Moscow is Far...

No rain or lightning had fallen that day, yet a storm of a different nature had already passed through the village.

Father Nicolai lit a beeswax candle, and the small flame pushed back the darkness. Broken faces of saints emerged from the dancing light. Glass crunched beneath his feet, each step echoing beneath the arched mosaic dome, before returning to him alone. His tears tasted bitter and ran hot like wax to his beard.

He lifted the golden censer, filled with burning charcoal and frankincense, and swung it gently, as priests do. Twelve small bells hung from its chains, ringing bright and joyful with each measured swing, while the incense climbed toward the dome, thinning into the darkness above.

Father Nicolai began to hum. Slowly his voice rose and the dome gave it back to him doubled, tripled—

“Have mercy, O Lord, in Thy great mercy…” His voice caught. He steadied himself.

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do. In Your great mercy, have mercy, O Lord.”

Icons lay shattered on the floor. The iconostasis had been torn apart, its holy images ripped from their places. Glass littered the nave. The cross lay snapped in half. Graffiti had already made its mark on walls that had been untouched for centuries.

Behind him, footsteps.

“You know it’s the truth…” Galina’s voice carried. “And yet you’re so convinced you understand it. You and your traditions…the opiate of the masses.”

She threw down a bale of hay, bound with twine. It landed where the altar rail had been.

“It’ll keep dry in here,” she said. A few of the guards chuckled.

Nicolai turned. For a moment, he saw her as that little girl he knew—the one who scraped her knees on these very steps, whose father had once beaten her, and whose sister she so greatly resembled.

The bells of the golden censer fell silent in his hand.

“Moscow is far, Nicolai… but God… He is even further,” Galina said. The guards with guns moved forward.

Nicolai flicked his wrist, and the censer bells sounded out brightly once again throughout the temple. He began to sing the same psalms.

For a moment, no one moved. Even the guards seemed momentarily unsure what to do.

Then boots crunched on the glass. Rifles, raised and leveled.

“You come to me with guns? What… am I leading a rebellion?” Father Nicolai asked, searching the eyes of each one.

“On your knees, donkey!” the guard yelled, driving the butt of his rifle into Nicolai’s stomach.

Father Nicolai fell to his knees at once and grimaced. The guard pressed the rifle to his temple.

“Well?”

Every eye turned to Galina.

“Bullet or Siberia?” the guard asked. His fist dug into the back of Nicolai’s hair. Silence filled the church.

Galina took a step back, unable to look at him.

**

Many years before, different bells rattled. In a little store sitting on a dusty square, laughter filled the room. The bell announced Lubov, dust and all. She was too timid even to open the door properly, searching for work—anything to help. Olya, the wife of the store owner, snarled at the sight of her. “She is a registered whore,” she said to her daughter in a pointed whisper meant to carry clearly to Lubov’s ears. “Has the yellow card to prove it.”

She was a slim girl of sixteen whose father was a violent drunk, and whose mother had recently passed away from tuberculosis. She had been the only one taking care of her three-year-old sister, barely managing a meal a day.

The bell of the old wooden door again rattled as Father Nicolai walked in. He walked over to a small stand, looking at a few vegetables that were beginning to sprout, flies circling. This was the section only those who had nothing looked at.

“Father, bless me,” Olya said, bowing her head.

“May God bless,” Father Nicolai replied, making the sign of the cross over her.

He smiled and asked, “Three loaves, three apples, and that daily catch… the one from the pond.”

Olya was delighted. “Trinity, yes, that—it’s the right number,” she said, pleased, her fingers adjusting her abacus.

“Something sweet also, Olya… what do you have?”

“These are nice—sugar-coated cookies… yes, quite nice. I will give you a few extra,” Olya said.

“Oh—and that sack of potatoes too. Yes, I feel I need that as well. Along with some onions. I think I am hungry.” Father said with a warm smile. Olya looked surprised, and the abacus slid to the exact price, its wooden beads clicking into place. His wife had passed away a few years ago—children grown and left the village. Olya wondered, silently, who he could possibly be feeding.

Lubov was standing at the edge of the store, seemingly forgotten. She tried to step out, except that the bell would announce her movement, so she stood frozen.

“Daughter, can you help me with this bag of potatoes?” he said, glancing over in her direction.

“Yes… Father,” Lubov said hesitantly.

The bell rattled as they exited the store. Olya shouted out, “Father Nicolai! You forgot your change.”

He turned. “Ah—yes, I am indeed getting older.” He chuckled to himself. “You keep it, maybe, give it to someone in need, mm, what do you say?”

Olya bowed slightly, and the door bell rattled their departure.

