The House of Special Purpose

The Ipatiev House

UP CLOSE, the Ipatiev house did not seem particularly intimidating.

I stared at it from my hiding place, a few feet into the tightly packed woodland that bordered the merchant’s home, and tried to imagine what was taking place within its walls. A cluster of larch trees provided a convenient place for me to observe the house while remaining hidden from view; their overhanging branches and dense forestation offered some protection from the cold, although I regretted not being in possession of a heavier coat or the thick woollen gloves given to me by Count Charnetsky on my first days in St Petersburg. Before me was a small, grassy area where I could lie down and rest when my legs became too weary, and, further along again, several feet of thick hedgerow which led to a gravel driveway that ran parallel to the front of the house.

Somewhere over there, I told myself, the Imperial Family were gathered as prisoners of the Bolshevik government; somewhere over there was Anastasia.

A dozen soldiers came and went throughout the afternoon, leaning against the walls as they smoked and talked and laughed in friendly groups. A football, of all things, appeared for half an hour and they stripped to their shirtsleeves and tried to score goals against each other, the gate acting as one set of posts, the opposite wall as another. Almost all of them were young men in their mid-twenties, although the soldier in charge, who appeared from time to time to spoil their game, was a man in his fifties, of small, muscular stature, with narrow eyes and an aggressive demeanour. They were Bolsheviks, of course; their uniforms attested to that. But they went about their duties in a casual manner, as if the exalted status of their prisoners was a fact to which they were deliberately indifferent. Times had changed considerably since the abdication of the Tsar. Over the course of my eighteen-month odyssey from the railway carriage in Pskov to the house of special purpose in Yekaterinburg, I had grown to realize that people no longer treated the Imperial Family with the respect and deference that had always been their due. If anything, people competed with each other to offer the most obscene insult, publicly condemning the man they once considered to have been appointed to his throne by God. Of course, none of them had ever come face to face with the Tsar; if they had, they might have felt differently towards him.

What surprised me most, however, was the utter lack of security. Once or twice I stepped away from my hiding place and wandered along the road, passing by the open gates, taking care not to make eye-contact with anyone and receiving only the most disinterested of glances from the soldiers standing in the driveway. To them I was just a boy, an impoverished moujik, not worth wasting their time on. The gates remained open throughout the day; a car came and went on a number of occasions. The front door was never closed, and through the wide windows of a ground-floor parlour I could see the guards when they gathered together for meals; given such lax protection, I wondered why the family didn’t simply come downstairs and flee into the village beyond. Late in the afternoon of my first day’s vigil my eyes were cast towards one of the upstairs windows when a figure appeared suddenly to close the curtains and I knew immediately that the shadow belonged to none other than the Tsaritsa herself, the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna. And despite our often combative relationship, my heart leapt when I saw her because it was proof, if proof were needed, that my journey had been successful and I had found them at last.

As night fell, I was preparing to return to the village to find a warmer place to sleep when a small dog came charging from the front door and I could hear raised voices – a girl’s and a man’s – arguing in the hidden darkness behind the oak frame. A moment later the girl stepped out on to the driveway, looking left and right with an irritated expression on her face, and I recognized her immediately as Marie, the third of the Tsar’s four daughters. She was calling out for the Tsaritsa’s terrier, which by now had left the grounds, run across the road and was safely ensconced in my arms.

She walked quickly down the driveway, calling the dog’s name repeatedly, causing the pup to bark back at her in reply; when he did so she looked in the direction of the woods, hesitating for only a moment before crossing the road and walking directly towards me.

‘Where are you, Eira?’ she shouted, coming closer and closer until she was only a few feet away from me in the darkness of the forest. Her tone grew more nervous now as she sensed that she was not alone. ‘Are you in here?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Yes,’ I said, reaching forward and grabbing her by the arm, pulling her quickly into the bushes where she fell directly on top of me. She was too startled to scream, and before she could recover her voice I pressed my hand across her mouth, holding her tightly as she struggled in my arms. The dog fell to the ground and stood barking at us both, but when I turned to glare at him he stopped immediately and pawed the ground, whimpering in dismay. Marie’s head turned a little, her eyes opening wide when she saw her captor, and I could feel her body relax as she recognized me. I told her to stop struggling, not to scream, and that if she promised to do so I would remove my hand. She nodded quickly and I released her.

