by Gale Sears
Irena smiled as she worked. It was lovely seeing her cousin again after so many years, and even though Natasha spent her days in Novgorod working for the Bolsheviks, in the early morning and at night they were able to spend time together cooking, sewing, chopping wood, and chattering away like schoolgirls. Irena loved their walks in the evening gloaming when Natasha would talk about her life in Petrograd and her friend Agnes.
She remembered Agnes from the summer she had come with Natasha to visit. Agnes had blue eyes and a golden heart, and Irena could tell her cousin grieved for her friend, but still she would not send her prayers to God for help. At night when they’d lie in bed telling each other fairy tales and talking about faith, her cousin seemed unsure about God. It was hard for Irena to understand. She yawned and moved to clean the next icon. She had come early to the church, allowing Natasha to get a little extra sleep. Her cousin had been very tired the night before when she’d returned home from her day in Novgorod. Irena thought that the work Natasha was doing for the Bolsheviks did not make her happy. But what did she know? She was just a simple country girl who cared more about God than government.
Irena reached toward the wooden icon of St. Peter and heard a voice, muffled and indistinct, but without question, it was a voice. She held her body perfectly still, her hand frozen in its advance toward the holy relic. The voice came again. Her eyes flickered to the face of the apostle. She crossed herself and bowed.
“I hear you. I hear you,” she whispered, her voice imbued with worship. “But I don’t know your words.”
Now several voices.
Irena stepped back, looking fearfully at the shadowed frescos that covered the walls: angels with wings and staffs, princes with swords, saints with books of judgment. Her heart pounded as faces stared and hands reached out. The passionate eyes of Boris and Gleb looked down at her. Nothing to fear, she told herself as she pressed her hand to her chest. They are the noble sons of Prince Vladimir. They are martyrs and saints. Yet she could focus only on the metal of their sharp swords.
“What are you trying to say to me?” she asked them. She had always believed the voices of saints and angels would be beautiful and soft, but these voices were loud and angry. She dropped her cloth and put her hands over her ears to shut out the din. “Have I done something wrong? Has pride crept into my offering? Are you here to punish me?”
There was pounding on the front doors. Irena turned quickly and fell over the uneven surface of the stone floor. She crawled forward yelling. “What? What is it you want? Go away!”
“Open this door!” a voice rasped.
Irena stood and ran to the door, pressing her hand against its aged surface. “No! No, I can’t. It’s not time to open the doors!”
“Stupid girl!” the voice barked. “Open the doors or we’ll break them down!”
Irena willed strength into her slender arms. “Go away, you bad men!”
“Just open the doors!”
“I don’t have the keys!” Irena yelled.
A knife blade shot through the narrow slit between the doors, piercing Irena’s hand. She screamed and fell back. Father Keronin came running through the royal doors of the icon screen.
Why is he coming through there? Irena wondered in her fright and confusion. It isn’t time for the service, and his keys are still jangling on his belt.
“What’s happening here?” he called as a crash came against the doors. The priest looked over at Irena Petrovna, who was kneeling on the stone floor and cradling her hand. Large drops of blood dripped onto her white apron. The priest crossed himself and grabbed an ancient pike off the wall. The doors shook again as another crash sounded. One of the old hinges snapped and the door sagged inward. A yell went up from the men on the threshold and instantly another thrust was leveled against the wood. The doors gave way, hinges squealing, the splintered planks grating against the floor. Two young men kicked the remnants away and rushed into the room.
The priest blinked as light poured into the dimness of the sanctuary. He was afraid, but filled with wrath. He raised the pike. “How dare you break into the church!”
Four other men joined their companions.
The priest’s eyes were adjusting to the light, and he glared at them. He was small in comparison to their brutish peasant stature, but his was the strength of indignation. “How dare you pollute this holy place. You are not from our village.” He squinted at them. “I saw you in Novgorod. You came on the train with the Bolshevik artists.”
A man with dark hair and full beard shoved his way to the front of the group. “Now stand back, Father. We don’t wish you any harm.”
Father Keronin stood his ground. “You’ve already done harm,” he spat, glancing over at the bleeding girl.
The leader followed his look. He grunted when he saw the red stain on her apron. “Dmitri Borisovitch, take care of her.”
“Yes, Professor.” He detached himself from the group and moved toward the girl.
As he approached, Irena screamed and pushed herself to her feet, smearing blood on the stone floor. “Don’t! Don’t hurt me! You . . . I saw you. You broke down the door! You bring evil to this place.”
“This place has been evil for a long time,” the leader barked. “Now, stay still, comrade, and let Dmitri help you.”
Irena ran.
Dmitri swore and ran after her.
“Leave her alone!” the priest yelled. “She’s simple. She doesn’t understand.” He wavered, torn between helping the innocent girl or protecting the sanctuary.
Professor Prozorov took the opportunity to grab the priest’s wrist and wrench the weapon away from him. The priest yelled out in fury and pain as he felt several bones crack under the pressure of the man’s large hand.
“Nicholai Lvovitch, tie him up if he’s going to be so much trouble.”
