Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk (41 page)

“His Reverence has come calling,” Donat Savvich said in surprise. “Why would he do that? He usually invites me to call on him, with advance warning. Something out of the ordinary must have happened. I'll show you through to my private apartments, Polina Andreevna, and see that you are taken care of. And if you will pardon me, I'll go through to the study to see the master of the island.”

However, things did not work out as Korovin had proposed. The archimandrite must have seen the carriage approaching through the window and he came out into the hallway to meet it. In fact he came flying out, a black figure of fury, beating his staff menacingly on the ground. He glanced briefly at the tormented creature of the female sex with a grimace of disgust and turned his eyes away—as if he were afraid of defiling his gaze by contemplating such obscenity. It was not clear whether he had recognized the generous pilgrim or not. Even if he had, there was no need to worry, Mrs. Lisitsyna reassured herself: he would simply think that the extravagant woman had had another crocodile dream.

“Good morning, Father,” said Korovin, inclining his head as he regarded the wrathful father superior with jovial puzzlement. “To what do I owe this unexpected honor?”

“You are violating our contract!” Vitalii cried, slamming his staff against the floor. “And a contract, sir, means more than mere money! Did you or did you not promise me that she would leave the brethren alone? And now what has happened?”

“Yes, what has happened?” the doctor asked, not frightened in the least. “What is this terrible thing that has happened?”

“The
Basilisk
did not sail this morning! The captain has disappeared! He is not in his cell, he is not on the landing stage, he is not anywhere! The passengers are complaining, there is an urgent cargo of monastery sour cream in the hold, and there is no one to captain the ship!” His Reverence grabbed hold of the cross hanging around his neck—clearly in order to remind himself of the Christian virtue of meekness. It did not help. “I conducted an inquiry! Yesterday Jonah was seen with your whore of Babylon!”

“If you are referring to Lidia Evgenievna Boreiko,” Donat Savvich replied calmly, “then she is by no means a whore; her diagnosis is quite different: pathological quasinymphomania with obsessive-compulsive delusions and chronic libidinal deficiency. In other words, she is one of those inveterate coquettes who turn men's heads, but would never, under any circumstances, allow them to touch their bodies.”

“We had an agreement!” Vitalii roared in a deafening voice. “She was not to go near the monks! She could practice her wiles on the visitors if she wished! Did we or did we not have an agreement?”

“We did,” the doctor admitted. “But perhaps your Jonah himself behaved with her in a manner not entirely becoming to a monk?”

“Brother Jonah is a simple, artless soul. I take his confession myself. I know all his ingenuous sins inside out!”

Korovin screwed up his eyes. “A simple soul, you say? I found a packet of cocaine in Lidia Evgenievna's bedroom here, and another two empty packets, with traces of the powder. Do you know who brings this filth from the mainland for her? Your sailor.”

“Lies! Whoever told you that is nothing but a liar and a spreader of slander!”

“Lidia Evgenievna admitted it herself,” said Donat Savvich. He gestured in the direction of the lake. “And at this moment your fallen lamb, the simple soul, is lying, blind drunk, over there, beside the old lighthouse. You can go and see for yourself. And so it is not Miss Boreiko's fault that the steamer did not sail on time.”

The archimandrite's eyes flashed, but he did not argue any more. Like a black tornado he hurtled outside to his carriage, slammed the door, and shouted, “Let's go! Come on!”

The carriage started with a sudden jerk, scattering the gravel from under its wheels.

“So Boreiko is one of your patients too?” Polina Andreevna asked, nonplussed.

