Grand Duke should not live to see another week. And then it was agreed upon that we should all separate for a few days of rest and rejoin on the fourth of February. With any luck, our next attempt at blowing up the bastard would take place on the fifth. Kalyayev pleaded to act alone, stating that if he were dependent on no one and nothing but his own resolve he could easily succeed. To this we all consented.
“Excellent, the glory will be all mine,” said Kalyayev with a smile as we stepped out of The Alpine Rose. “I doubt that I shall survive to see the Revolution, I doubt I shall live to see the masses rise up. However, I delight in the thought of killing the Grand Duke, which means I shall almost single-handedly cause the fall of the dynasty, for his death will certainly cause the masses to act. I shall act alone, and if I die in the blast as well, then so be it. Of course, it would be far better if I lived through the explosion and were caught and put on trial and hung before a great crowd, but there’s no guarantee of that. Nevertheless, I can dream, can I not? I really would love nothing more than a public execution, which would certainly stir the masses to action.”
Staring into his sweet face as we stood outside in the cold, I didn’t know what to think. I envied him everything, though-his enthusiasm, his passion, and especially his righteousness. All I knew, meanwhile, was a kind of exhaustion such as I had never felt before, a kind of overwhelming desperation as if I were bleeding and the life were dripping out of me drop by drop.
My allegiance to the Revolution still under suspicion, I was escorted to some small, pathetic hotel, where I slept for an entire day, and Savinkov himself stayed in the room next door just to make sure that I didn’t slip off to the authorities. As for Kalyayev, he took a train to a nearby village, while our bombmaker, Dora Brilliant, retired to a room at one of Moscow ’s nice hotels, the Slavyanski Bazar.
And thus we passed the time, resting and waiting until that fateful day.
Chapter 17 ELLA
A cloud of dread had been hanging over me those months, a cloud that by early February, 1905, seemed only to thicken and darken.
I worried about the unrest that had seized the entire country, about the safety of Alicky and Nicky and the children. I was saddened as well at the prospect of leaving my beloved Moscow, where I felt so at home, and I worried endlessly about my husband and the death threats against him. For the past several days he hadn’t been varying his routine-why wouldn’t he? The commander of security had just this morning suggested doing so, commenting that the Grand Duke’s afternoon visits to the Governor-General’s residence were becoming too regular and hence too well known. The eyes of the revolutionaries were everywhere, he added, and there was nothing they loved more than a predictable path.
“Sergei,” I gently pleaded after the last dish had been cleared from our noonday meal, “perhaps you should take a different route today, or perhaps you should be traveling with an escort or-”
“Matters of security are not your concern,” he replied in his autocratic manner as he rose from the massive walnut table.
“Then allow me to accompany you.”
“Children,” said Sergei, ignoring me and turning to our young wards, “you may kiss me goodbye and return immediately to your lessons.”
“But… but what about my mandolin,” muttered the young Grand Duchess Maria. “I… I wanted to talk to you about-”
“We will talk later this evening, my child. Your tutors are waiting. Please return to your studies at once.”
Knowing perfectly well that they had no choice but to do as their new papa commanded, the children dutifully approached the Grand Duke, who leaned down and pecked each of them on the cheek. Appearing out of nowhere and exactly on cue, the children’s governess, Mademoiselle Elena, escorted them off, Grand Duchess Maria to her mathematics lesson with an old gentleman, the young Grand Duke Dmitri to his lessons with his tutor, General Laiming.
Once the children were gone, I rose from the table and gently pressed the issue, saying, “What of it, Sergei, may I accompany you?”
“Absolutely not. And you are not to speak of such serious matters before the children ever again, am I clear?”
“Yes, of course.”
“They must not be raised to question the loyalty of their people.”
“My apologies.”
Standing there, I watched as my husband silently turned and strode out of the room. For months now Sergei had all but forbidden me to travel publicly with him-the other night to the opera had been one of the few exceptions-and I knew that while he was not concerned for his own safety, he did worry about mine. What troubled me, however, was that my husband was as determined as he was punctual, and I now steeled myself as I heard Sergei head down the great marble steps to his awaiting carriage. I knew, of course, that he was departing at exactly the same time he had the day before, and the day before that as well. If only he’d take his aide-de-camp with him, I thought, or better, allow an escort to lead his carriage. After all, his own father had been killed following a regular route in the capital.
As if to banish my worries, I quickly turned to a valet, and said, “Have my sleigh brought round front.”
The uniformed man silently bowed and disappeared.
There was so much war-work to be done this afternoon, I thought. However, before going to my workrooms here at the Kremlin or checking on my ambulance train, which was set to leave this evening on the Trans-Siberian tracks, I had one personal call to make. My chamberlain’s wife, Countess Mengden, was recovering from an operation, and of course it was my duty to pay her a visit, the least I could do for someone who had been so loyal to me.
Minutes later I had changed into the plain gray-blue walking-about dress I wore every day to the workrooms, for I went there not simply to supervise and oversee hundreds of women of every age but to work alongside simple seamstresses and common daughters of carriage drivers. In fact, later this afternoon I was expected in the bandage store. Truth be told, I enjoyed all this, for it not only presented the opportunity to be of use and to help those in need but gave me a function and employed a part of me theretofore unchallenged. And in this my sister, the Empress, was quite correct, that members of proper Russian society and rank were far too active not in helpful matters but rather in merriments and late-night get-abouts. Why, of course it was our Christian duty to take positions of responsibility, to do something constructive for our people below. And yet for this-her so-called prudish nature-my sister had been ostracized in the highest court circles, including her own mother-in-law’s. Perhaps the two of us, Alix in particular, were too Protestant or too English in our sense and view of duty, but the seeds of dissent in our adopted homeland were not sown by Alix’s withdrawn social nature, not by any means. All that was sown as a result of her lack of frivolity was ugly, ugly gossip, resentful and spiteful, which sprouted with great gusto even in the best circles.
And yet as I finished dressing all seemed so peaceful, the snow, the serene winter sky, the soft noises of the city going about its business. With a simple turn of my head, I peered outside. The sun would fade early, of course, as it always did in these dark winter months. Usually there were many balls at this time of year, including several wonderful bals roses for young marrieds, but this year so much had been curtailed because of the disturbances. Perhaps by springtime things would be different-surely the mood of the people would improve with the fine weather.
Then suddenly the quiet day was ripped in two by an enormous explosion.
Reflexively, I gasped and grabbed for a side table. It was as if one of the great bells had fallen from the Kremlin’s Assumption Cathedral. No, I thought in panic, for I still felt the reverberations in my chest. It was as if not one of the bells but the Ivan the Great Bell Tower itself had collapsed under the weight of the winter snow. Virtually every windowpane shook frightfully, and I, trembling, looked up and saw even the chandelier swing side to side. A moment or two later brought absolute quiet, a kind of total stillness that was even more frightening, as if everything and everyone were frozen in fright. Or death.
And in that moment of terrified silence I guessed exactly what had happened-a bomb!-and I clasped a hand to my mouth and cried aloud, “Sergei!”
