Natasha's Dream Read Online Free Page B

head, scattering her tangled mane of raven-black hair. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I grew up in just a few hours, when I was fourteen. Not on a farm. In our house. I became very old in just a few hours. It is such a sad thing to know I am very old, even though my twenty-first name day was only last month.’
    ‘You are not old at all,’ said Mr Gibson. ‘You simply look as if you haven’t eaten too well lately. That can be put right. Natasha, will it pain you too much to tell me why the Bolsheviks should want to do away with a girl of fourteen?’
    Natasha did not immediately answer that. She finished her soup first, and her head was bent again when she did speak.
    ‘Who can see into the minds of people who believe hatred is a good reason for killing people? Who can understand men who believe God is not as important as their Revolution?’
    ‘But who could hate a fourteen-year-old girl, Natasha?’
    ‘A commissar,’ she said.
    Mr Gibson thought about the incident on thebridge. ‘Are there Bolshevik agents in Berlin?’ he asked.
    ‘Oh, yes.’ Natasha shuddered. ‘Some pose as White Russians favourable to the cause of the Tsar.’
    ‘The Tsar is dead,’ said Mr Gibson, ‘and his family too, all of them.’
    ‘Yes, that is what is said.’ Natasha gazed at the empty soup bowl.
    ‘Do you mean it isn’t true?’
    ‘Kind sir, how should I know what is true and what is not?’
    Mr Gibson nodded. ‘Would you like to have what’s left of the soup?’ he asked.
    ‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’
    He took the tray into the kitchen. He returned it to her lap with the bowl almost full again, and more bread with it. Natasha, quite overcome, was moist-eyed with gratitude.
    ‘Natasha,’ he said, as she began to eat again, ‘although all the Tsar’s children were reported dead, there’s a woman in Berlin claiming to be his youngest daughter.’
    She hesitated before saying, ‘Yes, so I have heard.’
    ‘Have you seen her?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘If you did see her, would you be able to say whether or not she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia?’
    Natasha’s relish for the food continued unabated, but her appetite for conversation seemed in sudden decline. She looked uneasy.
    ‘I—’ She cut herself off by filling her mouth with bread.
    ‘Natasha?’ Mr Gibson was becoming curious.
    ‘I was never invited to St Petersburg to meet the Tsar and his family,’ she said, ‘so how would I recognize any of them? Why do you ask such a question?’
    ‘Because you’re Russian, I suppose, and this woman must be of interest to you.’
    Natasha looked worried then, and a little cautious. She spooned soup, ate bread, and said, ‘But you are English, so why should she be of interest to you?’
    ‘She poses a mystery that fascinates people everywhere,’ said Mr Gibson, studying her thoughtfully. What was it that had made the Bolsheviks murder her family, and what was it that made her keep the reason to herself? And why was she uneasy about the woman who called herself Anastasia? ‘Doesn’t it fascinateyou, Natasha, the possibility that she might be who she says she is?’
    Natasha looked at him, her rimmed eyes very dark. ‘When one is struggling to stay alive, one is not very interested in other people’s problems, Mr Gibson, sir.’
    ‘Where was your home in Russia?’ he asked.
    She stared blindly at the soup spoon. ‘I cannot think of things like that without pain,’ she whispered, ‘I cannot speak of it. You have been kind to me, you have given me food and saved me from being robbed of my papers. Without papers, a Russian in Berlin might as well be dead. Without papers, one does not exist. I cannot speak of other things.’
    Mr Gibson wondered if it would be a further kindness to warn this unhappy girl. He decided he must.
    ‘I don’t think it was your papers he was after, I think he meant to pitch you into the river,’ he said.
    Natasha paled to whiteness. ‘No, no, I have said nothing,’ she breathed.
    ‘What