Andrey was surprised to learn that there was an Old Believer-style café right there next to the church, and he looked around curiously when they got inside. The decor included brick walls, simple tables with dark-wooden benches, and an icon of the Virgin Mary on the wall.
The bearded man closed and locked the door, then sat down across from his uninvited guest at a corner table.
“I am Yakov.”
Yakov’s eyes looked like nails pounded deep under his bony brow. “Ovechkin is not at the church right now. But I am in charge of the café and the souvenir stand. Perhaps I might be of assistance?”
Andrey glanced again around the dim room, which smelled maybe just a little like incense. He had been hungry all morning, and couldn’t help asking his host, “What kind of food do you serve here?”
Yakov smiled behind his beard and apologized that the café was closed for the beginning of the week and there was nothing he could offer. But other days, people could eat here for a reasonable price, and find food that didn’t violate any religious strictures. No meat or dairy during Lent, of course, but the rest of the year they served traditional food. Meat pies, cabbage soup, lapshennik . . .
Andrey nodded, and although he had never heard of lapshennik, he felt even hungrier than before.
“Let me tell you what I came for,” he said, afraid his stomach might growl. Yakov tilted his head to one side, ready to listen. “We have a particular suspect we’re working on. We think he might be connected to the Old Believers.”
Yakov winced. “You believe your suspect is a member of our community? Could I ask on what basis you ground this belief?”
“No.” The refusal sounded harsh, but Andrey didn’t want to get into the whole Jerusalem mess. “We’re thinking a middle-aged man, physically strong, well educated. A doctor, teacher, soldier, or”—Andrey smiled wryly—“a police officer. Most likely drives a dark-blue automobile. I’d appreciate it if you could let me know if any of your parishioners meet that description. Especially ones with a tendency for fanaticism.”
Yakov sighed and frowned. “You have come here because you are under the impression that Old Believers are religious fanatics. Is that so?”
Andrey didn’t answer.
Yakov held the awkward silence, drumming his neatly clipped fingernails against the dark-wooden tabletop.
“You know,” he began, “in the nineteen seventies, Soviet geologists stumbled upon a plot of potatoes growing deep in the taiga. The Old Believers who cultivated that field had lived there for fifty years completely cut off from the rest of the secular world. They missed everything about this modern world, but they never felt as if they were missing a thing. For me, being in the family—and that is what we call ourselves, a family—is akin to that plot of potatoes. A glimmer of civilization in the dark wild, where the dangerous beasts go creeping. If this suspect of yours has committed a terrible sin . . .” He stopped and peered at Andrey with his small, sharp eyes. “That means he has not come to terms with the beast. He is reacting against it. That beast, that human beast, frightens him. We have been taught to be frightened. Do you understand? All around us the world has been changing, ever since 1666, that diabolical year of our schism with the tyrants and religious innovators. All of these present-day reality shows of yours, these vulgar faces, the naked bodies splashed sinfully across millions of screens in every home, are no more dangerous to us than the medieval, tsarist, or Communist commissars with their heretical new ideas. Our community has seen this all before. They burned our homes down around us, but we never responded in kind, you see. All we have done is held to our own.”
“So you don’t ever get new converts?” Andrey asked skeptically.
“Some do search us out,” Yakov admitted. “But they are people looking for their roots. As much as Russia has suffered, as much as people’s souls have been made to twist and turn in the wind, our minds sent spinning in different directions, turning now to communism, now to the blossoming of capitalism . . .” Yakov shook his head sadly. “Yet still, there are young people who wish to retreat into the depths of tradition. There is nobody deeper in tradition than the Old Believers. You know yourself that the Russian people are beset with rot. Everything here is as rotten as the rod they use to beat us. Just think! In all of history, only once have the Russian people said no to the state, no to the tyrants. Our people kept hold of their dignity through all the persecution, the executions, the torture. We have survived for four centuries now. And look what sort of blindness the Lord has sent down to curse us! Ours is a history full of hardship and miraculous courage, but nobody sees anything other than religious obsession!”
