“Insane asylum?” the empress echoed, pulling back with distaste.
The whole story tumbled from Nadya’s lips without artifice, complete with her desperate time living on the streets and the squalor of The Happy Comrades. “I had intended to spare you some of these details, but I so desire to be honest with you. I need to be candid and have nothing held back between us.”
“Amnesia, eh?” said the empress. “Convenient.”
Ivan felt he should intercede. “Maybe so, but it is quite understandable considering all she’s been through. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Ignoring him, Empress Marie turned her attention to Sergei and gruffly beckoned for him to approach her. “Count Kremnikov, have we met before?” she asked, narrowing her eyes to peer at him.
Sergei stepped forward. “Once, Your Majesty, at an affair of state. I was there with my mother and father. It was more than ten years ago.”
The elderly dowager nodded. “But I have heard your named mentioned, and fairly recently too.”
“Perhaps in the reports that reached your Imperial Highness regarding the grand duchess,” Sergei suggested.
“Perhaps,” she conceded. “I can’t quite recall at this moment. It will come back to me eventually.”
“So you agree that memory is a capricious faculty,” Ivan said, seeing an opportunity to make his case.
Empress Marie glowered at him. “I am not a doddering idiot, young man. The elderly routinely struggle with lapses in memory, but complete amnesia is a rare condition. I am conversant with the new science of psychology and have read that memory can be buried in the unconscious or subconscious mind. It is not a usual occurrence, however, despite the unrealistic regularity with which the disease appears in contemporary fiction.”
“All that you say is so,” he agreed, “but it is an authentic condition nonetheless.”
“Undoubtedly,” she allowed with reluctant terseness.
The old bat isn’t exactly the dusty relic I expected, he observed. The sharper her mind and senses, the less likely she’d be to accept Nadya without close scrutiny.
The empress turned her attention back to Nadya. “So you have no idea whether your mother and I were close?”
Nadya shook her head.
Try to at least guess! Ivan thought, frustrated with her passivity.
“Most of the girls who have come through here claiming to be my granddaughter have said that yes, we were very close. I knew instantly that they were fakes,” the empress said.
“There have been others?” Nadya asked, shocked by the news.
“Oh yes,” the empress confirmed with a bitter chuckle, “many others. I eventually exposed all of them as phonies, though some really had me going for a while, I must confess. Rest assured that I am battle weary in this endeavor, my girl, and disinclined to believe anyone.”
“Then why did you send for me?” Nadya asked.
“People I trust were at the party last night. They are convinced you really are my Anastasia. Now that we’ve met, I will say that I find your voice compelling, but I need more than that before I am absolutely convinced. And this amnesia confuses the issue. How can I ask you to make me confident of your identity when you want me to confirm your past for you?”
Ivan had to admit, he could appreciate the old woman’s quandary. If Nadya hadn’t actually had amnesia, he never would have come up with such a story. The empress was right; the fact made things more difficult for her.
“You have put me in an odd predicament. I am suspicious that you simply may be three very savvy con artists who have twisted things more cleverly than those who lied to me outright,” the empress continued.
“I have no memory of being Anastasia or anyone else,” Nadya said candidly. “All I know is that Sergei and Ivan believe I am your granddaughter. Count Dubinsky also was sure of it. If I am not Anastasia, then I sincerely apologize for raising your hopes. I would never want to cause you more pain than you have already endured and—”
“What do you know of my pain?” The empress cut her off harshly. “You are a slip of a girl and know nothing of life.”
“I know enough,” Nadya shot back with fire, unabashed. “I have seen things you could never imagine; I know a kind of life that never makes its way over your high walls.”
The empress Marie sat back in her chair and studied Nadya seriously. “It’s been like that, has it?” she murmured gently.
Nadya turned away, averting her eyes to the ceiling. Ivan had seen the move before, an attempt to keep tears from spilling over. “Forgive me if I have offended you,” Nadya implored with an unsteady voice.
“You will stay here with me,” Empress Marie commanded. “Your friends may return for the weekend, at which time I will give you my decision and let them know if they can claim their reward.”
Nadya’s head snapped around and she stared at Ivan, wide-eyed with outrage. “There’s a reward?”
In Nadya’s eyes he saw himself reflected as a betrayer, a user, a liar, and a con artist. The hurt on her face left him speechless.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Betrayed!
Nadya refused to look at Ivan and Sergei as they left the estate. Had all this been a scheme to win a reward?
That was certainly the way it appeared.
How could she have been so naive? So incredibly gullible? She had come to believe them completely. What a fool she’d been to think they were acting out of love for Mother Russia—and out of their concern for her!
If she had known it was a confidence game, a sham, she’d never have left Russia with them. Just the same, they hadn’t even had the decency to let her in on their plan. And here she’d thought they were her best friends.
Ha! What a laugh!
But she was not amused.
Nadya now was alone with the empress in a lavishly ornate dining room. Swirling, vine-patterned wallpaper covered everything—even the ceiling—and was reflected in the gilded mirrors. Huge oil paintings depicted exotic flowers, orchids and other tropical plants she’d never even dreamed of. A long, gleaming, polished wood table reflected it all. She might as well have been trapped in a terrarium; this all was so strange to her. What was she supposed to do now?
