Messonier clapped his hand over his mouth to stop his cry. They turned away from the grave diggers, their axes and fires, moved deeper into the cemetery.
“What’s this?” The Baron noticed a long strip of red cloth tied around a gravestone. Then he understood. The strips marked the graves of plague victims to be disinterred by the men. The Baron kept this discovery to himself.
“Are we closer to her grave?” The Baron avoided using Maria’s name so as not to upset Messonier.
His answer was hesitant. “I believe so. Yes.”
Messonier turned around to get his bearings, place himself in relation to the gate, two spindly trees, the cross atop a monument. “I remember the church roof was visible from a certain angle near her grave. But this side or the other side? I think it’s this direction.”
They skirted a small copse of trees. The Baron’s nervousness increased, and he stayed close behind Messonier. A spark, a bright point, moved in their direction. Frightened, they waited, and it silently passed by. Or perhaps whoever carried the light was invisible.
Messonier became increasingly disoriented in the unfamiliar landscape. The hood of his coat was loose, and his breathing was strained. The Baron watched his every step, fearing he’d shout or confront the men.
Lost in the forest. The Baron remembered his babushka’s folktale of Baba Yaga. The witch lived in a house mounted on the legs of a chicken so she could chase her victims. He grasped Messonier’s shoulder. Pull him to earth, pull him back. Messonier stared at the Baron, not seeing him. “If there was sun I’d know the direction.” He took five steps forward, then slipped and fell.
The Baron helped him up, his limbs slow and heavy with cold. He urged Messonier to rest for a moment.
“No, no. Am fine.” His eyes confused in a pink face surrounded by dark fur. Messonier peered around, mumbling calculations. “I’ve never walked this way before. Snow buried the usual landmarks. I’m lost.” He angled his head as if he’d heard a sound or someone speak.
The Baron stood in front of him, the deep snow holding them both locked in place so there could be no sudden movement. Messonier dodged clumsily around him, staggered a few steps forward, then dropped to his knees and clawed at the ice on a gravestone.
“Help me.” Breathing heavily, Messonier stared at the grave marker. “We have nothing. No tools.”
“Here. Get back.”
The Baron struck the gravestone repeatedly with a stone, gripping it in his clumsy mitten, the dull thwacks of breaking ice echoing around them. Thick ice fell away and they read the inscription. The first letter was wrong. Not M. Messonier scrabbled through the snow to the next grave marker, furiously rubbed his arm across it to clear a cushion of snow. The Baron read the names.
Sonya Vasilevna, daughter. Dmitry Vasilevich, father.
The poor girl and her father. So she had died. A lifetime ago. Their gravestone was tied with a cloth, blood red in this light. He tore the red strip from their cross, stuffed it in his pocket.
Messonier was already at the next grave, speaking to himself now. “Maria. Maria Lebedev. She’s very near. No one will take my ring from Maria’s finger.”
Heedless of the risk, the Baron shouted at Messonier, “Calm yourself! Maria waits for you. Let her speak.”
Messonier stopped and turned to his friend, a strange expression on his face. “Yes. She tells me what to do. Come.”
The two men floundered from grave to grave, their legs punching through snow. They slid and fell, exhilarated, tearing away the red flags, the notices of exhumation. The sky darkened, pressure tightened around them, and a furious snow began to fall. Within an hour, it would conceal all signs of their presence. Messonier halted by a tall grave marker with a distinctive carved wreath. He tenderly brushed away snow, revealing Maria Lebedev’s name etched in stone. He untied the strip of red cloth fastened to her gravestone with intimate familiarity, as if adjusting her veil or a scarf.
For Epiphany, the Sungari River was transformed into the Jordan River for the blessing-of-the-waters ceremony. A broad area of ice was shaved and smoothed with metal scrapers to a mirrorlike surface and a red carpet had been unrolled from the bank near the flour mill, spanning a distance across the river. A large temporary building, a white and scarlet temple surmounted with a cross, had been carefully pulled by horses into position over a large hole bored in the ice at the end of the carpet.
The Baron had sworn he’d have nothing to do with the church, but after weeks without public gatherings, he was curious to see who had survived the plague. Li Ju had accompanied him. General Khorvat had given permission for the ceremony, as it was held outdoors in an unconfined space.
A crowd, smaller than previous years, waited near the temple for the procession.
With measured steps, a long line of archimandrites and priests, stiff as candles in gold-threaded vestments, slowly approached. No priest wore a protective face mask. Observing this, many in the crowd also slipped off their masks, as if it were a pious act. Standing in front, a sizable group of Chinese who had converted to the Russian Orthodox faith bowed and removed their masks simultaneously. Nothing could change the strangeness of this time.
A face without a plague mask was reckless. A loaded weapon. The Baron turned away in anger. His hands trembled, and he prepared to step forward on the bright carpet. To do what? Confront the priests in embroidered robes, warn them of death that waited for their mistake? Li Ju gripped his hand, and clouds of incense from the swinging censer rose around them.
Inside the temple, the priests made a formal circle around the hole in the ice, blessed it, and slowly lowered a gold cross on a long chain into the colorless water.
Messonier arrived with tins of peaches shipped from Paris, a gift for the Baron. When the first tin was opened, they both blinked, surprised by the orange-yellow of the peeled fruit, bright as a paper lantern. “Look. Summer is here.”
“Seems a pity to damage the fruit. To spoil it with a spoon.” Messonier tenderly transferred the peaches into the blue-and-white porcelain bowls from the Baron’s prized collection on the table.
“Our reward. The loveliest peaches between here and Beijing. Possibly the only peaches between here and Beijing.” The Baron smiled.
Messonier hesitated, puzzling over his thoughts. “Pleasure seems out of place. I can’t quite enjoy the fruit.”
“My friend. You’re in mourning.” The Baron poured tea.
“Why aren’t we dead of plague?”
“Why are we blessed with health?” An attempt at a joke to ease the solemnity between them. Since Maria’s death, Messonier had isolated himself, refused invitations and everyone’s concern. He avoided St. Nikolas Cathedral.
The Baron was tender with his friend, self-conscious, his words carefully considered so as not to upset Messonier. Not to remind him of Maria. Not to mention her name. But did Messonier wish to erase her memory? How to ask him? What was the lesson?
Messonier painted the scene for him. “Everyone who died was expendable. But we foolish doctors rushed in to save lives, bring hope. Earn gratitude. How can I blame Maria for her choice? I was also a believer.”
They locked eyes until the Baron’s gaze faltered. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to my skill. I feel like a witness, not a doctor. I can neither sit nor stand.”