Legends

by Robert Littell

  “And what is that morsel of wood?” he whispered to the metropolitan.

  Alfonsas’s eyes turned hollow with wrath. “That is not wood,” he cried. “It is a fragment of the True Cross.” Overcome with emotion, the metropolitan turned away and, murmuring verses in Church Slavonic, prostrated himself on the great stones of the floor, under which corpses of metropolitans and monks were interred. Guided by a producer, the cameraman panned with his floodlight and lens onto Alfonsas and held it there while a very chic young woman spoke into a microphone in what Martin took to be BBC Lithuanian.

  She broke off the interview abruptly when a roar from outside the church penetrated the thick walls. One of the priests, scampering up a ladder and peering through a slit high in a bartizan, called out, “Holy father, the battle has begun.” The metropolitan sprang to his feet and motioned for the glass door of the feretory to be shut and locked. Gripping his staff by the silver tip and resting the heavy jewel-encrusted handle on a shoulder, he planted himself in front of the holy relics of Saint Gedymin. “Over my dead body,” he cried. He fixed Martin with his dark beady eyes. “Bear witness,” he instructed him, “to the perversity of the papists who falsely claim the relics of our saint.”

  The cameraman cut the floodlight and the television reporters darted toward the narrow door in the back of the church. The metropolitan cried out when he saw them tugging free the crossbar—too late. The door burst open on its hinges and a mob of shrieking peasants stormed into the church. Flailing away with his heavy staff, the metropolitan defended the feretory until someone stabbed his thigh with the prongs of a pitchfork and the peasants wrestled his staff away. Martin backed up against a wall and raised his hands over his head but some deranged peasants with wild beards and wild eyes closed in on him and began punching him in the rib cage until he doubled over and sank onto the floor. Through the sea of peasants milling around, he could make out one of them raising a heavy candlestick and shattering the glass window of the feretory. The pillow with the bones of the saint was removed and the peasant army, throwing open the great front door, spilled out of the church. A howl of triumph rose from the throats of the Catholics outside. Faint from the pain in his chest, Martin saw the metropolitan, on his knees in front of the feretory, sobbing like a baby.

  Lithuanian police and an army unit, pouring into Zuzovka from the north aboard camouflage-painted armored busses, eventually succeeded in separating the warring communities, but not before two of the attacking Catholics and one of the young Orthodox priests had been clubbed to death and dozens on both sides injured. Their sirens jingling, ambulances arrived behind the police. Doctors and nurses scrambled across the battleground in front of the Orthodox church, treating broken bones and broken heads and hauling the more seriously hurt off on stretchers to the district hospital in Alytus. Martin’s rib cage was taped up by a male nurse, after which he was escorted by armed soldiers to the command post, set up in the gazebo, to be quizzed by an army colonel with waxed whiskers who seemed more interested in the impression he would make on television than the confrontation between the town’s Orthodox and Catholic communities. Looking appropriately grave, he finished giving an interview to the woman reporter from Vilnius and asked her when it would be broadcast, and then instructed an aide to phone his wife in Kaunas to make sure she caught him on TV. With the television crew off filming the wounded in the field, the officer turned to Martin and checked his identity papers. To be sure that the story the journalist named Kafkor filed (to the news service named on the laminated ID card) would take into consideration the Catholic side of the story—like the vast majority of Lithuanians the colonel was Catholic—he insisted on personally taking Martin in his jeep to talk with the bishop of the archdiocese, come all the way from Vilnius to support the local Catholic priests and the members of the diocese.

  The bishop turned out to be a cheery little man with wide hips and narrow shoulders, giving him the appearance, in his crimson ankle-length robe and embroidered stole, of a church bell. The meeting took place in the vegetable garden behind the church. Two white storks peered down at the scene from the large nest on top of the bell tower. “Dates,” the bishop said, launching into a lecture he had obviously given before, “are handy pegs on which to hang history. Do you not agree with this observation, Mr. Kafkor?”

  Martin, wincing from the pain in his ribs, used the tips of the white silk scarf silk tied around his neck to blot the perspiration on his forehead. “Uh-huh.”

