Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death

The Japanese continued to put the wind up Senka – making out he was even more surprised. ‘Why be afrai’? You no’ afrai’ to sreep at nigh’, are you?’

After a dark hint like that, Senka stopped feeling afraid of the height. He backed off all the way to the window and opened the curtain, as if he needed some air. Now if anyone tried to kill him, he could jump up on the windowsill in a single bound.

‘But when you sleep,’ he said, ‘you know you’re going to wake up in the morning.’

‘An’ wake up afta death too. If you rive good rife, waking up wirr be good.’

So now he was playing the priest! That was a bit much, a heathen preaching to a baptised Christian about heaven and resurrection!

With the window so close now, Senka felt a bit bolder: ‘How did you find me?’ he asked. ‘Do you know some magic word?’

‘I know. It carred “roubur”. I gave boy roubur, an’ he forrow you.’

‘What boy?’ asked Senka, startled.

Masa pointed to a spot about two and a half feet off the floor. ‘Rittur boy. Snot face. But run fast.’

The Japanese glanced round the room and nodded approvingly. ‘Werr done, Senka-kun, for moving here. It crose to Asheurov Rane.’

Senka twigged – he meant Asheulov Lane, where he and Erast Petrovich had their lodgings. It really wasn’t far.

‘What do you want from me? I gave back the beads, didn’t I?’ he whined.

‘Master tord me to come,’ Masa explained sternly, almost solemnly, then sighed. ‘An’ you, Senka-kun, rike me. When I was rike you, I was rittur bandit too. If I not meet Master, I woul’ grow into big bandit. He is my teacher. And I wirr be your teacher.’

‘I’ve already got a teacher,’ Senka growled (he’d lost his fear of death).

‘What lessons he give you?’ Masa asked, livening up. (Well, actually, he said ‘ ressons’, but Senka had already learned to make out his queer way of talking.)

‘Well, there’s good manners . . .’

The short-ass was delighted at that. That was the most important thing, he said. And he explained about genuine politeness, which was based on sincere respect for every person.

At the very height of the explanation, a fly started buzzing about over Senka’s head. The rotten pest kept flying round and round, it just wouldn’t leave him alone. The Japanese jumped up in the air, waved his arm and caught the insect in his fist.

His agile speed made Senka squeal out loud and squat right down – he thought Masa was trying to kill him.

Masa looked down at Senka doubled up on the floor and asked what he was doing. ‘I was afraid you’d hit me.’

‘What for?’

Senka said with a sob in his voice: ‘Everyone wants to hurt a poor orphan.’

The Japanese raised one finger like a teacher. You need to know how to defend yourself, he said. Especially if you’re an orphan.

‘Yeah, but how do I learn?’

The Japanese laughed. Who was it, he asked, who said he didn’t need a teacher? Do you want me to teach you how to defend yourself?

Senka recalled the way the Oriental flung his arms and legs about, and he wanted to do that too. ‘That wouldn’t be bad,’ he said. ‘But I reckon nifty battering’s difficult, ain’t it?’

Masa walked over to the window and set the captured fly free. No, he said, battering people’s not difficult. Learning the Way, that’s what difficult.

(It was only later Senka realised he’d said the word ‘Way’ like it was written with a big letter, but at the time he didn’t twig.)

‘Eh?’ he asked. ‘Learning what?’

Masa started explaining the Way. He said life was a road from birth to death and you had to walk that road the right way, or else at the end of the journey you wouldn’t have got anywhere and afterwards it was too late to complain. If you crawled along the road like a fly, then in the next life you’d be born a fly, like the one that was just buzzing round the room. And if you crept along through the dust, you’d be born a snake.

Senka thought that was just fancy talk. He didn’t know then that Masa was serious when he talked about flies and snakes.

‘And what’s the right way to walk the road?’ asked Senka.

It turned out that doing it right was a kind of self-torture. First of all, when you woke up in the morning, you had to say to yourself: ‘Today death is waiting for me’ – and not feel afraid. And you had to think about it – death, that is – all the time. Because you never knew when your journey would come to an end, and you always had to be ready.

Senka closed his eyes and said the special words, and he wasn’t frightened at all, because he saw Death in front of him, looking incredibly beautiful. (Why be afraid, if she was waiting for you?)

But the more he learnt, the worse it got.

You couldn’t tell lies, you couldn’t doss about doing nothing, you couldn’t sleep on a feather bed (no mollycoddling yourself at all!) and you had to torture and torment yourself, toughen yourself up and in general really put yourself through it.

Senka listened and listened, and decided he didn’t want to go through all that agony. He’d already seen more than enough poverty and hunger – in fact he’d only just got a whiff of real life.

‘Ain’t there any simpler way, without the Way? Just so you can fight?

Masa was upset by that question, he shook his head. There is, he said, but then you’ll never beat a tiger, only a jackal.

‘Never mind, a jackal’s good enough for me,’ Senka declared. ‘I can walk round a tiger, me legs won’t fall off.’

Well, that made the Japanese even more sorrowful. ‘Damn your lazy soul,’ he said. ‘But take off your jacket and you can have your first resson.’

And he started teaching Senka the right way to fall if someone smashed you hard in the face.

Senka learned the skill quickly: he fell correctly, tumbled right over backwards and back up on his feet, and all the time he was waiting for Masa to ask him where a Khitrovka ragamuffin got so much money.

He never did.

But before he left, Masa said: ‘The master asks if you want to tell him anything, Senka-kun? No? Then sayonara.’

That was how they said ‘see you later’.

And he got into the habit of coming to the boarding house, never missed a day.

If Senka went down to breakfast, Masa was already there, sitting by the samovar, all red from drinking tea, and the landlady was serving him more jam. When he was there, strict Madam Borisenko went all soppy and started blushing. How come he affected her like that?

Then afterwards the Japanese gymnastics lesson began. Truth be told, Masa spent more time jabbering away than teaching him anything useful. The wily Oriental was obviously still trying to drag Senka on to that Way of his.

For example, he was teaching Senka to leap down off the roof of the shed. Senka had climbed up all right, but he couldn’t jump, he was afraid. It was fifteen feet! He’d break his leg!

Masa stood beside him, preaching. It’s the fear that’s stopping you, he said. Drive it away, a man doesn’t need it. All it does is stop your head and your body doing their job. You know how to jump, don’t you? I showed you, I explained. So don’t be afraid, your head and your body will just do it if fear doesn’t stop them.

Easily said!

‘So isn’t there anything in the world you’re afraid of, Sensei?’ That was what Senka had to call him, ‘sensei’. It meant ‘teacher’. ‘I didn’t think there was anybody who didn’t have any fear.’

The answer was: There are some people, but not many. The master, for instance, he’s not afraid of anything. But there is one thing that I am very much afraid of.

Senka felt a bit better when he heard that. ‘What? Dead men?’