Anastasia's Secret by Susanne Dunlap Read Free Book Online Page A

though.”
    Papa nodded, then walked forward and took Mama’s hand. “I’ll send Nagorny in to help you dress in your uniform. You’ll be carried in to the service.”
    “I’m sorry, Papa,” Alyosha said, looking down.
    “It can’t be helped.” Papa put his hand on Alyosha’s head, then bent down and kissed him, his ornamental sword clanking against the iron bedframe. I could tell by his expression that he was unhappy about Alyosha’s attack, not just because he was in pain, but because having to be carried into the very public blessing would show weakness. At times like these, I felt sorry for my brother rather than envying him all the attention and special treatment he got. What was it all worth if he couldn’t even enjoy the smallest things in life, and if at any time he could be stricken and have to spend weeks in bed?

    On our last day in Moscow we took a trip out to a famous, ancient monastery outside the city, fortified and containing thirteen churches within its walls.
    “Mama says if there is time we’ll visit the hermitage at Gethsemane,” Tatiana said. She always seemed to have information from Mama that the rest of us didn’t.
    “Why is that so wonderful?” I asked, thinking that we’d have enough of visiting old churches and seeing long-bearded patriarchs by visiting the monastery and we’d have little need of any other religious touring.
    “Don’t you know? They have real hermits there who are virtually buried alive,” Mashka said. “They live in holes in the ground and just get their food handed to them through a slit that’s not even big enough for an arm to pass through.
    “And when one of them dies—which they only know by the smell, because they don’t always take the food that’s given to them—they simply seal over the slit and leave them there.”
    I shivered. Who would choose such an existence? Aside from the question of bathing, I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be away from the sunlight and air. I had a terrible fear of being imprisoned. Even the low ceilings of the basement rooms in the Alexander Palace made me start to panic if I remained down there too long. Perhaps I was spoiled by having twenty-foot-high ceilings in most of the places we lived.
    I wondered if Mashka knew that what she was telling me would give me nightmares. Perhaps she did, and told me on purpose. I think I brought such things on myself with my mischievous behavior, but I never did anything that would really upset one of my sisters—except for that snowball, of course, the one with the stone in it. But as I remember, Tatiana was being rather high and mighty at the time, and I never did anything as dangerous again. Oh, well, I used to throw things at my tutors and sabotage their satchels with live toads and such. But that didn’t really hurt anyone.
    Fortunately, there wasn’t time for the visit to the hermits.
    We were in Moscow for less than a week, and then we returned to Tsarskoe Selo. I was glad to get back to our familiar rooms. Of all the palaces we lived in, the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe felt the most like home. Of course, Mama always made certain to have her photographs and mementos around her wherever she went, but Mashka and I—as if by mutual agreement, although we never actually discussed it—kept few belongings other than a favorite doll and some books. We made do with whatever existed in the different palaces rather than bring our possessions from place to place. I expect that would have surprised many people, who no doubt imagined us traveling around with trunks and trunks of toys and books. We did have some jewels, but they were in the charge of Mme Zanotti and worn only on state occasions, and hardly seemed to belong to us. And I must say that the playrooms in our wing of most of the palaces were stocked with just about anything we could want to amuse ourselves with—including an artificial hill for tobogganing in the Winter Palace that was even bigger than the slide in