Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death

So he did.

She said: ‘Tell me, Semyon, what do you think about the theory of social evolution?’

He didn’t say a word, just laughed.

She started getting nervous and batting her eyelids. I suppose, she said, you probably support the violent overthrow of social institutions. And he just cocked his head and pulled a face – that was his only response.

In the park, when George took his gigglebox for a ride in a boat (Senka’s girl didn’t want to go, said the water made her feel dizzy), the time came for action.

Senka’s mysterious behaviour had driven the young lady into a real state – she kept jabbering on and on, just couldn’t stop. In the middle of an endless speech about someone called Proudhon and someone called Bakunin, he leaned forward, put his arms round Four-eyes’ bony shoulders and kissed her real hard on the lips. Didn’t she squeal! She pushed her hands against his chest, and Senka almost let go – he was no rapist, no sirrah. He was bracing himself for a slap round the face – though with those dainty little hands, she probably wouldn’t even make him flinch.

She resisted all right, but she didn’t push him off. Senka was surprised, and he carried on kissing her, feeling her ribs with his hands and unfastening the buttons on the back of her dress: maybe she’d come to her senses?

The girl student murmured: ‘What are you doing, Semyon, what is this . . . Is it true what George says, that you’re . . . Ah, what are you doing! . . . That you’re a proletarian?’

Senka growled to make himself seem more like an animal and got really cheeky, slipping his hand in under her dress where it was unbuttoned. The young lady’s back was bare at the top, where her backbone stuck out, but lower down he could feel silk underwear.

‘You’re insane,’ she said, panting. Her specs had slipped offside-ways and her eyes were half closed.

Senka ran his hands over her this way and that for about a minute, just to make absolutely sure that Masa’s theory was correct, and then backed off. She was awfully bony, but then he hadn’t started this out of mischief – it was a scientific experiment, as they said in cultured circles.

While they were driving back from Sokolniki, the scholarly girl didn’t open her mouth once – she kept staring hard at Senka, as if she was expecting something, but he wasn’t thinking of her at all, he was having a real epiphany.

So that was the power of learning for you! Knowledge could overcome any obstacle!

The next day at first light he was waiting at the door for Masa.

When his teacher arrived, he led him straight to his room, didn’t even let him take his tea.

And he begged Masa in the name of Christ the Lord: Teach me, Sensei, how to win the heart of the creature I adore.

Masa was fine about it, he didn’t mock Senka’s feelings. He told him to explain in detail what kind of creature they were dealing with. Senka told him everything he knew about Death, and at the end he asked in a trembling voice: ‘Well, Uncle Masa, is there really no way I can smite a swan like that with Cupid’s arrow?’

His teacher folded his hands on his belly and smacked his lips. Why, he asked, is there no way? For the true admirer all things are possible. And then he said something Senka didn’t understand: ‘Death-san is a woman of the moon.’ There are women of the sun and women of the moon, he explained, they’re born into the world like that. I prefer women of the sun, he said, but that’s a matter of taste. Women of the moon, like your Death-san, he said, have to be approached like this – and he went through the whole thing with Senka, blow by blow, may God grant him the very best of health.

That very evening Senka set out to see Death – and seek his good fortune.

He didn’t dress the way he’d had been planning to earlier – in a white tie with a bouquet of chrysanthemums. He kitted himself out in line with Masa’s teachings.

He put on the old shirt that Death had once darned for him, and deliberately tore it under one arm. He bought a pair of patched boots at the flea market, and sewed a patch on a pair of trousers that were perfectly sound.

When he took a look at himself in the mirror, it even made him feel all weepy. He was just sorry that he’d put that tooth in the day before – the gap would have made him look even more pitiful. But he reckoned that if he didn’t open his mouth too wide, the gold wouldn’t glitter too brightly.

Everything was washed and clean, and he’d been to the bathhouse too. Masa had impressed that on him: ‘Poor, but crean, they don’ rike dirty admirers.’

Senka got out of the cab on the corner of Solyanka Street and walked up along the Yauza Boulevard. He knocked loudly, but his heart was pounding away even louder.

Death opened the door without calling out, just like she did the time before.

Senka thought she was glad to see him, and the vice gripping his heart loosened a bit. Remembering that tooth, he didn’t open his mouth – anyway, the sensei had told him not to wag his jaw unless he really needed to. He was supposed to gaze at her with a pure, trusting look and keep blinking – that was all.

They went into the room and sat down on the sofa, side by side (Senka thought this was a good sign).

He’d had a special haircut done on Neglinnaya Street – ‘mon ange’, it was called: mop-headed and fluffy on top, with a strand hanging down over his forehead, pathetic but appealing.

‘I’ve been thinking about you,’ Death said. ‘Wondering if you were alive, if you were starving. Don’t stay here long. Someone might tell the Prince. That savage is furious with you.’

Senka had an answer ready. He looked at her through his flaxen strand and sighed. ‘I’ve come to say goodbye to you. I’m not going to get out of this alive anyway, they’ll find me and kill me. Let them kill me, I can’t bear to be involved in their murderous doings. It contradicts my principles.’

Death was really surprised: ‘Where did you pick up fancy words like that?’

Ah, he’d said it all wrong. This was no time to be clever and show off his learning, he had to play on her pity.

‘I’m famished, Death, from all this wandering around like a vagabond,’ Senka said, and he fluttered his eyelashes – could he coax out a tear? ‘My conscience won’t let me thieve and I’m ashamed to go begging. The nights have turned cold, it’s autumn already. Let me warm up a bit and have a bite to eat and I’ll go on my way.’

He was even moved to pity himself, he sobbed out loud. It had worked! Death’s eyes were wet and gleaming too. She stroked his hair and jumped up to put food on the table.

Even though Senka was full (before he came out, he’d put away a plate of poulardes and artichokes), he still guzzled the fine white bread with sausage and gulped the milk down noisily. Death sat there, resting her cheek on her hand. Sighing.

‘You’re really nice and clean,’ she said in a soulful voice. ‘And your shirt’s fresh. Who washed it?’

‘Who’d wash for me? I get by on my own,’ said Senka, looking at her with his eyes glowing. ‘In the evening I wash my shirt and pants in the river, and they’re dry by morning. ’Course, it’s a bit chilly with no clothes on, but I have to look out for myself. Only the shirt’s getting a bit shabby. I wouldn’t mind, but it’s a pity about your needlework.’ He stroked the flower sewn on his shirt and turned weepy. ‘Look, the shirt’s torn under my arm.’

Just like she was supposed to, Death said: ‘Take it off, I’ll sew it up.’

He took it off.

Mamselle Loretta, the one from the practical class, had said: You’ve got lovely shoulders, sweetheart, pure sugar, and your skin’s so soft and tender, I could just eat it. So now Senka straightened up his sugary shoulders and hugged his sides like a poor orphan.