‘Well, what about you then, Georgy?’ asked Leo. ‘Can’t you tell us a little bit about your life before you came to Paris?’
‘There’s so little to tell,’ I replied with a shrug. ‘Nineteen years of living on a farm, that’s all. It’s not the stuff of anecdotes.’
‘Well, where did you two meet then? You said you were from St Petersburg, Zoya, didn’t you?’
‘In a train compartment,’ I said. ‘The day we both left Russia for the last time. We were sitting opposite each other, there was no one else there, and we started talking. We’ve been together ever since.’
‘How romantic,’ said Sophie. ‘But tell me this. If you have two Christmas Days, then surely you must be given two sets of presents. Am I right? And I know you bought her perfume for the first Christmas Day, Georgy. So what about it, Zoya? Did Georgy give you something else today?’
Zoya looked across at me and smiled and I nodded, happy for her to tell them. She laughed then and looked at them, a wide grin spreading across her face. ‘Yes, of course he did,’ she said. ‘But didn’t you notice?’
And with that she extended her left hand to show them my gift. I wasn’t surprised that they had failed to notice it before. It must have been the smallest engagement ring in history. But it was all that I could afford. And what mattered was that she was wearing it.
We were married in the autumn of 1919, almost fifteen months after we had fled Russia, in a ceremony so lacking in grandeur that it would have seemed almost pathetic had we not compensated for its paucity with the intensity of our love.
Brought up to revere a strict, unswerving doctrine, we wanted nothing more than the blessing of the Church to sanctify our union. However, there were no Russian Orthodox churches to be found in Paris and so I suggested marrying in a French Catholic church instead, but Zoya would not hear of it and seemed almost angry when I made the suggestion. I myself had never been particularly spiritual, although I did not question the faith in which I had been reared, but Zoya felt differently and saw rejection of our creed as a final step away from our homeland and one that she was not prepared to make.
‘But where then?’ I asked her. ‘You surely don’t believe that we should return to Russia for the ceremony? The danger alone would—’
‘Of course not,’ she said, although I knew very well that there was a part of her that longed to return to the country of our births. She felt a connection to the land and to the people that I myself had quickly shrugged off; it was an indelible part of her character. ‘But Georgy, I would not feel truly married if the proper ceremonies did not take place. Think of my father and mother, how they would feel if I rejected our traditions.’
There was no argument that could be made against this and so I began the process of trying to locate a Russian Orthodox priest in the city. The Russian community itself was small and scattered and we had never made any attempts to assimilate ourselves into it. Indeed, on one occasion when a young Russian couple entered the small bookstore where I worked as an assistant, I heard their voices immediately – the music of their language as they spoke to each other in our native tongue summoned pictures and memories that made me dizzy with longing and regret – and I was forced to excuse myself and retreat to the alley behind the shop on the pretence that I felt suddenly ill, leaving my employer, Monsieur Ferré, irritated at having to serve the couple himself. I knew that most of my fellow émigrés lived and worked in the Neuilly district in the dix-septième and we avoided it deliberately, not wishing to become part of a society which could lead to potential danger for us.
I was subtle in my detective work, however, and was finally introduced to an elderly man by the name of Rakhletsky, living in a small tenement house in Les Halles, who agreed to perform the ceremony. He told me that he had been ordained a priest in Moscow during the 1870s and was a true believer, but he had fallen out with his diocese after the 1905 Revolution and relocated to France. A loyal subject of the Tsar, he had strongly opposed the revolutionary priest, Father Gapon, and had tried to dissuade him from marching on the Winter Palace that year.
‘Gapon was belligerent,’ he told me. ‘An anarchist portraying himself as the workers’ champion. He broke the conventions of the Church, marrying twice, challenging the Tsar, and still they made a hero of him.’
‘Before they turned on him and hanged him,’ I replied, a naive boy patronizing an elderly man.
‘Yes, before that,’ he admitted. ‘But how many innocent people died because of him on Bloody Sunday? A thousand? Twice that amount? Four times?’ He shook his head, appearing half regretful and half furious. ‘I could not stay after that. He would have ordered me to be killed for my disobedience. It has always astonished me, Georgy Daniilovich, that those who are most repulsed by autocratic or dictatorial rule are among the first to eliminate their enemies once they take on the mantle of power themselves.’
‘Father Gapon never achieved any power,’ I pointed out.
‘But Lenin did,’ he replied, smiling at me. ‘Just another Tsar, don’t you think?’
I did not take his political views to Zoya, although she would have agreed with them, because I thought it wrong to bring such memories to our wedding day. I wanted simply to present Father Rakhletsky as just another exile, forced out of his home by the advance of the Kaiser’s forces. It had taken me this long to find the man, I did not want any problems that might postpone our marriage any longer than necessary.
The ceremony took place in Sophie and Leo’s flat on a warm Saturday evening in October. Our friends had generously offered the use of their home for the service and acted as witnesses on the day. Father Rakhletsky spent an hour alone in the small apartment earlier in the afternoon, consecrating their living room as a holy place, a procedure he said was ‘highly unorthodox but extremely pleasurable’, a turn of phrase which amused me.
It saddened me that I could not provide a more elaborate wedding day for my bride, but it was all that we could do to remain on the right side of poverty. Our jobs did not pay very much money, enough to cover our rent and to feed ourselves, that was all. Zoya ensured that we both saved a few francs every week in case an emergency presented itself and we were forced to flee Paris, but still we could afford very little in the way of luxury. Between them, Zoya and Sophie made her wedding gown in the dressmaker’s shop after trade ended each day; Leo and I wore our best shirts and trousers. On the day, I thought we had put together a charming display, despite our limited means.
Father Rakhletsky had not met Zoya before the ceremony, and when she entered the living room on my arm that evening her face was covered by a simple veil that masked her beauty and charm. He beamed happily at us, as if we were his children, or a favoured nephew and niece, and his joy at performing one more wedding in his life was easy to see. Sophie and Leo stood on either side of us, delighted to be part of this unusual experience. I believe it struck them as terribly modern and unconventional to be getting married in such a way and in such a place. Romantic too, perhaps.
We exchanged simple rings and then I took Zoya’s left hand in my right as we accepted lighted candles in our free hands, holding them aloft while the priest recited the incantations over our heads. When he gave the signal, Sophie and Leo reached across to the tables on either side of them and took the small, simple crowns which Zoya had created from a combination of foil and felt, and placed them simultaneously atop our heads.
‘The servants of God, Georgy Daniilovich Jachmenev and Zoya Fedorovna Danichenko,’ sang the priest, holding his hands a few inches above our heads, ‘are crowned in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ I felt a great happiness enter my body when he spoke those words and clutched Zoya’s hand in my own; I could scarcely believe that our lives were finally being joined together.