Still wearing my favorite blue dress, I was sitting on the bed, Pushkin’s Evgeni Onegin and Bely’s Peterburg by my side. But instead of reading these famous poets, I was captured by a new one, Marina Tsvetayeva, who a few years earlier had achieved my dream of publishing a book when she was just eighteen. Several of my small pieces had already been set in type, but would I ever write enough poems to fill an entire book?
As the phone rang a second and a third time, I glanced at my young sister, Varvara, who was dozing fitfully on the other half of the bed we shared, her head buried beneath a lumpy down pillow. When the telephone continued its shrill noise, I pushed aside my books and in my stocking feet hurried from our small bedroom into the hall. Where was our maid, Dunya, and why wasn’t she answering? Many people assumed that because of our royal connections, we lived a grand life, rich in material goods and waited on hand and foot, but that was not so. Our third-floor apartment at 64 Goroxhovaya Street, just a block from the Fontanka River, was, to the surprise of many, a mere five rooms-our salon, the dining room, Papa’s study, his bedroom, and Varvara’s and my room-that was it besides the bath and the kitchen. And none of our rooms in this five-story brick building was grand. Even our neighbors were rather ordinary. Katya, who lived upstairs in Flat 31, was a seamstress. There were also a clerk and a kind masseuse, Utilia, who often complained that Papa bothered her for affection.
When I came into the hall, I was, as usual, greeted by music and loud voices. Papa loved Gypsy music- particularly the Mazalski Gypsy Choir, so lively and full of fun, just like Papa’s heart-but tonight he had a lone balalaika player in the salon. From somewhere I heard my gregarious father’s laugh rise with delight. I also heard the giggle of a woman-no, I realized, women-but I had no idea who they were. Every day seemed to bring scores of desperate strangers into our home. From morning to night there was a queue outside our door and down the three flights, a line of princes and paupers, bankers and bakers, lawyers and factory workers, waiting their turn to see Papa and beg his influence or have him heal them.
Rushing to the black phone on the wall, I picked up the heavy earpiece, cupped it to my ear, and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Ya Vas slushaiyoo.” I am listening to you.
“This is the Palace operator. One moment, please.”
My heart immediately speeded up. Despite the late hour, I assumed it was the Empress. The very next moment, however, there was a click and I immediately recognized the voice of the Empress’s only close friend, the person many were calling the second most powerful woman in all the Russias.
Speaking with the slight lisp that always made her sound as if she had a mouthful of porridge, Madame Vyrubova uttered the most commanding phrase in the nation: “I’m calling on urgent business from the Palace.”
She begged to know if my father was home, and I assured Anna Aleksandrovna that he was. Then I lowered the earpiece and let it hang from its long cord. It was good fortune that my father was indeed here, I thought as I hurried down the hall, for often toward midnight he would go out. Just the night before, Honorary Burgess Pestrikov had treated him to quantities of wine and food at the Restaurant Villa Rode; it was four in the morning when Papa had stumbled into the apartment and collapsed on the sofa, where he slept until ten. The night before that, he’d stayed out all night with Madame Yazininskaya, presumably at her flat, for he did not return until lunch the following day.
Passing through our dining room, I swerved around several cases of sweet red wine a councilor had just brought, a gift that particularly pleased Papa because of the Dry Laws the Tsar had decreed soon after the start of the war. I then skirted our brass samovar, its fire gone out, and the heavy oak table, which was laden with a basket of flowers and plates of biscuits and sweets, nuts, dried fruits, cakes, and other delicacies that appeared day in and day out for our stream of guests.
By the sounds from the salon, I assumed that was where I would find Papa. In fact, he was not there. Rather, I found the lone balalaika player, strumming the melancholy tunes of our land, and two women, both huddled on the floor. One was our eternally loyal maid, Dunya, one of Papa’s earliest disciples, who’d followed us from Siberia and who was, I couldn’t help but notice, getting fatter by the week. The second was Princess Kossikovskaya, a young beauty of the best society. The princess had a number of diamonds sparkling in her rich brown hair and hanging from her ears, while strands of huge pearls drooped from her neck, but right then and there, hunched over on her knees, she didn’t look so elegant. She was quite drunk.
