I Was Anastasia Read online

  Gleb has taken care of that issue as well, however, assuring her that sex isn’t a necessary part of this bargain. She and Jack will have separate bedrooms. This will be a legal marriage, enough to keep her in the United States once her visa expires in three weeks, but it will be a marriage of convenience only. Gleb swore this, endless times, over their last shared bottle of wine. Jack will not lay a hand on her. Unless she wants him to. Why Gleb added that last part she isn’t sure. He wouldn’t meet her eyes as he said it, and she did not reply. It was a small cruelty. This is how it is with them, apparently. Little wounds. Paper cuts. Just enough to sting but not really harm. Perhaps it’s best that they aren’t marrying each other after all.

  Gleb slips into the antechamber beside the courtroom and surveys her tiny, slender form. “You look nice.”

  He seems weary and pale and infirm. He’s lost weight recently, and his once broad shoulders have narrowed with illness and age. Anna wants to ask Gleb if his heart has gotten worse. But she’s afraid of what his answer might be. So she says, “I look ridiculous.”

  “All brides look ridiculous. That’s why they’re so charming.”

  Anna turns back to the window. It’s late afternoon, getting darker by the moment, and the overhead light bounces off the glass, throwing her reflection back at her. She touches a hand to her cheek. Traces one deep wrinkle after another, each of them telling a story she’s long since decided to forget.

  “I am too old for this,” she says.

  “I know.”

  “You admit it then?” She studies his reflection too, hovering over her shoulder. “But no apology, I see.”

  “It is this or you return to Germany,” he says. “We are out of time.”

  “That always seems to be the case with us, doesn’t it?”

  “Ships in the night,” he whispers and sets a large, warm hand on her shoulder. “Are you ready? Sergeant Pace is waiting. So is Jack.”

  “Sergeant?”

  “Judge Morris called in sick this morning.”

  Anna turns to him and looks, not at his face, but at the knot in his tie. She stares at the red and blue alternating stripes on the fabric, those thin lines circling back on themselves, all twisted and turned around. Anna is knotted up as well, but now, suddenly, it’s with mirth.

  “I am to be married,” she asks, tilting her chin to meet those twinkling green eyes, “not by a priest, or a judge, but by a police officer?”

  “It gives an entirely new meaning to being read your rights, doesn’t it?”

  They laugh, then, long and loud. She turns back to the window and they stand in comfortable silence, watching Charlottesville disappear beneath the snow.

  Finally Anna leans her head back against Gleb’s chest. “How did I get here?” Anna sighs, already knowing the answer. She has gotten here, she has survived, by always doing the thing that needs to be done.

  FOUR MONTHS EARLIER

  Charlottesville, Virginia

  August 20, 1968

  Virginia in August feels very much to Anna as though she has taken up residence directly in the white-hot center of Satan’s armpit. She has never known such heat. Nor has the word humidity meant anything at all prior to her arrival in the United States. And yet here she sits, on Jack Manahan’s front patio drinking tea—with ice, no less—and melting into her rocking chair as they talk about nothing in particular.

  Anna fans her face with an old magazine—something about gardens and guns—wishing the sun would slide down the horizon a little more quickly. “How can you live like this?”

  Jack peers at her over the top of a glass that is beaded with sweat. “Like what?”

  “Like a potato put in the oven to roast. It’s intolerable.”

  “This is August,” he says as though that explains everything. He’s wearing trousers, long sleeves, and a gaudy checkered tie cinched up tight to his Adam’s apple. He doesn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable. “I hardly notice it anymore.”

  It is a distinctly American thing, Anna thinks, to have an entire conversation about the weather. They have been sitting on this patio for the better part of two hours waiting for Gleb. He’s off running some errand in town and has promised to return by dinner. So far they have discussed variations in climate along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, rain patterns in the Midwest, and a damaging drought in California that is threatening almond growers. The man is absurdly pleased by the sound of his own voice, needing very little encouragement from her. A simple hum or murmur is enough to launch him into another monologue. Anna wonders how much more she can tolerate before crawling out of her skin when a long, sleek, black car enters University Circle and approaches the house. It’s the kind of vehicle that smacks of importance and a need to be seen.

