Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [536]
The ancestral house had gone. His link with the past was lost, buried in the ground. His journey had been in vain. Sadly, he turned to go back.
It was when they approached the monastery that they discovered something was going on.
From outside, it looked almost deserted. The walls were crumbling; the bell tower was down. The buildings within seemed to be windowless.
Yet now, suddenly, appeared two monks.
They were young, both in their twenties, simply dressed in black cassocks. One was tall and thin, with a small fair beard; the other with a broad, intelligent face, and bright blue eyes set wide apart that looked out with an extraordinary freshness upon the world. They smiled as the car approached. Sergei halted and rolled down the window.
‘There are monks here?’ The great Danitov Monastery had been sending out monks to several places, but he had no idea they had come down to Russka.
‘For three months,’ the tall monk smiled. ‘You are baptised?’
‘Most certainly.’ It was Paul Bobrov who answered from the passenger seat.
‘God has sent you at a propitious time,’ the monk with the blue eyes said. ‘Come and see.’ And the two monks turned and led the car in.
It was an unexpected sight. A dozen monks were standing near the chapel. Though, like the other buildings there, it had lost its windows long ago, huge sheets of transparent plastic had been placed to cover them. Several of the smaller buildings, Paul could see, had been partly remodelled and made habitable. Someone had started work on the inside of the gateway.
He also noticed that, for some reason, about forty peasants, mostly women but a number of men, were standing respectfully to one side; and that just by the church entrance, was lying a casket covered with a purple cloth.
They got out and stood awkwardly.
‘I’m afraid we are intruding,’ Paul said. But the two young monks would have none of it and rushed away, returning a minute later with a man of about fifty with an intelligent, enquiring face, who made them a gracious bow of welcome and explained: ‘I am the Archimandrite Leonid. May I ask how you happened to be here just now?’
When Paul told him why he had come, the Archimandrite seemed almost shaken. ‘You are a Bobrov? Of the family that founded this monastery? And your name is Paul? We are, as you know, the Monastery of St Peter and St Paul.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘These things,’ he said quietly, ‘are sent to us as signs. They do not come by chance.’ And then, smiling at them both, he said, ‘Please stay for a little while. It appears that your coming was meant.’
It was indeed an extraordinary coincidence, Paul considered, however you looked at it. He, a Bobrov, had arrived at the little monastery, just being reopened – and not just upon any day. For the very day before, the monks, diligently searching, had found the grave of one of their most revered elders, and that day, at the very hour when Paul arrived, were taking his remains into the church for a service of rededication. It was the Elder Basil, who had lived as a hermit many years in the previous century, out past the springs, in the company of a bear.
The service was not unduly long and was very simple.
The casket containing the remains of the Elder Basil had been placed at the north-east corner of the church. The interior of the building was a strange sight. Apart from the sheets of plastic over the windows, only half the space was, as yet, safe for use and a big triangle of cloth had been draped across a string to mark this area off. Behind it stood a step-ladder and several buckets, apparently to catch rainwater from the roof.
Though the Archimandrite had put on vestments, all the other monks were simply dressed in black, some of them showing signs of plaster dust. The people who crowded in were mostly poor-looking. There was nothing of ornament, no grandeur, nothing to delight the eye in that simple Orthodox service.