Loaves & Fishes 27

Aksionov was found guilty
of the murder and robbery and
sentenced to be whipped and
sent to hard labor in the mines.
For twenty-six years he lived
as a convict in Siberia. His hair
turned white as snow, and his
beard grew long, thin, and grey.
He never told jokes anymore;
he walked slowly, with a stoop;
he spoke little but prayed often.
With money he earned making
boots in prison, Aksionov
bought The Lives of the Saints.
He read this book whenever he
had time and enough light. On
Sundays in the prison chapel
he read the lessons and sang in
the choir, for his voice was still
good. The prison authorities
liked Aksionov because he never
made trouble, and his fellowprisoners
respected him; they
called him “Grandpa,” and “The
Saint.” When they petitioned the
prison authorities, they always
made Aksionov speak for them,
and they often came to him to
have him settle their fights.
No news reached Aksionov
from his home; he did not even
know if his wife and children
were still alive.
One day a fresh gang of
convicts arrived at the prison.
In the evening the old prisoners
gathered around the new
ones and asked them where
they came from and what they
were sentenced for. Aksionov
sat near the edge of the circle
to listen.
Only God
knows the truth.
One of the new convicts, a
tall, strong man of sixty, was
telling the others what he had
been arrested for. “I merely
took a horse that was tied to a
sleigh, and they arrested me for
stealing! I explained that I only
took it to get home quicker and
then let it go, but ‘no,’ they
said, ‘you stole it.’ The strangest
part of it is that I’ve done
much worse things than that,
but never got in trouble—actually,
that’s a lie; I did get sent to
Siberia once before, but I didn’t
stay long.”
“Where are you from?” someone
asked.
Loaves & Fishes • Issue 27 | 45