The Kitchen Boy

In the most quiet of voices, he asked, “Did Sister Antonina bring something today?”

“Da-s.”

I immediately reached into my shirt, where I had hidden the small folded note. Just at that particular time came frightful coughing from the room of the grand duchesses. We all knew what that meant.

The Tsar whispered, “Bistro.” Quickly.

I heard them now, the heavy steps of a guard marching our way, and I nearly panicked. Finally my fingers found the small, folded paper, and I ripped it from my clothing and stuffed it into the Tsar’s hand.

“Ah, good morning, komendant,” said Nikolai, palming the note to his side and into his pocket. “The heat has finally broken, has it not?”

I turned around, saw the new komendant, Yakov Yurovksy, who just the day before had replaced Avdeyev, the Red pig. This new keeper was a trim man, not too tall. He had thick black hair, a black goatee, nice eyes, small ears, and a distinct, rather unpleasant voice that sounded as if he spoke through his nose.

“Good morning,” said the dark one, so very matter-of-factly, as he held forward a wooden box. “I have here in this wooden casket the items of value that you gave me yesterday.”

Aleksandra, never one to hold her tongue, gazed at him from her bed, and all but hissed, “We gave you nothing. What you have is what you took from us.”

That was yesterday’s incident. Yurovsky had arrived midday, and that very afternoon he and another had gathered the Imperial Family and demanded their personal jewelry “lest it tempt the guards.”

“You took all the jewels we were wearing,” continued the Empress, “except two bracelets from my Uncle Leo and my husband’s engagement ring – things that cannot be removed without tools.”

“I have done so for your own protection.”

“Protection? From what, your people? I’m afraid you’re too late. Our trunks in the shed out back have already been looted.”

“An unfortunate incident,” replied Yurovsky, his eyes spitting hate. “But it will not happen again. Comrade Avdeyev and some of the other house guards have been removed and sent to the front for actions unbecoming the revolution.”

Ever the gentleman, Nikolai said, “I pity Avdeyev, but he is to blame for not restraining his people.”

“Perhaps, but that is not your concern.”

“In any case, we appreciate your attempts to restore order.”

Yes, even the Tsar loved to feel the whip of authority and control. He disdained slovenliness and disorder, and in those first few days he appreciated the soldierly conduct of this new commandant, Yakov Yurovsky. Little did the Tsar or any of us know that Yurovsky was totally committed to one thing and one thing only: the “difficult” duties of the revolution, that is, murder.

Along with Yurovsky came an entirely new interior guard made up of “Letts.” These guards, these emissaries of the underworld, however, were not made up only of Latvians, who played so strong a role in the Cheka, the forerunner of the KGB. No, this new group of burly men comprised a strange mixture of Magyars, Germans, Austrians, and Russians, a vile mixture of men divorced from God and country and certainly Tsar. In spirit they were all true revolutionaries, men who had thoroughly justified killing as a means to an end. The only consolation I have found is in my books, where it is written that all these men died the most hideous deaths, including Yurovsky himself, who died from a wonderfully painful cancer that curled up his throat in 1938. Not only that but he lived and suffered just long enough to see his beloved daughter, Rima, tossed into one of Stalin’s gulags, where she languished for another twenty years.

Placing the wooden casket upon a table, Yurovsky opened it, and instructed, “You are to verify my list and verify the items in the box. When you have done this, I will seal the box.”

“And then what will you do with our things?” said Aleksandra, her irritation clear as she rose from the bed. “Take them away again? Allow your soldiers to steal from us as before?”

“Nyet. I will leave this box here in your room and here on this table. It must remain sealed, however, and this I will check each and every day. I assure you, there will be no incidents, not as long as you do not provoke them.”

“The only incidents have been due to the incompetence of your people. We, on the other hand, have been more than cooperative.”

I could see that Yurovsky would have loved to have slapped her, but instead he held himself in check. Perhaps he was laughing on the inside, chuckling because he knew that a bullet was coming her way. And yet he forestalled any provocation. He merely nodded as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his trump card. You see, he was conniving to win their trust, angling to make their murders as easy as possible, for he was well aware that lambs were easier to lead to the slaughter than wolves.

“I believe these are yours,” he said as he placed a handful of silver spoons upon the table.

Aleksandra looked at the silverware, her eyes wide with surprise. “Why… why, yes. Wherever did you find them?”

“They were stolen from the shed and buried in the garden.”

“Our gratitude,” said Nikolai, stepping forward. “So let us have a look at your list and the contents of this box. You have our word of honor that the seal will not be broken.”

Right then and there I watched as Nikolai and Aleksandra reached into the small casket and withdrew a packet. They poured out its contents – their most personal jewelry – exposing nothing fancy, not by any means. Nice pieces they were – rings, simple diamond earrings of maybe 15 carats each, lockets, gold bracelets, gold chains with crosses. The former Tsar and Tsaritsa sorted through it all, made sure each piece was listed. Several minutes later, they slid their belongings back into the packet, which Yurovsky took and placed inside the wooden casket.

“I will place the spoons in here as well.” The komendant did just that, then sealed the box with a piece of wire and some red wax. “As I said, this box is to remain on this table and is to remain sealed. I will check it everyday, and if I see that it has been tampered with I will remove it.”

Aleksandra Fyodorovna smoldered. You could see it in her face, which blossomed a blotchy, angry red. Nikolai Aleksandrovich, on the other hand, never wavered, never betrayed his inner thoughts, and was as usual amazingly self-controlled and circumspect.

“We understand,” he calmly replied, though I’m sure inside he too blazed with anger.

Yurovsky turned to leave, but rather than disappearing like a quick black cloud, he eyed the boy and descended upon him. I watched as the Emperor and Empress stiffened but said nothing.

“And how are you feeling today, Alyosha?” asked the komendant as he seated himself on the edge of the Heir’s bed.

Aleksei glanced at his parents before replying, “I am well, thank you.”

“Are you walking yet?”

“I have been able to stand, but not walk, not as of yet.”

Yurovsky, once a watchmaker, later a photographer, and still later a medic, loved to dole out advice, and said, “Well, you must get plenty of rest and eat lots of eggs and meat so as to get your strength up, agreed?”

Aleksei nodded with the grace of his father, though he said nothing further, for he was infused as well with his mother’s pride.

The Heir’s dog, Joy, came trotting in just then, and the komendant rose from the edge of Aleksei’s bed and gave the pup a pat on the head.

As he headed out of the room, Yurovsky said, “Well, I’m quite sure your four-legged friend here will watch over you.”

How did he do it? With blood on his mind, how did Yurovsky go about interacting with this husband and wife and these children? Da, da, da, once I made my grave error, it was this Komendant Yurovsky himself who went about so calmly orchestrating the execution. It was he as well who fired the first shot. And it was he who led the haphazard burial team off into the pine wood.

In any case, the minor incident with Yurovsky was soon overshadowed by hope, hope provoked by the final note that Sister Antonina and Novice Marina had just smuggled in. As with all the others, it too was in French, and it too survived those awful days: