all? As a young man he’d witnessed theological seminaries turned into workers’ barracks, churches turned into antireligious exhibition halls. Icons had been used as firewood, priests imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Continued persecution or thoughtless subservience: that had been the choice.
JEKABS LISTENED TO THE SOUND of the crowd gathered outside, the bustle as they waited for the show to begin. He was late. He should’ve finished by now. Yet for the past five minutes he hadn’t moved, staring down at the final charge and doing nothing. Behind him, he heard the creak of the door. He glanced over his shoulder. It was his colleague and friend, standing at the doorway, on the threshold, as if fearful of entering. He called out, his voice echoing:
Jekabs replied:
His friend hesitated before remarking, softening his voice:
Jekabs smiled at his friend’s attempt at consolation. The guilt would be nothing worse than a hangover. It would pass.
With that, his friend left him alone.
Kneeling in a parody of prayer, sweat streaming, his fingers slippery, he wiped his face, but it made no difference, his shirt was soaked and could absorb no more.
He snatched hold of the blasting cap, crouched down to the dynamite.
STAINED GLASS SHOT OUT from all around the church, every window shattering simultaneously — the air filling with colored fragments. The back wall transformed from a solid mass to a rushing dust cloud. Ragged chunks of stone arced up then crashed to the ground, chewing up the grass, skidding toward the crowd. The flimsy barrier offered no protection, swatted aside with a shrill clang. To Lazar’s right and left people dropped as their legs were knocked out from under them. Children on their fathers’ shoulders clutched their faces, sliced by whistling stone and glass shards. As though it were a single entity, a great shoal, the crowd pulled away in unison, crouching, hiding behind each other, fearful that more debris would rip through them. No one had been expecting anything to happen yet; many hadn’t even been looking in the right direction. The film cameras weren’t set up. There were workers within the blast perimeter, a perimeter hopelessly underestimated or an explosion misjudged.
Lazar stood, his ears ringing, staring at the plumes of dust, waiting for it to settle. As the cloud thinned it revealed a hole in the wall twice the height of a man and equally wide. The damage made it appear as if a giant had accidentally put the tip of his boot through the church and then apologetically retracted his foot, sparing the rest of the building. Lazar looked up at the golden domes. Everyone around him followed suit, a single question on everyone’s mind: would the towers fall?
Out of the corner of his eye Lazar could see the film crew scrambling to get the cameras rolling, wiping the dust off the lens, abandoning the tripods, desperate to capture the footage. If they missed the collapse, no matter what the excuse, their lives would be on the line. Despite the danger, no one ran away, they remained fixed to the spot, searching for even the slightest movement, a tilt or jolt — a tremble. It seemed as if even the injured were silent in anticipation.
The five domes did not fall, aloof from the petty chaos of the world below. While the church remained standing, scores in the crowd were bleeding, wounded, weeping. As surely as if the sky had clouded over, Lazar sensed the mood change. Doubts surfaced. Had some unearthly power intervened and stopped this crime? Spectators began to leave, a few slowly, then others joined them, more and more, hurrying away. No one wanted to watch anymore. Lazar struggled to suppress a laugh. The crowd had broken apart while the church had survived! He turned to the married couple, hoping to share this moment with them.
The man standing directly behind Lazar was so close they were almost touching. Lazar hadn’t heard him approach. He was smiling but his eyes were cold. He didn’t wear a uniform or show his identity card. However, there was no question that he was State Security, a secret police officer, an agent of the MGB — a deduction possible not through what was present in his appearance but what was absent. To the right and left there were injured people. Yet this man had no interest in them. He’d been planted in the crowd to monitor people’s reactions. And Lazar had failed: he’d been sad when he should’ve been happy and happy when he should’ve been sad.
The man spoke through a thin smile, his dead eyes never moving from Lazar:
A careful answer and also the truth, he did want to stay, but no, he didn’t want the church to fall and he certainly wouldn’t say so. The man continued:
The most ordinary of questions and yet the most terrifying:
No longer masquerading as casual conversation, it was now an open interrogation. Subjugation or persecution, being pragmatic or principled — Lazar had to choose. And he did have a choice, unlike many of his brethren who were instantly recognizable. He didn’t have to admit that he was a priest. Vladimir Lvov, former chief procurator of the Holy Synod, had argued that priests need not set themselves apart by their dress and that they may
SAME DAY
IN THEIR FIRST WEEKS TOGETHER Anisya hadn’t given the matter much thought. Maxim was only twenty- four years old, a graduate of Moscow’s Theological Academy Seminary, closed since 1918 and recently reopened as part of the rehabilitation of religious institutions. She was older than him by six years, married, unattainable, a tantalizing prospect for a young man whom she supposed to have limited, if any, sexual experience. Introspective and shy, Maxim never socialized outside of the church and had few friends or family, at least none that lived in the city. It was unsurprising that he’d developed something of an infatuation. She’d tolerated his lingering stares, perhaps even been flattered by them. But in no way had she encouraged him. He’d misunderstood her silence, inferring permission to continue courting her. It was for that reason that he now felt confident enough to take hold of her hand and say:
She’d been convinced he’d never find the courage to act upon what could only ever be a childish daydream — the two of them running off together. She’d been wrong.
Remarkably, he’d chosen her husband’s church to cross the line from private fantasy into open proposition: the frescoes of disciples, demons, prophets, and angels judged their illicit moves from the shadowy alcoves. Maxim