‘I beg your pardon, Your Highness,’ I said quickly, offering a deep bow as she stepped back so that she would know I meant her no harm. ‘I pray that I didn’t hurt you. I couldn’t risk you screaming and alerting the guards, that’s all.’

‘You didn’t hurt me,’ she said, turning to the dog and whistling at him to stop him from whining. ‘You surprised me, that’s all. But I’m not sure I can believe who I’m looking at. Georgy Daniilovich, is it really you?’

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling at her, delighted to be in her company once again. ‘Yes, Your Highness, it’s me.’

‘But what are you doing here? How long have you been hiding in these trees?’

‘It would take too long to explain,’ I said, glancing quickly back towards the house to make sure that no one was looking for her yet. ‘It’s good to see you again, Marie,’ I added, unsure whether this was too intimate a remark but meaning it from the depths of my heart. ‘I’ve been searching for your family for… well, for a long time now.’

‘It’s good to see you too, Georgy,’ she said, smiling, and I thought I could see tears forming in her eyes. She had grown thin since I had seen her last; her cheap dress was too big for her and hung off her frame in a shapeless fashion. And even in the shadows of the woods I could easily make out the dark circles under her eyes that indicated a lack of sleep. ‘You’re like a wonderful vision from the past, and sometimes I’ve felt that those days were just a trick of my imagination. But here you are. You found us.’ Her emotion was evident and without warning she threw her arms around my neck and hugged me to her, a gesture of friendship, nothing more, but one I appreciated greatly.

‘Are you well?’ I asked, pulling away from her at last and smiling as widely as she was, moved by the warmth of our reunion. ‘Is anyone hurt? How is your family?’

‘You mean how is my sister?’ she asked, smiling. ‘How is Anastasia?’

‘Yes,’ I said, blushing slightly, surprised that she could read me so easily. ‘So you know, then?’

‘Oh yes, she told me a long time ago now. But don’t worry, I haven’t spoken about it to anyone. After what happened to Sergei Stasyovich…’ She looked up quickly and her eyes darted back and forth in the darkness. ‘He’s not here too, is he?’ she asked, her tone filling with excitement and hope. ‘Oh, please tell me you’ve brought him with you—’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, interrupting her. ‘I haven’t seen him. Not since the day he left St Petersburg.’

‘The day he was sent away, you mean.’

‘Yes, since then. He hasn’t written to you?’

‘If he has, his letters have been denied to me,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I pray every day that he is well and that he will find me. I imagine that he is searching, too. But I can’t believe you’re here, my dear old friend. Only… now that you are here, what is it you want?’

‘I want to see Anastasia,’ I said. ‘I want to do what I can to help your family.’

‘There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do.’

‘But I don’t understand, Your Highness. You just walked out of there a few moments ago. The soldiers didn’t come after you. Do they even care if you stay?’

‘I told them I was looking for my mother’s dog.’

‘And they didn’t mind? They just allow you to leave?’

‘Why wouldn’t they?’ she asked. ‘Where could I go, after all? Where could any of us go? My family is all inside. Mother and Father are upstairs. They know I will be back. They give us as much freedom as we want, except the freedom to leave Russia, of course.’

‘That will happen soon,’ I said. ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘Yes, I think so too. Father says we will go to England. He writes to Cousin Georgie almost every day to tell him of our plight, but there has been no reply. We don’t know whether the letters are even being despatched. You haven’t heard anything of this, I suppose?’

‘Nothing at all,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Only that the Bolsheviks are waiting for the right moment to get your family out of the country. They don’t want you here, that’s for sure. But I think they intend to wait until it is safe for you to leave.’

