Dmitri and the One-Legged Lady

3

Who on earth, thought Dmitri, was Volkov? As soon as he entered the Governor’s room, however, and saw the blue tunic and the white gloves, he knew exactly who, or, rather, what, Volkov was. The Corps of Gendarmes was the specialist branch of the Ministry of the Interior which dealt with political offences. But what was a man like that doing here?

‘Most gratifying,’ the Governor was saying, ‘most gratifying! But … a little surprising, also. Over a thing so small!’

‘It may seem small,’ said Volkov, bowing acknowledgement, ‘but the Corps has learned to look behind things.’

‘Yes, yes, I’m sure … but … a mere icon!’

‘In itself it may be small. In what it stands for, however, in what it indicates, it may be much larger.’

‘Well, yes. Yes, of course. No doubt about it. But … exactly what –?’

‘Godlessness,’ the Procurator cut in helpfully. ‘The theft of a holy icon!’ He shook his head. ‘What is the nation coming to?’

‘What indeed?’ said the Governor, catching on. ‘It is a sad state of affairs when –’

But Volkov seemed unmoved.

‘Sacrilege?’ said the Governor hopefully.

‘A blow at the Church?’ offered the Procurator.

There was a slight flicker – or was there? – on the impassive face.

‘A blow at –?’ the Procurator hesitated, searching around. ‘Authority!’ he cried, with sudden inspiration.

This time the flicker was definite.

‘A blow at Authority!’ cried the Procurator, confident now. ‘At – at the Tsar himself!’

‘The Tsar himself!’ echoed the Governor in appalled tones.

Volkov gave an almost imperceptible nod.

‘Or just a simple theft?’ said Dmitri.

The cold eyes dwelled on him for a moment, dwelled and then dismissed him as an insect.

‘Do peasants normally riot about simple thefts?’ asked Volkov.

‘Riot?’ said Dmitri. ‘I don’t think I would go so far as to call it that.’

‘The Chief of Police has asked us to send in Cossacks to put it down.’

‘He is mistaken,’ said Dmitri.

The eyes turned back to him and rested.

‘Mistaken?’

‘The icon was very dear to them. All they were doing was protesting about the lack of progress on the case.’

‘Yes,’ said Volkov, ‘the lack of progress.’

The Procurator swallowed.

‘We have done all we could, Excellency –’ he pleaded.

‘A mere icon,’ said the Governor, ‘a simple theft!’

‘Riot?’ said Volkov. ‘Missiles thrown at the police?’

‘Maximov exaggerates,’ said Dmitri. ‘I was there.’

Volkov looked at him almost with interest.

‘Ah, yes.’ he said. ‘It’s in the report. The young Assistant Procurator who lost his head.’

‘Did he say that?’ demanded Dmitri hotly.

‘Certainly his own feats loomed large in the report,’ said Volkov with a wintry smile. ‘But then, we have learned to look behind that also.’

‘Did he say that he had done a deal with them?’

‘Deal?’

‘That if they would disperse and give me time to complete the investigation, he would not send for the Cossacks?’

‘I don’t believe in doing deals with peasants,’ said Volkov. ‘Especially rebellious ones. Do a deal with them on one thing and they expect you to do a deal on others.’

‘Quite so!’ said the Governor.

‘Absolutely right!’ said the Procurator, looking daggers at Dmitri.

‘So you will be sending in the Cossacks?’

‘Not yet,’ said Volkov, looking at Dmitri with his wintry smile.

‘A glass of vodka after your journey?’ suggested the Father Superior.

‘Tea,’ said Volkov.

The Father Superior went over to the samovar, which stood in a corner of the refectory. It was basically a large urn with a vertical pipe up the middle in which wood was burned to keep the surrounding water at the boil. The teapot stood on top with the tea leaves already in it and a little water, to which boiling water was added from the samovar.

‘Sugar?’ said the Father Superior.

‘Lemon,’ said Volkov.

‘Jam,’ said Dmitri.

The Father Superior brought the glasses back to the table.

‘The peasants, then,’ said Vokov, ‘are unusually pious in your area?’

‘Pious?’ said the Father Superior, startled. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘And yet they riot about an icon?’

