The view from the base of Chersonesus––the hardscrabble ruins set against the gleaming walls of the Orthodox church––has the feel of a counterpoint composition that has yet to resolve itself into harmony. The contrast strikes me with new force when the priest returns on the eve of our re-opening. I meet with him immediately after lunch with my colleague in order to go over the plan for the next day. My voice is enthusiastic as I summarize my work, but it is difficult to get past the fact that he sees Chersonesus, my Chersonesus, the Chersonesus of archons and demiurgi, as little more than a prelude to that which came after, a set piece to a political drama in which I have been improbably tasked with a bit part. There is little we can say or do, it seems, to push the margins of his cloistered imagination.
* * *
In Alla’s flat that evening, I am overcome with guilt. After work, two-thirds of my colleagues handed in their resignation letters. These were accepted without hesitation. Their attempt to unseat the priest had failed.
“It wasn’t an easy decision.” Alla is sympathetic, yet I know her to be a woman for whom hypotheticals hold little attraction. If I had been born someone else. If I could love another way. If I had not been in the accident. These questions are routes to nowhere good; she has closed her heart to them. “And anyway, whether you joined them or not, things would still have turned out the same.”
“But Alla, that doesn’t justify my choice. And I didn’t even make a choice! I just sat there. I couldn’t even look him in the eyes and tell him no.”
“So choose!” This is the first time I can remember her raising her voice to me. “But choose and leave chosen.”
“You’re right––that’s my problem. I’m not even a consistent traitor! At noon I take one course of action, and five hours later I’m wishing I’d taken the other one. I just pick and pick and pick the scab. Like a child.”
Alla touches my arm.
I stop then. I understand that there is no point for either of us in continuing. I allow myself to be enfolded in the abstraction of embrace.
* * *
As I shower and prepare the next morning, I know that Alla is only pretending to be asleep. I do not make any move to lift the veil of her ruse. Yet I want to be able to say goodbye to her. More than that. I want to be able to talk to her on these mornings, one of us still unready, or half-dressed, or barely awake, and for none of this to matter. I want for us to be uncomposed together. But I know that this is not the shape of things.