Yakov thumped the table with his fist, then suddenly calmed down again and stroked his beard. “Go with God, and do not look for your fanatic among the Old Believers. None of us have picked up the sword, not for a long time. We ensconce ourselves in our cells or we leave this life. That is our way.”
“So nobody is crusading for purity? You never get anyone who wants to, you know, clean up this rotten country?” Andrey pressed.
“You, young man,” Yakov told him quietly, “have forgotten the meaning of the word dignity. But I do not blame you. Forgetfulness has become a national trait.” He turned to face the icon on the wall.
Andrey stood up and said good-bye to his bearded informant. Yakov hadn’t convinced him of anything, and obviously, if Andrey wanted some insight into the church, he’d have to find a different source. He stopped outside for a cigarette. The night before last, sitting on that windowsill in the warm circle of his arm, Masha had told him that these schismatics did not smoke, didn’t even drink coffee or tea, much less anything alcoholic. She knew that thanks to Kenty, who had imprinted her since childhood with his tales of the Old Believers. “They used to keep a full bottle of vodka at home,” Masha had relayed. “Just to show that the man of the house didn’t drink.”
That would have been a good choice in Andrey’s own home growing up, he thought. Maybe his father would have lasted a little longer. There were other families that could have benefited, too. The pale little faces of Petya and Kolya flashed before his eyes.
Suddenly his cigarette tasted bitter. He tossed it into a trash can nearby.
INNOKENTY
Innokenty couldn’t resist. He unwrapped the soft linen cloth and carefully lifted up the little board. Time had darkened its color, and hundreds of hands over the centuries had polished it to a shine. He ran his fingers over one uneven edge, covered in darker scorch marks. Maybe the icon had been rescued from a burning cabin, the most valuable thing in the home. It needed some serious restoration, but he could see the thin face peering out, as if from the depths of a forest lake. St. Nicholas, the Wonderworker. The saint’s left hand pressed a Bible to his chest, but where his right hand should be, the whole surface layer of the piece was missing. Kenty could only guess which sign of the cross the thin hand would have been making: one with two fingers, Old Believer style? Or with three?
“Vandals!” whispered Innokenty. Were the marauders from the twentieth century or the eighteenth?
He decided he wouldn’t restore that part. Let it stay the way it was, as a memorial to intolerance. But he would ask Danechka to work on the face. For an icon painter, he was young, but he’d already earned an excellent reputation among antiquarians. Even aside from his devotion to his work, it was fair to say that Danechka did not truly belong to this world. His skin was clear of adolescent blemishes, and long blond lashes framed the light-blue eyes that only came alive when they encountered icons like this one.
Innokenty looked again at the Wonderworker’s face and sat still, mesmerized, for a few minutes. These figures had enchanted him ever since he was little. Every element was intentional. The high forehead, the perfectly spaced brows, the fish-shaped eyes (the fish, of course, a symbol of Christ). The narrow, elegant nose, the surprisingly full lips hidden in the woolly beard, the thinnest possible spiraling line drawn to represent every individual curl. And tho
se eyes looking at the viewer sternly, dispassionately.
Kenty’s thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell. He shuddered, then put the icon aside. At the door stood his father, a broad-shouldered man of fifty, seemingly enormous in his long dark coat. His beard was black with a sprinkling of gray, and though it was short, it came up almost to his eyes. A healthy, youthful blush lent color to his cheeks, and his sharp eyes regarded Innokenty with something like a squint. This massive individual ushered in his companion, a man much shorter and more slightly built, with a long beard gone almost completely gray, then shut the door behind them both. Only then did he offer his hand to Innokenty to shake. It was enormous, practically a shovel.
“Hello, son!” He glanced respectfully at the older man. “You’ve met the head of the diocese.”
