Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel (47 page)

“It’s all right, Semyon knows the road.”

The forest road spiraled around the hill, gradually climbing higher. On both sides the trees pressed right up against it, like a stockade fence, and it was hard to believe that close by, only a hundred paces away, there was light and living people. And as ill luck would have it, Kesha said nothing.

“We seem to be driving for a long time,” said Matvei Bentsionovich, feeling anxious. “Will it still be long?” The question was asked without any particular purpose in mind, simply in order to hear the sound of a human voice, but the young man who had been so talkative before did not answer now.

The carriage straightened up and began rolling along a horizontal surface. After one final bend, the road led them out onto a large square paved with cobblestones. A massive tower loomed up straight ahead, with gates flanked by two flaming torches. In front of the gates there was a drawbridge, and below the drawbridge a moat—the same one that the hotel receptionist had claimed was home to a swamp monster.

“Br-rr-rr
, a gothic novel,” the state counselor said with a chilly shudder.

From somewhere above them a loud, coarse voice called out, “Whossere?”

Kesha opened the door on his side and stuck his head out. “Foma? It’s me, Innokentii! Open up. And switch on the lights, I can’t see a damn thing.”

Two lamps, the very latest word in electrical illumination, lit up the square. Time ceased its vacillation, returning from the middle of the second millennium to its end. Berdichevsky noted with delight the pillars and the wires, the mailbox on the gates. Medieval horrors and swamp snakes be damned!

A narrow little door opened and a heftily built man came out, dressed completely in black leather. The shirt with a low neck that showed his hairy, muscular chest was made of leather, and so were the high boots, and the tight-fitting trousers with a leather pouch at the crotch, as in sixteenth-century paintings.
A codpiece
, thought Berdichevsky, recalling the name of this absurd item of the medieval wardrobe. Only this was no codpiece, it was an entire, huge cod.

Kesha jumped lightly to the ground and stretched like a cat.

“Whossat?” Foma asked, pointing to Matvei Bentsionovich.

“With me. A guest. I’ll tell His Excellency. Let Semyon go,” the young man said, addressing the public prosecutor. “The count will give us his carriage for the drive back.”

When Berdichevsky paid the driver, the man seemed confused, as if there was something he was hesitant to say, and at the last moment he decided not to. He merely grunted, pulled his cap down over his eyes, and drove away.

The state counselor watched the carriage leave with a wistful gaze. Matvei Bentsionovich did not like the look of Castle Schwartzwinkel, despite the electric light and the mailbox.

They went inside.

Berdichevsky did not get a very clear impression of the courtyard and the buildings, because it is hard to make out architectural details in the dark. The setting seemed to be bizarre and fantastic: little towers, gryphons on waterspouts, stone chimeras silhouetted against the starry sky. In the main building there was electric light behind the curtains: dim on the ground floor, and bright on the second.

The visitors were met in the doorway by another servant, whom Kesha called Filip. He was dressed exactly the same way as Foma, which indicated that this was the livery of the counts servants. Once again the dimensions of the codpiece were impressive.
Do they stuff them with cotton wool or something?
the public prosecutor wondered, stealing a sly glance. And only then did the naïve man realize that these fine bucks were probably used by His Excellency for more than just running the household.

With his black leather creaking, Filip led the guests up a marble stairway decorated with statues of knights. When they reached a spacious, tastefully furnished room on the second floor, he bowed and went out, leaving Matvei Bentsionovich and Kesha alone.

The young man nodded toward a tall door that led into the inner chambers. “I’ll tell the count about you. You wait here in the reception room for a while.”

The public prosecutor had the impression that Kesha was nervous. The clerk straightened his tie in the mirror, then took out a little porcelain tube and deftly touched up the color of his lips. The surprise of it set Berdichevsky’s eyes blinking.

No sooner had the young man with blond hair disappeared into the next room than the state counselor leaped up out of his chair and tiptoed across to the door. He pressed his ear against it and listened.

