She Lover of Death: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin (18 page)

‘Shut up, you fool,’ Stakhovich shouted at her. ‘To hear you talk, you’d think men have nothing on their minds but how to get their hands on your body. But she’s right: he was shy, you couldn’t get a word out of him. And he really was lonely, a lost soul. He was always muttering something in the evenings. Something rhythmical, like poetry. Sometimes he used to sing a bit out of tune – mostly Little Russian songs. The partition walls here are made of planks, you can hear every sound.’

All the walls of the room were hung with sketches and studies, most of them showing a female torso in various positions and from various angles, and it required no great gift of observation to realise that Dashka-Dunya’s body had served as the model for all of them.

‘Tell me,’ Columbine enquired. ‘Why do you always paint the same woman? Is it some kind of style you have? I’ve read that in Europe there are artists who only paint one thing – a cup, or flowers in a vase, or spots of light on glass – always trying to achieve perfection.’

‘What’s perfection got to do with it!’ Stakhovich exclaimed, turning round to take a look at this curious young lady. ‘Where would I get the money for any other models? Take you, for example. You wouldn’t pose for me out of the simple love of art, would you?’

Columbine felt as if the gaze of his narrowed eyes had pierced straight through her bolero, and she cringed slightly.

‘You have an interesting profile. The line of the hips is quite captivating. And the breasts must be pear-shaped, slightly asymmetrical, with large areolae. Am I right?’

Masha Mironova would probably have turned numb and blushed bright red at words like that. But Columbine didn’t turn a hair and even smiled.

‘C-come now sir, how d-dare you say such things?’ Genji exclaimed in horror, apparently prepared to intervene there and then for the honour of the lady and tear the insolent fellow into little pieces.

But Columbine saved the artist from the inevitable duel by saying in a perfectly calm voice: ‘I don’t know what areolae are, but I assure you that my breasts are perfectly symmetrical. However, you are quite right about them being pear-shaped.’

There was a brief pause. The artist examined the intrepid maiden’s waist. Genji mopped his forehead with a batiste handkerchief. Masa walked over to the model and offered her a boiled sweet in a green wrapper that he had taken out of his pocket.

‘From Landrine?’ Dashka-Dunya asked. ‘
Merci
.’

Columbine imagined Stakhovich, having become world-famous, bringing an exhibition of his work to Irkutsk. The most important canvas was a nude –
Columbine Seduced
. Now that would be a real scandal. It was probably worth thinking about.

But by now the artist was looking at the Japanese instead of her.

‘What an incredible face!’ Stakhovich exclaimed, rubbing his hands together in his excitement. ‘And you don’t notice it straight away. The way those eyes sparkle, and those folds! Chingiz Khan! Tamerlaine! Listen, good sir, I absolutely must paint your portrait!’

Columbine was stung. So she only had an interesting silhouette, but he thought this snuffling Oriental was Tamerlaine? Genji also stared at his valet with a certain degree of amazement, but Masa wasn’t even slightly surprised – he merely turned sideways so that the artist could appreciate his flattened profile as well.

Genji cautiously took the artist by the sleeve: ‘Mr Stakhovich, we have not come here to p-pose for you. The yard keeper told me that on the n-night of the suicide you supposedly heard some unusual sounds on the other side of the wall. Try to describe them in as much detail as possible.’

‘That’s the sort of thing you don’t forget in a hurry. It was a foul night, the wind was howling outside, the trees were cracking, but I could still hear it.’ The artist scratched the back of his head as he remembered. ‘Well, it was like this. He came home just before midnight – he slammed the front door very loudly, which was something he never used to do.’

‘That’s right!’ Dashka-Dunya put in. ‘And I said to you: “He’s drunk. Now he’ll start bringing whores back.” Remember?’

Genji cast an embarrassed sideways glance at Columbine, which she found very amusing. Was he concerned for her morals now? It was already quite clear that Dashka spent the nights here as well as the days.

