The House of Special Purpose

1919

PERHAPS THIS WILL sound quaint or old-fashioned, but Zoya and I took rooms in separate houses on the hills of Montmartre in Paris, with opposing views so that we could not even wave to each other before we went to sleep at night or blow a kiss as the last action of the day. From hers, Zoya could look out towards the white-domed basilica of Sacré-Coeur, where the national saint had been beheaded and had died a martyr for his country. She could watch the crowds ascending the steep steps towards the three-arched entryway, hear the chatter of the people as they passed beneath her window walking to and from their places of work. From mine, I could see the peaks of St Pierre de Montmartre, the birthplace of the Jesuits, and if I strained my neck, I could observe the artists setting up their easels in their street studios every morning in the hope of earning enough francs for a humble dinner. We had not intended to surround ourselves with quite so much religion, but the rents were cheap in the dix-huitième and two Russian émigrés were able to blend in without comment in a part of the city already swarming with refugees.

The war was drawing to a close during those months as peace treaties began to be signed in Budapest, Prague, Zagreb and then, finally, in a railway carriage in Compiègne, but the previous four years had seen tens of thousands of Europeans flooding into the French capital, driven there by the advance of the Kaiser’s men into their homelands. Although those numbers were dwindling by the time we arrived, it was not difficult to pretend that we were simply two more exiles who had been forced westwards, and no one ever questioned the truth of the stories we had prepared.

When we first arrived in the city after a painful and seemingly endless passage from Minsk, I made the mistake of assuming that Zoya and I would be living together as man and wife. The idea had been much in my mind as the countryside of my birth began to pass me by and be replaced by cities, rivers and mountain ranges I had only read about, and in truth I was both anxious and aroused by the thought of it. I spent much of the journey choosing the correct words with which I might introduce the subject.

‘We need only take a small flat,’ I proposed, ten miles outside of Paris, hardly daring to look at Zoya for fear that she would recognize the disquiet in my face. ‘A living area with a kitchen attached. A small bathroom, if we’re lucky. A bedroom, of course,’ I added, blushing terribly as I said the words. Of course, Zoya and I had yet to make love, but it was my fervent hope that our life in Paris would provide not just independence and a new beginning, but an introduction to the pleasures of the sensual world as well.

‘Georgy,’ she said, looking across at me and shaking her head. ‘We cannot live together, you know that. We are unmarried.’

‘Of course,’ I replied, my mouth so dry that my tongue was sticking uncomfortably to my palate. ‘But these are new times for us, are they not? We know no one here, we have only each other. I thought perhaps—’

‘No, Georgy,’ she said, determined and biting her lip gently. ‘Not that. Not yet. I cannot.’

‘Then… then we will marry,’ I suggested, surprised that I had not considered this idea earlier. ‘But of course, that is what I meant all along. We will become husband and wife!’

Zoya stared at me, and for the first time since she had fallen into my arms a week before, she let out a laugh and rolled her eyes, not to suggest that I was a fool, but at the foolishness of my suggestion.

‘Georgy, are you asking me to marry you?’ she said.

‘Yes, I am,’ I replied, beaming with pleasure. ‘I want you to be my wife.’ I tried to kneel down, as tradition demanded, but the space between the benches in the railway compartment was too small to make the movement graceful and while I managed finally to prostrate myself on one knee, I was forced to turn my head to look at her. ‘I have no ring to offer you yet,’ I said. ‘But you have my heart. You have every part of me, you know that.’

‘I know it,’ she said, pulling me up and pushing me back to my seat gently. ‘But are you asking so that we might… so that…’

‘No!’ I said quickly, embarrassed that she could think so badly of me. ‘No, Zoya, not that. I am asking you because I want to spend my life with you. My every day and night. There is no one else for me in this world, you must know that.’

‘And there is no one else for me either, Georgy,’ she said quietly. ‘But I cannot marry you. Not yet.’

‘But why not?’ I asked, trying to overcome the note of petulance which was creeping into my voice. ‘If we love each other, if we are promised to each other, then—’

‘Georgy… think, please.’ She looked away, having practically whispered these words to me, and I felt immediately ashamed of myself. Of course, how could I have been so insensitive? It was unconscionable of me to have even suggested the union at such a time, but I was young and drenched in love and desired nothing more than to be with this woman for ever more.