  The army officer thrust a pad and ball point pen into Martin’s hands. “You must take notes,” he whispered.

  As Martin scribbled, the bishop paced between the furrows, the hem of his robe growing dirtier with each step, as he explained the history of Saint Gedymin. “It was Gedymin, as every schoolchild in Lithuania knows, who created Greater Lithuania, a vast duchy that stretched from the Black Sea to Moscow to the Baltic. He ruled over the empire from the capital he founded in Vilnius in the year of our Lord Jesus 1321. Sixty-five years later, in the year of our Lord 1386, Lithuanians, by the grace of God, adopted Catholicism as the state religion and, on the order of the grand duke, the entire population was baptized on the banks of the Neman. At which time it can be said that the last Lithuanian pagans vanished into the dustbin of history.”

  “Did you get all that?” the army officer demanded.

  “The first Catholic church,” the bishop plunged breathlessly on, “was built on this very site ten years after the mass baptism, and expanded”—he pointed to the bell tower and the jesse window and the two vaulted wings—“in the centuries that followed. The bones of Saint Gedymin, or what was left of him after the original crypt in Vilnius was desecrated by Tartar bandits, were consigned to the Catholic church at Zuzovka and remained here from early in the fourteenth century until Lithuania came under Russian domination in 1795. The Russians, being Eastern Orthodox, purloined the bones of the saint from the Catholic church and gave them to the Orthodox metropolitan, who had the Church of the Transfiguration built to house them. Despite our repeated petitions over the years, the bones remained in the possession of the Orthodox until a German army officer, retreating before a Russian offensive in 1944, stole the relics as he passed through Zuzovka.”

  Hoping to cut short the story, Martin said, “It was Samat Ugor-Zhilov who discovered the Orthodox church possessed a collection of priceless Torah scrolls and commentaries, and offered to trade the bones of Saint Gedymin, which he had traced to an Orthodox church in Argentina, for the Jewish documents.”

  The bishop danced a jig at the mention of Samat’s name. “But that is not it at all! That’s the fabricated story that this satanic Samat Ugor-Zhilov and the metropolitan would have the world believe. The truth is quite different.”

  “Mark the truth in your notebook,” the army officer instructed Martin.

  The bishop noticed the dirt that had accumulated on the hem of his robe and reached down to brush it off. “The television tells us that Samat Ugor-Zhilov, who is identified as a Russian philanthropist, returned the bones of Saint Gedymin in exchange for the Jewish Torah scrolls and commentaries held for safekeeping in the Orthodox church since the Great Patriotic War. The television goes on to say that all he asked for himself was a minuscule crucifix, fashioned from the wood of the so-called True Cross in the possession of the Orthodox church. The TV even showed a picture of the metropolitan handing to the so-called philanthropist the crucifix, which was the size of a pinky finger on a child. Samat thanked the metropolitan and said he would donate the crucifix, fashioned from the True Cross, to the Orthodox church in the village near Moscow where his mother still lived.”

  Martin looked up from his note taking, his eyes burning with excitement. “Did he give the name of this village?”

  The bishop shook his heavy head; his jowls continued to roll from side to side after his head had returned to an even keel. “No. What does it matter?” Without waiting for a response, he continued: “The real reason this Samat Ugor-Zhilov gave
the saint’s bones to the Orthodox and not to its original Catholic custodians is opium.”

  Martin, unnerved, looked up again. “Opium?”

  “Opium,” the army officer repeated, tapping a forefinger on Martin’s pad. “Write the word, if you please.”

  “Opium,” the bishop said, “is the key to understanding what has transpired. The opium poppy is grown in what is called the Golden Triangle—Burma, Thailand, Laos. Vietnamese drug traders transport the raw opium to the Russian naval base at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, and from there it is shipped to the Russian port of Nakhodka on the Sea of Japan. The Russian drug cartel, which was run by the one known as the Oligarkh, Tzvetan Ugor-Zhilov, until he went into hiding several years ago, processes the opium in Nakhodka and then smuggles it across Russia for distribution to markets in Europe and America. Since the late 1980s Zuzovka has served as a hub for shipping opium to northern Europe and Scandinavia. Landing strips were bulldozed onto the flatlands bordering the Neman and small planes flying at night ferried their illicit cargoes into this corner of Lithuania. To move the large quantities of opium westward, Samat Ugor-Zhilov employed runners disguised as Orthodox priests, since they are able to pass frontiers easily. When the metropolitan threatened to put a stop to this, Samat bought him off by tracking down and returning Gedymin’s bones”—the bishop’s eyes blinked mischievously—“assuming that what he brought to the church were really the bones of the sainted saint.”

