“That’s the best of all,” Varvara said, perching on the arm of my chair. She smelled sharp and stale—how long had it been since she’d bathed? “Evidently some of the tsar’s advisers think a slaughter would look bad to the Allies. The troops have been told not to come into Petrograd. They’re sitting at Dno, waiting for orders—which aren’t going to come.” The crooked grin widened. She looked like a child at Christmas who actually received the pony he asked for. “Check and mate.”

And it occurred to me then that my friend had been born at just the right time. More than any of us, me or Mina or even Father, she was in exact alignment with the times. Its dangers weren’t dangers to her; its violence matched her own.

Mina’s mother paced, her hand to her mouth, trying to understand what it would all mean for her family. She and Aunt Fanya began to talk, and Mina joined them.

“You stink,” I said to Varvara. “Where did you sleep last night, a kennel?”

“At your house, actually,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.” Was she joking? “Basya let me in.”

Though Varvara was my friend, I was absurdly irritated with our maid. It wasn’t very loyal of her. But Basya was a sly character, always looking for some gossip, some trouble to stir up. She probably just liked putting one over on the baryn.

My dismay must have been obvious, because she added, “Are you upset? Where else was I supposed to go?”

“You could have stayed here,” I said.

“Too far.” She added in my ear, “And I don’t think Mama Katzev likes me very much. Look at her.”

Mina’s mother stood with her arms crossed, exactly like Mina, anxious-eyed, as if Varvara had swept in a bit of gunpowder on her skirts. “She’s okay,” I said. “But I wish you wouldn’t use my place. Father’ll go crazy if he finds you there.”

“He sleeps late. We’re out by six, me and the comrades.”

I turned so that Sofia Yakovlevna couldn’t see my face. “What?”

Varvara laughed. “You have something against the comrades? The Ericssons? The women from Belhausen? You might have to wash your hairbrush, but—”

“Tell me you’re joking.” Would she really do that, bring the devil knew who into my parents’ flat? Into my bed? “Varvara, you didn’t.”

“Come on. Be a sport. You want me to sleep in a doorway?”

I wanted to strangle her. “Listen, you can stay, but don’t bring anyone else. Promise me.” She was laughing. “Varvara! It’s not funny!”

But she clearly thought it was. “What’s the matter? You marched with them, you braved arrest. We’re talking about a bed you’re not even using.”

Was I being hypocritical? I would march with strikers but not allow one to sleep in my bed? Then I thought of the soldiers, the screams of the man on the roof. And frankly, just the thought of unwashed strangers…

“Just promise. I’m serious.” I pulled a lock of her hair, twisted it around my finger. “Or our friendship is done.”

Her eyes grew glossy with unexpected hurt. Her mouth worked, pressing back a tremble. And I realized with a shock that I was all she had. She had no family, no close friends… if she lost my confidence, she would have no one at all. I let her go.

She gave one shuddering sigh and embraced me. Kissed me as though she was going away, searched my eyes. “You know you’re being completely selfish and ridiculous—but I promise. I was just kidding, anyway. But don’t say things like that.” She took my hands. “Still love me?”

“Of course,” I said. “You might have a wash, though.”

“Burzhui. Look, I have to get back to the Soviet—I just wanted to tell you about the railway. I miss you. You should come with me.”

But I would not.

When she turned back to the others, she put her swagger back on, like a favorite coat, hitched up her skirt revealing the gun in the waistband. “In five years we’ll all look back, and today will seem like another century.”


On March 2, our fourth day at the Katzevs’, Father came to fetch us. It was just after breakfast, and I’d made the kasha myself. He wore a fresh shirt and smiled like a man who, having walked through a storm, feels the sun drying the clothes on his back. He followed Uncle Aaron to the table, the old man still in his robe and slippers. In his arms, Father held a sack the size of a young sheep. He wouldn’t sit down. His brown eyes glittered, laughter in them, and amazement.

“What do you hear in the Duma, Dmitry Ivanovich?” Sofia Yakovlevna asked. “Is this going to end?”

“He’s abdicated,” Father said. “He’s signing today.”

Abdication. The tsar was removing his crown, setting it down on the grass, and walking away.

Abdication, a great brass bell, solemn, resonant, deafening.

Abdication, the word that had sounded so treasonous that day at the Hotel Europa. So radical when the strikers had called for it that day in Znamenskaya Square.

We gazed at each other like simpletons, and every face bore the same expression as our sluggish minds struggled to absorb the sound, the sense, the moment we learned we were free.

A Russia without a tsar. I sat very still, questioning my arms, my legs, my feet resting on the soil of a land that no longer had a ruler. The light filled the windows as it had the morning before, one still broken—the same light, but without a tsar.

“What about the tsarevich?” Uncle Aaron asked.

Father shook his head. “He abdicates in favor of the Grand Duke Michael, but Michael won’t take the crown without assurances, and he’s not going to get them.”

The crown of Russia had gone from most precious object to poisoned apple, a rotten, stinking potato nobody wanted.

Again, that grave smile. “The Duma Committee’s forming a Provisional Government,” Father said. “Prince Lvov, Miliukov… Kerensky, of course. I don’t know by whose authority, but what else is there? The reins are dragging on the ground.”

Sofia Yakovlevna closed her eyes and inhaled as if a fresh fragrance had entered the room. “Did you think you’d live to see it, Dmitry Ivanovich?”

“Something in me always believed,” he replied. “Though I never imagined it would come in this way.”

