Pressing their beautiful heads into me, I murmured over and over, “He loved you so, he loved you.”
And I would never have moved again had the dear young sweets not gently and by slow degrees led me away from the curious eyes there in the church and to my rooms deep within the Palace.
Chapter 20 PAVEL
Back in the small apartment with one window, we poured cheap vodka from a bottle with a red label and drank toast after toast, the brew burning my throat each time I tossed down a shot. Da, da, the Grand Duke was dead!
After her fourth or fifth glass, Dora Brilliant, her eyes glistening with joyful tears and her speech slurred, turned to me, clasped my hand, and said, “Pavel, history has told us that the luxurious tree of freedom needs blood to quicken its roots!”
I looked into her dark eyes, and replied, “What beautiful words.”
“Yes, but it also needs money.”
And that was how, right then and there in the middle of our celebration, we started planning our next murder, that of Fat Yuri the Sugar Baron, whose factories produced most of the sugar in the Empire. He was known, too, for hoarding his gold rubles in his huge mansion in the Arbat District. So that day we made a drunken plan and I, my poor head spinning from the vodka, took another shot of brew and a chomp on a freshly salted gherkin, and swore I could accomplish this one on my own. That was how eager I was to prove my loyalty to the Revolution. And accomplish it I did, within days as a matter of fact. Deep in the night, I climbed over the iron railing of Yuri Mikhailovich’s mansion, broke through a window, and traipsed right through the huge front room with its rotunda ceiling. Then I crept up to the bedroom and shot both Yuri and his fat wife in the head, but not before getting him to hand over a sack full of nearly 10,000 gold rubles!
Inspired by our glorious success, we worked harder than ever in the weeks and months ahead, spreading strikes like wildfire, cutting phone lines and looting stores. And we did it again and again: Murder! Assassination! Governors! Factory bosses! Landowners! Sure, we killed as many as we could, for as our poet Kalyayev himself decreed from prison:
“You have declared war on the people, and we have accepted the challenge!”
Chapter 21 ELLA
Without a doubt, all went from bad to worse in the months ahead, the mess was all around. Our post and electricity were stopped over and over, and one could not make oneself any illusions of better times for months to come. We were in the Revolution. What turn all would take, nobody knew, as the government was so weak, or sooner to say-did not seem to exist. Nonetheless, I felt physically very well and had good nerves. Of course if the nightmare came about, I knew I could always have the children safely sent off, but nothing would have made me leave that place, as I was determined to live or die there. Somehow I seemed to have grown into Russia, and did not fear whatever might come my way. And in the months soon after Sergei’s passing I became quite calm and happy-yes, happy to know that my darling was at peace near God, and, too, that he was spared that awful time. In the depths of my suffering it became all so beautifully clear to me: we must at any time be ready-as far as our weak souls can be-to go to our real home.
So there I was, stunned by the path that that violent explosion had opened before me…
Upon my return to my boudoir, I sank into a chair, from which I did not move for a great length of time. I cannot recall what was in my head or what lay before my eyes, but I sat there so cold, my hands white except for one thing, the blackish red blood dried now beneath my fine nails. My servants and my ladies of my court nervously shuffled in and out of my room and all about the Palace, none of them knowing what must be done, nor, for that matter, to whom to turn for direction, for it was from Sergei that we had all received command. Suddenly it occurred to me that I was quite alone now, and alone actually for the first time in my entire life, and it was up to me and me alone to act, for with the flash of a bomb I had become complete mistress of both my own life and this house and all the people therein. Yes, it became perfectly clear that I had gone from beneath the protective roof of my father directly to the heavy, sheltering wing of my husband-my husband who for more than twenty years had not only issued every household order but also directed nearly my every movement and thought. And now he was quite gone from this world. As if awakening from all those years and from the day’s tragedy, I rose to my feet, flooded with a frenzy of energy such as I had never before experienced.
Calling to Varya, my young lady’s maid, I ordered in a loud voice that no one had ever heard of me, “Fetch me my black mourning frock! And someone tell me, does our Coachman Rudinkin still live? Someone go find this out-at once!”
My maids changed me, gladly so, from my bloodied blue dress into a frock of black, and immediately I entered my cabinet. There I sat down at my desk and, by my own hand, began the task of drafting telegrams. At first I took quill and inkpot, but then pushed them aside, for to write with these tools was too tedious and slow. Instead, taking a pencil, I began the first, which was of course to the Emperor, and in French I quickly wrote:
Son Majesté Imperial, l’Imperator Nicholas Alexandrovich,
Zarskoe Zelo
Oh, I thought, momentarily buckling beneath my grief, I wanted Nicky here, and I wanted my sister, my Alix, by my side, so that I could sob on her shoulder and find solace in the family of my youth. Yes, absolutely. But I couldn’t fall apart, and, no, they mustn’t and they couldn’t come. For Nicky the trip was too dangerous; who knew what else the revolutionaries had planned. For Alix it was too arduous; she had the young Heir Tsarevich to nurse. And so I composed a telegram, informing them of the horrible events that had befallen, that I was unharmed and could see to myself, and that they must not under any circumstance come the distance to Moscow to attend the funeral. Wasting not a moment, I drafted the next and the next, for I had telegrams aplenty to draft to my relatives abroad-to my sister, Princess Victoria of Battenberg, to Sergei’s sister, the Duchess of Edinburgh, and to my own dear sweet brother, Grand Duke Ernest of Hesse und bei Rhein. After these I rose to my feet and nervously paced about, momentarily overwhelmed by all that needed to be done, and then I sat down once again and composed many more wires.
As the wintry Moscow sky turned grayer to black, word came back to me that our faithful Coachman Rudinkin lay terribly wounded and on the edge of death. I knew what must be done.
Calling to a footman who cowered in the hallway, I brusquely ordered, “Bring my sleigh round front at once-I must go to the hospital immediately!” And spinning the other way to the maid Varya, I demanded, “Help me off with this frock! If Coachman Rudinkin sees me dressed in black, he’ll know the worst. I must change back into my blue dress.” When she screwed up her eyes, I said loudly, “The doctors will not want my visit to distress him-so I don’t care how soiled it is, just fetch me my dress!”
The girl made a frantic curtsey and darted off for the dress that was streaked with Sergei’s dried blood. I was changed and out of the Palace within minutes.
Oh, our poor, poor Rudinkin-so jolly, so full of life and devotion. Never had there been a more dear servant of man or God. What harm had he ever done another soul? Why could he not have been spared?