She Lover of Death: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin (24 page)

Before breakfast she performed her usual morning exercise to teach her soul not to be afraid of death. She went out on to the balcony, opened the cast-iron gate that led into emptiness and stood right on the very edge, listening to the rapid beating of her heart. The sounds coming up from the street had an eloquently hollow echo, the windows opposite her shimmered with tremulous patches of light, and below her the angel captured by Möbius and Sons stood with its wings spread wide.

Then came the day, empty and meaningless – a pause, a drawing-in of breath, the silence before the velvet curtains of the night parted. But in the early evening Columbine’s keen hearing caught the distant sounds of a mystical orchestra, discordant as yet, but already magical, and she simply could not stay at home any longer.

As she walked along the purple streets with her heels clattering, the sweetly alarming sounds of the overture came drifting towards her and with every step the thunderous melody became clearer and clearer.

Columbine was prepared for anything, and as a sign of her resolution she had dressed herself in the colours of mourning. The meek schoolgirl, seeking to comprehend the secrets of death, had put on a modest black dress with a narrow white collar and a lilac apron with a mourning border, she had woven her hair into two vestal plaits and drawn them together with a crimson ribbon.

She walked unhurriedly, thinking about beautiful things. About how Friday was a special day, forever soaked in the blood of the dreamy and starry-eyed Pierrot, whom the cruel Harlequins had nailed to planks of wood nineteen centuries before. Because the scarlet drops would not dry up, but kept oozing out and dribbling down the cross, shimmering and glittering in the sun, the fifth day of the week was filled with a deceptive, flickering gleam of calamity.

From the boulevard Columbine turned into a sidestreet, and there the overture came to an end, and she heard the first solo aria of this ominous opera – an aria so absurdly comical that the dreamer very nearly laughed out loud. For a moment she imagined that the night had played a joke on her by inviting her to a tragedy and instead staging a farce.

Standing there on the pavement under a streetlamp, about ten steps away from Prospero’s house, was a shabby old organ grinder wearing a red fez and spectacles with blue lenses. He was furiously turning the handle of his squeaky instrument and bawling out a stupid little song at the top of his tuneless voice – it must have been his own composition.

Oh, barrel-barrel organ,
The road leads ever on.
Who can tell this poor boy
Where his happiness has gone?

There were many couplets, but most of the song consisted of a repeated refrain, uncouth doggerel, like all the other verses. The tin-plated throat repeated it over and over again:

Spin the lacquered handle
But it won’t bring happiness.
No amount of twirling will give me back my Beth!
No amount of twirling will give me back my Beth!
No amount of twirling will give me back my Beth!

Columbine stood and listened for a minute or two, then burst into loud laughter, tossed the amusing old man a coin and thought: a pessimist like that – and a poet too – really ought to join us ‘lovers’.

‘Today we shall spin the Wheel of Death for the last time,’ the Doge announced to the assembled company. ‘And if a Chosen One is not named yet again, I shall invent a new ritual.’

First Caliban and then Rosencrantz threw the little gold ball, and both were rejected by Death.

‘I know what the trouble is,’ said Cyrano, wrinkling up his monumental nose. ‘The ambulance carriage that brought Prince Genji back to life is to blame for everything. It stole Death’s betrothed from under the very wedding wreath, so to speak. And now the Great Lady has taken offence at our roulette wheel. So help me, Genji, you ought to drink poison again. You’re the reason the roulette wheel is being stubborn.’

Someone laughed at this audacious joke. Genji smiled politely, but Prospero looked so unhappy that Columbine felt sorry for him.

‘No, no!’ she exclaimed. ‘Let me try my luck! If Death is offended with men, then perhaps a woman will be lucky? After all, the Tsarevich summoned the Lioness of Ecstasy!’

Once she said it, she felt frightened. What if she did land on the skull? Her presentiment, and her funeral garb both pointed to the same thing.

She strode up to the table very quickly, to give herself no time to imagine the possible consequences, grabbed the little ball and prepared to throw it.

At that very moment the last of the ‘lovers’, Gdlevsky, who was late, walked, or rather, came rushing into the room like a tornado. His ruddy face with the first timid fluff of a moustache was glowing with happiness and delight.

