The eyes were the hardest to get at — Artiom gouged them out with the sharp end of the spoon.
He carved off the ears one by one. He rubbed off the lips. He pulled out the hair in bunches.
Above the prince’s body, on his wide shoulders, there was no longer a head — you could easily put another head there like in the photograph on Miasnitskaia Road.
He worked quickly, full of wrath and baring his teeth.
“Oh my God…” someone breathed out below him. “He doesn’t have a cross on.”
Shrieking, Father Zinovii grabbed and pulled Artiom down by his shorts.
“They… they lie there under the whitewash like grass and berries under the snow… they’re preserved there and wait… wait for their hour… how did it come into your head, you heathen, to first uncover it, then… to disfigure it? How?”
Without an
