The grand duke fired…and the bullet struck my father in the back, causing him to halt in his tracks. Slowly and with great effort, my father turned around, his hand rising slowly as if to make the sign of the cross. With great care, the grand duke fired again…the second shot struck my father directly in the forehead…and I screamed through the night as Papa tumbled to the ground, his hot red blood quickly melting away the cold white snow.
EPILOGUE
April 1917
Four months after Rasputin’s death
“And then what happened?”
Wiping my eyes, I raised my head and stared across the wooden table at him, at Aleksander Blok, the man who’d once been my favorite poet and who was now my interrogator.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I asked.
“What happened next?”
How, I wondered, had the world been turned so on its head? I gazed around, craning my head and studying this columned room, St. George’s Hall, buried in the heart of the Winter Palace. Just weeks ago this had been the elegant throne room of the greatest monarchy on the face of the earth. Now it had been trashed by angry revolutionaries. And there it was again, I thought as I looked toward the dais, a distant noise coming from behind the grate. So the looting of the palace continued unabated. Yes, I thought, beware the peasant with the ax.
How strange. Just when I had begun to understand my own father, he had been killed. And just when I had found someone to love, that young man had betrayed me as had no one else.
“You understand Sasha’s real identity?” I said, looking up through a mist of tears.
“Yes, of course, Prince O’ksandr of Novgorod. A great friend of Prince Felix and Grand Duke Dmitri.”
And, I thought, a dabbler in the sects of Russia, particularly the Khlysty, which was why, of course, Prince Felix had first drawn Sasha into the plot against my father.
Blok dipped his pen into some ink, took a deep breath, exhaled as if in pain, and said, “I need specific information of that night.”
“Why? What do you care for truth?”
This man, one of our greatest purveyors of words whom many called the heir to Pushkin, flinched. Sure, I had just insulted him, but so what? His religion was using fine words to slice apart the complexities of the world and thereby expose the truths and the lies. Yet did I think my story, no matter how honestly he recorded it, even embellished it, would ever see the light of day? Never.
“You will write my story, but do you think it will actually be seen by any but a few officials? Do you think people in general will be allowed to read it?” I shook my head, and as confident as only a Rasputin could be, said, “Absolutely not. I’m quite sure these pages will be buried away and disappear.”
Aghast, Blok looked up at me. “Why in the name of the devil do you say that?”
“Because the real truth of Rasputin is not what your people need, it’s not something they can use to justify what they’ve done or something they can now use to fuel their revolution.”
“But-”
“Everyone is running around saying that first my father was poisoned, next he was stabbed, and then he was shot, but still he lived. He lived, and nothing killed the holy devil Rasputin until he was thrown into the frozen waters of the Nevka and died by drowning. But none of that’s true! I saw him killed! My father was murdered, first shot in the stomach and then in the back and finally in the head. Even the most cynical of revolutionaries wouldn’t believe that even the great Rasputin could survive a bullet wound in the head. After all, he nearly died at the hands of a small syphilitic woman, so he was obviously as mortal as the rest of us.”
Blok stared at me, not daring to contradict my words.
I said, “You know, of course, why Prince Felix and the others started this awful story? It’s perfectly obvious, isn’t it?”
After a long moment, he finally nodded. “To maintain the myth of your father.”
“Exactly. There was no way a Yusupov could say that they had simply shot a peasant in the back as he tried to run away. Nor could they say that a defenseless and unarmed holy man from Siberia was easy to kill. Either statement would have enraged the liodi.” I continued, my voice full of anger. “So to make sure that the murder wouldn’t inflame the common folk, they made up the whole story of how difficult it was to kill Rasputin, the mad monk. And then they threw in the final tidbit, that my father died not by poison, or being stabbed or shot, but from drowning. You understand why that’s so important, too, don’t you?”
Blok nodded, albeit slowly.
“Then go on, tell me. Tell me why.”
“Because…” Blok pushed back his chair and rose, moving away from the table. “Because if your father were still breathing when he was thrown through the ice and into the freezing water, he could never become a saint.”
“Exactly. Their story not only confirms his supposed evilness, it entirely prevents him from being worshiped-ever!-simply because liodi believe that those who drown can never be canonized.”
Blok turned and looked at me with eyes so sad, so tired, that I knew I had actually done the impossible and punctured a hole in his revolutionary zeal. This was exactly why, I knew, Blok and his cohorts would never allow the real story of the real Rasputin to get out, for it would make the revolution look like the black joke it was.
“You’re sure of this, that your father was finished off by a bullet to the head?” he asked.
The crack of the gun, my father’s horrible groan, the sight of him falling into the snow. Could I be more sure?
“Absolutely positive. And it wasn’t Prince Felix or Prince O’ksandr or even Purishkevich who killed my father in the end. It was that splendid marksman, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich.”
“Dear Lord.”
As would any Russian, Blok immediately understood the ramifications. Earlier the virulent Purishkevich had given thanks to God that the hands of royal youth had not been stained with blood. But in the end, of course, that was exactly what had happened. Purishkevich wasn’t referring to Prince Felix, certainly one of the most noble young men in the country, but not royal. No, he meant Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, an immediate member of the ruling monarch’s family and a direct grandson of the great Alexander II.
It was all just as I had been told. “My father’s death was supposed to be only the beginning. The grand dukes next meant to kill the Tsar, toss Aleksandra Fyodorovna in a convent, and install one of their own, the young, handsome, and modern Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. But russkiye liodi,” the common Russian people, “would never have accepted him as a pretender to the throne if they knew that he, a grandson of the Tsar Liberator who had freed the serfs, had killed one of their own, a true muzhik, in cold blood. And the grand dukes’ plot probably would have succeeded if it hadn’t been so cold, if the bread riots hadn’t broken out, if-”
“Of course.” Blok shook his head. “And you haven’t told anyone this?”
“No, absolutely not.”
“You’re positive?”
“Not even my own mother. I haven’t been able to tell a single soul…until you.”
“And why is that? Why haven’t you come forward?”
“Because they threatened me, because…”
The memories came flooding back, and I turned away. As if it had happened only moments ago, I remembered it all perfectly clearly, how I had rushed, sobbing, to my father’s body. No sooner had I fallen in the red snow, however, than a group of men had charged around me. Within seconds they were hauling me away, dragging me into the palace. I had screamed and cried, kicked and twisted. When someone struck me in the face, I had turned and seen Sasha.
“Shut up!” he shouted. “I’m sorry, but we had to do it. Your father left us no choice!”
I cried out again, and suddenly I felt the cold barrel of a gun on the back of my head, and Purishkevich was yelling into my ear, “Shut up or I’ll shoot!”