Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog (15 page)

“As soon as I learned, aunty, that your condition had worsened, I said to hell with all state business and came rushing to see you. Korsh told me, the attorney. He intends to be here with you tomorrow morning. Well, what has made you decide to lose heart like this? For shame, to be sure. I was planning to marry you off; I’ve already picked out a bridegroom, a most placid old gentleman. You won’t hear a peep out of him, he’ll toe the line for you, all right.”

It was amazing—the reply was a weak sound, but it was quite clearly a laugh.

“Get away with you, Volodya. What old gentleman is that? Someone really decrepit, I’ll be bound.”

“Aunty”? “Volodya”? Pelagia could not believe her ears.

“Very far from decrepit,” laughed Bubentsov, with a glint of white teeth. “And a general as well, like my deceased uncle. Huge long mustache, with a barrel of a chest, and when he starts skipping the mazurka, there’s no way to stop him.”

“Oh, you’re full of lies,” Marya Afanasievna exclaimed with a quavering laugh, then she was immediately overtaken by a fit of coughing, and it was a long time before she could catch her breath. “…Oh, you prankster. You deliberately invent things just to distract an old woman like me. And I really do think I’m feeling a bit better.”

Bubentsov’s presence was clearly good for the patient—she did not even ask Pelagia where Zakusai was.

It seemed that the pernicious inspector about whom Pelagia had heard so many bad things, even from the bishop himself, was not such a great Satan after all. The nun actually found Vladimir Lvovich quite likeable: a pleasant person, easygoing and good-looking, especially when he smiled.

Let him sit with Marya Afanasievna a little longer. He would distract her from her dark thoughts.

Bubentsov began an extremely amusing account of Spasyonny agitating the wild Murad to take up the Christian cross at the expense of the Mohammedan crescent moon, and Pelagia backed quietly away toward the door in order not to bother them.

She pushed the door and it struck against something yielding that immediately moved away. Tikhon Ieremeevich was standing in an awkward pose in the corridor, bent over double. He had been eavesdropping!

“Guilty I am, holy mother, guilty of the sin of wanton curiosity,” he muttered, rubbing his bruised forehead. “Most soundly stung and sadly shamed. I take my leave.”

Two spies under one roof was perhaps too many, thought Sister Pelagia as she watched him go.

THAT EVENING THEY gathered around the samovar on the terrace as usual. Vladimir Lvovich behaved quite differently from the way he had in Marya Afanasievna’s bedroom. He was unsmiling, reserved, dry—in short, his manner was that of someone whose opinion of himself sets him much higher than those around him. Pelagia found him much less agreeable now. One might even say that she did not like him at all.

The only person missing was Tatishcheva herself, who was brought tea in her bedroom by Tanya, and from among the regular guests Sytnikov was absent—he had left as soon as the black carriage appeared. He had taken his hat and stick and set off for home—the summer house was a three-mile walk away, through the park and then across the meadow and the fields. At first Pelagia was surprised, but then she recalled the disagreement that Donat Abramovich and Bubentsov had had concerning the backwardness of the Old Believers, and the industrialist’s behavior became clear. Sytnikov’s place was occupied by Spasyonny, who took almost no part in the conversation.

Only at the very beginning, as he took his seat and surveyed the abundant display of spice cakes, sweets, and jams, did he remark severely: “Overeating is harmful to purity of the soul. Saint Cassian taught the avoidance of much food and an excess of victuals, as also of overindulgence in the satiety of the belly and the sweet pleasure of the throat.”

Vladimir Lvovich, however, snapped: “Be quiet, Undershirt, and know your place.”

Tikhon Ieremeevich meekly fell silent, and immediately began energetically partaking of the victuals displayed on the table.

The line of conversation was very quickly determined. Bubentsov captured the attention of all present by beginning to tell them about the astonishing discoveries that had already horrified Zavolzhsk, that would set the entire province buzzing tomorrow and shake the entire empire to its foundations the day after that.

