Boris Akunin - Special Assignments

The Chief had taught him that the key to success lay in the first phrase of a conversation. If you could get the conversation going smoothly, then the door would open; you'd find out anything you wanted from the other person. The trick was to make sure you identified their type correctly. There weren't all that many types - according to Erast Petrovich there were exactly sixteen, and there was an approach for each of them.

Oh, if only he didn't get it wrong. He hadn't really mastered this tricky science completely yet. From what they knew about Stenich, and also from visual observation, he was a 'tortoise': an unsociable, suspicious type turned in on himself, living in a state of interminable internal monologue.

If that was right, then the correct approach was 'to show your belly' - that is, to demonstrate that you are defenceless and not dangerous and then, without even the slightest pause, to make a 'breach': to pierce through all the protective layers of alienation and caution, to take the other person by surprise, only without frightening him, God forbid, by being aggressive, or putting him off. You had to interest him, send a signal that seemed to say: You and I are berries from the same field, we speak the same language.

Tulipov mentally crossed himself and had a go. 'That was a good look you gave my idiot sister in the surgery just now. I liked it. It showed interest, but without pity. The doctor's just the opposite: he pities her all right, but he's not really all that interested in looking at her. Only the mentally ill don't need pity; they can be happier than we are. That's an interesting subject, all right: a being that looks like us, but is really quite different. And sometimes something might be revealed to an idiot that is a sealed book to us. I expect you think that too, don't you? I could see it in your eyes. You ought to be the doctor, not this Rozenfeld. Are you a student?'

Stenich turned round and blinked. He looked a little taken aback by the breach, but in the right kind of way, without feeling frightened or getting his back up. He answered curtly in the way a tortoise was supposed to: 'I used to be.'

The approach had been chosen correctly. Now that the key was in the lock, according to the teachings of the Chief, he should grab it immediately and turn it until it clicked. There was a subtle point here: with a tortoise you had to avoid being too familiar, you mustn't narrow the distance between you, or he'd immediately withdraw into his shell.

'Not a political, are you?' asked Anisii, pretending to be disappointed. 'Then I'm a very poor reader of faces: I took you for a man with imagination; I wanted to ask you about my idiot sister ... These socialists are no good as psychiatrists - they're too carried away with the good of society, but they couldn't give a damn for the individual members of society, especially for imbeciles like my Sonya. Pardon my frankness, I'm a man who likes to speak directly. Goodbye, I'd better go and have a talk with Rozenfeld.'

He turned sharply to go away, in the appropriate manner for a 'setter' (outspoken, impetuous, with sharply defined likes and dislikes) - the ideal match for a tortoise.

'As you wish,' said the male nurse, stung to the quick. 'Only I've never concerned myself with the good of society, and I was excluded from the faculty for something quite different.'

Aha!' Tulipov exclaimed, raising one finger triumphantly. 'The eye! The eye, it never deceives! I was right about you after all. You live according to your own judgement and follow your own road. It doesn't matter that you're only a medical assistant; I take no notice of titles. Give me a keen, lively man who doesn't judge things by the common standard. I've despaired of taking Sonya round the doctors. All of them just sing the same old tune: oligophrenia, the extreme stage, a hopeless case. But I sense that inside her soul is alive, it can be awakened. Will you not give me a consultation?'

'I'm not a medical assistant either,' Stenich replied, apparently touched by this stranger's frankness (and his flattery, of course -a man likes to be flattered). 'It's true that Mr Rozenfeld does use me as a medical assistant, but officially I'm only a male nurse. And I work without pay, as a volunteer. To make amends for my sins.'

Ah, so that's it, thought Anisii. That's where the glum look came from, and the resignation. I'll have to adjust my line of approach.

Speaking in the most serious voice he could muster, he said: 'You have chosen a good path for the exculpation of your sins. Far better than lighting candles in a church or beating your forehead against the church porch. May God grant you quick relief.'

'I don't want it quickly!' Stenich cried with unexpected ardour, and his eyes, which had been dull, were instantly aglow with fire and passion. 'Let it be hard, let it be long! That will be the best way, the right way! I... I don't talk with people often, I'm very reserved. And I'm used to being alone. But there's something in you that encourages frank talking. I feel like talking ... Otherwise, I'm on my own all the time; my mind could go again soon.'

Anisii was truly amazed by the results of his chief's method! The key had fitted the lock, and fitted it so well that the door had swung open of its own accord. He didn't need to do anything else, just listen and agree with everything.

The pause unsettled the male nurse. 'Perhaps you don't have any time?' His voice trembled. 'I know you have problems of your own; you can't have time for other people's confessions...'

A man with troubles of his own will understand another person's troubles better,' Anisii said jesuitically. 'What is eating at your soul? You can tell me. We're strangers; we don't even know each other's name. We'll have a talk and go our separate ways. What sin do you have on your soul?'

For just a moment Anisii dreamed of him dropping to his knees, bursting into sobs and saying: 'Forgive me, you good man, I am cursed, I bear the weight of bloody sin, I disembowel women with a scalpel.' And that would be it, case closed, and Tulipov would be rewarded by his superiors and, best of all, there'd be a word of praise from the Chief.

But no, Stenich didn't drop to his knees and he said something quite different: 'Pride. All my life I've been tormented by it. I took this job, this heavy, dirty work, in order to conquer it. I clean up the foul mess from the mad patients; no job is too disgusting for me. Humiliation and resignation - that's the best medicine for pride.'

'So you were excluded from the university for pride?' Anisii said, unable to conceal his disappointment.

What? Ah, from the university. No, that was something different ... I'll tell you - why not? - in order to humble my pride.' The male nurse blushed violently, turning bright red all the way up to the parting in his hair. 'I used to have another sin, a serious one: voluptuousness. I've overcome it now. Life has helped me. But in my young years I was depraved - not so much out of sensuality as out of curiosity. It's even viler, out of curiosity, don't you think?'

Anisii didn't know how to answer that, but it would be interesting to hear about the sin. What if there was a thread leading from this voluptuousness to the murder?

'I don't see any sin at all in sensuality' he said aloud. 'Sin is when you hurt your neighbour. But who's hurt by a bit of sensuality, provided of course there's no violence involved?'

Stenich just shook his head. Ah, you're still young, sir. Have you not heard of the Sadist Circle? How could you? - you probably hadn't even finished grammar school then. It was exactly seven years ago this April ... But in Moscow not many people know about the case. The rumours spread in medical circles, all right, but not much leaks out of them; it's a matter of esprit de corps, sticking together, a common front. Mind you, they threw me out...'