Ikons

IKONS

IKONS

______________________________________

Saint Nicholas The Wonder Worker

Steve Pribish

Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker

Ikon carried by Russian immigrants

on their journey to America

IKONS

Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker

By Stephen J. Pribish

All rights reserved

Copyright 2013 Stephen J. Pribish

Smashwords Edition

For information: flyingbrickvideo.com flyingbrickvideo.com

Print copies of this book are available at most online retailers

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history. Cicero

We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path, which has led to the present. Adlai Stevenson

History is a tangled skein that may take up at any point and break when one has unraveled enough. Henry Adams

That men do not learn very much from history is the most important of all lessons that history has to teach. Aldus Huxley

INTRODUCTION

Years Ago and Far Away

I really don’t know when I first saw the portrait. I just know I was old enough to remember, but not old enough to understand. It wasn’t that it was a great work of art, like a painting you might find hanging beside a Monet at the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue--far from it. It was something you would find hanging from a rusty nail in the forgotten corner of an old garage or moldering behind ancient packing crates in a musty cellar. It was a pretend masterpiece; always on the verge of being discarded because the images trapped within its timeworn frame no longer evoked cherished memories.

Five solemn faces peered out from the portrait--an adult couple and three children. Not one of them smiled. The man, dressed in a brown pinstriped suit, was dark-complexioned with thick black hair and a matching mustache that flowed across his face. I always thought he looked very proud of his suit and the people around him. The woman was slightly shorter than the man and stood at his side. Her narrow blue eyes stared out from a face framed by light brown hair fiercely pulled back in a tight bun. Her slim figure was shrouded in a white dress adorned with little blue flecks. Two sad-looking burr-haired boys stood in front of the man and woman. I believed the boys were sad because they were dressed in such funny clothes. Between the two boys was a girl about their height, also dressed strangely. Although she seemed to be near the boys’ age, her face showed the wear of someone much older.

The portrait hung in the storeroom beneath what we called the old house in Rockdale, Illinois. Even now when I recall the room, long gone sights and smells come flooding back to me. The storeroom was filled with all the things a young boy found intriguing and a young mother strove to keep from his reach. Wonderful aromas of dill, garlic, sage, and pepper filled the air, for the room was home to the pickle vats, racks of hard sausage, and spices common in village homes of the time. Jammed against three of its limestone walls were stacks of discarded orange crates filled with all types of real and imagined mysterious goods.

High atop the fourth wall was a single grimy window half hidden by delicate lace curtains and crisscrossed by the cobwebs of long departed spiders. On extremely bright days the sun’s rays would penetrate the grime and if I hit the curtains just right with my stick, dust motes would waltz through the spotlight for me. On the floor below the window was an old steamer trunk, its once polished sides and brass fittings dulled by age, its contents forever hidden. Above the steamer, displayed in a place of honor between two much faded holy pictures, was the portrait.

One day as I stood before the portrait, an adult from my world put a hand on my shoulder, pointed to the portrait and said, They are your family. They were, it was explained, my grandfather and grandmother, my father, his brother John, and my grandmother’s younger sister.

After that I was drawn to the portrait even more. Although the images supposedly represented people I knew, they certainly did not resemble them. The man identified as my grandfather looked too stern and was dressed in a fine suit. In no way did he resemble the kindly old man in coveralls who took me to the Rialto Theater for the Saturday matinee shoot-‘em-up and let me eat all the popcorn I wanted. Those two little boys could never have been my father and uncle, since I still believed big was always big and little was always little. As for the other two--I simply had no grandmother or great-aunt.

As I grew I spent my time in the twilight world of family affairs. I was vaguely aware when relatives were or were not on particularly friendly terms with one another, but the exact circumstances concerned me much less than the Cubs’ latest losing streak. However, I always knew there was something strangely distressing about the portrait. Direct questions concerning its past were usually met with a sad silence. Eventually, I learned not to ask direct questions about what happened years ago and far away. Time passed and I outgrew the mantel of childhood and my interest in the portrait waned. When the portrait left the cellar for a new home with my Uncle John, I barely took notice.

The portrait entered my life again when John announced he was moving to Arizona and taking the portrait with him. To my parents, it was the Vatican leaving Rome or Saint Basil’s being ripped from Moscow’s Red Square--Paris losing its Eiffel Tower or Egypt the Pyramids. They were to be separated from the portrait. Afterward, daily discussions of the portrait dominated my parents’ lives, but now when they spoke, I listened. If I sat quietly at the kitchen table and sipped my once forbidden buttered-coffee, guarded secrets would open. Slowly the stories behind the portrait and the emotions they evoked were revealed like a puzzle with hundreds of pieces. Some pieces fit perfectly; others needed force. Some were clearly defined while others were so timeworn their murky contributions were barely legible. All the pieces were there. They just needed someone to put them together.

Chapter 1: Papa, Will You Wish Us Well?

If you were in the city you would be fondling a real woman, not a kopek photograph from a bagman. Massey leaned on his digging stick and once again began to badger his brother. Samuel, we have to leave Hutawa. Now! No more excuses. First you won't go because it's planting season, then the crops need weeding. Next we can't leave before harvest. If we wait for this perfect time of yours, we will never leave this hell hole.

Samuel quickly tucked the nude picture into his tunic and looked about nervously. His hand made an attempt to silence his little brother, but Massey would not be stilled.

Samuel, you know what the bagman told us. There is money in Gromel, Brest, and now Baranovichi. Big money. Our future is there, not in this boloto we call a farm. Moy Bozja, Samuel, I'm already into my sixteenth summer. I don't want to be like Schoko, wasting my life in this village. Or like Masha waiting --

Don't say that name.

But Samuel, you know we can't keep waiting. It's time to show him our cards.

Da, it's true, Samuel sighed. We cannot wait any longer. I promise. I will tell the Major. Truly, this time I will tell him. I will speak after the evening meal. Samuel knew these words were the same he had uttered many times in the last year. He also knew his resolution would again falter when it came time to face their father, Major Sergei Michavolich Pribish.

Massey listened to Samuel's words and wanted to believe, but he could not help but notice the shudders that kept passing through his brother's body. Da, Massey whispered, tonight, the Major will hear.

* * *

Byelorussia at the turn of the twentieth century was a land in transition. The old feudal ways were rapidly giving way to the new capitalism of the industrial age. All through western Tsarist Russia factories were springing up, heralding a new order for the inhabitants. The old culture and traditional rules no longer applied. All men were now free of the yoke that required them to remain in their birthplace and pay homage to an authority that had its roots of power in the distant past. It was a new world with wealth for the taking, but only for those who were not of the timid dozen.

Young Matvey Sergeyevich Pribish, known to the villagers as Massey, was one of the many lured by the siren's song of wealth. He longed to go off to this marvelous place called the city and seek his fortune. Raised in the village of Hutawa in far western Byelorussia, Massey saw no end to the dreary life of a Russian peasant. He felt tethered to the land, his fate sealed in the great peat bogs and lowlands of the Pripet Marsh. From his earliest youth he had been told to accept this fate: marry early, stay with his family, and live out his existence in a squalid izbah sustained only by vegetables and small animals. Tradition promised him a life that prodded along into a black future with death as his only release. Massey wanted more.

As bad as Massey saw life, he and his brother Samuel fared better than most. Their father, Sergei Michavolich Pribish, had served honorably in the Tsar's army as an infantry officer defending Rodina in the far fringes of her empire. For his loyalty, Sergei was rewarded with a monthly pension and land in the village of his forefathers. He was allowed several parcels of land that could be charitably described as modest. It was enough for Sergei, his wife, two sons and a daughter, but little more. His family survived the great famine of 1895, but it led to his wife's early death several years later. As the boys grew the crop yield seemed smaller and food never lasted the winter. Hunger was a hard lesson and well to be learned by all. They knew life was fragile and only the strong survived.

* * *

Papa, we are leaving Hutawa. We are going to work in the city. Will you give us your blessing and wish us well?

Even though Sergei expected this moment, Massey's words nearly caused him to choke on a mouthful of beets. Both his sons stood defiantly before him, eyes straight ahead. The young one did not even blink. Sergei's first impulse was to begin shouting. But instead he slowly rose from the table and began pacing and twisting the tip of his mustache with his right hand. The twisting was a trait he picked up in the army and showed he was about to make a decision. I could force the ingrates to stay, he thought. After all, I am their father and they must respect my wishes. Also, physically I can thrash them both. The eldest knows that very well. Samuel, as though reading his father's thoughts, took a hesitant step back. For a moment Sergei stopped his pacing, looked at Samuel, then began pacing anew. No, that wouldn't do. In time they will just run away.

Sergei's cold gray eyes looked blankly into a wall of the izbah until a single strand of hair worked loose in his fingers. He stopped and studied the piece of hair. Gray, he said softly to himself. They say gray hair means wisdom.