The priest began to weep as another trespasser with thick straw-colored hair began tying his hands with rough rope. The priest gritted his teeth against the pain. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
The leader ignored him, turning his attention instead to the others in the gang. “Everything goes into the wagon—plaques and panels off the walls if they’ll come down, icon stands, candle stands, priest’s robes, and especially jeweled miters . . . if they have any in this backwoods church. Don’t worry about the icon screen. Others will come to tear it down and paint over all the frescos on the walls.”
The priest stared at the man as if a demon had suddenly sprung out of the stone floor. Dmitri returned with the girl, holding her roughly around the rib cage. She was nearly unconscious from shock and fear.
“Put her down!” Professor Prozorov growled. “Go help get things cleared out.”
Dmitri obeyed, allowing the girl to fall to the floor. The professor knelt by the prone figure. He took off his glasses, put them into his pocket, and gently picked up the bleeding hand.
Irena gave a terrified cry and tried to slide her body away from him.
“Leave her alone!” the priest yelled. “She’s an innocent.”
“And she’ll be dead if I don’t get this bleeding stopped.” He stripped off the girl’s head covering and wrapped it tightly around her hand. When he had it tied off, he pulled her over against the wall, sitting her next to the priest, then stood to supervise as two of his men went by carrying a wooden panel painted with the image of St. Clement.
“You’re stealing the holy artifacts?” Father Keronin asked, his voice taut with anguish and disbelief.
The leader turned to glare at him. “Why would I want to steal trash?”
Nicholai Lvovitch went past carrying an icon of Elijah and the mosaic of St. Basil.
“Stop!” Irena called. “Where are you taking them?” Her blue eyes stood out in her bloodless face.
Nicholai stopped to smirk at her. “To the car
t, little comrade. I don’t know where they’ll end up after that—on the train and then to Petrograd, maybe. Our Bolshevik leaders will decide what to do with them.” He moved on. “Maybe burn them.”
“Burn them?” Father Keronin struggled against his bonds. “No! No! Those icons are hundreds of years old.”
Professor Prozorov grunted. “Maybe they’ve outlived their usefulness.”
The priest stared at him blankly. “Why? Why would you do that? Why would anyone do that?”
“To get out from under the yoke of superstition, to set the people’s feet on a better path,” Prozorov answered. “All religion does is exploit and befuddle the working class. That domination is over.”
The priest, his face wet with tears, stared at the dark-haired man with realization. “You’re not a peasant. You try to look like a peasant, but you’re not.”
The big man smiled. “There are no peasants or tsars or bourgeois merchants anymore.” He paused before adding, “As there are no more professors. Now, we are all comrades.”
Candlesticks, icons, jewel-encrusted plaques, and silver crosses were all carried unceremoniously from the sanctuary. The two believers could hear with wrenching clarity as each article was thrown into the wagon. Dmitri walked by with an exquisite silk embroidery of St. Sergii draped around his shoulders.
Irena pressed her wrapped hand to her eyes and cried. “Please, St. Sergii, come and stop them. Please, please, please.” Her lips turned blue and she fainted.
“Irena Petrovna!” the priest called out, sliding over to her.
At that moment Natasha Ivanovna came running into the nave. “What’s happening here?” she yelled, seeing only the chaos of men carrying out the holy artifacts.
“Ah, Natasha Ivanovna,” Professor Prozorov said. “So glad you decided to join us.”
“What are you doing? We never discussed destroying a church.”
Professor Prozorov’s face showed malevolence, but his voice was controlled. “We? Why would you think you’d be included in any of the Central Committee’s grander plans?”
“Where is Sergey Antonovich?”
“He’s in Novgorod, organizing things for our departure.”
Nicholai Lvovitch came in carrying a jewel-encrusted miter. “Comrades! Look at this headdress! This must be the biggest prize of all!” He saw Natasha and his eyes went immediately to his boots. He hurried past her without speaking another word.
Irena called to her in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “Natasha, please . . . please make them stop.”
Natasha spun around. “Irena?” She saw her cousin feebly attempting to push herself into a sitting position, and then she saw Irena’s bloody hand. Natasha cried out and ran to her. “What happened?”
“These evil men stabbed her,” the priest said through gritted teeth.
“What?” Natasha knelt by her side. “Who? Who did this?”
“She got in the way. It was an accident,” Professor Prozorov said.
Natasha glared at him. “Is this what you call working for the people?” She held her cousin close. “Is this serving the people?”
One of the looters came quickly into the nave. “The alarm has been sounded in the town.”
Professor Prozorov reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out papers. “I have the orders from our leaders, but just in case, take out your pistols.”
“Yes, Professor.” The man went to tell the others.
The professor looked down at the semiconscious girl. “Hopefully the doctor will be among the gathering crowd.” He shook his head, disgusted by the weeping priest. “What is your place, priest? What are you good for? Nothing, but weeping and drinking and robbing the working man of his meager wares and wages. And for what? To chant words over him when he is born and words again when he is dead.”
Father Keronin had managed to free his damaged hand and was gently patting Irena’s face. He gave the professor a reproachful look. “You are a stupid man if you think destroying the church will destroy our faith.”
