Chapter 2: Please Let Me Meet My Father

“What? Hey, kid. Do you even know where you are?”

“Yes. I’ve come to see Madame Mathilde Kschessinska.”

“No, I mean, do you have any idea who that lady is, and you’re saying you want to meet her?”

“Yes. I heard she was in the same ballet company as my mother. My mother left something she said I absolutely had to deliver to her, so I’ve come to deliver it.”

Mathilde Kschessinska.

Currently the most famous ballerina in Russia, and the Emperor’s former lover.

Even after parting ways with the Tsar, she kept not one but two men of the Romanov imperial family as her patrons. A celebrity among celebrities.

If I can just get access to this woman, getting access to the Tsar won’t even count as an obstacle.

“I don’t know who your mother was, but Madame isn’t someone you can just meet so easily….”

“Here. My mother said this was a photograph they exchanged when she shared a stage with Madame Mathilde.”

When I handed over one of the photographs from among my mother’s keepsakes, the eyes of the man, who appeared to be a servant, went wide.

[To my beloved Natalie, in memory of our first Swan Lake. Your eternal friend, Malya. Christmas, 1893]

They say the ballerinas of the Russian Imperial Theatres exchange signed photographs with each other almost as a ritual.

Mathilde supposedly used the pet name Malya with those close to her, so a signature written in her own hand would be the finest evidence there is.

…Assuming this knowledge in my head is actually true.

-Oh my god, how long are you gonna keep doubting me? I’m telling you, it’ll work, guaranteed.

“Quiet. If anyone sees me, they’ll think I’m an actual lunatic muttering to himself.”

After a short wait, the servant who had disappeared opened the door and came out again.

The expression on the man’s face, which had looked so annoyed just moments ago, had completely changed.

“Kid. Madame wishes to see you. Come in.”

-See? What did I tell you.

Pretending not to hear Seong-jun’s smug voice, I followed the servant into the mansion.

One look at the chandelier hanging from the high ceiling, the plush carpets, and the warm air so removed from the flesh-cutting cold outside, and the whole place positively reeks of money.

It was a sight that made it hard to believe this was the same city as the slum I’d been living in until recently.

“Here, you go in through this door.”

As I walked where I was guided, the servants standing before the door opened it for me automatically.

Inside, a beautiful, young-looking woman was sitting on a sofa.

She was a beauty with deep brown hair, a pure white dress, and a large pearl necklace at her throat that caught the eye.

-That woman over there must be Mathilde Kschessinska. Don’t screw this up.

Right. From here on, it’s showtime.

I deliberately tilted my head and glanced around the drawing room.

“Um… where is Madame Mathilde?”

The woman sitting on the sofa asked back with a puzzled look.

“…I beg your pardon?”

“My mother told me to go see Madame Mathilde Kschessinska.”

“Child, I am Mathilde Kschessinska.”

“Liar.”

At my curt reply, the woman’s eyebrows rose slightly.

“…Liar?”

“My mom told me. She said Auntie Kschessinska was her friend. But no matter how I look at you, big sister, you seem barely past twenty. How could you be my mom’s friend?”

A brief silence settled over the drawing room.

-Ooooh, nice, nice. When a little kid does it, the destructive power is on a whole other level.

A satisfied voice rang inside my head.

The old me would never have thought of a method like this, so it seems I didn’t simply go insane after all.

Sure enough, the bewildered expression slowly melted from Kschessinska’s face.

“Oh my.”

The corners of her mouth curved upward ever so slightly.

It was a pleased smile that couldn’t be hidden no matter how she tried.

She lightly covered her mouth with one hand and gently extended the other.

“Child, come closer.”

At her voice, far softer now than before, I cautiously approached the sofa.

Mathilde bent down to meet my eye level.

Up close, I could see her dark eyebrows drawing a vivid arc.

“I truly am your mother’s friend. I really am your auntie.”

“…Really?”

“Really. It’s just that a ballerina’s, hmm, job is to have a young-looking face.”

“Wow… Mom said you were the prettiest of all her friends, and it was true.”

Kschessinska smiled warmly and stroked my hair.

-Yes, yes. Now that’s how I do it.

Seong-jun’s voice was steeped in heartfelt satisfaction.

-She may be Russia’s greatest ballerina, but I bet she’s never seen a little kid flirting like this before.

To a woman who had surely heard every flattery Russian men could offer, ordinary sycophancy would never have worked.

But the innocent praise of a 7-year-old carries a completely different kind of destructive power.

Kschessinska leaned in a little further and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“So, what is your name?”

“Mikhail.”

“Mikhail… then may I call you Misha?”

“Yes.”

“Misha, where is your mother now? Why didn’t Natalie come herself instead of sending only you?”

