'God wants you to fulfill your promise ... marry him ... save him ... bring him into eternal light.'
'He left me in eternal darkness. No.'
The proposal was so repugnant, so contrary to common sense that she allowed Vasili no time to develop it. Leaving him abruptly, she marched openly to Lunasaq's hut, unaware that in joining the Christian church she had obligated herself to forswear all others, and especially shamanism. When she came to what had been the source of her spiritual instruction, she cried: 'Bring out the mummy! I want to talk with a woman who knows about these things.'
And when the mummy appeared, Cidaq blurted out: 'They've made me change my name to Sofia Kuchovskaya so I can be a good Russian.'
The mummy laughed: 'You could never be a Sofia. You are forever Cidaq.'
'And they say I must go ahead and marry Rudenko ... to save him ... because their God wills it.'
The mummy sucked in her breath so sharply that she whistled: 'Suppose you do ruin your life to save his, what will that accomplish?' and Cidaq explained: 'It's called salvation, his, not mine.'
The shaman was bold and unrelenting in his rejection of all the priest stood for:
'Always the interests of the Russians come first. Sacrifice the Aleut girl to make the Russian man happy. What kind of god gives such advice?' And as he ranted on, he revealed his motives to Cidaq, who thought to herself: He's afraid of the priest, knows that the new religion is powerful, but even so, a shaman may know what's best for Aleuts, so she listened respectfully as Lunasaq concluded his diatribe: 'They crush us step by step, these Russians. The Company makes slaves of us, they bring in their priests to assure that everything is the way their spirits intended. And each day, Cidaq, we fall lower.'
Now came an example of how the shaman's utilization of the mummy had endowed the ancient relic with a character and mind of its own, for when Lunasaq pretended to be the old woman, he became one, drawing upon his long familiarity with how women thought and expressed themselves: 'On the islands women served their men, making their clothes, collecting the fish and the berries, chanting when the men went out to fight whales. But I never felt that we were lesser, only different and with different capacities. What man on what island could bear a child? But this new faith, it's quite horrible, to sacrifice a girl like you to a brute like Rudenko in order to make him feel better.' She surprised Cidaq by laughing: 'Once we had a man like your Rudenko. Bullied everyone. Beat his wife and children. Once when he didn't do his share he caused the death of a good fisherman.'
'What did you do about it?' the shaman asked, and the old woman, replied: 'There was a woman in our village who caught the most fish and sewed the best sealskin pants.
One morning she told us: "When the kayaks return tonight, you three join me when I go out to unload his fish, and while he is still in the canoe, watch me."'
'What happened?' Cidaq asked, and she said: 'He came in. We waded out to get his fish. And at this woman's signal, she and I pulled him from his kayak and the two others joined us as we held him under the waves.' She reported this without gloating:
'Sometimes that's the only way.' And Cidaq asked: 'The other fishermen must have seen you. What did they do?'
'They looked the other way. They knew we were doing their work for them.'
'And what should I do?' Cidaq asked, and the old woman replied in heavy words: 'These are troubled times, child.' Then, realizing that this was an inadequate answer, she added: 'Some evening when the kayaks come home through the mists, you'll discover whatever it is that must be done.'
'Should I let them marry me to that one?' and in posing this question she saw nothing wrong in seeking moral advice from the shaman and his mummy, because she still felt herself a member of their world. She would look to her new priest for guidance in ethereal matters, to her old shaman for instruction in practical affairs.
The shaman, seeing an opportunity to reinforce his control over her, leaped at her question: 'No! Cidaq, they're using you for their purposes.
This is corruption, the destruction of the Aleuts.' Fighting to preserve the Aleut universe of sea and storm and walruses and salmon leaping up the stream, he cried:
'It is not Rudenko who should be drowned at dusk, but the priest who gives such advice.
He's here to destroy us.' But the mummy had other counsel: 'Wait. See what happens.
In my long years I've found that many problems are solved by waiting. Will the baby be a boy or a girl? Wait nine moons and you'll see.' And Cidaq, as she left the hut, knew that the shaman spoke only of this year, this body of contradictions, whereas the mummy spoke of all the summers and winters there were to be, and their joint counsel made more sense to her than Father Vasili's.
