“By the fall of the following year special commissions began to eliminate the churches. The procedure was simple. The GPU, which was soon replaced by the NVD and later by the KGB, would arrest a priest for being a ‘counterrevolutionary,’ shoot him, or send him to Siberia. His church would be torn down or turned into government offices. Before your revolution half a million people worked in churches the same number of people who were in your Bolshevik party.
“Through the next years nuns smuggled the Eucharist to arrested priests in loaves of bread and apples. When they were caught, they, too, were imprisoned or executed.
“And the people, so many of them believed that the Church was in league with the fascists. Before the end of the war with the Germans the Church was in ruins. There were less than one hundred active churches. The few surviving priests were broken, frightened, hiding. Thousands, thousands of priests were murdered. The truth lies hidden behind the doors of Lubyanka in Moscow. It was just before the war that Father Merhum, the older Father Merhum, came to Arkush from the west with his wife and his son. They came on foot. During the war, in spite of the horrors the government had visited on our holy church, Metropolitan Sergei and the Orthodox Church rallied believers to battle the invading Nazis. And the Church donated millions of rubles to the struggle.”
Sister Nina looked up from her tea as if a trance had been broken. “There is more, much more,” she said, “but all you need to know is that there were those who never lost their faith. They never stopped giving their love to priests like Father Merhum. There are tens of millions of us. Our faith in our priests cannot be shaken. Your tea will get cold.”
Karpo reached down and picked up the cup and saucer. As he drank he watched the old woman over the rim of his cup. She smiled at him warmly. He was not accustomed to people smiling at him.
“Something amuses you?” he asked.
“Something pleases me,” she said. “A priest dies and a convert comes. A death is followed by a birth. It is God’s grace.”
Karpo stood and placed his cup and saucer on the table next to the candlestick. “You have misread me,” he said, looking down at her.
“You are a true believer,” she answered. “A true believer needs a cause or he will wither. It is known in the lives of the saints that a man is twice blessed who embraced the devil before he embraces God. I see it in your eyes. During the service for Father Merhum the Holy Mother found you.”
“Do you have any idea who killed Father Merhum?” Karpo asked evenly.
“You change the subject,” she said.
“I cannot believe in your religion simply because the revolution has failed.”
“I do not expect you to,” she said. “But it will come. It has already begun.”
“Do you have any idea who murdered Father Merhum?” he repeated.
“He was killed on the morning of the day he was to denounce those for whom the day of retribution had come,” she said.
“Party members,” said Karpo.
“Father Merhum’s list was not limited to the secular. He was not beloved by the hierarchy of the Church.” She stood and placed her cup next to Karpo’s on the table. “There are Orthodox leaders who spoke for the government, supported government claims that freedom of worship was welcome. The Church donated millions of rubles to the Soviet Peace Committee. All religious activity was regulated through the Council for Religious Affairs.”
“You believe that the Church ordered Father Merhum murdered because-”
“-he was about to denounce the Church,” she finished. “There are those who believe this. There are a few in the Church who are not true Christians, and it is they who have risen as tyrants rose.”
“You are a revolutionary,” Karpo said.
“And you are in need of a new revolution.”
“I must go,” he said.
“Perhaps we can talk again.” She walked him to the door. On the way they paused to look at the icon of the pale saint in prison clothes.
Karpo said, “When we do talk again, perhaps you can tell me who Oleg is.”
“You did not believe me?” asked Sister Nina.
“No.”
“There are things that are best left buried,” she said.
“Like the records of murdered priests inside Lubyanka?” Karpo asked.
“Father Merhum believed that such records are long dead,” she said.
“But you believe in resurrection.”
“You are clever and I am an old woman,” she said. “But my faith is strong and yours weak. Do you wish to arrest me for refusing to answer your questions?”
Karpo opened the front door. A wind was blowing through the woods and there was suddenly the smell of cold rain in the gray winter air. He stepped out while the nun held the door open. “No.”
“Good,” she said into the wind. “I’m too old for threats. We will talk again. God bless you.”
After she closed the door, Karpo stood for a moment. This had not been the afternoon he expected. He felt as if a migraine was coming, but he had none of the aura that usually accompanied it, no strange odors, no unbidden sexual impulses. He had to admit as he headed for the town that something about the nun and the service for the dead priest had shaken him. It reminded him of that day from his childhood, but it could not be what Sister Nina had said.
The murderer of Father Vasili Merhum stood back in the woods watching the tall pale policeman move slowly along the path to Arkush.
Moments ago the killer had stood next to the window of the dead priest’s house and heard Sister Nina avoid the question about Oleg. Then he had heard the policeman say that he did not believe her.
The murderer was shaken. At the moment he could see no alternatives. He wanted to see an alternative, a way out, but there didn’t appear to be one. She knew and someday she might tell the policeman or another priest or nun. He could not live with such a fear. It was not just he who would suffer, he told himself. Other lives would be ruined.
Besides, she was old. She believed in an afterlife. If there was an afterlife, he accepted his own damnation. If there was no afterlife and no damnation, then the nun had devoted her life to a lie.
The wind stirred as the policeman disappeared into the trees. The murderer let the next gust push him toward the small house.
Tears welled in his eyes as he reached the door of the house. He could take no time to think about it. If he took time, he would change his mind and Sister Nina would have an opportunity to tell the policeman.
No one locked doors in Arkush, especially a nun. He entered the house and found the old woman in the kitchen cleaning teacups. She looked over her shoulder when she heard his footsteps.
He was trembling, his hands at his sides, but he was determined to act. Sister Nina dried her hands on a small clean rag on a rod over the sink. She crossed herself and turned to face him.
“This is not the way,” she said softly.
“I can think of no other,” he cried. “God help me. I can think of no other. I have become a monster.”
“Then,” she said, “we will both suffer. I for a moment and you for eternity.”
NINE
Elena Timofeyeva and her aunt Anna lived with Anna’s cat, Baku, in a one-room apartment not far from the Moscow River. The apartment building was an old one-story plaster-and-wood box with a concrete courtyard of concrete benches. It was one of the apartment buildings constructed as temporary shelter after the war against fascism. The plan was to tear it down within a few years of its construction. That had been more than forty years ago. Until Elena came three months ago Anna had lived alone in the same apartment for more than half of her fifty-two years.
Elena had the bedroom. Anna had the living room/kitchen. It was hardly lyuks, luxury, but Elena had little choice. New to Moscow, Elena had been lucky to have an aunt who not only took her in but used her influence to get her on the Special Section staff.