The Sunflower Season: The Zoya Septet, #5

By Murray Pura

Exquisitely written, the tale is as simple as it is complex in its scope.

 

Freeman Chernenko's maternal grandmother, a Ukrainian immigrant to America, is known in the Russian Orthodox Church as a saint because of her Joan-of-Arc-like role during World War Two.

 

Having gone to fight in the present conflict among Russia, Ukraine, and Ukraine rebels, Freeman is assigned to defend a shrine to St. Zoya.

 

A religious skeptic, Freeman is shocked to discover his ancestry and doubts it, finding himself in a spiritual dilemma amid an enemy, troops defending the shrine among wheat and sunflower fields, nuns, monks, miraculous healings, meadowlark twitterings, Van Gogh-like paintings, passionate love and bloody combat.

The fortunate readers of this superbly presented story will be enraptured. And may there be many!

 

Five stars.

Jon Michael Miller for Readers' Favorite

• Language: English
• Publisher: MillerWords, LLC
• Release date: Sep 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201090371

Murray Pura

Murray Pura’s novel The Sunflower Season won Best Contemporary Romance (Word Awards, Toronto, 2022) while previously, The White Birds of Morning was Historical Novel of the Year (Word Awards, Toronto, 2012). Far on the Ringing Plains won the Hemingway Award for WW2 Fiction (2022) and its sequel, The Scepter and the Isle, was shortlisted for the same award (both with Patrick Craig). Murray has been a finalist for the Dartmouth Book Award, The John Spencer Hill Literary Award, and the Kobzar Literary Award. He lives in southwestern Alberta.

Book preview

1

The sun was hot, hot enough to hurt badly, to cut through skin right into the bone and on into the deepest parts of a human body and the deepest parts of a human earth. Freeman didn’t mind because it was golden and the sky around it a simmering blue. Gemstones had been lit and were burning in a fiery, glittering, liquid bowl. It was satisfying to burn up just like the sky. It was necessary. It was perfect.

The horses he had worked with, the big, gentle Percheron, gray as doves, were resting now, well away from the heat of the day. Freeman wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. His pale blue shirt was damp against his chest and back, the suspenders that held his pants in place hanging loosely on his shoulders. He tilted his wide-brimmed straw hat back. Two people were approaching him. A woman and a man. They walked together, but their reasons for coming to him would not be the same.

He guessed. It was not hard to guess. Alameda held a pitcher of lemonade in one hand and several glasses in the other. It would surprise no one. They had announced their courtship, with the bishop’s approval, weeks before. She would ask how Freeman was, what he would be doing next, if her parents could serve him lunch at noon. The two of them would drink the lemonade together and chat about nothing or possibly something. Perhaps the bishop would linger with them and have a glass too. Or perhaps the bishop had something to say that would change Freeman’s day altogether. That would be more likely. The bishop did not appear on a working morning when he wanted to idly discuss the price of new buggy horses the Beiler Amish needed to purchase. This would be something more. Nor did Freeman think the bishop had showed up at the same time as Alameda by coincidence. He wanted her there when he spoke.

But first it was the hellos and good mornings and other greetings in the dialect of Pennsylvania Dutch. It had taken Freeman two years to master it and yet, that was just a convenient expression - he had done well, the whole church and wider Amish community, would say he had done well, and not just to flatter him. It was so. But master?

It’s tart, Alameda said as she poured.

"Danke," Freeman replied, smiling.

She smiled too and seemed to remember the bishop as if his presence was a surprise.

Oh, Bishop Beiler, a glass for you?

He nodded. "Danke. Tart is good."

It is the way Brother Freeman prefers it.

Myself as well.

The three of them stood by the fence and freshly plowed field and drank. Freeman would like to have paid Alameda a compliment or two, something she knew, but was restricted to a smiling gaze that admired her summer face, already freckled and tanned due to a warm spring, and the burning gold of her hair, pinned up under a dark kapp. Finally, she’d had enough and looked down at her shoes, grinning and shaking her head. If she’d felt free to speak she’d have said, Oh, Freeman, you and your open adoration. Your too open adoration. Do you think the bishop will miss your honeyed glances?

The bishop did not. I know you two have much to talk about. Still, there is something that must be cleared up. Would you excuse us for an hour, Sister Alameda?

Oh, of course. She briefly inclined her head. May I refresh your glasses before I go?

The bishop also inclined his head and offered his empty glass. "Bitte. And you may pray for us while Brother Freeman and I speak together."

I shall.

She filled his glass from the pitcher, turned to Freeman, brought his eyes into hers, and filled his half-empty glass as well. She left, walking back across the lane to her house, not looking back, almost gliding in her long navy dress. The bishop put his hand on Freeman’s shoulder. The sun is already too warm for anyone but you, Brother Freeman. Let us go to the shade.

There was a long wooden bench in the shadow of a nearby barn. Bishop Beiler led the way, forging ahead like a dark-hulled ship shearing through the Great Lakes, tall and erect at sixty with only the slightest stoop. He sat with a sigh on the bench and mopped his face with a navy bandanna.

We know your story, he began. That you fought in this Russo-Ukrainian War that never ends. That you battled not only Russians, but what you call the rebels of Donetsk, a republic you say no nation other than the Russian Federation will honor. That you fought French and German and British volunteers. Yet all that is behind you, Brother Freeman. You have learned our ways and been baptized in good faith. Soon enough, as God wills, you shall take Alameda as your wife and she take you as her husband. Amen. But let us grab the bull by the horns. The Amish life is not instant coffee. No, it is a long process. The beans grow, eventually they ripen and are picked. They are roasted. Then they must be ground. And brewed. It is a long way from the plantation to the cup. Do you follow me?

Freeman nodded, smiled and folded his arms. In a roundabout way.

I myself am learning every day about our way and God’s ways. I never expected to be bishop. I never desired it. But see?

I see.

Tomorrow is unknown from yesterday. But yesterday is best reached from tomorrow.

Freeman did not respond.

The bishop removed his straw hat. His gray hair, silvered like old wood, glistened with sweat. I’m not rambling. I have a point. You have your Amish journey. I have mine. Sister Alameda has hers. Each journey is the same, each journey is different. God is the constant. You are well on your way and the Amish road is good under your feet, hmm? Do you agree?

It is good, Bishop Beiler, very good.

"So then, understand me this. You were at war. You repented of being at war. You laid down your sword. Good. You’ve told us about this before your baptism. I repeat, it