Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

“Certainly,” the expert replied. “The proceedings fail under canon law on several grounds. Chief among them is that neither Patriarch Tikhon nor the Archbishop of Ryazan has approved the Maid’s trial, as both men are presently under house arrest and held incommunicado. Furthermore, neither the accused nor her defense counsel has been permitted to examine the evidence against her. The girl is also being held in a Cheka prison, where her guards behave more like tormentors than protectors, and her counsel is barred from rendering effective assistance at trial. As if that were not enough, a dozen examiners interrogated her at once this afternoon, rendering any effective response impossible. Need I go on?”

“I see your point,” Bishop Fyodor replied, lowering his eyes in embarrassment. “Of course, much of this is not my doing…”

“Yes, I know. It’s the Cheka and not the church who runs this trial,” the expert interrupted. “But it was your choice to participate. I choose differently.”

”Then you will not stay on for the rest of the trial?” Fyodor asked in alarm.

“I will return to Moscow in the morning and will say as little as possible, for the good of the church, which faces great peril in these dark days. I leave the proceedings in your hands, but from one judge to another, I would caution you that, in a proper trial, the verdict comes at the end, not the beginning.”

* * *

On the next day of Zhanna’s trial, perhaps in response to the visiting expert’s harsh opinion, the judge imposed several procedural changes to make the legal process appear more even-handed and its verdict thus more defensible. Early that morning, before the proceedings opened, a panel of three examiners who had not yet questioned Zhanna in court, and who thus might be considered less adversarial toward her, arrived at her cell to present a copy of the trial transcript so that she might request corrections. While Timofey was one of the three examiners, he took pains to keep his face obscured so that Zhanna would not recognize him. In the team’s presence, Zhanna read the transcript quickly and challenged its accuracy at several points, displaying an infallible memory for detail.

When the trial resumed, Zhanna’s defense counsel was permitted to sit by her side, but she paid little attention to his nudges and signs while she spoke. During recess, Bishop Fyodor called the young lawyer aside.

“If you persist in trying to get your client off, watch out that you are not taken one night and drowned in the Oka River,” he warned. Then the bishop inclined his head toward a half-opened door off to the side of the dais, where the lawyer saw Commissar Yurovsky fix him with a baleful look.

And for the rest of that day’s session, the examiners harried the Maid relentlessly without her defense counsel saying another word.

* * *

On the third morning of her trial, Zhanna shuffled into the courtroom looking weaker than ever before. Her arms hung limply from the weight of her chains and her face appeared red and blotchy, whether from fever or from shedding an excess of tears during the night. But the questioning continued as relentlessly as before, without so much as a comment from the bench about her deteriorating condition.

“Please tell us, Zhanna,” Father Leo began his questioning that morning, “what exactly did your so-called Voices say that moved you to attack the Soviet city of Kazan?”

The Maid lifted her chin slowly off her chest and focused her puffy eyes on Bishop Fyodor. For the first time during the trial, the bailiff brought her a low wooden stool, upon which she sank until her knees were level with her chest. But if her examiners hoped to have worn down her resolve by this time, they were soon disappointed, for her mind snapped quickly back to attention.

“On this topic I will say nothing, not even to save my head, which you may have if you like,” she answered in a gravelly voice. “Since there seems nothing useful for me to do here, and as I suffer more each day from my tormentors, perhaps it is time for me to return to God, from whom I came.”

“Is that why you jumped from the tower where you were held before being brought to Ryazan?” the chief examiner sneered. “To take your own life, contrary to God’s law? Or perhaps you expected to escape somehow?”

“Such a foolish question!” Zhanna snapped, tossing her head to clear the unkempt hair from before her eyes. “Of course my intent was to escape, as is the right of any captive creature, whether animal or human.”

“And what did your Voices have to say when you awoke after your great fall?” Leo pressed on, making a show of being unruffled.

“Enough, I tell you!” she snarled. “You will drag nothing more from my lips about my Voices. I would much rather offend the court than my saints and angels.”

“What? Do you challenge the court to compel testimony from you? I caution you to think twice before forcing the hand that holds you so firmly in its grip!”