Robert Alexander - The Kitchen Boy

Some have written that it was the morning of the sixteenth that I was taken away, others the afternoon, but, no, it was that evening, just after dinner. Of course it was after dinner. I was washing the dishes in the kitchen when in came the guard, the young one with the blond beard, who was one of the few who’d survived the recent change in komendanti .

“The komendant requires you.”

I all but panicked. “Wh-what?”

“Follow me.”

Bozhe moi! My God! My first thought was the note, that I had been found out, and I all but dropped the dish in the metal tub. Too scared to say anything, I turned to cook Kharitonov, who stood stirring tomorrow’s soup on the oil stove.

He stared at me, wiped his hands on his apron. “Well, go on, boy.”

Demidova, the maid, came in just then, a stack of soiled plates in hand, and seeing the odd scene, asked, “Has something happened?”

“Leonka has been summoned by the komendant ,” explained Kharitonov with a shrug.

I pulled my hands from the dishwater and dried them on a towel. Was I to be interrogated? I was so afraid, so scared, but said nothing.

“Come,” ordered the guard.

Trembling, I looked at Kharitonov and Demidova, yet knew I had no choice but to go, not realizing that my fate – life! – would be worse than anything I could yet imagine. And so I left the Imperial Family without the slightest farewell, which in turn has left my entire life incomplete. I followed the guard from the kitchen, through the back hall and out another door into the front of the house. He led me right into the komendant’ s room, where Yurovsky himself sat at the table, drinking his evening tea. I expected to be given quite a dressing down, but instead Yurovsky spoke quite calmly and evenly, not a trace of suspicion in that unpleasant voice of his.

“You are being removed from this house, young man. You are to follow this guard outside and through the gates. He will escort you to the Popov House, where you are to remain until further notified. Is that clear?”

This was the last thing I had expected, and I struggled to understand, struggled to make sense of this, and asked, “But… but why?”

“You are to wait for your uncle, who will come for you. He will then escort you back to your hometown.”

Although I had no idea at the time, this was a lie, a very clean lie, and I said, “But… but, Comrade Komendant, what about…?”

“Your services are no longer required.”

“What about my things?” I asked, though I had but few possessions.

“One of the guards will bring them to you.”

“May… may I say good-bye to the family and others?”

Yurovsky slurped at his tea. “ Nyet .” And then to the guard, he imperiously ordered, “Take the boy away.”

I was thus herded out of The House of Special Purpose, too scared, too confused, to question or protest. What did this mean, that Yurovsky hadn’t found the note after all? That I wasn’t suspect? That I was really dismissed and was being sent home to Tula province? I knew the times, how difficult and hateful they were, and so I kept my mouth shut as I was escorted out of the house, down the outside steps, and through the double palisade. But, oh, how I wish I could have said good-bye, at least that, yet there was no way. Even then I understood. I was helpless, powerless, and as I followed the guard along the edge of Ascension Square and down the little lane to the Popov House, I realized that protest was as useless as… as trying to strip a naked man.

So I had no choice. I left. I was taken to the Popov House, where all the outside guards were billeted, shown a cot in a side room, and ordered not to leave. Years later, when all the books started coming out and the archives were opened, I learned how much my disappearance disturbed the family. Even Yurovsky commented on this, later writing:

… the boy was taken away, which very much upset the R-ovs and their people.

So they were fond of me, more than I could have ever imagined. Apparently they thought of me as one of their own, and Aleksandra herself was so concerned when I was taken away that she sent Dr. Botkin to speak with Yurovsky, who in turn recorded this conversation as well.

“But what about the boy,” asked the good doctor. “Where is he? When is he coming back? His father is at the front, and Nikolai Aleksandrovich and his wife feel very responsible for him.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” replied Yurovsky, calming him down with another of his easy lies. “Leonka is visiting his Uncle Vanya.”

By then, of course, Uncle Vanya was already long dead, killed Bolshevik style, that is, shot in the back of the head like a mad dog and dumped in a ditch.

Later, while her parents were playing cards, Grand Duchess Maria apparently went to the komendant as well, pleading, “Can you tell us, sir, if Leonka will be returning yet tonight?”

“He will not.”

“Then tomorrow morning perhaps?”

“Perhaps…”

I sat terrified in my new quarters until one of the guards brought me my few things, whereupon I finally lay down. I curled up, using my jacket as a blanket, but of course I couldn’t close my eyes, couldn’t succumb to the lingering twilight of the Siberian night. And while the billeted guards were laughing and drinking in the other room of the Popov House, I crawled out of bed and went to the window. Across the alley and up the slight hill, The House of Special Purpose, massive and white, sat entirely dark, save for one window. It was the front room, that of the Emperor and Empress, and the limed panes glowed like a moon behind a slight veil of clouds. It was in that room and about at that time that Aleksandra Fyodorovna sat at the small writing desk, recording her simple last words in her diary:

Yekaterinburg 16 JULY

Irina’s 23rd B.D.

11°C Tuesday

Grey morning, later lovely sunshine. Baby has a slight cold. All went out 1/2 hour in the morning, Olga and I arranged our medicines.

3:00 Tatyana read Spir. Readings.3. They went out, T. stayed with me & we read: Book of the Pr. Amos & Pr. Obadiah. Tatted. Every morning the komend. comes to our rooms, at last after a week brought eggs again for Baby.

8:00 Supper.

Suddenly Leonka Sednyov was fetched to go & see his Uncle & flew off – wonder whether it’s true & we shall see the boy back again!

Played bezique with Nicky.

10:30 to bed. 15 degrees.

Not quite two hours later the sound of a simple electric bell signaled the beginning of the end.

Even though I had been removed from The House of Special Purpose, I have read so many eyewitness accounts and studied so many documents, that in my mind’s eye I can picture it all as if it were a movie. We know, for example, that by eleven o’clock Nikolai was asleep, having escaped into the depth of darkness, for sleep was his only refuge from depression. And I am certain that Aleksandra, who had been sleeping so poorly, was tossing and turning next to him, madly listening for that midnight whistle that was never to be heard. Otherwise, we know that the only other prisoner who was awake was Dr. Botkin, who sat at the large desk off the living room, writing a prophetic letter to some friend, a certain Sasha. Botkin never finished the letter, of course; it languishes in the Moscow archives, exactly where the doctor broke off…

My dear, good friend Sasha,

I am making a last attempt at writing a real letter – at least from here – although that qualification, I believe is utterly superfluous. I do not think that I was fated at any time to write anyone from anywhere. My voluntary confinement here is restricted less by time than by my earthly existence. In essence I am dead – dead for my children, for my work… I am dead but not yet buried, or buried alive – whichever, the consequences are nearly identical… My children may hold out hope that we will see each other again in this life… but I personally do not indulge in that hope… and I look the unadulterated reality right in the eye… The day before yesterday, as I was peacefully reading Saltykov-Shchedrin, whom I greatly enjoy, I suddenly saw a vision of my son Yuri’s face, Yuri who died in battle in 1914. He was dead, lying in a horizontal position, his eyes closed. Then yesterday, again while reading, I suddenly heard a word that sound like Papulya – dear Papa – and I nearly burst into sobs. Again, this is not a hallucination because the word was pronounced, the voice was identical, and I did not doubt for an instant that my daughter, Tatyana, who was supposed to be in Tobolsk, was talking to me. I will probably never hear that voice so dear or feel that touch so dear with which my little children have so spoiled me. If faith without works is dead, then deeds can live without faith. This vindicates my last decision. When I unhesitatingly orphaned my own children to carry out my physician’s duty to the end, as Abraham did not hesitate at God’s demand to sacrifice his only son-