Sam Eastland - Red Icon

‘Don’t hit me again,’ he pleaded deliriously, his lips split and teeth stained red.

‘There is nothing to fear,’ Stefan assured him as he wiped the man’s face with a handkerchief. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘Who did this to you?’

The man said his name was Anatoli Bolotov and that he was a pilgrim from the village of Markha, near the city of Irkutsk in Siberia. Judging from the state of his clothes and the fact that his only possession was a Bible, Stefan had little reason to doubt that the pilgrim was telling the truth. After two years of wandering the country, Bolotov had just begun his journey home when he walked into the town of Krasnoyar.

There, while begging for food, he had been set upon, beaten senseless and heaved into a ditch on the outskirts of the town by some of the same people who had made a sport of beating Stefan Kohl.

Recalling the times he had stopped on this same road to wipe the blood from his own face, Stefan lifted Bolotov on to the cart, since the man was too weak to climb aboard himself. Then he brought the pilgrim into Rosenheim and presented the man to his father.

After hearing Bolotov’s story, and seeing the Bible he clutched against his chest, Viktor Kohl warily agreed to feed him and put a roof over his head for the night. ‘But only one night!’ he decreed.

At the table, while they ate, Bolotov spoke of his travels across Russia.

At first, Viktor Kohl seemed to warm to the man, impressed by his ability to quote so freely from the Scriptures, but there came a point in the evening, as Bolotov began to speak about the details of his faith, that the look in Viktor’s eyes began to change.

‘It is on our own flesh,’ said Bolotov, ‘that we must inscribe our dedication to the Lord.’

‘And what is meant by that?’ demanded Viktor Kohl.

‘The end is near,’ explained Bolotov, ‘and we must abandon not only the consolations of the flesh, but the things that make such consolation possible.’

Viktor Kohl set down his knife and fork. Slowly, he pushed his plate away and rose to his feet, watched by his wife, Christiana, and his son, neither of whom had yet fathomed the meaning of those words.

‘I know you now,’ whispered Viktor Kohl. ‘I know what group of outlaws you belong to and I will not foul the air in this house by even mentioning their name.’

‘I will not deny it to a fellow man of God,’ replied Bolotov.

‘There is no fellowship between a man like me,’ said Viktor, his lip curling in disgust, ‘and one who does what you have done in the name of Jesus Christ.’

‘These are they,’ Bolotov answered defiantly, ‘who follow the Lamb wheresoever he goeth. These alone are redeemed.’

‘Do not obscure your deeds with holy words!’ shouted Viktor, aiming a finger at the door. ‘Now get out!’

‘You promised to take him in,’ argued Stefan. ‘What has he done to offend you, except to speak his mind?’

But Bolotov was already on his feet, a look of tired resignation on his face. He turned to Christiana, who by now could only stare at him in uncomprehending fear. ‘I thank you for the meal,’ he told her quietly.

‘You can’t just throw him out into the night!’ Stefan protested.

‘He is no stranger to the darkness, I assure you,’ answered Viktor.

As Bolotov left the house, Stefan followed him out.

It was raining and the air was raw and cold, although Bolotov barely seemed to notice.

‘Forgive my father, please,’ begged Stefan.

‘Do not blame him,’ replied Bolotov. ‘It is my fault for thinking that I could speak as one man of God to another.’

‘What was it in your words that angered him?’ Stefan asked, confused. ‘I’ve never seen him act like this before.’

‘I simply told him a truth which he did not want to hear.’

‘And what truth is that?’

They had been standing side by side under the eaves of the house, where they were partially sheltered from the rain. But now Bolotov turned to Stefan, and his gaze burned into the young man. ‘The truth is that only by freeing yourself of earthly chains can you enter the kingdom of heaven.’

‘That happens to us all when we die,’ said Stefan, ‘and it seems to me that he is well aware of that already.’

‘But what he does not know, or chooses not to see, is that the only way to prove yourself worthy of heaven is to cut through those chains while we still live. Only those who separate themselves from the flock will be saved.’

‘And the rest?’ asked Stefan. ‘What will happen to them?’

‘They will be swept away in a tide of blood.’ Gently, Bolotov took hold of Stefan’s arm. ‘Do not be afraid of what I’m saying. We all have a chance to prove our worth. But it takes courage. More courage than most men and women possess. It is not enough simply to acknowledge the suffering of Christ. Anyone can do that. What we must do is test the mettle of our faith by showing that we, too, are capable of suffering for what we believe. It requires setting out on a new path, instead of the one which has been chosen for us by those who think they know us better than we know ourselves.’

Stefan thought of the day his father had handed him over to the butcher. There had been no discussion. No words of comfort. Not even a hand on his shoulder to offer consolation. ‘I learned to accept it,’ he muttered, as much to himself as to the pilgrim.

‘But why should you?’ exclaimed Bolotov. ‘Why spend your life trying to meet the expectations of those who cannot even meet those same demands themselves? Why not begin a journey which only the bravest can make? No man is free until he has proven himself to himself.’

At almost any other time, Bolotov’s words might have rung hollow to Stefan Kohl but, in that moment, they struck him so profoundly that he felt as if he had been sleeping all his life and had only now awakened.

As they stood there, watching the rain pour from the roof like threads of mercury, and Bolotov went on to explain exactly what he meant by the severing of earthly chains, Stefan was appalled by his description of the bloody rituals, but also fascinated by such a brutal gesture of commitment. No one had ever asked him to sacrifice anything before, as if nothing he had was worth consigning to his faith. To his amazement, Stefan realised that he was not afraid, even if that sacrifice was to be paid in his own flesh. For the first time in his life, he glimpsed the possibility of a life filled with a purpose that was greater than the one for which he had been taught to settle.

‘Come with me,’ said Bolotov.

Those words seemed to snatch the air from Stefan’s lungs. ‘Now?’ he gasped.

‘Now or never!’ exclaimed Bolotov. ‘Your chance may never come again. Everywhere I go I hear talk of war with Germany. It may already be too late. The heritage of your forefathers, which you have struggled so hard to maintain, will be the doom of this place. Soon the Russians will drive you from this land and send you back where you came from.’

‘But this is where I am from!’ Stefan protested. ‘I have never known anything else.’

‘They don’t care about that,’ Bolotov told him. ‘In their eyes, you have already been tried and convicted. All that remains now is for the sentence to be served. But you should consider yourself lucky.’

‘And why is that?’ he asked.

‘Unlike them,’ Bolotov waved his hand out into the dark, where chinks of light shone through the shuttered windows of houses, ‘you have a choice. One way or another, you are about to become an exile, but which kind you become is up to you.’

Bolotov promised to wait until sunrise, in order to give the young man a chance to make up his mind.

‘You will have your answer before then,’ Stefan assured him.