1918
Yalta, Crimea
“The book is The Kingdom of Agarttha: A Journey Into the Hollow Earth, by Marquis Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre,” I said, watching Sima’s face darken as he thumbed through the French text. “I could only hope my future husband would take me there on our honeymoon.”
His fist slammed onto my father’s desk. “I cannot have you read such books in my home. My children should not be exposed to such ideas.”
Oh, here I am once again. How did I get into this mess again? Eight times a charm, my ana had hoped. “Fail me again and you are out of my house,” my ata had threatened before the next arranged husband, Sima, arrived.
The mythical blue cavern and goddess-ordained destiny have long since faded. Or so I tell myself each morning when I wake and find no blue light, only the grey of another Crimean dawn and my father’s latest candidate waiting in the parlour. My fate, uninvited as always, sits before me. My ata’s mother says good Krymchak daughters marry soon after their first monthlies. I am five years late—perhaps Yahweh intended something different, or maybe the Great War stole all the young men. Three years of battles against Germans and Austrians killed millions. Survivors fled or joined the Bolsheviks for their promises: peace, land, and bread.
But not this one. He returned a hero, left arm lost charging enemy trenches, a dozen lives saved. My father cares most that his grandsons will descend from a hero. I am but a vessel to host my father’s grandsons.
This war hero—tall, broad-shouldered, black mustache accenting his angular Karaite face—stated, “My family’s store is near your grandmother’s home in Mangup. But for my family’s honor, never speak of the Talmud or Oral Torah.” He wanted me to become Karaite with no love for who and what I am.
I swallowed my reminder that his namesake, Sima Babovich, used tsarist connections to declare Karaites non-Jewish, thus avoiding persecution. Instead, I meekly uttered, “Sima, as your wife, I would bring no shame to your family.”
His hand, brusque and calloused, touched mine on the table. His gaze dropped to my latest literary treasure. “What is this book? It is not in Crimean Tatar or in Russian. Is that French?”
Staring at the book resting under his thumping fingers, I pictured myself an unloved, unmarried, childless old maid surrounded by mangy cats roaming around stacks and stacks of equally old and unloved books. For if I cannot tell the truth, then what kind of marriage would I have?
“Yes, it is French,” I said, bracing myself. This was the moment it always went wrong. “My maternal grandmother learned it when she administered aid to the French army near Balaklava. She insisted my mother and I learn it as well.”
And then the next religious war started right there in our kitchen, all in earshot of both our families in the living room. The moment he held up the book, thumbing through it, his brow furrowed. “These illustrations…they look like some pagan religion.” He dropped the book to the table, his eyes hardening. “Tell me that my wife-to-be does not secretly worship other gods.”
If I could not tell him the truth, what kind of marriage would this be? The elder woman from the blue cavern had urged me to speak from my heart. From heart to mouth it came. “The book is The Kingdom of Agarttha: A Journey Into the Hollow Earth, by Marquis Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre. It tells of a utopian kingdom hidden underground, perhaps in the Himalayas. I could only hope my future husband would take me there on our honeymoon.”
There. I said it.
And there we are. He pounds his fist on the book and says, “I cannot have you read such books in my home. My children should not be exposed to such ideas.”
Standing up, I walk to the bookshelf and pull out several books to unhide our family’s copy of the Babylonian Talmud. His eyes light on fire, only to be greeted by a widening of my smile. “Dearest Sima. I can understand if you would not want my children going to the Himalayas. But I must insist that we one day move to the Holy Land. After the Russo-Ottoman wars, many of my grandmother’s family moved to Anatoliya and Jerusalem to seek safe haven. Living there will protect us from persecution, and you will not need to worry about me studying my family’s Talmud.”
Oh, how much of a straw could the Talmud be? For his back arches like a black cat in front of a mouse as it snaps. Standing up, he comes up to me. Face into my face. “My mother thought from your mother’s promises, you would be a suitable daughter-in-law. I should have listened to my father. You are nothing but a woman who will bring a dark cloud upon her family.”
As he heads in a huff towards the door, he turns and says, “May no good man be so foolish as to entertain your company. I fear for his soul, that man.”