‘I wish that would be soon,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be a Grand Duchess any more, my father doesn’t want to be Tsar. We don’t care for any of that. They’re just words, after all. All we want is to leave and have our freedom restored to us.’

‘That day will come, Marie,’ I said. ‘I am sure of it. But please, you must tell me, when can I see Anastasia?’

She looked back towards the house, where one of the soldiers had stepped outside and was looking around, yawning in the night air. We stayed silent as he stood there, lit a cigarette, smoked it and then returned indoors.

‘I’ll tell her you’re here,’ she said. ‘We share a room still. We will talk of it all night, I promise you that. You’re not leaving soon, are you?’

‘I’ll never leave,’ I told her. ‘Not without your family.’

‘Thank you, Georgy,’ she said, smiling and looking down at the ground for a moment, staring at Eira, who was watching us silently now. ‘But look, there’s a group of cedar trees opposite,’ she said, pointing away from the house into the darkness of the path. ‘Go down there and wait. I’ll go back indoors and tell Anastasia where you are. It might be only a few minutes before she joins you or it might be hours before she can leave, but wait for her and I promise you that she will come.’

‘I’ll wait all night if I have to,’ I said.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘She will be so happy to see you. And now I’d better go back before they come looking for me. Wait for her by the cedar trees, Georgy. She’ll be out before long.’

I nodded and she picked up the Tsaritsa’s dog and ran across the road, looking back only for a moment as she went indoors again. I waited until I was sure that no one was watching, then stood up, brushed the dirt from my clothes and walked quickly along the path in the direction she had indicated, my heart beating faster in the hope of seeing Anastasia again.

When I awoke, it was already daylight. I opened my eyes and looked up at the glimpses of pale-blue sky which could be seen between the branches of the trees overhead, and for a moment I was at a loss as to where I was. An instant later the events of the previous evening came flooding back and I sat up, startled, immediately tormented by a great pain along the base of my spine, brought on no doubt by the uncomfortable position in which I had been sleeping.

I had waited for Anastasia by the cedar trees for hours, but had finally succumbed to sleep. At first I worried that I might have missed her entirely, but quickly shrugged off this concern, for if she had been able to leave the house then she would no doubt have discovered me in my hiding place and woken me up. I stood up and paced back and forth for a few minutes, trying to ease my pain by massaging my lower back with my hand; I immediately felt pangs of hunger in my stomach, for I had not eaten in more than a day.

Making my way back along the road, I hesitated outside the walls of the Ipatiev house and looked towards the upper windows, but could hear no voices inside. Passing by the front gate, however, I noticed a young soldier changing the tyre of a car and approached him cautiously.

‘Comrade,’ I said, nodding in his direction.

He glanced up, shielding his eyes from the sunlight as he looked me up and down with barely concealed disdain. ‘Who are you?’ he asked quickly. ‘What do you want here, boy?’

‘A few roubles, if you have it,’ I said. ‘I haven’t eaten in days. Anything you can spare would be most appreciated.’

‘Go beg somewhere else,’ he replied, waving me away. ‘What do you think this is, anyway?’

‘Please, comrade,’ I said. ‘I might starve.’

‘Look,’ he said, standing up and wiping his hand across his forehead, leaving a long, dark oil stain streaked above his eyes. ‘I’ve told you—’

‘I could do that for you, if you like,’ I said. ‘I can change a tyre.’

He hesitated and looked down at the ground for a moment as he considered it. I suspected that he had been trying to complete this job for some time and was getting nowhere with it. A jack and a wheel wrench were lying beside the car, but the wheel nuts had not even been removed yet. ‘You can do this?’ he asked.

‘For the price of a lunch,’ I said.

‘You do it right and I’ll give you enough for a plate of borscht,’ he said. ‘Be quick about it, though. We may need this car later on.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, watching as he marched away and left me alone in the driveway.