‘I wouldn’t say riot, exactly.’

‘What would you say?’

‘I would call it an expression of concern. Which got a little out of hand.’

‘Out of hand. Yes. And why was that, do you think? Why were they so concerned?’

‘Well, the Icon was very dear to them –’

‘Aren’t all icons dear to them? What is so special about this one?’

‘Its associations, I suppose.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Volkov, ‘its associations.’

He swirled the lemon round in his glass and glanced towards the samovar. It was an old one, not made of metal as most of the new ones were, but of some special kind of china, at least on the outside, which was covered with little blue tiles.

‘And what are its associations?’

‘Well, it’s associated with the relief of famine. At any rate, up in Tula, where it comes from.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Volkov, ‘Tula.’

‘It’s quite an interesting story, in fact. It begins in the last century with a lady conspicuous for her good works. Among them was the relief of famine. She had the habit, whenever there was a famine, of driving around the countryside distributing food. Well, you know how these things get magnified in the popular mind. After her death it was claimed that she had performed miracles. You know, turning stones into bread, or if not that, bad wheat into good. And there was sufficient authentication for the miracles for the Church to agree, after her death, to an icon being commissioned in her name. It was paid for by public subscription.’

‘Public subscription?’

‘Yes. Unusual, that, I know. But she was very popular, you see. And some of that popularity rubbed off on the Icon. Whenever there was famine in the area after that, the Icon was taken out and carried through the fields.’

‘Why?’ said Volkov.

The Father Superior looked at him in surprise.

‘As a focus for their prayers. It was believed that in some way she was able to mediate for them. We are talking of the popular mind here. There was some confusion between the Icon and the original lady. Of course, from the Orthodox point of view –’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Volkov, ‘the Orthodox point of view.’

‘– all this is a little suspect. Theologically, that is. But in rural areas –’

‘And was it a focus for anything else?’ asked Volkov.

‘Anything else?’ said the Father Superior, staring.

‘There was always a lot of peasant unrest around Tula.’

‘I don’t see –’

‘Especially in time of famine. You say that the Icon was carried round the villages?’

‘Well, yes, but –’

‘Which rebelled at that time.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘This is just an icon!’ said Dmitri.

‘It is not what it is,’ said Volkov patiently, ‘but what it means. In the Corps of Gendarmes we learn to look behind things.’

They stood for some time in the Chapel watching the pilgrims coming in. They came in a steady stream. As one group was going out, another would be coming in. Each group would go up to the iconostasis, genuflect and stand for a moment, heads bowed, before an icon. Often, then, they would raise their heads and gaze at the icon, sometimes for several minutes, as if rapt.

‘It is good to see them accepting the disciplines of the Holy Church,’ said Volkov.

‘Well, yes,’ said the Father Superior, pleased.

‘On the other hand it is worrying.’

‘Worrying?’ said the Father Superior.

‘To see how much the icons mean to them.’

He was looking at the large space that had been occupied by the One-Legged Lady. Many of the pilgrims went straight up to it and behaved as if the icon was still there. They bent their heads, their lips moved in prayer and often they would gaze as if they could see it. Some even kissed the ground in front of it.

They went out into the courtyard. It was packed with pilgrims. As they came through the gates they divided into several streams. One headed straight for the Chapel, another, carrying packs, made for the dormitory. Yet another went to the kitchens.

‘Where do they all come from?’ asked Volkov.

‘Oh, everywhere,’ said the Father Superior. ‘And not just the province, either.’

‘Where do you come from, friend?’

Volkov asked one of the pilgrims, a tall, bearded, wasted man.

‘Tula, brother,’ said the man.

‘Ah, Tula?’ said Volkov. ‘And why have you come down here?’

‘To pray, brother. And to look for succour.’

‘Succour?’

‘It’s been a bad year up there. The crops have failed again –’

‘And you, friend?’ he asked another man. ‘Where do you come from?’

‘Galich. It’s near Tula –’

Dmitri detached himself and started making his way across the yard to the gate-house. On his way he passed a group of men squatting down, oblivious to the snow, their backs against a wall, talking. Among them was the big peasant who had accosted the Father Superior on Dmitri’s first visit. The man looked up and saw him.

