With God in Russia

by Walter J. Ciszek

  I handed my passport and papers, and Rosa’s “house book,” to the younger of the two girls. When she opened my passport and saw that I was from the United States, she couldn’t do enough for me. The other girl kept glancing suspiciously at us, looking up from her work, but she said nothing. The young girl stamped Rosa’s “house book,” wrote down my name, stamped all the papers and registry blanks, chattering and asking questions about America the whole time. I paid the 3-ruble registration fee and thanked her. “Oh no,” she said, “thank you!”

  Now that I was registered, I felt more secure and I spent more time than ever working openly with my “parish.” I even posted the Mass schedule inside the church, along with a list of weddings and baptismal appointments. I didn’t bother to get a job, for the people themselves took care of my needs and there was too much work to do. It had been a thriving parish under Janos, and now it was back in full swing. Within a month, though, rumors began circulating that the authorities had never “approved” this church. Nothing was said officially, but the word seemed to get around.

  One Sunday, just after I’d turned back to the altar following the sermon, I sensed a stirring among the congregation, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. During the quiet when I bent over for the consecration, I heard someone trying the outside door. Again, I paid no attention. But when Mass was finished, the landlady waited more than twenty minutes before she opened the doors; the congregation sat silently and somewhat frightened. At last, the landlady opened the doors and said the militia had been here during Mass, demanding to get in. She had told them the doors were locked and only the priest had a key. They had tried the doors, walked around the building, then finally left.

  The parishioners were determined to keep the parish open. Accordingly, they held a meeting in the church and drew up a signed petition, addressed to the City Council, requesting that a parish be opened for themselves and other Catholics of the Latin rite in and around Krasnoyarsk. I was skeptical; in fact, I doubted the prudence of such a move. The people, however, were sure they would receive a favorable answer, for a previous petition had been turned down just after Father Janos’ death on the grounds that no priests were available.

  When it was completed, a committee of parishioners took the petition to the City Council. After much insistence, they obtained an appointment with the head of the Council himself. He wouldn’t give them a direct answer, however, or sign the necessary document; he insisted it was a matter for Moscow, and they would either have to send the documents there or take them personally.

  By this time the people were not to be put off. They called another meeting in the church and decided to send a committee to Moscow with the petition, along with another petition to have a former Catholic church, now used by the government as a radio station, reopened. This second petition was addressed to Khrushchev himself, and to it was added an additional list of names which had been collected since the first petition went to the City Council.

  Rosa, as one of the leaders of the parish, was chosen to go to Moscow along with the choirmaster. Unfortunately, the man’s wife got sick at the last moment, so Rosa left for Moscow alone. Still, hopes were high among the parishioners for a favorable answer to at least one of their petitions. In Moscow, Rosa tried for three days at the Kremlin to see Khrushchev personally, but to no avail. At last, she was received by the Minister of Religious Cult, who heard her story, took the papers and documents, and told her to come back again the next morning for an answer. That answer was that such matters were to be settled and approved on the local level, in this case, Krasnoyarsk. Rosa argued that Krasnoyarsk had referred us to Moscow; the Minister insisted it was a local matter.

  When Rosa returned with the news, the parishioners refused to be discouraged. They became more convinced than ever that the City Council would have to approve the petition now. They even continued the work of remodeling the chapel which they had begun—e.g. adding a baptismal font and another confessional—so it could function as a real church.

  By my second month in Krasnoyarsk, I had thriving “mission” parishes on the Pravi Biereg and in the outskirts and suburbs of the city. One German settlement, out beyond the Yenisei Station, took over a whole barrack when I said Mass. More than 800 people attended, and there were baptisms and marriages before and after Mass, sometimes for hours. I also served another German community in a kolkhoz farther out, and, since I still had my regular parish and the “missions” on the Right Bank, I had to hold these suburban services on Saturday.

