Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel

by Boris Akunin

  He tested the spectacles with his tooth. Sweet Lord, they were gold!

  And the Jewish priest rumbled on behind the bent backs: “If I don’t banish anyone who grumbles and is fainthearted, my name’s not Aron Shefarevich! Take a look at yourselves, you shriveled tapeworms! What would the Oprichniks want with you? Who has any interest in you?”

  Muffin didn’t bother to listen to any more—he went while the going was good.

  The fog had turned so thick you could barely even see the railings. The razin started slipping along them.

  “Ood-ooo!” came the deafening hoot from above. So the deckhouse was here.

  And when the steamer finished hooting, strange words were borne to Muffin’s ears. Up ahead someone was singing:

  Breath to my lips she did provide,

  And then upon her flaming torch did breathe,

  And in that moment’s madness did divide

  Into the Here and There the whole world’s breadth

  She left—and all was cold around …

  “Stop that howling, Coliseum,” another voice interrupted, a sharp, mocking voice. “Try strengthening those muscles of yours instead. What did I give you that rubber ball for?”

  There was a breath of wind from the left bank, and as the shroud of white thinned, Muffin saw an entire assembly under the stairway of the wheelhouse: young lads sitting there, about twenty of them, and two girls with them as well.

  It was an odd sort of group, not the kind you saw very often. Among the young men there were many with spectacles and curly hair, and some with big noses—they looked like young Jews too, but at the same time they didn’t. They were far too jolly, with smiles that reached back to their ears. One was a bit older, with broad shoulders, a singlet under his open blouse, and a pipe clenched in his teeth. He had to be a seagoing man, with that beard and no mustache—that was the way sailors shaved, so as not to singe themselves with the embers in their pipe.

  The girls were even odder. Or rather, not girls—young ladies. The first was slim, with white skin and huge eyes that took up half her face, but for some reason the little fool had cut her hair short like a boy’s. And it was grand hair, too—thick, with a golden shimmer to it. The second was short and round, and the way she was dressed was a real fright: on her head she had a white canvas cap with a narrow brim, instead of a skirt she was wearing a pair of green shorts, so that her legs were all open to view, and on her feet she had white socks and flimsy sandals with leather straps.

  Muffin blinked his eyes at this unusual sight. Well, did you ever! You could see her ankles, and her fat thighs, covered in goose pimples from the cold.

  And it wasn’t just the legs he found interesting.

  What sort of people were they? Where were they going and what for? And what was a “rabberboll”?

  It was the one with the beard who had pronounced the incomprehensible word. The one who had been reciting verse laughed at his reproach and started jerking his hand about. Muffin looked more closely—the young lad had a small black sphere grasped between his fingers and he was squeezing it, over and over. But what for?

  “Feeling chilly, Malke?” the one with the beard asked the fat girl (he looked at her goose bumps too). “Never mind, you’ll look back on this journey as heaven. It’s cool, and there’s all the water you could want. Why did I set Nizhni as the place to meet? To say good-bye to Russia. Look around, breathe. Soon there won’t be anything to breathe. You still don’t know what real heat’s like. But I do. One time we were anchored in Port Said, we had to patch up the plating. I asked the captain for a week’s leave, I wanted to taste the desert for myself, take a close look.”

  “And did you get a close look?” the delicate young lady asked.

  “I did, Rokhele, I did,” the man with the beard chuckled. “My skin’s not as white as yours, but by the evening my face was covered with blisters. My lips were all cracked and bloody. My throat felt like it had been scraped out with a file. And I couldn’t go drinking water, I had to lick salt.”

  “Why salt, Magellan?” one of the young lads asked in surprise.

