Like a River from Its Course

by Kelli Stuart

  IVAN KYRILOVICH

  February 24, 1943

  I remember well the night we got notice of my older brother’s death. It was during the time of the Great War, when all of Russia and Ukraine were in upheaval. My brother, Pavel, had been gone a little over a year, and my father had grown belligerent and impossible in the months after his departure. Mother and I learned to move around him, to stay just out of his reach.

  Father spent most of his mornings in the fields, ordering me to work harder and faster. I lived for the moment that he left for lunch, when he’d go into the village and sit with the other bitter men of his generation, and together they drank and discussed all the ways that Ukraine could and would be better.

  Those were the men who gave voice to the Bolshevik Revolution. They were the men who felt certain that Ukraine would be a better nation when the Czar finally fell and a common Soviet power could be established. Ukraine’s greatness was spoken in the melody of drunken old villagers. I despised them.

  Mother handled the grief of Pavel’s departure much differently. Her suffering was silent and completely alone. Each morning, she cried softly as she gathered the eggs from the hen house, her sobs soft and mournful. By the time she had breakfast prepared, however, her tears were dried, her face soft and serene.

  Mama was strong, but my father weak. His only escape came in the men of the village and the bottle of vodka that he brought home every afternoon.

  The day the letter arrived telling us that Pavel’s life ended on a cold hill in northern Austria, my father had ironically not taken a drink. The night before he had been so drunk that he tripped and fell into the fire where Mama boiled water. His hands were so badly burned that he couldn’t move and, therefore, he couldn’t drink.

  The letter arrived just as Mama placed a loaf of bread and steaming bowls of broth on the table. The knock at the door was sharp and rapid, and Mama froze. I looked from her face to Father’s, both glowing in the orange light of the fire and revealing a fear so deep that neither could move. I pushed back my chair and ran to the door, swinging it open to find our neighbor, Olya Valerevna, standing at the door.

  “This came today just before the post closed,” she said quietly. I remember the rasp in her voice and the way it left me with chills running down my spine.

  I took the tightly folded paper and thanked her before shutting the door and turning to face my parents. Mother already had tears running down her cheeks, and Father’s eyes were dark.

  I opened the paper slowly and read the words with a shaky voice:

  “WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT PAVEL KYRILOVICH PETROCHENKO WAS KILLED IN ACTION ON OCTOBER 2, 1916, AT HIS POST IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. WE THANK HIM FOR HIS SERVICE TO OUR GREAT NATION.”

  I laid the paper on the table in front of Father, his burnt hands limp and black in his lap. He stared at it a long time.

  “It shouldn’t have been him,” Father murmured, his shoulders slumped forward in despair. With a wail, Mama swept her hand across the table, scattering the dishes with a crash and sending Father scrambling to his feet as he growled and screeched in a rage.

  And I stood motionless in the corner. The older brother whom I could never live up to was gone forever, and I felt … nothing. No sadness, no remorse, no grief.

  The months after the notice of Pavel’s death were spent trying to defend myself against Father’s endless attacks. If he wasn’t mumbling about how he wished I’d been the one to die instead, then he talked endlessly about his high hopes for the Bolshevik Revolution.

  “We will be a great nation,” he slurred every day. “We’ll be great when the Bolsheviks get the stupid cowards out of power.”

  In March 1917, two significant things happened. The first was the fulfillment of my father’s predications. The Bolsheviks forced the emperor to abdicate, and the revolution became a success with the fall of the Romanovs and the ascension of Vladimir Lenin into power. Father came dancing home the day the news came to our village. “Don’t you see, you stupid boy?” he cried. “We can now establish a strong Ukrainian Republic. We will be Soviets! This is the start of our country becoming a dynamic power.” Father was victorious that day, and it was the closest to happy I had ever seen him. I hated him for it.

  The second thing of significance to happen in March 1917 was the day I met Tanya. She had just moved to town to live with her grandparents after both her parents were killed in the revolution. She was sad and shy and innocently beautiful. I knew the first time I saw her that she would be mine forever.

  That was a long time ago in a life that feels oddly disconnected from the one I live now. I try to remember the boy I once was from time to time. I try to connect myself to him, but I can’t. It seems as though I have lived two lives, each with enough heartache to stand on its own.

  Tanya sits at the table, her chair turned toward the small window located high on the wall. The sky outside is blue and bright, and every once in a while, a bird glides by. Her hair is loose, hanging down over the back of the chair. In the two years since the war began, her hair has gone from brown to almost completely silver. It’s long and full and hangs in soft waves, framing her petite features.

  I can’t see her face, but I feel her peace. I move into the room and place my hands gently on her shoulders, leaning forward to kiss her softly on the head.

  “Dobrei utra, my darling,” I murmur. Good morning. She turns her face up to mine, eyes smiling. I lean over and kiss the tip of her nose, then turn and shuffle to the chair across the table. She has placed a mug of chai there for me, and I wrap my hands around it, breathing in deep the aroma of comfort.

  “How are you?” I ask before taking a sip. Tanya looks at me, then turns her face back up to the window. Her eyes search the sky as though she’s looking for an answer to a question I don’t know.

  “Ivan,” she says, her face still turned upward. “What do you know of God?”

  I take another sip of tea as I ingest the question. “I don’t know much,” I answer. “I don’t even know if I believe there is a God. Why do you ask, darling?”

  Tanya shrugs her shoulders. “We’ve never discussed it,” she says. “I guess I’ve never thought about it much myself, but lately I wonder …”

  Her voice trails off, and I see the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. I set my mug down and reach across the table to grab her hand.

  “What is it, Tanyushka?” I ask.

  Tanya shakes her head and blinks hard. She takes a deep breath, composing herself before continuing.

  “I wonder if perhaps I’ve missed something all these years in not considering that there might be a God.”

  I wait, not wanting to rush her and completely unsure of how I should respond. I’ve long since made my peace with the idea that there is no God.

  “When the children were growing up, I told them about the saints,” Tanya continues. “I taught them to pray to the saints because that’s what my mother did for me. I wanted them to have something they could believe in that existed outside of themselves. But I never mentioned God to them.” She turns and looks at me, her eyes filled with questions. “Did I deprive them in some way by not giving them a better understanding of God? Would that hope have given them more to cling to in these dark days?” I open my mouth to answer, but she continues on. She doesn’t want answers right now.

  “Maria asked me once about God,” Tanya says. She pulls her hand out of mine and grabs her mug. “She came home from school and asked me why we didn’t pray to God and … Ivan, I didn’t have an answer for her. I just told her that if she wanted to pray to God, she could, and she wanted to know how to pray. Oh my. Remember how many questions she asked?”

  Tanya chuckles, and I join her. Maria was a delightfully curious child. Her incessant talking exhausted us then, but now, with all the silence and stillness, I find myself longing for her chatter. Tanya and I both let our laughter fade as the memories overwhelm.

  “Tanya,” I finally say. “Truthfully, my darling, I
know very little about God, and I’ve never been interested in knowing. My mother was a strong believer in the spirit life, and before the revolution I remember her frequently attending a local church. I think I even went with her once or twice when I was very young.

  “But my father wanted nothing to do with it, and Mother was never one for fighting him on the subject. I remember the icons that she had under her bed. She pulled them out every once in a while and prayed before them, but I didn’t understand why. I guess …” I sit back in my chair, pinching the bridge of my nose. Tanya turns toward me with a look of concern.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “I guess I have a bit of my father in me, after all,” I say with a sigh. “I’ve always tried so hard not to be like him, but in this way I fear I’m much like him.”

  Tanya smiles gently. “I think it’s okay to question and doubt, darling. There’s certainly enough evidence for you to hold to a belief that there’s no such thing as God.”

  “What evidence do you mean?” I ask.

  “Well,” Tanya replies, “what kind of God allows men like Hitler and Stalin to tear innocent children from their mother’s arms?” Tanya stops cold and puts her hands over her face. I push back my chair and rush to her, pulling her into my arms.

  Her shoulders shake as she gasps for breath.

  “Shh …” I whisper, stroking her silver hair.

  “I’m so, so scared, Ivan,” Tanya whispers. “I’m so scared they’ll never come back, and I’m scared that if there is a God, He won’t hear me.” Tanya’s whole body shakes under the strain of her grief.

  “My darling,” I whisper. “Perhaps it’s time you and I both begin to search out the possibility of there being a God.” I push her back and pull her hands away from her face, which is red and spotted with grief. “Maybe it’s time we made peace with God … or made peace with no God. And in that peace, perhaps we’ll find hope again.”

  Tanya nods slowly, taking deep, halting breaths as she tries to regain her composure. She looks at me and speaks with a quaking voice. “I don’t even know where to begin,” she says.

  “I don’t either,” I say. “How does someone learn about God?”

  “I think there is a man quietly operating a church close to town,” Tanya says. “I’ve heard of him while working the salt flats. Maybe we could take a walk?”

  An hour later, Tanya and I make our way out onto the sunlit streets of Kiev. Turning down Shamrila Street, we pause a moment to take in the sight.

  “Spring is here,” Tanya murmurs, and I breathe in deeply. The air is crisp, but the sun warm. Blades of green peek from the frozen dirt, and I grab Tanya’s hand. We’re both desperate to push out the dead of winter.

  Others are out today, mingling and enjoying the beautiful weather. The ever-present soldiers mar my serenity, but outside of seeing an occasional Nazi, I’m pleasantly relaxed. If I allow myself for one moment to forget the pain of the last two years, I feel as though life is almost as it once was.

  An hour later, we arrive at a small building, blackened by the effects of smoke and bombs. I look up at it and squint.

  “How do you know this is it?” I ask.

  “I don’t,” she replies. “We’ll have to step inside to find out.” We push the door open and step into a dark, damp room. Two tables sit at the other end, each with numerous candles lit beneath a painted icon. The old, wooden paintings give me chills as we walk forward. This is the part of religion that feels so foreign and frightening.

  I study the first icon. It’s a picture of a young woman, her face long, drawn, and sad. She holds in her lap a child. Both mother and child look upward, giving them the expression of piety, and perhaps fear. Their lips are parted, and the baby reaches up with one chubby arm. Each of them has a golden halo above their heads.

  Tanya stares at the icon next to me with her head cocked slightly to the side. “It’s the Christ child,” she whispers. I nod. I’ve heard the stories of the Christ born to a virgin—a young girl named Maria.

  Tanya moves on to the next icon. It’s small, and we both lean in to look at it. A man with long, sad eyes holds tight to a cross, his face pious and drawn. Two angels hover over him, and a faded crown rests on his head.

  “I don’t understand where these came from,” I whisper. “I thought all religious relics were destroyed.”

  Tanya shakes her head. “No. Many were preserved and hidden.” She looks back at the picture with a sigh. “I just wish I understood it all,” she says. “Why does he look like that? And why is he wearing a crown?”

  I spin when I hear the footsteps, and Tanya and I both freeze as he steps from the shadows. He’s hunched over inside a long robe, and he moves slowly forward, leaning hard against the staff in his right hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice echoing against the bare walls. “We were just curious.”

  The man nods his head and smiles. “This is the place to be curious,” he says. “Can I help you?”

  I open my mouth to speak, and suddenly feel ridiculous. I don’t know where to begin or what to ask. I close my mouth and look at Tanya, who gives me a soft, patient smile.

  “We’re curious about … God,” she says. I clear my throat. It all feels very awkward. How on earth do I articulate my questions before a stranger? My knowledge of the spiritual realm is simplistic, uneducated, and riddled with disbelief. I don’t even know what to call the man standing before me.

  I squirm under his deep gaze. His face is kind, the wrinkles around his eyes betraying a love for laughter and joy. His mouth is small and parted as though he wants to speak but has not yet been given permission. As our eyes meet, I sense that he knows and understands all of my questions. He has accepted them silently so that I won’t have to give them voice.

  “These are difficult times, yes?” the man says, looking from me to Tanya and back again. We both nod. “Tell me how the times are difficult for you,” he says, leaning against his staff.

  “I … would you like to go someplace and sit down?” I ask him, noticing his frailty, but he waves me off.

  “Why?” he asks, his eyes twinkling. “Because I am an old man? I will be no less old in a chair, I can assure you.”

  Tanya smiles, and I nod, then clear my throat again. “Well,” I begin. “All three of our children have been taken. Our son fights somewhere in the West. We believe he is in the Galicia region, but we’re not certain. We haven’t received a letter in many months.” I feel my chest constrict, and I stop to take in a long, slow breath. Tanya grabs my hand.

  “Our daughters were both taken last year. They were taken right off the street, right from my hands.” My voice cracks. I shake my head. Tanya continues.

  “They’re in Germany.” Like mine, Tanya’s voice trails off, and she searches the old man’s face. I feel her questions. She wants reassurances. She wants to hear that this God we know nothing about has something planned—something that will give her hope. She wants to know that the saints are on our side.

  The old man sighs, the light from his eyes dimming. He nods, first at Tanya, then at me. “Yes,” he says softly. “These are terrible times indeed.” He turns to face the first table and gestures toward the icon of the mother and child.

  “There’s much room for doubt in these days and plenty of reason for question,” he says. “But belief that there is a higher purpose and acknowledging the beauty of truth will carry you far through this tragedy.”

  I feel my heart sink. This is exactly the thing I feared in seeking out God. There are no answers, and if hope can only be placed in some mystical reason beyond my understanding, then what reason could there be for my heartache?

  “Forgive me,” I say, turning to the old man. “I don’t know that I believe in—”

  The old man holds up his hand, and I immediately quiet. He turns to me, and the right side of his face, rippled with scars, is illuminated by the candles. It gives him an almost angelic look, and I at once feel equally horrified and myst
ified.

  “I watched many of my dearest friends die before my eyes,” he begins. “When the revolution turned against the Church, I saw the fires light. I heard their screams, and I listened to their guttural cries as their throats were slit.”

  I put my arm protectively around Tanya as she moves closer to me.

  “I saw these things, yet I did not stop believing,” he says. He turns back to the icon. “I prayed to the Holy Mother and to the Christ child. I prayed to the saints and recited the lines of faith that I grew to love so dearly. I saw tragedy, but I did not stop believing. Even when they sent me to Siberia.” He turns back to me. Tanya’s shoulders tremble as she presses against my side.

  “I spent fifteen years in the harsh winters of northern Siberia. I was beaten and abused and forced to work from the darkness of morning to the darkness of night. The conditions were unbearable, yet I bore them because I didn’t stop believing.”

  “But why?” I ask. “Why do you believe? It all seems so pointless.”

  The old man smiles and nods his head. “You would be surprised, my friend, at the power in believing in something outside of yourself. When you acknowledge that the pain of this world is unbearable, you’re able to finally surrender to the One who alone is worthy of carrying the weight.”

  He reaches out and grabs my hand, pulling it to his heart. “I believe because it’s true,” he whispers.

  “How do you know it’s true?” I reply. I don’t pull my hand away because there’s comfort in the warmth of his beating chest.

  “Look at us here,” he gestures to the hollow room. “We are openly discussing God in a place that not so long ago killed many of my friends for similar conversations. God cannot be suppressed under the evil of man. The world is harsh and cruel and full of pain. But God is real. The Holy Spirit and Mary and the saints—they’re real. To believe is to trust, and when you trust, your life has meaning and purpose outside of the mere endurance of hardship.”

  He takes my hand and slowly lowers it back to my side. Tanya looks up at me, then back at the old man.