The Tsar's Dwarf by Peter H. Fogtdal

Author:Peter H. Fogtdal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hawthorne Books
Published: 2011-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

ISMAILOV AND I continue toward the mansion, through the snowdrifts, past the vendors’ stalls and the workshops. We go inside a lovely church. A thick cloud of incense hovers over the room; the icons glitter in the somnolent light. As usual, I can’t see anything at all, but when Ismailov picks me up I catch sight of the priests in their vestments. They’re sitting along the wall, silent and menacing. A metropolitan is standing beneath a purple canopy, swinging a gold cross.

I look at the churchgoers. The Russians pray with greater intensity and more rapture than the Danes. Many of them kiss the metal crosses they wear around their necks. Others have dropped to their knees. Ismailov has closed his eyes. Tears are running down his face. Russians weep often. They are a people of melancholic temperament.

Ismailov explains to me the various church ceremonies, and I enjoy the whole thing, the way I might enjoy an opera: the singing, the deep voices that work their way up from the diaphragms of the metropolitans. I let my gaze slide over the silver chandeliers, the thick incense, and the tawdry saints.

The metropolitan carries the large gold cross over to an old man, who kisses it fervently. When the metropolitan starts to move away, the old man holds on tight to the cross.

“What’s happening over there?” I whisper.

Ismailov doesn’t answer. He’s listening to the hymn, letting the music wash over him.

I close my eyes for longer than I would have wished. The deep voices slide through me. Something has burst. I remember a warm light that used to stream through me, a warmth from the dawn of time. For a brief moment I sense that I’m living in twilight, that I’m a soul of the dusk or the dawn. A sense of joy bubbles up inside me—a joy that I’ve never known before in my life.

We leave the church. When an elderly woman stumbles over me, Ismailov picks me up. His eyes are still filled with tears. I have an urge to tell him how grateful I am for his friendship, but Ismailov doesn’t care for compliments. Like most Russians, he’s more comfortable with the sting of the birch rod.

When I get back to the dwarf apartment, I take out Æreboe’s letter again. I light a little candle and start reading:

Dearest Sørine Bentsdatter,

I hope that this letter will reach you at your residence in the tsar’s Russia. I have given a good deal of thought to your health and well-being in that foreign land. It can be difficult to find your place in a society that is so utterly different from our own…When I found myself out there in Russia as a young man, I was naïve and inexperienced. I was teased because I smelled too much of schools and textbooks. So you must not despair if the same thing happens to you. Our Lord has filled you with purpose. He has given you a task, so that you, with God’s help, will

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