Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death

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.

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.