Rock, Paper, Scissors

by Maxim Osipov

  He, however, got off to a bad start with theater. Marina had taken him to a production where the actors fell to the floor and rolled around while talking, and then to another production where everyone shouted except for one actor who, by contrast, performed his role wonderfully. Clearly he was ignoring the director and performing the way he liked, the way he was accustomed. But even then Father Sergius had to go out and wait for Marina in the foyer.

  Such is the backstory. Not happy.

  •

  The story itself begins this way. Father Sergius is sitting in the kitchen reading a book. The events take place late in the spring, in Moscow. He reads a lot—philosophy, theology, art, everything: old and new. Reading is his greatest pleasure and interest. He’s stuck to the habits of his youth. And so Father Sergius is sitting there with a book when suddenly it occurs to him, in a roundabout way, that it’s quite probable that Mona is about to die. To speak of her as passing on seems too solemn for a dog.

  “What does it matter what word we use? She hasn’t eaten in three days.”

  Father Sergius brings Marina into the kitchen. Mona is lying beside the food and water bowls, head on front paws, looking up.

  The priest goes to the window, undoes a button on his sleeve, and his watch throws a spot of light onto the wall. Mona used to get all excited by these spots—she would jump up, growl, and snap at them—but now she just watches without moving her head, then looks at her masters. She doesn’t even attempt to get up.

  “Leave the dog alone!”

  Why so bad-tempered? It’s not Father Sergius that’s killing her.

  Telephone conversations follow and a vet turns up. One of Marina’s friends has recommended this person as “the Vet from God.” Father Sergius can’t remember the vet’s name, insofar as he radiates nothing but indifference. And greed. Even Marina had to admit as much. Nonetheless, he inserted an IV: now at least Mona won’t die of dehydration.

  They try to do more for Mona’s health, hurriedly and without coordinating. They have analyses done—there are leukocytes and protein in her urine. Now what? The Vet from God asks: “What do you think?” Then says: “It’s age.” They need to take Mona to the dacha: there they can bury her decently.

  On occasion Father Sergius and his wife still act as one: they don’t even say the word bury. Over many years of married life, however inharmonious, an understanding evolves. Marriage—as his neighbor in the hospital, a writer, will tell him later—requires two of three conditions, in any combination: a passport stamp, cohabitation, and a shared bed. They have the first two.

  In the taxi there’s a radio—Mona lies there quietly, but she used to react, especially to female voices. She would howl, striking various high notes. The disappearance of Mona’s musicality affects Marina more than the knowledge of the protein in her urine; all the way to the dacha she sobs and strokes Mona’s head.

  “It’s just a dog,” says Father Sergius. He’s sitting in front.

  This statement offers little comfort, however true it may be. It would be better if he hadn’t said anything.

  Oh dear, such heartache. Somehow they manage to unload the things, and Mona, from the car. They put her on the floor, cover her, and try to feed her. They are beginning to accept that the dog is near the end.

  “In a way, animals are luckier than we are. They’re unaware of death’s existence.”

  Rather than hold forth, Marina says, you could go to the pharmacy and buy some medicine. We need to put in the drip. So of course he goes to the pharmacy and puts in the drip, and the house takes on a particular smell—the apartments where Father Sergius administered the sacraments smelled like this.

  At one point Mona manages to get up and even walks around the room a little. Then her hind legs give way and she falls, making a loud noise as she collapses onto the wooden planks. Father Sergius looks at his wife: she too is probably thinking “the sooner, the better.”

  Whatever they do, the dog should not be made to suffer long. But then another vet turns up—a local, around thirty, with a soft voice. He palpates Mona’s stomach, making her hiccup almost like a person, and says he needs to do an X-ray, an ultrasound, more tests. So in the morning Father Sergius orders a car and it takes him and Mona to the veterinary clinic. Marina stays at home: she doesn’t have the strength.

  Mona lies on the glittering table. The sun is in the window and there are sun spots everywhere, but she’s no longer interested.

