He Lover of Death, page 19
‘Hmm, I see you have already p-patented this method of observation.’
And that was the end of the conversation.
Erast Petrovich opened the door a little bit, just a hair’s breadth, and put his eye to the crack. Senka tried arranging himself this way and that way (he was interested too) and eventually found the right position: he squatted down on his haunches and pressed himself against Mr Nameless’s hip, with his forehead against the doorpost. That is, he took a seat in the stalls.
He couldn’t believe his eyes – there had to be something wrong with them!
Death and the Ghoul were standing in the middle of the room with their arms round each other, and that greasy-haired slug was stroking her shoulder!
Senka either sobbed or sniffed – he couldn’t tell which it was himself – and he got a quick slap round the back of the head from Mr Nameless.
‘Ah, my lovely’ the Ghoul purred in a slimy voice. ‘Now that’s real consolation, that sweetens life up a bit. Of course, I’m not the Prince, I can’t give you gemstones, but I’ll bring you a silk scarf, from India. Incredibly beautiful, it is!’
‘Give it to your moll,’ said Death, backing off.
He grinned. ‘Jealous? My Manka’s not jealous. I’m in here with you, and she’s round the corner, keeping watch.’
‘Then give it to her, for her trouble. I don’t want your presents. That’s not what I love you for.’
‘What is it, then?’ the Ghoul asked, smiling even more broadly (Senka winced – his teeth were all yellow and rotten). ‘The Prince is a real wild one, but I’m better, am I?’
She gave a short, unpleasant laugh. ‘No one’s better than you in my mind.’
The Ghoul stared at her and screwed his eyes up. ‘I can’t understand you . . . But then, no one has enough nous to understand you women.’
He grabbed her by the shoulders and started kissing her. In his despair Senka hit his head against the wooden door – loudly. Erast Petrovich smacked him round the head again, but it was too late.
The Ghoul swung round sharply and pulled out his revolver. ‘Who’ve you got in there?’
‘Well, aren’t you the nervous one, and you a businessman too,’ said Death, wiping her lips in disgust. ‘It’s the draught blowing through the house, slamming the doors.’
There was a sudden whistle. And from close by too – inside the hallway, was it?
A hoarse voice (that was Beak, the one with the collapsed nose) said: ‘Manka’s given the shout – the superintendent’s on his way from Podkolokolny. With flowers. Maybe he’s coming here?’
‘Walking through Khitrovka, on his own?’ the Ghoul asked, surprised. ‘With no coppers? That takes guts.’
‘Boxman’s with him.’
The Ghoul disappeared like a shot. Then he shouted – probably from the hallway: ‘All right, darling, we’ll talk later. Give my regards to the Prince – that stag has big horns!’
The door slammed and it went quiet.
Death poured some brown water out of a carafe (Senka knew it was Jamaica rum) and took a sip, but she didn’t drink it, just rinsed out her mouth and spat it back into the glass. Then she took a piece of paper out of her pocket, unfolded it and held it up to her nose. After she’d breathed in the white powder, she relaxed a little bit and started sighing.
But Senka didn’t have any cocaine, so he just sat there numb, as if he’d turned into a block of ice. So an honest young lad with sugar-sweet shoulders and a ‘mon ange’ didn’t suit her, she couldn’t do it with him! But she could with this sticky-lipped slimeball?
Senka moved – and the engineer’s fingers beat a warning tattoo on the top of his head: Sit still, it’s too soon to come out.
Oh Lord, it couldn’t be true! Only it was, she was a whore with no morals at all, Erast Petrovich was right . . .
But this was only the first shock for Senka.
A minute went by, or maybe two, and there was a knock at the door.
Death swayed on her feet and pulled her shawl tight across her chest. She shouted: ‘It’s open!’
There was a jangle of spurs, and a bold officer’s voice said: ‘Here I am, Mademoiselle Morte. I promised to come for your answer at exactly five, and as a man of honour, I have kept my word. You decide: this is a bunch of violets, and this is an order for your arrest. Choose for yourself.’
