The Kitchen Boy

the grated window at the Romanovs. Should I shout out? Scream a warning?

One of the two doors was kicked open, and Yurovsky entered, smiling to himself as he delivered two chairs. Taking one of the pillows for supposed comfort, Aleksandra Fyodorovna sat in one chair near the window, while the other was positioned to her right for Aleksei. The Tsar carefully lowered his son onto this chair, and then the other members of the Imperial Family, photographed so many thousands of times, automatically assumed positions as though for an official portrait. Behind the Empress, yet more toward the middle of the room, stood the four daughters. Close by their side was Demidova, faithfully clutching her pillow as if it were a treasure, while behind Aleksei stood Botkin, Trupp, and Kharitonov. The Tsar himself stood between mother and son.

Once again, Yurovksy stepped out of the room, pulling shut the doors behind him. And then came the longest, oddest silence in which my heart began to beat ever so fast. Inside the chamber, not one of the Romanovs spoke. Aleksandra Fyodorovna did turn and gaze out one of the windows, searching, I’m sure, for those officers. About then Tatyana came over and placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder, which Aleksandra took and reassuringly kissed.

Suddenly the lorry in the courtyard fired up its engine, its noisy motor roaring in the night. All at once, Yurovsky returned, throwing open the double doors into the small cellar room. He quickly moved in and ten henchmen, brandishing Nagant revolvers, awkwardly piled through the small opening behind him. Except for one, they were all the new guards, the so-called Letts. Crowded to the side as if an afterthought, I recognized one of the former guards, the young one with the blondish beard.

Calm and self-assured, the komendant unfolded a piece of paper, and boldly proclaimed, “In view of the news that your relatives both inside the country and from abroad have attempted to free you, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you by-”

The Tsar cut in, his voice loud and desperate, “Shto? Shto?” What? What?

Rather surprised at being interrupted, Yurovsky cleared his throat and started over: “In view of the news that your relatives both inside the country and from abroad have attempted to free you, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you by firing squad.”

Horrified, Aleksandra Fyodorovna threw her right hand up, desperate to make her sign to her God. Olga, the eldest daughter, likewise attempted a plea to a greater mercy.

“Papa!” screamed Anastasiya, clutching her dog, Jimmy, against her chest.

His voice shaking, Nikolai turned slightly, muttering, “Forgive them Father, they know not what-”

Eleven people lined up in a small room as though for a photograph. Eleven assassins piled into a narrow doorway. The shooting began in nearly the same instant, and Nikolai krovavyi, the bloody, caught the first hail. All at once the blast of those eleven revolvers struck and lifted the Tsar off the ground, hurling him back through the air. His head exploded, showering his daughters with a coarse spray of his blood and brains. An instant later, Aleksandra, the Bolsheviki’s hated German bitch, took a handful of bullets in the face and mouth, the force of which threw her back as well, her cross-making hand flailing upward, her chair hurling back, her feet flying overhead as she tumbled ass over head into infinity.

“Aim for the heart!” shouted Yurovsky.

A horrible wail of confusion rose in the room. In complete terror, the daughters ran about, screaming, begging, and shrieking. Botkin shouted and pleaded. Demidova wailed. Trupp and Kharitonov sobbed. Only poor Aleksei, stranded as he was, remained in place, clutching his eyes shut, grabbing at the sides of his chair as bullets whizzed all about him. The gunshots started coming faster, more desperate, but remarkably no one else fell. I heard the twinging of ricochets, saw sunlike sparks burst as bullets bounced off those corsets, so thick with jewels that they had inadvertently been made… bulletproof. Protected as they were by all those invincible carats, the girls were not granted a quick death. Rather it appeared as if God Himself were shielding them, and a great cry arose, not from the horrified victims, but their executioners, so sure were they of the divineness of these White princesses. Terrified, the guards started pumping the bullets faster, more desperately.

