The Kitchen Boy Read Online Free PDF

nothing.
    “Here, Papa,” said Olga, the eldest daughter, unable to hide a smile.
    But that’s the way it always was. We were always a spoon, two forks, or a few knives short, because in addition to banishing silver and linen from the table as too decadent, the
komendant
had purposely ordered a deficit of cutlery.
    “Thank you, my dear,” said the Tsar to his daughter.
    I thought the shortage of utensils very mean, very humiliating, but Nikolai and Aleksandra dealt with such rudeness without complaint, they did. Nikolai simply accepted it as his fate, for his saint’s day was the day of Job, the long suffering, while Aleksandra found it her duty to follow her husband’s example. And those five royal children likewise complied, never once complaining.
    After the Tsar stirred his tea, we all began. That morning we were minus not only one spoon, but one knife as well, and soon the cutlery and the bread and the bowl of jam were going this way and that among us.
    “Tatyana,” commanded the royal mother, “make sure that Leonka gets some of the jam as well.”
    “Yes, Mama.”
    It was only for us children, that sweet heavenly mixture of fruit, and I was not to be excluded, nor was I ever, even though I was born of such lower state. They treated me with fairness and kindness at every turn that morning and every other.
    Hardly a word was spoken during breakfast, and after we finished and were excused, I as usual assisted in the cleaning up. I was just wiping the crumbs from the table when Dr. Botkin appeared on the edge of the dining room.
    “Leonka,” he said, beckoning me with a slight tilt of his head.
    Once I was sure no guards were watching, I headed after the doctor, and was led into the drawing room, a long spacious room with heavy furniture. The Emperor and Empress were seated by the two windows, and as soon as I approached they turned their attention upon me. The Empress even stood, rising from her chair.
    By then Nikolai’s beard was speckled with gray, and yet there was still a hint of blond or red around his mustache. He had recently turned fifty, and he was unusually fit, a firm believer in exercise, which I hasten to add had been curtailed. I mean, their walks and wood sawing and such. And while he had terrible teeth, all crooked and tobacco-stained, it was the eyes that I remember the most. The Emperor had the most amazing bluish eyes, and when he held you in his gaze he gave you the feeling that there was nothing more important than his conversation with you. And at that moment, right then and there, I suppose nothing was.
    “
Izvolite-li vyui
,
molodoi chelovek
, Would you be so kind, young man,” said the Tsar, his voice hushed, “as to tell me the entire story of how you came upon this note? Only keep your voice low so as not to be overheard. Agreed?”
    “Absolutely, Nikolai Aleksandrovich,” I replied, my voice faint and trembling.
    Nikolai was very good at that, at making his subjects feel comfortable and not the least bit threatened. So I told them how Sister Antonina and the Novice Marina had come and had brought the milk and things.
    As soon as I finished my story, the Emperor asked, “And do you know, Leonka, what it says, this note?”
    “Nyet-s.”
So that he wouldn’t think me ignorant, I quickly added, “I can read, Nikolai Aleksandrovich, but that is a foreigner’s language.”
    “Exactly.”
    Aleksandra, her hands grasped nervously together, stepped closer, and eagerly, rather desperately, said, “Nicky, it’s from her, it has to be.”
    Of course Aleksandra was supposing that the letters were the doings of Rasputin’s daughter, the one who eventually left Siberia and became a lion tamer in California, the very one who lived out her final years in a little house beneath the Hollywood Freeway. And it was under this belief – that the daughter of their sacred monk was organizing a group of soldiers to rescue them – that the Empress grew so excited, so hopeful.
    “We must