SOFIA'S BRAZEN RETURN TO THE SHAMAN'S HUT, AND TO a religion she was supposed to have forsworn, alerted Father Vasili to the fact that the struggle for the soul of this young woman was far from decided. She had been baptized and was technically a Christian, but her faith was so wavering that he must take dramatic steps to complete her conversion. Inviting her to the driftwood building he called his church, he sat her on a chair he had made, and began: 'Sofia, I know the pull of the old ways. When Jesus Christ took His new faith to the Jews and the Romans ...' She understood not a word he was saying. 'It is not I who has brought the true religion to Kodiak, it is God Himself, who has said: "It's time those good Aleuts were saved."I didn't come here. God sent me. And He did not send me to the island. He sent me to you. God longs to take you, Sofia Kuchovskaya, to His bosom.
And even if you don't want to listen to what I say, you cannot escape listening to what He says.'
'How can He tell me to marry a man like Rudenko?'
'Because you are both His children.
He loves you equally. And He wants you to serve as His daughter to save His son Yermak.'
For more than an hour he pleaded with her to embrace Christianity completely, to forswear shamanism, to throw herself onto the mercy of God and the benevolence of His Son Jesus, and he was shocked when she finally halted the persuasion by throwing at him the arguments she had heard in the hut: 'Your god cares nothing for the woman, me, only for the man, Rudenko.'
He jumped back as if he had been struck, for in the harsh rejection of this island girl he was hearing one of the permanent complaints against the Russian Orthodox faith and other versions of Christianity: that it was a man's religion established to safeguard and prolong the interests only of men, and he realized that he had instructed this capable young woman in no more than half the basics of his faith. Humbled, he took her two hands and confessed: 'I've left out the beauty of my religion. I'm ashamed.' Fumbling for a clear way to express the aspect of his faith that he had overlooked, he mumbled: 'God especially loves women, for it is they who keep life moving forward.'
This new concept, beautifully developed by the ardent young priest, had a powerful effect upon Sofia, who remained fixed to her chair in a kind of trance as Vasili collected from his altar area those revered symbols which summarized his religion: a depiction of the crucifixion, a lovely Madonna and Child carved by a peasant in Irkutsk, a red-and-gold icon showing a female saint, and an ivory cross. Distributing them before her in almost the exact pattern that Lunasaq had used when displaying his icons, he began pleading with her, using words and phrases best calculated to summarize the exquisite significance of Christianity: 'Sofia, God offered us salvation through the Virgin Mary. She protects you and all other women. The most glorious saints are women who saw visions and helped others. Through such women God speaks, and they beg you not to reject the salvation they represent. Abandon the evil old ways and embrace the new ways of God and Jesus Christ. Sofia, their voices call you!' and from all corners of the rude chapel her name seemed to reverberate until she feared she might faint, but then came the compelling words: 'As God has sent me to Kodiak to save your soul, so you have been brought here to save Rudenko's. Your duty is clear. You are the chosen instrument of God's grace. Just as He could not save the world without the he
lp of Mary, so He cannot save Rudenko without your help.'
When Sofia heard these radiant words she realized that her new Christianity had been made whole. Hitherto it had concerned only men and their well-being, but these new definitions proved that there was a place for her too, and in these transcendent moments of revelation came a wholly new vision of what a human life could be. Jesus became real, the Son of Mary through the benevolence of God, and through Mary's intercession women could attain what had for so long been denied them. The women saints were real; the cross was tangible driftwood that had come to whatever island it was that these women saints occupied; but above all the other mysteries and the precious symbols of the new religion rose the wondrous message of redemption and forgiveness and love.
Father Vasili had brought to Kodiak a new vision of the universe, and Sofia Kuchovskaya at last recognized and understood it. 'I give my life to Jesus,' she said with soft simplicity, and this time she meant it. Her conversion was completed.
Because she was a young woman of integrity, when she left the chapel she went directly to the shaman's hut, where she waited until Lunasaq brought forth his mummy: 'I've seen a vision of the new gods. I'm reborn this day as Sofia Kuchovskaya, and I've come to thank you with tears in my eyes for the love and assistance you shared with me before I found, the light.'
