Vetren'iy [working title]
#1.1 Prelude (and) Rare Word, Refuge (cont'd)
Note: Ragged still, on edges, I'm afraid...Scrap-sort of first chapter/prelude to Vetren'iy...'Tis the atmosphere and questions that needed setting out here. [Posted on a livejournal for a brief while--cleaned up slightly from then.]
The voice, interjected--impressions?
..::..::..::..
‘Don’t shoot men in a church. Rotten that…get you twisted out-of-shape, y’know? when you get other side or whatever. Not ‘as I know, what? Just got that theology rubbish still sticking ‘tween my ears. You get used to it; can ramble. But lucky over here in not having it - tell you, Denver off in Oxford still thinks he’s got -’ the voice lowered, fretful - ‘ still thinks he’s got something’ like history over there. Don’t ask why, man; off my blinking head if’s I know.’
The man stumbled in the church’s chiaroscuro nave, cobbled aisle uneven, pews like crouched figures tightening as they rowed upwards into the sanctuary. He wavered. Something in the air, in the gilt glimmered light cast of candle luminance, dying, in the red flicker behind the altar, beneath the shadowed silhouette of a cross - something caught his thoughts and stumbled him. His boots sounded painfully heavy, tripping on turned-up stone.
‘Don’t shoot men in church - dunno as if it’s ill luck or, y’know, like the superstitions you get down low. Makes you think, what?’
He shook his head, swallowing over a dry throat. Surely those weren’t footfalls in the lane outside? Surely those weren’t voices? Straining against the still, he listened, listened to nothing but his own breath and heartbeat, heavy in his chest.
‘Don’t shoot men in a church.’
Somewhere, in the dregs of his thought he felt memory: crouched like the lithe-figured saints, perched in their alcoves, watching through blind-carved eyes. Memories, he knew he hadn’t known. Of the thick dust and faint breath of incense; of stone and arches; and of the still, proceeding order that lay in symmetry and held in lines drawing upwards. He looked.
‘Don’t shoot men in church. Bally mad -gets you damned, don’t you know? Safe-haven, what? …or that’s the bit Denver’s got in his head; bloody off-his-head sort, for a baron. One doesn’t get that sort this side -’ the voice stumbled, rather apologetic, ‘I hate to say, old boy, but’s got to be the Atlantic divide…all rubbish, they keep saying, this idea of things not being ‘s they are and…’
Christ’s figure hung hollowed in shadow, for there were no lights to illuminate but the brush of dusk’s grey fingers, creeping through cracked glass and stained glass. The dying Man might have seen him. His eyes were beneath the crown, and the thorns angularity broke the edges of his face, broke the light that filtered over his brow; broke the line of his lowered gaze.
‘Please,’ he said, meaningless and hoarse.
There were sounds in the lane, the halting furtive scratch of a heavy step; murmurs that slid between sharp English and sibilant Russian.
With a frantic will, the man started forward. His hands trailed pew-backs, as if to steady him - but his fingers, limp and quivering knocked willy-nilly into dark wood.
‘Don’t shoot men in a church, what? …well, y’know, not a half-bad sort o’ thing to pop-off; good sort of wheeze for whims…catch my meaning. Not much use against these real fellows; full of bally old enlightened thought, don’t you know? Shoot a man up on any stone, dessay; might ‘s well be the firing squad; all games. Good game, this anarchy, what? Makes like tide-wide run at hide-n-seek or something like it…play tag all day ‘til you drop…’
The aisle widened as the nave drew into the sanctuary, pews shortened, cut-off or haphazard, twisted sidelong. The last lay with its feet up, leaning on the lowest altar step; the man noted distantly, initials carved and obscenity, scrawled into wood-finish like a grotesque mockery of the Ten - for they the scratchings were numbered.
He fell on the step, hard, both palms striking splintered wood. Tattered, the rug from altar base to floor unravelled at his fingertips - gold tendrils binding le fleur d’lis, in patched brilliance. Ought he to have gone to Teller? Should he have dashed off for the coast, like…a man he couldn’t recall ever having named.
He was a tattered figure, tattered as the rug in the dusk-grey and gilt shade of the sanctuary, shoulders crumpled beneath stained jacket, eyes hollowed and circled in sleepless dark. With resigned dullness, he raised his head.
‘If you’re God,’ he said, ‘Why don’t you come down? I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.’
Behind, the rotting wood of the double doors groaned on stone flagging.
‘If you’re God…’
A gun-shot cracked the clinging still.
If the man had meant to finish with an act of faith or blasphemy, no silence would ever hear. He swayed upon his knees; one hand dropped back to the the worn rug, fingers twining the fleur d’lis.
Their heavy steps like gun-shot echoes, two men strode into the aisle slowly, the street’s stale chill and grey drifting in behind them from doors left ajar. On the altar stairs, the man lay bleeding; and the carpet was dyed again vivid, dark and crimson.
‘Dead,’ muttered the first, nudging the limp shoulder with a boot toe. ‘Durak - what does he do, running to Sankt Anton?’
‘Thought he’d be better off looking for what’s-it, Teller’s the name. But, y’know, he ran after three nights down there and Andreyev does more than just talk when it comes down to that.’
The first sighed. ‘Zhalka,’ a pity, ‘He missed the games for last night.’
‘Yeah. Damned idiot.’ Thoughtless, the second rubbed at his hands…as if to scrape off shadow, or blood. ‘Easy,’ he said, ‘To shoot a man in a church.’
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