The Kitchen Boy

itself.

Fearing the worst, Yurovsky shouted, “Long live the revolution!”

With that he ordered the driver, Comrade Lyukhanov, to move on. The convoy of men had no choice but to follow the motorized transport. And neither did I. Once they were all well under way, I emerged from behind the birches and ran after them. It was easier, of course, than ever to follow them, for the road was in terrible condition, which forced them to drive slowly. Plus the men made such racket. In such a way did I follow them for another twenty, thirty minutes when suddenly the lorry came to a sudden halt. The road had narrowed and the truck itself had become horribly stuck in the mud between two trees. They couldn’t budge it, not an inch, for the vehicle had sunk so deep. Sure, there’d been so much rain and now there was much mud. A whirlwind of shouting ensued – everyone had an opinion, of course – and Yurovsky and the other fellow in the cab of the truck climbed out. A great effort was made. Everyone pushed, but to no avail.

By this time I was able to get quite close. Too close, really, but I was desperate to find out if Tatyana lived as well. I positioned my young body behind a pine, and in the gray morning light I watched as first one, then two men jumped onto the back of the truck. I think they just wanted to see the bodies with their own eyes. But then one of the peasant men, groping for the touch of a royal bosom, reached into the bodice of a grand duchess and came up not with a breast, but a handful of bloody jewels.

“Brillianty!” he screamed with shocked glee.

With the diamonds finally discovered, a handful of men swarmed over the bodies like hungry maggots. Panicking, Yurovsky started jumping around, shaking his pistol overhead and screaming. He fired once into the air, and the comrades slithered off the truck like scared rats.

As for the lorry, it was quite obvious the vehicle was going nowhere. Yurovsky was desperate. Things couldn’t be going much worse, and he waved his gun around and ordered the men to transfer the bodies from the lorry to the carts. Because the horse-drawn carts were so small, however, they had to split up the bodies – two on that cart, three on that, one over there – and in that way Yurovsky didn’t realize that Aleksei and Maria were missing. Nyet, nyet, nyet, the komendant was so busy waving around his pistol and trying to control these men that he didn’t even count all the troopy, not just then, not just yet. And as soon as he was told the bodies had all been reloaded, off they went in single file through the woods.

The morning light was filtering softly through the trees by this time, and soon the mistakes began flowing like a mountain brook. Not five minutes passed before this line of murderers and murdered took a wrong path and became lost in the wood. To complicate matters even more, they came upon a group of peasants from the nearby village Koptyaki.

Threatening these simple people with his pistol, Yurovsky shouted, “There are Whites everywhere out here, so you’d better get home before we shoot you all!”

Finally, just as the northern morning sun was climbing into the sky, this convoy of carts and horses and men reached the ruins of the Four Brothers Mine, named after a cluster of old pines, where gold had once been sought.

“I want you three men,” Yurovsky shouted, his pistol ever in hand, “to patrol the area and shoot anyone on sight.”

Hearing this, I slunk into some deep bushes, crouched down, and watched the Red bastards handle the Imperial Family like slaughtered animals.

It was a fiasco, a farce right from the beginning. This area, this place, was only a few versts from village Koptyaki, a hamlet of a few dozen wood huts, and before the Romanovs were even stripped of their clothing the entire village knew that their Tsar had been murdered and where he was to be buried. Furthermore, the Four Brothers was an open mine, not a tunnel, but a big hole. It was a pitshaft, actually, and not very deep, not really, maybe some twenty feet at most, and the bottom of it was filled with water, very cold water. In short, it was the stupidest place to think of burying anyone, be he peasant or king.

Komendant Yurovsky ordered the bodies unloaded, and the men eagerly swarmed upon Nikolai, Aleksandra, the girls, the others. They dragged the Imperial Family and their attendants off the carts and threw them in a pile like game from an imperial hunt. It was then that I realized they were dead, all dead, including of course Tatyana. I saw her heaved atop and knew without doubt that she was gone.

“I don’t want anyone to be able to identify these bodies,” shouted the komendant. “So I want you to strip them all. What you can’t pull off, we’re going to have to cut away.”

And this these animalmen did, pulling and slicing boots and jackets, blouses and shirts from the hated Romanovs. Soon there were diamonds spilling from the corsets into the mud, which sent an electric charge through the men all over again. Working with great frenzy, they found the gold on Aleksandra’s wrist and the ropes of pearls around her waist. When one of the men couldn’t get a ring off Aleksandra’s finger – the one given her by her Uncle Leo – he took out his knife and cut the finger clean away. Sure. I watched as he yanked the ring free, secretly stuffed it in his pocket, then tossed aside the manicured finger; months upon months later, Investigator Sokolov, whom the Whites brought in to try find the imperial remains, found this very finger, which to this day remains preserved in a jar of alcohol in Paris.

Altogether it didn’t take the Red barbarians long to strip their victims, and soon the Imperial Family and their servants were lying about this way and that, naked in the mud. Yurovsky then ordered a big bonfire built, and this his men did as well. They built this fire and threw the clothing into the flames.

It was then of course that they discovered that two of the Romanovs were missing. Yurovsky… he went crazy. He started running around screaming. He counted the bodies over and over. Then he… he called for two guards. He gave them two horses and told them to ride off and…

Oi, I have lied so much and for so long that I have almost forgotten the real truth, which is so difficult to let pass my lips. But… but I… I started running then. I looked back only once. Big Dr. Botkin – two men started to drag his naked body toward the opening of the mine. They each had him by a foot, and they were pulling him face down. Later, much later, this Sokolov man also found Botkin’s dentures all caked with mud. Eggshells too. Sokolov found lots of eggshells, which turned out to be the very ones the good Sister Antonina and Novice Marina had brought. Hard cooked, the eggs meant for food for the Romanovs had instead nourished their killers.

As for the bodies…

Well, they were never found there. Later, once Yurovsky and his men had burned all the clothing and had tossed the troopy – the carcasses – into the mine, the guards hurled in hand grenades. But they couldn’t seal it up. It was impossible, for the ground was too tough. And this terrible thing that was supposed to be so secret? Well, the Four Brothers Mine proved to be only the first grave of Tsar Nikolai, his family, and faithful. And it turned out to be their grave for less than thirty hours.

Da, da, da, and as those awful men dragged along faithful Dr. Botkin, I ran. I ran through the wood and straight to her, straight to Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, whom I had left bleeding there in a wood and against a pine.

19

So I charged through the woods as fast as I could, knowing that anything could happen. I could be caught by the Reds and shot. A villager could see me and turn me in. Maria could be dead by the time I reached her. But I was determined to keep my promise. And I did. I returned to that spot in the pine wood where I had abandoned Grand Duchess Maria.

At first I wasn’t sure if she was still alive. She sat just as I had left her, propped up against the tree, her eyes closed, her hands wrapped around her brother’s. Rushing up to her, I dropped to my knees, reached out and gently touched her on the shoulder. Her eyes fluttered, then opened.

“Ah… my Leonka.”

Almost immediately she drifted away again, tumbled back into shock. Sure, I knew she needed immediate medical help, but I also knew that I had to hide her better. So I picked her up. I picked her up in my arms and carried her as far as I could into the wood. When I could go no more, I found a tree that had been half-blown