Special Assignments (16 page)

'I'm Marfa Ziuzina, father,' Momus sang in a sweet voice now, 'a wretched widow. Our provider passed away, and I've got seven to feed, each one smaller than the last. If you gave me ten kopecks, I could buy them some bread.'

Eropkin snorted and looked at the widow suspiciously. 'All right, Kuzma, give it to her. But make sure Paisii doesn't run off.'

The black-bearded hulk handed the purse to Momos - it wasn't so very heavy.

What's this, father?' the little widow asked in fright.

Well?' said Eropkin, turning to the holy fool without answering. 'Now what?'

The boy mumbled something incomprehensible. He dropped to his knees and beat his forehead three times against the cobblestones of the road. Then he pressed his ear to the stone, as if he were listening to something. Then he stood up.

'The Holy Virgin says tomorrow at first light come to the Neskuchny Gardens. Dig in the earth under the old oak tree beside the stone arbour. Dig where the oak is overgrown with moss. And you will have your answer, servant of God.' The holy fool added quietly, 'Come there, Samson, and I will come too.'

Ah, no!' Eropkin exclaimed craftily. 'What kind of fool do you take me for? You're going with me, brother. Take him, Kuzma. You'll be all right in a stone palace for one night; you won't melt. And if you've cheated me - you're for it. I'll have my gold coins back out of your throat.'

Momos crept back and away, quietly, without getting up off his knees, then straightened up and darted off into the labyrinth of streets around Okhotny Ryad.

He untied the purse and put his hand in. There weren't many imperials after all - only thirty. Samson Kharitonovich Eropkin had decided to be mean; he'd been tight-fisted with the Holy Virgin. But never mind, the Mother of God wouldn't be stingy with her own faithful servant!

When it was still dark, Momos dressed with plenty of warm padding, took a flask of cognac with him and assumed his position at the spot he had spied out in advance: in the bushes, with a good view of the old oak tree. In the twilight he could make out the vague outlines of the white columns of the rotunda. At the hour of dawn there was not a single soul in the Neskuchny Gardens.

Momos's combat position was thoroughly equipped and prepared. He had just eaten a pork sandwich (never mind about the Lenten fast) and taken a drink from the lid of his Shustov cognac, when Eropkin's sleigh came rolling up along the alley.

The first to get there was the mute, Kuzma. He peered cautiously all around (Momos ducked down), walked around the oak for a moment and waved. Samson Kharitonovich walked across, holding the holy fool Paisii tightly by the hand. Another two men stayed sitting on the coachbox.

The boy walked up to the oak, bowed to it from the waist, and pointed to the agreed spot: 'Dig here.'

'Get the spades!' Eropkin shouted, turning towards the sleigh.

The two strong young fellows walked across, spat on their palms and started pounding away at the frozen earth. The earth yielded with wonderful ease, and very soon there was a clang (Momos had been too lazy to bury the treasure very deep).

'There's something here, Samson Kharitonovich!'

'What is it?'

'Seems like something metal.'

Eropkin dropped to his knees and started raking the clods of earth away with his hands. Grunting with the effort, he pulled up a copper vessel, green with age, out of the ground (it was an old saucepan, clearly from before the Fire of Moscow - bought from a junkman for fifty kopecks). Something glimmered faintly in the semi-darkness, catching the light from the sleigh's lantern.

'Gold!' gasped Eropkin. A lot of gold!'

He tipped the heavy, round coins on to his palm and held them up in front of his eyes. 'They're not my imperials! Kuzya, light a match!'

He read out loud: "An-na, emp-ress and au-to-crat ..." It's old treasure! There must be at least a thousand gold pieces here!'

Momos had tried to get hold of something a bit more intriguing, with Jewish letters, or at least Arabic script, but that had worked out too expensive for each coin. He'd bought gold two-rouble pieces from the reign of the Empress Anna and
lobanchiks
from the reign of Catherine the Great for twenty roubles apiece. He hadn't bought a thousand, but he'd bought plenty; there was lots of this old stuff in the antique shops at the Sukharev Market. Samson Kharitonovich would count the coins afterwards - he was bound to - and the number was a special one, not accidental; it would have its effect later.

