Sasha

Chapter seventy five

If some great composer were to compose a symphony of these troubled times in Russia, it would have to begin with the silent cries of the Russian people echoing the terrifying sounds of fear and death. The composer would have to create the sounds of tyranny blowing like a mighty hurricane over the land. There would follow the sounds of the hopeless winds of atheism settling its oblivious dust on the innocence of faith. The sounds would churn and churn with sorrow as mother earth opened her caverns to receive the dead.

Oh what a cry the symphony would echo! It would be like wolves crying in the night, crying to satisfy some raging hunger. There would echo the sounds of forgotten hope, and the raging sound for justice. It would resound with terror, sorrow, sadness, and suffering.

Could a great composer find peace in this symphony?  In the midst of the vicious storm could the sounds of the spring steppe with its beauty and majesty, or the summer breezes, or the sounds of the love good people have for each other be heard? Could the feelings of a mother’s tender love for her children be heard amidst the blowing, wretched thunder?

As Sasha’s train took him along the mighty Volga, his thoughts turned to the great rivers of Russia—the life blood of his country.

The mighty Volga!  Cradle of Liberty! Giver of food and drink! Little Mother, she was called. No other name in the vast reaches of his country invoked more sentiment or love than this beloved river. It is said that “Without the Volga there is no Russia, without the Volga Russia is a body without a soul.”

He thought of the Don, of all the mighty rivers as they forever flowed elsewhere, passing the same place but once, never to return, always carrying the history of this great country within their racing waters. Oh what drama played out along their banks as they, stretching like the limbs of  mighty trees, flowed throughout his vast country!  What tales they could tell of the life and death they know!

Oh, the mighty rivers of Russia—flooding, lowering in the depths of drought—forever moving on, as they tell their tales of unnumbered years. What joy they have seen, what sorrow they bring as on and on their tales they tell. The rivers speak them well—always knowing— always flowing.

Sasha felt himself upon the river of life frantically rowing through the turbulent rapids. Oh how he desperately longed for the quiet, gentle flows of peace in some untroubled waters!

Oh how he wished that he could push the waters back—just a few days! But the waters were forever on the move, and like man’s journey, they would never pass by the same place or time again.

The train rumbled on, on through the small villages, the towns, the forests, and out on the great and beautiful steppe that Sasha loved so dearly. It rumbled on through the memories of his past, on through the lives of his beloved family. It rumbled on through his life and at times to a distant place where the scenes were forever beautiful, where there was no evil, where he would once and forever be folded in the arms of those he loved. It also rumbled on through the tragedy he was living.

If only it could move at lightning speed through the present and into the vast unknown future,  the future beyond this life. But it was bound by the limits of mortality—to the tracks Sasha had laid down as he traveled his wondrous journey.