‘I am sorry,’ I said quietly, a few moments later. ‘I didn’t think. It was thoughtless of me.’ She shook her head and I could see that she was close to tears. ‘I won’t… I won’t speak of this matter again. Until the appropriate time, that is,’ I added, for I wanted to be clear that this was a subject which would not be forgotten. ‘I have your permission, Zoya, to speak of it again? At a future date?’

‘I will live in hope of it,’ she replied, her smile returning now.

In my mind, I considered that we were now engaged and my heart filled with happiness at the thought of it.

And so we arrived at the hills of Montmartre and knocked on doors in search of rooms for rent. We had no bags, we had no clothing other than the rags on our backs. We had no belongings. We had little money. We had arrived in a strange country to start our lives over again, and every possession that we acquired from that moment forward would reference this new existence. Indeed, we had brought nothing at all from our old lives, except each other.

But that, I believed, would surely be enough.

We celebrated Christmas twice that winter.

In mid-December, our friends Leo and Sophie extended an invitation to us to join them for a meal on the twenty-fifth, the traditional day of Christian celebration, in their flat near the Place du Tertre. I was concerned at how Zoya would cope with such festivity and suggested that we ignore Christmas entirely and spend the afternoon walking the banks of the Seine, just the two of us, enjoying the rare peace that the day would offer.

‘But I want to go, Georgy,’ she told me, surprising me with her enthusiasm. ‘They make it sound like so much fun! And we could do with a little fun in our lives, couldn’t we?’

‘Of course,’ I said, pleased by her response, for I wanted to go too. ‘But only if you’re sure. It may be a difficult day, our first Christmas since leaving Russia.’

‘I think,’ she replied slowly, hesitating for a moment and considering the matter carefully, ‘I think perhaps it would be a good idea to spend it with friends. There will be less time to dwell on unhappy things then.’

In the five months that we had been living in Paris, Zoya’s personality had started to change. Back in Russia, she had been lively and amusing, of course, but in Paris, she had begun to let her guard down more and was free with her enthusiasms. The alteration suited her. She remained entirely unspoiled, but had become open to the pleasures that the world had to offer, although our financial state, pitiful as it was, ensured that we could take advantage of little of it. However, there were moments, many moments, when her grief resurfaced, when those terrible reminiscences stormed the barricades of her memory and brought her low. During those times she preferred to be left alone and I do not know how she fought her way through the darkness. There were mornings when we met for breakfast and I found her pale, her eyes ringed with dark circles; I would enquire after her health and she would shrug off my questions, saying that it was hardly worth discussing, that she had simply been unable to sleep. If I pushed to know more, she would shake her head, grow angry with me and then change the subject. I learned to allow her the space to confront these horrors by herself. She knew that I was there for her; she knew that I would listen whenever she wanted to talk.

Zoya had met Sophie at the dressmaker’s shop where they were both employed and they had quickly become friends. They made simple, plain dresses for the women of Paris, working in a store which had provided functional clothing throughout the war. Through Sophie, we became acquainted with her painter boyfriend Leo, and the four of us made up a regular quartet for dinner or Sunday-afternoon strolls, when we would cross the Seine in a spirit of great adventure and wander through the Jardin du Luxembourg. I thought Leo and Sophie were terribly cosmopolitan and rather idolized them, for they were no more than a couple of years older than us but lived together in unapologetic harmony, betraying their passion even in public with frequent displays of affection that I confess embarrassed but excited me.

‘I’ve cooked a turkey,’ Sophie announced that Christmas Day, placing a strange-looking bird on the table before us, part of which seemed to have been in the oven for too long, while the rest remained curiously pink, an extraordinary trick that made the entire dish appear quite unappetizing. However, the company being what it was and the wine flowing as it did, we cared not for such niceties and we ate and drank all night long, Zoya and I looking away whenever our hosts exchanged their long, expressive kisses.

