The Secret Wife(110)
‘I’m glad he had another family. He deserved to be happy.’
‘We were. The three of us had a good life. I hope Tatiana found happiness too.’
Kitty wondered about that. She knew little about Dmitri’s life in America, never mind his time with Irena. ‘I hope so too. But I wonder about the body found near his cabin. If it is her, and he was not responsible for the death – which sounds unlikely given how much they loved each other – then why would he not report it to the authorities in the normal way?’ She guessed the answer as she spoke but it was Hana who said it out loud.
‘Do you remember the furore over the bones of Romanov imposters? Anna Tschaikovsky’s remains were exhumed for further DNA tests several years after she died. I imagine he didn’t want that for Tatiana. It’s a shame it is happening now …’
Kitty was quiet. Hana had said the decision about whether to expose the truth was in her hands. Did she want them testing these bones? Or should she ask that they be buried in her great-grandfather’s grave and let the two of them rest in peace? It was a tricky decision.
The next morning a friend of Hana’s, a woman called Erika who looked roughly the same age, came to take them out in her car. When she arrived, she kissed Hana on the lips and Kitty realised they were lovers, although they did not announce it.
Erika drove them out to the karst lands and they caught a cable car over lush forested slopes down into a spectacular gorge with a river splashing through. They toured a collapsed cavern known as the Macocha Abyss, then some caves with elaborate stalactites and stalagmites, like spooky pointing fingers. There was a sense of ancient history that went back millions of years, long before the existence of man, and Kitty loved the otherworldly atmosphere.
As they walked around the footpaths of the gorge they talked a little more about Tatiana and Dmitri and Kitty realised Erika knew the story.
‘I admire the fact that she was able to adapt to being a farmer’s wife after an upbringing of such wealth and grandeur,’ Erika said. ‘Hana tells me she did the heaviest farm work without complaint.’
‘Did she never consider trying to reclaim any of the Romanov fortune?’ Kitty asked.
‘Oh, no,’ Hana replied. ‘Once, when they had financial difficulties, Vaclav travelled to Prague to sell some jewels she had smuggled out of Russia and so many questions were asked that he ran away. In the end he sold them to a black marketeer who did not question their provenance, but he probably got far less than they were worth.’
‘She said she never wanted to be a royal,’ Erika added. ‘She liked a simple life.’
‘And your father: didn’t he want to be rich?’ Kitty asked Hana.
‘Never! Money had no importance for him.’ Hana laughed. ‘He was a wise man.’
‘Do you think the story would be worth a lot of money now?’ Erika asked Kitty.
‘Probably,’ she agreed, ‘but Hana and I have been discussing it and I’m not sure either of us wants to be in the media spotlight.’
‘But you are a journalist, are you not?’ Erika asked.
Kitty liked these honest, down-to-earth women and in answer to their questions she told them about her decision to change career and work as a carpenter. ‘There are plenty of journalists in the world, talented writers with drive and ambition, and I’m just not one of them. But I’m proud of the work I did on Dmitri’s cabin this summer,’ she finished. ‘If you ever want to borrow it for a holiday, you’d be more than welcome.’
‘What a lovely idea.’ Hana put her arm round Erika and gave her a squeeze.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Lake Akanabee, New York State, December 1968
Dmitri and Tatiana chuckled when they read in December 1968 of the marriage of Anna Tschaikovsky, the woman who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia, to an American genealogist called Jack Manahan, who was twenty years her junior. She had made an entire career of her claims and had many influential supporters, although she had never been accepted by the living Romanov family members. Now Jack Manahan announced himself as the new ‘Grand Duke in waiting’ from their home in Virginia, a claim met with scorn by the Romanovs.
‘Don’t you want to go and visit your sister now that she is in America?’ Dmitri teased.
‘Goodness! Whatever for? She looks nothing like Anastasia, and she sounds rather a disturbed creature.’
‘No one would believe us if we announced that you are Grand Duchess Tatiana. It would be very hard to prove, although to me you look the same as the first day I set eyes on you.’
Tatiana had celebrated her seventieth birthday the previous year. She was still slender, with glorious cheekbones and the same intelligent grey eyes ringed with violet she’d had as a girl. She was careful to wear a straw hat to keep the sun off her pale skin and was not nearly as lined as Dmitri. At the age of seventy-seven, his cheeks hung in folds and his forehead was scored by deep furrows.
Tatiana leaned over to trace his wrinkles and frown lines with a finger. ‘I think I have been the cause of most of these,’ she smiled. ‘We didn’t choose the easiest paths in life.’
‘Do you ever think about leaving a record of the truth for future historians to find long after we are gone?’ Dmitri asked. ‘I would like my children to understand why I was unfaithful to their mother, even if they don’t forgive me.’