  “Who is that?” Jack asks as the car pulls into the driveway and parks behind his station wagon.

  “I’m not sure.” Anna tries not to feel guilty about the lie. She has an unwelcome suspicion about who this visitor might be.

  “They look very determined.” Jack leans forward, taking in the women who spring from the car and march up the sidewalk toward them.

  “Anastasia!” shouts the older of the two as she reaches the bottom of the steps. The look on her face is one of alarming enthusiasm.

  This woman is Russian. This woman is dangerous.

  She mounts the stairs with an energy and aggression that Anna lost years ago. Following two steps behind her and watching cautiously is the woman’s companion. She has coiffed hair, lips painted red, and eyes framed by black designer glasses. In one hand she carries a notepad and in the other a tape recorder. A reporter. Anna stiffens in her seat.

  And then the first woman is in front of Anna chatting and bending at the waist—not quite a bow but an allusion to one. Anna shrinks away as she confirms the familiar face and the deep, throaty voice. The dark hair—dyed now, she thinks; there’s not a strand of gray—and sharp eyes. The angular nose. The sly mouth. The large body shaped like a concrete block. The woman grabs her hand and shakes it with vigor. Anna fears being yanked out of her chair and forced into a hug.

  The thing Anna has always hated most about being a small woman is the disadvantage she has in situations like this. People assume they can touch you, pat you, shake your hand without permission. They assume that if your size is little more than that of a child, you must be one. That you can be talked down to or coerced. It is hard for a small person to be intimidating or to be taken seriously. This lack of stature has forced Anna to develop other skills through the years: to sharpen her wit, to treat her tongue like a blade and her mind like a whetstone.

  “I am not a rag doll. You needn’t shake me like one. Or touch me at all for that matter,” she says

  “I’m sorry,” the other woman says, stepping forward. “We have failed to introduce ourselves. I am Patricia Barham but please, call me Patte—”

  “I have no interest in speaking with reporters today.”

  Patte looks at the objects in her hands and then tucks both behind her back, as though she’d forgotten they were there and is suddenly ashamed of them. “I’m not a reporter, at least not in the traditional sense. I’m a biographer.” She tips her head toward her friend. “And of course you remember Maria Rasputin. As she tells it, the two of you have known each other since childhood.”

  “Rasputin?” The name has Jack’s full attention and he sits ramrod straight in his chair. “As in relation to Grigory? The heretic monk?”

  “Not a monk,” Maria says, “as is evidenced by my existence. The heretic label is, of course, open to interpretation.” She has the pinched look of a woman who is tired of defending the indefensible.

  Anna has yet to rise from her seat or offer one to their uninvited guests. She is wary of Maria Rasputin and for good reason.

  The melodramatic rise and fall of Maria’s voice makes it sound as th
ough she’s in a stage production. Anna doesn’t like the grand, sweeping gestures she makes with her arms or the aggressive way she smiles. Those small white teeth that snap and flash. But it is her eyes that disturb Anna most. They are a bright—almost unnatural—blue. Piercing, but not in a way that compels someone to come closer. Anna finds herself wanting to turn away and hide from that penetrating gaze. She shouldn’t be surprised. Grigory Rasputin was known to have those same terrifying, hypnotic eyes. Like father, like daughter.

  But Maria’s stare is hard to escape, and she moves closer, nearly leaning over Anna’s chair.

  “Yes,” she says, as though finally coming to some long-awaited conclusion. “There’s something about her.” Again, waving that arm in a grandiose manner. “A certain nobility. It’s there in her demeanor. In her voice.” Maria nods sharply. “I believe this to be Anastasia Romanov.”