He could hear Kesha’s rapid tenor patter, but he couldn’t make out the words. An unnaturally taut, springy voice that sounded as if it had been inflated with a pump said: “Oh, really?”

More unintelligible gabble.

“What’s that you say? Berg-Dichevsky?”

Kesha replied:
gabble-gabble-gabble
.

“Very well, let’s have a look at him.”

Matvei Bentsionovich swung around and in three swift, silent bounds he was back at his armchair and fell into it, casually crossing one leg over the other.

Then suddenly he noticed Filip standing in the doorway that led to the stairs. The servant was watching the guest with a stony expression on his face and his strong arms, naked up to the elbows, crossed on his chest.

Curses! Not only had he not heard anything useful, he had disgraced himself in front of a servant! The public prosecutor felt his face flooding with color, but there was no time to dwell on his error. The door of the drawing room opened, and the master of the house came out.

Berdichevsky saw an elegant gentleman with very white skin and very black hair. From a distance the mustache with curled-up ends looked like a line drawn in charcoal, dividing the face into two halves.
Ah, the infernal Zizi has been at work here
, the state counselor thought, drawing on his own recently acquired expertise in the dyeing of hair.

Charnokutsky was wearing a Chinese silk cap with a tassel and a black dressing gown with silver dragons, beneath which could be seen a white shirt with a lace collar. The magnate’s absolutely motionless face appeared to be ageless: there was not a single wrinkle on it. Only the faded blue of the eyes made it possible to surmise that their owner was closer to the sunset of his life than to its dawn. However, the gaze of His Excellency’s eyes was not sated and bored with life, but as sharp and inquisitive as a little boy’s. An old child—that was the description that occurred to Matvei Bentsionovich.

“Welcome, Mr. Berg-Dichevsky,” the host said in that rubbery voice with which the public prosecutor was already familiar. “Please forgive my informal dress. I was not expecting visitors at this late hour. People rarely come here without some advance arrangement. But I know that Innocent”—the word was pronounced in the French manner, with the stress on the final syllable—“would not bring anyone
… inappropriate”

It took Matvei Bentsionovich a moment to realize that the count was referring to Kesha—“Innokentii”—“Innocent.”

Charnokutsky flared his nostrils slightly, as if he were repressing a yawn. Suddenly it was clear why his voice sounded so unnatural: the count hardly moved his lips at all and employed no facial expressions—that must be in order to avoid wrinkles. Flaring the nostrils was undoubtedly his substitute for a smile.

When asked if he was related to the deceased Field Marshal Count Berg, the state counselor replied cautiously that he was, but only very very distantly.

“Better not tell the other Poles about that,” His Excellency said with another twitch of the nostrils. “It’s all the same to me, I’m an absolute cosmopolitan.”

As a result of this reply, Matvei Bentsionovich, first, recalled who Field Marshal Berg was—the oppressor of the Poles during the reigns of Nikolai Pavlovich and Alexander the Second—and, second, realized that his host had taken the cautious tone of his reply the wrong way. And thank God for that.

“What is it, Filip?” the count asked, gazing at his servant.

Filip bowed, walked up to the count, and whispered in his ear.

He’s told on me, the brute
.

Charnokutsky’s eyebrows lifted very slightly, and a spark of merriment glinted in the eyes turned toward the public prosecutor.

“So you are a marshal of the nobility? From the province of Zavolzhie?”

“What do you find so funny about that?” asked Matvei Bentsionovich and knitted his brows darkly, having decided that the best form of defense was attack. “Do you imagine Zavolzhie is such a hopeless backwater that it has no nobility?”

The count whispered something to Filip and patted him affectionately on his taut thigh, and then the scurvy lackey finally cleared off.

“No, no, what I found amusing was something quite different,” said the master of the house, examining his guest openly, in fact absolutely frankly. “It is amusing that Bronek Ratsevich’s friend of the heart should be a marshal of the nobility. That joker will always land on his feet. Tell me, how did you come to meet him?”

