That evening I went along to a performance of the ballet, which we often attended at the theater in Tsar’s Village. I sat in the imperial box, and when the audience and even the performers bowed to our box, I could almost hear Misha saying, “So, Katya, now you allow people to bow down to you.”
I soon forgot about Misha and lost myself in my favorite ballet, Lebedinoye Ozero, Swan Lake. When the swan died, we all cried, except for Stana, who giggled because the feathers kept falling off the swan’s costume. “It’s molting,” she said, giggling.
When we returned to the palace, I sat up with Stana and her sisters talking about the dancers. We kicked off our shoes and danced about on our tiptoes, humming the music. We all longed to be ballerinas, but Tatiana was the only one among us with the needed slim, graceful figure. No matter how the rest of us held in our stomachs, or arched our necks, or wound our hair into prim chignons, we knew we would never have danced well enough to join the corps de ballet.
The ballerinas were the most famous women in Russia. Everything they did was talked of. I would overhear Anya and Mama gossiping about the dancers, and I would pass the gossip on to Stana. We knew with whom the ballerinas were in love and who was in love with them. When a great bouquet of roses was thrown upon the stage, we would whisper, “That is from Grand Duke Mikhail,” or whoever was the current lover of the ballerina.
Though Stana had become like a sister to me, I grew close to the other Grand Duchesses as well. Olga had her own ideas about things and often went off by herself. If the Empress corrected her, even over a small thing, she would sulk. Tatiana had an even disposition and was always the first to make peace among us. Marie was almost too good to be true. She was warmhearted and eager to give a compliment on a new dress. She openhandedly shared everything that belonged to her. Stana was more fun-loving and more high-spirited, but her practical jokes were sometimes cruel, and I winced when she played them on the servants, who could not complain.
If Stana had been one of my old friends, I would have scolded her for such behavior, but one did not scold a duchess. I knew that, in spite of the girls’ friendship, and all their kindnesses toward me, we would never be equals.
We seldom had conversations about what was going on in the country. I had not forgotten the children who were working in the government paper factory. I had not given up my idea of finding a way to let the Tsar know about the factory. One afternoon I tried to tell Stana about the children and about the strikes, but she wouldn’t listen.
“That is just propaganda,” she said. “It’s all lies told by the revolutionaries.”
“No, Stana,” I said, “I saw it with my own eyes.”
Stana grew angry. “You are our guest here, Katya. You have no right to say things against my papa.” With that she strode away. The rest of the day she ignored me. After that I knew I must keep my thoughts about such things to myself.
By breakfast the next day Stana was as friendly as ever. It was a mild December day, and the Tsar had ridden off in the early-morning darkness to go hunting. When he returned in the afternoon, he was hungry and refreshed, his face rosy and his eyes bright. Stana and I were allowed to go to the scullery, where heaps of grouse and rabbits were being prepared. We begged for some of the pretty feathers. One of the huntsmen offered us the bloody stump of a rabbit tail. All I could think of was my Angora rabbit, strangled by Vitya. I ran horrified from the scullery. When Stana asked what was wrong, I only shook my head. I belonged to the Duchesses—but not all of me.
We began to prepare for Christmas by attending church every day, for the Empress Alexandra was very devout. I knew she prayed fervently to God and to the saints painted on her icons to make Alexei better.
On Christmas Eve a huge tree went up in the palace hall. Scrambling up and down ladders, the girls and I decorated the tree with fruits and candies, gilded nuts, and small presents. On each tree branch we put a tiny wax taper in a silver holder. When at last the tree was decorated, we were sent away while two footmen lit the candles. The electric lights in the hall were turned off, and we returned to be dazzled by the shining tree, its hundreds of small flames alive in the darkness.
As midnight approached, we were carried in sleighs through the snow to church. After the service we exchanged Christmas greetings: “S rozhdestvom Khristovom,” we called to one another. The Tsar and the Empress stood in the church entrance while everyone else came up to bow to the Tsar and kiss the Empress’s hand. Finally we returned to the palace for a huge feast. There were twelve dishes to remind us of the twelve apostles. The feast ended with honey cake and a crystal bowl of dried fruit stewed in wine and liquor. Stana and I disgraced ourselves by taking second helpings and then pretending we were drunk.
