Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death

What was it she didn’t want him to talk or write about, then? It had to be her indecent goings-on with the superintendent and those other scoundrels.

Senka folded the note back into a little square, the way it was before, and took it to Erast Petrovich. He was dying to ask the clever Mr Nameless a couple of questions about why he’d decided to make the Prince even more furious with a poor orphan. What need was there for that? And what was this ‘petal’ that Senka was supposed to have given Death?

Only if he asked, he’d let slip that he’d stuck his nose in the letter.

But that came out anyway.

The engineer glanced at the piece of paper and shook his head reproachfully straight off:

‘That’s not g-good, Senya. Why did you read it? The l-letter’s not to you, is it?’

Senka tried to deny it. ‘I didn’t read nothing,’ he said. ‘What do I care what’s in it?’

‘Oh c-come now,’ said Erast Petrovich, running his finger along the folds. ‘Unfolded and folded b-back again. And what’s this stuck to it? Could it be a l-louse? I doubt that b-belongs to Mademoiselle Death.’

How could you hide anything from someone like that?

The next day Senka was given a letter from Mr Nameless, but it wasn’t just a sheet of paper – it was in an envelope.

‘Since you’re so c-curious,’ the engineer declared, ‘I am sealing my m-missive. Don’t t-try to lick it open. This is a patent American g-glue; once stuck, it stays stuck.’

He smeared the stuff on the envelope with a brush, then pressed the letter under a paperweight.

Senka was simply amazed: it was true what they said – even the wise were fools sometimes. The minute he was outside the door, he tore the little envelope open and threw it away. They sold five-kopeck envelopes like that, for love letters, at every kiosk. What was to stop him buying a new one and sealing it without any fancy glue? It didn’t say on the envelope who the letter was for in any case . . .

To read or not to read – the question never even crossed Senka’s mind. Of course he was going to read it! After all, it was his fate that was being decided!

The note was written on thin paper, and Erast Petrovich’s handwriting was beautiful, with fine fancy flourishes.

‘Hello, DearD.Please permit me to call you that – I cannot stand your nickname, and you will not tell me what you are really called. Forgive me, but I cannot believe that you have forgotten it. However, just as you please.Let me get to the point.Things are clear with the first individual. Now do the same with the second one, only lead him on to the subject indirectly. As far as I am able to judge, this individual is somewhat cleverer than the Prince. It is enough for him simply to see the object. And then, if he asks, tell him about SS, as we agreed. [Who’s this SS, then? Senka rubbed his soot-smeared forehead, and a couple of dried lice fell out of his hair. Hey, Speedy Senka, that’s who it was! What were they plotting to do with him?] Forgive me for returning to a subject that you find disagreeable, but I cannot bear the thought of your subjecting yourself to defilement and torment – yes, indeed, I am certain that it is torment for you – in the name of ideas that I cannot comprehend and which are certainly false. Why do you punish yourself so harshly, why do you immerse your body in the mire? It has done nothing to offend you. The human body is a temple, and a temple should be keptpure. Some may counter: A temple, is it? It’s just a house like anyother: bricks and mortar. The important thing is not to besmirch the soul, but the body is not important, God doesnot live in the flesh, but in the soul. Ah, but the divine mystery will never be accomplished in a temple that is defiled and desecrated. And when you say that everything is written into people at their birth, you are mistaken. Life is not a book in which one can only move a long the lines that someone else has written. Life is a plain traversed by countless roads, and one is always free to choose whether to turn to the right or to the left. And then there will be a new plain and a new choice. Everyone walks across this plain, choosing his or her own route and direction – some travel towards the sunset, towards darkness, others travel towards dawn and the source of light. And it is never too late, even in the very final moment of life, to turn in a direction completely opposite to the one in which you have been moving for so many years. Turns of this kind are not so very rare: a man may have walked all his life towards the darkness of night, but at the last he suddenly turns his face towards the dawn, and his face and the entire plainare illuminated by a different light, the glow of morning. And of course, there verse happens too. My explanation is confused and unclear, but some how I suspect you will understand me.E.N.’

Well, that wasn’t a very interesting letter. A grand idea that was, to go smearing someone with all sorts of rotten muck and sending him halfway across the city, all for the sake of a bit of philosophical jabbering.

He spent five kopecks on a new envelope and hurried on to St Nicholas.

Death’s shawl wasn’t white today, it was maroon, and it set her face aglow with flickering glimmers of heat. As she walked by into the church, she scorched Senka with a glance that made him squirm on his knees. He remembered (God forgive him – this was not the time or the place) the way she had kissed him and hugged him.

When she came back out, her eyes still had that same mischievous glint in them. As she leaned down to give him alms and take the letter, she whispered: ‘Hello there, little lover. I’ll reply tomorrow.’

He walked back to Spasskaya Street, reeling.

Little lover indeed!

But there wasn’t any reply from Death the next day. She was nowhere to be seen. Senka spent the whole day on his knees until it was almost dark. He collected two roubles from his begging, but what a waste of time! Even Boxman, when he came round on his beat for the tenth, maybe fifteenth, time, told him: ‘You’re getting a bit greedy with the begging today, lad. Don’t you go overdoing it.’

Senka left after that.

On the fourth day, which was Sunday, Erast Petrovich sent him out again. The engineer didn’t seem surprised there was no reply to the last letter, he just seemed saddened.

As he sent Senka off to Podkopaevsky Lane, he said: ‘If she doesn’t come today, we’ll have to abandon the correspondence and think of something else.’

But she did come.

She didn’t even glance at Senka, though. As she gave him the money, she looked away, and her eyes were furious. Senka saw a silver scale on a chain round her neck – exactly like the ones from the treasure trove. He hadn’t seen Death wear anything like that before.

This time, instead of a piece of paper, Senka was left holding a silk handkerchief.

He walked across to a quiet spot and unfolded it. The note was inside. Senka started reading, taking great care to make sure nothing fell out of his hair and the folds in the paper didn’t get twisted.

‘Hello, Erast Petrovich.Ihaven’t found out anything from him, in fact I haven’t even tried asking him. He spotted my new trinket soon enough with those blank peepers of his, but he didn’t ask any questions. He muttered a poem to himself, that’s a habit he has. I remembered it word for word. We traded in damask steel silver and gold and nowitistimetotravel our road. I don’t what it means. Perhaps you will understand. [That’s Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich, and what’s so hard to understand, Senka thought condescendingly. He’d read The Tale of Tsar Saltan only the day before. And he knew who she was talking about too, it was Deadeye. He just loved spouting poetry.] And don’t you dare write to me again about the body or our correspondence is over. I wanted to break it off anyway. I didn’t go yesterday because I was angry with you. But today when he left I had a vision. I was lying in the middle of the plain you wrote about and I couldn’t get up. I lay there for along time, not just a day or two. And the grass and all sorts of flowers were growing up through me. I could feel them inside me– it wasn’t a bad feeling, it felt very good as they pushed through me towards the sun. And then it wasn’t me lying on the plain, I was the plain. Later I tried my best to embroider my vision onto a hand kerchief. Take it as a present.Death’