The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar

12

Lord, forgive me. But first make me suffer. I am the devil’s creation. Torture me and make me cry out for mercy, but make me suffer… for history shows that it was my grave error that precipitated the murder of the Tsar and his family. Yes, my dear granddaughter, Katya, I confess that it was my stupidity, an ignorant decision by a lowly kitchen boy, that gave the Bolsheviki the excuse they had been seeking…

By July 5 the revolution was collapsing in all directions. The Bolsheviki were terrified, for their defeat seemed but days away. The Germans controlled the Ukraine, the English had landed in the north, the Japanese had invaded the Far East, and the American marines were on their way, albeit slowly. Why, even in Moscow itself there was a revolt of the Social Revolutionary Party against Lenin and his depraved cronies. In other words, Lenin and the Bolsheviki were not only cornered, but desperate, which naturally made them more dangerous than ever.

It was a Friday, not hot, not like the days before, but a pleasant thirteen degrees. The rains resumed, which would pose a problem for the night of July 16-17, yet on the fifth things seemed ready to burst with hope and promise. Not only had the vulgar Avdeyev and his crew been replaced by a new komendant and new guards, but Sister Antonina and Novice Marina arrived, their arms laden with a bounty of wondrous supplies. They had not come for days, and suddenly they appeared, smiles beaming upon their faces as they carried in foodstuffs, the likes of which we hadn’t seen for months, not since we’d been carried off from Tobolsk. Instead of just milk and a meager basket of eggs, now there were two chetverts of milk, one large basket containing a chertova dyuzhina – a devil’s dozen – of fresh, warm eggs, not to mention a glass bottle of thick cream, a generous amount of tvorog – farmer’s cheese – and even enough meat for six day’s soup.

“Oi!” I gasped, as I helped the good nun and her novice into our little makeshift kitchen. “Tak mnogo v’syevo!” So much of everything.

Sister Antonina, tiny and round as she was, squinched up her nose like an old hedgehog, and said, “During Avdeyev we brought this much and more every time. But there was a toll, per se.”

“What?”

“Da, da, da. At the outer gate, at the inner gate, as we walked past the guards’ room – they all took as they pleased.”

Novice Marina, her voice small, asserted, “It’s true – they wouldn’t let us pass otherwise.”

“Now that we know the way is clear,” beamed the good sestra, “next time we will bring even more!”

When we walked into the tiny kitchen, cook Kharitonov saw the goods and was beside himself, putting aside his boiled potatoes and immediately bragging about what he would make.

“Maybe even some meat pierogi!”

I placed the larger of the baskets upon the kitchen table and fetched a bowl for the eggs. As I unloaded them, the young Novice Marina stepped forward, clutching dearly one of the chetverts of milk, which she lifted unto my hands. I gazed into her eyes, perceived the most subtle of nods, which sent a rush of excitement up my spine.

And, yes, the tiny pocket cut into the cork did in fact contain a note, the fourth and final one the Tsar was ever to receive. No sooner had Sister Antonina and Novice Marina departed, than big Dr. Botkin appeared in the kitchen doorway. Everyone was hoping for more news from the outside, and he pushed up his gold spectacles and studied me quite eagerly.

“Would you be so kind, Leonka, as to fetch a glass of water for Aleksandra Fyodorovna?” he requested, his dentures oddly clicking as he spoke. “Her eyes are aching, and I have prescribed valerian drops to calm her nerves.”

“Certainly,” I replied.

I did as requested. As before, I removed the cloth covering the crock of water, ladled a glass of fresh, cool water, and set upon my way to the bedchamber. As I traversed the dining room, I fell under the stern eyes of one of the new guards. Did he know? Could he guess? Nyet, that would be impossible. I just had to maintain a certain composure, and I continued through the doorless passage into the girls’ room, finding the three older grand duchesses on their beds reading and Anastasiya on the floor playing with Jimmy, her little King Charlie. Next I proceeded into the corner chamber, that of Nikolai and his consort. The Empress herself was reclined atop her bed, one hand over her closed eyes, while Aleksei sat in his nearby bed, making a chain out of a piece of copper wire. The Tsar was there too seated in a comfortable chair by the window, reading another volume by Saltykov.