Senka didn’t understand at first what violets had to do with anything, but then Superintendent Solntsev – it was his voice – went on to say:
‘As I already told you, I am in possession of reliable information from my agents which demonstrates beyond all doubt that you are involved in a criminally culpable relationship with the bandit and murderer Dron Vesyolov, also known as the Prince.’
‘And why waste government money on paying your agents? Everybody knows about me and the Prince,’ Death answered in a casual voice, sounding almost bored.
‘It’s one thing to know, and another to have properly documented and signed witness statements and, in addition, photographic pictures taken secretly, according to the very latest method. That, Fräulein Tod, contravenes two articles of the Criminal Code. Six years of exile. And a good prosecutor will tack on aiding and abetting banditry and murder. That’s hard labour, seven years of it. It’s appalling even to think what the guards – and anyone else whose fancy you tickle – will do with a girl from a simple family like you. I don’t envy your beauty. You’ll come out a total ruin.’
Then Colonel Solntsev himself appeared in the crack of the door –smart and spruce, with that gleaming parting. He really was holding a bunch of Parma violets (‘cunning’ in the language of flowers) in one hand, and a piece of paper in the other.
‘Well, and what is it you want?’ Death asked, setting her hands on her hips, which really did make her look like the Spanish woman in the opera. ‘Do you want me to betray my lover to you?’
‘What the hell do I want with that Prince of yours!’ the superintendent exclaimed. ‘When the time comes, I’ll take him anyway! You know perfectly well what I want from you. I used to beg before, but now I demand. If you won’t be mine, then it’s penal servitude! On the word of an officer!’
A steely muscle in Erast Petrovich’s thigh twitched – Senka felt it with his cheek – and Senka’s own hands clenched into tight fists. What a rotten louse that superintendent was!
But Death only laughed. ‘My gallant knight, do you woo all the ladies this way?’
‘I’ve never wooed anyone,’ said Solntsev, and his voice was trembling with passion. ‘They come running after me. But you ... you have driven me out of my mind! What’s that criminal to you? Tomorrow or the next day, he’ll be lying in the gutter, shot full of holes by police bullets. But I’ll give you everything: full upkeep, protection from your former friends, the position you deserve. I can’t marry you –I won’t lie, and you wouldn’t believe me anyway. But love and marriage are quite different substances. When the time comes for me to marry, I won’t choose my bride for her beauty, and my heart will still belong to you. Oh, I have great plans! The day will come when you’ll be the uncrowned queen of Moscow, and perhaps even more! Well?’
Death didn’t answer straight away. She tilted her head, and looked at him as though he was some curious object.
‘Tell me something else,’ she said. ‘I just can’t make up my mind.’
‘Ah, so that’s the way!’ said the superintendent, flinging the bouquet down on the floor. ‘All’s fair in love and war. I won’t just throw you in prison, I’ll close down that damn orphans’ poorhouse you support. It runs on stolen money and it only raises more thieves! Don’t you forget, my word’s as tough as steel!’
‘Now that’s more like it,’ said Death, smiling at something. ‘That’s convincing. I agree. Tell me your terms and conditions, Innokentii Romanich.’
The colonel seemed rather taken aback by this sudden compliance, and he backed away a couple of steps, which took him out of view again.
But it didn’t take him long to recover. There was a creak of boot leather and a hand in a white glove reached down to pick up the bouquet.
‘I do not understand you, Señora Morte, but let that be, it is not important. Only bear in mind that I am a proud man and I will not be made a fool of. If you take it into your head to cheat me ...’ His fist clenched round the violets so tightly that all the stems snapped. ‘Is that clear?’
‘Yes, that’s clear. Get to the point.’
‘All right, then.’ Solntsev reappeared in the crack. He was about to present her with the bouquet, but then he noticed that the flowers were limp and lifeless, and tossed them on to the table. ‘Until I take out the Prince, you will live here. I’ll come in secret, at night. And you’d better be affectionate! I don’t tolerate coldness in love.’
He took off his gloves, threw them on the table too and reached out for her.
‘And won’t you be afraid to come to me?’ Death asked. ‘Doesn’t it frighten you?’
The superintendent’s hands dropped. ‘That’s all right. I’ll bring Boxman with me. The Prince won’t dare stick his nose in with him around.’
