“You say ‘unite and rise up’, Emily. But do you mean take over by force? That’s what Lenin has done, and so far it seems like a nasty business to me.”
Emily doesn’t answer. She hands over the money to the man without looking at him; her eyes are fixed on the scarf. Then she turns to me.
“Is Yuri coming to the market to meet us?”
“No. He said he’d be in St Basil’s Cathedral, lighting a candle and praying for his fellow soldiers who are still out at the front. I said we would join him there. If he didn’t see us in there, he would join us later on, in the Upper Trading Rows shopping mall.”
She pulls a face; I ask her. “Shall we go to the cathedral now, and find him?” The bizarre brightly-patterned onion domes of the cathedral dominate Red Square; they look unreal, like they’ve been tipped out from a gigantic box of coloured sweets.
Emily peers in the direction of the cathedral, as if she expects to see Yuri coming towards us. “You go and fetch him, and come back here. You’ll find me easily. I’ll still be browsing around these stalls.”
“Don’t you want to see inside the cathedral? I do. I think it looks astonishing.”
“No thanks. Churches give me the creeps. All those people bowing and scraping to a non-existent God. If you were an atheist like me, Agnes, you’d understand.”
“I don’t understand – but you and I will just have to disagree on that, Emily. I’ll come back here with Yuri, in half an hour or so.”
I leave her, and weave my way through the traders and shoppers. At the edge of the market, a tram sails right across my path, then it’s gone. Ahead of me, beyond the tram lines, there are no more stalls. Red Square, hemmed in all along one side by the colossal wall of the Kremlin, is a sprawling, empty space. My feet clack on the cobbles as I walk towards the cathedral.
As I step up to the entrance, I’m hit by a heady waft of incense. “Emily would call it the opium of the people” I say to myself, as I enter the darkened interior.
It’s like walking through a magic door into a different world. Vividly-coloured pictures of saints and Bible scenes are painted on every surface; they loom at me, glistening in flickering candlelight. The smell of wax and the light of the candles is everywhere, like a scatter of stars all around me.
It’s hard to move. Dozens of children sit cross-legged, smiling and playing quietly with marbles and spinning tops on every part of the floor. Ahead of me is a wall of people’s backs; bareheaded men, women in scarves and shawls. The parents of all these children are praying. I can’t see Yuri anywhere.
“Bless you, Miss. And—” A young man in the robes of a monk stands beside me. His eyes signal politely towards my head. I realise that my small button hat is not an adequate cover for my hair. The monk proffers me a white cotton shawl.
“Thank you. And bless you, too.”
We’re speaking in hushed whispers. After a moment he says “You are a stranger to Moscow?”
“Yes, you’ve guessed right.”
“This is the mother church of all Russia. Look, I will show you.”
He points above the heads of the congregation. “See, that is the iconostasis: a great screen, a wall of icons showing the Savior, the Virgin Mary, and the angels and archangels, the saints and apostles. Behind the iconostatis is a hidden space. That is where the altar is, where God himself sits on his holy throne.”
I look at the gilded wall of faces and halos, glowing in the light of a hundred candles. The scent of incense fills my nostrils. I shudder inside: I feel awe-struck.
A voice begins to sing. I can’t see the singer, the priest, through the mass of people. The sound echoes from every painted surface: deep, sonorous and haunting. As well as hearing it, I sense it resonating through my body. I feel a shiver in my bones, and I’m almost choking: there’s a lump in my throat.
Someone touches my hand. I feel, for just one second, cold fingers stroking my palm.
I look beside me, but the monk has gone. I’m now surrounded by tall men, soldiers in uniform, who’ve come up silently and unnoticed around me. Every one of them has his eyes closed: absorbed in prayer, and in the chanting voice of the priest.
Which one of them touched me? The unearthly singing goes on, the men stand around me, my mind is whirling. I feel my knees buckle; I’m about to faint. I have to get outside, into the fresh air.
Through the cathedral door, Red Square stretches out towards the tram-line. Beyond it I see the stalls of the market. I begin to cross the cobbles, walking unsteadily, trying not to fall.
The square is beginning to look blurry: my head swims. I can hear my feet on the cobbles, but I hear other footsteps too, following me. My ears are telling me there is someone close behind me, but when I look round, there is no-one. All around me the vast square is empty, except for one solitary, rag-clad beggar, going his own way across the cobbles. I’m in a waking dream, not knowing what is real. There is still no sign of Yuri: I need to get to Emily.
The clanging of another tram hurts my head; it passes me in a blur, and is gone. I see Emily, standing on the other side of the tracks. For some reason, all I really notice is that she’s now wearing the scarf.
“Agnes – you nearly got knocked down by that tram! And you look white as a ghost. Let’s get you to a café and get some sugar in your blood.”
We’re sitting at a table near the window of an establishment that calls itself “Viennese Patisserie”. Sweet pastries in the styles of Paris, Vienna and Copenhagen form a spectacular window display. Beyond the pastries, I see through the window well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, sauntering among the shops of an enormous mall – Moscow’s Upper Trading Rows. I think: Lenin’s revolution has not reached this place – yet.
“This is delicious.” I munch a mille-feuille pastry filled with confectioner’s custard.
“Glad to see that pastries and coffee are helping, Agnes.” Emily grins at me. “I told you that going to church was bad for you.”
“Someone touched my hand, they really did.”
“Perhaps holding hands is something they do in Russian churches.”
“No, it wasn’t like that at all. No-one else was holding hands, or touching people in any way.” I carry on, trying to put my feelings into words. “It felt – really uncanny. Like a ghost was touching me.”
She rolls her eyes. “You told me that you were surrounded by soldiers at the time. One of them must have fancied you, Agnes! Or maybe your Yankee sex appeal tempted that monk to forget his vows for a moment?”
I laugh, but I can’t quite forget that touch on my palm: chill, clammy fingers that felt uncomfortably intimate.
Among the ceaseless movement of people outside, two men are noticeable, because they’re standing still. They’re dressed in gold-braided uniforms, their hands behind their backs. One of them looks sixteen or seventeen years old; the other is over seventy. They’re obviously the mall’s security guards.
“Grandfather and son?” I point them out to Emily.
“Most men are away in the Army. It’s like all these Red Guards everywhere: most of them are boys.”
The two men take a step forward into the middle of the mall. Even through the glass of the café window, I hear them shouting.
“You’re not allowed in here! Get out, now!”
I can’t see who they’re shouting at. Emily glances at them, then back at me. “They’re just throwing some hobo out of the mall.”
“As a good communist, you ought to go out and stop them, Emily.”
“Very funny.”
We can now see the beggar. He’s arguing with the two men: I catch what he’s saying. “I need to see someone – in here. They came in here.”