  By now, the parishioners were becoming impatient with the City Council. The committee had been making what amounted to an official merry-go-round, from office to office, to the individual ministers and back again to the City Council. Yet things still dragged on without any ultimate decision, so after Mass one Sunday in July they held another consultation in the chapel. They had abandoned hope for the reopening of the big church on Stalin Boulevard; the government would never evacuate the radio station, that was clear. But they decided to draw up another petition, emphasizing the fact that they now had a priest, which eliminated the only reason why a previous petition had been denied. They asked again, therefore, for official “approval.”

  That night, Rosa and I sat up at home, talking it over. Suddenly the dog began barking furiously, pulling on his chain so hard we could actually feel it in the house. I went to the window. It was about 1 A.M. and a jeep was parked outside. Finally, someone knocked on a side window—they couldn’t get to the door with the dog in the yard. Rosa went out and called the dog; up walked three officials.

  They barged right into the house as if they owned it and looked all around without saying a word. A couple of them seemed a little drunk to me. Finally, they came into my room. Then, at last, one of them demanded: “Who’s the owner here?” He was a tall man of about forty, well-built, but with a hard meaty face, dark complexion, and dark hair. “I am,” Rosa answered. He never took his eyes off me.

  “And who are you?” he barked at me. “A boarder here,” I answered, “legally registered in Krasnoyarsk and, in fact, sent here to live by the MVD.” “Uh-huh,” he sneered, “if this woman wasn’t here, I’d tell you a thing or two! You be in my office tomorrow at 3 P.M., do you hear?” “What office?” I said. “The Passport Bureau,” he said, “I’m the chief there.” “What for?” I said. “I’m legally registered there.” He glared at me. “Yes,” he said, “but the girl who registered you had no business doing it, and she’s no longer working there either!”

  With that he turned on his heel and walked out. The other two, who hadn’t said a word the whole time, followed. Rosa was terribly disturbed, and we sat talking on and on. She was convinced it meant the end of the parish, just when everything looked so bright, and she became despondent. I didn’t say much; I’d been through it all so often before that I felt there really wasn’t much to say.

  At three o’clock the next afternoon, I was at the Passport Bureau. The director was seated at his desk, and as soon as I came in he began glaring again. He didn’t bother to greet me, just said very severely, “Give me your passport!” I gave it to him. He opened it, crossed out my registration, stamped it heavily “CANCELED,” and threw it back across the desk. As he did so, he said coldly: “Forty-eight hours! You be out of town, or we’ll get you out!”

  “What’s going on?” I said at last. “I’m registered here!” “That girl had no right to register you,” he shouted, “and she got what was coming to her.” “Who do you think I am?” I shouted back. “I know who you are,” he said, “and I told you as plainly as I know how to be out of town in forty-eight hours. And don’t forget to check with the police!” I grabbed the passport off his desk, too angry to reply, and walked out, slamming the door.

  Back at Rosa’s, many of the people of the parish had already gathered and I told them the story. They decided to go immediately to the City Council and protest. I told them it was useless; I had to see the MVD in the morning. They still weren’t satisfied
, and early the next day a group of them appealed to the Council. It was no use. The councilmen told them the matter was police business; the Council would not interfere.

  By the time I arrived at the offices of the MVD, I was furious again. I told them they had no right to take such action, that I was sent here explicitly from Norilsk and legally registered. “Furthermore,” I said, “I wanted to go to Moscow and you interfered. Now you insist I leave the city. You refuse to give me any reason! When is all this going to end?” The agent didn’t bother to interrupt me; when I finished, he completely ignored my remarks. “Wladimir Martinovich,” he said, “you have been warned repeatedly and this is your last chance. You can go either to Abakan or Yeniseisk, that’s all—and you will leave today!”

  I told him it was physically impossible for me to leave that day. I couldn’t get a ticket on such short notice, and he knew it. His eyes flashed at me for a moment, then he shouted: “All right, but no later than tomorrow! Abakan or Yeniseisk?” I had never heard of either place, so I asked him where they were. When I found out Yeniseisk was to the north and Abakan to the south, I chose Abakan. “Very well,” he said, “now let me make one thing clear: In Abakan you will do no more of the work you’ve been doing here and in Norilsk—or else you will wind up where you started. Do I make myself clear?” It was a bit cryptic, but it was clear to me. I just asked him to give me a written note authorizing my stay overnight, so that I wouldn’t be picked up by the militia when my original forty-eight hours ended. He refused to give me the note, but promised to see that I wasn’t bothered.