A kind of wailing filled the hut, emanating both from Lunasaq, who realized that he was losing one of the major battles of his life, and from the mummy, who had known for many seasons that the changes taking place in her islands boded no good: 'Cidaq, you're like a young walrus tumbling on dangerous ice. Beware!' This accidental reminder that her name signified a young animal that ran free brought to mind the immense loss she was facing, and she whispered: 'I shall tumble, no doubt. And I shall miss your comforting. But new winds are blowing across the ice, and I must listen.'
'Cidaq! Cidaq!' the mummy cried, and this mournful intonation was the last time this child of the islands would hear that precious name, for now she knelt before the shaman, thanking him for his guidance, and before the mummy, whose sensible support had been so important to her in times of crisis: 'I feel as if you were my grandmother's grandmother. I shall miss you.'
Eager to retain contact with this worthy child, the shaman caused his mummy to say with no show of anxiety: 'Oh, but you can still come talk with me.'
Then came the wrenching moment: 'No, I cannot, for I am now a new person. I am Sofia.'
With that, she bowed once more to these ancestral forces in her life, and with tears in her eyes she left them, apparently forever. When the hut was bereft of her presence, the old shaman and the ancient one remained silent for some minutes, then from the sack came a scream of mortal anguish, as if the end of a life as well as the end of an idea had come: 'Cidaq! Cidaq!' But the once-owner of that name would no longer hear.
IT WAS A WEDDING WHICH NONE WHO ATTENDED WOULD ever forget. Huge black-scowling Yermak Rudenko appeared almost pale from his long incarceration, beetle-browed, hunched over, embittered by his previous treatment but relieved at having escaped a return to the Seal Islands; he resembled in no way a bridegroom, for he looked much as he had in his previous incarnation, a skulking murderer of defenseless travelers. Sofia Kuchovskaya presented a striking contrast. Young, exuberant, lacking even the slightest sign of her former mistreatment at the hands of her intended, her hair marvelously long at her back, neatly trimmed almost to her eyelashes in front, and with that big smile in place, she looked to be exactly what she was: a young bride somewhat bewildered by what was occurring and not at all certain that she was in control.
The guests were all Russian or Creole; not one Aleut had been invited, since this day was held by the officials to be one when a native girl was being allowed entrance to Russian society. For her the evil old days of paganism were dead; the bright new days of Orthodox faith were beginning, and it was assumed that she would be grateful for the improvement in her status.
Even Rudenko enjoyed the metamorphosis. He was no longer just another brutal convict sentenced to the Aleutians or a runaway from the Seal Islands; he was now the agency for performing a major mission for the tsarina, the bringing of an Aleut pagan soul into Christianity. He bathed in his newfound respectability and behaved like a real Russian settler.
Father Vasili was engulfed in emotion, for Sofia was the first Aleut woman he had converted and the first Aleut of either sex whose entrance into Christianity could be taken seriously. But to him Sofia was much more than a symbol of the change that would sweep the islands; she was an admirable human being, triumphant over disasters that might have deranged a lesser person, and gifted with a keen sense of what was happening to her people. In saving this young woman, Vasili said to himself as he approached the canopy under which he would stand as he read the wedding service, Russia's getting one of the best. And in his black robes he married them.
There were singing and dancing by the Russian sailors and speeches by officials, who congratulated Sofia Rudenko on her entry to their society and her husband Yermak upon his release from custody. But on the third day these celebrations were marred by the sudden intrusion of the disheveled old shaman, who left his hut, came onto Company property, and in a wild shaky voice berated Father Vasili for having conducted such an infamous wedding.
'Go back, old fool!' a guard warned, to no effect, for the old fellow persisted in his disturbing accusations until Rudenko, irritated by this interruption of festivities at which he was the central figure, rushed at the shaman, bellowing:
'Out of here!' and when the old man pointed a long finger at the bridegroom, crying in Russian: 'Murderer! Debaucher of women! Pig!' Rudenko became so angered that he began clubbing at him with his fists, and he struck him so often and so hard that Lunasaq, staggered, tried to steady himself by holding on to his assailant, then took two sharp knocks to the head and fell into the dust.