“Ah, Leonka, spacibo bolshoye.” Thank you very much, said Nikolai, rising to his feet, at the same time brushing back his mustache with the back of his hand. “Here, let me take that.”

I approached him, handing him the glass of water.

In the most quiet of voices, he asked, “Did Sister Antonina bring something today?”

“Da-s.”

I immediately reached into my shirt, where I had hidden the small folded note. Just at that particular time came frightful coughing from the room of the grand duchesses. We all knew what that meant.

The Tsar whispered, “Bistro.” Quickly.

I heard them now, the heavy steps of a guard marching our way, and I nearly panicked. Finally my fingers found the small, folded paper, and I ripped it from my clothing and stuffed it into the Tsar’s hand.

“Ah, good morning, komendant,” said Nikolai, palming the note to his side and into his pocket. “The heat has finally broken, has it not?”

I turned around, saw the new komendant, Yakov Yurovksy, who just the day before had replaced Avdeyev, the Red pig. This new keeper was a trim man, not too tall. He had thick black hair, a black goatee, nice eyes, small ears, and a distinct, rather unpleasant voice that sounded as if he spoke through his nose.

“Good morning,” said the dark one, so very matter-of-factly, as he held forward a wooden box. “I have here in this wooden casket the items of value that you gave me yesterday.”

Aleksandra, never one to hold her tongue, gazed at him from her bed, and all but hissed, “We gave you nothing. What you have is what you took from us.”

That was yesterday’s incident. Yurovsky had arrived midday, and that very afternoon he and another had gathered the Imperial Family and demanded their personal jewelry “lest it tempt the guards.”

“You took all the jewels we were wearing,” continued the Empress, “except two bracelets from my Uncle Leo and my husband’s engagement ring – things that cannot be removed without tools.”

“I have done so for your own protection.”

“Protection? From what, your people? I’m afraid you’re too late. Our trunks in the shed out back have already been looted.”

“An unfortunate incident,” replied Yurovsky, his eyes spitting hate. “But it will not happen again. Comrade Avdeyev and some of the other house guards have been removed and sent to the front for actions unbecoming the revolution.”

Ever the gentleman, Nikolai said, “I pity Avdeyev, but he is to blame for not restraining his people.”

“Perhaps, but that is not your concern.”

“In any case, we appreciate your attempts to restore order.”

Yes, even the Tsar loved to feel the whip of authority and control. He disdained slovenliness and disorder, and in those first few days he appreciated the soldierly conduct of this new commandant, Yakov Yurovsky. Little did the Tsar or any of us know that Yurovsky was totally committed to one thing and one thing only: the “difficult” duties of the revolution, that is, murder.

Along with Yurovsky came an entirely new interior guard made up of “Letts.” These guards, these emissaries of the underworld, however, were not made up only of Latvians, who played so strong a role in the Cheka, the forerunner of the KGB. No, this new group of burly men comprised a strange mixture of Magyars, Germans, Austrians, and Russians, a vile mixture of men divorced from God and country and certainly Tsar. In spirit they were all true revolutionaries, men who had thoroughly justified killing as a means to an end. The only consolation I have found is in my books, where it is written that all these men died the most hideous deaths, including Yurovsky himself, who died from a wonderfully painful cancer that curled up his throat in 1938. Not only that but he lived and suffered just long enough to see his beloved daughter, Rima, tossed into one of Stalin’s gulags, where she languished for another twenty years.

Placing the wooden casket upon a table, Yurovsky opened it, and instructed, “You are to verify my list and verify the items in the box. When you have done this, I will seal the box.”

“And then what will you do with our things?” said Aleksandra, her irritation clear as she rose from the bed. “Take them away again? Allow your soldiers to steal from us as before?”

“Nyet. I will leave this box here in your room and here on this table. It must remain sealed, however, and this I will check each and every day. I assure you, there will be no incidents, not as long as you do not provoke them.”

“The only incidents have been due to the incompetence of your people. We, on the other hand, have been more than cooperative.”

