Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel (52 page)

She had been alone in the house. Lyovushka was in session at the Are-opagus, and the children had gone to the beach.

The ragamuffin had amused his hostess by claiming to be Manuila, the leader of the Foundlings. The poor fellow didn’t know that she happened to know that the genuine Manuila was dead—he had been killed, so to speak, in front of her very eyes.

Irodiada had not been in any hurry to expose him; she was waiting for an effective moment. When the Warsaw jokers took the tramp to look at the town, she went with them. The false Manuila had turned his head this way and that, constantly gasping in amazement and showering them with questions. Zbishek and Rafek had mostly laughed and played the fool, so the role of guide had been played by Irodiada.

“But don’t you acknowledge women at all, then?” the pretender had asked, perplexed.

“We acknowledge them and respect them,” she had replied. “On the West Square we have a monument to Lot’s wife—they found a column of salt on the seashore and commissioned a sculptor to carve a statue out of it. Of course, many objected to a naked female figure, but the majority took a tolerant attitude. We have nothing against women, it’s just that we are better off without them, and they are better off without us.”

“Well, then, is there a town of women somewhere?” the “prophet” had asked.

“Not yet,” Irodiada had explained, “but there soon will be. Our benefactor, George Sairus, was intending to buy some land on the island of Lesbos for maidenly lovers of female beauty, but the Greek government would not allow it. Then he got the idea of rebuilding Gomorrah—the work there has already begun. We shall be friends with our neighbors, just as men and dolphins are friends. But the dolphin’s element is the sea, and man’s element is dry land, and why should man and dolphin copulate together?”

The amusing rogue had admired the beauty of the buildings and the technical advances that were so very numerous in Sodom: the electric tram running from the Acropolis to the beach, the cinematograph, the ice rink with artificial ice, and many, many others.

But what had interested the false Manuila most of all were the relationships between sodomites: Did they have families, or did each one live separately?

Irodiada, anticipating the moment of exposure, had politely replied that there were very few families with children, such as her own. Some people lived in couples, but most simply reveled in the freedom and security.

Then Rafek and Zbishek had started trying to get her to go to the Labyrinth, a special place where young people got up to all sorts of salacious devilment in the dark. She didn’t go, she was already past the age when mere ravishment of the flesh is amusing—she valued feelings far more now. To her surprise, the tramp had not wished to go to the Labyrinth either; he had said there was nothing new in these amusements, the Romans had them, and so did the Greeks and the Babylonians. And so it happened that Irodiada was left alone with him.

“Well, man of God, will the Lord rain down fire and brimstone on us for these transgressions?” she asked mockingly, nodding in the direction of the Labyrinth, from which they could hear laughter and wild howls.

Hardly, not for that, the prophet said with a shrug. They’re not coercing each other, after all. Let them do it if it brings them joy. Joy is sacred—it’s grief that is evil.

“Well said, prophet!” Irodiada replied merrily. “Perhaps you are one of us too?”

What was that answer he gave?

No, he said, I’m not one of you. I feel sorry for you. The path of a man who loves a man is full of sorrow and it leads to despair, because it is barren.

He had used other words, spoken less smoothly, but the meaning was the same, and Irodiada had shuddered in surprise. Out of inertia, she had tried to joke: “Barren—because we cannot have children?”

And he said seriously: For that reason too. But not only. Man is the black half of the soul, woman is the white half. Do you know how a new soul comes to be? A little of the fire of God is struck. And it is struck by the two halves of the soul, white and black, thrusting against each other, trying to understand if they are one whole or not. You poor people will never find your other halves, because black and black cannot combine together. Your half-soul will die, its light will fade. It is a grievous lot—eternal loneliness. No matter how much you thrust against each other, there will never be any spark. That is where the problem lies: not in bodily fornication, but in spiritual error.

Irodiada quite forgot that she had been planning to laugh and expose the self-styled prophet. What difference did it make who he really was? The tramp had spoken about what she felt herself, only she hadn’t been able to express it clearly.

She had objected. Naturally, it wasn’t just a matter of the body. When the trance induced by prohibition had passed and there was no more need to hide from society, she had discovered that she did not really have such a great need for passionate intercourse with her beloved. The most important things were tenderness and security such as you could never experience with a woman, because women were different. But here there was no need to pretend, you were understood with a single word, even with no words at all—that was what was important. We are together, we are the same. No conflicts of opposites, no strife. A blissful peace.

Irodiada poured all this out to a stranger, speaking with fervent passion, so deeply had his words stung her.

He listened and listened, then shook his head sadly and said: But there still won’t be any spark. And if there is no spark, God is not there.

Yesterday Irodiada had refused to agree, she had insisted on her own point of view; but today, when the false Manuila was no longer there beside her, those brief words he had spoken—“eternal loneliness” and “spiritual error”—had suddenly surfaced in her memory and driven away the music.

Lyovushka was spending more and more time with Salomeia nowadays. No, this wasn’t jealousy, it was what the wandering prophet had spoken about: the fear of loneliness. And Antinous was hardly ever at home now either—he had new enthusiasms, new friends. Perhaps they were more than just friends … And it was only a month since they had arrived in this male heaven. They said families didn’t last long in Sodom. And then what would be left?

Quite a lot
, Irodiada thought, taking heart.
There will still be dancing and gardens
.

AND ON THE subject of gardens … it was time to visit the peonies and medlars. And take a quick look at the roses, too—to make sure that Djemal hadn’t overdone the watering.

Irodiada drove away her sad thoughts. She put on a feather-light robe and tied back her hair with a blue ribbon.

The sun was still scorching with all its might, but already a light breeze was blowing from the Avarim Mountains, bringing a promise of evening coolness.

