Interlude
Tatiana: Many summers
It was not our fault that the guards turned on us.
Today we celebrated the birth of our Lord. We were grateful to be together under the small dome of Tobolsk’s church, kneeling before the altar. Most of the soldiers of the Second remained in the narthex but one, then a second, followed us cautiously into the nave. I could feel the weight of their gazes on my back as we took our places, Mama and Papa and Alexei in front, we girls behind.
I couldn’t shake the weight of their sight from my shoulders. It made me shudder, not from the cold that had followed us in, but from the scowls on their faces, the way they looked at the saints painted on the walls.
Looking away, I sought the friendlier faces of the choir standing at our left and our right. I recognized among them some of the people that had crossed themselves as we had passed them in the street.
Father Vasiliev entered through the Beautiful Gate and took his place, his voice rising above us as he led the service, but the words were lost to me. I wanted, more than anything, to lose myself in the imagery of the icons, in the vibrant colors of their robes, the gilded halos, the looks on the faces of the saints painted on the wall before us. I wanted the comfort that the images of our Lord and His blessed mother could bring. Unlike the sternness of John the Baptist, and the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, she had a gentle look on her face.
I don’t know how long I stared at her and only her, but my vision swam. I blinked away the tears and an icon I had never seen before appeared. Seven figures, a mother and father, with a son between them, and two daughters on either side. They were painted like the saints, in rich robes, the children’s hands folded together as if in prayer, the mother and father holding admonishing palms outward in front of them. I blinked again and again, hoping the image would go away, but it stayed with me, becoming clearer with every heartbeat.
Mama, Papa, and Alexei. We girls. All of us as we are now, not grown, not old. Martyrs.
I shook my head and looked down at the floor. I didn’t dare look back up as my skin shivered around me, crawling underneath my clothes. I thought then that I would crumple and fall and I think I would have had Father Vasiliev not raised his voice.
“A prosperous and peaceful life,” he was saying, “health and salvation and good haste in all things, Lord grant your servant, the Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Aleksandrovich, and save him for many and good summers!”
The choir sang in response. “Many, many, many summers! Many, many, many summers!”
Would we see another summer?
“God save him!” they continued.
Yes, God, save my father.
“Grant him, Lord! Many, many, many summers!”
With each word goosebumps rose on the back of my neck, my arms. I was shaking and didn’t know why.
The fall of heavy boots thundered by, cutting through the voices, carrying two of the soviet soldiers toward the deacon. He stepped back, into the icon-covered wall, his eyes wide.
“Take it back,” one of the soldiers said.
Papa pulled me off the kneeler and pushed me towards Mama and my sisters. He placed himself between his family and the other soldiers who had come bursting in. The choir had backed away as well, casting aside their books, taking refuge through the gates.
“No. I can’t,” Father Vasiliev said, shaking his head. “I won’t.” He cast his gaze towards Papa as if seeking direction and then deciding a moment later that it didn’t matter. He refused to revoke the prayer, even when they threatened to kill him.
After their treatment of Colonel Kobylinsky I thought they could commit no greater act of insolence. I was wrong. I understood the concept of mutiny. But this. This was something else. It wasn’t just that they were drunk on power over men. They were drunk on power over God.
That night, still shaking with the fresh memory of it, I prayed. I prayed for Russia. I prayed for us. I prayed for the deacon. And I prayed for the men who believed so fervently that the deacon’s words had so much power that they must be retracted and at the same time believed they could command God. I prayed for their souls and a return to their sanity. I refused to believe that it was anything but that.
So naïve was I.