Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel

by Boris Akunin

  The comical word had come so unexpectedly that some of the yeshiva pupils had started giggling, and Shmulik had squeezed his eyes shut to drive away the picture his overactive imagination had instantly drawn of the Lord God inspecting Rabbi Shefarevich’s gift and wondering what to do with the little trifle—keep it somewhere safe or throw it away.

  The giggling broke off and an ominous silence fell. Nobody had ever paid the venerable rabbi such a terrible insult anywhere, let alone in a public square full of Jews. And this was not just anywhere, but right beside the Wailing Wall!

  Was it any wonder that the Teacher had lost his temper? “Jews!” he had shouted, brandishing his fists. “Stone the son of Belial!”

  The only one to throw a stone had been Mikhl-Byk, the most hopeless of all the pupils, whom the rabbi kept in the yeshiva for all sorts of heavy work. Mikhl was twice as broad as the other yeshiva boys and four times as strong. Everyone was afraid of his malicious cruelty. Shmulik had once seen Byk grab a street dog by the tail and smash its head against a wall. And the dog had not bitten him or even barked at him—it was simply lying in the middle of the road, the way dogs like to do.

  The stone struck the squatting man in the chest. He staggered and rose rapidly from his squatting position, clutching with one hand at the spot where he had been hit.

  Mikhl had picked up another stone, and then Emmanuel had looked his attacker in the eye and spoken strange words very quickly. Boy, he had exclaimed plaintively, that hurts me. As much as it hurt your father when they killed him.

  And Byk had dropped the stone and turned pale. Shmulik would never have believed that Byk’s flat, copper-colored face could ever be so white. But it was only natural! How could a perfect stranger have known that the Oprichniks of Christ had beaten Mikhl’s father to death during a pogrom in Poltava?

  And then Rabbi Shefarevich had come to his senses and waved his hand for all the others to drop their stones too.

  “So you claim that you are a Jew?” he had asked.

  “Of course I am,” the amazing tramp had muttered, pulling down the collar of his robe. On his bony chest there was a visible dent, rapidly flooding with blue and crimson.

  The Teacher had declared ominously, “That’s excellent. Genekh, come with me!” And he had walked off at a rapid pace toward the Mahkamah Palace, which stood beside the Wailing Wall. Genekh, a pupil from the local population who knew Arabic and Turkish, had dashed after him.

  Shmulik had immediately realized where the rabbi was going in such a hurry, and why. The municipal court and the zaptiya (Turkish police) were both located in the Mahkamah. By law all Jews were subject to the Rabbinical Council, and if a member of the council gave the order for one of the Jews to be put in prison, it had to be carried out. But apparently Emmanuel was not aware of this, and so he had not been even slightly alarmed. And none of the Jews had warned him.

  Byk had asked hoarsely, “How do you know about my father?”

  The tramp had replied: I read it.

  “Where did you read it? In a newspaper? But it was seven years ago!”

  Not in a newspaper, Emmanuel had said—in a book.

  “In what book?”

  In this one, the tattered tramp had replied with a serious expression, pointing at Mikhl’s forehead. I can read faces, he had said, the same way that other people read books. It’s very simple, you just have to know the letters. The face alphabet doesn’t have thirty-seven letters, like the Russian alphabet, or even twenty-two, like the Jewish alphabet, it has only sixteen. A face is even more interesting to read than a book—it will tell you more and it will never deceive you.

  And then Byk suddenly started reciting the prayer that was meant to be said if you saw some wondrous marvel, or if you were lucky enough to meet a truly distinguished individual: “Baruch ata Adonai Elocheinu melech cha-olam, she-kacha lo be-olamo”—Blessed be Thou, Lord our God, the Lord of the Universe, in whose world such things exist.

  Mikhl reciting a prayer, of his own free will, with no compulsion? Incredible!

  After his prayer, Mikhl had said, “You have to leave, rabbi. The police will come running now, they will beat you and put you in prison.”

