Michael Pearce - Dmitri and the One-Legged Lady

Gradually, the Monastery came into view. The flash came from a huge gold onion sitting on top of it. All around were subsidiary onions and scaly pineapples. They rose out of a pink-and-blue striped roof, beneath which were walls so white that they seemed an extension of the snow. The gold was very newly golden and the pink and blue so fresh that it almost leaped off the roof at you. The Monastery, thought Dmitri, must have rich patrons.

There was a black smudge in front of the gates which resolved itself, as they approached, into a crowd of people. They held out their hands as the sleigh hissed past them into the Monastery yard.

‘There are a lot of them,’ said Dmitri.

‘Who?’ said the Father Superior, preoccupied.

‘Beggars.’

‘Pilgrims,’ said the Father Superior, pained.

‘Eyeing her all over!’ said the monk.

‘What?’ said Dmitri, startled.

‘You could tell he was no Christian. Didn’t do his respects. Didn’t even cross himself. Just stood there. Eyeing her all over, like I said. Disgusting!’

‘Father Kiril, –’

‘Most of them show a bit of respect. Not him! There he stands, eyeing her all over. Bold as brass! “Show a bit of respect!” I say to him. And do you know what he says? “Bugger off!” That’s what he says.’

‘Father Kiril, –’

Light began to dawn.

‘This was an icon, was it?’ said Dmitri.

‘What did you think it was?’

‘The One-Legged Lady?’

‘Eyeing her all over –’

‘He’s always like this,’ said the Father Superior despairingly.

The Chapel was dark except for a solitary lamp swinging down from overhead and the candles standing in front of the icons. The lamp turned in the draught whenever the door was opened and sent shadows chasing across the walls. Then it swung back again and they reassembled themselves. The candles fluttered and the faces beneath the metal plates seemed to alter their expressions but then the flames steadied and they resumed their normal impassivity. The air was heavy with incense.

A wooden screen, corresponding to the rood-screen in old English churches, stretched right across the Chapel, separating off the chancel. This was the iconostasis. It was covered with icons. From time to time someone would come up, bow before one or another of the icons, cross themselves, mutter a prayer and then shuffle away.

It was from the iconostasis that the Holy Icon of the One-Legged Lady of Kursk had been taken. There was a big, raw gap almost in the centre of the screen. A length of chain dangled down on either side.

‘We had it chained,’ said the Father Superior, ‘but they filed them through.’

Dmitri looked at the thick links.

‘That would have taken some time,’ he said.

‘They had all night. There are no services between midnight and five.’

‘The Chapel is left open?’

‘Yes.’ The Father Superior hesitated. ‘Father Kiril likes to pray,’ he said reluctantly.

‘Did he pray last night?’

The Father Superior sighed.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He was here all the time.’

‘What?’ said Father Kiril.

‘Last night!’ shouted Dmitri. ‘The One-Legged Lady!’

He made motions desperately with his hands.

‘Disgusting!’ said the old man.

Dmitri looked despairingly at the Father Superior.

‘It’s no good,’ said the Father Superior. ‘We’ve tried everything. He can’t hear a word!’

‘Oh, yes, I can,’ said Father Kiril unexpectedly.

‘Except when he wants to,’ amended the Father Superior.

Dmitri tried again.

‘Last night –’

‘What?’ said Father Kiril.

The Father Superior preceded Dmitri through the door. As Dmitri made to follow him, a monk, emerging suddenly out of the shadows, seized him by the arm.

‘You don’t want to listen to him,’ he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of Father Kiril. ‘He’s past it!’

‘I can see he has difficulties –’

‘Difficulties!’ The monk snarled contemptuously. ‘He doesn’t have difficulties: he’s just past it. Addled. The milk in the bucket’s gone sour.’

‘Yes, well, –’

Dmitri tried to edge past. The monk gripped his arm more tightly.

‘You don’t want to listen to him!’

‘Well, no, probably not, but –’

‘But,’ said the monk, nodding significantly, ‘there are others who know more than they let on.’

‘About the Icon?’

‘Yes.’

The monk released his grip a fraction.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Why was it stolen?’

‘I’ve been wondering that.’

‘Well, why?’

Dmitri shrugged.

‘Its value. I suppose.’

‘Value? What sort of value has an icon got?’

‘Spiritual, I suppose,’ said Dmitri, remembering his exchange with the Father Superior slightly guiltily.

‘Spiritual! Exactly! Well, who would want to steal a thing for its spiritual value?’

‘I can’t imagine that anyone –’

‘Think!’ insisted the monk. ‘Think!’

‘I am thinking. But –’

‘Monks.’

‘Monks? You’re not suggesting that someone here in the Monastery –?’

‘Not here.’ The monk made an impatient gesture.

‘Where, then?’

‘There are plenty of other places that would like to get their hands on the One-Legged Lady.’

‘Another monastery? But –?’

The monk cackled, released his grip and shot away.

‘You ask Father Sergei,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘He’s one of those that know more than they let on!’

Why would anyone steal an icon? It was a question that Dmitri had been asking himself and which he put to the Father Superior as they were walking across the yard.

‘Not for its intrinsic value,’ said the Father Superior, ‘its value strictly as an object, that is. It contains some silver, certainly, but it would hardly be worth anyone’s while separating it out.’

‘A collector, then?’

‘I don’t think a collector would be interested. It’s too big. Huge! Six feet by four. And then the workmanship is a little crude. For my taste, that is. It’s peasant work, really. I was saying as much to the Governor last night. Not that I would presume to set my taste against his. “There is that rumour that it’s by the Master of Omsk,” he said. “Yes, I know,” I said. “But really –”’

‘The Governor has quite a taste in these matters?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s got quite a good collection of his own. Nothing like Marputin’s, of course, but pretty good.’ He glanced sideways at Dmitri. ‘You know Marputin?’

‘No, I don’t think I do.’

‘Oh, I thought you might. He’s down here quite often. Especially at the moment. He is a friend of the Mitkins’. I think,’ said the Father Superior, ‘that he would like to be more.’

‘More?’

‘Yes. He has his eye on the Mitkin daughter. Of course, he’s much older than she is, but then, that doesn’t matter much, does it, when there are other considerations?’

‘What other considerations?’

‘Well, the Mitkins are a good family. Poor nobility. Noble – on the mother’s side, that is – but poor. Mitkin’s often said to me that getting the Governorship was the saving of him. Marputin, on the other hand, is the son of a serf. Pots of money but no birth at all. So it suits everybody. Except Ludmilla, of course.’

‘Ludmilla?’

‘She’s the daughter.’

The Father Superior was taking Dmitri to the Monastery gates.

They’re closed at night?’

‘Always.’

‘The problem as I see it,’ said Dmitri ‘was not so much taking the One-Legged Lady down – Father Kiril allowed for – as getting her out.’

The black smudge outside the gates had dissolved. A steady stream of pilgrims was crossing the yard and going into the main buildings. A smaller stream was heading for the Chapel: and there was another, countervailing stream going out through the gates.