Red Army Spies and the Blackrobes Trilogy

by Patrick Trese

  “I’m looking for any substantial period of time that you can’t account for when someone could have tampered with your mind. You wouldn’t be aware of what went on in such a blank period, of course, but you might be aware of the gap in time itself.”

  “You think I might have been hypnotized?”

  “Or drugged. Something like that.”

  “That seems a bit far-fetched, but I suppose such a thing could happen.”

  Father Samozvanyetz frowned and tapped the edge of the table with his forefinger.

  “The life of a convict is monotonous in the extreme,” he said quietly, not looking up. “One day blends into another and also the months and the years, so that it’s hard to distinguish one from another. But I think that, if you had the time and the patience to listen, I could probably reconstruct each and every day in order. It would be a long string of mostly uninteresting events. But, yes, it would be continuous.”

  He looked the professor in the eye.

  “I think that if something was missing, some gap in time, as you put it. it would be apparent to me. Something like a big hole in a highway. But I am aware of nothing like that. It was not a pleasant road I travelled, but there were no empty spaces in it.”

  Mitchell Sloane leaned forward in his chair.

  “I’d like to get clear on something, Father, since the matter of death-bed confessions has been brought up.”

  He raised his hand to ward off Father Beck’s objections.

  “I understand that priests are not allowed to reveal what they hear in confession, that you can’t talk about any of that. But could we talk around it? I’m sure that certain questions are going to be raised in Washington.”

  “Then we’d best discuss them now,” said Father Samozvanyetz. “Perhaps I am scrupulous about the Seal of Confession, but I don’t think so. I feel that I am in great danger and I would appreciate your understanding.

  “I didn’t have much practical experience as a priest before I was sent to Russia. I heard confessions in Rome after my ordination, but not all that many. And, during my confinement, I had no other priests to talk to about this problem of memory, for example. Not until now. Do priests remember what they hear in confession, John?”

  “I suppose it depends on the priest,” said Father Beck. “I’ve usually forgotten what I’ve heard by the time I leave the confessional booth. Most sins aren’t memorable. Just human, commonplace, a bit dreary. Sometimes I recall the mood of a penitent, but nothing specific, really. I wouldn’t call that remembering, exactly. It’s more like retaining a general impression. But that’s just me. I can’t speak for other priests.”

  “That’s how it was with me in Rome,” said Father Samozvanyetz. “After hearing confessions, there would remain only the recollection of having heard recitals of human weakness and personal failure. So it was easy to listen and absolve and then forget. But then Mussolini never entered my confessional. Nor any of his Fascist thugs.”

  “Yes, that would have been something any priest would remember,” said Father Beck.

  “Unfortunately, John, I haven’t been able to forget anything I heard in the camps, just as I remember everything I saw. Memory helped me survive Lubianka. In the camps, it was my greatest enemy.”

  He turned to Mitchell Sloane and smiled.

  “I’m afraid we can’t escape the subject of faith, can we? But you must understand that I can’t escape my beliefs. It’s relevant, I think you’ll agree. In the camps, it was much harder to keep my faith intact than it ever was in Lubianka.

  “Every day I witnessed the cruelty that human beings inflicted on other human beings. Not inflicted by animals or devils, but by obedient men just following orders.

  “Alone in Lubianka, it wasn’t difficult for me to discern and accept God’s will for me. But accepting the suffering of others? That was an entirely different matter. The great temptation in the camps was to lose faith, not only in God, but also in Man. Day after day, year after year, I saw cruelty and despair. Men maimed and broken in spirit. I was powerless to give them any solace in religion, not overtly.

  “I had to survive. To survive, I had to remain silent and not resist. How could a dead priest help anyone? And so I stood mute and absorbed one shock after another, numbed by my daily observation of cruelty.

  “I knew that if I lost faith in Man, I would soon lose faith in God. And so I prayed that God would make me understand that what I was witnessing was somehow a manifestation of His will. That prayer has yet to be answered.”

  Father Samozvanyetz poured himself half a glass of water and drank it down.

  “What I did come to accept is this: it was God’s will that I be removed from the civilized world and be taken to the very brink of Hell where I had no choice but to look helplessly into the abyss and witness the agonies of the damned. I accepted the fact that it was God’s will that I stay there to offer spiritual comfort to dying convicts. To do that, I had to listen to them. To be a clandestine chaplain, if you will.

  “What can I say about those men? Some of their names might be familiar to you, were I free to utter them. High-ranking political and military men who had fallen out of favor with Stalin and been cast into the Pit. I dare not be more specific.

  “But I can say that I ministered to many such men as they were dying. Some cursed me and rejected my help. Others fought for their souls during their last moments on this earth and spoke the truth.”

  Father Beck watched his friend get up from his chair and walk across the room to a window and stare out across the lawn, his eyes fixed on some distant horror that only he could see.

  “Dear God,” murmured Father Samozvanyetz. “What awful truths they told!”

  He turned, appealing for understanding.

  “They were not demons. They were men, just like us. Some had been men of faith once. Devout, you might even say. Some had been idealists: they’d set out to do what was right and just. But what they believed so fervently turned on them, corrupted them, betrayed them and, in the end, condemned them to die in the midst of cruelty and depravity and despair. That some of them, even a handful, were able to grasp desperately for God’s forgiveness at the end? That was indeed miraculous.

  “But most could not. They were too deeply buried in their hatred of God and Man and Self. But even some of those damned souls talked to me at the end. They were not looking for forgiveness, but just vomiting out their dreadful life stories.

  “Oh, I gave them all absolution, even those who cursed me and cursed God. I could only trust in God’s infinite mercy. But each time I recited the words of absolution, I found my own faith tested. For I had to wonder: could even God truly forgive what I was forced to hear?

  “As a priest I am bound by the Seal of Confession. But am I condemned to remember what I was told by all those dying men? I yearn to share that burden, but I know that to unburden myself, now or in the future, would be to risk eternal damnation. So I must carry this burden to my grave alone, unless God answers my prayers and purges it all from my memory.

  “So far, that does not seem to be God’s will for me.”

  Father Beck reached out to Mitchell Sloane.

  “Must we continue this line of questioning, Professor?”

  “No, I think I’ve heard enough.” Sloane made a show of gathering up his notes and putting them in order. “There’s just one loose end I’d like to tie up, Father Samozvanyetz, if you don’t mind. Your letter to the United States. When did you decide to write it?”

  “I wrote my letter in a burst of optimism. My sentence had been served. I was on parole. I had arrived at a state farm where a job was waiting for me. I really felt I was a free man. So, I thought, why not? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I’ll write a letter to my Provincial, whoever that might be, and let him know where I am. Maybe he can make arrangements to bring me home. It seemed a reasonable thing to do at the time.

  “I tried to mail my letter, but there was no post office. I realized then that it did not ma
tter what my release papers stated. I was by no means free. Siberia still held me prisoner.

  “I kept the letter in my toolbox, not because I thought I would ever have the opportunity to send it, but as a souvenir of my naïveté. I could have torn it up and thrown it away. But, had I done that, I think I would have thrown my life away as well.

  “So I kept that fragment of hope inside my toolbox to remind me that all might not be lost. Time passed. And then, one fine day, a lone American walked into the shed where I was working. I couldn’t believe my eyes!

  “And what was more miraculous, I ask you? That this American should stumble across me in the middle of Siberia? Or that I had my letter ready and waiting for him to carry back to the United States?”

  Father Samozvanyetz threw up his hands.

  “But that is what happened. Was it chance? Or was it God’s will? You can believe what you want to believe, but one fact cannot be denied, Professor Sloane. I am here.”

  “Yes,” said Sloane. “You are here. Now the question is: What’s to be done with you?”

  “May I make a suggestion?” said Father Beck. “If you have no more specific questions, perhaps we should just adjourn and maintain the status quo. Father Samozvanyetz can stay here indefinitely until the government makes its decisions. Any objections?”

  There were none.

  C H A P T E R • 13

  It took Brother Krause a full day to deal with the work that had piled up on his desk during his stay at Milford. When he got around to typing up his transcript of the debriefing, he found something worth mentioning to the Provincial.

  “That church in Warsaw, Father Novak? Father Samozvanyetz says he saw red vestments laid out in the sacristy for Mass the next morning. Red vestments for the feast day of a martyr, something he says he didn’t want to become. Well, I did some research. The Germans announced that von Ribbentrop was flying to Moscow on August 21, 1939. Father Samozvanyetz says he heard that news at the Warsaw train station that afternoon, before he went to that church. That puts put him there the night of the 21st. The red vestments would be for Mass the next morning: August 22. I checked the Missale Romanum. Looks like vestments from August 19 through 23 would have been white, not red.”

  “Or they could have been black,” said Father Novak. “A Mass for the Dead can be said on any weekday, no matter what feast day it is.”

  “Right. White or black, but not red. Take a look.”

  He put the Roman Missal on the provincial’s desk and began turning pages.

  “August 19: Saint John Eudes, white vestments. August 20: Saint Bernard, white. August 21: Saint Jane Francis de Chantal, white. August 22, the day in question: Octave of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, white vestments. There are no red vestments until August 24: Saint Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr. So Father Samozvanyetz couldn’t have seen red vestments when von Ribbentrop was in Warsaw.”

  “Maybe the parish priest or his sacristan made a mistake,” said Father Novak. “Or, wait a minute! There’s another possibility. There’s a second entry for August 22. It’s also the feast of Saints Timothy, Hippolytus and Symphorian, Martyrs. That could account for the red vestments. The pastor could have chosen to say a Red Mass instead of a White Mass.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe the priest’s name was Timothy. Or maybe Timothy was his confirmation name.”

  “In Warsaw?” said Brother Krause. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think Polish parents would name a boy Timothy or that any Polish kid would choose it when he got confirmed.”

  “Well, you can check that out easily enough,” said Father Novak. “We’re in Chicago, remember?”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Brother Krause spent a productive half-hour at St. Mary of Czestochowa’s rectory in Cicero looking over some maps of pre-war Poland with one of the older parishioners, a Polish-American woman who had immigrated to the United States in 1937. Born and raised in Warsaw, she had no trouble pointing out the train station and church across the street from the park that Father Samozvanyetz had described.

