The Sin Collector

INNOKENTY

Innokenty couldn’t resist. He unwrapped the soft linen cloth and carefully lifted up the little board. Time had darkened its color, and hundreds of hands over the centuries had polished it to a shine. He ran his fingers over one uneven edge, covered in darker scorch marks. Maybe the icon had been rescued from a burning cabin, the most valuable thing in the home. It needed some serious restoration, but he could see the thin face peering out, as if from the depths of a forest lake. St. Nicholas, the Wonderworker. The saint’s left hand pressed a Bible to his chest, but where his right hand should be, the whole surface layer of the piece was missing. Kenty could only guess which sign of the cross the thin hand would have been making: one with two fingers, Old Believer style? Or with three?

“Vandals!” whispered Innokenty. Were the marauders from the twentieth century or the eighteenth?

He decided he wouldn’t restore that part. Let it stay the way it was, as a memorial to intolerance. But he would ask Danechka to work on the face. For an icon painter, he was young, but he’d already earned an excellent reputation among antiquarians. Even aside from his devotion to his work, it was fair to say that Danechka did not truly belong to this world. His skin was clear of adolescent blemishes, and long blond lashes framed the light-blue eyes that only came alive when they encountered icons like this one.

Innokenty looked again at the Wonderworker’s face and sat still, mesmerized, for a few minutes. These figures had enchanted him ever since he was little. Every element was intentional. The high forehead, the perfectly spaced brows, the fish-shaped eyes (the fish, of course, a symbol of Christ). The narrow, elegant nose, the surprisingly full lips hidden in the woolly beard, the thinnest possible spiraling line drawn to represent every individual curl. And those eyes looking at the viewer sternly, dispassionately.

Kenty’s thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell. He shuddered, then put the icon aside. At the door stood his father, a broad-shouldered man of fifty, seemingly enormous in his long dark coat. His beard was black with a sprinkling of gray, and though it was short, it came up almost to his eyes. A healthy, youthful blush lent color to his cheeks, and his sharp eyes regarded Innokenty with something like a squint. This massive individual ushered in his companion, a man much shorter and more slightly built, with a long beard gone almost completely gray, then shut the door behind them both. Only then did he offer his hand to Innokenty to shake. It was enormous, practically a shovel.

“Hello, son!” He glanced respectfully at the older man. “You’ve met the head of the diocese.”

Innokenty gave a slight bow to the old priest, standing calmly at his father’s side. “Could I offer you some tea?” he asked, but then corrected himself. “Herbal, of course?”

The older man nodded. He looked around dispassionately, his heavy eyelids half-lowered, letting his gaze wander silently down the hallway and over the dark icons on the white walls, then contemplating the designer lamp, a waterfall of crystal droplets. Innokenty’s luxurious surroundings embarrassed him now, and he noticed how his father’s lips tightened, although the old priest’s face remained impassive.

Kenty sat his guests at the kitchen table and bustled about. He ran boiling water into a white ceramic teakettle to warm it, then wiped it dry and filled it with a fruity brew that was not technically tea. All the while, the question plagued him: Why had they come? His parents hardly ever visited him, and a prestigious visitor such as this priest was unprecedented. Why had his father brought the man? Innokenty answered his own question: it was the other way around. His father was here at the whim of the single-most-important figure in the Old Believer community, which meant the reason for their visit must also be of singular importance. But what was it? Kenty poured the bright-red, aromatic brew into their cups, smiling mechanically.

“Your young lady,” his father began, and a shiver ran down Innokenty’s spine, nearly making him splash tea on the tablecloth. “The one you’ve been shadowing all these years—”

“Masha?”

It was not really a question. Had he ever been anyone else’s shadow?

Innokenty put the tea kettle neatly back in its place as two pairs of eyes watched him closely.

“Maria Karavay,” the head of the diocese affirmed, his voice soft. He paused and pursed his lips like a peasant to blow on his hot tea. “She seems to be leading a group of detectives from Petrovka looking for some sort of serial killer. Today they came to the church on Basmanny to ask questions. Yakov spoke with one of them. But we know full well that these people are going to keep sniffing around, and that will not do us any good. On the contrary.” The old man looked up from his teacup. His swollen eyelids had suddenly lost their sleepy look, and his eyes were bigger now, drawing Kenty in with a gaze that was young and sharp. “On the contrary, this will only bring us misfortune.”

“It is your duty to protect your own, Innokenty,” his father added. “These people are reckless. It will only take the slightest nudge to send them on a new witch hunt. Just one article in the tabloids about a psychopathic Old Believer, and that will be the end of everything we’ve worked to build these past years. It will all collapse, as it has happened before, all too often. They will cast out all the Old Believers who have only just returned from South America, they will halt the plans to restore our churches to us—”

“We have no desire to reveal to the world how many members of our community are living a secular life,” the priest cut in, never letting his pointed gaze drop from Kenty’s face. “Not because this is a transgression, but because when we shout the faith of our fathers from every street corner, we betray them. More fitting, for us, is silence, which was created before the Word.”

“I’m not sure I can talk Masha out of it.” Kenty shook his head. “She’s very stubborn. And she almost always achieves what she sets out to do.”

“Let her achieve it, then.” The older man stroked his beard. “Catching a killer is a sacred endeavor. But she is not looking where she should. By the time she recognizes her mistake, the evil will have already been done. One must not use evil means to strive for good. One must not.”

No one spoke. The Old Believers might have said an angel was flying by.

“I’ll try,” Innokenty finally said. “But I can’t promise you anything.”

“Very well.” The head of the diocese nodded gravely.

“Please try,” added Kenty’s father.

With that, both men stood and proceeded to the door. There, the priest made the sign of the cross over Innokenty before he walked out, and Kenty’s father quietly laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, then followed. As he closed the door behind them, Kenty wondered what they would have said if they had known that he personally was part of the investigation now threatening to discredit the whole community. He walked back to the kitchen. The three teacups still sat on the table, looking for all the world like chalices of blood.

The priest’s words spun in his head. One must not use evil means to strive for good. One must not.