“Well! If it isn’t Comrade Danila Kragin.”
I was at the Church of Saint Barbara. I paid my respects to the young woman from so long ago, then bowed my head to the woman there at that moment behind the iconostasis.
Monashina looked at me as she emerged gracefully from behind the screen, a thin smile on her face. I wondered what Barbara would think of this voluptuous beauty wearing the habit of her order.
Jesus, at least, didn’t say anything; he just gazed at me and Monashina from the screen.
“What brings you here today? Have you come to make a confession again?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said. What else? “I feel a pressing need to tell you exactly which despicable acts I’m about to commit and how I plan to commit them.”
“How awful,” Monashina said theatrically, leaning forward in a way that emphasized her soft and supple curves.
I, however, had neither the time nor the obligation to entertain her. I grabbed the envelope from my pocket, plucked out some rubles, and—resisted the urge to shove them at her.
Instead, I offered them, slowly and respectfully, to the nun. “A donation,” I said. “I certainly wouldn’t want anything I say here getting out.”
“My, my!” Monashina blinked like an innocent girl, as if to say she’d never imagined I would offer her such a vast sum.
Her every gesture, though, was staged, all a performance.
“O Christ Jesus, Son of God. By your mother’s intercession and that of all the saints, we pray you have mercy upon us…”
Still hamming it up—but also looking shockingly genuine—she offered a prayer to the Savior.
“So you’ll hear my confession?” I asked guardedly.
“Yes, of course.” Monashina nodded with the compassion of Mary herself. “This khram is a haven for human hearts, and a place of refuge for all those who handle fire.” Her epitrachelion swayed, emphasizing the curve of her breasts.
“Khorosho.”
Without another moment of hesitation, I unloaded my orders on the nun.
Yeah, this was gonna be sinful, all right. But it was something I was doing for me, because I was thinking about myself. If the Savior and his mother and the murdered Barbara were going to forsake anyone, I hoped they would stick to just me.
There might not be any unscientific being, but those three people, well, I guess they really existed.
“This is somewhat urgent. I’ll need to perform the liturgy and offer the tainstvo <mysteries>.” Once she’d heard me out, Monashina thought for a moment, then muttered, “Amen.” She turned to me and said, “However, I trust God will watch over you.”
“You think he’ll be in time for me to commit my sins?”
“You must not doubt the works of our Lord Jesus, Danila Kragin.”
The works of the son of a carpenter who really existed? Yeah, I could have faith in those. After all, he was a laborer—one of the people.
“Spasibo, comrade,” I said, smirking, to the man on the iconostasis. I slowly got to my feet. Kneeling on the stone floor of the nave was awfully cold. I wasn’t going to stay there any longer than it took to conduct my business. I didn’t have the time, anyway.
—Wait. Am I really done with my business here?
I found myself locking eyes with the man, who stared steadily down at me.
I heaved a sigh and look back at Monashina. “Just a side question,” I said. I wasn’t asking this out of duty. Pity and embarrassment were foremost in my mind. “My…family. Could you pray for their good fortune, too?”
“I’ll have to pray your share as well, then,” Monashina said, answering as quickly and firmly as any actual cleric.
I gave a click of my tongue and a little “pfah.”
Monashina put her hand over her mouth and chuckled. “Yes, indeed. This much you may consider an act of service to a pious disciple. Think nothing of it.”
I didn’t want to talk to her another minute. This time I was really done here.
I turned on my heel and hurried toward the door.
I heard Monashina intone “O blessed Mary,” and then begin reciting a prayer. “Open unto us the gate of mercy, that none who turn to you should perish, but by your intercession may avoid disaster.”
—You are the salvation of the people of Christ.
The last thing I heard before the door slammed shut behind me was Monashina crying “May it be so! Amen!”
✦ ✦ ✦
I quietly opened the door of the bar. It was a small place, with the lonesome air of a watering hole that’s just opened for the day. The inside was grimy, with only a counter and some tables around which you could stand and drink. The clientele consisted of a redheaded guide, a scholar, and an author.
Chances were, the next thing I did was going to involve trespassing on military property. I shrugged and sat at the counter.
I ordered a vodka, then leaned on the counter and waited for the appointed time. I heard the dull clatter of a tram approaching outside, then going away again. The scholar and the author seemed to be talking idly about something, but everyone was pointedly ignoring everyone else’s conversations. Including the guide, whom they had presumably hired—he wasn’t interested in his customers’ situations.
Neither was I.
That was all the peoples’ work. I didn’t stand to gain anything if they failed, so I wished them success. And if they happened to do very well and maybe shared some of that good fortune with me, well, so much the better.
After a few minutes, the three of them stood up and wove their way out of the bar. I heard a ’58 Land Rover sputter to life and drive away.
I kept waiting a little while longer.
“Thanks for your patience, comrade.”
“Oh, it was nothing, comrade,” I said, raising my shot of vodka to Brigadier Koropchenko when he finally arrived. “Indulge with me?”
“I’ll pass,” he said seriously. “I’m trying to look after my health.”
“That a fact?” I downed the contents of my glass in one gulp and smacked it back down on the counter. The bartender brought me my next drink immediately. You needed some spirits to be in, well, high spirits.
If this mafia guy was looking after his health, that meant he hadn’t fiddled around with any of his internal organs. I felt a twinge of affinity with him. Just a twinge, mind you.
“So, Danya,” Koropchenko said, all familiar. “You said you needed something?”
The mafia was kind to everyone, at least if you ranked higher than an errand boy. If you were a soldier with even a hint of intelligence about you, they could be very nice.
See, if you went around baring your fangs and growling at everyone all the time, your prey would be too scared to get close to you.
So I decided to lay down some breadcrumbs. If I couldn’t get the brigadier on board, I’d be in trouble. “It’ll be no trouble for you. There’s even a reward. And it shouldn’t be dangerous.”
“Hmm.” Koropchenko crossed his arms pointedly and made a show of considering.
All right, don’t panic yet. This was a ripple on the surface of the river that was Koropchenko.
Not that I’d ever been fishing.
“Well, you’ve helped us out more than once. I can at least hear what you have to say,” he said.
In other words, I’d hooked him. Or maybe I was the one on the line. Either way, it didn’t matter.
I took some rubles from the envelope in my pocket and placed them on the counter. “What I’m hoping you’ll help me with is…”
Then I gave him the rundown on the plan I’d come up with—just the parts he needed to know. Some guys tried to play it real sly at moments like this, hide everything they could, but that was stupid. They might be worried that the info would leak out from somewhere, but in their desperation to keep it all close to the vest, they only made themselves look suspicious.
Voron voronu glaz ne viklyuyet <A crow won’t peck out another crow’s eye>, as they say. If you don’t want your eye pecked out, make sure the other guy knows that you’re a crow, just like he is.
“Oh, is that all? I don’t mind a bit, comrade. Consider it done.”
There, see? I raised an eyebrow. “You sure? I know I’m the one who asked, but this is pretty dicey.”
“Oh, sure. I’ve been wanting to get the young soldiers some practice. This will be a perfect opportunity.”
“Sounds good.” I drained my glass and slapped some kopecks on the counter.
“Then again, there’ll probably be another outlandish demand for our favorite Janitor in the future,” Koropchenko said.
“Tsk. I’ll do the job, and you know it,” I said, and we both laughed. Empty laughs, signifying nothing.
“Very well, then, comrade. See you again.”
“Yeah. Till next time, comrade.”
I shook hands with Koropchenko, then showed myself out of the bar.
It wasn’t that I particularly trusted him or had any faith in him. We just happened to be eating from the same feed trough. But that was enough.