  “Here,” says the vet, indicating her X-rays. “Here and here.”

  Round white spots—cancerous metastases.

  “And here’s another,” says the vet relentlessly.

  It’s his view that the dog should be put to sleep, to spare her from suffering.

  “But she doesn’t really seem to be in pain.”

  “Dogs are awfully tough,” the vet explains. “And she feels bad because she can’t serve you.”

  “Euthanize her” is what he says. And—yes—he’s ready to do it. Here and now.

  “Just a moment,” says the priest.

  Euthanize isn’t the word—they’re about to kill off the dog.

  He has to make a phone call. To talk it over with his wife.

  “Of course.” The vet understands. “But be quick, please. Other people are waiting with their dogs.”

  Father Sergius looks at Mona: “I’ll be back soon.”

  He had often said this to her, but then he would go away for the day, and Mona probably thought “I’ll be back soon” meant “I won’t be back soon.” It would hardly cross her mind that her master would lie to her.

  “Do what you think best.” Marina is weeping.

  And now Mona is in a cardboard box, dead. This dog hospital has special boxes. Simple, without any writing on them. White boxes.

  “Dogs are buried in boxes?” asks the priest.

  The vet shrugs.

  “You can leave the dog here. There’s a collection service.”

  No, thank you, he needs no more of their services.

  It all happens quickly, and twenty minutes later Father Sergius is digging a hole in the garden. As a former geologist he knows how to dig quickly. He doesn’t feel anything. Mona was a dog who had a good life. She never had puppies, but then—what can you do?—they hadn’t found her a mate. Marina is watching him from the window. Of course he didn’t bury Mona in some box. While covering her with earth, he automatically hummed “Beneath the Waves of the Sea”: the hymn that led him to leave geology and be ordained into the priesthood.

  •

  In the mid nineties the future Father Sergius was going to church so often he’d all but given up his real job, all the more so as they weren’t being sent on expeditions and basically weren’t being paid anymore: no one seemed to need their geology—at least not his type of geology.

  Going to church with Marina, the future Father Sergius set himself the task of observing the cycle of divine services for an entire liturgical year, which he did for one year, then two, and he struck up a friendship with the father superior, Father Lev, the sick and widowed archpriest who lived there in the little clergy house. He began sitting with him late into the night—Marina was spending her evenings at the theater; they didn’t have Mona yet—and he rejoiced in the spontaneous religiosity of those around him, a quality he lacked. He had envied people their spontaneity, their ability to act on impulse, ever since he was a child.

  Father Lev was frequently visited by family—sons and nephews, young priests and deacons (deacones, they said), some of them living just outside Moscow, others in Ryazan and Tambov provinces—and at these times the future Father Sergius observed not only spontaneous faith but also a spontaneous drunkenness for which he had not been prepared. Several priests had been prohibited from administering church services because of their drinking—some for several years—and, surreptitiously, so that their higher-ups wouldn’t find out, they served in other parishes. Sergey liked their company. He liked the gentleness and humor of these people, an
d it flattered him that they let him hang around, although he realized he wasn’t of any particular interest to them.

  “God and a broad,” repeated Father Lev, watching his kinsmen drinking. “God and a broad are life itself. But as for vodka . . .” He shook his head. That he had actually said broad seemed impossibly daring.

  On one of those evenings Father Lev related how he had gone to administer Communion to an elderly man, a man with a nasty streak. He had once been important, almost a general, but now he was dying on the outskirts of Moscow. After making the long journey on several minibuses, he confessed the man at length, but when he began to give him Communion, he realized he’d left the sacraments behind. At which point the archpriest had the courage, as he put it, to use bread and wine to give Communion to the general: he deceived him, dunking a piece of altar bread in Cahors wine and giving it to the old man. And he told the general to take Communion for three days. Then the next day and the day after that he did the same thing all over again, this time with the real sacraments. For a misdeed like this he could have been not just banned from administering services but defrocked altogether.

