Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel (9 page)

Sergei Sergeevich glanced at the doctor and the photographer, who were listening to the conversation, and said, “Doctor, go to the captain’s office and write your report. Keep it brief, but don’t leave anything essential out. And as for you”—this was to the photographer—“would you please go to the boatswain and bring me a ball of string. And ask for a knife too—a cable knife. The boatswain knows.”

Only when he was left alone with Pelagia did he answer the question, and he lowered his voice to a confidential undertone to do so: “Do you know, Mademoiselle, why I came dashing to investigate this murder myself?”

The question was clearly rhetorical, and after maintaining a pause for the period required by the laws of the stage, Dolinin would certainly have answered it himself. However, the nun, who was beginning to like this intelligent investigator more and more, permitted herself to take a liberty (since she was no longer “Sister” but “Mademoiselle”): “I assume you found your tour of inspection boring and wanted to get back to real live work.”

Sergei Sergeevich gave a short laugh, which softened the lines of his dry, bilious face and made it look younger. “Let’s assume that is correct, and it makes me admire your shrewdness yet again. You know, I really cannot get used to administrative work. My colleagues envy me. Such a rapid advance in my career, a general’s rank at the age of forty, a member of the council of a ministry, but I’m constantly tormented by nostalgia for my old job. Only a year ago I was still an investigator, for especially important cases. And not a bad investigator either, I assure you.”

“I can see that. No doubt your superiors singled you out for promotion for distinguished service?”

“If only.” Dolinin chuckled. “An investigator can be as wise as Solomon, he can wear out the knees of a thousand pairs of trousers and the elbows of a thousand frock coats, but he’ll never be elevated to such dizzy heights. That’s not the way great careers are made.”

“How, then?”

“With paper, dear Sister. Paper is the only magic carpet on which you can soar up to the mountain peaks in our mighty state. When I took up the pen, to be honest I wasn’t thinking about my career at all. Quite the opposite, I thought they would probably send me packing for such audacity. But I couldn’t go on watching the sheer Asiatic chaos in our investigative work. I wrote a project of reform and sent it to the individuals in high state positions who are charged with managing the protection of the rule of law. I decided to do it, come what may. I had already started looking for another job, as a lawyer. And suddenly this humble servant of God was summoned to Mount Olympus itself. ‘Well done,’ they said. ‘We’ve been waiting for someone like you for a long time.’” Dolinin raised his arms in a comical gesture, as if he were capitulating in the face of the unpredictable caprice of destiny. “I was instructed to prepare a reform designed to regulate the interaction between police investigative agencies and court investigations. Well, I asked for it, as they say. And now I’m like the Eternal Jew, wandering the cities and the provinces. At this stage I’ve done so much regulating, I could just sit down and howl, like a wolf. However, Mademoiselle Pelagia, you must not think that Dolinin has simply run away from a boring lesson, like some grammar-school boy. No, I am a responsible man, not given to puerile impulsiveness. You see, the case of the prophet Manuila is special. This is the second time he has been murdered.”

Magical Manuila

“HOW CAN THAT BE?” gasped Pelagia.

“It’s a fact. There are many people who cannot bear this particular individual.”

The holy sister nodded: “I’ve already realized that.”

“The first time Manuila was murdered was three weeks ago, in the province of Tver.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t quite …”

Dolinin waved his hand, as if to say
Please don’t interrupt, listen
. “The dead man turned out to be a commoner by the name of Petrov or Mikhailov, I don’t remember now. A Foundling, a follower of Manuila and similar to him in appearance. Hence the rumors of Manuila’s immortality.”

“What if this isn’t him either?” asked Pelagia, pointing at the dead man.

“A reasonable question. I’d like very much to find out. The appearance fits, as far as I can recall. It’s just a pity that we don’t have a photograph of the prophet. Manuila had no criminal record, so our department had no excuse for recording his charming features. And his traveling companions are nothing more than that. I’ve ordered them to be locked in a storeroom for the time being, but what sense can I get out of unbalanced creatures like them? They might even lie. Or they themselves could be confused about the dead man’s identity.”

“What an amazing story!”

“It certainly is. Not only is it amazing, even more importantly, it’s political.” Sergei Sergeevich became more serious. “The murder of a prophet, especially an immortal one, is a matter of state importance. It will be a huge sensation in all the newspapers, and not only in Russia. Which makes it all the more essential to determine for certain whether this is Manuila or another double.”

At this point the photographer returned with the string and a short, extremely sharp knife. The investigator called the police constables in from the corridor and gave them strange, indeed blasphemous, instructions.

“Dress him” (a nod in the direction of the dead man), “sit him on the chair, and tie him on with string. Quickly now!” Dolinin shouted at the suddenly timid men, and explained to the nun: “We have to get the corpse into an identifiable condition. It’s a new method, my own personal invention.”

While the policemen grunted as they inserted the still flexible limbs of the dead man into his trouser legs and sleeves, Dolinin very deftly ripped the soles off the prophet’s boot with the knife and slit open the tops.

“There, now,” he said in a satisfied voice, extracting some papers from the ripped leather. He gave them a quick glance and shrugged slightly. He didn’t show them to his confidante, and Pelagia felt awkward about asking, although she was really very curious.

“Have you got him sitting up?” Sergei Sergeevich asked, turning to the policemen. “The eyes, the eyes. Ah, damn it.”

The holy sister took a cautious peep—and immediately squeezed her own eyes shut. The eyeballs were hanging down on the dead man’s cheeks, and the sight was beyond all human bearing.

