Ekaterina (21 page)

Pyotr stood up and held out his hand to Vadeem. “No hard feelings, okay? I know you’re just doing your job.”

Vadeem looked like he’d been sucker punched. He blinked at Pyotr then his head dipped down in a half nod. “Right.”

Pyotr turned to Kat, his signature kind grin on his face. “And I’ll see you tonight.” He clamped his hand on her shoulder. “Kat, whatever happens, remember that God has a plan in all this. He hasn’t forgotten you, or your family, wherever they are.”

Words failed her. She nodded.

Vadeem watched him go, suspicion swishing about his eyes. “Creepy.”

Kat frowned. “What do you mean?”

Vadeem leaned forward. “Aren’t you feeling the least bit weird about this? Last night I tell you you’re related to Anton Klassen, and today his diary shows up in your hands?”

The way he put it, it did sound incredible. But then again, his disbelief discounted God’s omniscient ways. The Almighty had a knack for the incredible. Like Phillip’s ordained meeting on the road with an Ethiopian searching the Scriptures. Or Saul, before he was Paul, helping to stone the very first martyr, Stephen. Or even Joseph, sent to Egypt years before famine, to become ruler and save the family that had betrayed him. Holy coincidences. “Not weird at all, Vadeem. Maybe planned. Maybe this entire thing has been planned out from the beginning by the Master. I have been praying for His intervention.”

“No.” Vadeem folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not buying it.”

She shrugged. “Are you saying God doesn’t orchestrate our lives?” Her heart pinched. “Or are you saying you don’t believe in God?”

He smirked. “Calm down, Kat. I believe in God. I know He’s out there. I even believe He plans out our lives. I’m just not talking to Him, that’s all.”

She felt as if she’d dove into the big mysterious ocean that was Vadeem. She stared at him, seeing beyond the soldier, the defiant expression, his solid set jaw, now sufficiently covered in dark whiskers, and into the past.

Vadeem and God were at war.

Faith destroys.

Vadeem hadn’t won the last battle with faith. He’d crashed and burned. How long ago had that fight been waged?

He sat back, arms crossed over his muscled chest, gaze fixed hard on her.

She ached to know what he was hiding. “It’s a pretty dangerous thing not to talk to God. He is, after all,
God
.”

He shook his head, raising his gaze to the ceiling. A couple shuffled into the café and sat down at a table behind him. A muscle pulsed in Vadeem’s jaw. He licked his lips, as if trying to form words. Finally, “I suppose I can’t face Him.”

The words made her wince. She leaned across the table and touched his arm. “You know, God doesn’t hold us responsible for the things that happen to us. Just for how we react to them.”

His voice dropped to a wretched whisper. “That’s the problem.”

-

Vadeem sat outside the courtroom, on the hall bench. He held Anton’s diary on his lap, carefully turning the pages, skimming for clues. Inside he could hear the hum of voices. Kat had dressed to perfection today, looking impossibly beautiful in a white sleeveless sweater and black pants. It brought out a tan on her arms and a delicious dotting of freckles on her shoulders.

He’d struggled to let her walk into the courtroom alone, but common sense told him, if she’d be safe anywhere, it was in the local halls of justice. And, after the way she’d carved out the secrets of his soul, he needed a little breathing space. Not too much, just enough to get his feet back under him.

She was entirely too perceptive for his own good. Where did she dig up those responses that opened his heart with one slash?
He is after all, God
.

He, better than anyone, knew what
that
meant. He knew exactly whom he’d messed with twenty-odd years ago and harbored no illusions that the outcome had been anything but the righteous wrath of God.

He felt pretty sure that God wouldn’t talk to
him
, even if Vadeem scraped up the courage to face Him.

He breathed deep and long, trying to break free of the impending doom that had coiled around his chest. Perhaps it was the mention of the prayer meeting.

He was a strong man, and it would take a small army to get him inside that church. That—or Kat’s tears. But he’d steeled his heart to her plaintive cries before. He could do it again.

Right. He winced. He’d been so good at ignoring her that he was sitting in a dirty hall, a thousand kilometers from Moscow, reading a diary from a man who’d likely been dead for close to a century, while the man he should be chasing was reading library books and plotting his next great heist.

Ekaterina Moore had turned his life inside out.

He stretched out his legs, feeling like he’d aged a year in the past forty-eight hours. He’d hadn’t felt so wasted since basic training.

Vadeem rubbed his eyes and stared at the diary. Who was Anton Klassen? And what was an old
babushka
in the middle of Russia doing with his diary? Vadeem had skimmed a few pages and read about a man who struggled, obviously, between two worlds. Anton wrote about a world of war. . .a time Vadeem understood only through the lectures of his teachers. But through Anton’s eyes, Vadeem saw a different history.

March 3, 1917

Chaos rules the land and I sit here, immobilized, in the icy clutches of pure fear. Over and over again, my heart cries out with the cadence of a repetitious prayer
—
a desperate plea for wisdom and divine guidance. How can I ever hope to fulfill my hastily spoken promises? Where do I begin? How could he ask me, an ordinary citizen from the steppes of southern Russia, to accomplish such grave tasks? O Lord, please, direct my steps. Show me the path you would have me take. Give me courage to do your will. May I prove myself a loyal patriot in these days of uncertainty that lie ahead.

What tasks, Anton? What are you afraid of? Vadeem kept flipping, searching for any mention of the crest.

March 20, 1917

To think, the somber beauty, Oksana, now bears my name. Oh, but what have I done? How will I ever explain to Papa without breaking his heart? Even so, I shall willingly, and in silence, bear the reproach of my father should I, through this commitment, find it possible to discharge my patriot vow. If only the Lord will bless our union and forgive me for betraying the faith of my ancestors.

