Angel on the Square Page 5

  At that moment Grishka poked her head out of the kitchen doorway and called to Nina in a shrill voice, “What are you doing out there? Are you filling that child’s head with nonsense? Come in here at once.” Nina gave me a desperate look and went inside.

  As soon as supper was over, I set off for Stepan’s cottage. It was a long way from our house. A faint breeze ruffled the leaves at the tops of the trees, but at ground level the air was still. A ballet of swallowtail butterflies pirouetted around a honeysuckle bush. I stopped to pluck some of the blossoms and suck their sweet sap.

  When I reached the small cottage with its thatched roof, I saw an old woman in the yard, sitting on a wooden stool. She was talking to herself, but every few moments she would fling her apron over her head and moan.

  “Ma’am,” I said, “I’m looking for Stepan.”

  She clapped her hands. “No, no. He has suffered enough. Please go away and leave us in peace.”

  I assured her that I was a friend and only wanted to deliver a message to Stepan. She flung the apron back over her head, as if she wished to hide from the world. At the sound of her cries, a young man came to the door. He had a ruddy complexion and a thatch of black hair that fell over his forehead.

  He stared coldly at me. “What do you want?”

  “Are you Stepan? If you are, I have a message for you from Nina.”

  I repeated Nina’s words. Tears came to his eyes. Angrily he brushed them away. He looked at me with disgust. “Did Vitya put you up to this so he could have me beaten again?”

  Indignant, I said, “No. Truly. I saw Nina in the kitchen garden.” After a moment I asked in a timid voice, “Did Vitya really have you beaten?”

  For an answer he pulled off his tunic. His back was crosshatched with bloody stripes. I covered my eyes. “Why did he do it?” I managed to get out.

  “Because I cursed him for turning me in to the army. But Vitya doesn’t need an excuse.” He gave me a resentful look. “As long as you and your mother live in style, why should you care what your estate manager does? He sends you money. That’s all that matters to you.” With that he went back into the cottage, slamming the door behind him. The old woman began to moan again.

  That night I tried to tell Mama what I had seen. She wouldn’t listen. “Oh, Katya. That is servants’ gossip. I don’t concern myself with such things. All that must be left up to Vitya and Grishka.”

  When I saw my pleading would do no good, I decided it was time that I take some responsibility for The Oaks. The following morning I went to see Vitya. The estate manager’s office was in one wing of the estate. Vitya sat in a large leather swivel chair at a desk overflowing with ruled ledgers. When he saw me, he put on a smile, but his eyes were cold. “Well, Katya, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

  After a deep breath, I said, “Vitya, does Stepan really have to go into the army? Couldn’t they take someone else?” At once I lost heart, for I saw from his expression that he guessed I had served as a messenger between Nina and Stepan.

  After a minute Vitya said, “Come, Katya, sit here.” He got up from his leather chair and motioned me to take his place.

  Frightened, I shook my head.

  “Now, come. You have nothing to be afraid of.” He reached out for me and when I resisted, he clamped his fingers around my arm until it hurt, forcing me into his chair. “There, now, you are the estate manager.” He pushed the ruled ledgers at me. “You decide what must be done.” When I struggled to get out of the chair, he began to turn it, laughing all the while. Around and around I went until I was dizzy. When I finally escaped, his laughter followed me until it blended with the caws of a flock of crows.

  That night Lidya asked me how I got the bruise on my arm. “I fell out of an apple tree,” I said.

  “Heavens, Katya, you are too old for such unladylike antics.”

  The next morning I found my rabbit dead in its cage. Its delicate neck had been rung. I sobbed and sobbed. It was the first deliberate cruelty I had ever known.

  I heard Lidya say to Mama, “Who could have done such a heartless thing? Who could possibly have an argument with a small girl?”

  Mama told her, “The Baron says the peasants are being incited to acts of violence, but I never thought such a thing would happen here. All the more reason for Vitya to keep the peasants under control.”

  When Mama questioned me, I only shook my head, afraid she would not believe me and would go to Vitya with my story. He would torment Nina and Stepan and find a more horrible punishment for me.