‘Yes, that was exactly what you said,’ the artist confirmed. ‘We go to bed late. I work and Dunya looks at the pictures in the magazines until I finish. He was dashing around on the other side of the wall, stamping his feet and muttering something. He burst out laughing a couple of times, and then started sobbing – in general, he seemed a bit upset. And then, well after midnight, it suddenly started. This howling – very sinister it was, and it came and went. I’ve never heard anything like it in my life. At first I thought my neighbour had brought a stray dog home. But it didn’t sound like that. Then I imagined he’d gone barmy and started howling himself, but a man couldn’t have made sounds like that. It was a sort of deep, hollow sound, but at the same time it was articulate. As if it was chanting something, one word, over and over again. Two, three, four times in a row.’

‘O-o-o-oh!’ Dashka-Dunya howled in a deep bass voice. ‘Right, Sashura? Absolutely terrifying. O-o-o-oh!’

‘Yes, it was kind of like that,’ the artist said with a nod. ‘Only louder, and it was really weird. I’d say it wasn’t just “O-o-o-oh”, but more like “D-o-o-oh” or “K-o-o-oh”. It started with this vague, low sound, and then got louder and louder. Well, we make a bit of noise in here sometimes, so at first we put up with it. But when we went to bed – that was after three in the morning, we couldn’t take it any more. I banged on the wall and shouted: ‘Hey you, student, what kind of concert is that?’ But there was no answer. And it went on right until dawn.’

‘Just remembering it gives me goose pimples,’ the model complained to Masa, who was standing beside her, and he stroked her bare shoulder reassuringly, then left his hand where it was. Dashka-Dunya didn’t object.

‘Is that all?’ Genji asked pensively.

‘Yes,’ Stakhovich said with a shrug, observing Masa’s manoeuvres with amazement.

‘Thank you and g-goodbye. Madam.’

Genji bowed to the model and set off rapidly towards the door. Columbine and Masa went dashing after him.

‘Why didn’t you ask him about anything else?’ she asked him furiously, when they were already on the stairs. ‘He’d only just started talking about the most interesting part!’

‘He had already told us the most interesting part. That is one,’ Genji replied. ‘We wouldn’t have learned anything else interesting from him. That is two. Another minute and there could have been a scandalous incident, because someone was behaving with extreme impudence. That is three.’

After that he started speaking some kind of gibberish – it must have been Japanese, because Masa understood it very well and started gibbering away in reply. From his tone of voice he seemed to be making excuses.

Outside in the street Columbine suddenly felt as if she had been struck by lightning.

‘The voice!’ she cried out. ‘During the seance Ophelia mentioned some voice! Remember, when she was talking to Avaddon’s spirit!’

‘I remember, I remember. Don’t shout like that, p-people are looking at you,’ said Genji, the staid guardian of propriety. ‘But did you realise what that voice was singing? What it was calling on Avaddon to do? And in a way that left absolutely no room for doubt?’

She tried howling quietly: ‘Do-o-o-oh! Ko-o-o-oh!’

She imagined it was the dead of night, with a storm outside the window, a flickering candle flame, a white sheet of paper with crooked lines of writing. Oh my God!

‘Go-o-o!, g-o-o . . . Oi!’

‘Yes, “oi!” indeed. Just imagine it, a terrible inhuman voice repeating over and over again “Go, go, go”, hour after hour. And just b-before that Avaddon had been openly named as the Chosen One. That’s more than enough. Just write your farewell poem and p-put the noose round your neck.’

Columbine stopped and squeezed her eyes tight shut in order to remember this moment for ever. The moment when the miraculous had entered her life with all the incontrovertibility of scientific fact. It was one thing to dream of the Eternal Bridegroom, without being completely sure that he really existed. It was quite another thing to know, to know for certain.

‘Death is alive, he sees and hears everything, he is here beside us!’ Columbine whispered. ‘And Prospero is his servant! It’s all absolutely true! It’s not just a fantasy, it’s not a hallucination! Even the neighbours next door heard it!’

The surface of the pavement swayed beneath her feet. The young lady squeezed her eyes shut again in fright and grabbed hold of Genji’s arm, knowing that afterwards she would be angry with herself for being so weak and impressionable. Why, of course Death was a thinking, feeling being, how could it be otherwise?

She recovered quite quickly. She even laughed as she said: ‘Isn’t it wonderful that there are so many strange things all around us?’

It was well-put, impressive, and she glanced at Genji in the right way, throwing her head back slightly and half-lowering her eyelashes.

It was just a pity that he was looking off to one side and not at Columbine.