In the taking of a bride, I have brought upon myself sure misery when I return home. In truth, misery lurks in the shadows even now, for my new wife seems no happier with our marital arrangement than I. Her sullen disposition appeared to sink to the depths of sadness after the ceremony. Yet, despite her solemn countenance, her beauty fills my heart, my soul, and at times, I struggle to even breathe.

Vadeem closed his eyes. He knew what it meant to struggle to breathe around a woman. He’d been gasping for air since Kat walked into his life, dazed as a freshly netted fish, but eerily happy to perish, if only beside her.

He cringed. Kat Moore was turning him into a poet.

He turned more pages, skimming, noting dates.

November, 1917

Untold sorrow fills my soul on this day, which should have been my most joyous ever. No sooner had I found myself adrift in Oksana’s sweet love than our world came crashing in. They died as my wife and I looked helplessly on from our secret place. Their screams echo in my heart, torment my every thought, even my soul. What kind of man am I that my brothers should die while I live? How can my faith survive such horror?

Vadeem’s breath clogged in his chest. He reread the words, their accuracy like a spear through the soul. He closed the book, unable to swallow, feeling saliva pool in his mouth, bitter.
What kind of man am I that my brothers should die while I live? How can faith survive such horror?

What had happened to torment Anton Klassen’s thoughts?

Vadeem knew all about souls filled with sorrow. And questions of why. He forced himself to swallow, to breathe in and out.

He opened the book, his chest tight at what he might find.

June 1918

Oksana came to me, full with our child. She knows what we must do, but do I have the strength to say yes? I’ve been entrusted with too great a task. I fear my shoulders are not large enough for it. Even now, as I hold Oksana and the night air blows with the warmth of spring, fear nips at me like a wolf. The Bolsheviks will return. And we have nowhere left to hide.

July 1918

Banya with Timofea. I cleared my soul as we sat as brothers in the Lord. He understands. He is a good friend, and will help carry my burdens. He says God will find a way to keep His promise. I know it now to be true. I tucked my past into the darkness, then turned toward the light. I even found a verse upon which to cling. John 11:9. His light has illuminated my dark paths. He has set me free. Now, my prayer is that Timofea will keep his promise, in due time. Only God knows the future, and I am trusting in His word. Peace can be had for those who have faith.

Peace? Vadeem nearly threw the book across the hall, furious. Not a word about the crest, but plenty about suffering and pain…and now peace. Vadeem slammed it shut and clenched his jaw.

“Vadeem, are you okay?”

He flinched, then looked up into Kat’s gaze, honey sweet and brimming with concern. “Yes.”

“You look. . .angry.”

Vadeem took a breath and pasted on a smile. “How did it go in there?” He looked beyond her to the couple who had just exited the courtroom. They were beaming, tears dripped down the woman’s cheeks. “I assume, well?”

Kat smiled, radiant. “They can pick up Gleb tomorrow. Director Shasliva booked them on a late afternoon flight back to Moscow tomorrow.” She touched his arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

He handed her the book. “I couldn’t find anything we might use in here.”

She took it, her smile dimming. “Are you sure? Maybe you didn’t look hard enough.”

“I’m sure,” he said, a little too stiffly for his own taste. He looked away but saw her frown and feared she’d seen beyond his words to the wound festering in his soul.

Chapter 14

Vadeem sat in the lobby, hands white, clutching the arms of his chair, looking as if he awaited execution.

Vadeem had to be wrestling demons.
Spiritual warfare was the only reason Kat could conjure up that could turn a kind, even gallant man into a sullen tag-along. What had happened to the lion-hearted soldier who had camped outside her door for two nights, dug up her past, and even made her tremble with unspoken emotions?

Kat had to get him inside that church. She’d prayed all day, without ceasing. Even as she made her plea before the Russian judge, her mind, her prayers lingered on Vadeem. She didn’t know why, but some inner, unspoken urge pulsed at her to pray, to plead for help like the persistent widow before the judge’s door in the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke.

God, I don’t know what is going on, but please help Vadeem find peace.
Her heart ached at the agony on his face. He leaned forward and buried his face in his heads, and her spirit groaned.

Had he read something in Anton’s book? She’d entertained misgivings about handing it over him even for the few hours she was in court, but had hoped his sleuthing prowess would catch clues her uninformed eyes would pass over. True to character, he’d taken good care of the book, and passed it back to her moments after she’d exited the courtroom, almost as if he couldn’t wait to get rid of it.

She tugged out the diary and smoothed her hand on the cover. Soft and worn, it wasn’t a heavy book, but it held the weighty secrets of a man’s past. It told the Klassen heritage, one she suddenly longed to claim as her own.

Kat checked her watch. Pyotr was late. She flipped through the book, but the uneven scrawl in early twentieth-century colloquial Russian would take more scrutiny that she could muster at the moment. She tucked the book into her backpack, hoping for a quiet moment tonight to read it.

Perhaps Rina, Pyotr’s mother, could also help illuminate the dark past. She prayed Pyotr was wrong and that Baba Rina’s stories, while wild, might be just what Kat needed to tame the restlessness in her heart.

“Maybe he’s not coming.”

Kat looked up, read the look of hope on Vadeem’s face, and slowly shook her head. “He’ll be here.” She hesitated a moment, then surrendered to the urge and touched his arm. “Vadeem, I think you should come with me. God loves you and He’s waiting for you.”

“I’m not going, Kat.” The tight expression on Vadeem’s face left no room for argument.

Kat nodded, her throat tightening. She sat back, crossed her arms, and prayed for a miracle. Only a holy act of God was going to get Vadeem Spasonov in the church.

But God had been abundant with miracles of late. She tucked her backpack over her shoulder.