Theophany, January 19

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The middle of a harsh winter, colder than recent memory. An ice storm over Christmas that knocked out power for most of the town, the church spared, thank God, but it froze the pond inches thick. The priest and Mikhail Zoubine and his sons spend the weeks between New Years and Theophany cutting into the ice and constructing a platform in the shape of a cross out on the edge of the pond. They built a hut on the bank too, a few yards back from the water, the base dug into the frozen ground. Alena, who manages the office at St. Tikhon Orthodox Church, and has managed it since her retirement nearly ten years ago, watches them grunt and sweat, watches every morning as they shed layer by layer, catches herself admiring the older Zoubine boy’s broad chest and chuckles at herself. Old fool, she thinks. Young men, she thinks. When I was younger, well, she thinks. She’s often alone in the church during the winter weeks, huddling next to the old groaning radiators or wrapping herself in blanket after blanket, sneezing occasionally from the dust. She caught herself in the mirror just before Christmas, three blankets piled on her shoulders, and began howling in laughter at the matryoshka doll staring back in the reflection.

The men work outside and Alena practices Russian on an app that one of the Zoubine boys, Nikita, set up for her. It is colorful and has games that lead her through words she half-remembers, a vocabulary shaken off almost as quickly as the dirt that had traveled over the Atlantic clinging to the sides of her shoes. How hard she had worked to purge the Muscovite from her body, refusing to speak anything other than English once she arrived in Kansas, hiring a dialect coach to smooth her consonants and refine her vowels, her accent so close to midland America blandness after a few years that most people she met assumed she was Kansan by birth. She was no longer mocked when others thought she was out of earshot, and was proud to be brought in on the gossip of the born-and-bred American girls at her office. At the annual potlucks, though, she would make walnut rolls the way her mother had taught her, happy to see the buttery crumbs clinging to the mustaches and beards of her supervisors.

Back then she only set foot in church on the Sunday of Pascha, secretly worried that she wouldn’t be let over the threshold, that her rejection of her homeland would be mimicked by that homeland’s God. But now, retired and wrapped in her blankets, she wishes she could undo the smoothing, the purging, the years of blending. Now she feels a deep longing, one that requires a focus so as not to overwhelm.

Early on this morning of Theophany the men install a pump beneath the platform. The structure itself is complete, as is the hut, split into two rooms, one for men and one for women. Inside of each sits an electric heater, ready to offer relief to those who will plunge into the water later in the day. The platform with the giant cross-shaped hole sits out on the pond, with a ladder descending from the bottom section of the cross into the water. The men have to break up the ice that formed overnight along the wooden slats and attach the small pump to the base of the planks to stir the water and keep it from freezing again. Mikhail Zoubine, a deacon and Education Director at the church, works to attach the machine, his arm almost turning blue in the water as he tells his sons for the hundredth time about dunking in the Neva River as a child, how they had to take care where they carved into the ice so that parishioners taking the plunge would not find themselves in a current, washed off and trapped beneath. Alex, the older son, home from college, rolls his eyes at Nikita, the younger, who smiles back and leans down to help his father. The youngest Zoubine boy has enjoyed the week of work, out here with his father and brother, with Isaac the priest. He has enjoyed being one of the men. Men he could be like, he thinks, if he tried.

Father Isaac, waist deep in the water on the far side of the platform, checks the supports a final time. He walks towards the shore in his large rubber waders and shakes himself out of them, muttering about the cold but all smiles, his long beard flecked with ice. He thanks the Zoubines for their help and shuffles up the hill to the church. There is so much to do, already late getting ready for matins and liturgy, and then the blessing of the waters. A caravan of sedans and SUVs has already begun winding up the sanctuary’s driveway.

Walking through the doors of the church the priest sees Alena move quickly away from the window, which faces the water, and through it he can see the brothers below, the two of them now roughhousing in the snow and mud on the pond’s edge. Alena sips from her cup of tea but he can see a blush of embarrassment in her cheeks.

