delicate weapon
- Eddies
- 466
The unsteady drizzle of dingey rain on nylon punctuated the traffic noise of the city as, under the watchful eye of Lizaveta Isakova, all that remained of the body of Grigori Abramov was lifted out of the hearse that idled in the street out front of Night City's Orthodox Cathedral. Though Grigori had been cremated and thus existed in a small stainless steel urn, the urn was nestled into a full-sized coffin, just one of the concessions in the delicate negotiations between Lizka and the bishop's office if the Night City diocese that would allow the funeral service for Grigori.
The problem was that in the Orthodox church, to which both Grigori and Lizaveta were baptized members, the body was sacrosanct and destroying it -- through cremation or other means -- was all but forbidden. Lizaveta would have been happy to simply keep Grigori's remains in a disused closet or hurl it into one of Night City's myriad landfills, but with @Jack Kowalski hovering around, clearly skeptical, it was important that she appear to be a mourning lover more than a cold black widow. It had taken much discussion and reasoning and a promise of a donation of a few thousand Eurodollars to get the, ahem, principled bishop to finally agree to put Grigori's soul to rest.
Six pallbearers gathered at the back of the hearse, lifted the coffin out. She waited as they carried Grigori up the stairs; she tried not to imagine the urn rolling this way and that within the coffin, faked a half-strangled sob to cover the smirk that came to her lips. She followed a moment later, looking every bit the part of a grieving widow in her black dress and headscarf, pausing to pull her sunglasses off. She shook her umbrella out and closed it before entering the cathedral. The pews were sparsely populated; some were people that she knew from Grigori's organization, others were clients and friends that she recognized from photos, and still others were strangers to her. She had heard from one of Grigori's lieutenants that some people from the Organitstakya in Moscow were coming to pay their respects. Though Grigori's operation wasn't technically part of it, he had affiliations some apparatchiks of the broader Russian crime diaspora. And that was to say nothing of other criminal elements, mostly Russian but also others that had worked with Grigori over the years.
The service was long and drawn out, painting a much more positive view of Grigori than was reality. Lizka sat near the front, making all the appropriation motions -- dabbing a kerchief to her bone-dry eyes every so often -- standing and kneeling and all the rest. When the time was right, she approached the coffin -- now open, with a gilt framed photo of Grigori looking up from the satin pillow, his urn nestled just beneath -- and laid a spray of silk flowers in the coffin. White cherry blossoms and catchfly serving as a white canvas for the vivid pink of a small posey of rhododendron flowers as she nestled it against the urn.
Others followed, including a courier from Moscow who brought trinkets and flowers to lay in the coffin on behalf of Grigori's mother. Lizaveta stood at the head of the coffin, the chief mourner as people filed through and deposited their grave gifts, until at last the bishop rose and announced that the pominki would follow in the church hall. Lizaveta frowned internally, but proceeded after him. The room was large, well-appointed, and filled with the fragrant smells of different Slavic dishes. Thank God for the babushkas-for-hire that cater, Lizka thought. It would have been catastrophic if she had cooked anything to feed people.
Lizaveta took a glass of water and talked to her top lieutenant while they watched the others. These events were always awkward; the only person all the attendees knew was dead, so it made mixing... difficult. "<Aren't you going to eat anything?>" asked her lieutenant, a man in his mid-thirties named Fyodor, but who was known affectionality to the organization as One-Eye, for reasons that would be readily apparent to anyone who looked at him.
"<No,>" Lizaveta answered distractedly in her native tongue as she watched the crowd. One of Grigori's old friends had begun regaling the pominki with stories of their youthful exploits. "<I've always hated funeral food. But you go ahead.>" One-Eye hesitated, but Lizka insisted: "<Go ahead, Fyodor. I'll be fine here.>"
The problem was that in the Orthodox church, to which both Grigori and Lizaveta were baptized members, the body was sacrosanct and destroying it -- through cremation or other means -- was all but forbidden. Lizaveta would have been happy to simply keep Grigori's remains in a disused closet or hurl it into one of Night City's myriad landfills, but with @Jack Kowalski hovering around, clearly skeptical, it was important that she appear to be a mourning lover more than a cold black widow. It had taken much discussion and reasoning and a promise of a donation of a few thousand Eurodollars to get the, ahem, principled bishop to finally agree to put Grigori's soul to rest.
Six pallbearers gathered at the back of the hearse, lifted the coffin out. She waited as they carried Grigori up the stairs; she tried not to imagine the urn rolling this way and that within the coffin, faked a half-strangled sob to cover the smirk that came to her lips. She followed a moment later, looking every bit the part of a grieving widow in her black dress and headscarf, pausing to pull her sunglasses off. She shook her umbrella out and closed it before entering the cathedral. The pews were sparsely populated; some were people that she knew from Grigori's organization, others were clients and friends that she recognized from photos, and still others were strangers to her. She had heard from one of Grigori's lieutenants that some people from the Organitstakya in Moscow were coming to pay their respects. Though Grigori's operation wasn't technically part of it, he had affiliations some apparatchiks of the broader Russian crime diaspora. And that was to say nothing of other criminal elements, mostly Russian but also others that had worked with Grigori over the years.
The service was long and drawn out, painting a much more positive view of Grigori than was reality. Lizka sat near the front, making all the appropriation motions -- dabbing a kerchief to her bone-dry eyes every so often -- standing and kneeling and all the rest. When the time was right, she approached the coffin -- now open, with a gilt framed photo of Grigori looking up from the satin pillow, his urn nestled just beneath -- and laid a spray of silk flowers in the coffin. White cherry blossoms and catchfly serving as a white canvas for the vivid pink of a small posey of rhododendron flowers as she nestled it against the urn.
Others followed, including a courier from Moscow who brought trinkets and flowers to lay in the coffin on behalf of Grigori's mother. Lizaveta stood at the head of the coffin, the chief mourner as people filed through and deposited their grave gifts, until at last the bishop rose and announced that the pominki would follow in the church hall. Lizaveta frowned internally, but proceeded after him. The room was large, well-appointed, and filled with the fragrant smells of different Slavic dishes. Thank God for the babushkas-for-hire that cater, Lizka thought. It would have been catastrophic if she had cooked anything to feed people.
Lizaveta took a glass of water and talked to her top lieutenant while they watched the others. These events were always awkward; the only person all the attendees knew was dead, so it made mixing... difficult. "<Aren't you going to eat anything?>" asked her lieutenant, a man in his mid-thirties named Fyodor, but who was known affectionality to the organization as One-Eye, for reasons that would be readily apparent to anyone who looked at him.
"<No,>" Lizaveta answered distractedly in her native tongue as she watched the crowd. One of Grigori's old friends had begun regaling the pominki with stories of their youthful exploits. "<I've always hated funeral food. But you go ahead.>" One-Eye hesitated, but Lizka insisted: "<Go ahead, Fyodor. I'll be fine here.>"