‘I have it!’ he shouted from the doorway. ‘I have the third Sign! And precisely on a Friday! The third Friday in a row! Do you hear, do you hear what he is singing?’ Gdlevksy pointed triumphantly at the window, through which only a minute earlier they could hear the wheezing of the barrel organ and the hoarse howling of the old man. ‘Did you hear what he was singing? “No amount of twirling will give me back my Beth”! And over and over again!’

But now, as if to spite him, the organ grinder had fallen silent. And apart from Columbine, none of the aspirants seemed to have bothered to listen to the refrain of the idiotic little song, so Gdlevsky’s announcement caused general bewilderment.

‘What Beth? What is she spinning?’ Kriton asked in amazement. ‘What are you talking about, young man?’

‘The barrel organ,’ Gdlevsky explained agitatedly. ‘But that’s not important at all. The important thing is the rhyme: Beth – death. It’s the Sign! No doubt about it! The third Sign! I’ve been chosen, chosen!’

‘Wait, wait!’ the Doge asked with a frown. ‘You’re imagining things! Where is this organ grinder?’

Everyone dashed to the window, but the street was deserted, with not a soul to be seen. The old man had dissolved into the thickening darkness.

Without saying a word, Genji turned and walked quickly out into the hallway.

Everyone turned to look at the schoolboy again. Rosencrantz, who did not understand Russian very well, asked his brother:
‘Was bedeutet twirling?’
²

There was obvious envy in the glance that he cast at Gdlevsky.

‘Why him? Why this young pup?’ Caliban groaned. ‘What makes him any better than me? How can you call this fair! Doge, you promised!’

The Doge flung up one hand angrily.

‘Quiet everyone! Boy, Death does not tolerate cheating. You are not playing fair! Yes, there was a barrel organ here for a long time, but naturally I did not listen to the song. Perhaps he did sing a word that rhymes with “death”, but there are many words in a song, not just one. Why did you decide to pick out “Beth”. You’re as bad as Rosencrantz with his fruit drink.’

Rosencrantz flushed. A few days earlier he had also come running in beaming with pride and said he was now Death’s Chosen One, because he had been sent a clear and unmistakable Sign. When he was eating supper in Alyabev’s restaurant on Petrovka Street, just before he finished his meal, he had been given a carafe of something bloody red ‘on the house’. When he asked what it was, the waiter had ‘smiled mysteriously’ and said: ‘You know, it’s Mors.’
³
Rosencrantz had darted out of the room without finishing his supper and run all the way to Prospero’s house.

The mention of the Mors was greeted with laughter, but Gdlevsky was not even slightly disconcerted.

‘No cheating. It’s a Friday again, gentlemen, the third in a row. I didn’t sleep all night, I knew it would happen! I didn’t go to my lessons. I’ve been walking the streets since this morning, waiting for the Sign. Listening to conversations that I came across by chance, reading posters and signboards. I have played entirely fair, been absolutely honest! On the Arbat I saw a signboard that said “Aron Speth, Hardware and Ironmongery”. I’ve walked past there a hundred times and never noticed that shop before. It simply took my breath away. That’s it, I thought! What sort of absurd name is that? Names like that don’t even exist. Speth – death, it’s so obvious! But I wanted to make certain, so that there couldn’t possibly be any doubt. If it had ended on Speth, that would have been it, but the last word was “ironmongery”. Iron-mongery – what on earth rhymes with that? So it was no good, and I walked on by. And I had such a desolate feeling. No, I thought, I’m not a Chosen One, I’m the same as all the rest. On my way here I was almost crying. Then suddenly I turn the corner and I hear “give me back my Beth, give me back my Beth, give me back my Beth”. Three times, gentlemen, three times on the third Friday. First I hit on the word “breath” by sheer chance, and then I opened a book at
Macbeth
, and now this name, “Beth”. What could possibly be any clearer? And even if it is a proper name, what does that matter! What are you all staring at?’ the schoolboy asked with a sardonic laugh. ‘Do you envy me? I’m the Chosen One, not you! It’s me, the very youngest! So what if I am young? I’m a genius, I could have been a new Lermontov. Death chooses the best, not the worst. First Lorelei, and then me. And anyway, I couldn’t give a damn for Lermontov! Or for the whole world, or for all of you! Spin your roulette wheel, titillate your wretched nerves. The only thing I have to say to you is “adieu”. The Princess has chosen me! Me, not you!’

