Robert Alexander - The Romanov Bride

“I’m afraid so.”

“But it’s he who just had a vision that Nicky must halt all military trains and for no fewer than three days allow only food to be transported into the cities. You know he was against the war in the first place, and you know how much he cares for the common people.”

“My dear, the stories about him are simply horrible. And it’s not just in Moscow but here in Petrograd. Kiev, too, and Pskov. Really, all across the Empire.”

“Surely you’re not like the others?” said my sister, unable to hide her anger and disappointment. “Tell me you don’t believe the gossip and calumny as well?”

“All I know is that he no longer occupies himself with matters of your family, but with politics, and-”

“Ella, he is a man of God!”

“But have you not become too dependent upon him?”

“Can one become too dependent on the wisdom of the Lord? I seek Father Grigori’s counsel on many matters because of his spiritual closeness, because of his connection, to the God Almighty. Besides, even you know the greatest religious leaders of their time have always been attacked by petty politicians and connivers, not to mention the courtesans. As mother of this country, what concerns me is the well-being of my people, nothing more, and how I seek counsel is therefore my business. I must remain above the petty minds, you know this all too well. Nicky and I have oft been attacked, but we must stay above all the squabbling and seek the right, Godly direction for our nation. You know very well that all true countrymen say that a constitution would not simply be the ruin of Nicky but of the true Mother Russia.”

“Yes, but…”

And so it went, round and round. My dear sister was nothing if not powerful in her beliefs, and it was her conviction that they must not surrender any power to the bickering politicians who sought to pull Russia this way and that. God had placed Nicky on the Throne, and through God’s wisdom he would find the correct path. Our conversation was intense and deep, serious but not hateful. And yet all the same it broke my heart.

“Really, my dear,” said Alicky, rising at the end of our conversation, “my own position on Father Grigori is quite immovable. I hope I have made myself clear.”

“Yes,” I said, coming to my feet. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Perhaps it would have been best had I not come.”

“Perhaps,” she said, kissing me on both cheeks. “But I always relish your visits. Can you not stay for lunch? I know the children would love to see you.”

So discouraged was I that I begged, “I’m sorry, but I have so many matters awaiting me in Moscow.”

“Then at least the girls and I will see you back to the train station.”

Some twenty minutes later, Alicky and the older girls, Olga and Tatyana, and I stepped out into the bitter cold, quickly climbing into a limousine. As we set off for the station, I sat right next to my sister, holding her hand the entire way, which was our little custom, and yet this time, rather than chatting as usual, we rode the short distance in silence. We were both exhausted, both fearful, perhaps, of the months ahead. If only our soldiers could hang on until the spring, then victory would be ours. Just a few more months…

I loved my sister so, as she did me, and though I protested that it was too cold, Alicky and the girls saw me through the station’s Imperial Rooms and onto the gusty, cold platform. As the winter winds swept around us, I tenderly kissed my nieces.

“Such beauties,” I said, touching each of them gently on the chin. “Now promise me you’ll take good care of your mother.”

“Always,” replied the oldest, Olga, with a sweet smile.

“Of course, but you have to come back soon!” beckoned Tatyana. “And write us often!”

“I will,” said I, feeling older than I ever had.

Though I had failed in my mission, I embraced my sister more tightly than I had perhaps since we were children. From whence came this sense of desperation? What was it that I so feared? We lingered longer, too, in each other’s arms, and I for one couldn’t help being silently grateful that at least that awful man had not separated me from my beloved ones.

I kissed my baby sister, Empress of all the Russias, and we parted without another word. With the assistance of a footman, I climbed into the private carriage at the rear of the train and took my seat, whereupon I stared out at my dear sweets. Pressing the palms of both of my hands against the glass, I bid them a silent, bittersweet farewell. As the train started off with a forceful heave, it took a great deal of thought to hold back my tears.

And worried though I was over the course of the Empire, I could not even imagine the horrors that were soon to overwhelm the Empire. It all began with a trickle of blood-the murder of none other than Rasputin himself, which, strangely, took place just a few short weeks after my visit to Alicky. I know how much this pained my sister, but even I realized what hope his end gave to so many, for the murder of Rasputin was all anyone talked about. There was rejoicing in the streets, talk that the government could now move forward, that the war would now come to a victorious end, even rumors that Alicky was to be sent off to a distant cloister whilst things calmed down.

Yes, with the black stain of Rasputin removed from the Ruling House there was so much hope. And yet… within barely three months the trickle of that man’s blood turned into a rushing, crimson river as revolution washed away not only all of us but Great Russia as it had forever been known.

Dear Lord, how it pains me to say I have not seen my Alicky since that moment on the train platform, and even today I doubt we two sisters shall ever meet again in this earthly world.

The spark that made the country blow up like a big, bad bomb was a lie, a lie we told everywhere and to everyone. And the lie we told all over that February of 1917? It was simple: no baked bread! And this made people get real mad and go real crazy! And it worked! Just to make sure, though, I even liked adding something more, because peasant that I was, I knew what would make the people really panic: no flour!

Ha!

There was plenty of flour, but it was stuck way out there in some railway cars, way out of the city, so much flour that I even heard it was rotting. But the narod-the masses-didn’t know this. All they knew was that the bread lines were getting longer and longer, and their lives more and more miserable as the war dragged on and on and on. They could live with sugar being rationed, they could live with just a few scraps of meat in their soups. But bread? Radi boga-for the sake of God-how could a Russian live without bread, be it white, black, or even that gray crap, eh?

“We’re fighting for the Romanovs and they won’t even give us a few pieces of stale crust!” I grumbled in one breadline after another throughout Moscow. “What do they think we are, animals? To hell with the burzhui!” I added, using the nasty word for the bourgeoisie. “I hear our masters have not only all the bread they can eat but even sugar and salt.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure-our German whore Empress has plenty of bread!” complained another of my comrades, who was always planted near me. “But maybe she’s not giving us any because she’s angry she no longer has Rasputin’s sausage!”

The crowd roared with laughter.

Rasputin, that damned dog, had been killed a few months earlier, which in truth made our job harder. We couldn’t let the political scene get easier or softer for the Tsar, which meant we had to stretch the shadow of that Rasputin as far as we could and agitate, agitate, agitate.

Just like a worm, I started whispering, “I’ve been to two other stores this morning and they both ran out of bread. Now I hear there’s not enough at this one, either. Look, the store’s about to close! They’re running out of bread everywhere!”