Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog

by Boris Akunin

  The bishop said nothing, because he had not noticed any such special looks, but he had more faith in Pelagia’s powers of observation than in his own.

  They came out of the gates of the park into open space. Here the alleyway became a road that stretched out across the countryside to the Astrakhan highway. The bishop halted to allow the carriage to reach them.

  “But why do you need to come to town? Naina will not stay there for long, surely she will go away. As soon as the news of her antics gets out, nobody will want to have anything to do with her. And she has nowhere to live there. She is bound to go away, to Moscow or St. Petersburg, if she doesn’t leave the country entirely.”

  “Not for anything. Wherever Bubentsov is, that is where she will be,” the nun declared confidently. “And I need to be close by as well. As for the public condemnation, in her present bitter mood Naina Georgievna will only savor it. And she does have a place to live. I heard from the maid that Naina Georgievna has a house of her own in Zavolzhsk, she inherited it from some female relative. Not a large house, but in a lovely setting, with an orchard.”

  “So you believe that Bubentsov is involved in all this?” the bishop asked, setting his foot on the step, but still in no haste to get into the carriage. “That would be most opportune. If he were caught out in some villainy, then the synod would have less faith in him. Otherwise I’m afraid I shall be no match for his zeal. In all probability the worst ordeals are yet to come. Return to the see tomorrow, then, and the two of us will put our heads together and think out our problems. I can see that we shall be requiring Miss Lisitsyna’s services in this matter.”

  These mysterious words had a strange effect on the nun, who seemed at once delighted and dismayed.

  “It’s a sin, father. And we vowed not to—”

  “Never mind, this is important business, far more important than the previous cases.” The bishop sighed as he took his seat in the carriage opposite the father subdeacon. “It is my decision and my responsibility before God and man. Well, then, my blessings, my daughter. Farewell.”

  And the carriage moved off, picking up speed and darting away almost soundlessly along the dust-covered road, while Sister Pelagia turned back into the park.

  She walked along the alley with the sky bright above her, but the trees on both sides fused into dark, solid walls, so that the nun seemed to be moving along the bottom of a strange, luminous ravine.

  Lying ahead of her in the middle of her path she saw a white square of some kind, with another little black square at its center. When she and the bishop had walked by here only five or ten minutes earlier there had not been anything of the kind in the alley.

  Pelagia quickened her stride in order to reach this curious phenomenon and examine it more closely. When she reached it, she squatted down.

  Strange: It was a large white handkerchief with a book in a black leather binding lying on it. She picked it up—it was a prayerbook. A perfectly ordinary prayerbook, the kind that could be found anywhere. What strange goings-on were these?

  Pelagia was about to check whether there was anything between the pages when suddenly she heard a rustling sound behind her. Before she had a chance to turn around someone had thrown a sack over her head, scraping her cheeks. Not understanding what was happening, the nun tried to cry out, but her cry was choked off in a hoarse whisper as a loop of rope was drawn tight around the sack. And then a dark, feral terror rose up inside her. Pelagia began struggling, scrabbling with her fingers at the sackcloth and the coarse rope. But strong hands seized her and would not let her break free or loosen the stranglehold. Someone was panting behind her, breathing noisily into her right ear, but she could not even catch her breath.

  She tried striking backward with her fist, but it was too awkward—there was no way to get a good swing going. She kicked out with her foot and hit something, but probably not hard enough to hurt—her habit cushioned the blow.

  Feeling the ringing in her ears grow louder and the call of the deep, comforting black millpond grow stronger, the nun tore her knitting out of her waist bag, took a firm grasp of the needles, and jabbed them hard into something soft—and then again.

  “U-u-ugh!”

  A hollow, snarling grunt, and the grip slackened. Pelagia swung the needles again, but this time into emptiness.

  There was no longer anyone holding her, no elbow pressing against her throat. She slumped down to her knees, tore off the cursed noose, pulled the sack off her head, and began gasping hoarsely at the air with her mouth, muttering: “Most…Ho…ly…Mo…ther…of…God…preserve me…from my enemies…visible…and invisible…”

  As soon as the darkness cleared from her eyes a little, she gazed around keenly in all directions.

  Nobody. But the points of her knitting needles were dark with blood.

  CHAPTER 6

  A Soirée

  AND NOW WE shall omit a period of something rather more than a month and move directly to the denouement of our tangled tale, or rather, to the commencement of this denouement, which coincides with a party for select guests that took place at the home of Olympiada Savelievna Shestago. The postmaster’s wife herself preferred, in homage to contemporary art, to honor this festive occasion with the grand title of “soirée,” and so let it remain, especially since this soirée will not soon be forgotten in Zavolzhsk.

  As for the month omitted by our narrative, one could not say that nothing at all had happened during its course—on the contrary, things had happened, a great many things, but these events had no direct connection to the main line of our narrative and we shall therefore skip through them briefly, “with a light step,” as the ancients used to say.

