The Kitchen Boy Read Free Page B

house, because that was the way it was, none of the Romanovs could use the facilities without being escorted by an armed guard. Tatyana Nikolaevna, so thin, so pretty, her light brown hair put up, glanced briefly at me, smiled slightly, and hurried on as a guard with a rifle and hand grenade followed immediately after her. She had turned twenty-one just the previous month.
    Walking so very carefully lest I spill a drop, I passed from the dining room into the drawing room, where the manservant, Trupp, was putting away his bed things. I proceeded quickly past him to the alcove at the far end, where Dr. Botkin slept on a cot next to a wooden desk. When I walked in, the doctor was standing next to a large potted palm and fastening his suspenders.
    I was almost too afraid to speak, but in case there were any guards nearby, I forced myself to loudly say, “I brought the water you requested, Yevgeny Sergeevich.”
    He was a tall man, a big fellow with a goatee, small gold specs, and little eyes, whose granddaughter, by the way, still lives in Virginia. Well, this Dr. Botkin just stared at me, surprised at my impudence. Without hesitation, I went up to the wooden desk and set down the glass of water, managing of course to spill a bit in the process. As I frantically mopped aside the water with my hand, I glanced about the drawing room. There were no soldiers, so I jabbed my hand in my pocket, pulled out the small folded piece of paper, and dropped it on the desk next to the glass.
    “This was hidden in the milk stopper,” I whispered, my voice trembling.
    Studying me, he screwed up his eyes and then quickly snatched the note from the desktop. I know he wanted to ask me what in the devil’s name I was talking about, but only his eyes dared question. I turned and scurried out, just like that, and returned to the kitchen where cook Kharitonov was preparing the tiny pot of concentrated tea and slicing black bread, yesterday’s of course, which was no longer so moist but still nice and sour.
    Despite my worries, I was exactly right in what I did, in how I handled the note. Going that early into Nikolai Aleksandrovich’s bedchamber might have attracted attention. However, directly approaching Yevgeny Sergeevich did not. And I trusted the doctor would know exactly how to handle the situation, for he was not only the Tsar’s personal physician, not only his close adviser, but at this point in their captivity also his dear friend.
    I didn’t know then if Dr. Botkin could read the letter since it was written in a foreigner’s tongue, but he immediately passed it on to the Tsar and his wife. Aleksandra Fyodorovna, a woman of tightly strung nerves, never slept well, and hence was always loath to rise in the morning, particularly by eight-fifteen for the morning inspections. Such were the rules, however, and in the twenty or thirty minutes that passed between the time I gave Dr. Botkin the note and when the
komendant
viewed the household, Dr. Botkin must have entered the Tsar’s personal room. The Emperor and Empress shared the corner room with their ailing son, the Heir. And Dr. Botkin must have gone there under the pretext of checking Aleksei or perhaps the Empress herself – she had a bad heart, not to mention bad legs – and then slipped them the piece of paper.
    By the time we were gathered for inspection it was obvious the Romanovs had read the note. Ever since the Heir’s lackey, Nagorny, had been hauled off to prison, we had been using the Empress’s rolling chaise, a large wicker device on wheels, to carry the Heir, for Aleksei was still recovering from a recent bleeding episode. And as I pushed Aleksei into the dining room and around the end of the table, I burned red with embarrassment akin to fear as the Tsar and Tsaritsa stared upon me, Leonka, the kitchen boy. Had I done wrong? Was I in trouble?
    Even though Aleksei Nikolaevich was ill, even though he had lost so much weight, everyone kept saying he was growing as fast