Afterwards we lay on the two sofas in their living room, talking art and politics, while Zoya rested her body against my own and allowed me to place an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer towards me, the warmth of her skin adding to my own, the scent of her hair, typically lavender, perfumed earlier with one of Sophie’s fragrances, quite intoxicating.

‘Now you two,’ said Leo, warming to his favourite topic, ‘you came from Russia. You must have been steeped in politics all your life.’

‘Not really,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I grew up in a very small village that had no time for such things. We worked, we farmed, we tried to keep ourselves alive, that was all. We didn’t have time for debates. They would have been considered great luxuries.’

‘You should have made time,’ he insisted. ‘Especially in a country such as yours.’

‘Oh, Leo,’ said Sophie, pouring more wine, ‘not this again, please!’ She scolded him, but with good humour. Whenever we spent an evening together, the conversation always turned to politics eventually. Leo was an artist – a good one, too – but like most artists he believed that the world he re-created on his canvases was a corrupt one, which needed men of integrity, men like himself, to step to the fore and reclaim it for the people. He was a young man, of course, his naivety attested to that, but he hoped to put himself forward for election to the Chamber of Deputies one day. He was an idealist and a dreamer, but indolent too, and I doubted whether he would ever summon the necessary energy for a campaign.

‘But this is important,’ he insisted. ‘Each of us has a country that we call our own, am I right? And as long as we are alive it is our responsibility to try to make that country a better place for all.’

‘But better how?’ asked Sophie. ‘I like France the way it is, don’t you? I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I don’t want it to change.’

‘Better as in more fair to everyone,’ he replied. ‘Social equitability. Financial freedom. The liberalization of policy.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Zoya, her voice cutting through the atmosphere, for she had neither Sophie’s drunken enthusiasm nor Leo’s antagonistic self-righteousness. She had also been quiet for some time, her eyes closed, not sleeping but apparently relaxed in the warmth of the room and the luxury of the alcohol. All three of us looked at her immediately.

‘Well,’ replied Leo with a shrug, ‘only that it makes sense to me that every citizen has a responsibility to—’

‘No,’ she said, interrupting him, ‘not that. What you said before. About a country such as ours.’

Leo thought about it for a moment and finally shrugged his shoulders, as if the whole thing was perfectly obvious. ‘Ah, that,’ he replied, propping himself up on one elbow as he warmed to his topic. ‘Look, Zoya, my country, France, she spent centuries under the oppressive weight of a disgusting aristocracy, generations of parasites who sucked the lifeblood out of every simple, hardworking man and woman in the land, stole our money, acquired our land, kept us in starvation and poverty while they indulged their own appetites and perversions to excess. And eventually we said “Too much!” We resisted, we revolted, we placed those fat little aristocrats in the tumbrils, we drove them to the Place de la Concorde, and swish!’ He passed the flat of his hand quickly down through the air, mimicking the blade descending. ‘We cut off their heads! And we took back the power. But my friends, that was nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. My great-great-great-grandfather fought with Robespierre, you know. He stormed the Bastille with—’

‘Oh, Leo,’ cried Sophie in frustration, ‘you don’t know that. You always say it, but what proof do you have?’

‘I have the proof that he told his son the stories of his heroism,’ he replied defensively. ‘And those stories have been passed down from father to son ever since.’

‘Yes,’ said Zoya – a certain chill entering her tone, I thought – ‘but what has that got to do with Russia? You are not comparing like with like.’

‘Well, pffft,” said Leo, exhaling a whistle through his lips. ’I only wonder why it took Mother Russia so much longer to do the same thing, that’s all. For how many centuries were peasants like you – forgive me, both of you, but let us call things what they are – forced into a pathetic existence just so the palaces could remain open, the balls could continue to be thrown? The season could take place?’ He shook his head as if even the concept of such things was too much for him. ‘Why did it take you so long to throw out your autocrats? To reclaim the power of your own land? To cut off their heads, as it were? Not that you did that, of course. You shot them, as I recall.’

‘Yes,’ replied Zoya. ‘We did.’

I don’t recall how much I had drunk that night – a lot, I suspect – but I sobered up immediately and wished that I had recognized the direction in which the conversation was going. Had I enjoyed such foresight, I might have changed the topic more quickly, but it was too late now and Zoya was sitting erect, the blood draining from her face as she stared at him.

‘You stupid man,’ she said. ‘What do you know about Russia anyway, other than what you read in your newspapers? You cannot compare your country with ours. They are entirely different. The points you make are facile and ignorant.’

‘Zoya,’ he replied, surprised by her antagonism but unwilling to concede the point – I liked Leo very much, but he was the type who always believed that he was correct on such matters and looked with surprise and pity on those who did not share his views – ‘the facts are not in dispute. Why, one has only to read any of the published material to see how—’

‘You would consider yourself a Bolshevik then?’ she asked. ‘A revolutionary?’

‘I would side with Lenin, certainly,’ he said. ‘He is a great man. To come from where he has come and achieve all that he has achieved—’

‘He is a murderer,’ replied Zoya.

‘And the Tsar was not?’

‘Leo,’ I said quickly, placing my glass on the table before me, ‘it is impolite to speak this way. You must understand, we were brought up under the rule of the Tsar. There are many people who revered him, who continue to revere him. Two of them are in this room with you. Perhaps we know more about the Tsar and the Bolsheviks and even Lenin than you do, as we lived through those times and did not simply read about them. Perhaps we have suffered more than you can understand.’

‘And perhaps we shouldn’t talk about such things on Christmas Day,’ said Sophie, refilling everyone’s glasses. ‘We’re here to enjoy ourselves, aren’t we?’

Leo shrugged and sat back, happy to let the subject drop, positive in his arrogance that he was right and that we were too foolish to see it. Zoya said very little more that evening and the celebration ended in tension, the handshakes a little more forced than usual, the kisses a little more perfunctory.

‘Is that what people think?’ Zoya asked me as we walked back towards our separate rooms. ‘Is that how they recall the Tsar? In the way that we think of Louis Seizième?’

‘I don’t know what people think,’ I said. ‘And I don’t care about it. What matters is what we think. What matters is what we know.’

‘But they have corrupted history, they know nothing of our struggles. They see Russia in such simplistic terms. The privileged as monsters, the poor as heroes, everyone is the same. They talk in such idealistic ways, these revolutionaries, but have such naive theories. It’s too funny.’

‘Leo is hardly a revolutionary,’ I said, trying to laugh it off. ‘He’s a painter, nothing more. He likes to think that he can change the world, but what does he do each day, after all, except paint portraits for fat tourists and drink the money away in pavement cafés, spouting his opinions to anyone who will listen? You shouldn’t concern yourself with him.’

It was easy to see that Zoya remained unconvinced. She spoke little for the rest of our walk and allowed me no more than a chaste kiss on the cheek as we parted, as a sister might offer her brother. As I watched her step through her front door, I guessed that she would have a difficult night ahead of her, her mind filled with all the things that she wanted to say, all the anger that she wanted to express. I wished that she would invite me in, just to share her troubles with her, nothing more. To be a partner in her anger. For I felt it too.

We celebrated our second Christmas thirteen days later, on January the seventh, and returned the compliment by inviting Leo and Sophie to a café, where we offered to buy them dinner. There was no possibility of us preparing a meal in either of our homes – our landladies would never have permitted it – and anyway, I was embarrassed that Zoya and I did not live together and would not have enjoyed being a guest in her home or inviting her as a guest to mine. I wondered whether Leo and Sophie talked about our living arrangements and was sure that they did. Indeed, Leo had once referred to me in a moment of exuberant drunkenness as his ‘innocent young friend’ and I had been offended by the implication of purity that accompanied it, an allegation which did nothing to improve my self-esteem. On another occasion, he offered to bring me to a particular house he knew to rectify my problem, but I brushed the suggestion away and went home to satisfy my lust alone, before I could be tempted by his offer.

‘But I don’t understand,’ said Sophie, taking her hat off and shaking out her long dark hair as we sat down. ‘A second Christmas?’

‘It is the traditional Russian Orthodox Christmas,’ I explained. ‘It’s got something to do with the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It’s all very complicated. The Bolsheviks would have the people conform to the rest of the world, and there’s a certain irony in there somewhere, but those of us who are traditionalists think differently. Hence, a separate Christmas Day.’

