Zoya

The journey from Tsarskoe Selo to Beloostrov on the Finnish border took seven hours, although it was not far from St. Petersburg, but Feodor was being careful to travel by all the back roads. Nicholas had warned him that it was safer to travel that way, even if it took them longer. And much to Evgenia's surprise, they crossed the border easily. There were some questions, but suddenly Evgenia seemed to sink into herself and look like a crone, and bundled up and cold, Zoya looked more like a child than she had for a long time. It was Sava who saved them in the end. The soldiers at the border were enchanted with her and after an anxious moment, waved them on, and the three refugees heaved a sigh of relief as the troika moved on behind Nicholas's horses. Feodor had been careful to use the old harness he had brought from St. Petersburg, and had purposely not used any of the equipment from the Tsar's stable with the easily recognizable double-headed eagle.

The trip from Beloostrov across Finland to Turku took two full days, and by the time they arrived in Turku late at night, Zoya felt as though she would be numb for the rest of her life. Her whole body seemed to be frozen into the position she'd been in, in the troika. Her grandmother could barely walk when they helped her out, and even Feodor seemed exhausted. They found a small inn where they took two rooms, and in the morning Feodor sold the horses for a ridiculously small sum before the three of them boarded an icebreaker to Stockholm. It was another endless day on the ship, moving slowly amidst the ice between Finland and Sweden, and the three companions barely spoke, all were lost in their own thoughts.

They arrived in Stockholm late in the afternoon, just in time to catch the night train to Malmo. And once in Malmo, they took the railroad ferry the next morning to Copenhagen, and there they went to a small hotel, and Evgenia called the Tsar's aunt's friends, but they were away, and the next morning they left Copenhagen for France on a British steamer. Zoya seemed to be almost in a daze by then, and she was desperately seasick the first day on the ship. Her grandmother thought she looked feverish, but it was difficult to tell if she was ill or just exhausted. They were all exhausted after the six-day journey. It had been grueling to travel on day after day, by ship and by train and by troika. Even Feodor looked as though he had aged ten years in the single week, but they were also suffering from the sorrow of leaving their homeland. They spoke little, rarely slept, and none of them ever seemed to be hungry. It was as though their very bodies were filled with grief, and they couldn't have borne any more. They had left everything behind them, a way of life, a thousand years of history, the people they had loved and lost. It was almost too much to bear, and Zoya found herself hoping the ship would be sunk by German U-boats on the way to France. Far from Russia, it was the Great War and not the revolution people were afraid of. But Zoya found herself thinking that dying at anyone's hands would have been easier than facing a new world she didn't want to know. She thought of how often she and Marie had talked dreamily about going to Paris. It had all sounded so romantic then, so exciting with all the elegant women and the beautiful gowns they would buy. Now there would be none of that. They had only the small amount of money her grandmother had borrowed from the Tsar before they left, and the jewels sewn into their clothing. Evgenia had already made up her mind to sell as many of them as she had to once they reached Paris. And they had to think of Feodor as well. He had promised to look for work as soon as they arrived, he had vowed to do everything he could to help them, but he had refused to let them make the trip alone. He had nothing left in Russia anymore, and he couldn't imagine a life without serving the Ossupovs. It would have killed him if they'd left him. He was as ill as Zoya was on the trip to France, he had never been on a boat before, and he was terrified as he clung miserably to the railing.

“What are we going to do, Grandmama?” Zoya sat watching her grandmother unhappily in the tiny cabin. Gone the grandeur of the imperial yachts, the palaces, the princes, the parties. Gone the warmth and love of family. Gone the people they had known, their way of life, even the security of knowing they would have enough to eat the next day. All they had were their lives, and Zoya wasn't even sure she wanted hers. All she wanted was to go home to Mashka, and Russia, to turn back the clock and return to a lost world, full of people who no longer existed. Her father, her brother, her mother. And Zoya wondered, as they pressed on, if Marie was getting better.