Romanov(13)

Then a kiss of wood on flesh.

My fingers wrapped around the small body. I wanted to pull it free and duck back into the carriage, but this was false victory. It would be an amateur move to forget caution now. In every prank, in every move of stealth, there are two victories: the false and the true. The first and then the final. The victory of achieving your desired goal, but then the true victory of getting away with it.

Impatience was the grim reaper of all true victories.

So I paused. I forced my tired arm to lift the satchel even higher, removing any tug or weight from Yurovsky’s body. Then I slid the doll carefully out of the satchel. I slipped it up my sleeve with two fingers and then tied the satchel shut again.

By this point my body was trembling and icy, Olga was sobbing, and Alexei’s hand clawed at my knee. I lowered the satchel slowly until it rested against the carriage once more. Then I ducked inside, my auburn hair filling the sitting space like a sopping pet. Joy moved from Alexei’s lap and licked the rainwater from my cheek.

I slid the window back up, latched it, and checked my sleeve. The doll bulged against the seams.

I’d done it.

I’d located and retrieved the doll from the enemy.

I lifted my eyes to Alexei. He stared at me, his own wide and wondering, but he didn’t ask. Olga remained silent with her handkerchief pressed against her face. We didn’t speak, didn’t explain.

Alexei knew I had a purpose to my mischief. Olga had simply given up on trying to scold me.

But this time . . . this time I think she’d have been proud. Still, I didn’t tell them about the doll. If Papa had wanted them to know, he would have included them.

The bumpy ride pained Alexei more than the agonizing hours lying in bed. Olga and I spent most of the ride trying to massage his legs. All three of us exhaled relief when we arrived at the Tyumen train station. I let them exit the carriage first, then transferred the doll from my sleeve to the small space between my bosoms. I was not so endowed that my cleavage would fully conceal the item, but with my coat on no one could tell unless they embraced me. And I did not plan to embrace anyone. Least of all Yurovsky.

He made us all load our own belongings onto Special Train No. 8. We Romanov girls and Alexei were placed into a dirty third-class carriage with a group of Bolsheviks. Nothing like our Imperial Train.

Our servants and friends were loaded into the goods wagon and forced to sit on crude wooden benches. Tatiana protested once. The Bolsheviks didn’t let her protest a second time.

I sat by the window, my heartbeat hammering the wood of the Matryoshka doll. I expected Yurovsky’s hand to slip into his satchel at any moment. To notice the loss. To call a halt to our train.

“Come on,” I urged the trembling locomotive. “Bystro, bystro.”

The engine belched forth a warning whistle.

A lurch.

We inched away from the station. I could barely breathe. Yurovsky stood on the platform, arms folded, watching our departure. He would notice the lightness of his satchel soon enough. And he would know it was me when he saw his ransacked room. So when the train picked up speed and my window passed him by and his eyes met mine . . .

I winked.





4


I clung to the victory of retrieving the Matryoshka doll, wanting for the moment to think backward and not forward. But eventually my situation caught up with me. I could avoid the inevitable no longer.

Exile.

I would allow myself one day. One day to mourn the smothered hope for a quiet life, or the pardon from a trial, or the future of spell mastery.

I sat by the window, propped my chin on my hand, and unbuttoned my heart. The blurred countryside flowed in, halting my breath. It was too much—to watch the trees and fields and villages leave my view forever. Each trunk, each leaf, each pane of glass one breath farther from home. One breath closer to the unknown.

I felt, instead, that we were sitting still and the world spun beneath me. Leaving me behind and abandoning me to my fate. Farewell, Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Once the sun set, I rebuttoned my heart and closed the drapes. My new focus turned forward. I’d not mourn the lost good memories—I would apply them to my heart as a poultice every time it ached. That was what positive moments were for—to help heal the wounds of the future. As long as we chose to remember them.

Days later, we finally pulled into the Ekaterinburg station. My spirit hung like a soggy garment on a drooping clothesline. The train sat in the station for almost twenty hours. It was cold and frosty, and snow covered the ground. I shivered down to my very marrow until morning finally came.

Bolsheviks collected us, but they did not allow the kind soldiers from Tobolsk off the train. The Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks wore leather jackets and all carried weapons. I checked the cloth buttons on my dark coat to make sure each was fastened. The downpour still got through.

Each of us girls carried our own heavy valises across the muddy road to the open-carriage droshkies. Tatiana had her suitcase in one hand and her black French bulldog, Ortipo, under the other arm. Poor pup looked half-squished, half-drenched. One of our servants—a sailor named Nagorny—carefully carried Alexei to a droshky.

Mud soaked into my valenki boots, despite their leather soles, but I didn’t complain and I didn’t ask for help. A few people had gathered at the station to gawk at us. Their cold curiosity added to the frigidity in the air, but nothing could dispel our eagerness and excitement to see our parents. I couldn’t restrain my smile even beneath absurd weather conditions.