Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel

by Boris Akunin

  Polina Andreevna glanced around. Trailing along behind them was a large wagon with the emblem “S&G Ltd.” on its side, loaded with crumbly black soil.

  “Where are you going to hide me?” the nun asked the mysteriously silent Salakh for the hundredth time.

  “Nowhere. Turn this way.” He took a small lacquered box out of his traveling bag.

  “What’s that?”

  “Present, bought for Marusya. Paid three francs, you give back.”

  Pelagia saw white makeup, lipstick, powder, and something else that was sticky and black, all in little cells.

  “Don’t turn head,” said Salakh, holding her chin with one hand. He dipped in a finger and rapidly daubed something across Polina Andreevna’s cheeks, then smoothed it out. He ran the little brush over her eyebrows and eyelashes. Then he colored her lips.

  “What’s all this for?” the bemused nun babbled.

  She took out a little mirror and was horrified. The face looking out at her was gaudily daubed with color. Bright beetroot cheeks, immense eyebrows like wings, outlined eyes, a vulgarly luscious mouth.

  “You’re out of your mind! Turn back!” Pelagia shouted, but the hantur was already approaching the boom.

  “Keep quiet and smile. All the time smile and do this.” Salakh moved his eyebrows up and down and rolled his eyes back up and back. “Smile wide, very wide, show all your teeth.”

  It was too late to rebel. Pelagia spread her lips as wide as she possibly could.

  Two soldiers in faded blue uniforms came up to them, with an officer who had a sword—none other than Said-bei himself. He jabbed one finger angrily at Pelagia and swore. And he didn’t even glance at the wagon carrying soil—it calmly drove straight through as the boom swayed upward.

  Polina made out the word kadyn—she thought that meant “woman” in Turkish. Well, now the officer would turn them back, of course, and that would be the end of her journey.

  Salakh was not alarmed by the invective; he said something and laughed. Said-bey gave Pelagia a curious look and asked a question. There was a clear note of doubt in his voice.

  Suddenly the Palestinian grabbed the hem of his passenger’s skirt and pulled it up. In her fear, Pelagia smiled so broadly that her ears started wiggling. The soldiers chortled, and the officer also burst into laughter. He waved his hand: All right, go on through.

  “What… what did you tell him?” Pelagia asked timidly when the post had been left behind them.

  “That you boy dressed up as woman. The Luti bought you in Yaffo. The yuzbashi not believe me at first. I say, ‘You not believe—look between his legs,’ and try lift up your skirt. Said-bey won’t look between boy’s legs, or soldiers think their yuzbashi is Luti too.”

  “But what if he had looked?” asked Pelagia, pale-faced.

  Salakh shrugged his shoulders philosophically. “Then that bad. But he not look, we get through guard, you owe me twenty-five francs more.”

  Since the day of their departure from Jerusalem, Polina Andreevna’s debt to her driver, guide, and benefactor had increased to an astronomical size. The money paid to Fatima had only been the beginning. To this sum Salakh had added a charge for the terror he had suffered during the Circassian adventure, then the cost of the journey to the Dead Sea, and then separately for the journey from Bet-Kebir to Usdum. And there had been other, smaller sums exacted along the way. Pelagia herself no longer knew what the total was, and she was beginning to fear that she would never be able to pay off this extortioner.

  Suddenly she realized that he was looking at her with a rather strange, even agitated expression.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked in surprise.

  “You clever and brave,” Salakh said with feeling. “First I think how ugly you are. But that because your hair red and you thin. But can get used to red hair, and you not be thin if you sit home, sleep a lot, eat well. And if put on powder and lipstick, you almost beautiful. You know what?” His voice trembled and his eyes gleamed damply. “Come to me as fourth wife. Then you can not pay debt.”

  He’s proposing to me! Pelagia realized, and, to her own surprise, she felt flattered.

  “Thank you,” she replied. “It is nice to hear you say that. But I cannot become your wife. In the first place, I have a Bridegroom. And in the second place, what would Fatima say?”

