Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk

by Boris Akunin

  At this point His Grace could contain himself no longer and began to cry, but since his usual strength of character did not incline him to tears—indeed, he entirely lacked the gift of weeping—the sounds that he produced were rather inelegant: first a dull groan mingled with a throaty wheezing, followed by a lengthy trumpeting of his nose into a handkerchief. But the very awkwardness of this keening for a lost soul affected the others present more powerfully than any loud sobbing: Matvei Bentsionovich began blinking rapidly and also pulled out quite an immense handkerchief, while Sister Pelagia more than made up for male niggardliness in the matter of weeping by setting up a terrible wail and dissolving in tears.

  The bishop was the first to recover his presence of mind.

  “I shall pray for Felix Stanislavovich's soul. Alone, in my chapel. It is forbidden to pray for a suicide in the churches. Though he himself may have rejected God and there can be no forgiveness for him, he is still worthy of kind remembrance in prayer.”

  “No forgiveness?” Pelagia sobbed. “Not for any single suicide? Never ever, not even after a thousand years? Can you be absolutely certain of that, Your Grace?”

  “Who am I to say? That has been the church's teaching since time immemorial.”

  The nun dried her white face with its sprinkling of pale freckles and knitted her brows in intense concentration. “But what if the burden of life has proved far more than someone can bear? If someone has an unbearable grief, or an excruciatingly painful illness, or he is tortured by merciless brutes trying to force him to commit treason? Is there no forgiveness for these people either?”

  “No,” Mitrofanii replied sternly. “And your questions come from too little faith. The Lord knows which tests each of us can bear and he does not test a single soul beyond its measure. If he sends terrible torment, it means that soul is especially strong, and strength must be tested. Such are all the holy martyrs. None of them was afraid of torture, and they did not lay hands on themselves.”

  “But the holy saints are only one in a million. And then, what shall we say of those who have doomed themselves not out of fear or weakness, but for the sake of others? I remember you reading an article in the newspaper about the captain of a steamship who gave his place in the lifeboat to someone else when the ship was wrecked, and because of that he went to the bottom with the vessel. You admired his action and praised him.”

  Berdichevsky sighed with a martyred air, knowing in advance how this discussion that had flared up so inopportunely would end. Pelagia would provoke His Grace's annoyance with her questions and arguments, there would be a serious quarrel, and precious time would be wasted when they ought to be talking about the business at hand.

  “I did admire him—as a citizen of this earthly world, but as a cleric who is obliged to take care for the immortality of the soul, I condemn him and grieve for him.”

  “I see,” said the nun, flashing a keen glance at the bishop, and then she struck him a blow that the English would have called unsporting. “Then what of Ivan Susanin, who voluntarily exposed himself to the Polish sabers in order to save our most august royal dynasty—do you condemn him too?”

  Beginning to grow angry, Mitrofanii grabbed hold of his beard with his fingers. “Perhaps Ivan Susanin hoped that at the last moment he would be able to escape from his enemies into the forest. If there is hope, even the very tiniest, then it is not suicide. When soldiers go into a dangerous attack, even when, as people say, they go ‘to certain death,’ every one of them is still hoping for a miracle and praying to God for one. Hope makes all the difference—hope! While hope is still alive, then so is God. And you, as a nun, should know that!”

  Pelagia responded to this reproach with a humble bow, but still she did not relent. “And Christ, when He went to the cross, did He also hope?” she asked in a quiet voice.

  The bishop did not immediately appreciate the full significance of this audacious question and merely frowned. But having understood it, he raised himself up to his full height, stamped his foot, and exclaimed, “Would you make a suicide of our Savior? Get thee behind me, Satan! Begone!”

  At this point even the nun realized that her questioning had transgressed every permissible limit. Catching up the hem of her nun's habit and pulling her head down into her shoulders, Pelagia darted out through the door at which the monitory episcopal finger was pointed.

