THE PENANCE OF THE ELEVENTH HOUR

«THE PENANCE OF THE ELEVENTH HOUR»

(Based on the novel by archpriest N. Agafonov ‘The Scout‘)

Genre - psychological thriller

Script and film by

Kristina Kevish

Libretto

A young OGPU (Joint State Political Directorate) investigator Gleb Sergovsky, an outstanding and conscientious activist of the class struggle, the mass liquidation of the enemies of the Soviet State, and the public church desecration, who took part in interrogations of representatives of the intelligenzia and churchmen, suddenly quits his job in the security office. Several years later he gains considerable experience in reconnaissance in Germany. He lives an active social life with a well thought-out cover story of a Munich publishing house journalist, finds his only love that later turns into a tragedy. A time will come when he himself will be imprisoned in the basement of his former office at Lubyanka. The intelligence officer will get recalled from Germany, accused of espionage and sentenced to death. He will then wait for the execution in a cell of the condemned...

1941, Moscow.

A sudden outbreak of the war against the Nazi Germany saves Gleb Sergovsky from the execution of the death sentence as it confirms his recent report. In a short while he is already working in the analytical department of the reconnaissance of the General Staff of the Soviet Army.

1942, Berlin.

Gleb Sergovsky is again a passenger of a Berlin express train, but now he is wearing a fascist officer uniform and his name is Kurt Birger. The aim of the Soviet intelligence officer is reaching the town of Voluisk and its East reserve army staff and finding out at which point of the vast territory of the East front Hitler is planning his offense. The provincial town of Voluisk turns into a real purgatory for Gleb Sergovsky. It is the last and most portant trial for his conscience, his ability to rediscover his own personality, his soul, his spirit. At one moment in the Lubyanka basement fear takes over his heart and paralyzes his will bringing Gleb to deep hopelessness. Absolute inability to change his destiny, the absurdness of the situation he is in together with memories of the past evoke a dull despair and drive the involuntary executioner near to insanity. A sticky cold fear of a doomed victim. Understanding the sentence. Waiting for the execution. Nothingness. Hell. Here, in this rotten cage the mystery of Sergovsky’s penance unravels...

All his life he will be haunted by images that will control his mind like an unseen force. His own biography again and again will be sending him back to fragments of his previous activity: the all-consuming passion for interrogations, the psychic blindness, the deadly extremes. His memory brings him back to the pre-war Germany and his powerlessness to prevent the death of his beloved Kseniya. The daughter of a white emigrant will be killed by his mate, a violent chekist Shlyakis. Paralyzing fear makes Gleb Sergovksy loose self control for a while, but a well-trained indifference helps him out. A help that will soon turn into a disservice...

1929, Moscow.

In the very beginning of his career in the security office of OGPU, Sergovsky interrogates an orthodox priest, father Pakhomii. His zeal and the depth of his arguments plant a seed of anxiety in the soul of the interrogator. At first he will worry about himself, then about his victims, and finally he will acquire sincere faith. The two destinies will become tighly bound by the divine providence.

1933, SLON

(The Solovki prison camp).

Father Pahomii is exiled to Solovki. In the conditions of hard labour and pestilence, caring for typhus patients in the walls of the Crucifiction Church made into a field hospital the orthodox martyr survives on prayer. The old monk foresees the future transformation of the atheist Sergovsky in the image of the fresco “The Prodigal Son’. Father Pakhomii sees the image looming through the small gaps between the plank beds on the burnt wall of the barrack, the desecrated Preobrazhensky cathedral in the heart of the monastery’s Kremlin.

1942, Voluisk.

(Western Belorussia)

By a twist of fate the communication staff of the Soviet reconnaissance is located in the former onastery’s church. A communication agent named Kolya, a сonnection agent between Sergovsky and a Russian intelligence agent Vladislav Kruschilsky, is an acolyte in the curch. For an atheist Gleb Sergovsky it seems absurd. Trusting the churhmen is an extraordinary thing. He keeps a secret the fact that after his liberation in Moscow he himself surreptitiously went to church.

Information is passed on on a shabby bench in the park in front of the church. In complicated situations check rendezvous took place here, the password was “Do your prayers work for anyone?’ The answer was: ‘They work for everyone who has faith’. There are only two priests serving in the church. According to the Russian intelligence officer in the twenties Father Superior Venedict surrenders to the Soviet governement and starts collaborating with it, disclosing ‘Tikhonites’, but shortly before the war he repents and goes back under the wing of the Moscow Patriarchy. The other priest, father Pakhomii, is a zealous ‘Tikhonite’, a former prisoner of the Solovki camp.