  The second argument seemed to produce a stronger effect than the first. And in addition, during the process of explaining, Polina Andreevna took out a flask of water and started washing the makeup off her face, and no doubt her beauty was dimmed as a result.

  Salakh sighed and cracked the whip, and the hantur rolled on.

  THE MOUNTAIN CAME to a sudden end in an outcrop with a sheer, almost vertical face, and the town appeared from around the bend without any warning.

  It lay in a small hollow, surrounded on three sides by hills, and it was inexpressibly beautiful, as if it had been transported here from ancient Hellas. Polina Andreevna could not believe her eyes as she looked at the pediments decorated with statues, the elegant colonnades, the marble fountains, the red-tiled roofs. Encircled by blossoming gardens, the town seemed to be swaying in the steamy air.

  A mirage! A mirage in the desert! the delighted traveler thought. They drove up to a green alley, where there were heaps of rich black soil. The wagon they had seen recently was already standing there but had not been unloaded yet. The driver had disappeared, probably gone to seek instructions. Several Arabs were digging holes for trees, watering flower beds, cutting the grass.

  “This is a genuine Elysium,” Pelagia whispered, breathing in the scent of the flowers.

  She jumped down onto the ground and stood behind some rosebushes to avoid attracting attention. She simply could not get enough of this magical vision.

  Then, when the initial ecstasy passed, she asked, “But how shall I get into the town?”

  Salakh shrugged. “I don’t know. I only promised to get you past the guard.”

  Irodiada’s dance

  SHE GLIDED ACROSS the marble floor, trying to grasp the fading melody.

  Pram-pam-pam, pram-pam-pam, twirl twice, spinning out the gauze peignoir in a weightless cloud, bob down into a curtsy, and then go soaring up, with her arms like a swan’s wings.

  She used to dance to a gramophone, but now she didn’t need mechanical music anymore. Divine melodies that Paganini himself could not have rendered were born within her. They were short-lived, not destined for repetition, and that made them especially beautiful.

  But today there was something hindering the music, killing it, preventing its magical power from developing.

  Para-para-ram-pa-pam, para-para-ram-pa-pam. No, that wasn’t right!

  In this blessed oasis, sheltered from the crude outside world, Irodiada had discovered two sources of daily delight, two new talents that she had not even suspected in herself.

  The first was dancing—not for her family, not for guests, and definitely not for an audience, but exclusively for herself.

  To transform herself into harmony and graceful movement. To feel her body, formerly so rebellious, rusty, and creaky, become lighter than a feather, more resilient than a snake. Who would ever have believed that after the age of forty, when it would seem there was nothing more to be expected from one’s flesh apart from betrayals and disappointments, she would only just begin to realize what a perfect organism her body was?

  It was absolutely quiet in the house. Lyovushka and Salomeia were cuddling in the bedroom; they would get up as evening drew on, when the heat abated. Antinosha was swimming in the pool—a whole team of bargemen couldn’t drag him out of the water.

  Every day after lunch, left to her own devices, Irodiada danced in front of the mirror, in total silence. An electric fan drove waves of scented air through the atrium. The dancer performed pas of indescribable elegance, the drops of sweat trickling down her face drying instantly.

  Half an hour of absolute happiness, then take a delightful cold shower, drink a gla
ss of resinous wine with snow, throw on a silk robe—and off to a rendezvous with her second delight, the gardens.

  But today she simply couldn’t immerse herself completely in the movement: in addition to the music with which her head ought to be filled, there was another vague, alarming thought, wagging its mouselike tail.

  It will die, its light will fade, Irodiada suddenly heard a lisping voice say, and she stopped.

  Ah, so that was it.

  Yesterday’s conversation.

  THE ABSURD MAN in a robe of sackcloth with a belt of blue string had been brought into the town by Zbishek and Rafek, two mischievous scamps from Warsaw. They had been racing chariots along the edge of the sea and picked up the tramp on the highway, because his appearance had made them laugh. When they discovered that the traveler had just arrived from Russia, they had come to show him to their Russian friends.

