"We've got to find Papa," I said, turning and dashing toward our bedroom. "I've got to get dressed, and we have to go out and find him. It's the only way, he's the only one who can save him!"

Of course I was right, and Varya knew it, just as she knew that Dunya's orders for me to go to bed and stay there were now irrelevant. Instead, my younger sister acted as my dresser, helping me to pull on underlinens and socks, a warm blouse, and a heavy dress. We both worked briefly on my hair, rubbing it furiously with a towel, but it was to no avail. My hair was still most definitely damp even as we rushed to the front door, laced our shoes, threw on our cloaks, and grabbed our gloves and knit hats.

Minutes later, as the two of us bolted from our flat and down the stairs, I wondered if it was hopeless. The Empress had already sent her fastest motorcar, and it would be here in perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes. Was there any hope that I could find Papa by then? Might we have to go driving about the city, from restaurant to restaurant and from one notorious flat to the next, in order to find him? Dear Lord, if luck were with us, it could still take hours, and even then we might find Papa in a drunken stupor. If so, would I again be able to rouse him to sobriety? And what if we didn't find him at all? What if Prince Felix and Grand Duke Dmitri had lured him away, either to a hidden Khlyst Khlyst-type orgy of n.o.bles or into a grand-ducal plot? As we raced down the stairs, past the security men posted on each of the floors, that worst-case possibility rolled right over me. If the grand dukes had today, right now, put an end to my father, they had not taken steps to protect their House but instead to extinguish it, for I knew what they chose not to believe: Without Papa there was no hope for the Heir.

It all seemed utterly hopeless when Varya and I hurried past the guard and the doorman downstairs, past the little iron stove, out the door, and into the frigid air. We rushed onto the front sidewalk and came to a skidding halt. I glanced down toward the Fontanka, turned, and looked up the street toward the train station. Which way? Through which alley? Into which home? Panic surged through me as I realized I had no idea where even to begin. Papa could be a few blocks away, and just as easily he could be on the other side of the city.

Wait...

Given that my father's doings were more reported than even the Tsar's, he'd probably been tailed by a squadron of agents. On the other hand, if he'd gotten away without being followed, it was for a purpose, and no one knew more of my father's intimate doings than our housekeeper.

"Varya, go up to the market and find Dunya. Tell her what's happened, tell her we need to find Papa, tell her everything," I commanded, worried that, if I went, Dunya would simply drag me back to the apartment and throw me in bed. "I'm going to talk to the security agents. Either Dunya or the agents must know something."

"Right," replied my sister, turning and running off at full speed.

I glanced back at our apartment building. Should I go up and speak with the agent who'd been discreetly hidden outside our door? Should I see what the agent downstairs had noted in his little black book? No, I thought, glancing at the motorcar parked across the street, its engine idling, its windows iced over. If you needed to know what a snake was doing and where it was going, you went to its head, for everything else couldn't help but follow.

So I did just that. I crossed the snowy cobbles and went up to the back window, knocking firmly on it. Immediately something inside shifted-there were two men in there, I realized-and then the next moment the window was lowered by its leather strap. A heavyset man with a Ukrainian face stared out at me, his skin pale, his cheeks wide, his forehead large, and his mustache as big as a walrus's. Of course there was no need for introductions. I'd never seen this man before, didn't know his name, but I knew what he was doing here, just as he surely knew everything about me, right down to what I had worn yesterday.

"I have to find my father!" I pleaded.

The man stared suspiciously back at me. Only his fiery left eyebrow moved, and barely so at that.

"It's an emergency. Do you or your men have any idea where he is?"

The long hairs on his upper lip quivered ever so slightly.

Under grave threat my father had ordered us never to discuss his religious activities, never to speak of our royal connections, and never, ever, to mention his visits to the palace. And he was right to be so cautious, especially after the attempt on his life, for which I still blamed myself. Now, however, I ignored all that.

"The Empress telephoned!" I declared. "There's an emergency, and she's sending a car for him. Please-I must find him!"

Either out of duty or fear, the agent leaped from the motor, for he most certainly knew that the Empress, with nothing more than a cold shrug, could have him banished to the hinterlands. A second man, a tiny fellow with gold-rimmed gla.s.ses, remained tucked in the warmth of the vehicle.

