of us take our seats.
“What is it, Papa? What did you see?” begged Varya, her smooth young brow wrinkled with concern.
“Blood. I have seen the entire River Neva running with blood.”
Her eyes suddenly beading with tears, Varya pressed, “Whose blood, Papa?”
“The blood of the grand dukes.”
“Oh,” Varya said, not without a bit of relief.
Dunya spoke up softly. “Please, Father Grigori, you mustn’t say such things. Talk like that will only scare the girls, it will only-”
“I’m not scared,” I interjected defiantly.
“Let us pray!” intoned Papa, reaching out.
Beneath the heavy bronze chandelier, with Papa at one end of the table and Dunya at the other, we clasped hands and bowed our heads.
“Dear Heavenly Father, I beseech you to come to the aid of us, your miserablest children who seek Thine forgiveness. We will sin no more. I pray unto you, Thou, to grant us salvation, to drive away our enemies, both those within our borders and beyond. O God, O Wondrous Lord, how can one fail to believe?! The street is crooked, but ahead layest only one destination, and we struggle there on foot. We believe heartily, Thine Lord, and woe unto those who does not! The waves of calumny can only be stilled by good deeds, but it is true, there is far more sickness on land than in your great sea. So in you, Thee, O Lord, O God, help us rejoice, so that in your miracles of forgiveness we find everlasting peace. Ahmeen.”
“Ahmeen,” chimed Dunya and Varya in chorus.
When I failed to speak, Dunya glared at me, and I reluctantly muttered, “Ahmeen.”
As a child I never understood my father’s prayers. Nor did I this evening. What was different about tonight, however, was that I no longer felt awed by my father’s words or his supposed wisdom. I only felt something… something sad, even pathetic.
Papa took a piece of bread in his hand, put a single large pickle on it, and stuffed it into his mouth. It was gone in two bites.
“Wine!” Papa commanded.
“Yes, Father Grigori,” replied Dunya, pushing back her chair and getting up from the table.
Disappearing into the kitchen, Dunya quickly returned, not with a mere glass of wine but with a full bottle. As she poured Papa a glass, however, I could tell it was not with pleasure. Of course Dunya understood that Papa’s physical pain was as great as his mental anguish, but I knew it hurt her terribly to see Papa drink as many as twelve bottles of Madeira in a night, as he had done a number of times in the last month alone. How, I thought for the first time, could my father consume so much and still stand? Indeed, how could he claim to be so blessed and have so many gifts and yet be blind to his gross mistakes, which even I could now see so clearly?
Papa grabbed another piece of bread and piled it with salted herring, an entire stuffed egg, and a ring of onion, all of which he gobbled down like a wild animal. Next, still with his bare hand, he reached into the bowl of jellied fish heads, pulled out a whole cod head, and swallowed it.
“The other day I greatly offended a woman because I ate with my hands and didn’t use a napkin. She even gasped out loud when I wiped my mouth with my beard like this.” Papa chuckled as he pulled up the bristly ends of his beard and cleaned his mouth. “Tell me, girls, does it bother either of you?”
Varya, who was eating a salted pickle dipped in sour cream, grinned and shook her head.
I, on the other hand, blurted out, “Of course it does. It’s awful and…and embarrassing. Why haven’t you ever learned how to eat like a normal civilized person?”
“Maria!” gasped Dunya, horrified. “You mustn’t speak to your father like that!”
Papa only laughed. By court standards, let alone the etiquette of good society, his manners were atrocious, no better than a dog’s. He knew it, exulted in it, and flaunted it, particularly in the presence of the proper titled folk of Petrograd. Any number of times I had watched him wipe his filthy hands on the fine silk dresses, fur coats, or ties of his guests. Any number of times I had watched him order a princess to lick his filthy fingers clean. After a while his devotees understood and even begged for such treatment. Yes, they pleaded for Papa to do such rude things to them. Like washing the feet of Christ, it was all about meekness, submission, and mortification of the flesh.
“No, no, it’s quite all right,” Papa insisted. “My little Marochka speaks the truth of her heart, as she must. As must every Rasputin. And indeed as must every person. And it’s true: I never learned how to eat with the weapons of the court, those forks and knives!”
This, actually, was why Papa always came home from the palace of the Tsar ravenous. After zakuski he could never manage anything but soup. All the rest he could barely take a stab at, literally.
“But do you know why I have never learned, Marochka, my sweet one? Do you know why it’s important to eat with your hands?”
Of course I did. He’d told us not once or twice but a million times. And yet I said nothing.
Finally my little sister blurted it out. “I know! Because Xhristos and the Apostles did.”
“Absolutely correct, Varichka. It’s a rule of the Apostles to use your hands, and that’s why I never cut bread but break it, just as they did. And also why I eat fish and never meat.”
“I’ve never seen you eat a single piece of meat, Papa. Not ever,” said Varya.
“That’s right-never! Meat blackens one’s soul, whereas fish brings clarity and light. I learned this when I was a boy-even before my vision of the Virgin of Kazan. It started one summer night when one of my grandfather’s best horses injured himself and fell lame. This beautiful horse could do nothing but hobble, so I took hold of his bad leg. I clung to the leg, but my grandfather kept telling me it was hopeless, there was nothing to do, and he went to get a gun to shoot the poor thing.”
“No!” gasped Varya.
“Oh, yes. But I took hold of that bad leg and held it in my strong young hands. And do you know what I did, girls? I threw back my head and closed my eyes and I prayed with all my being! I prayed to Xhristos for healing, for compassion, for blessing. And I took the pain from the horse’s bad leg and sucked it into my body and out the top of my head…and then I said to the horse, ‘There is no pain-walk!’ And by the time my grandfather returned with his gun, the horse was just fine, even trotting around a little. Yes, my grandfather’s favorite horse lived for ten more years, never limping again.”
“It’s true,” said Dunya, her voice just above a whisper as she chewed on a piece of bread. “Six people witnessed the healing, and they still talk of it today!”
Yes, I thought as I sat there in silence. People in our village still talked of my father’s first healing, but…but…
“Mind you, I am not Xhristos. I can heal no one, I only do His work. It was the Lord God who healed that beautiful creature, and I only served as His vehicle. But right then and there I understood that all beasts are our brothers,” Papa continued, “and I’ve never eaten meat again, not once. And every day since, my powers have grown. Such is the rule of the Apostles and the powers of fish.”
“Is that why you don’t eat pastries or sweets?” asked Varya.
“Scum! Nothing but scum! I never eat sweet things and you shouldn’t either, little girl! In fact, Dunya, we must not allow it anymore! We must tell all those who come to leave their tortes and their sweet pies at the door! We mustn’t let such foul things as sweets into this house ever again!”
“As you wish, Father Grigori.”
I watched in disgust as my father swiped one of his greasy hands through his coarse beard, leaving bits of food here and there. He poured himself another full glass of wine, which he drank down in one enormous swig.
“Dunya, fetch us soup while I talk to the girls.”
“Yes, Father Grigori.”
Dunya, who was simply glad to have my father walk the floors she mopped, was only too happy to get up and clear the table of zakuski. As she did so, Papa reached out and clasped my hand in his right and Varya’s hand in his left. I tried to pull free, but my father’s meaty, calloused grasp only tightened.
“Great is the peasant in the eyes of God!” declared my father, uttering his favorite phrase yet again. “I have brought you, my precious daughters, here to the capital city, but I see trouble ahead. When things erupt, when this trouble flows through the streets, you must retreat from this decadent capital. You must flee to the place we have come from-our village. There, with your mother in the bosom of your family, you will find safety.”
