Chapter 13, "Mid-Pentecost Wednesday"
"Anastasia is going to get married to Giorgiy," said Mihail Chestnoslov teasingly as Anastasia walked out of the church with her sister Nadezhda.
"You're jealous," said Nadezhda in defense of her blushing sister. They hurried away in the dark to the girls' bathroom. The boys who were standing outside the church laughed as the girls disappeared behind the door of the small building where the bathrooms were located.
"What are you laughing about while church is in progress?" asked an elderly woman who had opened the door and had come out to scold the playful young men, who still enjoyed playing pranks. "You should be inside praying.
'A nu. Zakhaditye!' (A nu, get inside!)
The laughter quickly died down and the embarrassed young men scampered into the church ahead of the shaking index finger of the old woman.
It was a warm Sunday morning in early May. The sun was just beginning its slow ascent over the eastern horizon, and the first rays of daylight were visible on the rim of the Cascade range. A gray GTO roared up to the parked cars on the gravel road, and a young man in his early twenties stepped out. He was dressed in a black shirt with cross-stitched red roses climbing on a vine on his front panel and around his collar, and with twin roses on his cuffs. He had a fuzzy light brown beard which was sparsely distributed along his light-tan colored cheeks and chin.
All of a sudden, the young man stopped in his tracks as he heard a shrill scream coming from the small building which stood about thirty feet away from the church. The door of the small building opened and out rushed Nadezhda. The young man rushed up to her.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Giorgiy!" exclaimed Nadezhda in a surprised voice. "What are you doing here?"
"Our church just finished, and I wanted to see Anastasia," explained Giorgiy quickly. "Where's Anastasia?"
"She's in the bathroom, and there's a snake in there," said Nadezhda. Her voice trembled at the thought of the fearsome snake which had scared her out of her wits.
"Help!" cried Anastasia. "The snake is blocking the door and I can't get out."
Giorgiy rushed inside the bathroom, and the snake reared its head at the sight of the intruder.
"It's only a garter snake," said Giorgiy as he turned around to look at the brown snake. "It won't harm you."
"Kill it!" screamed Anastasia. "I'm afraid of snakes."
"All right," said Giorgiy in an acquiescing voice. He looked into the eyes of the snake, whose quivering forked-tongue was lashing out in self-defense. Then he quickly raised the left heel of his shiny black shoe and thrust it like a spear into the head of the defenseless snake. Giorgiy crushed the head of the vanquished snake.
"Oo, how can you do that?" asked Anastasia in awe of Giorgiy's fearlessness.
"You asked me to do it," replied Giorgiy. "Otherwise I would have picked it up by its neck and thrown him out into the bushes."
"Get it out of here," said Anastasia as she made a grimace on her face. "It's ugly and bloody."
Giorgiy picked up the snake by the tail, carried it across the road, and threw it as far as he could into the field which faced the church.
"There, I saved your life," said Giorgiy when he came back to Anastasia. She had started to walk back to the church with her sister. Giorgiy wanted to put his arm around his bride-to-be and give her a kiss.
"Don't touch me," said Anastasia as she squirmed away in disgust. "You touched that awful snake."
"O.K. I'll go wash up," said Giorgiy, who was beginning to feel less of a hero now that Anastasia was rejecting his advances.
A group of children gathered by the bathroom as Giorgiy went up the stairs to wash himself. They had come out for a break from the long service.
"Giorgiy loves Anastasia," yelled Natasha Svyatogorov, who had already forgotten that her father Antip had died more than a year ago in the woods.
"They're going to get married soon," yelled Prokopy Ribrov in jest. Then he made an obscene gesture with his two hands, which he laughingly displayed to his friend Nikolai.
"Eto grekh tak pokazivat" (It's a sin to show that), said Nikolai, who used the word "grekh" (sin) whenever he disapproved of something.
Prokopy instantly withdrew the right index finger from the left oval shape that he had formed, and he felt embarrassed by his friend's righteous accusation.
Giorgiy emerged from the boy's bathroom with clean washed hands, and he rustled the hair of the children who had gathered around him as he made his way to the church. The girls had already gone in. Giorgiy made his obligatory crossing and bowing after he entered the church. He stood in the back section, where outsiders and unbelievers were supposed to stand; mothers with babies also stood in the back to watch over their babies.
Giorgiy caught Anastasia's eyes looking at him as he stepped to the right side in the back. She was standing to the left and in front of the partition that divided the main sanctuary from the back section. They exchanged secret smiles and warm heart-throbbing feelings as their minds merged with the thought of their forthcoming wedding day.
After the service, Giorgiy saw Vasily Velikov wave at him and heard him call his name.
"Giorgiy, wait a minute," yelled Vasily, who started pulling the wheels of his wheel-chair as fast as he could to catch up with the youthful Giorgiy, who had already reached his showy GTO and was ready to go home. "Come over to our house," said Vasily in a demanding voice.
