Summary of "The Nut Buddha" by Boris Akunin Automatic translate

This historical adventure novel was published in 2018. It tells the story of the travels of the Japanese monk Shimpei and the orphan Kata through Russia, turbulent after Peter the Great’s reforms. An ancient statuette makes a long journey from Nagasaki to Europe, and then arrives in Muscovy, invisibly linking the destinies of people from different countries and faiths. The work is part of the literary project "History of the Russian State in Stories and Novels." This text is the fifth book in this fictional series, complementing the documentary volume on the era of Peter the Great. The author previously published works in the series including "The Fiery Finger," "God and the Rogue," "The Widow’s Veil," and "The Week of the Three-Eyed One."

The Amsterdam Disappearance

The story begins in 1698 in Amsterdam. A former dock worker, Martha, nicknamed "Powder Magazine," has managed to improve her situation. She became the kept woman of a wealthy merchant, Hendrick van Outhorn, one of the directors of the East India Company. She falls madly in love with the quiet young Rodier. He serves as an aide-de-camp to the Russian Tsar Peter the Great, working at a local shipyard. Upon learning that the Tsar is urgently leaving for England with Rodier, Martha, in tears, goes to Van Outhorn to ask for an early salary. The merchant, scolding her, throws her out. In retaliation, she takes a small lacquer box from his locked chest. Inside is the Walnut Buddha, a sacred Japanese relic. Van Outhorn had secretly brought the figurine from his trading post in Nagasaki.

Running out into the street, Martha escapes being run over by horses, dropping the figurine on the cobblestones. She begins to believe in the protective power of Buddha. Martha goes to Rodier’s inn to say goodbye. The young man unexpectedly proposes. For love’s sake, Martha converts to Orthodoxy, changing her name to Marfa. She marries her savior and is delighted to learn that she is expecting a child. In the autumn, the girl sets out on a long journey to Muscovy with a government convoy.

The Tragedy of the Three-Eyeds

Upon reaching the outskirts of Moscow, Marfa learns the terrible truth. Her husband’s father, Colonel Anikey Trekhglazov, has led a rebellion of the Streltsy against Peter. The rebellion is suppressed, and all the conspirators’ relatives are condemned to reprisals. On the advice of the kind priest, Father John, the pregnant woman escapes from the convoy. She finds the house of her mother-in-law, Agafya, in the Kislovskaya Sloboda.

Narrow-eyed Agafya shows her daughter-in-law the heads of the executed Anikey and Rodye. The remains are impaled on stakes right by the gate. Marfa, overcome with emotional shock, goes into premature labor. A girl is born with the same birthmark on her forehead as Rodye. The mother-in-law buries the bodies of her relatives. She names the baby Katerina and takes Marfa out of town to hide with the Old Believers.

Along the way, the fugitives are overtaken by Preobrazhensky detectives. Agafya stabs one of their pursuers and dies in the fight. Marfa hides with her baby in a ditch littered with rotting garbage. There, she begins bleeding profusely. As night falls, a blind guide boy leads the dying mother to the secret refuge of the elder Avenir. Before she dies, Marfa, with weakening fingers, manages to write her daughter’s name — Kata. The walnut Buddha remains hanging around the newborn’s neck.

Search for the Guardian

The action shifts to St. Petersburg, in the third year of the Era of Righteous Virtue according to the Japanese calendar. Artemy Budanov, senior interpreter of the Embassy Chancellery, is translating the interrogation of the Dutch servant Adriaan in the torture chamber of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz. He overhears a horrific story from investigator Semyon Gololobov. The Preobrazhensky Prikaz tells of a dead red-haired woman with a baby and a pagan nut around her neck, found in the basement fifteen years earlier.

Budanov is actually the Japanese monk Shimpei, the True Warrior and Guardian of the stolen relic. Having infiltrated Amsterdam by ship, he tracked down Van Outhorn, but found only an empty box. His search for Martha led him to Russia. The monk changed his name and faith, awaiting a sign from above for years. Realizing he has finally found the lost trail, Shimpei bids farewell to his young disciple, the former Swede Yakov Inozemtsev. He casts off his official guise and sets off for the North.

Pinega and escape

Fifteen-year-old Kata lives in northern Pinega. She serves as a scribe for the exiled Prince Vasily Golitsyn. The former ruler of the realm during the reign of Tsarevna Sophia dictates to her his extensive philosophical treatise on the amendment of state laws. Their familiar way of life is shattered when the cruel capital’s fiscal officer, Martyn Vaneikin, bursts into the courtyard, searching for the prince’s seditious notes. Golitsyn dies from a powerful blow to the chest. Kata escapes through a window, hiding the book in her bosom.

