‘Is Priest Logvinov around?’ she asked a dark-skinned youth who was sweeping the yard with slow, lazy strokes. He had scabs on his head and his bare arms.
‘In with Glinka,’ he muttered, tipping his head towards one of the open stable doors without breaking the rhythm of the hazel broom.
‘Spasibo,’ Sofia said.
The gloom inside the stable came as a relief after the harsh glare in the courtyard. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She inhaled the smell of horse and hay, at first seeing no one. Just a row of empty stalls, fresh straw on the floor and buckets filled with clean water. The horses were out working in the fields or hauling timber out of the woods, but the stamp of a hoof and a soft murmur drew her to the far end.
The priest did not turn at her approach, though Sofia was sure he knew she was there. His tall scarecrow figure in a sleeveless deerskin jerkin was draped over the low door that fenced in one of the stalls, his knuckles rhythmically kneading the forehead of a small bay mare whose eyes were half closed with pleasure. Close to her side stood a black colt on spindly legs much too long for him. He must be the one born the other night. He stamped the ground in a show of bravado as she approached and rolled his long-lashed eyes at her.
‘That’s a fine colt,’ she said.
‘He has the Devil in him.’
The colt thudded a hoof against the back board as if to prove the point.
‘Priest, were you here in Tivil before the church was closed down?’
He twisted his head round to look at her. His long thin neck pulsed with a web of blue veins, his red hair hanging lank and dull, but his green eyes still burned.
‘Yes, I was the shepherd of a God-fearing flock. In those days we were free to worship our Lord and chant the golden tones of evensong as our consciences dictated.’
The sadness in his voice touched her. He was a strange man.
‘So you were familiar with the church building inside? Before it was stripped of decoration and painted white, I mean.’
‘Yes. I knew every inch of that House of God, the way I know the words of the Holy Bible. I knew its moods and its shadows, just as I had known the moods and shadows of my flock as they clung to their faith. Lucifer himself stalks the marble corridors of the Kremlin and he drags his cloven foot over the hearts and minds of God’s children.’ His gaunt face crumpled. ‘An eternity of hell fire awaits those who forsake God’s laws because they are stricken with fear.’ His voice grew hoarse with sorrow. ‘Fear is a stain spreading over this country of ours.’
‘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?’