The Romanov Bride Read online

  “Pray for us all!” I replied.

  I wanted to beseech my sisters with the words of the Gospel: “Ye shall be hated of all men for My Name’s sake.” There was no time, though, for the lorries had come to a halt, and rather than have them start back up and barge through our premises and cause any sort of trouble, I went directly to the large main gates and pulled them open. Looking out, I saw that in the backs of the two vehicles stood thirty or forty dispirited souls, singing and shouting, laughing and smoking. Like our previous visitors, most of them were men and they had red ribbons pinned to their coats and many were waving red banners-Freedom and Bread! Peace and Land! All Power to the Soviets! Practically each and every one of them had a rifle hanging from his shoulder and a coarse cigarette dangling from his lips. Upon seeing me standing humbly there in my gray robes, their craggy music all but faded away.

  As an odd silence settled upon us, I gently asked, “How is it that I may help you?”

  “We’re here to arrest the Matushka!” shouted one, the apparent leader, who wore a large mustache. “Where is she?”

  “Right before you,” I replied, with a bow of my head. “I am she, the Abbess of the Marfo-Marinski Obitel.”

  “And just what is it that you do here? Now that you’re no longer ‘Her Imperial Highness,’ who are you, eh?”

  “I serve the sick and needy, that is all.”

  “Well, you’re going to be put on trial as a German spy!” he said.

  “That’s right, we’re going to take you away and toss you in prison!” came a shout from the truck.

  “Down with the Romanovs, all power to the people!” shouted another.

  “Hurrah!” came the voice of the mob.

  Their leader, the one with the mustache, jumped down from the back and said, “We have orders to arrest you, but first we have to search the convent. We’re going to arrest all the German spies you’re hiding and take all the guns and ammunitions you have as well.”

  It seemed that half of them flew off the backs of the lorries, leaping to the ground and swarming toward me. But I would not be so intimidated, and standing there in my work robes I held out the flat of my hand.

  “My good people, we have never hidden any spies or prisoners of war within these walls, nor have we ever, ever possessed armaments of any sort,” I said in a most firm voice. “To do so would be a most grievous breach of our pledges to the Lord. But to satisfy yourselves you are more than welcome to search anywhere and everywhere.” As with the previous incident, I stated, “However, I ask that there shall be no more than six of you who enter, for under these roofs we have many wounded soldiers and sick patients, not to mention our orphan girls and beggar boys, and I will not have them disturbed or worried. Their well-being is my only concern.”

  “Well…” grumbled their leader.

  “Further,” I continued most forcefully, “it will take me a few minutes to issue instructions for the care of all our dear ones, and I must also bid my dear sisters farewell. Once I have accomplished these things, I will gladly go with you.”

  This threw them into an unexpected muddle. I supposed they had come, fully certain to find what all the tongues had told them lay here: a nest of German spies and guns aplenty, perhaps a pile or two of gold nuggets as well. They seemed determined to find all this, and quickly so, and had planned, too, on ripping me away, screaming and flailing.

  Stepping into their confusion, I asked, “But first, my friends, would you be so kind as to join us in church? I would like to gather my sisters and have Father Mitrofan perform a Te Deum for my journey.”

  Not knowing if they would follow, I turned and proceeded across the flagstones toward my church.

  Russian peasants, I had come to learn in my years here, were a peculiar sort, one moment all politeness, bowing and submissive, next angry and so violent, not afraid to kill. But such were the shadows, the hangovers, of their recent serfdom, when these poor people had been traded as not much more than slaves. Warm, loving of family and friends, and hardworking-I had found all this in my adopted people. All that they lacked was a proper sense of self-worth and a literate, educated manner in which to express their frustrations. Simply, they were still so afraid of their master’s whip, for without education, without intelligent words, the only way they could do battle against that whip was to resort to sheer violence itself.

