Twice Sergey emptied the bowl, breaking chunks of black bread into the hot liquid. Then he gulped a stinging mouthful of spirit from the bottle, and taking a palmful of green flake mahorka and a scrap of newspaper from the old man, twisted the cone-shaped cigarette of the Russian soldier, lighted the upturned flap with a sulphur match and, putting the small end of the cone between his lips, puffed out a cloud of evil-smelling smoke.
“What is this trouble you speak of,” he asked, “and who is the Parrot Woman, the Baba Papagai?”
All three of his hosts spoke at once, in noisy excitement. There was a young man, a foreigner, a prisoner, an American, a soldier, who had come somehow from somewhere eastward on a train, young and cheerful and clever with his hands beyond belief; and the girl Marfoosha loved him, and he had mended the electric light for the prison and later for the whole town, and at first he was quite dumb like a beast, but now he spoke humanly enough after several months; and two weeks ago the Soviet had agreed to let Marfoosha marry him, because they wanted to keep him in the town to start again the nail factory as he had promised, and because he was cheerful and had blue eyes and brown curly hair, and Marfoosha loved him and wanted to marry him, and would die too if he were killed.
This Sergey learned first, because the girl talked fastest and loudest, but through it all beat like the drum in a regimental band the name of the Parrot Woman, Baba Papagai, who was a witch and a demon and the grandmother of all the devils.
She had a familiar spirit, this terrible woman, a parrot, red and gray, in a wire cage; and when it bit you, you were guilty; and when it didn’t, you were innocent; but it always bit you, and so you were always shot.
Nobody knew where she came from, but it was said she was the widow of a famous revolutionary who had worked in a factory at Ekaterinburg, and had been shot by the Czar’s army in 1906. And now she was president of a “Flying Tribunal,” that moved about the whole province judging counter-revolutionaries; and always she made them put a finger in the parrot’s cage, and always it bit them, and then they were shot. And it was reported that she lived on the smell of blood arid must kill a man every day or she would die and the Devil, her grandson, would fly off with her. And when the Soviet knew she was coming to hold court in the town, they were all very frightened, because there was only one victim, the ex-manager of the factory, who twice had tried to escape from the town and had been prevented. One man would never be enough for the Baba Papagai. She would suspect the Soviet of being lukewarm in the cause of revolution, and perhaps put some of them to the trial of that horrid parrot, as had happened before elsewhere, always with fatal results.
So four days ago the Soviet had held a meeting hastily and in secret, and had decided to sacrifice their American. They were sorry, but it was his head or theirs, no argument was possible. They’d put high hopes on his reopening the factory; but after all, he was a stranger and a prisoner, and it was said the Americans were fighting to help the counterrevolution, and it was he or they, and finally there was just a chance that the parrot wouldn’t like the taste of foreigners and fail to bite him.
Marfoosha and her father, who, as prison commandant, felt most uneasy about the whole affair, had come to ask the advice of the hermit in the boxcar. But he had been of no help to them, and the father had said it would take an angel or a devil to find the way out of the mess, and just at that second Sergey had knocked, and said at once he was an imp from hell, so what would he suggest?
Sergey’s Scotch blood whispered caution. He puffed his mahorka cigarette and declared profoundly that there was a solution for every problem, but this case being extremely difficult, he had better set eyes first on the woman and her parrot, to say nothing of the American and the ex-manager of the factory, before deciding what should be done. There was a twinkle in Marfoosha’s eye as she received his verdict, and the boy was reassured as to the reality of her belief in his diabolic origin; but the prison commandant and his elderly parent were ready in approval.
“Never drive pigs too swiftly,” said the ancient, banging the cork of his vodka bottle hard against the side of the car, and burying it in the recesses of his greatcoat. “Let our Comrade Imp view the situation for himself, and maybe he will be able to make a plan. For me, I am at a loss — I admit it freely; the young man must die: there is no doubt of it.”
“Everyone must die some day,” replied his son, “and I, as commandant of a prison, know that some die quicker than others. But this American is a friendly youth, and clever with his hands, and Marfoosha loves him dearly; so I want his life saved and no trouble with this infernal old woman. If the flame-headed Imp can help us, I, Alexei Petrovich, promise that he shall have all the food he needs in this cold country, and a warm corner by my fire to toast his toes till they are as red as his hair.”
All of which sounded good to Sergey McTavish as he said goodbye to the old man, and accompanied Marfoosha and her father across the cold white plain to the little town.
Far off, beneath the low roofs of the town, windows poured a flood of light upon the snow.
“What makes your town so bright?” asked Sergey.
“I told you the American fixed our electric machines for us,” said the prison warden. “I guess you are surprised to see one of our towns using electricity these days.”
He emphasized the word “our” with a faintly sneering accent. It is a habit the Russians have, to deprecate everything Russian.
“And now,” he went on mournfully, “even this town won’t have any electricity any more. When he’s gone, the whole works will be kaput in no time. Oh, that Baba Papagai and her parrot! To think that a miserable bird could bring such trouble upon us!”
“You say it’s a bird?” asked Sergey, who had never seen a parrot in his life and had not the least idea whether it was bird or beast or perhaps a new kind of Soviet commissar. “Well, if it’s only a bird that’s worrying you, why don’t you kill it?”
“Kill it!” almost shouted Marfoosha. “Why, you might as well talk of killing Lenin!”
“Shh!” cried her father sharply. “You mustn’t talk like that!” He caught Sergey by the shoulder. “See here, little comrade, you don’t understand. It’s not a bird, really; it only looks like a bird. But it talks like a man, and it tells her, the Baba, what she must do. Who shall say which is the master, the parrot or the parrot woman? Everyone knows there are things like that, which come out of the dark to serve those who sell their souls to Darkness. You can’t kill them, ever, the dark spirits, but in the old days a priest could drive them away with the name of God and holy water. And now the priests are spat upon and hide in holes, and God has turned His face from our Russia, which is become a plaything for the evil ones.”
Sergey McTavish shivered. This was ill talk, of spirits from the dark, and the man’s fear was infectious. But he bit tight on the life rule which had steeled him and his father and his father’s father who died to check Osman Pasha’s last sortie from Plevna — “No Scot can show fear before a Russian.”
“That is stuff for women and children,” he said stoutly; “but we men of the Red Army care neither for gods nor devils; and besides, why worry about the ford till you come to the river?”
His companions made no answer, and all three trudged on in silence.
The prison was a large house set back among tall trees whose branches hung glittering with frost in the light of an electric arc-lamp.