That is what these people wanted. They wanted to see us suffer, openly and frequently. They wanted to feast on our pain and tears, to see us rip into each other, to fracture our family in every way imaginable. They wanted to take what was left of our dignity and devour it.
How empty they must be to find fulfillment in such things.
Mama passed one of the sweetmeats that the townspeople had brought us. I nibbled at it, not because I wanted to make it last, but because it left a bitter taste in my mouth.
If a hill was to be condemned for being a source of amusement, what would the empty men whose hate for us seemed to grow each week do to the kind people of Tobolsk who risked sending us eggs and other delicacies? I needed to find a way to ask Papa to turn away or discourage them, to let them know they were endangering themselves.
I got up to follow Papa and Monsieur Gilliard when they left the room, but Mama called me back to help clear the table.
A few moments later, I excused myself, pleading a need to use the bathroom and snuck to the door of Papa’s study.
Whispers drifted through the door.
“There is no Bolshevik Government at Tobolsk, Your Majesty,” Monsieur Gilliard said. “Kobylinsky is already on our side.”
“The guards,” my father objected.
“They are insolent, but careless. We should make our move before that changes.”
I nodded silently. Even I had noticed this. I thought their carelessness was part of that arrogance that let them think they can run a regiment by vote, with each man deciding for himself what is and isn’t acceptable. Seeing one man’s sloppiness, the rest follow, for it takes effort to do one’s job well, and if there’s no penalty for a job poorly done, or reward for one well done, then most of them seemed to have chosen the easy way. Most, but not all. The fanatics were motivated by their newfound ideology. They were the dangerous ones.
I held my breath in the silence, waiting, seeing in my mind’s eye that heavy cloak on my father’s shoulders.
“Who will help us?” my father asked. “I can’t rely on good intentions.”
“All we need are a few bold spirits, Your Majesty.” Gilliard again, soft and uncertain.
Their voices dropped lower. I pressed my ear to the door in time to hear my father insist on two conditions. “My family must remain together. And we will not leave Russia.”
I leaned my forehead against the door and closed my eyes. I waited for Monsieur Gilliard to argue against the second condition. I held my breath, and finally, in the silence, realized that he would say no more. The firmness of Papa’s tone on the matter was not to be defied. Not even by someone like Monsieur Gilliard.
I pushed the door open. They turned to look at me. My cheeks and ears turned hot.
“Please, Papa. We have to leave. This is Soviet Russia now.”
“No.”
Just that. Nothing more. We stood across from each other in that room. It was a horrible breach in protocol. It was not my place, but I could not remain quiet. Not any longer.
I waited for him to rebuke me, to call me a child, to tell me to go back to helping my mother, to tell me that I had no say.
Monsieur Gilliard seemed as embarrassed as I and perhaps it was his presence that spared me the dismissal that I deserved.
“Your mother will not leave Russia,” Papa said. “Not even Soviet Russia.”
I spent the next few days trying to get time alone with Mama, away from the guards, from my siblings, to beg and plead with her, but before I had a chance to say anything, fate intervened once again.
On the nineteenth of March I was cleaning up after lunch, still preoccupied with how I would get my mother alone, what I would say to her, when she said, “I would rather die in Russia than be saved by the Germans!”
She said it with such force, such power, that I dropped an empty teacup. It shattered. Apologizing, I rushed to clean it up, my heart pounding in my ears, the words, I don’t want to die, catching unspoken in my throat.
Over the next few days I struggled, trying to understand what would make Mama want to die—want all of us to die—rather than be saved by the Germans. Wasn’t it better to live, to get a chance to influence the world? Even if we did nothing but fade into obscurity, wasn’t that obscure life, the one they’d always wanted, better than death?
Chapter Seventeen
Train to Tyumen, Russia
The cooked-brain corpse on the parlor car floor would serve as a reminder to the prisoners.
“I’ll take care of the questioning, sir,” Mokrenko assured Turgenev. “You may not care for what I’ll have to do.”
“After what they tried to do to Natalya,” said the lieutenant, “you can do what you like with the filthy swine. Including”—the lieutenant pointed with his chin at the brain-cooked corpse on the floor—“toasting them.”
The rear door to the parlor car opened.
“Here’s two of the bastards, Sergeant,” announced Koslov, prodding, at bayonet point, two bound prisoners as he entered the parlor car. Goat wrinkled his nose at the stench of burnt flesh.
“The rest?”
Goat simply smiled, then drew his thumb across his throat.
“And the cost to us?”
With a deep sigh, Koslov answered, “Shukhov was shot, but Timashuk says it’s not bad. He’s patching him up now. But…”
“Yes?”
Goat gave a deep and regretful sigh. “I’m afraid to say that Visaitov didn’t make it.”
“I see.” Mokrenko turned his attention to the two prisoners, neither of whom looked much hurt. “I’ve less than no reason to bear you two shits any good will. So here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to separate you. Can you smell that stink? That’s the smell of someone’s face pushed against a red hot steel stove until the face burns and then the heat cooks his brain. We’re going to ask you some questions. If your answers match, then you don’t get your face burnt. If they don’t match, then you do. Note that there are two sides to your face, and when those are used up, you’ve still got arms, legs, chests, backs, feet, and genitals.”
Without warning, Mokrenko kicked one of the prisoners in the balls, causing him to give off an agonized moan before bending over and then sinking to the floor of the car.
“That’s just so you know how much trouble you’re in,” he said, before telling Goat to, “Take the other one back to our car. We’ll take care of this one. Novarikasha?”
“Yes, Sergeant?”
“You and Lavin get control of this one. I am going to ask the other one a question or two. Then I’m going to come here and ask the same question. If they don’t match, faces to heaters; got it?”
“Got it, Sergeant.”
With that, Mokrenko went to the second-class cabin and asked of the prisoner, “What is your name and patronymic and what is the name of the other one?”
The prisoner gulped, but answered unhesitatingly. “I am Vladimir Boroslavovich. My comrade is Stanislaus Fyodorovich.”
“All right, for now.” Mokrenko then went into first class and asked the same question, receiving the same answers, inverted. He then explained again, that if the answers didn’t match perfectly, there would be pain.
“Now, how were you going to get away from the train after completing your robbery?”
“We have horses waiting about an hour further up?”
“How many horses? How many men?”
“Four men, twenty-four horses.”
“Why the extra horses?”
“If we found a girl we wanted to keep, or if there was a substantial pay chest on the train. And for the food, of course.”