He looked round defiantly at everyone with his inflamed eyes and walked out, still laughing triumphantly.

‘Stop! Come back immediately!’ Prospero shouted after him.

In vain.

‘What this Lermontov deserves is a good box on the ear,’ Horatio declared pensively, stroking his Van Dyke beard.

White with fury, Caliban brandished his clenched fist.

‘Impudent, cocky, puffed-up little polack! How dare he compare himself with Lermontov! The impostor!’

‘Lermontov was impudent and cocky too,’ Cyrano remarked. ‘It will be a pity if the boy does anything stupid. He really is exceptionally talented. Lermontov was killed by someone else, but this one wants to climb into the grave himself.’

They left feeling subdued, in fact almost crushed.

Columbine had an uneasy, wretched feeling now, not at all like the one she had had before the meeting as she walked slowly through the evening streets. The stupid, arrogant boy, she thought. Prospero is absolutely right. How can the ludicrous croakings of a hoarse tramp be taken for a Sign from the Eternal Bride? And he’s sure to kill himself, he won’t back down, if only out of pride. And what a loss that would be for Russian literature, which had already lost its most gifted poetess only a few days earlier!

Columbine stopped on the boulevard, feeling that she couldn’t simply walk home and go to bed as if nothing had happened

Gdlevsky had to be stopped. By any means, at any price!

But how? What could she do?

She knew his address. One day shortly after she became a member, Gdlevsky had told her that his parents lived in Kolomna, but he had transferred to a Moscow grammar school for the final year of study, and he rented a room in Kleinfeld’s apartments on Maslovka Street. The boy had been terribly proud of the fact that he lived on his own, like a grown-up.

Well what if she did go to his place, then what? Why would he listen to Columbine if Prospero himself had been unable to stop him? Now even the Doge carried no authority for him. Why, of course not, Gdlevsky was a ‘Chosen One’, a ‘genius’!

What should she do?

The answer came to mind quickly.

Among the ‘lovers’ there was only one man capable of stopping the crazed poet doing something foolhardy. Even by force, if necessary. Genji! Of course, he always knew what to do. How unfortunate that he had gone out and not heard the schoolboy’s monologue right to the end!

She had to go to see Genji immediately, without wasting a moment. She just hoped he would be at home. Gdlevsky would not kill himself until he had written his farewell poem, so she might be in time.

She knew the Japanese prince’s approximate address. Hadn’t Genji told her he had moved from Ascheulov Lane to the officers’ building at the Spassky Barracks?

The cabdriver delivered the agitated young lady to Spasskaya-Sadovaya Street and pointed to a long building painted official pale yellow. ‘That’s it, the officers’ block.’

But it proved difficult to find the right room, because she did not know the tenant’s name. Columbine described Genji in detail to the doorkeeper, not forgetting to mention the stammer and the grey temples. She said she’d put his card somewhere and couldn’t find it, that she had a terrible memory for names – she could remember addresses, but names eluded her. She needed to see the gentleman she had described on a matter of the utmost urgency. The black-bearded doorkeeper heard her out without saying a word and, of course, he didn’t believe her. He looked the agitated girl over from head to toe, chewed on his lips and declared.

‘How do we know, perhaps His Excellency will give us the rough side of his tongue for a visit like this. This is a barracks, young lady, strangers aren’t allowed.’

‘His Excellency!’ So there was no mistake, Genji hadn’t deceived her and he did live here. Columbine was so delighted that she wasn’t even offended by the insulting remark. Let Blackbeard think that she was some kind of impertinent admirer or
demi-mondaine
– what difference did that make?

Columbine had mastered very well the lesson in dealing with the tribe of yard keepers and doorkeepers that she had once learned from Genji.

‘No, he won’t,’ she said confidently. ‘He’ll reward you for it. And meanwhile, take this.’

And she handed the attendant a rouble.

Cerberus immediately stopped growling and started wagging his tail. He put the banknote away in his peaked cap and told her: ‘All sorts come to see His Excellency. Even Khitrovka bandit types – not up to Your Grace’s standard. His Excellency is staying in the apartment of his friend Lieutenant-Colonel Smolyaninov. On a temporary basis. His Honour Mr Lieutenant-Colonel is in China at present, but we have orders always to let his friend stay for as long as he likes. And his name is Mr Neimless. Erast Petrovich. That’s him.’