Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

A Miracle and a Vision

Dear Editors!

I must confess I do not read your magazine much for the reason that it’s all but impossible to get here in Stargorod. I mean, it must sometimes come here, when they send an issue or two to our Soyuzpechat,¹² but I’ve never come across one. Except that the other day, in our foreman’s office, I found an issue, the one in which you describe all the miraculous things that happen to the Shroud of Turin, and what scientists have been doing with it, and it made me feel like I should write to you about our own, local, so to speak, miracle.

Why am I writing about it? Well, it’s not just because I’m the sort of person who likes to waste paper with whatever fancy strikes them – I think it’s important that you record this. Maybe someone will make use of all this material. Nowadays, when everyone writes so much about religion, people have started to take a second look at their attitudes towards this subject, but many have stuck to their old views. Personally, I don’t think science can add much to the debate, but neither could I possibly not share with you how I myself witnessed an unusual miracle. In the philosophical dictionary, what does it say? A miracle is something that cannot be explained, and a phenomenon is an event that is scientifically explainable. So it is the inexplicable I want to tell you about.

We have a lot of new people now living in Stargorod, but, as a true old-timer, I can vouch that Raika Portnova is a true, born and raised Stargorodian. How do I know? Well, I used to live right next door to her – she was on Rosa Luxemburg street, in the railroad dormitories, and I was on Liebknecht’s, where the DOSAAF shooting range¹³ used to be. I used to go to her store at the market, too, how else – it’s the only one that’s close to our neighborhood.

Raika Portnova was short of stature and a fright to look at. Even if you didn’t know anything about her, you’d think she’d done time, and a lot of it. She never denied it, either. She’d bark sometimes, loud as a thunder: “Sure I did time, but I’m not hiding it – deal with it!” She had a hoarse, smoker’s voice, really raspy, and a gray beard grew on her chin; whenever she’d go on a drinking binge, she’d forget to cut it. If she had any goods to receive that day, she’d just lie down under the counter in her store – on the floor, on her vest or something – and zonk out – she wasn’t afraid of no one, not the director, not OBHSS.¹⁴ But she always looked out for her friends – she’d open the doors for you even during the lunch break, if she had anything in the store.

When things got tight around here, I did, I confess, go knocking on Grishka the butcher’s back door (I do not provide his last name here, for obvious reasons). And Raika, even if it wasn’t her shift, would always be there, just hanging out – it was packed at the dorms, where she lived. So she’d just be sitting there, at the butcher’s, on a crate, drinking beer and shooting the breeze. For example, we’d start talking about Vysotsky. And Raika just had to put in her two cents: “I don’t like him. He’s stolen all his songs from us. It wasn’t him – it’s us that came up with all the words. We’d be sitting around at night, bored, and one of us would say something, like such-and-such, and that’d be the first line, and another girl would add to it, and by the end of the night – we’d have a whole song. Like, for example, ‘Forgive me, mama, for what I’ve done...’” I’m sorry I don’t remember how it goes – Raika was the one who knew all the songs by heart. She’d sing, too, often, in what she called “the fourth voice.” But she was good at sales – it didn’t bother her if she’d never seen a person before, she’d make a crack, and the next thing you know, the whole line’s laughing. Raika was a fun-loving soul.

The other day, I picked up the brochure entitled “What’s in a Name?” produced by a Zhitomir co-op Olesya, sold for one ruble a copy, and it says there that “Raya” means “Easy-going” in Greek. And our Father Yevtikhy also says that a name doesn’t come to a person just by accident. He must be right about this – Raya did live her life easily.

“I,” she used to brag, “have six kids, 14 grandkids, and five great-grandkids. And the more the merrier.”

Her life, of course, was not in any way special. A common life. She just always tried to make sure to work someplace not too far from meat: at the slaughterhouse or in a cafeteria – she had mouths to feed, you know. How do I know about this? She said so herself.