My head tilted to one side. All I can say is “cochon” as he storms out of the room and into the salon, where my mother and father await. I am sure he does not know what I said. For it is an animal that we would not eat. And one I would not marry.
Grabbing my book, I brace myself for the typhoon that is to come. My father.
I count the seconds and on thirteen he storms in. His face and arms covered with bruises from running into road signs and fences, as he has not worn his cute round eyeglasses when he comes home from the library since a Bolshevik beat him up thinking he was a bourgeois intellectual. Even though the Bolsheviks left Crimea earlier this year, my father still walks through the streets in fear, without his glasses.
But without fear now, “Out,” his finger points. Not out of the room, but out of his house. For no daughter of his will treat prospective husbands with such disrespect. Sima makes eight who have stormed out since I came of age. I will spend the nights on the street, hungry in the cold, only to come back begging and promising I will behave as a proper, obedient girl should. And if I should lose my innocence on the street, then forever banished will I be?
As I leave the room, he grabs my book. For I am banned from all the books in his library. I am never to go there again as long as I am disobedient. As long as I dishonor him and the family. As long as I fail to fulfill my duty to bring in a modicum of life-saving wealth from a husband’s family.
After such definitive words from my father, my mother consoles me as we leave my soon-to-be-former home. She says one of the servant cottages on the hillside above the Livadia Palace complex is empty. I can go there and tell the staff that I am helping her clean the cottage. With a stern eye, she reminds me to say I am only a simple, humble, Krymchak girl when cornered.
She hands me my chestnut cotton shawl for warmth. My book is buried inside. My family still loves me, after all.
***
When I was not buried in books, I assisted my mother in cleaning the auxiliary buildings around the grand Livadia Palace, my passion for worldly wisdom growing more fervent after the cavern dream. Eight failed engagements in five years. Would I have been married after the first one if I had never met or dreamt I met Her? Is Her destiny for me to be a spinster?
Having made the hour’s walk towards the coastline, I stare now in amazement at the beauty of the Livadia Palace, where the late Tsar Nicholas II spent the summers. It is fashioned of white Crimean granite in the Italian Neo-Renaissance manner, I am told. People like us will never see the inside of these palaces. The tsar and his family allow inside only those close to them. Not we Crimeans. Especially not we Krymchaks. But I was content at beholding the beauty of its exterior.
Until last February, the dowager empress—the late tsar’s mother—lived in this palace, as I had written in my last school essay. Then the Bolsheviks forced her an hour down the coast to the Diulber Palace. When the tsarists fled, my mother lost her housekeeping position. I had to leave school—me, not my little brother—to help feed us. “Our destiny is to sacrifice for family,” my mother said.
How fast our world spins now. Just months ago, spring gossip in my ata’s library told of Bolsheviks fleeing Crimea, terrified of advancing Ukrainians and Germans. The Romanovs emerged from house arrest at Diulber, no longer prisoners. Many welcomed them as saviors—”Whites” who might crush the “Reds,” those Bolsheviks and their Soviets.
The new government needed women for cleaning and maintenance around Livadia. They hired my mother again, and me alongside her. Thus, I know this cottage where she had sent me, perched on the grounds above the palace. Trails wind nearby, built for Emperor Alexander III, who died at Livadia. One hugs the coast, laid flat for his failing health. Others climb the mountains. My hideout nestles near one of these paths.
Outside lies a dog kennel. Inside are gun racks. But my mother was right: it is empty for now. At least I can sleep here, out of the cold, as she passively navigates my father into forgiving his errant daughter. And most importantly, to let her back into the library.
The peace and quiet allowed me to get back to the last chapters of the Marquis’s quite controversial story. An underground kingdom spiritually and technologically advanced beyond our modern culture. Whose emissaries have come to our above-ground Earth and led secret societies that have changed the course of humankind. Whose influence has created the bases for all religions. Of course, I could not tell that pig-headed Sima about this book, I ponder as my eyes close for a much-needed rest.
***
Woof. Woof. Woof.
My heart racing so fast, I can no longer sense individual beats. Am I dreaming of the mythical beast found in Agarttha?