Lubov was confused, why did he ask me for help? She thought about the time when he had stood in front of a man being whipped. The magistrate, in a drunken rage, had this peasant’s shirt off and was beating him until his skin split wide, swinging in rage. Father stood in front of the man, our neighbor, and even took hits to the face.

That was one thing she recalled about him in the village.

“Where do you live?” Father asked.

Lubov hesitated, a little confused.

He understood her confusion, “I need to know where to drop this food off.”

She was taken aback. She had heard his kindness before, but hearing of it was not the same as receiving it.

“Would you be willing to work around the church?” Father Nicolai asked. “We need someone to regularly clean and do general upkeep around the building. I would pay weekly. Stay as often as you like, and bring your little sister. What’s her name?”

“Galina,” she said, and continued, “She is only three.”

“When your father is inflamed by drink, you and your sister are welcome to stay at our izba, beside the church,” Father Nicolai said, looking over at Lubov. “But first—do you find any of this acceptable? Take your time to decide.”

“Yes, it is more than good… How can I—” Lubov said.

“Do not thank me. God sees. And you’re safe. I’ll see to it you will no longer need that yellow card. I will make sure of it.”

Lubov’s eyes were glazed with tears.

***

Years had passed since that bell first rattled Lubov into the shop. It was also now the month before Father Nicolai would light a single candle in the desecrated sanctuary.

The insects still vibrated feverishly in the summer heat fog, the way they always had. Sunlight danced off the leaves above him. Birds called out at improper hours, as if morning had only just arrived—white nights, they called it, when the white bark of the birches seemed to glow under a light that never fully left the sky. It was three in the morning, and yet it looked like noon.

Father Nicolai had just blessed a birth and prayed for the family. He was deep in thought, humming to himself, as he typically did with psalms. The words rose and fell with his footsteps.

“Oi…. Oi ….. Oi.” He could hear not far from the path. There was a man, leg severed deeply, laying against a tree, fighting off the bugs that were trying to get to the blood—his face looked pale.

Father knelt down, looking at Galina’s dad in the eyes. Fyodor had left them not long after Lubov took the job. He came back, much aged, and now the most active member of the Komsomol.

“Ah, you… out of anyone who could have first seen me…” Fyodor said, in a way that was more embarrassed than angry. “If I were you… I would turn my back, Father. My death will give your kind a few more days,” he said, looking away from Nicolai’s eyes.

Nicolai always carried in his satchel basic care. “Son, I have no ill-will against you, it is all in His great mercy… I will bandage this up, otherwise you will bleed out. I would not want Galina to mourn you…” Nicolai said as his hands got to work.

“Do you even know what I wrote in those petitions?” Fyodor asked, almost angrily.

“Yes,” Nicolai said, glancing up, his hands red with the man’s blood.

Fyodor nodded and continued, “Nicolai… your registration is already abolished,” he said, searching Nicolai’s face for something. “You are committing treason every day.”

“Yes, yes… I am fully aware,” Nicolai said calmly. “I have been informed with two official letters.”

“I guess they do read my letters.” Fyodor smiled at the irony, looking weak from blood loss.

“Lubov…” Father Nicolai said, looking at him directly, “your daughter breathed her last a few years back. I sat right next to her. I prayed, and she prayed with tears for you,” Nicolai said as he finished bandaging the wound.

Father Nicolai then reached over, placing his arm around his shoulder, helping Fyodor stand, using his body as support.

“Oi!!” Fyodor yelped and swore.

“Hold here,” Nicolai said, placing Fyodor’s arm around his shoulder. “Let’s get you home.”

Fyodor grimaced as they neared his home. Upon opening the door, they saw Galina. She quickly made room on the bed for him to lie down. Once he was settled, he looked up at Father Nicolai.

“You know the storm that is coming?” Fyodor asked.

“Yes,” Father Nicolai said.

“I know the good you have done for my children, I can’t deny that.” Fyodor’s voice caught.

“Christ asks this of us,” Father said.

“You and your illusions… you stubborn goat!” Fyodor said, shaking his head. He leaned forward, face animated in something unclear. “They will not take you—on my word, Siberia will not be your future… All you have to do is recant these silly superstitions. Say it now to me.”

Father Nicolai smiled. “He has done me no wrong in all my sixty-three years. How, then, could I deny the One… my King who saved me?”

Fyodor shook his head. “You could carve a wooden stake on your own head, Nicolai. You hard-headed… kind fool!”

Father Nicolai turned to Galina—no longer the small girl who once sat on the church steps, but a young woman now, her eyes fixed on him, unflinching. Father Nicolai could feel her confusion. “I will let you rest. It’s good to see you, Galina.” He stood, moving toward the door.

“I’ve counted the winters, Father.” Her voice stopped him. “How many girls in this village never learned their letters. How many mothers buried children the landlord cared nothing for. I never doubted your sincerity. Charity fed one child at a time, while a hundred more went without. We are going to feed all of them!”