We’d be standing in Grishka’s basement, where he cut cooled carcasses. The ones that don’t come frozen, you have to cut – can’t chop them with a hatchet – and the meat’s so fresh, it’s still bleeding a little. Raika would pop up out of nowhere. “I,” she’d proclaim in her graveyard basso, “just love drinking blood. Always loved it. Whenever they’d fell a cow, I’d slice it across the throat, and it’d just pour out. We all lined up with our coffee mugs.”

She was a real fright to look at, worse than the devil’s own mother, short, bristly, topped with a man’s hat, but she’d crack something like that and you’d just be laughing your head off. And that’s just what she was after.

But where am I going with all this? What I want to say is, it’s not like her life was especially Christian in any way. She didn’t go to church, except to baptize her kids, or get them married or something. She herself, everyone knew, had her six kids with six different husbands, and not one of them stayed for very long. Yes, she worked hard, and she fed her own, but who doesn’t, and she’d sometimes help people out with something from the store through the back door – I think that was more out of habit than any sort of malfeasance. And who would say no to a friend? She was really fun to be around, that’s true. She lived, in a word, like a butterfly – not a care in the world, never took things to heart, had a great time, and sometimes drank hard if she came into some good money.

But I should say this one thing, lest I be accused of lying. Even before people started writing about church the way they do today, Raika would announce, like thunder, for the whole store to hear: “I know for sure God exists. And I wear a cross – my mother’s cross.” And then she’d show it to you: a plain little cross. Like they make of copper, you know.

This finally brings me to the main thing – Raika’s death. Because what happened? Here’s what happened and, mind you, it wasn’t on a special church day, or anything, just a regular day. Old ladies, as they always do, came to church early, way before Mass, and Aunt Zoya was right there waiting for them, sobbing: “Ladies, ladies, if only you’d know!” Out of her mind, almost. She was the one who told them.

Aunt Zoya trudged to church early, as always, when it was still dark, and sat on the bench under the cottonwood tree to wait, and it’s quiet there, the spot’s sort of hidden in the bushes. She was just sitting there, to the whole world invisible. Suddenly, she saw Raika walking down the street, and she was walking in this strange way, hands pressed against her heart. Raika went through the gate, and looked like she wanted to go into the church, but her legs folded under her, she fell onto her side and remained lying there, still as a rock.

“I was just getting up to go to her,” Aunt Zoya said, “when all of a sudden I saw this great paw, black and hairy, come from under the ground – it grabbed her leg, and dragged Raika into the ground. It got her down half way already when a light burst all round, and then wings, beating wings, and white doves came down from the bell tower. The doves hit the ground and became angels. Such a light came from them – you couldn’t look at it with your mortal eyes. And the hairy one crawled up out of the ground – all black, soiled, and coughing like he’s got no air to breathe.

“Who,” he says, “do you think you’ll be taking here? It’s mine and I’ll have it.”

“Not yours – she’s ours,” the angels answered.

“How so? She’s served me how many years, and now I’m supposed to give her up, just like that?”

“She has repented,” the angels said.

“What do you mean, repented? She never made it into the church – how’d she repent?” the devil was all by shaking with laughter.

But the angels said, “As soon as the Good Lord saw her repentance, he accepted it. There was one thing that was in her power – and that’s to repent, and the Good Lord of all things was the lord of her life.”

At this the devil sneezed hard, in anger, and yelled: “Let me then eat of her flesh at least!”

He grabbed her, smashed her against the ground, and vanished back into Hell. And the Angels received Raika’s pure soul and it shone forth with the same light as came from their wings. Together, they rose up, to the bell tower, and flew away as white doves, and vanished in the clear sky.

So the devil was thwarted.

And that day there was a great thunderstorm, and down came hail as big as pigeon eggs. The old ladies, naturally, connected the weather with Raika’s disappearance, but they can be forgiven, they don’t read books and don’t know that it’s long been shown that hail that big is a rather common meteorological phenomenon, and the fact that it occurred on the same day – well, there’ve been more stunning coincidences recorded by scientists.

