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Chapter Fifteen
 he Christmas holidays were upon the people of Moscow. Officially, the new Soviet Union was an atheistic state. There were no Christmas holidays. Unofficially, things went on pretty much as they had since the introduction of Christianity into Russia during the reign of Vladimir of Kiev in 988. For some, that time of year meant more than it did for others. For Dmitri and Zina Dumatskoy it meant the first holidays with their baby boy, Sasha, who was almost four months old. Anya Drugo had plans to conceive a child with her husband Ivan during that time. S. A. Ostavlyavich had money for the first time in many years, lots of money, a career. He was a citizen of society again. He was relatively sober. He wanted to lavish presents on his grandson. He wanted to help out his daughter and her husband financially. But they wouldn't take his money, except for his share of the rent. That didn't stop him! He hired a few strangers to buy several of Zina's paintings. Ostavlyavich gave a job to his drinking buddy, Obyomov. Ostavlyavich soon began to realize that that unscrupulous fellow was just what the NEP system wanted. Obyomov was making money, but still drinking heavily.
Olga Shpion couldn't have cared less what time of the year it was. She was a modern decadent woman, pursuing her own agenda. In fact, she took pride in her "atheism" and rejection of the old world. Truth be told, she bought some expensive Christmas presents for her Marya Timofeevna and Marya's mother and sons.
V. V. Podly's position over the issue of the holiday season was most ambiguous. There he was, one of the most powerful men in the Soviet Bureaucracy and because of that, one of the most respected. Yet at the same time, he was the former children's choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. Sofya in Novgorod. A man whose thoughts that Christmas season were immersed in the incense, candle glow, music and old Church Slavonic. He was even able to drift as far back as when he was a member of the children's choir himself in his old village of Bolshoeselo. Perhaps he was about ten, around the same age that Zina Dumatskoy was when he first laid eyes on her when he was children's choirmaster. Podly spent many nights during that 1921 season drinking very, very heavily, taking drugs, and immersing himself in a long-ago time and place.
Tatiana Andreevna Dumatskoy should have been about to experience one of the most memorable and fulfilling holiday seasons. Her only son, Dmitri, and his wife, Zina, had a healthy baby son. Tatiana was a grandmother! That grandmother lived only five minutes away from her grandson! She should have been spending a great deal of time with Sasha - had she not been dying! And she was dying alone. Since no one was aware of her condition, no one was there for support. If Dmitri and Zina had not been suspicious of Tatiana's absences, and emaciated, exhausted appearance and behavior, certainly by Christmas Eve when they had not heard from her for a whole week, they were then.
 bout 7:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, V. V. Podly opened the door of his home to a conspicuous and sinister-looking large man with a grossly pock-marked face, who wore an oversized Red army greatcoat, and a tall military helmet that dated from the 1870's. With his big red hands, the man handed Podly a small package. Podly took it from the man and closed the door. The Housing Commissar lived in a two-story medium-sized, but stately house with a pillared porch on the still fashionable Krasnopresnenskaya, a street that was at the southern end of the Zoopark, a little over 2 miles northwest of the Kremlin. The street was inhabited before the Revolution by high-ranking civil servants, doctors, and lawyers. Now it was populated with Podly's best "clients." He had three rooms on each floor plus a bathroom off the kitchen downstairs and one as part of the master bedroom upstairs. The rooms were large, bright, and airy.
Podly took the package into the dining room and sat down at a high-backed chair at the head of an oak table-for-eight that he had shipped down from Novgorod when he come to Moscow in 1912. At his place at the table sat a small ivory smoking pipe. Most of the wall space was covered with tapestries from Tblisi, Tashkent, and Asktrakhan. The huge carpet was from Teheren. A mahogany sideboard over half the length of one wall had its origin somewhere deep in the Black Forest of Germany and was set by his housekeeper, Elizaveta, who had gone home to be with her family - with an assortment of treats for the palate that included: goose liver pate, smoked herring, goat cheese, pickled cabbage, dark bread; and decanters of Italian Chianti, and plenty of Russian vodka.
Podly tore off the brown paper that was used to wrap a cigar box. But no cigars were inside the box. Instead, the box was filled with a course powdery substance of a tannish color that Podly knew to be a mixture of hashish and opium. He filled and emptied the ivory pipe five times over the course of the next hour. By about 9:00 p.m., Podly's eyes were swimming in his head. His entire body was numb, and yet he was strangely filled with tremendous energy. He went into the sitting room where the fireplace was raging. He fell on the big Siberian brown bear rug lying in front of the fire, and baked there for a while. He took off all of his clothes. He baked some more. Suddenly, he jumped up and ran full speed through the front door and out onto the porch. The ten-degree temperature hit him like a load of bricks in the face. He smiled. He growled like a bear in Siberia growled before Podly shot her five years ago. Podly screamed. His rifle jammed from the frigid air. The bear charged him. She tore at his face and neck with her claws. She bit him. Big chunks of Podly's flesh fell out onto the snow. He lay there naked in the foot deep snow in front of his house. He roared with laughter. He screamed,
"This life, this hideous, beautiful life of death! I'm so alive!"