“Careful Alena,” the priest chides. “Lust is still a sin, even at our age.”

“Well a good thing I can just wash those sins away once you bless the water, Father.”

The priest shakes his head, “Doesn’t work that way.”

“Well then it’s too late isn’t it? I might as well go on looking.” She tugs the shawl off of her head so that it falls around her shoulders.

The priest clicks his tongue and scrapes his boots on the large door mat. He is still in his sweatpants and a Jayhawks hoodie, not quite the regal vestments the service requires. He whistles as he heads toward the back of the church to change.

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Theophany, sunny and bright, this morning. Though still cold. A celebration of Christ’s baptism in the river Jordan, epiphanic reveal of divinity. The church bursting, more immigrants in the Heartland the past few years certainly, but many American converts too. More and more.

Mikhail Zoubine is in charge of the catechumen classes, instructing the newcomers on the theology, the customs, and he does his best to make them feel welcome at the regular church socials. Newcomers who have immigrated from Russia or Eastern Europe tend to merge in quietly, baptized already and long practicing for the most part. But the new converts, it is towards them that where Mikhail devotes his focus. Almost entirely young men, a few families but not many, brought to the church by a pursuit of tradition, seeking a grounding. Most have been fed theology by YouTubers, by podcasts. They take the practices and rituals as dogma and rules, rather than guidance. They desire a militance, one that Mikahil seems to foster.

It worries Father Isaac. It is an approach to God the priest has never wanted in his church. Other congregations still keep the antiquated customs, the head coverings, the separate sides for men and women, but he has let those traditions fade. It is an old argument, an old schism between men like Mikahil and men like Isaac. Today is not the day it will be solved.

After the liturgy, Father Isaac leads a procession, from the church to the water. A brass censer, engraved with floral patterns, swings in his hand, small bells jingling as the chains moves back and forth, small blue wisps of incense smoke weaving between the congregants who cross themselves from forehead to stomach, shoulder to shoulder, if ever the censer moves in their direction. The altar boys follow behind the priest, one carrying a bowl and a brush, the other carrying a large golden cross mounted on a cedarwood pole. Next the choir, led by some of the longest attending congregants, Vicki Ivanova and her daughter Carly, the only two in the group able to hold a tune, the others a mess who hum along. And after them the congregation follows, the regulars and the guests, dozens gathered, some with small bottles, others with whole buckets, ready to collect water from the pond after it is blessed.

Wearing a white silk vestment over his cassock, one inlaid with silver stitching, Father Isaac reads out prayers standing on the platform in the pond and makes a motion over the water, thumb touching ring finger with the others curled in, a blessing, as the choir chants For the voice of the Father gave witness to you, calling you his beloved son. The assembled all try to sing along in sputters and starts, the words half-remembered. The moment of Christ’s revealing, now played out on this small Kansas pond. A pale reflection, this practice, but one being replicated again and again in ponds and rivers and pools across the world, Father Isaac reminds himself, an echo across centuries.

The priest takes the bowl from the altar boy and dips it into the pond, scooping out murky water. And then the brush, swirled in the bowl until its bristles swell. The crowd moves closer as the priest flicks the water out over the parishioners, sending newly sanctified droplets onto their heads.

The service complete, there is a small rush as some move to the bank to scoop up what they can into their containers. Father Isaac smiles and invites any who wish to change in the hut and come dip into the cross-shaped hole, submerging themselves in the blessed pond. Usually much of the congregation would take part, but with the cold, only a few brave bathers step up.

First Alex Zoubine, walking solemnly in flipflops and purple swimming trunks up the planks of the platform. He is well-built, has been since high school, and wears a tight fitting Nike shirt, showing off. He crosses himself, forehead to navel, shoulder to shoulder, and then with a whoop cannonballs into the water. There are shocked looks on the faces of those new to the church, who appear angry at the interruption to the service’s solemnity. But the rest of the assembled laugh and cheer, a few even whistle, the humor a pleasure. Alex emerges from the water shivering but with a smile that puts every tooth on display. His father wraps him in a towel and pats him on the back and then he shuffles off to the warmth of the hut. Next a deacon, his large belly folding down over his trunks, runs headlong up the platform and slips, the drops from Alex’s plunge already icing the wood. The deacon falls and slides into the water and there are gasps but when he emerges with a roar from the shallow water, sending droplets arcing into the air, a halo around his head, again there is laughter.

