Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel

Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel Read Free Page A

Book: Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel Read Free
Author: Boris Akunin
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Mystery & Detective
Ads: Link
curly hair, and some with big noses—they looked like young Jews too, but at the same time they didn’t. They were far too jolly, with smiles that reached back to their ears. One was a bit older, with broad shoulders, a singlet under his open blouse, and a pipe clenched in his teeth. He had to be a seagoing man, with that beard and no mustache—that was the way sailors shaved, so as not to singe themselves with the embers in their pipe.
    The girls were even odder. Or rather, not girls—young ladies. The first was slim, with white skin and huge eyes that took up half her face, but for some reason the little fool had cut her hair short like a boy’s. And it was grand hair, too—thick, with a golden shimmer to it. The second was short and round, and the way she was dressed was a real fright: on her head she had a white canvas cap with a narrow brim, instead of a skirt she was wearing a pair of green shorts, so that her legs were all open to view, and on her feet she had white socks and flimsy sandals with leather straps.
    Muffin blinked his eyes at this unusual sight. Well, did you ever! You could see her ankles, and her fat thighs, covered in goose pimples from the cold.
    And it wasn’t just the legs he found interesting.
    What sort of people were they? Where were they going and what for? And what was a “rabberboll”?
    It was the one with the beard who had pronounced the incomprehensible word. The one who had been reciting verse laughed at his reproach and started jerking his hand about. Muffin looked more closely—the young lad had a small black sphere grasped between his fingers and he was squeezing it, over and over. But what for?
    “Feeling chilly, Malke?” the one with the beard asked the fat girl (he looked at her goose bumps too). “Never mind, you’ll look back on this journey as heaven. It’s cool, and there’s all the water you could want. Why did I set Nizhni as the place to meet? To say good-bye to Russia. Look around, breathe. Soon there won’t be anything to breathe. You still don’t know what real heat’s like. But I do. One time we were anchored in Port Said, we had to patch up the plating. I asked the captain for a week’s leave, I wanted to taste the desert for myself, take a close look.”
    “And did you get a close look?” the delicate young lady asked.
    “I did, Rokhele, I did,” the man with the beard chuckled. “My skin’s not as white as yours, but by the evening my face was covered with blisters. My lips were all cracked and bloody. My throat felt like it had been scraped out with a file. And I couldn’t go drinking water, I had to lick salt.”
    “Why salt, Magellan?” one of the young lads asked in surprise.
    “Because when you sweat, the body loses salt, and that’s more terrible than dehydration. You can croak like that. So I was sweating, and licking salt, but I kept moving on. I’d made my mind up: a hundred and thirty miles to Gaza, spend one day there, and back again.” Magellan blew out a stream of smoke. “Only I never got to Gaza, I lost my way. I relied on the sun and didn’t take a compass, like a fool. On the third day the desert started swimming and swaying about. Moving in waves, to the left, to the right, left, right. I saw a birch grove in the distance, then a lake. Aha, I thought, I’ve sweated myself into seeing mirages now. And in the evening, when the shadows ran down in long stripes from the sand dunes, the Bedouins attacked from behind a hill. At first I thought it was just another mirage. Just picture it: triangular shadows rushing along at supernatural speed, getting bigger and bigger all the time. They’d set their camels to a gallop. And everything happening in total silence. Not a sound, only the sand rustling, as quiet as quiet. I’d been warned about bandits, so I had a Winchester with me, and a revolver. But I froze in the saddle, like a total idiot, and watched death come rushing toward me. Such a beautiful sight, I couldn’t tear

Similar Books

Riot Most Uncouth

Daniel Friedman

The Cage King

Danielle Monsch

O Caledonia

Elspeth Barker

Dark Tide 1: Onslaught

Michael A. Stackpole

Hitler's Forgotten Children

Ingrid Von Oelhafen

Noah

Jacquelyn Frank

Not a Chance

Carter Ashby