  And so it happened that the plan of further action was determined without the participation of the stubborn nun, with just His Grace and Matvei Bentsionovich speaking tête-à-tête. And in addition, it should be borne in mind that the deplorable fate that had overtaken both of the bishop's chosen emissaries had deprived Mitrofanii of his customary confidence (while the quarrel with his spiritual daughter had added dejection to his state of mind), and so for most of the time Mitrofanii listened and agreed with everything, while Berdichevsky, on the contrary, although he felt genuine sympathy for his spiritual pastor, spoke more magniloquently and passionately than usual.

  “We just keep talking about nothing but intricate knots,” he said, “and it is true that in this business everything is so tangled up, it's enough to drive you crazy. But the members of my profession are not known as hairsplitters without good reason. We court officers are past masters at tangling up balls of thread and writing in incomprehensible squiggles. Sometimes we can even tie such a tight little knot that it puts the Gordius of ancient times to shame. But then there is no one who knows how to unravel these tangles better than we do. That's right, is it not?”

  “Yes,” His Grace agreed with a mournful air, glancing at the door to see if Pelagia would come back.

  “Well then, if that's right, I am the one who ought to go to New Ararat. This time we have clear grounds for an entirely official investigation, even if it is a secret one. A chief of police committing suicide is no joking matter; it is no longer superstition or the workings of a hysterical imagination—it is something quite unheard of. Our governor, Anton Antonovich, will be asked by the ministry to explain—why, the emperor himself will demand an explanation from him.”

  “Yes, of course, the governor will be asked to explain,” said Mitrofanii, nodding listlessly.

  “So he will have to know what answer to give. You cannot go yourself under any circumstances—do not even think of it. Neither your bishop's title nor the provisions of the law give you any right to deal with an investigation into a criminal case of suicide.”

  “Then let us go together. You will concern yourself with the secret investigation into the circumstances of Lagrange's death, and I will concern myself with the Black Monk.” The old fire flared up in Mitrofanii's eyes, and then was instantly extinguished again. “And I'll see poor Alyosha,” he concluded in a cheerless voice.

  “No,” snapped Berdichevsky. “What secrecy will there be left, if I arrive in Ararat with you? We'll cause a fine commotion! Not only has the bishop come rushing to meet the Black Monk, he's even brought the assistant provincial public prosecutor with him! It's simply ludicrous. No, Father, give me your blessing to go on my own.”

  His Grace was clearly not himself that day; he was feeling downcast and had lost heart. There was something glinting suspiciously on his eyelashes again. Mitrofanii stood up and kissed the lay official on the forehead.

  “You're my treasure, Matiusha. Your head is worth its weight in gold. And above all I value the fact that you are prepared to make such a sacrifice. Do you think I don't understand? Your Maria is near her time already. Go, and solve the mystery. You can see for yourself what a terrible mystery it is, so terrible that ordinary methods cannot resolve it. In the name of Christ the Lord, I implore you: take care of yourself—protect your life and your reason.”

  Trying not to show how touched he was, Matvei Bentsionovich replied in gallant style: “Never mind, Your Grace. God willing, I'll get the job done and be back in time for Masha to give birth. You know the popular saying: the cunning Yid always has time for everything.”

  But on his way home
in the carriage, his bravado deserted him and he felt sick at heart, and the closer he came to home, the sicker he felt. How could he tell his wife? How could he look her in the eye?

  “Masha, my angel, something has come up … an extremely important trip … just for a week, and there's no way I can possibly refuse. I'll be as quick as I can, on my word of honor.”

  He was immediately ejected from her embrace and roundly abused in terms that were severe but just. He spent the night in the study, on the hard divan, but the worst thing of all was that he left in the morning without having said a proper goodbye to his wife. He kissed and blessed their children—all twelve of them—but Masha was adamant and would have none of it.

  He left instructions concerning the disposal of his property in the drawer of the writing desk—just to be on the safe side, as a responsible man.

  Ah, Masha, Masha, will we ever see each other again?

