Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

She should have killed him, she thought. She should have held his head down beneath the water in the bath and drowned him. She should have snatched up one of the kitchen knives and stabbed him, like that woman in the French revolution had done, knifing him repeatedly in the chest and neck, one stab wound for every year of their marriage, until his blood swirled red in the scummy water. She should have gone into the backyard and picked up the small wood hand axe and used that, raining blows on his head and arms while he cried out with pain and fear. She should have butchered the pig like he had butchered her heart.

As another woman came to kneel behind her, Tatyana buried her face in her hands and squeezed her eyes shut against her tears. She took a deep shuddering breath, and then another.

She must not cry in public, she told herself. Nobody else must know of her shame. These dreadful thoughts of anger were not good; they only felt good because they fed the illusion that she possessed the power and the authority to avenge her shame. She did not. These illusions came from the Devil and she must not listen to him, however seductive his voice. Instead she must collect herself, show respect for the Holy Father’s house and ask for His help and His guidance.

“Tatyana,” said the woman kneeling next to her, her voice low but distinct against the chanting of the congregation of women standing around them.

Quickly wiping the tears away from her eyes with her fingertips Tatyana lowered her hands and, turning to see who had spoken to her, saw that it was Lidiya Pusnyena, the wife of the general merchant Serapion Alexeyevich Pusnyen. Some ten years older than Tatyana and a close confidante of Olga Nadnikova, Lidiya Pusnyena, in her own reserved and distant way, had always shown her kindness and respect. Tatyana was surprised that she had chosen this moment to approach her.

“Glory to Jesus Christ,” Tatyana greeted her.

“Glory for ever,” responded the older woman automatically, adding, “how are you, Tatyana? You look troubled, my dear.”

Tatyana shook her head.

“No more troubled than anyone else, thank you. Please excuse me.”

Before Lidiya could reply Tatyana got up from her knees and began threading her way through the crowd of standing chanting women. When she felt that she had gone far enough she looked back to where she had been kneeling. Lidiya Pusnyena was no longer there. Craning her neck Tatyana searched for her over the heads of the other women in the congregation and saw that she was now standing near the centre of the nave, conversing earnestly with Olga Nadnikova and Raisa Izminskaya.

Tatyana felt her innards turn to water.

“It is not possible,” she muttered. “They know already? it is too soon!”

Almost simultaneously Olga Nadnikova glanced up and caught her looking at her. Before Tatyana had time to avert her eyes, Olga had raised her head and beckoned her to come and join her group. Tatyana responded with a dismissive shake of her head and, turning, began searching for another part of the church where she might hide from the gaze of the grain merchant’s wife.

She saw a group of fisherwomen standing by themselves in their customary place towards the back of the congregation beside the northern wall of the church. As she approached she caught the distinct smell of the freshwater Sosva herring – the town’s speciality – by which they earned their living, and of which she doubtless would partake at that day’s feasting at the Hotel New Century. If the bedraggled women recognised the identity of this well dressed intruder, they gave no sign. Fixing their eyes on the distant proceedings they knelt, stood, swayed and chanted in near unison as if they had taken on the shoaling coordination of the herring’s deep water cousins. Shielded by their broad backs and thighs she knelt amongst them and bowed her head.