handing me my slippers. “We can’t have your feet getting cold again. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Hopefully, there won’t be any lines like last week. Can you imagine, there wasn’t even any cod! Oh, this war!”
Even as she quit the tiny washroom where all of us were still gathered, Dunya rattled on about this and that. I paid no attention, and as soon as she was gone I unwound the towel wrapped around my head and used it to blot and dry my thick dark hair.
“Help me, Varya,” I said in a faint voice as I bent toward her.
She grabbed part of the towel, started rubbing my head, and then, for the first time, asked, “What happened to you? Did you fall down or something? I mean, how did you get so wet?”
Should I tell her? Could I? Last night Papa’s visions had reduced her to tears; what would my own do today? Suddenly I felt much older than Varya, as if my youth had run away with the wind, never to return. Whereas only a few days ago my head had been aflutter with pretty frocks and fine shoes, handsome young soldiers and the glances they tossed me, now I saw only intrigue and threat, poverty and desperation. And imminent danger to my family.
“Someone chased me through the market,” I said, careful not to look her in the eye. “And that’s right, I fell down in a big puddle.”
“Why were they chasing you? Was someone trying to steal something?”
“I suppose.”
Her questions would have gone on and on, I knew, but the hard metal bell of the phone broke our conversation. Instantly Varya started out of the washroom.
“I’ll get it,” she said, in her carefree manner.
Had it been only yesterday, that would have been all right, I would have been happy to indulge her in one of her favorite treats, answering the telephone. But yesterday was ages ago. Without even thinking, I spun and went after her, grabbing her by the white lace on her gray dress.
“Nyet!” I screamed.
My sudden ferocity scared her, and she moved to the side. In an instant, still wrapped like a mummy in towels, I managed to lunge past her. Information, that was what I needed, and instinctively, protectively-or perhaps simply because I was a Rasputin and had my own powers of foresight-I knew it was I who was destined to answer this call.
Reaching for the phone mounted on the wall, I lifted the earpiece on the third ring and practically shouted into the mouthpiece. “Ya Vas slushaiyoo!”
The palace operator had undoubtedly been chosen for her voice, the tone always pleasant, elegant, and rich. Although she was surely not highborn, her accent was refined and educated, her manners cultivated to the highest. After all, this was the woman who completed the telephone connections between Emperor and grand duke, Emperor and minister, and, of course, between Empress and her beloved friend, my father. But this time there was no ease and no sophistication, let alone any formality.
The woman on the line snapped, “This is the Palace-hold!”
Immediately my heart began to charge as fast as a young mare running from a Siberian tiger. Something was horribly wrong, and it took no gift of insight to understand that. Had something happened to Papa?
There was a distinct click as the operator pulled cords and made the connection, and the next instant a hysterical voice came on the line. It was a woman, that much I could tell, and though she tried to speak, her words were flooded by tears. Nevertheless, I recognized the otherwise beautiful voice as that of Her Imperial Highness, the Empress of Russia. I clutched the towels covering my heart and clenched my eyes, preparing myself for the worst possible news of my father.
When the Tsaritsa, so overcome with emotion, failed to speak, I gathered my courage and lunged into the void, saying, “Your Highness, it’s me…Maria Grigorevna.”
“Oh, my child!” she gasped. “I need your father! Please, he must come at once! Aleksei Nikolaevich…my son…he’s dying!”
CHAPTER 14
Knowing what had to be done, I hung up the earpiece but just stood there, trembling and trying to collect my thoughts.
“What is it? What happened?” demanded Varya, for she could see the terror and the fresh tears in my eyes.
I reached out for her and she ran to me. Clutching her hand, I blurted it out.
“The Heir Tsarevich…Aleksei Nikolaevich…he got out of bed and tripped over one of his toys, and now he’s bleeding inside his knee. He already lost so much blood the other day that now he’s unconscious. The Empress fears his end is just around the corner. The Tsar is racing back from the front, but she’s not even sure his train will carry him home in time.”
As would any Russian of any age or social standing, Varya immediately understood the potential catastrophe. If the Heir Tsarevich were lost from this world, it would not be simply a tragedy for the House of Romanov, it would be a major national event that would alter the political landscape. Indeed, it could change the course of the war itself. The Empress, who had struggled for years to give birth to a male heir, knew this all too well, just as she knew there was only one way to save her son.
“We’ve got to find Papa,” I said, turning and dashing toward our bedroom. “I’ve got to get dressed, and we have to go out and find him. It’s the only way, he’s the only one who can save him!”
Of course I was right, and Varya knew it, just as she knew that Dunya’s orders for me to go to bed and stay there were now irrelevant. Instead, my younger sister acted as my dresser, helping me to pull on underlinens and socks, a warm blouse, and a heavy dress. We both worked briefly on my hair, rubbing it furiously with a towel, but it was to no avail. My hair was still most definitely damp even as we rushed to the front door, laced our shoes, threw on our cloaks, and grabbed our gloves and knit hats.
Minutes later, as the two of us bolted from our flat and down the stairs, I wondered if it was hopeless. The Empress had already sent her fastest motorcar, and it would be here in perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes. Was there any hope that I could find Papa by then? Might we have to go driving about the city, from restaurant to restaurant and from one notorious flat to the next, in order to find him? Dear Lord, if luck were with us, it could still take hours, and even then we might find Papa in a drunken stupor. If so, would I again be able to rouse him to sobriety? And what if we didn’t find him at all? What if Prince Felix and Grand Duke Dmitri had lured him away, either to a hidden Khlyst-type orgy of nobles or into a grand-ducal plot? As we raced down the stairs, past the security men posted on each of the floors, that worst-case possibility rolled right over me. If the grand dukes had today, right now, put an end to my father, they had not taken steps to protect their House but instead to extinguish it, for I knew what they chose not to believe: Without Papa there was no hope for the Heir.
It all seemed utterly hopeless when Varya and I hurried past the guard and the doorman downstairs, past the little iron stove, out the door, and into the frigid air. We rushed onto the front sidewalk and came to a skidding halt. I glanced down toward the Fontanka, turned, and looked up the street toward the train station. Which way? Through which alley? Into which home? Panic surged through me as I realized I had no idea where even to begin. Papa could be a few blocks away, and just as easily he could be on the other side of the city.
Wait…
Given that my father’s doings were more reported than even the Tsar’s, he’d probably been tailed by a squadron of agents. On the other hand, if he’d gotten away without being followed, it was for a purpose, and no one knew more of my father’s intimate doings than our housekeeper.
“Varya, go up to the market and find Dunya. Tell her what’s happened, tell her we need to find Papa, tell her everything,” I commanded, worried that, if I went, Dunya would simply drag me back to the apartment and throw me in bed. “I’m going to talk to the security agents. Either Dunya or the agents must know something.”
“Right,” replied my sister, turning and running off at full speed.
I glanced back at our apartment building. Should I go up and speak with the agent who’d been discreetly hidden outside our door? Should I see what the agent downstairs had noted in his little black book? No, I thought, glancing at the motorcar parked across the street, its engine idling, its windows iced over. If you needed to know
