It was cold here: far colder than London, with real snow on the ground and clinging thick to the bare-branched trees. Morosov reveled in it, winding down the window of his rideshare the moment the SUV pulled off the highway. The driver hunched into his coat but didn’t say anything.
Barreling along the highway from the airport – a ride that seemed to go on forever – the driver had waxed lyrical about what a great city Pittsburgh was. He’d called it ‘the Paris of Appalachia’, adding that, if this was Viktor Lavrov’s first visit, he was in for a treat, because Pittsburgh was the only city in the world with, as he put it, ‘an entrance’.
‘The entrance’ turned out to be a long tunnel, bored arrow-straight through the bottom of a mountain and lined with sooty white tiles. Bursting out the other end and onto a giant yellow bridge over black water, the city of Pittsburgh lay suddenly in front of him. Morosov, who had absurdly expected to see something like Paris, France, was vaguely disappointed. A few tower blocks to one side, a couple of sports stadiums on the other, all squeezed into cracks between rearing, tree-covered hills that dwarfed everything else into insignificance. In fact, the geology of the place was so raw, so powerful, that the city seemed more huddled Stone Age settlement than modern metropolis, as if it was dependent on the gods of rock and deep-rooted earth for its very survival.
The city had then disappeared entirely, masked by rugged bluffs as the SUV had plunged down a dizzyingly steep ramp. Once he leveled out, the driver had raced along the banks of a wide, choppy looking river. An enormous barge, its heaped cargo of coal lightly dusted with snow, moved lazily through the water. A contented, prehistoric monster, far too big to be troubled by anything so trivial as a predator.
Only after taking the exit ramp for somewhere called Oakland had the city reappeared. The driver had joined three lanes of slow-moving, one-way traffic, allowing Mikhail Morosov, at last, to open his window. He watched with mild interest as a succession of restaurants, bars, and – oddly – medical facilities, slid into and out of view. The sidewalks were busy: young people of a certain age for the most part; from which Morosov concluded that he was in a studenty part of town.
The driver turned into a side street and pulled over.
‘Here we are, Viktor,’ he said. ‘St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Church.’
Morosov stepped out onto the sidewalk, careful to avoid the slush piled against the curb, and waited for the driver to retrieve his roller bag from the car’s trunk. The bag was barely half full and easy to carry. Morosov held it in his hand as he made his way up the church’s broad steps and through the imposing wooden doors. Inside, St Andrew's was breathtaking. Built around a huge central dome, like a smaller version of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, the church was a profusion of bright colors liberally laced with gold leaf. Apart from the fact that this church had pews, it could almost have been Russian. The faint aroma of incense hung in the air, heady in its familiarity. As for the pews, they were not quite deserted. A couple of gray-haired old ladies, dressed black as crows, sat far apart from each other, each alone with her thoughts, or, as they no doubt told themselves, with God. A couple of votive candles flickered fitfully in a small shrine off to one side.
Morosov and his bag made their way forward to the lower altar, short of the Holy of Holies, and waited. He could have sat in a pew like the old ladies, but the Russian in him resisted. He put down his bag and stood, arms folded across his wide chest, rocking gently back and forth.
Waiting.
‘Welcome to St Andrew’s.’
The voice was heavily accented – Greek, presumably. Morosov turned around to find himself facing a heavily bearded man in black robes. As powerfully built as Morosov himself, the man’s gentle smile and worldly brown eyes gave him the mien of a kindly bear.
‘Father Kyriakos, yes?’
The priest looked pleasantly surprised.
‘Just so. And you?’
‘Viktor Lavrov. I come long way to see you.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Da.’ Morosov rolled the dice. ‘I looking for cousin, Gregory Abimbola?’
‘You’re Gregory’s cousin?’ The priest looked confused. ‘But Gregory is, ah …’
Morosov chuckled.
‘Aunt Russian. White as snow. Visit England. Meet student from Nigeria. Very handsome. Black as ace of spades. And boom! Gregory. Cousin.’ Morosov spread his hands as if in apology. ‘The world change, Father.’ He gazed appreciatively at the haloed apostles looking down on them from the ceiling. ‘Even here, world change, yes?’
The priest smiled then, a little wryly.
‘Yes. Even here, things change. It is the will of God.’ Kyriakos took a deep, meditative breath. ‘I always thought Gregory was English,’ he mused.
‘Nyet. Russian. But speak excellent English, like mother. Me?’ He swept his hands down his body in a self-deprecating gesture. ‘I not speak it so good.’
The priest threw him a quick smile.
‘Your English is as good as mine,’ he said, kindly. Father Kyriakos looked around at his church, as if seeing it for the first time. ‘I wonder why Gregory chose us,’ he wondered. ‘If he’s Russian like you say, there are a number of Russian congregations not far from here. Why settle in with us Greeks? Not that he isn’t welcome, you understand. It’s just …’ The priest struggled to find the right words. ‘An unusual choice.’
Morosov had to struggle to keep his expression friendly. Lies, he knew, are best told when they are mostly true. But the truth at the heart of this one made his gorge rise.
‘Family fight very bad. So bad Gregory like pretend not Russian. But still religious, yes? So …’
‘So, Greek Orthodox is still Orthodox,’ the priest finished, comprehension dawning on his features. ‘I see. And you’re looking for Gregory?’
‘Da. I was hoping you provide address, yes? My family loses contact with him long time ago.’
‘I’m afraid I couldn’t do that,’ Kyriakos said, regretfully. ‘You know how it is. But I could send him an email on your behalf, ask him to get in touch?’
Morosov shook his head.
‘He not come. Gregory is – how to say – black sheep?’ He couldn’t resist smiling at the double meaning. ‘Family fight, like I say you already, very bad, so no see for many, many years. But mother – my aunt, yes? Mother is dying. Want see son one last time. If I see face to face, maybe persuade come. Email not work.’
Kyriakos’s eyes moistened. He was, Morosov decided, one of those men who cried easily.
‘He comes to church every Sunday, regular as clockwork. Perhaps if you could wait …?’
‘No, no, no. Too long. His mother very ill. Maybe days only. And flight to Russia long, yes? At home all she tell priest and doctors every day is she want see son one last time. Is dying wish.’
The priest’s expression became stiff and impossible to read. Morosov worried he had laid it on too thick. But it turned out to be the final crumbling of the Father’s resistance.
‘Well, in the circumstances …’ The priest dabbed at an eye. ‘Gregory lives not far from here, if I remember correctly. If you’ll come this way? I’ll look it up for you.’