  REMORSE, THAT WAS the feeling that completely overwhelmed the assistant public prosecutor on his way to the archipelago of the Blue Lake. What had he gotten himself involved in by following a momentary impulse? And for what?

  That is to say, what he had done it for, or rather whom, was clear enough—his beloved mentor and benefactor, and also in the name of establishing the truth, which was the professional duty of a servant of justice. But there was also a moral, even philosophical question: What was a man's primary responsibility—to society or to love? One pan of the scales held civic convictions, professional reputation, a man's honor and self-respect; the other held thirteen living souls—one woman and twelve children (and soon, God willing, another one would be added, a tiny new infant). If it were only himself he were risking, that would not be so bad, but those thirteen others who would be lost without him and who were dearer to him than all the other millions populating the earth, what were they guilty of? And so, whichever way you looked at things, it turned out that Matvei Berdichevsky was a traitor. If he put his family first and evaded his duty, then he would be a traitor to his principles and society. But if he honestly fulfilled his duty to society, he was a scoundrel and a Judas to his Masha and his children.

  Not for the first or even the hundredth time, Matvei Bentsionovich regretted that he had chosen the path of a guardian of the law, which imposed so many restraints on an honest man. If only he worked as a barrister or a legal consultant, then he wouldn't have to suffer this torment from the moral impossibility of choice, would he?

  But yes, he would, Berdichevsky told himself, and again not for the first time. Every man, even if he was not in public office and led a completely private life, inevitably encountered conflicts requiring him to choose what to sacrifice. God was certain to inflict this test on every man alive, so that he could learn his own worth and measure his shoulder against one cross or another.

  He was in a foul mood, even setting aside the moral agony of the choice that he had made. The trouble was that Matvei Bentsionovich abhorred the qualities that were being revealed in his own soul. Instead of dashing into the investigation on the wings of inspiration, driven on by thirst for the truth, the assistant public prosecutor was experiencing something entirely different, a feeling tactfully referred to as trepidation, but in simple terms plain desperate cowardice.

  What terrible experiences, what kind of unimaginable nightmare could it be that had driven a hard-bitten nihilist insane and made a gruff, fearless policeman shatter his own heart with a bullet? What kind of demon could have made its home there, on that accursed island? And how could an ordinary man who was very far from heroic by nature possibly do combat with such a horror?

  Naturally, being an educated and progressive individual, Matvei Bentsionovich did not believe in evil spirits, ghosts, and so forth. But on the other hand, following Hamlet's famous maxim that “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” he could not entirely exclude the theoretical possibility of the existence of some other energies or substances as yet undiscovered by science.

  Berdichevsky sat on the deck of the steamer, huddled up miserably in his insubstantial palmerston coat with a cape (since the investigation was secret, he had not brought his fine uniform greatcoat with him), and sighed over and over again.

  No matter what the court official's glance fell on, he did not like it all: neither the sour faces of the pilgrims sharing his journey, nor the vast, gloomy expanse of the great lake, nor the shuffling run of the glum-faced sailors. The captain was the perfect picture of a pirate, even if he was wearing a cassock—immensely tall, with a red face and a stentorian voice. What sort of expression was “A censer up your rump”? Or “Seed-spilling servants of Onan”—how about that?

  Eventually Berdichevsky went to his cabin, lay down on his bunk bed, and covered his face with the pillow. He carried on sighing for a while and then fell asleep. And he had a revolting dream.

  There he was, not yet a collegiate counselor, but still the little boy Mordka, running through the Skornyazhnaya suburb, pursued by a crowd of silent bearded monks waving censers, with the clatter of huge boots and the hoarse breathing getting closer and closer. Then they caught up with him and knocked him down and he cried out: “I'm an Orthodox Christian—the bishop himself baptized me!” He tore open his shirt, but there was no cross hanging around his neck—he had dropped it somewhere. Matvei Bentsionovich began sobbing tearfully and struck the back of his head against the bulkhead. Still half-asleep, he fumbled for the cross on his chest, then drank a little water and slumped back into sleep.

