Romanov(4)

I picked it up. “Did you know Dostoevsky was exiled to Tobolsk for a time?” I held out the book. “It would be a bad omen to leave him behind.”

“Then you can bring the book when you join us.”

I screwed up my face, not caring that pouting was far beneath the maturity I should be showing as a sixteen-year-old princess. Well, ex-princess. “Whenever that might be.”

“We will see each other again, shvibzik.”

Her use of my pet name—“imp” in Russian—did nothing to ease my building dread. “You must write to me.”

“If they will let me.” Maria’s hands stilled. She leaned over the valise as though curling in pain.

“You need only smile at them and they’ll let you do whatever you wish.” I shoved parchment into the bottom of the valise, filling the role of the strong one. That was how we sisters worked. When one was weak, another picked up the strength. “You and Papa will befriend these Bolsheviks as you have the soldiers here in Tobolsk. Papa may have abdicated the throne, but we are still royalty. We are Romanovs. The bond of our hearts—”

“—spans miles, memory, and time,” Maria finished.

Our beloved Russia had filled the people’s heads with propaganda—painting Papa as a weak, careless tsar who discarded Russian soldiers’ lives. That was proof they didn’t know Papa at all. Our only defense was to show the Bolsheviks otherwise. Since arriving in Tobolsk, we’d grown to love our guards. I believe they grew to love us, too—or at least to see us as we truly were. Not as the revolution painted us.

But things were changing. We were separating. Though the people had overthrown Papa, the Bolsheviks had now overthrown the provisional government. Vladimir Lenin was in charge of Russia, and no one knew what he’d do. I was afraid. Our voices were losing power.

No one could outshout a revolution.

Maria clicked the valise closed. “Alexei feels this separation is his fault.”

I flopped backward onto my cot, staring up at the chipped paint on the ceiling. “Fault lies with the Bolsheviks. If they would simply acknowledge that we’re no threat to our beloved Russia, we could go live in peace in a small village somewhere.”

“That’s what this trial will finally decide.”

*

No one slept that night.

We took in the dawn with tired, red eyes and wilted wills. Olga—the mother of our sibling group at age twenty-two—went to check on Alexei. Tatiana spent the morning with Papa, gathering any last information she might need for dealing with the Bolsheviks. Maria and I had a breakfast of silence in our bedroom. A single word would break the dam holding back the tears. We needed to be strong today.

Maria hoisted her valise off the bed with one hand. I didn’t offer to help—I was born with all the mischief and she with all the muscles. We made our way to the entrance, where my emotional armor threatened to crumble. My family formed two lines on the entry rug.

Those who were leaving: Papa, Mamma, and then Maria.

Those who were being left behind: Olga, Tatiana, myself, and Alexei sitting in his wooden wheelchair and wrapped in a blanket so thick I could barely see his face beneath his mop of copper-colored hair.

All of us had to say good-bye.

A third line of bodies watched our farewells. Tobolsk soldiers. Papa went down the line and shook their hands. Every man looked somber—as though equally distraught to see Papa leaving. He handed out a few cigarettes and laughed about a recent card game with one of them.

Near the door stood a clump of Bolsheviks. The ones taking Papa away. I paid them no mind. This was our moment. My gaze met Papa’s. His eyes shone with the same heartache currently shredding my innards.

I hugged Mamma good-bye first. Then I faced Maria. She wept openly, which guaranteed that my eyes stayed dry. “You must write to me, too, Nastya.”

I hugged her stocky frame. “You will have to write first and tell me where you are staying.”

I approached Papa last. He crushed me to him and pressed his face into my neck. Never had I received such an endearing embrace from him. A sob broke free—shattering my resolve. “Ya tebya lublu.”

“I love you, too, shvibzik.” He did not remind me about the doll. I did not mention it.

“Take care of Alexei,” Mamma implored as Papa steered her away from her line of children she might never see again. “And take care of our secret,” was what she didn’t say. Even now, amidst fear and separation, we were to keep Alexei’s genetic illness hidden.

Alexei, though currently too weak to rise from his chair, piped up. “Perhaps I shall be the one taking care of my sisters.”

We all grasped on to the weak attempt at humor. It filled me with enough strength to watch Papa, Mamma, and Maria walk away into the crisp April air. Alexei shivered, and a word barely escaped my lips before the servants steered his chair back to his room.

Mamma had looked at me when she bid us to take care of him. Like me, she had been the second youngest. Her own brother had suffered from hemophilia. But hers had died.

Mine would not.

Even though Olga and Tatiana had tended soldiers during the war and gained healing knowledge, the bond between Alexei and me brought the true healing he needed.

I entered his room just as he drew a sleeve across his eyes. Dr. Botkin took Alexei’s pulse. He squinted at his pocket watch through his round glasses, his balding head shining beneath the single electric lamp. Alexei showed no shame over his tears. His weakness banished mine. I would be strong again.