Romanov(42)

The automobile sprayed gravel as it stopped. The young, round-faced man who got out glanced our direction and then strode toward us, purposeful. Beloborodov—the chair of the Ural Regional Soviet.

A surprise inspection.

I pushed myself from the wall of the house and joined Papa to meet the entourage. Papa held out his hand, but Beloborodov did not shake it, nor did he address Papa at all. Instead, he marched past until he stood before Zash. “Where is your commandant, soldier?”

Zash bowed sharply. “Inside, sir.”

Beloborodov surveyed the garden with narrowed eyes. “Where are the other prisoners?”

I spun to look, just as Zash did. Papa, Tatiana, Alexei, and I stood in a small clump on the edge of the garden.

“My wife is in bed, ill,” Papa said. “And my eldest daughter is tending to her.”

Beloborodov did not acknowledge that he had spoken. Instead, his scan stopped on the copse of trees holding the swing and his eyes turned to slits. Between the trees, in the back corner of the palisade, I caught movement.

My heart plummeted.

Maria.

Beloborodov stalked across the garden. It took a moment for me to recover the use of my legs, but once I did I stumbled after him, my mind sprinting far beyond the reach of my strides. I wanted to scream at Maria to come out of the trees. To hide herself. To separate herself from Ivan. That was the only reason she would still be in those trees.

But I couldn’t squeeze out a word.

I rounded the tree mere seconds after Beloborodov to see Maria in a tight embrace with Ivan. Sharing a kiss. In a different life, a different situation, it would be sweet. There was nothing unseemly about it. Just a gentle sweetness.

“Maria!” I gasped—a warning, not a reprimand.

She and Ivan jumped apart and their eyes went straight to Beloborodov. Ivan paled and Maria’s eyes widened. Papa arrived beside me, Zash at his side. I took Papa’s hand. He squeezed mine tight.

Zash’s mouth was a thin, grim line. He met my eyes and the resignation in his sent my stomach twisting. A crunch of footsteps announced Commandant Avdeev’s arrival.

Beloborodov let the silence stretch out. No one dared break it. Then in a deadly voice, he said, “Girl, return to your father.” His eyes remained on Ivan.

Maria, trembling, slunk to Papa. He did not embrace her. Instead, he took one of her arms and steered her back toward the house. I wasn’t sure what to do. Follow? Stay?

Beloborodov jerked his head toward me. “See them back to their rooms.”

Zash was the soldier to obey. As he escorted me after Papa, Beloborodov asked Commandant Avdeev, “Who is this traitor?”

“Ivan Skorokhodov, sir,” Ivan responded. “I am no traitor. These prisoners are no danger to our country—”

Metal on leather preceded the cock of a pistol. I spun, but Zash dragged me on, his fingers pinching into my muscles. Maria, too, peered over her shoulder and seemed to see something in Ivan’s grim gaze that I couldn’t.

“Ivan,” she gasped. “Ivan!” She fought Papa and Zash rushed forward to hold her. She thrashed, fighting the tangle of arms. “Ivan! Ivan!” A wild, terrorized thing. I’d never seen her like this. So desperate.

It was as though Ivan was the last of her hope being torn from her.

One of the Bolsheviks who had arrived with Beloborodov stepped away from his post by the automobile and slapped Maria. Papa pressed the soldier away with a single hand. The soldier lifted his gun, but Zash stepped between them. With a mighty force he grabbed Papa’s arm in one hand, Maria’s arm in the other, and dragged them both inside.

I ran after them, feeling as though there was not enough air in the world to calm my lungs. Through all of Maria’s screaming and clawing and desperation, Ivan never said a word.

Moments before I rounded the corner to enter the house, I glanced back. Ivan still stared after us. Our eyes met. In that moment, I saw what Maria had seen: a crinkle-eyed, freckle-skinned farewell.

“Nastya.” Zash returned to the base of the stairs. He held his hand out. “Please.” He sounded broken.

I took his hand and he tugged me inside.

The gunshot followed.





16


The gunshot ricocheted in my skull like a never-ending echo.

Dead. They had shot Ivan.

Zash barely made it up the stairs to the landing before he fell against the wall and lifted a trembling hand to cover his anguished face. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t process.

Maria’s screaming smashed through the walls until it entered every ear in Russia. But Zash’s fall to his knees was the final blow that splintered my composure.

I dropped to my knees in front of him, weeping through my own confusion and shock. I pulled him into a tight embrace and he clung to me with one arm. I sent what comfort I could.

It lasted a mere second. A short, shuddering gasp, and then he shoved himself back up. “I . . . I can’t,” he croaked, taking gulping breaths. “He’ll come.” With a grimace he pulled me to my feet. “You . . .”

I nodded and forced my muscles to support me. “I understand.” I squeezed his hand, so tight it likely pained him. But sometimes comfort needed to sting more than the sorrow for it to break into the grief.

We separated and I entered our prison. Zash needed to be a Bolshevik today. Otherwise he’d be the next one with a bullet in his head. I’d given what solace I could.