Sisters of the Cross

by Alexei Remizov

  There were three occasions when Plotnikov took a firm hand in Marakulin’s fate, the first time protecting him, the second time setting him up in a job, and the third time rescuing him.

  Plotnikov protected him by driving Strakunov away from Marakulin, and beating Strakunov in public and to good effect. In the Taganka there was this man, Sashka Strakunov, a scoundrel if ever there was one. God knows what he had to live on, or what he wouldn’t descend to! Somehow he had wormed his way into the group at Kuskovo, and for some reason Marakulin took to him. (God only knows how a man like that can find favor with anyone!) In fact, Marakulin himself would have found it difficult to say why he took to Strakunov—a poseur, as full of monkey tricks as a gypsy, and that was all there was to him. Strakunov stripped Marakulin of his money like a milch cow, and whatever Marakulin had made by giving lessons, it all went to him. That went on for a month. When Plotnikov came to hear about it, he put a stop to it straight away—and protected him.

  Then, after he had finished school, and almost immediately after the exams—not even taking a full week off—Marakulin had already begun work in the office on Kuznetsky Bridge, and all that was set up by Plotnikov.

  During the summer they spent their evenings on the boulevards. Once, when Marakulin was listening to the summer band playing in the gardens at Chistye Prudy, he got to know Polia, a young girl from the district. Polia, who would only appear on the boulevard at twilight, was actually from near the Rogozhskoe Cemetery and lived on Station Lane. In Chistye Prudy she was known as Polia, but when Dunaev introduced Marakulin to her, he called her Dunia, and so did Poliansky. Dunaev and Poliansky were in the same class as Marakulin at school, both belonged to the Taganka-Kuskovo group of friends, and soon Polia became Dunia for Marakulin also. Marakulin got to know her not because he specially sought her out—quite the contrary: it happened more as a childish prank. At Easter Marakulin happened to be visiting Poliansky, and in the most casual conversation about their friends (this being just before their final school exams) he started to argue with Poliansky about Dunaev. “Well, you’re just simply infatuated with Dunaev,” remarked Poliansky and smiled in that particular way of his. “He’s just like a young lady, and so you are keen to defend him.” Marakulin blushed all over, and he felt embarrassed both at the way Poliansky had smiled and at the fact that he himself was conscious of how he had blushed all over. And could he really have defended Dunaev only because he resembled a young lady? And it all started from that. Dunaev, “like a young lady,” was quite at home on all the boulevards and, whether as a sign of friendly gratitude, or simply for no particular reason (in matters like this there may always be a hidden motive), he offered to introduce Marakulin to Polia. But Marakulin could not forget Poliansky, and the main thing he remembered was how Poliansky had smiled on that occasion. So now he had clutched at this chance of being introduced to Polia; that would stop Poliansky smiling like that again. Well, these are the sort of childish pranks that boys can get up to. So they got to know each other on one of the Thursday evenings at Chistye Prudy. Dunia immediately took to Marakulin. She said that bluntly in front of Dunaev and Poliansky after the very first days of their acquaintance. Then one night in Station Lane, when she was seeing Marakulin off from her flat, she nimbly slipped down the stairs to open the door for him, and when he had reached the bottom step and stood in front of the door, she gave him a firm embrace. After hugging him, her hands became like those of a child again, and she pushed a handkerchief into his pocket with his initials embroidered in cross-stitch. The handkerchief was silken and scented with a perfume quite different from the one that she generally used when she came onto the boulevard in the evening twilight. But from that night on, the more Dunia clung to him, the more distant he felt from her. And by the end of the summer he found it unbearable, the way she would look out for him and follow him about; there was no place left where he could get away from her. She was spending less and less time on the boulevards, dressing herself up and dousing herself with a different scent that did not belong to that life at all. And this was a heroic act on her part because, when a woman makes her living from the boulevards, it is impossible to spend money on dresses when she stops going there. She was not especially well-dressed now, and had quite ordinary clothes, but she still looked extraordinary and, if she had wanted, she could have made a success of her life. Everyone who knew her said so, both the smart public, and her own women friends. Dunaev and Poliansky said so, also. And Marakulin knew about it, too; after all, on that first night her hands had suddenly become like those of a child—but what was he to do? Her handkerchief—he had never taken it out of his pocket since that night, and he would have forgotten about it, if he had not felt it, the handkerchief that she had embroidered with his initials in cross-stitch. It was made of silk, but it weighed particularly heavily, as though it were made not of silk, but of cast iron. There was only one thing to do: either burn it or throw it into the Moscow River. It was the end of August, the last of the festivities in Kuskovo, and already the Taganka and Rogozhskoe company were turning back toward their Taganka and their Rogozhskoe. This was the last Sunday evening, cold and with the sky full of stars. The theater had finished and the station was filled with people. There was Dunia, walking up and down the platform. So Marakulin went up to her and started speaking with all the rage that had boiled up in him and that he had long held back. He broke off suddenly without giving her any opportunity to reply and walked away immediately. And it seemed to him now that he had done everything that was necessary; she would no longer approach him, there was nothing more he needed to do, and nothing more that he needed! Then Poliansky came up to Dunia, and they walked up and down the platform. Then when they drew level with Marakulin, Poliansky said something to him, but so quietly that he could not make out the words, and Marakulin noticed only his smile, exactly the same smile that he had shown that time at Easter. So now, when Marakulin saw them again, so distant at the end of the platform, he felt a kind of burning reproach and, as they drew closer, the feeling of reproach became stronger and made him ashamed. Then, when they drew level with him once more—and he was still standing in full view, face-to-face with her—he could no longer bear her burning reproach and his own shame, so that he bowed down low before her, right down to the very ground at her feet. And now there happened something soundless, but seemingly so fearful that everybody rushed to one side and there was turmoil. At this moment the train was approaching, everything was shaking, and the wind was whistling. Marakulin rose up from the ground to see some policeman, a superintendent perhaps, dragging Dunia off by her arm; he quivered all over and, hearing nothing but the wind whistling sharply above him, he dealt the policeman a blow. But in fact the policeman was not dragging her anywhere, and if the policeman had not acted as he did, then the train would have crushed her. But all of this emerged later, when it was already too late. The next evening Plotnikov came to see Marakulin in his cell at the Tagansky police station where they had transferred him from Kuskovo. Quite out of the blue, and shyly for some reason, just as it was when he used to borrow a book, Plotnikov timidly told him that they would let him out the next morning—and in fact they did release Marakulin the next morning and without any more ado. So that was how Plotnikov rescued him. And that was the last he had seen of him.

