Justine Saracen - The Sniper’s Kiss

At the conclusion of “Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful,” Edwin Watson wheeled in the president. He carried his beloved Scottish terrier Fala on his lap and chanted “Ho ho ho” as Watson parked him next to the tree. Eleanor rose from her armchair and went to stand by him for the official Christmas photo of the first family. Then she returned to her armchair and to Lorena.

Roosevelt gave a brief welcoming speech full of platitudes about tradition and family Christmas, then gestured toward the black-suited man who stood next to him.

“In keeping with the religious meaning behind this lovely evening, I’ve invited Pastor Bainbridge to give us a little inspirational talk. Pastor Bainbridge? You have the floor.”

The pastor cleared his throat and glanced around the room. “The president and Mrs. Roosevelt have asked me to bring a Christian message to this event, and rather than read the usual story from Luke, I’ve decided to break with tradition a bit and perhaps find another meaning for faith. Please bear with me as we explore the thoughts of a great Russian mind.” He held up a thin, red paperback book entitled The Grand Inquisitor.

“This is a short work that appears as a chapter in one of the novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In this scene, Christ returns during the Inquisition and performs a few miracles but is arrested by the inquisitor and cast into a dark cell. But then…” The pastor began reading from his booklet.

In the pitch darkness the iron door of the prison suddenly opened and the Grand Inquisitor came in. “Why art Thou come to hinder us? Tomorrow I shall burn Thee at the stake as the worst of heretics. For Thou mayest not add to what has been said of old, and mayest not take from men the freedom which Thou didst exalt when Thou wast on earth with thy three temptations. For fifteen centuries men have been wrestling with Thy freedom, but finally, they have brought their freedom to us, the Church, and laid it humbly at our feet.

The pastor glanced up from his book. “To refresh your memory, Satan offers Jesus three temptations. One, give everyone bread, and they will follow you. Two, jump from a high place without injury to prove you are divine. And three, become ruler of the earth to compel people to do good. Jesus refuses. And why? For the sake of free will, so that men can choose faith or not. But the inquisitor claims that free will is a curse and that, fortunately, the Church has removed it and comforts mankind by claiming absolute authority over human behavior. Believers, he says, ‘crawl to us and lick our feet’ for liberating them from that freedom. And when they ask wherefore comes our knowledge of what God wants, we call it Mystery.”

He looked up at his audience and seemed to catch Mia’s eye before continuing. “But here is the lesson, my friends. Christ never replies. He simply kisses the old inquisitor on the lips in the Russian manner. That is his answer: the kiss, the embrace of the denier, irrespective of the power of his argument. What’s more, the entire tale of the inquisitor is told by Ivan, the atheist in the novel, and when he tells it to his pious younger brother who quarrels with him, the boy kisses him in the same way.”

He closed his little red book slowly, as if it were scripture, and tucked it under his arm. “Here endeth the Christmas lesson, my friends. It concludes with the command to love one another, to counter heartless reason with God’s greatest gift, the kiss.”

He bowed his head to polite applause and did not seem to notice that his listeners were exchanging bewildered glances. “I wish you all Merry Christmas,” he said, and stepped away.

“What the hell was that all about?” Lorena Hickok had wandered over to where Mia stood.

Mia frowned. “Beats me. He couldn’t have picked a worse author than Dostoyevsky. I read that chapter in school. It’s much much longer, and much more boring. And the whole notion of kissing away logic is… well, insulting.”

Harry Hopkins joined them. “I think you’re being a little hard on poor old Dostoyevsky. He was doing the best he could for the time. He saw suffering all around him and used his characters to act out the arguments going on in his head.”

“Don’t all novelists do that?” Mia asked.

Lorena snorted. “The boring ones do. The good ones give you the romance in the first chapter.”

Hopkins laid a thin hand very lightly on her shoulder, urging her toward the bowls of potato salad, plates of toast triangles covered with cheese or cold cuts, and a platters of cakes and cookies. “I say we stop worrying about Russian literature and enjoy the party treats.”

Mia loaded her plate and joined the line to the punch bowl, where one of the kitchen staff ladled out hot mulled cider. While she shuffled forward holding her plate, she had a sudden recollection of the Crusader’s sword Churchill had presented to Joseph Stalin and Stalin’s response of kissing the blade. Not what Dostoyevsky intended, she thought, smiling to herself. Obviously, there were kisses, and kisses—but all of them silenced speech.

* * *

Christmas morning Mia ambled leisurely down the hall from the White House cafeteria where the staff had just enjoyed a breakfast of pancakes and waffles. She clutched her gifts, the box of chocolate the Roosevelts gave to every staff member and the new fountain pen Harry Hopkins had bought her. A Schaeffer White Dot, in tortoise shell. Now she was headed toward the library to fill it with ink. As she reached the stairs, a bulky figure blocked her way.

“Merry Christmas!” Lorena Hickok said with robust cheer. “Have you looked out the window? It’s started to snow, and I was just searching for someone to stroll through the Rose Garden with me.”

Mia was still intimidated by the gruff woman with the deep voice, but she didn’t relish spending the rest of Christmas Day in her tiny upstairs chamber with only her radio as a companion. “Sure. Just let me get my coat.”

Reaching her room, she deposited her gifts on the bed, snatched up her wool coat and hat, and hurried down again to the door leading to the Rose Garden.

The snow now fell in thick flakes, and their footprints whitened again behind them. Mia drew her scarf tighter, wondering what they’d talk about.

“So, how was the Tehran conference?” Lorena began the conversation. “I know it was ages ago, but I was away on business all of December, and we haven’t talked since you left. Did you meet the big man himself?”

“Stalin? Of course I didn’t meet him, but I did see him up close. He’s rather ugly but has a certain magnetism, and everyone’s afraid of him. He has a Georgian accent, too.”

Lorena guffawed. “That’s right. Eleanor told me you’re Russian, so you can understand him. When did your family come over?” She swatted a bush, knocking off the powdery snow.

“Back in 1918, from St. Petersburg, during the civil war. I was ten.”

“Do you get nostalgic when you hear the language?”

Mia thought for a moment. “Yes, I suppose it has a certain warmth that reminds me of childhood. But what about you? Where do you call home? And what brings you to the White House? If I may ask.”

Lorena raised her collar to cover her neck and closed the last button. “I’m from Wisconsin and was damned glad to get away from the place when I went to work for the Associated Press.”

“Journalism must be exciting.”

“It was. I met great people—actresses, musicians, opera singers. And in ’32, I covered the campaign of a certain Franklin Delano Roosevelt, where I met Eleanor. She got me a position working on the New Deal programs. Then, just before the war, I was hired by the Democratic National Committee.”

“Sounds like you’re very important to the Roosevelts.” The snow wafted into her face, and she tugged her hat lower on her forehead.

“I like to think so. But I’m a little jealous of your travels. I mean, you’ve just been in Iran with the leaders of the Western world.”

“Yes, it was amazing to listen to those men discuss the fate of all of Europe, how they planned to divide Germany and Poland, and so forth. And at the dinners, they drank like fish.”

Lorena laughed again. “Yes, they do that, those politicos. Some sort of test of manliness. Even if it kills them.”

Mia felt a certain warmth from Lorena, a certain trust. Spontaneously, she added, “And you should have seen the Russian honor guards. Exotic uniforms, Slavic faces, the kind you don’t often see here. Some of them really beautiful. There was one, a blonde…”

“A boy? They have that kind of ash-blond look. A bit rough, but appealing.”

“No. This one was a girl. A young woman. Her name was Alexia.”

“Ah, you even learned her name. Well done.”

They made a circuit of the White House and returned to the portal. Mia glanced back over the grounds, watching their footprints in the white carpet gradually disappear. She smiled at the fantasy landscape, vaguely recalling innocent winters in St. Petersburg.

As they entered, a man waited next to a security guard, and her heart sank. “It’s all right to admit him,” she said to the guard. “It’s my brother.” She waved good-bye to Lorena and drew him to the side, scowling. “For God’s sake, what are you doing here?”

“I had a hell of a time finding you. I knew you were in Washington, working on the war in some way, but I never thought you’d be here. Wow. Nice going.”

She drew him to a quiet corner. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

He pursed his lips, as if reluctant to speak. “The police have reopened the case of Father’s death.”

“What? Why? It’s been over a year now, and they found no evidence of a crime.”

Van shrugged helplessly. “Apparently Smerdjakov, you know, his boss, found a letter that you’d sent his wife saying how much you wanted to get rid of him.”

“But that’s nonsense.”

“You never wrote a letter?” Van crossed his arms.

Mia found herself stammering. “Well, I did, but it was just some silly love letter written in a fever of infatuation. I mentioned something about having big plans once I was free of him, but I just meant after I’d moved out. She knew I’d applied for a better job and planned to leave.”

She winced, recalling her reckless trust in someone so shallow. “So now I’m a suspect again?”

“Not officially. I mean, the police have the letter, and they’ve questioned Grushenka. I just wanted to let you know what’s going on so you could, well, get away if you need to. I mean, they can pick you up at any moment here.”

“Van, I’m not going to run away from my job at the White House just because the police found an old love letter from me that said I was unhappy at home. You were, too. We both hated his hypocrisy, the way he ruined God for us.”

“Yeah, he did, didn’t he? Certainly as an explanation for the whole wretched world. The war, the suffering, the guilt and obligations that have nothing to do with reality. It’s like a train ride I don’t want to be on.”

“So you’re an atheist now?”

He shrugged. “It’s not God that I don’t accept, Mia, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket.” He buttoned up his coat. “Take care of yourself,” he said, and strode toward the door.

She watched him pass the security guard and disappear across the Rose Garden. Typical cynical Van. But she was inclined to agree with him.

Alexia snapped to attention in the guard station at the Kremlin Palace. “At ease, soldier.” Nikolai Vlasik, head of Stalin’s bodyguards, passed by with a slight nod. She resumed her guard position holding her ceremonial rifle across her chest.

She hoped he hadn’t noticed how bored she was. The Special Purpose Regiment had an important function, of course, guarding the heads of government. But it didn’t feel like service to the motherland.

Perhaps it was the cold that crept into her from the concrete floor of the station. Outside the station it was twenty below zero, and though she kept the door shut and wore a thick wool coat, her shiny leather boots seemed to conduct the cold right up her back.

The already dark afternoon and evening dragged by, and finally, at eighteen hours, her relief came. She stepped out, saluted, stepped to the side, and marched stiffly away while the new guard took up position.

Her ice-cold feet ached as she crunched through the snow along the northern corner of the Kremlin. She passed the rows of antique French cannons mounted in front as trophies and fast-marched to the end of the barracks, where the women of the regiment were housed.