The Commissariat of Enlightenment (16 page)

“You can’t!” she shouted.

He blocked her with his back and yanked the reel of film off the machine, nearly toppling it from its stand. She clawed at his face and boxed him twice in the ear. The blows hurt. Astapov had never before seen a man’s penis placed in a woman’s mouth and had hardly known it was possible; nor had he ever struck a woman. Now he stunned her with an elbow plunged sharply at her side and the film tore at the lens housing. He pulled at the remaining ribbon of celluloid: it ejaculated from the spinning take-up reel onto the floor.

Yelena’s face was black with anger. “I received permission!”

He ripped and gnashed at the film in his hands. Composed of
light and shadow, it didn’t tear easily. You had to start at the sprocket holes. He threw the crumpled bits onto the floor of the coach.

“Not for this,” he said, the reel that contained the remainder of the film still in his hands. “It’s disgusting, it’s perverted.”

Him! She had gone out and found an actor who looked like him! Or perhaps the actor didn’t resemble Astapov by intention. Perhaps the resemblance was an odd coincidence—or Astapov’s delusion. Delusion was Russia’s most plentiful commodity these days. In the thirty or so months since the Tsar had abandoned the Winter Palace, noms de guerre and new identities had been acquired more easily than new pairs of boots, and men had drunk deep of their own fancies. Could this be his? Another possibility was that he had just been given sight of Yelena’s enduring nightmare, the one in which he, Astapov, was forever chasing her down narrowing unlit corridors.

She said, “It’s revolutionary!”

“The Cheka,” he gasped, breathing the fearful-to-breathe name of the secret police, abbreviated from the initial letters of the Extraordinary Commission. He didn’t know what to add, the name was enough—not a threat, but a warning to them both, actor and spectator. Anything nonconformist could be dangerous. His eyes were dimmed by fury. He wanted to strike her again, as many times as he could. What had he
done
? No, what happened in Samara couldn’t have precipitated this…this degeneracy! No, not in a thousand million years—no, not until the end of history!—yet he had accepted custody of the new Soviet mores, he had been assigned to propagate them! And how well had he performed this assignment? She spat now, a lusty gob that landed on his pants leg just below his crotch. He looked away and tripped
out of the door of the coach, once more into sunlight made garish.

Astapov was nauseated and something stung the inside lining of his nose. The landscape around the station was as hard and dimensionless as if it had been etched in glass. He had watched Yelena’s film with his vision averted, or nearly averted, if that were possible, and yet every frame of it was now fixed in his memory. These images or images like them would be diffused through the ether—lunatic, narrativeless—until it was something men and women would no longer notice. In the future they would wander the streets, aroused and demented.

The driver was still there, leaning against the car, his cigarette finished. He gazed with clear blue eyes at the coach. In his impassiveness, Astapov saw contempt, as if the driver had witnessed the film too. As he fell into the back seat of the Thorneycroft, Astapov wondered if the spit stain was visible. He tried to speak but couldn’t, not until a whisper was emitted from his throat: “Gryaz.”

THE
seizure of the monastery had been swift, if not entirely bloodless. A drainage ditch on the side of the road was occupied by a man’s body, face-down, one of Gryaz’s defenders. The Thorneycroft passed a Red striding away, his eyes glazed and a bandage crimsoned around his forehead, but his steps were strong, as if he were marching in formation to another battle. Dense peatish smoke hung in the air. In the monastery courtyard the men paced impatiently, their rifles unslung. A red banner sprang from the upper ruins of the tower. The damage suggested that centuries had passed since Astapov’s visit earlier that day. His head still throbbing, Astapov found three soldiers who he recognized from Kamenka and ordered them to unpack his equipment.

The door to the church had been torn from its hinges, allowing some daylight inside. Its interior now teemed with peasants—those copulating rats, Astapov observed bitterly. The candles had been knocked to the floor and the beeswax odor was replaced by the fragrances associated with human fear; also the fragrances of gunpowder and tobacco. The soldiers lined the walls of the
church, some of them leaning against the icons, and they kept their weapons trained on their captives. The men from the village must have been frogmarched there.

The priest, who had been standing protectively in front of the icon that was said to have been brought from Palestine, nearly lunged at him: “This is a holy place, a sanctuary!”

Already the spell had been broken by the wan traces of daylight admitted into the church. The priest no longer seemed crazy or wily, only beaten.

“No one will be hurt.”

“You’ve killed men already. You’ve destroyed holy relics.”

“Their gold and splendor were taken from the people. Now they’re being returned,” Astapov said and turned away. In fact the damage disappointed him, but it was not as severe as it had been in Kamenka.

Shishko and Nikitin were standing beneath the iconostasis, each with pistols in their hands, eyeing the peasants. Astapov approached, weaving through the crowd. “What game are you playing?” Shishko said under his breath, sneering. “We can’t hold them here much longer. You’ll be held responsible.”

Astapov said only, “Please, Nikitin, I need your assistance.” The soldier kept his gun raised as they moved through the assembly. Small children were bawling and the older ones scowled and fidgeted, held tightly to their mothers’ sides. The house of worship roared like a darkened train station in which no one knew either the times of departure or arrival. Tears streamed down the parched, windburned faces of the old women. They had been in hiding for days. One of them seized Astapov’s arm. “Baron Bolshevik, have mercy on us! Think of the children!”

