“That’s exactly what he said?” the red-haired one asked, laughing nervously.
“Yes! And he told me to sit with him for thirty days, at the end of which my boy would walk again.”
She placed the boy on the ground, but his legs gave way under him. He couldn’t stand.
“Good-bye,” said the woman, picking up her child and going on her way.
The two cowboys exchanged a glance and then went into the town without looking at each other.
Their confessions at the police station were so stubborn and determined this time that finally the detectives went up into the hills to gather evidence. But when they arrived at the scene, there was nothing there.
The only thing under the young spruce near the big rock was a small mound of dry earth, with a thin candle atop it. Three monks sat there praying alongside a woman as pale as death, holding a child. Next to them some mushrooms in a tin can cooked over a fire.
Still the two young men insisted they be put to death-they kept naming the time and place of the murder and showing their nails, which were still stained with blood.
Moreover, they named one hundred twenty-three other crimes they had committed and even took the police to the man who’d bought all their stolen goods, though he claimed not to know them. And yet he gladly invited everyone to drink a bottle from the wine cellar of his brand new home.
The two outlaws were told to go away, and they slunk out of town.
But the murders and robberies stopped.
A month later, two people entered the town: a woman, and a small boy who held her by the hand. He was walking slowly, uncertainly, but nonetheless walking on his own.
The mother and her child walked through the town-and the women of the town, seeing them pass, would turn their heads toward them, like sunflowers, and remain watching like that for some time.
“He’s walking,” they’d say quietly.
Immediately the mothers, wives, and daughters of the sick-and there turned out to be more in the town than anyone knew-learned about the miracle that had taken place, and all of them came to see the widow, who told them all the same thing: She’d lived for a month next to the grave of the holy monk Trifon, and at the end of it she’d hung her boy’s shirt on a branch of the spruce to dry, and he’d immediately stood up on his little feet.
A month before, she said, she’d taken the path above the stream to the big rock and found the monk lying there, dying, with a knife in his chest-he was holding it with his hand. He blessed her and the boy and asked her to bring his friends from the monastery, and he bid farewell to them all and asked them to bury him right there by the rock where he lay.
He didn’t say anything to the woman, but she remembered his testament, that she should live a month beside him. She was frightened that the two bandits would return, and she kept a fire going every night, for exactly one month, and then it was summer, and it was very hot, and she’d hung her boy’s shirt on the spruce branch-and he’d stood up and walked.
The town was in a frenzy. They carried the boy from house to house, and entire processions set off on the path above the stream. Sick people went, and people who wanted to ask the holy monk for a husband, or for riches, or to be released from prison, or that their unpleasant neighbors receive a punishment from God.
The monks from the monastery built a chapel next to the holy grave. More and more people flocked to it, and soon the town’s mayor built a hotel to house visitors from other towns, and the people began selling water from the stream. The spruce was fenced off, and admission was charged to the grave. But this didn’t affect the monastery at all. The monks continued to live in poverty, eating very little, and giving everything away to the poor.
It quickly became clear that the old monk didn’t help everyone-only those who were honest, virtuous, and poorly treated, and especially widows with children. But everyone went anyway, because who after all is not honest, virtuous, and poorly treated in our day and age? And what old woman is not a widow with children?
Incidentally, the number of monks at the monastery increased to seventeen. The two new monks never show their faces, just pray day and night in the upper monastery, afraid to go down to the grave by the rock, where lies the old monk whom they killed, and who saved their lives by giving up his own.
The Black Coat
THERE ONCE LIVED A GIRL WHO FOUND HERSELF IN AN unknown place, on a cold winter night. She was dressed in a strange black overcoat. Underneath the coat she was wearing a tracksuit, and on her feet some sneakers.
The girl didn’t remember her name or who she was.
It was winter, and she began to feel very cold, standing there by the side of the road. There was forest all around; it was growing dark. She’d better start walking, it occurred to her-it didn’t matter where-for it was getting really cold, and the black coat didn’t keep her warm at all.
She began to walk down the road. Suddenly a small truck appeared. The girl signaled, and the truck pulled over. The driver opened the door. There was another passenger in the cabin.
“Which way are you headed?” asked the driver.
The girl blurted out, “And which way are you headed?”
“The train station,” the driver answered with a laugh.
“Me, too,” said the girl. (She remembered that people should look for a train station when they’re lost in the woods.) “Then let’s get going,” the driver said, still laughing.
“But there’s no room for me in the cab!” said the girl.
“Of course there is. My companion is nothing but bones.”
The girl climbed in, and the truck began to move. The second man made some room for her, grudgingly. His face was concealed under a hood.
They drove quickly past snowdrifts down the darkening road. The driver didn’t speak but continued to grin, and the girl didn’t speak either, in case they’d notice she’d lost her memory.
They drove up to a train station. As soon as the girl got out, the door slammed behind her, and the truck darted on ahead. The girl walked up to the platform, where a local train was getting ready to depart. She remembered that one needs to buy a ticket. She checked her pockets for money, but all she could find was some matches, a scrap of paper, and a key. She was too shy to ask where the train was headed. Anyway, there wasn’t a single passenger on it; her compartment was empty and also poorly lit.
Finally the train stopped, and she had to get off. It was, apparently, quite a big station, but at this hour it was completely deserted, and the lights were turned off. Around the station there were traces of what seemed to be a construction site: the ground was covered with ugly black pits. There was nothing for the girl to do but walk into the tunnel under the platform. It was dark, but the tiled walls emitted a strange light, and the sloping floor was uneven. The girl raced down the tunnel, her feet barely touching the floor, like in a dream, past more black pits and some shovels and carts (probably another construction site).
The tunnel finally ended, and the girl found herself on the street, trying to catch her breath. The empty street was in ruins. The buildings were dark, some missing windows and roofs, and the street was blocked by roadwork signs and covered with potholes. The girl stood on the curb, freezing in her thin black overcoat.
Suddenly the same truck pulled over. The driver opened the door and told the girl to hop in. Sitting by the driver was the same passenger in a black hooded overcoat. He seemed to have gained some weight and now almost filled the seat.
“There’s no room in here,” the girl said as she climbed in. Actually, she was glad to run into the only people she knew in this unfamiliar place.
“Sure there’s room,” the driver laughed back, turning to face her.