The Secret Wife(64)
By spring 1919, the tide in the civil war had swung firmly against the White Army: Admiral Kolchak surrendered to the Bolsheviks in May 1919 and was promptly executed. The territories they had fought so hard for were recaptured. International help dried up and the Red Army were once again advancing towards the Urals.
When he had exhausted his search of Perm, Dmitri caught a train south just before the Red Army arrived in town. A young man travelling alone would arouse suspicion and he did not want to find himself detained by a local soviet, answering questions about where he hailed from. He intended at long last to visit his mother and sisters in Lozovatka, which was in Ukrainian hands, but on the way there he heard from a fellow passenger that Tatiana’s grandmother, Maria Feodorovna, and several other relatives were staying at the Livadia Palace in Crimea so he decided to go there first. If Tatiana had managed to escape her captors, that’s where she would head. She had always loved Livadia.
It was mid-summer and the heat was fierce when he arrived at the Romanovs’ luxurious white-granite Livadia palace to find it deserted, apart from a handful of servants.
‘Where is the Dowager Empress?’ he asked a housemaid who answered the door.
‘They were rescued a few weeks ago by a ship sent by King George V of England. All were very relieved.’
‘Were any of Tsar Nicholas’s children with them?’ He held his breath.
‘No, we’ve heard nothing of them. There are rumours that they’ve been killed but Maria Feodorovna refuses to believe it. She said no one could be so heartless … You look faint, sir. Would you like to sit down awhile?’
It was another bitter disappointment for Dmitri. Somewhere in the vastness of the great Russian hinterland was his wife, the woman he loved above all others on earth, but he no longer had any idea where to look for her or even if she was alive. She could be waiting for him, despairing of him finding her, and he felt useless and impotent that he had no idea where to look.
Dmitri sent a telegram to his mother saying that he would visit within the month, then he spent another week wandering around the Livadia estate, hoping against hope that Tatiana might arrive. The staff accepted him when he explained he had been a member of the royal escort, and produced meals and refreshments as if he were an honoured guest. He tried to imagine Tatiana strolling by the fountains in the Arabian courtyard; playing croquet on the manicured lawn with a view out to sea; swimming in the clear blue waters; dining on the open-air terrace; bathing in the white marble bathrooms. It made him feel a connection with her. This was a place she had loved and he could see why, but it also made him contrast the rarefied lifestyle she had led with the realities of life for the country’s peasants, something he had seen at first hand over the previous year. In Livadia, luxury was taken for granted: the paintings in lavish gilt frames, the heavy hallmarked silver cutlery, the ornate carved furniture – everything smelled expensive. The average peasant eked out the barest existence on a diet of root vegetables and rough bread, with few possessions beyond the clothes they wore on their backs. It was an inequality that should be righted, but he loathed the methods of the Bolsheviks.
Towards the end of the week, just as he was planning to leave, he received a telegram from a neighbour of his mother’s: REGRET YOUR MOTHER DIED IN APRIL STOP SHE HEARD YOU WERE KILLED AT TSARITSYN STOP YOUR SISTERS HAVE SAILED FOR CONSTANTINOPLE STOP. There followed an address in Turkey.
A howl burst from Dmitri’s lungs: ‘No!’ He ran through the park to the edge of the sea, howling all the way. The sound seemed to echo around the bay and two gulls took off from a ledge in the cliff. Dmitri fell to his knees, his forehead to the ground, and tore at his hair.
If only he had contacted his mother as soon as he left Tsaritsyn. He should have gone to visit straight after his father died. He had let her down, just as he had let Tatiana down. It was as if God had turned on him and everything he touched turned to dust. He was a failure as a husband and a failure as a son. He did not deserve to live any more.
The waves lapped against the shore with a steady rhythm, giving him an idea. He would swim out to sea and keep swimming further and further until his strength left him and he slipped beneath the waves. That way at last he would bring his torment to an end.
He stripped off his shirt, boots and trousers and stepped into the water. His body would never be found in the vastness of the Black Sea. His sisters would continue to think he had died at Tsaritsyn, and that’s what Tatiana would hear if she tried to search for him.
That thought stopped him. What if his body washed up on the shore? He could not bear to have Tatiana think of him as a coward.
He sat down on the shingle, sobbing hard. No. His punishment was that he must live with the shame of his actions. He would be tortured by guilt for the rest of his life, but at least he could try to make it up to his sisters – and possibly, one day, to Tatiana.
Dmitri stayed in Crimea to fight in the White Army’s last futile battles against the Bolsheviks, under the command of General Wrangel. In early 1920 he got on board one of the last ships taking refugees south to Constantinople, and made his way to his sisters’ house. They were astounded to see him, and there were long days in which they told each other all that had happened in the years since last they saw each other. He wept as he told them of Tatiana; he cried more when Valerina told him of their father’s death in Bolshevik custody. They suspected but could not prove he had been executed.