“We’re going to press them in our diaries,” she said, “so we will always have a bit of the palace with us.”
That night none of us could sleep. Mama said she would sit up with the Empress, who was not feeling well. I lay alone in our room watching the minutes and then the hours drag by on Mama’s little traveling clock, which rested on the table beside my bed. The clock, a gift to Mama from the Empress, had been made by Fabergé. When it was folded up, it looked like a Greek temple, but when you opened the golden doors of the temple, there was the face of the clock with a tiny sapphire to mark each hour. Even so pretty a way to tell time could not send me to sleep.
I lay awake imagining Siberia, that empty land of endless winter. I hated the thought of being so far from St. Petersburg and from Misha. Not knowing where Misha was, we could not send him word that we were leaving. I prayed that Kerensky would let him know.
The traveling clock showed three in the morning. For a moment I worried that everyone had left for Siberia and I was all alone. I suddenly needed to see Mama. Throwing a shawl around my shoulders, I tiptoed out of my room and down the hallway to the Empress’s room, where I paused at the door, getting up the courage to knock. In the distance I heard the familiar sound of a sentry’s heavy boots stamping along the wooden floors. Not wanting to be caught by him in the hallway, I hastily knocked.
“Who is it?” Mama’s voice shook a little.
“It’s me, Mama.”
A bolt turned. The door opened, and Mama snatched me inside and locked the door after me. Mama, the Empress, and all the girls were there. Olga and Tatiana sat on the bed; Maria and Stana were cross-legged on the floor. Beside each one was a small pile of jewels glistening in the candlelight: ruby necklaces, fat and rosy pearls, glittering diamonds. They were stitching the jewels into their clothes.
“Your mama had her jewels stolen,” Stana said. “We don’t want that to happen to us. We might have to live off them.”
“They will expect a jewel chest,” the Empress said, “and we shall have one, but our most valuable jewels will be well hidden. They belong to the monarchy, and I won’t have them falling into the hands of the rabble.”
The doorknob rattled. The sentry called out, “Open up in there!”
In a second’s time the jewels were stuffed under pillows and carpets. There was a small closet off the bedroom. Mama pushed me and all the girls inside and closed the door on us so that we were all squashed together.
Mama opened the door slightly and said, “The Empress is unwell. I’m keeping her company. Please go away. Your presence is disturbing to her. Think what it means to her to have to leave her home tomorrow. Have a little pity.”
After a moment the door closed again, and we all burst out of the closet, gasping for breath. The rest of the night we sat there sewing the jewels into bodices and petticoats. With the first light we were finished. An hour later the carriages came to take us to the train.
The Tsar oversaw the loading of crates of his favorite wines. Several of the palace staff traveled with us: Alexei’s doctor, valets, chambermaids, footmen, the Tsar’s barber and the Empress’s nurse, the butler and Toma and two other cooks, along with their assistants, and a sad and worried-looking Pierre, with a box full of books. I saw the looks on the faces of the palace guard as they watched the wines being loaded and all the servants climbing aboard. It seemed to me the Tsar would have been wiser to have left some of the servants and the wine behind.
So that no one would guess the real occupants of the train, and perhaps attack it in anger, the train flew Japanese flags and carried signs reading: JAPANESE RED CROSS MISSION.
The train had been made very comfortable for us. Stana and I wandered through the cars and hung out the windows to catch a breath of air on the hot August afternoons. It was when we stopped at railway stations to take on coal or other supplies that we recognized the danger we were in. The soldiers came though, shutting the blinds on the windows and sealing the cars.
Gruffly they announced, “It is for your protection.”
The Empress sighed. “I can’t believe the people in these towns hate us so.” Still, we followed the soldiers’ orders and remained hidden, not even daring to peek out at the towns we passed through. Once away from a station, we resumed our window watch. The Tsar, always thinking of how to make a geography lesson, spread out a map. As we followed the great distances—an inch on the map was three hundred kilometers—I grew sadder and sadder for the Tsar as I saw how great a country he had lost. I had fussed over losing a year of parties, but how must the Tsar feel over all his lost farms, villages, cities, rivers, and mountains? At the same time I could not help wondering how one man could make decisions for so many people.