‘Mmm, yes, there are certainly many strange things,’ he murmured, not really seeming to have heard what she said. ‘ “Go, go” is impressive enough. But there is another circumstance even m-more surprising.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It is strange, surely, that the voice carried on howling right until dawn?’

‘Why is it?’ Columbine asked after thinking for a moment.

‘Avaddon hanged himself no later than three o’clock in the morning. There was no answer when Stakhovich started hammering on the wall some time after three. And the results of the autopsy indicate that d-death occurred at about three. If the Beast was sent by Death to summon her lover, then why would it carry on howling until d-dawn, when the guest had already arrived?’

‘Perhaps the Beast was mourning him?’ Columbine suggested uncertainly.

Genji looked at her reproachfully.

‘From the Beast’s point of view, it ought to have been rejoicing, not mourning. And then, long after the man had died, the Beast was still wailing “Go, go”. Doesn’t Death’s emissary strike you as being rather stupid?’

Yes, this is a very strange and mysterious story, thought Columbine. And the greatest mystery of all is why you brought me with you, sir.

The look in the prince’s blue eyes was warm and friendly, but she could not sense any hidden motive.

In short, it was a puzzle.

She shook the crystal teardrop from her lashes

From Basmannaya Street they drove for a long time past places that looked like hospitals and barracks, then the buildings on the streets gradually shrank and changed from stone to wood, until eventually the landscape became entirely rural. Columbine, however, did not look around much, she was still under the impression of the revelation that had been granted to her. Her companions did not speak either.

But then the carriage halted in the middle of a dusty, unpaved street lined with small, single-storey houses. On one side she could see the steep bank of a small river or a narrow ravine through the gap between two wooden fences.

‘Where are we?’ Columbine asked.

‘On the Yauza,’ Genji replied, as he jumped down from the footboard. ‘According to the description, th-that house over there is the one we need. This is where Ophelia used to l-live. Or to use her real name, Alexandra Sinichkina.’

Columbine could not help smiling at the funny name. Alexandra Sinichkina was even worse than Maria Mironova. No wonder the girl had preferred to be called Ophelia.

It turned out that the oracle of the ‘Lovers of Death’ had lived in a tidy little house that had four windows with white shutters, embroidered curtains and flowers on the window-sills: behind the house there was a green, leafy apple orchard, and the branches of the trees were bowed under the weight of gold and red fruit.

The knock at the gate was answered by a neat old woman of about forty-five, dressed in black.

‘Her mother,’ Genji explained in a low voice as the old woman walked towards them. ‘A provincial secretary’s widow. She and her daughter lived alone.’

When Ophelia’s mother came closer, her eyes proved to be as bright and clear as her daughter’s, but the eyelids were red and swollen. That was from crying, Columbine guessed, and she felt a sharp tingling in her nose. How could you explain to the poor woman that what had happened was not a misfortune at all, but the greatest possible blessing? She would never believe it.

‘Good afternoon, Serafima Kharitonovna,’ Genji said with a bow. ‘P-pardon us for disturbing you. We knew Alexandrovna Ivanovna . . .’

He hesitated, evidently uncertain how to introduce himself. After all, he wasn’t really a Japanese prince. But he was spared the need.

The widow opened the wicket gate and sobbed.

‘So you knew my Sashenka? She did have some friends after all? Thank you for coming to see me, I’ve been sitting here all on my own, with no one at all to talk to. The samovar’s all ready. We don’t have any relatives, and the neighbours don’t call, they turn their noses up. Of course, a suicide is a disgrace to the entire street.’

Their hostess led them into a small dining room where there were embroidered covers on the chairs, a portrait of some bishop on the wall and an old-fashioned clock ticking in the corner. She obviously really was in desperate need of company, because she started talking immediately and carried on with hardly a pause. She poured tea, but didn’t drink any herself, just ran her finger round the rim of the full cup.

‘While Sashenka was alive, we had plenty of lady visitors, everyone needed my daughter. They wanted her to read the candle wax, or cure a headache, or turn away the evil eye. Sashenka could do everything. Even tell if someone’s betrothed was still alive in a faraway country. And she did it all out of the goodness of her heart, she didn’t accept any gifts, she said that was wrong.’

‘Was it a talent that she was born with?’ Columbine asked sympathetically.