Michael Pearce - Dmitri and the One-Legged Lady

‘That may well have been the way she went,’ said Dmitri.

‘You don’t think Father Sergei might have noticed,’ asked the Father Superior, ‘if someone had gone out carrying a six-feet by four-feet icon?’

‘Father Sergei?’ said Dmitri.

‘He’s in the gate-house,’ said the Father Superior.

‘Well, I don’t know why he should say that,’ said Father Sergei, surprised. ‘Other than his normal dislike of me.’

‘He spoke of another monastery.’

‘Is he still harping on that?’ Father Sergei shrugged. ‘Well it’s true I came here from somewhere else. But that was fifteen years ago. You would have thought that after all these years –’ He shrugged again. ‘But that is Father Afanesi for you!’

‘What monastery did you come from?’

‘The Kaminski. It’s near Tula.’ Father Sergei smiled. ‘Where the One-Legged Lady originally came from.’

‘Perhaps that’s something to do with it?’

‘Well, it’s true that they would like her back. It was a smart move of Father Grigori – he was Superior here at the time – to snap her up. But the Kaminski needed the money. She was paid for fair and square and, really, they’ve no cause for complaint. In any case, they’d hardly go to the length of stealing –’

The Father Superior had gone back to his room. Dmitri returned, cautiously – he had no wish to run into Father Kiril or Father Afanesi again – to the Chapel. He was looking again at the links when a carpenter came in and dumped a bag of tools down in front of the iconostasis.

‘So she has gone!’ he said, looking at the gap on the screen. ‘Well, I’m not surprised. I reckon she upped and walked away in shock.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘Because of what they were doing to her.’

‘What were they doing to her?’

‘Making money out of her. Making money left, right and centre. And I don’t reckon she liked it. I mean, it wasn’t what she was used to, was it? I mean, up in Tula it was the other way round. She was on the side of the poor, then, wasn’t she? Well, I tell you this, Barin, she’s not been on the side of the poor down here. She’s been on the side of the bleeding rich!’

‘The pilgrims don’t look very rich to me,’ said Dmitri.

‘Not the pilgrims, although some of them have got more than they let on. No, the Monastery! See, everyone who comes puts a kopeck or two into the box and if you’ve got lots and lots of people coming, in the end it adds up to lots and lots of kopecks. And it doesn’t go back to the poor, either. Do you know what it goes on? That roof. Now, I’m all for a lick of paint. I think it freshens things up; but the amount that’s gone on that roof! And you don’t have to go all the way to Tula, either, to find people who could have done with some of that.’

The bottom of the Icon had rested on a thick ledge which at one end had come away from the iconostasis.

‘Now there was no need to do that, was there?’ grumbled the carpenter. ‘They could have just lifted her down.’

He knelt down and began working.

‘I can do it,’ he said. ‘There’s no problem about that. But what it needs is a proper base. If I’ve told them that once, I’ve told them a thousand times. But will they do anything about it? No, not they!’

He sat back on his heels and looked up at Dmitri.

‘Mean as flint, they are. Do you know what Nikita Pulov was telling me the other day?’

‘Who’s Nikita Pulov?’

‘He’s the carter. Comes in twice a week. Would come in more often if they’d have him. Well, do you know what he was saying? He was saying that the other day when he was here, his horse drops a turd, and the next moment one of the fathers is out there with his shovel. ‘I want that for my garden,’ he says. ‘Your garden’s four feet deep in snow!’ says Nikita. It’ll melt, won’t it?’ says the father. I tell you they’re after the dung even before the horse shits it!’

‘Yes, well, –’ said Dmitri.

‘Do you know what I reckon has happened to the Icon?’

‘No?’

‘I reckon they’ve sold it.’

‘Sold it!’

‘Yes. To fetch a rouble or two. For the Monastery.’

‘But I thought you said it was making them a lot of money?’

‘Yes, but she’s been here a long time. There comes a time when you want something fresh. Now, what I reckon is that they’ve sold her and very soon they’ll start saying: “Oh dear, the Old Lady’s gone for good. We’ll have to start looking around for something to go in her place.” And all the time they’ll have had their eye on something else, another icon maybe, or perhaps a holy relic, and they’ll get it and put it in here, and the pilgrims will start flocking, and they’ll say, “Ah, well, reckon it was for the best, after all.” It’s a business to them, you see, and that’s the way it is with business. Now you and I, Your Honour, may think we know a thing or two about business, but, believe me, we’re like newly hatched chicks compared with them. Sharp as knives and about as much feeling. They’ll have been looking on her as a carter looks on a horse: get what you can out of her and then get rid of her. So that’s what’s happened, I reckon. They’ve gone and sold her. Either that,’ said the carpenter with grim satisfaction, ‘or she’s seen it coming and bloody well walked out on them!’

‘So what are your impressions?’ asked the Father Superior, as they were walking across the yard to the sleigh.

‘Oh, mixed,’ said Dmitri. ‘Mixed.’

‘A monastery is like that,’ said the Father Superior fondly.

One of the pilgrims, a large man in peasant shirt and peasant boots, accosted them.

‘I don’t like it, Father!’ he said.

‘Don’t like what?’

‘This business of the Icon. If you ask me, it’s not accidental.’

‘What do you mean, it’s not accidental?’

‘I reckon it’s deliberate. Taking her away just when she’s needed.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Well, I’ve come here all the way from Tula especially to ask her something and when I get here, she’s not here!’

‘You can ask some other icon, can’t you? We’ve got plenty.’

‘Ah, but she’s a bit different from other icons, isn’t she? She knows what it’s all about. She did something for people, didn’t she? When they were starving. Well, I come from Tula, and we couldn’t half do with her now, I can tell you, because we’re starving again!’

The Father Superior tried to push past.

‘Try some other icon. Or stay here for a day or two. We hope to have her back soon.’

‘I can’t stay here. Not for long, anyway. I’ve got a wife and children at home. My wife’s sick, otherwise she’d have come herself. “I can’t go, Ivan,” she said, “so you’ll have to. I know it’s not your way, but we’ve got to do something and I can’t think of anything else.” So I’ve come, even though it’s not my way. Besides, I thought the Old Girl might listen to me, she knows how it is for people like me. And now I’ve got here, she isn’t here!’

‘We’ll, I’m sorry about that,’ said the Father Superior. ‘We’re doing all we can. This gentleman here –’ he indicated Dmitri – ‘is from the Court House at Kursk and he’s going to look into the matter.’

‘Ah, but is he?’ said the peasant.

‘What do you mean?’ said Dmitri. ‘Am I?’

‘Beg pardon, Your Honour, but you people stick together. It might not be worth your while to look too closely.’

‘Why wouldn’t it be worth my while?’

‘Because they’re all in it together, Tsar, Church, Governor, all of them!’

‘You watch your words, my man!’ warned the Father Superior.