Near Zero

by Natan Dubovitsky

translated by Bill Bowler

Translator’s Foreword

Cast of Characters

Table of Contents

Chapter 15: Pyatnadtsat’

An hour later, Yegor drove out to the suburban property of his biggest and richest client, Stas Stasov, whose nickname was Ktitor. This local criminal received his pious nickname for his furious adherence not so much to religion or faith as to the gilded and embellished side of church affairs. Obliged by his line of work to murder people, by vocation a natural Yagoda, unmoved by the tears of a child or the supplications of a defenseless victim begging for mercy, he sniffled and sobbed at the sight of some church chandelier or monastic headgear.

Whenever he spoke, and his conversation was primarily abusive and frightening, he began with the words “I’m a believer.” All the local parishes, monasteries, and several remote dioceses endured great torment from his intrusive respects, always burdensome and with strings attached. He strolled around the holy places before and after every disbursement, usually with a certain Abakum, a hired gun with a dull expression who also liked to show a little faith from time to time and who was, at the same, time a sturdy bagman for cash.

They carried wads of bills around to the churches in worn and dashingly half-unzipped tourist rucksacks, from which Ktitor shoveled as much as his redemption-seeking soul could wish. They drove up to the church buildings in four or five armoured Hummers or militarily equipped Porsche Cayennes.

To attract attention, and depending on his mood and the weather, Ktitor would grab a yawning old cripple or one of those crones who like to stand idly around and gawk at the washed-up old codgers. Ktitor stuffed into their pockets, into their seams and behind their belts great wads of dollars, euros, rubles, Danish crowns, even Ukranian hryvnia, depending on whom they had robbed the night before.

Then Ktitor and Abakum would go round to all the charitable stalls and shops and buy up candles of all calibers, plastic crosses, necklaces for wearing them, books and calendars, mass-produced icons, discount icon lamps, and other equipment and devices of salvation.

Ktitor forcibly handed out all this equipment to everyone they met or came across who did not have time to run away. Then they went into the church, stuffed all the collection plates and boxes, and took to tormenting the priest with theological inquiries such as: “Archangel Michael answers to God for the army, but what does Archangel Gabriel answer for? Is it true that St. Paul was Jewish? And if he was, how could that be? When the dead arise, what will they look like? Like they did at the moment of death? Or a little better? What the hell is a kamilavka?”

Ktitor paid the priest impulsively for each answer. The more expansive the answer, the more comprehensible it seemed and thereby brought the priest an especially abundant income.

Then Ktitor and Abakum would call the choristers and ask them to sing sacred songs for separate payment. Having listened to something or other a few times in a row, and having been touched, they went out to their cars, sat on the hoods, and ate and drank the vodka, wine, and salted fish they had brought with them. They grew even more touched and brought the choristers out to the street to sing more, until it grew dark.

If someone at that time happened to come to church to be baptized or to get married or to drag themselves to a funeral, he would leave with an unimaginable amount of money. Babies were given gold pacifiers and little bottles of baccarat crystal. Young people were given wedding rings by Carrera and Carrera, and sometimes even one of the Hummers or Cayennes right there on the spot, depending on Ktitor’s mood.

The deceased received, directly on their way to the grave, fifty thousand dollars for travel expenses and, before evening, Ktitor sent the grieving relatives a marble or malachite block for a monument plus a paid voucher for twenty years of commemorative services in some commercial Greek monastery on the isle of Volos, where Ktitor knew a monk with a shady past, a sensible fellow inclined to conversions.

Having listened to the hymns, having prayed themselves silly till their heads buzzed, having drunk their fill of wine, Ktitor packed his vehicles with prayerful old women, choristers and religious fools, and drove them home to his sauna to take a steambath and finish their prayers, their hymns, and their drinking.

The sauna occupied half of Ktitor’s home, around 3,000 square meters. It was equiped with everthing given to mankind by Roman, German, Russian, Finnish, Turkish, and Japanese bathing and cleansing science. Ktitor lived and worked in the sauna.

Half of the remaining half of the house was used as a home church of immodest dimensions and furnishings, with its own godlessly inflated staff of prophets, healers, instructors, and simply hangers-on. In this home church, the riotous congregation relaxed. In Ktitor’s life, this home church replaced the cinema, the theater, the library, the nightclub, the museum, the sports arena, even the sauna.

Ktitor dreamt of installing his own home bishop, but the local Metropolitan absolutely refused and talked him out of it with the threat of excommunication. The Metropolitan confidentially considered Ktitor the shame of the diocese and had difficulty enduring the antics of this unreasonable member of his flock.

Ktitor’s house was planned and built in an unusually wild and extravagant manner. Except for the sauna and home church, all other parts of the house were settled by Ktitor’s relatives, among whom were his family, or, as was communicated to him, his two families.

In the house, someone was always celebrating something, doing something, arguing about something, getting sick. A couple of times, people even died, but Ktitor did not get involved in family affairs, so dedicated was he to his demanding work and his almost-clerical fussing. Sometimes he wandered in to count his children and get acquainted with his wife. But he got mixed up about the wives and the children, grew despondent from the woman’s whining and the kids’ hubub, and ran back to pray and steam himself.

To be continued...

translation © 2019 by Bill Bowler