by Boris Akunin
Stop it, she told herself, suddenly frightened, is this really pity? And what if it’s something else? If she was completely honest with herself and dropped all pretense, what had made her agree so easily to make the journey to Stroganovka with Dolinin? Was it only for the sake of the investigation and to defend Mitrofanii’s cause?
No, Holy Mother, you took a liking to the master detective from Petersburg, the nun rebuked herself. And sinner that you are, you sensed that he liked you too. And so you wanted to be with him. Wasn’t that the way it was?
It was, Pelagia admitted to herself, hanging her head, it truly was. She remembered the way her heart was wrung when he spoke those impossible words to her—about how there was no one else like her in the world, and if she hadn’t been a nun …
Oh, for shame! Oh, this was wicked!
And the worst thing of all was that Sergei Sergeevichs terrible story about the sulfuric acid had touched her heart. Nothing was more dangerous than when some string that had long ago seemed broken beyond repair suddenly began sounding subtly in a female heart maintained with meticulous discipline, indeed, one might almost say ruled with a rod of iron. The nun was so badly frightened that she whispered the prayer for deliverance from temptation.
Fright begat determination. Pelagia walked up onto the porch and into the hallway and knocked on the door of the room. She waited for a moment, to allow Sergei Sergeevich to straighten up and wipe away his tears, then stepped inside.
Dolinin rose to greet her. He hadn’t managed to control his face—he looked at the nun with an expression of amazement, almost terror, as if he had been caught red-handed at the scene of a crime. This only served to convince her yet again of the correctness of her decision.
“I tell you what,” Pelagia declared, “don’t you wait for me. You go on back, today. Why should you mope about here? I can see that you can’t even sleep. I’ll stay in Stroganovka for another day or two. Since, thanks to you, I now find myself in this remote spot, I’ll do my job, as headmistress of the convent school. I’ll take a look around, have a word with the peasants and the elder. Maybe they’ll let me have the girls who are still little, to teach. Why should they grow up in ignorance here?” She thought: And I’ll definitely take Durka, and I can put her granny in the convent hospital.
She was sure that Dolinin would try to change her mind, perhaps even grow angry. However, the investigator looked at her in silence, without saying a word.
Surely he can’t have guessed the real reason, Pelagia thought, horrified. He must have guessed—he’s an intelligent, keen-witted man. She turned her eyes away, perhaps even blushed. In any case, her cheeks suddenly felt hot.
Sergei answered drily, forcing out the words: “Well, then … Perhaps that’s the best…” He began to cough.
“It’s all right,” Pelagia told him in a quiet, affectionate voice. “It’s all right…”
She couldn’t allow herself to say any other words, and she shouldn’t have spoken these. That is, the words themselves were completely meaningless, there was nothing reprehensible about them, but of course the tone in which they were spoken was impermissible.
Dolinin started when he heard that tone, his eyes glinting in fury, almost hatred. He blurted out, “All right, good-bye, good-bye.” He turned away and shouted at his subordinates, “What are you all lying around for, damn you! Everybody up!”
He said that—“damn you”—on purpose, Pelagia realized. To make her go away as quickly as possible. A strange man. It was hard for someone like that to live in this world. And living with him must be hard, too. She bowed to the investigator’s angry back and walked out.
PELAGIA DECIDED TO spend the night in the communal yard, in the barn. It was less stuffy there than in the hut and she could hope that there were no cockroaches.
She climbed the ladder to the loft and stirred up the flattened straw. She lay down, covered herself with a rug, and told herself to go to sleep.
She had no fear of oversleeping: yet another reason for choosing the barn for her night’s lodging was that there were chickens clucking in its lower level, and a lively rooster jumping about—to judge from his coloring, a descendant of the one from the cave. This alarm clock certainly wouldn’t allow her to oversleep: the first, predawn cockcrow would wake her and give her enough time to get washed and gather her thoughts. And at the second cockcrow she would have to hurry to the mill to meet Durka.