  She had been alone in the house. Lyovushka was in session at the Are-opagus, and the children had gone to the beach.

  The ragamuffin had amused his hostess by claiming to be Manuila, the leader of the Foundlings. The poor fellow didn’t know that she happened to know that the genuine Manuila was dead—he had been killed, so to speak, in front of her very eyes.

  Irodiada had not been in any hurry to expose him; she was waiting for an effective moment. When the Warsaw jokers took the tramp to look at the town, she went with them. The false Manuila had turned his head this way and that, constantly gasping in amazement and showering them with questions. Zbishek and Rafek had mostly laughed and played the fool, so the role of guide had been played by Irodiada.

  “But don’t you acknowledge women at all, then?” the pretender had asked, perplexed.

  “We acknowledge them and respect them,” she had replied. “On the West Square we have a monument to Lot’s wife—they found a column of salt on the seashore and commissioned a sculptor to carve a statue out of it. Of course, many objected to a naked female figure, but the majority took a tolerant attitude. We have nothing against women, it’s just that we are better off without them, and they are better off without us.”

  “Well, then, is there a town of women somewhere?” the “prophet” had asked.

  “Not yet,” Irodiada had explained, “but there soon will be. Our benefactor, George Sairus, was intending to buy some land on the island of Lesbos for maidenly lovers of female beauty, but the Greek government would not allow it. Then he got the idea of rebuilding Gomorrah—the work there has already begun. We shall be friends with our neighbors, just as men and dolphins are friends. But the dolphin’s element is the sea, and man’s element is dry land, and why should man and dolphin copulate together?”

  The amusing rogue had admired the beauty of the buildings and the technical advances that were so very numerous in Sodom: the electric tram running from the Acropolis to the beach, the cinematograph, the ice rink with artificial ice, and many, many others.

  But what had interested the false Manuila most of all were the relationships between sodomites: Did they have families, or did each one live separately?

  Irodiada, anticipating the moment of exposure, had politely replied that there were very few families with children, such as her own. Some people lived in couples, but most simply reveled in the freedom and security.

  Then Rafek and Zbishek had started trying to get her to go to the Labyrinth, a special place where young people got up to all sorts of salacious devilment in the dark. She didn’t go, she was already past the age when mere ravishment of the flesh is amusing—she valued feelings far more now. To her surprise, the tramp had not wished to go to the Labyrinth either; he had said there was nothing new in these amusements, the Romans had them, and so did the Greeks and the Babylonians. And so it happened that Irodiada was left alone with him.

  “Well, man of God, will the Lord rain down fire and brimstone on us for these transgressions?” she asked mockingly, nodding in the direction of the Labyrinth, from which they could hear laughter and wild howls.

  Hardly, not for that, the prophet said with a shrug. They’re not coercing each other, after all. Let them do it if it brings them joy. Joy is sacred—it’s grief that is evil.

  “Well said, prophet!” Irodiada replied merrily. “Perhaps you are one of us too?”

  What was that answer he gave?

  No, he said, I’m not one of you. I feel sorry for you. The path of a man who loves a man is full of sorrow and it leads to despair, because it is barren.

  He had used other words, spoken less smoothly, but the meaning was the same, and Irodiada had shuddered in surprise. Out of inertia, she had tried to joke: “Barren—because we cannot have children?”

  And he said seriously: For that reason too. But not only. Man is the black half of the soul, woman is the white half. Do you know how a new soul comes to be? A little of the fire of God is struck. And it is struck by the two halves of the soul, white and black, thrusting against each other, trying to understand if they are one whole or not. You poor people will never find your other halves, because black and black cannot combine together. Your half-soul will die, its light will fade. It is a grievous lot—eternal loneliness. No matter how much you thrust against each other, there will never be any spark. That is where the problem lies: not in bodily fornication, but in spiritual error.

