The Witches of St. Petersburg

³¹ 10 February 1911, Peterhof

And so it was that he came careering through the woods, barefoot and breathless, throwing himself at her mercy, begging her to let him in.

Quite who’d tipped him off that there were guards waiting to arrest him and serve him with his city-wide ban and arrest warrant he would not say, but he was incandescent with rage and fury that they would be after him. Him! Of all people! But he had just enough time to throw himself out of the train and run through the snow. He’d managed to commandeer a car at some point that took him to the forest outside Peterhof where he’d leapt out and gone straight to Znamenka. He was like a lost dog who’d managed to run all the way home only to arrive panting, starving and shivering with the authorities not far behind.

It was Stana’s idea to harvest his toenails, much like they’d harvested the Grand Duchess Vladimir’s dead baby all those years ago. They needed something, anything, to work with. Rasputin’s power was strong and his influence was all-encompassing, seeming to grow by the day. The more the newspapers wrote about how appalling he was, the more determined his followers became and the more the Tsarina cleaved to him. ‘People believe what they want to believe,’ Stana used to say. But Alix was more than a believer. It was almost as if he was her own spoilt child and she was the only one who could control him. It was, of course, like so many things with Grisha, entirely the other way around, for it was he who controlled her. Not that the Tsarina noticed. By this stage she rarely left the palace and never sought counsel of anyone outside her trusted circle – Anna, Rasputin, Nicky and the children. Very occasionally the tutor, Mr Charles Gibbes, an Englishman, was allowed to have an opinion or an idea but mostly everyone’s job in the circle of trust was to agree with Alix.

And no one agreed more vociferously than Anna. Anna, who recovered rather too quickly, agreed with anything Alix said. She lived on her doorstep, loved the Tsarina with all her naïve heart and became Rasputin’s most ardent supporter.

Stana and Militza had often idly wondered quite how ardent a supporter she was. Was she being ‘healed’ or was her pink, plump flesh not to the Siberian’s taste? They knew they themselves were not to her taste; Anna’s feelings for the sisters were abundantly clear. Over a relatively short period and in mirrored sympathy with the Tsarina, she had managed to become the daily advocator of Rasputin and the daily detractor of Militza and Stana. She refused ever to refer to them by name and insisted on calling them either the ‘Black Women’ or ‘The Crows’. Within a matter of weeks, it was as if a war, a war of rumours and of gossip, had broken out between the two palaces.

So when Rasputin chose to knock on Militza’s door in the middle of the night and ask for sanctuary, not only was Militza shocked, she was also most accommodating. She could have thrown him to the lions, which was what she wanted to do. Stolypin had done exactly what she’d suggsted. But yet… If she could lure Rasputin back into her thrall, then perhaps he might open the doors to the palace for her once more. After that night at the ballet, the invitations had most certainly dried up and what little love there was left between the Tsarina and Militza and Stana, the bustling, busy Anna was doing her best to destroy.

Yes, he was worth more to her alive. If not, at the very least she could harvest him and get her beloved icon back.

As he snored on the divan with the soldiers circling the palace like a pack of wolves, Militza went through his leather bag. Even for a strannik he travelled light. Inside was the hand-embroidered shirt the Tsarina had given him along with a few other items of fetid clothing, a well-worn leather Bible with the pages beginning to fall out and a collection of letters, all of which were addressed to ‘Sir’. They were sealed and written in Rasputin’s scrawling uncontrolled hand. Sitting back on her haunches, Militza examined one. She’d heard that, for a small fortune, Rasputin would and could recommend you or someone you nominated for a job or a helping hand. Apparently, he carried the letters around with him, which he’d sell. This one read:

This, so they said, was how business was being done in the city now. She’d always presumed it was a rumour, put about by his increasing number of enemies, but the large bundle of cash at the bottom of the bag seemed to confirm the stories. But Militza had enough money, what she wanted was her icon.

‘Whoever owns this, no harm can befall them,’ Philippe had told her as he’d given it to her.

But then the monster had stolen it from her. Her monster. The one she’d fashioned in wax and baptised with the soul of an unborn child. And he didn’t deserve protection.

