Yekaterinburg? Of course! Others have suggested that it might have been the Heir’s doctor, Dr. Vladimir Derevenko, who took these notes out. After all, Derevenko was virtually the only person authorized to come and go at the Ipatiev House, which he did – he came every day to check on Aleksei. You see, there wasn’t enough room in the house for all of us, so Dr. Derevenko and his young son, Kolya, lived across the street. So since Derevenko could come and go, many have assumed it was he who carried the secret notes, that it could have been no other. But this too is false. One hundred percent false.

At first Botkin did in fact suggest, “What about Doctor Derevenko?”

“Nyet-s,”
replied Nikolai Aleksandrovich. “That wouldn’t be wise. Derevenko is our friend and is therefore always suspect to them. Two days ago the guards at the gate even searched his medical bag and the pockets of his coat. Furthermore, he is always accompanied by the
komendant
when he visits our rooms, so it’s impossible to say anything to him. We must find someone… someone totally innocent, someone they wouldn’t even think of searching.”

To me it was instantly obvious. In any history book, I, Leonid Sednyov, am nothing but the smallest footnote in the remarkable story of the murder of the Romanovs. There have been some absurd speculations, but to serious historians I am still to this day nothing more than the “little kitchen boy.” Even to Nikolai Sokolov, the investigator the Whites brought in to try to determine what happened – they couldn’t find the bodies, so no one was really sure if the Tsar was truly dead or if perhaps the entire family had been smuggled away. But even this Investigator Sokolov fellow didn’t bother to search me out for an interview. Can you imagine anything so stupid? Such an idiot. He should have tracked me down, for I was with the Romanovs right up until a few hours before their end, so as far as the world knows I am the only survivor of The House of Special Purpose. In Investigator Sokolov’s book, however, I was just the kitchen boy, as I have been all these years to the historians. The insignificant kitchen boy. And that is exactly how the
Bolsheviki
saw me as well – harmless! – which is why they decided to move me to the Popov House just hours before the Tsar and his family were killed.

Of course it’s true that the Heir’s doctor, Dr. Derevenko, was the only one to come and go, but that’s not to say others weren’t allowed out of The House of Special Purpose for specific tasks. Namely, me. On the main floor of the house we only had a makeshift kitchen where a few things were prepared. Everything else was prepared for us a few blocks away at the local Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. And who did they send once or twice every single day to pick up the
solyanka
and
kotletti
, their soup and meat cutlets? The
komendant
himself?
Konechno, nyet
! Of course not. They sent me, the kitchen boy, that’s who! They sent little Leonka, they did!

So I said to the Tsar, I said, “Nikolai Aleksandrovich, once or twice a day I am allowed to go to the soviet for your food. And once or twice a day I pass the church there. Perhaps…”

The Tsar, the Tsaritsa, and the doctor each saw the simple logic of it all. They knew me, they trusted me. To them it was a beautiful plan – that their kitchen boy, who the whole world would forever overlook, should be their secret courier. And I think we would have succeeded. We nearly did, actually, we very nearly did. Over the next few weeks we received a total of three additional secret notes, and I carried a total of three replies. The replies to three of the four notes. We very nearly succeeded in saving the Romanovs, and we would have, I truly believe we would have, if only…