‘It is unwise to say such things aloud,’ she warned. ‘Take care.’
He spread his scarecrow arms wide, making the colt snort with alarm. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.’
‘Priest,’ she said softly, ‘you don’t yet know what evil mankind is capable of, but if you carry on like this, believe me, you soon will. It eats into your humanity until you don’t even know who you are any more…’ She stopped.
His green eyes were staring at her with fierce sorrow. She lowered her gaze, turned away from him and asked the question she’d come to ask.
‘Was there a statue of St Peter in the church before it was closed down?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where did it stand?’
‘Why the interest?’
‘Does it matter to you? I need to know where it used to stand.’
The colt suckling and the scratch of the hazel broom over the yard were the only sounds to be heard. At last Priest Logvinov scraped a hand across his fiery beard.
‘They came one Sunday morning, a group of Komsomoltsky,’ he said bitterly. ‘They tore down everything, destroyed it with hammers. Burned it all in a bonfire in the middle of the street, tossed in all the ancient carvings and icons of the Virgin Mary and our beloved saints. And what wouldn’t burn they took away in their truck to melt down, including the great bronze bell and the altar with its gold cross. It was two centuries old.’ She expected him to shout and rage, but instead his voice grew softer with each word.
‘The statue of St Peter?’
‘Smashed.’ His fleshless frame shuddered. ‘It used to stand in the niche beside the south window. Now there’s a bust of Stalin in its place.’
‘I’m sorry, Priest.’
‘So am I. And God knows, so is my flock.’
‘Stay alive. For them at least.’
‘I know thy works and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is.’
Again she had the sense of a man teetering on the edge of wilful self-destruction and it filled her with a profound gloom. Quickly she thanked him and left the stables, but as she retraced her steps down the rutted track back to the street she became uncertain as to what exactly had upset her.
What was wrong? Was it fear for Rafik? Or was it because of Mikhail? And the way Lilya had rubbed her shoulder against him as though she owned that piece of his flesh. Were her own carefully constructed defences crumbling so easily?
The wind seemed to ripple through her mind, stirring up her thoughts, and it carried to her again Priest Logvinov’s words. Fear is a stain spreading over this country. And then she understood. She’d heard almost the same words months ago from Anna’s mouth.
Anna. Whose fragile heartbeats would fade away if she didn’t reach them soon.
The church – or assembly hall, as it was now called – was the only brick-constructed building in Tivil. Grey slabs of corrugated metal tipped with soft yellow lichen covered the roof. The walls were divided by rows of narrow, tapered windows set with plain glass, though one was boarded up. A reminder of the violence on the night of the meeting. A stubby open-sided tower sat above the door. Presumably where the bell had once hung. The tower was empty now, full of nothing but warm air and pigeons.
Sofia tried the large iron handle but the door didn’t budge. She cursed and pushed harder. Chyort! But she was beginning to realise that Chairman Fomenko was not the kind of person to leave anything to chance, certainly not the safety of his assembly hall. She took a good look up and down the street but at this hour there wasn’t much activity, just a child and his goat ambling out to the fields, but closer in the shade sat two old women. They wore headscarves and long black dresses, despite the heat, and seemed almost to be part of the landscape. As Sofia approached them she realised one was reading aloud from a book on her lap.
‘Dobroye utro, babushki,’ Sofia said with a shy smile. ‘Good morning.’
The old woman with the book reacted with surprise. Her ears were not good enough to have heard Sofia’s soft footfalls. The book slid instantly under a handwoven scarf, but not before Sofia saw it was a bible. It was not against the law to read the bible but it labelled you, if you did. It marked you out as someone whose mind was not in line with Soviet doctrine, someone to be watched. Sofia pretended she hadn’t seen it.
‘Could you tell me who has a key to the assembly hall, please?’
The woman who had not been reading lifted her chin off her chest. Sofia saw the milky veil of blindness over her eyes, but her hands were busy in an effortless clicking rhythm with knitting needles and a ball of green wool.
‘The Chairman keeps it,’ she said. She tilted her head. ‘Is that the tractor girl?’
‘Da, yes, it’s her,’ responded the other. She puffed out her lined cheeks into a warm smile. ‘Welcome to Tivil.’
‘Spasibo. Where will I find Chairman Fomenko?’
‘Anywhere where work is being done,’ said the blind babushka. ‘Poleena and I expect him to arrive here any moment now to count the number of stitches I’ve knitted so far this morning.’
Both old women gave good-natured chuckles that fell into the sunlight warming their laps.
‘But his house isn’t far, just the other side of the chu… of the assembly hall. His is the izba with the black door. You could try there.’
‘Thank you. I will.’
But the black door didn’t respond to her knocks. So she retraced her steps to the church and started to circle its walls, just as she’d done before. Then it had been furtive and in darkness, her ears alert for any stray sound. This time she inspected the building openly, seeking a way in.
Edging through weeds along a narrow side-path to the gloomy rear of the church, she came to a door, so old it looked like part of the stones. It was barely head height, half hidden behind a prickly bush, and it bore the raw marks of her knife blade around its heavy iron lock. In the daylight now she fingered the stubborn lock and wondered why it looked so well oiled.
‘Trying to find something, are you?’
Sofia snatched back her fingers and swung round. Behind her stood a narrow-shouldered man in a rough smock. He was smoking the stub of a hand-rolled cigarette and had a face that made Sofia think of a rodent, small-featured, sharp-toothed.
‘I’m looking for a way in.’
‘You could always use a key, but that’s just an old unused storeroom in there.’ His expression made Sofia’s skin crawl.
‘I’m told that Chairman Fomenko has the key to the hall, but he’s not at home.’
‘Of course not. He’s out working in the fields.’
Sofia tried to step round him but he blocked her path and gave her a slow smile that she didn’t like.
‘Your name, I recall from the meeting the other night, is Sofia Morozova. Mine is Comrade Zakarov.’
Instantly Sofia’s chest tightened. She recalled Zenia’s words: Boris Zakarov. He’s the Party spy round these parts. So he wasn’t creeping up behind her by chance.
‘Why so eager to get inside our hall, Comrade Morozova?’
‘I think that’s my business, don’t you?’
‘If you made it mine, I might be able to help you.’
‘Do you have a key?’
He took a long pull on his cigarette. ‘I might.’
She stared at him coldly. ‘I dropped a key of my own at the meeting. It got lost in the stampede and I need to look for it, that’s all.’