Finally big Dr. Botkin tumbled, a bear of a man who dropped to his knees and fell face first into death. I saw Olga running to the side, clasping her ears. Suddenly her neck was ripped wide in a streak of crimson, and she too dove into the beyond. Trupp, Kharitonov – they went next, paying in blood for their faithful service. As they fell, a devilish fog began to fill the room and cloud it with confusion, for all the modern smokeless bullets had been used up during the war. And then Aleksei tumbled from his meager wooden throne.

“Mama! Papa!” rose the shrieks of those girls.

I saw Anastasiya bending her head, shielding her Jimmy, shrieking hell and devil. I saw Maria run back and forth, then fall against the wall. And I saw Demidova holding that priceless pillow up like armor. And too I saw Tatyana’s face and neck and arms blister with death.

Within moments, the entire room filled with smoke from the bullets. Yet still it went on, the shots slapping and hurling, biting and ripping. I heard the deep voices of the guards coughing and shouting, gagging and yelling, as they stirred up this black stew of pandemonium. And though the guards could no longer see their targets, it went on. And on.

Eleven men firing eleven guns for a minute is a lifetime. Upward of ten minutes is an eternity. But it took that long and longer to cut down those eleven victims. Eventually, the bullets began to slow and the smoke began to lift. Several of the men, vomiting and coughing on the acrid smoke, retreated into the hallway.

The clouds of death parted, revealing Yurovsky as he walked above the dead. Waving his hand back and forth in front of his face, the komendant peered down through the dimmest of light at the young Heir. It was then that I saw Aleksei, still moving, still treading life, still moaning and writhing as he clutched his father by the sleeve. Lowering his gun, Yurovsky placed the barrel on Aleksei’s temple and blasted, once, twice. He and the guards, who had fetched rifles from the hallway, moved on through the room, discovering that even after all the shooting three of the sisters and Botkin were still alive, convulsing as they choked on their own blood. Approaching Tatyana, a dark-bearded guard raised his rifle and bayonet over her and plunged at her heart. Despite all his brutal virility, however, the dull blade bounced off her, and the young princess twisted and contorted in semiconscious pain. Confused and dismayed, the guard straddled her, clutched his rifle in both hands, and plunged again. And again met with no success. Unable to puncture her chest and clearly terrified by her immortality, the man whipped out a knife and quickly slit her throat, finally finding proof positive in her butchered neck that she was not the daughter of a demigod.

Suddenly a woman’s voice screamed out, “Thank God!” It was Demidova. “God has saved me!”

I caught sight of the Tsaritsa’s maid, who’d apparently only fainted and was now pushing herself from the floor, smeared with the blood of her masters. No sooner had she risen back to life, however, than a herd of men were upon her, and she fell once again and for all, screaming, screaming, screaming so horribly as she grabbed at the dull, rusty bayonets that punctured her full round body no less than thirty times.

For a brief moment there was silence and peace, which in turn was broken by a pathetic whimper and an animal-like cry. One of the guards went over to Anastasiya and plunged her throat with his bayonet. Miraculously, however, the cry grew but louder until suddenly the girl’s tiny pet wiggled and squirmed from beneath the child’s carved body. Seeing the little dog, now soaking crimson, try to scramble away, its back legs broken, the guard raised one of his heavy boots… and smashed little Jimmy’s head.

All in all, it took twenty minutes before silence graced the basement chamber of The House of Special Purpose.

18

Hidden in the bushes, I stared off at the black sky, seeing nothing, neither star nor moon, but seeing again that which I had just witnessed: those twenty minutes. Hearing them too. Da, da, da, hearing their screams. Ever since, for eight decades now, I have daily seen this cinema of horror in my mind’s eye, and I watch it from this angle, from that, and nearly go insane.

I find myself so angry. Angry at all the tsars of my Rossiya for driving my homeland down the dead-end path of autocracy. Angry at the Bolsheviki for not realizing that kommunizm is naught but a gorgeous dream that can never be. Angry at Aleksandra for being a supreme mother not to her country but her invalid son. Angry at Nikolai for not signing that one piece of