The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar

21

“But, Katya, moya dorogaya vnoochka…” Kate, my dear granddaughter, continued Misha, seated at his office desk and clutching the microphone in both hands, “that’s not quite the end, for the Romanovs have now been buried a total of three times. In other words, Rossiya still does not know what to do with her last Tsar and where to place him in her ugly history. Yes, such devilish things have been done to the bodies of the Tsar and his family.”

Misha sighed, caught his breath, and gazed at his wall of books on the Romanovs. He was almost done, almost to the end, determined to make his granddaughter understand the complexities of the revolution and the fall of the Tsar. And he was doing just that, wasn’t he?

“Well, the very day after they were dumped down that mine, the Tsar and his family were brought back to the surface of the world again. Yes, it’s true, we learned all this not only from the Yurovsky Note of 1920, but also from those guards, who were later thoroughly interrogated by the Whites. And that next day the Romanovs were indeed resurrected. Because so many townspeople knew what had happened and where the bodies of Nikolai, Aleksandra, and the others were buried, the Komendant Yurovsky recognized the necessity of transferring the corpses to another location. On top of that, Yurovsky’s idiots, those Reds, had made such a mess of the area at the Four Brothers Mine that even a blind man could have found the bodies! So Yurovsky and his men returned to the mine and fished out the Romanovs. One of the Bolsheviki was lowered to the bottom of the pitshaft, where he stood in freezing water up to his waist. He started with Tatyana, tying a rope around her young, naked body. Giving a signal, the young princess was then hoisted up. And so it went, one by one. And because the bodies had been in this chilled, fresh water, they were all pink and fresh looking, like naked babies, their cheeks nice and rosy. They were all pulled out, of course, except the tiny dog, Jimmy, who was found only months later, nearly perfectly preserved.

“Oi, it was such a farce! What idiots those Reds were! They tossed the murdered ones in the back of a truck and headed off, intending to bury them in a deeper mine near the Siberian Highway. Along the way, however, the motor lorry kept sinking in the mud because, of course, it had rained so much. Finally it went in up to its axles, becoming hopelessly mired. The Reds jumped out of the truck, scratched their stupid heads for a few minutes, and then pushed and pushed to no avail. Eventually Yurovsky decided they needed to lighten the load, and so they pulled off the bodies, tossing the Tsar and his family on the side of the road like a pile of logs. Again they pushed and pushed, this time freeing the vehicle. By then it was dawn of yet another day, and Yurovsky and his idiots were so exhausted, do you know what they did? They threw the Romanovs and their retinue in the shallow muddy hole left by the truck! True, it’s true, Katya! Yurovsky thought himself so smart, pleased that they were killing two hares with one shot. And so they tossed them in the shallow hole, Romanov and servant piled this way and that, and then they doused them with sulfuric acid to make them unrecognizable. Finally, they covered them with mud and clay, threw some railroad ties over this grave, and ran the motor lorry back and forth to pack everything down. Can you imagine? And it worked. It worked for almost seventy-five years! Investigator Sokolov searched the entire area and even had his picture taken standing atop those very railroad ties – but never thought to look beneath them!”

Caught up in his anger, Misha fell silent. He could go on for hours. So many stories. So many horrors. But enough. He was so tired… so very, very tired.

“But here, dorogaya, I must draw to a close.” He took a deep breath, gathered all his energy just to hold himself together. “And so this is my story, the one I’ve never been able to tell. I apologize. I apologize for my lies, but we were so afraid, your grandmother and I. You must understand that she was but a simple novice, so sweet, so pretty, and I was but a plain kitchen boy. And these things we could not tell you because we were ever afraid of the Bolsheviki, ever afraid that they would not only come after us, but later, after both you and your father. This was a real danger too because the Reds were doing this, they were going after Russians everywhere, even killing one of their own, that kommunist Trotsky, in Mexico. This is exactly why the Tsar’s sisters fled so far as well – Ksenia to England and Olga eventually to Canada, where of course she died above that tiny barber shop.

“But I apologize both for me and your Baba Maya. Because of our fears we presented ourselves to you as a lie. Yes, my beloved wife was none other than the young, innocent Novice Marina.

