Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel

by Boris Akunin

  Magellan’s face had gradually turned darker and darker. He glanced sideways at the other members of the commune, who were listening to the prophecies of doom. At last he roared: “Get out of here, you old raven! I’m sick of your miserable squawking!”

  The doctor took offense and left. Malke felt sorry for him, but Magellan had done the right thing. They had sworn an oath to lay down their lives in this land, but never to abandon their goal.

  And Rokhele has already laid down her life, Malke thought with a shudder as she remembered the repulsive champing of the rotten ground under the blades of their spades. But she hardened her heart and told herself: Never mind, others will come. They’re already on the way. And even if they bury me in that filthy swamp too, it will be better than if I had stayed at home and lived to the age of fifty, or even a hundred. What sort of pointless life would that have been? A female vegetable with a husband, children, a daily routine …

  And then, Magellan was so handsome!

  “HEY! HEY! OVER here, quickly!” the lookout Sasha Briun shouted from the roof of the han. “Look!”

  Earlier, when they had a dog, they hadn’t bothered to set a lookout. Magellan said they ought to get a new dog, but where could they find another one like Polkan?

  Everyone dashed up onto the roof, to the lookout tower, and peered into the twilight.

  There were dark shadows bustling about over by the river—at the spot where they had buried Rokhele only an hour ago.

  “They’re digging up the grave!” Sasha shouted. “I didn’t realize at first what they were up to over there, but then I took a closer look. Honestly they’re digging it up!”

  They started dithering and dashing about, not knowing what to do. But then Magellan appeared and shouted, “Follow me!” And they each grabbed something—an axe, or a rifle—and ran toward the eucalyptus tree.

  Rokhele was lying there, half-covered by a sprinkling of wet dirt. Absolutely naked. They hadn’t even left her undershirt on her, they’d taken every last thread.

  Screeching in fury, Magellan pulled his revolver out of its holster and loped off, taking huge bounds along the path that led to the Arab village two miles away.

  Malke was the first to go dashing after him, panting for breath and smearing the tears across her face, but she kept up, even with her short legs. The others ran behind.

  When they had covered half the distance, someone at the back shouted, “Magellan! Look! Fire!”

  Looking around, they saw the han silhouetted against flickering red flames.

  They rushed back. It was harder to run now, because they were worn out.

  THEY SAVED THE house—thank God, there was water in the barrel. Only the lean-to shed for equipment was burned down. But the sacks with their collection of seeds had disappeared, and both cows and the horse were gone, too. The safe with their reserve funds of three thousand rubles had been torn out of the wall. And the brand-new American harrow, which was worth its weight in gold in Palestine, had disappeared as well.

  There were hoofprints left behind on the ground.

  “Shod,” said Magellan as he shone the torch on them. “So it’s the Circassians, not the Bedouins. They must have been lying in wait until night came. And then, what a stroke of luck—we all went rushing off without even locking the gate.”

  “That’s what they call ‘the luck of the Jews,’” Coliseum said with a sigh. “What are we going to do now, with no seeds, no harrow, no money?”

  Someone (Malke didn’t recognize the voice, it was trembling so badly) sobbed, “We ought to go to Zikhron-Yaakov. We’ll die here …”

  Some sniveled and wailed, some shook their fists in the air in helpless fury, and some just stood there hanging their heads. Malke was crying. Not because she was afraid, but because she felt sorry for poor Rokhele and for the cows, especially Pestrukha, who used to give two full pails of milk.

  But Magellan didn’t swear or wave his arms about. When he was finished with the hoofprints, he went to see if the marauders had got as far as the cellar where the weapons were kept. And when he came back, he said calmly, “They didn’t find the guns. So not everything is lost. If they want war, we’ll fight.”

  “Fight who? Daniel-bek?” Shlomo the apothecary asked.