I crouched down and examined the mess that he had made of the job so far, picking up the jack and propping it under the frame to lift the car. Unaccustomed to such mental stimulation I quickly became engrossed in my work. Indeed, so lost was I in my thoughts that I didn’t even hear the footsteps as they approached me. And then, when my name was uttered in an awed whisper, I jumped in surprise, the wrench slipping between my fingers and grazing the knuckles of my left hand. I cursed and looked up, and the furious expression on my face immediately dissipated.

‘Alexei,’ I said.

‘Georgy,’ he replied, looking back towards the house now to make sure that he was not being observed. ‘You came to see me.’

‘Yes, my friend,’ I said, and this time it was I who could feel tears behind my eyes. I had not realized quite how much I cared for this boy until he was no longer part of my life. ‘Can you believe I’m here?’

‘You have a beard,’ he said.

‘It’s not much of one, though, is it?’ I asked, rubbing the stubble irritably with my hand. ‘Certainly not as impressive as your father’s.’

‘You look different.’

‘Older, probably.’

‘Skinnier,’ he said. ‘And paler. You don’t look well.’

I laughed and shook my head. ‘Thank you, Alexei,’ I said. ‘I could always rely on you to make me feel better about myself.’

He stared at me for a moment as if trying to decipher what I meant by this, but then his face broke into a wide smile as he realized that I was only teasing him. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘How are you?’ I asked. ‘Are you holding up all right? I saw your sister yesterday, you know.’

‘Which one?’

‘Marie.’

‘Pffft,’ he said, blowing an unpleasant noise through his lips and shaking his head. ‘I hate my sisters.’

‘Alexei, don’t say that, please.’

‘But it’s true. They never leave me alone.’

‘Still, they love you very much.’

‘Can I help you change the tyre?’ he asked, looking down at the half-completed job before me.

‘You can watch,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you sit over there?’

‘Can’t I help?’

‘You can be in charge,’ I told him. ‘You can be my supervisor.’

He nodded, satisfied, and took a seat on a large boulder that stood behind him, just the right height for him to sit and talk to me as I worked. It occurred to me that he didn’t seem particularly surprised to find me there, working like this. He didn’t even question it. It was simply another part of his day.

‘You’re bleeding, Georgy,’ he said, pointing at my hand.

I looked down and, sure enough, there was a thin line of blood clotting above my knuckles from where the wrench had injured me. ‘That was your fault,’ I said, grinning at him. ‘You surprised me.’

‘And you said a bad word.’

‘I did,’ I admitted. ‘We won’t speak of it again.’

‘You said—’

‘Alexei,’ I said, frowning.

I picked up the spanner and continued to work on the tyre in silence for a moment, anxious to talk to him but wary of asking my questions too quickly in case he ran back inside to tell the others of his discovery.

‘Your family,’ I said finally. ‘They are all in the house?’

‘They’re upstairs,’ he said. ‘Father is writing letters. Olga is reading some silly novel. Mother is giving my other sisters their lessons.’

‘And you?’ I asked. ‘Why aren’t you at your lessons too?’

‘I am the Tsarevich,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I chose not to partake.’

I smiled at him and nodded, feeling a sudden wave of sorrow for his predicament. The boy didn’t even realize that he was the Tsarevich no longer, that he was just Alexei Nicolaievich Romanov, a boy with as little money or influence as me.

‘I’m glad you’re all well,’ I said. ‘I miss our days at the Winter Palace.’

‘I miss the Standart,’ he said, for the Imperial yacht had always been his favourite of all the royal residences. ‘And I miss my toys and my books. We have so few here.’

‘But you have been well since you came to Yekaterinburg?’ I asked. ‘You haven’t suffered any injuries?’

‘None,’ he said, shuddering a little at the thought of it. ‘Mother doesn’t let me out often. Dr Federov is here too, just in case, but I’ve been quite well, thank you.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘And you, Georgy Daniilovich, how have you been? Do you know that I am thirteen years old now?’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I remembered your birthday last August.’

‘In what way?’

‘I lit a candle for you,’ I replied, recalling the day when I had walked for almost eight hours in order to find a church where I might mark the Tsarevich’s birth. ‘I lit a candle and prayed that you were well and uninjured and that God would keep you safe from harm.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s my fourteenth birthday next month. Will you do the same thing then?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘Every year on August the twelfth I will do it. For as long as I live.’

Alexei nodded and looked around the courtyard. He seemed lost in thought and I said nothing to disturb him, simply got on with my work.

‘Will you be able to stay here, Georgy?’ he asked finally.

I looked across at him and shook my head. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘One of the soldiers said that he would give me a few roubles if I changed this tyre.’

‘And what will you do with them?’

‘Eat.’

‘Will you come back afterwards? We don’t have anyone to protect us, you know.’

‘The soldiers protect you now,’ I said. ‘That’s what they’re here for, isn’t it?’

‘That’s what they tell us, yes,’ he replied, his brow furrowing a little as he considered it. ‘But I don’t believe them. I don’t think they like us at all. I know I don’t like them. I hear them saying terrible things all the time. About Mother. About my sisters. They show us no respect. They forget their place.’

‘But you must listen to them, Alexei,’ I said, anxious for his safety. ‘If you are good, then they will treat you well.’

‘You call me Alexei now?’

‘I apologize, sir,’ I said, bowing my head. ‘I meant Your Highness.’

He shrugged his shoulders as if it didn’t matter, not really, but I could tell that he was utterly confused by his new status.

‘You have sisters too, don’t you Georgy?’ he asked me.

‘I did have,’ I said. ‘I had three. But I don’t know what’s become of them. I haven’t seen them in a long time.’

‘So between us we have seven sisters and no brothers.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Strange, isn’t it?’ he asked.

‘A little bit,’ I said.

‘I always wanted a brother,’ he said quietly, looking down at the stony ground. He picked up a few pebbles from the driveway and tossed them back and forth between his hands.

‘You never told me that,’ I said, surprised to hear him say such a thing.

‘Well, it’s true. I always thought it would be nice to have an older brother. Someone to look out for me.’

‘Then he would have been the Tsarevich, not you.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘It would have been wonderful.’

I frowned, surprised to hear him say that.

‘And you, Georgy, did you ever want one?’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I never thought about it. I had a friend once, Kolek Boryavich – we grew up together. He was like a brother to me.’

‘And where is he now? Is he fighting in the war?’

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘No, he died.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘Yes, well, it was a long time ago.’

‘How long?’

‘More than three years.’

‘That’s not so very long.’

‘It seems like a lifetime,’ I said. ‘Anyway, you have no brother, Kolek Boryavich is dead, but you and I are alive. Perhaps I could be like an older brother to you, Alexei. What would you think of that?’

He stared at me and frowned. ‘But it’s impossible,’ he said, standing up now. ‘You’re just a moujik, after all. I am the son of a Tsar.’

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling. He didn’t mean to hurt me, poor boy. It was simply the way that he had been brought up. ‘Yes, it’s impossible.’

‘But we can be friends,’ he said quickly, sounding as if he knew that he had said something he shouldn’t have and regretted it. ‘We’ll always be friends, Georgy, won’t we?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘And when you leave here, we will remain great friends for ever. I promise it.’

He smiled at me again and shook his head. ‘But we’ll never leave here, Georgy Daniilovich,’ he said in a calm, measured tone. ‘Don’t you know that?’

I hesitated, quite unsettled by the certainty in his voice, and tried to think of something I could say to reassure him, but as I opened my mouth I glanced towards the house once again and could see Marie walking quickly towards us.

‘Alexei,’ she said, taking him by the arm, ‘there you are. I was looking for you.’

‘Marie, look, it’s Georgy Daniilovich.’

‘I can see that,’ she replied, looking me directly in the eyes for a moment before turning back to her brother. ‘Go indoors,’ she said. ‘Father is asking for you. And don’t tell him who you were talking to, do you understand me?’