You’ll say all this is just old wives’ tales about the devil and the angels. If I hadn’t happened past that church myself, I probably wouldn’t have believed it either. But I remember it like it was yesterday: here’s our church, and the old ladies are standing in a little circle, and in the middle of it is Raika’s green coat on the ground, and her man’s hat she always wore, her boots, and some sort of underthings, and on top of it all – her little copper cross, and it smells of incense all around, but they hadn’t even started the mass yet.

Since that day, no one has seen Raika anywhere around here, and it’s been five years. Father Yevtikhy later served a mass for the repose of her soul, because her daughter confirmed that on that morning her mother had complained about a pain in her chest, and said she needed to go to church. And before that, you couldn’t drag her there on a rope.

I struggled to solve this puzzle for a long time, and, having come up with nothing, went to my old history teacher Semyon Petrovich Ogurechnikov. He heard me out, then squinted at me just so and said, “People need miracles to believe in, because life is hard. And what you just told me here is all myth, pure and simple.”

Meaning, he didn’t believe me.

I probably wouldn’t have believed it either, but then what happened to the body, and who burned incense?

I went to see Father Yevtikhy next. He is our monk. He’s still young, but he’s very good, and you just know the first time you meet him – he won’t lie to you, and neither, by the way, would Aunt Zoya. She’s one straight-living holy soul, always has been, ask anyone here.

Father Yevtikhy listened to my doubts (he actually wasn’t here yet, when Raika disappeared), didn’t say anything, but leaned forward a bit, bowed his head with his eyes closed and just made this quiet, regular motion with his right palm around his heart. And such a change came over his face then, it was like a light had come on inside it and burst forth, and he opened his eyes, and there was nothing but joy in them, and joy was on his lips, and in his entire countenance. Suddenly, I too, felt a great elation – there’s no other word for it – and my heart sang, and there was nothing I needed to hear or say any more. And he just looked at me and didn’t say anything – we understood each other without words. I kissed his hand, quick, and ran out.

But what it was that became clear to me in that moment – I cannot explain it to you, I have no words for it. Things are not as simple as they seem, is all I can say. I still have my doubts about the hairy demon and the white doves, but the coat was right there on the ground, and that’s the thing.

I’ll tell you one thing: I climbed into my excavator cabin that day, and such strength was awakened in me that I dug a whole ditch in one shift, although I was supposed to be poking at it for three days straight according to the plan. My boss, naturally, didn’t give me a prize for that, and the other guys, when I told them after work, only shrugged their shoulders at me. On one hand, who here didn’t know Raika, but on the other I could see they too had raked their brains about it – it’s not every year that miracles like this happen, right?

This is why I am writing about this to you – to inform you. I know you must have materials like this sent to you from all over the world. Please, record this accident in your catalogue, maybe someone can make use of it. Even though I can think of no scientific hypothesis that would explain this, I testify to the appearance of the coat – it was there. I not only saw it with my own eyes, but also touched it.

After it became clear they couldn’t find Raika, her youngest daughter Lyuska put on her little copper cross. Lyuska has two kids, and also two different husbands who have each gone astray. I wonder if there’s any sort of a connection there?

It would be very nice to have your opinion on this matter as well. If you know of any relevant statistics, I hope it wouldn’t be too much trouble to send them to Stargorod.

Sincerely,

Yakov Smirnov

Excavator Operator,

Stargorod City Landscape and Maintenance Department

12. Soyuzpechat – the centralized Soviet network of bookstores and kiosks through which printed media were distributed.

13. DOSAAF stands for Volunteer Association for the Support of Army and the Fleet, and was a youth-oriented program teaching paramilitary skills like shooting, flying a plane, riding a motorcycle, etc.

14. OBHSS stands for Department against Misappropriation of Socialist Property; it was the Soviet financial police.