‘Of course,’ said Leo with a charming smile. ‘Heaven forbid that you should accede to the Bolsheviks!’

Zoya and Leo had not spoken since the earlier incident and the memory of their argument hung over the table like a cloud, but the fact that we had extended the invitation at all implied that we did not wish to lose their friendship and so, to his credit, Leo was the first to sue for peace.

‘I think I owe you an apology, Zoya,’ he said after two glasses of wine and a noticeable elbow in the ribs from Sophie to spur him into action. ‘Perhaps I was a little rude to you on Christmas Day. Our Christmas Day, that is. I was probably a little drunk. Said some things I should never have said. I had no right to speak about your native country in the way that I did.’

‘No, you shouldn’t have,’ she replied, but without any aggression in her tone. ‘But at the same time, I should not have reacted quite as I did in your home either, that is not how I was brought up, and I think I owe you an apology too.’

I noticed that neither of them was conceding that their points of view were incorrect, nor were they actually apologizing, simply lingering under the impression that they owed each other an apology, but I did not want to restart the argument by pointing either of these things out.

‘Well, you’re a guest in our country,’ he said, smiling widely at her, ‘and as such it was wrong of me to speak as I did. If you’ll permit me?’ He raised his glass in the air and we lifted ours to join him. ‘To Russia,’ he said.

‘To Russia,’ we replied, clinking glasses together and taking mouthfuls of wine.

‘Vive la révolution,’ he added beneath his breath, but I think only I heard that comment and of course I let it go.

‘I do wonder all the same why you never speak of it,’ he said a moment later. ‘If it was such a wonderful place, I mean. Oh now, don’t look at me like that, Sophie, it’s a perfectly reasonable question that I ask.’

‘Zoya doesn’t like to talk about it,’ Sophie replied, for she had tried on more than one occasion to solicit confidences from her new friend about her past, but had finally given up.

‘Well, what about you then, Georgy?’ asked Leo. ‘Can’t you tell us a little bit about your life before you came to Paris?’

‘There’s so little to tell,’ I replied with a shrug. ‘Nineteen years of living on a farm, that’s all. It’s not the stuff of anecdotes.’

‘Well, where did you two meet then? You said you were from St Petersburg, Zoya, didn’t you?’

‘In a train compartment,’ I said. ‘The day we both left Russia for the last time. We were sitting opposite each other, there was no one else there, and we started talking. We’ve been together ever since.’

‘How romantic,’ said Sophie. ‘But tell me this. If you have two Christmas Days, then surely you must be given two sets of presents. Am I right? And I know you bought her perfume for the first Christmas Day, Georgy. So what about it, Zoya? Did Georgy give you something else today?’

Zoya looked across at me and smiled and I nodded, happy for her to tell them. She laughed then and looked at them, a wide grin spreading across her face. ‘Yes, of course he did,’ she said. ‘But didn’t you notice?’

And with that she extended her left hand to show them my gift. I wasn’t surprised that they had failed to notice it before. It must have been the smallest engagement ring in history. But it was all that I could afford. And what mattered was that she was wearing it.

We were married in the autumn of 1919, almost fifteen months after we had fled Russia, in a ceremony so lacking in grandeur that it would have seemed almost pathetic had we not compensated for its paucity with the intensity of our love.

Brought up to revere a strict, unswerving doctrine, we wanted nothing more than the blessing of the Church to sanctify our union. However, there were no Russian Orthodox churches to be found in Paris and so I suggested marrying in a French Catholic church instead, but Zoya would not hear of it and seemed almost angry when I made the suggestion. I myself had never been particularly spiritual, although I did not question the faith in which I had been reared, but Zoya felt differently and saw rejection of our creed as a final step away from our homeland and one that she was not prepared to make.

‘But where then?’ I asked her. ‘You surely don’t believe that we should return to Russia for the ceremony? The danger alone would—’

‘Of course not,’ she said, although I knew very well that there was a part of her that longed to return to the country of our births. She felt a connection to the land and to the people that I myself had quickly shrugged off; it was an indelible part of her character. ‘But Georgy, I would not feel truly married if the proper ceremonies did not take place. Think of my father and mother, how they would feel if I rejected our traditions.’

