by Niles Kovach
We drove past the church and parked down an unlighted side-street. Misha opened the fire exit door in the back and we slipped inside.
The moonlight glinted in sparks on the gold, on the candles, and on the icons. The inconostasis guarded the holiest place and hid the altar from our view, but the saints were here, in profusion, as witnesses. The prayers, of joy, despair, and sometimes even boredom, clung to the walls, lingered under the ceiling, assaulted the senses in the same way the incense did, reminding out and breathing in devotion to God.
I knew the saints were furious with me for bringing this man into that holy place. I asked them to pray for me anyway.
We crossed behind the icon of Saint Sergius (Oh, the look he must have given me at the sight of my companion!) and entered a little room to one side of the main entrance. The room, a closet, really, was barely enough to hold the two of us. Opposite the door, a large locker took up one wall, filled with vestments and boxes of candles. A sink and short counter stood against the wall on our left. There were no windows. Misha shut the door and turned on the light.
He stood above me as I knelt in front of the sink cabinet, searching for the opening I knew was there. I dug my fingers into the carpet, under the cabinet's baseboard. It pulled away easily. I reached in and slid the folded icon out from under the cabinet. Misha knelt beside me, regarding me curiously, as if he hadn't expected me to actually produce the icon.
"How did you find it?" he asked. "Did you hide it?"
"No. I just knew where to start looking."
"How?"
"Cleaning supplies. They're in the cabinet."
"Please, explain."
I tried to keep it simple. "The person who cleans the church hid the icon. It was logical for her to hide it in a place she knows well."
He was still puzzled, so I started from the beginning.
"Father Paul was about to sell the icon to Grayson, but something happened, and he backed out of the deal at the last minute. That night, the icon disappeared. Grayson wanted it, badly, but he didn't have it. Boris was there because he was watching out for Grayson for Vasily. He didn't know anything about it, and anyway, there was no sign of forced entry. Boris would have broken a window or something. Not his style to forego malicious damage. Vasily didn't have it because he kept asking me about it. That eliminates just about everybody who doesn’t have a key.
"That brought me to a dead end until Papa taught me something the night he met Vasily. It was the concept of access. One other person had access to the key. One person who knew about the proposed sale, and knew the reason it fell through. One person who would have heard everything Father Paul told the bishop's secretary behind a useless dining room partition. That was Erin, the Matushka."
"She took the icon to sell it against her husband's wishes," said Misha.
"No." I looked at him, hoping he would understand what I was about to tell him. "It may have occurred to her to sell the icon. She even called Grayson. When I went to see him, he thought I was her. That's why he was so quick to let me in and that's how I knew he didn't have the icon. But somehow, she must have decided against it and told him it was missing. When I came, he thought she had found it and changed her mind. But Erin would not have sold it, because as much as they need the money, that wasn't why she took it."
"Why, then?"
"Because of the miracle."
His eyebrows went up, waiting for explanation. I told him about Mara, and about the laughter Father Paul had heard. "Erin didn't take the icon to sell it. She took it to keep her husband from making a fool of himself."
"Do you mean there was no miracle?" he asked.
I could not tell if he was skeptical, or simply studying me, my words, and my expression. He was attentive, for sure.
"It doesn't matter if there was or was not a miracle," I said. "Don't you see?"
He shook his head.
I tried again. "Erin grew up in the western church. Her view is western, practical, based on the material, the visible, the scientific. Miracles are always explainable. They may be miracles, but there is always an explanation. Mara's, and then Father Paul's, miracle was unexplainable. Erin did not believe it and was afraid it would open her otherwise sensible husband to ridicule and criticism. She couldn't bear this. She hid the icon. It was too big and awkward to move it far, and indeed, she didn't want to move it far. She only wanted it out of the way for a little while until her husband came to his senses."
"So was there a miracle?"
I remember his question so clearly, his insistence on an answer. I wonder now what answer he wanted.
I said, "I agree with Erin that Father Paul is too sensible to imagine such a thing. Mara, maybe, but Father Paul? Also, I'm an American, so my thinking is essentially western. Unlike Erin, though, my heritage is eastern. Some things need not be explained. Some things just are." I kept my eyes on the icon and continued in a whisper. "I believe there was a miracle."
I looked up to see Misha staring at me intently. He broke his gaze, took out his knife, and began prying a hinge off of one of the smaller panels. When the panel had been removed, he pushed the rest of the icon back under the sink and replaced the baseboard.
I held the icon panel on my lap as we drove back to the apartment. Misha asked me questions as we traveled, about many things, but said only one thing I found illuminating.
"Vasily," he said, "is anxious that you should live."
CHAPTER NINETEEN