‘But why not?’ asked Alexei. ‘He will want to know.’

‘We can tell him later, just not now. We’ll save it as a special surprise. Trust me, can’t you?’

‘All right,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Goodbye then, Georgy,’ he said, thrusting his hand out in the formal manner that I had seen him extend to generals and princes; I grasped it tightly and shook it, smiling at him.

‘Goodbye, Alexei,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you later, I’m sure.’

He nodded and ran back indoors.

When he was gone, Marie turned back to me. ‘I’m sorry, Georgy,’ she said. ‘I told her. And she wanted to come, of course. But the soldiers were playing cards all night. She couldn’t come downstairs.’

‘And where is she now?’ I asked.

‘She’s with Mother. She’s desperate to see you. I was able to get out. I was coming to the cedars to find you. She said to tell you that she’ll come tonight. Very late. She promises that no matter what happens, she’ll come tonight.’

I nodded. To wait another half a day seemed like torture, but then I had waited this long, more than eighteen months. I could wait just a little longer.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Over there.’ I pointed towards the clump of trees where we had talked the previous evening. ‘I’ll wait there from midnight and—’

‘No, later than that,’ she said. ‘Come around two o’clock tomorrow morning. Everyone will be asleep by then. She’ll come to you, I promise.’

‘Thank you, Marie,’ I said.

‘Now you should leave here,’ she insisted, looking around anxiously. ‘If Mother and Father see you… well, it’s best that as few people as possible know that you’re here.’

‘I’ll go,’ I said, ignoring the fact that I hadn’t yet finished tightening the wheel nuts on the new tyre. ‘And thank you again.’

She reached forward and kissed my cheeks before returning to the house. I watched her leave, feeling terribly grateful to her. I had never known her all that well while I served her family but she had been kind to me, and Sergei Stasyovich had loved her. I looked around and considered waiting for the soldier to return and pay me my roubles, but there was no sign of him and I suddenly felt a great desire to be away from that place.

I turned to leave and was exiting the gates when I heard the sound of feet running quickly along the gravel behind me. I turned and saw Alexei, who showed no sign of slowing down, so I opened my arms and he ran into them, embracing me tightly, his arms wrapped around my neck as I lifted him off the ground.

‘I wanted you to know,’ he said, his voice choked up as if he was trying to stop himself from crying, ‘I wanted you to know that you can be my brother if you like. As long as you let me be yours.’

He separated himself from me then and looked me directly in the eye, and I smiled and nodded. I opened my mouth to say yes, that I would be proud to be his brother, but my assent was all he needed; within a moment he had turned around and disappeared back into the house, into the heart of his family.

Every minute dragged.

I had no watch, so stepped inside a small café in the village to ask the time. Ten past two. A half a day to wait. It seemed impossible. I paced up and down the streets, growing more and more anxious and emotional with every second. I spent what seemed like hours wandering the streets aimlessly, before going back to the café to check the time once again.

‘What do you think I am, boy, a clock?’ shouted the man behind the counter. ‘Go bother someone else with your questions.’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Can’t you just—’

‘It’s almost three o’clock,’ he snapped. ‘Now get out of here and don’t come back.’

Three o’clock! Not even an hour had passed.

It seemed as if God was smiling on me a few moments later, however, because just as I turned the corner my eyes caught a glint of something sparkling at my feet. I narrowed my eyes to try to see what it was, but try as I might, I couldn’t locate it again and so retraced my steps until I caught the sparkle once more. Following it carefully, I pulled a clip from the dirt, and attached to it was a handful of banknotes – not many, but more than I had seen in a long time. Some unfortunate villager must have lost them in the dirt; it might have been only a few minutes before, it might have been weeks, there was no way of knowing. I looked around to see whether anyone had seen me, but no one was looking in my direction so I stuffed the money into my pocket, thrilled by my good fortune. I could have handed it to a soldier, of course; I could have found the town council and allowed it to be returned to its rightful owner, but I did neither of those things. I did what anyone in my impoverished and starving position would have done: I kept it.