She could hear Dolinin’s men hitching up horses and stowing baggage in the yard. She sighed at the sound of Sergei Sergeevichs brusque, terse instructions. The harness jingled, the wheels creaked, and the expedition set off on its way back.
Pelagia sighed for a little longer and fell asleep.
AND SHE HAD a terrible, sinful dream.
Of course, she had had terrible dreams before. She had even had sinful ones—it is a rare nun indeed who never dreams of anything shameful. The bishop had explained that there was nothing to be ashamed of in these dreams and had even forbidden her to repent of them at confession, because they were mere nonsense and illusion. There was no sin in that—quite the opposite, in fact. If a monk or a nun drove the devil of the flesh away from themselves during their waking hours, then he lay in hiding until the hours of sleep, when a person’s will is defenseless, and crept up out of the cellar into the soul, like a little mouse in the night.
But a dream that was at the same time terrifying and shameful—Pelagia had never had one like that before.
The most astonishing thing was that it wasn’t Sergei Sergeevich that she dreamed about at all. Pelagia saw the dead peasant Shelukhin, sitting the way he had when he was tied to a chair. Looking perfectly alive, but actually dead. His eyes were open, they were even gleaming, but that was because of the nitroglycerine. And they were held open, Pelagia remembered, by cotton wool.
She looked more closely at the dead man and suddenly noticed that he didn’t really look like Shelukhin after all. Shelukhin’s lips had been pale purple and thin, and this man’s were full and bright red. And the eyes weren’t exactly the same—they were more deep-set, piercing.
It was definitely not Shelukhin, the sleeping woman determined. Like him, but not him. It was Manuil, it couldn’t be anyone else. And the moment she guessed the dead man’s identity, he suddenly began moving, no longer pretending to be a corpse.
He winked at her, first with one eye, then the other. Then he slowly licked his bright red lips with an even brighter, wet tongue. There didn’t seem to be anything special about that; what is so strange about a man licking his lips? But Pelagia had never seen anything more terrifying in her life, and she began groaning in her sleep and tossing her head about on the hay.
Manuil opened his huge eyes as wide as wide could be: he began beckoning the holy sister with a yellow finger. And whispering: “Come here now, come.”
She wanted to run as fast as her legs could carry her, but a strange power swayed her forward and drew her toward the seated man.
A firm, rough hand stroked the helpless Pelagia on her cheek and her neck. It was sweet, but it was shameful. “My little bride, my lovey,” said Manuil, drawing the words out the way they did in Stroganovka.
The man’s hand began stroking Pelagia’s breasts. “In the name of Christ the Lord,” the nun implored him. The prophet’s finger sought out the chain of her cross, snapped it casually, and tossed the cross into a corner.
And then Manuil chuckled, wagged his beard, and mimicked her, mocking her, “In the name of Christ the Lord … Ooh, my little chicken. Co-co-co, co-co-co.” Then he roared out at the top of his voice:
“cock-a-doodle-doo!”
Pelagia sat bolt upright, gagging on her own shriek. Down below the rooster was crowing raucously. Oh, Lord!
Then there was silence
SOMETHING RUSTLED AND clicked in the darkness. It was the loud herald fluttering his wings and scrabbling at the rungs of the ladder with his claws as he scrambled up to get acquainted with Pelagia.
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��Well, hello, hello,” the nun said to her visitor, who was examining her with his crested head inclined to one side. “Co-co,” the young rooster said, examining her.
He seemed to have taken a liking to Pelagia. He came closer and pecked familiarly at the knee covered in black cloth. “And the same to you,” the holy sister rebuked him.
It was hard to make out the details of her feathered guest by the pale moonlight that filtered through the holes in the roof. But why examine him anyway? He was just a rooster like any other.
“Ah, you, Rousty Rooster, sleek and shiny, silky beard,” the nun said, giving his fleshy wattle a gentle tug. The rooster leaped back, but not very far. “When are you going to crow for the second time? Soon?”
He didn’t answer.
She went down and out into the yard, to the well. She splashed water on her face and combed out her hair, since there was no one there to make her feel ashamed.