Her hands were shaking as she riffled through his bag. His large belly was rising and falling as he snored like a drunk in the snow but his breathing was irregular and every time he stopped, snorted or coughed, she held her breath. Finally, at the bottom of the bag, she saw it, but as she pulled it out she lost her grip and it clattered across the floor.

Rasputin woke with a start. He leapt off the divan, his eyes wide open as if he had never been asleep. ‘What are you doing?’ he barked. ‘Why is my bag undone? What’s the noise!’

‘Grisha! Grisha!’ she whispered in a loud panic. ‘You must go!’ She glanced across at the icon that lay glittering half under the divan. She moved a little closer, hoping to cover it with the skirts of her long velvet robe.

‘Go?’ He looked confused.

‘The soldiers, they are banging at the door!’

‘But I hear nothing.’

‘They have just smashed some windows; my doormen are holding them but they won’t be able to contain them for long. Please! While you can, Grisha, my love.’ She smiled and ran her hand over his lumpy forehead. ‘Go!’ She gathered up his bag and pulled on the leather strings to tighten it before handing it to him. ‘Go!’ she urged. ‘Hurry! Before it’s too late!’

She hustled him down the back stairs and watched the footman help him with a pair of boots.

‘Where shall you go to?’ she asked.

‘Far,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Far from the city, back to the steppes and the land I know. Goodbye,’ he said, kissing her briefly.

He must be afraid, thought Militza, as she felt the touch of his wet lips clip the corners of her mouth; he would normally have slipped his tongue into her mouth or rubbed his rough hand up her skirt and between her legs, not always for the pleasure of the experience, but mainly because he could. Tonight he didn’t.

‘I will look after the police,’ she said.

‘I am in your debt,’ he said, as he flung open the back door. A blast of icy wind whistled in straight off the Gulf of Finland. ‘Thank you!’ he said, throwing the small leather satchel over his shoulder and was gone in flurry of frost and snow.

Militza was as good as her word and entertained the police who remained camped outside the palace watching everyone’s movements for the next three weeks. Their vigil was brought to an end by a telegram received from the governor of Tobolsk region, announcing Rasputin’s safe arrival at his house in Pokrovskoye. Apparently, the feather-moustached young officer in charge had been so incensed by Militza’s apparent sorcery and Rasputin’s miraculous escape that he’d knocked on the office of Stolypin himself and begged to be allowed to travel to Siberia personally to serve Rasputin with the papers that banned him from the city. But Stolypin simply batted the man away. He was tired of the fight and anyway, now the Tsarina knew exactly what the Prime Minister thought of her sage and guru, he knew his days were numbered.

Although quite how short in number was a shock to all but Rasputin.

The initial snub was obvious. Stolypin did not receive an invitation to ride on the imperial train from St Petersburg to Kiev; instead, he had to make the three-day journey on his own. When he arrived he was not included in the imperial entourage, having to make his own way through the crowds for the inauguration of the local government in south-west Russia in a small carriage, all alone. In fact, his treatment by the imperial family was so cold it was enough to make the man ill, so much so that Rasputin, who had naturally been invited, remarked as he saw Stolypin waving at the crowd, ‘Death is stalking him. It rides behind him.’

Death was indeed close. Very close. Stolypin was shot that night, 14 September, at the opera, while attending Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tale of the Tsar Saltan. Fortunately, Militza recalled, the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana had gone to find some tea in the foyer when the gunman struck, shooting Stolypin square in the chest, his own bodyguard having conveniently disappeared off for a cigarette. And as the orchestra struck up ‘God Save the Tsar’, the imperial family left the box while Stolypin staggered out of the theatre to a waiting stretcher. It took the man four days to die. The Tsar visited twice and was eventually banned from the bedside by Stolypin’s grief-stricken wife. Alix, however, never called to pay her respects at all.

‘Do you know what she said?’ asked Stana, taking a sip of wine as the sisters and their husbands sat on the terrace, admiring the sunset over the Black Sea.

‘What?’ asked Militza.

‘“Those who have offended Our Friend can no longer count on divine protection.”’ Stana nodded.

‘So she believes Stolypin’s assassination was divine retribution?’ asked Peter, a curl of cigarette smoke leaving his lips.

