To Moscow, Kremlin, to Sverdlov, copy to Lenin.
The following has been transmitted over the direct line from Yekaterinburg: “Let Moscow know that for military reasons the trial agreed upon… cannot be put off; we cannot wait. If your opinions differ, then immediately notify without delay.”
“Trial” was the code word for “murder,” and the confirmation thereof did not come from Moscow until midnight, which was why the family was not led down those twenty-three steps until after one in the morning on July 17. In the meantime, Yurovksy went about preparing and arranging it all, getting everything ready. He chose a room in the cellar with no exit, a barred window, and soft plaster walls that might prevent ricochets. He ordered a truck ready to transport the bodies. Just in case any guards of the outside detachment might disagree with the executions, he had their commander, Pavel Medvedev, confiscate their Nagant revolvers, some twelve in total. So confident was Yurovksy of Moscow’s approval that he even told Medvedev: “Tonight we will shoot them. Alert the detachment so they won’t be alarmed if they hear shooting.”
In my books I have since learned that earlier that afternoon Yurovsky and the murderers, all of whom were volunteers, not only agreed upon who was to shoot whom, but decided in an almost kind way that they should aim for the hearts so the victims wouldn’t suffer. My fate was also decided then. Yurovsky and his Red comrades had no way of knowing that it was I who had been the secret courier all along, they had not an inkling that it was I who had hidden the note in the WC. Had they even suspected I would surely have been killed as well. Instead, they misperceived me as an “innocent” and decided there was no need to kill me, a mere boy, simply because of my association with the royals. Hence, my fate was cast, I was “saved,” assigned instead to this long life of memory.
Some have written that it was the morning of the sixteenth that I was taken away, others the afternoon, but, no, it was that evening, just after dinner. Of course it was after dinner. I was washing the dishes in the kitchen when in came the guard, the young one with the blond beard, who was one of the few who’d survived the recent change in komendanti.
“The komendant requires you.”
I all but panicked. “Wh-what?”
“Follow me.”
Bozhe moi! My God! My first thought was the note, that I had been found out, and I all but dropped the dish in the metal tub. Too scared to say anything, I turned to cook Kharitonov, who stood stirring tomorrow’s soup on the oil stove.
He stared at me, wiped his hands on his apron. “Well, go on, boy.”
Demidova, the maid, came in just then, a stack of soiled plates in hand, and seeing the odd scene, asked, “Has something happened?”
“Leonka has been summoned by the komendant,” explained Kharitonov with a shrug.
I pulled my hands from the dishwater and dried them on a towel. Was I to be interrogated? I was so afraid, so scared, but said nothing.
“Come,” ordered the guard.
Trembling, I looked at Kharitonov and Demidova, yet knew I had no choice but to go, not realizing that my fate – life! – would be worse than anything I could yet imagine. And so I left the Imperial Family without the slightest farewell, which in turn has left my entire life incomplete. I followed the guard from the kitchen, through the back hall and out another door into the front of the house. He led me right into the komendant’s room, where Yurovsky himself sat at the table, drinking his evening tea. I expected to be given quite a dressing down, but instead Yurovsky spoke quite calmly and evenly, not a trace of suspicion in that unpleasant voice of his.
“You are being removed from this house, young man. You are to follow this guard outside and through the gates. He will escort you to the Popov House, where you are to remain until further notified. Is that clear?”
This was the last thing I had expected, and I struggled to understand, struggled to make sense of this, and asked, “But… but why?”
“You are to wait for your uncle, who will come for you. He will then escort you back to your hometown.”
Although I had no idea at the time, this was a lie, a very clean lie, and I said, “But… but, Comrade Komendant, what about…?”
“Your services are no longer required.”
“What about my things?” I asked, though I had but few possessions.
“One of the guards will bring them to you.”
“May… may I say good-bye to the family and others?”
Yurovsky slurped at his tea. “Nyet.” And then to the guard, he imperiously ordered, “Take the boy away.”
I was thus herded out of The House of Special Purpose, too scared, too confused, to question or protest. What did this mean, that Yurovsky hadn’t found the note after all? That I wasn’t suspect? That I was really dismissed and was being sent home to Tula province? I knew the times, how difficult and hateful they were, and so I kept my mouth shut as I was escorted out of the house, down the outside steps, and through the double palisade. But, oh, how I wish I could have said good-bye, at least that, yet there was no way. Even then I understood. I was helpless, powerless, and as I followed the guard along the edge of Ascension Square and down the little lane to the Popov House, I realized that protest was as useless as… as trying to strip a naked man.
So I had no choice. I left. I was taken to the Popov House, where all the outside guards were billeted, shown a cot in a side room, and ordered not to leave. Years later, when all the books started coming out and the archives were opened, I learned how much my disappearance disturbed the family. Even Yurovsky commented on this, later writing:
… the boy was taken away, which very much upset the R-ovs and their people.
So they were fond of me, more than I could have ever imagined. Apparently they thought of me as one of their own, and Aleksandra herself was so concerned when I was taken away that she sent Dr. Botkin to speak with Yurovsky, who in turn recorded this conversation as well.
“But what about the boy,” asked the good doctor. “Where is he? When is he coming back? His father is at the front, and Nikolai Aleksandrovich and his wife feel very responsible for him.”
“You have nothing to worry about,” replied Yurovsky, calming him down with another of his easy lies. “Leonka is visiting his Uncle Vanya.”
By then, of course, Uncle Vanya was already long dead, killed Bolshevik style, that is, shot in the back of the head like a mad dog and dumped in a ditch.
Later, while her parents were playing cards, Grand Duchess Maria apparently went to the komendant as well, pleading, “Can you tell us, sir, if Leonka will be returning yet tonight?”
“He will not.”
“Then tomorrow morning perhaps?”
“Perhaps…”
I sat terrified in my new quarters until one of the guards brought me my few things, whereupon I finally lay down. I curled up, using my jacket as a blanket, but of course I couldn’t close my eyes, couldn’t succumb to the lingering twilight of the Siberian night. And while the billeted guards were laughing and drinking in the other room of the Popov House, I crawled out of bed and went to the window. Across the alley and up the slight hill, The House of Special Purpose, massive and white, sat entirely dark, save for one window. It was the front room, that of the Emperor and Empress, and the limed panes glowed like a moon behind a slight veil of clouds. It was in that room and about at that time that Aleksandra Fyodorovna sat at the small writing desk, recording her simple last words in her diary: