The Secret Wife(107)

I could hear the men drinking next door, their voices becoming increasingly raucous, and I wondered when Yurovsky, the commander of the guards, would arrive. I would appeal to him to return me to my family immediately. When Anton opened the door he laughed a truly evil laugh, and I could feel how much he despised me. All those times I spoke haughtily and reprimanded him had sown a deep hatred and now he wanted his vengeance. He hit me hard across the face, knocking me backwards onto the bed, then he fell on top of me, ripped at my clothes, and violated me. The pain was indescribable, his rancid smell utterly repulsive, but worst of all was the thought of Malama, my husband, and what it would do to him if he ever found out that his precious wife was no longer pure. I can’t bear for him ever to know.





16th July, Tuesday


While Anton slept I crept up and tried the door, but it was locked and there were no windows. I could feel blood between my legs where he had ripped me open and a dull ache in my belly as if he had damaged something deep within. I could see from a chink beneath the door that it was dawn outside and worried myself sick thinking about poor Yelena, the cleaner. If I could not get back to the house that morning, she would be stuck inside and my family would be terrified for my safety. Why had Anton not taken me there? Did Yurovsky know of my escape? For all that he was unsympathetic to our plight, I could not believe he had condoned this brutal attack. Anton must have planned this on his own and persuaded his two cronies to help.

I decided that when he woke, I would be nice, pretend to like him, and try to persuade him that I would tell no one if he would just take me back to the house. I had worked the rag off my mouth by now although my hands were still tied and as soon as he woke I spoke kindly, using terms of endearment. My attempts did not persuade him for one moment, though. He violated me again then tied me securely, feet as well as hands, before leaving. The hovel fell silent. I rolled to the door and nudged it with my shoulder but it wouldn’t budge. I knew Malama would be looking for me and couldn’t bear to think of his distress. What would he do? Where would he turn?

I tried everything I could think of to get free during those long hours, pulling and twisting my ankles and wrists until they were bleeding. I was raked by savage thirst and when I drifted into sleep I dreamed of cool, clear mountain lakes and woke even thirstier than before. The light faded and now it was night again, with no chink of light coming from the outside. Anton and his friends returned and I realised this must be the house where they slept.



He was drunk when he barged in, swinging a lantern that made me blink. And then he said the most hateful words in the world: ‘Your family are all dead and it’s your fault. By trying to escape you signed their death warrants and tonight the executions were carried out. How does that make you feel?’

He tore the rag from my mouth, wanting to hear my reaction, and I screamed as hard as I could from deep down inside and only stopped screaming when Anton hit me on the head and knocked me unconscious.





17th July, Wednesday


The next morning when I awoke, Anton had brought me a glass of water but I knocked it over. I wouldn’t take anything from him. ‘We are going to make a little trip today,’ he said. ‘I thought you would like to see where your family died before you join them.’ And it may sound strange but I was comforted by this. I believed him when he told me they were dead and all I wanted was to join them in the hereafter, the sooner the better. ‘You must behave as I tell you when we reach the house,’ he said, ‘or else I shall bring you back to this place and keep you here as my slave to use as I wish. Remember that.’ He wrapped me in a long cloak with a hood, which was stifling in the summer heat, then we rode through the streets until I could see the Ipatiev House. My heart was beating hard. Might Malama be somewhere nearby looking for me? Might Anton have been playing a trick and my family were still alive?

The guards were not at their usual posts but two of them were sweeping the yard, backwards and forwards in a scrubbing motion. Anton took me in through a side door and down a flight of steps that led to the basement. Twenty-three steps, I counted. ‘This is where it happened,’ he whispered, and straight away I could smell the salty metallic scent of blood. It turned my stomach. Anton had his arm through mine and dragged me along to a storeroom and as soon as I saw it I felt faint. Someone had tried to clean up but there was so much blood that their efforts had only served to smear it across the floor, up the walls. In places it had congealed into dark lakes. ‘This is where they died,’ Anton told me. ‘Your mama had a chair in the middle here’ – he stood on the spot – ‘and little Alexei beside her.’ My knees were collapsing and I leaned back on a wall as Anton demonstrated where each one had stood. I could feel their presence in the room and sense their terror, their screams. And then he told me that the girls had been slow to die so they were slashed with bayonets. And he showed me the slash marks in the floor, the bullet holes in the wall, and there was a buzzing sound in my ears. I must have collapsed because suddenly I was lying in the blood and it was all over me. The blood of my parents, the blood of my sisters, my baby brother.



Anton took out a gun. ‘Brace yourself,’ he said, pressing it into the back of my head, ‘because now you will join them.’ I prayed that he would hurry up, then I prayed that Malama would have a good life without me, then I prayed for the souls of my family, but still the shot did not come. I opened my eyes. Anton was leering down with sadistic enjoyment. ‘Perhaps I will not kill you yet,’ he sneered. ‘No one knows you are still alive so no one will seek you. I will keep you for a few more nights, until I get bored of you.’ I froze at his words. The thought of going back to that room was abhorrent.