Dmitri had rented lodgings in town and that evening he sat and wrote to Malevich, telling him of the situation in which he had found the Romanovs (‘the cargo’). He described the layout of the town and the position of the guards around the house, but really he knew rescue from this place was impossible. Already, in early September, the temperature was dropping rapidly and in just a few weeks they would be unable to leave Tobolsk for the eight months of winter. Perhaps the following spring, the revolutionary government would relent and allow the youngest family members to go free. No one could possibly think them guilty of any crime, no matter what the sins of their parents.
Dmitri felt furious with both of them for their blinkered, outdated approach to monarchy. The Romanovs had made their vast fortune from the resources of the nation, yet Nicholas had not seen fit to open the coffers when his people were starving. Alexandra had been remarkably short-sighted in using Rasputin as an advisor when she was seen by ordinary Russians as allied to the enemy. Between them they had turned the once-revered imperial family into a hated institution. But the children were so young – Alexei only thirteen, Tatiana only twenty – surely they could not be blamed?
Yet again he thought of poor Marie Antoinette, the French queen, whose only ‘crime’ was to have been born Austrian in an era when Austria was France’s bitter enemy. Her eldest daughter, Marie-Thérèse, had been held prisoner for six years before being released into exile. Would Alexandra’s German roots and Nicholas’s imperious style yet count against them all? Could an accident of birth mean years under house arrest for the younger Romanovs?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tobolsk, Siberia, winter 1917
On the 28th of October Dmitri bought his usual newspaper from a street seller and recoiled as he read the headlines: there had been yet another coup in St Petersburg. Three days earlier Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and his comrade Leon Trotsky had led a successful coup against the provisional government in St Petersburg. It had begun at 9.45 p.m. with the battleship Aurora firing shots at the Winter Palace and ended at 2 a.m. with the taking of the Palace by rebels. The provisional government had been imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Dmitri was stunned. Both Lenin and Trotsky were lunatic extremists, who had been forced into exile after the 1905 Revolution. When Lenin arrived back in Russia in April 1917, everyone expected him to join the provisional government but instead he published his own radical agenda in Pravda. He believed peasants should seize land from rich landlords, that factory workers should take over the factories, and that manual workers should receive higher wages than office workers. Everyone Dmitri knew dismissed Lenin as mad. No one thought he could possibly succeed – yet somehow he had. The change had come over the summer, when Lenin announced his intention of withdrawing Russia from the war with Germany without delay. While the provisional government tarried, pressing for better terms, Lenin promised battle-weary soldiers that they could come home immediately, and finally they had switched allegiance. It was a short-term measure that would cost the country dear, almost certainly losing them control of the Baltic states.
Dmitri wondered what would become of his parents, back home in the comfortable estate that had been in his father’s family for centuries? What would happen to the Romanovs in the new ‘workers’ paradise’? Dmitri realised straight away that these events would split Russia down the middle and change the country he loved forever.
Shortly after the coup, a letter came from his mother telling him his father had been arrested. It seemed the Bolsheviks were taking a hard line with what they called the ‘bourgeoisie’. Dmitri worried that his proud father would not submit easily to captivity and prayed he would not be foolish enough to resist his captors. He wrote to his mother and instructed her to engage a good lawyer. In other circumstances he would have ridden home to protect his mother and sisters and to agitate for his father’s release from prison, but for the time being his first loyalty must be with his wife.
He wondered if news of the Bolshevik coup had reached Tsar Nicholas, and asked Tatiana in his daily letter, but it seemed from her reply that she did not appreciate the implications of the change of government:
I am glad the war is over if it means no more Russians will be killed, but Papa is worried that the Baltic lands currently occupied by the Germans may be lost in the peace negotiations. He has requested that he might be included in the discussions …
After that she changed the subject:
Did I tell you we are now keeping five pigs in an old stable in the yard? They are very sweet and come when called, like dogs. Ortipo barks at them but is too much of a coward to venture close. I must not let myself become over fond of them, as I suspect they are intended for our table this winter … We also have chickens, turkeys and ducks, and Father has dug a duck pond for them. I have begun to reread the works of Tolstoy, since it seems we are stuck here for the next few months. I’d forgotten what a great storyteller he is! Do you like Anna Karenina? We are also rehearsing a production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters to entertain our parents. I am the director and play the role of Masha. I only wish you could come to watch …
Dmitri was astonished by Tatiana’s everyday tone. Did she realise that the nation was rift in two? He supposed that in captivity her horizons had narrowed; either that or she was putting a remarkably brave face on events. He thought he had grown to know her rather well but found it impossible to guess what she was thinking deep down. Was she simply being cheerful for his sake?
Dmitri wrote to several aristocrat friends asking what they planned to do about this so-called workers’ revolution. Surely they wouldn’t give up their property without a struggle? It was agony to be stuck in Tobolsk, powerless to help resist the coup, but he couldn’t leave Tatiana when every day he felt the danger increasing, like a dark shadow sweeping across the land, set to envelop them completely.
20th December 1917
Malama sweetheart,
The temperature today is minus nineteen and the windows are draughty, so I am huddled in my warmest coat and shawl, and have tempted Ortipo to sit on my lap, where she acts like a hot water bottle. Still my freezing fingers make it hard to hold the pen so forgive me if my writing is shaky. We are occupied with making Christmas presents since we cannot buy them. I am painting bookmarks to give to all our guards here, and embroidering or knitting gifts for the family. What can I make for you, my dearest? Would you like a scarf or some socks? Be sure you are in church for the Christmas Day service so we can see each other. I do love Christmas. As I write, my nostrils are full of the citrusy scent of a balsamic fir Christmas tree that stands just outside my bedroom door.
Dmitri was in his usual place in Blagoveschensky Church for the Christmas Day service. These brief occasions when he could be in close proximity to his beloved were like a balm to his anxious soul. The Romanov family arrived, huddled in their coats and mufflers, and Tatiana had a smile in her eyes as she passed him and pushed a tightly wrapped parcel into his hands. No one noticed in the bustle of worshippers and he quickly secreted it inside his coat. He had earlier given Trina his Christmas gift for Tatiana – an amethyst brooch he had purchased from his landlord’s wife – and as she unfastened her coat he could see that she wore it on her collar. She turned and caught his eye.
The Christmas service was interminable. It was conducted by a new priest and when he called out the names of those taking communion, he used the old, forbidden title ‘Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of all Russias’. A gasp went around the church and the guards standing by the doors glanced at each other. This priest obviously did not know that monarchy had been abolished and the former tsar was now referred to as Citizen Romanov. Again, when it came to the Tsarina, he called her ‘Empress Consort of all Russias’. There was a stirring movement in the crowd and more soldiers filed in. Dmitri fingered the knife he always kept tucked in his belt. If the soldiers became violent, he planned to grab Tatiana and bustle her from the church and out of harm’s way.