“You have probably heard about the two headless corpses cast up on the riverbank in the Chernoyarsk district,” Vladimir Lvovich began, knitting his handsome eyebrows. “The police investigation has failed to establish the victims’ identities, for without a head that is almost impossible. It has, however, been established that the bodies are quite fresh, no more than three days old, which means that the crime was committed somewhere within the bounds of the province of Zavolzhsk. When I learned this, I began pondering on why the criminal or criminals would have wished to decapitate their victims.”

At this point Bubentsov paused and glanced mockingly around his audience, as if offering them the opportunity to guess this riddle.

No one spoke, they all gazed fixedly at the narrator, and Naina Georgievna actually leaned far forward, piercing him with her blinding black eyes. Indeed, for the entire remainder of the evening she had eyes only for Vladimir Lvovich and made no great attempt to conceal it. It was a strange look: At times Pelagia imagined that she could see something akin to revulsion in it, but there was also passionate interest and a species of astonishment that was more than merely passionate, even morbid.

The nun observed that Stepan Trofimovich and Poggio, who were sitting far apart as if they had deliberately arranged it, constantly turned their heads, glancing alternately at the young woman and the object of her rapt attention. Shiryaev had two crimson scratches on his cheek (quite definitely left by fingernails), and there was white powder under Arkadii Sergeevich’s right eye.

Yet Bubentsov appeared to regard Naina Georgievna’s glances as entirely insignificant. Up to this point he had not addressed her even once, and if he had glanced at her occasionally, then it had been with lazy indifference.

Since the pause in the narrative dragged on somewhat, and she wanted to hear what would come next, Sister Pelagia suggested: “Perhaps the heads were removed precisely in order to make it impossible to identify the dead men?”

“I rather think not.” Vladimir Lvovich’s lips stretched briefly into a smile of satisfaction. “Local killers would not have thought of anything so artfully cunning. Especially since the dead men are clearly not local people; had someone local gone missing, they would have been identified anyway. This is a different case.”

“But what?” asked Pyotr Georgievich. “Don’t tantalize us so!”

“Ropsha,” replied Bubentsov, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back in his chair, as if he had given an exhaustive explanation of everything.

There was a jangling sound—Sister Pelagia had dropped her spoon on the floor and she gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

“What’s that?” said Kirill Nifontovich, who had misheard. “Are the Polish convicts taking to highway robbery? Why, all of a sudden? They’re too old for that already.”

“Ropsha?” Pyotr Georgievich echoed, perplexed. “Ah, yes, just a moment now…that’s from the chronicle! The Novgorodian merchant who had his head cut off by the pagans in these parts during Ivan the Fourth’s time. I beg your pardon, but what has Ropsha got to do with it?”

The synodical inspector’s nostrils flared rapaciously.

“Ropsha has nothing to do with the case, but the pagans have a great deal to do with it. We have been receiving reports for a long time that the local Zyts, while formally observing the rites of the Orthodox Church, secretly worship idols and perform all sorts of loathsome rituals. And, by the way, in Ropsha’s time, the very same tribe lived here, and their gods were the very same.”

“It’s not likely,” said Shiryaev with a shrug. “I know the Zyts. They’re a quiet, peaceful people. True, they have their own customs, their own superstitions and festivals. It is possible that something of the old beliefs might still remain. But killing people and cutting off their heads? Nonsense. Why on earth would they have taken a break of five hundred years after Ropsha?”

“That is the very point,” said Bubentsov, gazing triumphantly around the table. “The inquiries I have made have revealed a most interesting little fact. A rumor has recently spread among the forest Zyts that in the near future the god Shishiga will come sailing down the Heavenly River in his sacred bark after sleeping on a cloud for many centuries, and Shishiga must be offered his favorite food if he is not to grow angry. And this Shishiga’s favorite food, as the chronicle makes clear, is human heads. Hence my assumption (indeed, more than a mere assumption, I am absolutely certain of it) that Shishiga’s bark has already reached the Zyts, and he is damnably hungry.”

“What on earth are you talking about!” exclaimed Stepan Trofimovich, growing furious. “These are quite absurd conjectures!”