  The modest name of our province thundered resoundingly throughout the length and breadth of Russia, even echoing beyond its borders. The newspapers of Petersburg and Moscow took to writing about us almost every day, separating into two camps, with the supporters of the first asserting that the Zavolzhsk region was the location of a new Battle of Kulikovo Field, a holy war for Russia, our faith, and the church of Christ, while their opponents, in contrast, characterized the events that were taking place as medieval obscurantism and a new Inquisition. Even the London Times wrote about us, although not, we admit, on the front page or even the second, saying that in a certain remote corner of the Russian Empire by the name of Zavolger (sic!) instances of human sacrifice had been uncovered, resulting in a tsarist commissioner’s being despatched to the area from St. Petersburg and the entire province being placed under his emergency administration.

  Well, as far the emergency administration was concerned—that was something of an exaggeration on the part of the English, but events did nonetheless come thick and fast enough to make your head spin. Vladimir Lvovich Bubentsov, having been vouchsafed the complete support of the higher echelons, proceeded with his investigation into the case of the heads (or, rather, of their absence) with truly Napoleonic panache. A special commission was set up to deal with the case under Bubentsov’s chairmanship, with a membership consisting of special investigators sent from St. Petersburg, and also a few local investigators and police officials—each of whom was selected by Vladimir Lvovich himself. The commission was not subordinated to either the governor or the district procurator and it did not have to report to them about its activities.

  Fortunately, no more bodies were discovered, but the police carried out several arrests among the Zyts and one of the prisoners had supposedly admitted that in the dark forests beyond the remote Volochaisk swamps there was a certain clearing in which on Friday nights fires were lit to Shishiga and sacks containing offerings were brought, but as for what was in the sacks, only the elders knew.

  The gallant Vladimir Lvovich equipped an expedition and led it himself. He prowled through the swamps and thickets for a number of days and finally discovered a certain clearing that appeared suspicious because, although there was not actually any stone idol, there were the remains of campfires and animal bones. He arrested the he
adman of the nearby Zyt village, as well as another old man who, according to information in Bubentsov’s possession, was a shaman. They put the prisoners in a cart and set out with them through the wet bog, but on an island in the middle of it the convoy was attacked with clubs and knives by the men of the Zyt village, who were attempting to free their elders. The police guards (there were two of them attached to Bubentsov) took to their heels and Spasyonny was so frightened that he jumped into the swamp and almost drowned, but the inspector himself proved to be made of sterner stuff: He shot one of the attackers dead, the Circassian hacked another two to death with his terrible dagger, and the other rebels fled in all directions.

  Vladimir Lvovich later returned to the village with a military detachment, but the houses were all empty—the Zyts had upped and moved away deeper into the forest. Bubentsov’s heroism was written about in all the newspapers, even the illustrated ones, where he was depicted as a fine, upstanding young man with a dashing mustache and an aquiline nose. The hero’s courage earned him an Order of Saint Anne from the emperor and also praise from Konstantin Petrovich—a fact to which the well-informed accorded greater significance than the decoration from the sovereign.

  The entire province seemed suddenly to have nearly lost its mind. The forest Zyts had never been known to commit any audacities of this sort. Even during Pugachev’s time they had not rebelled, but served Mikhelson as guides, so what on earth could have got into them now?

  Some said that it was Bubentsov who had driven them to it by the disgraceful way in which he shackled their venerable elders and tossed them into a dirty cart, but there were many, very many, who thought differently: The perspicacious inspector had been proved right—something sinister had begun to stir in the depths of those still waters.

  The province of Zavolzhie was uneasy. No one traveled the forest roads alone any longer, only in groups—and this in our quiet province, where nobody had even given a thought to such precautions in recent years!

  Vladimir Lvovich rode about with an armed guard, paid visits to the various districts as and when he chose, demanding explanations from town governors and military commanders and district police officers, and they all submitted to his authority.

  Thus dual power was established in these parts. And after all, what was so surprising about that? In the eyes of the church authorities the bishop had been discredited by all these pagan outrages, and many respectable folk who liked to trim their sails to the wind took up the habit of calling to pay their respects not at the episcopal see, but at the Grand Duke, where Bubentsov lived. The administrative authorities became less conscientious than formerly. The chief of police, Lagrange, for instance, did not actually stop taking orders from the governor completely, but he went running to the synodical inspector for approval of every instruction he received from Anton Antonovich, even the most petty, such as the introduction of numbers for horse cabs. Felix Stanislavovich told everyone that the baron was simply serving out his final days as governor, and in the company of his friends and subordinates he even expressed the expectation that the person appointed as the next governor of Zavolzhsk would be none other than himself, Colonel Lagrange.

  In the course of this month the entire edifice of our province’s life had been twisted awry, although it had appeared to be soundly and intelligently constructed, not having been built from the roof down, as in the other Russian provinces, but from the foundation up. Perhaps, though, this image is overly abstruse and requires some clarification.

  Some twenty years or so ago, ours was a province like any other: poverty, drunkenness, ignorance, arbitrary rule, brigands on the roads. In a word, we had the ordinary Russian life, more or less the same as in every part of the vast empire. In Zavolzhie it was perhaps somewhat smoother and calmer than in other regions, where people are led astray by the prospect of easy money. In these parts everything was sedate and patriarchal, life following a set of rules that been established once and for all.

