Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel (62 page)

Subsequently, when I was already here in Palestine, I also developed another theory, but I will not acquaint you with it, in order not to confuse you, especially since, like the preceding ones, it proved to be incorrect.

On the basis of my list of suspects, I devised a plan of action, and set about implementing it immediately on disembarkation from the ship. I was driven on by the fear that Emmanuel’s powerful enemies would find him first and I would be too late.

First of all I went to Jerusalem …

The bishop read about how Pelagia had tested and discarded her theories one by one, while at the same time constantly drawing closer to the restless prophet, who would simply not stay in one place.

Something strange was happening to Mitrofanii. From the very beginning he had been in a state of extreme agitation, and with every page it grew more intense. The trembling of his hands grew ever more powerful, so that eventually he was obliged to lay the sheets of paper on the table and weigh them down with his spectacle case. The sweat was streaming down His Eminences face, but he did not notice it. He merely took off his hat absentmindedly and put it beside him. But when he accidentally knocked it onto the floor with his elbow, he did not notice that either.

Eventually the nervous stress reached its extreme limit and was transformed into its opposite. The bishop’s head began spinning, and he felt an irresistible urge to sleep.

Many years earlier, at the Battle of Balaclava, the future bishop, then a cavalry squadron commander, had seen the general commanding the Russian forces fall asleep at the observation point. The general was sitting at a folding table, concentrating intensely as he looked through a telescope and gave orders, and suddenly, at the very height of the battle, he nodded off—simply lowered his head onto his folded arms and fell asleep. Frightened adjutants went dashing across to him, but the chief of staff, an old and experienced soldier, said, “Leave him alone, it will soon pass.” And indeed, five minutes later the general woke up in good form and carried on directing the battle as if nothing at all had happened.

The same thing happened to Mitrofanii now. The lines of writing unwound into a single long, knotty thread, and the thread led the bishop down into darkness. One moment he was reading, and the next his head drooped over the table, his right cheek sank down onto his folded elbows, and he instantly fell into a deep sleep.

His Eminence had two dreams, one after the other.

THE FIRST DREAM was a sweet one.

Mitrofanii saw the Lord God before him in the shape of a radiant cloud, and the cloud spoke to him in a ringing voice: “What good to me are your somber prayers, bishop? What good are monasticism and monks to Me? They are mere foolishness and aggravation. Love each other, my people, husband love wife and wife love husband, and I shall ask no better prayer from you.”

And immediately Mitrofanii found himself in a house. The house was on the shore of a lake and in the distance he could see mountains, blue at the bottom and white at the top. The sun was shining, there were heavy apples hanging on the branches of the trees in the garden, and a gentle woman’s voice was singing a lullaby. Mitrofanii looked around and saw a child’s bed, and Pelagia was sitting beside it, but not in her habit and wimple—she was wearing a morning dress, and her copper-colored hair was hanging loose down to her shoulders. Pelagia glanced at Mitrofanii and smiled affectionately, and he thought: All these years I have wasted. If only the Cloud had spoken to me earlier, when I was younger! But never mind, I am still strong, we will be happy for a long time yet.

Then he turned over from his right cheek onto his left, and that started a quite different dream.

It was as if he had woken up and continued reading his spiritual daughter’s letter, although in fact he had not woken up at all. At first he read with his eyes, and then instead of reading he seemed to be listening, and Pelagia herself took the place of the sheet of paper in front of him.

“I am no longer among the living,” her voice whispered. “You will see me no more on the earth, because now I dwell in Eternal Life. Ah, how good everything is here! If only you, the living, knew this, you would not be afraid of death at all, you would look forward to death with joy as a child looks forward to Christmas or his birthday. God is nothing like the church’s teachings about Him, He is kind and understands absolutely everything. You foolish people pity us and weep for us, but we pity you. You suffer so very much, you are so afraid of everything.”

Now the sleeper could not only hear Pelagia’s voice, but see her, too. She was surrounded with a radiant glow—not as bright as the God-Cloud, but a shimmering rainbow that was a delight to the eye. “What must I do?” Mitrofanii cried eagerly. “I want to come to you! If I must die, I will do so gladly, that is nothing. Only take me to you!” She laughed quietly, like a mother laughing at a little child’s babbling: “What a great hurry you are in. Live for as long as you are destined, and do not be afraid: I will wait. For after all, where I am there is no time.”

These words comforted the bishop, and he woke.

He rubbed his eyes and put on the pince-nez that had fallen off his nose.

He carried on reading.

The red rooster

“WERE YOU THERE?” I asked Emmanuel, and was about to add “in that cave,” but just at that moment there was a rustling sound behind me. I turned and saw a man standing there. He was dressed as an Arab, and for a second I thought he was one of the local people who had happened to see us go down into the burial chamber. But the stranger’s round, thick-lipped face broke into a mocking smile and he said in perfect Russian: “Now, then, what have you got here, my little babes in the wood? Treasure? That’s for me, if you please. You won’t have any more use for it.”

“What treasure?” I babbled, and suddenly noticed that he had something in his hand, something black, with a dull gleam.

I realized that this was the very thing I had been so afraid of. I was too late. They had found him, and now they would kill him. Strangely enough, at that moment I didn’t think at all that they would kill me, I felt so annoyed with myself. All those days I had wasted, although I felt, I knew, that precious time was passing!

Then the round-faced killer struck another blow at my self-esteem. “Thank you, Sister, you have a nose like a bloodhound. You led the hunter straight to the prey.” When he said that, I felt really terrible. So they had found Emmanuel thanks to me! I was to blame for everything!

And worst of all, at that appalling moment I behaved shamefully, just like a woman: I burst into tears. I was completely crushed by the pain and shame of it all, I felt like the most pitiful creature in the entire world.