“Well, my dear, I shall end now. I’ve instructed my lawyer not to give you this tape, nor the key and combination to my vault, until I have died. Which means that by the time these words reach your ears I will have left this earth to join your grandmother. Be confident, my sweet one, in our love for you. Be strong in our faith in your abilities. There is nothing more precious in the world than you, our lovely granddaughter – not even the Romanov gems that you will soon see. Since the early death of your father, my son, seventeen years ago, you have burned like a bright star in our lives, your grandmother’s and mine. Our sincerest thanks for restoring in part our belief in the goodness of the world.

“Oh, but I hesitate to say good-bye…” Suddenly he felt hot tears flood his eyes, and he crudely blotted at them. “There are so many more stories. So much more to tell.” His voice began to quiver. “But enough… enough… ya tebya ochen lubloo. I love you very much.”

Realizing that he could no longer control himself, the old man quickly flicked off the tape recorder. He mopped his eyes, then slumped forward, resting his forehead in the heels of his worn hands. It had been harder than he thought, but he’d done it, gotten through it all. Yes, he’d given his granddaughter a thousand truths.

He wanted to sit there, basking in his memories, both horrific and wonderful. But now was no time to linger. He was so close, so very close, and he had so little left to do.

Pushing himself on, Misha popped the cassette out of the small black machine. He picked up his gold pen, gathered his thoughts and energy, and on the tape itself, wrote, “For Our Katya.” He then slipped the tape into the envelope he’d already addressed to his granddaughter, sealed it, and placed the packet in the center of his desk. Sure, he thought. Everything was in order. He’d gone through all his papers, all his files. He wanted to leave behind as clean a trail as possible. There was no sense in making this difficult for Kate, no sense making it more complicated than it already was or would be.

Misha rolled back his chair, braced himself, and then pushed himself to his feet. He sensed himself teetering and leaned over, placing both hands on his desk. So old, he thought. So much time had passed, so many things had happened. Sometimes he felt like he could live another century, other times, like now, he felt as if he had but minutes left.

As he carefully moved to his built-in bookcase, a jolt of pain bit his left knee, his bad one, and he stood still. Then proceeded. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a key, one that he always carried on his person. He next reached up to the wall of books, where he pushed aside two volumes and revealed a brass lock. When Misha inserted his key and turned it, a well-oiled and well-balanced three-foot section of the entire bookcase, stretching from floor to ceiling, began to swing out. He pulled it fully open, revealing yet another door, a metal one, with a brass handle and a dial lock. He’d had this hidden vault installed sixty years ago when May and he had bought this house. Now he spun the dial to four numbers – 1-8-9-4, the year of the Tsar’s ascension to the throne – and immediately there was a gentle, pneumatic sound and the door moved slightly. Misha pulled on the handle, swinging forward the thick, heavy door. The first thing he did was hit a light-switch, revealing a walk-in safe some six feet deep and five feet wide. The only other person in the family to know of its existence was, of course, May, and together they had come in here three or four times a year, not simply to check on things, but to marvel at the treasures and bathe in bittersweet memories.

Misha had never worried about being robbed. If the house had been broken into, the thieves would have gotten only the inconsequential stuff – the silver flatware, the tea set, some of May’s day to day jewels – but not this, the secret heart of his life’s work. At first glance the contents of the vault seemed pathetic, for on the left hung a rack of old clothes, a raincoat, suit, and pants for him, a dress, hat, and a coat for Maya. On the right stood a rack of shelves filled from floor to ceiling with boxes, some small, some large. Beneath them, resting on the floor were three bankers’ boxes that contained sundry documents.

In the beginning, May and he had sold hardly any of it, no more than a small bag or two of insignificant diamonds. They’d used that money not only to escape Russia, but to launch their lives in America. Later on, of course, Misha had sold more of the loose gems, none of them of historical value, using the cash to buy sundry Fabergé items that the cash-poor Soviets – not to mention the defrocked Russian princes – were selling all across Europe.