Where do you plan to go? Sergei asked. He addressed the question to neither son and did not really know how he would take the answer.

Grovel, Brest, Warsaw, the boys answered as one. Eagerness now burned in their eyes.

Sergei raised his hand signaling silence. You're dividing a bear you haven't yet caught. How will you live? Where will you stay? What will you eat? Who…? Sergei's last words died in his throat. The boys had made their decision. He could see there was no turning them from the course they chose. Whatever they did from this time, they would do with or without his consent. Maybe in earlier days Sergei would have threatened and bellowed and coerced them into staying. In the old days if they left village tongues would wag of Sergei the failure and how he could not feed his children. Those days, however, were past. Today all the young men were leaving the boloto. Even the Tsar, May God bless and protect him, encouraged the peasants to go to the cities.

Sergei continued his dramatic deliberation for what he considered the proper length of time. He added a few empty gestures for effect, then granted his sons' request. He raised his hands to heaven and asked God and the saints to protect his sons in this life and the next. Then he gave them a crushing hug and ended by kissing each three times, once for the Father, once for the Son, and once for the Holy Spirit. Massey and Samuel had taken the first step in their long journey. A journey that would span decades and continents, witness the destruction of empires, and the beginning of lives in new and undreamed of lands.

* * *

Before sunup the next the next morning the boys were gone. Massey and Samuel were now part of an army of men wandering the roads of Russia in search of work. From city to city they traveled and in each they stood as suppliants in front of factory gates. They stood and waited and hoped that this time the foreman would pick them.

I knew this was a bad idea from the start, grumbled Samuel as yet another ornate iron gate slammed shut in their face. We've been gone over three weeks and haven't come close to a real work. The best you could do was two days digging a ditch. And then you had to punch the boss in the nose.

He was cheating us.

You still shouldn't have punched him.

Massey ignored his brother's last words and looked about as if searching for something. He peered down the dusty road toward the outskirts of the city and sniffed the air. Suddenly he tapped the side of his nose and cried out. That way, he pointed. Baranovichi. That's the place Samuel. This time I'm sure. I can smell it. Baranovichi has big factories and where there are factories, there is work. You'll see. I'm sure of it. That is the place.

That's what your nose said about this city little brother, sighed Samuel as he shouldered his bag and fell in step.

* * *

Victor I. Matousko walked out of the gate of Glebov Iron Works and was immediately surrounded by the morning's throng of desperate men. The would-be laborers stood there silent, their caps in their hands. They all look like beggars, said Victor to the yard-boss as the two walked through the crowd. Victor looked carefully at each man trying to decide who would give the most work for the least pay. Over to one side he saw two young men standing apart from the rest. They were of medium height and strongly resembled one another. One, the oldest, already had a dense growth of hair on his upper lip; the other lad, only a mere shadow. Both were lean. Not the hungry lean Victor usually saw, but a sturdy, muscular lean. Their hair was black and close cropped, more in the fashion of a soldier than the bowl-shaped chasha of a peasant, and their skin was still dark from days in the sun. It was obvious both were just off the land and not yet broken by factory labor. Victor leaned toward the yard-boss and pointed a leathery finger at Samuel and Massey. Those two, he said and quickly walked back to the mill.

How do they call you? asked the yard-boss.

They call me Samuel Sergeyevich.

And they call me Matvey Sergeyevich, came the replies.

And your family?

Pribish, said both.

Byeloruss. Dobra! You two will be assigned to the loading crew. You will receive eight kopecki a day. The whistle blows at seven each morning and work lasts till finish.

Samuel couldn't believe their luck--eight kopecki a day. That would be forty-eight kopecki every week. More money than he had ever imagined. Samuel was so busy figuring the worth of his fortune he missed the deductions from his pay. They would be charged ten kopecki each week for food and housing and seven kopecki for equipment. With each statement the cost mounted. Massey did listen and was dumbstruck. He wasn't exactly sure of the numbers, but by time the deductions were completed, he and Samuel would be working for not more than seven kopecki a week.

Both of you be here at six tomorrow morning.

Yes, sir. But I thought you said work begins at seven? questioned Samuel.

It does. For you two, six.

* * *

The Glebov Iron Works produced iron rails. Not the strong rails that formed the backbone of America or Western Europe, but iron rails none the less. Smaller and lighter than standard rails, the product of the Glebov family was in great demand for the railway connecting European Russia to the Far East. In a matter of months the harsh conditions across Siberia destroyed all rails, no matter how well