The Passion of Marie Romanov Read online

  THE PASSION OF MARIE ROMANOV

  A Tale of Anastasia’s Sister

  Laura Rose

  THE PASSION OF MARIE ROMANOV

  All Rights Reserved © 2014 by Laura Rose

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Memoir House

  Rose, Laura

  The Passion of Marie Romanov, a novel/Laura Rose—First Edition

  Romanovs—Russia—historical fiction

  Foodoro

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

  I am grateful to my many primary sources—The Romanovs and their retinue. They wrote so much, they left a treasure trove of letters, diaries and memoirs. It seems to have been the custom to write letters night and day to one another— even when under the same roof. They also took thousands of astonishing photographs, which illuminate much of the Romanov lifestyle. I am especially indebted to the French tutor Pierre Gilliard for his memoir, Thirteen Years at the Russian Court and to Sydney Gibbes, the English teacher, for his papers compiled and published in J.C. Trewin’s amazing book The House of Special Purpose. I am indebted to Nicholas Sokolov’s The Murder of the Imperial Family. I was especially interested in Anna Vyrubova’s memoir as a Rasputin defender and quite possibly the person most to blame for much of what followed. The memoirs of Lili Dehn were illuminating and filled with detail. And of course, I thank the nonfiction authors and scholars whose work enhanced my knowledge of the final exile and execution of the Romanov family: Greg King and Penny Wilson, Helen Rappaport, and Robert Massie, and the rich resources of Bob Atchison’s The Alexander Palace Time Machine. I am very appreciative of the efforts and enthusiasm of my longtime author’s representative, Daniel A. Strone, and all those at Trident who have helped with the publication of this book.

  DEDICATION

  To the memory of Marie Nikolaevna Romanov, 19, the third daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, who, during the last days of her life, wrote in her diary, painted watercolors of flowers and performed scenes from Chekov’s plays.

  Imprisoned in The House of Special Purpose, Marie wrote to her sisters:

  “God doesn’t abandon us. The sun shines, the birds sing and this morning we heard the bells sounding matins…Oh, my darlings, how I long to see you.”

  Prologue:

  THE CONFESSION OF MIKHAIL LETEMIN

  Statement of Mikhail Letemin, age 17, under interrogation by the White Army, on July 30, 1918, in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

  I understand that the official penalty for my actions is death by firing squad. I am cooperating to the fullest extent in the hope that clemency shall prevail in my case. I am not yet eighteen years of age, and I admit I have shown poor judgment and acted on impulse.

  On the fatal and fateful night of July 16, 1918, I was assigned to guard duty at the former Ipatiev Mansion. While I witnessed the killings, and admit that, to a certain extent, I participated, I continue to maintain my innocence of the crimes of which I stand accused.

  I confess that I am guilty of rescuing and then taking for myself the Imperial family’s dog, a liver-colored springer spaniel named Joy, who had been the pet of the tsarevich. Also in my possession were found many items of interest and value that had formerly belonged to the tsar, including his camera, assorted gold watches, and an excellent pair of boots. I also took items that had belonged to one of the former young grand duchesses.

  I regret taking all these items, save the dog. The other dogs were executed with their owners, and I found myself engaged by this animal’s plight. Why should a dog die for the crimes of humans? A dog is innocent, as (in most respects) am I. I did take one life that night, but I assure you it was not an act of murder.

  As there has been specific interest in the personal writings found in the house, I shall give an account of the discovery of the documents before recalling the exact circumstances under which all eleven prisoners of “The House of Special Purpose” were killed.

  The journal, which I am now accused of stealing, I did, in fact, take but did not steal. I am certain you will agree once you have read the pages. I was instructed to save these papers, to prevent their destruction for reasons which will soon become clear. In fact, obtaining the diary of one of the grand duchesses was my main goal in searching the house. I went directly to the bedroom that the four sisters had shared for the duration of their captivity.