Stana nodded. ‘For banning Rasputin from the capital.’

‘A ban that was never even enforced,’ added Nikolasha. ‘That creature left for Siberia and came right back again, in a bloody heartbeat. He spent the summer with acolytes in the country only to turn up again in Kiev. All that happened was that poor Stolypin was left with a black mark by his name, while Rasputin continues to roam free.’ He sighed. ‘That woman is losing her mind.’

‘I am not sure she ever had one,’ said Peter.

‘Do you know what I heard the other day?’ continued Nikolasha. ‘And I am not one to gossip…’

‘But?’ smiled Stana.

‘Apparently when Alix has a headache—’

‘Which is often,’ chipped in Peter.

‘That’s true,’ agreed Nikolasha. ‘In order to cure the pain, she writes down Grisha’s little sayings to help clear her head.’

‘She does that every time he leaves the city,’ said Militza.

‘What sayings?’ asked Stana.

‘Banalities,’ said Nikolasha. He cleared his throat theatrically ‘For example on marriage… He says: “A good graft revives an old tree.”’

Peter laughed. ‘I bet he did.’

‘On making a journey… “Before crossing the river, see that the ferry is in its place.”’

‘Very profound,’ said Peter.

‘And apparently he said to Prince Yusupov, “You could feed five villages with what’s hanging on your walls.”’

‘Well, at least the last one is true,’ said Peter, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘Although five seems rather a small number.’

‘What was he doing talking to Yusupov?’ asked Militza. ‘I thought the family disliked Grisha?’

‘They do,’ replied Nikolasha. ‘But you know Felix, he’ll do anything to annoy his father!’

When Grisha returned to the city in the autumn of 1912, his salon of Rasputinki was so popular that even the corridor outside his first-floor apartment was full of followers, all bearing tributes and requests for his help and assistance. Such was his fame and notoriety there was not one person from St Petersburg to Sakhalin who did not know who he was. His name was on everyone’s lips and stories of his powers and reputation were traded over glasses of watered-down beer in every traktir across eleven time zones. Not least since the supposed ‘Miracle at Spala’, where Alexei had been taken so ill that his imminent death had been announced in the newspapers, only for him to be saved by a telegram sent by Rasputin from his ever-more luxurious house in Siberia.

‘God has seen Your tears,’ he’d told the Tsarina, ‘and heard Your prayers. Don’t be sad. The little boy will not die. Do not let the doctors torment him too much.’

As the winter set in, the queues of those desperate to meet the holiest man in all of Russia were so immense that many would sleep outside on the freezing street, waiting for him to return from any one of his plentiful nights out.

If her father had not demanded she help him, Militza would never have gone anywhere near Rasputin’s apartment. He’d obviously realized by now that he’d lost the Icon of St John the Baptist but still she did not want to answer any of his questions. However, there was conflict in the air. The Balkans were in crisis and her father had declared war on the Ottoman Empire and needed Russia’s help. It was her duty to use her connections and all the influence she had to get Nicky to agree to send his troops south. So, with Stana at her side, they set off in the car in the hope of persuading Grisha to help them.

‘Whatever we do, we don’t talk about the icon, or even mention the icon,’ said Militza. ‘And if he asks, we deny all knowledge.’

‘Surely he’ll think he lost it in the woods while he was running from Stolypin’s wolves.’

‘I’m sure. And perhaps he feels a little foolish for losing it.’

‘Absolutely,’ Stana sighed.

They sat in silence as they drove through the city.

‘Nothing infuriates me more than having to go on bended knee to him,’ said Militza suddenly, as she stared out the window.

‘It is Father’s will,’ replied Stana. ‘And we all know about Father’s will,’ she laughed wryly. ‘What he asks, we do.’

‘What he demands.’

‘Yes, what he demands, no matter how badly it turns out for us.’

‘I have no idea why he decided to declare war on the Ottoman Empire in the first place,’ said Militza. ‘It’s foolish to enter into a war you aren’t sure you can win.’

