I took in a gulp of air. “I am the elder daughter of Grigori Effimovich Rasputin.”
“What?” gasped the square-jawed thug, crossing himself fervently. “You mean to tell us you’re Father Grigori’s child?”
I nodded.
“Where are you from?”
“The village Pokrovskoye.”
“Who was your grandfather?”
“Effim. Effim Yakovlevich.”
The tall one muttered, “That’s right. Effim Yakovlevich, that’s Rasputin’s father. That’s who my own father used to trade wheat with, the very one.”
What was this all about? My eyes ran from one filthy face to the next. Was I not about to be raped and murdered?
Suddenly the man behind me loosened his grip. Indeed, he quickly released me, and when he stepped aside I saw that he was lean and hard. To my complete astonishment, he bowed his head to me and crossed himself. The other three did so as well. In a blink of an instant they were all beating their foreheads and chests and bowing to me as if I were some kind of saint. One of them even reached out, took my cold trembling hand, and kissed it.
The round one pointed to the tall one. “Me and him are from Tobolsk. These other two are from Tyumen.”
I nearly collapsed. In a faint of relief, I nearly dropped right into the shallow waters. These were my people, my neighbors, my fellow Siberians. All of them were from towns within a few versts of my own. And instead of seeing me as someone from the upper ruling class, instead of branding me an enemy, they knew I was one of their own. Only more, for I was his. Right then and there I knew there was a God, for he had seen the dangers upstairs and led me down to them, these poor filthy muzhiki, my islands of safety.
“But what are you doing down here?” said the tall one. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s far too dangerous for a young woman such as you.”
“My father’s life is being threatened, and I came here seeking information,” I explained. “But someone’s after me now. Some men are looking for me upstairs. I don’t know who and I don’t know why they want me, but I’ve got to get out of here-out of the palace. And I don’t know how.”
Long fearful of the master’s whip, my countrymen had learned centuries ago not to speak their minds, at least not outside their own huts. Instead they had perfected the art of communication by discreet glance-a downward gaze, a raised eyebrow, a narrowed eye. An entire silent conversation could be carried on in this manner, as it was just then, right before me.
The lean hard man who’d first captured me said, “Pasha and me will stay here and make sure no one follows.”
The short round one nodded. “Right, and Volodya and I will get you out.”
They all started scrambling to their jobs, but then the lanky one said, “We got to give back the money.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Keep the rubles. Go buy yourselves some food and clothes. And use the notes-they’ll open doors everywhere. Use them for permission to board a train and get back home to your families.”
As if they were His Majesty’s Own Hussars and I a princess of the royal blood, they all kissed my hand, one by one. And then Volodya, the lanky soldier, took the lone candle, and the round one, whom he called Ivan, took me by the arm, and together they led me from the large wet storeroom through a rotted oak door and down a tunnel that led beneath the street to the River Fontanka. We scrambled along this dank underground passage that had once been used to carry goods directly to and from the river, and within a matter of three or four minutes a miracle did occur. Volodya and Ivan heaved open an ancient door, the one they used to get in and out of the palace, and which I now stepped through. Emerging like a squinting mole onto the edge of the icy River Fontanka, I found myself standing on a thick wooden platform tucked directly beneath the dark stones of the Anichkov Bridge.
Volodya bowed to me, and said, “It’s nothing less than a miracle that one of us, a real muzhik, finally has the ear of God’s Own Anointed.”
“Absolutely,” said Ivan, with a shy smile. “It finally seems that God has heard our prayers, for as long as Father Grigori dines with the tsars, then maybe, just maybe, there is hope.”
With tears in my eyes, I turned and hurried off, my wet feet quickly turning numb and my damp skirt icing over.
You have no idea what fear shot through us when Maria Rasputina was spotted sneaking into the Sergeeivski Palace. Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich was home at the time, just upstairs, and he flew into an absolute panic. He sent some of his guards to find her, but they searched everywhere without success. Somehow, Rasputin’s daughter had got in and out completely undetected. Can you imagine?
Almost immediately the grand duke called us all to his palace. I was sure that our plot had been found out and the Tsar or the Tsaritsa would imprison us all before we could act. I remember we gathered in the corner drawing room, the one overlooking the Fontanka and Nevsky. All afternoon we just sat there, drinking shot after shot of vodka and waiting for arrest. But nothing happened. Nothing.
Finally Dmitri Pavlovich, who had definitely drunk too much, got up and started shouting, “That little whore is on to something, I tell you. She knows what we’re up to, so now we have to kill her too! We have to kill that monster and his daughter as well!”
It was decided then and there that we had to move the whole thing up by five days. We chose the palace on the Moika Kanal because, of course, of the chamber in the basement. The walls were so thick that we were sure no one would hear the screams.
CHAPTER 13
When I finally returned home, my body trembling, my shoes frozen solid, Dunya, like all women of Siberia, was appropriately horrified.
“Have you lost your mind, child?” she screamed, for like any villager she’d seen death start with a sniffle that roared into death. “Look at you, you’re soaked and your teeth are chattering like a monkey’s! What did you do, jump in the river? Or did someone push you? Is that what happened, did someone attack you simply because of your name? Ai, what horrible days these are when a daughter of Rasputin cannot safely walk the streets!”
“Papa,” I mumbled, not fully aware of how much I was shivering. “I have to speak with Papa!”
“Well, not now you’re not! Not until you get out of those wet clothes and into a hot bath! What are you trying to do, catch death by the tail? Bozhe moi, we’ve got to drive the cold out of you right away. Remember what happened to your uncle, the uncle you never knew because he got wet and died?”
“But where’s-”
“Your father’s gone out,” she said, unbuttoning my cloak as quickly as an army medic treating a mortally wounded soldier.
“Is he visiting someone?” I asked desperately. “He hasn’t gone out…alone, has he?”
“Yes, he just slipped out by himself. Right out the door like a determined tomcat. You know him and his ways.”
“I have to find him,” I moaned.
I needed my father. I needed to scream at him, cling to him, and sob on his shoulder. How could he be out there wandering the dangerous streets when I needed him more than ever? When he needed me the most? Bozhe moi, what if I was too late? What if he didn’t come back? What if it happened now, this afternoon? What if those plotting grand dukes and conniving grand duchesses snatched him away and stabbed him in the heart or hung him from a lamppost?
“I’m going back out!” I said, crazy with fear and pushing away from Dunya. “I have to find him! I have to find him right now!”
“You’ll do no such thing, child!” our housekeeper shouted back, catching me like a thief by the collar.