  I entered the bedroom in the early morning hours of July 18, after the bodies had been disposed of… As I had been a guard at the house for several weeks, I was familiar with the usual condition of the bedroom, and I could see that the room had been rearranged and partly cleared; a broom still rested against the doorframe. The carpet had been removed—a margin of faded parquet wooden floor marked its outline. The sisters’ beds had been stripped and their chairs shoved against the wall. Papers and clothing had been burned. A small cone of ash rested in the center of the room. The icons and embroidered shawls, which the sisters had used to decorate the walls, were still in place. Some feminine items—ivory hair combs, ribbon, corset stays, a nail buffer, and something I believe is called a ‘hair catcher’—had been swept along with the plumes of dust, and rested beside the ashes. A standing vanity glass mirrored the disorder and near emptiness of the room. The tropical potted palms had already begun to die, their fronds hanging flat, browning and broken. The mother’s wheelchair sat empty. The flower-petal-shaped stained glass chandelier, still lit, was in place on the ceiling.

  The other guards and I were surprised to find so many valuables discarded without care on the floor and in the drawers—even diamonds and other fine jewels. I stole for a purpose, which I pray you can understand and pardon by the time I finish this account. I wanted above all other objects, more than even the jewels, the diary you now hold as evidence.

  I found these papers hidden under garments in a drawer. The diary itself was broken at the spine, and many notes, letters, photographs, and mementoes such as dried flowers were pressed between the pages. The blue silk moiré cover bore the golden numerals 1916, but a quick glance revealed that the diary also included entries in 1917 and 1918, and that these most recent notes were written along the margins in a small, cramped handwriting but with a fine pen filled with high-quality violet ink. I knew the diary was evidence, but I had sworn to steal it. I knew, yes, that I risked my life to take these journals. I am now fully aware that I may pay the ultimate price. Would I commit this act again if I knew I would be captured and tried when the White Army retook Ekaterinburg? I cannot answer that question. Do I value my own life, even now? Yes, it is human nature. In spite of everything terrible that I have witnessed, I want to live. I am not godless, as you believe. I pray to God, your God, and beg for mercy. It is my hope that when you listen to me and read this diary, it will be clear that I am not the thief you take me for, or the Bolshevik, even.

  I was not a soldier; I was a factory worker drafted to be a guard at “The House of Special Purpose.” I did not have reason to kill any of the Romanovs. Most of the young guards, the other boys from the factory, felt as I did. We did not hate the Imperial family; to the contrary, we regarded them with respect. Many of the boys still held to the religious belief that the tsar was divine, an emissary of God himself. In the case of the young grand duchesses, we had never seen such beautiful girls. Even the house maids liked the girls as the sisters did not put on any airs but even assisted the maids in their housecleaning duties. The grand duchesses darned their own socks and made up their beds. All save the eldest sister, the sad-looking blond one, were open and frie
ndly. I speak for most of the boys who guarded the four grand duchesses when I say the last thing on this earth that we wished was to harm these girls. Kill them? It was unthinkable.

  I was seventeen when I began my guard duty at the great house once known as the Ipatiev Mansion, but which the Bolsheviks renamed “The House of Special Purpose.” I was accustomed only to smelting, to working at the furnaces and pouring ore into the molds. I was a metal worker who had no grievance against the Imperial family. I am sure you can already see by my attitude and language that I am not one of the godless Bolsheviks whom you have now driven from the city. Yes, I worked with them but only because they forced me. I was as eager as you for the Whites to reclaim Ekaterinburg, to enter this house and rescue the prisoners before it was too late; that you missed saving the living prisoners is a tragedy we all suffer.

  I can understand your fury at arriving just days too late, so soon after the family was killed. I can understand even your need to seize me and try me for these imagined crimes. I pray that you let me speak and that you read the journals, for then you will know that you have put an innocent man on trial. You are trying to convict someone who fought with you, not against you. You will not find me guilty. You will not execute me as you have the others if you review the evidence with a fair and open outlook, and do not allow your just fury to avenge the massacre of our Imperial martyrs to distort your view.