Innokenty gave a slight bow to the old priest, standing calmly at his father’s side. “Could I offer you some tea?” he asked, but then corrected himself. “Herbal, of course?”
The older man nodded. He looked around dispassionately, his heavy eyelids half-lowered, letting his gaze wander silently down the hallway and over the dark icons on the white walls, then contemplating the designer lamp, a waterfall of crystal droplets. Innokenty’s luxurious surroundings embarrassed him now, and he noticed how his father’s lips tightened, although the old priest’s face remained impassive.
Kenty sat his guests at the kitchen table and bustled about. He ran boiling water into a white ceramic teakettle to warm it, then wiped it dry and filled it with a fruity brew that was not technically tea. All the while, the question plagued him: Why had they come? His parents hardly ever visited him, and a prestigious visitor such as this priest was unprecedented. Why had his father brought the man? Innokenty answered his own question: it was the other way around. His father was here at the whim of the single-most-important figure in the Old Believer community, which meant the reason for their visit must also be of singular importance. But what was it? Kenty poured the bright-red, aromatic brew into their cups, smiling mechanically.
“Your young lady,” his father began, and a shiver ran down Innokenty’s spine, nearly making him splash tea on the tablecloth. “The one you’ve been shadowing all these years—”
“Masha?”
It was not really a question. Had he ever been anyone else’s shadow?
Innokenty put the tea kettle neatly back in its place as two pairs of eyes watched him closely.
“Maria Karavay,” the head of the diocese affirmed, his voice soft. He paused and pursed his lips like a peasant to blow on his hot tea. “She seems to be leading a group of detectives from Petrovka looking for some sort of serial killer. Today they came to the church on Basmanny to ask questions. Yakov spoke with one of them. But we know full well that these people are going to keep sniffing around, and that will not do us any good. On the contrary.” The old man looked up from his teacup. His swollen eyelids had suddenly lost their sleepy look, and his eyes were bigger now, drawing Kenty in with a gaze that was young and sharp. “On the contrary, this will only bring us misfortune.”
“It is your duty to protect your own, Innokenty,” his father added. “These people are reckless. It will only take the slightest nudge to send them on a new witch hunt. Just one article in the tabloids about a psychopathic Old Believer, and that will be the end of everything we’ve worked to build these past years. It will all collapse, as it has happened before, all too often. They will cast out all the Old Believers who have only just returned from South America, they will halt the plans to restore our churches to us—”
“We have no desire to reveal to the world how many members of our community are living a secular life,” the priest cut in, never letting his pointed gaze drop from Kenty’s face. “Not because this is a transgression, but because when we shout the faith of our fathers from every street corner, we betray them. More fitting, for us, is silence, which was created before the Word.”
“I’m not sure I can talk Masha out of it.” Kenty shook his head. “She’s very stubborn. And she almost always achieves what she sets out to do.”
“Let her achieve it, then.” The older man stroked his beard. “Catching a killer is a sacred endeavor. But she is not looking where she should. By the time she recognizes her mistake, the evil will have already been done. One must not use evil means to strive for good. One must not.”
No one spoke. The Old Believers might have said an angel was flying by.
“I’ll try,” Innokenty finally said. “But I can’t promise you anything.”
“Very well.” The head of the diocese nodded gravely.
“Please try,” added Kenty’s father.
With that, both men stood and proceeded to the door. There, the priest made the sign of the cross over Innokenty before he walked out, and Kenty’s father quietly laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, then followed. As he closed the door behind them, Kenty wondered what they would have said if they had known that he personally was part of the investigation now threatening to discredit the whole community. He walked back to the kitchen. The three teacups still sat on the table, looking for all the world like chalices of blood.
The priest’s words spun in his head. One must not use evil means to strive for good. One must not.
ANDREY
Andrey worked up the nerve to invite Masha over only after he had pulled up to her front door.
“So, if you want,” he said, exhaling smoke out the open window of his old Ford, “we could go to my place?”