The doctor frowned as he listened to the wild clatter of hooves retreating into the distance. “I'm not so sure now that it is Terpsichorov who gets the captain drunk … I beg your pardon? Ah, Boreiko. Why, naturally she is one of my patients. Can you not tell just from looking at her? A rather common accentuation of the female personality, usually referred to as a femme fatale, but in Lidia Evgenievna's case it has developed to an extreme degree. The girl constantly needs to feel that she is the object of desire of the greatest possible number of men. She derives her sensual satisfaction from others’ lust. She used to live in the capital, but after several tragic stories that ended in duels and suicides, her parents entrusted her to my care. The island life is good for Lidia Evgenievna. Far fewer stimuli, almost no temptations, and—most important—a total absence of competitors. She feels that she is the most beautiful woman in this isolated little world and so she is calm. Sometimes she tries out her charms on one of the visitors to convince herself that she is irresistible, and she is satisfied with that. I can see nothing dangerous in these little pranks. Boreiko promised not to experiment on the monks—and strict sanctions are envisaged for any violation of trust. Evidently this Jonah really is to blame himself.”

“Little pranks?” Mrs. Lisitsyna echoed with a sad laugh. And she told the doctor about the “Empress of Canaan.”

Korovin listened and clutched his head in his hands.

“That's awful, simply awful!” he said, sounding crushed. “What an appalling relapse! And once again it's entirely my fault. My experiment with supper for three has to be acknowledged a total failure. You did not give me a chance to explain at the time. You see, Polina Andreevna, a psychiatrist's relations with patients of the opposite sex are constructed according to several models. One of them, the most effective, uses infatuation as its instrument. My power over Boreiko, my lever of influence on her, is that I provoke her vanity. I am the only man who remains entirely indifferent to all her cunning charms as a femme fatale. If not for my inaccessibility, Lidia Evgenievna would long ago have fled from the island with some admirer or other, but until she has managed to conquer me, she will not go anywhere—her vanity will not allow it. Every now and then some salt needs to be rubbed into this wound, which is what I attempted to do with your help. Alas, the effect produced far exceeded my expectations. Instead of feeling slightly envious of the marks of attention that I paid to my attractive guest, Boreiko relapsed into a paranoid-hysterical state and interpreted your arrival here as a conspiracy. And you almost paid with your life as a result. Ah, I shall never forgive myself for this!”

Donat Savvich was so upset that the kindhearted Mrs. Lisitsyna had to console him again. She even went so far as to say that she was to blame for everything, because she had deliberately taunted the poor psychopath (which was partly true). And as for the doctor's mistake—who did not make mistakes, especially in such subtle matters as healing a sick soul? On the whole, she apparently succeeded in setting the despondent doctor's mind at rest.

Korovin rang to summon the duty doctor to his study and told him glumly, “Bring Lidia Evgenievna Boreiko to me immediately. Prepare an injection of tranquilium—a nervous fit is quite likely. Have the head nurse choose some shoes and clothes for Mrs. Lisitsyna. And make sure she has a relaxing massage and a lavender bath.”

Blue, Green, Yellow, Straw-Colored

AND SO THE summary result of all the shocks of the night and the morning was that Polina Andreevna had arrived right back where she started.

She had made not the slightest progress with the main business that had brought her to New Ararat. And the most annoying thing of all was that twice already in a short space of time she had believed with all her heart first in one theory and then in another, and now she could not have said which of them was the more absurd. Never before had the perspicacious Sister Pelagia suffered such an embarrassing fiasco. Of course, there had been special circumstances interfering with the smooth process of her thought, but even so, now that she was rested and her head was clear, she felt ashamed.

The results of the investigation into the Black Monk presented a sorry picture.

First of all, there were the people who had died untimely deaths: the barrister Kubovsky, terrified into having a stroke; then the buoy keeper's wife, who had miscarried her baby; the buoy keeper, who had drowned; Lagrange, who had been shot; and finally, poor Alyosha Lentochkin.

Kubovksy had been taken away on the steamship in a zinc-lined coffin; the unfortunate mother and her lifeless child had been buried in the ground; Felix Stanislavovich was lying in the morgue, packed in blocks of ice; and the bodies of those who drowned were carried away to who knew where by the dark underwater currents.

And was Matvei Bentsionovich's lot any happier, with his reason clouded?