  “Because when you sweat, the body loses salt, and that’s more terrible than dehydration. You can croak like that. So I was sweating, and licking salt, but I kept moving on. I’d made my mind up: a hundred and thirty miles to Gaza, spend one day there, and back again.” Magellan blew out a stream of smoke. “Only I never got to Gaza, I lost my way. I relied on the sun and didn’t take a compass, like a fool. On the third day the desert started swimming and swaying about. Moving in waves, to the left, to the right, left, right. I saw a birch grove in the distance, then a lake. Aha, I thought, I’ve sweated myself into seeing mirages now. And in the evening, when the shadows ran down in long stripes from the sand dunes, the Bedouins attacked from behind a hill. At first I thought it was just another mirage. Just picture it: triangular shadows rushing along at supernatural speed, getting bigger and bigger all the time. They’d set their camels to a gallop. And everything happening in total silence. Not a sound, only the sand rustling, as quiet as quiet. I’d been warned about bandits, so I had a Winchester with me, and a revolver. But I froze in the saddle, like a total idiot, and watched death come rushing toward me. Such a beautiful sight, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. What’s the most dangerous thing in the desert, after all? The sun and the heat blunt the instinct of self-preservation, that’s what.”

  Everyone was listening to the speaker with bated breath. Muffin was interested too, but it’s not good to forget about work. Fat-rumped Malke’s purse was sticking temptingly out of the pocket of her short trousers. Muffin even took it out, but then he put it back. He felt sorry for the great fool.

  “Not like that! I showed you!” Magellan cried, interrupting his tale. “Why are you jerking your wrist about! Use your fingers, your fingers! Give it here!”

  He took the ball away from Coliseum and started squeezing it repeatedly.

  “With rhythm, with rhythm. A thousand times, ten thousand! How are you going to hold an Arabian horse by the bridle with fingers like that? Here, catch. Now work.”

  He threw the ball back, but the versifying dunce didn’t catch it.

  The ball struck the deck and suddenly bounced back up mischievously, and with such a solid sound—Muffin really liked that.

  And then the ball went rolling across the deck, bouncing all the way but the fog crept across again from the right and drowned the entire honest company in thick white curds.

  “Butterfingers!” said Magellan’s voice. “All right, you can get it later.”

  But Muffin already had his sights set on the miraculous little ball. To give to Parkhomka the newspaper boy—let the little kid have a bit of fun.

  If only it didn’t go over the side. Muffin quickened his step.

  It must have been a funny sight—two round loaves rolling along, a little one and a big one.

  Stop now, you won’t get away from me!

  The little ball ran up against something dark, stopped, and was grabbed up immediately. Muffin was so absorbed in the chase that he almost crashed into the man sitting on the deck (the one who had brought the rubber ball to a halt).

  “I beg your pardon,” Muffin announced in a cultured voice. “That’s mine.”

  “Take it, if it’s yours,” the seated man replied amiably. And he turned back to his companions (there were two others there with him) and continued the conversation.

  Muffin’s jaw simply dropped. They seemed even odder to him than the previous group. Two men and a woman, but all dressed exactly the same, in loose white robes down to their heels, with a blue stripe around the middle—the woman’s was a ribbon sewn onto her robe, the men’s were daubed on with paint.

  They’re Foundlings, Muffin twigged. The ones the Jews were swearing about. He’d never seen them before, but he’d read about them—these people who imitated the Jews—and about that Manuila of theirs too. You could read about absolutely anything in the newspaper.

  The Foun
dlings were Russian people, but they had forsaken Christ and turned to the faith of the Jews. Muffin had forgotten why they wanted to be Jews and why they were called “foundlings,” but he did remember that the newspaper had been very abusive about the apostates and written bad things about Manuila. He had deceived many people into turning away from Orthodoxy, and who could possibly be in favor of that?

  And so Muffin took an immediate dislike to these three and started thinking what he could filch from them—not for his own gain, but to teach them not to go betraying Christ.

  He settled down to one side, hiding behind a cable locker.

  The one the ball had run into was really old already, with a crumpled face. He looked like a drunken clerk, except that he was sober. He was speaking gently and courteously. “Verily I say unto you: He is the Messiah. Christ was the false prophet, but He is the absolutely genuine one. And evil people will not be able to crucify Him, because Manuila is immortal, God protects him. You know yourselves that He has been killed already, but He rose again, only He didn’t ascend into heaven, He remained among the people, because His coming is the final one.”