The entire sky was covered with stars. Pelagia glanced up and watched them for a moment. The rooster was there, right beside her. He hopped up onto the wall of the well and also threw his head back. Perhaps he thought there was golden millet scattered across the sky. He hopped up higher, onto the winch, and stretched out his neck, but still couldn’t reach the little grains far above. He began clucking angrily and crowed again: “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
Pelagia was thrown into consternation. What had made him crow this time? His rooster’s clock or simply his annoyance? Could this call be counted as the second cockcrow, or not?
But the cocks had started crowing in the other yards too. It was time.
As Pelagia crossed the meadow, the moon hid behind a cloud and it turned completely dark, as it was supposed to do just before dawn. She could barely make out the gray path in the gloom, and every step she took echoed hollowly. At first the nun even thought there was someone following her, but then she realized it was just an echo. Only she hadn’t known before that there could be an echo in an open space. Perhaps it was due to the uncommon transparency of the air?
In the middle of the meadow, she discovered that the rooster had tagged along with his new acquaintance. He was skipping behind her, fluttering his wings. “Ah, you’re so reckless,” the nun scolded him. “You featherbrain, abandoning your family and your home for the first skirt that comes along!” She hissed and waved her hands at him: Go away, go on back. But Rousty Rooster wouldn’t do as he was told. All right, she decided, let him do as he wants. He can always find his way back.
Durka was waiting by the mill.
“Look, I’ve come with an admirer,” Pelagia said to her. “He tagged along. I tried and tried to make him go away …”
“He’s taken a shine to you. He won’t let go of you now. Those red fellows cling as tight as tight. Well, are we off to the Rock, then?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
Of course, it would be better to visit the place by day, Pelagia thought. But during the day someone might notice, and that wouldn’t be good. What difference did it make, day or night—it was dark in a cave anyway.
“Karaseen?” the girl asked respectfully, with a nod at the lamp the nun was carrying.
“Yes, it works on kerosene. They’re all like that in the town nowadays. And there are gas lamps in the streets. I’ll show you some day for certain.”
They crossed the little river on stepping stones: Durka ahead, Pelagia following, with one hand holding up the hem of her habit. The cockerel hopped along behind.
They walked through scrubby brushes for nearly a mile. And then the cliffs began. The girl walked quickly and confidently. The nun could barely keep up with her.
Once again Pelagia got the feeling she had had in the Forest, as if the night was watching her, like a thief, not looking her in the eye, but staring at her back. She even glanced around, and of course she spotted some shadows moving behind her, but she didn’t allow herself to feel frightened. If she was afraid of the night shadows, how could she go into the cave? That was where it would be really frightening.
Perhaps I won’t go in after all, Pelagia thought with a shudder. I’ll just take a look at it, and that’s all. Indeed, why even bother to look? What do I need with this cave anyway?
She couldn’t find an answer to that, because there was no rational answer. And yet she knew, even without understanding the reason, that she had to look at the place where Durka had found the prophet Manuila. It was irrational; Sergei Sergeevich would not have done it. But then he was a man—she was made differently.
“There’s Devil’s Rock,” the girl said, stopping and pointing one finger at a dark hump that rose up in a sheer wall. “Shan’t we turn back now?”
“Lead me to the cave,” Pelagia ordered, then gritted her teeth so that they wouldn’t start chattering.
The place really did feel eerie. It was probably terrifying here even during the day, with those cliff faces crowding together and the absolute silence ringing in your ears. At night it was far worse. But Durka didn’t seem to be afraid at all. For her, no doubt, memories of Manuila painted this ominous landscape in different colors that were not frightening at all.
“Do you often visit the hollow?” asked Pelagia.
“I haven’t ever gone inside again. But sometimes I run to Devil’s Rock.”
“Why don’t you go inside?”
The girl twitched one shoulder. “I just don’t.” She clearly didn’t want to explain.
