And so, over the next two years, sitting at the door like a bewitched mouse, Vasilisa learned of the course of Russian history—about unsuccessful military decisions and the abdication of the tsar . . . There, on her bench, she also learned about preparations for the All-Russian Sobor and the possible election of the patriarch, and about the revolution . . .
In the summer of 1917 Father Varsonofy was summoned to Moscow. But he did not forget the abbess and sent her letters from time to time. At the beginning of 1918 by way of a chance courier he sent the abbess a long letter in which he described autumn events in Moscow and Petersburg, the election of the patriarch, and his own concelebration of the Eucharist with Patriarch-elect Tikhon at the St. Nicholas Cathedral on Nikola-Vorobievsky Lane. He made fleeting mention of his own elevation to bishop the evening before. The abbess shared this last piece of news with Vasilisa.
“Is an apostle higher than a bishop?” Vasilisa asked, petrified by her own impudence.
“An apostle is more than a bishop, my child,” the abbess answered wearily, once again marveling at the childish questions that preoccupied Vasilisa.
Several months later the abbess received from the bishop a large package containing, besides a letter, reports printed on poor-quality paper, with monstrous spelling, of changes brought on by the revolution. Even after studying them closely through her tiny eyeglasses on a black string, the abbess could make no sense of the contradictory nonsense of Soviet speech. In the letter, written with large cursive letters, she read, among other things: “Cruel persecutions have begun. It will come unto us to be witness to it as well. Rejoice!”
The next morning the abbess set out to the archbishop in N for an explanation. From him she learned the latest news—about the separation of church and state, about civil unrest in Petrograd, about the murders of Father Peter Skipetrov and Metropolitan Vladimir . . .
“They’re closing all the monasteries,” the archbishop whispered, blessing the abbess on her way out.
Reverend Mother was terrified and did not entirely believe what she had heard, but on returning to the monastery she began to scale down operations and prepare the monastery for the uncertain and, it went without saying, sorrowful changes she now awaited. But she could not possibly have envisioned the dimensions of the impending disaster. A few things she succeeded in doing: in keeping with the Gospels, she distributed the monastery’s supplies to the peasants, very secretively and very discriminatingly, keeping only the bare minimum; she had a secret compartment constructed under the sanctuary altar and placed an iron-fettered chest containing the holy relics inside; the monastery’s valuable archive was sent by courier to the eparchy library. She had already come to terms with the idea of closing the monastery, but could not imagine closing the ancient church.
She gathered the novices and the nuns and announced that they should think about leaving the monastery before the heinous persecutions commenced. Four novices returned to their parents’ homes. But all the nuns decided to remain. The abbess announced to them that times had changed, that many would suffer for their sins and for the sins of their loved ones, and that the path for the majority of them should be to go out into the secular world and while living in that secular world nonetheless remain sisters to each other and brides of Christ.
That was all Mother Anatolia succeeded in accomplishing. Several days before the monastery was closed, they came for her. She was taken to the prison in N. Vasilisa asked to go with her, and the authorities benevolently agreed. The abbess prepared herself for the worst, but they sentenced her to three years exile in the Vologda administrative district. A week later, Vasilisa, demonstrating unexpected acumen, traveled to the monastery, gathered the vestiges of the abbess’s things—two Gardner porcelain cups, a coffeepot with warmer, some of their mended and remended bedding, and a pillowcase with embroidered initials produced in Lizelotta Mikhailovna Klotske’s workshop in times immemorial. With that they went.
Surprisingly, the trip was even pleasant, in a decent train car with four clerics—two village priests guilty of who knows what before the new regime, the eparchy’s librarian, and the same archbishop who had just recently promised the abbess that the monastery would be closed. Their convoy was one solitary Red Army soldier, a village boy not yet thoroughly inculcated with revolutionary spirit. He treated his criminals with yet to be extirpated respect appropriate to their station . . .
For Vasilisa and the abbess three years turned into eleven. Eleven harsh years of suffering and heroism for the old abbess and of bliss for Vasilisa. Now in rural conditions she was accustomed to, she was for the abbess, who was hardly accustomed to this life, nurturer, protector, and guardian angel. Thrice they moved to new settlements, each time farther north, until they were banished to Kargopol, a nice little wooden town where Mother Anatolia died in the seventy-eighth year of her life.
Several days before her death Mother Anatolia instructed Vasilisa that after the funeral she should not remain there, but should travel to Moscow, to Trekhprudny Lane, to Evgenia Fedorovna Nechaeva. She blessed her and ordered her not to be afraid of anything. Vasilisa did everything her mentor told her: she buried her, waited around to mark the fortieth day, and left. She took with her the red velvet purse with two imperial ten-ruble pieces, her inheritance from Reverend Mother, and her silver piece of paper with the Palestinian relics.
She found her way to Trekhprudny Lane at the end of December. Evgenia Fedorovna took her in. In the housing committee there were people who still remembered old Nechaev, the builder. For the two ten-ruble pieces of gold one of those with a good memory entered one-eyed Vasilisa’s name in the house registration roster. From that time on Vasilisa lived in Evgenia Fedorovna’s household, with Elena, and later Anton Ivanovich. She served them as had become her custom from morning until night, never leaving an ounce of thought, time, or rest for herself: first Evgenia Fedorovna, then Elena, then Tanya, then everyone else she considered her benefactor . . .
She had only one strange habit: twice a year—once usually in spring, right after Easter—she would abandon everything and disappear for a week, sometimes ten days. With no warning or explanation . . .
“Vasilisa’s got the itch for some freedom,” Pavel Alekseevich chuckled.
It was indeed her only luxury—to travel, when her soul beckoned, to the wooden town of Kargopol, to visit the grave of Anna Tatarinova, the abbess Anatolia, to tidy up the grave, paint the fence, and talk to her, her only close relation. All the others were cousins . . .
12
CLASSES AT SCHOOL ENDED, ALONG WITH THE PREMAture heat wave. Cold rain set in. They started packing for the dacha. Vasilisa had left, despite Elena’s admonishments, and Elena felt completely lost: without Vasilisa, life—not to mention their move to the dacha—was all off-kilter. Usually all the packing was done quietly and well in advance by Vasilisa; Elena now had no way of estimating how much macaroni and kerosene or sugar and salt they should take or how to wrap and pack it all.
Toma did everything she could to be useful and to be liked, especially by Tanya. For her, Tanya had always been a creature of a higher order, and now, when they spent all their days together, she sensed Tanya’s goodwill toward her, and put her on a pedestal.
Pavel Alekseevich moved to the dacha together with the whole family, but that summer he practically did not live there, coming only on Saturdays. His admonitory quarrel with his wife, which at first had seemed to him not that significant, had grown into full-fledged emotional dissonance. Pavel Alekseevich’s words about her inadequacy as a woman wedged like a splinter in Elena’s heart. The barrier turned out to be insuperable: Elena now spent the night on the sofa on the enclosed terrace. When Pavel Alekseevich visited, he would stay in his study upstairs. Their bedroom was vacant. He also had been inexpressibly offended: it was as if with her words Elena had deprived him of his paternity.