‘Still here, then?’ said Dmitri.

‘Well, there’s not much point in going back to Tula, is there? With me away, what food there is will go further.’

‘They’ll miss you, Ivan,’ said one of the men squatting beside him.

‘Do you think I don’t know that? But at least if I’m here there’s a chance I could do something. Suppose the Old Lady turns up? I’d be able to get on to her right away.’

‘There’ll be plenty of others doing that.’

‘Yes, but I can’t just sit at home doing nothing. I’m not made like that. I can’t just sit there watching them fade away before my eyes!’

‘You’ve got to practise patience, brother. God will provide.’

‘Yes, but He’s not provided yet, has He? And if He doesn’t start doing it soon, it’s going to be too late. Now, what I reckon is this: He’s a loving God, isn’t He, and if He knew about it, He’d do something about it. So it stands to reason He can’t have heard about it, and that’s very understandable because He’s got the whole world to think about and it’s easy to miss a few corners. But, you see, that’s just where the Old Lady comes in. She’d be there, knock-knock-knocking on the door, nagging away all the time, just like my old woman, and in the end He’d just have to hear, wouldn’t He? And what I reckon is,’ concluded the big peasant, ‘that’s why they’ve taken her away.’

‘You’ve lost me, Ivan,’ said someone beside him, who had been listening hard. ‘If she’s the one who could get through to Him, why would they want to take her away?’

‘Because they don’t want her to get through to Him.’

The whole group was listening.

‘Why wouldn’t they want that, Ivan?’

‘Because they’re mean bastards, that’s why. And because this way they’ve got us where they want us: on our back with their thumbs on our wind-pipe!’

‘They’re not that bloody mean, are they?’

‘They bloody are!’

‘I don’t reckon you ought to talk like that, Ivan,’ said someone uneasily, seeing the blue tunic and while gloves coming across the yard.

‘I’m not afraid of him!’ said Ivan.

‘No,’ said someone who evidently knew the family, ‘but you are afraid of Agafa, aren’t you, and she’ll be up your backside if she hears you’ve got yourself arrested just when she’s sick and needs you!’

‘She certainly will!’ said a deep voice behind them. It was Father Sergei.

‘And they’re quite right: you’re needed at home! So let’s be off with you!’

He bent down and with surprising strength yanked the big peasant to his feet.

‘I can’t go empty-handed!’ protested Ivan.

‘Who’s talking about going home empty-handed? You come with me to the kitchens and I’ll get Father Osip to fill up a sack for you!’

He shepherded the big man dexterously away.

‘Anyway,’ muttered one of the men as they watched them go, ‘I reckon you’re up the creek, Ivan; about them taking the Old Girl, I mean. She’d be far too fly for them. I don’t think they’ve got her at all. I reckon she’s well on her way to Opona by now.’

‘You men,’ said Volkov, ‘where do you come from?’

‘Tula,’ they said.

‘Aren’t there monasteries up there?’

‘There’s the Kaminski,’ said someone.

‘What’s wrong with the Kaminski?’ said Volkov. ‘Why aren’t you going there?’

‘Because the Old Lady is down here,’ said one of the men. ‘Or should be.’

‘She used to be up there,’ another man said. ‘But then she was brought here.’

‘Why was that?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the man. ‘It seems daft to me. Tula is where she belongs.’

‘If she was up there,’ said another man, ‘we wouldn’t be down here. We’d be going to the Kaminski.’

‘And what would you be doing with her?’ said Volkov.

‘Doing with her?’ said the man, surprised. ‘Nothing. We’d be praying to her, I suppose.’

‘It’s what she’d be doing for us,’ said someone, ‘not what we’d be doing with her.’

‘And what would she be doing for you?’

‘Putting a word in,’ said one of the men.

‘You see, Your Excellency,’ someone explained, ‘word’s not getting through at the moment. Not up in Tula, I mean. God doesn’t hear us. There’s terrible famine in the province and –’

‘The Tsar hears you,’ asserted Volkov.

His listeners seemed unconvinced.

