To pass sideways into the temple of God.”
My would-be interrogator was suddenly blushing. “I wrote that.”
“Of course you did.” It simply sprang from my mouth. “You’re Aleksander Aleksandrovich Blok, and that was my father’s favorite poem. I recited it to him the very night he was killed… In fact, your words were practically the last I spoke to him.”
The color rushed from his face and he turned as pale as snow on a moonlit night. His own heavenly images of sinful Russia had touched the heart of the devil incarnate? His motifs of heartache and remorse were the last blessing the evil one had heard before meeting…death?
I’d never hated a man so much before. Sitting before me was not only Russia ’s most romantic poet in more than a century, not only our greatest gift since Aleksander Pushkin, but the person who’d once been both my savior and my inspiration. When I, a peasant girl from the distant countryside, had landed in the Steblin-Kamensky Institute, a school for daughters of good home and breeding, I was like a reeba bez vodii-a fish without water-lacking in friends, stylish clothing, courtly manners, a fancy home, personal maid, or anything else that a girl of good society took for granted. But I did have this poet’s images and words, and they had helped transform me from a clumsy derevenschina into a worldly young woman.
My voice quivering as if I were hurling hate on a deceitful lover, I gasped, “Why in the name of God did you bring me here? What do you of all people want from me?”
Blok stared straight at me. “I need to know what happened the night of December sixteenth, the night your father was killed.” He paused. “Allow me to explain, Maria Grigorevna. I was drafted into the army and now serve the Provisional Government. As secretary of the Extraordinary Commission, I have been present at most of the interviews with former ministers and those closest to the former imperial family.”
“Oh, really?” I said, mocking him. “I’ve wondered where you were and what you were doing. I haven’t seen any new poems from you in quite some time. Is that why?”
He glared at me. By the depth of the furrows creasing his forehead, I knew I’d hit not only a sore point but probably a sore truth. I couldn’t have been more pleased.
Pressing on, I said, “So you’ve found something more interesting to do…such as gathering gossip?”
“Maria Grigorevna,” he said, as sternly as a commandant, “it’s my job to take the stenographs from the interviews and edit them into readable form. As I’ve been going through the endless pages on your father, however, I find that not only is Rasputin more a mystery than ever but the truth of his murder is more and more unclear.”
“Of course it is. After all, both monarchists and revolutionaries have proved equally adept at twisting both my father’s life and his death into political legend.”
“They say that first your father was poisoned, next shot, then stabbed. But still he lived, and frantic to kill him, they finally threw him through a hole in the ice and-”
Bitterness stinging my tongue, I interrupted. “Don’t you know better than to believe the stories told by a man’s enemies?”
“Yes, but…”
As his words trailed off, I could see it in his eyes, his fascination with my father, which wasn’t surprising, since the entire Empire had been obsessed with him-or, more correctly, with the myths about him. And yet, as I stared at Blok, there seemed to be more. Could he be one of the few who admired my father, who saw Papa as the ultimate revolutionary, the peasant who’d climbed from the lowest rung to the very top and done what no terrorist had ever been able to do, overturn our entire society?
Suddenly I blurted out the truth. “If you really want to know who murdered the mysterious Rasputin and how, I can tell you. I can tell you exactly what happened on the night of December sixteenth because I was there and saw it all with my own eyes. First, though, you must realize one thing: I was and am a devoted daughter. I loved Papa, and he…he loved me.”
The tears came then, and there was not a thing I could do to stop them. Staring blankly ahead, I simply let the large salty drops roll one after another down my cheeks. But I was not crying because I loved my father. I was crying because I felt so guilty.
“What is it, Maria?” Blok asked, with surprising softness.
I swiped at my eyes. What could I say about my father, the greatest of all Russian enigmas?
“You have to look at the final days of his life,” I said, my voice quivering. “I learned everything I know about Papa during that last week.”
“Then you must tell me every detail of those days, right up to and including the night of the sixteenth, when he was lured to the Yusupov Palace.”
“Yes… But since when has anyone in Russia been interested in honesty, let alone truth?”
CHAPTER 1
December 1916
One week before Rasputin’s murder
It was past eleven in the evening when the telephone rang in our apartment, which wasn’t that unusual because people were always in need of Papa’s help, and in our city, the city of Peter, clocks had never made sense. Though we were fast approaching the lowest point in the year and the day’s light had been barely more than an indifferent blink, sleep for all of us was elusive.
Still wearing my favorite blue dress, I was sitting on the bed, Pushkin’s Evgeni Onegin and Bely’s Peterburg by my side. But instead of reading these famous poets, I was captured by a new one, Marina Tsvetayeva, who a few years earlier had achieved my dream of publishing a book when she was just eighteen. Several of my small pieces had already been set in type, but would I ever write enough poems to fill an entire book?
As the phone rang a second and a third time, I glanced at my young sister, Varvara, who was dozing fitfully on the other half of the bed we shared, her head buried beneath a lumpy down pillow. When the telephone continued its shrill noise, I pushed aside my books and in my stocking feet hurried from our small bedroom into the hall. Where was our maid, Dunya, and why wasn’t she answering? Many people assumed that because of our royal connections, we lived a grand life, rich in material goods and waited on hand and foot, but that was not so. Our third-floor apartment at 64 Goroxhovaya Street, just a block from the Fontanka River, was, to the surprise of many, a mere five rooms-our salon, the dining room, Papa’s study, his bedroom, and Varvara’s and my room-that was it besides the bath and the kitchen. And none of our rooms in this five-story brick building was grand. Even our neighbors were rather ordinary. Katya, who lived upstairs in Flat 31, was a seamstress. There were also a clerk and a kind masseuse, Utilia, who often complained that Papa bothered her for affection.
When I came into the hall, I was, as usual, greeted by music and loud voices. Papa loved Gypsy music-particularly the Mazalski Gypsy Choir, so lively and full of fun, just like Papa’s heart-but tonight he had a lone balalaika player in the salon. From somewhere I heard my gregarious father’s laugh rise with delight. I also heard the giggle of a woman-no, I realized, women-but I had no idea who they were. Every day seemed to bring scores of desperate strangers into our home. From morning to night there was a queue outside our door and down the three flights, a line of princes and paupers, bankers and bakers, lawyers and factory workers, waiting their turn to see Papa and beg his influence or have him heal them.
Rushing to the black phone on the wall, I picked up the heavy earpiece, cupped it to my ear, and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Ya Vas slushaiyoo.” I am listening to you.
“This is the Palace operator. One moment, please.”
My heart immediately speeded up. Despite the late hour, I assumed it was the Empress. The very next moment, however, there was a click and I immediately recognized the voice of the Empress’s only close friend, the person many were calling the second most powerful woman in all the Russias.