Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel (66 page)

Canaan

AS EARLY AS 1500 B.C.E., Canaan was a small country populated by many different societies. From the invasion of twelve Hebrew tribes led by Joshua in 1200 B.C.E. and the rebuilding of Canaanite towns by Roman Palestinians in the first century C.E., to the conquest by Turkish Muslims up through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Canaan has played host to warring ideals, cultures, and religious factions. Through all this conflict, however, the mythology of the land has remained intact, with each new inhabiting group adapting its own beliefs to the foundations upon which Canaan was born.

In the “Land of Purple,” the early Canaanites were a people characterized by their sophisticated agriculture and their invention of an early form of the alphabet, which was ultimately passed on to many Western cultures by the Greeks and Romans. Because of the Canaanites’ preoccupation with agriculture, their religion teemed with abundant fertility motifs and references to the forces of nature upon which agriculture depended. Eventually, as more powerful neighboring regions became attracted to Canaan’s economic growth and success in trade, it was eventually absorbed by and incorporated into the Greco-Roman world. As a result, only one of the two original Canaanite languages, Aramaic, is still spoken today in a handful of small Syrian villages; Phoenician Canaanite disappeared as a spoken language around 100 C.E.

Sodom

WHILE THERE IS still much speculation over whether Sodom actually existed, its mythology continues to influence present-day language, ethics, and human understanding.

Located just south of the Dead Sea, Sodom is most notoriously known as being a hotbed of sin until God, infuriated by the wickedness of its inhabitants—infamous for their homosexual activity—destroyed Sodom and its sister city, Gomorrah, in a storm of fire and brimstone. Only Lot, Abrahams nephew, and his family were spared.

Although it is unclear whether the Old Testament account considered all Sodomites homosexual, they were indeed, save Lot, pagan, and therefore accused of performing sinful, sadistic acts of violence and sex, both on themselves and more fervently on visitors.

Wailing Wall

ALSO KNOWN AS the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, as the sole remnant of the Holy Temple built by King Solomon, is a place of spiritual significance for Jews. It is the closest accessible site to the holiest spot in Jerusalem, the Foundation Stone, which lies on the Temple Mount. According to ancient Jewish midrashic texts, the western wall of the Temple would stand for eternity; hence the survival of the Wailing Wall and the reverence for it today.

Many Jews make the pilgrimage to the Holy City for the opportunity to pray at the Wailing Wall. Jewish custom dictates that when praying the Silent Prayer, Jews face toward the Temple, the source of all God’s bounty and blessing. Through the ages, Jews have gathered at the Wall to express gratitude to God or to pray for divine mercy. The term “wailing” refers to the grief pilgrims are obligated to feel upon witnessing the Temple’s desolate ruins. One tradition states that when water starts trickling through the stones of the Wall—when the Wall itself begins to wail—it will signal the Messiah’s advent.

There are many rules for visitors to the Wailing Wall. Although pilgrims are not required to rend their garments when approaching the Wall, many still discard their shoes and socks as a sign of respect and of their disassociation from material concern. It is also a common practice to bring notes containing written prayers to the Wall and press them into the cracks. And while this is accepted and even encouraged, placing one’s fingers into the cracks and removing pieces of the Wall is forbidden, as is any practice that involves desecrating the Wall in any way—an attempt to protect its sanctity and holiness for generations to come.

Courtesy of Jillian Schiavi

Garden of Gethsemane

THE GARDEN OF Gethsemane is said to have been Jesus Christ’s favorite place to reflect and pray in Jerusalem. According to biblical texts, this is where he and his disciples spent the night before he was crucified—Jesus continually praying to the Holy Father for forgiveness and guidance, with his disciples, true to their frail human form, continually falling asleep until the fateful moment when Judas arrived and betrayed their leader.

The name Gethsemane literally means “oil press” and refers to the abundance of olive trees that populate its groves and provide revenue for the surrounding villages. It remains a very holy place, just below the Mount of Olives and outside Jerusalem’s city walls.

Mount of Olives

THE MOUNT OF Olives is often mentioned as another of Jesus’s most cherished locales in Jerusalem. According to some historians, by late antiquity (300–600 C.E.), the holiest and most privileged site of Jewish prayer in Jerusalem was located here, and only towards the end of the Middle Ages did Jews gradually reconvene at the site of the Wailing Wall for their prayers.

THE LANDS PELAGIA visits in this latest expedition are steeped in colorful mythology, history, and custom. From the forests of the Ural Mountains to the garden oases of Israel, adventurers and pilgrims, young and old, real and fictitious alike have much to explore and to experience along this path. Have rooster, will travel.

BORIS AKUNIN is the pen name of Grigory Chkhartishvili, who was born in the Republic of Georgia in 1956. A philologist, critic, essayist, and translator of Japanese, Akunin published his first detective stories in 1998 and has already become one of the most widely read authors in Russia. In addition to the Sister Pelagia series, he is also the author of eleven Fandorin novels, including
The Winter Queen, The Turkish Gambit, Murder on the Leviathan, The Death of Achilles
, and
Special Assignments
, available from Random House Trade Paperbacks. He lives in Moscow.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

ANDREW BROMFIELD was born in Hull in Yorkshire, England, and is the acclaimed translator of the stories and novels of Victor Pelevin. He also translated into English Boris Akunin’s first five Erast Fandorin mysteries,
The Winter Queen, The Turkish Gambit, Murder on the Leviathan, The Death of Achilles
, and
Special Assignments
.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.

A Random House Trade Paperback Original

Translation copyright © 2008 by Random House, Inc.
Dossier copyright © 2009 Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York.

RANDOM HOUSE TRADE PAPERBACKS, MORTALIS, and colophons
are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

This work was originally published in Russian as
Pelagiya i krasnyi petukh
by Zakharov Publishers, Moscow, in 2002, copyright © 2002 by Boris Akunin.

This English translation was originally published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
London, in 2008.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Akunin, B. (Boris)
[Pelagiia i krasnyi petukh. English]
Sister Pelagia and the red cockerel : a novel / Boris Akunin;
translated by Andrew Bromfield.
p.    cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58836-868-3
I. Bromfield, Andrew. II. Title.
PG3478.K78P4613   2009
891.73′5—dc22    2008023897

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