Life was a little more relaxing and predictable when he was not around.
However, the void Rasputin left behind at Tsarskoye Selo took both Stana and Militza by surprise. They’d presumed, in his absence, it would be like old times, that they could pick up where they’d left off, spend their afternoons together talking, reading books to one another, playing the piano, bezique, sharing their thoughts. But every time either of them went to take tea with Alix, inevitably with the rotund Anna, and occasionally with the Grand Duchesses and the little Alexei, it seemed as if the whole palace was in mourning. They were dull, listless, depressed, devoid of conversation; they had no news to tell. But then, none of them ventured beyond the park. The Tsarina had not been into St Petersburg itself now for over a year.
‘Mama is so quiet these days,’ Olga confided in Militza one afternoon. ‘She stays in her room eating biscuits in bed and rarely comes out. She dresses to see Papa in the evening, but very rarely sees the rest of us at all. She will sometimes come and take the air with us. She might watch Alexei on his toy horse. But Anna is her only comfort.’
With Rasputin gone, the Tsarevich’s bodyguard, Andrei Derevenko, barely let the heir’s feet touch the ground. He was carried everywhere at the Tsarina’s insistence, although he was now three years old and perfectly capable of walking without endangering himself. But Alix was terrified should anything happen to him. The result was that the boy was becoming increasingly spoilt. He’d cry if things didn’t go his way and refused to do as he was told. The others (OTMA – as Alix referred to them as a group, using their initials) had been brought up to share bedrooms, sleep on camp beds with no pillows, make their own beds, take cold showers every day and had received few presents save for a diamond and pearl for every birthday. However, Alexei’s room was infinitely more luxurious, lined with icons and full of toys, including a giant train set which he’d play with for hours, his Cossack guard always at his side.
But Militza persisted in her visits, despite their dullness – she had her father’s interests to think of; he had ideas to expand his circle of influence in the Balkans and Nicky owed him and Montenegro a sense of loyalty. Needless to say, her father also wanted money. He always wanted money. The ‘perper,’ his new currency, was not doing so well and he’d had to relinquish some power, like most leaders at the time, to his increasingly demanding populace. But he had his eye on the future and his jubilee celebrations next year, which he’d certainly need some assistance in financing.
Stana also was very much at her side. Returning from honeymoon, she’d seen enough of the reaction to her wedding to know that good relations with Nicky and Alix would be her lifeline back into society. While Militza’s diary was full to capacity for the social season – some twenty-two balls in almost as many days – hers was more sparsely filled and this worried her. She was married to one of the most powerful men in Russia; she should be right at the top of everyone’s list.
‘Isn’t there something you can do?’ asked Stana one cold February afternoon as she and Militza travelled in the carriage together for tea with the Tsarina. Though swathed in fur and blankets, both were still shivering.
‘I think in time it will be fine,’ replied Militza. ‘They don’t like change, it’s that simple.’
‘The truth is it was much easier to invite me when I was on my own. They could patronize me, feel sorry for me. I made everyone feel happier about their own lives. “At least I am not Stana,” they could say. “At least my husband isn’t openly fucking whores in Biarritz.”’ She sighed.
‘One whore.’
‘One whore,’ agreed Stana. ‘Which is worse.’
‘That’s true,’ said Militza, staring out of the window at the flat grey light and the thin, cold layer of snow that barely covered ground. ‘Mostly I am sure they do it just to keep warm!’
Stana laughed. ‘Do you know, I barely think about him now? Nearly twenty years of marriage and I can’t think of a single thing I miss. I pity that poor whore, actually. He was a terrible lover and, worse, a boring conversationalist. She’s welcome to his soft cock and dreary anecdotes! And don’t tell anyone I said that!’
‘Of course not!’ smiled Militza, patting her sister on the knee.
‘They can all go to hell. I don’t care about the court and their opinion of me!’
‘You sound like the Tsarina.’
‘For her it’s different. The more she stays away, the more stories they tell to fill the vacuum.’
‘Rumours are more dangerous than the truth,’ nodded Militza. ‘You and I know that.’
‘I hear terrible things. That the Tsarevich suffers convulsions, that he has tuberculosis…’
‘He was born missing a layer of skin… I know,’ agreed Militza. ‘But also, the more isolated she is, the more difficult it is for her to talk when she does come to say something. She doesn’t know half the people’s names any more, she doesn’t know any of the stories, she can’t ask them about their children as she hasn’t ever met them – and those girls,’ she added, shaking her head. ‘They know nothing, they have seen nothing. She’s isolated them too and they don’t know what to make of the world. At least before they used to be able to look out of train windows when they travelled to the Crimea – now since that incident with the madman who tried to blow himself up on the train, they travel in secret and put curtains on the train so they can’t even see out any more. I can’t help but think that’s bad,’ she said. ‘In England they keep their Royal family visible, they meet their subjects, but ours? They hide away. No one knows what they look like. I see things. Terrible visions, visions about the future that are so frightening…’
‘Like what?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ whispered Militza, resting her forehead against the cold windowpane, her breath fogged against the glass. ‘Not even the Devil himself could conceive of such misery.’ She looked back at her sister. ‘Even He might have to turn his face away in shame.’
As they drove through the frosted park towards the palace, they saw Nicky out walking with his dogs. Eleven long-haired Border collies ran in circles around him, wagging their tails and barking. He was shouting at them, white clouds of his breath hanging in air. His arms gesticulated, telling them to heel, or pointing out terrified squirrels for them to chase. He looked around as he heard the car and waved happily as it passed.
‘I often think Nicky would have found more joy in his life if he weren’t on the throne,’ mused Militza as she watched him striding through the long grass in the fading afternoon light.
‘The mantle of government weighs heavy on those narrow shoulders,’ agreed Stana, also looking out of the window, towards the frozen ornamental lake and the upturned boats on the grass.
Arriving at the palace, they were escorted to the Mauve Boudoir, where they found Jim Hercules standing guard outside the door. Dressed in his scarlet and black uniform, with golden tassels and golden epaulettes, a red turban on his head, he was the only black American servant to work in the palace. As tall as the other Abyssinian doormen, the erstwhile boxer hailed from the South of the United States and famously brought pots of delicious guava jelly back for the children whenever he went home on leave. His job, like his fellows’, was simply to open the door, but his appearance in the room would either indicate that the Tsar or Tsarina or both were about to arrive; and more usefully, given the dreariness of many a garrulous official, that they were about to leave. The children adored him, as did the Tsar, and indeed anyone else who regularly frequented the palace. Normally, he would stand immobile as a statue, but he was permitted to respond if spoken to.