Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk (25 page)

Then, together with the other curious passengers, who were all without exception male, she set out to investigate the captains wheelhouse.

The excursion had been arranged in order to demonstrate New Ararat's benevolent hospitality, which extended beyond the shores of the archipelago to include the ship that bore the name of the monastery's founder. The explanations about the fairway, the control of the steamship, and the unpredictable behavior of the winds on the Blue Lake were provided by the mate, a humble monk in a moth-eaten skullcap, but Lisitsyna found the captain, Brother Jonah, far more intriguing. He was a red-faced bandit with a thick beard and an oilskin cap who stood at the helm in person, in order to have an excuse to avoid looking at the passengers.

Despite being dressed in a cassock, this colorful individual looked so very unlike a monk that Polina Andreevna could not resist the urge to sidle a little closer and ask him, “Tell me, Holy Father, is it long since you took monastic vows?”

The hulking brute squinted down at her and said nothing, hoping she would go away. Realizing that she would not, he answered her reluctantly in his rumbling voice: “Over four years now.”

The passenger immediately moved right in under the captain's elbow so that it would be more convenient to talk. “And who were you out in the world?”

The captain heaved a sigh that left no doubt at all that if he could have his own way, he would refuse to answer the pushy little lady's questions and march her out of the wheelhouse in a jiffy, because women had no right being in there. “The same as I am now. A helmsman. I used to hunt whales around Spitsbergen.”

“How very interesting!” exclaimed Polina Andreevna, not embarrassed in the least by his unfriendly tone. “That must be why they called you Jonah, I suppose? Because of the whales?”

In a genuinely heroic feat of Christian humility, the captain stretched his mouth out to both sides in an expression that was evidently intended to signify a polite smile. “Not because of the whales—because of one whale. The beast smashed the boat to pieces with his tail and everybody drowned. I was the only one who came back up. He sucked me right into his mouth and scraped me with his great whiskers, but he can't have liked the taste of me because he spat me out again. I couldn't have been in his mouth more than half a minute, but it was long enough for me to promise that if I survived, I'd go for a monk.”

“What an incredible story!” the passenger exclaimed admiringly. “And the most amazing thing about it is that after you were saved, you really did join a monastery. You know, many people make promises to God in a moment of despair, but afterward very few of them actually carry them out.”

Jonah stopped imitating a smile and knitted his shaggy eyebrows in a frown. “A promise is a promise.”

This short phrase was so full of adamantine resolution mixed with bitterness that Mrs. Lisitsyna suddenly felt terribly sorry for the poor whaler. “Ah, you should never have become a monk,” she said, distraught. “The Lord would have understood and forgiven you. The monastic life should be a reward, but for you it is like a punishment. You miss your old free life, don't you? I know seamen. Life without drink and oaths is a torment to you. And then there is the vow of celibacy …” the tenderhearted pilgrim finished in a low voice, as if she were talking to herself.

But the captain heard her anyway, and he gave the tactless creature a glance that made Polina Andreevna beat a rapid retreat from the wheel-house out onto the deck, and from there to her cabin.

A Male Heaven

THE CAPTAIN'S FURIOUS glance was explained to some extent when the
St. Basilisk
moored at the New Ararat landing stage the following morning. Polina Andreevna was detained on board for a while, waiting for the porter, and she was almost the last passenger to leave the ship. Her attention was caught by a slim, elegant young lady dressed in black who was waiting impatiently for someone on the quayside. After looking the waiting woman over carefully and noting certain distinctive features of her outfit (although it was fanciful, it was somewhat démodé—judging from the magazines, such broad hats and boots with silver buttons were no longer being worn this season), Lisitsyna concluded that this lady was probably one of the local inhabitants. She was very good-looking, but rather pale, and the impression she made was also spoiled by a glance that was far too rapid and hostile. The native woman also studied the noble lady from Moscow, resting her gaze on the fashionable
talma
, or cape, and the ginger curls protruding from beneath the mischievous-page-boy cap. The stranger's beautiful face contorted in fury and she turned away, looking for someone on the deck.