Nicolai said nothing for a long moment. “That is a good thing you have in your heart, and I know you will follow it. I hope that will be the truth. History will one day judge if they fulfill such promises,” he said, searching her face.

“You will see,” she said sharply. “The Party will help—not the God who let my mother die coughing blood into her hands.”

He nodded slowly, as though he had expected this answer and grieved it all the same. “I wept at her passing. Please, take care of one another,” he said, and stepped out into the pale light of the white night.

****

Weeks had passed since Father Nicolai was taken away. The storm had already found other villages. His church remained empty.

She had cleaned every room except his. Officials from the city were arriving in a few days, and she was preparing Father Nicolai’s home to serve as both their office and lodging.

Her mind felt elsewhere—the thud of his body hitting the ground. The rattle of the chains as they snapped around his wrists. Siberia. It was what she kept hearing in her mind. Her words had created that for him. Repeated again and again.

Having gone through most of his things, she recalled a floorboard she had once seen him lift. Kneeling, she pried it up and found a small locked box. She took an old chisel, set it against the brass padlock, and struck it with the head of an ax. On the third blow the staple snapped, and the lock clattered across the floor.

As soon as she opened it, she saw a portrait drawing of Nicolai and his wife. She had never met her, but had heard only good things from the village. She reached in and sifted further.

A yellow ticket. Why would Father Nicolai have something of this nature? What could it mean?

She turned it over, confused, and let her eyes move across it slowly. The name written there was her sister’s—Lubov’s full name, her birthday, her home address.

Galina sat down, thoughts raging. Her beautiful, selfless sister… what could have made her do such a thing?

The date of annulment was the same date Lubov had started working for Father Nicolai.

Galina sat there for a long moment as horror hit her, wave upon wave. Her sister had done this. Or had been forced into it.

Her hands rose to cover her mouth, struggling to gasp air. Her father had been a useless drunk at the time. That would mean—she did this for me. And Father Nicolai—he was the one who freed her from it.

The memory of that morning rose again, unbidden.

They had walked Father Nicolai through the entire village, stripped of his priestly attire, hands tied behind his back, a guard at each side. People came out to look. Most said nothing. A few yelled insults at the guards, and someone wrote down the names of those who reacted. Galina was glad his back was turned.

She set the yellow ticket down, carefully, unable to shake her feelings.

A single folded sheet of cream-colored paper sat in the middle of the box. She opened it. It was his handwriting:

In the event the Lord calls me from this life, I leave my earthly possessions as follows:

To Lubov, a daughter to me, I leave my potato field, the garden behind the izba, my cow, and all household goods necessary for her care. The home was my father’s. The church allowed me to keep it in his name. Upon my death, it will become hers.

Should she depart this life before me, or decline this inheritance, I leave these things to Galina…

My books of prayer and my liturgical vestments shall remain the property of the church.

May the Lord have mercy on us all.

Father Nicolai — signed and notarized.

Galina was stunned by this revelation. She looked at the little box, unable to steady her breathing. Her mind slipped back to the platform once again.

The train arrived somewhere behind her eyes. She could hear it. The guards handed documents to the conductor, transferring the prisoner. He was sentenced to ten years’ hard labor—Omsk.

At the platform, he had turned to face her. She had seen it in his watery eyes—not sorrow for himself, but for her. How could that be?

“Moscow is far,” one guard had said in a mocking tone, pulling Nicolai up by the collar, “but where you’re going is even further!” He laughed at his own joke, nudging the man beside him.

“Not even God’s heard of that place,” the other had said, pulling on the back of his long hair.

Galina had tried to look away but couldn’t. Her eyes had not left Nicolai since the moment they dragged him from the church, and they did not leave him now.

Father Nicolai had turned and found her face. Blood dripping from his lip.

“Galina… daughter… when the day comes you cannot carry your sorrow alone, remember this—truth does not cease to be true because we turn from it. Silence never means His absence for—”

The guard’s fist had come across his jaw before the word finished leaving him. He was dragged onto the train. She trembled and watched until the train was nothing more than a speck in the distance.

She set the will back in the box and sobbed. Closing the lid carefully, she sat there staring at the wall where his icons of the Gospel story once hung. Empty now, stripped bare.

She placed the box in her bag, stood, and looked out the window. Low gray clouds drifted beyond the onion domes. The new red flag fluttered above the church while the great wooden doors swung open and shut in the wind. She reached for Father Nicolai’s small cross and slipped it into her pocket.

“Do you see?” he used to say. “The father runs before the son ever says a word. God is always the first to run toward us.”

The storm had passed through the village, but not all it found there could be uprooted.