On Christmas morning we all exchanged gifts. The girls had only a small allowance. Their presents were gifts they made themselves. My allowance was more generous, but Mama said I must do as the girls did. For Olga, who loved poetry, I copied out five poems by a French poet she admired. For Tatiana, who took pride in her embroidery, I sewed a needle case. For Marie, who liked to paint pretty pictures, I made a scrapbook of flowers cut from Mama’s magazines for her to copy. Stana was always losing her mittens. I knitted her a pair and put strings on them to go through her coat sleeves.
Mama and I were remembered by everyone. The girls made presents for me. The Tsar and Empress gave me a gold locket in the shape of a four-leaf clover. It was made by the famous court jeweler Fabergé, and each loop of the clover held a picture of one of the girls.
Alexei was showered with gifts. He received books and puzzles and intricately carved wooden villages with trains to run through them. His favorite present was a board game called War in Europe. It had clever cardboard cutouts of soldiers, cannons, houses on fire, mounted cavalry officers, and hospital wagons. Alexei loved everything about soldiers. When he received a Cossack’s uniform made in his size, he put it on and would not take it off. “You’ll see,” he announced, “someday when I am better, I will lead a regiment as Papa did.”
I saw the Empress turn away so that Alexei should not see the tears in her eyes.
In the evening we went for a troika ride into the countryside. The carriages, each driven by three horses abreast, glided over the snow. The bells on their harnesses jangled. Netting stretched across the front of the carriage protected us from lumps of hard snow kicked up by the horses. The steam from the horses’ nostrils made little white clouds in the night air. Overhead the stars sparkled like chips of ice, but we were warm and snug, wrapped in bearskin robes, our feet resting on little stoves that held heated coals.
Mama and the Empress remained at home, but the Tsar accompanied us, bringing with him a brace of Cossacks to ride alongside his troika. There was no formality. The girls and Alexei called out to the Tsar as if he were just an ordinary papa.
“See the moon shadows on the snow, Papa,” Marie called.
“Yes, yes, my dear, like stripes on the zebra we saw in the zoo.”
At such a moment as that, or later that evening when the Tsar sat and read to us in his pleasant, soft voice, or when he played a game of dominoes with Alexei, careful to let Alexei win, I felt if I told him about the boys and girls who picked rags, he would find a way to help them. Then I remembered how angry Stana had been with me when I had tried to tell her. I could not help recalling Misha’s words: “The Tsar prefers to close his eyes to such matters.”
CHAPTER SIX
A VOYAGE ON THE STANDART
Spring–Summer 1914
In May the Tsar and his family made their usual trip south to their palace in the Crimea. There, on the Black Sea, it would already be summer. “Everything will be in bloom,” Stana said.
I believed her, for already armfuls of lilacs and roses, sent north by railway from the Crimea, filled the palace. Mama and I would not go along, but soon after the imperial family returned, we would accompany them on their private yacht for a cruise. I kissed all the girls good-bye, giving two kisses to Stana, wh
o promised to let me read all about the trip in the diary she kept.
Mama and I returned to the Zhukovsky mansion. Although things were more comfortable, and the teas included cakes and sweets, I missed my new family. When I heard the scripture read at St. Isaac’s, I blinked away tears of loneliness at the prophet Isaiah’s words: “Kings shall be thy nursing fathers.” I had begun to think of the Tsar as a father.
It was only when Misha, on a week’s vacation from the military academy, joined us that I cheered up. I hardly recognized him. His blond curls had been clipped. His cadet’s uniform made him look older and gave him a soldierly bearing. Mama was delighted and kissed him warmly on both cheeks.
I was a little intimidated and hung back until he grinned and said, “Well, Katya, have you been so surrounded by handsome palace guards that you have no kiss to spare for me?”