Professor Prozorov pulled the other pike off the wall. “In a few days, a committee will come with workmen and soldiers and saw off the cross from the top of the dome. They will paint these walls and put in desks and chairs. This building will become a government office space, which means it will finally be serving a purpose.”
Natasha was sickened by the professor’s callous arrogance. She put an arm gently around her cousin’s waist and carefully looped her uninjured arm around her neck. Irena whimpered. “Come on, dear one,” Natasha encouraged as she lifted her. “I’ll take you to your mother.”
“Put her down,” Professor Prozorov ordered.
Natasha stared at him. “I’m taking her to her parents.”
“No, you’re not.” He advanced on her. “Put her down.”
Natasha was trembling with rage as she placed Irena back onto the cold floor.
“Natasha?”
“Shhh, Irena . . . your mother and father will be here soon.”
Professor Prozorov grabbed Natasha’s arm and yelled to the others still in the room. “That’s it! We’re done here. Everybody out!”
Irena reached up and took Natasha’s hand. “Don’t . . . don’t go with them. Stay with me. Stay here with Papa and Mama and me.”
Natasha attempted to pull away from the professor. “I’m going to stay with her until her parents come.”
“No, actually you’re coming with the rest of us.” He wrenched her away from her cousin’s grasp and dragged her toward the entrance.
“Let me go!”
“Nicholai Lvovitch, take her to the wagon.”
Natasha struggled to free herself. “You can’t do this to me!”
Professor Prozorov gave her the unctuous smile that Natasha had grown to hate. “You? Who are you? You are not an individual, Comrade Gavrilova, but a servant of the state.” He turned and walked from the room, stepping over the splintered doors, ready to face the angry townspeople.
As Nicholai Lvovitch pulled her from the church, Natasha saw that bewilderment and guns were keeping the simple farmers at bay. Her aunt and uncle were in the crowd, their eyes fixed on the gaping hole ripped into the holy sanctuary. Her aunt was weeping. When they saw Natasha, they brightened, and Natasha knew they expected Irena to follow. When she did not emerge, they ran to their niece.
“Where is she?” her uncle demanded.
Natasha was glad Professor Prozorov was busy with the main group of villagers and did not notice their interchange. She saw several guns pointed at her uncle’s back. She kept her voice as still and steady as possible. “Irena is in the church. The priest is caring for her. Please stay calm.”
Her aunt frowned at the threatening men. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“I don’t either, Auntie.”
“Get to the wagon!” the professor snarled at Nicholai Lvovitch.
Nicholai started walking, but Natasha resisted. She turned to her family. “Wait until we’ve gone, then help Irena. She’s been hurt.”
Her uncle stood in front of Nicholai Lvovitch. “Irena’s hurt? What do you mean, Natasha?”
Her aunt started to move to the church, but Natasha grabbed her hand. “No! Wait! She’ll be all right. You just have to wait until we’ve gone.”
“Are they taking you against your will?” her uncle asked. He gave Nicholai a threatening look.
Tears rolled down Natasha’s face. “It’s all right, Uncle. Don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”
Her aunt walked alongside her. “Will you be coming back to the cottage?”
“No.”
“But, your clothing . . .”
Natasha smiled at her aunt’s sweet concern. “Keep them for Irena. Tell her it’s a gift for her naming day
.”
Nicholai Lvovitch shoved her onto the buckboard of the wagon and climbed up. Dmitri sat on Natasha’s other side, casting her a malevolent look. The rest of the men piled into the wagons. Professor Prozorov mounted his horse and brandished his official papers. He took up the reins and commanded the gang forward.
Natasha looked back to see her aunt and uncle disappearing into the church. The remaining townsmen looked fierce and many women cried as the gang moved off down the track. The wheels of the wagon bounced along the rutted road, and from the pile of sacred relics, the eyes of St. Basil looked up into the cloudless morning sky.
Notes
1. Thousands of churches nationwide were destroyed or their contents confiscated during the years of Soviet rule. Many were turned into government offices, schools, or cultural centers. A conservative estimate indicates that in Moscow alone some 300 churches were destroyed or repurposed.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ekaterinburg
April 30, 1918
Melting snow ran in rivulets down the streets toward the Iset River, turning the packed earth into an oozing sludge that sucked at the workers’ boots and stained the bottom of the women’s skirts. Alexandria and Agnes knelt on the wooden floor, scrubbing off the mud of a dozen workmen.
Seven women from Gang 38 had been ordered to the large house in Ekaterinburg to scrub floors, wash walls, and paint the first-floor windows with white paint. The male prisoners had been finishing the tall fence that enclosed the house and bringing in crates and a few furniture pieces.
“If someone comes in again with muddy boots, I’m going to yell at them,” Agnes said. She tossed her scrub brush into the bucket of murky water and pushed her hair away from her face with a wet hand.
Alexandria sighed and sat back on the floor. “I think they’ve finished bringing in crates.”
“I hope so,” Agnes mumbled, taking a piece of soft cloth and rubbing up the last traces of water from the beautiful wood. “We’ve cleaned this front entry six times!”