At that question, the back of my throat suddenly tightened.

“…Mom passed away three days ago.”

“…What?”

The smile vanished from Kschessinska’s face.

“She was very sick. We didn’t even have money to call a doctor. Before she passed, she took my hand and told me to go to Madame Kschessinska, that if I showed her this photograph, she would recognize it, because she was Mom’s friend….”

It was a lie, but I couldn’t tell her the truth.

Tears welled up in Kschessinska’s eyes.

“…Natalie.”

Her shoulders trembled as she buried her face in both hands.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me? Why did you go through it all alone like that….”

They were real tears. So this woman genuinely cherished my mother.

Which makes it even harder to understand.

My mother would have had people everywhere willing to help if she’d only wanted it, so why did she cling to such a life of poverty?

“…Whew. Yes, Misha. Your mother joined the Mariinsky the same year I did. We were as close as blood sisters, but one day your mother suddenly left the company. I asked around for her so many times, but I could never find her.”

“…….”

“Why didn’t she ask me for help? A job, money, I would gladly have given her anything….”

I waited for her to calm down a little, then carefully opened my mouth.

“Big sister. There’s one thing I need to show you.”

“…Something to show me?”

“Only you can see it, big sister. Mom made me promise that, very firmly.”

Sensing something out of the ordinary, Kschessinska waved the servants out of the room.

After confirming we were alone, I drew the letter and the brooch from inside my coat and set them down before her.

In that instant, the color drained from Kschessinska’s face.

“…This is….”

The monogram at the bottom of the letter. The double-headed eagle engraved on the brooch.

Anyone in the Russian Empire who had seen those two even once would recognize the marks.

Let alone a woman who had once been their owner’s lover.

Her fingers trembled faintly as she unfolded the letter and read its contents.

“…This is Niki’s handwriting.”

In that brief moment, I could see plainly that countless calculations were spinning through her head.

Kschessinska is no fool.

Isn’t she the woman who keeps the most influential men in Russia as her lovers?

She would know by instinct what must be done in a situation like this, and what must never be done.

Only after a long while did she finally manage to speak.

“Misha. These are things you must not have in your possession. Hand them over to Auntie right this moment, and forget that they ever existed.”

“No. Please deliver them to His Majesty.”

I heard Kschessinska swallow.

“Child. Do you understand what you’re saying right now?”

“I do. It means His Majesty is my father.”

“Misha….”

“Big sister. I don’t want to be acknowledged as my father’s son. I don’t want to live in Russia. Whether it’s England or America, I want to go far away and live quietly somewhere no one knows me. But I’m too young to do that on my own.”

“…You want to leave Russia?”

“Please let me see His Majesty just once. Not to ask him to acknowledge me as his son, but to ask him to send me far away. To help me, just a little, so I can survive there. If he does, I can keep my mouth shut for the rest of my life and live as if I never existed.”

Kschessinska couldn’t speak for a while, and then she slowly reached out and hugged me tight.

“Misha, couldn’t you stay here? Auntie will take care of you. I’ll send you to a good school, as the child of a distant relative….”

“No.”

At my firm refusal, her hands faltered.

“I’ve heard His Majesty cherishes Her Majesty the Empress and his children more than anyone. For a man like that, the mere fact that I exist nearby would weigh on his heart. And it would be far too great a burden on you too, big sister. I don’t want to live being a burden on someone like that.”

Stay here? Absolutely not.

According to Seong-jun’s memories, in a dozen or so years this country gets turned upside down, and everyone carrying the Emperor’s blood, down to the newborn babies, gets shot by firing squad.

What am I supposed to do if I’m still in Russia by then and those commies called the Bolsheviks find out who I am?

No matter what, I am absolutely bolting for America.

-Of course, of course. We’ll head over, find ourselves a suitable patron, play the prodigy while milking them for cash nice and sweet, then buy up every hot company in sight. Crank out something like the Armageddon Report before the First World War and sitting on a pile of money will be a piece of cake.

What the hell even is that, you weeb.

Is it because this is knowledge I know but never experienced firsthand?

It’s supposed to be sitting right there in my head, yet until that ghost says it out loud, it’s a struggle for me to dig it out on my own.

While I was combing through my memory trying to recall what the Armageddon Report was, I saw tears welling up in Kschessinska’s eyes again.

“…How much must a child have been hurt, to say such things.”

I felt her arms tighten around me another degree.

The scent of perfume brushed the tip of my nose.

It was the first warmth I had felt since the last time I was held in my mother’s arms.

“All right, Misha. I’ll do as you wish.”

Only after a long while did she pull away and speak.

“Delivering this directly to His Majesty right now is far too dangerous. The imperial palace has countless watching eyes. Instead, Auntie will have it delivered in secret, through someone I can trust.”