By the fourth day, when we stuck our heads out of the train windows, we felt cool air. As far as we could see, there were kilometers of flat meadows dotted with orange and yellow wildflowers, and on the horizon the white slashes of birch tree trunks against an unending blue sky. We had reached Siberia, a land that seemed at once frightening and exciting. I knew it was a place of exile, where for years criminals and those who opposed the rule of the Tsar had been banished. Now the Tsar himself was being exiled to Siberia.
In the middle of the night the train arrived at a river town, Tyumen, nestled into the silver curl of the Tura River. We were transferred onto a steamboat whose name was Russia. Trailing the Russia were two more steamboats carrying our supplies. The small peasant villages with their neat houses slipped by like pages turned in a children’s storybook. At the end of the second day we reached the village of Tobolsk. As we neared the village, we heard church bells ringing. At first we thought it was for us, but the Empress reminded us that it was a holy day, the celebration of the Divine Transfiguration. Still, we thought the pealing of the bells was a good sign.
The number of church domes on the horizon was the first thing I noticed about Tobolsk. The village’s dusty streets were lined with simple wooden homes. The governor’s house, where we were to live, was the only good-sized home in the whole village. This house had recently been an army barracks and was quite filthy, so we remained on the steamer while the house was put to rights. I whispered to Stana how ironic it was that the governor’s house in which we would be imprisoned should be located on Freedom Street.
Our new quarters were too small for the staff. The servants had to be quartered across the street. For the first time all of us girls slept together in one room. We sat up late at night whispering to one another. We shared clothes and quarreled and comforted one another.
We were glad of one another’s company, for this was a dreary place. Whatever our hardships in the palace, at least we had had familiar things around us. Here everything was strange and unfamiliar. When I looked out the window, nothing looked back at me in a friendly way.
At first we were allowed to walk about the grounds of the governor’s house, but the villagers’ excitement at having the imprisoned Tsar in their midst soon worried our guards. Gifts for the Tsar, cheeses and fresh eggs and sausages, began to appear on the doorstep. When we took a walk across the street to see how the servants were doing, the whole village came by to watch, many of them falling to their knees when they saw the Tsar.
Orders were given to build a tall wooden fence around the house. After that we were confined to a narrow strip of muddy ground with no flowers and no trees. The Tsar was restless. At last he summoned one of the two officials who had been sent to supervise the soldiers. “Would it be possible to have some wood to chop?” he asked.
Since they had pictured the Tsar as pampered and useless, the officials were startled, but they promised the Tsar he should have his wood. After that we saw them peeking around corners at the spectacle of the ex-Tsar of all the Russias happily chopping wood.
The wood was welcome, for the autumn was a chilly one. In a single October day the birch trees appeared to turn yellow and lose their leaves all at once. In other autumns Stana and I had gloried in the fragrance of th
e majestic bonfires set by palace gardeners. Now we begged the soldiers to bring us a handful of the fallen birch leaves. We made a little pile of the leaves and set them afire, breathing in the frail wisp of smoke that came from our frugal fire.
Mama and I waited anxiously for word from Misha, but nothing came. There were rumors that Lenin was back in Russia trying to overthrow Kerensky’s government and set up one of his own, but St. Petersburg was far away. The quarrels that went on among the revolutionaries seemed to have little to do with us. Still, I could not help recalling Misha’s words: “If Lenin takes over, I will pray for the Tsar and his family, for they will need my prayers.”
Snow began to fall. The birds, all but a flock of ravens, flew off. Our windows frosted over, closing out the world. In November we had our first taste of the Siberian winter. There was no way to keep the rooms warm. The icy wind crept through keyholes and window cracks. The water in our washstands froze. At night we piled our coats and sweaters on our beds to keep warm. We all had colds. We were all sneezing and coughing. The Empress pleaded with one of the officials to board up some of the cracks in the old house.