Intrigued, Polina Andreevna walked on a few steps, then turned back and put on her spectacles, and was rewarded for her prudence with an interesting scene.

Brother Jonah came out onto the gangway, saw the lady in black, and stopped dead in his tracks. But no sooner did she beckon him with a brief, imperious gesture than the captain went dashing down onto the quayside, almost skipping along. Recalling the monastic vow of celibacy once again, Polina Andreevna shook her head. She also observed another intriguing detail: as he drew level with the local woman, Jonah turned his head toward her slightly (the broad, coarse features of the captain's face were even redder than usual), but he did not stop—he only touched her hand gently. However, Mrs. Lisitsyna's eyes, assisted by her spectacles, observed some small, square paper object make the transition from the former whaler's massive hand to the gray suede glove covering the woman's slim palm—it was either a small envelope or a folded note.

Ah, the poor soul, Polina Andreevna sighed to herself and walked on, observing the holy town with interest.

The new pilgrim was extremely lucky with the weather that day. A gentle sun illuminated the golden domes of the churches and the bell towers, the white walls of the monastery, and the motley roofs of the local inhabitants’ houses with a placid melancholy. The new arrival especially liked the fact that in New Ararat the bright colors of autumn had not yet faded away: the trees were all warm yellows, browns, and reds, and the blue of the sky was not at all November-like, whereas in Zavolzhsk, even though it was located much farther south, the leaves had long since fallen and in the morning the puddles were covered with a crust of dirty ice.

Polina Andreevna recalled that in the wheelhouse the first mate had told them about some special “microclimate” on the islands, resulting from the whims of the warm currents and also, naturally, the Lord's especially favorable disposition toward this godly spot.

Before she even reached her hotel, the traveler had spied out all the unusual sights of New Ararat and formed her first impression of this peculiar town.

New Ararat appeared to Lisitsyna to be a very fine town, cleverly arranged, but at the same time strangely unfortunate, or, as she put it in her own mind, impoverished. Not in terms of a lack of public amenities or poor buildings—as far as that went, everything was in perfect order: the houses were very fine, mostly built of stone, the churches were numerous and magnificent (though they were very blocklike and did not reach for the heavens in that way that uplifts the soul), and the streets were a real treat for the eyes, with not a speck of dirt or a single puddle. Polina Andreevna dubbed the town impoverished because to her it seemed strangely joyless, and she had not expected that from a monastery so close to God.

It took the pilgrim a little time to puzzle out the reason for this state of deprivation. In fact, Mrs. Lisitsyna was only struck by the answer after she had settled into her hotel. The very first thing she did there was to announce that she wished personally to present the father superior with a donation of five hundred rubles—and she was immediately granted an audience, on the very first day. The population of the Immaculate Virgin, including the staff, consisted entirely of women, and so the décor in the rooms was dominated by embroidered curtains, padded pouffes and cushions, and little benches with cloth covers—the new guest, accustomed to the simplicity of a conventual cell, disliked this mawkish display intensely. And as she emerged from this female heaven out onto the street, the contrast suddenly brought home to Polina Andreevna what was wrong with the town itself.

It was also a simulacrum of Heaven, but in this case a male one. Everything here was run by men—they did everything and arranged everything as they saw fit, with no thought for any wives, daughters, or sisters, and therefore the town had turned out like a guards’ barracks: spruce and neat to the point of geometrical precision, and yet not the sort of place where you would want to live.

Having made this discovery, Lisitsyna began looking around her with redoubled curiosity. So this was how men would arrange life on earth if they were given total freedom! Praying, pushing broomsticks, growing huge beards, and marching in formation (Polina Andreevna had encountered a detachment of the monastery's “peacekeepers”). And then she began feeling sorry for everyone: New Ararat and the men and the women. But more for the men than the women, because women could get by somehow or other without men, but if the men were left to themselves, they were certain to come to grief. They would either run riot and start behaving like animals, or fall into this kind of arid lifelessness. She didn't know which was worse.

