Danielle Steel - Zoya

CHAPTER

26

They buried her in the Russian cemetery outside Paris, and Zoya stood silently beside Prince Vladimir, and a handful of people who had known Evgenia. She hadn't been close to any of them. Her years in Paris had been spent mostly with Zoya, and she had no patience with the complaints and depressing memories of the other émigrés. She was occupied with the present and not obsessed with the past.

She died on the sixth of January, 1919 in the tiny apartment, the same day Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep, and Zoya sat staring out the window, stroking Sava.

It was impossible to absorb the events of the past few days, more incredible still to think of a life without her grandmother. She was still amazed by the imperial egg her grandmother had concealed for almost two years, and the money Clayton had given her when he left. It would be enough for her to live on for the next year, if she lived carefully, and for the first time in years, she had no desire to dance now. She never wanted to see the ballet again, never wanted to do anything again. She just wanted to sit there with her dog and die quietly. And then she thought guiltily of how angry her grandmother would be at her for those thoughts. Her grandmother had been committed not to death, but to life.

She lived quietly for a week without seeing anyone, and she looked thinner and very pale, when Vladimir knocked on her door. He looked quiet and strained, and he was obviously worried about her, and she was startled when she saw that there was someone standing just behind him in the dark hall when she opened the door. Perhaps he'd brought the doctor to check on her, but she didn't want to see anyone, and the doctor least of all. She was wearing black wool stockings and a black dress, her red hair pulled severely back in sharp contrast to her ivory face.

“Yes?” Vladimir hesitated as he spoke. He had almost been afraid to bring him there, afraid the shock would be too great for her, but he knew that they had to come. “Hello, Vladimir.” Without saying a word, he stepped aside, and she gasped as she saw Pierre Gilliard behind him.

His eyes filled with tears as he looked at her, it seemed a thousand years since they'd last met on the day she left Tsarskoe Selo. He took a step toward her and she fell into his arms. And then she looked up at him, begging him, barely able to speak through her sobs.

“Have they come at last?” Gilliard was the tutor the imperial daughters had studied with all their lives, and Zoya knew he had gone to Siberia with them, but unable to speak, he only shook his head in answer.

“No …” he answered finally. “No … they have not… ” She waited for more news from him, and feeling her body turn to stone, she walked inside to the ugly living room, as he followed her. He looked thin and worn, and desperately pale. Vladimir left them alone then. He closed the door softly as he went, and with head bowed, walked slowly down the stairs to his taxi.

“Are they all right?” Her heart pounded as she waited for Pierre Gilliard to speak, and as they faced each other in chairs, he reached out and took her hands in his own. Hers were like tiny icebergs, as Gilliard began speaking.

“I have only just now come from Siberia … I had to be certain before I came … We left them in Ekaterinburg in June. They told us we had to leave.” It was as though he wanted to apologize, but all she wanted to hear was that Mashka and the others were all right. She sat in stunned silence, amazed just to see him there, as she clung to him with her icy hands trembling.

“You weren't there then when … when Nicholas …” She could not bring herself to say the words to him, but he understood and miserably shook his head.

“Gibbes and I had to leave … but we went back again, in August. They let us into the house, but there was no one there, mademoiselle.” He couldn't bring himself to tell her what they'd found, the bullet holes, and the pale traces of washed blood. “They told us they had moved them somewhere else, but Gibbes and I feared the worst.” She waited for the rest with a pounding heart, sure that there would be a happy end to it. After all this time, there had to be. Life surely couldn't be so cruel as to let the Bolsheviks kill the people she loved so much … one frail little boy, and four girls who had been her cousins and friends and their mother who loved them. It was bad enough that their father had died. It couldn't possibly get any worse than that. She watched his face as he went on, he closed his eyes, and fought back tears. He was still exhausted from the trip, and he had arrived in Paris only the night before, determined to see her.

“We arrived back in Ekaterinburg on Alexis's birthday, but they were gone by then,” he sighed. “We've been there ever since. I was certain, even when I saw the bullet holes in the house, that they were still alive.”

She felt her heart stop and stared at him. “Bullet holes. Did they shoot Nicky there in front of the children?”

“They killed Nagorny three days before … he tried to stop a soldier from stealing Alexis's medals. The Tsarevich must have been heartbroken, he'd been with him all his life.” Faithful Nagorny, who had refused to abandon them. Was there no end to it?

“In the middle of July the Bolsheviks told them that their relatives were going to try and rescue them and they had to be moved before their whereabouts could be discovered.” Zoya thought of Mashka's letters before that, telling her where they were. But who was it who tried to save them? “The bloody revolution had been raging since June, it was almost impossible to go anywhere. But they got them up at midnight and told them to dress.” His voice caught and Zoya clutched his hands so tightly, they ached, as his eyes reached into hers, two people left on a deserted island, the others gone … but where? She waited for the rest without saying a word. Soon, soon he would tell her that they were on their way to Paris. “They went downstairs, the Empress, Nicholas, and the children … Anastasia still had Jimmy with her,” Alexis's little spaniel, Pierre Gilliard began to cry again at the thought of it,” … and Joy …” Sava whined as though she knew her mother's name and he went on,”… The Tsarevich could no longer walk by then, he had been very ill …. They told them to dress and took them to the basement to wait for transportation … Nicholas had them bring chairs for Alexandra, and Alexis, and he was …” He could barely go on,“… he was holding him, Zoya, across his lap, when they came in … he was holding him when they opened fire.” She felt her heart turn to stone, it must have been the moment when they killed Nicholas, but Gilliard sobbed as he went on. “They shot them all, Zoya Konstantinovna … they opened fire on all of them, only Alexis lived a little longer than the rest of them, they beat his head in with rifle butts as he clutched his father … and then they murdered little Jimmy. Anastasia had fainted and when she screamed, they killed her with bayonets, and then,” he went on as Zoya cried silently, unable to believe what he told her. “They put them all into a mine, and covered them with acid … they are gone, little Zoya … gone … all of them … even poor, sweet Baby.” Zoya took him in her arms then and held him there as he cried. Even now, months later, he himself was unable to believe it. “We found Joy, one of the solders had taken her in, she was almost starved when they found her near the mine … crying for the children she loved. And oh, Zoya, no one will ever know how dear they were, or how much we loved them.”

“… Oh, God … oh, God … my poor little Mashka … murdered with rifles and bayonets … how frightened she must have been. …”