The Kitchen Boy

toward their remarkable but very different destinations and goals. And yet… yet they collided head on with a great, terrible force, killing millions upon millions around them. And do you know why these two trains that were on two different sets of tracks collided so terribly? Because it was their fate, their destiny. And not just theirs alone, but all of Russia’s.

Forgive me. It’s true. I wander. I wander in my heart and my thoughts. Such is the curse of any emigrant, to abandon one’s home and never find another, to always flounder in a sea of remorse. Your dear grandmother handled it much better than I, but then again she was a far superior person in so many ways.

Well, then, fate marched on…

Later that day the Romanovs had a real obednitsa, a liturgy without communion, their first in three months. Aleksandra arranged a small altar all by herself, draping one of her shawls on a table, setting out her images – her treasured icons – and then surrounding them with birch tree branches. It was lovely in its simplicity. And she and the daughters sang quite nicely. Father Storozhev in fact came, and while we all wondered if he might bring a note or news of some kind, there was nothing. Nor could there have been, because the priest was escorted in by Komendant Avdeyev, who never left his side.

And then?

Well, later in the day the girls darned various linens with Nyuta, then helped their mother arrange their “medicines,” for this was an ongoing affair, their hiding of the last of their jewels. While the two suitcases of larger gems had been secretly left with the nuns in Tobolsk, you only have to peruse the last pages of Aleksandra’s diary to see evidence of their clandestine stitching of the smaller diamonds. “Arranged things all day, tatted.” “Tatyana sowed my j.” “Arranged medicines with Yevgeny Sergeevich.” “Arranged things, tatted, heart enlarged.” “Arranged things.” “Arranged things, tatted, read.”

Finally, on the morning of July 16, slightly more than twelve hours before they were all slaughtered, the long, secret task was complete. In the final journal entry of her life – the very one where she mentions how I was taken away – Aleksandra simply noted, “Olga & I arranged our medicines.” You see, it took the careful hands of all six women – the Tsaritsa, the four grand duchesses, as well as the maid – weeks to finish with the 42,000 carats, and doing so with precious little time to spare. As if they had sensed the hour of death was upon them, by noon of that day all the jewels were wrapped in cotton wadding, then packed and stitched ever so tightly into the double corsets of those beautiful girls, which of course proved such a horrible mistake.

The Tsar spent the rest of the day reading, pacing, and smoking at the open window. Later he had a sitting bath – I, myself, brought him hot water from the kitchen. Later yet he played bridge with his girls and bezique with Yevgeny Sergeevich. And thus, shortly after ten, concluded the twenty-third, a day which ended much more quietly than it had begun.

Did I say it was a Sunday?

I shall pass quickly over the twenty-fourth, which was fraught with tension only insomuch as nothing happened. Yevgeny Sergeevich remained in bed the entire day, as did the Empress, complaining yet again of an enlarged heart and aching eyes. Later, actually, she moved nearby the open window, where she read and played cards with Maria Nikolaevna. About this time, toward one o’clock, the rest of us were allowed into the garden. There we paced for forty minutes. The heat was tropical. Outside, in the full of sun, the temperature rose to thirty-seven and a half degrees, while inside the thick walls of the Ipatiev House it climbed only to a warm twenty-one and a half. Otherwise, we waited and hoped, but once again Sister Antonina and her novice failed to appear. I couldn’t help but think that either the nun had been discovered, or the supposed friends of the Tsar and his family had lost their nerve and abandoned us. Although no one else spoke of such doubts, I am sure everyone else felt them, for anxiety hung in the air like thick fog.

Tuesday, the twenty-fifth, began as the other recent days, warm and monotonous. Yevgeny Sergeevich was feeling better from his attack of the kidneys, but he remained in bed nevertheless. After breakfast I wheeled about the Heir, room to room, as was my usual morning duty. We were just passing from the main parlor back into the dining room when both Aleksei Nikolaevich and I heard voices from beyond the double closed doors. The guard room lay there, and I could hear deep, distrustful voices of the men and a single, small one that was full of morning brightness.

Unable to contain his excitement, the Heir twisted in the wheeling chaise, looked up at me, and whispered, “That’s Sister Antonina.”

“Da-s!”

I turned the chair around, aiming it toward the double doors, and the Heir clasped his hands in his lap and eagerly bent forward. I half-expected Jim – the huge Negro from America who’d been a fixture at the Aleksander Palace right up until the first days of the revolution – to swing open the door with his usual great pomp. Instead, however, one of the guards shoved open the door with his foot.

“Pyat minut.” Five minutes, one of them ordered. “No more.”

“Of course, my son.”

Draped from head to foot in folds of black, the sister entered, her head bowed slightly as she tried to conceal a smile. She carried an open, woven basket, in which were nestled brown eggs, a good ten of them, and immediately behind her trailed Novice Marina, who clutched two chetvert of milk in her arms.

Upon seeing the Heir, both women stopped still, crossed themselves, and the sister, her head bowed, said, “Dobroye ootre, Aleksei Nikolaevich.” Good morning.

Until recently, Aleksei had always been greeted so reverently, and he thought nothing of it. With a great deal of enthusiasm and curiosity, he looked upon them and nodded to the basket.

“I see you’ve brought me more eggs.”

Sister Antonina, her eyes fixed firmly on the ground before her young master, gave a polite, “Da- s.”

“And milk? Did you bring-”

I heard not a sound from behind, for his worn, brown boots moved with great stealth. Before I knew it, Nikolai Aleksandrovich stepped in, scooted me aside, and took hold of the wheeling chaise. In a single, gentle movement, the Tsar spun it and the Heir around.

“We must not interrupt their work, Alyosha,” said father to son.

“But-”

“We’ll let Leonka deal with the food. After all, he is the cook’s assistant. Now, how about a game of dominoes?”

Only after the Tsar and Tsarevich disappeared into the dining room and beyond did Sister Antonina and the Novice Marina raise their eyes and heads. Looking upon me with a proud, beaming smile, the sister stepped forward and kissed me peasant style, that is to say, three times on my cheeks. As she embraced me so warmly, I glanced over her shoulder, and saw that Marina was looking on, staring at me as if I were some kind of godly hero.

At the tail end of the third kiss, Sister Antonina whispered into my ear, “Molodets.” Excellent.

The diminutive sister was musty with the unmistakable perfume of Orthodoxy, so smoky and sweet, and I pulled back, took the basket from her hand. “Here, allow me.”

And so it was that the sister and novice followed me out of the parlor, through the dining room, back around, and into the little makeshift kitchen. Cook Kharitonov stood at the counter peeling potatoes, and he eyed us over his shoulder.

“Again we have brought you the freshest of eggs,” began Sister Antonina, “as well as milk still warm from the cow. Marina herself helped with the milking.”

With that, the young girl stepped forward, handing me one glass bottle in particular and placing the other on the table. She looked at me, blushing as her eyes caught on mine.

“We will be back as soon as possible,” said Sister Antonina.

I handed the novice the bottle they’d previously brought, now empty, of course, and escorted them through the dining room and into the parlor. Sister Antonina rapped once on the doors, one of which was opened, and the two women disappeared.

While Kharitonov, potato in hand, kept a seemingly loose eye on the door for a guard, I pulled the stopper from the very bottle Marina had placed in my hands. And that was where the second note from the officer was