Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death

Mr Nameless looked at this terrible man quite calmly, but Senka’s jaw dropped in horror. So much for the fun of the fancy-dress ball!

‘Stop frightening Motya, he’s meshuggah anyway,’ said Erast Petrovich. ‘And put that metal stick away. It’s easy to see you don’t know Jews very well, Mr Bandit. They’re very cunning people! Haven’t you noticed who they sent out to meet you? Do you see here the chairman of the board of trustees, Rosenfeld, or Rabbi Belyakovich, or perhaps Merchant of the First Guild Shendiba? No, you see the old, sick Naum Rubinchik and the schlemazel Motya, a pair that no one in the world cares about. Even I don’t care about myself, I’ve had this life of yours right up to here.’ He ran the edge of his hand across his throat. ‘And if you “snuff” Motya here, that will be only a great relief to his poor parents. They’ll say: “Thank you very much, Mr Ghoul”. So let’s stop all this trying to frighten each other and have a talk, like reasonable people. You know what they say in the Russian village? In the Russian village they say: You have the merchandise, we have the merchant, let’s swap. Mr Ghoul, you’re a young man, you want money, and the Jews want you to leave them in peace. Am I right?’

‘I suppose.’ The Ghoul lowered the hand holding the knife. ‘Only you let slip as there was no crunch.’

‘No money ...’ Old Rubinchik’s eyes glinted and he paused for a moment. ‘But there is silver, an awful lot of silver. Does an awful lot of silver suit you?’

The Ghoul put the knife back in his boot and cracked his knuckles.

‘Cut the horse shit! Talk turkey! What silver?’

‘Have you heard word of the underground treasure? I see from the gleam in your little eyes that you have. That treasure was buried by Jews when they came to Russia from Poland during the time of Queen Catherine, may God forgive her her sins for not oppressing our people. They don’t make such fine, pure silver any more now. Just listen to the way it jingles.’ He took a handful of silver scales out of his pocket – the same kind of old kopecks that Senka had (or maybe they just looked the same – how could you tell?) and clinked them under the milker’s nose for a moment or two. ‘For more than a hundred years the silver just lay there quietly all on its own. Sometimes the Jews took a little bit, if they really needed it. But now we can’t get to it. Some potz in Khitrovka found our treasure.’

‘Yeah, I heard that yarn,’ the Ghoul said with a nod. ‘So it’s true. Was it you lot who shivved the pen-pusher and his family, then? Good going. And they say Jews wouldn’t swat a fly.’

‘Ai, I implore you!’ Rubinchik said angrily. ‘A plague on your tongue for saying such vile things! The last thing we need is for that to be blamed on the Jews. Maybe it was you who killed the poor potz, how should I know? Or the Prince? You know who the Prince is? Oh, he’s a terrible bandit. No offence meant, but he’s even more terrible than you.’

‘Watch it now!’ the Ghoul said, swinging his hand back to hit him. ‘You ain’t seen any real terror from me yet!’

‘And I don’t need to. I believe you anyway,’ said the old man, holding the palm of his hand in front of him. ‘But that’s not the point. The point is that the Prince has found out about the treasure and he’s searching for it day and night. Now we’re afraid to go near it.’

‘Oh, the Prince, the Prince,’ the Ghoul muttered, baring his yellow teeth. ‘All right, Grandad, keep talking.’

‘What else is there to discuss? This is our business proposition. We show you the place, you and your boys carry out the silver, and then we share it honestly: half for us and half for you. And believe me, young man, that will be a lot more than twenty thousand roubles, an awful lot more.’

The Ghoul didn’t think for long. ‘Good enough. I’ll take it all out myself, I don’t need any help. You just show me the place.’

‘Do you have a watch?’ Naum Rubinchik asked, staring sceptically at the gold chain dangling from the Ghoul’s pocket. ‘Is it a good watch? Does it keep good time? You have to be in Yeroshenko’s basement, right at the far end, where the brick bollards are, tonight. At exactly three o’clock. Poor little dumb Motya here will meet you and show you where to go.’ Senka winced under the keen, venomous stare that the Ghoul fixed on him and let a string of saliva dribble off his drooping lip. ‘And one last thing I wanted to say to you, just so you remember,’ the old Jew went on in a soulful voice, cautiously taking the milker by the sleeve. ‘When you see the treasure and you take it away to a good safe place, you will ask yourself: “Why should I give half to those stupid Jews? What can they do to me? I’d better keep it all for myself and just laugh at them”.’

The Ghoul swung his head this way and that to see whether there was an icon in the corner of the room. When he couldn’t find one he swore his oath dry, without it:

‘May the lightning burn me! May I be stuck in jail forever! May I wither up and waste away! If people treat me right, I treat them right. By Christ the Lord!’

The old grandad listened to all that, nodded his head then asked out of the blue: ‘Did you know Alexander the Blessed?’

‘Who?’ the Ghoul asked, gaping at him.

‘Tsar Alexander. The great-grand-uncle of His Highness the Emperor. Did you know Alexander the Blessed? I ask you. I can see from your face that you did not know this great man. But I saw him, almost as close as I see you now. Not that Alexander the Blessed and I were really acquainted, good God, no. And he didn’t see me, because he was lying dead in his coffin. They were taking him to St Petersburg from the town of Taganrog.’

‘So what are you spouting all this for, Grandad?’ the ghoul asked, wrinkling up his forehead. ‘What’s your tsar in a coffin mean to me?’

The old man raised a single cautionary yellow finger. ‘This, Monsieur Voleur: if you deceive us, they’ll carry you off in a coffin too, and Naum Rubinchik will come to look at you. That’s all, I’m tired. Off you go now. Motya will show you the way.’

He stepped back, sat down in a chair and lowered his head on to his chest. A second later there was the sound of thin, plaintive snoring.

‘A tough old grandad,’ the Ghoul said, winking at Senka. ‘You make sure you’re where you were told to be tonight, Carrot-head. Pull a fast one on me and I’ll wrap your tongue round your neck.’

He turned round softly, like a cat, and walked out of the house.

The moment the door slammed shut, the two Jews jumped out from behind the curtain.

They both started jabbering away at once. ‘What have you told him? What silver? Why did you make all that up? Where are we going to get so many old coins from now? It’s a total catastrophe!’

Erast Petrovich arose immediately from his slumbers, but instead of interrupting the clamouring trustees, he got on with his own business: he took off the skullcap and the grey wig, peeled off his beard, took a little glass bottle out of the sack, soaked a piece of cotton wool and started rubbing it over his skin. The liver spots and flabbiness disappeared as if by magic.

When there was a pause in the clamour, he said briefly: ‘No, I didn’t m-make it all up. The treasure really d-does exist.’

The trustees stared at him, wondering if he was joking or not. But from Mr Nameless’s face it was quite clear that he wasn’t.

‘But . . .’ the black-haired one said to him cautiously, as if he was talking to a madman, ‘ . . . but do you realise that this bandit will trick you? He’ll take all the treasure and not give you anything?’

‘Of course he’ll t-try to trick me,’ the engineer said with a nod as he removed his long coat, faded plush trousers and galoshes. ‘And then what Naum Rubinchik p-prophesied will come to pass. They’ll carry the Ghoul off in his c-coffin. Only not to St Petersburg. To a common g-grave in the Bozhedomka cemetery.’