17

Wednesday 9/24

FATHER GIORGI HEAVED HIMSELF UP FROM HIS PRAYERS IN HIS TINY room. He had knelt like this at his bed every morning for his whole life, and he wasn’t going to let a stiff knee stop him. Limping, he went into his lavatory. He washed his face and combed his hair and beard. The small mirror above the washstand revealed new creases in his forehead, and a haunted look that all his prayers to Lord Jesus Christ this morning had failed to dispel.

He pulled his robe over his head, attached his belt with the keys and pouch, and walked into the hall. He felt privileged to live right next door to a saint, at least, the room of a saint. Saint John Maximovich had lived and died behind the brown door he was passing. Bishop Vasily, Father Giorgi’s superior, had been a member of the committee examining the miracles claimed, and there were many. He had told Father Giorgi that when the saint’s tomb was opened in 1994, twenty-eight years after his death, the saint’s body had not decomposed, though it had turned a deep mahogany color.

With such a holy neighbor, Father Giorgi had no trouble recalling his mission and the Church’s mission. The saint’s cell with its iron bed was now a place of pilgrimage. Or it should be. Few of the faithful actually came, and fewer still were coming to the Sunday Divine Liturgy every year. For so long it had only been elderly women. But then, the change. Freedom had come in Russia. The Church could again freely bear witness to Christ, and a new wave of emigration began arriving in California.

But the newcomers, young and poor, couldn’t afford San Francisco, and those who could might come to a Eucharist or a Paschal, but at heart many weren’t really good Christians-the Communists had instilled the poison of doubt so strenuously that heartfelt, straightforward faith couldn’t get a purchase.

Even the Church could not be faithful to itself. The Church here had basically cut itself off from its mother. Saint John was not recognized in Russia, because the American Church had been responsible for his canonization.

Such a shame. A saint in the house, but doubt, doubt poisoning the Church as it poisoned Russia.

Father Giorgi moved down the nave of the cathedral, greeting a few old people who had come in early to pray in the side chapels, fingering his pouch with the dollar bills inside, thinking about these sad things. The deacons had already lit the beeswax candles and the oil lamps under the ikons. He breathed deeply of the incense smoke, frowned as he noted one of the women wore pants. Kneeling, before God, dressed like a man!

He had been born in America, in Minnesota, but this did not mean he subscribed to the ultraliberality of the American church. His training had been at a strict theological seminary in St. Petersburg, and he had been happy there. He knew what to do and when to do it, loved the liturgies, loved the absolute and ancient nature of the rules of living he had vowed to follow.

But in America-this national church had lost all bearings and fallen into the heresy of ecumenism. He was constantly at odds with authority figures here. They found him stodgy, strange. No telling how long he would last. He just didn’t fit in.

Blasphemy is easy when you’re so far from your mother, he reflected, lighting a candle that had sputtered out, which was not to say that the Mother Church was without stain. What did she do with her God-given opportunities during the nineties? She sold tobacco and alcohol received as “humanitarian aid”! She slept with Yeltsin for money!

As he did every morning, Father Giorgi opened the heavy entry doors and stepped out. Several of the faithful, familiar with his routine, awaited him on the steps. Patiently, he took their hands and blessed them, but finished quickly and went to the corner light, where he could resume his thoughts in peace.

In the decade since the awful finds at Ekaterinburg, when the photos of the skeletons of the tsar and his family were shown even on American television, Father Giorgi realized that a great hero of the Church had died in the person of Nicholas II. Others felt the same way. He had even heard talk of sainthood for the family. The tsar and his family had appeared on an ikon of New Martyrs circulated around the world.

Yes, they had been true to the Church, and martyred.

Many in this church would not agree. Oh, he had heard what the conservatives thought of him and his radical opinions, those without vision. On more than one occasion he had been asked to consider another career. Fortunately, he knew a few good people and he knew how to hold on to power, however little he wielded in this tiny universe.

His brand of bold idealism begged for attack in these cynical times, so he now operated quietly, missing Christina. If only she had not died-she had taken his credibility with her. He wanted so much to see the Church in America and the Church in Russia tied again, one undefeatable religious force in the world. He wanted a return to order and authority. Christina had believed in the same cause, or at least some of it. He would help her make contacts and gain support, and then, she would help him.

But the second phase had never come. So many dreams had died with her.

Maybe he should leave the church. In his darkest moments, he knew he probably didn’t belong here.

And now along came Alex. Could he be convinced to take up the cause? Could Giorgi convince him, or was this a futile, dangerous exercise that might get another person killed? He had broached the subject the night before, but Alex was not Christina. He didn’t have the same yearnings, and he felt no responsibility. He was American through and through, he had told Giorgi, not Russian. And he seemed to blame Giorgi for setting up the events that had led to her death, the decision to hire the odd-jobs man who had killed her.

Could he be convinced? Should he?

Without Alex, the movement would inevitably fail. Giorgi on his own, a small-town boy, an old priest, would never attract the right attention. Puzzling over these thoughts, Father Giorgi crossed the street, his hands behind his back. The car waiting for him honked. He ignored it. He was almost there, and he could sit in his daily refuge for a few minutes now and think about Alex and the confession he had made the night before.

Something had to be done. Was there hope in this confession, or only despair, and an ending? He looked up at the green and white sign, taking a deep sniff of the fragrant elixir he was about to drink.

Ahh. Starbucks.

A tall man with light hair who looked like he hadn’t slept the night before got into line behind him, and Father Giorgi’s heart sank. Was he-but the man greeted him in reassuring American English. “I wonder if I could talk with you for a few minutes.”

“I don’t want to be rude,” Father Giorgi said, “but can’t you come in later, at the church? I’m off duty at the moment.” He said to the girl at the counter, “A Grande Vanilla Soy Latte, please. And I’ll have, let’s see, one of those biscottis.”

“This can’t wait,” the man said. He looked rumpled but not dangerous. “Paul van Wagoner.” He held out his hand, and Father Giorgi shook it. Van Wagoner followed him to the tall counter where his coffee would be delivered.

“Would you be kind enough to tell me what this says?” van Wagoner said, thrusting something into Father Giorgi’s hand. It was a blue Post-it.

“Is this a bad joke?”

“Supposed to be funny, is it? I can’t read it. It was left in my car last night.”

“In your car?”

“What does it mean? ‘Kmo kobo’?”

“Not ‘kmo kobo.’ It says, ‘Kto kovo.’ It means, ah, something like, ‘We’ll see who will screw whom,’” Father Giorgi said uneasily. “Except cruder.”