At that I knew I had my old Misha back. I threw my arms about him and tried to crowd into an hour the telling of all the things that had happened to me since I had last seen him. It was only when we were alone after dinner that I gave him a chance to talk about himself. “Tell me what the academy is like,” I begged.
“Up at five in the morning, cold baths, cold porridge, cold tea. We sit in a classroom, and besides mathematics, languages, and military law, we learn how to move great armies about as if they were chessmen. In the afternoon we make our horses jump over fences, and then we run at one another with bayonets.”
“It sounds horrible.”
“Actually it was not so bad until recently, when our instructors began to take it all a little too seriously. They want us to be prepared. There is a rumor that our class will be graduated a year early.”
“What do you mean prepared? Why should you be graduated early?” I asked.
He gave me a condescending look. “Have you learned where Serbia is in your geography lessons?”
“Don’t patronize me, Misha. Of course I know where it is. It’s all the way at the bottom of Europe, where Greece and Italy are, near the Adriatic Sea. It’s next to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.”
“Good enough. I can tell you your beloved Tsar knows where it is. The Tsar has been making mischief down there, encouraging the Serbs to cause trouble for Austria. There is talk that the Tsar is giving money to support the Serbian terrorists.”
At once I was on the defensive. “Impossible. I don’t believe you. Why ever would he want to do that?” I asked. I dreaded having to hear Misha start in on his criticism of the Tsar.
“It keeps Austria busy and weakens her,” Misha said. “The Tsar doesn’t want the armies of Germany and Austria nipping at his heels. He wants them facing south toward Serbia and not north toward Russia. The Tsar knows Russia is not prepared for another war.”
“Misha,” I scolded, “you have only just come home and already you are saying nasty things about the Tsar. You are ruining our reunion, and you will get into trouble for saying such things.” I wanted to be loyal to the Tsar, yet it was hard to make myself believe that Misha would invent such things.
Misha’s voice had been light and teasing. Suddenly he became solemn. “You are right when you say it is dangerous to say such things. The Tsar is cracking down on anyone who opposes him. It was one thing when he exiled hotheads like Lenin and Stalin. They only want to stir up trouble. Lenin would love to see a war between Russia and Austria. But now one of my close friends from the university has been sent off to Siberia. If there is a war, the Tsar will declare anyone who opposes him a traitor to Russia and have him shot.”
I was close to tears. “How can you say such things, Misha? I see you for the first time in months, and you spoil everything with your gloomy imaginings. I didn’t hear a word about war at the Alexander Palace, and I saw the Tsar nearly every day.”
“Be sensible, Katya. Do you imagine the Tsar sits at the tea table and asks his daughters and their friend if he should sign a treaty with France or England? Or if he should deploy a division of his army here or there?”
When he saw the crushed look on my face, Misha relented. “Forgive me, Katya. You are right. I should not be talking about such things. It is only that I can’t discuss them at the military academy, or they would throw me out.” Suddenly he grinned. “That would not be so bad. The only thing that keeps me from it is that the Grand Duke Nikolai would have me shot, which would make your mama cry. You, no doubt, would rejoice.”
After that, Misha was in a good humor, and the week of his vacation became very pleasant. He took me to see a play by the great writer Chekhov, and he bought me a box of chocolates to keep me awake, for on the stage nothing much went on except talk. Much better, we went to the ballet to see The Nutcracker. I had played some of the music on the piano. Afterward he took me to a fashionable café on the Nevsky and bought me as much cake as I could eat.
It was only because I had the reunion with the imperial family and the voyage on their yacht to look forward to that I could bear to part with Misha. As we said good-bye, I begged him, “Promise to let your hair grow again.”
“Yes, yes, I will tell my commanding officer that my cousin respectfully requests a return of my charming curls, and he will certainly make an exception for me.” And so, laughing, we parted.
In July Mama and I readied ourselves to join the Tsar and his family aboard the imperial yacht. The yacht, one of many the Tsar owned, was the size of a small village and so large I did not see how it could float. It was festooned with scores of bright flags and pennants. Alexei could explain the meaning of nearly every one.