Soon Podly found himself drinking vodka dressed in his robe, and sitting in the Moroccan leather armchair in front of the fireplace. He drank steadily. He was drinking directly from the bottle. He was no longer on Krasnopresnenskaya. In his mind, affected as it was by drugs and alcohol, and the obscure thought processes centered around Zina, Zina, Zina - Podly was floating in an ethereal realm somewhere between Novgorod 1910 and Moscow 1921. Podly was scurrying around the choir loft after Christmas Eve rehearsal attending to last minute details with the children, and with the organist. Zina's solo - he had to have her go over her music again. He looked for her throughout the vast confines of the cathedral. He called her name, and it echoed into the ancient wood of Novgorod. It bounced out of the fireplace at Krasnopresnenskaya, and stood before him, transforming him, transforming itself, in an excruciatingly slow motion manner into and out of the little girl and the woman. It mocked him. It called him filthy names. It wantonly teased him and begged him to come close to it. It screamed and begged him to leave over and over again, until finally the fire went out, and the big timepiece in the corner of the room chimed out 11:30 p.m. Christmas Eve. Podly had to get to the choir loft and conduct the children. He stumbled upstairs to dress for the service.
 mitri Dumatskoy held Sasha in his arms and covered his little face with kisses. The baby was crying. He was hungry.
"I'll not give you up to Mama. Soon your grandmother and Anya will get here, and I won't get any hugs or kisses in edgewise. Poor Papa, poor Mr. Papa!"
Dmitri was making ludicrous faces, and playing the fool for his baby, who would have none of it: Sasha simply wanted fed.
"Turn him over to me, you. . . " Zina held back the profanity. She was terribly irritated by Dmitri's overly playful, holiday-happy behavior. And the whole idea of the holidays, that year, disgusted her. Zina felt that holidays, her marriage, and even her baby were choking the air out of her, and her bones were being picked clean by the vulture of all that prevented her from being who and what she desired to be.
"The damn guests will be arriving! And we must get ready to go to the. . . church. And I have to nurse the baby and get him settled. Give him to me!" Zina shouted.
Last year the apartment at 120 Novokirovskaya was gaily decorated for the holidays. The lights of gold, red, and silver; holly and ivy; the tinsel, the bells - fresh fragrances of pine and the cooking of a turkey; the baking of the pies and cookies surrounded Dmitri's senses with glowing streams of love and passion for life and the things of the joyous earth. Christmas, 1921 was a different matter. A small tree, carelessly decorated, and two corner icons with lit candles in the sitting room were the only reminders that year of the holidays.
After Zina took Sasha into the bedroom to feed him Dmitri poured a glass of Chianti and went into the sitting room to sit down on the loveseat. He sat and sipped until he heard the telephone ringing in the foyer. He got up immediately and went to answer it.
"Oh, my God! It's you, Tatiana's son! Thank God! Please Dmitri, hear me, hear me now."
The voice on the other end was frantic. Dmitri had answered the telephone and identified himself. The voice on the other end then went into its frantic message. It was Sofya Konstantinova, his mother Tatiana's colleague and friend from the School of the Children of the Revolution.
"Your mother, upstairs. She's. . . she's not responding. She's in a coma. . . I think. . . or dead! Oh, Dmitri, please come now - get a doctor."
Dmitri was about to try to get some more details but Sofya hung up abruptly. Dmitri went directly to the bedroom and relayed the message to Zina. There would be little chance of a doctor on Christmas Eve. If Dmitri could get his mother to the hospital, if necessary, there would be a doctor. Dmitri told Zina he was going to his mother.
* * * * *
 odly drove around Moscow in his car like a man who had no idea what he was doing, but had a tremendous amount of power at his disposal to do it. He wasn't used to driving. Normally, a chauffeur drove him everywhere. He drove fast up and down the length of the Arbat, all the while confused in his thinking between Novgorod and Moscow, and focused on Christmas Eve, and all that it meant to him historically. One thing Podly did know was the precise location of all the housing under his jurisdiction. Soon, he found himself heading down Prospect Mira passed the Botanical Gardens. In his incredible delirium, he somehow believed he was going to St. Sofya's Cathedral in Novgorod! He got on the Garden Ring going east to Novokirovskaya, Number 120. He parked the car very badly in front of the house. The front end of the automobile protruded dangerously.
Podly stood in front of the house. He made the sign of the cross and bowed his head. He stood steadily, like a Novgorod oak, on the outside. Inside, he was shaking and rocking, clumsy, and falling down. When he was ready, he walked through the snow to the right of the house down the narrow opening to the backyard. Up the steps he went to the door of the sun porch. He turned the knob. The door opened. Podly entered the Cathedral of St. Sofya.
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