  “Ieguda, I have doubts about circumcision,” a huge man boomed in a deep bass. From his massive hands and the black spots on his face Muffin could tell he was a blacksmith. “How much are you supposed to cut? A finger length? Half a finger?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Iezekia, I’m not sure myself. They told me in Moscow that one cobbler cut off his willy with scissors and afterward he almost died. I myself am thinking of abstaining for the time being. Let’s get to the Holy Land first, then we’ll see. They do say Manuila said we shouldn’t circumcise ourselves. The way I heard, He hasn’t given the Foundlings His blessing to do it.”

  “They’re raving,” the blacksmith sighed. “We should be circumcised, Ieguda, we should. A real Jew is always circumcised. Otherwise we’ll be ashamed to go to the bathhouse in the Holy Land. They’ll laugh at us.”

  “You’re right, Iezekia,” Ieguda agreed. “Even if we’re frightened, we ought to, it’s clear.”

  At that the woman piped up. Her voice had a rotten, snuffling sound, which was not surprising, since there was no nose to be seen on her face—it had completely collapsed.

  “Frightening, you say? Call yourself Jews? A pity I’m not a man, I wouldn’t be frightened.”

  What can I nick from these monsters? Muffin was thinking. Maybe the blacksmith’s sack?

  And he began creeping stealthily toward the sack—but just then the three seated people were joined by a fourth, wearing the same kind of robe, only his blue stripe wasn’t daubed on with paint, but sewn on with white thread.

  This man seemed even more repulsive to Muffin: little screwed-up eyes in a flat, oily face, greasy hair down to his shoulders, a mangy little beard. He had to be a tavern keeper.

  The other three all turned on him. “What are you doing, Solomosha, have you left him all alone?”

  And the elderly man who was called Ieguda looked around (but he didn’t see Muffin—how could he?) and said in a quiet voice: “It was agreed—there should always be two of us with the treasury!”

  Muffin thought he must have misheard. But flat-faced Solomosha gestured with one hand and said: “What can happen to the treasury? He’s asleep, and the chest’s under his pillow, and he’s got it grabbed in his paws too. It’s stuffy in that room.” He sat down, took off one boot and started rewinding his foot wrapping.

  Muffin rubbed his eyes in case he was dreaming. A treasury! A chest! Heigh-ho for the first sailing! Heigh-ho for the Sturgeon! Those gold specs he had were a worthless trinket, not to mention the other things. In a cabin, under the prophet Manuila’s pillow, there was a treasury in a chest, waiting for Muffin. There was his marrowbone!

  And you say your prophet’s gone to sleep?

  The razin was out from behind the cable locker in a flash.

  Down, down the ramp Muffin flew to the lower deck, where you couldn’t see anybody or anything except yellow patches through the whiteness—that was the cabin windows glowing. Muffin asked the yellow patches: Right, then—which one of you are they carrying the treasury in?

  There were curtains on the windows, but not all the way up to the top. If you stood on a chair (and there were chairs on the deck, as if they’d been put there deliberately for Muffin to use) you could glance in over the top.

  In the first window Muffin saw a touching scene: a family drinking tea. Papa—very respectable-looking, with a thick beard—was sipping his tea from a large glass. His wife was sitting facing him on a small sofa, doing embroidery in her house cap—she was a rather mannish creature, but her face was extremely kind and gentle. And sitting on both sides of Papa, nestling against his broad shoulders, were the children, a schoolboy son and a daughter about the same age. They weren’t twins, though—the little lad was dark, but the girl had golden hair.

  The little daughter was singing. Quietly, so Muffin couldn’t hear the words through the glass, only a kind of angelic vibration in the air. The young lady’s expression was pensive, her little pink lips sometimes opened wide, sometimes pursed up and stretched out forward.

  Muffin admired this heavenly vision. He would never, ever filch anything from such lovely people.