  Emmanuel had looked around in alarm at the large building into which Rabbi Shefarevich had disappeared. Ah, he had said, I’m going now. Going away from this city. And he had informed the people nearby in a confidential voice that there was nothing for him to do in Erushalaim just yet. He had taken a look at the Pharisees, now he was going to take a look at the Sadducees. He said he had been told the Sadducees had settled in the Isreel Valley, where the city of Megiddo once stood. Then he had lifted up the skirts of his robe and hurried away.

  Mikhl had overtaken him and caught hold of his shoulder. “Rabbi, I’ll go with you! The road to Megiddo is long, there are bandits everywhere, you will be killed if you go alone! I am strong, I will protect you. And you will teach me the sixteen letters!”

  And he had looked at Emmanuel as if his entire life depended on the reply. But Emmanuel had shaken his head.

  “Why?” Byk had shouted.

  Because you, the focusmacher had said, will not master these letters. It is not what you need. And to go with me is not what you need, either. Nothing will happen to me, God will protect me against misfortune. He will protect me, but not those who are with me. That is why I go everywhere alone now. And if you wish to become a Jew, you will do it without me.

  And he had gone skipping off in the direction of the Dung Gate.

  Barely half a minute after he had disappeared around the corner, Rabbi Shefarevich appeared, with two Turkish gendarmes.

  “Where is he, Jews?” the great man had shouted.

  “He went that way!” the Jews had cried, pointing.

  Genekh had translated into Turkish for the gendarmes: “He went that way,” and the Turks had gone running after the disturber of public order.

  But a few minutes later they had come back, gasping and limping. One’s head was split open, the other was spitting out blood and teeth. The Jews had been unable to believe their eyes. Could the skinny tramp really have given two hulking brutes like this a thrashing?

  The policemen had talked gibberish. Apparently they had almost overtaken the tramp when he just managed to slip away from them into an alley. The men in uniform had dashed after him—and suddenly something terrible had happened in the dark passage. Some diabolical force had seized one of them by the collar and swung him hard against the wall, knocking him out. Before the second man could even look around, the same thing had happened to him. The badly frightened policeman had kept repeating: “Shaitan, shaitan!” and Rabbi Shefarevich had hissed through clenched teeth: “Ga-Satan!” and spat.

  The focusmacher had turned out to be pretty smart, but to look at him you would never have thought it.

  That very evening, Mikhl-Byk had gone away. And how could he not go away, after what had happened at the Wailing Wall?

  When he left he had said: “I’ll go and wander the world a bit. I’ll take a look at Africa, see what it’s like. And America too.” He had sewn a blue ribbon onto his white shirt and left. Eliminated himself from his own people …

  THAT WAS WHAT had happened on the first Sabbath after Passover. But Shmulik didn’t tell the shiksa about Mikhl-Byk, or about the barefoot conjurer who stole Jewish souls. All he said was, “The man you are asking about was here but he went away.”

  “When?” the Russian woman asked anxiously.

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “And do you know where he went?”

  Shmulik hesitated, wondering whether he should say. But what was the problem? Why shouldn’t he say?

  “He mentioned the Isreel Valley and the ancient city of Megiddo, and something about Sadducees.”

  “Megiddo?” the shiksa echoed, and her eyes opened wide in fright. “Oh, Lord! But where is it, and how can I get there?”

  She took a little book out of her traveling bag. There was a folded map inside it.
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  Shmulik wanted to tell the stupid woman that the journey to the Isreel Valley was long and difficult, and that Emmanuel wouldn’t get there anyway, because nobody went to those parts on his own—they were crawling with bandits. And a European woman would be absolutely crazy to think of going to such a desolate place.

  He wanted to tell her, but he didn’t have time, because he happened by chance to look around, and everything inside him turned cold. That cursed Lithuanian, the one who had been staring in the street, had proved stubborn: he had trailed them and there he was—peeping around the corner. It was terrible to think what lies he would tell Rabbi Shefarevich. The only hope was that he might not know which yeshiva this lover of idle tattle with shiksas came from.