  After that I would not be in the same room with Vitya. The moment I saw him approach, I hurried away. At the end of August, just as we were getting on the train, Vitya handed me a gaily wrapped package. “A belated birthday gift,” he said.

  With Mama there I had to thank him. Mama urged me to open it. It was a notebook with a pretty rose satin cover and a velvet ribbon to mark my place. But inside it, I saw, the ruled pages were just like those in his ledgers. On the first page Vitya had written: “For the little estate manager.”

  “Don’t look like that, Katya,” Mama said. “He is only teasing you. What a sweet gift. You must begin to keep a diary.” As the train pulled out, she said, “I don’t know what Baron Nogin has against Vitya. You see what a kind and thoughtful man he is.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE ALEXANDER PALACE

  Fall–Winter 1913

  In September, after many hugs from me, Lidya departed for her sister’s home in Moscow, and Mama and I left with Anya, and all our trunks, for the Alexander Palace. It was an hour’s train ride to Tsar’s Village. The train station there was like a small castle, with chimneys and turrets sticking up from its roof. A carriage sent by the Tsar was waiting to take us to the palace.

  The road through the village was lined with the elegant mansions of the Tsar’s relatives and ministers of state. At the palace entrance a small army of guards saluted us. Massive wrought-iron gates swung open in welcome. As the gates closed behind us, Misha’s words, “You’ll be living in a prison,” flashed through my mind.

  Even with its rows of imposing pillars and its surrounding park, the Alexander Palace was not nearly so large and intimidating as the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

  Mama and I were shown to our rooms, which surprised us by being plain and dreary with ugly furniture and faded curtains. Mama loved to have pretty things about her. She always said, “It feeds my soul, Katya.” Now, as she looked unhappily around, she whispered to Anya, “I wonder if I dare send for some of our things to freshen up these rooms?”

  Though the rooms were plain, there was a fine view from the windows over hundreds of acres of palace gardens, which stretched as far as I could see. An hour later I was exploring the gardens with Stana, who was happy to have me there.

  “I have had no one here to run about with,” Stana complained. “My sisters, even Marie, say it’s not dignified. They only want to sit and gossip and talk about which one of their cousins they will marry one day so they can be empresses like mama and grandmama. Olga had an offer from Prince Carol of Rumania, but she turned him down. I don’t want to marry a prince, for they are all vain and used to being pampered. I love horses and want to marry one of those.” Stana did not mean a horse but was pointing to the Cossack horsemen patrolling the grounds of the palace. The Cossacks, handsome in scarlet tunics and high fur hats, sat on their fine horses with so much dignity, their mounts might have been thrones. I gave Stana a weak smile, but I knew I would never see a Cossack again without thinking of the men who had raised their whips to the striking women.

  Stana led me past rows of marble statues, through miniature Greek temples, and under the thick branches of ancient trees whose foliage had a dusty fall look. Once we stopped to watch the white tail of a shy deer disappear in the distance. Stana paused by a small lake, where a pair of regal swans were gliding. Leaves were floating over the lake’s surface. “Soon the lake will freeze,” Stana said sadly, “and Alexei will have
to wait until next year to sail his boats.”

  “Why can’t he sail them now?” I asked.

  “He’s too sick,” she said. “He bumped his knee, and it’s all black and blue and swollen. When I walk by his room, I hear him crying out with the pain. It makes me feel terrible. Mama cries as well, for there is nothing she can do. She has been up night after night with Alexei. Yesterday she called that smelly Grigory Rasputin to come from Moscow. He is here now. His clothes are dirty, and he looks right through you as if your skin were made of glass. But Alexei has been better since Rasputin came, so we have to hold our noses and put up with him. Now, would you like to see the stables?”

  “Yes,” I said, but I lagged behind her. A carriage had run away with me when I was five, and I was afraid of horses. They were too big, and I didn’t like the way they snorted and rolled their eyes and pawed the ground.

  There were row after row of stalls, stalls for workhorses, horses to draw carriages, hunters, riding horses, and ponies. “This pony is mine.” Stana pointed to a chestnut mare with a white star on her forehead. “I’ll tell Papa to give you one, too, so we can ride together.”