“Alas, they are not conjectures,” said Vladimir Lvovich, assuming a severe expression, one might even call it an official state expression. “Tikhon Ieremeevich has wasted no time here in acquiring people of his own, including in the most remote districts. And his informants report that an incomprehensible ferment and agitation are to be observed among the Zyt youth. We have information that somewhere in a remote thicket an idol representing the god Shishiga has been erected in a clearing, and severed heads have been brought to that place.”

“Bravo!” Naina Georgievna suddenly threw up her hands and began to applaud. Everybody looked at her in bewilderment. “Shishiga and human sacrifices—that is absolutely brilliant! I knew that I was not mistaken about you, Vladimir Lvovich. I can just imagine the sensation you will make with this story throughout the length and breadth of Russia.”

“I am flattered,” said Bubentsov, inclining his head with seeming astonishment as he met her gaze, which had changed from disgusted amazement to adoration. “A scandal on a genuinely nationwide scale. To have wild pagans running riot is a disgrace for a European power, and the guilt lies fairly and squarely with the local authorities, above all the church authorities. It is a good thing that I happened to be here. You may be sure, ladies and gentlemen, that I shall investigate this incident with great thoroughness, seek out the guilty parties, and return the forest savages to the bosom of the church.”

“I do not doubt it,” chuckled Poggio. “Oh, you are a fortunate man, Mr. Bubentsov, to have drawn such a lucky ticket.”

But Vladimir Lvovich had apparently entered completely into the role of the man of state and inquisitor, and he was not inclined to joke.

“Your comedy is misplaced, sir,” he said in a stern voice. “This is a terrible business, even monstrous. We do not know how many such headless bodies are lying on the bottom of the rivers and lakes. And it is also quite certain that there will be more victims. We already know from reliable sources how the ritual of murder is performed. The servants of Shishiga creep up on a lone traveler from behind in the night, throw a sack over his head, tie it tight around the neck with a string, and drag their victim into the bushes or to some other secluded spot, so that the unfortunate cannot even call out for help. There they cut off the head, throw the body into the swamp or the water, and carry their booty off to the heathen site of worship.”

“Oh, my God!” Miss Wrigley said, crossing herself.

“We must locate this site of worship and send for the experts from the Imperial Ethnographical Society,” Kirill Nifontovich suggested enthusiastically. “Idol worship and headhunting—those are extremely rare phenomena in this part of the world!”

“We are looking,” Bubentsov said ominously. “And we shall find it. I have already been granted all the necessary authority by telegraph from St. Petersburg.”

“Do you remember?” Naina Georgievna exclaimed, once again apropos of nothing. “Do you remember that place in Lermontov?

Ruling this paltry realm of earth,

He sowed his evil far afield,

No opposition did he meet,

All to his artful wiles did yield.

“Gentlemen, why are you all so glum? Look what a moon there is, how much mysterious, evil power there is in it! Let us go walking in the park. Really, Vladimir Lvovich, let us go!”

She jumped to her feet and dashed impetuously over to Bubentsov, holding out her slim hand to him. Something had happened to Naina Georgievna, and it seemed to be something good—her face was shining in ecstatic happiness, her eyes sparkling, her finely molded nostrils flaring passionately. No one was particularly surprised by the extravagant young woman’s sudden outburst—they were evidently all accustomed to her wild changes of mood.

“A short walk would be welcome,” Krasnov said complacently, getting to his feet. “Here is my arm, miss.” And he offered the Englishwoman his arm, poised in a gallant curve. “Only mind you do not leave me, or they will jump on me from behind and throw a sack over my head, ha-ha.”

Naina Georgievna remained standing in front of Vladimir Lvovich, holding out her hand to him, but Bubentsov made no movement in reply and only surveyed the beautiful woman from her feet up to her head with a calm and confident glance.

“I have no time, Naina Georgievna,” he said finally in an even tone of voice. “I have to sit with my aunt for a while. And before going to bed I was also intending to compose a memorandum for the police guards. Petersburg has sent instructions for me to be placed under protection. This is a serious matter. Today I have already received my first threat in written form—it has been added to the case file.”