No dream, as their slobber coats my face. Wolves. Or are these dogs that look like wolves? Oh, my father will not have to worry about his errant daughter anymore, as she is now dinner for these overgrown canines, jaws dripping in anticipation of how delectable her blood will be.
“Quiet,” booms the deepest male voice I have ever heard. “She is no enemy. She is no wolf.”
Holding back these thickly coated, black, greyhound-like dogs that are an arshin—an arm’s length—in height is a white-haired man much taller than Sima. Maybe a head and a half taller, wearing a fuzzy black fur hat. A veritable giant with a stylish mustache, outfitted in a greyish brown military-type sheepskin overcoat wrapped with a belt hosting a dagger and a horn. A hunter. A truly grand hunter.
“Young lady! What are you doing in here?” he barks in a commanding tone befitting the vicious appearance of his dogs, slapping his riding crop sharply against his black leather military-style boot. “You know these grounds are only for the aides of the Romanovs.”
Scuttling away with my knees folded up to my chest and my hands holding my book as defense against the dogs—or worse, him. It is only slightly larger than my hand, with flexible binding, but it is all I have. Literally. My eyes switch back and forth between the saliva dripping down these wolf-dogs’ teeth and his fearsome grey-blue eyes. His distinctly featured face, with jutting chin, prominent brow, and sharp nose, is framed by grey hair with vestiges of his younger years’ reddish-brown strands. I have heard the stories of when the royal elite capture a virgin girl. With what is about to happen, nothing will ever convince my father to let me come home.
My eyes have not blinked. Only as wide open as I have ever experienced. They sting from the dryness.
But the giant man does not lean over to take me as his prize. He leans over to put some dried meat sticks into the dogs’ mouths and leaves to tie them up outside, near his horse. He yells to his companions, who look like officers of the White Army, all is okay.
I have not moved one iota. The book fully open in front of me, acting like a meager shield in my vain attempt to protect what little of my honor I can retain. My arms shake so much as he reaches down, the book falls from my hands.
Picking up the book, he says in a much quieter tone, “Vous parlez français?”
Stunned, I stare at him. My hands find safety under my bottom as I sit many arshins below him on the floor. He stares back at me in my silence. I finally say, “Oui, monsieur. Je parle français. But I read it much better than I speak.”
I shake again as he lets out a roar. Then a smile. Then my smile comes back. That was a laugh. I am safe. For now.
“What is a little girl like you doing, reading such a hefty book as this? Are you a Bolshevik?” he asks.
My head shakes side to side as I try to mitigate the vibrating, hoping my whole body does not shake spastically.
His hand signals for me to rise from the floor and my makeshift bedding. What was the way my mother told me to rise in front of royalty? There is this curtsy thing I have to do as well. His hand bolts forward to grab me as I nearly tumble over while trying to curtsy. Who made up such a silly gymnastic act?
Pointing to the nearest chair, he commands, “Sit.”
My derrière firmly planted in the ornately carved chair, I am finally silent and obedient to a man. Would not my father be proud of his daughter now? What is it about this man, that mere mortals can only obey his commands? Maybe he is one of those emissaries from Agarttha, which is why he is interrogating me on the book?
“So you are not a revolutionary. And you are not from the vestiges of royalty in seclusion here. Who are you?” he asks in a less-commanding tone.
Oh my. What do I answer? What my mother said, of course.
“My name is Oksana, sir. My mother is one of the housekeeping staff for these buildings. She asked if I could help today.”
And that roar again. His form of laugh as he slaps the riding crop against his boot again. Is that what these royal men do before they imprison you? Did not Tsarina Alexandra say that Russia loves to feel the whip? Or is that another library-chitchat rumor?
“Well, Miss Oksana. How would your mother feel if she knew her daughter fell asleep on the job reading a book?”
My nerves scream. For sure, I am going to prison. What do I tell this man? Certainly, what I said to Sima did not go over all that well. Truth only leads to bad things despite what She said. But there goes my heart to mouth again. “Sir, my mother would be very proud of her daughter trying to better herself. Trying to be educated enough to find a better job than cleaning up after other people.”
