Boris Akunin - She Lover of Death

The same passions were raging in Columbine’s soul. Her little heart alternately stood still and fluttered wildly, as rapidly as a moth beating its wings against the glass.

But he – he slowly approached and put his hands on her shoulders and throughout the entire mystical ritual he did not utter another word. There was no need to speak, this evening belonged to silence.

He grasped Columbine’s slim wrist and drew her after him into a dark series of rooms. The captive felt as if, passing through these rooms, she underwent a series of transformations, like a butterfly.

In the dining room she was still a larva – moist and timid, curled up, helpless; in the study she became rigid with fear, a blind, motionless chrysalis; but on the bearskin that was spread out in the bedroom, she was destined for transformation into a butterfly with bright-coloured wings.

No words can even come near to describing what happened. Her eyes were wide open as her innocence was sacrificed, but they saw nothing except shadows slipping across the ceiling. And as for sensations . . . No, I do not remember any. Alternating immersion first in cold, then in heat, then in cold – that is probably all.

There was none of the pleasure that is described in French novels. Nor any pain. There was the fear of saying or doing something wrong – what if he should pull away contemptuously and the ritual was interrupted, left incomplete? And so Columbine said nothing and did nothing, merely submitted to his gentle but astonishingly masterful hands.

One thing I know for certain: it did not last long. When I walked back through the drawing room, alone, the candles were not even burned halfway down.

Oh no, he did not stand on ceremony with his obedient puppet. First he took her, never doubting his right for a moment, then he stood up and said: ‘Leave’. One word, only one.

Stunned and confused, Columbine heard the rustle of retreating footsteps and the quiet creak of a door: the rite of initiation was over.

The clothes lying on the floor even looked like a discarded chrysalis. Ah, a discarded chrysalis is nothing at all like an abandoned doll!

The new-born butterfly got up and fluttered her white arms like wings. She spun round on the spot. If she must leave, she must leave.

She walked along the deserted boulevard on her own. The wind threw leaves torn from the trees and fine rubbish into her face. Ah, how fiercely the night rejoiced in its new convert, exulted that the fall from light into darkness had finally been accomplished!

Apparently there is pleasure even in this – wandering through the empty streets at random, without knowing the way. A strange, incomprehensible city. A strange, incomprehensible life.

But a genuine one. Absolutely genuine.

Columbine re-read the entry in her diary. She crossed out the paragraph about pleasure as too naive. She hesitated over the silence throughout the mystical ritual – that was not entirely true. When Prospero started unfastening the buttons of her lemon-yellow blouse as they walked along, silly little Lucifer had snapped at the aggressor’s finger with his infant fangs (he must have feeling jealous) and that had spoiled everything a little bit. The Doge had cried out in surprise and insisted that the reptile must be imprisoned in a jug during the ritual, and he had spent at least two minutes rubbing the bite – two tiny indentations in his skin – with alcohol. Meanwhile Columbine had stood there with her blouse unbuttoned, not knowing what to do – button the blouse up again or take it off herself.

No, she hadn’t written about that petty, annoying trifle – what would be the point?

Afterwards she sat down in front of a mirror and studied herself for a long time. Strange, but she couldn’t see any particular changes, any new maturity or sophistication, in her face. They would come, but obviously not straight away.

One thing was clear: she would not be able to sleep on this great night.

Columbine sat down in the armchair by the window and tried to spot a star, even the very tiniest, in the murky sky, but she couldn’t. She felt rather upset, but then she told herself that it was all right. The thicker the darkness, the better.

She did fall asleep after all. And she only realised she had been sleeping when she was woken by loud knocking.

Leave

When she opened her eyes, she saw the sun already high in the sky outside the window and heard the sounds of the street: hooves clopping over cobblestones, a knife-grinder crying his trade. And then she heard that insistent knocking again: rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat!

She realised it was late morning and someone was knocking on the door, perhaps they had already been knocking for a long time.

But before she went to open the door, she checked to make sure there were no creases or indentations on her face after her sleep (there weren’t), ran a comb through her hair, straightened her dressing gown (cut Japanese-style, with Mount Fujiyama on the back).

The knocking on the door continued. Then she heard a muffled call: ‘Open up! Open up! It’s me!’

Petya. Well, of course, who else? He had come to make a jealous scene. She shouldn’t have given him her address yesterday. Columbine sighed, pulled her hair across her left shoulder on to her breasts and tied it with a scarlet ribbon.

Lucifer was lying on the bed in a neat spiral. He was probably hungry, poor thing, so she poured some milk into a bowl for the little snake and only then let the jealous rival in.

Petya burst into the hallway, pale-faced, with his lips trembling. He cast a surreptitious glance at Columbine (at least, that was how it seemed to her) and immediately turned his eyes away. She shook her head in amazement at herself. How could she have taken him for Harlequin? He was Pierrot, an absolutely genuine Pierrot, and that was his real name, after all, Pyotr, Petya.

‘What are you doing here at the crack of dawn?’ she asked severely.

‘But it’s midday already,’ he babbled and sniffed. His nose was wet and red. Had he caught a cold? Or had he been crying?

It proved to be the latter. The disgraced Harlequin’s face contorted, his lower lip worked up and down, tears gushed from his eyes and he started blubbing in grand style. He spoke haltingly, incomprehensibly, and not about what Columbine had been expecting.

‘I went round this morning, to his flat . . . He rents one, on Basmannaya Street, in the Giant company building . . . Like yours, on the top . . . So we could go to lectures together. And I was worried after yesterday. I caught up with him and walked him home.’

‘Who?’ she asked. ‘Speak more clearly.’

‘Nikisha. You know, Nikifor, Avaddon.’ Petya sobbed. ‘He wasn’t himself at all, he kept repeating: “It’s been decided, it’s over, now I just have to wait for the Sign.” I said to him: “Maybe there won’t be any Sign, eh, Nikisha?” “No”, he said, “There will, I know there will. Goodbye, Petushok. We won’t see each other again. Never mind” he said, “it’s what I wanted” . . .’

At this point the story was interrupted by another fit of sobbing, but Columbine had already guessed what was wrong.

‘What, there was a Sign?’ she gasped. ‘A Sign of Death? The choice was confirmed? And now Avaddon will die?’

‘He already has!’ Petya sobbed. ‘When I got there, the door was wide open. The yard keeper, the owner of the house, the police. He hanged himself!’

Columbine bit her lip and pressed one hand to her breast, her heart was pounding so hard. She listened to the rest without interrupting.

‘And Prospero was there too. He said he hadn’t been able to get to sleep during the night, and just before dawn he quite clearly heard Avaddon calling him, so he got up, got dressed and went. He saw that the door was half-open. He went in, and there was Nikifor, that is, Avaddon, in the noose. He was already cold . . . Of course, the police don’t know anything about the club. They decided that Prospero and I were simply acquaintances of the deceased.’ Petya squeezed his eyes shut, obviously recalling the terrible scene. ‘Nikisha was lying on the floor, with a blue furrow round his neck and his eyes bulging out, and his tongue was huge and swollen, too big to fit in his mouth. And there was an appalling smell!’