Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel by Boris Akunin

Author:Boris Akunin [Akunin, Boris]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Mystery & Detective, General, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9781588368683
Google: 5vsIj9uiqXwC
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-08-10T18:30:00+00:00

NOW HE HAD to wait until the Teacher cooled off, then go back and beg his pardon—but only after an hour or two. Shmulik stuck his hands in his pockets and started strolling up and down the street.

Near the Dung Gate someone called to him in Russian: “Boy! Boy!” A shiksa in a dark silk dress came over to Shmulik, her ginger hair covered with a transparent scarf. She had a traveling bag in her hand. The woman’s freckled face seemed vaguely familiar to him.

“Your name’s Shmulik, isn’t it?” the redhead said with a happy smile. “I was the one who spoke to you on the steamer. Remember? I was dressed as a nun then?”

Right, now he remembered. He had seen this shiksa before when they were sailing down the river from Moscow—Jewish parents had brought their children there from various towns in order to hand them over to study in Rabbi Shefarevich’s yeshiva. Only the shiksa hadn’t been so beautiful in a nun’s habit. With those golden speckles on her face and that glowing halo of hair she looked much prettier.

“Hello,” Shmulik replied politely. “How are you?”

“Well, thank you. What a good thing that I met you!” said the redhead, still delighted.

And what exactly was so good about it? Here was a pupil of the venerable Rabbi Shefarevich, standing in the middle of the street chatting with a shiksa. God forbid that anyone should go telling tales to the Teacher. Shmulik had enough problems without that. That Lithuanian Jew over there in the black hat and robe had stopped and was squinting at them. Shmulik would have liked to remind him of the wise saying: “Better to talk with a woman and think of God than the other way around.” But to be quite honest, Shmulik was not thinking about God at all at that moment, but about how much more pleasant it would be to marry Madame Perlova if only she had white skin like that.

“I really need to have a word with you,” said the shiksa.

But the Lithuanian was still staring. This was sure to end badly—he was bound to tell the rabbi.

“I’m in a hurry,” Shmulik muttered. “I don’t have time.” And he tried to walk on; but the beautiful shiksa suddenly swayed and leaned on his shoulder, moaning.

“Oh, I feel so dizzy … Boy, take me into the shade … Give me some water …”

She squeezed her eyes shut and reached one hand up to her temple. It was the hot sun that had given her a headache, she wasn’t used to it.

One of the most important of God’s commandments, surpassing all the prohibitions in importance, says: Be charitable. I’ll take her into the shade, give her a drink, and then run off, Shmulik decided.

He took the stricken woman by the arm and waved his hand in front of her face like a fan—that was so that the Lithuanian would see there was no flirting going on here, just someone feeling unwell because of the heat.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.