Solovetsky Islands, White Sea, USSR October, 1936

Pavel picked up a stick and started poking at the yellow flames, moving reddish embers one way, a moist, sizzling log another. He stared into the fire, seeing not burning wood but her. Yes, he remembered her completely, that gentle smile, that beautiful face, those long robes. Rarely had a day gone by that he hadn’t pictured her. Or recalled her voice. Or gone back over the events of her life.

“So… that’s what we did in those last days, the last two or three of her life,” said Pavel, glancing first up into the dark night sky, then across the fire pit at Vladimir. “We told each other our stories. I was supposed to be guarding her, but really I was following her from the garden behind the schoolhouse, into the small classroom that served as her bedroom, and out to the kitchen just so we could talk. I told her everything-about my beautiful wife, Shura, and how she’d been gunned down, and how that had forced me into the revolutionary movement. And I told her about all my killings of the little men here and there, not to mention my part in blowing up her husband. And…”

Across the way, Vladimir tugged on his long white beard, and asked, “And…?”

“And I told her what I’d done after I heard she’d been arrested, how I went all over Moscow and used all of my connections to be transferred to Alapayevsk. My comrades said I should stay there in Moscow and stick with the real business of the Revolution rather than watching over a bunch of ‘formers.’ The Revolution needed me, they said, but I suppose you could say I needed her more.”

“Why?”

“Because… because I wanted her to understand… to understand all the things I had done.”

“You mean, you needed to confess to her?”

Pavel looked up, a mocking smile on his face. “Perhaps. But the odd thing was that, in a way, she did the same thing to me. She told me of her life of excesses as a princess and she told me of her life of repentance. That’s what I meant when I said we told each other our stories. As much as I wanted her to understand my life, it seemed she wanted me to understand hers as well.”

“So… did you come to understand her?”

“Vladimir, my friend, I came to much more than that-I came to love her.”

“As did everyone, apparently.” Vladimir glanced at a large brick wall some fifty paces away, then turned quickly back, saying, “You said something about how the most interesting thing she told you was also the strangest. What was that?”

For a while Pavel said nothing. He remembered how kindly she’d said it, even naively. How wrong she’d been.

“Well,” began Pavel, wiping a tear from his eye, “when we’d finished our stories-this was that last night, just hours before her… her end-she looked up at me and she said…”

“You know, Pavel, you and I really aren’t so very different.”

I looked at her sitting across from me, pulled my rifle over my shoulder, and laughed. “What in the devil do you mean by that?”

“Well, the two of us, you and I, have been working and traveling toward the same goal, albeit on very different paths.”

“Yes, but…”

With a twinkle in her eye, she said, “Trust me, for if we look into the life of every human being we discover that it is indeed full of miracles.”

Vladimir exclaimed, “Really? She said that?”

“Yes, but she was wrong. She was wrong about everything. While she was traveling a path of charity in the hope of redemption of all people, I was following a dark path of anger with one and only one goal: revenge.”

With a wide gesture, Vladimir said, “You know she was here, don’t you, that she visited this place?”

“What? The Grand Duchess Elisavyeta Fyodorovna came all the way up here to these lost islands in the White Sea? You’re kidding me. I had no idea.”

“Yes, she was here. One of the great pleasures she took in her religious life was visiting as many monasteries and holy sites as she could.” Motioning over his shoulder toward the crumbling onion domes of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Vladimir said, “Yes, before… before that cathedral was converted to our camp toilet, she prayed there inside. You should have seen this place then, back before the Revolution. When this was still a working monastery, it was a masterpiece of Orthodoxy-of its architecture, of its righteous isolation, and most certainly of its faith. In this harsh climate and on these stony islands people found true faith, I tell you. Thousands of pilgrims came here, including her, Matushka. In fact, she came all this way with Prince Feliks Yusupov to pray for a successful end to the war.”

“No wonder fate has brought me here.”

And that realization, rather than making Pavel bitter, warmed him in a very real way. Perhaps there was a plan, perhaps it was in fact not the revolutionary committee that had ordered him here but her spirit so that they might meet again in a better world. Pavel glanced over at the decrepit cathedral and of what was left of the old Church of Saint Onufry. Then he looked toward the monastery’s old cemetery, which had been all dug up, coffin after coffin dumped out, the holy relics of revered saints spread over the earth.

And then his eye was caught by the faintest of blue in the dark night sky. It would be morning before too long. He had not much time left, for his solemn change of lodging would come with the first light.

“My friend,” said Pavel, “I need to tell you the rest. I must… I must, for of course I was with Matushka right up until the very last minutes of her life.” His head fell. “But how do I tell you, how do I make you understand, when for me there is no understanding at all?”

“Go on, my son, and perhaps you’ll find what is needed.” He took a deep breath, gathered the strength he needed to push through, saying, “Well, as I told you, because of the killings I had done, because of how much I had done for the Revolution, I had some good connections. And that is why I was able to get the transfer I needed. They arrested her that spring and sent her to Siberia, eventually imprisoning her with five other Romanovs and a few of their retainers in the former Napolnaya School there in the town of Alapayevsk. It was a small brick building, built on a field on the edge of town, and because of my connection I was able to get myself sent there. I explained how I had helped kill one Romanov-her husband-and I was ready to kill more. They needed someone to carry out a difficult job, and they knew I could do it. I had proven myself. And I arrived there toward the end of June and was immediately assigned as one of the guards. Immediately we made things more difficult for them. We took almost everything from them-their money and gold, of course, but also their clothes and shoes, linens and pillows. We left them with, I think, just the clothes they were wearing and one pair of shoes. Also, all the retainers were sent away-only two were kept, Nun Varvara, who was Matushka’s cell attendant, and a servant named Fyodor Remez, who served one of the grand dukes, the older one. From that time forward, I was involved in the planning of the events of July 17.”

Vladimir said, “So tell me of that night.”

“Well, we had already told the prisoners that because of disturbances they were going to be transferred to the Upper Sinyachikhensky Works. We said this was for their own safety, since the Whites were approaching and there would be fighting. Usually they ate at seven in the evening, but we told the cook, Krivova, to speed things up. The grand dukes were fed some horseflesh stew, but the Grand Duchess had received special permission for other foods-she didn’t eat meat-so she got milk and some boiled turnips and she ate in her room, just like she always did. In those last weeks she spent much of her time alone in there, either drawing or praying. Mostly praying. It was the corner room and it was very plain, just two iron beds with hard mattresses and no pillows. She shared the room with Nun Varvara. And so later that evening…”