Astapov replied, “Don’t worry, granny. You won’t be hurt. This will be a great day for you, one of the best.”

He directed Nikitin to supervise the unloading of his equipment and showed him how to start the generator, which was of French manufacture. It had been left by the Pathé cinematography company when its offices on Tverskaya were taken over by a Commissariat unit under Astapov’s command. While the apparatus was being set up, he walked among the peasants, murmuring assurances to their safety, and politely asked for their patience. Under his guidance, the electric lamps were carried into the church, planted by the door, and erected on their tripods, which raised them nearly to the frescoed ceiling. One of the elderly peasants presumed they were weapons: “We’re goners!” he cried.

“Comrades!” Astapov called out at once. A panicked throng would easily overcome Shishko’s troops. “Respected comrades! No harm will come to you, I swear it! After a short demonstration, you will be free to go to your homes, not as prisoners, nor as the slaves you were, enchained by the old regime!”

The peasants buzzed like flies. With Astapov’s authority established, they parted as he passed among them for the second time. He stepped up to the iconostasis, turned alongside Shishko, and assumed the place from where the priest usually conducted the divine service. Without thinking, Shishko had saved the priest’s place for him.

As if against their wills—it
was
against their wills—the people turned haltingly to face the Red civilian. Astapov gazed above their heads until he found Nikitin at the back of the church. Once they locked eyes, Astapov raised his right arm slowly. The peasants hushed. He brought his arm down hard.

At that moment the lights thumped on. The interior of the church was inundated and there was a gaseous hiss. The peasants were blinded, in a manner converse to their loss of sight when they had first entered the building. The radiance was a viscid element,
oozing into every corner and space of the church, into chinks, crevices, pitted surfaces, and human pores. Gryaz had never before seen an electrically lit lamp, nor anything powered by electricity at all, and out of the old Jupiters spilled a luminousness whose color and intensity were totally foreign. Now from the peasants rose a gentle, collective moan. Many of them raised their arms to shield their faces.

“Light!” Astapov cried. “That was God’s first command!”

He waited until their pupils contracted before he spoke again. As the peasants’ eyesight was returned to them, they saw their church made entirely new. For the first time in centuries, crisp shadows were cast in the church, giving its walls material substance. Each rough spot and artifact of construction was magnified. You could see the wires and fasteners that held the iconostasis against the wall. Centuries-old adze marks were visible on the stone floor. The paintings glowed as if about to burst into flames. Against the light’s unforgiving brutality, the gold shone without luster.

“This is a sacrilege,” said the priest.

Astapov forced a confident smile. The assembly hummed now: the song of wonder, he discerned. “Damned Bolsheviks,” someone said, but it didn’t disturb the electric spell, and the man immediately felt the blow of a rifle butt against his temple. The peasants covered their eyes against the illumination, but reluctantly, and soon they dropped their hands and gazed up at what was revealed. Never underestimate the power of human curiosity. Astapov’s eyes were not pained by the light at all. The light was a much needed balm.

A strong odor filled the church: the egg tempera with which the icons had been painted was being fried by the heat of the lamps. Astapov could hear the pictures sizzling. Soot from the
candles liquefied and beaded on the ceiling. Old cured wood was singed. Acrid vapors enveloped the congregation.

“You’re the anti-Christ,” said the priest quietly, impotent.

The atoms of lapis lazuli and gold malachite that were laid upon the icons now ionized and sparked. The pictures assumed unfamiliar hues, none of them natural. As the paint burned, the ghosts behind the icons emerged, along with the artists’ preliminary sketchmarks, errant brushstrokes, and abandoned gambits. The figures of the saints simplified until they resembled newspaper cartoons or caricatures. Under the electric illumination, the peasants’ faces were drained of color. They gazed at each other horrified by their transformation. This was what should have been done in Kamenka.

“Light! None of us should fear the light,” Astapov cried out. “Light is the purest substance known to mankind. Light is a cleansing spirit. Light is truth. With electric light, Soviet power reveals the truth of science against the falsehoods of superstition!”

Astapov gripped the attention of the peasants as if in his fists. His voice had become hoarse and wavering, but it was made irresistible by the power of electricity.

“You’ve been shackled by monks. Superstition and ignorance have robbed you of your birthright and have allowed greedy, conniving bastards to get rich off your labors. These fine art works—they come from the sweat of your brow. You dug the gold that adorns this bric-a-brac. You provided the wood for the frames, the pigments for the paints, you fed the artists. For centuries this church has sucked the peasantry of its wealth. Most of all, it has perpetrated a fraud about what is saintly and what is not.”

He paused now and surveyed the stark interior. A haze scintillated around the electric lights, more burning soot and paint. The light deeply soaked the room now, revealing its secret places—
cobwebbed corners, ratholes. Ancient patches of cement glistened in the stonework. The place was filthy. In steps the old church was becoming as mysterious and hallowed as an old barn. Astapov signaled the men who had set up the generator and brought in the lights.