Alena watches as Carly the choir girl, all of twenty, walks on tiptoe up the platform and steps down the ladder gently into the pond, wincing at the cold. She is dressed in a long white t-shirt which becomes transparent from the water as she crosses and dunks herself, revealing a purple bra. Some of the older men begin to tease her, a chorus of barks until Father Isaac glances their way, but Carly steps proudly out and walks back to the hut on tiptoe. Alena was once proud of her body too, she thinks, when she came over. Proud of her тело her Russian app has reminded her. Slavic seductress one of her bosses had said to another, thinking she was out of earshot. She had been self-conscious in other ways certainly. But never about her body. The most significant tragedy since they were thrown out of Eden, Father Isaac had joked with her, thirty years ago now, was that he had been ordained before he met her.

A few of the new converts are next, eager to participate in their adopted traditions, though there is less enthusiasm from the crowd as they do so. They take it far too seriously, somber and quiet as they cross themselves and bow into the water, some even crying as they emerge back into the air. The last of them to go, a young man from Wichita with a patchy brown beard, goes so far as to lift water up in his scooped hands and slurp it loudly, eliciting muffled groans from the assembled. The pond may be blessed, but it is certainly not purified.

The adults now finished with their submersions, the children rush the huts to change. There are eight of them in all, the only kids whose parents do not mind their child diving into cold water, and once they are in their bathing suits they line up along a section of the pond where the water has not frozen over. Some even have goggles on, prepared. Father Isaac walks up beside them with a small wooden cross in his hand. He smiles and lays out the rules, no roughhousing, no holding others under, do not swim so far out that you find yourself beneath the ice. The first to return the cross gets a five dollar bill. The children count down five, four, three, two, one. The priest chucks the cross in, the group charges forward, a chaos of splashing

Nikita Zoubine watches the children scream and dive around in the water, each trying to be the first to find the crucifix. A few give up within seconds and return to shore and their parents, dramatically rubbing their hands on their arms. It was not long ago that he was one of them, diving into the pond, his hands scrabbling in the muck searching for the cross. He stands near the back of the crowd, watching with his coat zipped tight. There are few others his age that still come to services. He barely comes himself, never able to see the church as the home his parents claim it to be, some essential link dissipating between the generations. Though this week, he admits, has been nice.

There were more his age when he was younger. There was even a second Nikita at the church. A boy who looked so much like him. Twins, or shadows. They were altar boys together, briefly, until the other Nikita had knocked over a censor and spilled the hot coal and burning incense onto the scarlet carpet behind the wall of icons, halting the service as Father Isaac yelped at the sight of smoke. Black charred holes in the carpet still there a decade later.

It was always one of them, in those years, who would emerge with the cross clutched in his hand on Theophany, dripping and muddy. Nikita remembers standing side by side with the other Nikita on the bank, both blonde and skinny, their skin touching while they waited for the priest to toss the crucifix into the pond. He remembers running and splashing, the two of them, scrabbling, slippery skin on slippery skin, both reaching out at the same time. He remembers letting the other boy win, several years, letting him grab the cross so that Nikita could stay pressed against him, feigning a lunge while feeling the warmth of the other body pressed against his own, a contrast with the icy cold water surrounding them.