"This way," said the agent with great authority as he twisted one end of his big mustache.

"Where is he? How far?"

"Just a few buildings away."

Slava bogu. So Papa wasn't lost, so he hadn't been dragged away. My initial panic subsided, but only slightly. I still had to get him and return as quickly as possible. With any luck we might even make it back before the imperial motor arrived.

Unlike the great cities of Europe, the capital of unruly Russia was, ironically, a planned metropolis, conceived of and built by Peter the Great according to his strict vision. Not only had the swamps been drained and the rivers contained, our roads were straight and methodical, lined with brick buildings covered with decorative, colorful stucco. Behind the endless, orderly facades, however, it was a different matter. Archways led to alleys, alleys split into pa.s.sages, and pa.s.sages dissolved into nooks and crannies, the lost corners that the lost characters of Dostoyevsky loved to inhabit and wallow in, festering in a dirty stew of anxiety and poverty. And it was through just such a filthy maze that I now followed the agent. We hadn't lived on Goroxhavaya Street long enough for me to have ever been this way.

Wasting no time, we crossed into the courtyard of the building opposite ours, out its back, into the rear of another, down a narrow pa.s.sageway, and into an opening behind yet another building. The agent led the way boldly, without any hesitation, as if he'd been down this path many times, and I couldn't help but wonder what in the name of the devil my father was doing back here. How many times had he been tailed to this seemingly secret location? Was it a tiny bar where alcohol was sold despite the wartime ban? A little cafe where he could escape his throng of daily visitors?

"Wait here," commanded the agent, pointing to the snowy ground with a sharp gloved finger. "I'll bring him right out."

I obeyed like an obedient mutt, coming to a quick halt. And like a pathetic dog, my eyes trailed after the agent, watching sadly as he continued down to the end of the building and disappeared around the corner. Why, I wondered, could I go no farther? Was there something I shouldn't see? I gazed up at the back of the innocuous building and noted a handful of plain windows and two large round drainpipes half clinging to the structure. What business did my father have in there?

Out of nowhere I heard Papa's unmistakable voice, deep and resonant. Immediately I spun around. Had it come from the building behind me? No, I realized, looking at a huge blank wall painted a tired apple green. Papa's voice had merely bounced off that. Turning back, I scanned the alley, the wall, and heard it again. Not just his voice but the laughing, seductive voice of a woman. I looked everywhere-nook, doorway, rooftop-and then spied it, a fortochka fortochka-a small transom window-that was cracked open because, of course, we Russians were addicted to fresh air summer and winter. Yes, I realized, instinctively moving toward it. Papa was in a ground-floor room right over there, the one with the burning lightbulb dangling from the ceiling.

I could have done nothing. I could simply have waited for the security agent to rouse my father and hurry him out. But that was not my nature. And these were not pa.s.sive times. Besides, I wanted information, bits and sc.r.a.ps that I could glue together to create a realistic image of my mysterious father.

And so, without really thinking, only knowing that I must, I hurried forward. From the side of the building, I grabbed an abandoned wooden crate and dragged it beneath the window, which stood several arzhini arzhini from the ground. As I clambered atop the crate, I heard again the deep tones of my father's voice, which leaked from the window above and flowed over me like a bizarre draft. Strange words spilled over me, things I didn't quite understand...and yet did, for they were akin to the deep, l.u.s.tful words that Sasha had once whispered into the tender corner of my ear. My heart clenched, my pulse kicked like a horse. I shouldn't be doing this, but I certainly couldn't stop either. from the ground. As I clambered atop the crate, I heard again the deep tones of my father's voice, which leaked from the window above and flowed over me like a bizarre draft. Strange words spilled over me, things I didn't quite understand...and yet did, for they were akin to the deep, l.u.s.tful words that Sasha had once whispered into the tender corner of my ear. My heart clenched, my pulse kicked like a horse. I shouldn't be doing this, but I certainly couldn't stop either.