Now Sofia intervened. Pulling her husband away, she knelt beside her old counselor and gently slapped his face until he regained consciousness. Then, ignoring her wedding guests, she started to lead him to his hut, but to her surprise Father Vasili interceded, placed his own arms about his enemy's trembling body, and led him to safety. Sofia, watching the two men disappear, knew that she should be with them and began to run after them, but Rudenko, infuriated by what had happened and his wife's participation, grabbed her by the arm, spun her around, and struck her so heavily in the face that now she lay in the dust. He might have kicked her, too, had not Ensign Belov intervened, lifted Sofia to her feet, and brushed away the dust. The dark blood dripping from her chin, where Rudenko's fist had cut the flesh enclosing her ivory labret, he could not wash away.
YERMAK RUDENKO WAS NOT DISCIPLINED FOR BEATING his wife or thrashing the shaman, because most Russians considered Aleuts less than human and proper objects for brutal punishment. In lawless Kodiak, Russian opinion was that all native wives, Aleut or Creole, profited from a justified beating now and then, while the castigation of the shaman was seen as a service to the Russian community. But when Father Vasili heard of what Rudenko had done while he was helping the shaman to his hut, and saw during prayer services the extent of Sofia's cuts, he did not go to console her, but he did accost Yermak: 'I've seen what you did to Sofia. This must never happen again.'
'Mind your business, Black Robes.'
'It is my business. Humanity is my business.' The frail priest looked ridiculous, speaking thus to the huge trader, and both men knew it, so with a big paw, not a fist, Rudenko pushed Vasili away, and the priest's feet became so entangled that he fell. Others saw the accident, for that was how it should be defined, since Rudenko did not strike the priest, and they interpreted it as yet another thrashing their bullyboy had administered to an interfering priest, and when they saw that Vasili was afraid to take counteraction, they began to denigrate him, until it became general opinion that 'we were better off with drunk old Father Pe'tr, who knew enough to stay clear of our affairs.'
Some days later,
when Sofia appeared at prayer with her left eye bruised, Father Vasili knew he could no longer avoid taking action, and when service ended he approached the bully, and said in a voice loud enough for others to hear: 'If you ever abuse your wife again, I shall have you punished.'
The listeners laughed, for it was obvious that the priest had neither the personal strength to punish Rudenko nor the authority to demand that some official do so, and this pusillanimity indicated the low estate to which The Company had fallen.
But this situation was about to change, a third visitor was about to reach Kodiak, and his arrival would make a vast difference. On a day in late June 1791 a sailor, looking down the bay on whose shores Three Saints stood, spotted a small sailboat that looked as if it had been slapped together from bits of wood and sealskin. Unfit for ocean travel or even the crossing of a lake, it was struggling to make landfall before it disintegrated, and the sailor wondered if he should first hurry to the shore to try to save it or run for help.
Choosing the latter option, he dashed toward town, shouting: 'Boat arriving! Men aboard!' Assuring himself that he had been heard, he ran back to the shore and tried to haul the boat onto the rocky beach, but the near-dead sailors, beards salted white, were unable to help. When he tried to do the job alone he recoiled in horror, for in the bottom of the boat lay the corpse of a baldheaded man too old for such adventure.
The first islander to reach the stricken craft was Father Vasili, who shouted to those coming behind: 'Hurry! These fellows are near death!' And as others arrived he started to administer rites to the body in the bottom of the boat, but as he did so the man groaned, opened his eyes, and cried with delight: 'Father Vasili!'
The priest jumped back, looked more closely, and gasped: 'Aleksandr Baranov! What a way to report for duty!'
When the exhausted men were lifted ashore and given hot drinks, it was Baranov, miraculously revived, who surprised both his shipmates and those who had rescued him brushing off his muddied clothes, pressing down his few strands of hair, and taking command of the impromptu meeting at the edge of the bay. His report was brief, its items recognized by all who sailed in Russian ships: