Robert Alexander - The Kitchen Boy

They say that life in the Crimea is dreadful now. Still Olga A. is happy with her little Tikhon whom she is nursing herself. They have no servants so she and N.A. look after everything. D., we hear, has died of cancer. The needlework you sent me so long ago was the only token we have received from any of our friends. Where is poor Catherine? We suffer so for all, and we pray for all of you. I read much and live in the past, which is so full of rich memories. I have full trust in a brighter future. He will never forsake those who love and trust in His infinite mercy, and when we least expect it He will send help, and will save our unhappy country. Patience, faith and truth. I won’t speak of what you have gone through. Forget it, with the old name you have thrown away. Now live again.

I am writing this in my bedroom. Jimmy is sleeping on my feet, makes them hot.

I keep myself occupied ceaselessly. I read “good books” a great deal, love the Bible, and from time to time read novels. I also sew, embroider, paint, with spectacles on because my eyes have become too weak to do without them. I am so sad because they are allowed no walks except behind the house and behind a high fence. Father is simply marvelous. Such meekness while all the time suffering intensely for the country. A real marvel. The others are all good and brave and uncomplaining, and Aleksei is an angel. Many things are very hard… our hearts are ready to burst at times. The children are healthy. I am so contented with their souls. I hope God will bless my lessons with Baby. The ground is rich, but is the seed ripe enough? I do try my utmost, for all my life lies in this.

I am knitting stockings for The Little One, like those I gave the wounded, do you remember? I make everything now. Father’s trousers are torn and darned, the girls’ underlinen in rags. Dreadful, is it not? I have grown quite gray. Anastasiya, to her despair, is now very fat, as Marie was, round and fat to the waist, with short legs. I do hope she will grow. Olga and Tatyana are both thin, but their hair grows beautifully.

I feel utter trust and faith that all will be well, that this is the worst, and that soon the sun will be shining brightly. But oh, the victims, and the innocent blood yet to be shed! Oh, God save Russia! That is the cry of one’s soul, morning, noon, and night. Only not that shameless peace. I feel so old, oh, so old, but I am still the mother of this country, and I suffer its pains as my own child’s pains, and I love it in spite of all its sins and horrors. No one can tear a child from its mother’s heart, and neither can you tear away one’s country, although Russia’s black ingratitude to the Emperor breaks my heart. Not that it is the whole country, though. God have mercy and save Russia.

I find myself writing in English, I don’t know why. Be sure to burn all these letters. It is better. I have kept nothing of the dear past. Just burn these letters, my love, as at any time your house may be searched again.

We all kiss and bless you. May God sustain and keep you. My heart is full, but words are feeble things.

Yours, A.

P.S. I should like to send you a little food, some macaroni for instance.

Pathetic, is it not? A dethroned empress, herself a prisoner, wanting to send macaroni from Siberia. My eyes burst with pity even now. Odd this woman was, our Empress Aleksandra. So complex. As I’ve said, her greatest crimes were both her pride and her insecurity – which caused her to hold herself aloof from everyone but her husband and children – while her greatest gift was her compassion. I find it strange that such wildly different aspects could live within one soul, but then again a dog can be both black and white. I find it ironic as well that the Russian people of all classes merely wanted a tsaritsa of intense love and emotion, which was exactly their Tsaritsa Aleksandra Fyodorovna… and yet the more they disdained her, the more frightened and cold and distant she became.

Oi, such dark times were those, but over the months of captivity I shared with them, these were the Romanovs I came to know, and yes, the Romanovs I came to love. It was a captivity that grew more and more intense, from Tsarskoye Selo to Tobolsk and finally Yekaterinburg. And it was really only toward the end that I developed the clearest of pictures of the Imperial Family. I do remember in Tobolsk when one of the Tsar’s aides-de-camp, a certain General Tatischev, commented on the very same thing, how he was surprised to find the family so intimate and sweet on each other. And to this the Tsar replied with that gentle, ironic smile of his:

As my aide-de-camp over the years, you have had many such chances to observe us. Yet if you only now recognize us as we really are, how could we ever blame the newspapers for what they write of us?

A summer night in Siberia only comes with great hesitation. And that late June day was no different, for the evening passed ever so slowly. There was a brief but heavy evening shower that rode across town, a gust of cool wind, and a clear dusk that never wanted to give up the day.

That far north and that close to the summer solstice, it didn’t fall dark until shortly after eleven, yet the Imperial Family retired well before that, which was odd. Shortly after nine the Heir Tsarevich was the first to bed, followed somewhat later by the girls. Often Nikolai would sit up reading in the drawing room, or Botkin and he would play draughts, the checkered black and red board opened upon the tea table, while Aleksandra would sit at the nearby large desk, laying patience. But not that night. By ten they were making their way to bed. I was thus quietly instructed as well.

All evening long there had been much discussion, to which I was not privy, but which I could imagine. Simply: was it possible that the rescue attempt would come as early as tonight? Yes, and on the sly we were all advised to be ready to flee, for the Romanovs were determined not to abandon us, the last of their faithful. It was, of course, most gentlemanly, most old worldly, of Nikolai to decide on this course, but it certainly wasn’t practical. Seven posed a cumbersome enough problem, let alone twelve. Nevertheless, the decision came down the ranks, from Nikolai to Botkin to Trupp to Kharitonov to me.

“Sleep fully dressed,” cook whispered to me. “Be ready at any moment.”

“You mean, I should wear everything to bed?” I replied as I made my bed in the small hall between the kitchen and the dining room.

“Everything.”

“Even my shoes?”

This threw him, and he thought for a long moment. Cook Kharitonov was a master at making a meal out of nothing – wild mushrooms folded into a blanket of blini, leftover rice and cabbage tucked into the warm, doughy heart of pierogi – but a strategist of deceit he was not. For a long somber moment he pondered my question before answering.

“Nyet, that would surely attract the guards’ attention.”

“Then I’ll just have them nearby.”

“Good. But if anything starts, we’re supposed to run to their room and help barricade the door.”

“Sure.”

The electric light was extinguished, and I settled into one of the most uncomfortable, anxious nights of my life. Sure, it had cooled somewhat, but I was completely clothed down to my socks. Within moments I was broiling. I started tossing and turning, and grew all the hotter. I dared not cast aside my blanket, however, lest one of the guards make a sudden check. My mind began to spin, and so did Kharitonov’s, I could tell, for on the other side of the tiny room the large man tossed and rolled as much as I.

So how would it happen? Would a band of loyal Cossacks ride into town, hooping and hollering, screaming and shooting into the sky? Would monarchist officers appear out of the woodwork and slit the throats of the Red Guards, one by one? I tried to imagine the scenario, if our secret rescuers would first take out the machine gun positioned on the roof, next storm the house, or if they would first attack the Popov House across the alley way, killing all the reinforcements. Then again, maybe an airplane would appear out of nowhere and the pilot would lean out, take careful aim, and let drop a bomb on the Popov House, blowing all the Bolsheviki to bits. A surprise from the air like that might be best, particularly since The House of Special Purpose had been rigged with an electric warning bell to summon all the guards.