  Oh, I pondered with the heaviest of hearts, had we but ten more years of peace our Russia would have made it, we would not have come to so destructive a time. God save and protect Russia, I silently prayed as I walked along, my head bowed.

  Despite the rifles slung over their shoulders and the harsh words that escaped their lips, these were essentially good men here today, not evil, merely fearful, their fear having been churned to an evil frenzy. Which is to say that they did in fact follow me to my sweet church. Without turning, I walked on, wondering what they might do. Then I heard their booted steps behind me, proceeding if not with respect, then neither with immediate threat. Reaching the double doors of my church, I looked back and saw that there were six men, not one more, just as I had asked. All the others were waiting just beyond the gate.

  And upon opening one of the large wooden doors I nearly tripped over a handful of novices and sisters, all huddled there in the dark, shocked and worried.

  To two novices, I said, “Will you young ones please fetch Father Mitrofan, for I am about to go on a journey and I would like him to perform a service. The rest of you, would you please gather all the sisters here for the service, and, please, light all the lamps and candles, too?” Addressing the men, who stood outside, I politely asked, “I would very much appreciate it if all of you would join us here in the church-I assure you that we will be brief. After that, Father Mitrofan will escort you through our buildings, and you may search hi and lo to suit your needs. Yes, yes, please do come in, but I ask you to leave your rifles just outside here, for weapons are of course not needed in the house of the Lord.”

  Though they were hesitant to abandon their guns, one by one they did as I requested, shrugging off their rifles and propping them up outside. They then stepped into our haven, pulling caps from heads, and bowing their heads ever so respectfully toward the iconostasis. I was pleased for their souls.

  Father Mitrofan, my tall, round, bearded confessor, vested himself quickly and, fastening up the last of his garments, appeared more than startled upon the ambo. His big, wide face was red, his eyes darted about with worry, but I smiled gently before him, determined to remain calm, for there was naught that I could do but accept my fate. I fully expected to be taken away by these men, yet I tried to exude a kind of calm as my sisters poured into the church, for I had no wish to sow anxiety among my loved ones.

  “There is nothing to fear,” I said, slowly moving through the clouds of incense and smoke toward the front. “And, please, I will tolerate no tears.”

  Reaching the altar, I stared upon the beautiful images lining the iconostasis and crossed myself. As gracefully as I had once curtsied before king and queen, I then dropped to my knees, bowing all the way over and pressing my forehead upon the cool, soothing stones. It was there that I remained on my knees throughout the brief service, repeating the prayers, crossing myself, rising and falling over and over in humility and devotion. My sisters in the choir sang like angels, and this, too, gave me strength.

  With the conclusion of the brief service, I came to my feet, and kissed the gold cross which Father Mitrofan held before me. One by one all my sisters did likewise, and as I stepped aside I was more than pleased to see the revolutionaries do likewise. Good village boys that they had once surely been, they each received Father’s blessing. This also warmed my heart and gave me a kind of hope that one day Russia would heal itself.

  With the Te Deum concluded, I turned to these men, and said, “Father Mitrofan will now escort you about my buildings. I ask you to please look wherever you wish and to take however much time you may need. When you have finished your sea
rch, you will find me in my reception room, and from there I will go with you, just as you have requested.”

  I could see in their eyes that these men had been softened by the service, that something no longer burned within their souls, or at least not as hotly as before. Or was it a kind of reluctance, was that what I sensed? Not one of them moved, not one of them met my gaze.

  Finally, the leader, the one with the mustache, rather sheepishly said, “The truth is that if we take you today, Matushka, we will have no place to keep you, no prison. So… so, I think, yes, perhaps, it would be best if you stayed here. But we must do our search. We still need to look everywhere.”

  “Most certainly,” I replied with a warm smile. “Please look wherever you wish. It is my hope that you completely satisfy yourselves.”

  They headed off and were gone a good long while, verifying, inspecting, and checking virtually each and every room of the obitel, from the orphanage to the operating theater, the kitchens to the apothecary. An hour later I was called out from my reception rooms, and there, in my snow-covered gardens, I found the six men.