  And Shmulik darted headlong into the nearest side street, slipped into a broad doorway, and hid.

  He heard a pair of lady’s heels go clacking past—that was the shiksa walking by. A minute later they were followed by soft, muffled footsteps.

  Glory be to Thee, Lord. The danger has passed.

  Life in an Arab harem, seen from the inside

  MEGIDDO? SADDUCEES?

  Polina Andreevna walked quickly along the tiny street that was like a deep trench, the ringing echo of her footsteps bouncing off the walls that were separated by a gap so narrow that one could touch both sides at once.

  It was the Zionists that he had called Sadducees. In fact, they were similar. The Sadducees had also defended freedom of will and claimed that man’s fate was in his own hands. The plump girl aboard the Sturgeon had mentioned the Isreel Valley and the City of Happiness that would be built close to ancient Megiddo.

  Ah, how terrible! Ah, how awful! And two whole weeks had already gone by!

  Her decision was made in a moment, without the slightest hesitation. It was remarkable that she had guessed that she ought to bring a traveling bag with all the essentials—underthings, a folding parasol, various ladies’ accessories—just in case. She didn’t have to go back to the hotel.

  In addition to the map of the Holy Land, the pilgrim’s guidebook also contained a street map of Jerusalem. There was the Jewish quarter, below the Old City. She had to keep moving straight ahead all the time—through the Christian section, then the Moslem section—and she would come out at the Damascus Gate.

  Only the alley simply did not wish to be straight—it kept swerving, first in one direction, then the other, so that very soon Mrs. Lisitsyna had completely lost her grasp of the four points of the compass. She could not see the sun, because the second floors of the houses, which were fronted with wooden grilles like chicken hutches, stuck out toward one another and almost met.

  The nun stopped, wondering what to do. There was no one from whom she could ask the way. Perhaps someone would look out of a window?

  She raised her head—and just in time. A pair of woman’s hands were thrust out of an open grille. The hands were holding a basin, out of which a stream of soapy water came pouring downward, glinting like a strip of silver.

  At the very last moment Polina Andreevna leaped aside into a narrow gap and also jumped up in the air, so that she would not be caught by the water splashing up from the surface of the street.

  Since she was already lost in any case, it made no sense to go back, so she walked on along the twisting side alley she had just entered. Only now she kept looking up fearfully every now and then. To judge from the traces she spotted on the ground, the waste poured out the windows included other items less innocuous than soapy water.

  She had to get out onto a normal street as soon as possible!

  The alleyway led her to a monastery, and from then on things were simpler. Following the wall, Pelagia reached a small square, where she asked the first passerby, a man dressed in a European suit, how to get to the Damascus Gate.

  And finding Salakh’s house was really not difficult at all.

  The nun stopped in front of an Arab street coffeehouse, said “Salakh,” and gestured as if she were holding reins. They understood exactly what she meant and replied in the same language: straight ahead, then right, and you’ll see the gate (a semicircle drawn in the air, and “knock-knock” with a hand).

  IN RESPONSE TO the knock, the gate was opened by the master of the house himself, who had parted from Polina Andreevna only some three hours earlier. “I expect you are surprised,” his visitor said, panting for breath. “But I have a job for you.”

  When he saw his recent passenger, Salakh opened his brown, slightly protruding eyes wide in surprise, but when he heard about the job, he began waving his arms. “No can do job! No can do! You come visit as guest—welcome. We drink coffee, eat baklava. Then talk job.”

  Pelagia wanted to say that the job was too urgent to postpone, but she recalled how sensitive Eastern etiquette was and gave in. In the final analysis, what difference would a few minutes make? And in any case, she didn’t know any other drivers in Jerusalem.

  From the outside, Salakh’s house did not look very impressive, with flaking walls and rubbish dumped beside the gate, so Polina Andreevna was fully prepared for a depressing scene of poverty and neglect. However, the visitor was in for a surprise.

  The house was in the form of an enclosed rectangular space with an open courtyard in the middle. The inner walls of the structure gleamed brilliant white, and in the center of the courtyard, under a canopy, there was an extremely comfortable raised dais, covered with a carpet.

