“Of course. Russia is a very big bear-a wild one, at that-and we have many difficulties ahead. Perhaps we’re doomed to a second revolution, as so many suspect.” Blok folded his hands behind his back and gazed down at his feet. “You heard what she said, that she’s pregnant with your child?”
Staring into his lap, he nodded ever so slightly.
“So maybe instead we should charge you with treason. After all, rather than extinguish the Rasputins, you’ve ensured that they will live on.”
“She’s not…not like her father. She has a very pure soul-and a real gift with words.” His hands still tied tightly behind the back of the chair, Sasha did not look up. “Prince Felix sent me to infiltrate the Khlysty and his family-to find his religion, charm his daughter, enter his home-all in the hopes not of simply getting information but of unearthing scandal. Scandal that we could plant like dangerous propaganda. After all, don’t you think fear and rumor and innuendo are-”
“More powerful than the mightiest cannon? Yes, absolutely.”
Sasha looked up, his brown eyes pleading. “It’s better that she move on with her life, so please…please don’t tell her I’m alive.”
With a shrug, Blok turned on his heel and started out. “Don’t worry, I won’t.” Reaching the door that led back into the throne room, he took hold of the lever…and then turned and stared back at the pathetic young man. “After all, it’s obvious you haven’t got much longer.”
As Blok left the room, he heard the young man begin to weep gently, perhaps as much out of relief as anything else. But there was no need, thought Blok as he returned to his desk, to tell Maria that the father of her unborn child was alive. There was no need because Prince O’ksandr would soon be dead, for it was obvious the typhus was well along. What did he have-a week, two at the most?
Yes, he thought as he sat down at his desk, one more death. In the greater scheme of things, this young man, no matter how highly born, was insignificant, just another soul. But how was this to end and when would the cleansing of the country be complete? How many more millions would have to die before the war against the Germans would be over and the revolution within Russia would stop roiling?
And when would the River Neva stop flowing red?
Blok glanced at the extensive notes he’d taken of Maria’s story. He’d fill out the report tonight and have it typed up tomorrow. But what were they, really? Just more words, more paragraphs? Pushing aside those papers, he came to yet more words-Prince O’ksandr’s testimony taken yesterday-and reread the opening lines:
Believe me, I’d tell you if I knew. But I really have no idea how Rasputin was introduced to the former imperial family, and I will swear to my death that I took no part in it. I’ve heard rumors that he was eager to penetrate the palace, that he did so via dubious means, and that he was assisted by one of the former grand duchesses-I think the one from Montenegro. It seems quite possible, but of all that I have no firsthand knowledge.
No, I didn’t become involved in the plot to murder Rasputin until much, much later.
As he scanned the remaining pages, Blok realized that while the prince’s words all seemed truthful, the Thirteenth really had no choice. No matter how long or short Prince O’ksandr had to live, if he got out, the truth of Rasputin might get out too, and then-well, no, no need to risk anything. Turning back to the front page of the prince’s confession, Blok wrote in large letters, PRISONER TO REMAIN AT SHPALERNAYA INDEFINITELY.
What happened to the characters based on real people?
Rasputin had long predicted that, in the event of his own death, the royal family would soon perish. Indeed, not even three months after Rasputin’s murder, Nicholas and Alexandra were pulled from the throne by the February Revolution. Exiled to Siberia, the imperial couple and their five beloved children were secretly executed in July 1918. Their hidden grave was not found until after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The highborn aristocrats involved in Rasputin’s death were sent into exile before the Revolution and, because of this, escaped those tumultuous days unharmed. For the duration of his life, Grand Duke Dmitri never commented on the murder of Rasputin. Having fled to Europe with no fortune, only a title, he married an American heiress and died in 1942; his son, Paul Ilyinsky, was for many years the popular mayor of Palm Beach, Florida, and died in 2004. Prince Felix perpetuated his own version of what happened that night and wrote several memoirs; he and his wife, Princess Irina, lived in relative comfort in Paris until his death in 1967. The monarchist Vladimir Purishkevich died of typhoid fever as civil war raged around him.
Anna Vyrubova, Alexandra’s closest friend, was arrested and interrogated at length by the Thirteenth Section. When questioned about a possible sexual relationship with Rasputin, she swore under oath that these rumors were nothing but lies and she was in fact a virgin. A small cadre of physicians examined her and, much to the surprise of the Thirteenth Section, immediately confirmed her claim. Eventually freed, Madame Vyrubova was later rearrested by the Bolsheviks, only to escape and disappear into hiding. Several years after Lenin seized power, she managed to flee across the ice floes to Finland, where she took her vows. She lived in seclusion until her death in Helsinki in 1964.
Rasputin’s most notorious and fanatical devotee, Madame Lokhtina, was arrested by the Thirteenth, interrogated, and released. Dressed in torn filthy clothing, she was last seen in 1923 at a train station poking at people with her staff and begging for food.
Alexander Protopopov, Russia ’s last Minister of Internal Affairs, was imprisoned and shot, his body dumped in an unknown grave.
The great Russian poet Alexander Blok was indeed drafted and brought in by the Extraordinary Commission to transcribe the Thirteenth Section’s interrogations of those who knew Rasputin. While he welcomed the overthrow of Nicholas II, he was soon greatly disillusioned by the Bolsheviks. His epic poem The Twelve was published within a year of the Revolution, and while many consider it one of his greatest works, it also proved to be among his very last. His spirit and health shattered by what he saw around him, he died in 1921, at age forty-one, of complications from hunger and syphilis.
