- 29th December 2004 - (2129 words)
My journey began on the 19th of April 2004; our Social Sciences Teacher had arranged for the class to visit the local nursing home. Interested residents were to talk to us and we would then produce an essay of their experience, as an assignment for class. Our teacher explained how the residents would enjoy the young companionship and we would benefit from the experience, while also improving our intuitive writing skills.
The nursing home Public Relations Officer allocated me to Dulcie. I asked what Dulcie’s full name was, thinking it would be rather disrespectful of me to ‘waltz’ in calling a senior citizen by her given name. The Public Relations Officer quickly told me her name was Dulcie Jones, Miss Jones, and added with a screwed up face; we all call her Mrs Fruitcake around here, she is 103 years old and in the dementia ward, so she won’t care what you call her. This was just what I needed to feel really good about the assignment. I’ve never been one to warm to old people; they all seem to want to pull at my cheek, saying, “My, look how you’ve grown”.
We were herded through the Nursing Facility and dropped off at our allocated room, in a manner I would expect only infant school or the military would undertake completely correctly. The lady in ‘my’ room was on her bed semi dosing, so I sat down and waited quietly until she sensed my presence and stirred. I introduced myself explaining my purpose, to my delight, Miss Jones sat up, and I watched as colour came to her face to complement her look of a thousand smiles. I had expected an immobile, wretched old hag, lying, mouth open with a blank stare and a proven capacity to think of nothing at all, for prolonged periods.
Miss Jones took me to her terrace where we sat looking over the duck pond; her walk was somewhat slow, she used a cane to help her balance but she was clearly a lady who valued independence and personal pride. We started to talk of life, her speech was not fragmented and vague as I had been expecting, she had the gift of an interesting storyteller, a joy to hear. It was an enjoyable delight to experience her passionate descriptions and captivating tone.
We chatted a little about nothing, and everything, exchanging questions and answers about life. She knew more about the pressures of being a teen today, then my own parents could ever explain or understand. Miss Jones obviously followed world events with a keen interest, and was willing to express any view she arrived at through logical thought. Quite refreshing, as most of the ‘grown ups’ I know have no view of their own, they blindly follow what best suits their current prejudice.
I explained the music I liked and she actually knew of whom I spoke, adding they will never win her over, the Viennese waltz, together with the old classical masters have closed her brain forever; there is no more room in my heart to fall in love with any new musicians or music.
Eventually we started to talk about a rich, long, tragic and interesting tale she titled her life. She explained; she was born on the 5th June 1901 in Peterhof, Russia. During her life, she had changed her name many times. Her birth name was Anastasia Romanov. Her Mother had also changed her name; she was born Victoria Alix Helena Louise Beatrix, later changing it to Alexandra Fyodoorovna, when she became ‘Her Imperial Majesty, Tsarina of all the Russia’s’. Her father was ‘His Imperial Majesty Nicholas II, Tsar, Emperor, and All-Russian Autocrat’.
Until the age of 15 Anastasia lived with her parents, 3 older sisters and younger brother, in luxury beyond the richest dreams of all but the royal families of Europe. The family reign was abruptly ceased, in 1916, by a people’s revolution and for two years, they were held under house arrest in the Ural Mountains of Siberia, at Yekaterinburg. On the 17th July 1918 the whole family, together with some family aids were lined against a wall and shot. Without knowing how, or why, Anastasia was able to live through, and escape, the confusion, having been pulled from the pile of bleeding bodies, rushed away and hidden, into exile. She had no way of knowing whether any of her siblings had also escaped the carnage. She was very sure that her Mother and Father were both dead, as they had pleaded loudly to spare their children and lay on top of the them trying to keep them safe; only a parent would understand.
From 1919 until 1938, she lived as Agathe Genevieve, in France, not far from Nancy. To be inconspicuous she was employed in domestic service by a modestly wealthy family. Her only contact with the past was through a man she knew only as Boris, he would always explain to her that he was ‘the keeper of dreams’. Boris would appear in times of need and make arrangements.
With the threat of war eminent, Boris appeared and Agathe was whisked away; to England and became Dorothy Middlemiss, who worked in a bakery, in Surry. Upon the outbreak of the second European war, Dorothy became an interpreter for the Home Office, a position she held until 1948 when a journalist asking questions about her past stopped her on the street.
From out of no where a man, who she had never seen before walked up and introduced himself as Boris, explaining he was ‘the keeper of dreams’ and within 24 hours Dorothy was on a steamer for the USA, with papers identifying her as Mrs Stacey Grant, a war widow.
Stacey settled in Ellicott City, Maryland, opening a modest Guest House, which over the years made her a comfortable existence. Her past seemed a distant memory as Mrs Grant became accepted as a long-standing and popular local resident. In 1987, aged 86 Stacey was planning to sell her popular and quite valuable guesthouse, and retire to a smaller place, for a less hectic lifestyle. When a nightmare erupted, Suddenly Ellicott City’s conservative and ever reliable Mrs Grant was exposed on national television as a long missing Russian Princess.
