Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death

There were about ten people dining at the widow Borisenko’s. They gaped at the well-bred young man, some of them said good evening, others simply nodded. Not one was wearing a frock coat, and the fat, curly-headed young man sitting beside Senka was dining in his shirt and braces. He turned out to be a student at the Institute of Land Surveyors, George by name. He lived up in the attic, where the rooms were twelve roubles apiece.

Their landlady introduced Senka as Mr Spidorov, a Moscow merchant-trader, although when they agreed terms for the room, he’d just called himself a trading man. Of course ‘merchant-trader’ sounded much better.

This George started pestering him straight away, asking what kind of commerce he was engaged in at such a young age, and about his old mum and dad. When they served the sweet (it was called ‘dessert’), the student asked in a whisper whether he could borrow three roubles.

Naturally, Senka didn’t give him three roubles just like that, and he answered his questions vaguely, but he had an idea for how George could be useful.

Senka couldn’t learn everything from just one book. A tutor, that was what he needed.

He took George aside and started lying, saying he was a merchant’s son who had worked in his father’s business, he’d never had time to study. Now his old dad had died and left all his riches to his heir, but what had he, Semyon Spidorov, ever seen of life, apart from a shop counter? If he could fine someone good-hearted to teach him a few things – proper manners, French and other bits and pieces –then he would pay good money for the privilege.

The student listened carefully and took the hint, and they fixed terms for classes straight off. As soon as George heard Senka was going to pay a rouble an hour, he announced that he wouldn’t go to the institute and was ready to put himself entirely at Semyon Trofimovich’s disposal all day long.

What they agreed was this: one hour a day studying spelling and fine handwriting; an hour for French, an hour for arithmetic; lunch and dinner were for studying good manners; and the evening class was proper behaviour in society. Seeing as it was a bulk-supply contract, Senka arranged a discount for himself: four roubles a day all told. They were both satisfied.

They lost no time, starting straight after dinner with a trip to the ballet. Senka’s tails were hired for two roubles from the musician in the next room.

At the theatre Senka sat up straight without fidgeting, though he soon got tired of watching men in tight underpants jumping about all over the stage. When the girls came running out in transparent skirts, things got a bit more lively, but the music had a really sour edge to it. It would have been deadly boring if George hadn’t taken the magnifying glasses from the cloakroom (‘binoculars’, they were called). Senka got a good look at everything. First the thighs of the dancing girls, then who was sitting in the boxes round the hall, and then he let his fancy wander – a wart on the bald patch of the leader of the musicians, who was waving a stick at the orchestra, so they would keep better order. When everyone applauded, Senka stuck the binoculars under his arm and clapped his hands, too, louder than anyone else.

Spending seven roubles to sit in a prickly collar for three hours couldn’t be anybody’s idea of fun. He asked George if rich people went to get sweaty at the theatre every night. George reassured him: he said you could go just once a week. Well, that wasn’t too bad, and Senka cheered up a bit. It was like standing through mass on a Sunday if you were God-fearing.

From the ballet, they went to the bordello (that was the cultured name for a bawdy house), to learn proper manners with ladies.

Senka was really embarrassed by the lamps with silk shades and the soft couches with bouncy springs. Mamselle Loretta, who was sat on his knee, was plump and springy herself, and she smelled of sweet powder. She called Senka ‘sweety’ and ‘kitten’, then she led him into a room and started getting up to all sorts of tricks that Senka had never heard of, even from Prokha.

But he felt ashamed because the lamp was lit, and anyway, there was no way this fat pussycat Loretta had anything on Death.

Phooey!

After that, they spent a long time learning how to drink champagne: you put a strawberry in it, let it settle in and get well soaked, then fished it out with your lips. Then you downed the bubbly booze in one and started all over again.

Well, of course, in the morning his head was killing him. It was even worse than after vodka. But only until George called in.

George looked at his pupil’s agony, clicked his tongue and sent one of the servants out for champagne and pâté at once. They spread the pâté on white bread rolls and drank the wine straight from the bottle.

Senka felt a bit better.

‘Now we’ll do a bit of French, and for lunch we’ll go to a French restaurant to reinforce our knowledge,’ George told him, and licked his thick lips.

Well, this isn’t too shabby, Senka thought, feeling more relaxed. Not nearly as hard as it looks. The life of luxury is all right by me.

Story three. About his little brother Vanka

Senka enjoyed thinking about his two great dreams, imagining how everything would work out – with love and countless riches. But even with his present riches, which weren’t so very great, he could already make one dream – which had seemed impossible before –come true. He could appear in all his glory before his brother Vanka.

Of course, he couldn’t turn up out of the blue just like that: Hello, I’m your big brother, dressed to the nines, but I’m a slum boy through and through, can’t speak a single cultured word. What if Vanka despised his ignorance?

But he could get by without all that much learning in front of a little kid.

Right from the off, Senka had asked George to correct any words he got wrong when they were talking. And to make sure the student made the effort, he was relieved of five kopecks for every word corrected.

Naturally, he was only too glad to try his best. Almost every other word got a: ‘No, Semyon Trofimovich, in cultured society they don’t say collidor, it should be corridor’ – and he jotted down another cross on his special piece of paper. Afterwards, in the arithmetic lesson, Senka himself multiplied those little crosses by five. On the first of September 1900, he was stung for eighteen roubles and seventy-five kopecks – and he’d tried to be stingy, not say a single word more than he needed to get by. He started off talking like a book: ‘But in this case it seems to me that. . .’ And then shut his mouth.

Senka groaned at the huge sum, and demanded a reduction –from five kopecks to one.

On the second of September he forked out, that is, he paid out, four roubles and thirty-five kopecks.

On the third of September, it was three roubles and twelve kopecks.

By the fourth of September he’d copped on a bit, that is got the feel of things, and it was down to one rouble and ten kopecks, and on the fifth he escaped only ninety kopecks poorer.

Senka decided that was good enough for Vanka, it was time to go. He could now expound his opinions for five minutes with perfect ease. After all, God had given him a perfectly good memory.

According to society etiquette, first he ought to send Justice Kuvsh-innikov a letter, saying this and that, and I would like to call on Your Grace with a view to visiting my adored little brother Vanya. But he didn’t have the patience for that.

First thing in the morning Senka went to the dentist to have a gold tooth put in, and he packed George off to Tyoply Stan to warn them that in the afternoon, if His Grace was agreeable, Semyon Trofimovich Spidorov, the well-to-do merchant-trader, would call in person, for a family visit, so to speak. George dressed up in his student uniform, bought his uniform cap out of hock and set off.