Shusha twisted and squirmed in curiosity. “What’s in the bag?”

“Go ahead, open it,” Father said. “From Vera Borisovna and me, a small token to thank you for your kindness, keeping the children so long.”

Shusha began removing packages from the sack, Mina and Dunya carefully peeling their wrappings away. “Oh my God, it’s butter!” Mina exclaimed. A pound of butter wrapped in cheesecloth. A small sack—sugar! Dunya licked her finger and stuck it in the bag, then it went right into her mouth. Her eyes closed. They’d been using saccharine for two years. “Oh, it’s too much, Dmitry Ivanovich,” their mother said, eyeing the whole chicken he’d included. Marmalade. A dozen eggs, individually wrapped in gauze. Aunt Fanya held up a bottle of cognac. “Santé, Dmitry Ivanovich!”

“I think we’ve taken up enough of these good people’s time, Marina. Get your brother.”

I hesitated, looked over at Sofia Yakovlevna. I didn’t want to be the one to tell Father that his son had found another father who understood and appreciated him, that he’d defied orders to follow him into the dangerous city.

“He went out with Solomon Moiseivich,” Sofia Yakovlevna said simply. “He’s helping with the camera.”

My father nodded, as if my brother’s absence were the most natural thing in the world. Now I saw how stunned he was, how truly off his normal balance. The workers, the soldiers, the Russian people he’d fought for but never trusted had just handed him his dearest wish. He’d been surprised into power.

16 Resurrection

VOSKRESENYE, WE SAY. RESURRECTION. We awoke to discover that what we had thought to be eternal, the absolute dictatorship of the Romanovs, had turned to sand. Snow fell that following morning, but by afternoon, a brilliant sun came out, dazzling us. I walked through the neighborhood just to see what the world looked like without a tsar. The air tasted sweeter. The stately houses on Furshtatskaya Street seemed newly washed. A religious feeling welled up in me, that life had been transformed, not just politically but spiritually. It felt like Easter, and I wasn’t the only one who sensed it. People smiled and greeted one another: “Good day to you!” “Good day to you, too!” “Do you believe it?” “Could you ever guess?” On a whim, I bought a huge bouquet from a shop on Liteiny exactly where I’d seen barricades just a few days earlier, and walked around handing out flowers—spicy red carnations and little chrysanthemums. People tucked them into their buttonholes and hats. They seemed euphoric but dazed, as if they were walking in a dream or had been deafened by a blast. I saw that miracles were shocking, as overwhelming as disasters.

On street after street, people broke the Romanov double-headed eagles from fences and buildings. They wrapped them in ropes and pulled, and if they didn’t come loose, they’d smash the stone with crowbars and hammers. “Do it!” the crowds cheered. “Heave-ho!” Pulling off those eagles, with their savage beaks and claws, was like pulling the nails from our own hands. We climbed down from our cross. We were risen.


The new Provisional Government took its first steps away from the rule of autocracy. Under the august leadership of Prince Lvov, a dedicated liberal and the central figure of Father’s Kadet party, eight basic resolutions became the law. I was amazed how far these liberal gentlemen were willing to go. The document granted freedom of speech and assembly, the right to strike, a constituent assembly elected by universal and secret ballot, men and women alike. It provided for the dissolution of the police “and all its organs” in favor of a militia whose officers were elected and controlled by the city. It declared amnesty for political prisoners and authorized protection for the soldiers who had mutinied, giving them the same rights as civilians when off-duty. It abolished rights based on religion, nationality, and social origin. A daring piece of work.

Kadet Paul Miliukov, the new foreign minister, asked Father to join the foreign office. “You know, I’d rather help draft the constitution,” Father had said that evening, though I could tell he was thrilled at the posting. “But I’ll go where they need me.” They knew he had foreign contacts, and doubtless saw that as more valuable than his legal skills. I thought of Great-Aunt Mariya Grigorievna. Dmitry Ivanovich won’t be satisfied until the Union Jack flies over the Winter Palace. But we were ahead of the English now. Unlike them, we had no king.

But there was another government in Russia as well. The Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, elected by the factory committees and the army units, met in the opposite wing from the Duma in the Tauride Palace. Which was the real government? Each body thought it was in charge. The Provisional Government behaved more like a ruling body, with its statesmen and sense of decorum. It continued the war and made policy. But without the support of the workers and the soldiers, its power was only hypothetical. How galling Father found the situation—the Soviet calling the shots, when he himself wasn’t sure the Provisional Government even had the right to govern.

Instead of police, now armed militias called Red Guards patrolled the streets. Neighborhood committees sprang up that were responsible for everything from food distribution to house maintenance. Without police, Avdokia darkly predicted mass drunkenness and looting, but instead—for the most part—you saw a determination to prove that we didn’t need an emperor to govern ourselves as modern, civilized people.

Everyone was part of the revolution now, from bankers to textile workers, even our schoolmistresses—all moving forward together on the same great ship, which had finally left port. It reminded me of the legend of Kitezh, the holy city that sank beneath Lake Svetloyar to keep it out of the reach of Tatar invaders. Legend had it that one day the spell would break, and the city would rise again. That’s how we felt—the three-hundred-year Romanov siege had been broken and the city was rising from under the waters.

The Soviet’s first act in power was a call for elections in the army. From now on, soldier committees would run their units, not officers. Father was apoplectic. “Command isn’t a popularity contest,” he fumed. “We’re still running a war out there!”