Danielle Steel: Granny Dan

The porter carried her bags downstairs for her, and the two trunks she was taking for him as well, and she felt like a child leaving home forever, as the door closed softly behind her.

“I promise you, Danina, I'll come soon, no matter what the situation here. Nothing will stop me.” He read her mind and reassured her in the car on the way to the ship. It made her feel sick with worry to leave him, especially knowing he'd be traveling to Siberia with the Czar and Czarina and their children, and then back to St. Petersburg again.

He helped her board the ship, and settled her into the cabin. She was to share it with another woman, but she hadn't arrived yet, and Danina chose the bunk she wanted. But she barely left Nikolai's side and was suddenly dreading the crossing, and said so. Without him, she would be desperately lonely, and constantly afraid for him.

“I'll miss you too,” he said, smiling lovingly at her. “Every moment. Take good care of yourself, my darling. I'll be there in no time.” She walked back up to the deck with him when the boat horn sounded to warn visitors to go ashore, and he stood holding her for a long moment. It no longer mattered to either of them who saw them. In their own eyes, they were man and wife. “I love you. Remember that. I'll come as soon as I can. Give my love to our cousin. He's a bit dull, but very kind. You'll like him.”

“I'm going to miss you dreadfully,” Danina said, with tears in her eyes, unable to hold them back.

“I know,” he said softly, “so will I.” He kissed her long and hard then as the boat horn sounded for the last time, and they began to remove the gangplanks.

“Let me stay with you,” she said breathlessly in his arms, trying suddenly to convince him. “I don't want to leave you. Perhaps they'd let me come to Siberia with you.” She would have done anything to stay with him.

“They'd never let you, Danina, you know that.” He didn't want to tell her it was dangerous, but that was not a secret to them either. He wanted her safe in Vermont now, no matter how much he wanted to be with her.

“Just remember how much I love you,” he reminded her. “Remember that until I join you. I love you more than anything in life, Danina Petroskova….”It was the last time he would ever call her that. They had already agreed that in Vermont she would use his name, Obrajensky, so no one would ever know they weren't married.

“I love you so much, Nikolai.” And as she said it, instinctively she touched her locket. It was there, safely at her neck, beneath her sweater.

“I'll see you soon,” he promised for a last time, kissed her quickly, and then hurried down the last gangplank, as she went to the rail and watched him leap to the dock and stand there, watching her.

“I love you!” she shouted. “Be careful!!” She waved at him and he waved back, mouthing “I love you” at her. And moments later, the big ship began to move slowly from the dock as she felt her heart pound, and wondered why she had been stupid enough to let him convince her to leave without him. Everything about it felt wrong to her, but she knew she had to be brave now, for his sake. They had been through so much together, she could do just a little more, let him finish his work here, give his last to the Imperial family, and then join her in Vermont, to begin their life together as man and wife.

She waved to him until she could barely see him anymore. He was still standing there, waving at her, tall and proud and strong, the man who had won her heart two years before, and whom she knew she would love forever.

“I love you, Nikolai,” she whispered into the wind, and then stood there for a long time, with tears running down her cheeks, thinking of him and holding her locket. She wasn't even sure why she was crying. He was right. They had so much to look forward to, so much to be thankful for, so much waiting for them in Vermont. It was all beginning. She had no reason to cry, except that in a place in her heart she was desperately afraid that she had just seen him for the last time. But there was no reason to think that. It was foolish, she told herself, as she looked up at the sky and saw the last gulls flying past. She could not lose him now. It could not happen. And with a sigh, and a last glance at her homeland, thinking of him, she walked slowly down to her cabin. She could not lose Nikolai, she told herself. No matter what happened to them, she would always love him, there was no way they could lose each other now.

Epilogue

The answers, as they always are, were right in my backyard. I had the letters translated, and they were all love letters from Nikolai Obrajen-sky to my grandmother. They covered a span of time, and told a story that touched my heart, almost as much as it had touched hers for a lifetime. The letters explained it all very clearly.

The rest I learned from two of her friends, neighbors, when I went back to Vermont the following summer to see the house, and spend a week there with my children and my husband.

I found the Czarina's gowns in a trunk in the attic, and never knew they had been there. They were still in the same trunk she had brought them in, they were all faded, and the ermine was yellow, and more than sixty years past their time, they looked like costumes. I was surprised I had never found them in my childhood forays, but the trunk was old and battered, and hidden in a corner of the attic. His trunks were there as well still, two of them, neatly labeled DR. NIKOLAI OBRAJENSKY. She had never had the heart to unpack them once she arrived in Vermont.

The programs from the ballet had new meaning for me now, the photographs of her with the other dancers. And the toe shoes seemed somehow sacred. I had never realized how important they were to her. I knew she had danced, but had somehow never understood what she had given of herself to do that. I tried to explain it to my children, and their eyes grew wide when I told them the story. And when I showed Katie the toe shoes, and told her they'd been Granny Dan's, she leaned over and kissed them. It would have made my grandmother smile to see that.

And just as she had feared when she set sail in September 1917, she never saw Nikolai again. He went to Tobolsk, in Siberia, with the Imperial family, as he'd promised to, and got trapped there. After that, he was no longer allowed to leave, and remained under house arrest with them. His devotion to them had ultimately cost him his freedom, and in July 1 g 18, he was executed with them. A brief letter from a name I didn't recognize informed her of it four weeks later. I can only imagine what reading that letter must have done to her. And I sobbed all these years later, when I read the translation. She must have felt as though she would die without him.

But before he had died, his last letter had warned her that there was talk of an execution. Cruel as it may have seemed at the time, he had tried to prepare her. He sounded surprisingly cheerful actually, and strong, and had told her that she must go on, that she must find happiness in her new life, and remember him, and their love, with joy and not sorrow. He told her he had been married to her in his heart since they'd met, and she had given him the happiest years of his life, and his only regret was not leaving with her. She must have known that day, that she would never see him again. And yet, destiny could not be altered. Neither his, nor hers. She was destined for another life, with all of us, in a place so far from the life she had shared with him. And he was not destined to be with her.

Her father and remaining brother were killed at the end of the war. And Madame Markova died of pneumonia two years after my grandmother last saw her. She lost them all, one by one, irrevocably, lost everything, a life, a country, a career, a handful of precious people … the man she loved, her family, and the dancing she had loved so much before that.