“That little act was nearly convincing,” Empress Marie said from her seat at the head of the table.
“What act?” Nadya asked, surprised by the remark.
“Pretending not to know about the reward.”
“It wasn’t an act. I didn’t know.”
The old woman’s lips tightened into a cynical sneer. “You thought those two brought you all the way from Yekaterinburg to Paris out of the goodness of their hearts?”
Feeling foolish, Nadya nodded. “They told me they were doing it out of loyalty to the Romanovs.”
The empress sighed. Nadya heard a deep weariness in it that she related to, despite the gulf in their ages. It made her think about how the world took so much out of a person. “I was stupid and naive to believe that, I know,” Nadya conceded.
“Young and naive,” the empress amended. “Or perhaps I have simply grown old and cynical. There certainly are those who laid down their lives fighting in the White Army for the Imperial Family. Many also joined to protect their status under the old regime, of course, but others fought out of sheer loyalty. The friends who smuggled me out of Siberia did so at great risk.”
“Why didn’t the whole family leave with you?” Nadya asked.
The empress rose, clearly agitated by the memories Nadya’s question had evoked. “I begged Niki to leave with me, or to at least let me take the children. But he would never desert his people. He was so sure they would support him in the end. And he couldn’t bear for them to hear that the family had fled.”
“He was loyal to his people,” Nadya noted.
The old woman angrily rapped the table with her fist. “What good is loyalty if it costs you everything you love?” Red-faced with emotion, she turned to Nadya. “A maid will bring you to your guest room
. I must retire now. This interview has exhausted me.”
“As you wish, Your Highness,” Nadya said, bowing her head.
Empress Marie hobbled from the room, leaning heavily on her cane. The moment the empress was gone, Nadya wilted into a dining room chair and dropped her head into her hands. She understood how the empress felt: emotionally drained. How ironic, though, that an excess of memory had overwhelmed the old woman, whereas Nadya was feeling undone by a complete lack of the same.
If only she could remember something! Anything!
Nadya would welcome any memory, even one that proved she was not Anastasia, if only it would reveal a clue about who she was. Not knowing was driving her mad.
A maid in a black uniform with a white apron entered the room. Nadya jumped up, embarrassed. Speaking in French, the maid entreated Nadya to follow her up the wide stairs in the center foyer to a guest room on the second floor. There, the suitcase she’d borrowed from Irina lay in the center of a four-poster bed.
When the maid had left, Nadya undid the latch and lifted out her belongings. At first, she wasn’t sure where to set down the items. Every surface in the room was so clean and refined that she feared her things would stain them. Attached to her room was a white marble bathroom. The bathtub seemed the best place to deposit the items.
Returning to the suitcase, she continued to unpack, hanging her new dresses and suits in an ornately carved wardrobe. She recalled how happy Sergei had been when he’d handed her the German marks for shopping. At the time she’d thought him so generous, the best friend she could ever hope for. Now it made her so sad to understand it was just an investment to win him the much larger reward from the empress.
Once Nadya had unpacked, she went into the bathroom to sort through her old belongings. Undoubtedly Irina had been right when she’d said most of it should be burned. But before destroying her old clothing, she’d have to pick out the men’s garments she’d hastily snapped up and, of course, put aside her little doll.
But as she picked through the clothing, it slowly dawned on her that her little cloth doll was not there.
With mounting panic, Nadya shuffled the items in the tub, raking her mind to recall the last time she’d seen the doll. She could picture it lying on the blanket near the spent fire at the campsite in Germany. She’d thought she’d tossed it into the bundle when they’d left. She didn’t remember seeing it after that, but it had been the last thing on her mind as she’d packed to meet the empress. Could she have dropped it when they went up to Count Dubinsky’s estate?
The deep pang of loss she experienced made her feel childish. It was nothing, really, and she tried to put aside thoughts of the doll.
But it had been with her for so long. Many times it had been her only friend.
With a gasp, she swallowed a gulp of air. Her eyes were wet. How strange that such a small thing could affect her so deeply.
Suddenly, Nadya was incredibly weary from her long car ride from Germany and all that had happened afterward. She wanted nothing more than to escape the waking world, at least for a while. Throwing herself on top of the bed, she stretched out and let her heavy eyelids slide shut.
She is back in the bedroom with the four cots lined up in a row. Nadya is holding a star in her hand. No, not a star: A very large diamond. Empress Marie enters. “What have you got there, my sweet?” she asks in a kind voice very unlike the one Nadya has heard her use today.
Nadya is outside herself, watching another, younger Nadya.
“Mother wanted to give away her Marie Antoinette necklace to Father Grigory,” this younger Nadya tells the empress, lifting the diamond to show her. “Count Dubinsky and Prince Yuperov wouldn’t let her. They fought over the necklace and it broke. This fell out but they didn’t notice it. I was here, watching. Other diamonds fell too, but somehow they missed this one when they were picking up the others.”
Empress Marie takes the diamond. “That foolish, foolish woman,” she comments softly.
“I should bring it to Mother.”
“Don’t worry. I will bring it to her. Go to the sewing room. I have had special petticoats made for you and your sisters. You are not to tell anyone this, not ever. It will be our secret. There are jewels sewn into the waistbands of these special petticoats.”
“But what good are jewels if no one can see them?” Nadya asks. “Isn’t the fun of jewelry to show it off?”
“These are dangerous times, my pet,” Empress Marie says in a serious but gentle tone. “The hidden jewels are like insurance. Guards can be bribed. Favors may be purchased.”
“Will we need to do those things?”
“I pray not. Perhaps someday you will use the jewels to build your own fine summer palace like the one your parents have overlooking the Black Sea,” she says. She smiles fondly. “Go now so the seamstresses can be sure your petticoat fits before they sew the finishing touches.”
“Should I tell Mother you have this missing diamond?” Nadya asks.
“No,” Empress Marie says. “Do not tell your mother anything. Let it be our secret for now. I will take care of it.”
“You’re sure we’re doing the right thing, Grandmother?” Nadya checked.
“Absolutely, my darling,” the empress said, stroking her cheek tenderly. “Don’t bother yourself about it any further.”
Nadya awoke on the pink-and-blue bedspread, mentally clutching at the few fragments of the dream that she could recall—the gentle voice, the luminous diamond, the ominous feeling that an unnamed, invisible danger was silently mounting around her.
Sitting upright, it occurred to her that she was now in a position to ask someone who might know why she was having the dream: the empress Marie.
As Nadya got up off the bed, she checked the clock on the night table. It was just a little after five. Maybe the empress was up from her nap. Nadya had so many questions for her.
Nadya stepped out of her room into the quiet hallway and down the grand central staircase. As she descended, she scanned the foyer for a servant to ask for the empress’s whereabouts but saw no one. On the first floor she checked the large room where they’d first spoken and then the dining room. They were both empty.
Moving farther down the hallway, Nadya went through an archway leading into a library. There she found the empress seated on a velvet couch in the center of the room. Empress Marie was slumped to the side, but her gentle snores assured Nadya that she was merely napping.
A scrapbook of photos lay open on the empress’s lap. Coming behind the couch, Nadya peered down at them. Four lovely blond girls sat together with a much younger boy in the middle.
The face of the youngest girl riveted her to the page. No wonder Ivan had wanted her for this scheme of his! The resemblance was incredible, although the face of the girl in the photo was fuller and younger.
Anastasia’s eyes sparkled, completely lacking the haunted expression Nadya sometimes had noted on her own face. Nonetheless, there was an uncanny similarity.
Below that photo was another picture of the same group, smiling and skating on a frozen pond with the huge palace looming behind them. Coats lined in ermine and full fur hats and muffs kept the girls warm. With them was a man she recognized from news photos as Czar Nicholas. How happy they all appeared!
On the opposite page were two formal photos, one of Nicholas and one of Alexandra. Nadya could see that Anastasia strongly resembled her mother. Curious to see more, she reached across the empress’s shoulder and turned the page.
Nadya gasped sharply and drew back as if she’d been stung!
The fiery eyes of Grigory Rasputin stared up at her from the photograph. He stood beside the czar and czarina. And on the other side of Rasputin was the man who had frightened her at the train station—the one with the terrible twisted scar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A Showdown
From their Paris hotel room, Ivan looked down at the lush and colorful Luxembourg Gardens. His dark mood made it impossible for hi
m to appreciate its bounty of spring blooms. Instead, he scowled out at the sunny day.
Turning from the window, Ivan cast a desultory glance at Sergei, who lay on his bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. “Look at us!” Ivan cried. “What a pair of mutts we are! We’ve almost achieved our goal. Why are we acting like this?”
“You know why,” Sergei replied. “We should have told Nadya the truth about the reward.”
“She’d never have come with us.”
“It was wrong not to tell her. And what if that sharp-tongued old lady doesn’t believe she’s Anastasia?” Sergei asked, sitting up. “She’ll be in a foreign country where she knows no one and has no papers. At least back in Russia she had a job and a place to live.”
“You call what she was doing there living?”
“Don’t avoid the subject.”
“The old bat isn’t going to reject her,” Ivan insisted. “You heard the empress. She sounds like her mother the czarina. Sounds like her! When I heard that, I couldn’t believe it. What luck! Who would have expected that?”
“And you’re still convinced that she’s not Anastasia?” Sergei questioned.
“Yes, I’m convinced. Nadya might be some aristocrat’s lost daughter, but she’s not the grand duchess Anastasia.”
“Why not?” Sergei pressed.
“Firstly, I saw her get shot. Secondly, how likely is it that we decide to find a girl to play Anastasia and discover the real grand duchess?”
“Look at it a different way,” Sergei suggested. “We set out to find the grand duchess because rumors were circulating that she was still alive. The rumors turned out to be true and we did, in fact, succeed in finding her.”
Ivan waved him away. It was too preposterous!
“It’s possible,” Sergei said.
Ivan threw up his arms, vexed by Sergei’s insistence. “No, it’s not possible! I will tell you why I am sure beyond all doubt that Nadya is not Anastasia.”