'Things are bad with you, Samson,' the boy sobbed. 'The Holy Virgin doesn't forgive you; she's paying you back.'

'Eh?' asked Eropkin, crazed by the shimmering of the gold.

It's a great thing, a whole lot of gold coins all at once. It doesn't add up to such an astronomical sum in paper money, but it's spellbinding. It can make a greedy man lose his wits completely. This wasn't the first time Momos had exploited this strange property of gold. The important thing now was not to give Eropkin time to draw breath. The skinflint's head had to start spinning, swirling his brains around. Come on now, Mimi, this is your benefit performance.

'Either you gave too little again, or there's no forgiveness for you at all,' the holy fool declared in a piteous voice. 'You'll rot alive, you wretched orphan.'

'How's that, no salvation?' Eropkin exclaimed anxiously, and even from the bushes, twelve yards away, Momos could see the gleaming beads of sweat spring to his forehead. 'If it wasn't enough, I'll give more. I've more money than I can count. How much do I have to give, tell me!'

Paisii swayed from side to side on the spot and did not answer.

'I see ... I see a dark chamber. Icons on the walls, an icon-lamp burning. I see a feather mattress, swan's-down pillows, many pillows ... Under the bed is darkness, the darkness of Egypt. The golden calf is there ... A bast sack, crammed full with pieces of paper. That is the source of all the evil!'

The mute Kuzma and the men with the spades moved right up close to the boy; their faces were dazed, and Eropkin's shaven chin was trembling.

'Our Mother in Heaven does not want your money,' the young man of God intoned in a strange, ululating voice (she's using those modulations from
La Bayadere,
Momos realised). 'What our Intercessor wants is for you to purge yourself - for your money to be purged. It's dirty, Samson, and that's why it brings you no happiness. A righteous man must bless it, bless it with his sinless hand, and it will be purged. A great and righteous man, a holy man with a blind eye and a withered arm and a lame leg.'

'Where can I find someone like that?' Eropkin whined, shaking Paisii by his thin shoulders. Where is there a righteous man like that?'

The boy inclined his head to one side, listened to something and said in a soft voice: A voice ... A voice will speak to you ... out of the ground ... Do what it says.'

And then Mimi pulled a strange trick: in her usual soprano voice, she suddenly launched into a French chansonette from the operetta
Jojou's Secret.
Momos grabbed hold of his head in despair - she'd overdone it now, the little imp! She'd ruined everything!

'He's singing with the voice of an angel!' one of the men gasped, and crossed himself quickly. 'Singing in a heavenly language, the language of the angels!'

'That's French, you fool,' Eropkin croaked. 'I've heard it sometimes happens that holy fools start talking in foreign tongues they've never known in their lives.' And he crossed himself too.

Paisii suddenly collapsed on to the ground and started thrashing about in convulsions. A thick stream of foam bubbled out his mouth.

'Hey!' Samson Kharitonovich shouted, frightened. He bent down over the boy. Wait a bit with your fit! What kind of voice is it? And what does it mean - this holy man's going to purge my money? Will the money disappear? Or will it be returned with interest?'

But the boy only arched up his back and hammered his feet on the cold earth, shouting: 'A voice ... out of the ground ... a voice!'

Eropkin turned to his ruffians in astonishment and told them: 'He really does give off a sweet smell, a heavenly smell!'

I should think so, Momos chuckled to himself. The Parisian soap, 'L'arome du paradis', one and a half roubles for a tiny little bar.

However, the pause could not be dragged out any longer: it was time for the specially prepared star turn of the entire performance. It wasn't for nothing that the evening before he'd spent the best part of an hour laying a garden hose under the fallen leaves and sprinkling earth over it. One end with a wide funnel was now in Momos's hand, and the other, with a wider funnel, was precisely positioned between the roots of the oak. To conceal the secret, it was covered with wire mesh, and the mesh was covered with moss. It was a reliable system, experimentally tested; he just had to fill his lungs right up to the top with air.

And Momos tried his very best: he breathed in, pressed the tube tightly against his lips and boomed: At midnight... Come ... To the Varsonofiev Chapel...'

It sounded very convincing - almost too impressive. In fact, the impression produced was so strong that it caused a problem. When the sepulchral voice boomed out from under the ground. Eropkin squealed and jumped, his henchmen shied away as well, and they didn't hear the most important thing: where to take the money.