Oh, yes, thought Misha, reaching for a box on the fourth shelf. He quite liked this one, and he pulled the cardboard box halfway out, opened the lid, and revealed a gray jewelers’ bag inside. Flipping that open, he gazed upon a Fabergé box some twelve inches long and four inches deep that was covered with lapis and diamonds. Before it was hidden away here it had sat for several decades on Tsar Nikolai’s desk. Fabergé had been a master of combining styles from different periods, turning objets d’art into functional things of beauty, what he termed objets de fantaisie.

Oh, and this one, thought Misha as he closed up that box and reached for another. This one was May’s favorite. Lifting another jewelers’ bag into his hands, he felt something heavy and egg-shaped, which he slid into his palm. It was a large gold egg encrusted with a multitude of double-headed eagles – the emblem of Imperial Russia – that were fashioned out of platinum and hundreds of diamonds. And like all of the fifty-six eggs Fabergé had created for the Imperial Family, this one too contained a surprise: Misha tipped back the top of the egg and a diamond encrusted Orthodox cross popped up. It made him laugh, just like it always did. Created as an Easter present to mark Aleksandra’s conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, the egg had the year 1896 drawn in rubies on the back.

Upward of twelve Fabergé eggs had vanished during the flames of the revolution, and yet Misha and May had secretly managed to obtain seven of those. And all seven of them were in here. Reaching for the box to his right, Misha opened it, revealing another egg, this one in green enamel atop a solid gold pedestal. Flowers fashioned from gold and platinum, rubies, sapphires and, of course, diamonds, covered the egg. When Misha tipped back its lid he found a gold perfume bottle inside, its cupola top encrusted with a frosting of tiny diamonds. He gently laid it down, then quickly opened the lids of the next two boxes. Opening the inner boxes of each, Misha reached in and felt the shapes of two more eggs swathed in jewelers’ bags. Without even opening them, he turned his attention to the smaller box on the next shelf down. Opening the cotton bag inside, Misha slipped a diamond some two inches in diameter into his palm. He slid the diamond back in its bag and surveyed the wall of shelves. Five shelves, to be exact, all lined with similar boxes, some sixty or seventy. It was all here, the contents of the entire suitcase he and May had carried out of Russia, all of the gems carefully catalogued and packed. Many, he knew, dated back to the time of Peter the Great. One piece of jewelry, an emerald the size of a silver dollar that was in turn surrounded by a halo of 20-carat diamonds, had been a gift to Ivan the Terrible.

Incomparable treasures, all of them. Collecting and guarding them had occupied nearly his entire life, and now that he had succeeded in his duties he felt, surprisingly, a sense of pride. He had pledged to bury these things away not only until the fall of communism, but until his Nikolai and Aleksandra received a proper Orthodox burial. And now that these both had happened – what miracles! – he could rest with a degree of peace. His beloved Kate would have to oversee the final step, returning all of this to Russia, and he had every confidence that she would execute the transfer in a timely manner.

This room held the climax of his story and his life, thought Misha. Everything he recorded on that tape was to prepare his granddaughter for this room and its priceless contents. How much was all this worth, three, four, five hundred million dollars? A billion? Certainly somewhere in that range. And that was his reason for telling Kate his version of the final days of the Tsar – simply so that she could and would understand the meaning, the purpose, and the true value of all these jewels in this room. Misha was laying at Kate’s feet not unfathomable wealth, but overwhelming, mind-boggling responsibility, and he had to make sure she understood every ramification.

As much as he wanted to go through every box and admire every gem, there just wasn’t time. It had taken years for May and him to catalog it all, examining and weighing every stone, describing every objet, and then recording it all in a jewel book. May even insisted on drawing a facsimile of every piece, which she carefully did, and that log was there, right over there on the shelf. Oi, so many memories, mused Misha as he closed the boxes one after the other.

He even started laughing.

Turning, he looked at the rack of old clothes and chuckled aloud. May and he had been so very afraid, not just in the twenties and thirties, but especially right after World War II and into the fifties. Accordingly, they had taken every precaution, and Misha reached for his raincoat, finding it oddly heavy. Squishing the material between his fingertips, he sensed a band of small, hard objects running all the way around the neck. Stones. And not mere stones, but diamonds. Similarly, May’s dress over there held an entire panel of secret brillianty and the hem a great circle of them. Scattered through these clothes were some ten pounds of gems, hidden away like this in case May and he had suddenly needed to flee. In a separate codicil to his will he’d left note of this too, so Kate wouldn’t simply throw these clothes in a bag and drop them at the Goodwill.