  I beg you to read this diary of Marie Nikolaevna Romanova. I know this act violates the privacy of the girl, but I think if she could see from above, from the Kingdom of Heaven, what is happening here now in Ekaterinburg, she would surrender her most personal thoughts and feelings in the interest of sparing my life.

  Signed Mikhail Letemin, July 30, 1918.

  CONTENTS

  The Diary of Marie R.

  In The Red Room

  At Mama’s Side

  At The Gates

  The Palace Sickroom

  Alexei

  The Gates have Closed

  The End of The Empire

  Footsteps in the Corridor

  The Bloodless Revolution

  Prisoners of the Palace

  Return of the Tsar

  Shaved Heads

  Banished to Siberia

  Tobolsk

  Leaving Tobolsk

  Snow Light

  Dawn Light

  Stopping by Rasputin’s House at Pokrovskoye

  The Train

  The Station

  Arrival

  Lamplight

  May 1918 / White Light

  Christ is Risen!

  Papa’s Birthday

  My Attraction

  White Wash

  Reunion

  Mama’s Birthday

  Tatiana’s Birthday

  Anastasia’s Birthday

  The Escape Plan

  The Dark Gentleman

  Risk

  The Night of Nights

  My Guilt

  Keepsakes

  The Confession of Mikhail Letemin

  Dishonor

  THE DIARY OF MARIE R.

  July 17, 1918—from the writings of Marie Nikolaevna Romanova, age 19. Midnight, in bed with her sister, Anastasia (Shvybz), in the Ipatiev Mansion in Ekaterinburg, during the last night of their lives.

  So much of my story unfolds by moonlight. This is a tale of midnight wakings and forced marches before dawn. Since this nightmare began, I do not dare undress, even to go to bed. I wear my dressing gown, my hair is prepared, and my shoes are set beside me. I have no idea when we will be summoned to rise. We have moved, as in the worst of dreams, slowly toward this place. There is no logic other than the sleepwalker’s obedience—to follow instruction which we cannot resist: an actual lunacy.

  Now, I have control only of this—my record of what happened to us, to me. I have committed a single sin, my one terrible transgression. I pray to be absolved.

  In this recording of memory lies all meaning to my life. Let my will prevail in this, my ultimate wish, to salvage something of value from this tragedy. The rest, as my mother says, is in God’s hands.

  When I look back, as I must in the short time allotted to me now, I can see the exact moment when our lives changed: at last light, on the thirteenth of March, 1917.

  I recorded the moment but not the significance. The palace went dark before dinner could be served. The electricity failed without warning. One moment, the rooms were familiar, warm, and bright—every sconce lit, the chandeliers aglow. The next second, there was a growing cold and blackness. Winter penetrated the window glass, and night invaded the Alexander Palace. Our halls, rooms, and stairways became alien; I walked blind into darkness.

  At the time, as light disappeared from the palace, I thought the event was an incident, not an ending. The palace elevator stopped working—and Mama had to climb the stairs in the dark to reach the Children’s Wing. She arrived, pale by the faint lantern light, and her fine hand was shaking. Lili Dehn, the most loyal of the ladies-in-waiting, rushed to her side. For a moment, when the hallway door opened, we heard a strange sound like water running, but then it stopped.

  “Frozen,” Mama whispered to Lili. “The pipes are frozen, and there are leaks everywhere.”

  Mama became aware of me, standing at the top of the short, private staircase that connected our bedroom to hers. It was at this moment that Mama singled me out for the first time ever in my life.

  “Marie, dress yourself. You must come downstairs. You must sleep down here in the Red Room. The other children will stay upstairs.”