  “What about the Torah scrolls?”

  “The metropolitan did not want to be seen having commercial dealings with sacred texts so he consigned them to Samat, who sold them to an Israeli museum and donated the proceeds, less a hefty commission, to the Orthodox church.”

  “And how did you come across all this information?”

  The bishop glanced up at the storks in the nest atop the bell tower. “A very large bird told me.”

  Martin closed his pad and dropped it into a pocket. “It seems as if every riddle is part of another greater riddle.”

  “It is like an onion,” the bishop said consolingly. “Under each layer is … another layer.”

  “One last question: If you’re not sure the bones Samat brought with him are those of the sainted saint, why were the Catholics battling to bring them back to the Catholic church?”

  The bishop held up one of his small pristine hands as if he were directing traffic. “Whether the bones of the sainted saint are genuine is of little consequence. The only thing that matters is that the faithful believe they are.”

  That night the colonel personally drove Martin back to his Lada, still parked in front of the bakery.

  “How are your ribs, Mr. Kafkor?”

  “They only hurt when I laugh and there’s not much chance I’ll be laughing a lot.”

  “Well, good-bye and God speed, Mr. Kafkor. I have ordered the soldiers in the jeep to escort you to the Belarus frontier.” When Martin started to protest that it wouldn’t be necessary, the colonel cut him off. “Our police discovered two bloated bodies floating in the Neman this afternoon. At first they assumed the murdered men were Catholics killed by the Orthodox, or Orthodox killed by Catholics. A specialist from Vilnius identified the long knife found on one of the corpses as a weapon popular in Chechnya, which suggests that the two dead men were Chechens.”

  “Maybe they were involved in Samat’s opium cartel,” Martin ventured.

  The colonel shrugged. “There may be a connection between the dead Chechens and Samat, though I doubt it had anything to do with the opium operation. Islam is not welcomed in this frontier region of Lithuania, either by the Catholics or the Orthodox. No, the only thing that could have brought Chechens here is a mission—though with them being drowned, it is impossible to speculate what it could have been. You would not have an idea?”

  Martin shook his head. “It’s as much a mystery to me as it is to you.”

  The following morning Martin treated himself to a good breakfast in Hrodna’s only hotel and then strolled carefully (his cracked ribs hurt if he walked too fast) along the main street, past the bulletin board posted with the regional newspaper open to photographs of the riot at Zuzovka, to the town’s central post office. He queued at the window with the emblem of a telephone over it, and wrote the number on the ledger when the clerk didn’t understand his rudimentary Russian.

  “What country uses code nine seven two?” she asked.

  “Israel.”

  “And what city in Israel uses the area code two?”

  “Jerusalem.”

  The clerk noted “Jerusalem, Israel” on her work sheet and dialed the number. She motioned for Martin to pick up the telephone in the nearest booth. He heard a man’s voice on the line protesting, “This must be a mistake—I don’t know anyone in Belarus.”

  “Benny, it’s me, Martin.”

  “What the Christ are you doing in Belarus?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Give me the short version.”

  “Even the short version’s too long to tell you on the phone. Listen, Benny, that night I spent at your house you told me about the Oligarkh living in an isolated dacha in a village a half hour from Moscow along the Moscow-Petersburg highway. You wouldn’t by any chance remember the name of the village?”

  “You want to hold on, I’ll check my computer.”

  Martin watched the people lining up at the other windows, some for stamps, some to pay electric or water bills, some to cash pension checks. None of them looked out of place, which didn’t mean much; anyone who wanted to keep tabs on him would use local help.