  I came home to Rosa’s to find the house crowded with parishioners. I told them I had no choice, that I was going to Abakan. But I promised to come back and visit them if I could, and I asked them to keep me informed about the chapel, especially if they ever got a decision from the City Council or Moscow. Many of them were despondent, and some bitter at the thought that now the City Council would use the fact that I had left as an excuse to turn down their petition again—on the grounds that they had no priest.

  They helped me pack that night, and the next day many of them came with me, openly and unashamed, to the station. It was a hot July day as we waited for the evening train to Abakan. When I entered the car, they handed me gifts; many of the women had tears in their eyes. As the train moved off, I sat staring out the window long and silently—and deeply lonely. I began to brood about the months at Krasnoyarsk: how much I had done in so short a time, how hungry the people had been for my help, how well things had seemed to be going, and now . . . It was like Norilsk all over again. I sat listening to the regular clicking of the train wheels, growing sadder as the light faded. I fell asleep praying for the people of Krasnoyarsk.

  A NEW START IN ABAKAN

  I COULD HAVE flown from Krasnoyarsk to Abakan in fifty-five minutes, if I had been able to get a plane ticket. The train trip lasted almost twenty-four hours. For the train goes first to Achinsk, waits there as long as necessary to meet the Trans-Siberian and connecting passengers, then winds interminably along the Yenisei, up and downhill, through tunnel after tunnel, stopping at every small town to load and unload produce and make deliveries. We didn’t arrive in Abakan until almost six o’clock the following evening.

  On the station platform, I looked around trying to decide where to go. A total stranger, I watched the crowds going off in different directions and felt lost. I spotted a taxi on the other side of the street and hurried over. The driver, however, already had a call, but he said he’d come back after delivering that fare and get me. He warned me, though, that it might take an hour.

  I sat in the waiting room of the station, watching the crowds. The people here, at least the majority of them, were Khakassians, a Mongol type, descendants of the original settlers of Abakan, with narrow eyes and straight, jet-black hair. The women, especially the older ones, were dressed in the national costume: long skirts down to the ankles, long-sleeved, embroidered blouses of different colors, with beads and ornaments about the neck, big earrings, and braided hair twisted high into a coil. The young people, on the other hand, were dressed mostly in Russian or Western clothes, but they, too, spoke their native language.

  They were a reticent and shy people, a pastoral people, who had once herded enormous herds of cattle in the hilly and mountainous raised plains of Khakassia, a formerly independent territory in the Krasnoyarski Krai (Krasnoyarsk Territory). Now the pasture lands were gone, most of them plowed up in the tselina (virgin lands) campaign which had turned the area into a dustbowl. The plaza in front of the station was unpaved, and dust hung in the air as trucks, cars, and taxis moved about in the wake of the train’s arrival. It was the second week of July and exceedingly warm, so everyone was dressed very lightly.

  A little after seven, the taxi returned. After all that waiting, it turned out to be only a five-minute drive to the hotel, a four-story building on the corner of Oktobrskaya, the main street, and Roza Luxemburg Street. In the lobby, the girl told me there were no rooms to be had; the hotel was reserved for guests who were coming to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the union of Khakassia to Russia. I told her then that I was a stranger from Krasnoyarsk who didn’t know a soul in the city, and asked if she could help me find something. She suggested a street which ran parallel to Oktobrskaya, called Chertegasova, where many of the families were willing to take boarders, at least overnight.