Giorgiy agreed. This would give him a chance to be with Anastasia and to get acquainted with her family. His parents had already consented to the marriage, even though Anastasia had just turned fifteen and had not even bothered to finish school. Anastasia's parents didn't mind that Anastasia wanted to get married at such an early age; they figured that it was better if she got married to a Russian boy who was also an Old Believer, than to run around loose and free with the possibility of getting attracted to an American boy who was not of their faith.
"I talked to your father last night," added Vasily as an afterthought as he started to turn his wheel-chair around. "He'll come over today to give the blessing to proceed with the wedding arrangements."
Giorgiy was surprised. He had not expected the engagement arrangements to take place so soon, although he had heard talk of the traditional dinner at the bride's house, where the two families eat together. He got into his car and was about to head left down the road toward Anastasia's house when the thought suddenly struck him that he would need to exchange gifts with Anastasia at the engagement dinner. He turned his car in the other direction and floored the accelerator. The wheels screeched and the smoke from the burning tires rose into the air as Giorgiy hurried home for the gift.
"There goes that show-off Giorgiy with his hot GTO," said Mihail Chestnoslov as he started the motor of his Dodge Charger.
Anastasia smiled as she watched Giorgiy race away on what to her was her prince on a white stallion. She had fallen in love with him ever since that one day last summer when he drove up to Settlemeier Park in Woodburn in his new GTO, which he had bought with the hard-earned money that he had accumulated while working at a furniture factory. Giorgiy did not follow the path of the farmer nor the woodsman that his predecessors followed. He was carving out a path for himself through skilled labor.
Anastasia did not show her love for Giorgiy at first because of her innate shyness. But then one Sunday he asked her if she wanted to go for a ride with him. She was at a loss for words at first; but after he took her for a fast spin down one of the country roads, she knew that her heart belonged to him forever. She had seen some of the other Russian girls imitate the American way and sit close to their boy friends, and she did the same. That melted Giorgiy's heart, and from that day on he began to concentrate all his time and energy in courting Anastasia.
Giorgiy lived in the Turkish village of Bethlehem, and he did not have to drive far from the Sinkiang church, which was about a mile driving distance away. He ran up the stairs and into the house to the room which he shared with his brother Leonty. In the near future he would be sharing that room with Anastasia.
"Where are you hurrying to?" asked his mother Sofia, who was busy preparing bliny (think pancakes with filling) and piroshki (turnovers with meat filling) in the kitchen.
"I'm going to Anastasia's house," answered Giorgiy, "and I forgot about the gift which I have in my room."
"We're all going there," said his mother, "so what's the hurry."
"I think Anastasia's father wants to talk to me before the rest of you get there," said Giorgiy.
"Tell him that I will bring the ikon of the Blessed Bogoroditsa (Mother of God) for the blessing," said Pavel Golubin, who had overheard Giorgiy's voice and had hurried from his bedroom. He had been reading a holy book, and he was still dressed in his long black kaftan (church robe).
"O.K. I'll tell him," said Giorgiy as he turned to go to his room.
"And tell him to prepare a candle," added his father, who was the nastoyatel (minister) to the Turkish group.
"I will," said Giorgiy as he ran into his room and went to his desk. He reached into the back of the bottom right-hand drawer and pulled out a special box with a girl's wallet that he had bought for Anastasia. He knew that Anastasia needed the wallet to go with a purse she had bought for Easter; he also wanted Anastasia to have the wallet because he knew she would handle the finances and shopping for the family that both of them wanted to start on right away.
At Vasily Velikov's house, the three girls were busy helping their mother make pilimeny (like ravioli) and kotlety (meat patties). Anastasia was also responsible to cut up the cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, onions, lettuce and other vegetables for a big salad bowl. The girls worked in the kitchen while Giorgiy talked with the father in the living room.
"You are a healthy young man," began Vasily after his future son-in-law sat down on the sofa beside Vasily's wheelchair. "And you have a good-paying job. As you can see, I'm not able to do much for my family anymore, besides making leather belts to sell for a few dollars, ever since that tragic accident last year."
"I heard about it," commented Giorgiy. "Those trees are a risky business."
"You're right," said Vasily, who wanted to continue with his little speech. "It's fortunate for me that the girls are grown up and can start earning their own bread. Nadezhda has been working as a seamstress for a clothing store, and Anastasia wants to join her there. I know that the two of you will make enough money to buy your own little house after you're married, so you will both be well off. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm concerned about my daughter and about her children. I know that America is a good and prosperous country--better than Brazil and China, where I lived for most of my life--but America is also a country of immorality and wickedness. I don't wish to see my daughter raise children that will follow American ways and lose their Russian heritage."
