Rasputin's Daughter by Robert Alexander Page B

chandelier, with Papa at one end of the table and Dunya at the other, we clasped hands and bowed our heads.
    “Dear Heavenly Father, I beseech you to come to the aid of us, your miserablest children who seek Thine forgiveness. We will sin no more. I pray unto you, Thou, to grant us salvation, to drive away our enemies, both those within our borders and beyond. O God, O Wondrous Lord, how can one fail to believe?! The street is crooked, but ahead layest only one destination, and we struggle there on foot. We believe heartily, Thine Lord, and woe unto those who does not! The waves of calumny can only be stilled by good deeds, but it is true, there is far more sickness on land than in your great sea. So in you, Thee, O Lord, O God, help us rejoice, so that in your miracles of forgiveness we find everlasting peace. Ahmeen.”
    “Ahmeen,” chimed Dunya and Varya in chorus.
    When I failed to speak, Dunya glared at me, and I reluctantly muttered, “Ahmeen.”
    As a child I never understood my father’s prayers. Nor did I this evening. What was different about tonight, however, was that I no longer felt awed by my father’s words or his supposed wisdom. I only felt something…something sad, even pathetic.
    Papa took a piece of bread in his hand, put a single large pickle on it, and stuffed it into his mouth. It was gone in two bites.
    “Wine!” Papa commanded.
    “Yes, Father Grigori,” replied Dunya, pushing back her chair and getting up from the table.
    Disappearing into the kitchen, Dunya quickly returned, not with a mere glass of wine but with a full bottle. As she poured Papa a glass, however, I could tell it was not with pleasure. Of course Dunya understood that Papa’s physical pain was as great as his mental anguish, but I knew it hurt her terribly to see Papa drink as many as twelve bottles of Madeira in a night, as he had done a number of times in the last month alone. How, I thought for the first time, could my father consume so much and still stand? Indeed, how could he claim to be so blessed and have so many gifts and yet be blind to his gross mistakes, which even I could now see so clearly?
    Papa grabbed another piece of bread and piled it with salted herring, an entire stuffed egg, and a ring of onion, all of which he gobbled down like a wild animal. Next, still with his bare hand, he reached into the bowl of jellied fish heads, pulled out a whole cod head, and swallowed it.
    “The other day I greatly offended a woman because I ate with my hands and didn’t use a napkin. She even gasped out loud when I wiped my mouth with my beard like this.” Papa chuckled as he pulled up the bristly ends of his beard and cleaned his mouth. “Tell me, girls, does it bother either of you?”
    Varya, who was eating a salted pickle dipped in sour cream, grinned and shook her head.
    I, on the other hand, blurted out, “Of course it does. It’s awful and…and embarrassing. Why haven’t you ever learned how to eat like a normal civilized person?”
    “Maria!” gasped Dunya, horrified. “You mustn’t speak to your father like that!”
    Papa only laughed. By court standards, let alone the etiquette of good society, his manners were atrocious, no better than a dog’s. He knew it, exulted in it, and flaunted it, particularly in the presence of the proper titled folk of Petrograd. Any number of times I had watched him wipe his filthy hands on the fine silk dresses, fur coats, or ties of his guests. Any number of times I had watched him order a princess to lick his filthy fingers clean. After a while his devotees understood and even begged for such treatment. Yes, they pleaded for Papa to do such rude things to them. Like washing the feet of Christ, it was all about meekness, submission, and mortification of the flesh.
    “No, no, it’s quite all right,” Papa insisted. “My little Marochka speaks the truth of her heart, as she must. As must every Rasputin. And indeed as must every person. And it’s true: I never