There was next to him a stone chisel and an ominous pyramid of pinecones. Ironside’s imagination, which had been held at bay so far, was beginning to return. There was no way to impart ideals to these people, who were equally friendly and savage to those who’d come to help them.

The dead American’s supplies were scattered around him. A broken sled, empty ration tins, a deflated canvas sack, a pack shorn of its tools, a web cartridge belt looted of its ammunition. A few feet from the body, Ironside found circular canisters whose purpose he couldn’t quite place. Tin, larger than pie plates, shallow, and with edges reeded like coins—there were a dozen of them, all opened, all empty. Finally, he held one up and could see by the metallic blue light of the full moon the large block lettering on its side: JOHANNA ENLISTS.

The doors of a Russian peasant church were not made to lock. A simple push, and anyone could come in and be welcome. Ironside stepped inside quietly and carefully, and found himself in a large crowd, most of them sitting, everyone facing the same direction. It was mostly dark.

Ironside doubted he would be killed in a church, but to stay outside in the cold would definitely kill him. He stood in the very back, towering over those who stood near him. Slowly, he stripped off his hat, his coat, his undercoat. He saw, leaning against the wall, a crossbow. His eyes flicked from person to person, backs of heads; it could have been anyone’s crossbow, everyone facing the altar, before which a sheet was draped. Then he realized the rules of this new, grim game: it was everyone’s crossbow. The families around him acknowledged him with light smiles, but when he attempted to talk—he had concocted a story that might pacify them—they put their fingers to their lips, mildly. Shhh.

The projector continued its low sprocketing noise. It was run off of a small battery; nonetheless, a narrow-shouldered priest stood nearby with a small candle to illuminate its mechanical mysteries, attending to it with a cloth as if a speck of dust could run it aground. Beside him were reels of Chaplin films—the first ten minutes of The Rink, the last of The Adventurer, and then Work and Shanghaied in their entirety.

The screen was a bedsheet hanging down in front of the altar. Mary Pickford’s luminous face spilled across the sheet. Ironside had seen Johanna Enlists before, of course, too many times. He stared at it without much thought except rescue, but it was hard to concentrate, for the audience was finding delight in every motion Mary Pickford made.