  Benny came back on line. “The name of the village is Prigorodnaia.”

  “Maybe you ought to spell that.”

  Benny did, phonetically.

  “Prigorodnaia. Thanks, Benny.”

  “I guess you’re welcome. Though come to think of it, I’m not positive.”

  1994: LINCOLN DITTMANN SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT

  BERNICE TREFFLER KNEW SOMETHING WAS OUT OF JOINT THE moment Martin Odum strolled into the room—a grin meant to be both sardonic and seductive played on his lips, as if a session with a Company shrink came under the heading of indoor sport and she was fair game. He appeared taller, more assured, less agitated, completely in control of emotions that he could identify. His body language was new to her—his head was angled suggestively, his shoulders relaxed, one hand jingled the loose change in a trouser pocket. He walked with only the faintest trace of a limp. She could have sworn that his hair was combed differently, though she would have had to pull a photograph of Martin from the file folder to be sure, which is something she didn’t want to do in front of him. Instead of sitting across the desk from her, as he usually did, he flopped gracefully into a chair next to the low table near the window, his legs extended and crossed casually at the ankles, and nodded at another chair, inviting her to join him, sure she would. When she did, she noticed him undressing her with his eyes as she came across the carpet; she saw him inspecting her thigh when she crossed her legs. She set the small tape recorder down and edged the microphone closer to Martin. He fixed his gaze on her eyes and she found herself toying with the joint on the fourth finger of her left hand where the gold ring used to be before the divorce.

  “You’re wearing perfume,” he noted. “What is it?”

  When she didn’t respond, he tried another tack. “Is Treffler your married name?”

  “No. I work under my maiden name.”

  “You don’t wear a wedding band but I could tell you’re married.”

  Her gaze fell away from his. “What gave me away?”

  “You sure you want to know?” he asked, clearly taunting her.

  Why was Martin Odum coming on to her? she wondered. What had changed since the session the previous month? Leaning forward, aware that in this new incarnation he wouldn’t miss the slight swell of her breasts above the scalloped blouse, she flipped a switch on the tape recorder. “Mind if I check your voice level again?”

 
; “Be my guest.” He clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back into them, thoroughly enjoying how uncomfortable he had managed to make her. “A woman, a dog, a walnut tree,” he recited, pronouncing “dog” dawg, “the more you beat ’em, the better they be.”

  “That another line from Walt … from Walter Whitman?”

  He laughed softly. “It’s a ditty the boys used to sing around the campfire while they were waiting to cross the Rapahannock.”

  Suddenly it hit her. “You’re not Martin Odum!”

  “And you’re not as thick as Martin says.”

  “You’re the one who claims to have been at the battle of Fredericksburg,” she breathed. “You’re Lincoln Dittmann.”

  He only smiled.

  “But why? What are you doing here?”

  “Martin told you about my being at Fredericksburg but you didn’t believe him. You thought he was making the whole thing up.” Lincoln leaned forward, the humor gone from his eyes. “You went and hurt his feelings, Dr. Treffler. Shrinks are supposed to heal feelings, not hurt them. Martin sent me round to set the record straight.”

  Dr. Treffler understood that she was setting out into uncharted territory. “Okay, convince me Lincoln Dittmann was at the battle of Fredericksburg. What else did the boys talk about while they were waiting to cross the river?”

  Lincoln stared out the window, his eyes wide, unblinking, unfocused. “They talked about home remedies for diarrhea, which many considered the arch enemy, more dangerous than Johnny Reb. They traded recipes for moonshine. I recall one lieutenant from the 70th Ohio concocted something he labeled ‘Knock ’em stiff’—it consisted of bark juice, tar water, turpentine, brown sugar, lamp oil and alcohol. They argued whether, when they crossed the river and marched on Richmond and won the war, the slaves ought to be freed; so many were against, the few who were for were careful to keep their own counsel. They griped about having to pay $1.80 for a plug of tobacco. They griped about the Yankees who’d gone west to avoid the draft and claim free land while they were stuck on the Rapahannock fighting the Goddamn war. The griped about the factory-made shoddy—”