“Someone you can trust?”

“There is a man called Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich. He is His Majesty’s first cousin once removed, and very close to me. He will handle this matter quietly.”

Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich.

…That man is fated to be swept up in the revolution and murdered too.

I bowed my head deeply toward Kschessinska.

“Thank you, big sister.”

Done.

Now all that’s left is to squeeze every ruble I can out of the Tsar and get out of Russia as fast as possible.

So that ghost really wasn’t lying after all?

At least so far, everything was falling into place, piece by piece.

* * *

Saint Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire. The Alexander Palace.

Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, had taken the letter his kinsman brought and could not hide his puzzlement.

“A letter, suddenly, after all this time?”

It had already been seven years since he ended things with Mathilde.

He had inquired after her wellbeing several times even after their parting, but she had almost never sent a letter like this, through a Grand Duke.

When he opened the envelope, what came out first was a single worn note and a small brooch.

“What on earth….”

The moment he saw the double-headed eagle crest on the brooch, Nicholas’s fingertips froze in midair.

“…It can’t be?”

He hurriedly unfolded the note, and a familiar hand writing greeted the Emperor.

It did not take long for him to recognize that these were the sentences he himself had written, with his own hand, seven years ago.

‘Be rid of the child. Use what is enclosed to cover the cost. This fault is partly mine as well, so I will not hold you responsible. Let us set everything right, as though it never happened.’

The Tsar’s eyes shook violently.

“Haah….”

At the sigh that escaped his lips, Grand Duke Sergei bowed his head.

The memories came flooding in all at once.

His last night with Mathilde.

Just before his engagement to Alix was made official, at that farewell drink shared with his longtime lover.

Mathilde’s closest friend, Natalya Andreyevna, had been there with them.

The Tsesarevich he was then had downed an amount of vodka he would never normally have touched.

That day he experienced, for the first and last time, what it means to lose all self-control.

The memories were broken into fragments, but they undeniably remained.

Down to that horrific shame when he opened his eyes the next morning.

A few weeks later a letter had come from her, and he had written that single note and sent it along with money.

He had believed that he’d buried that ugly past.

He told no one, atoned through prayer, and after his marriage to Alix, lived as a perfect husband and father.

And yet now, that note had crossed eight years to return before him.

“Niki.”

Grand Duke Sergei spoke carefully.

“There is an enclosed letter as well. Malya asked that you read it yourself.”

Honestly, he wanted nothing more than to burn it, but in the end he opened the second envelope with trembling hands.

Malya’s familiar handwriting ran across the paper.

—Niki. If you are reading this letter, you will already have seen those items. Natalya left this world three days ago. Amid illness and poverty, asking help of no one, all alone.

The Tsar’s breathing slowed by a beat.

—The child’s name is Mikhail. He is seven years old this year. The boy who came to me was, Niki, so clever and so grown-up that even you would not believe it. When he first saw me, how hard he struggled not to cry in front of me.

“…….”

—That child handed me these items and said this. That he does not want to be acknowledged as his father’s son. That he has no intention of being a burden to Your Majesty. That if you would grant him just one single wish, he could vanish like someone who never existed in this world.

“Vanish, like someone who never existed?”

—Those words came from the mouth of a seven-year-old, Niki. I wept for a long time after hearing them. The child’s wish was to leave Russia. Whether England or America, he says it is enough if he can only live quietly somewhere far away, without becoming a burden to you and your family.

The contents of that note, ordering that the child be made to never have existed, stabbed freshly and fiercely at his heart.

Could it be that the boy came to think this way after reading the letter he himself had left?

—Niki. Whatever decision you make, I will follow it. But as I wrote this letter, I kept thinking one thing. That child truly resembles you. His eyes, his quiet way of speaking, are so like yours that I could not bring myself to send him away.

Having read the last line of the letter, Nicholas slowly leaned back in his chair.

Seven years old.

Not so different in age from his eldest daughter.

That small child had lost his mother, survived alone in the most wretched slum, weighed everything himself, and reached his conclusion.

That he would vanish like someone who had never existed.

For fear that his mere existence would be a burden to the man called his father.

“…Lord.”

Nicholas’s hand fumbled for the small cross upon his chest.

“What in heaven’s name have I done.”

Grand Duke Sergei approached carefully and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Niki. What do you intend to do?”

For a long while, the Tsar could not answer.

His gaze moved back and forth between the worn note and the double-headed eagle brooch on the desk, and at last, he opened his mouth.

“…I must see the boy myself.”

The Tsar’s shoulders trembled faintly.

Incompetent and indecisive as he was, he had always been devoted to his family above all else, and now a tide of guilt began to surge through his chest.