During the last few days, bearing in mind Alexei Stepanovich's fate (the attendants from Korovin's clinic had searched the whole of Canaan, but failed to find him), Mrs. Lisitsyna had visited Berdichevsky frequently, but found nothing to console her—he was deteriorating steadily. He either did not recognize his visitor, or took no interest in her at all. They sat facing each other without speaking, and then Polina An-dreevna went on her way with a heavy heart.

That terrible night filled with fateful events had concluded in total farce—and also, of course, in the strict punishment of the guilty parties.

His Reverence Vitalii had demoted Brother Jonah from captain to stoker and immediately put him in the punishment cell for a month on nothing but bread, water, and prayer.

Dr. Korovin had dealt with his own charges no less severely. Lidia Evgenievna had been forbidden (also for an entire month) to use powder, perfume, or pomade, and to wear black. The actor Terpsichorov had been placed under house arrest with a single solitary book, another work by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but a harmless one, the short novel
Poor People—
to make him forget his dangerous role as “the gentleman from the canton of Uris” and adopt the image of the sugary-sweet, retiring Makar Devushkin. Two days later Polina Andreevna had visited the prisoner and been amazed by the change that had taken place in him. The former seducer had regarded her with a sincere, gentle smile and called her “dear friend” and “little mother.” To be quite honest, his visitor was actually rather upset by this metamorphosis—Terpsichorov had been far more interesting in his previous role.

Other events that are worthy of mention here had included the appearance in a certain liberally inclined Moscow newspaper of an article about the incredible happenings at New Ararat and the negative rumors concerning Outskirts Island. One of the pilgrims must have reported everything. For the first time ever, the rosary beads carved by the hermits had been left unsold in the monastery shop. Father Vitalii had ordered a special sale to be held, reducing the price first to nine rubles and ninety-nine kopecks, and then to four rubles and ninety-nine kopecks. At that point some of the beads had been bought, but not all. It was a bad sign. In the town, people were already saying openly that the hermitage had become unwholesome and unclean, that it should be closed for the time being and no one should be allowed to visit Outskirts Island for a year—to see if Saint Basilisk's fury would abate.

The monastery's patron, however, seemed to have quieted down already: he was no longer walking on water or frightening people in the town—but possibly that was only because the nights had become cloudy and dark.

As for Mrs. Lisitsyna, during this period of calm she spent almost all of her time deep in thought and took very little action. In the morning she studied her battered face in the mirror for a long time, noting the changing coloration of the bruising. Apart from that, there was nothing to distinguish any particular day from all the others. In her own mind she even named them after the color of her face.

Well, the first of these quiet days, the one following the night when Polina Andreevna was first almost drowned and then almost dishonored, did not count—one might almost say that it had never even happened. After a bath, a massage, and an injection to relax her nerves, the long-suffering Mrs. Lisitsyna had slept for almost twenty-four hours and only returned to the guesthouse the following morning, refreshed and invigorated.

On looking at herself in the dressing-table mirror, she had noted that the mark on her face was no longer crimson and blue, but merely blue. And so that was the name she gave that day.

On the afternoon of the “blue” day Polina Andreevna had changed into her novice's garments in the pavilion (they and her other things had lain undisturbed on the floor ever since the evening of two days previous), all the while glancing around warily at the dark silhouettes of the automatic dispensers.

From there the short, skinny little monk set off for the Lenten Spit to wait for the boatman.

Brother Kleopa appeared on time, at precisely three o'clock, and was delighted to see Pelagius there—less for the novice's own sake than for the baksheesh he anticipated. He asked briskly, “Well, are you sailing today or not? My hand still hurts.” And he winked.

After receiving a ruble, he told Pelagius how he had taken the holy elder Ilarii across to Outskirts Island the day before and the two hermits had greeted their new brother: one had kissed him—that must mean he had pressed his own cowl against the other man's—and the abbot had declared in a loud voice: “Thine are the most glorious heavens of Theog-nost.”

“Why ‘Theognost’?” Pelagius asked in surprise. “When the holy father is called Ilarii?”