There was no argument that could be made against this and so I began the process of trying to locate a Russian Orthodox priest in the city. The Russian community itself was small and scattered and we had never made any attempts to assimilate ourselves into it. Indeed, on one occasion when a young Russian couple entered the small bookstore where I worked as an assistant, I heard their voices immediately – the music of their language as they spoke to each other in our native tongue summoned pictures and memories that made me dizzy with longing and regret – and I was forced to excuse myself and retreat to the alley behind the shop on the pretence that I felt suddenly ill, leaving my employer, Monsieur Ferré, irritated at having to serve the couple himself. I knew that most of my fellow émigrés lived and worked in the Neuilly district in the dix-septième and we avoided it deliberately, not wishing to become part of a society which could lead to potential danger for us.

I was subtle in my detective work, however, and was finally introduced to an elderly man by the name of Rakhletsky, living in a small tenement house in Les Halles, who agreed to perform the ceremony. He told me that he had been ordained a priest in Moscow during the 1870s and was a true believer, but he had fallen out with his diocese after the 1905 Revolution and relocated to France. A loyal subject of the Tsar, he had strongly opposed the revolutionary priest, Father Gapon, and had tried to dissuade him from marching on the Winter Palace that year.

‘Gapon was belligerent,’ he told me. ‘An anarchist portraying himself as the workers’ champion. He broke the conventions of the Church, marrying twice, challenging the Tsar, and still they made a hero of him.’

‘Before they turned on him and hanged him,’ I replied, a naive boy patronizing an elderly man.

‘Yes, before that,’ he admitted. ‘But how many innocent people died because of him on Bloody Sunday? A thousand? Twice that amount? Four times?’ He shook his head, appearing half regretful and half furious. ‘I could not stay after that. He would have ordered me to be killed for my disobedience. It has always astonished me, Georgy Daniilovich, that those who are most repulsed by autocratic or dictatorial rule are among the first to eliminate their enemies once they take on the mantle of power themselves.’

‘Father Gapon never achieved any power,’ I pointed out.

‘But Lenin did,’ he replied, smiling at me. ‘Just another Tsar, don’t you think?’

I did not take his political views to Zoya, although she would have agreed with them, because I thought it wrong to bring such memories to our wedding day. I wanted simply to present Father Rakhletsky as just another exile, forced out of his home by the advance of the Kaiser’s forces. It had taken me this long to find the man, I did not want any problems that might postpone our marriage any longer than necessary.

The ceremony took place in Sophie and Leo’s flat on a warm Saturday evening in October. Our friends had generously offered the use of their home for the service and acted as witnesses on the day. Father Rakhletsky spent an hour alone in the small apartment earlier in the afternoon, consecrating their living room as a holy place, a procedure he said was ‘highly unorthodox but extremely pleasurable’, a turn of phrase which amused me.

It saddened me that I could not provide a more elaborate wedding day for my bride, but it was all that we could do to remain on the right side of poverty. Our jobs did not pay very much money, enough to cover our rent and to feed ourselves, that was all. Zoya ensured that we both saved a few francs every week in case an emergency presented itself and we were forced to flee Paris, but still we could afford very little in the way of luxury. Between them, Zoya and Sophie made her wedding gown in the dressmaker’s shop after trade ended each day; Leo and I wore our best shirts and trousers. On the day, I thought we had put together a charming display, despite our limited means.

Father Rakhletsky had not met Zoya before the ceremony, and when she entered the living room on my arm that evening her face was covered by a simple veil that masked her beauty and charm. He beamed happily at us, as if we were his children, or a favoured nephew and niece, and his joy at performing one more wedding in his life was easy to see. Sophie and Leo stood on either side of us, delighted to be part of this unusual experience. I believe it struck them as terribly modern and unconventional to be getting married in such a way and in such a place. Romantic too, perhaps.

We exchanged simple rings and then I took Zoya’s left hand in my right as we accepted lighted candles in our free hands, holding them aloft while the priest recited the incantations over our heads. When he gave the signal, Sophie and Leo reached across to the tables on either side of them and took the small, simple crowns which Zoya had created from a combination of foil and felt, and placed them simultaneously atop our heads.

