As September began, the weather at the lake was hot and sunny but with a fresh breeze. Kitty acquired a deep tan while her brown hair was streaked with blonde. She turned her attention to reconstructing the jetty, buying fresh planks of wood and tearing up the original in order to rebuild from scratch. She had always loved carpentry: the feel of the wood surrendering cleanly to her saw, the pleasure of joints that fitted snugly, the smoothness after sanding. Once the jetty was finished she took a canvas chair out there in the early evenings with a bottle of wine and sat reading the books Vera Quigley had lent her, staying until the light was low and the daytime bird calls were giving way to night prowlers.
Kitty was soon absorbed in the story of the Romanovs’ life in the early years of the twentieth century, when they were the wealthiest family on the planet. She read of Alexei’s haemophilia and his mother’s growing dependence on Rasputin, the Siberian healer and mystic; then the suspicion that grew around them during the First World War, and the anger at their lavish lifestyles while there was famine across the country, leading to the 1917 Revolution. The book told of the family’s fate in captivity, first at their home in the Alexander Palace in St Petersburg, then at the Governor’s House in Tobolsk, Siberia, and finally at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, to the east of the Ural Mountains. There was a map on which Kitty could see the mountains running north to south down the centre of Russia like a knobbly spine. She read that conditions gradually worsened for the family as Lenin and Trotsky took control of the western part of the country: their rations were reduced, many of their personal possessions stolen, and the guards treated them with increasing disrespect, forcing them to ring a bell when they wanted to use the lavatory and limiting their time outside in the yard. It was a far cry from the extravagant luxury they had been used to.
Vera Quigley had promised to send a first batch of her translation within a week, so Kitty went to the vacation park coffeehouse to check her emails. She dismissed the ones from Tom – ‘Kitty, please, I LOVE YOU’, ‘We must talk!’, ‘Are you ever coming back?’ Soon she would be ready to reply to him; just not quite yet. To concerned friends she sent a quick message saying that she was away for the summer in a place with no wi-fi but would be in touch on her return. As she had hoped, there was an email from Vera with a file attached and she downloaded and opened it. It seemed Vera had translated almost half the diary already, and she wrote that she was so absorbed in the task she kept forgetting to stop and eat. She was now convinced it was a genuine diary written by Grand Duchess Tatiana. Although the Romanovs had always spoken English in private, the Bolshevik guards insisted they spoke only Russian and she guessed that’s why their diaries were in Russian too. She wrote that she felt immensely privileged Kitty had chosen her to translate it.
The diary began in February 1918 and ran through to July that same year. Kitty glanced at the earliest entries, in which Tatiana wrote about a play called The Bear she and her siblings had been rehearsing, and which they performed for their parents on the evening of the 23rd of February. She sounded like a teenager in places: ‘I couldn’t stop giggling when Olga began reciting Maria’s lines rather than her own. It ruined the dramatic atmosphere somewhat.’ Kitty googled and learned that Tatiana had turned twenty-one while in captivity, so she wasn’t a child. Next she looked up Tatiana on Google images and was startled to find that there were hundreds of pictures of her: wearing a sailor suit on the royal yacht Standart; in formal court dress in 1913; in her nurse’s uniform in 1915. The Romanovs obviously loved photography because there were pictures of them in all kinds of locations, and there were also some rather blurred home movies available online. Kitty watched one that showed the five children parading round a garden in order of height, like the Von Trapps in The Sound of Music, the girls wearing white dresses and wide-brimmed straw hats tied with ribbons.
Tatiana rarely smiled, Kitty noticed. She seemed more reserved than the others, more regal somehow, and she was easily the most beautiful, with her heart-shaped face, her penetrating gaze and soft cascades of brown hair. It seemed incredible that the diary found at the bottom of her suitcase of family photographs had belonged to this woman. It made Kitty feel there was a connection between them. Who are you? she wondered, gazing at the black and white image of a woman who had died a hundred years earlier.
Back at the cabin she read Vera’s translation on her laptop. Some entries referred to people she didn’t know:
March 22nd, Friday.
I wrote to Aunt Ella in Perm. We have such happy memories of the parties she took us to, but looking back we were raw and uncouth, like country cousins. We huddled together not knowing how to talk to anyone, and the other guests avoided us, unsure how to introduce themselves. I pray Ella is safe and sound, and Grandmamma, and everyone else. I miss them all terribly. We have been captives for over a year now, our fate in God’s hands. I remain hopeful, although it seems our future will not be in Russia. I think I can be happy anywhere so long as M is with me.
Who was M? Kitty wondered. Her sister Maria? And which side of the family was Aunt Ella from? The entry finished:
At 8 o’clock in the morning we went to obednitza, and after dinner had vechernaya then Confessions in the hall. I read more of Anna Karenina before bedtime and keep wanting to give her a good shake! Vronsky was not worthy of her.
Kitty laughed. She had often felt the same way about the gullible heroine of Tolstoy’s classic. As she read on, she got a sense of someone with a girlishness about her, yet at the same time a sense of responsibility for those around her. And although she didn’t say as much, Kitty could tell she was anxious.
A week later another batch arrived from Vera, covering the months of April and May 1918.
8th April, Sunday.
Papa is upset because a new directive from the Red Guards forbids him and Alexei from wearing their epaulettes. It is ridiculous because no one can see us now that we are banned from leaving the grounds. I tried to commiserate but Papa never discusses our predicament. Perhaps he talks to Mama, but certainly not to me. Olga is sunk into depression and Maria and Anastasia seem not to comprehend our situation as they fight and play and fight again regardless of whether the guards are watching. Mama and Alexei are obsessed by their symptoms, and I can understand that with no distractions it is easy to think of nothing else, but I wish they would try. Forgive me my tetchiness this evening, dear diary. I hope it will evaporate overnight and I will wake in the morning with a soul of pure compassion.
In the early days of May, Tatiana described the tortuous journey they were forced to make from Tobolsk to Ekaterinburg. It seemed to have taken a week, which surprised Kitty because according to Vera’s book the distance was only about three hundred miles.
Each jolt of the carriage makes Alexei gasp with pain. I know the driver can hear and is doing his best to avoid the biggest holes, but the road is in poor condition at this time of year straight after the thaw. I hope it was easier for Mama, Papa and Maria, when the ground was still hard with ice. If only we had been able to travel with them.
She wrote of their joy in joining their family in Ekaterinburg and described the accommodation:
OTMA [a note from Vera explained that this was the acronym the girls used to refer to all four of them] shares a room with floral wallpaper and an oriental-style rug. We do not have beds yet but are sleeping on the floor on our piled-up coats … In the afternoon we sat for half an hour in the garden, where there are beautiful lilac and honeysuckle bushes. It was a shame to come indoors where the air is stuffy and the heat intense. Some nuns sent eggs and cream to build up Alexei’s strength, and it is encouraging to know there are good people in this town who are thinking of us.
On the 19th of May there was a strange entry about an eye in the fence. Vera wrote that she had translated it literally but wondered if it might perhaps be an obscure metaphor, possibly religious, with which she was not familiar: