Chimes of a Lost Cathedral

by Janet Fitch

  Children living alone, burning things in this room, and there were probably more, but these, unlike their more able comrades, hadn’t the strength to run. Sick, feverish—these poor little beasts. They needed water, food, medicine—everything I didn’t have. I was raked by my own pure helplessness. I put the gun away. The children looked about seven or eight, maybe nine, hard to tell, their clothes so ragged, and they were so malnourished, it was impossible to even guess if they were boys or girls. “Are you hungry?” I said. “Food?” I put my fingers to my lips but they just stared.

  I took the bread I had in my pockets and broke it into pieces, held it out to them. I would run low soon myself, but I was strong, and these children might not last the night. Varvara would say I’d be better off feeding their stronger companions, the ones who stood a chance. Yet I couldn’t bear to leave them with nothing. They just stared and stared—those glittering, feverish eyes. They didn’t even try to take the food. I didn’t want to get any closer to them, with their matted hair and grimy hands. Jesus kissed the lepers. He washed their feet. Scalps patchy from some kind of mange. But I couldn’t just throw chunks of bread at them like they were animals. I bent down and I pressed the pieces into their dirty, dry, hot hands. I couldn’t show how terrible I found them, disgusting and frightening and hopeless. “Eat, children,” I said in my most musical voice. “You need to eat now.”

  They ate, slowly, mechanically, not even noticing, as if mesmerized by my appearance in their filthy dreams. One of them—a boy, I could tell now—crawled forward from the pile of rags and kissed the hem of my skirt. His shining eyes. What were they seeing?

  He knelt and crossed himself. The other children followed suit.

  It wasn’t me and Iskra they thought were standing before them, but a visitation of the Virgin and Child.

  After the initial horror at their mistaken awe, I felt the urge to give them what they wanted, and if it was blasphemy, so be it. I who had nothing could at least give them that. I could only imagine what Genya would say about what I was about to do.

  I made the Ionian sign of benediction over their scabby heads, right hand raised to radiate energy, the left below to collect it, and blessed them with all the somber grandeur I could manage. “Rest and grow strong, little ones,” I said, improvising Her lines. “I see you, day and night. I watch over you. I’m there when you sleep. I weep for your suffering, little lambs, my holy ones. I love you so…very much.” My throat closed. I didn’t know whether I could go on, it was such a disgraceful act. But they were children, and their loneliness must surely be as terrible as their hunger, their disease. “When you close your eyes, I’ll be there watching over you, even if you don’t see me. Don’t be afraid. God bless you and keep you.”

  And then I had to go, to fly, before I started sobbing. Out in the dark corridor, I heard the scuffling of feet and the particular hush of held breath all around me. The other orphans, the stronger ones, were waiting for me to go. “Get them water, boiled if you can. And good luck to you all, children.”

  15 Out in the Cold

  I tried to remember the name of the man I was supposed to see at Petrocommune—Gogolinsky? Gogolevsky? I used to have a perfect memory, but after my visit to the yellow mansion my wits had fled. I barely noticed where I was walking. This was what had happened to our beautiful revolution—children living like animals in abandoned buildings. They rode between trains, begged at stations. I thought our purpose was to protect the weak from the strong, not create some desperate Darwinian culling of the herd. Oh, those quaint old-fashioned virtues of mine.

  To our leaders, the spacemen, everything that made the revolution more secure was good in the absolute. If it strengthened the revolution, it was good, and if it weakened it, it was the enemy. I knew that’s what Varvara thought. But the truth was, the weak could only weaken things, taking strength from the strong. They couldn’t help to build a revolution. And yet, this was why the revolution had occurred. To help the weak. The strong would always take care of themselves, but what place in the great machine was there for ongoing suffering, for starving, abandoned children? Their pitiful lives too much of the present, this terrible moment, which was supposed to vanish. I knew one was supposed to lift one’s eyes to the glorious future, and not focus on present suffering, but what of these children? The unfortunate baggage of history. Were they to quietly starve to death, die in the walls like rats? Everything that struggled weakened the revolution. My own heartache, my tears weakened it.

  I didn’t want to walk out to Smolny now. I wanted to go somewhere private with a door that locked, where I could sit down and cry. I wanted to wash and drink boiled water and nurse my baby and, yes, even show her off to someone who knew me. I wanted all these things as another might crave food or water. So instead of treating myself to Smolny’s bureaucratic charms, I found myself entering a familiar doorway, still open right onto the street. And here was the sign, KATZEV PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIO. I touched its fingerprinty black glass, traced the letters.

  The elevator had lost its function, its safety gates locked. As I climbed the stairs, Iskra—heavy in the home-woven sling—woke and started crying. I sat on the stairs to calm her. People scowled as they climbed past us—this bast-shod vagrant with her bundle and her screaming infant. Only when she was quiet did I begin to climb again. When I knocked on that door, she had to be at her best. They would be the first people who would care that this particular fireball had landed upon the earth.

  I reached the door, the black paint, the nameplate. Rang the bell.

  Heavy footsteps. Solomon Moiseivich! The door opened, but instead of her father’s warm, smiling face, it was Mina’s fiancé, Roman Ippolit, the medical student—the same bristly hair, arrogant jaw, his old self-satisfied air. So that was still going on. He took in the sight of me—my pail, my shoes, my baby with her sweaty hair, my satchel. “What do you want?” he asked rudely. Did he think I was a beggar? Thank God he didn’t recognize the boy assistant, Misha.

  I tried for my most elegant tone. “Excuse me, but is Mina Solomonovna home? Or Sofia Yakovlevna?”

  His eyes raced again, from my dusty kerchief to my redheaded baby, sheepskin, and satchel. What could such a creature possibly want from a modern Petrograd photographic studio? A baby picture? “Who wants to know?” He planted himself even more firmly in the doorway. He certainly hadn’t gained any manners in the time I’d been away.

  “Tell her it’s Marina Makarova.”

  “From the academy? Dmitry Makarov’s daughter?” Now he reinspected me, temples flexing, a portrait of Suspicion in a gallery of human venality. My God, he would have made a good maître d’.

  “Actually, it’s Kuriakina now. I’m married.” I shifted my weight and spoke in a soft, educated voice, as feminine as I could muster, in fear that he would recall Misha. “Forgive me, but I’ve been traveling for some time. May I come in?”

  He must have remembered a trace of manners from a few generations back. He let me in. The apartment was the same and yet not. Sparer. Things gone missing. The piano was where it had always been but the clock that had always sat upon it was gone. Also the carpet, and the collection of bric-a-brac on top of the bookcase. The Meissen figurines Sofia Yakovlevna had so loved had definitely lost a few comrades. The crystals on the chandelier were less plentiful. Well, who had not changed? I just wanted to sit in peace with Iskra, grateful not to be eight years old and lying on a filthy mattress dying of typhoid or influenza.

  “Mina’s with a customer,” said Roman. “I’m Ippolit. Roman Osipovich.” He extended his hand.

  “Good to meet you.” I hesitated, aware of my calloused, weathered hands, no longer the academy miss I’d once been, clasping his, which was soft and sweaty. I remembered all those dirty jokes he used to tell, all those awful stories he insisted on imparting to Misha. I fought the urge to wipe my hand on my skirt. He didn’t offer me a seat, so I stood as elegantly as I could—like a duchess, waiting for a courtier to pull out a chair. Now I
was conscious of how dirty I was after the days of traveling, I could smell myself and Iskra, diapers and puke and the vague suspicion of blood. “Might I use the washroom?”

  “Sure.” He pointed down the hallway. “Third door to the right.”

  “Yes. I know,” I said.

  I carried Iskra down to the bathroom, sat on the edge of the tub, and cleaned her properly. My God, they still had running water! Reveling in the privacy, I ran water into my bucket, cold but plentiful. And soap! I rinsed and scrubbed those diapers. Maybe later I could get someone to boil water for us. Iskra looked so small and clean and pretty, lying on the cloth on the white tiles, looking up at her mama, and the electric light.

  I couldn’t get those children out of my mind. What a hell this life was for small things. Yet I couldn’t help but rejoice in the luxury as I laved my own face and hands, stripped down and washed my arms and armpits and the rest, already estimating the fortunes of the Katzev family in the months I’d been gone. They’d had to maintain enough people to keep the flat private, that was good news, everybody alive and well. If only Mina wasn’t too angry at me for leaving that day, maybe she’d see Iskra and relent. Who could resist such a beauty? And I could get work with my new papers, contribute to the household. Perhaps Sofia Yakovlevna would help me soften her up. She’d even liked Misha, and that was saying something.

  I came out of the washroom with the newly fresh Iskra, and nearly collided with a tall Negro woman in a modern but unusual dress, wavy hair cinched in a cord like a Greek stele. “Izvenite, etot tualyet?” An American accent. She stumbled in her Russian. An American Negro in Petrograd—maybe I’d hit my head in the bathroom. Maybe I was still lying there. “Tualyet, da? Etot? Etot?”

  “No, it’s the next one down,” I said in English, pointing to the correct door.

  She burst into the most radiant smile, clutching my arm in gratitude. “Oh my God, you speak English. Wait there. Don’t leave, promise me you won’t leave?” Holding up her pink-palmed hand, like asking a dog to stay.

  “I won’t,” I said.

  I returned to the parlor with my pail and diapers, Iskra awake and looking at everything as if she’d never been indoors before. She gazed at the light coming in through the curved windows, the colors in the chandelier’s crystals. But I didn’t have time to share in her delight. A disapproving figure waited for me like a strict, humorless schoolmistress. Arms crossed, one toe raised, heel digging into the floor, as if she would like to crush me under it. I smiled, but Mina didn’t. It had been almost a year now, but my hopes that she wouldn’t still be angry were overly optimistic. “You look well, Mina.” Thin but not starving, her hair in a stylish bob, though I saw circles around her gray eyes behind her spectacles. And her shock—at seeing Iskra.

  Roman grinning like a perfect fool.

  “Don’t you have something to do?” she snapped.

  He dropped his chin to conceal his smirk and went across the room, to the divan where Solomon Katzev used to sit between clients. He picked up a large medical book and pretended to study it.

  Mina’s gaze moved from the baby to me and back again. Her hand went out timidly, to touch my child, the flaming hair, the soft flushed cheek. She extended her forefinger to Iskra’s tiny hand and my daughter clutched it. My old friend’s gray eyes were full of clouds. “It’s his, isn’t it? Oh my God, I can see him. It looks just like him.”

  “Her name’s Iskra.”

  “Is that what happened that night? You found him?”

  He. She still thought of him that way. As I did. For us, there was just one he in this world, and no Roman or Genya could stand in his way. How could one man have captured so many? Petrograd must lie awash in our sisterhood, women who had felt this lash, this spell, this drawn knife of pleasure across our hearts. Who felt it still, whenever we thought—he. We could form our own sect of wounded nuns. Although I certainly knew him best, having shared his childhood, seen him behind the scenes of his traveling show—borne his child. Even I would never know him completely. The religion of Kolya Shurov was a mystery cult.

  “How’s Sofia Yakovlevna?” I asked her.

  “She’s well,” Mina said, still staring at the baby, who had her firmly by the finger.

  Still alive. Thank God. “And Aunt Fanya? Uncle Aaron? Dunya?”

  “Same as ever,” she said shortly. “Dunya’s seeing that painter, the blond one. Sasha.” She danced Iskra’s hand up and down, and the baby grinned wickedly, reached for her specs. I was happy for Dunya—someone should be lucky in love.

  “And Shusha?” The youngest Katzev.

  “School. She’s at Insurrection.” Mina laughed despite herself. Insurrection, the new incarnation of the Tagantsev Academy. “She wants to be a doctor someday.” Never taking her eyes off my child. “God help us all, right?”

  Roman spoke up from his books. “Hey, aren’t you going to tell her about us? We’re engaged. Getting married as soon as I graduate medical school.”

  “Congratulations,” I said, trying for enthusiasm, framing my reaction as it would be if I hadn’t already had a bellyful of Roman Ippolit. And trying to keep the extra smile out of it, the horselaugh I was also feeling. Who in the world would marry a jackass like Ippolit? I kissed Mina three times in the traditional blessing. Her eyes widened in unspoken sentences that her pale lips had to hold back. I noticed she’d stopped reddening them.

  “How old is…Iskra?” Mina asked me.

