“Yes, but-” began another constable.
“Please, my boy, do not worry. My life is in God’s hands, not yours.”
With a kind wave and smile, she pressed on, going where certainly no princess had ever gone, deep into the filthy Khitrovka. I myself thought of turning back, but curiosity had hooked me, and I tailed her into a dark alley where the sun was all but blotted out. I couldn’t help wondering, if those policemen back there on the edge of the Khitrovka knew her by sight, just how often did she come here and what in the name of the devil was her business? Might it not be with spies and Germans?
As I traipsed after her, nearly losing her from sight, I heard screaming, then breaking glass. From another direction came drunken laughter and crying children. As I passed a traktir-the cheapest of taverns-its doors were shoved open by two men, laughing and stumbling, and a stinky cloud of stale beer and boiling cabbage overwhelmed me. A few steps later I came to a man slumped against a building, lying in a puddle of his own vomit. All this I saw, and a woman with a painted face who stood in a doorway marked with the required red lamp. When I glanced at her she pulled open the top of her dress and showed me her huge naked breasts.
“Right this way, handsome,” she called, licking her lips.
I looked away. This place was nothing but a pile of roaches feasting on one another, and like an insect myself I scurried on. Rounding a corner after the princess nun, I watched as she proceeded down a lane of disgusting shops, this one selling something that was supposed to be sausages, another grimy bread, and there, a guy chopping chickens on a huge stump and throwing the carcasses on the floor. Next I saw a handful of tailors working frantically away as they transformed stolen fur capes and coats into unrecognizable hats and muffs. Up and down the passage were gathered clumps of men, too, and great wafts of smoke from papirosi-the cheapest cigarettes-curled into the dark air, mingling with the scent of sour sunflower oil that came from every kitchen. Time and time again they greeted this lowly Romanov not with a sneer or snarl or the least bit of coarseness-let alone a threat of any kind-but with a simple and polite nod of the head.
“Good afternoon, Matushka,” these forsaken souls called one after another.
A row of five fat, toothless babushki sat upon huge iron pots of lapshi, and though the old women didn’t rise- their one and only job was to sit tight on the pots so that their big thighs and thick skirts would keep the pots of noodles warm-all of them bowed their heads to the princess nun and crossed themselves. When I passed by, however, the women and every questionable guy about gazed at me the way a starving man stares at a hen. I pulled up my collar and wrapped my arms around myself, and probably the only reason they left me alone was how ragged I looked-it was obvious to anyone that I had nothing to offer, not even a dirty kopeck to my name.
Up ahead I suddenly saw a boy appear out of nowhere, a filthy street urchin covered from head to toe in grime. The princess stopped and greeted him, they exchanged a few words, and the boy pointed in one particular direction. The little one then reached up with his dirty paw, and she, not hesitating in the least, reached out with her clean white hand and took it. Obviously nervous and scared, the boy quickly led her off through a series of small streets that got narrower and dirtier with each step. I pushed on, for neither of them suspected that someone, namely me, was following.
A few minutes later the boy and the nun came to a crumbling grayish stone house and disappeared inside. When I approached the building, I saw the name “Petrov” written in faded, peeling paint, and guessed that this place was like the one where me and my wife had lived, and entering I found out, sure, I was correct. This Mr. Petrov, who owned the building, rented out small corners, measured perhaps by the arzhin-the length of an arm or two-to the poorest sorts. Coming to one grimy curtain, I slowly pulled it back, seeing nothing and no one, only a couple of wooden bunks and some torn clothes. Drawn by voices, I moved on past the stairs and in a nook found myself staring at three men who, like me, looked as if they hadn’t been to the banya in months. Gathered around a wooden crate, they were munching on sunflower seeds, and scattered around them on the floor lay what looked like a rug of dead beetles but was actually a carpet of husks. There were cards strewn in front of them, and off to the side was a jug of cloudy vodka. They stared up at me like wild dogs ready to pounce, and one of them reached down for a knife sticking out of his boot.
“Well, what of it?” demanded one, tugging on his long, tangled beard.
