Looking back one last time I saw Prince Felix hysterically crying out and kicking my father’s body.
“Papa!” I pleaded, helplessly.
And when Prince Felix had fallen against the corpse and started beating and slugging it like a madman, I turned away, unable to bear it…
Now staring at Blok through a thick veil of tears, I said, “They kept me locked up in a coal bin for hours before tossing me out. And I’m still not sure why they let me go. All I can think is that Sasha-Prince O’ksandr-arranged it. When they did release me, however, they said that if I told anyone, they’d kill not only me but my sister, my brother, and my mother. All of us. They promised to eliminate all the Rasputins, to liquidate us.”
“Dear Lord.”
“That’s why I’ve kept silent these four months since Papa was killed.” I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the vision of that night. “It was all so horrible. Prince Felix went crazy, beating and kicking my father. Was it some repressed feeling in him? Had he both desired my father sexually and hated him too? Yes, surely. As I look back, I think Prince Felix earlier that fall must have confessed himself and his feelings to my father, who in turn was only trying to heal the prince of his ‘grammatical errors.’”
“And Prince O’ksandr?” said Blok, shaking his head as he wrote something down. “Do you have any idea what happened to him?”
“No. None.”
“But you do understand what role he played in this, don’t you?”
Nodding, I wiped my eyes. “I’ve since learned that he’s from a very noble though not very wealthy family in Novgorod, a family that dates all the way back to the days of Prince Rurik. And when Prince Felix found out that Sasha had secret connections to the Khlysty, he got Sasha to snoop around for anything they could use against my father. When they couldn’t find anything, they didn’t just stop. No, they kept pushing and digging…and they decided that Sasha, the youngest of them, should use his charms to try to get information from me, Rasputin’s daughter.”
“And this, I presume, is why you’ve returned to the capital, to look for Prince O’ksandr. Correct?”
I wanted to tell him, but when I stared into Blok’s eyes I couldn’t decide if it was safe to confess.
“Well,” pressed Blok, “is that correct?”
His eyes just looked so sad, his soul so vulnerable, that I couldn’t help but nod. “There’s something I need to tell him, just one thing he needs to know.”
“But do you have any idea where he is?”
“I know that while Prince Felix and Grand Duke Dmitri were exiled for their part in my father’s murder, Sasha was imprisoned by the Tsar. I thought he would have been freed after the revolution, but I’ve heard from someone who heard from someone else that he was in in the Shpalernaya Prison, and…and that he might be suffering from typhus.”
Aleksander Blok stared at me with something akin to horror as if I were a vision, a harbinger, of things to come. And yes, I was quite sure I was. People lost, people looking, people dying…all this wasn’t just in Russia ’s future, it was already here, already playing over and over like a tragic dirge.
“Of course, if he was really there, the chances of his still being alive aren’t very great,” I continued, fully aware that Shpalernaya was the worst of the worst. “There should be lists, people should be helping one another, but people aren’t talking anymore. Have you seen how frightened everyone is? I wish someone would help me, but who’s ever come to the aid of a Rasputin?” I shrugged. “You don’t have any idea where he could be, do you? You haven’t heard anything?”
Blok shook his head.
It was just as I thought, this revolution would come to no good. The Provisional Government was not in control, and Kerensky wasn’t powerful enough to maintain order. There were already rumors that the Bolsheviks were plotting a putsch. In the end, everyone would probably realize what everyone already knew, that Russia needed someone to rule her with an iron fist. So there probably would be another tsar, one more mighty than the last, though certainly not a Romanov.
But I’d had enough of it all, this poet and his interrogation. I didn’t care what Blok wanted; I would be kept no longer. So I got to my feet, turned, and started for the large doors at the far end of the hall.
I hadn’t gone more than ten paces when Blok suddenly barked, “Stop right there!”
I turned and gazed into the eyes of our great poet-our defeated poet. “What?”
“You said you returned to the capital to tell Prince O’ksandr something, but you haven’t said what. I can only assume it’s something terribly important. What is it? What does he need to know?”
With eyes nearly as intent as my father’s, I stared right back at him. “I want him to know that I’m planning to leave not just Petrograd but Russia, and I’ll never be back.” Somehow I knew it was safe to tell Blok the rest, so, gently touching my stomach, I added, “And I want Sasha to know that I’m pregnant with his child-yes, he is the father of a new generation of Rasputins. The shaman back home in our village believes it will be a girl, so if by chance you ever see him, tell him that too. Tell him he is the father of this Rasputin’s daughter.”
Blok watched the young woman cross the large room defiantly, her figure tall and confident, her stride direct and determined. He didn’t doubt that Maria had spoken the unfettered truth of her father’s life and death. It was amazing how much she knew and understood. Almost everything, actually.
But he had to remain focused. The old order was gone, the new had arrived. It was not about these little personal tragedies but the future and what it would bring. Right now a great storm had swept across Russia, changing and electrifying everything. He knew they were in the middle of it, these days so dark and turbulent…but then? When the storm passed and the skies cleared, would the transformation be complete? Once he had been so sure, now he was not.
Blok gazed across the huge throne room and watched as Maria Rasputin reached the tall gilded doors, slipped through one, and pulled it shut behind her, disappearing into history. So be it, thought Blok, as he took his pen, dabbed it in his pot of ink, and jotted down notes for the report he would write on Matryona Grigorevna Rasputina for the Thirteenth Section. He already knew he wouldn’t mention that she was with child. Indeed, he decided he would deem her harmless and of no further interest. Odd, he thought, how her openness, her story-the truths she so freely gave-in turn protected her from other truths, albeit very painful ones. No, he was glad he hadn’t told her.
Laying down the pen, Aleksander Blok took a deep breath and ran both hands through his thick wavy hair. Rising, he headed from his simple oak desk toward the pair of doors just to the left of the dais. It had been through these doors that the tsars had entered St. George’s Hall. And as he walked, Blok’s eyes fell on the exquisitely carved wooden grate located next to the dais, open on this side but covered on the rear with a silk curtain. Not only had trumpeters, tastefully unseen, once stood behind the fancy grillwork heralding the royal entry, but advisers and ministers had huddled there unseen, overhearing all that transpired before their tsar.
Blok, who’d noticed Maria glance at the grate several times, wondered if she had suspected.
Taking hold of the large gilded door lever, he pressed down, pushed open the door, and entered a much smaller albeit regal room, the plaster walls painted a pale blue, the cove ceiling covered with detailed plasterwork that was akin to filigree. Here the tsars had gathered before making their grand entry. Now, however, the atmosphere was decidedly somber, for on this side of the grate were two armed guards and their prisoner, a severely ill man who sat securely tied to a chair, his mouth covered with a thick white cloth.