A Kitten Is Rescued

AS HAS ALREADY been mentioned, the generous female donor had been promised an almost immediate audience with His Reverence Vitalii, and so on leaving her hotel she set out straightaway in the direction of the monastery.

With its white walls and numerous domes, it could be seen from almost every point in the town, for it was located on the side of town that was elevated above the lake. From the last houses to the first structures flanking the monastery walls, most of which served some economic function, the path ran through a park laid out on the top of a rocky cliff with the indefatigable blue waves lapping gently at its foot.

As she walked along the edge of the lake, Polina Andreevna wrapped the woolen
talma
around her more tightly, for the wind was rather cool, but she did not move deeper into the park and away from the cliff edge—the view of the watery expanse was far too fine, and the gusty breeze refreshed rather than chilled her.

When she was already quite close to the boundary of the monastery itself, the ever-curious Lisitsyna saw that something unusual was going on in an open meadow that obviously served the locals as a favorite spot for walks, and she immediately turned in that direction.

At first she saw a crowd of people clustering together at the very edge of the cliff, by an old crooked alder tree, then she heard a child crying and some other piercing, plaintive sounds that she could not quite identify. Polina Andreevna, who was familiar from her experience as a teacher with all the subtle variations of children's crying, suddenly felt alarmed, because the note of unfeigned grief in the lament was quite unmistakable.

It took the young lady no more than half a minute to grasp what was going on.

In all honesty, it was a perfectly commonplace story, even somewhat comical. A little girl playing with a kitten had allowed it to climb up the tree. Clinging to the rough bark with its claws, the fluffy little beast had climbed too far and too high, and now it could not get down again. The danger of the situation was that the alder tree hung out over the sheer cliff, and the kitten was stuck on the longest and thinnest branch, with the waves splashing and foaming far below it.

It was clear straightaway that the poor creature could not be saved, and that was a shame, for he was quite charming: short white fur like swan's down and round blue eyes, with a satin ribbon lovingly tied around his neck.

Lisitsyna felt even sorrier for his owner, a girl of six or seven. She was very pretty too: dressed in a clean little
sarafan
, a bright-colored head scarf with locks of light-colored hair peeping out from under it, and little birch-bark sandals that looked as if they were made for a doll.

“Kuzya, Kuzenka!” the little child sobbed. “Come down—you'll fall!”

Come down, indeed! The kitten was clinging to the very end of the branch with its last ounces of strength. The wind was swaying its little white body, first to the right, then to the left, and it was quite clear that soon it would shake the poor thing off altogether.

Polina Andreevna observed the sad scene with her hands pressed to her heart. She recalled an occasion not so long before when she had found herself in the same position as this little kitten and had only been saved by the benign Providence of God. Remembering that terrible night, she crossed herself and whispered a prayer—not in gratitude for her own miraculous deliverance then, but for this poor doomed little creature: “Lord God, let the little kitten live a little longer! What is such a small thing to Thee?”

She realized, of course, that it would take a miracle to save the kitten, and it was not really appropriate for Providence to squander its miracles on an instance such as this. It would be somehow lacking in sublimity— absurd, in fact.

The crowd was not standing there in silence, of course—some were comforting the little girl; others were discussing how to save the foolish little beast.

One said, “You need to climb up, prop your foot against the branch, and scoop him up with a butterfly net”—although it was quite clear that there was nowhere in the park where you could possibly lay your hands on a butterfly net. Someone else was thinking aloud to himself: “You could lie on the branch and try to reach him, only you'd be sure to fall off. It's all very well to go risking your life for something important, but for a little animal like that…” And he was right, absolutely right.