  Let us say a merchant wanted to float his goods down the River or transport them through the forest. The first thing he did was go to the right man (he already knew who that was, every district and every volost had its own), pay his respects, and offer him a tenth of everything, and then he carried blithely on about his business, nobody would touch him or bother him—neither evildoers, nor the police, nor excise agents. But if you didn’t pay your respects and placed your trust in reliable guards or simply trusted to luck in the slapdash Russian fashion, you only had yourself to blame if anything happened. You might get through the forest or you might not. And on the River, too, anything could happen, especially at nighttime, somewhere on the rapids.

  If someone wanted to open a shop or a tavern in the town, it was the same thing. Have a word with the right man, show him some respect, promise him a tenth, and may God grant you every possible success. The public health inspector would not bother you because there were flies on the counter, or rats in the basement, and the tax inspector would be satisfied with a small bribe.

  Everybody knew about the right man—the district police officer, the procurator, and the bailiff—but nobody hindered him in going about his business, because the right man was everybody’s friend; he might even be your relative or your godfather.

  There were times when honest senior officials were appointed from the capital, or they might even send someone who was not just honest but also took a determined and workmanlike approach, who firmly intended to unmask everyone and immediately establish the rule of justice and order—even that kind of eagle soon found his wings clipped in Zavolzhie. If possible it was done through kindness, by means of presents or favors of other kinds, or, if he was absolutely incorruptible, then by means of calumny and slander. Fortunately there would be no shortage of witnesses; the right man only had to whistle and they would slander anyone at all.

  But thirty years or so ago a new chief of police arrived in our town, before the late Gulko. He was a real terror, absolutely inflexible. He raked the entire police force over the coals: Some he sacked, some he sent to trial, and the rest he reduced to a state of constant trepidation. The unrest that this stirred up disrupted certain long-established, tried-and-true relations between serious people. And in the meantime this Robespierre was recklessly edging closer to the right people. That was when his outrageous activities were terminated. One day he went duck-hunting with his own colleagues, and all of a sudden the boat overturned. Everybody else managed to swim to safety; only the chief was unlucky. He had been creating uproar in these parts for only six months or so. And that was the chief of police, an important man! But if it was some ordinary district police officer or investigator who proved stubborn, he was dealt with far more simply, bludgeoned over the head or shot from the bushes in the night, and that was the end of the matter. It was put down to the bandits who roamed our forests in such abundance. For the sake of appearances the police would search for a while and then close the case because it was impossible to solve. But what point is there in telling you all this? It is a sheer waste of time. Every province has a plentiful store of such stories.

  And then Mitrofanii was appointed from St. Petersburg to be our bishop, for the second and final time. That was very nearly twenty years ago. He already knew the local ways and customs, and so he didn’t go running at things pell-mell. He began with his own quiet area of jurisdiction: He took the priests in hand, so that they would not practice extortion; he introduced a strict regimen in the monasteries. He removed some of the rural deans and pricked the consciences of others, and he also brought with him from the capital clergy and monks who were young graduates of the ecclesiastical academy.

  In the churches and parishes, things also changed. The priests and deacons were sober, they led the services in a dignified manner, their sermons were moral and comprehensible, they did not accept any offerings over and above what was prescribed. But, of course, all this was not achieved immediately. Rather, it took two or three years. And at first no one was alarmed by this quite
unprecedented novelty, neither the right people nor the light-fingered high officials. If the priests no longer wished to eat well and sleep soft, that was their business. They had started talking a lot about honesty and the love of virtue from the pulpits, but that was what they were supposed to do. And anyway, who was going to take what the longhairs said seriously? But meanwhile the authority of men of the church increased gradually and imperceptibly, and the churches were far more crowded than they had been.

  And at this point, through Mitrofanii’s still-reliable connections in the capital, the old governor, with whom the bishop had fallen out seriously more than once, was retired. The new one sent to replace him was Anton Antonovich von Haggenau, who was barely thirty years old at the time. He was energetic, indefatigable, European, and quite ferociously devoted to justice.

  The baron struggled for a while with the local mores, butting his head against this stone wall and breaking his horns, and in his despair he began seeking refuge in administrative severity, which, as everyone knows, only aggravates all manner of misfortune. But, thank God, he proved to be a sensible man, even though he was a German—he had the wits to turn to His Grace for advice and guidance. What sort of miracle was this, he asked? How did Mitrofanii manage his spiritual domain so that everything in it was decorous and sedate, not like the other provincial bishops?

  His Grace replied that it was very simple: What was needed was less management, and then things would manage themselves. One needed only to lay a firm foundation and everything else would follow of its own accord.

  How would it follow, the young Anton Antonovich protested passionately, if the local folk were such worthless villains?

  People are different, there are good ones and bad ones, His Grace taught him, but for the most part they are neither one thing nor the other, like frogs that take on the temperature of the air around them. If it was warm, they were warm. If it was cold, they were cold. What was needed was to act so as to make the climate in our province warmer, then the people would become warmer and better. That was the authorities’ only responsibility—to create the correct climate—and as for the rest, the Lord would concern Himself with that, and people would do the right thing.