Clenching the edge of the broad metal windowsill, I pulled myself up. Common things came into view: a plain lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, peeling brown wallpaper, a mirror, a torn curtain, a framed print on the wall. This was no luxurious apartment. It was only a single room, tattered, worn, and poor. Then I saw it, or rather him-the back of Papa's head, his wild hair moving and jerking about. Sitting in his coat, he was facing the other way, and when I peered over and around him, I saw a single woman standing there. With the exception of a pair of stockings that climbed up to her thighs, she was completely naked. Her hair was thick and blond-a ma.s.s of curly ringlets-and her lips were painted an unusually bright red. Slowly swaying and dancing before my father, the woman was cupping her enormous b.r.e.a.s.t.s in her hands, pushing them up and forward, offering them to my father in much the same way that a luscious, exotic, and terribly juicy pineapple had been presented to me the very first time. She then ground her broad voluptuous hips from side to side, opened her legs a bit, and ever so slowly thrust forward her delicate patch of mounding hair.

Suddenly my father's right hand came out of nowhere, slapping himself in the head with a loud thwack. Almost immediately his left hand batted at his very own cheek and gave it what appeared to be a painful pinch. Then, with both hands, he started tugging and yanking at his collar, wrestling furiously with himself. Startled, I swayed to the side and nearly fell, and the harlot spied me spying her and screamed. I screamed. And my father, who'd been sitting there, burst to his feet. Before Papa could see me, I leaped sideways off the crate and tumbled to the snowy ground. Shocked, I lay there in the frost. What was going on in there? What had I just witnessed? Papa wasn't having s.e.xual relations with this woman-at least not yet-for, I realized, she was naked but he was not. Was it an audition of some sort? Could he be treating her for what he frequently called the most tenacious of womanly problems, lewdness?

A pair of hands came from behind, lifting me up, and I half screamed. "Oi!" "Oi!"

Turning around, I expected to see one of the security agents. Instead, whom did I see but Sasha.

"Maria, are you all right?" he asked, gently helping me to my feet.

"What are you doing here? How do you keep popping up?"

He looked at me with a funny grin. "You asked me to come to your house, you asked me to wait by the back door. And I was there, waiting, when I heard your voice and saw you coming out the front. So I followed you. I thought maybe you were leading the way to a cafe or someplace where we could talk."

"Oh. Of course."

"So what's happened? What are you doing back in this...this alley?"

I wanted to stand there and wallow in confusion, even self-pity. I wanted Sasha to wrap his arms around me. I wanted simply to saunter off with him. But of course I couldn't.

"I came to get my father."

"And where is he?"

I motioned up to the window. "Up there."

"Doing what?"

"I'm not sure, but I have to get him to"-I shouldn't have said anything, but I just blurted it out-"to the Palace."

"Really? What's-?"

We both heard it then, a voice loudly muttering and cursing.

"Sasha, I think that's one of the security agents. Maybe you'd better not be here now."

"Right," he nodded, already slipping away.

No sooner had Sasha melted into the shadows of a doorway than the voice grew into shouting. Turning, I saw not one of the agents coming around the corner of the building, but my very own father. He wasn't wearing his thousand-ruble fur coat. No, he had on his real coat, the peasant sort, made of wool and long and tight at the waist. And he hadn't come out to yell at me. Rather, he didn't even know I was there and was instead just stumbling along, yelling, beating himself with his fists, pulling his hair, even kicking himself.

"You fool! You idiot!" he shouted, cursing no one but himself.

It emerged softly, rolling innocently across my full lips. "Papa?"

He gave himself one last forceful punch in the chest, turned, and saw me. Shocked, he stopped his flaying and stared.

"Dochenka maya," he said tenderly, "what are you doing here?" he said tenderly, "what are you doing here?"

"I...I..."

I had no idea what to say, even where to begin. Instead my hand simply started to rise, and I found myself pointing up to the room with the lightbulb. Amazingly enough, the naked woman with the blond ringlets and the shockingly bright red lips was standing there in the window, a tattered quilt now thrown around her shoulders and her eyes opened wide in shock.

"Oh, her?" My father laughed. "That's Anisia, the prost.i.tutka prost.i.tutka. Have you not met before?" Seeing my face twisted by the enigma of his world, Papa said quite innocently, "Yes, sure, I hire Anisia from time to time. She's very helpful. I use her, you see, to tempt me, to unearth the l.u.s.t hidden deep in my soul. She brings my terrible thoughts, the very worst ones, right to the surface of my skin. She draws them out of me like sweat in a banya, banya, these lascivious thoughts I don't even know I'm carrying. And when she draws them to the surface of my consciousness-well, then I can deal with them. Then I can beat them away." these lascivious thoughts I don't even know I'm carrying. And when she draws them to the surface of my consciousness-well, then I can deal with them. Then I can beat them away."

