1915
Tsarskoe Selo
“O lga, dushka ?” Tatiana’s fingertips brush my shoulder like the starlings that swoop by our bedroom windows. The thought comforts me for a moment, until I remember where those hands were just minutes ago— painted nearly to the wrists with some poor soldier’s blood. My stomach convulses, and I clap the towel to my mouth as I retch.
“It was the operation, wasn’t it?” Tatiana pulls a fresh towel from the shelves crowding around me. “Did you eat this morning?” I shake my head. There’s only a sorry little stain on the towel to show for all my misery. “You have to eat in the morning, Olya,” she says, rubbing my back as I shudder. “It makes your stomach even weaker in the operating room if you skip breakfast, and you are so thin anyway.” She leads me out of the little linen closet and into the window-lined corridor. “We could arrange it so you do not have to see the operations at all. They always have plenty of work to do in the office. Come now, be brave,” she soothes. “God will see you through it.”
How can I explain it to her? Yes, the operations leave my hands and stomach quivering, but it isn’t only the torn and ragged wounds that fray my nerves. The soldiers’ thoughts trouble me as much as their broken bodies. The men are changing before my eyes.
At first the soldiers were our pets. They jostled to be near us, their faces brightening when we spoke with them. With Aleksei away at the front, Mama took a few of the tenderest recruits under her wing, feeding them the attention she usually lavishes on our brother. In their last moments, many of them called for her. It was like a fairy tale, those brave boys dying by their empress’s side.
But with the war dragging on and the newspaper headlines turning grim, I’ve seen the way some of the men have begun looking at Mama. I hear them whisper Nemka — German bitch—behind her back. If she heard them, she would weep with shame.
The soldiers who still revere us are even worse, sometimes. When country boys fresh from the front find themselves in a palace tended by a princess, two grand duchesses, and the empress herself, their eyes grow round with awe. Some of them try to bow under their blankets. I could cry at the deference they show me, these young men willing to give their limbs and their lives to Mother Russia, when all I’ve done is bring them a pillow or a glass of water. But even the plain Red Cross uniforms can’t always hide who we are. Our faces are on postcards and placards all across Russia. Many of the soldiers carry images of Papa into battle for protection. We’re different in other ways too. With food and fuel shipments becoming erratic in the city, some of the men eye the gold bangles on our wrists with expressions that make my stomach fold with guilt. I wish I could strip mine off and give it away, but it won’t fit over my hand.
I wonder if it would make any difference if the men knew we aren’t encased in gilt and velvet, that my sisters and brother and I have slept in nickel-plated camp cots with flat pillows and taken cold baths every morning since we were children. What if they knew we have allowances so small we have to scrimp even to give our parents notepaper and cheap perfume for Christmas? But would I also have to tell them that bathtub full of cold water is made of solid silver, engraved with the name of every imperial child who has been bathed in it? Would I have to admit my sisters and I receive one pearl and one diamond every year on our birthday, and even our pets’ collars are hand enameled by Fabergé, the imperial court jeweler? Still, we aren’t lavish like Cousin Irina’s in-laws, the Yusupovs, with bowls of uncut gemstones decorating the end tables.
“You are so pale, dorogaya ,” Tatiana says, breaking into my thoughts. “You look as if you will be sick again.” She lays the back of her hand across my forehead, then presses it to my cheek. She means to comfort me,
Tsarskoe Selo
“O lga, dushka ?” Tatiana’s fingertips brush my shoulder like the starlings that swoop by our bedroom windows. The thought comforts me for a moment, until I remember where those hands were just minutes ago— painted nearly to the wrists with some poor soldier’s blood. My stomach convulses, and I clap the towel to my mouth as I retch.
“It was the operation, wasn’t it?” Tatiana pulls a fresh towel from the shelves crowding around me. “Did you eat this morning?” I shake my head. There’s only a sorry little stain on the towel to show for all my misery. “You have to eat in the morning, Olya,” she says, rubbing my back as I shudder. “It makes your stomach even weaker in the operating room if you skip breakfast, and you are so thin anyway.” She leads me out of the little linen closet and into the window-lined corridor. “We could arrange it so you do not have to see the operations at all. They always have plenty of work to do in the office. Come now, be brave,” she soothes. “God will see you through it.”
How can I explain it to her? Yes, the operations leave my hands and stomach quivering, but it isn’t only the torn and ragged wounds that fray my nerves. The soldiers’ thoughts trouble me as much as their broken bodies. The men are changing before my eyes.
At first the soldiers were our pets. They jostled to be near us, their faces brightening when we spoke with them. With Aleksei away at the front, Mama took a few of the tenderest recruits under her wing, feeding them the attention she usually lavishes on our brother. In their last moments, many of them called for her. It was like a fairy tale, those brave boys dying by their empress’s side.
But with the war dragging on and the newspaper headlines turning grim, I’ve seen the way some of the men have begun looking at Mama. I hear them whisper Nemka — German bitch—behind her back. If she heard them, she would weep with shame.
The soldiers who still revere us are even worse, sometimes. When country boys fresh from the front find themselves in a palace tended by a princess, two grand duchesses, and the empress herself, their eyes grow round with awe. Some of them try to bow under their blankets. I could cry at the deference they show me, these young men willing to give their limbs and their lives to Mother Russia, when all I’ve done is bring them a pillow or a glass of water. But even the plain Red Cross uniforms can’t always hide who we are. Our faces are on postcards and placards all across Russia. Many of the soldiers carry images of Papa into battle for protection. We’re different in other ways too. With food and fuel shipments becoming erratic in the city, some of the men eye the gold bangles on our wrists with expressions that make my stomach fold with guilt. I wish I could strip mine off and give it away, but it won’t fit over my hand.
I wonder if it would make any difference if the men knew we aren’t encased in gilt and velvet, that my sisters and brother and I have slept in nickel-plated camp cots with flat pillows and taken cold baths every morning since we were children. What if they knew we have allowances so small we have to scrimp even to give our parents notepaper and cheap perfume for Christmas? But would I also have to tell them that bathtub full of cold water is made of solid silver, engraved with the name of every imperial child who has been bathed in it? Would I have to admit my sisters and I receive one pearl and one diamond every year on our birthday, and even our pets’ collars are hand enameled by Fabergé, the imperial court jeweler? Still, we aren’t lavish like Cousin Irina’s in-laws, the Yusupovs, with bowls of uncut gemstones decorating the end tables.
“You are so pale, dorogaya ,” Tatiana says, breaking into my thoughts. “You look as if you will be sick again.” She lays the back of her hand across my forehead, then presses it to my cheek. She means to comfort me,
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