The Kitchen Boy

… to destroy him and the family and relatives of the former Tsar… In case of refusal… we have decided to carry out this decree using our own forces.

Gospodi. Dear Lord. It was my fault that the note was found, that the plot to rescue them was exposed, and that the Tsar and his family were executed before they could be rescued. When I question myself, when I begin to doubt or even perhaps forgive myself, I take out my dossier. And I read these documents, and in each line I see the truth:

The Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government is at the telegraph apparatus:

In view of the enemy’s proximity to Yekaterinburg and the exposure by the Cheka of a serious White Guard plot with the goal of abducting the former Tsar and his family… For this reason: In light of the approach of the counterrevolutionary bands toward the Red capital of the Urals and the possibility of the crowned executioner escaping trial by the people (a plot among White Guards to try to abduct him and his family was exposed and the compromising documents have been found and will be published), the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet, fulfilling the will of the revolution, resolved to shoot the former Tsar, Nikolai Romanov, who is guilty of countless bloody, violent acts against the Russian people…

We ask for your sanction… The documents concerning the plot are being expedited by courier to the Sovnarkom and the TsIK. We are waiting by the apparatus for advice. We urgently request an answer; we are waiting by the apparatus.

Facts cannot lie, and in them I see that the stupidity of a young boy hastened the murder of the Imperial Family of Mother Russia and their four loyal attendants. Eleven people in total. But my guilt is even greater, for the Romanovs were more than simply people. Nikolai, Aleksandra, and their five children were the ultimate symbols, both good and bad, of all that was Russia, and their brutal murders unleashed such chaos and darkness. Yes, regicide opened the door to fratricide, matricide, and patricide of unimaginable proportion. Some twenty, thirty, forty million souls perished under the Reds, helped along in part by me, Leonka Sednyov, the kitchen boy, for if the plot to save the Tsar had succeeded, what corner might history have turned? Might Nikolai have rallied his troops in the depths of Siberia and gone on to defeat the Bolsheviki? Would that gentle, misdirected Tsar have finally found the good direction he had searched for all along, and would he then have been able to lead his people and country back to sanity? I burn with the thoughts of what needn’t have been and what might have been. And yet in a corner of my tired heart I still believe in the Russian people, that given the light, the life, and the opportunity a great future awaits them.

Meanwhile, of course, Yurovsky and the others were greatly dedicated to the destruction of the bourgeoisie and the creation of a workers’ paradise, and yet… while they were most eager to murder the family to cement their cause, there was great hesitation on their part to take any definitive action. After all, Yurovsky, unlike many of those beneath him, was a professional revolutionary, and orders had to be issued and obeyed, the chain of command had to be followed. Consequently, many urgent communications were sent to the Red tsars in Moscow.

To Moscow, Kremlin, to Sverdlov, copy to Lenin.

The following has been transmitted over the direct line from Yekaterinburg: “Let Moscow know that for military reasons the trial agreed upon… cannot be put off; we cannot wait. If your opinions differ, then immediately notify without delay.”

“Trial” was the code word for “murder,” and the confirmation thereof did not come from Moscow until midnight, which was why the family was not led down those twenty-three steps until after one in the morning on July 17. In the meantime, Yurovksy went about preparing and arranging it all, getting everything ready. He chose a room in the cellar with no exit, a barred window, and soft plaster walls that might prevent ricochets. He ordered a truck ready to transport the bodies. Just in case any guards of the outside detachment might disagree with the executions, he had their commander, Pavel Medvedev, confiscate their Nagant revolvers, some twelve in total. So confident was Yurovksy of Moscow’s approval that he even told Medvedev: “Tonight we will shoot them. Alert the detachment so they won’t be alarmed if they hear shooting.”

In my books I have since learned that earlier that afternoon Yurovsky and the murderers, all of whom were volunteers, not only agreed upon who was to shoot whom, but decided in an almost kind way that they should aim for the hearts so the victims wouldn’t suffer. My fate was also decided then. Yurovsky and his Red comrades had no way of knowing that it was I who had been the secret courier all along, they had not an inkling that it was I who had hidden the note in the WC. Had they even suspected I would surely have been killed as well. Instead, they misperceived me as an “innocent” and decided there was no need to kill me, a mere boy, simply because of my association with the royals. Hence, my fate was cast, I was “saved,” assigned instead to this long life of memory.

Some have written that it was the morning of the sixteenth that I was taken away, others the afternoon, but, no, it was that evening, just after dinner. Of course it was after dinner. I was washing the dishes in the kitchen when in came the guard, the young one with the blond beard, who was one of the few who’d survived the recent change in komendanti.

“The komendant requires you.”

I all but panicked. “Wh-what?”

“Follow me.”

Bozhe moi! My God! My first thought was the note, that I had been found out, and I all but dropped the dish in the metal tub. Too scared to say anything, I turned to cook Kharitonov, who stood stirring tomorrow’s soup on the oil stove.

He stared at me, wiped his hands on his apron. “Well, go on, boy.”

Demidova, the maid, came in just then, a stack of soiled plates in hand, and seeing the odd scene, asked, “Has something happened?”

“Leonka has been summoned by the komendant,” explained Kharitonov with a shrug.

I pulled my hands from the dishwater and dried them on a towel. Was I to be interrogated? I was so afraid, so scared, but said nothing.

“Come,” ordered the guard.

Trembling, I looked at Kharitonov and Demidova, yet knew I had no choice but to go, not realizing that my fate – life! – would be worse than anything I could yet imagine. And so I left the Imperial Family without the slightest farewell, which in turn has left my entire life incomplete. I followed the guard from the kitchen, through the back hall and out another door into the front of the house. He led me right into the komendant’s room, where Yurovsky himself sat at the table, drinking his evening tea. I expected to be given quite a dressing down, but instead Yurovsky spoke quite calmly and evenly, not a trace of suspicion in that unpleasant voice of his.

“You are being removed from this house, young man. You are to follow this guard outside and through the gates. He will escort you to the Popov House, where you are to remain until further notified. Is that clear?”

This was the last thing I had expected, and I struggled to understand, struggled to make sense of this, and asked, “But… but why?”

“You are to wait for your uncle, who will come for you. He will then escort you back to your hometown.”

Although I had no idea at the time, this was a lie, a very clean lie, and I said, “But… but, Comrade Komendant, what about…?”

“Your services are no longer required.”

“What about my things?” I asked, though I had but few possessions.