Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Eighty-Eight
5th November 1968
Moscow, Russia
“The simple fact is that I didn’t die” Gia said defensively, “There is nothing more to it than that.”
“I am sorry Alexandra, but it is starting to appear that that this matter is anything but simple” The Assistant of the Patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia said in reply, which was the last thing that Gia wanted to hear. Alexy, the Patriarch himself was sleeping in his chair next to the fire burning in the tile stove that heated the room, snoring away as one of his hearing aids fed back shrilly in his ear. At ninety years of age, Gia found it astonishing that Alexy was still alive.
“To you perhaps” Gia said, “For me this is just more attention of the sort that I don’t need.”
For some unfathomable reason, the RCMP had decided to reexamine the events of New Year’s Day, 1941 and a box containing the clothes that Gia had been wearing had come to light. A news story which had run in Canada had included several photographs and those had raised several questions. People had seen the blue wool dress that was covered with brown stains from Gia’s blood and had a ragged cut across it that had been necessitated by it being frozen to her body. Then the subject of the timeline had come up, the massacre had occurred late in the morning, almost lunchtime. They had not found Gia on the side of the road until just after dark, hours later. How exactly had a critically injured twelve-year-old girl, who was not dressed for the weather, survived during that time as she had in temperatures well below freezing? At the same time, an expert had suggested that the injury should have caused her to bleed out in minutes, yet it hadn’t. They had described not only her survival, but her eventual full recovery as nothing short of miraculous. Gia really wished that they had used different words. The people who wanted to see Gia as a living saint had taken that as validation.
“I was discussing this matter with his Grace the other day…” The Assistant started to say, and he saw the incredulous look on Gia’s face. “His mind is still sharp, even as his body has started to fail him.”
Gia thought that was a bit of an understatement. If it weren’t for the snoring, she might have assumed that Alexy was dead and mummified with the Bishops’ Council of Moscow propping him up for some inexplicable reason. Alexy was nearly blind and almost completely deaf. He spent most winter days in this very room dozing by the fire. Gia would be shocked if all the Bishops weren’t individually sneaking in here to measure the drapes for when they might assume the Office of the Prelate themselves. It was his Assistant who stage-managed the Patriarch, keeping things running smoothly though Alexy himself seemed to have already checked out long ago. His heart, lungs, and medulla continued to function, only out of long habit if Gia had to guess.
“As I was saying” The Assistant said, “His Grace understands the odd position you are in. He also understands how you have become a beacon of hope for many in these trying times, a champion for the poor and destitute against powerful interests in Siberia and here in Moscow.”
This was one of those times when Gia wished that Aunt Marcella were here to sum up a thorny issue with one cutting remark. That sounded like public relations spin. Mostly because it was. Gia had told Church Officials the truth about her charitable giving plenty of times, how it had not ever been because of the goodness of her heart. Instead, it was because she feared another revolution and buying off the “Proletariat” as it were seemed like a means of survival if push ever came to shove. She had been largely ignored, mostly because doing the right thing for the wrong reasons didn’t fit with the narrative that had grown up around her. Gia suspected that it was because they had actually preferred the innocent child who they had thought had been killed by the Soviets as opposed to the flawed adult who had emerged from hiding years later. They weren’t about to admit that they had made a mistake when they had declared her a “Passion Barer” of the Church at this late date.
“There is a logical reason for all of this” Gia said, “The experts said that I was suffering from hypothermia and the wounds froze keeping me from bleeding out entirely while the blood loss somehow kept the cold from hurting me long enough to be found.”
Gia could remember getting shot and stumbling through the forest, in had seemed like an eternity passed until she had collapsed just outside the town. She hadn’t done anything special other than not die at that moment when by every reasonable expectation she should have. Alexy’s Assistant frowned at Gia taking that line and was about to say something else when Alexy started chuckling. They had thought that he was sound asleep.
“Sane people have doubts, it is part of being sane in an insane world” Alexy said, his words nearly incomprehensible, “You sit here in the warmth of this room and describe your own improbable survival where everything came together in the most unlikely manner possible. Perhaps it was all just a coincidence, but look at who you choose to discuss this matter with?”
Alexy shrugged and gave her a toothless grin. It was said that when he had been younger the Cheka had kicked his teeth in and all of Gia’s problems suddenly seemed trite.