Dmitri followed Father Sergei and Ivan to the kitchen. The way was blocked by a massive farm cart. On top of the cart was a large square behind dressed in a faded red skirt. The behind heaved and a shower of cabbages descended into a wicker-work basket that a man was holding beside the cart. They hit the basket like blocks of ice, which they almost were, having been dug out of a snow-covered heap only that morning. The woman straightened and Dmitri saw that her hands and forearms were bare.

‘Cold work. Mother,’ he said

The woman looked down.

‘Not if you keep busy,’ she said. ‘You must try it some time, young Barin!’

She roared with laughter and bent down into the cart again. Another shower of cabbages hit the basket.

‘Is that about it?’ said the man below.

He took the basket away into the kitchens and the woman climbed down on to the ground.

‘Who are you, then?’ she said to Dmitri. ‘You don’t look as if you belong here.’

‘I’m from the Court House at Kursk,’ said Dmitri.

‘Oh, you’re after the One-Legged Lady, are you? Well, you won’t find her here. She’ll be half way to Opona by now. Or else that daft old monk has got her tucked away somewhere and forgotten where he put her!’

The man came back, this time carrying a glass of tea.

‘This’ll warm you up, Grusha,’ he said.

‘It’d warm me up even more if it had a spot of something in it,’ she said.

The man laughed and took the glass away.

‘You’re in here every week, are you?’ said Dmitri.

‘That’s right.’

‘Are there many other carts coming and going?’

‘Not at this time of year. There’s Nikita Pulov bringing logs but apart from that –’ She thought, and shook her head. ‘More in the summer, of course. Sometimes you can’t get into the yard for them. Them and sleighs.’

‘Do you ever get asked to take things out?’ asked Dmitri.

The old woman looked at him shrewdly.

‘I wonder what you’re thinking of?’ she said. Then she laughed. ‘No such luck! If they’d asked me, I’d have jumped at it. You don’t get much for cabbages, you know. Not from this mean lot!’

‘Who’s a mean lot?’ said the man, returning. ‘Does that mean you don’t want this glass, then?’

The old woman grabbed it.

‘That’s better!’

‘I’d hope so. I put two spots in that, Grusha!’

‘You’re all right,’ she said. ‘It’s the fathers I’m talking about.’

‘It’s true they don’t throw their money around,’ the man acknowledged.

‘Except when it comes to tarting the place up,’ said Grusha, looking up at the onions sparkling in the sunlight.

Dmitri found Father Sergei and the big peasant in the kitchen holding a sack.

‘Bread won’t do,’ the peasant was saying. ‘It won’t last.’

‘I was thinking of grain.’

‘Will he go along with that? He is a mean old skinflint.’

‘He’ll go along with it, all right. He’s a country boy like yourself. Comes from Bushenko. He knows what grain means.’

‘Well –’

Father Sergei looked up and saw Dmitri.

‘You go on in there and ask him,’ he said, giving the peasant a push. ‘And then be on your way! Oh, and drop in at the gate-house on your way out. I’ve got a few things I’d like you to deliver. My people come from up there,’ he explained to Dmitri.

Ivan ambled out through the door.

‘Now,’ said Father Sergei, turning to Dmitri. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Vehicles,’ said Dmitri. ‘Going in and out. Especially out. Even more especially, on the day after the Icon was stolen.’

Dmitri went round to the back of the building, where he found a cart standing beside a log shed. The cart was empty except for a few odd bits of kindling and some wood shavings in the bottom but two or three oblong wooden frames, as for windows, were leaning against it.

A boy came out of the shed.

‘Peter knocks them up for the mill,’ he said, seeing Dmitri looking at the frames, ‘and Nikita takes them back in his cart.’

‘I’m looking for Nikita,’ said Dmitri.

‘They’re in the Chapel,’ said the boy. ‘If you’d like to come with me, Barin –’

He took Dmitri through the shed. Logs, some birch, some pine, were piled high to the ceiling. Drops of gum glistened on the pine like ice and the air was pungent with the smell of resin. At the far end of the shed was a carpenter’s bench. They scuffed through shavings.

They went out of a door and then across a little closed in yard, and then along dark cold corridors until they emerged in the main yard not far from the door of the Chapel.

Dmitri went in with a group of pilgrims.