“The rubber glove from my bag,” the investigator’s brisk voice said. “That’s the way. Excellent, the peepers are back in. Cotton wool. No, no. Two small pieces, and roll them out a bit. Under the eyelids it goes, under the eyelids. Now they’re open, very good … Ah, the cornea has dried out, it’s dull. I’ve got a bottle of nitroglycerine and a dropper in there, give them here … Into the right… into the left… Ugh. Now we’ll comb his hair … and now the wet towel… All done. Open your eyes, Mademoiselle, don’t be afraid.”

Wincing before she even started, Pelagia took a cautious look and was stupefied. Sitting there on the chair—admittedly in a rather forced pose, with his head hanging to one side—was a gaunt, bearded peasant who looked absolutely alive, watching her with intense, gleaming eyes. He was wearing a shirt, waistcoat, and trousers. His beard and long hair were neatly combed.

This sudden resurrection of the departed was so unexpected that the holy sister took a step back.

Sergei Sergeevich laughed contentedly. “There, now we can even photograph Mr. Shelukhin.”

“What did you call him?” Pelagia asked.

“That’s the name in his passport.” The investigator read from the document he had extracted from the top of the boot: “Pyotr Saveliev Shelukhin, thirty-eight years of age, religion Orthodox, peasant of the village of Stroganovka, Staritskaya Rural Territory of the Gorodets District in the province of Zavolzhie.”

“Why, that’s our province!” the holy sister gasped.

“But I’d heard that Manuila was born in the province of Vyatka. In any case, that was where he began preaching. The Foundlings, by the way, are convinced that their prophet was born in the Holy Land and will soon set out to go back. And actually, Shelukhin did have a ticket to Jaffa.”

The magnesium hissed and flared.

“One more full face. Then three-quarter profiles from the right and the left. And both full profiles,” Dolinin instructed. He gave the tidied-up corpse a skeptical look and sighed. “Height above average, facial features ordinary, light brown hair, blue eyes, slight build, no distinguishing features. No, gentlemen, this is simply not good enough. I need a hundred percent clarity.”

He wrinkled up his brow as he figured something out. Tugged on his wedge of beard. Shook his head decisively.

“Sister, from here to Zavolzhsk is twelve hours’ sailing, right? And how long from there to Gorodetsk?”

“Two days along the rivers. But the Gorodets District extends a long way, and Stroganovka is right over by the Ural Mountains. You have to travel through the forest to get there, through a remote wilderness. It’s a difficult journey, and a long one. I’ve been in those parts once, with the bishop. We traveled around to the schismatics’ hermitages, trying to persuade the local monks not to be afraid of the authorities.”

“I’m going,” Sergei Sergeevich declared, and his eyes glinted fervently. “This really is a case of public importance. Once Dolinin finds himself at the scene of a crime, he has to get right to the bottom of it! He can’t just let it go. I’ll send the minister a telegram: the tour of inspection is being interrupted owing to exceptional circumstances. He’ll only be glad that I happened to be at the right place at the right time.”

Only herself to blame

ON THE THIRD day of the journey they disembarked from the barge and stopped for the night in the large Old Believer village of Gorodets, where the women in white shawls spat over their left shoulders when they saw Pelagia in her habit. After that they set off by land, through the Forest.

It didn’t have a name—just “the Forest,” that was all. At first deciduous, then mixed, then almost entirely coniferous, the Forest extended for a hundred miles as far as the Urals Crest, crept over the mountains, and, on emerging into the wide open space beyond them, swept all the way to the Pacific Ocean across an unimaginably vast expanse of land, its immense mass seamed with dark, broad rivers, many of which also had no name, for how could anyone think up such a great number of names, and who was there to do it?

At its western extremity, in Zavolzhie, the Forest was still far from mature, but even at its margins it differed from its European counterparts in the same way as an ocean wave differs from a wave on a lake—by virtue of the distinctive leisurely might of its breath, and also an absolute contempt for any human presence.

On first acquaintance, the road posed as a decent country track, but by the tenth mile it had already abandoned any pretense of carrying regular traffic and shriveled to the dimensions of an ordinary forest path.

After an hour or two of rattling and shaking along a rutted surface on which black water gleamed dully through an overgrowth of spring grass, it was hard to believe that cities, broad steppes, deserts, open sky, and bright sunlight really existed in the world. Out there, in the realm of freedom, warmth reigned supreme, the meadows were full of yellow dandelions and the buzzing of bees as yet only half awake; but in here, patches of gray snow lay in the hollows, an equal mixture of meltwater and ice pellets frothed in the ravines, and the deciduous trees still stood in their mournful winter nakedness.

When the birches and aspens were replaced by fir trees, it became even darker and more forbidding. The space closed in, the light faded, and new smells appeared in the air, setting your skin creeping and prickling. There was the scent of wild animal life lurking in the thickets, as well as a certain vague, damp terror. As night approached, the alarming scent became stronger, and the horses crowded close around the camp-fire, whinnying fearfully and flicking their ears.

Pelagia could not help recalling the Zavolzhian tales about all sorts of evil spirits in the forest: about the bear Babai, who took girls for his brides, about the fox Lizukha, who appeared in the form of a fair maiden and lured young lads and even family men away forever. According to the Zavolzhian legends, the most terrible creature of all was the man-wolf Struk, with eyes of fire and huge teeth of iron: people frightened their children with him so that they wouldn’t wander far into the forest. Struk’s jaws belched fire and smoke and he didn’t run at all, he hopped across the treetops like a lynx, and if he fell and hit the ground, he turned into a dashing young fellow in a gray caftan. God forbid that you should ever meet a mouse-gray man like that in the forest.