As if to banish my worries, I quickly turned to a valet, and said, “Have my sleigh brought round front.”
The uniformed man silently bowed and disappeared.
There was so much war-work to be done this afternoon, I thought. However, before going to my workrooms here at the Kremlin or checking on my ambulance train, which was set to leave this evening on the Trans-Siberian tracks, I had one personal call to make. My chamberlain’s wife, Countess Mengden, was recovering from an operation, and of course it was my duty to pay her a visit, the least I could do for someone who had been so loyal to me.
Minutes later I had changed into the plain gray-blue walking-about dress I wore every day to the workrooms, for I went there not simply to supervise and oversee hundreds of women of every age but to work alongside simple seamstresses and common daughters of carriage drivers. In fact, later this afternoon I was expected in the bandage store. Truth be told, I enjoyed all this, for it not only presented the opportunity to be of use and to help those in need but gave me a function and employed a part of me theretofore unchallenged. And in this my sister, the Empress, was quite correct, that members of proper Russian society and rank were far too active not in helpful matters but rather in merriments and late-night get-abouts. Why, of course it was our Christian duty to take positions of responsibility, to do something constructive for our people below. And yet for this-her so-called prudish nature-my sister had been ostracized in the highest court circles, including her own mother-in-law’s. Perhaps the two of us, Alix in particular, were too Protestant or too English in our sense and view of duty, but the seeds of dissent in our adopted homeland were not sown by Alix’s withdrawn social nature, not by any means. All that was sown as a result of her lack of frivolity was ugly, ugly gossip, resentful and spiteful, which sprouted with great gusto even in the best circles.
And yet as I finished dressing all seemed so peaceful, the snow, the serene winter sky, the soft noises of the city going about its business. With a simple turn of my head, I peered outside. The sun would fade early, of course, as it always did in these dark winter months. Usually there were many balls at this time of year, including several wonderful bals roses for young marrieds, but this year so much had been curtailed because of the disturbances. Perhaps by springtime things would be different-surely the mood of the people would improve with the fine weather.
Then suddenly the quiet day was ripped in two by an enormous explosion.
Reflexively, I gasped and grabbed for a side table. It was as if one of the great bells had fallen from the Kremlin’s Assumption Cathedral. No, I thought in panic, for I still felt the reverberations in my chest. It was as if not one of the bells but the Ivan the Great Bell Tower itself had collapsed under the weight of the winter snow. Virtually every windowpane shook frightfully, and I, trembling, looked up and saw even the chandelier swing side to side. A moment or two later brought absolute quiet, a kind of total stillness that was even more frightening, as if everything and everyone were frozen in fright. Or death.
And in that moment of terrified silence I guessed exactly what had happened-a bomb!-and I clasped a hand to my mouth and cried aloud, “Sergei!”
I ran out of my chamber and to a small hallway window. Peering out, however, all I saw was a great flock of black crows wheeling around the golden church domes. Looking into the square below, I saw nothing, no one, only stillness… and then suddenly a great number of people running toward the Nikolsky Gate. At that moment, I knew. I knew by the direction in which the people ran that the worst was true, that my darkest fears had come to pass, for Sergei would have been heading toward those very gates. Gathering up the folds of my dress, I made as fast as I could down the corridor and toward the great staircase. Practically flying down the marble steps, I prayed, muttered, “Oh, dear God, please, no!” Had Russia ’s great dark demon-those bloodthirsty revolutionaries-swept down upon us again? Had those shameful barbarians, so determined to bring Mother Russia to her knees, attacked again, this time taking my dear Sergei?
Panic seized me, exploded within me like another bomb. As I ran across the vast entry a servant flew at me, rushing forward and throwing a sable pelisse over my shoulders, while behind I heard another set of quick steps. Glancing back, I saw the children ’s governess racing after me.
“Your Highness!” called Mademoiselle Elena as she desperately tried to catch up to me, her mistress.
As pale as the moon, I stared at her with terror, clasping a hand over my mouth, but, alas, I could say nothing. I had to get there, I had to be there. Sergei needed me, of that I was sure!
Yet another servant rushed forward with a man’s fur coat, which Mademoiselle Elena pulled awkwardly over her shoulders, and the two of us rushed out into the cold, barely covered and absolutely hatless. Directly in front of the Palace stood my awaiting sleigh, which had pulled up only moments earlier, and I clambered into it, followed immediately by the governess. With one bold snap of the whip and a sudden jolt, my driver set off, flying toward the gates. As we raced the brief distance, I felt my own heart beating with a fright and terror such as I had never before experienced. But no tears came to my eyes, nor did I mumble anything or even reach out and clasp Mademoiselle Elena’s hand for comfort. No, I had to be strong… strong… strong.
Of course I had seen many badly wounded soldiers, either on my own ambulance trains or in one of the hospitals I sponsored, men who had lost eyes and arms and legs in the fight against the Japanese, men who had been horrifically burned or riddled by bullets or who were slowly dying of gangrene. But by the time I saw these soldiers they had long been attended to, cleaned up, operated on, and bandaged. Never had I seen these men in action and under attack, bleeding in the field or pulled screaming from the waters, their bodies blown wide and their insides spilling forth. Never until this moment had I seen any such reality.
Within seconds the sleigh reached a massive crowd gathering just before the gate and the driver was forced to slow. When he could go no farther through the dense mass of people, I alighted from the still moving sleigh and charged ahead. I had gone but a few paces, however, when two peasant women, kerchiefs tied tightly around their puckered faces, charged right at me, waving their hands frantically.
“Nyet, nyet, Your Highness!” cried one babushka, falling at my feet and clutching and kissing the hem of my dress. “You must turn back, you mustn’t see!”
“Turn away, Your Highness!” sobbed the other. “Turn away!”
But I would not be deterred. I couldn’t say why, and I certainly didn’t know what took over, but something hardened right then and there within me, and my face turned cold and blank and practical. I pressed forward. Suddenly, recognizing me as the wife of this dreaded Romanov, the throng of people bowed and parted. And what opened up before me was a battlefield of carnage and destruction such as I had never dared imagine.
Not only was my husband dead, but of the man himself and his fine carriage there was little that remained.
I gasped, nearly fell to my knees, and yet not a single tear came as my eyes swept the scene and tried to comprehend what had taken place. I saw a bent wheel, searched for a recognizable bit of my husband, but… but…
The remains of Sergei’s once substantial carriage barely rose above my knee. Of my once mighty and indomitable husband, the severely proud Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich, all that I could see was, here, a chunk of his torso from which hung, somehow, his right arm, and, there, a leg with a foot torn away, and, glancing downward, a severed hand lying in the reddened snow. As if the bomb had landed directly upon my husband’s lap and he had stared down upon it in horror, nothing remained of his head, face, or neck. The rest of my beloved Sergei was scattered everywhere, bloody pieces of muscle and organ and bone blown wide across the snow.