  “If they ban me, all right,” said Father Lev, “so long as they sing ‘Beneath the Waves of the Sea’ at my burial.” What he had in mind is that “Beneath the Waves of the Sea” is sung when priests, but not laypeople, are being buried. “He who in ancient times hid the pursuing tyrant beneath the waves of the sea-a-a-a,” Father Lev began to sing in a low voice, and it was this, astonishingly, that settled the matter for Sergey—the matter of whether or not to become a priest. “Sometimes unexpected things strike through to the soul,” he explained to Marina. She looked doubtful: he didn’t use to express himself so solemnly. As for herself, she couldn’t even learn the Credo.

  The future Father Sergius knew he could only handle so much, that he had to limit himself, and during this period he lost interest in non–church people. This may have included Marina, for the time being.

  •

  “Still, it’s strange that we trusted that butcher.” She’s talking about the local vet.

  “He seemed like he knew what he was doing. And the X-rays looked convincing.”

  Marina splutters.

  “X-rays! My God!”

  Of course it’s not his fault, she says, and by this she means it is his fault. Mona’s death, and much else besides.

  Right now, more than anything else, he wants to bathe, go to his room, and lie down. Still, he tries to reach out and touch Marina’s shoulder.

  “Just a dog, you say. But what does that matter?” She won’t let up. “We cry over Madame Bovary and she never even existed!”

  Who’s crying over Madame Bovary?

  Evidently he’s no longer capable of feelings, Marina suggests, any feelings whatsoever.

  But no, he feels bad about Mona.

  And there are all sorts of feelings—what’s the point of talking about them?

  •

  Father Sergius is used to failure, this is what he thinks. Although why should he consider himself a failure? He wanted to become a priest, and he succeeded. Is there really anything loftier than the priesthood? His wife . . . The things he could say to no one but her had become fewer and fewer, there was hardly anything left. It was odd that she had begun to do without . . . how to put it? . . . physical intimacy with him. From his experience of receiving confession he knew that towards his and Marina’s age physical intimacy becomes increasingly important for women, while men become indifferent towards it. Although for Marina it had always been important. It was awful to think of her having . . . a friend. In that case there certainly wouldn’t be any “Beneath the Waves of the Sea.” Although people do change. Deep in his heart, however, Father Sergius knew that they don’t change. People forgive themselves, God forgives them, but they don’t change.

  He’s lying in his room and thinking: he lacks spontaneity. He always has. Like now. He could go to Marina, console her, do whatever seems right—even shed a few tears with her. His reaction to any misfortune occurs after a certain delay—to another person’s misfortune, yes, but also to his own. Yet it’s not something you can explain to someone else.

  Suddenly he recalls when he was in year nine or so at school and they were all driven somewhere to shoot a machine gun. The shooting he can’t remember. What he remembers is this: on the way back, along an empty suburban Moscow street, his classmates began chucking snowballs at a glass phone booth—no one was inside—and for some reason he too grabbed a chunk of ice, chucked it at the booth, and hit it, breaking the glass. The others all ran on ahead but he lingered, and a passerby, an elderly man, stopped and looked at him, slowly and reproachfully. He can’t remember how old the man was, maybe fifty, maybe seventy, and he’s not even sure it was a man. But the look he does remember. On the other hand, he thinks, he never joined the Komsomol. The others joined, the whole class did, despite no longer believing in any of it, of course. The memory of the Komsomol briefly raises his spirits. But he’s feeling unwell nonetheless, physically unwell.

  Of course he was a failure. Take his first parish: a church known throughout Moscow where they had sent him to replace a priest who was infamous for his daring views. Here you found women who said to each other: “Move back, you’re keeping me from the proscenium.” They did not accept Father Sergius. He remembers his first and only Christmas at that church: three priests standing with chalices, he of course being one of the three, only there were queues of communicants before the other two priests, while before him—no one. The regular parishioners preferred the other fathers to him. The choir there was very good indeed. This is where it became apparent that Father Sergius could not sing. So, out of kindness, some of the parishioners began confessing to him. “I used the icon as a mirror,” said a lady one time, the one who referred to the soleas as the proscenium.

