Boris Akunin - She Lover of Death

I envied this unknown gentleman who had managed to make such an impression on our impassive Doge, although I was not listening to the story very carefully, because something else was bothering me. I was going to read a new poem that I had worked on throughout the previous night and I was hoping that I had finally managed to get it right, and that Prospero would criticise this cry from the soul less severely than my previous efforts, which . . . Never mind, I have already written about that more than once, I will not repeat myself here.

When my turn came, I read out:

There was another stanza, which I particularly liked (I even shed a few teardrops over it) – about how a puppet has no god but the puppet-master.

But heartless Prospero waved his hand dismissively for me to stop, and frowned as he said: ‘Stodgy semolina!’

My poems do not interest him at all!

Afterwards Gdlevsky, whom Prospero always praises exorbitantly, read his verse, and I quietly left the room. I stood in front of the mirror in the hallway and started to cry. Or rather, I started howling. ‘Stodgy semolina!’

It was dark in the hallway, and all I could see in the mirror was my own stooped figure with a stupid bow in my hair, which had slipped right over to the left. Lord, how unhappy I felt! I remember I thought: If only the spirits would summon me today, I would gladly leave you all and go to the Eternal Bridegroom. But there was not much hope. Firstly, just recently the spirits had either not appeared at all or had simply babbled some sort of nonsense. And secondly, why would Death choose such a worthless, untalented woodlouse for a bride?

Then there was a ring at the door. I hurriedly straightened my bow, dried my eyes and went to open it.

There was a surprise in store for me.

Standing on the doorstep was the same gentleman I had seen when I took the forget-me-nots to Avaddon.

The appearance of Prince Genji

On that day when the tearful Petya-Cherubino had shown up at the small flat under the roof and frightened its occupant with the news of Avaddon’s death, and then with the Chosen One’s final poem, Columbine had sat in the armchair for a long time, reading the mysterious lines over and over again.

She had cried a little bit, of course. She felt sorry for Avaddon, even if he was a Chosen One. But then she had stopped crying, because what point was there in crying if someone had been granted what he was yearning for? His wedding with his Eternal Betrothed had been celebrated. In such cases one should not sob and weep, but feel glad.

And Columbine had set out to the newly-wed’s flat to congratulate him. She had put on her very smartest dress (white and airy, with two silver streaks of light sewn along the bodice), bought a bouquet of delicate forget-me-nots and gone to Basmannaya Street. She had taken Lucifer with her, only not on her neck, like a necklace (black would not have been appropriate on a day like this) but in her handbag – so that he would not be bored at home alone.

She found the Giant company’s building – a new, five-storey stone structure – with no difficulty. She had been planning simply to leave the flowers at the door of the flat, but the door was not sealed, in fact it was even half-open. She could hear muffled voices inside. If other people can go inside, then why can’t I, the bearer of congratulations, she reasoned, and walked in.

It was a small flat, no larger than her own in Kitaigorod, but quite remarkably neat and tidy and far from squalid, as she would have expected it to be from the late Avaddon’s shabby clothes.

Columbine stopped in the hallway, trying to guess where the room in which the Bridegroom had met his Bride would be.

The kitchen seemed to be on the left. She heard a man speaking in it, with a slight stammer.

‘And what d-door is this? The rear entrance?’

‘Precisely so, Your Excellency,’ replied another voice, husky and obsequious. ‘Only the gentleman student never used it. The back door is for servants, and he managed for himself. Because he was dog-poor, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

She heard a bump and a clang of metal.

‘So he d-didn’t use it, you say? Then why are the hinges oiled? And very thoroughly too?’

‘I couldn’t say. I suppose someone must have oiled them.’

The man with a stammer sighed and said: ‘A reasonable s-supposition.’ There was a pause in the conversation.

He must be a police investigator, Columbine guessed and started back towards the door to avoid trouble – he might start pestering her with questions: who was she, why was she here, what did the forget-me-nots mean? But before she could withdraw, three men walked out of the short corridor into the hall.

The first, ambling along and occasionally glancing round, was a bearded yard keeper in an apron, with his metal badge on his chest. Following him at a leisurely pace and tapping his cane on the floor, came a tall lean gentleman in a beautifully tailored frock-coat, snow-white shirt with immaculate cuffs and even a top hat – a perfect Count of Monte Cristo – and the yard keeper had called him ‘Excellency’, hadn’t he? The similarity to the former prisoner of the Château d’If was reinforced by the pale well-groomed face (which, she had to admit, was most impressive) and romantic black moustache. And the dandy was about the same age as the Parisian millionaire – she could see grey temples under the top hat.

Bringing up the rear was a squat, solidly built Oriental in a three-piece suit and a bowler hat pulled so far forward that it almost covered his eyes. But they weren’t really eyes – he stared out at Columbine from under the black felt through two narrow slits.

The yard keeper waved his arms at the young lady as if he were shooing away a cat.

‘You can’t come in here, get out! Go away!’

But Monte Cristo looked keenly at the smartly dressed girl and said laconically: ‘Never mind, it’s all right. Here, take this as well.’

He handed the yard keeper a banknote, and the bearded man doubled over in delight and called his benefactor ‘Your Highness’ instead of ‘Your Excellency’, from which she concluded that the handsome man with the stammer was not a count and most definitely not a policeman. Who had ever heard of policemen flinging rouble notes at yard keepers? Another curious outsider, Columbine decided. He must have read about the ‘Lovers of Death’ in the newspapers, and now he’d come to gape at the lodgings of the latest suicide.

The handsome gentleman doffed his top hat (in the process revealing that only his temples were grey, and the rest of his coiffure was still quite black), but he didn’t introduce himself, he merely asked: ‘Are you an acquaintance of Mr Sipyaga’s?’

Columbine refused to favour the Count of Monte Cristo with a glance, let alone a reply. The feeling of excitement and exultation had returned, she was not in the mood for idle conversation.

Then the persistent dark-haired gentleman lowered his voice and asked: ‘You must b-be from the “Lovers of Death”, I suppose?’

‘What makes you think so?’ she asked with a start, glancing at him in fright.

‘Why, it’s quite clear.’ He leaned on his cane and started bending down the fingers of one hand in a close-fitting grey glove. ‘You walked in without ringing or kn-knocking. So you must have come to see someone you know. That is one. You see strangers here, but you don’t ask after the occupant of the flat. So you already know that he is dead. That is two. But that didn’t stop you coming here in an extravagant dress with a f-frivolous bouquet. That is three. Who could regard a suicide as cause for congratulation? Only the “Lovers of Death”. That is four.’