  The luck of the Jews, part 2

  THE CIRCASSIANS WERE known to have appeared in Palestine twenty or twenty-five years earlier on the initiative of the sultan, who had rewarded his faithful bashi-bazouks with good land for their bravery in the war against the Russian and Serbian infidels. Before they became Turkish warriors, these men from the Caucasus had fought under the green banner of the great Shamil, and they had left their native mountains after refusing to become subjects of the tsar. His Osman Majesty had decided to follow the example of his northern neighbor and acquire his own Cossacks, who would prop up the sultan’s power in his decaying realm. Abdul-Hamid had been expecting that after he gave his soldiers land and exempted them from the payment of tribute, they would feed themselves. They would keep an eye on the restless Arab population, plow and cultivate the land, breed sheep. But yesterday’s bashi-bazouks had not turned into Cossacks, they had already lived for too long—almost a hundred years—by nothing but war and pillage and completely lost the habit of any kind of peaceful occupation.

  The Circassians’ mode of service officially consisted of maintaining order on the roads. However, they interpreted this mission in their own way, and soon every passing traveler had to pay them a toll. And when the trade caravans started avoiding the Circassian auls and the road taxes starting drying up, these intrepid warriors had found themselves new sources of income: they hired themselves out to the caravans as guards, or hunted down criminals with a state price on their head, and sometimes they themselves even plundered villages or kidnapped rich travelers for ransom.

  The police didn’t get involved with the Circassians, because every Circassian was a born warrior who had been riding horses since he was a baby, could shoot straight and never miss, and slashed with a sword like the very devil.

  The aul that was closest to the New Megiddo commune had a reputation as the most belligerent of all. While the Circassians in the other settlements had gradually been drawn into a slightly more settled way of life and begun to abandon their pillaging ways, Daniel-bek’s clan still regarded any form of work as a disgrace for a dzighit, or armed horseman, and they earned their living exclusively by means of the rifle and the dagger.

  The real reason for this was the bek himself. He had spent his entire life on a horse and was fond of saying that he would die in the saddle. But Daniel-bek wasn’t ready to die just yet. At the age of seventy-something, he was still strong, still restless: he had recently taken a new thirteen-year-old wife, and they said she was already pregnant.

  As many as fifty horsemen rode to Daniel-bek’s banner, a six-pointed star with a half moon and a horse’s tail. The arrangement of their village was exactly the same as in their native Caucasus: they had set a stone watchtower at the top of a steep hill and surrounded it with low huts, or saklyas. A sentry stood on the tower day and night, keeping a sharp lookout in all directions. The Circassians did not keep dogs, because the high mountain variety they had brought with them had not survived the Palestinian climate, and the immigrants despised the local breed.

  MAGELLAN SAW THIS circumstance as the weak spot in the Circassian defenses.

  When the communards realized that their leader was not joking and he really did want to make war on Daniel-bek, a sudden silence filled the inner yard of the han. Even Malke, who was always ready to support Magellan in anything, felt frightened and wondered if he hadn’t gone too far this time and alienated the others.

  But Magellan behaved as if such a possibility had never even entered his head. “Look here,” he began briskly, heaping up a mound of earth and sticking a twig into it. “This is the hill, and this is the tower. The stones are the saklyas.”

  “And what’s that?” someone asked, pointing to the wavy l
ine he was drawing in the dirt.

  “The river. The slope here is very steep, almost a cliff. And in the southwest, over here, the slope is shallow, and the road …”

  It was a fine idea of his, this model. Everybody crowded around and studied Magellan’s handiwork instead of sniveling and arguing.

  “The goal is clear,” he said, wiping his hands on his trousers. “To teach the Circassians once and for all to leave us alone. And, of course, to get back what was stolen.”

  “Magellan, they won’t give it back willingly. They’ll shoot at us,” Coliseum said gloomily.

  “And we’ll shoot at them. Didn’t I teach you how?”

  “If we kill even one of them, it will start a blood feud. They told us about that. And there’ll be no end to it…”

  Magellan sliced through the air with his hand: “We’ll try to manage without any deaths. But if we can’t, we’ll have to eliminate all the male Circassians. Every last one. Otherwise, Coliseum’s right, we’ll never be free of them.”