Again, a stranger broke into her locked house, which was besieged by reporters. He introduced himself as Boris ‘the keeper of dreams’. Boris arranged a comical distraction, and drove Stacey to Andrews Air Force Base where she boarded a waiting aircraft and flew to Los Angeles. Miss Dulcie Jones, a retired schoolteacher emerged and boarded the waiting Pan Am, Non Stop Flight to Sydney, Australia, with a connecting flight and taxi ride completing the journey to her modest cottage on the outskirts of Canberra.
In 2002 aged 101, Miss Jones sold her home and became a resident of the room in the nursing home where we sit today. Miss Jones stopped talking and sat silent waiting for my response. I was speechless for sometime, tried to say something four times, stopping to improve my Question. Eventually I was able to ask,
“Is this why the nursing staff call you Miss Fruitcake?”
Miss Jones replied,
“Yes of course it is; I have kept my secret safe for so long by deception; and now my secret is ever so safe as no one believes the word of an old lady in a nursing home.”
“May I visit you again, please Miss Jones, it might sound shallow but I feel like I can relate to you and you are such a joy to share ideas with”,
I asked, as I could see the Public Relations Officer and my Teacher searching for me to join the bus. Miss Jones told me she would be delighted to receive me, and I went on my way somewhat quieter and more introspective than I had arrived.
On the way back to school and during the next few lessons, that day. I listened to my classmates exchanging ‘comical’ stories about boring old fuddy-duddies, who were guilty of a wasted life and should have been lined up against a wall and shot for it.
I went home and over the next few days wrote a story for my school assignment. I describe in detail how Miss Jones devoted her life to teaching children. How she had been Head Teacher at Cootamundra primary school where she taught for 43 years. I also described how she retired to her Canberra home to live alone with her pet cat, Boris, spending her last days full of regrets, while pondering lost opportunities. I received an A+ for my work. I showed Miss Jones and we shared a joyful laugh together.
I wrote another story about a beautiful young Princess living in Russia, who was forced to journey the world attempting to maintain her safety and privacy. I explained how the Princess regretted nothing and smiled herself to sleep each night fulfilling her dreams. I kept this story secret sharing it only with Miss Jones; she smiled and showed me a letter she had received in 2003. It was from a solicitor’s office explaining that her Uncle Boris had passed away and she was now ‘the keeper of dreams’. Boris had left her his only possession a key to a safety deposit box in a Canberra bank, which it explained was where the dream was stored.
One day, in July, during my regular visits to my new friend and confident, Miss Jones asked me if I would retrieve the deposit box contents to allow her to see her planned destiny one last time. I was a little puzzled but I trusted Miss Jones totally and with the key in hand, I took the next afternoon off from school, using a note, I wrote for my father. Visited the bank and retrieved a wooden ‘shoe’ box that I placed in a Kmart shopping bag and delivered to Miss Jones, on my bike.
Miss Jones left the door to her room open so as not to attract attention and opened the box to reveal a Faberge Easter Egg labelled, ‘The Apple Blossom’ it was truly magnificent. Miss Jones explained that when she left Russia, the three Faberge Easter Eggs manufactured in 1901, her birth year had also been smuggled out to provide for her future.
The other two had been exchanged to secure her safety; one, the ‘Basket of Wildflowers’ egg was given to Great Britain to secure her passage in 1938. The egg is now a personal possession of her second cousin Queen Elizabeth II. The other, the ‘Gatchina Palace’ egg was given to the United States to secure her passage in 1948. The egg is now on Display in the Walters Art Gallery, in Baltimore.
Miss Jones asked me to take care of the egg for her, and return it to the Russian people, when she dies, as it belonged to them. She added, "You are my Boris, ‘the keeper of dreams’ now." When she explained the egg before us was valued at around four million US dollars, I thought perhaps we should put it back in the bank, for now. Its touch was a life changing experience.
On the 14th July 2004 while visiting her, Miss Jones smiled at me, motioned a soft kiss, closed her eyes, and died.
The nursing staff gave me her locket, which was her only possession aside from her clothes. “She wanted you to have it”, they said, adding, “She was such a fruit cake it is probably made of plastic. It has an image of some family in it, the Czar family, of Gundagai, I think.”
On the morning of The 17th July 2004, I picked up the Kmart bag and ride my bike to the Russian embassy, asking the gatekeeper if I could return some personal property. I was eventually shown into an office. Where several junior clerks almost fell over when the box was opened, I was eagerly ushered to the ambassador’s office and introduced. I told him I was Boris, ‘the keeper of dreams’. I explained that the Faberge ‘Apple Blossom Easter Egg’ was being returned for ‘Her Imperial Princess, Anastasia’, who had joined the rest of her family and requested the egg be returned to the Russian people.
That afternoon I attended Miss Jones’s funeral. The priest and I were the only people there. Two gravediggers working further along the cemetery must have felt I looked lonely, so they came to the graveside to stand beside me. The priest quickly did the necessary for a ‘no body’ funeral and rushed off, not saying a further word. One of the gravediggers asked me who she was; all I could say was, “She was my Princess.”
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