‘It’s a quarter past three,’ roared the café owner when I stepped inside again. This time, I held a bank note in the air to make sure he knew that I was not simply there to bother him. ‘Ah,’ he said, smiling, ‘that makes all the difference.’

I sat down, ordered a meal and something to drink and tried not to watch the minutes go by on the clock. Now that my eighteen-month journey was at an end, now that Anastasia and I were finally to be reunited, a single question loomed in my mind: what would I do when we were together again?

It wasn’t as if the Bolsheviks were just going to allow her to leave the Ipatiev house and come with me. Even if they did, where would we go? No, we might be reunited for only a few minutes, an hour if we were lucky, and then she would have to return to her family. And what would I do after that, return every night to see her? Plan one clandestine meeting after another? No, there had to be a more sensible solution.

Perhaps I could save them, I thought. Perhaps I could find a way to get the entire family out, to smuggle them across Russia and northwards to Finland, where they could make their escape for England. There were bound to be sympathizers along the way who would protect the Imperial Family, who would lie for them, who would die for them if necessary. And if I was successful, surely the Tsar could not refuse me his daughter’s hand, despite the difference in our ranks. The idea seemed a brave one, but for the life of me, I could think of no way to accomplish it. The soldiers were all armed with rifles, while all I had to my name were a few banknotes found in the street. The Bolsheviks and the new People’s Government were hardly likely to let their most prized assets simply flee the country to create a Russian court in exile. No, they would hold on to them for ever, they would keep them in seclusion, hide them away from the world. The Tsar and Tsaritsa would have no court any more, they would spend the rest of their lives under guard in Yekaterinburg. Their son and daughters would grow old here. They would be kept hidden for the rest of their lives, never allowed to marry or bear children, and the Romanov dynasty would come to a natural end. Another fifty, perhaps sixty years and they would be gone.

It was unthinkable, but the most likely explanation. Even to consider it left me in a state of depression. The hours went by, the sun set, I left the café and roamed the streets again, walking an hour in one direction in order for it to take me another hour to return again. I didn’t grow tired, for tonight I was entirely alert. Nine o’clock came and went, ten o’clock, eleven o’clock. Midnight approached. I could wait no longer.

I went back.

If the house did not seem particularly oppressive during the daytime, it adopted a different characteristic at night, for the speckled shadows of the moon falling down upon the walls and fences that surrounded it unsettled me. The guards who had worked in shifts, casually walking up and down the driveway, apparently taking little notice of who was observing their movements, were now nowhere to be seen. The gate was unlocked and a lorry stood in the centre of the driveway, its cargo – if it had one – hidden from view by a tarpaulin sheet. I hesitated on the grass opposite, looking around nervously as I wondered what was taking place inside. After a few minutes, wary of the soldiers returning and finding me standing there, I made my way across to the cluster of trees where I had told Marie that I would wait and hoped that Anastasia would soon emerge to find me.

It was not long before the lights in the ground-floor parlour were turned on and what appeared to be the entire complement of soldiers entered the room. They were not wearing their Bolshevik uniforms now, but had changed into the simple clothing of local farmers. Their rifles were slung over their shoulders as ever, but rather than splitting up as I expected – some to sleep, some to work, some to watch – they took their seats around the table and turned their attention to an older man, a soldier who seemed to be in charge, who was on his feet talking while the rest sat silently and listened.

A moment later, I heard an unexpected sound on the gravel of the driveway. I crouched further back into the woodland, while raising my head to try to see who had emerged. It was dark, however, and the lorry stood in my way, so I could distinguish no one in the distance except the guards in the parlour. I held my breath and yes, there it was again – feet walking carefully upon the stones, crunching them underfoot.

Someone had left the house.