  I took a deep breath and confessed, “I’m afraid of horses.”

  That did not seem to worry Stana, who only said, “Then you can run alongside me as I ride.”

  I was glad Misha was not there to hear that. I knew Stana and I were friends, but still she was a grand duchess.

  On the way back to the palace we stopped in the orangerie, a glass house filled with flowers and fruit trees. The air was sweet with the fragrance of orange blossoms and gardenias. Tropical birds splashed with bright colors flew about. As if we were in the Garden of Eden, Stana plucked ripe figs and clusters of rosy red grapes for us to nibble on.

  I could have stayed there forever, but Stana said, “Come and I’ll show you my room. I share it with Marie.”

  Their room was even plainer than the ones Mama and I had been given. I thought of how Mama had said the Empress did not want to spoil the girls.

  “Do you have as nice a room as this in your home in St. Petersburg?” Stana asked.

  I did not know how to answer, for my room at the mansion had silk curtains, satin comforters, and on the walls flowered wallpaper, pretty paintings, and a mirror framed in gold. I had shelves of dolls in French gowns made by Madame LaMott and a dollhouse with a little tank so that real water came from the faucets.

  Stana’s room had folding cots and thin mattresses. The bed was covered with a simple cotton bedspread. There were faded cotton curtains at the windows. There was no comfortable chair to curl up in, but only a straight wooden one. I saw a few dolls and, instead of pretty pictures on the walls, only icons with solemn saints staring down at us. Swallowing my pride, I spoke a vranyo. “No,” I said, telling a little white lie, “my room is also nice, but not so nice as yours.”

  Stana picked up a book that lay on a bedside table. “I’m glad you’ll be doing lessons with me. Our tutor, Pierre Gilliard, is Swiss. He’s very distinguished and reads us French poetry. We’re all in love with him. My worst subject is mathematics. My sisters are ahead of me, and I’m always last with answers. Promise you won’t tell the answers before me.”

  I promised.

  While the bedrooms were plain, the state rooms of the palace were lavish with gilt furniture, silken draperies, and thick carpets. The rooms were warmed with porcelain stoves, set tier upon tier, like frosted wedding cakes. Posted at every door, and at all the stairways, were armed sentries. Their unsmiling faces made me nervous, but Stana ran by them as if they were so many statues.

  Unlike the formal state rooms, the rooms where the imperial family lived, except their bedrooms, were cozy with stuffed furniture covered in flowered chintzes and lots of pillows and family photographs and pretty bits and pieces set about.

  Olga, Tatiana, and Marie were already at the tea table when we joined them. A moment later Empress Alexandra came into the room, with Mama walking a little behind her. A man followed them into the room. He was tall and heavily muscled, as if he spent his days at farm work. Rasputin, for I was sure that was who this man was, had flowing hair and a long, heavy beard. He was dressed in the tunic, pants, and boots of a peasant. Stana was right. His clothes were rumpled and soiled. I wondered how he dared go before the Empress dressed like that. His eyes were a grayish blue and almost transparent. You looked into them as you would look into clear, deep water. I was so fascinated with him, I nearly forgot my manners. Quickly I sprang out of my chair to curtsy to the Empress.

  There were dark circles under her eyes and a heaviness to her walk. She gave me a weary smile. “Ah, Katya. I’m sorry I could not greet you. Stana will have told you that Alexei has not been well, but thanks to our dear friend Father Grigory, he is much better.”

  The Empress glanced disapprovingly at the tea table, which was set with a simple plate of bread and butter. She summoned one of the footmen. “See that we have some petits fours.” She turned back to us. “Father Grigory is very fond of them.”

  I was delighted, for I was hungry after the long stroll in the garden, and petits fours were my favorite. A silver platter arrived heaped with the little frosted French cakes. The Empress herself took up the platter and put it beside Rasputin’s chair. He began to gorge himself on the cakes. One cake after another was crammed into his mouth, and bits of frosting gathered on his beard like flakes of snow on the coat of a furry beast. The girls chatted among themselves, trying not to look at him. Mama and the Empress were talking of some new and outlandish Paris fashion. I could concentrate on nothing but the disappearance of one cake after another into that open mouth. When the whole platter was empty, Rasputin wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his tunic.