  Irodiada quite forgot that she had been planning to laugh and expose the self-styled prophet. What difference did it make who he really was? The tramp had spoken about what she felt herself, only she hadn’t been able to express it clearly.

  She had objected. Naturally, it wasn’t just a matter of the body. When the trance induced by prohibition had passed and there was no more need to hide from society, she had discovered that she did not really have such a great need for passionate intercourse with her beloved. The most important things were tenderness and security such as you could never experience with a woman, because women were different. But here there was no need to pretend, you were understood with a single word, even with no words at all—that was what was important. We are together, we are the same. No conflicts of opposites, no strife. A blissful peace.

  Irodiada poured all this out to a stranger, speaking with fervent passion, so deeply had his words stung her.

  He listened and listened, then shook his head sadly and said: But there still won’t be any spark. And if there is no spark, God is not there.

  Yesterday Irodiada had refused to agree, she had insisted on her own point of view; but today, when the false Manuila was no longer there beside her, those brief words he had spoken—“eternal loneliness” and “spiritual error”—had suddenly surfaced in her memory and driven away the music.

  Lyovushka was spending more and more time with Salomeia nowadays. No, this wasn’t jealousy, it was what the wandering prophet had spoken about: the fear of loneliness. And Antinous was hardly ever at home now either—he had new enthusiasms, new friends. Perhaps they were more than just friends … And it was only a month since they had arrived in this male heaven. They said families didn’t last long in Sodom. And then what would be left?

  Quite a lot, Irodiada thought, taking heart. There will still be dancing and gardens.

  AND ON THE subject of gardens … it was time to visit the peonies and medlars. And take a quick look at the roses, too—to make sure that Djemal hadn’t overdone the watering.

  Irodiada drove away her sad thoughts. She put on a feather-light robe and tied back her hair with a blue ribbon.

  The sun was still scorching with all its might, but already a light breeze was blowing from the Avarim Mountains, bringing a promise of evening coolness.

  She walked along a shady little street to the Western Gates, nodding amiably to people she met and exchanging kisses with some.

  All her thoughts were focused on the garden now. Before sunset she had to hoe the flowerbed so that the seedlings could breathe. Tomorrow they were going to bring earthworms from Haifa. Then she could do some serious work on the peach alley. In a year or two there would be
gardens in Sodom the like of which this ill-fated region had not seen since the time of Lot.

  This was what a life should be dedicated to! Not teaching Latin to grammar-school boys, but cultivating gardens and flower beds. Russia was heaven for plants. There was as much water as you could want, and the soil was alive, not like here. But then in Russia you couldn’t find anything like the black soil that the wagons delivered here. Specially treated, it cost a lot of money. But thank God, Mr. Sairus had plenty of that.

  Once outside the town wall, Irodiada began walking with a brisker, more energetic stride. Forgetting about the heat, she made her rounds of the trees, bushes, and flower beds. She scolded the head gardener a bit—she had guessed right, he had watered the rosebushes evenly, but on the eastern side, where the cool breeze blew at night, they needed less water. Djemal listened attentively—he knew that the old Luti had a special gift from Allah for understanding the life of plants, and he regarded this talent with respect.

  At the university, in addition to all sorts of other unnecessary learning, Irodiada had studied ancient Greek, and so she found Arabic remarkably easy to pick up. After only a week of working together, she and Djemal understood each other excellently.

  “What’s this?” Irodiada asked, pointing in annoyance at the wagon loaded with black earth. “Where’s the driver? Why hasn’t he unloaded it?”

  “There’s a woman over there,” said Djemal, pointing to the rosebush at the end of the row. “I don’t know how she got through. Sadyk has gone to tell the sentry.”

  He bowed and went to water more flower beds.

  Irodiada looked around. There really was someone hiding behind the bush. And when she went closer, she could see it really was a woman. You could tell from a distance that she was a natural, not just dressed up. Not so much even from the figure, but from the inclination of the head, and the way the arm was held out slightly to one side.