"... near the Novopimenovksy Monastery,' Momos boomed to make things clearer, but that cloth-eared blockhead Eropkin was so stunned he still didn't hear.

'Eh? What monastery?' He asked the ground fearfully. He looked around and even stuck his nose into a hollow in the oak.

Now what was Momos supposed to do? The Supreme Power wouldn't repeat everything ten times for the deaf dolt! That would turn the whole thing into a cheap comedy. This was a predicament.

Mimi solved his difficulty. She sat up and babbled in a quiet voice: 'The Varsonofiev Chapel, near the Novopimenovsky Monastery. The holy hermit is there. Take the sack to him. At midnight tonight.'

People in Moscow said bad things about the Varsonofiev Chapel. Seven years earlier the small gate church near the entrance to the Novopimenovsky Monastery had been struck by a bolt of lightning that had knocked down its holy cross and cracked its bell. What kind of house of God was it, if it could be struck by lightning?

The chapel had been boarded up and the clergy and the pilgrims and the simple public had started to avoid it. At night shrieks and terrible, inhuman groans were heard from inside the thick walls. It was either cats fornicating, with the echo under the stone vaults amplifying their howls, or there was something far worse than that taking place in the chapel. The father superior had held a prayer service and sprinkled the place with holy water, but it hadn't helped; people only became even more afraid.

Momos had spotted this wonderful place before Christmas and been thinking it might come in useful ever since. And now it had; it was just the thing.

He had considered the setting carefully and prepared the stage effects carefully. 'La Grande Operation' was approaching its finale, and it promised to be absolutely stunning.

'The Jack of Spades has outdone himself!' - that was what the newspapers would have written the following day, if only there had been genuine openness and freedom of speech in Russia.

When the small bell in the monastery gave a dull clang and began chiming midnight, there was the sound of cautious footfalls outside the double doors of the chapel. Momos imagined Eropkin crossing himself and reaching out a hesitant hand towards the gilded panel. The nails had been pulled out of the boards - one gentle tug and the door would open with a heart-stopping creak.

And now it had opened, but it was not Samson Kharitonovich Eropkin who glanced in; it was the mute Kuzma. The cowardly bloodsucker had sent his devoted slave on ahead.

The jaw under the black beard dropped open and the coiled whip slid off Kuzma's shoulder like a dead snake.

And indeed, eschewing all false modesty, there was something here worth gaping at.

Standing at the centre of the square space was a table of rough boards, with four candles flickering on it, one at each corner. There was also an old man in a white surplice, with a long grey beard and long, silky hair tied round on his forehead with string. He was sitting on a chair, hunched over an old book in a thick leather binding (Travels
Into Several Remote Parts Of The World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, And Then A Captain Of Several Ships,
published in Bristol in 1726 - bought at a book stall for its thickness and impressive appearance). One of the hermit's eyes was covered by a black patch and his left arm was in a sling. The sage did not appear to have noticed the man who had come in.

Kuzma gave a low grunt, turning away, and Eropkin's pale features appeared from behind his broad, massive shoulder.

Then, without looking up, the holy hermit spoke in a clear, resonant voice: 'Come here, Samson. I have been expecting you. You are mentioned in the secret book.' And he jabbed his finger at an engraving showing Gulliver surrounded by Houyhnhnms.

Stepping carefully, the entire honourable company entered the chapel: the most venerable Samson Kharitonovich, clutching the boy Paisii tightly by the hand, Kuzma and the same two men as before, who lugged in a plump bast sack.

The sage pierced Eropkin with a menacing glance from his single eye under its matted eyebrow and held up a finger in admonition. In response to this gesture, one of the candles suddenly hissed and went out. The bloodsucker gasped and let go of the boy's hand - which was the required effect.

The trick with the candle was a simple one, but impressive. Momos himself had invented it for use when he ran into difficulties at cards: the candles looked like ordinary ones, but the wick slid freely inside the wax. It was an unusually long wick, threaded though a crack in the table underneath the candle. Jerk your left hand under the table, and the candle went out (of course, Momos had the dolly to control the wicks hanging on his sling).