A Portrait of Loyalty

by Roseanna M. White

  She leaned close to his side. “I don’t know, my love. But perhaps you should start by asking that of the Lord.”

  19

  Ask that of the Lord. For a long moment, Zivon stood in the doorway of the church, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimmer light within. More, waiting for his spirit to adjust. The church looked nothing like the grand cathedrals where he’d attended Mass all his life in Russia, though it was set up in a familiar way, with no pews to hinder the supplicants from kneeling or pacing in their prayers.

  Was that why it felt so much like home?

  He stood there in the shadows, breathing in the scent of incense and prayers, and let his eyes slide shut. So many supplications he’d sent to God since he found Alyona on his steps, since he lost Evgeni in the train derailment. So many times he’d begged and pleaded and cried out for the Lord to step in. To fight his battles. To return to him a portion of what his enemies had taken away.

  So many prayers he’d spoken. Tried so desperately to believe. But none of them had made him feel the peace that stepping into this unfamiliar church on Welbeck Street had. Not, he knew, because God would hear any more clearly the prayers uttered in church. What, then?

  “Zdravstvuyte. How are you this day?”

  The accented voice drew his eyes open again. And more, answered his question. It wasn’t that God would hear him any better from here. It was that there were simply more voices to be found among the community of believers. More prayers lifted up in unity.

  He’d denied himself this. And as he drew out a smile for the priest coming toward him down the stairs, he regretted every day he’d not come to Mass. He’d been trying to convince himself to come since the night of the bombing, but this was the first he’d summoned the courage. Perhaps he ought to thank Godfrey Higgins for reminding him that there might not be a tomorrow.

  And Lily, of course. For seeing so clearly, as she always did, what the heart of the matter really was.

  Zivon bowed a greeting to the priest. “Zdravstvuyte.” The Russian hello felt at home on his tongue, despite the fact that he’d not spoken it for weeks. “I am well. And you?”

  The man smiled, revealing white teeth nestled behind his beard. “Very well, thank you.” He reached out a hand. “I do not believe we have met. Father Evgeny Smirnov.”

  The name made Zivon’s chest go tight. Evgeni. Zhenya. A loss he still couldn’t fully wrap his heart around. Zivon shook the father’s hand, careful to keep the grief from his voice. “Zivon Marin.”

  “Ah!” Father Smirnov’s eyes lit, and he kept ahold of Zivon’s fingers. “The one Fyodor and Kira mentioned! I have been hoping you would visit us soon. It is not the hour for Mass, of course, but if you wish confession—or perhaps conversation?”

  His priest had been waiting for him. Before they’d even been introduced. Somehow, knowing that made Zivon’s shoulders sag. “Conversation first, I think.”

  The priest patted with his free hand the fingers he still held in his other, then released him entirely. “Of course. Follow me.” He led him through the sanctuary with its green-painted dome and into a small chamber that looked to be part office, part reception room. “Please. Be comfortable.”

  Zivon smiled and chose a chair. “Mr. Suvorov mentioned me?”

  “He did, yes. He was quite pleased that an old friend had made his way to London. A linguist, are you not?”

  It seemed the safest thing to claim to be. And it was, after all, what he’d been before the war. He nodded. “I understand you have several among you here?”

  Smirnov chuckled. “We have found it to be quite a benefit, yes. Not only because we serve a combination of Russian and Greek parishioners, but we have also then been able to create and distribute studies and booklets in English, and even in Spanish. A great need has been met around the world from our home here in London.”

  He’d learned as much when he first reached England and had looked up the church. But he nodded as if it were news. “I apologize that I have not come before now. It has been . . . a trying few months.”

  “Well can I imagine.” The priest had taken a seat in a chair adjacent to Zivon’s. He leaned onto the arm, eyes shining. “But you strike me as the sort of man who knows that it is in the most trying of times that we most need to come.”

  “I do. It is just . . .” He sighed and nudged his spectacles up so he could rub at the bridge of his nose. “Before I left Russia, it had got to the point that I could not tell who to trust, what friends may be ready to turn me in to the soviets. I could not be certain it would be different among the Russians here.”

  “Ah.” Smirnov leaned back, stroking his beard. “And this is why you did not trust Fyodor’s cousin. This is understandable, I think. You suffered at the hands of these political enemies?”

  Zivon stilled. It still chafed against everything in him to share, but it was why he had come. He needed someone to tell him if he was as hopeless as he felt. “They killed the woman I was to marry. Murdered her and left her on my doorstep to find.”

  Smirnov muttered something under his breath. It sounded sharp, Slavic, but Zivon couldn’t quite make out the syllables. The priest shook his head. “This is terrible. No wonder you hesitate to trust.”

  “The Bolsheviks . . .” He heard the way he said it, the way Lily must have been hearing it. Felt the bite of his nails against his palm, though he didn’t recall telling his hand to fist. He squeezed his eyes shut. “How do I forgive them, Father? They took everything from me. Everything. My career, my home, my bride, my brother. Everything I thought I was, they stole. I fear . . . I fear I hate them.”

  “All of them?”

  His eyes sprang open again. “Pardon?”

  Smirnov’s eyes somehow managed to look both understanding and challenging. “Do you hate every Bolshevik, Mr. Marin? Man, woman, and child? That is quite a burden to take upon your shoulders.”

  “I . . . do not know.” He forced his fingers to relax. “I do not know who is directly responsible. I suppose I have lumped them all together in my mind.”

  “Easy to do, on the one hand.” The priest toyed with the end of his long beard. “To hate in broad strokes. To paint everyone as the same, da? Do you hate all Germans too? Bulgarians? Ottomans? They were also our enemies.”

  His breath eased out. “No.” He’d met some who seemed to, but that had always struck him as ridiculous. Yes, they were fighting them. Yes, the Germans were responsible for the death of Batya and countless others. But war—war where nation was pitted against nation—had never felt like this to him. It was just men from each side serving their country. “That never felt personal. Even when my father fell in battle, I knew it was not that he was targeted specifically. Not like this.”

  “So then. Do you think every single Bolshevik has personally named you an enemy? Did every single one conspire to kill your bride?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Perhaps, then, you do not hate them all. Perhaps you hate only the one or two to blame for this.”

  For a moment, his spirit lifted. Then his brows slammed down. “Is that really better?”

  Father Smirnov chuckled. “Better? No. But easier to overcome, perhaps. When we consider the task of forgiving hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of men, that is daunting indeed. But one or two? Think how much easier that will be.”

  Despite himself, a corner of Zivon’s mouth turned up. “I think you are right. Even so . . . I know it is not mine to seek revenge. That belongs to the Lord. But is it wrong, Father, to work against them? Politically?”

  Smirnov lifted his brows. “God does not tell us what political party to associate with or forbid us from working for them. And that means there will always be those we work against. What He does tell us, though, is that we must still find joy in Him, no matter who rules us. We must be obedient citizens.”

  “I know the passage.” Zivon had to grip his knees to keep from springing up. “But Paul is supposing a government where it is not i
n fact illegal to do good. This is not always the case anymore in Russia, Father. For doing good, I was branded an enemy. For remaining an obedient citizen to my lawful government, my czar, my life was threatened and my fiancée’s taken. I know the Lord will have His vengeance—”

  “And if He doesn’t?”

  Zivon froze, still gripping his knees. Breath caught mid-heave in his chest, drawn in but not shoved out.

  Smirnov sat forward again. “The Lord will punish, yes. He will judge—individuals. And every nation, every political party, will eventually fall. But what if, Mr. Marin, you do not live to see it? Can you accept that?”

  The balled-up breath burned. In all his thoughts, it had never once occurred to him that the Lord’s justice, His vengeance, might not happen in his lifetime, might not be visited on the very men who had done this to him, whoever they might be. He shuddered with his exhale. “Surely that will not be.”

  “I do not presume to know. But I do know that when we are told to leave vengeance to the Lord, it is not so that we can glory in it when it comes.” Smirnov tapped a finger against the arm of his chair. “God’s wrath is a mighty and terrible thing. We should not be wishing it on others—we should be trying to save them from it. To turn them back to Him. Because if you are wishing vengeance upon the Bolsheviks, my son, remember you are wishing it on each individual, whether they have committed these mortal sins or merely wanted the promise of bread in their children’s bellies. And we have already established that it is not every Bolshevik you hate.”

  Zivon tried to swallow, but his throat wouldn’t quite work. “So it is wrong, then, to want justice?”

  “No. Only, I think, to want justice for ourselves above mercy for other souls. Because if God treated us that way, where would we be?” A warm smile settled onto the priest’s face. “I can answer that one too, of course. Unforgiven—that is where we would be. For it is only when we forgive that we can receive His forgiveness.”

  Zivon’s hands went limp against his knees, and he sagged against the back of the chair. Lily had been right. There was much he had to sort through in his own mind, his own soul.

  He should have come to visit this man weeks ago.

  MONDAY, 17 JUNE 1918

  Could nothing go right? Nadya would have cursed, but she only knew the right words in Russian, and muttering those on a London train would garner attention she didn’t want. “Are you certain?” she asked in French.

  Evgeni lifted his brows and made himself comfortable on the uncomfortable seat. “I am certain that’s what Higgins’s neighbor said. I can’t, of course, be certain it’s the truth.”

  She had to settle for hissing out a breath. The travel had been grueling, and finding a cheap room to rent had been ridiculously difficult. Apparently housing was in a bit of a crisis, thanks to the refugees who had flooded England from Belgium and other occupied territories. But this turn of events—that Higgins, their sole contact here, had been arrested—was by far the worst. “Did he leave us a message or anything?”

  Face grim, Evgeni shrugged. “When he was arrested, he also missed paying his rent, and the landlord disposed of most of his personal items, including any correspondence.”

  How, then, were they to discover where his brother lived? Higgins’s knowledge of the location of Zivon’s flat had been the silver lining to Paul’s mistake in asking an acquaintance to follow him. But Evgeni had been right, clearly. Their contact was now in prison, and they were left with no help.

  “We find him the way Higgins did, then. We start at the Admiralty building.”

  “Risky. He’d probably spot us before we spotted him.” Evgeni traced a finger along the edge of her hand resting between them on the seat. He was always doing that. Little touches. Absent-minded ones. They’d bothered her at first. A claim, those touches. A tether.

  Now they brought a bit of peace to her heart, unless she thought too hard about it. And then the fact that they’d stopped bothering her started to bother her anew.

  She shook her head to clear it of such circles. “If not that, then what options do we have?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he knit his brow and tapped a finger to his chin, that caricature of thought he always fell back on. “Someone will know where he lives. We simply have to find the someone and convince them to help.”

  “A priest? Someone from the embassy? Would he have made contact with them?”

  “I would think so.” He nodded, a smile smoothing out the furrow in his brow. “I would think the church would be a safer place to go. They would be less suspicious of someone asking for information.”

  Church? Nadya screwed up her mouth. “I swore to myself I’d never step foot in one of those dungeons again. I’ll try the embassy first.”

  He let out an amused chuckle. “As you wish. I had better not go with you there, though. If he contacted them, it could have been to see if I had. They may have seen a picture of me.”

  “I don’t mind going alone.” In fact, it gave her a fine story to tell them. She could claim she was trying to find Evgeni too, say she’d known him in Russia. Being largely the truth, it should strike them as such. And then it would be perfectly reasonable for her to ask about Zivon.

  “If we’re going to the embassy, we had better change trains at the next stop. Unless you want to wait for tomorrow?”

  She sent him a look of rebuke. “We’ve lost enough time, don’t you think?”

  “I do. Though on the bright side . . .” He flashed that grin of his. “It has been time spent together, and that’s not all bad.”

  No. It wasn’t. And in many ways, the weeks spent helping him get back on his feet, searching the French countryside, and even waiting for Paul to get them documentation were probably akin to a holiday, compared to what they’d be faced with upon returning to Petrograd.

  He probably expected a roll of her eyes or biting retort. It was her usual way. But instead she turned her hand up under his, palm to palm, and wove their fingers together. And even leaned into his side. “Not bad at all.”

  They disembarked, studied a map of the tube stations—of no use to her, but Evgeni could read it. Another twenty minutes and three trains, and they were finally back in the afternoon sunlight, making their way to the Russian embassy. Evgeni tucked himself onto a bench a street away, leaving Nadya to travel the final few minutes on her own.

  She frowned when she saw the flag flying outside it. The white, blue, and red with the yellow canton had been removed from all the buildings in Russia. Yet here it still flew. Directly in opposition to the ruling party.

  Well. Not for long. Soon enough, everyone the world over would recognize their authority.

  Today, she would take comfort in the knowledge that she was working for the true Russia. She put a smile on her face as she entered and approached a man behind a desk just inside. She greeted him in Russian, borrowing a few of Claire DuBois’s mannerisms as she did so.

  Predictably, the man smiled back and asked quite eagerly how he could help her.

  Nadya gave an extra bat of her lashes. “I am looking for a friend of mine. He was to come here, I think. I hope. Evgeni Marin? Has he perhaps come in sometime in the last several months?”

  The man frowned. “Evgeni Marin? No, I don’t believe so. But here is the ambassador now—he would know. Mr. Nabokov, do you have a moment?”

  Nadya wasn’t sure if it was good luck or bad when the diplomat detoured to them. But she gave him the same smile she’d given the secretary and added an introduction. Given that no one knew who she was, she didn’t see the point in using a false name. When she stated her question again, Nabokov blinked in surprise.

  “Evgeni Marin? No. It is my understanding, I am sorry to say, that he perished in France. But we know his brother.”

  “Zivon?” She hoped her tone sounded right—a bit relieved at someone familiar, yet taken off guard by the news of death.

  In truth, she was taken off guard. Even when she knew it was wrong, he
aring that he’d died made her chest go tight.

  Zivon must have thought he’d been killed in the train accident. He must have told them as much.

  Regardless, using his name so informally seemed to have the desired effect. Nabokov gave her a sympathetic look and even patted her arm. “I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You knew the Marins well? Neighbors, perhaps?”

  She blinked furiously, as if fighting back tears. “More than that. I . . . I was to marry Evgeni. This is why I traveled here, to meet him. I don’t even know if he’d told his brother, but—forgive me.” She drew her handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes.

  The men exchanged a glance. “We can put you in touch with Zivon Marin if you’d like.”

  “Yes.” She sniffed. “Thank you. Do you have his address? I have a bag of Evgeni’s belongings he may want.”

  “Ah.” Nabokov frowned. “We don’t, actually. He has always just stopped in to ask for updates. But my cousin said he was at Mass. I’m certain we can get it for you. If you could stop by again later?”

  Though she wanted to seethe at yet another setback, Nadya gritted her teeth and nodded, hiding her frustration behind her handkerchief. “Yes, of course. I cannot thank you enough.”

  Before they had time to notice that her eyes were in fact quite dry, Nadya scurried back out. They’d assume she was just distressed and craving privacy, which suited her fine. Once back on the sidewalk and well out of sight, she balled up the handkerchief, squeezed a bit of her frustration into the wad of cotton, and swore under her breath. Another delay.

  No, nothing was going right at all.

  20

  THURSDAY, 20 JUNE 1918

  You know, dearest sister, one of these days it may behoove you to actually remember your own umbrella.” Lily sent Ivy a narrow-eyed glare around the shaft of the brolly they were both huddled under. Of course, she was also fighting a grin, so it wasn’t likely to terrify her sister into responsibility.