In the forest, the girl stumbles upon a wanderer with narrow eyes and a sparse beard. It’s Shimpei. He notices the Buddha around her neck and asks her to give it to him in exchange for gold coins. Kata refuses to part with her mother’s amulet. Shimpei invites her to become the new Guardian of the shrine and travel with him to distant Japan. The girl agrees, eager to escape the tax collector’s relentless pursuit.

Eight steps

Along the way, Shimpei begins to teach Kata the wisdom of the Mansei-ha Buddhist school. The teachings consist of eight stages of spiritual growth. Travelers travel at night using special wooden blocks called "hooves," which speed up their pace. Kata visits the Soyalu Old Believer community to retrieve some mementos. Elder Avenir locks her in a tower. He plans to hand the girl over to the tax collector for the sake of saving the community, calling it the highest good and a martyr’s feat. Shimpei helps his student escape through a high window.

Continuing on his journey, Simpei teaches Katu to live without excesses and endure the icy cold. Near the walls of the Holy Trinity Antonievo-Siysky Monastery, the girl is seized by pilgrims and novices. The pretext is that she wears men’s clothing and makes the sign of the cross with two fingers. Archimandrite Tikhon throws Katu into a damp stone cell and attempts to break her stubborn will. To force the captive to submit, the abbot gives her a puppy named Dobrynya. The next day, he mercilessly crushes the animal with his boot. The girl breaks down and crosses herself with three fingers. That night, Simpei saws through the iron bars with a knife and pulls his student out of the dungeon. The monk treats Katu’s wounds with salt, teaching her the third stage — the ability to speak with physical pain.

Meeting with the robbers

Mastering the art of overcoming fear, Kata learns not to be afraid of heights. On Lake Plesetskoye, Simpei fashions wings from burlap. The girl masters flight over water, performing long jumps from a cliff. In a dense forest, the travelers encounter the gang of Fedka Kisten and the cunning chieftain Pavushka. The bandits are waiting for the monastery’s convoy carrying thousands of rubles. Finding gold chervonets and Golitsyn’s book on Simpei, the bandits mistake him for a government spy.

The spider slashes Katu with a sharp blade, trying to extract a confession. She then prepares to split the Nut Buddha with a spiked club. Seeing a direct threat to the shrine, Shimpei resorts to martial arts. He instantly incapacitates four armed villains with precise strikes to the nerve centers. The Guardian takes the gold and quickly leads the student away.

Lodeyshchina

The travelers reach Lodeynoye Pole, a gigantic shipyard. There, they are intercepted by fugitive hunters. Simpei is thrown into a deep, damp earthen "pit" for Muslims. Katu is assigned to work as a branch cutter in a charcoal-burning gang under the command of the stern foreman, Prov. The guards keep the workers in the intolerable conditions of a forced labor camp.

In August, news arrives of the Gangut victory. The camp guards drink themselves into oblivion. Prov and six of his comrades kill the sentries and prepare to retreat into the forest. Kata asks the foreman to help rescue Simpei from captivity. They set fire to the unfinished galley, distracting the drunken soldiers, and lower a long ladder into the pit. Simpei leads dozens of Tatar prisoners after him. Kata and the Guardian continue on their way, leaving the rebels to carry out their reprisals.

The end of the journey

On the banks of the Neva, near Shlisselburg, Simpei explains to Katya the essence of the seventh stage. It’s the ability to find joy in solitude and construct one’s own inner world. To enter the ceremonial capital, they disguise themselves as ragamuffins. The travelers buy a batch of bricks and resell them profitably to the brewer Filyai, hiring themselves out as his clerks.

On the approach to St. Petersburg, Filyai is killed by a well-aimed pistol shot from the informer Vaneikin. It turns out that Vaneikin is the Japanese monk Hamamachi Sineyaro, from a hostile sect. Twenty years ago, he infiltrated the Dutch to retrieve the Buddha. Sineyaro became Maarten van Eycken’s agent, killed Van Outhorn in Amsterdam, and followed the Guardian’s trail to Muscovy.

Sineyaro throws Golitsyn’s treatise into the Neva and breaks Shimpei’s arm, boasting of the superior power of his teaching. He plans to torture Katō, flaying her alive. Protecting his student and the relic, Shimpei delivers a swift, fatal kick. The Guardian violates the strictest Buddhist prohibition against taking life.

Having dumped their bodies in the Neva, the travelers arrive in St. Petersburg, at Yakov’s tidy little house. There, Kata attempts to master the final, eighth step — the transformation of love energy into spiritual energy. Young Yakov’s blue eyes greatly distract her from her meditations, igniting passionate romantic feelings.

Shimpei brings forged documents for passage to Amsterdam. The girl refuses to go. She refuses to leave Yakov and the wounded old man, who, by killing Shineyaro, has condemned himself to new and protracted reincarnations. Kata removes the amulet from her neck and places the Nut Buddha on the Master. Shimpei, impressed by the students’ deep devotion, agrees to stay. He promises Katya that their shared Path and lessons in spiritual growth will continue.