Boris Akunin - She Lover of Death

The reporter darted back out of the study so quickly that I barely managed to press myself against the wall in time. He did not notice me, because he hurried off towards the front door. The door into the study was left slightly ajar. And then something else strange happened. The opposite door – the one leading into the dining room, was also slightly ajar, but it suddenly squeaked and closed of its own accord! I swear to you that I am not making this up. There was no draught. That ominous creaking sound made me feel quiet unwell. My knees started trembling, my heart started pounding so rapidly that I was even obliged to swallow two tablets of cordinium. When I finally pulled myself together and ran out into the street after the journalist, he had already disappeared.

But then what point would there have been in following him, when it was already clear that he was going to his newspaper’s office?

I wonder what ‘bombshell’ he had in store for his readers. Never mind, we shall find that out from the morning edition of the Moscow Courier .

With every assurance of my heartfelt respect,

ZZ

17 September 1900

1. Pleasures of the flesh

2. What does twirling mean?

3. A drink made from berries, but also ‘Death’ in Latin

4. Most beloved

Lavr Zhemailo is Dead

Active opponent of suicide takes his own life

The world of Moscow’s newspapers has been shaken by woeful news.

Our trade has lost one of its most brilliant pens. A bright star that only recently made its appearance in the journalistic firmament has been extinguished.

The police are conducting an investigation and following every possible line of enquiry, including the possibility of a ritual execution carried out by the ‘Lovers of Death’, although it is quite clear to all those who have read Lavr Zhemailo’s brilliant articles in the Moscow Courier that the members of that secret club are in the habit of ending their own lives, not those of others. No, what happened was not a murder, but a tragedy that is in some ways even more lamentable. Our colleague took too heavy a burden upon his own shoulders, a burden that was perhaps too onerous for any mortal to bear, and that burden broke him. Now he is on the far side of that fatal dividing line, he has joined the ‘majority’ of which he wrote in his visionary article that caused such a stir, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth . . .’

We knew Lavr Zhemailo as a tireless opponent of the terrible phenomenon which many of us call ‘the plague of the twentieth century’ – the epidemic of apparently motiveless suicides that is mowing down the ranks of our educated youth. The deceased was a genuine crusader, who threw down the gauntlet to this insatiable, bloodthirsty dragon. How long is it since he came to conquer Moscow, this self-effacing reporter from Kovno who won his reputation at the provincial level and then, like many before him, moved to Russia’s Old Capital? He had to start again here, from the very bottom of the journalistic hierarchy – as a journeyman reporter, recording the petty chronicle of everyday life, describing house fires and other insignificant events. But talent always breaks through, and very soon the whole of Moscow was following with bated breath as the indefatigable journalist tracked the sinister ‘Lovers of Death’. In recent weeks Lavr Zhemailo appeared only rarely in the offices of the Courier . Our colleagues told us that his enthusiasm for the investigation was so great that he had virtually turned his entire life into a secret operation and submitted his reports only via the municipal post – no doubt he was afraid of being exposed by the ‘Lovers of Death’, or of attracting too much attention from the gentlemen of the police force. An outstanding example of a man’s genuine dedication to his profession!

Alas, the medic who seeks to treat epidemic illnesses runs the risk of contracting the plague himself. But perhaps a different comparison is appropriate here, with those devotees of the public health who quite deliberately inoculate themselves with the bacillus of some deadly ailment in order to study its infectious mechanism more closely, so that they can save others.

God only knows what turmoil ravaged our colleague’s soul on the final evening of his life. We know only one thing – he remained a journalist right up to the very last minute. The day before yesterday he phoned the makerup at the Moscow Courier , Mr Bozhovsky, and told him to hold the morning edition because he had ‘a bombshell’ for the front page.

Now we know what ‘bombshell’ the deceased had in mind – his own suicide. Well, the conclusion of Lavr Zhemailo’s career was certainly dramatic. It is only a pity that the horrific news failed to make the morning edition of the Moscow Courier . Fate played a final trick on the journalist – his body was only discovered at dawn, after the newspaper had already been printed, even though the spot he chose for his suicide was very visible – Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, which is only a stone’s throw from Trubnaya Square. The body hanging on an aspen tree really ought to have been noticed by some late passerby or the local constable, or a night cabby, especially since it was lit up by a nearby gas lamp, but it hung there until after five in the morning, when it was spotted by a street sweeper who came out to start clearing away the leaves.

Sleep well, passionate soul. We shall finish the job that you began. Our paper solemnly vows to raise the fallen banner anew and carry it forward. The demon of suicide will be banished from the streets of our Christian city. The Moscow Gazette will continue the journalistic investigation begun by our colleagues from the Courier . Watch out for our forthcoming articles.

The Editors

Moscow Gazette , 19

September (2 October) 1900,

front page

Chosen!

After I discovered in my handbag a second card with the single word ‘Bald’ 1written in the familiar Gothic letters, absolutely no doubt remained: I have been chosen, chosen!

Yesterday’s effusive outpourings on the subject of this realisation were laughable – the cluckings of a frightened hen. I have not simply crossed them out. I have torn out the two pages. I shall insert something more appropriate later.

Later? When later, if I have been told ‘Bald’ ?

The short word echoes inside my head, setting it ringing. When I go out I am not myself, I stumble into people on the pavement, I feel terrified and delighted by turns. But the main feeling I have is one of pride.

Columbine has changed completely. Perhaps she is no longer Columbine at all, but the alluring Distant Princess, far beyond the reach of any simple mortal.

All other interests and contingencies have been set aside, lost all meaning. Now I have a new ritual that sets my heart trembling: in the evening, when I get back from Prospero’s house, I take out the two small white rectangles, look at them, kiss them reverently and put them away in a drawer. I am loved!

The change that has taken place in me is so great that I feel no need to conceal it. Everyone in the club knows that Death is writing notes to me, but when I am asked to show these messages I always refuse. Genji is particularly persistent. As a man of intelligence, he realises that I am not fantasising, and he is very concerned – but I do not know if his concern is really for me or for the threat to his materialist views.

I cherish these messages and will not show them to anyone, they are mine and mine alone, addressed to me and meant for my eyes only.