  Pelagia was reminded of a comment she had read in a book by a famous traveler: the Asiatic dwelling, as opposed to the European, was not concerned with exterior appearances, but with interior comfort. That was precisely why orientals were so phlegmatic and uncurious—the world that they inhabited was contained within the walls of their own home. But Europeans, on the other hand, did not feel comfortable under their own roofs, and so they wandered all over the world, exploring and conquering distant lands.

  But the Asiatic way is more correct, Polina Andreevna suddenly thought, leaning back in delight on the soft cushions. If life is the search for yourself then why go traipsing off to the ends of the earth? Stay home, drink coffee with honey cakes, and contemplate your inner world.

  A fat woman with a rather conspicuous mustache set a bowl of candied fruit on the carpet and poured the coffee. Salakh exchanged a few phrases with her in Arabic, then introduced her: “Fatima. Wife.”

  Fatima did not come up onto the dais. She squatted on her haunches beside it, holding the coffee pot in her hands, and every time the guest put her cup down even for a moment, she topped it up again.

  Having spent five minutes on the requirements of etiquette (beautiful house, wonderful coffee, charming wife), Pelagia announced the purpose of her visit: she wanted to go to Megiddo. How much would it cost?

  “Not a thing,” her host replied, shaking his head.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I not mad. I not go for any money.”

  “Twenty-five rubles,” said Polina Andreevna.

  “No.”

  “Fifty.”

  “Not even thousand!” Salakh exclaimed, fluttering his hands angrily. “I not go!”

  “But why not?”

  He began bending down his fingers, counting off reasons.

  “Swamp fever, one. Bedouin bandits, two. Circassian bandits, three. I not go no matter how much.”

  This was not said in order to raise the price, but definitively—the nun realized that right away. So she had simply wasted her time. Disappointed, Pelagia put down her cup. “But you boasted: I’ll take you wherever you want.”

  “Wherever you want, but not there,” Salakh retorted.

  Seeing that the guest was no longer touching her coffee, Fatima asked her husband about something and he answered—no doubt explaining what was the matter.

  “So it was yet another lie,” Polina Andreevna declared bitterly. “Like the lie to me about a Russian wife and the lie to the Americans about an American one.”

  “Who lied? I lied? Salakh never lied!”
the Palestinian exclaimed indignantly.

  He clapped his hands and shouted:

  “Marusya! Annabel!”

  A woman peeped out of the door leading to the interior of the house. She was dressed in oriental style, but her pink cheeks and snub nose left no doubt at all as to her nationality. The woman’s hair was tied back with an Arab scarf—not knotted at the chin, as the local woman did it, but at the back of her neck, peasant fashion.

  Shaking her hands, which were covered in flour, the Slav woman gazed at Salakh inquiringly.

  “Come here!” he ordered her, and shouted, even louder, “Annabel!”

  When there was no response, he got to his feet and disappeared into the house. He could be heard inside, appealing in English: “Honey! Darling! Come out!”

  “Are you really Russian?” Polina Andreevna asked.

  The round-faced woman nodded, coming closer.

  “You’re Natasha, aren’t you? Your husband told me.”

  “Nah, I’m Marusya,” the nun’s fellow countrywoman drawled in a thick voice. “Natasha’s what the men around here call all our Russian women. That’s their custom.”

  “Are there really many Russian women here?”

  “Plenty of them,” Marusya told her, taking a candied fruit from a tray and popping it into her full-lipped mouth. “The pilgrims with any brains, those who don’t want to go back to Russia. What’s so good there, anyway? Slave away like a horse. Your man drinks. In winter you get froze half to death. But this place is paradise. Warm and free, all sorts of fruits and berries. For them lucky enough to find a husband, it’s heaven. Your Arab doesn’t guzzle vodka, he’s affectionate—and you don’t have to handle him on your own. With three or four women around, it’s a lot easier. Right, Fatimushka?” She rattled away in Arabic, translating what she had just said.