I could see that Yurovsky would have loved to have slapped her, but instead he held himself in check. Perhaps he was laughing on the inside, chuckling because he knew that a bullet was coming her way. And yet he forestalled any provocation. He merely nodded as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his trump card. You see, he was conniving to win their trust, angling to make their murders as easy as possible, for he was well aware that lambs were easier to lead to the slaughter than wolves.

“I believe these are yours,” he said as he placed a handful of silver spoons upon the table.

Aleksandra looked at the silverware, her eyes wide with surprise. “Why… why, yes. Wherever did you find them?”

“They were stolen from the shed and buried in the garden.”

“Our gratitude,” said Nikolai, stepping forward. “So let us have a look at your list and the contents of this box. You have our word of honor that the seal will not be broken.”

Right then and there I watched as Nikolai and Aleksandra reached into the small casket and withdrew a packet. They poured out its contents – their most personal jewelry – exposing nothing fancy, not by any means. Nice pieces they were – rings, simple diamond earrings of maybe 15 carats each, lockets, gold bracelets, gold chains with crosses. The former Tsar and Tsaritsa sorted through it all, made sure each piece was listed. Several minutes later, they slid their belongings back into the packet, which Yurovsky took and placed inside the wooden casket.

“I will place the spoons in here as well.” The komendant did just that, then sealed the box with a piece of wire and some red wax. “As I said, this box is to remain on this table and is to remain sealed. I will check it everyday, and if I see that it has been tampered with I will remove it.”

Aleksandra Fyodorovna smoldered. You could see it in her face, which blossomed a blotchy, angry red. Nikolai Aleksandrovich, on the other hand, never wavered, never betrayed his inner thoughts, and was as usual amazingly self-controlled and circumspect.

“We understand,” he calmly replied, though I’m sure inside he too blazed with anger.

Yurovsky turned to leave, but rather than disappearing like a quick black cloud, he eyed the boy and descended upon him. I watched as the Emperor and Empress stiffened but said nothing.

“And how are you feeling today, Alyosha?” asked the komendant as he seated himself on the edge of the Heir’s bed.

Aleksei glanced at his parents before replying, “I am well, thank you.”

“Are you walking yet?”

“I have been able to stand, but not walk, not as of yet.”

Yurovsky, once a watchmaker, later a photographer, and still later a medic, loved to dole out advice, and said, “Well, you must get plenty of rest and eat lots of eggs and meat so as to get your strength up, agreed?”

Aleksei nodded with the grace of his father, though he said nothing further, for he was infused as well with his mother’s pride.

The Heir’s dog, Joy, came trotting in just then, and the komendant rose from the edge of Aleksei’s bed and gave the pup a pat on the head.

As he headed out of the room, Yurovsky said, “Well, I’m quite sure your four-legged friend here will watch over you.”

How did he do it? With blood on his mind, how did Yurovsky go about interacting with this husband and wife and these children? Da, da, da, once I made my grave error, it was this Komendant Yurovsky himself who went about so calmly orchestrating the execution. It was he as well who fired the first shot. And it was he who led the haphazard burial team off into the pine wood.

In any case, the minor incident with Yurovsky was soon overshadowed by hope, hope provoked by the final note that Sister Antonina and Novice Marina had just smuggled in. As with all the others, it too was in French, and it too survived those awful days:

The change in guards and in the komendant prevented us from writing to you. Do you know what the cause of this was? We answer your questions. We are a group of officers in the Russian army who have not lost consciousness of our duty before Tsar and Country.

We are not informing you in detail about ourselves for reasons you can understand, but your friends D. and T., who are already safe, know us.

The hour of deliberation is approaching, and the days of the usurpers are numbered. In any case, the Slavic armies are advancing toward Yekaterinburg. They are a few versts from the city. The moment is becoming critical, and now bloodshed must not be feared. Do not forget that the Bolsheviki will, in the end, be ready to commit any crime. The moment has come. We must act. Rest assured that the machine gun downstairs will not be dangerous. As for the komendant, we will know how to take him away. Wait for a whistle toward midnight. That will be the signal.

An Officer

And here I must ask, Is the wisdom of my years clear now? Have I not seen things that no human should?