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By Root 1947 0

without it, he knew he would soon die.” Missie sighed, thinking for a while before picking up the story again. “Nyanya was the next in importance. She too was old, though not as old as Vassily. She considered the nursery her own domain where not even Princess Anouska could tell her what to do. As far as children were concerned, Nyanya knew best. She had iron-gray hair covered in a white babushka. The ordinary servants wore blue aprons, but Nyanya’s was white. It was the badge of her standing within the household, so even visitors knew she was a person to be reckoned with. I remember some days her hands would be so swollen with arthritis she couldn’t bathe the children and she was forced to stand by, grumbling, while one of the dozen nursery maids did the job. But it was always Nyanya’s lap little Xenia and Alexei climbed onto at night, and Nyanya who told them bedtime stories. And it was Nyanya they loved best, after their father.”

Leyla frowned, wondering why Missie had not said “after their father and mother.” Anna never spoke of her mother either; it was almost as if she didn’t exist, yet she knew she did.

“Then came the German tutor, and Anouska’s personal maid and Misha’s valet. They were both French and considered themselves very superior and a cut above the Russian servants. They were always whispering behind their hands and sweeping around the house in haughty silence.” Missie laughed. “The old aunts always said they acted as if they owned the place instead of the prince, but in the end they were the last to leave Varishnya. All the others had disappeared days before, like rats from a sinking ship.

“Anyway,” she went quickly on, “there were half a dozen chefs and a huge kitchen staff and dozens of indoor servants. I remember one young girl who did nothing but light all the lamps at night and take them away to clean the wicks in the morning. And another who did nothing but tend the enormous stoves. And then of course there were the dozens of gardeners and the man whose job it was to make sure the grass tennis court was the smoothest in all Russia. And the stables where the grooms looked after Misha’s beloved horses. There must have been twenty or thirty of them. And the kennels where they looked after the teams of sled dogs and the pack of borzois.

“Your grandmother, Princess Anouska, hated to be alone, and the house was always crammed with people and there were endless parties. Sometimes we had to wear fancy dress or old Russian costumes, but no matter what she wore, Anouska Ivanoff always looked beautiful. She was the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen; she looked like a polished bronze figurine with her corn-gold hair and eyes like pansies. Even her skin had a sort of golden glow. She was young, only twenty-six or -seven, and very gay, and when she laughed it made you want to join in. Only sometimes it seemed she couldn’t stop laughing, as if she were acting gay and carefree but you could sense that underneath she wasn’t gay at all. You never quite knew where you were with Anouska: One minute she was the life and soul of the party and the next she had disappeared. She would lock herself in her room for days on end and not even Misha could get her to open the door. Only her maid was allowed in with the trays of food he sent her, but they were always returned untouched. I remember thinking it very strange at first, but everybody seemed to accept it as a matter of course. It was just the way Anouska was.

“Misha was a good man,” she said, looking at Anna. “He considered his servants and the estate workers and their families at Varishnya his responsibility. He looked after them with proper Russian tenderness, and they called him batiushka—little father. Every month he held a meeting in the great hall, where they were served beer and food, and any man was free to voice his grievance and know he would be dealt fairly with, even though Anouska always complained that the smell of their crude sheepskin jackets made the house reek for a week afterward. Each family had its own little house and every man had work. Long