It was a cold, blustery afternoon and the grey St Petersburg streets were full of crepuscular characters bent against the vile wind as they walked and the normally calm waters of the Fontanka were being whipped into wild white horses as they crossed over the bridge. There was a storm on its way. A brigade of soldiers were marching along the centre of the road, past a meeting of factory workers on one corner, where a young man was standing on a box, his arms gesticulating as he shouted slogans at the receptive crowd.

‘What are they talking about?’ mused Stana, as they drove past.

‘Defending our Slavic brethren over the Ottoman infidels?’ suggested Militza.

‘Or the cost of bread?’ Stana turned to her sister. ‘Nikolasha says it is quite bad out there in the countryside.’

‘It is always bad in the countryside,’ replied Militza. ‘That’s why the towns are so full.’

As they drew up outside Rasputin’s apartment, the true extent of his popularity became clear. There were at least 200 people waiting patiently in an orderly line on the pavement; meanwhile there was another group of men standing across the road. They were dressed in thick coats and warm fur hats, their hands firmly in their pockets as they walked around, scuffing their shoes in the mud, with apparently little else to do.

‘Is that…?’ Stana peered through the window.

‘The Okhrana.’

‘They don’t look terribly secret for secret police.’

‘They monitor his every move.’

‘Why?’

‘Everyone wants to know everything, I suppose.’

‘Look at the queue,’ sighed Stana. ‘Does he know we are coming?’

‘I’m told so,’ said Militza. ‘I am glad you are with me – I am not sure I could face this on my own.’

The sisters made their way up the back stairs, as instructed, bypassing the slumbering queue of women who squatted on the main steps. The back stairs were reserved for Rasputin’s private visitors: aristocrats or certain ladies who’d taken his fancy the night before. They were steep and narrow and smelt strongly of spilt vodka and stray cats. It was not the sort of place anyone would want to spend any time in and yet, as the sisters came to the top of the stairs and the door into his apartment, there were three women waiting on the small landing.

‘Excuse me,’ announced Militza, holding her skirts up with both hands for fear of them dragging along the filthy floor.

‘Ssshhhh,’ replied one of the women. ‘He’s praying.’

They all stood, ears cocked against the closed door, listening intently to the noises emanating from the other side. First, there was the scraping sound of furniture being moved around and then a woman shrieked, only once, before she laughed and there was silence. And then after a minute there came the rhythmical shunting, grunting sound of sex. It started slowly, like a train leaving the station, then gathered pace as it rattled along the track. It went quicker and quicker and was accompanied by the sound of a hand slapping against the wall. Finally there was a loud groan – from her or him, it was impossible to say. And then it stopped as suddenly as it had started.

‘He is finished,’ nodded the woman, her tone and expression entirely matter of fact. ‘You may enter.’

Walking into his apartment, Militza was immediately struck by how little it had changed since she’d last been there. The corridor with the coat pegs and the sitting room with the round table were just as they’d been. What was surprising, though, given the sounds they had just heard from the back room, was that the seats around the table were full of women, waiting, about fifteen in total. Some were drinking tea, others were knitting, or sewing, or reading religious texts or sitting on their hands, their backs straight, their eyes focussed on the closed door.

‘Militza and Anastasia Nikolaeyvichi?’

The sisters looked around the room. There in one corner, eating boiled eggs dipped in salt, was Anna Vyrubova – and sitting next to her was another of the Tsarina’s closet confidantes, Lily Dehn. Lily Dehn was new to the Rasputinki but she was one of his more fervent supporters. She had recently very publicly taken against the governess to the imperial Family, who’d also, very publicly, complained about Grisha’s unsupervised, late night visits to the Grand Duchesses in their rooms. And while most of Moscow and St Petersburg was up in arms at such a transgression of protocol, Lily let it be known that the governess was simply mad with jealousy and was constantly throwing herself like some lovelorn schoolgirl at Grisha herself. The poor governess was relieved of her post, while Lily Dehn continued to destroy her reputation.

‘Have you come to join our little club?’ she asked, eyeing the sisters up and down with deep suspicion. What on earth did the ‘Montenegrin Sibyls’ want with their man?