  “Are you satisfied that you saw everything?” I asked.

  “Yes,” replied the mustached one, as several of his compatriots nodded in agreement. “We found nothing, so we are leaving now.”

  “Very well.”

  Of course they hadn’t found anything, neither Germans nor spies, bullets nor guns. Such things were anathema to all that I and my work stood for. The search was nevertheless important, because now, perhaps, the story would go round that a group of revolutionaries had had a thorough look-see through our community and found virtually nothing of interest. Hopefully this time the truth would circulate instead of all those awful black lies.

  I escorted the men, and as we neared the gates, I quietly said, “Thank you for allowing me to stay where I am needed.”

  There was not a reply from one of them, and they, perhaps a touch embarrassed, filed silently past me and onto the street, where their two lorries awaited. Upon seeing the search committee emerge from my gates, the mob burst into excited song, this time the “Marseillaise.” But the song quickly fell away, for the search team was emerging with no screaming princess, no spies, and not a single weapon.

  As sole explanation, the mustached one loudly proclaimed, “This is just a women’s monastery, nothing else!”

  All boarded the lorries and off they went, singing yet again with revolutionary fervor. Once they were gone, I tightly closed the gates. For a moment I paused, wondering if now was in fact the time to lock the gates and barricade ourselves from the outer world. I reached to do just that, but decided quite otherwise. Beyond our walls there were so many in such great need.

  Turning around I saw my dear Nun Varvara, her hands clasped at her waist, standing there and looking supremely relieved.

  With a large smile upon her face, she said, “Very well done, Matushka.”

  I smiled as well and with a light shrug, boasted, “Once again it seems that we are not yet worthy of a martyr’s crown.”

  Chapter 38 PAVEL

  We pulled the tsar by his prick from the throne, and it was a big surprise what happened after that: the Germans sent Lenin back to Russia. It was true. They put him in a sealed train, they gave him hundreds of thousands of rubles to make a revolution, and they snuck him through Finland and back into the country. Which meant Lenin was the only real traitor, financed by none other than our enemies who wanted only one thing: to get Russia out of the war.

  All this I found out at a secret meeting that fall in Moscow. The Comrade Trotsky told me everything, that all the rumors were true. He also told me that if I talked about it at all, if I spread word of it, they would shoot me like a dog, a bullet in the back of my head. Without saying anything, I thought how funny this was-everyone had gone after the ex-empress because they said she was working for the Germans, but in fact it was our man, Lenin, who worked for them. I understood all this but it didn’t bother me. I didn’t care how Lenin had come back from his hiding in Switzerland.

  “All I care about, Comrade,” I told Trotsky right to his face, “is three things: Land to the peasants! Factories to the workers! Peace to the soldiers!”

  “Exactly! Kerensky and his Provisional Government are keeping us in the war, but we have more important things-we haven’t finished the revolution of the proletariat!”

  No, we hadn’t. There was lots more to do. Many, like Trotsky, were even calling for complete equality for the Zhidki, which was just what Trotsky was, one of them, a Jew man. Such interesting times.

  Those months were chaos, the capitalists demanding one thing, the socialists another, and then that summer Lenin even had to flee again because suddenly Kerensky sent his men to arrest him. But our hero got away, he slipped right out of town. No one knew quite where he went-had he run all the way back to Switzerland?-but later they said that he’d scurried toward the Finnish border, where he dived into a haystack. They said he stayed hidden there almost all the way until the real Revolution but I think maybe he lived somewhere else, in a hidden dacha or something.

  Da, da, da, and finally that fall a great miracle happened: The Great October Revolution!

  The second Revolution was so different from the first, the February Revolution. The second, the October Revolution, was much wilder. In Moscow there was shooting from the roofs and battles on the street, us Bolsheviks trying to kill as many Kadets as we could. From everywhere you could hear the rat-tat-tat of machine guns, and there was one big, long battle near the Arbat where there was a military academy and where so many of the wealthy bastards lived. Villa after villa was burned, and there were bodies lying everywhere. For the first time tank trucks rumbled the streets, too.