  “Absolutely all of them?” Malke asked. “Even the little boys?”

  There was the sound of nervous laughter. Sasha Briun said, “I don’t really think I can shoot a grown man, let alone a child. Drop it, Magellan, this is real life, not some novel by Fenimore Cooper.”

  “That’s just the point, Sashulya, this isn’t a novel, but real life. Either it defeats you and knocks you to your knees, or you defeat it.” Magellan shook his head, so that a strand of chestnut hair fell down across his forehead, and Malke couldn’t help admiring him—he looked so fine just at that moment. “The Arabs call the Jews uliad-el-mot, ‘sons of death,’ because we are afraid of everything. It’s time to show the Arabs, and the Circassians, and the Bedouins, that new Jews have arrived who aren’t afraid of anything. Or, rather, the old Jews have come back. The ones to whom all this land belonged two and three thousand years ago. If you can’t shoot at people—then learn how. So, who’s with me?”

  Malke immediately raised her hand and shouted, “I am!”

  After a girl had put her hand up, it was embarrassing to play the coward. One by one the other members of the commune raised their hands.

  “I never doubted it,” Magellan said with a shrug. “So this is what we’re going to do. Shlomo and Coliseum stay here to guard the han. Malke, you stay with them, you’re in charge. Make sure the Arabs don’t raid the place and steal all that’s left. The rest of you, follow me!”

  Ah, how cunning! Trying to soft-soap her by leaving two crocks to look after the house and putting her in charge. “Oh, no, I’m not having that!” Malke declared. “Shlomo and Coliseum can lock themselves in and not open up for anyone. But I’m going with you. Do we have equality or not?”

  They did—she insisted on it.

  THE TWENTY-FOUR communards advanced in single file along the empty road through the wide valley. There was no moon or stars to be seen, the sky was veiled by clouds. Magellan led his army at a brisk pace, almost a run—no doubt deliberately, so that they would put all their energy into the movement and there would be no time to think and hesitate.

  Only six of them had Winchesters, the others had Bedan rifles or hunting guns. Malke had ended up with a shotgun for hunting ducks. As she hurried along, barely able to keep up with Magellan, she kept repeating to herself: first you lift the two little metal bits, then you press the trigger with your index finger: first the metal bits, then the trigger …

  The plan—or, as Magellan called it, military fashion, “the disposition of forces”—was as follows: scramble up the hill from the cliff side, because the view from the tower was not so good in that direction. Hide in the bushes and wait for the dawn. As soon as there was enough light to aim a gun, Magellan would shoot the sentry, and then they had to run as fast as they could to get into the tower, occupy it, and keep the entire aul in their sights. Fire at anybody who poked their nose out of a saklya—from up there the entire village would be in plain view. “We’ll force them to capitulate,” Magellan declared cheerfully. “We’ll get back what was stolen and make them pay a fine, too. There’ll only be one dead body, and that will be my problem. I’m not afraid of the Devil himself, never mind some blood feud.”

  Malke looked at him and suddenly thought that if only he loved her, there was nothing she wouldn’t sacrifice for such happiness. But of course she drove the absurd thought out of her mind immediately, because it was uncomradely, and anyway, how could he love her, with these short legs that made her look like a little goose?

  A COMEDY IN five acts could have been written about how they climbed the steep slope. Or a tragedy.

  Yankel the violinist went tumbling down into the river. He climbed out soaking wet, hiccupping and with his teeth chattering violently.

  Meir Shalevich tore his trousers on a thorn bush, and the white rent on his backside stood out clearly in the darkness.

  That clumsy oaf Briun reached up and caught hold of a snake instead of a branch. Luckily it didn’t bite him, but darted away, startled out of its sleep. And it was a lucky thing, too, that Sasha had asthma. He tried to yell, but he just choked. Otherwise the entire “disposition” would have been ruined.

  But somehow or other they managed to clamber up, and then they lay down on the very edge, gulping in the air.

  Soon their sweat dried and the communards started feeling chilly, but there was still a long time to go until dawn. This was the hardest part. Now, while they lay there without moving, all sorts of bad thoughts came into their heads. If not for the cliff behind them, they could well have broken down and taken to their heels.