As if I'd swallowed my tongue, I stared at him, unable to speak.

"Don't look so shocked, my dear Maria. It's all very deliberate. Even the saints used to do this, stare at naked harlots in order to find purity of soul. This is the path I struggle so hard to follow as well, not the path of simple Believers but that of a real Christ. How else am I supposed to make my spirit strong unless I continually battle the flesh?" Looking right at me, he hit himself in the face with his own fist. "Besides, I find self-abas.e.m.e.nt very effective. It keeps me humble and on the right path."

The joy of suffering. The eternal need to drive Satan out of one's own body. The never-ending search for self-purification. Beating away sin with sin. All in the glorious quest of repentance and holy forgiveness. What could be more pagan? More Orthodox? And who, I sobbed within, could be more Russian than my very own father, Rasputin?

As I took Papa by the arm, I stole a glance over my shoulder and waved a quick farewell to Sasha, who was only just stepping out of the shadows.

CHAPTER 15.

By the time we returned home, Dunya and my sister were already waiting out front for us. Taking him by his arms, we rushed Papa upstairs and changed him into a fresh kosovorotka kosovorotka.

"You are coming with me, Marochka," my father said, as we pulled the shirt over his head. "I'm so exhausted there's no doubt I'll need your help."

Knowing that my father's commands were every bit as absolute as the Empress's, I obeyed silently, following him down the stairs and into the back of the royal limousine, which had just arrived. All at once we were racing toward Tsarskoye Selo, the vortex of Russian politics, gossip, scandal...and tragedy. But as we sat there in the rich leather seats, I didn't speak or even look at my father for fear of the anger and confusion that would burst forth. Besides, the most important thing was for him to gather his strength for his duties ahead. And so I gazed out the window in thought.

The greatest attack on Papa had come three or four years earlier, when his former friend and ally in Christianity, the monk Illiodor, turned so rabidly against him. Whether or not Papa had in fact raped a nun, as was proclaimed, Illiodor began shouting everywhere that Papa was a holy devil set on destroying the very foundation of Holy Mother Russia-the monarchy-and that he was pandering to the Yids as well as aiding the new capitalists, who, the fanatic monk claimed, were h.e.l.l bent on debasing the Russian soul.

To launch his famous attack, Illiodor released a letter that he had stolen from our home in Pokrovskoye, a letter tucked in my father's little wooden desk and written by none other than Her Majesty the Empress, to my father: My beloved, unforgettable teacher, redeemer, and mentor! How tiresome it is without you! My soul is quiet and I relax only when you, my teacher, are seated beside me. I kiss your hands and lean my head on your blessed shoulder. Oh, how light, how light do I feel then. I only wish one thing: to fall asleep, to fall asleep...forever on your shoulders and in your arms. What happiness to feel your presence near me. Where are you? Where have you gone? Oh, I am so sad and my heart is longing.... Will you be soon again close to me? Come quickly, I am waiting for you and I am tormenting myself for you. I am asking for your holy blessing and I am kissing your blessed hands. I love you forever.Yours, Mama Not even the censors could stop the wide publication of this letter, and it caused a scandal of the greatest magnitude. People of every level of society were aghast at the thought of their Empress kissing the foul hands of that dirty peasant, and the worst rumors started running everywhere, even supposed eyewitness accounts of Khlyst Khlyst activities in the cellars of the Aleksander Palace itself. Soon thereafter an even worse story started circulating as quickly as a hot fire in a parched forest-that Rasputin had molested the Tsar's second daughter, Tatyana. activities in the cellars of the Aleksander Palace itself. Soon thereafter an even worse story started circulating as quickly as a hot fire in a parched forest-that Rasputin had molested the Tsar's second daughter, Tatyana.

People didn't understand. Or what they did surmise was wrong. I myself had received a note from the Empress written in such a florid manner, for that was her style. She was all emotion, all soul, and she gave herself completely to those she cared for. Those were were the exact words the Empress wrote to my father-her Father Grigori-but no one understood where the words came from or what they truly meant for one simple reason: No one knew her secret, a secret that affected everything in our country, right down to the soft s...o...b..a.l.l.s formed and handed to me that winter afternoon at the Aleksander Palace. the exact words the Empress wrote to my father-her Father Grigori-but no one understood where the words came from or what they truly meant for one simple reason: No one knew her secret, a secret that affected everything in our country, right down to the soft s...o...b..a.l.l.s formed and handed to me that winter afternoon at the Aleksander Palace.

In fact, hardly anyone realized there was one, a state secret of such magnitude that it was carefully guarded even from many princes and princesses of the royal blood. I was one of the very few privy to it, and only then because I knew of my father's activities. Unbeknownst to almost everyone in the nation, there was an explanation for the imperial family's withdrawal from the whirling social world of the capital, there was logic behind their decision to retreat to the Aleksander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo and live there in near isolation, and there was most definitely a reason for the Empress's lack of laughter and perpetually sad appearance.

It was that the Heir Tsarevich Aleksei Nikolaevich suffered from the English disease. He was a bleeder. And the Tsar and Tsaritsa, and even their most trusted advisers, had decided that no one should know that the future of the nation was in peril not just from the Germans but from a simple bruise or b.u.mp, any number of which most little boys encountered on any given day. It all came down to blood-royal blood, to be specific-that had been pa.s.sed from Queen Victoria to her favorite granddaughter, a minor German princess who became our Empress Aleksandra Fyodorovna, and who in turn pa.s.sed the condition to her first-born boy, Heir to the Imperial Throne of All the Russias.

The only time I ever heard Papa speak against the monarchy was when he had groused that we simple people took better care in breeding our pigs back home-where everyone knew you needed fresh stock from other villages to keep the herd strong and healthy-than these fancy n.o.bles did in breeding themselves. But it was in this, the inability of the Heir's blood to clot, that lay the true nature of my father's extraordinary bond with our Empress.

Less than an hour later a pair of heavy black iron gates opened before us and the royal limousine carried us once again to the very steps of the Aleksander Palace. I thought of the boy's pain, of the Empress's misery...and of the terrible things constantly said about her. Even her own mother-in-law, the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna, had called her a traitor, first because she had given birth to four daughters in a row and then because she had birthed such a sickly boy. To make it all worse, the court of the Dowager Empress was filled with evil gossips, highborn personages who spread the most wicked stories to all the courts of all the grand dukes and beyond. There was even t.i.ttle-tattle that Aleksandra Fyodorovna had a secret telegraph cable stretching from the mauve boudoir all the way to her native Germany and the offices of her cousin, Russia's sworn enemy, Kaiser Wilhelm, with whom we had been at war for so long. Every time I heard that I shuddered, for I couldn't help but think of the poor Marie Antoinette, daughter of the Austrian monarch, whom the French had labeled the Austrichienne, Austrichienne, the Austrian dog. the Austrian dog.

But none of the incendiary stories they told about the Empress was true. Not one. And yet virtually every Russian believed them because the stories had been told and retold, heard and heard again so often, that eventually no one doubted their authenticity. There were supposed eyewitnesses everywhere.

Russia had long been an aria in search of a tragedy, and as Papa and I clambered out of the deep seats of the Delaunay-Belleville limousine and up the steps, I wondered if my father would be able to forestall the finale of the doomed opera. Or were we too late? I couldn't tell, not by the tears rolling down the big round cheeks of Madame Vyrubova, who greeted us once again at the top of the steps. Forgetting the frost, today she simply stood there, wearing a gray dress and leaning heavily on crutches.

"Thank you for coming, Father Grigori," she said, profusely kissing Papa's hand. "The boy, he...he-"

"Yes, I know," said Father, with a G.o.dly authority. "He's still with us."

"And-"

"This I know as well. Batushka, Batushka," the Dear Father, meaning the Tsar, "has returned home."

"Not more than ten minutes ago."

"Eto xhorosho." Good.

How my father knew these things, I didn't know, yet I knew he was right, for with each step an aura seemed to grow more clearly around him. Was it the cod? Had the endless amounts of fish he consumed made his soul so clear, his body so pure, that he had indeed become a heavenly vehicle? Or had he been purified by his session with the prost.i.tute Anisia?

When we reached the top of the steps, Madame Vyrubova glanced nervously at me and said to my father, "Father Grigori, I think it's better if the child is returned home. You know how the Empress doesn't-"

"I'm still exhausted from the other night," said Papa firmly. This afternoon and evening will be long and hard...my daughter stays. She will attend to me."

"Of course, Father," the most powerful courtier in the nation replied, submissively bowing her head. "It is as you wish."

"It is as is needed."

Minutes before we'd pulled up to the gates, Papa had clasped my hand and told me the details of the other night when we'd come so late and I had been turned away. Aleksei had come down with a chill and sneezed. Such, of course, was the nature of any cold, only the boy had started to bleed profusely from the nose. Compresses had been applied, to no avail. The doctors had been called in and the boy's nose was cauterized, which hadn't done anything but elicit screams of pain from Aleksei Nikolaevich, who was never given the likes of morphine. As always, the best and finest doctors of all Europe hadn't been able to do a thing, so finally Papa had been summoned. And only many hours of Papa's prayers beside the Heir's bed had slowed and finally stopped the bleeding.

"I can see the boy's suffering is worse than it was the other day," Papa muttered, as we entered the palace. "I do not know what I can do for him, for of course it is up to the will of G.o.d, but I shall try my best."

Once again we hurriedly followed Madame Vyrubova through the large doors, past the guards and the reception desk, and into the private apartments of the royal family. Rather than proceed down the long central hall with its roll of Oriental carpet, Madame Vyrubova, hobbling on her crutches and with her gray dress trailing on the floor, took us into the small wooden elevator on the left. In silence we rode up to the second floor, the children's floor, where we were taken down a long empty corridor. I noted that the doors on the right were all shut tight, for these were the rooms of the Tsaritsa's personal maids, who surely had been told not to set foot outside their chambers.

Coming to a double door on the left, we turned into the children's playroom, where years earlier I had been brought to play with the Tsar's third daughter, Maria Nikolaevna, who was my age. Now, upon entering the large room, we found not the tepee, the tom-toms, the toy dog on wheels, or even Aleksei's clockwork train, of which he was so proud, but rather a busy cl.u.s.ter of men gossiping sternly among themselves. There was also a man, his back to us, who was sobbing quietly but furiously as he leaned against the tall green tile stove on the far wall. As I quickly trotted after Papa and Madame Vyrubova toward another door, we pa.s.sed a group of men-a bevy of doctors and specialists-who glared at us and practically spit on Rasputin. But Papa didn't notice, so I tried to ignore them too. All that mattered, all that my father was focusing on, was the shrieking from the next room.

"Help me!" came the scream. "Mama, help me!"

One of Papa's greatest skills was his amazing ability to concentrate. He could study a single Bible pa.s.sage for a week. He could search the morose face of an icon for an entire day. And now he focused on the cry of the Heir Tsarevich Aleksei Nikolaevich, reading the tone of pain as intently as if it were a heavenly hymn.

"Not a moment too soon," he muttered, his right hand clutching the gold cross, a gift from the Empress herself, that hung around his neck.

Just before I followed him through the next doorway, I glanced once again at the tall stove. The man leaning against the tiles turned and our eyes caught. Gospodi Gospodi, it was the Tsar himself, his eyes wet and red. My heart ached for him. Was the boy truly on the doorstep of death?

"Mama, I can't! I can't! It's too much!" came the plea from the boy's chamber. "Please make it stop! Please let me die!"

As we entered the next room, a string of prayers fell from Papa's lips, a heavenly chant, a call to G.o.d for His mercy. My father shed his peasant coat, dropping it to the floor, and pressed onward, but I stopped, moving against one of the windows, which was covered with large floral curtains. The only light in the room came from the oil lamps suspended before the mult.i.tude of icons encased in their large curving kiot kiot. Gazing through the soft, smoky light, I saw Aleksei Nikolaevich writhing in pain as he lay on his simple nickel-plated camp bed. It seemed as if his failed body were trying to pull his soul across the threshold of death, while Russia's mighty Empress, Aleksandra Fyodorovna, who was on her knees clutching her son's hand, was trying just as hard to keep him here. Like a mother superior, she was huddled in prayer, begging G.o.d for mercy, begging G.o.d to save this child who was lost in fever.