She walked along a shady little street to the Western Gates, nodding amiably to people she met and exchanging kisses with some.

All her thoughts were focused on the garden now. Before sunset she had to hoe the flowerbed so that the seedlings could breathe. Tomorrow they were going to bring earthworms from Haifa. Then she could do some serious work on the peach alley. In a year or two there would be gardens in Sodom the like of which this ill-fated region had not seen since the time of Lot.

This was what a life should be dedicated to! Not teaching Latin to grammar-school boys, but cultivating gardens and flower beds. Russia was heaven for plants. There was as much water as you could want, and the soil was alive, not like here. But then in Russia you couldn’t find anything like the black soil that the wagons delivered here. Specially treated, it cost a lot of money. But thank God, Mr. Sairus had plenty of that.

Once outside the town wall, Irodiada began walking with a brisker, more energetic stride. Forgetting about the heat, she made her rounds of the trees, bushes, and flower beds. She scolded the head gardener a bit—she had guessed right, he had watered the rosebushes evenly, but on the eastern side, where the cool breeze blew at night, they needed less water. Djemal listened attentively—he knew that the old Luti had a special gift from Allah for understanding the life of plants, and he regarded this talent with respect.

At the university, in addition to all sorts of other unnecessary learning, Irodiada had studied ancient Greek, and so she found Arabic remarkably easy to pick up. After only a week of working together, she and Djemal understood each other excellently.

“What’s this?” Irodiada asked, pointing in annoyance at the wagon loaded with black earth. “Where’s the driver? Why hasn’t he unloaded it?”

“There’s a woman over there,” said Djemal, pointing to the rosebush at the end of the row. “I don’t know how she got through. Sadyk has gone to tell the sentry.”

He bowed and went to water more flower beds.

Irodiada looked around. There really was someone hiding behind the bush. And when she went closer, she could see it really was a woman. You could tell from a distance that she was a natural, not just dressed up. Not so much even from the figure, but from the inclination of the head, and the way the arm was held out slightly to one side.

Irodiada had to tell her to leave while she still could. The head of security was a former British colonel, not to be trifled with. He would hand the trespasser over to the Turkish guard and fine Said-bey for negligence, and Said-bey would take his anger out on the curious fool—these Asiatics did not practice gentlemanly chivalry.

Yakov Mikhailovich eavesdrops

HE NEVER THOUGHT, never even guessed, that everything would turn out so neatly with the wagon. He was lucky—he’d just been in the right place at the right time.

At first, though, he had cursed himself for being too clever by half—when he was buried alive, so to speak, in the damp earth. And while they were trundling along the highway, he had cursed the entire world. It was hot, the worms crawled under his clothes—one stubborn brute even crept into his nostril. It was a miracle that he hadn’t had a sneezing fit.

Yakov Mikhailovich breathed through a reed that he had pushed up through the black soil. Then he had arranged things so he could see. He had a clay jug with a long neck, for drinking water. After he had gradually drained its contents (consuming plenty of mother-earth in the process), he had thought of a good use for the vessel. He broke its neck off at the base with his fingers, and he had a tube. He pushed it through to the surface, and he could see through it. The broken neck of the earthen jug was invisible from the outside even at two paces. To be quite honest, the views revealed to his gaze through this little hole weren’t exactly breathtaking, but it was better than having no eyes at all. He could turn it this way and that—it was like looking through a spyglass, or the optical tube on a submarine, what they called a periscope.

Just how good his luck was became clear when the wagon arrived at its destination and stopped. Then Yakov Mikhailovich discovered that Ginger, whom he had eyed all the way along the road through his spyglass, was standing right there beside him. She had got out of her boneshaker and stood behind a rosebush that was within arm’s reach of Yakov Mikhailovich’s observation post.

The nun had sighed and wailed, wondering how she would get into town now. Her Arab (he was called Salakh) hadn’t shown her any sympathy.

You ought to have dressed up as a boy, you brainless nanny goat
, the secret observer reproached her.
It might still not be too late—think
.

But she just kept hopping from one foot to the other and sighing.

He wasn’t actually worried about her, though. He knew from experience that she was far from brainless and was bound to think of something, she wouldn’t give up. They’d done right when they put their money on Ginger. They were no fools.

He was a little anxious about something else—what if she slipped away again, like the times before? She was far too spry and unpredictable. And God couldn’t keep on being so generous with miracles for Yakov Mikhailovich.

Suddenly he heard steps. And a voice—high and slightly squeaky halfway between a man’s and a woman’s:
“Madame, vous n’avez pas le droit de rester ici.”
And then in Russian, with a note of surprise. “You?”

Yakov Mikhailovich turned his spyglass in the direction of the strange voice. In his circle of vision he saw an aging, painted woman wearing a wig, a light dress, and sandals (she looked a bit broad in the feet). Clear enough: a sodomite dressed up as a woman.

The nun was as pleased to see the old pederast as if he were her own dear mother. “Ah, what good luck to meet you here! Hello, dear Iraida!”

“Irodiada,” the man-woman corrected her, then threw her hands up in the air and started gabbling. “How did you get here, my dear? And why aren’t you in your habit? What are you doing here?”

Ginger didn’t answer right away, and Yakov Mikhailovich turned his spyglass on her. She wrinkled up her forehead, as if she couldn’t make up her mind whether to tell the truth or make up some lie.

She told the truth.

“Well, you see … There’s a man I really need to find.”

“Who?”

“He’s a rather strange man. He dresses strangely and speaks strangely … In Bet-Kebir they told me that he was there yesterday morning and he went on toward Sodom and didn’t come back. So I thought he must have stayed here. He’s skinny, with a tangled beard, in a white robe with a blue belt…”