  In the morning the assistant public prosecutor stood on the prow of the steamship with his holdall in his hand, pale-faced and filled with noble fatalism: he would do what must be done, come what may.

  The island of Canaan came drifting toward him out of the dense fog. At first there was nothing at all. Then a black, shaggy hump emerged from the milky mist—a low cliff, overgrown with scrub. Then behind it another, a bit lower, and another, and another … A long dark strip appeared, and coming from it he heard the dull rumble of bells chiming, as if they were muffled in cotton wool.

  The sun was still trying to break through the dense atmosphere: in places the fog was suffused with a pink or even golden light, but that was mostly high up, closer to the sky; down below everything was still a dull, blank gray.

  As he walked down the gangway onto the almost invisible quayside, Matvei Bentsionovich felt as if he were descending onto an immaterial cloud. He could hear voices shouting somewhere: “If you want the very finest hotel, it's Noah's Ark for you!” “Rooms in the Refuge of the Lowly—any cheaper and they'd be free!” and so on in the same vein.

  Berdichevsky listened for a while and then set off toward a thin, boyish voice enticing him to the Promised Land guesthouse. Where else should a Jew go? he thought with gentle self-irony.

  A slim, shapely figure wearing a broad-brimmed hat with ostrich feathers emerged fleetingly from the matte gray background and promptly disappeared again. He heard the rustle of a dress and the clatter of heels, and caught the sudden smell of perfume—not the Lily of the Valley that his Mashenka always used, but some distinctive scent, alarming and exciting. A narrow ray of sunlight suddenly struck Matvei Bentsionovich directly in the eyes, as if it had been specially aimed at him, and the fog dispersed with surprising rapidity. That is, it didn't actually disperse—it seemed to be rolled up from all four sides toward the center, as if someone were removing a dirty tablecloth from a table in order to shake it out.

  Startled by the suddenness of the change, Berdichevsky saw that he was standing in the middle of a neat and tidy street with fine stone buildings on both sides, with a roadway paved with timber and neatly planted trees. There were people strolling along the pavement and to the left, above the town, he could see the walls of a monastery—with no turrets or bell towers as yet, because the tablecloth of fog had still not risen very high above the ground.

  The assistant public prosecutor looked around for the lady whose mere appearance had bee
n enough to scatter the gloom, but only caught a brief glimpse of a sharp heel protruding from under the hem of a mourning dress on the very corner of the street, and a feather swaying on a hat.

  How many such fleeting encounters there are in life, Matvei Bentsionovich thought as he strode after the boy from the hotel. That which could have happened, but will never happen, will brush your cheek with its rustling wing and then fly on its way, leaving you reeling. And every day of life was a myriad of missed opportunities and twists of fate that never came to anything. There was no point in sighing over it—you had to appreciate the path that you were on.

  And so Berdichevsky's thoughts turned toward business. He ought to begin by inspecting the police chiefs things and also (at this point he shuddered mentally) the dead man's body. But even before that, he should send notes to both the archimandrite and Dr. Korovin, notifying them that an investigator had arrived and demanding an immediate meeting. He could set the meeting with the former for, say, two o'clock in the afternoon, and with the latter for five.

  “AN ENTRY WOUND the size of a kopeck coin, located between the sixth and seventh ribs, three inches below and half an inch to the left of the left nipple. An exit wound at the protruding vertebra (the seventh, I think), which has been shattered by the bullet; about the size of a five-kopeck piece. Other visible injuries include a bump one inch to the right of the crown of the head, evidently caused by convulsive blows of the head against the floor after the body had fallen.”

  Matvei Bentsionovich had never had to draw up any reports of postmortem examinations. The province had a medical expert and a police investigator to do that, as well as the more lowly members of the public prosecutor's office. But here in New Ararat, where there was no crime, or even police as such, there was no one to whom he could delegate this terrible task. Berdichevsky was familiar with the special terminology, but he had not mastered it, and so he tried to describe everything in as much detail as possible, using his own words. From time to time he broke off to take a sip of water.