  The little son said something and stood up. He kissed his papa—and so very tenderly, full on the lips. He took his peaked cap and went out into the corridor. No doubt he had decided to go for a walk and get a breath of air. His dear papa blew a kiss after him.

  Muffin was very touched. After all, Papa was such a very fearsome-looking man. No doubt in his office at the bank or the ministry he set all his subordinates trembling, but in his family, in domestic surroundings, he was a perfect lamb.

  And Muffin sighed, of course, at his own lonely life. Where could a razin ever get himself a family?

  The very next window turned out to be the right one, Manuila’s. Muffin was lucky again.

  There was no need to stand on a chair this time, the curtains weren’t closed tightly. Through the gap Muffin saw a gaunt peasant with a light-brown beard, lying on a velvet divan. And he thought: There’s a fine prophet, he’s driven his flock out on deck and he’s living it up in first class. And how sweetly he’s sleeping, with that slobber dangling out of his mouth.

  What was that glittering there under the pillow? A lacquered casket, for sure. Well, then, sleep, and make sure you sleep soundly!

  Muffin started squirming in his impatience, but he told himself not to start getting agitated. This was a serious job that had turned up, he didn’t want to botch it.

  Should he go in from the corridor, pick the lock? No, what if someone saw him? It was simpler from where he was. His friendly protector, the fog, would help him out.

  The closed window was a cinch. Every razin had a special tool for dealing with that—a “hack.” You used it to catch hold of the screws keeping the window frame in (only first you mustn’t forget a few drops of oil from the oilcan, so it wouldn’t squeak), a jerk to the left, a jerk to the right, and it was almost done. Now a more generous dose of the same oil on the sides, in the slots. And lift it out nice and easy.

  The window slid upward without the slightest sound, just as it ought to.

  After that it was simple. Climb inside and tiptoe across to the bed. Pull the casket out from under the pillow and put a rolled-up towel there instead. To make sure the sleeper didn’t wake up, you had to listen to his breathing—that would always warn you. But you mustn’t look at his face—everybody can feel somebody staring at him when he’s sleeping.

  Muffin gathered himself up to climb in the window and he had already stuck his head through, but suddenly, right there beside him, a window frame squeaked and a loud woman’s voice said testily: “You just stop that!”

  Muffin’s heart fell: disaster, he’d been spotted! He pulled his head back out, turned around—and the sense of alarm passed. They’d opened the window in the next cabin. It must have been too stuffy for them.


  The same voice went on angrily, “There, take a breath of fresh air, Your Eminence! God only knows what you’re saying now! At least leave me my sins!”

  A rich bass voice, also angry, replied: “It’s my sin, mine! I condoned, I set you the work of penance, I should answer for it! But not to the Procurator in St. Petersburg—to the Lord God!”

  Ai-ai, this is bad. They’ll wake the prophet with all their shouting. Muffin went down on all fours and crawled across to the open window. He peeped in cautiously, with just one eye.

  At first he thought there were two people in the cabin—a gray-haired bishop with a fancy cross on his chest, and a nun. Then he spotted a third person in the corner, a monk. But he was sitting there mute, with nothing to say for himself.

  What’s all this yelling about, people of God? Why don’t you act like Christians, meek and mild? You’ll wake all the passengers.

  The nun seemed to have heard Muffin’s wish. She sighed and hung her head. “Your Reverence, I swear to you: I’ll never give way to temptation again. And I won’t tempt you either. Only don’t punish yourself.”

  The bishop wiggled his thick eyebrows (one was already almost gray the other still mostly black) and patted the nun on the head. “Never mind, Pelagia, God is merciful. Perhaps we can beat off the attack. And we’ll atone for our sins in prayer together.”

  A colorful pair, all right. In his own mind Muffin had already found names for them: Little Sister Fox (because of the lock of ginger hair that had escaped from under her wimple) and Ataman Kudeyar (the priest had a tough, bellicose look about him). It was like in the song:

  His comrades true were left behind,

  His plundering ways were now ignored,

  Bold Kudeyar went for a monk

  To serve the people and the Lord!