‘I don’t mean the Prince,’ she said quietly, moving closer. ‘Isn’t it a fearful thing to toy with Death? Have you never heard what happens to my lovers?’
He laughed. ‘Nonsense. Tall tales for ignorant proles.’
She laughed as well, but in a way that made Senka’s skin crawl. ‘Why, Innokentii Romanich, you’re a materialist. That’s good, I like materialists. Well then, let’s go to the bedroom, since you’re so very brave. I’ll give you the sweetest hugging I can.’
Oh, didn’t Senka just groan at that! To himself, of course, quietly, but that only made the groan all the more painful. What George said about women was right: ‘Moncher, essentially they are all bedspreads. They lay themselves out for whoever pushes the hardest.’
Senka thought the superintendent would go dashing into the bedroom after what she’d just said, but he jangled his watch and sighed. ‘I am ablaze with passion, but I cannot quench the flames now, I’ve been called to the police chief’s office to report at half past six. I’ll drop in late this evening. And mind now, no tricks!’
The brazen dog patted Death on the cheek and walked to the door, jingling his spurs.
Death took out her handkerchief and lifted it to her face, as if she was going to wipe her cheek, but she didn’t. She sat down at the table and sank her face into her crossed arms. If she had started to cry, Senka would have forgiven her everything, but she didn’t cry –her shoulders didn’t shake, and he couldn’t hear any sobbing. She just sat there like that.
Senka raised his head and gave Mr Nameless a rueful look: what a fool I am.
But he shook his head thoughtfully and moved his lips, and Senka guessed rather than heard what he said: ‘An interesting individual . . .’
Erast Petrovich winked at him, as if to say: don’t let it get you down. Then he signalled – the time had clearly come to get involved.
But more footsteps came – not crisp steps, like the superintendent’s, but heavy, plodding ones, with a bit of a shuffle.
‘Well then, begging your pardon,’ said a gruff bass voice.
Boxman! Senka grabbed Mr Nameless by the knee: Stop, you mustn’t go out! ‘His Honour forgot his gloves. He sent me, decided not to come himself.’
Death raised her head. No, there weren’t any tears on her face, but her eyes were blazing even brighter than they always did.
‘I should think not.’ She laughed. ‘Innokentii Romanich made such a grand exit. Coming back for his gloves would spoil the whole effect. Take them, Ivan Fedotich.’
She picked the gloves up off the table and threw them to him. But Boxman didn’t go straight away.
‘Oh, girl, girl, just look at what you’re doing to yourself! God gave you all that beauty, and you drag it through the mud, you mock God’s gift. That peacock came out of here gleaming like a fresh-polished boot. So you didn’t refuse him either. But that titch is nothing, he’s not even a peacock – he’s a wet chicken. And the Prince, your fancy man, is a festering pimple. Squeeze him, and he’ll burst. Is that the kind you really want? You’ve got fog in your head and a darkness in your soul. You need a straightforward, strong man with a huge fortune, something you can cling to while you catch your breath and get your feet on the ground.’
Death raised her eyebrows in surprise: ‘What’s this, Ivan Fedotich. Have you turned matchmaker in your old age? I’d be interested to know who you want to match me with. Who is this rich man you talk of?’
Just then an angry voice shouted from somewhere – could it have been the hallway?
‘Boxman, you idle good-for-nothing, what are you doing in there so long?’
Boxman finished his piece in a hurry: ‘I only want what’s good for you, you miserable fool. I have in mind a certain man, who would be your strength and protection and salvation. I’ll call in later and we’ll have a little talk.’
There was tramping of heavy boots, and the door slammed.
Death was alone again, but she didn’t sit down at the table this time. She walked to the far corner of the room, where the cracked mirror hung, stood in front of it and examined herself. She shook her head and even seemed to mutter something under her breath, but Senka couldn’t make it out.
‘Well now, Semyon Spidorov,’ Mr Nameless whispered. ‘Pardon the literary allusion, but this scene is straight from Boccaccio. Right, I’ll join in and try my luck. I bet my entrance will be even more impressive than the departure of Colonel Solntsev. And you climb back out, there’s nothing for you here. Through the window, at the double!’ And he pointed the way.