When Gleb Sergovsky (Kurt Birger) goes to the rendezvous point in the park for the first time, a thin priest in a black skouphos over his eyes passes by. Sergovsky recognizes the look. It is the look that was imprinted in his mind and kept untangling the reel of vicious memories, bringing back the torturous realization of the meaningless crimes.

Sergovsky sees again the thick wave of ashes of the blown up church, the hellfire and the unallayed grief of miriads of convicted victims, mixed with otherworldy images inspiring insurmountable fear. An agonized cry of his beloved woman, with a bloody mess instead of face... These memories make him restless and wake him up from a deep sleep, driving to madness the soul, tortured by despair.

Moscow, 1941.

Standing in a queue to confession Sergovsky hardly understands how desparately he needs it. He follows with his eyes the unknown sacrament, listens to the transparent silence of the liturgy, watching the images of the Last Judgement. All of a sudden he leaves the queue and goes out of the church. Again, his heart sinks. What happens?

Voluisk, 1942.

(West Belorussia)

On a bright winter day father superior Venedikt betrays the communication agent Kolya to the fascist special agents. When hoping to get the main resident agent of the Soviet intelligence, German position finding devices will surround the church, father Pakhomii will slowly go down the stairs, go towards the bench followed by the surprized eyes of the fascists, will take the cipher text out of the bench and put it in his mouth. A Soviet intelligence agent Kruschilskii is surrounded by faschists trying to flee from the cover, and shoots himself in the temple.

Before the interrogation of the priest in a German prison Sergovsky (Kurt Birger), delegated by the staff chief to do the interrogation, finally realizes that the thin priest is father Pakhomii. Years spent in the concentration camp changed his appearance irreversibly. Memory quickly tranfers the interrogation at Lubyanka to the tiny cabinet in the German prison. Sergovsky hears again the quiet prayers of the monk and clearly realizes that the priest knowingly kept Sergovsky’s true identity a secret from the German secret service. Oberstlieutenant Erich von Kuhelman has had suspicions about his new friend Birger, but has no proof...

Years later Sergovsky will understand what exactly the priest was whispersing in his prayers that urged him to flee from the secret service building. He wants to put an end to this story, and repent. His era is a sinking ship slowly going down to the invisible bottom, taking endless victims with it. What is it leaving behind but a deadly swirl?

In the cabinet of the German prison Sergovsky realized for the first time that with all his scepticism he had looked beyond the Black Stump. (beyond life and death?) He had looked there where the human soul is worth nothing. And now, interrogating this innocent monk, he is forced to act as a ruthless German officer. Sergovsky cannot withstand the tension.

Destiny leaves Sergovsky the right for confession.

He makes a decision to free father Pakhomii from prison before the latter is passed on to Gestapo. He breaks open a safe in a secret service staff cabinet and takes a stamp. Showing a fake document to the guard Sergovsky takes out the prisoner.

Together they try to get to the Soviet guerillas going through the Ganini marshes that are well known to Sergovsky. However, the priest, exhausted by tortures, cannot make it. With his blessing the communication agent goes on, carrying priceless documents featuring the disposition of the reserve army Eastward. Sergovsky obtained the documents after crashing with a car of the German secret service on a road leading to the forest.

Father Pakhomii and Sergovsky will stay in a deep dugout reminiscent of a small church image. There they will be waiting for the fascist soldiers. There Sergovsky will have his first real confession. There for the first time is his life he will cry for the calamities of the past, there God will accept his confession shortly before death.

In a blessed silence of the opened sky father Pakhomii baptizes Gleb Sergovsky. The priest holds a handful of melting snow in his hand and says three times: ‘The servant of God Gleb is baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’ over the head of Sergovsky standing on his knees. With the last ‘Amen’ a rifle cracks and a warm salty liqiud, mixing with the cold one, goes down Sergovsky’s face.

When German tommy gunners with oberstlietenant Von Kuhelman hang over the godson and the godfather, they do not see neither fear, nor plea for mercy in Sergovsky’s eyes. There is a pensive and calm depth. Weakened Sergovsky opens his clenched fist that was under the empty brief case of the staff chief, and an unpinned grenade rolls out. An angel choral silences the burst wave and a blinding light of the presence of God’s eye ascends above the lifeless bodies, as if taking in the weight of the two liberated souls.