"I agree with you," said Giorgiy. Vasily didn't let Giorgiy say what else was on his mind. Instead, he continued with his accusation of American ways.
"In America there is much freedom and also much lawlessness," continued Vasily. "People are permitted all kind of immoral filth, and the schools teach our children that man comes from a monkey. Well, maybe the hippie and the American does, but not the Russian Old Believer. God created us in his image, and we wear our beards out of respect for that fact."
Vasily stroked his beard as he began to wander off into his favorite subject about beards. Giorgiy let his eyes wander away from the talkative Vasily to the kitchen, where he observed Anastasia standing at the cutting board like a grown woman and preparing food for her man. The thought of her in his kitchen cooking food for him made Giorgiy's heart skip a beat, and his face flushed pink from excitement. His head started turning in spirals, and all of a sudden Giorgiy felt dizzy.
"I need some air," said Giorgiy as he stood up. "Excuse me for a minute while I step outside into the fresh air."
"Go ahead," said Vasily, who had forgotten what else he wanted to say against the American way.
Anastasia ran outside after Giorgiy. They walked down the road together until they saw his father's car approaching. Then they turned around and went back to the house. Giorgiy had not intended to be rude to Vasily. He had only wanted to be alone with Anastasia.
Giorgiy's father began the ceremony when both families had gathered together in the living room. He had the young couple kneel before the ikon and a lit candle. They made several obeisances (bowings) to the floor, and then the father-nastoyatel (minister) asked if they wished to be married of their own free will. Giorgiy and Anastasia looked at each other and said, "yes," simultaneously. Pavel Golubin explained that the couple had received the parents' blessings to proceed with the wedding preparations, and he concluded with the statement that God's blessing would be given in church on their wedding day.
"Now let's see the gifts," said Sofia, as she came up to her son to congratulate him with an embrace and a kiss.
"Mama, go into my room and get the bag on my bed," said Anastasia. Zinaida hurried to get the gift.
"Leonty, there's a box in my glove compartment," said Giorgiy to his brother. "Go get it for me."
The two gifts were brought to the young couple. Anastasia took out a beautiful orange belt with green lines that criss-crossed to form a tic-tac-toe design alternately with a cross-framed window design.
"This is my favorite belt that I weaved myself," said Anastasia, giving the belt to Giorgiy. "It is for you to wear when you marry me."
"It's beautiful," responded Giorgiy, wrapping the belt around his waist on top of his own belt to try it on for size. He handed the gift-wrapped box to her as he started to tie a bow in the belt. "This is for you," he added in a shy manner. "Open it."
Anastasia opened the boy and pulled away the while tissue paper inside to reveal a beautiful brown women's wallet.
"That's just what I needed," exclaimed Anastasia. She wanted to run up to Giorgiy and kiss him, but she held back her emotions in the presence of the parents.
"Look inside," said Giorgiy. He smiled to himself nervously as Anastasia unsnapped the wallet and looked inside.
"There's money in here!" she shrieked excitedly.
"How much?" asked her sister Nadezhda, who ran up beside Anastasia to see.
"There's one-two-three-four-five fifty dollar bills," announced Anastasia as she counted the grand bills one by one.
"My, what a wealthy man you're getting married to," said Anastasia's mother Zinaida. "You're a fortunate girl."
"He's been working hard at saving for this for over a year," explained Giorgiy's mother Sofia.
"Let's eat! I'm hungry!" cried Irina, who was milling around anxiously in the kitchen.
Everyone agreed. It was almost noon, and no one even had breakfast yet. The two families squeezed around two tables joined together, and the feast began. The talk around the table centered on the imminent wedding arrangements: the Golubin family were discussing the make-shift outdoor patio they would have to build in front of their garage to accommodate the many guests from both the Turkish and the Sinkiang groups that would come; the Velikov family discussed the "divishnik" (nightly parties for the bride at her home); both families discussed the sharing of food preparations and expenses, the homemade wine-like drink called "braga" that would have to be made, and the hog and livestock that would be slaughtered to provide the meat.
For the next two weeks Anastasia was busy with all the woman's part in the wedding preparations. She had to make "bantiki" (pin-on cloth corsets in the shape of a flower) for all her guests. She had her sisters help her make the "krossota" (wedding-cap) out of 30 small pink, red, and white flowery bows and a large bow in the back with a dozen colorful ribbons with all the colors of the rainbow which trailed down to the bottom of her dress. Her mother helped her sew a blue dress with groups of red apples, purple plums and oranges abundantly arranged on the pattern; for the apron, Zinaida made a bright red-violet silk one with white lace; on her white blouse Anastasia embroidered her own flowery red roses with buds growing out the sides to put on her shoulders. Her father Vasily bought Anastasia a jewelry piece to be used as a headband in front of the krossota. The jewelry piece consisted of four rows of 72 white glistening gems which Anastasia was to wear on her wedding day.