Another roar as the giant pulls over a chair. He sits with the back facing me. Did he sense I needed a shield between his maleness and my girlhood?
“Do not worry, child. I have nieces your age. And I would be equally proud if they told me the same.” His eyes as calming as my father’s when he is not angry at me for driving away husband candidates. “My, such a complicated book for one your age. My dear child, tell me about this book you are reading,” he says as he thumbs through the French novel.
He is baiting me, my mind yells as my fingers start the shakes again. Who am I not to be trapped and entangled by someone who likely comes from a family expert at ruling people? Sima found this book to be offensive to his beliefs. Is that what this man is trying to find out?
Putting the book down, he asks, “Do you believe in mystics? In telepaths? In the ability of the almighty Lord to signal to special individuals what His plan for our destiny might be?”
My lips. They are not only dry, they are stuck together as if glued with tar. My mind races through all the answers I could give and what consequences might come from each answer. Does that make me a mystic, trying to guess the future?
In the end, my head nods affirmative. Why? One, it is the truth of what I have come to believe. Two, I have not entirely forgotten that sacred cavern—dream or not. The source of a mystical interaction. And my destiny. Perhaps why this French marquis’s book caught my fancy?
His eyes glancing up to the right, his fingers running through his grey beard with its traces of younger reddish-brown strands, he says, “I had heard this story featured a hidden underground country governed by political telepaths and magical leaders. And that they govern our affairs through use of telepathy.”
Now his eyes pierce into mine. “Is that why you are not speaking? You are trying to use telepathy to put your ideas into my mind?”
I need to break my silence before he puts words into my mouth. Focusing as much as one can when confronted by a man of such obvious power, I force the tiniest of gaps between my lips. My first word only a puff of air. But one that opens my lips more.
Finally, I utter, “Sir. Please. I am only a simple girl who has only known the woods of Balaklava, on the outskirts of Sevastopol, and now this coastline full of villas and palaces of the royalty. I read this book solely because I read a science fiction mystery by Alexander Barchenko that tells of the mysterious adventures of a Dr. Alexander Chernii and a secret society in Tibet. I understood Marquis Saint-Yves d’Alveydre’s work inspired that author. So, when I found this book in my father’s library, I borrowed it to read.”
“There are Bolsheviks who are interested in finding the lands described by this marquis,” says the tall man in front of me. “That is why I asked you if you were a Bolshevik.”
I must answer him much more quickly this time. I am too young to pick sides. I heard my parents’ dream of what “peace, land, and bread,” the slogan of the Bolsheviks, might mean to us. But last spring’s pogroms—Jews dragged from their homes across Ukraine, the violence creeping closer to Crimea—had dampened our hopes.
“Sir, I am only a simple, humble young woman who dreams of how she can make the world better. I find these books fascinating exploration of what options we people have,” I reply. “To tell the truth, I only fantasize that one day I could travel to places of antiquity to learn more about our past and how our future could be better than what we are taught. To help bring forth truths about myths.”
His hands grasping the top of the chair back, he roars again. “And the truth you must act upon. You could have told me so many other stories about why you are here reading such a book.”
Staring at his hands, I reply, “My words of my true feelings, those from my heart, are why my father said I should come here to reflect upon my actions. I acted upon what my heart thought was right. What would allow me to have my personal honor and integrity intact.”
“More proof that you would be worthy of being one of my nieces,” he says with an ear-to-ear grin. “Personal integrity and honor are very important to me. Thirteen years ago, Tsar Nicholas II asked me to be the military dictator of Russia.”
Only moments ago, my heart raced at speeds faster than a train. Now it stopped as he said he was familiar to the tsar who the papers said had been killed only a few months ago.
“While I understood why he wanted me to take such a position,” he added, “while such an act would have been good for my political career, I could not, because it was not in the best interests of Russia.”
All I could utter was, “But no one refuses the orders of a tsar. At least, that is what us little folks say.”
