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before that. We passed some silent guards in magnificent uniforms, moved through a double door, and went down the long center corridor with its magnificent roll of carpet from the Caucasus. The Tsaritsa’s private chambers were here, in the rooms on the left, and the stories to be told about tonight, I was sure, would place Rasputin there, probably in Aleksandra Fyodorovna’s favorite room, her mauve boudoir. Adding to the tales of Rasputin was a national obsession; I’d just heard of a fashionable hostess who’d tacked up a sign in her salon that read NO TALK OF RASPUTIN. Mention of my father in the press was strictly forbidden, so “supposed” eyewitnesses were always cropping up, conveying “supposed” information about Papa in the time-honored Russian mode: gossip. In this way, endless nasty stories were spread, both at court and at the market and as far away as the front. Not long ago I had heard Dunya ranting in the kitchen, complaining that the stories had traveled as far as Berlin, where the Kaiser’s propagandists not only expounded on them but made sure their spies returned and planted them again in Petrograd, creating yet more uproar.
    “Mark my word, there are German spies doing their dirty work everywhere,” Dunya had said, furiously stirring a pot. “Gossip heard once is titillating, heard twice and it’s interesting, but when it’s heard three times people take it as fact. And the Germans are cleverer than we are. They know the best way to topple the Tsar is to attack his consort, who of course is one of them, a German princess by birth.”
    When I saw no trace of stockings beneath Madame Vyrubova’s thick sable coat, I could only imagine what would be going around tomorrow. Someone would claim, no doubt, that she had been waiting for Rasputin naked beneath her resplendent fur.
    I heard a door open at the far end of the long corridor, and a tall elegant woman stepped through. It was the Empress Aleksandra Fyodorovna herself, one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, tall and thin, her face finely carved, her hair thick and long, though tonight, much to my surprise, it was let down as if for bed. Along with her ever-present strands of freshwater pearls hanging from her alabaster neck, she wore a long white silk robe, nothing more. Her eyes, usually clear blue, were swollen and red.
    Upon seeing me, the Empress couldn’t hide her surprise and froze, shaking her head ever so slightly. Madame Vyrubova, who maintained her coveted spot by her keen ability to read her mistress’s wants, immediately stopped and caught me by the arm. Papa, however, continued on, marching right up to Her Imperial Highness. And, no, he did not fall to his knees before her, nor did he bow and seek the bizmyen-the opportunity to kiss his sovereign’s hand. Rather, he strode up to the Empress as if he were her equal, even her superior, and kissed her Siberian style, three times on the cheek. Then, much to even my surprise, the Empress muttered something ever so quietly and swooned like a lost lover into Papa’s arms.
    “Come, my child,” said Madame Vyrubova, spinning me around lest I see more. “The driver will take you home.”
    “Please may I visit Maria Nikolaevna?” I begged, referring to the Tsar’s number three daughter, with whom I had become quite friendly.
    “All good children are asleep at this hour, as well you should be. I don’t know what I was doing, I should never have let you in. And I wouldn’t have if it weren’t so cold.”
    “But-”
    With her hand firmly planted in the small of my back, Madame Vyrubova steered me quickly down the hall, through the double doors, and to the reception hall, where several guards snapped to attention.
    “See that she is returned at once to the city,” Anna Aleksandrovna commanded imperiously. “Make sure the driver escorts her not just to her building but right up to her apartment.”
    “What about-,” I started to say.
    But there was nothing I could