He could have said, Let’s go to my place and I’ll introduce you to Marilyn Monroe. Or I’ll show you what kind of place a cop who doesn’t take bribes can afford. I’ll show you the vinyl cloth on the table outside, worn down to its thready white skeleton. Or the creaking, mismatched chairs, the stained towel hanging near the rusty washbasin, the wallpaper that’s warped and uneven from the last freeze. Yeah, I have so much to show you, like nothing you’ve ever seen. No exquisite antiques here!
Why was it, he had asked himself many times, that in order to get a girl to come home with you, you had to offer to show her something completely beside the point? Like your old blues records or whatever. He looked at Masha and blushed.
“But only if you promise not to let my mess frighten you away,” he added out loud.
Masha turned her pale elfin face to him and let him see her eyes, which looked almost transparent in the darkness.
“Let’s go,” she said, and squeezed his hand hard.
And with a squealing of the brakes (now this was what his supercharged engine was good for!), he tore away from the curb before she changed her mind, heading for a place where the darkness would make the differences between them disappear. Faster. He had to go faster. The prospect of what remained of the night before them sent blood to Andrey’s head, and he felt himself growing warm, despite the breeze buffeting him from both open windows.
He handled the car expertly, as if he were playing a computer game or taking drugs. He was on something, actually, but this high was natural. This euphoria made his vision sharper, his reflexes quicker. Masha was curled up in her seat watching the road as if she, too, were willing the car to go faster.
Now they were past the outer ring road that circled the city, now they turned onto the highway that led out into the countryside, and now they were on a local road, where silent, dark houses lined both sides and the air smelled of fresh grass and wet sand. Finally, he stopped the car, turned off the engine, and sighed. He said it again, like casting a spell.
“Just don’t let my mess scare you away.”
But Masha had already gotten out of the car. She stretched like a cat, took a deep breath, and smiled at him, then took his hand. Andrey pushed open the gate and they walked up to the porch. From inside, Marilyn Monroe was begging for his freedom, barking and whining happily. When Andrey finally opened the door, the dog jumped on him, almost knocking him off his feet, and did the dance of a happy dog who knew he was finally about to have some dinner and play outsi
de.
“Hey, look, buddy! This is Masha! It’s Masha!” he told him.
Marilyn took one look and unceremoniously stuck his snout under her skirt, then butted his woolly head into her hand and pawed at her bare knees.
Andrey fed the beggar and let him out to race around the garden. Then, for the first time since reaching his house, he turned to Masha, his euphoria giving way to trepidation. Where the hell were all the things he was supposed to have on hand for romance? Candles? A bottle of good wine? Silk fucking sheets, for God’s sake? He knew for sure, suddenly, that Kenty had all that at the ready.
“Want some tea?” he asked. “I don’t have any food, but—”
Masha shook her head without speaking and took a step forward. Andrey roughly pulled her closer to him, and with one hand behind her head, he moved his lips over her neck near her ear, hungrily breathing in her scent, and that smell—so right and so much hers—suddenly turned off his brain. Instead of thinking about his sheets (not only were they not silk, they weren’t even very clean), he was now operating on instinct. Who needed wine or candles?
Damn it, Masha Karavay, he thought, how can you be so smooth all over, everywhere my fingers and lips can reach? Every curve of her body felt like it was made for his hand. Her bare knee, her satiny shoulder, her small, soft breasts, the gentle hollow of her stomach. How could she have ever seemed foreign to him, when they were made for each other? Did it hurt her when he held her so tightly? His fingers were starving—what were they going to touch next? Masha, Masha, what are you doing to me? Look at me, Masha! Look me in the eye! But her eyes were shut tight, and she was writhing under him, moaning in the ultimate spasm of pleasure, and pressing her hot body against his. Andrey couldn’t hold back any longer, and he closed his eyes, too, letting a rush of release overtake him.
The Sin Collector (Masha Karavai Detective Series) Page 21