ball at once?”
“I promise to do my best.”
“Just remember, or Mama will get cross.” The sister left.
The young woman smoothed her dress. “Don’t mind Olga, she’s a bossy boots. Still, I better be getting back. May I have your business card, Mr. Sorg?”
Sorg rummaged in his waistcoat pocket. “Won’t you have to ask your parents’ permission to allow me to tutor you?”
“They’ll give it once I tell them what a brilliant pianist you are. But first they’ll have your credentials investigated.”
“Investigated?”
Mischief flickered in her eyes. “Tell me if you have done any bad things or that you are wanted by the police or suchlike, Mr. Sorg.”
“Not that I know of.” He handed over a handwritten copperplate business card.
The young woman studied it and moved to the door. “It says your address is the Hotel Crimea and that your business is import and export?”
“Mostly in precious metals, but I deal in anything that turns a profit. May I ask your name?”
The young woman’s smile broadened. She looked lovely when she smiled. “Call me Anastasia,” and with a flourish she was gone, racing down the hall.
6
Sorg snapped out of his daydream. Four armed guards stepped out through a pair of French doors onto the snowy palace lawns.
He tensed, watching through the telescope. Behind the guards came the Romanov family. Sorg’s heart twitched, as if someone slipped a dagger between his ribs.
The last to appear was Anastasia. She clutched the family’s black-and-white pet dog, Jimmy, before she let it down to romp in the snow. Her hair fell about her shoulders, a white scarf bundled at her neck. Sorg should have recognized her that day from royal photographs he’d seen but she seemed so much older: the girl in the images looked like a child. Up close, Anastasia looked like a young woman.
Her piano tutor Conrad’s prediction had come true. Within months, the tsar abdicated and his family was placed under armed guard, confined to the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, while Kerensky’s government clung to power by a thread, embattled on all sides: socialists, Mensheviks, and Reds jostling to seize control as the country veered toward bloody civil war.
Sorg watched now as Anastasia and her elder sister, Olga, made snowballs and threw them at their sisters, Tatiana and Maria. Anastasia wore what looked like one of her father’s coats. It was at least several sizes too big for her and it made her look vulnerable.
Sorg tore away his gaze as the former tsarina and her husband strolled toward a bench and sat. As usual the ex-tsar carried his thirteen-year-old invalid son, Alexei, in his arms. He settled the child on his knees, holding him close.
Anastasia told Sorg once that her family was in constant fear of Alexei bleeding to death. Her family—except her father—believedthat Rasputin miraculously helped lessen Alexei’s blood disease. Sorg found it impossible to accept that the mad, drunken monk at the ball could help anyone.
But Rasputin was dead now, poisoned and shot by his enemies, and then dumped in the Neva River.
Sorg watched Nicholas tenderly stroke his son’s hair. The man seemed such a contradiction. Sorg could never forget the newspaper photographs his father showed him of Jewish children, infants among them, butchered during the tsars’ pogroms. Sorg’s own relatives were victims. Was it hardly surprising that the revolution was led mostly by Jews, Lenin included?
Sorg shifted his focus back to Anastasia. She and her sisters playfully cavorted in the snow. It’s so absurd , Sorg reminded himself. He was a grown man of twenty-six, a cynical Brooklyn Jew who scoffed at love. Anastasia Romanov was sixteen, a deposed Romanov princess. Was it wrong for him—a grown man—to care for someone so young? But even if he despised everything her father stood for, this young woman aroused in him the warmest of feelings.
As he watched her, he thought: I didn’t foresee
“I promise to do my best.”
“Just remember, or Mama will get cross.” The sister left.
The young woman smoothed her dress. “Don’t mind Olga, she’s a bossy boots. Still, I better be getting back. May I have your business card, Mr. Sorg?”
Sorg rummaged in his waistcoat pocket. “Won’t you have to ask your parents’ permission to allow me to tutor you?”
“They’ll give it once I tell them what a brilliant pianist you are. But first they’ll have your credentials investigated.”
“Investigated?”
Mischief flickered in her eyes. “Tell me if you have done any bad things or that you are wanted by the police or suchlike, Mr. Sorg.”
“Not that I know of.” He handed over a handwritten copperplate business card.
The young woman studied it and moved to the door. “It says your address is the Hotel Crimea and that your business is import and export?”
“Mostly in precious metals, but I deal in anything that turns a profit. May I ask your name?”
The young woman’s smile broadened. She looked lovely when she smiled. “Call me Anastasia,” and with a flourish she was gone, racing down the hall.
6
Sorg snapped out of his daydream. Four armed guards stepped out through a pair of French doors onto the snowy palace lawns.
He tensed, watching through the telescope. Behind the guards came the Romanov family. Sorg’s heart twitched, as if someone slipped a dagger between his ribs.
The last to appear was Anastasia. She clutched the family’s black-and-white pet dog, Jimmy, before she let it down to romp in the snow. Her hair fell about her shoulders, a white scarf bundled at her neck. Sorg should have recognized her that day from royal photographs he’d seen but she seemed so much older: the girl in the images looked like a child. Up close, Anastasia looked like a young woman.
Her piano tutor Conrad’s prediction had come true. Within months, the tsar abdicated and his family was placed under armed guard, confined to the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, while Kerensky’s government clung to power by a thread, embattled on all sides: socialists, Mensheviks, and Reds jostling to seize control as the country veered toward bloody civil war.
Sorg watched now as Anastasia and her elder sister, Olga, made snowballs and threw them at their sisters, Tatiana and Maria. Anastasia wore what looked like one of her father’s coats. It was at least several sizes too big for her and it made her look vulnerable.
Sorg tore away his gaze as the former tsarina and her husband strolled toward a bench and sat. As usual the ex-tsar carried his thirteen-year-old invalid son, Alexei, in his arms. He settled the child on his knees, holding him close.
Anastasia told Sorg once that her family was in constant fear of Alexei bleeding to death. Her family—except her father—believedthat Rasputin miraculously helped lessen Alexei’s blood disease. Sorg found it impossible to accept that the mad, drunken monk at the ball could help anyone.
But Rasputin was dead now, poisoned and shot by his enemies, and then dumped in the Neva River.
Sorg watched Nicholas tenderly stroke his son’s hair. The man seemed such a contradiction. Sorg could never forget the newspaper photographs his father showed him of Jewish children, infants among them, butchered during the tsars’ pogroms. Sorg’s own relatives were victims. Was it hardly surprising that the revolution was led mostly by Jews, Lenin included?
Sorg shifted his focus back to Anastasia. She and her sisters playfully cavorted in the snow. It’s so absurd , Sorg reminded himself. He was a grown man of twenty-six, a cynical Brooklyn Jew who scoffed at love. Anastasia Romanov was sixteen, a deposed Romanov princess. Was it wrong for him—a grown man—to care for someone so young? But even if he despised everything her father stood for, this young woman aroused in him the warmest of feelings.
As he watched her, he thought: I didn’t foresee
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