  “Almost three months. Want to hold her?” I passed her to Mina, who held her uncertainly, as if this small creature might explode. “Actually the midwife baptized her: Antonina. Antonina Gennadievna Kuriakina.” Not to rub salt in the wound.

  Tcha…that exhalation of exasperation. She touched her fingertips to Iskra’s silky hair, the way you’d touch a rose. “Your mama’s crazy, you know. She’s nuts. Does Genya know about this?” She tilted her bobbed head toward the baby.

  I sighed, hoping she would understand. “Most of it.”

  She used to be so unaware, our Mina Katzeva, but she’d grown up a lot in the last years—as had we all. Now it was her turn for the horselaugh. “Can’t you ever do anything right? There’s always got to be some drama. It exhausts me just thinking about your life, the way you live it.”

  I didn’t say, And if I was engaged to Roman Ippolit, I’d want to kill myself, so the feeling’s mutual.

  The Negro woman sailed into the parlor like a ship under full sail, freshened and sparkling with energy. She pressed my hand, hers smooth and solid. I regretted my work-hardened paw. I could smell her perfume. She wore a green suit, red lipstick, so much color, I could hardly look directly at her. Who was this apparition? “You speak such wonderful English. I’m Aura Cady Sands.” Her hand was warm and long, almost as big as my own, full of electric energy. I could feel her feet through it, her solidity—she would not be one easily knocked over by life. “Forgive me, I don’t want to intrude, I was just leaving. But I’m desperate to meet people who speak English, and so well! What’s your name, honey?”

  “Ma copine, Marina Dmitrievna Makarova,” Mina said.

  “Kuriakina,” I quickly corrected her. “I’m married now. Just returned from the countryside.”

  “I’m so glad to meet you, Marina Dmitrievna. So glad. Your country, La Russie! La Revolution! My God, what you people are doing here, it’s incredible. I had to come and see for myself. The energy—the will to change the world! Magnificent!” She was like a wind, and I a field of wheat bowing before it. “Oh, and aren’t you precious! Look at this hair, just like Mama’s!” She touched Iskra’s curls so gently. “And those eyes. She’s positively Irish. Can I hold her?”

  Mina deposited her happily into the woman’s arms.

  Aura Sands lowered her nose to the baby’s and began to sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” in the most astonishing voice perhaps I’d ever heard. A mezzo-soprano, I was guessing, or dramatic soprano, the rich, round tones. But she sang pianissimo, so she wouldn’t scare my re
dheaded, Irish-eyed Russian baby. One moment I was cutting rye with a midwife and her daughters, and the next I was listening to an African angel sing to my daughter’s Irish eyes. I began to cry. Iskra patted the woman’s face as she sang.

  We could hear, down in the street, the short barks of an automobile’s claxon. “Oh, I must fly!” She nuzzled my daughter and put her back in my arms. “Come see me! I’m at the Astoria. I’d love to talk more. Everyone speaks French here but it sure would be nice to speak some good old English. And you…” She tickled Iskra, pressing a strong, manicured forefinger into the baby’s tiny chest. “You be nice to those men. You’re going to drive them insane!” The baby reached for her earring, gold, and I caught her just in time. What one could get on the street for just one of those earrings. “Merci, Mina Solomonovna, pour les belles photos.”

  “But you haven’t seen them yet,” Mina said. Her French was all right, but it was a third language. She preferred German, the language of science.

  “I’m sure they’ll be wonderful. I can always tell an artist.” She switched to English. “And you come see me, Marina Kuriakina. Please don’t let me down. Room 223, Astoria Hotel. Afternoons are good, I don’t wake up so early. We can have lunch. This is wonderful, what a lucky day!” She kissed me and the baby and left like a hurricane, blowing herself out the door.

  “Who in the devil was that?” I asked. Iskra was starting to fret. Hungry, or just missing the dark lady with the shiny earrings.

  “A singer. As you no doubt guessed.”

  “Famous?”

  “Well, she’s at the Astoria…Yes, I’d say so.”

  “I’ve never heard of her. I didn’t think Americans were so advanced.”

  “Probably that’s why she left,” Mina said, as if I were missing the obvious. “I’m photographing her for Narkompros.” The Commissariat of Enlightenment.

  I was happy just to be talking to her again, two old friends. “Do you mind if I sit down?”