Read Online Rasputin's Daughter by Robert Alexander - Free Book Online

right there, on the edge of the cot, and hold his hand and talk as we had done on the boat. But I didn’t dare, not on this strange night. Stepping away, I shut the curtain and started out of the kitchen. No sooner had I passed into the hall than I heard it again, a faint noise emanating, I realized, from one of the bedrooms.

CHAPTER 5
    I poked my head into my room first, only to see Varya still sleeping soundly. Moving on, I approached Papa’s bedroom. As I neared the partially opened door, I saw the faint light of a lamp leaking out, and for a bizarre moment everything seemed normal. It was almost as if my father were home, studying the Scriptures or on his knees, praying in the corner before his favorite icon, the Kazanskaya, the Virgin of Kazan. It was almost as if he were right there in that room, ever so slowly scrawling the little notes to hand out the following day to his devotees, little notes that would open doors all over the country: My friend, see that this gets done. Grigori. Plus the little cross, always the little cross, at the bottom. But of course Papa wasn’t home, and I wasn’t coming to bid him good night.
    Someone, I realized, was in my father’s bedroom who shouldn’t be there. It could be someone harmless like Countess Olga or someone as dangerous as an assassin.
    I should have rushed right then and there to the telephone. But I wasn’t scared, not really, for exhaustion was taking over now, drugging my mind and body like a narcotic. Quite determined, I brazenly pushed open the door. But instead of finding someone with a gun pointed at me, or even someone rifling through Papa’s belongings, there was no one carousing about. Instead my eyes traveled through warm, reddish light emanating from an oil lamp hanging before Papa’s icon. And eventually my eyes fell upon a heap of unfamiliar clothes thrown on a chair. Turning to the narrow bed, I saw that someone was curled up beneath the bright patchwork quilt.
    I wasn’t that surprised, not really, for women were always throwing themselves at Papa. Last year I had been in my room when I heard a terrible scream coming from the salon.
    “Chri-i-ist is ri-i-isen!”
    When I went running in, I had found Madame Lokhtina, wearing a bizarre white dress decorated all over with little ribbons, lunging at Papa. The force of this woman, a former society lioness who had abandoned her family and become Father’s most rabid devotee, was so great, her determination so devilish, that she had ripped open Papa’s pants and was hanging on to his member.
    “You are Christ, I am your ewe, take me!” the woman screamed. “Take me, dear Chri-i-ist!”
    “Off, you skunk!” Papa was beating on her head, trying to fend her off, and when he saw me, he shouted, “Help me, Maria! She’s demanding sin and won’t leave me alone!”
    Now, approaching the bed, I realized in a second that it wasn’t Madame Lokhtina, some anxious devotee, or even Countess Olga lying there peacefully. So who in the name of the Lord was it? I stepped closer and saw something familiar.
    Oh, my God…
    The body shifted like a languid lover awaiting some kind touch and tender kiss. Taking note of the short hair, I realized this was no woman. Instead it was perhaps the most beautiful and definitely the richest young man in all of Russia.
    “Fedya?” I said.
    For the past several months, Prince Felix Yusupov, or Fedya, as he warmly asked my sister and me to call him, had been visiting Papa nearly every day. Tall and fine-boned, with a narrow face, small mustache, and beautiful narrow eyes, the prince was particularly effeminate in both looks and manner, taking after the famed beauty of his mother, Princess Zinaida. He rolled over and smiled sweetly up at me.
    “Oh, it’s you, Maria. I was hoping for Father Grigori.”
    Speechless, I stared down at this scandalous creature now lolling in Papa’s bed. Lurid stories of him abounded-everyone in the capital knew that on a number of occasions