  I never imagined Mama would select me for a special mission or turn to me for help in an emergency. I expected she would ask Tatiana, who is closest to her, or Olga, the eldest, but both of my two older sisters were too ill to go anywhere. Three days before, all the children had fallen sick, except me—somehow, I escaped the contagion, the fever, and blistering rash of the measles that attacked them. My sisters and brother had been put to bed upstairs in the Green Room in the Children’s Wing, which had become a makeshift infirmary. Olga, Tatiana, my youngest sister, Anastasia “Shvybz,” and my brother, Alexei, lay listless in their sickbeds, their blisters intolerable, their lives in danger. One of the ladies-in-waiting, Anya, was also stricken and was put on a rolling camp bed in the dark alcove off the first-floor hallway.

  I alone remained well—that had to be the reason Mama singled me out and why she treated me in this new manner. Or could there be another reason? Even her voice changed. She spoke to me in imperatives.

  “Marie!” she said—her tone at first a command, then a plea— “Marie.”

  I did not answer at once.

  “Light the lantern on your mantel. Dress, Marie. You must come downstairs at once. You must stay down here with me.”

  I heard my own voice rise, high and tinny.

  “For how long?”

  She did not answer.

  I lit the lantern, and the oil shed a wavering, golden light in my bedroom; this faint illumination revealed the clouds painted on the ceiling and the flowers abloom on my wallpaper but without their vivid color. Ordinarily, the bedroom I share with Shvybz looked like a chamber in Renaissance heaven—the ceiling hand-painted with pink-tinged clouds. Birds and butterflies fluttered forever above my head. Now, it was too dark to see these fanciful images or the painted ribbons that looped along the walls. The room reflected Mama’s taste for English country house décor but it was also filled with icons; red-and-white Russian woven shawls covered the tabletops. My bed was mussed, my blue featherbed rumpled, but my sister’s camp bed was unslept in, its blanket pulled taut. The sight of Shvybz’s empty bed chilled me, made the room seem darker, colder. I knew the measles was a serious disease. I did not have to be told: all three of my sisters and my brother Alexei could die.

  In the semidarkness, I undressed, throwing off the nightclothes I’d worn all day. For a moment, I stood naked before the cheval glass. I could not have known then that this was my final moment of privacy, to undress with
out fearing someone would see and seize me. I did not look down at my naked body so much as I stared into my own eyes.

  Why did I allow myself this moment? In the tumultuous months that have followed, I have often wondered. Did I need to see myself stand naked, alone? I have so seldom dressed or undressed in only my own company. My sisters—most especially my younger sister, Anastasia, my Shvybz—have always been at my side. Shvybz and I were paired by Mama. The “Little Pair” we are called en famille. (Olga and Tatiana are the “Big Pair.”)

  Who am I now? I wondered as I looked at my reflection. I was no longer half a pair, or even one-fourth of the quartet—Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia and myself. The OTMA, as we called ourselves and signed our letters.

  Yet, in some ways, I have always been separate. No one can imagine what it is like to be born the third daughter of the tsar of Russia. I have heard from Anya, the most tactless lady-in-waiting, that my birth was greeted with tears and howls of grief. For five years, the empire had prayed for a boy and endured the births of two daughters. When I arrived, the people lost their tolerance and gave in to wild despair. When the bells rang out from the palace, they rang only one-hundred-and-one times for a female child.

  To proclaim the birth of a son, who would inherit my father’s crown and dynasty, the bells would have chimed three-hundred-and-one times. Three-hundred-and-one cannon shots would have fired. Outcries of pleasure would have echoed across our empire; one-sixth of the world would have rejoiced. The bells for my birth seemed to clang a funeral toll for our empire—there would be no heir.

  As it was, when I appeared—pink and perfect but a female—everyone grieved or ranted except my father, who was overjoyed. Never did Papa give the faintest indication of disappointment. Papa himself has told me so many times how happy he was to have me, his third daughter. And I can give witness he felt no disappointment in the birth of his daughters: he greeted his fourth baby, my beloved sister Shvybz, officially named Anastasia, with the same warmth and purest affection.