Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk (53 page)

And it would be better to set up the laboratory in America, not Switzerland. Less trouble. Naturally, I shall take another name. How about Mr. Basilisk—what's wrong with that?

He tried to laugh, but the attempt failed—it turned into a long, painful fit of coughing. He wiped his lips and wrapped the black cowl more tightly around his neck. Perhaps it was a good thing that he hadn't stayed on the island any longer. The cold season would set in any time now; the autumn had already lasted for an unusually long time. It would have been awkward to catch a chill in his lungs. He had no time to be ill.

The new radiation physics opened up prospects that the half-witted Lampier and those laboratory rats in Paris were not capable of appreciating, with their pitiful little intellects. “Death rays!” Only an idiot could possibly have come up with such stupid nonsense. It was only a new form of energy—no more dangerous than magnetic or electrical radiation. The incalculable power of the atomic nucleus—that was the key. The first person to realize that would rule the world. And he was the perfect age, twenty-four, just like Bonaparte.

A bright ray of sunlight lit up the top of the triumphant victor's head, revealing a round bald spot that looked very much like a tonsure.

A TORMENTED SOUL shrieks its agony to mankind from beyond the grave. An impressionable and psychotic man murders because he believes he is the devil incarnate. A sly trickster plays on feeble minds and weak hearts in order to execute his political agenda. In this latest installment of Boris Akunin's Pelagia mysteries,
Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk
, we witness Akunin's masterful blend of syllogism, suspense, comedy, and social commentary, in ways that at once entertain and inform.

Akunin is quick to tell his readers that he has borrowed from writers past and present to construct the platform on which his Pelagia mysteries stand. Some of the world s finest suspense authors, from America to Italy and, of course, Akunin's own Russia, have lent their finest characters, plot points, and narrative techniques to Pelagia's creator.

One of Akunin's most explicit literary influences is none other than the Russian literary titan Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881), whose novel
The Possessed
(or
The Devils
, as it is widely known in the United States) is quoted extensively by both Alexei Stepanovich—the first of Bishop Mitrofanii's wards to visit Basilisk's Hermitage—and Donat Savvich, the psychologist living, working, and experimenting at New Ararat. Indeed, Dostoyevsky's protagonist, Nikolai Stavrogin, so influences one of Akunin's characters that he takes Stavrogin's name and imposes on his own community a horror similar to that of his Dostoyevskian namesake.

The allusions do not stop there, however. Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), the renowned short-story author and playwright who was born in South Russia, lent his title to this book. Chekhov's 1894 short story “The Black Monk” introduces the legend of a mysterious monk, dressed all in black, whose hauntings drive even the most stable and sharp-witted observers to the very brink of insanity. At once an examination of the fragility of the human mind and a commentary on the nature of faith and of man, these works by Chekhov and Akunin share the idea that men may be their own worst provocateurs, especially when it comes to existence within the mystic and ethereal realms.

Those celestial lives and the understandings thereof are at the forefront of works by Umberto Eco (b. 1932), the acclaimed Italian author of
The Name of the Rose
, a twentieth-century classic whose plot and narrative pacing form a pathway our beloved Pelagia follows closely. The story of a Franciscan friar who, along with his apprentice, travels to an abbey that has been tragically transformed from a holy place to a crime scene when several murders are committed on its grounds,
The Name of the Rose
seems eerily similar to Pelagia's exploits both with and on behalf of Bishop Mitrofanii (though Akunin surely adds a commentary of his own by making Pelagia a woman, whereas Eco's ward was a man and hence less limited, despite his junior status within the church hierarchy).

Eco's work is most gripping in its expression of deductive reasoning and in its inherent contrast between the powers of the earthly realm versus the powers of the heavens. Even when his friar's theories lack complete accuracy, Eco's characters are empowered by logic and reason to solve the story's most complex mysteries, closely examining observable phenomena. Likewise, Pelagia is forced (sometimes painfully so!) to rethink her theories about the Black Monk's identity, and yet only through her errors can she—and the bishop, and all at the hermitage— glean the true source of their afflictions.

Akunin's influences stretch all the way to the western shores of the Atlantic to include Ray Bradbury (b. 1920) and his masterpiece
The Martian Chronicles
, and back to Europe with one of the most terrifyingly great Russian-born authors, Alexei Tolstoy, whose horror stories offer a complexity and substantive quality that commands greater respect for the genre from readers new and old.

In the figure of the Black Monk, Akunin draws on a deep, dark tradition of Russian ghost stories. These tales often attempted to lead and even punish a populace the writers believed to be out of control with immoral acts, depraved minds, and lust-driven bodies. Just as the Black Monk calls his victims to atone for their sins, some of these more celebrated tales have also brought readers—little children, anxious teens, and shiftless grown-ups alike—to the brink of fear. Among the most famous of these tales are:

Baba Yaga

A bone rests bleached white against the deep browns and evergreens of the forest floor. Inches away lies another, and yet another, loosely forming a lurid trail of long bones and short ones, some awkwardly shaped, some obviously human. At the head of this macabre pathway sits a skull, no more than six inches wide, with tiny inset teeth, although some are missing. It's obviously a child. To the left and right are similar skulls, equally tiny, all forming a large and perfect square. Out of each skull's mouth extends a long bone, standing upright and topped with yet another skull—a fence of human skeletons so dense it almost obscures the horror on the other side: the house of Baba Yaga.

