The Cathedral Clergy: A Chronicle

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 “I happened to pull this stunt,” the deacon began, “because just before Easter Seryoga, the sacristan, and I, we hitched our horses together and went to the provincial capital. Seryoga was going there to pick up his kids for the holidays, while I went along just for the heck of it—it beats me why I even went. Just to see some buddies of mine, I guess. But when we got to the outskirts of the city, the bridge was down, and a ferryboat was going back and forth across the river. A huge crowd was waiting there, and some soldier had set up shop in the ferryman’s shack, selling vodka. Well, while we were waiting our turn, we went in, too, and each of us had a couple of half bottles to warm up. There were all sorts of folks in there: lay brothers from the monastery, and wagon drivers, and soldiers, and low-level government clerks—they’re the most dangerous type—and also some of our brethren from the clergy. Some good buddies from our area turned up, too, and, well, in order to celebrate our acquaintance , we killed a couple more half bottles apiece. And then this clerk who was assigned to the ferry, a real scoundrel with a big mouth, he started getting us all worked up. So I say, ‘Go away, pal. Go back where you came from—you’re not one of us.’ But he says, ‘I’m an officer of His Majesty the Czar!’ I say, ‘Well, pal, I’m the same as a field officer myself.’ ‘A priest,’ he says, ‘is on a par with a field officer, but you’re subordinate to a priest.’ I say that because of my rank I may stand lower than a priest at the altar of God, but that when it comes to shrewdness, we’re equals. Then we got into an argument. I was pretty hot under the collar from those little bottles and I tell him, ‘What do you know, you shyster? You don’t know the first thing about Holy Writ because you haven’t got a brain in your head. Tell me now,’ I say, ‘did even one priest ever sit on the throne?’ ‘Nope,’ he says, ‘not one.’ ‘That’s right,’ I say, ‘but a deacon did—he was even coronated with a crown.’ ‘Who was that?’ he says. ‘When did that happen?’ ‘When?’ I say. ‘That’s a good question. I’m no arifmetician, so I can’t tell you the exact years, but get yourself some books and read up on who Grigory Otrepyev was before he took the throne in place of Dimitry, and then you’ll see what deacons can do.’ ‘Well, that was Otrepyev,’ he says. ‘You’re a long ways from Otrepyev.’ And so I, drunk as I was, I tell him a lie: ‘How do you know? Maybe I’m really actually very close? Otrepyev looked like Dimitry, but maybe I’m a CHAPTER 6 271 dead ringer for some Frantz of Venice6 or Mahmoud and then I’ll sit on the throne, too!’ As soon as I said that, my dear friends, this clerk instantly started hollering and raising a ruckus, demanding witnesses and documents. They grabbed me, tied me up, put me in a cart with a constable , and hauled me away. But thank God for a gendarme colonel named Albert Kazimierzowicz—may God grant him eternal good health and the kingdom of heaven after death—who was working for our secret police at the time. The next morning he called me into his office, sent for his wife, and said, ‘Sweetheart, take a look at this pretender to the throne!’ He laughed and laughed at me, and then he let me go. ‘Clear out, Father Mahmoud,’ he says, ‘and keep track of those bottles from now on.’ May God grant him a long life!” the father deacon repeated again and, raising another glass of brandy, added, “I’ll even drink to his health right now!” “Well, you got yourself out of big trouble,” the major drawled. “That’s for sure! And that’s why I say that Poles are good fellows. Poles don’t like authority, and if you buck authority, they’re always lenient.” The three recluses’ conversation was interrupted around midnight. The time had come for them to rejoin society: they were summoned to the table. When the deacon, slightly intoxicated and assuming a...