Our staterooms were more comfortable than our bedrooms in the palace, and each one had a round porthole so that the Baltic Sea looked in at us like a great watery eye. The decks were as wide as streets. Lounge chairs with crisp white linen covers were set out on the decks. There was even a billiard room. In the dining room sailors took over the duties of footmen. Because of their military discipline they were more skillful and deft than footmen, especially when the yacht rolled and they had to catch sliding dishes.
A navy band played music in the evenings, and at teatime a group of old men played balalaikas. The balalaika is an instrument that always makes me sad. Sadder even than their music was Empress Alexandra’s piano playing in the lounge. As we girls raced up and down the decks, or sat in the lounge chairs reading, we could hear her at the keyboard, playing Chopin. She played beautifully, but all her unhappiness over Alexei, who was once again ill with an injury to his knee, went into the music. Though I never saw her cry, it sounded as though the keys of the piano were drenched with tears. She could not call upon Rasputin. Stana had whispered to me that Rasputin had been stabbed by a jealous woman and had nearly died. “Women won’t leave Rasputin alone. He has sweethearts all over Russia,” Stana said. “Only we can’t say that in front of Mama, who will not listen to anything against him.”
Rasputin sent a reply to the Empress’s plea to help Alexei. He wrote he was still recovering from “a madwoman’s attack,” but the Empress was not to worry. He was sure Alexei would be fine.
Rasputin proved right. A few days after he sent his message, Alexei began to recover. The Empress told the Tsar, “Father Grigory has such wisdom. If only you would listen to his advice on affairs of state.” At this the girls rolled their eyes. A thin smile appeared on the Tsar’s face, and he hastily changed the subject. While he could be strict and even hard with those who worked on the boat, he never raised his voice to the Empress.
The yacht sailed along the coast of Finland, which belonged to Russia. Much of the coast was rocky, wild, and dense with birch and pine forests. If the day was pleasant, the Tsar would order a tender to take us ashore. Accompanying us were sailors lugging huge picnic baskets. While the Empress and Mama stayed aboard the yacht with Alexei, the Tsar took the girls and me for rambles through kilometers of deep woods.
Though I was pleased to be on solid ground again, I was a little afraid of so much uninhabited woodland. I worried that behind each tree lurked a bear or a wolf. When not
hing ate me, I gained courage, and soon I was running freely about the woods with Stana. The Tsar took great pleasure in instructing us.
“No! Don’t pick the orange-and-yellow mushrooms,” he warned us. “They are poisonous.” He showed us shaggy mushrooms and fat white ones. “These can be safely gathered.” He even let us take them back to the yacht to be cooked in butter and served on toast with sour cream, and no one died.
Marie carried her watercolors with her. She painted the white birches against the dark-green pines. Olga sat happily on a moss-covered log, staring out at the sea and writing poems in her diary. Tatiana loved to observe the birds. The Tsar encouraged her to keep a list and a description of every bird she saw. Later, when we returned to the yacht, the Tsar would take out a large book, and together they would search out the birds’ names.
Stana and I set ourselves no artistic or scientific tasks. We hid among the birches and ran along the shore, finding pretty stones and picking wildflowers to take back to cheer the Empress. Still, the Tsar made little lessons in geology and botany from our foraging, so that in no time we learned the proper names for our stones and flowers. Though we did not dare say so to the Tsar, Stana and I thought many of the Latin names ugly and gave the flowers secret names like String of Pearls and Old Lace.
Alexei, who was still recovering, was left behind on these excursions. The sailors, feeling sorry for him, dressed him up in a sailor’s uniform and gave him a dark-blue sailor’s cap with the name of the yacht, Standart, in gold letters. When he was well enough, they carried him all over the yacht. “The captain let me steer,” he boasted, “and the navigator let me plot our course.”
At the end of each day the sailors would lower the ship’s flag. The sun’s golden circle would disappear into the water, and we would all fall silent while the voices of the sailors singing the Lord’s Prayer were carried out over the sea.