Protection: A Story

On this Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos (that's the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary for you Roman Catholics and high church Anglicans :), here's a little story I wrote perhaps more appropriate to the Feast of the Holy Protection, but I don't want to wait until October to share. They're both feasts of Mary, anyway.

--KNP

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The rapid-fire tattoo of rolling drums drifted on the cold wind that blew across central Moscow. It scattered the sound, so that barely twenty meters from the high stone walls of the prison, all that could be heard was the hiss of the blustery gale.

On the first day of October, such conditions were unexceptional, as were the empty streets surrounding the structure. It was a dangerous thing even to pass by the hulking monolith of Lefortovo, the KGB's primary penal complex in the Russian capital. There was no protection from its prying, hidden eyes.

Usually there was no one to hear the rhythmic clatter of the drums and the subsequent tramp of military feet.

Usually.

Misha Korotev stood just across the narrow street, trying to blend into the bland gray wall and trying not to imagine what was happening inside Lefortovo.

The slim, fair-haired dockworker pulled his slouch cap lower on his head. He willed the brim to cast enough shadow over his face that any passing KGB informant would not be able to identify him. It could mean his own detention and likely disappearance if he were too obvious about his attention to the prison.

Misha moved slowly down the street, straining to hear the faint sounds that came over the towering wall. He knew there was a small courtyard just inside at that point in the fortification, and he knew his brother Alexei might soon be brought there. He feared what would happen if and when that occurred.

Misha glanced around nervously. Even with the multitude of reforms that had taken place since Mikhail Gorbachev had become leader of the Soviet state, it was still a good idea to remain as unobtrusive as possible. Hanging about the most notorious prison in the entire U.S.S.R. was not being unobtrusive.

The young man turned and shuffled down the street, trying to remain within earshot of the walls. As he went, his hand slipped into his pocket and touched the small, gold three-barred cross that had fallen from the package slipped into his lunchpail at work the day before. On the paper in which the religious symbol had been wrapped was a note:

Lefortovo. 1600 hours. Tomorrow. Painting ikons. Gospodi pomiloye (Lord have mercy).

Alexei Korotev was a religionist. He practiced and apparently believed the old Russian Orthodox Christian religion, and suffered because of it. Even in these days of perestroika, it was not safe to be openly religious. Alexei could not hold any kind of decent job, he was frequently in trouble, and was more and more outspoken on the issue of faith and belief. In the opinion of many, he was a man marked and thus avoided by more rational folk.

Only his younger brother regarded Alexei with something other than exasperation, though even Misha sometimes found disturbing his brother's passion for the bourgeois notions of the past.

"Those notions have gotten you carted off to Lefortovo," Misha sighed as he stopped, fairly sure he could not go further and still hear the faint sounds that echoed from the courtyard within the prison. There was nothing he could do for his brother now, no protection he could offer. All he could do was stand in the street and wait for what he knew would probably happen.

His hand clutched the cross and paper in his pocket.

Also on that paper had been a small pencil drawing. Misha had seen the image it portrayed once before when he had allowed Alexei to convince him to visit the Troitsky Monastery. There had been an ikon of the Mother of God bearing a white cloth, and Alexei had told him it was called The Protection of the Theotokos. It commemorated a supposed miracle in the history of Byzantium when legend said that Saint Mary laid a veil over the city to protect it from an enemy attack.

Misha scoffed at the idea. Miracles indeed!

Alexei had been quite upset at his brother's unbelief. "The day will come, Misha, when you will have to face the world without me," he had said. "The veil of the Protection of Our Lord and Saviour may be all that saves you from my fate."

And now Alyosha (the traditional nickname for someone named Alexei or Alexander) was imprisoned and perhaps to die for his stupid faith.

From behind the wall came the rattling of drums once again, this time followed not by the even steps of KGB soldiers, but by a single sharp crack, a pistol shot.

At that moment the wind circled through the compass, tossing up dust and debris from the street. It was biting cold, and it brought with it the sound of shouts inside the prison.

As Misha gasped at the sudden onslaught of the frigid gusts, he became aware of a shadow being cast on him from above. A glance upward revealed a what appeared to be linen drifting down, twisting and rolling in the wind.

The young man froze as the cloth settled on him, the ragged ends draping down his arms. His mouth fell open as he recognized the material, a military shirt, or at least a long piece of one. The sleeves were gone, and the collar, but the breast was untorn and there upon it was embroidered the name Alexei I. Korotev.

Misha felt a chill as he looked at the fabric that rested on his shoulders. It wasn't because of the wind, though.

Around the corner of the prison came an older model Zil, the kind that KGB officers would often drive when preparing to make a pickup. A man walked alongside the slowly moving vehicle, looking about.

The car and walker passed within 3 meters of Misha as he stood frozen on the curb, but apparently did not see him. How this was possible, the young man could not determine, but at the far corner the walking agent opened the door and got in, saying loud enough for Misha to hear, "He has gone, apparently, whomever he was."

A moment later the Zil roared off, vanishing around the corner.

Misha slowly turned and walked the other direction. Glancing up at the sky, he saw that the sun was trying to break through the clouds. His fingers toyed with the tattered ends of Alexei's old shirt.

"A veil of protection?" he whispered, feeling again a shiver of...something.

As he passed beyond the prison and into the next street, Misha wondered how soon he could arrange a trip to Troitsky.

---

Note from Dictionary.com

tat·too (n., pl. tat·toos)
A signal sounded on a drum or bugle to summon soldiers or sailors.
A continuous, even drumming or rapping.