“Blighted capitalist!” he screamed. “They should have done you in when they had the chance!”

A socialist. A Bolshevik? She glanced up at Zivon’s face.

It was blank. Still. But only for a moment. His nostrils flared, a million thoughts flashing through his eyes. His mouth twisted. He held her fingers so tightly it hurt, though she’d never say so.

The officers dragged the man away while he was still shouting about the evils of capitalism and imperialism. Zivon didn’t relax any when he was out of sight. “How am I to do it, Lily? How am I to stop hating them?”

She leaned close to his side. “I don’t know, my love. But perhaps you should start by asking that of the Lord.”

19

Ask that of the Lord. For a long moment, Zivon stood in the doorway of the church, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimmer light within. More, waiting for his spirit to adjust. The church looked nothing like the grand cathedrals where he’d attended Mass all his life in Russia, though it was set up in a familiar way, with no pews to hinder the supplicants from kneeling or pacing in their prayers.

Was that why it felt so much like home?

He stood there in the shadows, breathing in the scent of incense and prayers, and let his eyes slide shut. So many supplications he’d sent to God since he found Alyona on his steps, since he lost Evgeni in the train derailment. So many times he’d begged and pleaded and cried out for the Lord to step in. To fight his battles. To return to him a portion of what his enemies had taken away.

So many prayers he’d spoken. Tried so desperately to believe. But none of them had made him feel the peace that stepping into this unfamiliar church on Welbeck Street had. Not, he knew, because God would hear any more clearly the prayers uttered in church. What, then?

“Zdravstvuyte. How are you this day?”

The accented voice drew his eyes open again. And more, answered his question. It wasn’t that God would hear him any better from here. It was that there were simply more voices to be found among the community of believers. More prayers lifted up in unity.

He’d denied himself this. And as he drew out a smile for the priest coming toward him down the stairs, he regretted every day he’d not come to Mass. He’d been trying to convince himself to come since the night of the bombing, but this was the first he’d summoned the courage. Perhaps he ought to thank Godfrey Higgins for reminding him that there might not be a tomorrow.

And Lily, of course. For seeing so clearly, as she always did, what the heart of the matter really was.