‘Your club?’ questioned Stana, looking around the room at the eclectic collection of women. Granted, some were young; and some were young and beautiful, while some were clearly with their mothers, but the majority were middle-aged and matronly, or, like Anna, neither blessed with looks, charm or any figure to speak of.

‘Yes,’ said a large woman who had a thicker moustache than the young officer who’d hammered at Militza’s door in the dead of night all those months ago. ‘We’re the ten o’clock club. We meet here every morning at ten and wait for a meeting with Our Father.’

‘Your father?’ Militza frowned.

‘Our Father Grisha. We wait to speak to him, hear his words, be blessed by him. Sometimes he is pleased with us and sometimes he is not.’

‘And what happens when he is not pleased with you?’ asked Stana.

‘Grisha strikes whoever doesn’t please him,’ she replied.

‘And the harder he strikes, the closer we become to God,’ added another.

‘For it is only through punishment that you can reach salvation,’ said a third.

Stana looked across at her sister.

‘Sometimes we come and ask to be beaten,’ said the large woman, smiling. ‘Our Father always says, “If you mean to do wrong, first come and tell me.” And if he can, he will beat the wrong out of you.’ She nodded and picked up an egg, dipping it into the small saucer of salt in front of her before popping it into her mouth.

‘Shall I tell him you are here?’ suggested Anna, her round eyes constantly moving between the two sisters. ‘I am normally the person who does the introductions. I supervise who goes in and out…’

‘Mamma!’ declared Rasputin, as he strode out of the back room, his shirt hanging loose over his trousers. He held his left hand placed across his stomach, his right hand aloft as if blessing the sisters. ‘I heard you were here!’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘Bless you, for coming! Tea? Or wine?’

His arrival sent a current of electricity through the group. The women sat up, tweaked their white shirts, adjusted their plumed hats, straightened their silk skirts – and they all smiled. It was as if they were debutantes at a ball, all trying to catch a suitor’s eye. His warm embrace of the two sisters sent a frisson of jealousy around the room.

‘Come,’ he said, ignoring the expectant, up-turned faces. ‘Come through here so we can talk.’

‘Shall I come and help?’ asked Anna, getting authoritatively out of her chair.

‘No,’ replied Rasputin, waving his hand, without a backward glance.

Militza and Stana followed him through to the back room, which even in the dying light of the day, appeared to be in terrible disarray. The sheets on the divan were crumpled, there were half-drunk glasses of wine and Madeira on the table and the stuffy air reeked of sweat and sex. Militza glanced at the divan, expecting to see some exhausted well-ridden woman gathering up her skirts, but the room was empty. The healed acolyte must have fled down the back stairs.

‘Now,’ he said, patting the still-warm patch on the divan. ‘Sit and tell me why it has taken you both so long to come and see me?’

His question surprised them. There was no mention of the icon, no mention of the last time Militza had seen him, when he’d begged for her help. They came out with their excuses, pretended that they tried many times to see him; many times they’d drawn up their cars or their carriages but there had simply been so many people, or they had not wanted to disturb him. They’d glanced at him at court but he was always so occupied.

‘Everyone wants me,’ he confirmed, nodding magnanimously. ‘And I just can’t help them all.’

He poured himself a large glass of Madeira. Militza leant forward, her father’s request on the tip of her tongue. Rasputin raised his hand and immediately began to recount his visits to the palace, his close and intimate conversations with the Tsar and Tsarina, as well as the numerous times he’d been called up to help The Little One. On and on he went, describing each crisis, each episode and how terribly grateful the weeping Tsarina always was, how much she relied on him. And eventually how only his telegram to Spala had saved the heir to the throne and indeed Russia and the empire itself.

‘Extraordinary,’ agreed Stana.

‘I wonder…’ began Militza. ‘I have a note here from my father.’ Up went the hand again. ‘I’ll leave it here.’ She pushed the envelope, with its thick red royal wax seal, across the table towards him.

He glanced down at it briefly before he continued on. The more he drank, the more his chest expanded and the more pompous his attitude became. It became increasingly obvious that he was no longer talking to them, but was recounting some well-rehearsed stories and anecdotes that he told to everyone, anyone. The two sisters had ceased to exist; they were simply his audience. And all that was left was Rasputin himself.