I squinted and tried desperately to see whether it was Anastasia, but was loath to call out her name, even in a raised whisper, in case I was wrong and my presence was discovered. There was nothing I could do but wait. My heart pounded inside my chest and despite the chill of the hour a line of perspiration broke out across my forehead. Something felt wrong. I wondered whether I should take a chance and make my way across the road, but before I could decide, the guards stood up in unison and extended their right arms forward into the centre of the room, placing their hands on top of each other’s in a great pile before lifting them off once again and standing very quietly in a row. Two of the men, the one who had been speaking and one other, left the parlour; through the half-open front door I watched them ascend the staircase that ran through the centre of the house.

Glancing again towards the driveway, I hoped to identify the person who had come outside, but all was silence now. Perhaps it had just been the Tsaritsa’s terrier, I reasoned. Or another animal. Perhaps I had only imagined it. No matter; if there was someone there a moment before, he or she was gone now.

A light went on in an upstairs window and I turned quickly to look in its direction. I could hear voices from above, a low murmur, and then a shadow appeared through the pale curtain of a group of people standing as one, huddled together, then separating and making their way, one by one, towards the door.

I moved quickly to my left and peered through the trees at the staircase. A moment later the Grand Duchess Olga appeared, followed by a small group whose identities I had difficulty making out in the darkness, but who I was convinced must be her brother and sisters, Marie, Tatiana, Anastasia and Alexei. I saw them only briefly before they turned a corner and vanished. All five of them were being separated from their parents to be taken elsewhere, I decided. They were young, after all. They had committed no crimes. Perhaps they were being permitted to leave.

But no, the hallway stood empty for only a minute before the Tsar and Tsaritsa appeared and began to make their way down the stairs too, walking slowly as they supported each other, apparently both lacking strength, followed by two soldiers who led them in the same direction as their children had gone.

Absolute silence followed. The remaining soldiers in the parlour stood up and left the room slowly, the final one turning off the light, and then they too turned the corner and disappeared out of sight.

At that moment, I felt utterly alone. The world seemed a perfectly silent and peaceful place, save for the light rustle of the leaves overhead, stirred by the summer breeze. There was a certain beauty to the place, a civilized expectation that all was well in our country and all would be well, now and ever after, as I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to drift away in the silence. The Ipatiev house was in darkness. The family had vanished. The soldiers had disappeared. Whoever had been walking along the gravel driveway was out of sight and earshot. I was all alone, scared, uncertain, in love. I felt an overwhelming rush of exhaustion that hit me suddenly with the force of a hurricane; I thought I should simply lie down on the grass, close my eyes, go to sleep and hope that eternity would come. It would be very easy to lie down now, to offer my soul into the hands of God, to allow the hunger and deprivation to catch up with me and take me to a place of peace, where I could stand before Kolek Boryavich and say I’m sorry.

Where I could kneel before my sisters and say I’m sorry.

Where I could wait for my love to come to me and say I’m sorry.

Anastasia.

For one final moment, the world was in perfect silence.

And then the shots rang out.

First one, suddenly, unexpected. I jumped. My eyes opened. I stood, frozen to the spot. Then, a few moments later, a second, and now I gasped. Then a series of shots, as if every gun that every Bolshevik owned was being discharged. The noise was tremendous. I couldn’t move. A bright light flashed on and off a thousand times to the left of the staircase as the guns sounded. My mind raced with possibilities that crashed together. It was so unexpected that I could do nothing but stay where I was, unable to move, wondering whether the entire world had just come to an end.

It took fifteen, twenty seconds perhaps before I was able to breathe again, and just as I did so my feet found purchase on the ground and I tried to stand up. I had to see, I had to go there, I had to help them. Whatever was happening. I lifted myself up, but before I could move a great commotion sounded in the trees before me and a body threw itself at me, flattening me, sending me falling to the ground, dazed for a moment, wondering what had happened. Had I been shot? Was this the moment of my death?

But that foolishness lasted only a moment and I scrambled backwards, straining in the darkness to see who was lying next to me. I stared and gasped.

‘Georgy,’ she cried.