The words simply fell out of my mouth. “Did you see a sister in gray robes? Did she-”
“Back there,” said another man, motioning the direction with his chin. “She went to take care of the whore Luska.”
With a nod of my head, I quickly moved on, weaving between tattered curtains that divided one small room from another. It was then that I sensed it, heard it-soft but pained crying, a mourning that came from deep within someone’s soul. Following the sound the way a hunter follows the moon, I soon came to the rear of the Petrov slum house, where one of the tattered curtains glowed with the soft light of a kerosene lamp. Besides the soft crying, I now heard another voice furiously chanting.
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, please have mercy…” repeated Matushka over and over.
As quietly as I could I edged forward, sensing beyond the curtain not just one but two figures huddled around something, a bed perhaps.
“I begged Ludmilla not to do it!” sobbed a woman, referring to the whore Luska by her full and respectful name. “I begged her to just go ahead. And she promised… she promised…!”
“You did all you could, my child.”
“But she said she wouldn’t and then… then she came back right here and did it herself… oi, bozhe moi! She was just so afraid… afraid that if she looked pregnant the men would turn away… and… and afraid to bring a new life into this disgusting place!”
“Even if I’d gotten here sooner, I wouldn’t have been able to help her. She lost so much blood so quickly.”
As quietly as I could, I inched my way around, searching for a crack in the curtains, when all of a sudden- Gospodi!-something reached out and grabbed me by the arm. I nearly shouted out, nearly jumped right out of my skin! Looking over, I saw not a thug about to slit my throat but a smiling brat-that kid, the filthy one. Grinning, he put a finger to his lips and then tugged me the other way. I shuffled to the side, and then the urchin pointed to a hole in the curtain. Understanding, I bent over and peered into a makeshift room, and there, sure enough, was that Romanov as well as another, a woman with loose clothing and wild hair. A prostitute, it was obvious. The two of them, the sister in robes and the sister of the night, stood on either side of a plank bed, and all I could see on the bed between them was a pair of legs spread wide, the feet turned out. Clearly, someone was dead. It was only when the Romanov sister bent to the side, reaching for her basket, that I got a clear view of the bed and nearly threw up. Lying there was a naked woman, most definitely dead, the black hair between her legs absolutely soaked with the darkest blood I had ever seen. Her thighs, a yellowed sheet, and everything else were covered with this blood, too, and, worse, lying between her legs was a still bloody lump of something. What in the name of the devil had come out of her womanly parts? What had she cut away? A growth of some sort? Some kind of tumor? But no… dear God, no. In horror, I watched as this so-called Matushka leaned over, a clean white towel in hand, and carefully picked up the lifeless form, wrapping it gently in the folds. And it was then that I saw the smallest arm drop out of that lump.
“It’s a beautiful little girl, and she’s merely crossed over to a better world,” said the Romanov in the kindest of voices. “And now she will rest for eternity in the arms of God.”
The other prostitute, the living one, had turned away now, sobbing uncontrollably as the sister tenderly wrapped the towel around the aborted child. The Romanov mumbled a soft prayer over the small body and then lowered it into the willow basket and slowly drew the lid.
“Now, young woman,” said the sister to the prostitute, “you must get me some more clean towels. Oh, and a sheet or two as well. I will need some help cleaning the body, for with your permission I would like to take both mother and daughter back to my obitel for Psalter and a proper Christian burial.”
“Yes… please… take her far away from this place…!” As the prostitute rose to her feet, I turned away, stumbling backward. I wanted to run straight from that rat hole of a building, to run far away. Instead I managed just a few steps, where I yanked back a half-torn curtain and slumped into another little corner and dropped down onto a bed of planks. Some lazy slob was asleep on the top bunk, and I lowered myself onto the lower one. Bent over, my head in my hands, I stared at the floor, not moving for the next hour, maybe more. All the time I was aware but wasn’t aware of the two women working away, washing the body and then wrapping it, too, in a sheet or something, perhaps just another torn curtain. I heard the sound of rags being wrung, lots of drops falling into a
