Read Online Moscow but Dreaming by Ekaterina Sedia - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ekaterina Sedia
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those twelve managers and only two of you to do the actual work. It doesn’t matter. You dig through your wardrobe and find half-forgotten woolly tights, scratchy and severe and thick, and a long gabardine skirt with a broken zipper, which you fix with a safety pin. You wrap your head in the flowery kerchief every Russian woman owns—even if she never bought one, it was given as a gift, or, barring all normal means of acquisition, spontaneously generated in her apartment. You suspect that yours is one of those, an immaculately gotten kerchief with fat cabbage roses on a velvet-black background with tangled fringe.
It is warmer outside than you expected, what with the dreams of winter and whatnot, but the wind is still cutting and it throws handfuls of bright yellow poplar leaves in your face as you walk away from the embankment. Your shoulders stoop under a grey woolen cardigan, and your walk is awkward, unnatural in flat shoes, and you feel as if you keep falling heavily on your heels, the familiar support elevating them above ground missing. Your face feels naked without the makeup.
St. Nicholas’ church is open and empty, the smell of frankincense and whatever church incense they use there tickling your nostrils and yet infusing you with reflexive peace, conditioned like a dog that salivates at the sound of the bell. You buy a thin brown candle and plop it in front an icon, wherever there’s space, and mumble something prayer-like under your breath.
The mass is long over and only black-clad old women are there, rearranging and correcting falling candles, sweeping the heavy stone tiles of the floor. They look at you with their cataracts, blue like skimmed milk, and mumble under their breath. You catch the word “whore” and try not to take it personally—after all, this is what they call every woman who is not them, whether she is mortifying her flesh with woolen tights or not. You try to will your legs to not itch and end up backing behind a column and scratching discreetly.
You are not sure what brought on this religious impulse, except for the boy you miss without having known him. Then you think of the rest of his family, his numerous siblings, always hungry and underdressed, and it resolves in your memory, finally: he was a son of a defrocked priest who was forced into disgrace and living in a common apartment building instead of a parish house, no longer surviving off tithes, but the very modest salary of a night watchman. His wife worked at the meat factory across the street and always brought home bulging sacks dripping with blood, filled with tripe and bones and stomachs, and it was never enough for their brood, which, by your estimate, was somewhere between seven and nine. Poorer and more fecund than real priests, even.
“May I help you?” A soft, stuttering voice startles you from your reverie and you spook upright, your head springing back and almost breaking the nose of the speaker.
The young priest steps back, calm, his hands behind his back. “You look spiritually wrought,” he says, smile bristling his soft beard, light as flax. “You need guidance.”
“I don’t,” you say with unnecessary force, the wraiths of your twelve bosses rearing their heads, the images of people always telling you what you need. “I need information. Why would a priest be defrocked?”
“Depends,” he answers with the same softness, the change of topic barely breaking his cadence. “Are we talking about now, or in the past? Because the synod just defrocked a priest the other day, for marrying two men.”
“No,” you say. “Before—in the seventies or early eighties. A priest in Moscow was defrocked. He had children.”
“Most of us do,” young Father says, musing. “Back then, that would’ve been insubordination, most likely. Failure to respect the hierarchy. Talking badly about the hierarchy. Or possibly a failure to inform—or maybe informing on the wrong people, the wrong things.” He sighs
It is warmer outside than you expected, what with the dreams of winter and whatnot, but the wind is still cutting and it throws handfuls of bright yellow poplar leaves in your face as you walk away from the embankment. Your shoulders stoop under a grey woolen cardigan, and your walk is awkward, unnatural in flat shoes, and you feel as if you keep falling heavily on your heels, the familiar support elevating them above ground missing. Your face feels naked without the makeup.
St. Nicholas’ church is open and empty, the smell of frankincense and whatever church incense they use there tickling your nostrils and yet infusing you with reflexive peace, conditioned like a dog that salivates at the sound of the bell. You buy a thin brown candle and plop it in front an icon, wherever there’s space, and mumble something prayer-like under your breath.
The mass is long over and only black-clad old women are there, rearranging and correcting falling candles, sweeping the heavy stone tiles of the floor. They look at you with their cataracts, blue like skimmed milk, and mumble under their breath. You catch the word “whore” and try not to take it personally—after all, this is what they call every woman who is not them, whether she is mortifying her flesh with woolen tights or not. You try to will your legs to not itch and end up backing behind a column and scratching discreetly.
You are not sure what brought on this religious impulse, except for the boy you miss without having known him. Then you think of the rest of his family, his numerous siblings, always hungry and underdressed, and it resolves in your memory, finally: he was a son of a defrocked priest who was forced into disgrace and living in a common apartment building instead of a parish house, no longer surviving off tithes, but the very modest salary of a night watchman. His wife worked at the meat factory across the street and always brought home bulging sacks dripping with blood, filled with tripe and bones and stomachs, and it was never enough for their brood, which, by your estimate, was somewhere between seven and nine. Poorer and more fecund than real priests, even.
“May I help you?” A soft, stuttering voice startles you from your reverie and you spook upright, your head springing back and almost breaking the nose of the speaker.
The young priest steps back, calm, his hands behind his back. “You look spiritually wrought,” he says, smile bristling his soft beard, light as flax. “You need guidance.”
“I don’t,” you say with unnecessary force, the wraiths of your twelve bosses rearing their heads, the images of people always telling you what you need. “I need information. Why would a priest be defrocked?”
“Depends,” he answers with the same softness, the change of topic barely breaking his cadence. “Are we talking about now, or in the past? Because the synod just defrocked a priest the other day, for marrying two men.”
“No,” you say. “Before—in the seventies or early eighties. A priest in Moscow was defrocked. He had children.”
“Most of us do,” young Father says, musing. “Back then, that would’ve been insubordination, most likely. Failure to respect the hierarchy. Talking badly about the hierarchy. Or possibly a failure to inform—or maybe informing on the wrong people, the wrong things.” He sighs
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