  Marakulin could not sleep all night, as he recalled everything to do with his early life in Moscow, and it was only when they were quite close to Podsolnechnaia station that he dropped off to sleep for a moment and had a dream.

  He dreamed that Pavel Plotnikov came up to him and said to him timidly: “The best and most rational thing would be if I cut off your head.” And Marakulin imagined that he was replying: “How can I get on without a head? It must be terrible to have no head.”

  “There’s nothing to be done,” argues Plotnikov and begins to assure him that it will not hurt; at the very most it will be outlandish and strange. Although he has his own timid way of persuading Marakulin, he will not admit
of any arguments against it.

  “All right, cut away,” says Marakulin in agreement.

  So Plotnikov takes the razor and starts to cut into his neck and indeed it isn’t the slightest bit painful, and his head has fallen right back, as now it is held on only by a thread.

  “Just one more small, but firm movement, and your head will be right off,” says Plotnikov as he strops his razor.

  And the head falls onto the floor.

  But even without his head it seems that Marakulin can still see everything; he has seen how his head fell off, rolled across the floor and disappeared somewhere, and at the same time how thick, cherry-colored blood gushed out from his throat, spouting upward in a wide stream right to the ceiling. The whole floor is covered with blood, and so is he; there is not an untouched spot anywhere. Later, it’s as though the cherry-colored fountain of blood has started to weaken and grows ever less; it’s no longer gushing out, and soon there won’t be any at all. He then sees how outlandish and strange it was that there was no head, only the red pipe of his throat.

  “How am I going to manage without a head?” he said, spitting, and woke up.

  What happened in the dream happened in life; what had happened was outlandish and strange.

  At Plotnikov’s house they were already expecting him. Fomich, the old factory worker, took him straight into his boss’s study, which was divided into two halves, forming two sections: on one side there were copies of paintings by Nesterov, and on the other side there were two cages with monkeys. Between the picture of Holy Russia and one of the monkeys sat Plotnikov. Powerless with drink and for some reason smeared all over in honey, he was sitting there with the oppressive sadness of a hermit. There were empty bottles lying on the table, empty bottles under Holy Russia, and more of them around the monkeys.