Berdichevsky had prepared an explanation to meet this eventuality on his way there.

“You know Bronek,” he said with a congenial smile. “Always up to mischief. He got himself into a silly spot of bother in our province. He tried to give a certain nun a fright, for a joke, but he tried a little too hard, and found himself in court. As a stranger who had no acquaintances in the town, he appealed to the marshal for help in choosing a lawyer. Naturally, I helped—as one nobleman to another …”

Matvei Bentsionovich paused eloquently, as if to say: You can guess for yourselves how events developed after that.

The smile that was like a yawn appeared once again on the count’s face. “Yes, he always did have a certain penchant for servants of the church. Do you remember that nun, Kesha, the one who wandered into the castle looking for charitable contributions? Remember how Bronek dealt with her, eh?”

The trembling of the nostrils was joined by a suppressed sobbing—this was obviously not simply laughter, but an entire paroxysm of mirth.

Kesha smiled too, only his smile seemed somehow crooked, even frightened. But the state counselor tensed inside at the mention of the nun. He seemed to be getting warm!

“But why are we standing here—please come through into the drawing room. I’ll show you my collection, which is absolutely unique after its own fashion.” Charnokutsky gestured to invite them in, and they all moved to the next room.

The walls of the drawing room were lined and draped with red velvet in a wide variety of tones, from light crimson to dark vermilion, which produced a strange, even malevolent impression. The electric lighting emphasized the shimmering transitions of this bloody palette, creating a glowing effect somewhere between a distant conflagration and a blazing sunset.

The first thing to catch Berdichevsky’s eye in this incredible drawing room was an Egyptian sarcophagus that contained an incredibly well-preserved female mummy.

“Twentieth dynasty, one of the daughters of Ramses the Fourth. I bought it from grave robbers in Alexandria for three thousand pounds sterling. She could be alive! Just take a look.” The count raised the muslin, and Matvei Bentsionovich saw a slim body, absolutely naked. “You see—this is the mark of the embalmer’s knife.” A slim finger with a polished nail followed a line stretching across the yellow, wrinkled stomach until it reached the mons pubis, when it was fastidiously withdrawn.

Turning his eyes away, the state counselor almost screamed out loud: there was a little negro girl gazing out at him from a glass cupboard, her eyes glinting as if she were alive.

“What’s that?”

“She’s stuffed. I brought her from Senegambia. For the sake of the tattoos. A genuine work of art!”

The count switched on a lamp below a shelf and Matvei Bentsionovich saw purple designs in the form of intertwined snakes on the dark brown skin.

“There is a tribe there in which the women are decorated with delightful tattoos. One little girl had just died. Well, I bought the body from the chief—for a Winchester rifle and a box of ammunition. Apparently the natives there thought I was a consumer of human flesh.” The counts nostrils twitched again. “But in fact one of my servants at the time was an outstanding taxidermist. Impressive work, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Berdichevsky replied with a gulp.

They moved on to the next exhibit. This proved to be less frightening: an ordinary human skull, and hanging above it a portrait of a powdered lady with a plunging décolleté and a capriciously pouting lower lip.

“And what’s this?” Matvei Bentsionovich asked with a feeling of relief.

“Do you not recognize Marie Antoinette? This is her head,” said the count, stroking the skull’s gleaming crown lovingly.

“How did you get hold of it?” Berdichevsky gasped.

“I acquired it from a certain Irish lord who happened to be in straitened circumstances at the time. One of his ancestors was in Paris during the Revolution and was quick-witted enough to bribe the executioner.”

The state counselor shifted his gaze from the portrait to the skull and back again, trying to discover at least some similarity between the human face in life and after death. He failed. The face existed in its own right, and so did the skull.
What a swine that Parisian executioner was
, Matvei Bentsionovich thought.