“Papa,” begged Varya, “I don’t understand. Where will you be? You’ll come too, won’t you?”
“My work is nearly at an end, my child. There will soon come a time when I am gone, and then so will the court be gone and all the riches that you see here in the Tsar’s city. Into this void dangerous waters will flood, drowning those who refuse to repent. And when this happens, you must repent with all your heart and flee that very moment.”
I looked at my sister and saw fear ripple across her face, but I felt nothing. Didn’t everyone see the dark waters swirling at his feet?
“Simply believe in the Divine power of love, my daughters, my beautiful girls,” he said, in his rich, deep voice. “Believe in that, and you will find safety of heart and peace of mind in Thine God, O Lord.” Papa tossed down another glass of wine. “One day you will marry. And in that marriage, you must find truth and honesty. Never forget, my children, that though there are a man and a woman in marriage, the success of that union depends on one thing-that it beats not with two hearts but with one. Do you understand, my little ones?”
Averting my eyes, I managed to say, “Yes, Papa.”
“Keep your hearts simple and your minds clear, and you will find God. Eat kasha for breakfast, for it is the caviar of the people. Bake it in the oven until it’s hot and firm, never mushy.”
As timid as a mouse, Varya ventured, “I’ll always serve it with crispy onions and mushrooms, just as you like it, Papa.”
“Yes, good! Very good!” Papa caught sight of Dunya carrying two large wide-rimmed bowls of soup. “And don’t forget that every meal must have soup! Without soup, your family and your guests will be poor both in spirit and in health!”
“Yes, Father Grigori, soup feeds the soul, does it not?” said Dunya, proudly setting down a steaming bowl in front of him.
“Absolutely. And there is nothing better for the soul than fish soup! Fish soup all the time!”
“Fish soup!” cheered Varya.
Which is exactly what it was: cod soup. Papa loved cod above all other fish, and we ate it once, if not twice, each and every day, either jellied as a zakuska, boiled as a soup, or fried as a main course. Sometimes Dunya made cod soup merely from the juices left over from jellied fish heads, adding cream and a bit of chopped root of ginger-Papa claimed this was his magical soup, the one that would guarantee a strong, long life-but tonight whole pieces of cod floated in the thick creamy mixture.
By the time Dunya brought out the other bowls, Papa was well into his dish, slurping and gobbling down whole pieces of fish. He clutched the large spoon like the peasant he was, in his fist. I remembered the first time Papa had taken me to the palace, how the Tsar and his family had sat across from Papa and me, how the finely behaved imperial children had stared at Papa as he crudely gobbled down a bowl of Villager’s Soup chock full of whitefish and salmon, shrimp and pickles. I was sure their mother, the Empress, would have banished them to a far wing of the palace for eating like that, but the four girls and the heir were not watching Papa in disgust. No, he was Father Grigori to them, the most mystical of people, a man of Siberia and of course a man of God, and they were as fascinated and transfixed by him as I was by their father, God’s Own Anointed, the Tsar Nikolai II. More important, the royal children never saw, let alone talked with, anyone but courtiers, so my father, with his loud laughter, warm kisses, and endless stories of Siberian tigers and bears, was something incredible to them. He was both surreal and yet more real than anyone they had ever before seen or experienced in their sheltered lives.
Glancing at my sister, I noted that she held the spoon just as we’d been taught and ate her soup politely-not in big slurps and gulps but slowly, quietly, properly. Yes, we had been taught well at our school for daughters of good families. How odd, I thought, for the first time. While Papa had always fiercely clung to his Siberian manners and traditions, he had arranged for them slowly to be washed from both of us, his cherished daughters.
Papa poured the last of the Madeira into his glass, took a large drink, and said, “I eat only fish not as part of a diet to prove my faith. No, my sweet children, my thoughts are more sincere than that. Fish is part of a path, a path illuminated by the Apostles, who showed us that by eating fish their bodies were never darkened. People who eat meat have dark bodies, you see, but the Apostles didn’t, not at all. Instead, they found light, they found the Divine way.”
“How did they find that?” asked Varya.
“How? I’ll tell you how! The Apostles ate so much fish, morning, noon, and night, that light started coming from their bodies. Beams of light. At first no one could see it, but then it began to grow until this sweet light glowed around their heads. Yes, they had halos right above their very own heads. And this light, which came from fish, showed them the way, the Divine path.”
Never before tonight had I questioned my father. Never before this evening had I doubted him. But staring at this man with the beastly hair on his head and that thicket on his cheeks, this crude man with bits of food hanging from his mouth and from his filthy, greasy fingers, how could I not? How could he have mistreated that woman, and how could he now drink so much? How could he dress so terribly, and how could he not care for money and the things we, his family, needed? And these words he spoke: Where did they come from? What did they mean? I stared at my father, wondered how many women he’d groped in his study-hundreds?-and understood for the first time why so many people hated him. Was he nothing more than an insane peasant from the distant forests, as his enemies claimed?
“But Papa,” I challenged, “you eat so much fish, why isn’t there a halo over your head too? You claim to be a man of God, so why should the Apostles have halos and not you?”
My father dropped his spoon into his bowl, chipping an edge of the cheap china, and turned and glared at me with those deep icy-blue eyes. But the eyes were not steady; they searched my body, my face, my thoughts. My heart started pounding. Everyone claimed to be frightened of my father’s penetrating eyes, of his hands that never seemed to stop moving. But before me I saw not the man whose name was on the lips of every person in the country, not Father Grigori or Rasputin or Grishka. No, I saw my very own father, and I refused to be intimidated. After all, who was he, this man who insisted that everyone speak the truth? Nothing but a fraud? A charlatan? So I glared back at him, my eyes not as deep as his, or as blue, but every bit as radiant, I was sure. In response, this deep, guttural sound emerged from my father’s throat, an angry sound like a tiger ready to pounce.
Not intimidated, I couldn’t stop myself from pressing the point, as I asked, “So why can’t I see your halo?”
Her own voice trembling, our dear Dunya muttered, “But, child, it’s right there.”
Not taking my eyes off my father, I demanded, “Right where?”
“Why, there above his head. Can’t you see the faint glow?”
I couldn’t, so I turned to Dunya and in her face saw nothing but confidence, nothing but total belief. She saw something, of course she did, but what? Glancing at my sister, I found her staring right at me, and I spied in her young face nothing but fear and disbelief. No, total shock, that was it. How did I dare question our larger-than-life father? And yet as I gazed at him, I saw nothing. I stared and checked, even squinted, but above that crazy mass of hair was…a void.
I was not going to lie, particularly not today when I’d witnessed what had gone on in my father’s study. Full of certainty, my head moved, shaking slowly from side to side. Who was I if I did not practice what Papa had taught me all these years? Who was I if I did not espouse the heavenly beliefs he had instilled in my heart? Better yet, who was he?