Perhaps one of Russian folklore's most famous characters, Baba Yaga— literally “old hag” or “witch”—is rumored to dwell deep in the forests surrounding the Volga River, in a house elevated by chicken legs and surrounded by a fence of human skeletons. With her wild, white hair and eerily thin legs and fingers, Baba Yaga has been known to kidnap and eat small children since ancient times, although surely some children's evil stepparents have knowingly sent them to her house as punishment for their insubordination.

On her exploits into towns and cities—usually to steal victims from their beds or precious metals and gems from their unwitting owners— Baba Yaga is reported to fly in a large mortar, using a pestle for steering. Unlike most fabled witches, who use a magic broom for flying, she uses her broom to brush away any evidence of her crimes, and then returns to her gruesome home to wait for a misbehaved youth or nosy visitor to come calling.

Svyatoe Lake

A mermaid's sweet song beckons from the deepest parts of the lake, drawing ever nearer its shores. As he gets closer, closer, and closer still, the sailor sees the outline of her frame, convincing himself that she's an angel; only something saintly could be this beautiful. His lust unchecked, he is unknowingly, mysteriously, and willingly seduced into a watery grave, where his hopes of romancing this aquatic siren are drowned as he breathes his last breath.

Russia's Solovetsky Monastery looks like a modern-day version of Akunin's Hermitage, it seems. Built on the largest of the Solovetsky Islands, its spires stand tall and reflect deeply into the waters of Svyatoe Lake below. Surrounding the monastery are a series of small businesses— salt mines, fishing, and agriculture corps, most notably—run by the islands’ monks, who are particularly gifted in the area of economics.

This combination of innovative commerce and deeply penitent and observant religious faith has produced a culture of legends around the monastery and Svyatoe Lake itself. Contemporary monks’ ritual blessings of the lake's waters are said to be tied to the lake's mysterious history. Deemed to have once been the home of the more ancient Rusaki monastery, Svyatoe Lake is reported to be the final resting place for many of Rusaki's spiritual seekers. Lured to the monastery itself by a spiritual craving, it is believed that monks were welcomed to the islands by a coven of mermaids, seducing men from the safety of their harbors into watery graves.

The Legend of Lake Kitezh

Possessors of the purest hearts, of the purest souls, carefully navigating the Path of Batu may find themselves, at its end, at the head of a marvelous body of water. At this lake, whose magnificently crisp blue hues allude to unimaginable depths, they shall be stilled—the arresting melodies of bells chiming, a sweet chorus of voices in accompaniment, all chanting “Victory” in their native tongues. With each ring each breath of song, small lights begin to flicker beneath the surface, first meters apart, and increasingly closer together. As they grow brighter, they illuminate magnificent edifices—stone chambers, golden spires, domes obscured for centuries. The legendary city of Kitezh—Russia's marvelous Atlantis—is visible, and the search for the world's purest souls is complete. Those at the water's edge in need of healing find themselves cured at the touch of the merest drop. And on the calmest of days, persons miles away can hear the echoes of underwater voices and instruments, beckoning new souls to the lakeshore.

Legend has it that in the thirteenth century, Russia's Grand Prince of Vladimir, Georgy II, was drawn to a spot on the shores of Lake Svetlo-yar after a tumultuous journey in even more tumultuous times taking him across many rivers and through many battles. Upon reaching this most serene location, Prince Georgy was inspired to build a city there, complete with elaborate markets, chambers of exquisite stone, and churches and castles topped with gold. He named the city Kitezh, and cherished it as one of his crown jewels, even though he reigned from a location farther away from Svetloyar's calming shores.

But the prince's lovely creation was short-lived.

The Mongol ruler Batu Khan and his Blue Horde of more than one hundred thousand soldiers advanced on Prince Georgy, forcing him to retreat behind their raiding forces, burning villages and capturing prisoners, sowing a bloody path of ashes and tears. The prince gave more and more ground to Batu Khan and his horde, until he reached Kitezh's borders. Faced with inevitable defeat, Prince Georgy refused to allow his beautiful city to fall with him. As Batu Khan crushed the Grand Prince of Vladimir, he and his army were enchanted by the beauty and vulnerability of magnificent Kitezh. The horde approached the city with reckless abandon but froze as they reached the city walls. Meter by meter, stone by stone, each column and every wall began to sink into the waters below. The city's inhabitants were deep in prayer, each fervently asking their God to spare them from destruction. As the final church descended into the crystal depths, the last image of Kitezh the Mongols could see was the cross, forever symbolizing the divine protection covering the city and of its surroundings.

Since this time, the waters of the lake—now called Lake Kitezh— have been known to heal the sick and restore the hearts and minds of true seekers. Residents of nearby towns say that on the clearest of nights one can hear the people of Kitezh chanting prayers from their sunken homeland, accompanied by the tolling of church bells. It is said that the purest souls, upon reaching the lake's banks, are able to see the city's lights and its glorious structures, peacefully reflecting a land no invader could ever possess.

IN
SISTER PELAGIA AND THE BLACK MONK
, Boris Akunin shadows each of these phantoms, crafting a mystery in the vein of literature's greatest suspenseful minds. And in the Black Monk himself, Akunin promises to continue the tradition of mysterious and haunting Russian folktales that have frightened children and grown-ups alike for centuries, and centuries to come.