Interlude
Tatiana: Tobolsk
Monsieur Gilliard and Papa spent the last few days building a snow mountain. They hauled water by bucket. It was so cold that the ice formed in the bucket as they moved it between the tap and the hill.
But it was a welcome distraction and we were all looking forward to tobogganing.
Unfortunately, Monsieur Gilliard fell and twisted his ankle and wasn’t able to enjoy the hill he’d helped build.
We girls ended up covered in bruises, all from sliding down the hill, but we didn’t care. What were a few bruises to us? We were out in the sunshine, laughing, our hearts beating in our chests, our breaths puffing small clouds in front of our faces. We were alive and, more than that, for a little while we were living.
It wasn’t long, however, until Siberia’s famous winter finally hit us. The crisp, sunny days turned dark and cold. Wind rattled the windows and the rafters, an unwelcome stranger pushing its way in until the glass was thick with ice.
We spent what seemed like endless days inside, wrapped in the thickest, knitted cardigans. Despite wearing our felt boots and our heaviest coats, we were cold as we huddled in the corridor to keep warm.
Sometimes Papa read to us, but today it was too dark and his voice was giving out from a cold. We dozed as we sat up against the wall. Mama, sitting in her wheeled chair next to Papa, had her head propped up against his shoulder, her eyes closed, breathing evenly. A warm blanket lay across her lap. Usually she preferred to sew or write, but the cold made her fingers too stiff.
Sleep was beckoning to me too, but a creaking sound pulled me out. Olga was gone.
I pushed up and quietly made my way downstairs and up the long passageway to the kitchen, the only other room that was warm enough.
Olga was sitting at the table, head in her hands. She’d taken off her woolen cap and her blond hair, still short, like all of ours, from our bout of measles lay plastered to her scalp. It seemed duller somehow and I didn’t think it was the gray light falling through the shutters’ narrow slits.
As I crossed to the table, I stepped on a cockroach. They were everywhere, the filthy things. It was a good thing that Mama didn’t come in here often.
I slid into the chair next to Olga and placed my arm around her.
She’d never taken much interest in her looks or been bothered by how she appeared to others, but now I saw something else—a haunted look that didn’t come from her ill health. It was the look of someone who, having loved and lost, had resigned herself to that loss.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She nodded and returned her gaze to her gloved hands.
“Missing Mitya?” I prompted. Dmitry Shakh-Bagov had been Olga’s favorite at the hospital where we had worked as Red Cross nurses. A Georgian adjutant in the Life Grenadiers of the Erevan Regiment, he had been the latest in a series of crushes.
Like all the others, he wasn’t an appropriate prospect for a grand duchess, no matter how much Olga wanted him. She hadn’t mentioned him in months and I thought she’d gotten over him, but as I looked into her eyes I realized two things. The first was that she hadn’t, though she may have been in the process of replacing him in her affections. The second was that she was in mourning. For him. For herself. For what it all meant.
I put my arm around her, and drew her closer. It wasn’t just the uncertainty that we were facing. It was the realization that things were getting worse and worse. I no longer believed that we would be allowed to peacefully retire to a private life, whether here in Russia or elsewhere. And I could see now that neither did Olga.
“We have to put on brave faces,” I whispered into her ear. “For Mama and Papa.”
She swallowed and nodded. Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes and the ghost of a smile settled onto her face like the mask that it was.
Did mine look as ill-fitting?