kolkuh:
there was no simple answer . there’s a want to tell him more of what he had seen , tell him he still managed to believe , yet nikolai still has enough common sense not to compare himself to a clearly grieving father . he wonders what that would be like , to have a father who cared as much as he thinks piero must have . ‘ i can’t tell anyone how to believe in god , but i believe if you allow yourself to listen , he might . ’ he had his own crisis of faith during the war , when he thought he had lost his brother , but he was returned after prayer , and as such nikolai’s belief became ironclad . ‘ i’m sorry you’ve had to deal with such things , it sounds like you loved them a great deal , ’ his words are genuine , sincere , but with a strange tilt to the second half that one might recognize as jealousy .
‘ i can’t know what you’re feeling , piero , but the church is there for you , ’ he’s unsure where to go next , so he decides to share , not by way of comparison , but hopefully by explanation , ‘ it was there for me when i came to moscow . i was a child , i had lost my mother , vladimir was badly injured , but it was there for me . ’
he had never asked the question before, he had never feigned to say it out loud, but it was just now that he realized how desperately he wanted a straight answer. he wanted it to be black and white, to be told he was not being punished for his actions and this was just something that happened. to be told that his actions during the war, almost all of them sinful, were not what had ripped them away from him. he would only allow himself to think of them now, and two years later it still felt as if he was being constantly punched in the gut with no chance to recover. after today, he would put them to the back of his mind once more - participate in more fights, drink a little more, take few breaks until he felt back into the violent rhythm that brought so many to the den to watch.
he did not mean to laugh, and it was a sad chuckle that escaped if only because he did not know what to say. he had believed the same his entire life, had thought that no matter what that not the church, but god would save him. that all he had to do was get through the war, get through the battles, and he would return home to his old life as if someone had frozen it until he was able to partake in that life again. he didn’t know what to say, felt painfully out of place now that he realized what he had shared, could not bring himself to look the man in the face. “it’s just not for me.” he wiped his face with his hands, as if aggressively erasing the last ten minutes. he barely registered what nikolai said of his own mother, “i’m sorry, and i should not have said those things to you. let’s forget this happened.”
