Rasputin's Daughter - By Robert Alexander Page 0,3

my room—that was it besides the bath and the kitchen. And none of our rooms in this five-story brick building was grand. Even our neighbors were rather ordinary. Katya, who lived upstairs in Flat 31, was a seamstress. There were also a clerk and a kind masseuse, Utilia, who often complained that Papa bothered her for affection.

When I came into the hall, I was, as usual, greeted by music and loud voices. Papa loved Gypsy music—particularly the Mazalski Gypsy Choir, so lively and full of fun, just like Papa’s heart—but tonight he had a lone balalaika player in the salon. From somewhere I heard my gregarious father’s laugh rise with delight. I also heard the giggle of a woman—no, I realized, women—but I had no idea who they were. Every day seemed to bring scores of desperate strangers into our home. From morning to night there was a queue outside our door and down the three flights, a line of princes and paupers, bankers and bakers, lawyers and factory workers, waiting their turn to see Papa and beg his influence or have him heal them.

Rushing to the black phone on the wall, I picked up the heavy earpiece, cupped it to my ear, and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Ya Vas slushaiyoo.” I am listening to you.

“This is the Palace operator. One moment, please.”

My heart immediately speeded up. Despite the late hour, I assumed it was the Empress. The very next moment, however, there was a click and I immediately recognized the voice of the Empress’s only close friend, the person many were calling the second most powerful woman in all the Russias.

Speaking with the slight lisp that always made her sound as if she had a mouthful of porridge, Madame Vyrubova uttered the most commanding phrase in the nation: “I’m calling on urgent business from the Palace.”

She begged to know if my father was home, and I assured Anna Aleksandrovna that he was. Then I lowered the earpiece and let it hang from its long cord. It was good fortune that my father was indeed here, I thought as I hurried down the hall, for often toward midnight he would go out. Just the night before, Honorary Burgess Pestrikov had treated him to quantities of wine and food at the Restaurant Villa Rode; it was four in the morning when Papa had stumbled into the apartment and collapsed on the sofa, where he slept until ten. The night before that, he’d stayed out all night with Madame Yazininskaya, presumably at her flat, for he did not return until lunch the following day.

Passing through our dining room, I swerved around several cases of sweet red wine a councilor had just brought, a gift that particularly pleased Papa because of the Dry Laws the Tsar had decreed soon after the start of the war. I then skirted our brass samovar, its fire gone out, and the heavy oak table, which was laden with a basket of flowers and plates of biscuits and sweets, nuts, dried fruits, cakes, and other delicacies that appeared day in and day out for our stream of guests.

By the sounds from the salon, I assumed that was where I would find Papa. In fact, he was not there. Rather, I found the lone balalaika player, strumming the melancholy tunes of our land, and two women, both huddled on the floor. One was our eternally loyal maid, Dunya, one of Papa’s earliest disciples, who’d followed us from Siberia and who was, I couldn’t help but notice, getting fatter by the week. The second was Princess Kossikovskaya, a young beauty of the best society. The princess had a number of diamonds sparkling in her rich brown hair and hanging from her ears, while strands of huge pearls drooped from her neck, but right then and there, hunched over on her knees, she didn’t look so elegant. She was quite drunk.

And when I heard the beauty retch, I understood why Dunya, who was holding a basin to the young woman’s smeared lips, hadn’t answered the phone.

“Dunya, where’s Papa?” I demanded.

“Back in his study,” she said, with a quick wave over her shoulder.

I bit my lip, for it was not without some dread that I hurried out of the room and down the hall. Reaching the door of Papa’s room, I raised my hand to knock—but hesitated. We were never, ever supposed to interrupt when Papa was healing someone…and yet if he was being summoned by the Empress, wasn’t that more important?