It was three days before Anastasia spoke again.
The morning after we awoke we were fortunate enough to secure transport on a wagon heading in the direction of Izhevsk; the journey took an entire day, but the farmer who granted us carriage sought no more than a few kopecks for his kindness and offered us bread and water along the way, which we accepted gratefully, for neither of us had eaten since the previous afternoon. We slept fitfully in the rear of the vehicle, stretched out flat on the wooden slats, but every bump in the road jolted us back to consciousness with a start and I prayed that this torture would end soon. Every time Anastasia awoke, I noticed how it took her a moment to recollect where she was and what had brought her to this place. Her face would appear relaxed and untroubled for the briefest of seconds and then it would cloud over, a sudden eclipse of her brilliance, and her eyes would shut firmly once again, as if she was willing sleep – or worse – to take her. Our driver made no conversation and did not recognize the princess of the Imperial line who sat silently behind him, her back to his. I was grateful for his silence, as I did not think that I could bear to feign friendliness or sociability in the circumstances in which we found ourselves.
At Izhevsk, we stopped and ate at a small café before making our way to the train station, which was much busier than I had expected, a fact that pleased me, as it meant that we could blend into the crowd without difficulty. I was concerned that there would be soldiers waiting at the entry-ways, watching out for us, looking out for her, but nothing out of the usual appeared to be taking place. Anastasia kept her head bowed at all times, and covered her blonde hair with a dark hood, so that she looked like any other farmer’s daughter who passed us by. I still had most of the roubles I had found the previous afternoon and made a reckless decision to spend almost twice as much as necessary in order to secure us a private compartment on board the train. I purchased two tickets to Minsk, a journey of over a thousand miles. I could think of nowhere further for us to go. From Minsk, I knew not where we might travel next.
There are curious moments of joy in life, unexpected pleasures, and one such instant occurred as we pulled away from the station. The guard blew his piercing whistle, a series of cries to urge any final passengers on board was heard, and then the steam began to rise as the railway buffers cranked into gear. A few moments later, the train was accelerating to a decent speed, heading westwards, and I looked across at Anastasia, whose face was a sudden picture of relief. I leaned over and took her hand in mine. She appeared surprised by the unexpected intimacy, as if she had forgotten that I had even boarded the train alongside her, but then she looked at me and smiled. I had not seen that smile in eighteen months, and I returned it gratefully. Her smile filled me with hope that she would soon return to her former self.
‘Are you cold, my darling?’ I asked, reaching up and taking a thin blanket from an overhead shelf. ‘Why not place this across your legs? It will keep the chill away.’
She accepted the blanket gratefully and turned her head to look through the window at the stark countryside passing us by. The land. The crops. The moujiks. The revolutionaries. A moment later, she turned to look at me again and I held my breath in anticipation. Her lips parted. She swallowed carefully. She opened her mouth to speak. I saw her throat rise gently in her pale neck as the signal passed from brain to tongue to talk, but just as she was about to summon words for the first time, the compartment door opened violently and I turned my head in fright, relieved to see the conductor standing there.
‘Your tickets, sir?’ he asked, and before reaching for them I glanced at Anastasia, who had turned away from us both. She was looking out of the window again, clutching the neck of my greatcoat around her chin, and trembling. I reached across, unsure where to touch her.
‘Dusha,’ I whispered, before being interrupted.
‘Your tickets, sir,’ repeated the conductor, more insistently this time. I turned and glared at him, my face expressing such sudden fury that he took a half-step backwards and looked at me nervously. He opened his mouth to say something more but thought better of it, remaining silent as I slowly removed the tickets from my pocket and handed them across.
‘You’re travelling to Minsk?’ he said a few moments later, as he examined them carefully.
‘That’s right.’
‘You must change at Moscow,’ he replied. ‘There will be a separate train for the final leg of the journey.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ I said, wanting him to leave us alone. Perhaps I had not intimidated him quite as much as I thought, however, because rather than hand the tickets back to me and leave us in peace, he held on to them, hostages to his curiosity, and stared across at Anastasia.
‘Is she quite well?’ he asked me a moment later.
‘She’s fine.’
‘She seems troubled.’
‘She’s fine,’ I repeated without hesitation. ‘My tickets are in order?’
‘Madam?’ he said, ignoring my question. ‘Madam, you are travelling with this gentleman?’ Anastasia said nothing, but continued to stare out of the window, refusing even to acknowledge the conductor’s presence. ‘Madam,’ he continued in a harsher tone. ‘Madam, I asked you a question.’
What felt like a very long few moments followed and then, as if no greater insult had ever been sent her way, Anastasia turned her head and stared coldly at him.
‘Madam, can you confirm that you are travelling with this gentleman?’
‘But of course she’s travelling with me, you fool,’ I snapped. ‘Why else would we be seated together? Why else would I have both our tickets in my pocket?’
‘Sir, the young lady seems troubled,’ he replied. ‘I wish to satisfy myself that she has not been brought here under duress.’
‘Under duress?’ I said, laughing in his face. ‘Why, you must be mad! She is simply tired, that is all. We have been travelling for—’
Before I could finish my sentence, Anastasia had reached across to me and laid her hand against my arm. I looked at her in surprise and watched as she took it away again and, no longer trembling, stared at the conductor defiantly. I turned to look at him and could see that he was taken aback by two things: her sudden composure and her dignified beauty.
‘I have not been kidnapped, if that is what you are implying,’ she said, her voice croaking a little as she spoke in reaction to how long it had been out of use.
‘I apologize, madam,’ he replied, looking a little embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest that you had. You looked uncomfortable, that was all.’
‘It’s an uncomfortable train,’ she said. ‘I wonder that your People’s Government does not invest some of its money in improvements. It has enough of it, does it not?’
I held my breath, unsure of the politics of such a remark. We had no idea who the conductor was, after all, who he answered to, where his allegiances lay. Anastasia, who was accustomed to answering to no man save her father, had clearly rediscovered her own inner strength through his insolence. Silence filled the compartment for a few moments – I was unsure whether the conductor would challenge us further and felt concerned that if he did, we would come off the worse for it – but finally, he handed the tickets back to me and looked away.
‘There is a dining car at the end of the train if you are hungry,’ he said gruffly. ‘The next stop is Nizhniy Novgorod. Have a pleasant journey.’