‘Where’s the Old Lady, then?’ said one man as they went through the door into the darkness and the candle-light.

Someone pointed to the space left by the missing icon. The group went up to it and stood for a moment before it.

‘This won’t do,’ one of them said.

Reluctantly, they divided up and went to the other icons.

‘It’s not the same,’ grumbled one as they went out.

The door closed behind them and the shadows recomposed themselves.

‘It’s not healthy,’ said a voice suddenly.

Dmitri turned. It was Volkov.

‘What isn’t?’

‘This attachment.’ He surveyed the wistful, candle-lit faces on the iconostasis. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing she’s gone missing,’ he said.

Dmitri had thought they were alone in the Chapel but then behind the iconostasis there was the shuffling of feet. A door opened and the carpenter and another man came through dragging a curious wooden structure behind them. They saw Volkov’s uniform and froze.

‘The carpenter,’ said Dmitri. ‘And you’re Nikita?’ he said to the other man.

‘Your Honour,’ managed the man, hardly able to speak.

‘He’s the carter,’ said Dmitri, ‘he brings logs in to the Monastery. And what do you take out?’ he asked the man.

‘Take out. Your Honour?’

‘He doesn’t take out anything,’ said the carpenter.

‘I saw some frames?’

‘Oh, those. It’s a bit of a sideline. Your Honour. When they’ve got a big job on. I sometimes help them out.’

‘What’s this?’ said Dmitri, looking at the contraption they were supporting.

‘It’s for the Old Lady, Your Honour. When she gets back.’

‘The Old Lady?’ said Volkov. ‘The Icon?’

‘That’s right, Your Honour. It’s for when they want to carry her. You see, she’s very big and heavy, and if you tried to lift her up on to your shoulders, so that everyone could get a good look at her, you’d never manage it. She’d be too much for you. So what I’ve done is build a frame, which makes it a bit easier. I’ve put a couple of long struts on the back so that those behind can take a bit of the weight –’

‘One of the struts needs a bit of work on it,’ said the carter, finding his voice. ‘Otherwise we won’t be able to carry her out at Easter.’

‘Out?’ said Volkov.

‘Yes, Your Honour. In the Easter processions, we go round all the villages and –’

‘Out?’ said Volkov. ‘You take her out?’

As they were leaving the Chapel, Father Kiril came towards them, eyes blazing.

‘Keep them in chains, I say,’ he said. ‘Keep them in chains!’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘That’s what you’ve got to do. Otherwise they’re up to no end of tricks. Down in the field, I’ve seen them. At it!’

‘Yes, well, –’

‘They’re all the same. Give them half a chance.’ He nodded towards the space on the iconostasis. ‘She’s no different.’

‘She?’

‘They took the chains off her. That was their mistake. She’s no different from any of the others. Take the chains off them and off they go. Down to the fields.’

‘Ye-es,’ said Volkov, edging away.

There was a sudden commotion at the gates. Old Grusha’s cart, on its way out, had skidded. The wheels had slipped round and into a snowdrift and now the cart was trapped against one of the posts.

‘It’s those damned fools there!’ Old Grusha was shouting, pointing at a group of pilgrims. ‘They wouldn’t get out of the way! You’ve got no more sense than the horse, you haven’t! Do you think it can skip around like you can when it’s pulling a bloody great wagon? You –’

‘Grusha, Grusha!’ chided Father Sergei, running out of the gate-house.

‘I’ll break their bloody necks!’ shouted Grusha, jumping down.

One of the pilgrims caught her.

‘Father –?’ he looked at Father Sergei.

‘Just get her out of the way!’ said another of the pilgrims. ‘We’ll sort this out in a second.’

Father Sergei took hold of the still-raging Grusha and began to pull her towards the gate-house.

‘Come on in here, Grusha, and warm up. There’s a nice bit of a fire in the stove –’

Gradually, he got her to calm down.

‘A spot of tea, Grusha, to warm the inside?’

‘I’d prefer a spot of something else.’

‘You’ve had that already!’ said Father Sergei sternly.

‘Me? Me? The horse, perhaps –’

Dmitri followed them into the gate-house. The old woman stopped, befuddled, in mid-shout, as the warmth hit her.

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