  It was almost eight o’clock now, and Chertegasova Street, only one block removed from the main thoroughfare, proved to be unpaved, hot, and dusty. I was sweating profusely. I felt dirty and grimy, psychologically lost and depressed. I came to the Narodny (Peoples’) Courthouse, so I decided to ask there for help. The courthouse was deserted, but I met a scrubwoman in the hall and asked her if I might sleep there overnight. “Not allowed,” she said. “I’ll sleep on a bench or the floor,” I said, “just any place at all where I can be off the streets until morning.” She told me she simply couldn’t permit it, but there was a judge, working late in his offices, and she’d ask him.

  The judge came out and I explained my problem. He told me he didn’t know anyplace I could get a room and suggested I had better go to the MVD offices on Schetinkina Street. I left my baggage at the courthouse, found Schetinkina Street, and managed to locate MVD headquarters. I told the officer at the door I had come to see the chief. He looked at me suspiciously, then asked who I was. I told him I’d been sent by the MVD in Krasnoyarsk to live in Abakan and that I expected them to get me a room here. Suddenly, he laughed. “It’s useless,” he said. “Many of us don’t even have apartments. We have to rent rooms from private families.”

  As a help, though, the young militiaman gave me the addresses of some old women who lived alone and might be willing to take me in. But this might be considered a rather odd hour to approach them, he added; perhaps it would be better if I waited until morning. I thanked him for his help and retraced my steps towards the courthouse. I walked slowly now, feeling tired, dusty, and very much alone. From time to time, I stopped on the spur of the moment at one of the houses along the street to inquire if I might rent a room. No one had an empty room. By 11 P.M., I was back in the courthouse. The scrubwoman was waiting anxiously for me to retrieve my baggage so she could close up for the night.

  I walked a half block up Chertegasova Street, then decided to call it quits. I just resigned myself to sleeping in the street and taking my chances with the dogs, thieves, and the police. I arranged my bags in a heap on the sidewalk alongside someone’s wooden fence, then curled up as comfortably as I could. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep; I prayed to the only Friend I knew I had in Abakan.

  About midnight, I heard someone talking in the yard beyond the fence. “It wouldn’t hurt to ask,” I thought. I stood up, dusted myself off, and walked along the fence until I came to the gate. Remembering Rosa’s dog, I stepped in cautiously and found myself in a little yard and garden. I stood in the dark for a moment, listening to locate the voices, and saw a light around the
corner of the house. Between the houses was a well, and the two men were working on an electric pump.

  “Can I come in?” I called. The men looked up, and one of them, dressed in pajamas, asked me to come over. I told him I’d just arrived in the city that afternoon, and recounted my trip to the hotel, to the courthouse, and to MVD headquarters, my fruitless search up and down the streets at private houses for any place at all to sleep. I ended by asking if he had a spare bed for the night. “Of course,” he said, “we can always make room for one night.”

  I could hardly believe my ears. I went out to the street and retrieved my luggage, then followed him into the house. It was a typical four-room family house, with two rooms in the front—a living room and a bedroom—and two small rooms at the back, the kitchen on one side and a bedroom on the other. The man, who introduced himself as Stepan, took me into the room opposite the kitchen and signaled me to be quiet. There were a pair of beds in the room, on either side of a single window, and a little boy was asleep in one of them.

  As Stepan whispered to me to put my baggage in the corner, the lad woke up. Startled, he ran crying to his father; his mother came in from the other room. Stepan explained the situation to her and introduced me. I could see immediately she didn’t like the idea, but she said nothing. The next morning, I tried the addresses given me by the guard at MVD headquarters, but with no luck. Stepan was waiting for me when I came back, and he and I had a quiet talk. He told me his wife was disturbed about my presence, especially since I’d told them I was sent to Abakan by the MVD. She wanted me out of the house, Stepan said, but he insisted I should stay until I found a room.

  The next morning I had no better luck. At noon, though, Stepan came home with a notice which had been posted on the public billboard in the marketplace near the station. A room was for rent at 44 Tarassa Schevichenko (Schevichenko Street), it said, and anyone interested should apply to Svetlov. I skipped lunch and left immediately, hurrying in the hopes that no one else had yet applied for the room.