Berlin, 1922
Dmitri spent long hours in the café near Baron von Kleist’s residence, watching the door in case the woman who claimed to be Anastasia might emerge, but there was no sign of her. One morning as he waited he found a copy of a Russian newspaper called Rul – ‘Rudder’ – lying abandoned on a table and flicked through it. Produced in Berlin, it reported on matters of interest to the city’s Russian community. From just a cursory read, Dmitri realised there were many factions: there were the pro-monarchists, the Bolsheviks, and the Constitutional Democrats, who thought Russia should enter into the modern age with free elections. The Whites accused the Bolsheviks of being Jews seeking global domination, and argued about the best way to wrest Russia from their control, while spies from the Cheka, the secret police, infiltrated their number and assassinations were not uncommon. He could see why Boris had recommended that he keep his counsel.
Dmitri had saved some money while working in Constantinople but he would need to earn more to keep himself, and the newspaper gave him an idea. He bought a notebook and wrote an article about the last stand of General Wrangel in Crimea, and his evacuation of the last remnants of the White Army from Sevastopol on the 14th of November 1920. The Bolsheviks had executed those they captured by tying their hands and feet and dropping them overboard into the Black Sea. Dmitri had seen many trussed-up corpses in the water, eyes bulging grotesquely, as he sailed to Constantinople. When he had finished, he walked to the offices of Rul and sat across a desk while the editor, a man named Burtsev, read his piece.
‘You write well,’ Burtsev told him, ‘and I have not seen a more compelling account of the final evacuation. I’ll pay you 5,000 marks for this story.’
That sounded good. ‘Can I write more for you?’ Dmitri asked.
‘Sure. If I like your articles, I will pay you. But get yourself a typewriter first.’
Dmitri bought a second-hand typewriter and taught himself to type with two fingers. He studied each issue of Rul, as well as its rival paper, Golos Rossii – ‘The Voice of Russia’ – which was edited by a man who had been Minister of Agriculture in the government of March to October 1917. Burtsev liked Dmitri’s work, and began to give him commissions, which Dmitri asked him to publish under the family name Yakovlevich so that he would not be identified; back home everyone had known him as Malama.
He was sent to interview musicians and choreographers, writers and artists, men who had been prominent back in Russia but who struggled to find work in this modern city. Many were living in poverty, having spent any money they managed to bring with them on the journey. Some were working in menial jobs simply to feed their families: counts served as waiters, princesses as secretaries. Dmitri wrote about the sights of Berlin through the eyes of an émigré, describing the men who dressed as women to work in cabaret shows, the skinny prostitutes with sunken cheeks and haunted eyes, the street sellers with goods that looked too good to be true and broke at first use.
Gradually he began to trust Burtsev and asked him if he might write a story about Anna Tschaikovsky. He explained that he had known Anastasia in St Petersburg. Could the editor perhaps arrange an interview?
Burtsev eyed him thoughtfully. ‘All my requests for an interview with Miss Tschaikovsky have been refused but I hear that Princess Irene of Hesse, the sister of Tsarina Alexandra, is arriving in town to visit the girl. Did you ever come across her?’
Dmitri had to say no, he hadn’t.
‘But can I say you are a family friend?’
Dmitri nodded. ‘Certainly.’
‘I will ask if you can talk to her after she has met the girl. There is bound to be a story in that.’
Somewhat to Dmitri’s surprise, Princess Irene of Hesse agreed to be interviewed by him, asking that he come to her suite at the Adlon, the town’s most luxurious hotel. He dressed with care, polishing his shoes and getting a close shave and a haircut in a barbershop.
On arrival, Dmitri was kept waiting for over an hour in the sumptuous hotel lobby, with square marble columns and a fountain of water gushing from the trunk of a stone elephant.
At last, he was shown up to Princess Irene’s suite and found her sitting by a window sipping tea. She was a stout woman in her fifties, her brown hair streaked with grey, and her Germanic features bore a strong resemblance to those of Alexandra. Dmitri was overcome for a moment: this was Tatiana’s aunt! He had written to her two years earlier asking her to let him know if there was news of the family but had received no reply.
‘Please sit.’ She waved him to an armchair, and began to speak. ‘I assume you wish to hear of my meeting with Miss Tschaikovsky, and I must tell you I am afraid to say she is not Anastasia. There is no resemblance with my niece. The position of the eyes, the bone structure, both are quite wrong.’
‘When did you last see the Grand Duchesses?’ Dmitri asked, scribbling in his notebook in an attempt to hide his disappointment.
‘I admit it’s been nine years, but Alexandra used to send me photographs right up until they were taken into captivity’ – she spoke the word with distaste – ‘and I am quite certain. This girl is rude and thoughtless, in a way my nieces would never have been, and what’s more she spoke no Russian. Not a word.’
‘How did she explain that?’ Dmitri asked.
‘Baron von Kleist told me that she suffered some kind of trauma that caused her to lose her memory, and along with it her mother tongue.’
‘What kind of trauma?’ Dmitri reddened and his pulse quickened.
‘I presume he means the murder of the rest of the family.’ She took a sip of tea.
‘You believe they are dead?’ Dmitri held his breath.
‘I have it from very credible sources that they all died in the Ipatiev House at the hands of the Red Guards.’
Dmitri opened his mouth to speak but instead a sob burst from his throat. Princess Irene regarded him with surprise as he struggled to regain control.
‘Did you know them personally?’ she asked.
He nodded, unable to speak at first, then managed to say, ‘I was a good friend of Grand Duchess Tatiana.’
The Princess peered at him through narrowed eyes. ‘Are you Malama?’ He nodded. ‘Alexandra thought very highly of you.’ Dmitri covered his face with his hands. ‘Come, come. Pull yourself together, man.’
She rang a bell and asked for a cognac, which was quickly supplied by a uniformed servant. Dmitri took a gulp and felt it burn its way down.
‘Have you entirely given up hope?’ he asked in a strangled voice.
‘I’m afraid so. If my sister were alive, she would have found a way to get word to me over the last four years. She could have asked someone to send a note. None of the family has heard: Nicholas’s mother and sister in Denmark, the English family – no one knows any more than I do. We’re all furious with Bertie, of course. He could easily have brought them to London back in 1917 but he got cold feet. He’s such a coward. He worried about who would support them, how the order of precedence would work – Lord knows what went through his selfish brain, but the upshot is my sister is dead.’
‘You just assume the worst because there has been no word; you haven’t heard this from people in Ekaterinburg, have you?’ Dmitri asked, clutching at straws.
‘I had a letter from the British Consul Sir Thomas Preston. He has spoken to many local people, including Mr Sokolov, who has escaped overseas and is still preparing the report that he was commissioned to produce by the leader of the White Army. I believe it will be published within a year or so.’ She offered Dmitri another cognac but he shook his head.