Robert Alexander - The Romanov Bride

“We must show the people that the Tsar sits atop them not as a god but as a man,” explained one of my comrades, a smart fellow known only as Leon. “And that’s what these posters do, they soil the image of the Emperor and bring him down from such a high level.”

“Ah, so this is like flinging mud at him?” I laughed.

“Exactly.”

“I like it!”

And so I flung a lot of crap, I did. I’d go out at nine, maybe ten at night, my posters carefully hidden in a bag, and I glued them everywhere, tromping alley to alley, from the Khitrovka to the Arbat. Actually, I found the best places to leave them were the traktiri littered about the city, the dirty cafés of the proletariat that were packed with workers, everyone crammed along plank tables, drinking pitcher after pitcher of kvass, that beerlike brew made from moldy loaves of black bread.

One night I took my favorite poster, a real juicy picture, into one such traktir, The Seven Steps Down, with a low ceiling and a big hall, a place where coachmen usually gathered and where, late at night, there was cockfighting in a secret room. Though I wasn’t a Believer, I stopped in front of the icon by the door, crossing myself just like everyone else. Every bench and table was filled, waiters in white blouses and baggy pants ran this way and that, and off in the corner an accordion player played while a Tsigane woman with a big shawl and shiny jewelry and gold teeth sang. Here they used to serve great big plates of greasy suckling pig, but no more. Meat just couldn’t be found, it was getting scarcer by the day, and so it was just kvass and hard rolls, here and there some sausages that looked as if they’d been made from cat. There were maybe two hundred people in there, packed like sardines, mostly men with long beards and greasy hair, some loose women with flimsy skirts.

So what did I do? I got myself a tankard of drink and strolled around, smiling so innocently. And somehow I did it, I pulled my lovely pictures from under my coat and soon enough they were on a table, spilling onto the benches, and from the benches onto the floor. I acted as surprised as anyone.

“Ha!” I yelped with surprise. “Ha!”

A great roar of laughter went up and spread through the room when they saw the picture, my poster: the Empress-whore, bent over and getting fucked from behind by the monster Rasputin, with the Tsar, drunk or drugged, passed out in a barrel of money, his eyes crossed as if totally not caring about anything or anyone else, least of all us, his Russian people.

And the people loved it!

The poster was grabbed from hand to hand, ripped from one person to the next, until it reached every corner of the room. A drunk guy jumped up on a table and pulled some prostitutka up behind him. Taking a soup bowl, he crowned his curly blond girl queen of the hall.

“Oh, Mama Tsaritsa, I love your big German ass!” he proclaimed as he mounted his empress from behind and started to hump and hump.

Maybe two or three years before, well, this fellow would have been hauled away and beat up for such a thing, for making fun of our Empress. Either that or he would have been arrested by the police and given three. But now the whole room roared with laughter at the sight of our traitor Empress getting fucked by her secret lover, that mad beast Rasputin.

What agitatsiya! How good it worked! I laughed until there were tears in my eyes!

In early December of 1916 I wrote to Nicky, begging an audience. He was to be in Tsarskoye for only a short while longer, and a reply came not from the Emperor but my sister, asking me to come at once. I departed the very next day. I kept hope that I would see the Emperor himself, but upon my arrival at the Palace, I found myself ushered directly into Alicky’s boudoir. She was reclined there, dressed in a long white robe, a white shawl draped around her shoulders. Her hair was put up, but she wore no adornment excepting her wedding ring, and she looked exhausted and worn, so thin. For the first time I could easily see what more and more people had been telling me, that my baby sister, nine years my junior, now looked years older than I.

“Hello, my dear,” she said in English, holding out her hand.

“Greetings.”

As required by protocol, I curtseyed to my sister, the Empress, then kissed her hand, and only then was I able to embrace her as family. Before the war we had rarely spoken in our native language, and now of course not a word of German ever passed our lips. Had there been others in the room, we might have spoken Russian, but since it was just the two of us sisters we continued in English, the language of our mother and of course the language that Alicky spoke almost exclusively with her children and husband.

“How are things at your community?” asked Alicky.

“We are full and we are busy. With God’s help I believe we are doing good work,” I replied. “Among other things, I wanted to tell you that I’ve had reports that your four hospital trains seem to be running well.”

“Thank God. There is so much suffering, so much that needs to be done. You know, of course, that I visit my hospitals here daily. Just yesterday I assisted in an amputation.”

Yes, I knew that my sister, who had received her nursing certi ficate at the beginning of the war, was deeply involved in the day-to-day physical activities of her hospital. While some members of Court found it demeaning that the Empress should be participating in the most gruesome operations-“Better,” they said, “if Her Imperial Highness would visit all the hospitals, her appearance granting hope to many more”-I found it admirable that someone so high should dare to reach so low.

I cast my eyes to the floor and softly said, “I had hoped to see Nicky. Will he be joining us?”

“I’m afraid not. He is in meetings with his generals all day, for he is to leave tomorrow for the Front.”

“I see.”

I tried my best not to hide my disappointment. Not a soul knew better than I that my sister’s health, and to a great degree her reasoning, had been damaged by worry for her son, who had nearly died any number of times. Because of this Nicky was more balanced in his approach to things, and so I had hoped to talk with him and him alone, for I wanted to implore him to see what was happening around us, and to tell him what so many important personages of the Empire had begged me to relay. Quite specifically, Nicky needed to allow the Duma to appoint his ministers, for as it was now Alicky was essentially making these decisions, and not just of her own accord but under the strong influence of that man. Yes, everyone in the Empire was fully aware that you could not rise to power without the blessing of Rasputin, and that man’s wisdom on political matters was woeful at best. It was making the entire country crazy-so many screaming, Imagine, a peasant running the country!-and with all that in mind I had come, at the very least, to beg my brother-in-law to banish the man once and for all and for good to Siberia. Best would be if Nicky allowed the Duma itself the right to appoint the ministers, returned that man to the back of beyond, and, too, sent my sister off to the Crimea for a much needed rest at her beloved Livadia. That would quiet the tongues.

“Alicky, my dearest,” I began, knowing that I now had no choice but to broach all with my sister, “as you know, I’ve long steered away from political matters, but things are worsening in Moscow, quickly so. The food lines are growing, and the people are so weary, so tired, and so hungry.”

“My weak heart aches for them.”

“On top of all this, in every queue and in every salon, the worst things are being said about… about…”

She shook her head in disgust, and guessed, “Father Grigori?”