Boris Akunin - She Lover of Death

I examined the sheet of paper curiously. Against the light I could see a rounded lily and the letter ‘F’. Prospero understands beautiful things. I thought his gift was touching and old-fashioned, enchanting in fact.

I didn’t open the book for two days – I was not in the mood for reading treatises. But today, after saying goodbye to Genji for three whole weeks, I decided to see whether the medieval author could tell me anything new about love.

I took out the bookmark, set it aside and started reading. Some learned canon, whose name was indicated on the cover only by the letter ‘W’, asserted that in the eternal opposition between love and death, the latter usually won the upper hand, but there were some cases, very rare, when the devoted love of two hearts soared beyond the limits set for a mortal being and established passion in eternity, so that with the passing of time love did not wane but, on the contrary, shone ever brighter and brighter. The strange canon believed that the guarantee of passion’s immortalisation was a dual suicide, committed by the lovers so that life could not part them. The author believed that in this way they subordinated death to their feelings of love, making it love’s faithful slave for ever.

When I was tired of the medieval freethinker’s long sentences and the gothic script, I looked up from the yellow pages and started wondering what all this meant. Not the text, the meaning of which was quite clear, despite its florid style, but the gift. Was Prospero trying to tell me that he loved me and that his love was stronger than death? That he was not really death’s servant, but had always served only love? And what should I write to him?

I decided that I would start like this: ‘Dear Doge, I shall always be grateful to you, because you taught me the rudiments of those two most important disciplines of all – love and death. But these are subjects that everyone must master independently, and everyone must take the examinations on the basis of their own research.’

I opened the inkwell, picked up the sheet of paper and . . .

And I immediately forgot about the treatise, the Doge and the letter. Familiar angular letters had appeared, faintly, but perfectly clearly, through the marbling of the old paper, forming two words: Ich warte . 1

I didn’t realise straight away what the words meant. I was simply surprised that they could have appeared like that out of nowhere. After all, two days earlier I had examined the sheet of paper very closely, and it was absolutely blank! The letters were not written with a pen, they had literally bled through, as if they had percolated out of the dense paper. I shook my head to drive away the apparition, but it didn’t disappear. Then I pinched myself on the arm to wake myself up.

And I did wake up. The veil fell from my eyes, the hourglass was reversed and the world was turned back from its head on to its feet.

Tsarevich Death is waiting for me. He is no chimera and no fiction. He exists. He loves me, he is calling me, and I must answer his call.

The last time, when Caliban interrupted me, I was still not ready for this meeting – I was concerned with all sorts of nonsense, I was struggling to drag the farewell poem out of myself by force. That was why he gave me a period of grace. But now the time has come. My betrothed is weary of waiting for me, and I am going.

I don’t have to invent anything, it’s all very simple. How I shall look after I am gone is not important. The dream that is called life will be scattered like mist, and in its place I shall see a new dream, indescribably more beautiful.

Go out on to the balcony, into the darkness. Open the cast-iron gate. The sheet-metal roof of the building opposite gleams dully in the light of the moon and the stars. It is close, but too far away to jump on to. But anyway, walk back into the room, take a good run and go soaring out into empty space. It will be a breathtaking flight – straight into the embrace of the Eternal Beloved. I feel sorry for my mother and father. But they are far away. I see the little town – log-walled houses amid the white snowdrifts. I see the river – black water, with huge rafts of ice creeping along it. Masha Mironova is standing on one ice-floe and there is a tight bunch of people on another. The black crack between them grows wider and wider. The Angara is like a length of white cloth that has been cut crookedly along its length.

And here is the poem. No need to rack my brains – I just have to write it down.

That’s all. Now just run and jump.

To the publisher

I have no time to edit and transcribe this confused but honest story. I have only one request, please discard the lines that have been crossed out. Let the reader see me, not as I was, but as I wish to be seen.

M.M.

To His Honour Lieutenant-Colonel Besikov

(Private and confidential)

Dear Lieutenant-Colonel,

You must be surprised that I am writing to you again after our meeting yesterday, which took place at your insistence and concluded with my curses, cries and shameful tears. Or perhaps you are not surprised, since you despise me and are convinced of my weakness. But let that be as you wish. Probably you are right about me, and I would never have escaped from your tenacious grasp if not for the events of the night just past.

Consider this letter an official document or, if you prefer, my formal testimony. But if this letter is not sufficient, I am willing to confirm my evidence to any agency of law-enforcement, even under oath.

I could not get to sleep last night, my nerves were strained after our discussion and – why should I pretend otherwise? – I was frightened. I am a man of an impressionable and hypochondriacal disposition, and your threat to have me exiled to Yakutsk, and also to inform the political exiles there that I had collaborated with the gendarmes, had unsettled my nerves completely.

And so I rushed about the room, tousling my hair and wringing my hands – in short, I was in a desperate, cowardly state. I even started sobbing once, I felt so terribly sorry for myself. If I did not detest suicide so fiercely as a result of my poor beloved brother’s death last year (he was so like the two young twins in our club!) I would certainly have seriously considered laying hands on myself.

However, you do not need to know about my nocturnal sufferings, and they are unlikely to be of any interest to you. Let me simply say that I had still not got to sleep at one in the morning.

Suddenly my attention was attracted by a terrible popping and rattling noise rapidly approaching the building. I glanced out of the window in fright and saw an outlandish three-wheeled carriage approaching the gates, moving without any horse to pull it. I could make out two figures on the high seat: one was wearing a suit of gleaming leather, a helmet and huge goggles that covered almost all his face; the other looked even stranger – he was a young Jew in a skull cap with side-locks, but also wearing immense goggles.