Michael Pearce - Dmitri and the One-Legged Lady

‘Still at lunch, I expect.’

‘When will he be back?’

‘Tomorrow, I would think.’

‘Tomorrow!’ moaned the Chief of Police. He seized Dmitri by the arm. ‘You’ve no idea – I suppose you’ve no idea – who he’s having lunch with?’

‘Marputin, I believe.’

‘Marputin! Then he’ll be at the Metropole. Sasha, you run to the Metropole –’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Dmitri.

‘I need the sleigh. There’s some trouble at the Monastery about an icon –’

‘Mind if I come along?’ said Dmitri.

The smudge in front of the gates was bigger. From far off across the snow Dmitri could see the huge crowd.

‘I’m not going through that lot!’ said the driver.

‘Go round the back!’ instructed Maximov.

‘They always keep the gates locked!’

‘They’ll open them when they see us coming.’

‘I hope they do!’

At the last moment the driver swung off the road and began to head round the side of the Monastery. Some of the small figures, guessing his intention, started running.

The driver whipped the horses.

They were round the back of the buildings now and could see the rear gates. They remained obstinately closed.

A group of dark figures came blundering towards them through the snow.

The gates suddenly swung open.

The sleigh dashed through.

Almost before they had passed the gates, they crashed shut again.

‘So what’s all this about, then. Father?’ asked Maximov.

‘It’s the One-Legged Lady. They don’t like her being missing.’

‘Well, I don’t suppose you like it, either.’

‘They’re blaming us.’

‘Ridiculous!’ snorted Maximov. ‘They need a good kick up the ass, that’s what!’

‘There’s someone whipping them up,’ said the Father Superior.

‘Oh, is there?’ said Maximov.

He marched down to the gates.

‘Now, lads,’ he said through the bars, ‘what’s the trouble? We can’t have this, you know, or else we’ll have to get the Cossacks here. You don’t want that, do you?’

‘They’ve flogged off the Old Lady!’ shouted someone from the back of the crowd.

‘Nonsense! No one’s flogged her off. Someone’s nicked her, that’s all.’

‘Yes, and we know who it was!’

‘No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. Someone’s been whispering a lot of nonsense in your ear.’

‘She’s missing, isn’t she? That’s not nonsense!’

‘And we’re looking for her,’ said Maximov. ‘That’s not nonsense, either.’

‘You’re taking your time about it!’

‘Well, it takes time.’

‘Especially when you’re not looking too hard!’

‘Why are we listening to him?’ said someone contemptuously.

‘You’d do better to listen to me,’ said Maximov, ‘than to listen to some of the people you’ve been listening to!’

But the mood of the crowd was against him. He tried again but could hardly make his words heard in the general uproar.

‘The Cossacks –’

‘Bugger the Cossacks!’

‘Let them come! We’ll bloody show them!’

‘He’s always on about the Cossacks, this one! What about the Old Lady?’

‘We’ll find her, lads!’ shouted Maximov desperately. ‘Just give us time!’

‘You’ve had three days! How much more do you want?’

‘It takes time –’

‘It’d take you time. It’d take you for ever!’

The crowd surged forwards against the bars. Maximov stepped back hurriedly.

‘Listen, lads –’

‘We don’t want to listen to you. It’s a waste of time.’

‘He’s in it with the others!’

A missile hit the gates, and then another. Several people caught hold of the bars and began to shake them.

‘Lads–’

Maximov’s eye fell suddenly on Dmitri.

‘Lads!’ he shouted with sudden inspiration. ‘Lads, you’ve got it wrong. It’s not me!’

‘What do you mean, it’s not you?’

‘It’s not me that’s in charge of looking for the Old Lady.’

‘Who is it, then?’

Maximov pointed at Dmitri.

‘Him,’ he said.

‘Him! What does he know about it?’

‘A bloody schoolboy!’

The shouting started again.

‘Is that all they can manage to send us?’ called out someone derisively. ‘A fat-assed Chief of Police and a pretty Barin so wet behind the ears that he doesn’t know his mother from his girl friend?’

There was a burst of laughter.

‘Now that’s just where you’re wrong!’ shouted Maximov. ‘He may look green but he knows a thing or two. Have any of you heard of the Tiumen Massacre?’

‘We’ve heard of Tiumen.’

Who hadn’t heard of Tiumen? It was the great forwarding prison for convicts on their way to Siberia.

‘Yes, but the Massacre?’

‘I’ve heard of the Massacre,’ said a voice from the back.

‘Right, then. Well, this young Barin was the one who brought it out into the open.’

There was a sudden silence.

‘Is that right?’ someone asked Dmitri directly.

‘Yes.’

There was another silence.

‘Come on, lads,’ said Maximov persuasively, ‘it’s either him or the Cossacks. Now which is it to be? Leave it to him or have the Cossacks here?’

‘We don’t want the bloody Cossacks,’ said someone.

‘No,’ said Maximov, ‘I agree with you. We don’t want the Cossacks. So are you going to leave it to him?’

He paused.

‘We could give him a chance, I suppose,’ said someone reluctantly.

‘Give him a chance? Well, that’s very wise of you. Now, look, lads. I want you all to go home and quieten down. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you anything else. Give him a chance and if it doesn’t work out, well –’

‘And so, your Excellencies,’ said Maximov virtuously, ‘I decided I had to take action.’

‘Quite right,’ said the Governor.

Boris Petrovich nodded approvingly.

‘If you don’t jump on these things right away, I said to myself, they get out of hand.’

‘Well, that’s it.’

‘You’ve got to stamp on them. At once!’

‘Nip them in the bud.’

‘While there’s still time.’

‘Exactly so. Your Honours. Oh, I know there are those who say that these things have got to be handled with kid gloves. But when you’ve had a bit of experience, you know that it doesn’t do to hang around; you’ve got to go in hard!’

‘Absolutely!’ said the Governor.

‘Good man!’ murmured Boris Petrovich.

Maximov swelled.

‘And so. Your Excellencies,’ he said, ‘as soon as I got back I sent for the Cossacks.’

‘You what?’ said Dmitri.

‘Sent for the Cossacks.’

‘The very thing!’ said the Governor.

‘No doubt about it,’ said Boris Petrovich.

‘You sent for the Cossacks?’

‘I did.’

‘But – but – you made a deal with them!’

‘Deal?’ said the Governor.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that!’

‘But you did!’ Dmitri insisted. ‘You said that it was either the Cossacks or me and that you wouldn’t run for the Cossacks if –’

‘Pardon me, Your Honour, I don’t think I actually said that. That’s what they may have understood, Your Honour, but that’s a different thing.’

‘A very different thing!’ said the Governor.

‘In any case,’ said Boris Petrovich, ‘if there was an agreement, it was plainly made under duress and that certainly wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. You’re a lawyer yourself, Dmitri Alexandrovich. You must know that.’

‘But it was deception!’ cried Dmitri. ‘A trick!’

‘Justified, I would have thought,’ said the Governor, ‘when you’ve got a riot on your hands.’