But why was there no rescue? Why? Earlier, that past winter in Tobolsk town, the Romanovs could have easily escaped. The troops assigned to guard them had been nearly all won over by the Imperial Family’s charm, and Nikolai could have effected escape by simply and quickly leaving town, fleeing to the great north and into the depths of Siberia. But the Tsar nobly felt an obligation not to stir up trouble, not to leave Russia, and so… so by the time they’d been transferred to that Red hotbed, the city of Yekaterinburg, it was too late.
But… but why did no rescuers appear by the light of the summer moon? By that July there were only several hundred Red troops in all of Yekaterinburg. The Whites, only twenty miles away, had seized towns all around and were poised to attack from any number of directions. We all knew the city was destined to fall any day. So why was nothing attempted? In those few days that followed there came through our single open window only tidbits of normal life and no whistle. Locked in The House of Special Purpose we waited. And as the time went by our hope fell away. It was on Thursday, July 11, that we finally realized just how desperate, even hopeless, our situation truly was.
To break the tremendous boredom, the Heir and I were once again playing, not troika or English tank, our two most favorite games, but elevator. One of the doors off the dining room was a pocket door that, much to our amusement, slid sideways in and out of the wall rather like an elevator’s. And Aleksei, seated in the wheeling chaise, and I, by his side, pretended we were riding all the way to the top of one of those new American buildings that rose so high above the ground – twelve floors! – and, they claimed, scraped the sky. We weren’t even to the fifth floor when we suddenly saw the grand duchesses and Dr. Botkin hurrying through the dining room.
Aleksei said, “Hey, something’s going on.”
The Heir pointed with his right hand and I, the consummate companion and lackey, immediately obeyed. I pushed him off our make-believe lift, steered him quickly through the dining room, through his sisters’ room, and into his parents’. There we found the Emperor and Empress, all the girls, and the doctor staring at the one open window, a look of great grief upon all of their faces.
“What is it, Papa?” demanded Aleksei. “They’re not sealing the window again, are they?”
The Tsar silently came over, rested his hand on Aleksei’s shoulder, and softly, almost painfully, replied, “No, they’re putting some kind of covering over it.”
In a kind of shock we watched as two ladders were thrown up against the side of the house and three workers lifted a heavy metal grating. With no small effort, they attached the bars to the outside of the window frame. The limed-over windows were terrible enough, but this was worse, for within a matter of ten minutes we were securely behind bars. Wasn’t it through this window we were supposed to flee? Wasn’t our path to freedom now completely blocked? Was rescue now impossible?
“Oh, Nicky,” gasped Aleksandra as she clung to her husband’s arm.
Bit by bit, day by day, our world was shrinking. No longer did it seem as if we were merely under house arrest. Now, looking through those black iron bars, we all realized we were imprisoned, locked in a kind of grand cell from which there might well be no escape.
Nikolai, stroking his mustache, said, “And with no warning…”
“You don’t think our… our friends on the outside have been discovered, do you?”
“There’s no way of telling, though the guards certainly seem afraid of something. In any case I’m starting to like this Yurovsky less and less!”
Behind us came steps, and the komendant, entering the room, said in that nasally voice of his, “Do you have a comment, Citizen Romanov?”
The Tsar turned around, and asked, “Do you really have such fear of our climbing out or getting in touch with the sentry?”
“My orders are to guard the former Tsar.”
“As I’ve said, I would never leave my family.”
“I have my orders.” Yurovsky then held up a small leather box. “I found this in the service room, stolen I believe from your trunk.”
Nikolai took the box and opened it, revealing his gold watch. “Thank you for returning it.”
“I will allow you to keep it in your possession, but for security purposes I suggest you wear it at all times.”
Yurovsky turned and departed, and the Tsar took his watch and fastened it around his left wrist. A beautiful gold watch it was, naturally of the finest quality, and he wore it unto his death, when it was taken as a brilliant souvenir from his dead body.
“Oh, Nicky…” said Aleksandra.
The Tsaritsa felt the pains of the world in her head, her back, and in her legs. And Nikolai helped his beloved back to her bed, where she reclined and stayed for the rest of that day and, actually, almost for the short remainder of her life.
It was about then that our dear Dr. Botkin began his prophetic letter, the famous one found after the night of treachery. He began it at about this time and was still working on the wording all the way to the end. In fact, he was still writing it that night when they were all called down to the cellar.
In retrospect it was clear that the end was rapidly approaching. Dr. Botkin foresaw that. I, on the other hand, never stopped believing that we would be spirited away. Then again, I was but a lad of fourteen, as naive to the depravity of mankind as I am wise today.
And so it is with great sadness that I proceed to Sunday, July 14.
14
A Sunday it was, just two days until the end.
For days we had not been visited by Dr. Derevenko, the Heir’s physician. And for days now the Tsar had been requesting his presence.
“My son needs the attention of our Dr. Derevenko, who possesses a unique electric device. He uses this to massage my son’s legs, you understand, and the results are quite good.”
“And as I’ve told you before,” countered Yurovsky, “this is not permitted.”
Likewise the Tsar had been asking for a religious service, which had not been permitted for quite some time. Then all of a sudden that Sunday, the fourteenth, we were informed at morning inspection that we would be allowed a service to be performed by none other than Father Storozhev himself.
“He and the deacon will be here at ten this morning,” said Yurovsky. “No conversation will be permitted.”
“Understood,” curtly replied the Tsar.
Morning tea and bread were served immediately after the inspection, and the announcement of the religious service caused a great stir at the table, albeit a quiet one, for a guard stood at either end of the dining room. That left us not much to talk about except the weather, and a beautiful summer’s morning it was, the sky having cleared after another night of heavy rain and the temperature now a cool, pleasant twelve degrees. As soon as breakfast was concluded, however, everyone scattered. Kharitonov, Demidova, and I went about cleaning the table and doing the dishes, while Aleksandra and the two younger girls, Maria and Anastasiya, set up a small altar in the drawing room. They cleared the large desk and decorated it quite nicely, spreading one of the Empress’s shawls over it, then arranging their favorite icons, including Saint Feodor’s Mother of God, perhaps the Empress’s most treasured possession. Adding a nice homey touch, Anastasiya placed a few birch branches here and there, for whether of high or low estate Russians are a mystical sort, bound like pagans to the wild nature of their motherland.
At this time the Tsar retired to his bedchamber, presumably to sit with the Heir, perhaps even to read to him. This, however, was not the case. A few minutes later Olga slipped into the room, and it was then that they wrote the final letter to the “Officer.” It had been ten entire days since we’d last heard anything from the outside, ten entire days of waiting for that bloody midnight whistle, and the Tsar wished to inform those on the outside that the conditions within The House of Special Purpose were deteriorating, rapidly so. Of course the Tsar, always cautious, controlled, and particular, was not a quick writer by any means, and it took him a good long while to draft the six or seven lines. Then, of course, Olga had to translate it into the French, so this entire process took all the way up until the service itself.