The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander Page A

from the kitchen. Later yet he played bridge with his girls and bezique with Yevgeny Sergeevich. And thus, shortly after ten, concluded the twenty-third, a day which ended much more quietly than it had begun.
    Did I say it was a Sunday?
    I shall pass quickly over the twenty-fourth, which was fraught with tension only insomuch as nothing happened. Yevgeny Sergeevich remained in bed the entire day, as did the Empress, complaining yet again of an enlarged heart and aching eyes. Later, actually, she moved nearby the open window, where she read and played cards with Maria Nikolaevna. About this time, toward one o’clock, the rest of us were allowed into the garden. There we paced for forty minutes. The heat was tropical. Outside, in the full of sun, the temperature rose to thirty-seven and a half degrees, while inside the thick walls of the Ipatiev House it climbed only to a warm twenty-one and a half. Otherwise, we waited and hoped, but once again Sister Antonina and her novice failed to appear. I couldn’t help but think that either the nun had been discovered, or the supposed friends of the Tsar and his family had lost their nerve and abandoned us. Although no one else spoke of such doubts, I am sure everyone else felt them, for anxiety hung in the air like thick fog.
    Tuesday, the twenty-fifth, began as the other recent days, warm and monotonous. Yevgeny Sergeevich was feeling better from his attack of the kidneys, but he remained in bed nevertheless. After breakfast I wheeled about the Heir, room to room, as was my usual morning duty. We were just passing from the main parlor back into the dining room when both Aleksei Nikolaevich and I heard voices from beyond the double closed doors. The guard room lay there, and I could hear deep, distrustful voices of the men and a single, small one that was full of morning brightness.
    Unable to contain his excitement, the Heir twisted in the wheeling chaise, looked up at me, and whispered, “That’s Sister Antonina.”
    “Da-s!”
    I turned the chair around, aiming it toward the double doors, and the Heir clasped his hands in his lap and eagerly bent forward. I half-expected Jim – the huge Negro from America who’d been a fixture at the Aleksander Palace right up until the first days of the revolution – to swing open the door with his usual great pomp. Instead, however, one of the guards shoved open the door with his foot.
    “
Pyat minut
.” Five minutes, one of them ordered. “No more.”
    “Of course, my son.”
    Draped from head to foot in folds of black, the sister entered, her head bowed slightly as she tried to conceal a smile. She carried an open, woven basket, in which were nestled brown eggs, a good ten of them, and immediately behind her trailed Novice Marina, who clutched two
chetvert
of milk in her arms.
    Upon seeing the Heir, both women stopped still, crossed themselves, and the sister, her head bowed, said, “
Dobroye ootre
, Aleksei Nikolaevich.” Good morning.
    Until recently, Aleksei had always been greeted so reverently, and he thought nothing of it. With a great deal of enthusiasm and curiosity, he looked upon them and nodded to the basket.
    “I see you’ve brought me more eggs.”
    Sister Antonina, her eyes fixed firmly on the ground before her young master, gave a polite, “
Da-s
.”
    “And milk? Did you bring-”
    I heard not a sound from behind, for his worn, brown boots moved with great stealth. Before I knew it, Nikolai Aleksandrovich stepped in, scooted me aside, and took hold of the wheeling chaise. In a single, gentle movement, the Tsar spun it and the Heir around.
    “We must not interrupt their work, Alyosha,” said father to son.
    “But-”
    “We’ll let Leonka deal with the food. After all, he is the cook’s assistant. Now, how about a game of dominoes?”
    Only after the Tsar and Tsarevich disappeared into the dining room and beyond did Sister Antonina and the Novice Marina raise their eyes and heads. Looking upon me with a