Blok nodded, albeit slowly.

“Then go on, tell me. Tell me why.”

“Because…” Blok pushed back his chair and rose, moving away from the table. “Because if your father were still breathing when he was thrown through the ice and into the freezing water, he could never become a saint.”

“Exactly. Their story not only confirms his supposed evilness, it entirely prevents him from being worshiped-ever!-simply because liodi believe that those who drown can never be canonized.”

Blok turned and looked at me with eyes so sad, so tired, that I knew I had actually done the impossible and punctured a hole in his revolutionary zeal. This was exactly why, I knew, Blok and his cohorts would never allow the real story of the real Rasputin to get out, for it would make the revolution look like the black joke it was.

“You’re sure of this, that your father was finished off by a bullet to the head?” he asked.

The crack of the gun, my father’s horrible groan, the sight of him falling into the snow. Could I be more sure?

“Absolutely positive. And it wasn’t Prince Felix or Prince O’ksandr or even Purishkevich who killed my father in the end. It was that splendid marksman, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich.”

“Dear Lord.”

As would any Russian, Blok immediately understood the ramifications. Earlier the virulent Purishkevich had given thanks to God that the hands of royal youth had not been stained with blood. But in the end, of course, that was exactly what had happened. Purishkevich wasn’t referring to Prince Felix, certainly one of the most noble young men in the country, but not royal. No, he meant Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, an immediate member of the ruling monarch’s family and a direct grandson of the great Alexander II.

It was all just as I had been told. “My father’s death was supposed to be only the beginning. The grand dukes next meant to kill the Tsar, toss Aleksandra Fyodorovna in a convent, and install one of their own, the young, handsome, and modern Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. But russkiye liodi,” the common Russian people, “would never have accepted him as a pretender to the throne if they knew that he, a grandson of the Tsar Liberator who had freed the serfs, had killed one of their own, a true muzhik, in cold blood. And the grand dukes’ plot probably would have succeeded if it hadn’t been so cold, if the bread riots hadn’t broken out, if-”

“Of course.” Blok shook his head. “And you haven’t told anyone this?”

“No, absolutely not.”

“You’re positive?”

“Not even my own mother. I haven’t been able to tell a single soul…until you.”

“And why is that? Why haven’t you come forward?”

“Because they threatened me, because…”

The memories came flooding back, and I turned away. As if it had happened only moments ago, I remembered it all perfectly clearly, how I had rushed, sobbing, to my father’s body. No sooner had I fallen in the red snow, however, than a group of men had charged around me. Within seconds they were hauling me away, dragging me into the palace. I had screamed and cried, kicked and twisted. When someone struck me in the face, I had turned and seen Sasha.

“Shut up!” he shouted. “I’m sorry, but we had to do it. Your father left us no choice!”

I cried out again, and suddenly I felt the cold barrel of a gun on the back of my head, and Purishkevich was yelling into my ear, “Shut up or I’ll shoot!”

Looking back one last time I saw Prince Felix hysterically crying out and kicking my father’s body.

“Papa!” I pleaded, helplessly.

And when Prince Felix had fallen against the corpse and started beating and slugging it like a madman, I turned away, unable to bear it…

Now staring at Blok through a thick veil of tears, I said, “They kept me locked up in a coal bin for hours before tossing me out. And I’m still not sure why they let me go. All I can think is that Sasha-Prince O’ksandr-arranged it. When they did release me, however, they said that if I told anyone, they’d kill not only me but my sister, my brother, and my mother. All of us. They promised to eliminate all the Rasputins, to liquidate us.”

“Dear Lord.”

“That’s why I’ve kept silent these four months since Papa was killed.” I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the vision of that night. “It was all so horrible. Prince Felix went crazy, beating and kicking my father. Was it some repressed feeling in him? Had he both desired my father sexually and hated him too? Yes, surely. As I look back, I think Prince Felix earlier that fall must have confessed himself and his feelings to my father, who in turn was only trying to heal the prince of his ‘grammatical errors.’”

“And Prince O’ksandr?” said Blok, shaking his head as he wrote something down. “Do you have any idea what happened to him?”

“No. None.”

“But you do understand what role he played in this, don’t you?”

Nodding, I wiped my eyes. “I’ve since learned that he’s from a very noble though not very wealthy family in Novgorod, a family that dates all the way back to the days of Prince Rurik. And when Prince Felix found out that Sasha had secret connections to the Khlysty, he got Sasha to snoop around for anything they could use against my father. When they couldn’t find anything, they didn’t just stop. No, they kept pushing and digging…and they decided that Sasha, the youngest of them, should use his charms to try to get information from me, Rasputin’s daughter.”

“And this, I presume, is why you’ve returned to the capital, to look for Prince O’ksandr. Correct?”

I wanted to tell him, but when I stared into Blok’s eyes I couldn’t decide if it was safe to confess.

“Well,” pressed Blok, “is that correct?”

His eyes just looked so sad, his soul so vulnerable, that I couldn’t help but nod. “There’s something I need to tell him, just one thing he needs to know.”

“But do you have any idea where he is?”

“I know that while Prince Felix and Grand Duke Dmitri were exiled for their part in my father’s murder, Sasha was imprisoned by the Tsar. I thought he would have been freed after the revolution, but I’ve heard from someone who heard from someone else that he was in in the Shpalernaya Prison, and…and that he might be suffering from typhus.”

Aleksander Blok stared at me with something akin to horror as if I were a vision, a harbinger, of things to come. And yes, I was quite sure I was. People lost, people looking, people dying…all this wasn’t just in Russia ’s future, it was already here, already playing over and over like a tragic dirge.

“Of course, if he was really there, the chances of his still being alive aren’t very great,” I continued, fully aware that Shpalernaya was the worst of the worst. “There should be lists, people should be helping one another, but people aren’t talking anymore. Have you seen how frightened everyone is? I wish someone would help me, but who’s ever come to the aid of a Rasputin?” I shrugged. “You don’t have any idea where he could be, do you? You haven’t heard anything?”

Blok shook his head.

It was just as I thought, this revolution would come to no good. The Provisional Government was not in control, and Kerensky wasn’t powerful enough to maintain order. There were already rumors that the Bolsheviks were plotting a putsch. In the end, everyone would probably realize what everyone already knew, that Russia needed someone to rule her with an iron fist. So there probably would be another tsar, one more mighty than the last, though certainly not a Romanov.

But I’d had enough of it all, this poet and his interrogation. I didn’t care what Blok wanted; I would be kept no longer. So I got to my feet, turned, and started for the large doors at the far end of the hall.

I hadn’t gone more than ten paces when Blok suddenly barked, “Stop right there!”

I turned and gazed into the eyes of our great poet-our defeated poet. “What?”