  It was during this time and on one great day that they gave me a big, important task. More than anything the Revolution needed two things: weapons and money. That was why on one particular morning they sent a group of Red Guards marching on the Kremlin. At the same time they sent me and four comrades to one of the big banks that did, they said, all sorts of business with the warmongers and foreign capitalists. My instructions were very clear: Grab nagrablenoye!

  Not too very long after it opened we went into this bank. Actually I went first, dressed all special in a black leather coat that they gave me and instructed me to wear. They didn’t want me to look like the peasant that I was, they didn’t want me to look suspicious. So they made me look pretty good, and in I went through the big brass doors and into the main hall that was all covered with dark wood. Only one of the clerks, a pale man with a small, neat beard, looked up at me with any interest. It was just before ten, which meant the bank was still pretty empty, just workers and only one customer, a short old man with a cane. Not thirty seconds later, my other four comrades came in, two of the men posting themselves at the big front door, one at a side door, and another, Sasha, coming up by my side, all according to plan.

  I whipped out a revolver, held it high, and fired two shots right into the ceiling. There were screams and some chunks of plaster came down on my head.

  As loudly as I could, I shouted, “All of you on the floor! In the name of the Proletariat and the Revolution, we are seizing this bank! Get down on the floor! All the money in your vaults now belongs to the people! Death to the exploiters! Glory to the Revolution!”

  I had thought the bankers and all the clerks in their white shirts would do nothing and give up like schoolgirls. But they were rather tough. A man with glasses, who turned out to be the director general, came out of an office, a small pistol in hand. Without hesitating, he aimed at Sasha, my comrade, who was standing right next to me, and shot him in the left shoulder. Sasha, a big guy, groaned in pain but just as quickly let out one shot and then another, killing Mr. Director General, who toppled over, landing with a juicy thud. That was all it took, actually. I turned this way and that, saw all the clerks now practically throwing themselves on the floor and covering their heads with their hands.

  And
then it was quiet, but only for a second. That poor Sasha. I heard another groan, turned, and saw blood bubble and flow from his lips. He looked down, as did I, and it was then that I saw a long, razor-thin sword poking out of his stomach. Gospodi, he’d been stabbed from behind! Sasha glanced up at me, tried to say something, choked on his own blood, swayed, and fell over. Behind him stood that old man-a sword had been hidden in his cane! And he had stabbed Sasha in the back, running the sword right through my comrade!

  Purple with anger, the old man said to me, “You fucking Reds can go to the devil!”

  Knowing full well what would happen next, the old shit quickly crossed himself, and I waited, I let him finish. Once he’d made his sign to a god I was sure didn’t exist, I did the deed. I fired a bullet right between his eyes. When he hit the floor a black velvet bag fell from his hands. I ripped it open, and in it were twenty brillianti, all about the size of my thumbnail, and some fifteen or so big red and green stones, too. I quickly understood that the old man had probably just removed these things from a storage box there in the bank. He was probably taking his jewels and getting ready to run away, to leave the country. Good, I thought. All I had done was stop an enemy from taking his riches out of Russia.

  We only had to kill one other person, a woman clerk who tried to sneak out the back door. One of my comrades shot her in the neck and stole her gold rings.

  It was about then that we heard and felt a distant explosion that was bigger, well, than anything I’d ever experienced. Ha! I thought with a smile. Ha! Our Red brigand had succeeded, they had blown up the Kremlin gates! They were storming the Arsenal!

  Yes, it was a very good day for the Revolution. Me and my comrades seized almost five million Kerensky rubles from the bank, the Red Guard had got piles of weapons and ammunition from the Arsenal, and by nightfall our red flags were flying from the Kremlin towers.