  Magellan could sense that. He didn’t lie still, he kept moving along the line the whole time, whispering a couple of words to one of them, giving another an encouraging slap on the shoulder. But he squeezed Malke’s elbow and whispered: “That’s my girl! You’re a great kid.” And suddenly she wasn’t even a little bit frightened. “My girl!” “Great kid!”

  Lyova Sats, the youngest member of the commune at just barely seventeen, was lying on Malke’s right. He kept squirming about and sighing to himself, and as soon as the sky grew just a little brighter, he began scribbling something on a piece of paper. He crept across to Malke with his lips twitching. “I’m going to be killed,” he whispered. “I can sense it. Take this letter and send it to my mother in Moscow.”

  “Don’t go imagining things!” she hissed.

  “I’m not imagining things. Men who are killed in battle can always sense it beforehand, I read that in a book.”

  Malke took the letter and began listening carefully to her own feelings, to see whether she had a premonition of death. And straightaway she felt that she did. She was going to die today. It was an absolute certainty. She ought to write to her family and friends too. The entire street would read it and weep …

  She borrowed a sheet of paper and a pencil from Lyova and had already written the beginning: “Dear mama and papa! You know, I don’t regret,” when suddenly the word came rustling along the line:

  “It’s time! It’s time!”

  Magellan hunched down and ran toward the fence behind which they could see the first saklya.

  The others hesitated. Malke grabbed her gun and was the first to go trotting after their commander. They advanced in arrowhead formation, like storks in flight: Magellan in the center, Malke hanging back a little on his right, Lyova on his left, and the others stretching out in both directions.

  Magellan set his rifle on the wicker fence, carefully unwrapped the rag from the optical sight, and set the sight in its groove.

  The crude stonework of the tower soared up above the low, flat roofs. Three levels, with a narrow embrasure on each one, and an open platform at the top. The sentry’s head and shoulders could be seen between the teeth of the battlements.

  Is it really possible to hit anything at this distance? Malke wondered. It must be a hundred paces at least.

  Magellan set his cheek to the gun butt and closed one eye.

  She squ
eezed the shotgun between her knees and put her hands over her ears. What a terrible bang there would be now! And then they would have to make a dash for the tower, before the Circassians woke up.

  But Magellan didn’t fire. He prodded Malke on the shoulder, and when she took her hands away from her ears, he whispered, “He’s asleep! My God, he’s sleeping like a log. I can see it through the sight!” And he added angrily, “They don’t think we’re real men at all. It doesn’t even enter their heads that we might take revenge. Right then, forward! Let’s try to manage everything without any bloodshed. Pass it down the line—take your shoes off.”

  Everyone took their shoes off and ran after Magellan, jerking their knees up in that funny way you do when you’re running on tiptoe. No arrowhead formation now, they were moving in a tight bunch.

  Malke bit her lip to stop herself from gasping out loud when sharp stones stuck into the soles of her feet. She had her boots in one hand and the gun in the other. The front of her shorts was soaking wet with dew.

  The yards of the aul were quiet, with only a rooster crowing somewhere. There was the square—actually a square only in name, just a broad triangle of empty space between the tower, the small wattle-and-daub mosque, and a two-story stone house (which must belong to the bek himself).

  Standing by the porch was an Arab cart, a hantur, with no horse.

  Malke suddenly froze on the spot. There was a man sitting beside the cart, attached to it by a chain around his neck. He wasn’t asleep, he was watching the Jews with his eyes staring out of his head in terror.

  It was certainly no sight for the fainthearted. In the dim light of the new day, the communards looked like a collection of weird scarecrows. At the front was Magellan in his Mexican sombrero, with two cartridge belts crisscrossed over his chest. Mendel was wearing a colonial pith helmet, and Briun had on a felt bowler hat, while various others were wearing Arab kerchiefs or fezzes. Malke was wearing her mother’s farewell present, a straw hat with porcelain cherries.