Romanov(33)

“I am here to relieve you of your post, Ivan.” When Zash met my gaze, he looked kind. Understanding. He’d heard it all. But then I remembered my bald head. Heat flooded my face. I spun on my heel and shut the door behind me. What a silly response! What did I expect? That I could hide my haircut from him for the rest of our exile?

It didn’t matter what he thought. If I told myself that enough, perhaps I’d believe it.

I leaned my back against the door, breathing hard. What was I doing confronting a soldier right outside the commandant’s office? I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. Voices drifted through the thin door.

“She’s right, you know,” Zash said quietly.

“Why shouldn’t I be kind to Maria?” Ivan argued. “Why shouldn’t I tell her she’s beautiful? Their lives are miserable. We can leave this place if we wish. We have a future outside of this rotten house. They don’t know whether they’re going to live or starve to death. I almost hope the White Army gets them out of here.”

“They are here because of the tsar and tsarina’s actions.” Zash sounded as though he was quoting a reason rather than thinking it on his own.

“Do you really believe that?”

I pressed my ear against the wood for Zash’s response. “I don’t know what to believe, Ivan. Neither side seems right to me, but this side seems safer. I am here to protect my family—to serve where our government tells me to serve. To be compliant.”

“What a disgusting way to live.” Footsteps denoted Ivan’s attempt to leave, but Zash cut him off.

“Why are you here then?”

A pause. “At first, for the money. But now . . . for Maria.” Ivan’s boot clomps faded down the stairs.

Zash wasn’t here because he supported the Bolsheviks. He was here to protect his family. But didn’t he say he had no parents? Who was he protecting? And Ivan . . .

I pushed myself off the door and found Maria. She stood in front of the small wall mirror, trying to tie a worn string of lace around her head. I stepped up beside her and knotted the lace, finishing the bow. We were almost the same height. “You are beautiful, Sister.”

Her chin quivered and her hand dropped from her head, but she gave no response. She’d always been more concerned with her appearance than the rest of us—probably because she was stocky and strong. She focused on that aspect of her build. But everyone—every relative and every male suitor—always commented how Maria was “the pretty one.” Why did her ears never hear that?

She would be turning nineteen this month. Mamma had fallen in love with Papa at age seventeen. Maria likely feared never experiencing love.

I couldn’t afford to fear or hope for love. Then I thought about Zash and how my heart desired his friendliness more than the other guards’. Exile was affecting my emotions. That frightened me.

I scratched at my dried scalp and compared my pudgy face and bulb of a head to Maria’s gentle features. I tried to imagine what Zash had seen from the top of the stairs. I thought I’d read kindness in his gaze, but had it actually been pity?

Maria turned from the mirror and shuffled the cards for bezique. My baldness did not become me. Good. It would deter Zash from getting any ideas.

I laughed quietly at myself. As if he had any ideas of attraction. I was the one stirring that pot. Still, my face flushed in embarrassment at my sickly appearance. Was it so petty to wish to be rescued—or to die—beautiful?

When I joined Maria, I looked anywhere but at her—at the cards, at the dogs scratching themselves and chewing at their backs, at Papa trimming his mustache. It felt so wrong to tell my sister that happiness was dangerous and loneliness was safe.

But if the White Army was coming, we needed to be ready to leave everything behind.

Everything.

Even people we loved.

*

The White Army was near. I could see it in the fidgeting of the guards. I could smell it in the alcohol that soaked Avdeev’s skin. Hope sat in my mouth like a pastila confectionery I couldn’t bring myself to swallow.

I’d woken to another rainy day. Suffocating from the dimness, the heat, the imprisonment, the humidity. Everyone else still slept, so I crept to the fortochka to watch the sun rise and to inhale false freedom. As I slid to the small cracked window, I half expected to see the White Army marching through the town and advancing on the Ipatiev House.

But all I saw were the sisters from the convent on their way to deliver our daily basket of goods. They did not wish for our deaths. They were nuns. They were good. They were even walking through the pouring rain to bring us food.

An idea struck me as abruptly as one of the raindrops splashing my face. I watched the sisters. I thought of my family. My hope.

And I scrambled for a piece of stationery.

Avdeev wouldn’t unseal the windows because he was afraid we’d signal people outside. All this time I’d had the small fortochka for fresh air, yet I’d never considered signaling for help or trying to send a message. If Avdeev was afraid of that, this meant that some people outside the walls were sympathetic to our cause.

What if I could somehow get a message to the White Army? What if I could tell them how many guards were here and where we were located in the house and what our routine was? They could rescue us. They could prepare adequately.

I could save my family.