Grigori Rasputin’s ever-devoted wife, Praskovia, mentally retarded son, Dmitri, and youngest daughter, Varvara, were all driven from their Siberian village by the Bolsheviks. Praskovia is believed to have died soon thereafter of unknown causes. Dmitri was later captured by Stalin’s henchmen and thrown into the brutal Salehard Camp, one of the many gulags of Siberia, where he died of scurvy in 1937. Rasputin’s treasured younger daughter, Varvara, disappeared completely, though it is rumored she died unnoticed in Leningrad in the early 1960s. Edvokia Pechyorkin-Dunya-who served Rasputin as both housekeeper and mistress, vanished into the flames of the Revolution.
As for the real Maria Rasputin, she fled to Siberia after the Revolution, where she impetuously married Boris Soloviev, an officer with a shadowy reputation. They escaped from Russia during the civil war-the only members of the Rasputin family to do so-and eventually found their way to Paris. Soon after her marriage, Maria gave birth to one daughter and then another, and when her husband died in 1926, Maria danced and sang in a cabaret to support her little family. Later she found work as a lion tamer in both London and Los Angeles, and the crowds flocked to see the daughter of the “Mad Monk” perform her magic over nature’s wild beasts. While on tour with the Ringling Brothers Circus in Peru, Indiana, she was mauled by a bear, which forced her to quit the circus and take a job as a riveter in a Miami shipyard.
Finding peace far from Siberia, Maria lived out her old age in a bungalow tucked in the shadows of the Hollywood Freeway, where she lived on Social Security and the occasional babysitting job. While she never published any poetry, she wrote several memoirs and co-authored a cookbook, which includes recipes for both Jellied Fish Heads and her father’s favorite, Cod Soup.
Maria died in 1977. The Rasputin descendants continue to live in the environs of Paris.
Chronology
1894
Nicholas II succeeds Alexander III
1914
War breaks out against Germany
St. Petersburg is renamed Petrograd
1915
Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich is removed as Comannder in Chief
Nicholas II appoints himself Commander in Chief, leaves for the front
Alexandra’s power and role in the government grow rapidly
1916
Rasputin murdered by Yusupov and others December 16
1917
February: Massive demonstrations break out over food shortages
Riots turn into revolution and mutiny
Nicholas II abdicates February 28
The Provisional Government attempts to restore order
The Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry for the Investigation of Illegal Acts by Ministers and Other Responsible Persons of the Tsarist Regime
The Thirteenth Section, charged with investigating the Dark Forces (all who knew Rasputin are incarcerated and interrogated)
August: The former imperial family is exiled to Siberia
October: Second Revolution breaks out as Lenin and Bolsheviks seize power
1918
Nicholas, Alexandra, and children are secretly executed July 16
1919
The report of the Thirteenth Section, nearly 500 pages long, vanishes
Maria Rasputin escapes from Russia
1920
Russian Civil War ends
1977
Maria Rasputin dies in Hollywood, California
1995
The entire report of the Thirteenth Section is auctioned at Sotheby’s in Paris
Glossary
ahmeen | amen
arzhin |.71 meters
banya | Russian sauna
batushka | the dear father
bistro | quickly
bit-po-semo | so be it
bizmyen | permission to kiss the tsaritsa’s hand
bog | God
bogoroditsa | the Virgin
bozhe moi | my God
bozh’i-liudi | God’s people
chai’naya | teahouse
da | yes
derevenschina | naïve country girl, yokel
devochka | young girl
devushka | girl
doche | daughter
dochenka maya | my little daughter
dorogaya maya | my dear
Dukhobory | a religious sect known as pacifist “spirit wrestlers”
durachok | cute little fool
durak | fool
dyadka | uncle, fellow, bodyguard
dyavol | the devil
fortochka | small transom window
garderob-sheek | coatroom attendant
gospodi | good heavens
gospodin | mister
grupa seksa | group sex
izba | peasant’s log hut
kammerfurier | court log
Kazanskaya | The Virgin of Kazan, one of Russia ’s most revered icons
Khlysty | a religious sect known as “the Whips”
kiot | large icon case
konyechno | of course
kosovorotka | Russian shirt, fastened alongside the collar
kroogli durak | round idiot, complete fool
kto tam? | who is there?
leemoan | lemon
liodi | common people
malenkaya maya | my little one
milaya maya | my dear one
ministir | minister
molodets | excellent, a smart one
Molokans | a religious sect known as “the milk drinkers”
muzhik | peasant
nyet | no
narod | the masses
ochen | very
pelmeni | Siberian meat dumplings
pirog | a pie
podstakanik | metal holder for tea glass
pravoslavni | Russian Orthodoxy
proshchaitye | farewell
prospekt | prospect, boulevard
prostitutka | prostitute
radeniye | rejoicing
radi boga | for the sake of God
rasputitsa | a season of horribly muddy roads
rasputiye | a crossroad
rasputnik | a debauched person
reeba bez vodii | a fish without water
revolutsiya | revolution
russkiye | Russian
sevodnya soopa nyetoo | today there is no soup
sermyaga | peasant clothing of heavy cloth
Skoptsy | a religious sect known as “the castrators”
slava bogu | thanks be to God
starushka | a sweet, old woman
strannik | a (wandering) pilgrim
starets | a religious elder, a man of God
starii xhren | an old piece of horseradish
Subbotniki | a religious sect whose beliefs fall between Christianity and Judaism
svalnyi grekh | group sinning
takzhe | also
tapochki | slippers
telega | a cart without springs
vershok | 4.4 centimeters
v’koosno | tasty
vranye | fibs, the art of creative lying
xhama | rogues
Xhristos | Christ
Xhristovshchina | the Christ faith
xhorosho | good/fine
ya spala kak ubeetaya | I slept like the dead
ya tebya lubloo | I love you
ya Vas slushaiyoo | I am listening to you
zakuska | appetizer
Robert Alexander
***
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