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And then what else is there to do but celebrate. One of the old-timers who has attended St. Tikhon’s since long before Father Isaac’s time brings out a jug of bathtub liquor, as he does every year. Somewhere between ouzo and gin, stronger than paint thinner, and every adult congregant receives a glass of it whether they want one or not. Mikhail Zoubine goes around warning newcomers not to drink too much, or not to drink it at all. Just a few years ago the choir director Vicki passed out in the backseat of her car after a glass and a half of the stuff, still sleeping in the parking lot when Alena showed up the next day. This year Alex is old enough to be given a glass and so, by extension, is Nikita. A reward, their father says, for their work that week.

There is a feast of course, table overflowing. Everyone brought so much, eager to share. Father Isaac has already stolen a few of the walnut rolls Alena carefully stacked, the pyramid of amber, buttery pastries now teetering. Enough food and wine to last the day and though many of the newer converts and the families with small children leave soon after eating, there are still revelers who push the party into late afternoon and then evening.

Overwhelmed by the noise and heat of the social hall, Alena steps out onto the concrete sidewalk for fresh air and to watch the sunset, pulling on her coat. She sees Nikita sitting below, about halfway down the hill in one of the church’s white adirondack chairs. Just sitting and staring, in his coat and beanie.

“A bit too cold to be out here long,” she calls to him and walks the yards to where the boy sits, careful on the icy grass, avoiding patches of snow. He looks over at her approach and then back to the pond. Always a quiet one, she thinks to herself and takes a seat in one of the adjoining chairs. Uncomfortable, painful even, these chairs, she thinks. But they had looked so cute in the catalog.

Alena has known the Zoubine boy since Nikita was four, since the whole Zoubine family, семья her Russian app says, moved from Saint Petersburg to Lawrence. The young parents and their two boys had piled into the backmost pew. Late and loud, the boys restless, the father complaining in a loud whisper that the service was in English, despite the sign saying St. Tikhon Russian Orthodox Church. She watched those boys grow up, and also watched as the seats around Mikhail and Nat Zoubine began to sit empty. Alex off to university, and Nikita, well. So many youth just like him, it’s not his fault. Can’t hold it against them all.

“I just needed a break,” the boy says, a drag in his voice.

They sit there, their alternating breaths visible in the cold.

“I wish I had joined in earlier, when everyone was jumping in. I wish I had dunked in the pond. Like Alex.” His voice sounds so young, despite the man he is becoming.

“Oh honey.” Alena leans back in her chair and looks up at the sky, streaked through with orange clouds. “That’s a dumb thing to wish for. There are much better wishes you could make.”

“Do you think everyone believes the water is holy? That scooping it up is going to change anything?”

“Maybe not change anything,” Alena says. “And maybe not everyone.”

“I just look at the water and all I see is a cold, muddy pond.”

“That’s all anyone sees, dear.”

The boy goes silent except for a sniffle from the cold. Alena huffs. “Well, maybe whatever conviction you’re looking for will come and maybe it won’t. But for now, maybe just the action alone is enough. Just you know” she waves her hands out in front of her, “following the path.”

She leans over and pats his hand and rises from the adirondack. Worrying about the wrong things, these kids, she thinks.

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Dark in the evening, the sky now clear. Stars visible this far from the city. Nikita walks out on the platform which is covered in streaks of ice after the morning’s ceremony. The sounds of celebration flow from the top of the hill, the windows of the church hall cloudy with condensation. Light and sound escape over the snow, voices indistinguishable from one another, music moving from traditional classics to Today’s Top Hits as whoever’s phone is on the aux flows through Spotify playlists. There are no longer heaters in the hut, which seems sunken into the bank. The water, still stirred by the pump, laps at the wooden sides of the cross in the ice.

Nikita removes his coat and long-sleeve shirt, piling them by his feet, in the center of the platform. He takes off his boots and then socks, the cold only now expressing as pain, now that his feet are bare on the wood. He takes off his corduroy pants and adds them to the pile. He stands there, for a minute, just staring into the lightly churning dark water. He takes a deep breath, and then another, and then a third, the ice beneath his feet biting. And then, feeling foolish, he puts his pants back on, shrugs on his shirt, struggles with his socks. He’s cold now, but it is not far back up the hill.

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