  “What do you want?” Anna presses her palms against her knees so she won’t strike that self-satisfied grin from Maria’s face.

  “Only to visit with an old friend—”

  “We thought, perhaps, that we could take you to dinner,” Patte interrupts. She has tucked the notepad and recorder into her purse, and her hands now hang free and nonthreatening at her sides.

  Jack perks up at the mention of food. “Dinner with friends could be fun. There’s a wonderful Italian restaurant not too far from here.”

  “You came all the way here—where did you say you came from…?” Anna asks.

  “I didn’t. But New York, since you’re curious.”

  “All the way from New York just to have dinner?”

  “Dinner, yes.” And it’s here that Maria shows her cards because she cannot keep the devilish smile at bay. “But I’ve also got a proposition for you.”

  * * *

  —

  “I am not going to Hollywood.” Anna sets her fork down.

  Jack taped a note to the front door when they left with Maria and Patte Barham, telling Gleb that they’d be at Salvio’s, but he’s yet to join them and Anna looks to the door every few moments. This was a mistake. She and Jack are a captive audience for these women and their ludicrous plan. She regrets consenting to have dinner with them.

  “Don’t be so hasty,” Patte says. “There’s a lot of money to be made.”

  “My story is not for sale.”

  Patte doesn’t say it, but her Cheshire cat smile suggests that she believes everyone’s story is for sale. She shrugs. Spears a piece of mushroom. Swallows it without chewing. “People are curious. They want to know what it was like. They want to know how you survived. There’s nothing wrong with supporting yourself in the process.” She looks at Anna’s simple cotton dress, frayed at the collar, faded by too many turns through the wash, and lets her gaze linger just long enough to declare that she knows Anna needs the money. And then, to drive the point home, she adjusts the chain of an expensive gold necklace draped around her own neck.

  Anna pushes her plate away. “I would like to go home.”

  “And where, exactly, is home?” Maria Rasputin asks.

  “I am staying with Jack.”

  Maria smiles privately and takes a slow, careful bite of her manicotti. The change in tactics comes without warning. “How long did you say you would be in the States?”

  “Six months.”

  “And you’ve been here for, what, two? Three?”

  Anna knows she’s being baited but she can’t see the hook. “Two.”

  “What type of visa did you get?”

  “Tourist.”

  “A pity. International travel is so expensive.”

  Anna does the thing she’s been doing for decades. She tilts her head up and to the side. She gives this woman the ghost of a smile, a condescending smirk that suggests she won’t acknowledge the insinuation or admit that yes, she’s running out of money and has few options left.

  Maria is undaunted. She takes another bite. Dips her bread in the thick, nutty olive oil. Sips her wine. “And what will you do when your visa runs out? Will you go back to Germany? To your friends in Unterlengenhardt? Your pets?”

  And there it is. The barb settles deep. It takes everything in her not to gasp in outrage. Maria clearly knows Anna doesn’t have a home to return to, that nothing remains but a mass grave behind the cottage she once called home. Maria’s involvement in those events hangs unspoken and heavy between them.

  Rasputin’s daughter grins, victorious. “I suppose Prince Frederick would welcome you back. He’s always been so fond of you.” She chews a bite. Swallows. “Such a loyal man.”

  Jack is oblivious, the fool. He ate a bowl of chicken Alfredo as big as his head, along with half a loaf of bread, and now he’s pushed back from the table to listen and pat his belly. To him this is simply a conversation between two women discussing old friends. To her it is blackmail.

  Anna shrugs, noncommittal. “When you’ve lived as long as I have you take each day at a time. I’ve not settled on any firm plan.”

  “Which means you don’t have one, correct?”

  Jack and Patte look at each other, confused.

  “What are they saying?” Jack asks.

  “I don’t know,” Patte says.