  “Khorosho,” he said in approval. He looked in the direction of the footman, but the Empress did not order another platter. Instead she said to Rasputin, “How can I thank you enough, dear friend, for what you have done for Alexei?”

  As Rasputin calmly picked crumbs from his beard, I saw him looking at my mother in a very unpleasant way, as if she were delicious enough to devour like one of the petits fours. After a moment he turned to the Empress. “Mama, these are troubling times. You must tell Papa that he should be watchful of Germany.”

  He had called the Tsar “Papa,” and the Empress “Mama”!

  It did not seem to bother the Empress, for she merely nodded her approval. “Yes, that is excellent advice, my friend. I promise I’ll speak to the Tsar this evening.”

  Rasputin got up, sending a little shower of crumbs from his lap onto the carpet. He gave Mama another hungry look. “Irina Petrovna,” he said to her in honeyed tones, “you must come and visit me one day.”

  Mama gave him a weak smile.

  Unlike everyone else, Rasputin did not back out of the room but turned his back on the Empress and strode away. The Empress appeared undisturbed by this, and the girls were still busy chatting.

  Later that evening, when we were alone, I asked Mama, “You won’t go and visit Rasputin?”

  “Good heavens, no. It is worth a woman’s reputation to be seen in that man’s apartment.”

  Startled, I asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind, Katya. I shouldn’t have spoken.”

  “He is so rude, and he tries to tell the Tsar what to do, and he turns his back on the Empress.”

  “Yes, all those things are true, but I believe the Empress would deal with the devil himself if it could spare Alexei pain.” After a moment Mama sighed and added, “Perhaps she does.”

  That night I slept for the first time in my unfamiliar and not too comfortable bed. With no satin comforter, and only a very small porcelain stove to warm the room, I lay awake wishing I were back in St. Petersburg.

  In the morning a footman delivered a note addressed to me. “COME AND HAVE LESSONS WITH US AT NINE O’CLOCK. OTMA.”

  Puzzled, I asked Mama, “Who is Otma?”

  “That is how the girls sign, with the first
letters of their names: Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia.”

  The schoolroom was furnished with desks, a blackboard, and many maps. Alexei and the girls were studying French with their tutor. Such lessons were very necessary, for among families like ours, French was spoken as often as Russian.

  Pierre Gilliard had fine brown hair that curled over his coat collar, a mustache, and hooded brown eyes that looked shyly out at you. His manners were perfect. When we were introduced, I hoped he would kiss my hand, but he didn’t. Alexei and the girls hung on his words. As he recited a French poem, the words coming from his lips were like syrup, spooned rather than spoken. Later, when Stana and I did our arithmetic, even the tutor’s adding and subtracting of numbers seemed romantic.

  I knew the answers to the problems before Stana and longed to show the tutor how well I could do, but I remembered my promise and waited for Stana to answer first. She was far ahead of me in English, though, for she heard it every day. The Tsar spoke Russian to the girls but English to the Empress, who, though she was German, had been brought up in England.

  As the fall passed, I fell into the life of the palace. There was schoolwork during the day, and there were cozy evenings with the imperial family, who enjoyed one another’s company. Before I knew it, winter was upon us. One morning Stana pounded at my door. “The pond is frozen! Bring your skates!”

  Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Stana, and I, warmly clothed in coats and woolen tams and mittens, glided over the ice and frolicked in the snow. Alexei watched us wistfully, for he was not allowed to risk an injury. He had to be content with our pulling him about on a sleigh or allowing him to pelt us with snowballs. The snow made the older girls forget their dignity. They chased Stana and me, their hair tumbling over their shoulders. Suddenly, as he often did, the Tsar appeared with his camera to take our pictures. I knew that later he would carefully paste the photographs into an album filled with hundreds of photographs of the Duchesses and Alexei.