“There are shutters in the girls’ room, but they are stuck fast and won’t close,” she said.
One day at the end of November four or five workmen arrived. They were a motley lot of various ages. One of the younger ones, whose face was nearly invisible, covered as it was by a stocking cap pulled down over his forehead and a scruffy beard crawling up his cheeks, marched into our room to tackle the shutters. With nothing better to do, I lingered to watch the man. He seemed not to know what he was about. He tugged at the shutters and gave them a few random blows with his hammer. After a moment he turned around and whispered, “Close the door!”
Frightened, I was about to run for Mama when the man pulled off his cap and said, “Katya, don’t you recognize me?”
I hurriedly closed the door and flung my arms around Misha. He held me tightly. When he let me go, I saw on his face the old smile, but a second later he was all seriousness.
“I managed to get leave from the army. Things are very bad. Kerensky is defeated. It all happened in one day. They sent the ship Aurora down the Neva. It was flying the Bolsheviks’ red flag. It fired on the Winter Palace, where all Kerensky’s ministers were hiding out. Lenin and his Bolsheviks took over the railways and the bridges. The country is theirs. I was never a friend of the Tsar’s, but a hundred tsars would be better than one Lenin. Now the Bolsheviks are hunting us down, getting rid of anyone who supported Kerensky. My dearest friend was brutally shot and two others are in prison. Each day the Bolshevik newspaper prints a list of those who have been executed. Each day the list grows longer.”
He took my hands in his. “Katya, I must leave at once. I’m here only to warn you. I heard where you were through someone on Kerensky’s staff. I have only a moment or two. I must tell you what I know, and you must tell the Tsar. Lenin means only harm to the Tsar. England has refused to take the imperial family. King George is afraid having the Tsar in England will remind his people that they, too, could have a revolution and get rid of their King.
“Katya, you and Aunt Irina must leave while there is a chance. Don’t go back to St. Petersburg. The Bolsheviks have installed themselves in the mansion. It is nothing but a shambles. What’s more, they are arresting the Tsar’s family and friends. Tell Aunt Irina to go to The Oaks. Her people there will hide you. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“But what of the Tsar and his family?” I managed to get out. “What will happen to them?”
Misha shook his head, but before he could answer, we heard footsteps. He moved away from me only seconds before the door was flung open. “What are you doing, you lazy man?” a soldier demanded. “What’s taking you so long?”
Misha said, “I’m finished, tovarich.” He hurried out the door.
The moment he was gone, I rushed to Mama and the Tsar and Empress. I poured out Misha’s story.
The Tsar shook his head. “It could not be worse,” he said. “I was a fool to abdicate. If I had known it would be Lenin who would take my place, I would never have done it.”
Although Misha said he was leaving Tobolsk at once, I stood by the upstairs windows, peering over the fence, hoping for a glimpse of him. I knew that Mama would never leave the Empress. We would have to share the Tsar’s fate, whatever it was.
I thought it could not possibly get colder, but it did. Perhaps it was the chill of fear that settled over all of us. In December the temperature dropped to sixty-eight degrees below zero. Since Misha had never fixed our shutters, our room was always freezing, but we didn’t dare complain to the guards or we would have given Misha away.
To take our minds off the cold, Pierre suggested we put on a play. Alexei wanted to act out a battle scene, but the Empress said, “Alexei, son, we have the war all around us. Isn’t that enough?”
Pierre got out the plays of Shakespeare, and we did Romeo and Juliet. Alexei played Romeo, while Marie, whose golden curls had grown back, was Juliet. Olga played the nurse with a great deal of style, and the Tsar made an excellent Friar Lawrence. Stana and I were soldiers and managed a sword fight with wooden sticks. The play went well, except that Marie could not keep her eyes closed when she was supposed to be unconscious, and Alexei giggled after he drank the poison.