  He had no head, his mouth was in his back and his eyes were on his shoulders. At Christmastime he had thrown himself at the honey, eating it in the comb. And he ate a great deal, so that he had bees inside him, a whole hive of them. He was a hive. And he was terrified—people could not resist sweet things—he was terrified that they would eat him up, be the death of all his bees, and consume his hive and him as well! Then in summer, as soon as the first fly appears, he will start using the fly as a motive force. All Russia will be divided into sections with a fly governor general for each part; deputies with the powers of a governor general will be in charge of collecting the flies. These will be packed automatically into armored vehicles and will be delivered from every corner of Russia direct to Moscow and the Taganka. The Russian fly will overcome steam and electricity, Russia will crush England and America into powder. He has no head, his mouth is in his back, and his eyes are on his shoulders. He is a hive of bees. He does not understand the Russian language, and he does not speak Russian.

  “I have no need of your elephant,” said Plotnikov, with his drunken eyes haughtily surveying Marakulin from head to toe. As he expressed himself thus, he broke into swearing of such truly Russian tricks and turns that the sonority and strength of his native language seemed to make his eyes stare out of his forehead.

  Marakulin was standing between Holy Russia and the monkey, and he could understand absolutely nothing of what was going on, neither about the astonishing Russian engine propelled by flies, nor about the hive, nor about the elephant. It was all outlandish and strange. But it seemed that his silence was already beginning to annoy Plotnikov, who had abandoned the oppressive sadness of being a hermit and was snorting. He does not understand the Russian language, and he does not speak Russian. After crushing Europe with the aid of the Russian fleet, he will move over Lapland to the North Pole, and will take not only the Pole, where there are fish with fried legs, but what lies even beyond the Pole, unexplored by anyone, the dwelling place of Gog and Magog, that will be called Landiia, which is to say: the Country. There, coming from that Landiia beyond the Pole, using the freely given all-Russian force of flies as an engine, shall be RUSSIA, and he, Pavel Plotnikov, as autocrat, shall move the earthly globe by his own whim and will, now to the left, now to the right, now stopping it, now setting it in motion.

  “You scoundrel,” Plotnikov shouted suddenly, “your elephants have been crushed like mint, and I’m not going to buy mint elephants!” He snatched a bottle off the table and stood up, disheveled, red-faced and covered in honey, with his mouth gaping like the jaws of an animal. Twirling the bottle around, he began to take aim.

  Marakulin was standing between Holy Russia and the monkey, and he could understand absolutely nothing either about the Arctic fleet, or about Gog and Magog, or about Landiia, or about the earth turning at someone’s whim and will—and it was outlandish and strange.

  But suddenly the bottle slipped timidly down onto the floor, and there was a fearsome animal shriek, more heartrending than any cry for help, and all the walls seemed to crack, Holy Russia began to shake, the monkeys shrank with fear, and there was something groaning in the corners and booming through the house.

  Plotnikov, savagely drunk for a month already, headless, his mouth in his back and his eyes on his shoulders, Plotnikov the beehive who did not understand the Russian language, or speak a word of Russian, Plotnikov recognized Marakulin.

  “Petrusha, you old scoundrel…” Stumbling over his words and rolling his head like an elephant’s trunk, he stood stamping his feet on the spot in front of Marakulin, spreading out his hairy hands like tentacles, rolling and pitching like a battleship in the Arctic fleet. “Petrusha, you old scoundrel!”

  Then, pitching over to the sofa, he came crashing down with his entire, huge, armored body, like Gog and Magog—Plotnikov, the untamed—and began to buzz like a beehive between Holy Russia and the monkey.

  Two strapping young men, who were on duty by the doors, caught Marakulin under the arms and almost carried him out like a treasure from the study into the drawing room. And to meet him there arose, leaning on her stick, a wizened old lady, Plotnikov’s mother, Evdokiia Andreevna herself.

  “Father, you have healed him!” was all that the old lady could say and, making a great sign of the cross in the old-fashioned way, she dropped her stick and bowed down to the ground.

  Dark figures of elderly women were about to rush in from all sides to help her, but she did not wish to get up. And only Marakulin could calm her down.

  Buzzing like a beehive, Plotnikov slept for two whole days without waking once. Through the entire house there was silence, as though apart from him and his buzzing hive there was not a single living soul in the house. During these two days they would not let Marakulin go out. They stuffed him with food, but kept the door locked all the time.

  There was talk of poor Pasha, of his misfortune, how he had smeared himself all over with honey, refusing to accept anyone, not recognizing anyone by sight, and going so far as to take his own mother for an elephant with tusks, for some kind of crushed mint animal, and ordering Fomich to shoot her, and how later in his unhappy delirium he had started to call on Marakulin with a piteous voice like a cat whose kittens have been taken away from her.