  “That was my parish,” she said proudly. “I went to grade school there.”

  She remembered the pastor, Monsignor Teodor Piasecki. He had died several years after the war, she said, but the church was still there. She knew that from letters she received from her cousin who still lived in Warsaw.

  Brother Krause asked if, by any chance, she also knew Monsignor Piasecki’s confirmation name.

  “Who could forget? He was so proud of it. Every year, he celebrated a special Mass for us school children and gave a sermon all about this Roman martyr whose name he took when he was confirmed. And then he gave us children the rest of the day off from school. We always looked forward to Saint Symphorian’s Day. So I remember it well.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Brother Krause returned to the office and told Father Novak what he’d learned. Then he phoned Herb Coogan and gave him the name and location of the church in Warsaw. Coogan passed it on to Mitchell Sloane in Washington.

  “That’s great,” said the professor. “That’s the last fact I had to nail down. Everything else seems to check out. The descriptions of Lubianka and the prison camps are accurate. The references to times and places and historical events also check out. Nothing I’ve heard from our people in Moscow contradicts anything he told us. For example, it would indeed be possible to hear a bell from a clock tower inside Lubianka, depending on where his cell was located.”

  “How about his time in Poland?”

  “The hotel where he said he spent the night in Warsaw couldn’t be found. There had been a few that fit the description, but they were destroyed during the war. The village he saw being bombed when he was walking east along the country roads? It was never rebuilt, but the ruins are still there. And the terrain in that area is still pretty much like he described it, our people say. No discrepancies, so far. All I have to do now is get someone from the embassy to check out that church crypt.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The next morning, a young man and young woman who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw went to Mass at the church Brother Krause identified. The pastor was kind enough to let them take photographs of the crypt beneath the main altar. He was also willing to look the other way when they left his church carrying what they found behind the sarcophagus.

  Before the week was over, a sealed diplomatic package containing the old leather suitcase arrived in Washington. Forensic experts determined that it had been manufactured in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in the Thirties. The toilet articles, handkerchiefs, socks and underwear packed inside had been made in Italy. The clerical suit, hat, topcoat and shoes were of American origin. All the articles of clothing would have fit a younger Father Alex Samozvanyetz.

  Professor Sloane called Herb Coogan in Cleveland.

  “We’re done here, Herb. We’ve checked everything we could check and the Attorney General doesn’t see any reason to keep Father Samozvanyetz incommunicado any longer.”

  “You don’t have any reservations?”

  “Well, I admit all that ‘Will of God’ stuff was hard for me to swallow, but the AG feels his story is plausible. Whatever happened, happened. We don’t know why and I supposes Divine Providence is as good an answer as any other. So as far as we’re concerned, the Jesuit Provincial can release Father Samozvanyetz from the infirmary and let him rejoin the living.”

  “Well, okay, I’ll make the call,” said Coogan.

  “You sound less than enthusiastic, Herb. You have some reservations about this guy?”

  “Nothing specific. Just a gut feeling that something’s not right. I’ll make the call, but I’ll be keeping an eye on the situation and see what happens.”

  “If anything,” said Sloane. “Staying alert never hurts. While you’re nosing around, Herb, if you happen to run across God’s will, please be sure to send me a copy.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  At Mass in the main chapel that Sunday morning, Father Samozv
anyetz was introduced to all the Jesuit priests, scholastics, brothers and novices at Milford. The Rector recounted how the Jesuit priest, while visiting Poland, had been caught up in the chaos of World War II and somehow ended up imprisoned in the Soviet Union. His brief account was short on specific detail.

  What was important, said the Rector, was that he had survived the ordeal suffered by many other victims of Communist oppression and that God had brought him home from exile and imprisonment to Milford. It was now the job of his fellow Jesuits to help him recuperate, physically and emotionally.

  Father Samozvanyetz stood silently, head bowed, before expressing his joy at being allowed to come home. He had gone through hard times but, thanks to God and the American government, that part of his life was over. From now on he hoped to lead a quiet life of poverty, chastity and obedience in the company of his fellow Jesuits. He had no wish for special treatment. It would take time, he knew, to adjust to community life after many years of living in spiritual isolation. It would be dangerous for him to dwell on the past and he would appreciate not being tempted to revisit it.

  Finally, he expressed his love for Russia, for the Russian people, even for his Soviet captors. He prayed daily, he said, not only for the members of the Church of Silence but also for those who persecuted the faithful. He then made the Sign the Cross and in Russian invoked the blessing of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. To which his fellow Jesuits responded: “Amen.”

  Then, in English, he intoned: “Savior of the World!”

  The novices, scholastics, priests and brothers responded: “Save Russia!”

  Again and louder: “Savior of the World!”

  “Save Russia!”

  The organist struck a chord and the assembled Jesuits began singing: “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name!”

  When that rousing recessional hymn ended, Father Alex Samozvanyetz, S.J., followed his fellow Jesuits out of the chapel, across the corridor and into the silent refectory where he found his chair at the breakfast table and his place in the Milford community for the very first time.