‘What do you think I am, boy, a clock?’ shouted the man behind the counter. ‘Go bother someone else with your questions.’
‘Please,’ I said. ‘Can’t you just—’
‘It’s almost three o’clock,’ he snapped. ‘Now get out of here and don’t come back.’
Three o’clock! Not even an hour had passed.
It seemed as if God was smiling on me a few moments later, however, because just as I turned the corner my eyes caught a glint of something sparkling at my feet. I narrowed my eyes to try to see what it was, but try as I might, I couldn’t locate it again and so retraced my steps until I caught the sparkle once more. Following it carefully, I pulled a clip from the dirt, and attached to it was a handful of banknotes – not many, but more than I had seen in a long time. Some unfortunate villager must have lost them in the dirt; it might have been only a few minutes before, it might have been weeks, there was no way of knowing. I looked around to see whether anyone had seen me, but no one was looking in my direction so I stuffed the money into my pocket, thrilled by my good fortune. I could have handed it to a soldier, of course; I could have found the town council and allowed it to be returned to its rightful owner, but I did neither of those things. I did what anyone in my impoverished and starving position would have done: I kept it.
‘It’s a quarter past three,’ roared the café owner when I stepped inside again. This time, I held a bank note in the air to make sure he knew that I was not simply there to bother him. ‘Ah,’ he said, smiling, ‘that makes all the difference.’
I sat down, ordered a meal and something to drink and tried not to watch the minutes go by on the clock. Now that my eighteen-month journey was at an end, now that Anastasia and I were finally to be reunited, a single question loomed in my mind: what would I do when we were together again?
It wasn’t as if the Bolsheviks were just going to allow her to leave the Ipatiev house and come with me. Even if they did, where would we go? No, we might be reunited for only a few minutes, an hour if we were lucky, and then she would have to return to her family. And what would I do after that, return every night to see her? Plan one clandestine meeting after another? No, there had to be a more sensible solution.
Perhaps I could save them, I thought. Perhaps I could find a way to get the entire family out, to smuggle them across Russia and northwards to Finland, where they could make their escape for England. There were bound to be sympathizers along the way who would protect the Imperial Family, who would lie for them, who would die for them if necessary. And if I was successful, surely the Tsar could not refuse me his daughter’s hand, despite the difference in our ranks. The idea seemed a brave one, but for the life of me, I could think of no way to accomplish it. The soldiers were all armed with rifles, while all I had to my name were a few banknotes found in the street. The Bolsheviks and the new People’s Government were hardly likely to let their most prized assets simply flee the country to create a Russian court in exile. No, they would hold on to them for ever, they would keep them in seclusion, hide them away from the world. The Tsar and Tsaritsa would have no court any more, they would spend the rest of their lives under guard in Yekaterinburg. Their son and daughters would grow old here. They would be kept hidden for the rest of their lives, never allowed to marry or bear children, and the Romanov dynasty would come to a natural end. Another fifty, perhaps sixty years and they would be gone.
It was unthinkable, but the most likely explanation. Even to consider it left me in a state of depression. The hours went by, the sun set, I left the café and roamed the streets again, walking an hour in one direction in order for it to take me another hour to return again. I didn’t grow tired, for tonight I was entirely alert. Nine o’clock came and went, ten o’clock, eleven o’clock. Midnight approached. I could wait no longer.
I went back.
If the house did not seem particularly oppressive during the daytime, it adopted a different characteristic at night, for the speckled shadows of the moon falling down upon the walls and fences that surrounded it unsettled me. The guards who had worked in shifts, casually walking up and down the driveway, apparently taking little notice of who was observing their movements, were now nowhere to be seen. The gate was unlocked and a lorry stood in the centre of the driveway, its cargo – if it had one – hidden from view by a tarpaulin sheet. I hesitated on the grass opposite, looking around nervously as I wondered what was taking place inside. After a few minutes, wary of the soldiers returning and finding me standing there, I made my way across to the cluster of trees where I had told Marie that I would wait and hoped that Anastasia would soon emerge to find me.
It was not long before the lights in the ground-floor parlour were turned on and what appeared to be the entire complement of soldiers entered the room. They were not wearing their Bolshevik uniforms now, but had changed into the simple clothing of local farmers. Their rifles were slung over their shoulders as ever, but rather than splitting up as I expected – some to sleep, some to work, some to watch – they took their seats around the table and turned their attention to an older man, a soldier who seemed to be in charge, who was on his feet talking while the rest sat silently and listened.
A moment later, I heard an unexpected sound on the gravel of the driveway. I crouched further back into the woodland, while raising my head to try to see who had emerged. It was dark, however, and the lorry stood in my way, so I could distinguish no one in the distance except the guards in the parlour. I held my breath and yes, there it was again – feet walking carefully upon the stones, crunching them underfoot.
Someone had left the house.
I squinted and tried desperately to see whether it was Anastasia, but was loath to call out her name, even in a raised whisper, in case I was wrong and my presence was discovered. There was nothing I could do but wait. My heart pounded inside my chest and despite the chill of the hour a line of perspiration broke out across my forehead. Something felt wrong. I wondered whether I should take a chance and make my way across the road, but before I could decide, the guards stood up in unison and extended their right arms forward into the centre of the room, placing their hands on top of each other’s in a great pile before lifting them off once again and standing very quietly in a row. Two of the men, the one who had been speaking and one other, left the parlour; through the half-open front door I watched them ascend the staircase that ran through the centre of the house.
Glancing again towards the driveway, I hoped to identify the person who had come outside, but all was silence now. Perhaps it had just been the Tsaritsa’s terrier, I reasoned. Or another animal. Perhaps I had only imagined it. No matter; if there was someone there a moment before, he or she was gone now.
A light went on in an upstairs window and I turned quickly to look in its direction. I could hear voices from above, a low murmur, and then a shadow appeared through the pale curtain of a group of people standing as one, huddled together, then separating and making their way, one by one, towards the door.
I moved quickly to my left and peered through the trees at the staircase. A moment later the Grand Duchess Olga appeared, followed by a small group whose identities I had difficulty making out in the darkness, but who I was convinced must be her brother and sisters, Marie, Tatiana, Anastasia and Alexei. I saw them only briefly before they turned a corner and vanished. All five of them were being separated from their parents to be taken elsewhere, I decided. They were young, after all. They had committed no crimes. Perhaps they were being permitted to leave.