At night the young people and Giorgiy arrived. Giorgiy and Anastasia sat at a long table covered with a tablecloth of pink, violet, and purple flowers. Behind the attractive couple was a wall tapestry with a proud peacock with its eye-shaped feathers trailing behind her; in the background was a magnolia tree with its rosy-pink flowers in bloom, and beside the tree was a lake with white water lilies near the shore and two mature white swans swimming gracefully side by side in the middle.
"Well, let's sing a song for our two love-birds," said Nadezhda. She was older than Anastasia by two years.
"You sing the songs, and we'll throw the kisses," said Petya Chestnoslov, who had been eyeing Nadezhda ever since he had walked in through the door. He had a glazy look in his eyes.
"Will you give as good a kiss as the song that we'll sing?" teasingly asked Nadezhda in response. She gave Peter a look of disapproval, for she disliked him ever since she had heard that he had started using drugs.
Petya blushed as the others laughed. The wit and humor continued to fly back and forth like a ping-pong ball at a tournament. Then there was a moment of silence.
Nadezhda took advantage of the silence, and she struck up a song in a raspy high-pitched voice. The other girls around the table who knew the folk song joined in. The song was about a young maiden who was leaving her girl friends to live with the man who came to marry her. The last couplet of each verse was repeated for emphasis and to make the song last longer.
Sometime after midnight the festivities began to subside as the guests began to leave in preparation for the next day's work. By Saturday, the day before the wedding, all the embroidery work, including new clothes for bride and groom and new curtains for the home they would live in after the wedding, was finished. The revelry came to a climax one last time when Anastasia and her girl friends went to the banya (bathhouse), where the girls talked and laughed about Anastasia's future with Giorgiy.
On Sunday morning at 6:00 a.m., the church bells on top of the Turkish church in Bethlehem Village chimed in a two-tone dactylic beat to awaken the villagers and to call them to worship. The bells rang like an alarm clock for about thirteen minutes, then they stopped as suddenly as they had begun. Five birds flew up to the cupola to see what all the excitement was about and then sat on the roof and waited. Several older folk hurried to the steps and crossed themselves three times before entering the sacred building. A white pigeon flew up to the roof and perched itself in a spot where it could watch the villagers assemble.
For an hour the regular morning service proceeded without any sign that a wedding was to occur that day. Shortly before the end of the service a chain of five people entered the full church and zig-zagged through the crowd till it found a spot on the left side where there was room for the group of five. The two men and three women held a chain of five white handkerchiefs tied together. An older man, Giorgiy's hrostniy (godfather), led the way; he was called the "tysyachik" or spokesman. Giorgiy and Anastasia were in the middle, and two "svashki" (ladies) were beside Anastasia. The group made their customary three bows to the ground in unison, then they bowed and crossed themselves thrice as the morning service continued in its natural course.
Half an hour later the morning service ended, and almost all of the people vacated the premises except for the participants in the sacred ceremony, and the relatives and close friends of the bride and groom. They sat along the side lines on benches. A few curious spectators stood at the back of the church.
"Tyebye ne stidno?" (Aren't you ashamed of yourself?) asked an older woman as Haritina peered in through the back door. She was shooed away.
Outside the church, the people sat on cars, talked, and walked around while the nastoyatel (minister), Pavel Golubin, read from his holy book about the Wedding of Cana, about the duties of husband and wife, and about the sacred commitment they were making to each other for the rest of their days on earth. The couple was separated from the chain for the ceremony. They kissed holy ikons to solemnize their vows; they kissed the holy cross to seal the sacred pact that they would not separate either in good or bad times but would stand together; and they bowed and made poklony (obeisances to the ground) before their parents. Anastasia also made an obeisance to the ground before Giorgiy to signify her servitude and loyalty to him as head of the household. The sweat poured down Giorgiy's face from the numerous poklony (obeisances) that they were required to perform. Anastasia had tears in her eyes throughout most of the ceremony, especially when her father Vasily repeated the words of the nastoyatel (minister) to the young couple and started crying himself.
Finally the chain was re-established, and the married couple, Giorgiy and Anastasia, followed a group of black-robed male chanters to Giorgiy's home. The male chanters sang a prayer of blessing at the steps of the house, and then the "dukhovniy peer" (spiritual feast) was officially in progress. The long tables under the make-shift building that Giorgiy and his father had constructed were equipped to seat over 200 guests, and there was plenty of good and braga (berry-wine drink) to make everyone full and happy for three days and three nights.
Giorgiy and Anastasia sat behind the center table like a king and a queen. Anastasia was wearing the jewelry head-band that her father had given her, and it sparkled like hundreds of suns on the crown of her head.
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Chapter 14
Beginning - Chapter 1
Copyright 1982 by Paul John Wigowsky