‘The servants of God, Georgy Daniilovich Jachmenev and Zoya Fedorovna Danichenko,’ sang the priest, holding his hands a few inches above our heads, ‘are crowned in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ I felt a great happiness enter my body when he spoke those words and clutched Zoya’s hand in my own; I could scarcely believe that our lives were finally being joined together.

After this, the Gospel was read and we drank from the common cup, promising to share everything in our lives from that moment on, our joys as well as our sorrows, our triumphs alongside our burdens. When we had completed our pledges, Father Rakhletsky led us around the table, upon which was placed the Gospel and the cross, to symbolize the word of God and our redemption. We walked together in a circle for the first time as a married couple and then stood before the priest once again while he recited the final blessing, imploring me to be magnified as Abraham, to be blessed as Isaac, to multiply as Jacob had, to walk in peace and work in righteousness, then beseeching Zoya to be magnified as Sarah, glad as Rebecca, to multiply as Rachel had, to rejoice in her new husband and to fulfil the conditions of the law, for so it is well pleasing unto God.

And with that, the ceremony ended and our married life began.

Sophie and Leo burst into spontaneous applause, and Father Rakhletsky appeared surprised by their informality but not disturbed by it. He congratulated us both, shaking my hand heartily and reaching forward to offer my bride a kiss just as she lifted her veil.

He stopped at that moment, pulled short and reeled back, a sudden and unexpected movement which made me think that he had suffered some sort of seizure or heart attack. He muttered a phrase under his breath – I did not hear it – and hesitated for so long that Sophie, Leo and I could only stare at him as if he had gone entirely mad. His eyes were locked with Zoya’s and, rather than looking away in confusion or embarrassment, she held his gaze, lifting her chin and offering him not her cheek to kiss, but her hand. A moment later, he returned to the present, took the hand hastily, kissed it, and backed away from us both without ever actually turning his back on us. His face betrayed his confusion, his astonishment and his utter disbelief.

Despite having promised to stay and dine with us after the ceremony, he gathered his belongings quickly and left, with only a few final words for Zoya, offered in the privacy of the hallway outside the flat.

‘What a curious man,’ said Sophie as we ate in some style an hour later, washing the food down with an extraordinarily good bottle of wine which our friends had provided.

‘I think it must have been a long time since he had seen anyone quite so beautiful as your Russian bride,’ said Leo, at his most charming and flirtatious, his neck-tie undone and hanging loosely around his open collar. ‘He looked at you, Zoya, as if he was sorry that he hadn’t married you himself.’

‘I thought he looked like he had seen a ghost,’ added Sophie.

I turned to my wife and she caught my eye for a moment before shaking her head slightly and returning to the conversation. I could not wait until we were alone, but not for the reason that you might imagine. I wanted to know what had been said between the priest and Zoya in the hallway before he left.

Leo and Sophie’s second gift to us was the use of their flat as a honeymoon residence, three nights of togetherness while they relocated to mine and Zoya’s former rooms for the duration of our stay. It was thoughtful of them, for we were to move into our own flat shortly, but it was not due to be ready until the middle of that week and of course we did not wish to be separated from each other so soon after our marriage.

‘He knew you,’ I said to Zoya after Leo and Sophie left us that evening.

‘He knew me,’ she replied, nodding her head.

‘Will he speak of it?’

‘To no one,’ she said. ‘I am sure of it. He is a loyalist, a true believer.’

‘And you believed him?’

‘I did.’

I nodded, having no choice but to rely on her judgement. It was a curious moment of panic and had not gone unnoticed by any of us, but it was over now, we were a married couple. I took Zoya by the hand and led her to the bedroom.

Afterwards, wrapping my body around hers as we attempted to sleep, unaccustomed to the warmth and slickness of two naked forms entwined in rough blankets, I closed my eyes and ran my fingers along her legs, her perfect spine, the length of her body, saying nothing, ignoring the way she wept in my arms, trying to control her own shaking as she considered the day and the wedding and the memories of those who had not been present to help us celebrate.