The endless trees whiz past the window, and Rufus nods ruefully. “Yes. I see.”
“Indeed, Mr du Pavey. There is nothing, nothing at all, except uninhabited forest. It extends around us for hundreds of miles in every direction. Our captors know that they need not bother to guard us on this train journey. Because if we escape into this wilderness, we will surely die.”
The train carries on, and the woods continue relentlessly without any sign of human habitation. It’s late morning by the time the trees finally thin out and give way to cultivated fields. Then, a scatter of wooden houses are followed by the usual signs of a Russian town: the spires and onion domes of churches and monasteries. The train slows to a halt alongside a deserted platform.
As the professor predicted, two guards with barely-concealed pistols open the door of our carriage, and bid us to disembark. As we step out of our carriage, we find ourselves in railway station that looks like a scene from Alice in Wonderland. The sharply sloping roofs are patterned with bright red and white diamond-shaped tiles like a chessboard, topped here and there with fanciful pointed towers. Our guards gesture to us, and we walk out through an archway.
We step into the dazzling sunlight of a large town square. The wide paved space, with here and there statues and beds of flowers, is dappled light and dark, with sunshine and cloud-shadows. There are only a few people about. We walk out into the middle of the square, uncertain of what is to happen.
I look up. We stand under a immense sky of puffed clouds. They are like balls of cotton wool, hundreds of them, receding in the blue towards a far, unseen horizon. I hear again the professor’s words – “if we escape into this wilderness, we will surely die.” I sense the endless wastes of Siberia surrounding this lonely city. We might as well be on an island in an ocean.
I suddenly notice a solitary man in uniform, standing like one of the statues. Our guards signal to him, and he steps towards us. They salute him, then turn to us. “We are now handing you over to Commandant Yakov Yurovsky of the Ural Soviet Executive Committee.”
In the July sunlight, the man’s eyes are like gray flints. An untidy goatee beard and mustache merge together, hiding his mouth. He hardly speaks as he greets us, shaking the professor’s hand, then Rufus’s; he bows to me. Then as he straightens up, he says “I am Commandant of the Ipatiev House.”
Axelson asks the question that’s in all our minds. “Is this Ipatiev House where we are to stay?”
Yurovsky seems oddly cagey as he answers the simple question. “No, you will not stay there. Have you not been told why you have been brought to Yekaterinburg?”
The professor can’t hide a little impatience. “I was sent a letter, by Mr Lenin himself. But I have been told absolutely nothing about why I am here in this city. Neither have Miss Frocester or Mr du Pavey. So, Commandant, you will have to explain everything to us.”
“I need not explain, because I will show you. Come with me.”
We follow our new companion away from the square and the main buildings of the town. After two blocks, he points to a down-at-heel detached wooden house. Its paint is peeling, and there are cracks in some of the windows. But it’s surrounded by a wide garden of mature trees, and it looks quaintly attractive. Above the door someone has nailed a crudely lettered sign “People’s Hotel”. Yurovsky points to it. “That is your accommodation. Your luggage will have already been taken there by the Red Guards.”
His face is expressionless, but I smile at him. “May we go to our rooms now, Commandant Yurovsky?”
“No. There is other business first.”
We carry on following him. If it were not for Yurovsky’s somber presence, it would be a pleasant stroll. We are among wide, quiet, leafy streets. Behind white-painted picket fences are the flower-filled gardens of well-to-do town houses. Carved wooden porches look out on well-tended lawns, and birds are singing in the gardens. I feel I’ve passed through a magic veil, and stepped out into the suburbs of some prosperous Connecticut town. I tell myself “This isn’t real, Agnes. Home is six thousand miles away.”
One of the big houses doesn’t fit the pattern. It’s a white-painted mansion with arched upper windows, but the lower parts are invisible. Unlike the low fences and tidy green hedges of all the other houses, a crude palisade of wooden stakes, six feet high, surrounds and hides it. The palisade looks like a miniature of some frontier fort in the Wild West. We walk towards it.
Yurovsky leads us to a gate in the fence, and calls out to a guard inside. Bolts are drawn, and I hear the click of a padlock opening. Moments later, a guard with a rifle pulls the gate open, and we step into a small courtyard in the shadow of the palisade. From here, a wide, green garden slopes down, so steeply that there is an extra lower floor on the far side of the house, at the level of the garden. I can see that the fence completely surrounds the garden. The outside world is invisible.
Yurovsky talks quietly to the guard who opened the gate, then turns to us.
“I will leave you for a moment with Comrade Medvedev. I have some business indoors.”
The guard’s face is blank, his eyes hard and dull. He shows no interest in us; he is peering round the garden, as if he is looking out for intruders. Rufus can’t keep quiet any longer: he speaks in English.
“Professor, what the bloody hell is going on?”
The guard turns like an automaton, staring at Rufus. I see his fingers straying to the trigger of the rifle. The professor smiles gently.
“I apologise for my friend. He is a little, ah – nervous. Of course, our party will all speak in Russian, because we have absolutely nothing to hide. We will wait, quietly, for Commandant Yurovsky to return.”
The man grunts, and we stand and wait in silence. It’s a warm day, but it’s cool in the shadow of the high fence. I feel a little shiver. Time passes; I look at the fence, and at the gardens, which are bright and cheerful in the summer sunshine. High in the sky above us, there must be a strong wind: the puffy clouds roll through the blue, shifting and changing every moment. Now and then, I steal a glance at our grim-faced guard.
I feel there is something strange about this house. Then I notice that the glass in every single window is covered in white paint.
Yurovsky reappears. As before, his eyes are like stones as he speaks to us. “Come in here.” He leads through a door into the house, and we enter a small, dingy room that must be his office. His desk is piled with a chaotic disarray of papers. He takes a telegram from among them, and hands it to the professor. Rufus and I stand behind Axelson’s shoulders, and we all read.
To Commandant Yurovksy
Ural Soviet Executive Committee
Professor Axelson and his assistants will shortly be transferred to Yekaterinburg as per our previous communication and you must meet them at the station Stop
Axelson is to conduct the hypnotic interview of Alexandra Feodorovna Romanov at the Ipatiev House of Special Purpose at the earliest possible opportunity Stop Aim of hypnosis is to establish her orders to shoot unarmed protesters in St Petersburg in February 1917 Stop Long live the Revolution Stop
Axelson takes a deep breath, then looks at Yurovsky in disbelief.
“You want me to conduct a hypnotic interview of the Tsarina?”
“There is no Tsarina any more. You are asked to interview Mrs Alexandra Romanov, who formerly called herself the Tsarina of Russia.”
“And this House of Special Purpose – is that here, this Ipatiev House? When will she be arriving?”
“She isn’t arriving. She is already here. Every member of the former imperial family is living here, at this house.”
Two days have passed. Rufus and I have been given strict instructions by Yurovsky not to step outside our accommodation at the “People’s Hotel”, and not to talk to anyone except the hotel staff. But there seem to be no other guests staying at the hotel anyway. Of course, I’ve tried talking to the maids, the waiter and the chef. They are cheerful and helpful when I ask questions about our rooms and our food. But when I try to broaden the conversation, every one of them becomes silent, watchful and anxious.