But enough of this. He had to be going, his end was imminent. There were but two things Misha wanted from this room, and he reached for a bankers’ box on the floor and pushed aside its cardboard lid. Inside, carefully wrapped in cotton towels, he found a small red tin box, a bit rusty at the edges, its cover embossed with the imperial double-headed eagle and lettering that read TOVARISCHESTVO A. I. ABRIKOSOVA V MOSKVYE – The Goods of the A. I. Abrikosova Company, Moscow. Opening the old candy box, Misha gazed down upon its contents – some bits of wire, a tiny chain, two small rocks, a flattened coin, and some rusty nails – and his eyes blistered with tears. It had been terribly stupid of him back then, but he hadn’t been able to flee Yekaterinburg without these things, so priceless were they to him. Odd, mused Misha, how all of that seemed just like yesterday. He so clearly remembered sneaking late one night into The House of Special Purpose – then deserted by the Reds – and snatching this bric-a-brac, the treasures of a little boy, from its hiding place behind the mopboard.
He closed up the old candy box, bent slowly over, and reached for something else. This time his gnarled fingers wrapped around a dark brown glass vial, small and corked tightly, and he carefully held it and the tin box as he closed up the vault. What a job, what a task, he mused as he glanced about the room one last time. Now there was just one more thing he had to do: commit a fantastically great sin, the greatest of all.
Moving with determination, Misha flicked off the single light and swung shut the vault door and secured it tight. He then stepped into his office and pushed the bookcase back in place. Once it was locked, once he’d positioned the books so that they covered the lock, he slipped the brass key back in his trousers.
If only he could whisk through time and return to that night. If only he could reverse the flow of time and make the right choices, the right decisions, then perhaps he could change the outcome of it all. Like a mad river, however, time rushed in only one direction, and there was no turning back to the dark events of July 16-17, 1918, just as there was no turning back his decision now. No, thought Misha. He knew what he had to do, what must be done. He’d felt so guilty, so awful ever since that heinous night, but eighty years of suffering were not enough. He was not ready yet for forgiveness, for holy deliverance. He must sin again so that he would suffer not just in this life, but in the life hereafter and forevermore.
Misha, feeling every creak in his weary body, sat back down at his desk. He placed the old red candy box before him, opened it once again and admired the bits of bent and rusty things. Picking out a flattened coin, he was instantly transported – “Just look at what Papa’s locomotive did to this kopek!” – and instantly saw that bed, that room. But it was like torture, this memory of his. He could remember it all, see it all like a movie, but he couldn’t return and participate in the actual events.
He had so long ago decided just what must be done and how, and for so many years had been so determined, that his actions now were nearly automatic. The time had finally come. May had died. And he’d fulfilled a pledge he’d made long ago in a Siberian wood. Da, da, da, he’d accomplished everything that he possibly could, including, of course, telling a thousand truths just so he could get away with one singular, gross lie. Sure, that was exactly what the audiotape was: one enormous lie. From now and hopefully forevermore his Kate would believe that he, Misha, had been none other than the young Leonid Sednyov, when in fact nothing could have been further from the truth. Of course he’d been there, but not as the little kitchen boy. It was May herself who’d come up with the idea of supplanting one lie with another, of crafting a story so close to the truth that no one would ever doubt that it was in fact the truth. And Misha had told the tale perfectly, doled it out so convincingly that neither his granddaughter nor the world would ever know what really happened on that awful, awful night. Now there was nothing left for him here in this life except, perhaps, forgiveness, which is the last thing he desired or felt he deserved.
With that, Misha uncorked the small vial of cyanide. He swirled it a bit, then poured its contents into his glass of water, and saw the life and death therein whirl into eternity, his own.
“Please, Father,” he muttered in near silent prayer, “do not forgive my sins.”
Not wasting another second, Misha lifted the glass to his lips and drank it down in two bitter gulps. Almost instantly he was blinded by an atomic-like flash of blazing red light and his weary body slumped forward onto his desk.
EPILOGUE
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Summer 2001
As she sat in the Winter Garden of the Astoria Hotel, Kate Semyonov barely noticed the extravagant lunch of caviar and blini, smoked sturgeon and champagne laid before her. Likewise, she barely paid attention to the conversation of the three other people at the table even though they spoke exclusively in English.
Suddenly she realized they were all looking at her, waiting for a reply of some sort. Kate blotted her mouth with her napkin, tried to think of something to say, and then simply confessed.
“I’m sorry, I think I’m a little jet-lagged,” she said with her trademark broad smile, which happened to be her best defense. “What did you say?”
Dr. Kostrovsky, the director general of the Hermitage Museum, replied, “We just wanted to go over your schedule for the next few days.”
“Oh. Sure, of course.”
Her mind was anywhere but here in this spacious, elegant dining room with its glass ceiling, marble floor, and arcing palms. Rather, all she was thinking was how she could possibly escape. She looked from Dr. Kostrovsky, a heavy man with gray hair and a goatee, to his deputy director, an elegant blond woman by the name of Dr. Vera Tarlova, to Mark Betts, the head curator from the Art Institute of Chicago. No, thought Kate, I can’t do this right now. There’s something much more important that can wait no longer. I’ve come all this way, and I’ve got to take care of it now.
Mark, a tall, trim, balding man who’d accompanied Kate from Chicago, said, “Doctor Kostrovsky was just saying that tomorrow morning we’ll have a private tour of the exhibition, followed by a luncheon with the city mayor, and then-”
“You know what, Mark? I have a splitting headache right now,” lied Kate. “I don’t know if it’s because of the long trip over or because all this is just a little bit overwhelming – you know, being here in Russia – but I think I need to go lie down for a while.”
“If that’s what you want, of course.”
Kate turned to the two Russians. “I’m sorry Doctor Kostrovsky and Doctor Tarlova, but would you excuse me?”
“Absolutely. But are you in need of a physician?”
“Just a little rest, that’s all. I’ll leave all the planning to Mark. Anything that’s okay with him is perfect for me.”
“Then we’ll see you tonight for the performance at the Mariinsky?”
Oh, shit, thought Kate, how she wished she could get out of that one. There was no way, however, she could opt out, for not only had they reserved the tsar’s box for her, not only had they called in their best performers to dance Swan Lake, but the entire performance was in her honor. Yes, she was being feted as a hero for precisely following her grandparents’ last will and testament. Changed in the 1980s upon the death of their only son, Kate’s father, Mikhail and May Semyonov did not simply name Kate as their sole heir, but also instructed her to return the fortune of Romanov gems to the Russian people, designating Saint Petersburg over Moscow for the site of their permanent exhibition.