The Romanov Bride by Robert Alexander Page A

of Red Square, past the Aleksandrovski Gardens, and then onto Voskressenski Square and from there to the Bolshoi. So we decided that we would be waiting along the way, hiding in the shadows.
    Of course, we all wanted to do the deed, none perhaps more than me. I had been admitted to this select group of revolutionaries because I had recently passed a test-I had slit the throat of a pathetic government fellow in Novgorod and stolen a big sum of money too. And because of this success I was allowed the honor of helping to kill the Grand Duke Sergei.
    Heading our group was Ivan Kalyayev-“Our Poet,” we called him because he wrote beautiful words and always carried around worn books of poetry. He was an educated fellow, most definitely, and everyone knew he was eager to kill for the Revolution, and eager to hang for it too. But you’d never know his dark intentions by looking at him, for he had a girlish kind of face, so soft and tender, with a big forehead and dark hair and intense blue eyes that would sometimes fall with great sadness. He was the comrade chiefly in charge of our group, and because of his seniority, even though he was young, maybe twenty-five or -six, he was given the honor of throwing the bomb. This made sense, naturally. My only hope was that I would be caught along with Kalyayev and be allowed to hang with him too. Da, da, da, that was my secret wish, to avenge my wife’s death and then dangle, spinning in the wind, from the gallows.
    Also in our group was Dora Brilliant, a smart Jewess, and a pretty one at that, who had abandoned her good home and easy life and become very dedicated to the Revolution. She was a trained chemist and she made good bombs, very effective, the kind packed in a tin container with kieselguhr. This Dora made the bomb, and my first duty was to pick it up.
    It was promising to snow the day we planned to kill the Grand Duke, the sky a dark flinty gray, the wind strong and determined. Finally, the snow started sometime after six, just as I wound my way across Red Square and past the Upper Trading Row, a vast building of shops constructed in the old Russian Style with big arches and heavy windows. Heading into the small lanes of Kitai Gorod, I passed row after row of shops, each one given over to a specialty, this one selling lace, the next canvas, then honey, lanterns, furs, and dyes. Turning onto the Ilynka, I watched the snow blow this way and that up the street, and I thought how good it was. In fact, knowing what we were about to do, I was happy for the first time since my dear Shura had been gunned down by the Tsar’s command.
    By this hour the many banks and trading and lending houses lining the Ilynka had long since closed, so there really weren’t that many people about, just a few lowly clerks and such scurrying through the cold, their heads bent. At the appointed time-seven o’clock-I reached the designated corner and glanced around as gently as I could, seeing no one. I was, it seemed, in front of some kind of money house, and I drew back into the deep, arched doorway, my collar pulled up, more to hide my face than to block the cold. Not two minutes later, I heard the dull clatter of hooves on the snowy street and peered out. A small sleigh was making my way, its driver huddled against the snow. As if I were greeting an old friend, I stepped out, smiling and waving to him. This was our Savinkov, who, I think, was born in Warsaw and who had long been dedicated to ridding his homeland of the tsars. He had a keen, intelligent face, and when he saw me he smiled, his teeth so white in the night. Really, no one ever took him for a terrorist. He looked much more like a minor aristocrat from Poland, with that medium-brown hair, that sharp face, his tall forehead.
    The bomb that Dora Brilliant had so carefully made for us was wrapped in a handkerchief, and I accepted it from Savinkov as if it were nothing more than a pot of warm pelmeni. We exchanged a few stupid words, and then I