  It’s only then that Anna realizes that she and Maria have shifted into German. The transition was so smooth, so subtle that she didn’t even realize it. Had Maria turned the conversation to Russian, Anna would have noticed immediately. She would have refused to participate. Even though Anna speaks fluent English—she has lived in the United States before—German is her preferred language. Her security blanket.

  “I thought as much.” Maria reaches across the table and pats Anna’s hand. It looks like a tender gesture, easily mistaken for something kinder than it actually is. “Don’t be ashamed. It’s hard. I know. Why do you think I’ve let Patte trail after me like a puppy for so long? We all have to make a living. There’s no shame in that.”

  Anna withdraws her hand but doesn’t break eye contact.

  “I want to make this perfectly clear. You will not use me as a meal ticket.” She selects this descriptor purposefully, saying it slowly, enjoying the look of recognition on Maria’s face. It’s the same phrase Maria used when she showed up unannounced in Unterlengenhardt and conspired to burn Anna’s world to the ground.

  Maria laughs as though Anna has said something funny. She settles back into her chair, but now there’s an angry, dangerous glint in her eyes.

  “I will not go to California with you. Or anywhere else for that matter. I will not sell my story.” Anna looks first to Patte and then to Jack as she repeats her earlier request in English. “I would like to go home.”

  “Well, I would like dessert,” Maria says.

  The table is already littered with plates and breadbaskets and empty bottles of wine. Anna doesn’t think there’s room for another dish, but Maria waves the waiter over and orders panettone and coffee. Anna curses herself once again for not insisting that Jack drive. They are at the mercy of these interlopers. So she waits patiently as Maria finishes yet another course. This Rasputin is nothing more than an old woman acting like a petulant child, punishing Anna for refusing to play along.

  “How did you find me?” Anna asks. This is the second time Maria Rasputin has hunted her down. It remains to be seen whether the results will be as catastrophic as the first time.

  “It wasn’t hard.” She tips her head toward Jack. “This man you’ve taken up with is fond of the newspapers. You’ve been written up quite a bit since arriving in the United States.”

  “I haven’t taken up with him.”

  “Yet. I’d wager it’s only a matter of time. You do love your…benefactors.”

  Jack and Patte have given up trying to follow their conversation and are chatting quietly about writing and research on the other side of the table. It’s almost nine o’cloc
k before the waiter brings the check. Hours have been spent listening to first Patte, then Maria try to convince her to sign over the rights to her life story so they can make a film. They throw words around and name-drop. They suggest a variety of famous actresses who might play the role of Anastasia. She doesn’t bother to remind them that Ingrid Bergman has already done so and that the part won her an Academy Award in 1956. But neither of them is all that interested in Anna’s opinion. They are only concerned with what they see as a hefty payday.

  Maria takes the check and Anna stands, relieved to be done with this dinner and on her way home again. But then she slides the bill across the table and sets it right in front of Anna. There is no charm or humor in her smile, only vindictiveness.

  “It was wonderful to see you again…Anastasia,” she says. “Thank you for dinner.”

  * * *

  —

  “What else would you expect from a Rasputin?” Gleb’s voice inches toward a scream as he paces through Jack’s living room. “Lying, thieving con artists, the lot of them!”

  Jack flinches, defensive. “I didn’t know she stuck us with the bill. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “She didn’t stick you with the bill. You can afford it. She stuck Anna. And I’m sure that was her plan all along.”

  “No,” Anna says. “If I’d agreed to her scheme, she would have paid. She was just trying to punish me.”

  “You’ve been punished enough.”

  Jack is embarrassed now. Flustered. “What was I supposed to do?”

  “You could have started by not speaking with her at all.”

  “It was just dinner.”

  “It wasn’t just dinner; it was public association. A Rasputin gives our case a bad name. Every connection to that family is dangerous. Nothing good will come of it.” Gleb stops shifting from foot to foot and looks at Anna. “Do not mention to anyone, not a single person, that you spent the evening with that woman. Can you promise me that?”