  On the other hand, there were lots of children in that parish. Father Sergius liked talking with them. He discovered, for instance, that they would often take money and tear it, burn it, destroy it, testing the limits of what they could do. He told one small girl the story of the phone booth. He gave her quite a scare, it seemed.

  One time, upon entering the refectory, he overheard: “Think of him as someone who hasn’t fully overcome his autism.” One of his priestly brothers was talking about him. “One mustn’t just dismiss someone as an outsider,” replied another. “And the last shall be the first.” Father Sergius, faltering, tried to smile. “We’re discussing the new president,” said one of the brothers adroitly, also trying to smile. This was in 2000.

  Then there had been another church, absolutely new, the church where he first became father superior. There were scarcely any parishioners, but the church prospered thanks to its proximity to the district court. It had lots of casual visitors, not regular churchgoers. Different people every day. In anticipation of the court’s judgment of their cases, civil and criminal, they gave generously to the church, and Father Sergius took substantial sums to the bishop. He always found it uncomfortable looking at him, but there was no one he could go to for advice—his beloved Father Lev had died. At the funeral, together with the council of priests, many of them kinsmen of the deceased, Father Sergius had read the Gospels and sung “Beneath the Waves of the Sea,” glancing over at Marina and regretting that he couldn’t grieve with her at his side.

  At the time these monetary matters greatly disturbed Marina; they confounded her belief. The bishop wasn’t a bad man, he was just too taken up with building works—and then, bishops faced a greater variety of temptation than did simple priests and the laity. It wasn’t because of them, the bishops, that Father Sergius hadn’t become a good priest—it was his own fault. Twice a year Father Sergius shared his doubts with his official confessor—was he equal to the burden of the cross? He said nothing about Marina, although it didn’t even occur to him that his confessor might let something slip about his troubled home life.

  Now he was serving in a small church in the c
enter of Moscow, a parish, as they put it, consisting of “one and a half old women.” It was just him and a dodgy choir—made up of amateurs, that is—and from here there was nowhere for him to go. People asked, of course: What’s the matter with the matushka? Meaning: Why don’t we ever see your wife at church? “She’s indisposed.” After a while they stopped asking, and for some reason there wasn’t any gossip. Over the course of ten years the parish didn’t grow, but the “one and a half old women” evidently respected Father Sergius. If only his relationship with Marina had not gotten into such a state . . . He knew what she was doing at that very moment: looking at photographs of Mona on her phone.

  •

  He hadn’t eaten a thing all day—there wasn’t any food in the house anyway—but he didn’t feel hungry. He had a pain inside, deep inside—not exactly in the chest or abdomen, but somewhere in between, in the pit of his stomach. Somewhere Father Sergius had learned that the first sign of a heart attack is fear. But fear wasn’t what he was feeling.

  Father Sergius constantly confronted death, the deaths of other people, but he rarely thought about his own death insofar as he hardly ever thought about himself. When he did think about death, he did so in quite positive terms—never as the end to his worldly travails, but rather as an opportunity to dispel his fear and ignorance of the afterlife.

  The pain, though, was getting worse and worse. Telling himself that the pain was something apart from himself, apart from Father Sergius, was not getting him anywhere. He drank a cup of tea without anything in it, by himself. It was already dusk. The pain didn’t go away. And now he was feeling nauseous too.

  Father Sergius, like all priests, was afraid of vomit. This is why he decided it was time to take action. He dialed the emergency services, explained where the pain was, listened to their advice. Finally he found out that there was just one ambulance and it was out on a call. He ordered a taxi. Father Sergius hoped to leave quietly—he was embarrassed by his indisposition—but Marina had heard. She shot out of her room and began getting his things together in a frenzy.