And when I heard the beauty retch, I understood why Dunya, who was holding a basin to the young woman’s smeared lips, hadn’t answered the phone.
“Dunya, where’s Papa?” I demanded.
“Back in his study,” she said, with a quick wave over her shoulder.
I bit my lip, for it was not without some dread that I hurried out of the room and down the hall. Reaching the door of Papa’s room, I raised my hand to knock-but hesitated. We were never, ever supposed to interrupt when Papa was healing someone…and yet if he was being summoned by the Empress, wasn’t that more important? Absolutely, I thought, and I knocked firmly, albeit hesitantly.
A moment later came his gruff reply. “Da, da. Please enter at once!”
His study was small and narrow, with an icon and its oil lamp in one corner, an old oak desk, and, of course, his pathetic leather sofa, which was nearly rubbed bare. Perched on a chair in front of the sofa was Papa, wearing loose black pants, tall black leather boots, and a lilac kosovorotka, a shirt buttoned at the side of the collar. Every day any number of women begged for Papa’s attention, but I had no idea how he treated them. Peering in now, however, I saw my father leaning forward and holding his visitor, none other than Countess Olga Kurlova, by the knees. The countess, wearing a pink Parisian silk dress that appeared loose, perhaps even unbuttoned in the front, was one of the great beauties of the Empire, with thick blond hair and cheeks that were high and distinguished. She was from Moscow, I knew, and though her family was neither so very noble nor, from what I heard, so very rich, she was a favorite in the capital, sought after by society for her seductive looks and keen wit.
As if I had walked in on a pair of lovers, Countess Olga gasped and clutched at the top of her dress.
“What are you doing here?” Papa asked with a scowl. “I thought it was our other guest. You know you’re not supposed to bother me when my door is closed.”
Averting my eyes, I said quietly, “There’s a call of urgent business…from the Palace.”
“What’s that you say? Speak up, child!”
“There’s a call from the Palace… It’s urgent, Papa.”
All but forgetting about me, my father turned to the luscious countess and bragged, “Ah, Mama needs me. Mama needs me at the Palace.”
Horrified that a peasant would refer to so lofty a personage in such coarse terms, the countess stared at him in shock. While some members of the court were permitted to address Her Majesty by her first name and patronymic-Aleksandra Fyodorovna-her lowly subjects were supposed to refer to her either as the Tsaritsa or the Empress. Never, ever, as Mama.
“I don’t need them, I can just go back home to Siberia,” my father boasted, holding up a sloppy finger to make a fine point. “But they wouldn’t last six months on the throne without me! Really, not six months!”
“The phone, Papa!” I reminded. “You’re wanted on the telephone!”
“Of course…yes, the telephone.”
He kissed his right hand, then used that same hand to massage Countess Olga’s right knee. The countess, though, was none too pleased and jerked back, whereupon the back of the old leather sofa fell off. The visiting beauty uttered a stifled scream.
“Ah, now, don’t you worry, my tasty dish,” muttered Papa, as he slowly and drunkenly pushed himself to his feet. “One of those fat sisters from the women’s monastery slept on that sofa last week and broke it.”
Almost without effort, Papa bent over the countess and lifted the heavy piece into place with one hand. Swaying slightly, he then leaned down and patted his guest on her head.
“We’ll continue our purification later.”
“Papa!” I insisted.
He stretched one hand toward me and called weakly, “Yes, yes. Come help me, malenkaya maya.” My little one.
Understanding that he’d drunk too much, his “little one” was not eager to go to his side; I would have preferred simply to leave the room. But my mother in Siberia had long ago forgiven Papa his excesses, grateful for the three children he had given her, not to mention the finest house in the village and a field to till. So, as the oldest Rasputin female in the Petrograd household, I had no choice but to overlook things also.
Looking down at the countess one last time, Father made a drunken sign of the cross over her and intoned