Senka didn’t argue. He stepped on to the china bowl (a ‘lavatory basin’, it was called, they had the same kind in the bordello, and there was another kind of bowl too, for women to rinse themselves off, that was called a ‘bidet’) and he pretended to be reaching up to the little window, only when Erast Petrovich knocked on the door and stepped into the room, Senka tumbled straight back down again. Resumed his observation post, so to speak.
HOW SENKA WAS
DISILLUSIONED WITH PEOPLE
Erast Petrovich stepped unhurriedly into the centre of the room and tipped his hat (today he was wearing a checked cap with the earflaps turned up).
‘Do not be alarmed, dear lady. I will not d-do you any harm.’
Death did not turn round, she looked at her uninvited guest through the cracked mirror. She shook her head and ran her hand across the surface, then she looked over her shoulder, with a surprised expression on her face.
He bowed gently. ‘No, I am not a v-vision or a hallucination.’
‘Then go to hell,’ she snapped, and turned back to the mirror. ‘What a nerve you have! I only need to say the word, and you’ll be torn to pieces, whoever you are.’
Erast Petrovich walked closer. ‘I see you were not at all f-frightened. You really are a m-most unusual woman.’
‘Ah, so that was why the door creaked,’ she said, as if she was talking to herself. ‘And I thought it was a draught. Who are you? Where did you spring from? Did you jump up out of the sewer, then?’
He replied sternly to that: ‘For you, m-mademoiselle, I am an emissary of fate, and fate “jumps up” out of anywhere it sees f-fit, sometimes from very strange places indeed.’
At that she finally turned round to face him with a look in her eyes that seemed puzzled, not contemptuous – hopeful even, Senka thought.
‘An emissary of fate?’ she repeated.
‘Why, don’t I look the p-part?’
She moved towards him and looked into his face.
‘I don’t know . . . perhaps you do.’
Senka groaned – they couldn’t have stood in a less fortunate position. Mr Nameless’s tall figure concealed Death completely, and even he was visible only from the back.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Then I shall speak p-poetically, as behoves an emissary of fate. My lady, a cloud of evil has c-condensed above the part of Moscow where you and I now stand. From time to t-time it waters the earth with a b-bloody rain. This cloud of iron-grey is not b-borne away by the wind, it seems to be held in place by some k-kind of magnet. And I suspect that m-magnet is you.’
‘Me?’ Death exclaimed in an agitated voice, and took one step to the side. Senka could see her clearly now. Her face looked bewildered, nothing like the way it usually was.
Erast Petrovich also moved, as if he wanted to keep some distance between them.
‘A wonderful t-tablecloth,’ he declared. ‘I have never seen such a marvellous d-design before. Who embroidered it? You? If you did, you have genuine t-talent.’
‘That’s not what you were talking about,’ she interrupted. ‘What makes you think the blood is shed because of me?’
‘The fact, Madame Death, that you have g-gathered around your good self the most d-dangerous criminals in the city. The Prince, a murderer and b-bandit, who supports you. A monster by the name of D-Deadeye, who supplies you with c-cocaine. The Ghoul, an extortionist and low scoundrel, whom you also seem to covet f-for some reason. What do you want with this c-cabinet of curiosities, this collection of aberrations?’
She said nothing for a long time. Senka thought she wasn’t going to answer at all. But then she did.
‘I suppose I need them.’
‘Who are you?’ Mr Nameless exclaimed angrily. ‘A g-greedy wealth-grubber? A vainglorious woman who likes to imagine herself as the q-queen of villains? A hater of men? A madwoman?’
‘I am Death,’ she declared quietly and solemnly.
He muttered in a barely audible voice: ‘Another one? Isn’t that t-too many for one city?’
‘What do you mean by that?’
He walked up close to her and said sharply, insistently: ‘What do you know about the m-murder of the Siniukhins and the Samshitovs? These c-crimes bear the signs of some strange satanic idolatry: either the eyes are p-put out, or every living thing is exterminated, even a p-parrot in its cage. A genuine b-banquet of death.’ His shoulders twitched.
