fact, it’s treason. No doubt about it, he will be in jail by tomorrow! Now forget it!”
I took a deep breath. Was Papa right? Were these just the rantings of a fanatic? They had to be because the speech was just that: unequivocally treasonous.
“Everyone knows how terrible this Purishkevich is,” continued my father. “Why…why, he’s part of the Black Hundreds, and just look at what they did to the Jews! The pogroms!”
“I’m so worried, Papa-”
“Nonsense. Just hornets, mettlesome hornets! If you aren’t used to it, even kasha is bitter. Now take a piece of paper and write this down. I want to send a telegram to the Tsar at the front.”
My hands still shaking, I snatched a piece of paper and pencil.
“19 NOVEMBER 1916,” dictated Papa. “god gives you strength. yours is victory and yours is the ship. no one else has authority to board it. Do you have that down, Maria, just as I’ve told you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. Now go and see that it is sent. And then forget it. Forget all about that stupid little man’s stupid little speech.”
Now, waiting for the old man with the milky eyes to escort me out of the Sergeeivski Palace, I started shuddering violently. At the time, Papa had persuaded me to dismiss the speech, but I no longer could do so. All too easily I could imagine the entire scene: the fury of Purishkevich’s rhetoric, and the cries of Bravo!, A disgrace!, and How true! that were said to have erupted from the other Duma members.
CHAPTER 12
Fearful of spending any more time in the grand duke’s palace, I finally opened the door and stepped into the dark corridor. But which way should I go, right or left? Better yet, I thought, as my eyes searched the low vaulted passage, which was the quickest way out?
I turned right and immediately felt a fine silky veil over my face and entire head. I cried out and grabbed the strands of a spiderweb from my cheeks and hair. Feeling a creature crawl up my neck, I nervously swiped at something, and a spider, large and black, fell to the floor. Wasting no time, I ceremoniously stomped on it with my leather boot.
I wanted nothing more than to be out of here, out of these lost rooms of a ducal palace and back in our simple apartment. I wanted nothing more than to be not in my father’s massive arms but pounding on his large chest, screaming and demanding to know what in the name of the Lord he was doing. How had he wandered into this minefield? What was he doing to all of us, his entire family and everyone else in the nation? Didn’t he see that the Motherland was one huge tinderbox and he, sitting upon it like a kroogli durak-a round idiot-was the perfect fuse, which he himself had already lit? Was Papa really so naive as not to know that everything could blow at any moment? There was only one way to save Holy Mother Russia and our Tsar: Papa had to be removed.
With this realization, I practically broke into tears, for I had arrived at the same conclusion as the powerful grand dukes. Yes, Papa had to be got rid of. The very noble relatives of the Tsar, who had disposed of countless serfs over the centuries, were probably discussing it this very moment at the Yacht Club, that hotbed of aristocratic dissent. The thought horrified me. Would they do it the way our masters always disposed of problem serfs-run him over with a troika? Or would they tie a rock to him and toss him in the river? Before they acted, I had to make Papa do what everyone wanted and no one had succeeded in doing: make him go back whence he had come, the unimaginably deep and the untouchably distant forests of Siberia.
But how?
The pleading of a youthful daughter would not be enough. Could I hire some banditi to drag him away? Could I slip him narkotiki, bundle him off, and lock him up in a monastery until the political winds shifted? No, neither would work. There was no way I was strong enough to overpower Papa’s sheer physical strength, let alone the will of the mightiest and the most powerful person in the entire country, the Empress herself. Sadly, I had to recognize the truth: There was no way Aleksandra Fyodorovna would let Papa out of her desperate and hysterical grasp. By all but imperial decree, she required that he be no farther from her than a short phone call. To remove Papa from Petrograd, I would have to battle not only him but also the strong will of the powerful Empress.
As I stopped and brushed away the last of the cobwebs, I knew that, no matter my determination, there was little I could actually do. I was just going to have to be clever. Perhaps I could get my mother to send an urgent telegram, saying Dmitri had been seriously injured and, because of his mental limitations, needed his father at once. Maybe I could convince my mother to write that she herself was just days away from death and begged for her husband’s presence. No, I realized as I slumped against the stone wall. None of that would work, for, just as my father was unable to tell a lie, so was my dear innocent mother.
From somewhere I heard a set of footsteps. At first I thought it was the old man, finally come to lead me out of this tangled mass of passages. But no, these were not the shuffling steps of a half-blind fellow feeling his way along. They were much too quick for that. In fact, they were even hurried. And when I listened carefully I could tell they were the footsteps of not just one person but two.
Knowing I dared not be found down here, let alone questioned, I scanned the corridor, spotting a dark archway just a few arzhini ahead. Picking up the folds of my cloak and skirt in both hands, I hurried to the opening, finding not a chamber but a steep set of stairs that curled down into darkness. Within seconds it was I who was feeling the walls for direction, and I moved downward with my right hand groping the ancient, crumbling brick walls. Beneath me, my feet sensed the smooth worn stone steps, one after the other. Wasting no time, I continued until I curled around a corner into a curtain of darkness. Below me I could see virtually nothing. Turning, I gazed upward at the last of the light leaking toward me.
The footsteps were drawing ever louder, ever heavier, ever faster. Finally they slowed, and I heard the squeal of a door as it was thrown open.
“She’s not in here!” shouted a man, his voice deep and coarse.
“We’ll be thrown in the fire for this,” groused another, his accent none too refined. “We’ve got to find her.”
“You go that way, I’ll go down here. Hurry!”
So it was indeed me they were after. But how did they know I was here? Had the old man betrayed me, or Elena Borisovna herself-or had someone else spied me?
Suddenly I heard footsteps echoing from every direction, one set from above, another somehow emerging from the darkness below, yet another ricocheting from…I couldn’t tell where. The opposite direction? Down another set of stairs? Gospodi, just how many men were hunting me? Panicking, I sank back against the wall, pulling the shadows over me like an invisible cloak. How was I going to escape from this place?
I heard it then, the rough, fatty breathing of a slothful soul. It was coming from up above. Yes, one of the men was right there at the top of the staircase. I closed my eyes and willed myself not to move, not even to inhale. If he descended just ten steps, I would be found. Indeed, were he a wild dog, I would already have been sniffed out and torn to pieces.
The next instant something screamed into my left ear like a high-pitched aeroplane. Then it dove into my cheek, bit me, and took hold: a mosquito. Lord, here we were on Peter’s swamp, the waters of which leaked into the cellars of every building. Never mind that it was December and the air outside was well below frost, mosquitoes bred and lived year round in the subterranean territories of nearly every structure in the city. I nearly slapped it but didn’t dare. A mere rustle of my clothing would give me away, for the man, whoever he was and whoever had sent him, was still right up there, lingering, listening, shuffling, snorting. Though I had no physical image of him, it was almost as if I could sense the wheels in his thick head turning, wondering what kind of fool would have gone down these lost stairs.
Then the next moment he dashed off, big feet, heavy body, hard breath. As soon as I heard his steps charging away, I slapped the mosquito and felt a splatter of blood on my cheek.
My pursuer was gone from the top of the steps but still up there charging around with another man. I could still clearly hear their running, and they were quite correct in their assumption: I had not escaped, I was still somewhere in the rotting bowels of the palace. Sooner or later, when they couldn’t find me in any of the passages up there, they would return to this staircase-and this time they would come down. Turning and looking into the