“What, no treasure? That’s a pity. But I’m still glad to meet you like this. Extremely glad,” the villain joked. “I’d love to banter a bit more with you, but there’s a job to be done.” And he raised his gun, about to shoot, but Emmanuel suddenly pushed me aside and took a step toward the killer.

“You earn money by killing people? Is that your trade?” he asked without a trace of anger or condemnation—his tone sounded more like curiosity or joyful amazement to me.

“At your service,” said the round-faced man, bowing as if he were accepting a well-deserved compliment. He clearly felt completely in control of the situation and had no objection to deferring the execution of his evil intent for a little longer.

“How good that we have met like this!” Emmanuel exclaimed. “You are the man I need!”

He took another step forward and threw his arms open wide, as if he was about to embrace the murderer.

The round-faced man stepped back and lifted the gun barrel higher, so that it was aimed directly at the prophet’s forehead. The expression on his face changed from mockery to wary suspicion.

“Ah-ah …” he began, but Emmanuel interrupted him.

“I need you, and you need me! I came to see you, for you!”

“In what sense?” the killer asked, completely baffled.

I waited, terrified, quite certain that he would shoot now, at this very moment. But Emmanuel did not even look at the gun, I do not think that he was afraid at all. Now, with hindsight, I realize what an absolutely incredible sight it was: an unarmed man stepping toward a man with a gun, and the armed man backing away with tiny little steps.

“There is no one in the world more unhappy than you. Your soul is crying out for help because the Devil has completely crushed the God in it. The good in the soul—that is God, and the bad is the Devil. Surely you were told that when you were a child?”

“Ah,” said the killer, baring his teeth in a scowl. “So that’s it. A sermon. Well, you’ve got the wrong man here …”

I heard the click of the hammer and cried out in terror. Emmanuel turned to me and spoke as if everything was quite normal: “Watch, now I’ll show you his child’s face.”

I did not understand what he meant. Neither did the assassin.

“What are you going to show her?” he asked. He lowered the gun slightly, and his small eyes blinked in confusion.

“Your child’s face,” the prophet said enthusiastically. “You know—at any age, every man still has his first face, the one with which he came into the world. Only this face is hard to see. Well, how can I explain it to you? Two old school friends, who haven’t seen each other for thirty or even fifty years, meet by chance. They look at each other, they recognize each other, they call each other by their old funny nicknames. For an instant their old faces become the same as they were many years before. The child’s face is the most genuine one. It doesn’t go anywhere, over the years it is hidden under wrinkles, creases, beards …”

“Any other time I’d be glad to chat with such an interesting talker,” the murderer said, gathering his wits and interrupting Emmanuel. “But now turn around.”

I realized that something had happened to this terrible man. He was no longer able to shoot the prophet while looking him in the eye. And in my mind I cried out to Emmanuel:
Don’t stop, keep talking!

But he did stop.

He slowly raised his hand with the palm outward, moved it from left to right, and a miracle happened. The killer suddenly froze, the hand holding the pistol sank down, and his gaze followed the hand, spellbound.

I have read about hypnosis and I do not think it is miraculous, but this was a genuine miracle that took place before my very eyes. The man’s face began to change. The puffy cheeks became tauter, the nose became more pert, the wrinkles smoothed out, and I saw the face of a boy—the round, funny, trusting face of a seven-year-old mama’s boy with a sweet tooth.

“Yasha, Yashechka, what have you done to yourself?” Emmanuel asked in a high voice, like a woman’s.

A tremor ran across the killer’s face, and the strange vision disappeared. There once again was the face of a man who had lived a hard and sinful life, but the eyes remained wide open, like a child’s.

He waved at Emmanuel with the hand still holding the gun. He waved the other hand, too, as if he were trying to drive away some ghost or phantom.

Then he turned around and dashed headlong out of the tomb.

“Won’t he come back to kill you?” I asked, shaken by what I had seen.

“No,” Emmanuel replied. “He will be too busy with other things now to bother about us.”

“How do you know his name?” I asked. “Is he really called Yasha?”

“That was what I heard. When I look into a man’s face, I hear and see many things, because I am ready to hear and see. He is a very interesting man. Absolutely black, but still with a white spot. Everybody always has at least a tiny little white speck. And it’s the same with those who are the whitest of white—only a tiny drop of black, but it’s still there. That’s more advantageous for God.”

That was what he said—“advantageous.”

I am not able to convey his distinctive manner of expressing himself, and so I smooth it out, but Emmanuel’s speech is extremely colorful. In the first place, he lisps in a very funny way. He speaks smoothly, but he likes to put in bookish words at appropriate and also inappropriate points—you know, like a self-taught peasant, who devours books one after another and understands what he has read after his own fashion.

For a few minutes after the terrible man ran away, I was not myself, and I babbled all sorts of womanish nonsense. For instance, I asked him, “Weren’t you afraid to walk toward a gun like that?”

His answer was funny: “I’m used to it. Such is my occupation, talking to the
misérables
.”

Strangely enough, I understood him perfectly. He must have come across the French word
misérables
in some eighteenth-century book and been captivated by its lovely sound.

“Good people do not need me,” he said, “but bad people—
misérables
—do. They’re dangerous and they can hurt you, but what’s to be done about that? You go in to them like a lion tamer entering the lion’s cage.” And then Emmanuel’s eyes suddenly lit up. “I saw that in Perm, in the Ciniselli Circus. What a brave man the lion tamer is! The lion opens its jaws wide, its teeth are like knives, but the lion tamer just twirls his mustache and cracks his whip!”

He forgot all about the
misérables
and started excitedly telling me about an animal trainer in a circus, and as I looked at him I did not know what to think, I was overcome by doubt once again.