In the flash of a second, I pictured Prince Felix offering my father the plate of petits fours and heard Papa’s disdainful response: “I don’t want any of that scum. It’s too sweet, it darkens the soul!”
Seeing the untouched glasses of wine, I was perplexed. If they had dropped poison into the glasses, why had my father avoided that as well? Had he had a vision? If he had indeed refused the wine, I was sure Prince Felix had flown into a panic and the rest transpired quite quickly.
My voice quivering, I called again. “Papa? Papa, are you here? It’s me, your Marochka!”
Taking another nervous step forward, I saw that the room was actually divided into two parts. The front half with the fireplace was more like a tiny dining room, while the back served as a sitting room. Looking through the arch into the rear, I saw a settee and, on the floor in front of it, a white polar-bear skin. And crumpled next to the white hide lay a dark figure.
“Papa!”
He didn’t respond, didn’t even flinch. With tears gushing from my eyes, I rushed to him, dropping to my knees. He was rolled on his side, his front facing away, and touching him carefully I felt something warm and sticky.
“God, no!” I wailed, staring at my sodden-red fingers.
I held my hands above him, slumping onto the floor. And then, without even thinking, I did exactly as we had done at the palace when Papa had healed the Heir. Simply, I splayed my fingers wide and laid my hands directly upon my father. Emptying my soul, I closed my eyes and pointed my head to the heavens.
“Dear Lord, please have mercy! Please don’t take him! Please, Heavenly Father, give him back to us!” Bowing my head over my father, I beckoned, “Papa, come back! It’s me, Maria, your Marochka-come back to me!”
And he did just that. He returned.
Whether it was the Lord Our Father who infused life back into him, or whether Papa himself was able to summon the last of his strength, I didn’t know. But he gasped terribly, spit some blood from his mouth, and then- with one horrible tremor-started breathing once again.
“Papa!” I called, bending down and smoothing his hair.
“Dochenka? Dochenka maya?” Little daughter? My little daughter?
“Da, da, Papa! It’s me, your Maria!”
“Oi,” he moaned. “I just saw my own father. He was right here. Did you see him?”
I shook my head but had no doubt of my father’s claim. Papa was dying and had crossed over to the other side, where he’d been greeted by his loved ones. Only my pathetic pleading had pulled him back to us, the living.
Moaning deeply, Papa said, “Felix…he betrayed me…”
“Yes, Papa, he shot you! I know. But I’m here now. I’m going to take care of you. I’m going to get you out of here!”
“Da…must leave…”
So the prince and his group had tried to poison Papa by offering him tainted sweets and wine. When that hadn’t worked, Prince Felix had simply shot him. In any case, somehow my father still lived, but if I didn’t get him outside and find help, he would certainly bleed to death from the bullet wound.
Invoking the age-old fear of every Russian peasant, I said, “Papa, you have to get up. The prince and the grand duke are going to come back-and they’ll kick and beat and whip you!”
As if he’d seen it a hundred times in his worst dreams, my father’s eyes widened in panic, and he reached up to me with one weak hand, begging, “Help me, Maria!”
As far as I could tell, my father had been shot in the stomach. As he struggled to rise, I clutched him around his back, helped him first sit up, then climb to his knees. With each movement he bit his lip and groaned.
“Are you all right?” I asked as he struggled to his feet.
He nodded hesitantly. “We must go…bistro!”
The first few steps were the most difficult. Papa stumbled badly and moved only with great effort. I feared, of course, that we might make it to the stairs but not up the steps. Fortunately, each movement seemed to get easier. Passing through the heavy oak door, we made it to the bottom of the staircase, where we paused, bathed in the distant rhythm of “Yankee Doodle,” which had been started over yet again. All would be lost if any of them came back down.
“We only have to go halfway up, Papa. That’s all. Just lean on me. There’s a side door, and a troika is waiting for us.”
He nodded. “Xhorosho.”
I took a step up, and Papa, clutching the railing, did likewise. I moved higher, and he did as well. And so we proceeded, bit by bit, up and up. Within a few long minutes we reached the side door, which I kicked wide open. A flood of freezing air poured over us.
“Breathe in, Papa! Take in some nice night air! That’s it, doesn’t it feel good?”
Although he could barely swallow even a bit of air, he nodded. “V’koosno.” Tasty.
We stepped directly from the palace into the flat courtyard. Glancing toward the gate, I wanted to pull my father along faster. I wanted to cry out for Sasha. I wanted a doctor. There was hope, always hope. Papa had been horribly wounded when that madwoman stabbed him, his entrails pouring out of his body. And yet he’d survived. Now he’d suffered just a single bullet wound, so couldn’t he…he…
“I see it so clearly now, Marochka,” muttered my father. “I see my mistakes-”
“Shh. It’s okay, Papa. Just keep going. Don’t stop. That’s it, one foot after the other.”
“I forgot. I became vain.”
“Shh. Just keep moving.”
“My mistake was simple. It wasn’t me. Not me who healed people. Not me who…who…”
“Of course it was, Papa. You’ve helped hundreds, even thousands, of people, people who were horribly sick, people who were dying! Even the Heir Tsarevich-you saved him! I saw with my very own eyes how you stopped his bleeding and brought him back!”
“Nyet! It wasn’t me who saved the boy, it was God! I was just the vessel. And I forgot that. I forgot I was just the earthly vessel for the Lord Almighty to do His work!”
I looked up and saw we were halfway to the gate. “That’s it, Papa. Just keep walking, one foot after the other.”
“Da, da, da…that’s what I did wrong. I became vain. I…I took personal glory in my achievements.”
“Don’t stop, we’re almost there!”
“But it wasn’t me…it was Him, Our Father, who saved the boy and all those other suffering souls. It was God who healed them, not me! They were His miracles, not mine, yet I took advantage of it all. The power, the money, the women…I had it all, took it all! And now I’m being punished…punished for my vanity!”
“No, Papa, that’s not true! You gave to so many-you gave and gave! Think how many you helped, think how much money you passed to those in need!”
All of a sudden my father stopped and grabbed his stomach. “Ah!”
Wincing in terrible pain, he tumbled into me, and if I hadn’t clutched him just then, he would certainly have fallen over.
“Just a little farther, Papa,” I said, holding him by the shoulders and begging him onward. “We have to keep moving.”
“I…I…”
He could say no more. Nor could he move. Was it the bullet biting into him? Had it shifted about inside?
“I’m here,” I coaxed. “And you’re going to be okay. Just a little bit farther. Just a few more steps!”
“Ohhhh…,” he moaned.
Oh, God, I couldn’t lose him now, could I? We’d made it out of the palace, we’d come this far. If we could just make it to the troika, if we could just-
“I…I-”
“Calm down, Papa. Catch your breath. We’ll rest here for a minute.”
“I…I fear that my time…has come,” he said sadly, looking up at me.
“No, Papa, you mustn’t give up!”
“When it…it…”
“Shh. Don’t talk. Just be quiet and catch your breath.”
“When it does, my sweet daughter, you…you must let me go.”