Because we kept busy, the cold, dark days blended one into another like the flock of ravens that seemed always to be circling the house, as if they were awaiting the death of their prey.
In spite of the cold, the Tsar insisted that we take our exercise outdoors each day. Dutifully we wrapped ourselves up in everything we owned so that we waddled rather than walked. When the weather was not quite so fierce, Alexei got the idea of building a toboggan slide. For a week we all eagerly shoveled and patted the snow into a hill. We dragged pails of water outside and threw the water over the slide. To test it, Stana and I scrambled up to the top. From there we had a fine view of the village and waved gleefully at the townspeople. The townspeople often lingered in front of the governor’s house in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Tsar, for many of them were still loyal to him. It was that loyalty that put an end to our slide.
The soldiers, seeing us waving to the townspeople, and seeing them wave back, accused us of signaling secret messages. There had been rumors of escape plans, and our careless actions made the guards suspicious. They ordered the slide destroyed. We watched helplessly as the soldiers came and tore down all our work.
Once the Bolsheviks had seized the government, there was a change in the way the soldiers treated us. The guards made suggestive remarks to us girls. They called the Empress “German spy” to her face. On one terrible day one of the soldiers actually tore from the Tsar’s uniform the epaulets given to him by his father, Alexander III. The Tsar’s face went deadly white, and for a moment I thought he would strike the soldier. All the rest of the day he kept to himself.
Our way of life in Siberia could not have been more simple; still, the revolutionary soldiers resented every bite that went into our mouths. Now that Lenin was in power, no money was coming to pay our expenses. By March the butcher and baker in Tobolsk would no longer extend credit to the imperial family.
A notice came from the Bolshevik government ordering the imperial family to get along on soldiers’ rations. We had little but kasha, cabbage, and bread. In the cold Siberian climate it would be weeks before we could think of planting a garden.
Toma, beside herself with frustration, wailed, “Heaven help me, I never believed I would live to see the day when I would serve such slops to the Tsar.”
Just when we thought nothing could be worse, the Bolshevik government signed a peace treaty with Germany. It had grown impossible to carry out the war. The army was in chaos. The Bolsheviks had insisted that soldiers elect their own officers. Cooks became colonels and colonels cooks. There were even Bolshevik committees in the army hospitals to decide which of the wounded ought to be operated on.
&n
bsp; We were at the dinner table when the Tsar gave us the news of Russia’s surrender. He looked about at his children, shabbily dressed and bundled against the cold. He looked at the table with its frugal meal. He sank down onto a chair. “I gave up everything because I thought I would save Russia. Now a third of our country is gone, given away by the Bolsheviks.” He bowed his head and covered his face with his hands.
We were all silent. All these miserable months we had turned to him for courage, and he had never failed us. If he gave up, what would become of us? Even the Empress, who was never at a loss for words or a notion of what must be done next, had nothing to say. The girls and I looked at one another. It was Alexei who went over and put his arms around his father. “Papa, Russia has lost its land before, and we got it back.”
The Tsar gave Alexei a weak smile. “You are right, my son. But my greatest worry is for what is left of our dear country. Just think—she will be ruled by the very men who have betrayed it.”
I did not say a word. Though I understood how betrayed the Tsar felt, though I regretted as he did the loss of Russia’s lands, I had seen what the war had done. I could not be sorry that it had ended.
While all of Russia celebrated the peace, the Tsar mourned. The treaty with Germany took away much land from Russia: Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, the Ukraine, part of the Caucasus, and the Tsar’s beloved Crimea. The cold inside our hearts was as bitter as the Siberian cold outside.
In April the ice that had imprisoned the river all winter began to thaw. Along the streets the snow melted, leaving mud. Each day we left off one more sweater or cap. We began to talk of a garden. Because we had so little to eat, even the thought of fresh greens and new potatoes cheered us. But it was not to be.