As they had been instructed, the four carried long chisels and oversized, man-killing mallets. A shudder ran through the congregation. The soldiers grinned, not yet informed of what they were about to smash. Astapov intercepted them and led the way to Saint Svyetoslav’s crypt. With precise words, spoken softly, he explained where they should strike their chisels in order to separate the crypt from the interior wall. The men went to work in a fury, in pairs, one with the chisel and the second with the hammer. Each strike of the hammer echoed within the dome.

A new murmur rose in the congregation, insistent and worried. “Shut your mugs!” snarled one of the Reds. For a moment, the protests were stilled.

Astapov said, “The heart of this fraud is in the person of the so-called Saint Svyetoslav, a corrupt priest in league with the landowners and the autocracy. The story you’ve been told is a child’s story that only a child can believe. There was no gift of land for this monastery: it was taken at swordpoint. There were no miracles on behalf of barren women. They’re all lies that have been proven impossible by modern science. And most contemptuously, most criminally, there’s the claim that Svyetoslav was and
is
incorruptible, that he remains uncorrupted in his crypt.” Astapov’s scowl was grotesque, as if he were on stage in a burlesque. “That’s the true blasphemy! Svyetoslav was a man who believed in nothing except his own interests and the interests of his class! On this day,
today,
Soviet power will disprove the so-called saint’s so-called incorruptibility.”

The last blow broke off a chunk of the wall and the crypt was free. Nikitin ordered more men to help remove it. They swore as their fingertips rasped against the rough stone. In the end it took eight shoulders to dislodge the sarcophagus. As it was dragged across the floor to a place before the icon screen, the noise scraped against Astapov’s bowels. The congregation’s discomfort was expressed in a susurration that darkened to an angry drone.

The lid was mortared shut, of course. Astapov pointed to where the chisel should go and how the crypt should be broken open. He wanted every bit of cement chipped away before the men pried off the cover and then for it to be removed as swiftly and effortlessly as possible. Astapov glanced at one of the soldiers, a tall, fair boy who had been in the patrol with Tarass. Hesitation was planted in his eyes like a line of pickets.

“Break it open,” Astapov repeated.

The youth looked at Nikitin for approval. Nikitin chewed on his lip and gazed at the floor. None of the other men around the sarcophagus spoke. The peasants quieted themselves, waiting.

“Give the order,” Astapov said.

Nikitin had lost his military posture. He was looking at his right boot and absent-mindedly tracing it in the dust. Astapov was distracted for a moment, wondering if the design carved by the boot carried meaning. If it did, was the meaning Red or White? Was it for or against historical inevitability? What signs and portents had been contained within Yelena’s cinematographic outrage? When would it be possible to control every image let loose upon the world?

“He’s a saint,” Nikitin whispered at last. He lifted his head and was struck by Astapov’s glare. “I mean, he’s revered as a saint. You know…. superstitiously.”

Astapov turned to the troops’ commander, who had left the
iconostasis and was watching them from the side with a contemptuous expression. Astapov was reminded now that he was alone, the only civilian representative of Soviet power in Gryaz. Shishko was calculating strategy. Power had shifted from the Party: that was the message in the dust.

The commander remained in place, his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed. “Open it,” Shishko ordered.

The soldiers returned to the crypt with alacrity, as if there had been no demurral at all. Pieces of mortar sparked and flew across the floor. An old man scurried to pick up one of the larger chips, presumably as a souvenir or relic. Astapov glanced at the archpriest. He had shrunk within his robes. His eyes were closed and his lips moved in passionate prayer.

“Come closer, comrades,” said Astapov. “All of you. Come see the so-called saint!”

The peasants hung back for a moment, before two things happened: the priest stepped forward, his eyes still shut, and the soldiers in the back of the church began to poke the congregation’s perimeter with their rifle butts. The circle contracted.

“Now.”

The soldiers all looked to Shishko. The commander nodded, grimly affirming the order. The soldiers crouched by the crypt, gripping their hands on the edge of the cover. With faces intent, they remained in place for several seconds, as if posing for a picture. “Lads,” said one of them, a boy who had come all the way from Siberia to do this. “One, two, three!” In a single heave the cover came off. When it hit the floor the stone shattered, thundering. A whitish plume rose from the debris and scintillated beneath the Jupiters.

It took some time for the dust to clear. Inside the crypt, bathed in the electric light, lay a scattered pile of stiff, brown-black
rags, a bare fraction of their original volume. They were adjacent to a skull and pieces of bone that had been pulled from their original positions. Astapov was struck by the tininess of the remains, hardly enough to make a pot of soup. The skull seemed no larger than a child’s.

And then behind Astapov’s back rose a vast, breathy exclamation that made him start and reach for his gun. It was followed by a cascading series of thumps and scrapes.

Astapov turned to see men and women falling to their knees, their figures suddenly slack. It was not only the peasants. The soldiers went down too, letting their rifles clatter onto the stone. They bowed their heads. Alongside Astapov, the archpriest was crossing himself, his eyes open wide and restored to their former intensity. Even Shishko and Nikitin were kneeled on the stone.