I Was Anastasia: A Novel

Ipatiev House, Ekaterinburg, Russia. July 10: Yakov discovers Maria and Ivan having sex in the cellar. He accuses Nicholas II of being a poor leader, saying his own people turned against him and he inspired a revolution. Yakov says the people would kill the tsar if Yakov handed him over. To punish Ivan, Yakov orders every soldier to strike the young man. The punishment is brutal, and the family is forced to watch.

The Elisabeth Hospital, Berlin. February 18, 1920: Someone slaps Anna, and she coughs water from her lungs. A police sergeant says he will throw her in jail unless she tells him who she is and why she jumped from the bridge. In response, “Anna looks at him and sees only a caricature of authority. Cruel and selfish and brutal. It’s easy enough to make her decision in the light of his cool indifference” (286). They question her motives, and Anna thinks she “simply threw herself toward the darkness, hoping to be consumed” (287). She falls unconscious at the police station and regains consciousness in a hospital, where she is tended by nurses who examine her. The nurses think her scars are from bullets and stab wounds. Anna refuses to tell them her name and says she has no family.