But enough of this. He had to be going, his end was imminent. There were but two things Misha wanted from this room, and he reached for a bankers’ box on the floor and pushed aside its cardboard lid. Inside, carefully wrapped in cotton towels, he found a small red tin box, a bit rusty at the edges, its cover embossed with the imperial double-headed eagle and lettering that read TOVARISCHESTVO A. I. ABRIKOSOVA V MOSKVYE – The Goods of the A. I. Abrikosova Company, Moscow. Opening the old candy box, Misha gazed down upon its contents – some bits of wire, a tiny chain, two small rocks, a flattened coin, and some rusty nails – and his eyes blistered with tears. It had been terribly stupid of him back then, but he hadn’t been able to flee Yekaterinburg without these things, so priceless were they to him. Odd, mused Misha, how all of that seemed just like yesterday. He so clearly remembered sneaking late one night into The House of Special Purpose – then deserted by the Reds – and snatching this bric-a-brac, the treasures of a little boy, from its hiding place behind the mopboard.

He closed up the old candy box, bent slowly over, and reached for something else. This time his gnarled fingers wrapped around a dark brown glass vial, small and corked tightly, and he carefully held it and the tin box as he closed up the vault. What a job, what a task, he mused as he glanced about the room one last time. Now there was just one more thing he had to do: commit a fantastically great sin, the greatest of all.

Moving with determination, Misha flicked off the single light and swung shut the vault door and secured it tight. He then stepped into his office and pushed the bookcase back in place. Once it was locked, once he’d positioned the books so that they covered the lock, he slipped the brass key back in his trousers.

If only he could whisk through time and return to that night. If only he could reverse the flow of time and make the right choices, the right decisions, then perhaps he could change the outcome of it all. Like a mad river, however, time rushed in only one direction, and there was no turning back to the dark events of July 16-17, 1918, just as there was no turning back his decision now. No, thought Misha. He knew what he had to do, what must be done. He’d felt so guilty, so awful ever since that heinous night, but eighty years of suffering were not enough. He was not ready yet for forgiveness, for holy deliverance. He must sin again so that he would suffer not just in this life, but in the life hereafter and forevermore.

Misha, feeling every creak in his weary body, sat back down at his desk. He placed the old red candy box before him, opened it once again and admired the bits of bent and rusty things. Picking out a flattened coin, he was instantly transported – “Just look at what Papa’s locomotive did to this kopek!” – and instantly saw that bed, that room. But it was like torture, this memory of his. He could remember it all, see it all like a movie, but he couldn’t return and participate in the actual events.

He had so long ago decided just what must be done and how, and for so many years had been so determined, that his actions now were nearly automatic. The time had finally come. May had died. And he’d fulfilled a pledge he’d made long ago in a Siberian wood. Da, da, da, he’d accomplished everything that he possibly could, including, of course, telling a thousand truths just so he could get away with one singular, gross lie. Sure, that was exactly what the audiotape was: one enormous lie. From now and hopefully forevermore his Kate would believe that he, Misha, had been none other than the young Leonid Sednyov, when in fact nothing could have been further from the truth. Of course he’d been there, but not as the little kitchen boy. It was May herself who’d come up with the idea of supplanting one lie with another, of crafting a story so close to the truth that no one would ever doubt that it was in fact the truth. And Misha had told the tale perfectly, doled it out so convincingly that neither his granddaughter nor the world would ever know what really happened on that awful, awful night. Now there was nothing left for him here in this life except, perhaps, forgiveness, which is the last thing he desired or felt he deserved.

With that, Misha uncorked the small vial of cyanide. He swirled it a bit, then poured its contents into his glass of water, and saw the life and death therein whirl into eternity, his own.

“Please, Father,” he muttered in near silent prayer, “do not forgive my sins.”

Not wasting another second, Misha lifted the glass to his lips and drank it down in two bitter gulps. Almost instantly he was blinded by an atomic-like flash of blazing red light and his weary body slumped forward onto his desk.