Rousty the Rooster also seemed to be feeling just fine. He hopped up onto the big boulder and spread his wings in lively fashion. So am I the only coward here? Pelagia rebuked herself, and asked, “Well, where is it? Show me.”
The entrance to the cave proved to be inside a fissure overgrown with bushes. It pierced the cliff face in a narrow wedge shape.
“There,” said Durka, parting the branches. Through the predawn twilight Pelagia made out a narrow black opening, about a yard high—you had to bend over to enter.
“Will you go in?” Durka asked respectfully. The rooster darted between her legs. He looked at the hole inquisitively, hopped forward, and disappeared inside.
“Of course I will. And you?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Will you wait here?”
Durka shook her head. “I’ve got to run now. Fediushka the shepherd will be driving the flock out soon. Don’t you be scared, Aunty. Only don’t go too far in. Who knows what it’s like in there … When you go back to the village, stick to the path. Well, ’bye now.”
She turned and dashed away, her white calves glimmering in the darkness.
Pelagia crossed herself and held the lantern out in front of her. She went in.
DURKA WAS RUNNING on air, so lightly that it seemed to her she wasn’t running at all, but flying over the white haze of dawn that was spread out just above the ground. She even threw her hands out to the sides, like the stork bird.
To get back in time to drive the sheep out, she’d have to run faster and faster, or that Fediushka would give her a good lashing across her backside.
’Sallright, ’sallright,” Durka whispered as she dashed along between the rocky walls of the cliffs. It helped you run better if you kept saying that: ’sallright, ’sallright.
She’d already figured it out in her head: she’d run as far as the bushes, then she’d be out of breath and she’d have to walk to the river. And there she could fly on again, all the way across the meadow. If only she could get there in time—look, it was almost completely light now.
But she never did get out of breath, because she didn’t run very far from Devil’s Rock, only about fifty strides. At a point where the path squeezed right up against the wall of rock, a large black shadow swayed away from the cliff and moved to meet the girl.
“Emmanu …” Durka started to call, but she didn’t finish.
Something sliced through the air with a predatory whistling sound. There was a brief crunch of bone.
Then there was silence.
In the cave
&n
bsp; IT SHOULD BE said that in deciding to enter the black opening, Sister Pelagia had to overcome more than just the usual female wariness, of which the nun probably had almost none anyway (at least, in her case, curiosity always won a decisive victory over timidity, even in situations fraught with greater risk than the present one). No, there was a more serious reason for her trepidation.
The problem was that for some time now, following a certain adventure that had taken place in the none too distant past, the nun had had special reason to be wary of caves. And the mere awareness that there were invisible stone walls squeezing in on her on all sides out of the darkness, and a vault of stone pressing down over her head, was enough to set Pelagia’s soul trembling in raw, mindless terror.
Reaching one hand above her head and failing to find the ceiling, she straightened up and forced herself to calm down. Now what could possibly be so terrible in this cave? Some predatory beast? Unlikely. If a bear or a pack of wolves had made the cave their dwelling place, there would have been a sharp odor in the air.
Bats? It was too cramped for them in here—they couldn’t flap their wings properly.
By and large, she managed to reassure herself and calm her nerves. Lighting the lamp, she shone the light in all directions. She proved to have been wrong about the cave being cramped: inside the narrow entrance hole the cave expanded both sideways and upward, so that the walls were lost to sight, drowned in the darkness.
At the very edge of the circle of light she glimpsed a small, low shadow. It was Rousty the Rooster, exploring the new territory.
What did I come in here for anyway? Pelagia asked herself. What need was there for it?
She walked forward a little and saw that in the far corner, the walls and the ceiling converged again, but the cave did not end there—it simply seemed to turn upward.
The holy sister put the lamp on the floor and sat on a projecting ledge of rock. She wondered why destiny was always driving her into caves of one kind or another. What kind of parable was this—these niches under the ground? What did the Lord want them for? What was the significance of their invention? There was a meaning to it, and a special meaning, too, that was clear to everybody who had ever, even once in his life, wandered into an isolated cave that was at all deep.
