Boris Akunin - She Lover of Death

The Oriental joined in the conversation. He spoke Russian rather briskly, but with an appalling accent.

‘Not onry ruvers,’ he protested energetically. ‘When Prince Asano’s nobur samurai receive permission commit hara-kiri, everyone congraturate them too.’

‘Masa, we can d-discuss the story of the forty-seven faithful vassals some other time,’ said Monte Cristo, interrupting the short Oriental. ‘At the moment, as you can see, I am talking to a lady.’

‘You may be talking to the lady,’ Columbine snapped. ‘But the lady is not talking to you.’

‘His Highness’ shrugged, discouraged, and she turned into the doorway that led to the right, beyond which there were two small rooms. The first one contained nothing but a cheap writing desk and the one beyond it was the bedroom. Her eye was caught by the divan bed, one of the new-fangled kind, with a central section that folded out, but it was very shabby and crooked. The top section didn’t fit properly against the bottom and the divan seemed to be grinning with a dark mouth.

Columbine remembered a line from Avaddon’s final poem, and muttered: ‘The bed clatters its teeth.’

‘What’s that?’ She heard Monte Cristo say behind her. ‘Poetry?’

Without turning round, she recited the entire quatrain in a whisper.

There really was something wolfish about the divan’s curved back.

The windowpane trembled (it was windy, like the evening before), Columbine gave a chill shudder and recited the final lines of the poem:

The wind, knowing the Beast is near,

Taps on the pane .

And she sighed. Where are you now, Chosen One Avaddon? Are you happy in the World Beyond?

‘That is Nikifor Sipyaga’s d-death poem?’ the quick-witted dandy stated rather than asked. ‘Interesting. Very interesting.’

The yard keeper told them: ‘There was a beast howling, really. The tenant on the other side of the wall told me. The walls here are flimsy, Your Excellency, nothing to them really. When the police left, the tenant next door came down to see me, out of curiosity. And he told me: at night, he says, someone started howling, eerie it was, going up and down, like he was calling someone or threatening them. And it went on right until dawn. He even banged on the wall – he couldn’t sleep. Thought as Mr Sipyaga had got a dog. Only there wasn’t any dog here.’

‘An interesting little flat,’ said the man with dark hair. ‘I can hear some k-kind of sound too. Only not howling, it’s more like hissing. And this intriguing sound is coming from your handbag, Mademoiselle.’

He turned to Columbine and looked at her with his blue eyes – she couldn’t tell if their expression was sad or happy.

Never mind, they’ll be frightened in a moment, Columbine thought mischievously.

‘From my handbag? Are you sure?’ she asked, feigning surprise. ‘But I can’t hear anything. Well now, let’s take a look.’

She deliberately lifted up her bag so that it was right under the arrogant stranger’s nose and clicked open the little lock.

Lucifer didn’t let her down. He stuck out his narrow little head just like a jack-in-a-box, opened his jaws and gave such a hiss! He’d obviously got bored in his dark, cramped lair.

‘Holy Mother of God!’ the yard keeper howled, banging the back of his head against the doorpost. ‘A snake! It’s black! And I haven’t drunk a drop!’

But what a pity – the handsome gentleman wasn’t in the least bit frightened. He inclined his head to one side to take a good look at the snake and said approvingly: ‘A fine little g-grass snake. You’re fond of animals, Mademoiselle? Very laudable.’

And then he turned back to the yard keeper, as if nothing had happened.

‘So, you say the unknown b-beast was howling until dawn. That’s the most interesting thing of all. What’s the neighbour’s name? The one who lives on the other side of the wall. What does he d-do for a living?’

‘Stakhovich. He’s an artist.’ The yard keeper kept glancing warily at Lucifer and rubbing the bruise on the back of his head. ‘Young Miss, is he safe? He won’t bite?’

‘Of course he will!’ Columbine replied haughtily. ‘Not half he will.’ And she told the Count of Monte Cristo. ‘You’re a grass snake. This is an Egyptian cobra.’

‘A Co-bra, very well,’ he drawled absentmindedly, not really listening.

He stopped by the wall where there was clothing hanging on nails – evidently Avaddon’s entire wardrobe: a pitiful, patched greatcoat and a worn student’s uniform jacket, obviously second-hand.

‘So Mr Sipyaga was very p-poor?’

‘As poor as a church mouse. Never even tipped a kopeck, not like Your Grace.’

‘And yet the flat is not at all bad. Probably thirty roubles a month?’

‘Twenty-five. Only it wasn’t him that rented it, how could he have? It was Mr Blagovolsky, Sergei Irinarkhovich, who paid.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘I couldn’t say. That’s what it says in the accounts book.’

As she listened to this conversation, Columbine turned her head this way and that, trying to guess exactly where the wedding with Death had taken place. And eventually she found it. There was a severed rope-end hanging from the hook of the curtain rod.

She gazed at the crude piece of metal and the tattered piece of hemp in awe. Lord, how pitiful, how wretched are the gates through which the soul escapes from the hell of life into the heaven of Death!

‘Be happy, Avaddon!’ she thought to herself and put the bouquet down on top of the skirting board.

The Oriental came across and clicked his tongue disapprovingly: ‘Brue frowers no good! Brue for when drowned. When hanged, should be daisy.’

‘Masa, you ought to give the “Lovers of Death” lectures on how to honour suicides,’ Monte Cristo remarked with a serious air. Tell me now, what colour should the bouquet be, for instance, when someone has shot himself ?’

‘Red,’ Masa replied just as seriously. ‘Roses or poppies.’

‘And if he poisoned himself ?’

The Oriental didn’t hesitate for a second.

‘Yerrow chrysanthemums. If no chrysanthemums, can be buttercups.’

‘And what if his stomach was slit open?’

‘White frowers – because white corow most nobur.’

The Oriental folded his short-fingered hands as if in prayer and his friend nodded in approval.

‘A pair of clowns,’ Columbine exclaimed scornfully. She cast a final glance at the hook and walked towards the door.

Who could have imagined that she would see the dandy from Avaddon’s flat again and, of all places, at Prospero’s house!

He looked almost exactly the same as he had at their previous meeting: elegant, with a cane, only the frock-coat and the top hat were ash-grey instead of black.

‘Good evening, m-madam,’ he said with his characteristic slight stammer. ‘I’m here to see Mr Blagovolsky.’

‘Who? There’s no one here by that name.’

In the semi-darkness he couldn’t make out Columbine’s face, but she recognised him immediately – there was a gas lamp burning under the canopy of the door. She was terribly surprised. Had he got the wrong address? What a very strange coincidence that would be!

‘Ah, yes, I b-beg your pardon,’ said her chance acquaintance, bowing jokingly. ‘I meant to say Mr Prospero. Indeed, I was warned most strictly that it is not the d-done thing to use one’s own name here. So you must be Zemfira, say, or Malvina?’