Another roar. “Young Miss Oksana. He did not accept my refusal. Why should the tsar do so?” he says as he puts his fingers up like a gun to his temple. “So, I threatened to shoot myself in the middle of the royal palace in front of everyone if he did not endorse my plan, which would have been the best for the people of Russia. And my second cousin, the tsar, thus accepted the Witte reform plan. Hence, we prevented the country from falling into collapse for another decade until Lenin forced my cousin to abdicate.”
How do you appear when all the blood in your face drains into your feet? I must have appeared ghost white. Did he say the tsar was his cousin? I saw the tsar’s mother once as her entourage passed through town on the way to the Diulber Palace. Would my father let me come home if I said I had met this man?
“Miss Oksana, you do know of mystical events here in Crimea. Do you not?” he ventures with those grey-blue eyes fixed into mine. “Strange happenings around the Valley of Death, around the hills of Balaklava?”
My mouth glued shut once again, but this time my eyelids are glued open. I cannot move. How could he know I know something? I dare not. It was only a dream, my mother insisted. And if not, then She made me promise not to say a thing.
He waits me out until I finally manage a blink.
“I take that as a yes,” he says, as he waits for any other response.
Finally, this cousin of the tsar asks about something I can answer. “And your father, what does he do?”
“Sir. He is an assistant librarian in the town of Yalta. You know, the library that is collecting the books left by the royal families.”
Nodding his giant head, he says, “So that explains the reading of such lofty books.”
Rising out of his chair—not towards me, but so he can peer out the window at his horse—he says, “There is a man I saved who reads the same types of books as you do. Who researches day and night without rest. Who told me of this Agarttha book of yours. Who personally knows this Barchenko fellow. He is visiting me next week. Perhaps he would want to have an assistant who wishes to read her way out of her social situation.”
My eyes fix on him as he rises in all his height but quickly glance towards that book. The one causing all my troubles. Who is this man he speaks of? This book is either my blessing or my curse. Which one will that man be?
As he turns back towards me, my face must be like the granite blocks of the Livadia Palace. White and cold. Is he offering a job? Or am I to be a sacrificial virgin as appeasement to the plebeian loyalists around the royalty? What do I say?
“Trust is hard to earn. I know, my child,” he says. “Why should you trust this old man with such ferocious dogs? Why do you not reflect upon my offer? I will let Professor Murometz know there may be someone who can assist his work while he stays here.”
My lips purse as I wet them. Maybe if they were moister, they would say something appropriate for this moment in front of royalty. All I can think of is, “Sir. If I decide to engage in your very generous offer, how do I contact you?”
With a welcoming smile, he says, “Just come down to the Diulber Palace and tell the staff. They will get the message to me.”
My toes curl as my feet overlap each other. What should I say? If he finds out, I will surely go to prison for being here. What is it they say? In for a kopeck, in for a ruble.
“Sir, people like us may not enter the palace grounds.”
Coming towards me, and every fiber in my body says, Back away from him. But I am frozen, as if the mysterious Agartthans have hypnotized me. He peers at my makeshift bed on the ground, then back into my eyes. I hold back a reflexive flinch as his finger runs down my cheek, then my nose.
“You are Crimean Tatar, no?” he asks.
That little-girl shaking starts in my chest and, against my very will, migrates to my arms.
“I cannot lie, sir. Even if you were not royalty, I should not lie,” I say, thinking these will be the last words I speak before I am taken away to prison. “I am Krymchak. We Jews are not allowed in the royal domains.”
He takes steps away from me. Likely to call out for the guards to take me away. But he turns with a grim façade. “You and I are not so different. You were not allowed to enter the palace grounds. And I was not allowed to leave them. Free, but still a prisoner. No different from my second cousin before his murder. Many men have died because of my decisions. Too many. The least I can do is help one innocent girl find her way out of her lot in life. And maybe help Russia in doing so.”
Turning to leave, he says as he gets to the door, “I hope you will come down to the Diulber Palace to leave a message for me. I will instruct my staff there you are my guest.”
Off he goes. Dogs and horse too. He said “Diulber Palace.” The home-in-exile of the mother of the late tsar. The home of the tsar’s second cousin. My mother will faint. My father will think I made this story up to be admitted back home.
What should I say?
