Fandorin in English 1-10

From that point her thoughts started off in a different direction, far removed from philosophising and attempts to guess the future.

What is Mr Erast Petrovich Neimless’s personal life like, Columbine wondered, squinting sideways at her companion. All the signs indicated that he was an inveterate bachelor, one of those who, as her nanny used to say, would rather strangle himself than get married. Was he really content to live year after year with only his Japanese for company? Oh, hardly, he was far too handsome.

She suddenly felt it was a terrible pity that she had not met him earlier, before Prospero. Perhaps then everything would have turned out quite differently.

They parted at the corner of Staropansky Lane. Genji removed his top hat and kissed the thoughtful young lady’s hand. Before walking into the entrance, she glanced round. He was standing in the same place, under a streetlamp, holding the top hat in his hand while the wind ruffled his black hair.

As Columbine climbed the stairs, she imagined how everything would have been if she had met Genji earlier. And as she unlocked her door she was humming a song to herself.

But five minutes later she had shaken off all this maudlin folly and knew that none of the things Genji had spoken about had ever existed – life was not good and wise, there was no love. There was only one thing – a great magnet that was drawing her to itself like a little iron filing. It had already caught her, and it would never let her go.

What happened during those five minutes?

She sat down at the desk as usual, to write down all the events of the day in her diary, and then, suddenly remembering Gorgon’s mean joke, she angrily jerked open the drawer, grabbed the two little rectangles of cardboard and held a lighted match to them, in order to destroy the evidence of her shameful gullibility.

Less than a minute later, Columbine was convinced that the messages would not burn. She had used up several matches and singed the tips of her fingers. But the paper had not even darkened at all!

She grabbed her handbag in order to take out her cigarette case. She needed to smoke a papirosa and gather her thoughts. The handbag fell from her trembling hands, its contents scattered across the floor and Columbine’s eye was caught by a small piece of white card, exactly like the two previous ones. She picked it up and read the single word that was written on it:‘Komm’.²

So there it was. Irrefutable.

Columbine sat there for a few minutes without moving, and thought. Not about the One who had sent her this summons, but about the Japanese prince. ‘Thank you, dear Genji,’ she thought, taking leave of him. ‘You are clever and handsome. You wished me well. I would certainly have fallen in love with you – everything was leading to that, but an even more impressive admirer than you has put in an appearance. Everything has finally been decided. It’s time for me to go.’

Enough of that.

All she still had to do was write the concluding chapter in her diary. The title simply wrote itself.

How tenderly Columbine departs from the City of Dreams

Tenderly, because tenderness is precisely the feeling that now suffuses the traveller’s entire being as her voyage approaches its brilliant conclusion. And this feeling is both sweet and sad.

Columbine sat at the desk for a long time as the three white candles on it slowly burned down. She thought about various ways in which she could make her departure, as if she were searching through the dresses in her wardrobe for one to wear at a ball, measuring them against herself, looking in the mirror, sighing and tossing each rejected outfit on to a chair. No good, no good. Somehow she did not really feel afraid. The three white cards, neatly laid out on the desk, radiated a calm strength that supported her. Columbine knew for certain that it would hurt a little bit at first, but after that everything would be very, very good: the vain girl was more concerned with something that was not really so important – how she would look when she was dead. But then, perhaps this was the most important problem that she still had to decide in her short life that was now rushing rapidly to its finale. After her departure she wanted to look like a beautiful doll laid out in an elegant box, so the quick means like a rope or a jump from the balcony were not suitable. The best way, of course, would be to take a sleeping draft – to swallow an entire crystal phial of opium, then wash it down with sweet tea and blackcurrant jam. Columbine had tea, and she had blackcurrant jam. But she did not have any soporific substances in her apartment, because she had never suffered from insomnia: as soon as she put her head on the pillow and parted her golden tresses to both sides, she immediately fell into a sound sleep.

Finally the difficult choice was made.

Fill the bath with warm water. Add a few drops of lavender oil. Anoint her face and neck with miraculous Lanoline cream – ‘the ideal way to preserve attractive skin’ – from the little tin tube (she only needed to preserve it for two or three days, until the funeral, after that she wouldn’t need attractive skin). Put on her white lace dress, which was a bit like a wedding dress. Tie back her hair with a scarlet ribbon that would match the colour of the water. Lie down in the bath, run a sharp knife across her veins (under the water, so that it wouldn’t hurt too much), and slowly go to sleep. Whoever found Columbine would say: She was like a white chrysanthemum floating in a glass of vin rosй.

Now there was one last thing she had to do: write a poem. And that would conclude the story of Columbine, who flew into the City of Dreams from the magical distance, spread her ethereal wings there for a short while and then darted from the light into the shadow.

From light into shadow she flitted,

Then the little fairy was gone.

There was nothing she regretted,

We shall miss her rapturous song.

No, that’s no good at all. The first line is from a poem by someone else, and God only knows what that last line means.

I have no faith in any God or Devil

I know to die is no more than to sleep.

A letter has informed me I must travel,

Now I have an appointment I must keep.

That’s no better. I simply can’t stand that third line, it makes me feel sick. ‘Travel’ – what sort of word is that for a poem? This is really hard. And the water’s getting cold. I’ll have to let it out and fill the bath again. Come on now!

How vain the Prince of Denmark’s hesitations,

His ponderings ‘To be or not to be?’

No. It has to be less heavy, without any irony. Light and airy.

Death is not sleep and not oblivion

I shall be greeted on awakening

By a delightful flowering garden

Where falling water sweetly sings.

Pinch yourself hard until it hurts

And waken in an open forest glade.

Leave all your dreams of prison in the past

Die into freedom and be not afraid.

Will they realise that the falling water is the sound of the tap filling the bath? Ah, never mind if it’s not clear! I’ve wasted enough paper already. Whoever said that a farewell poem has to be long? Columbine’s will be short, absurd and break off when it has hardly begun, just like her short and absurd (but nonetheless beautiful, very beautiful) li . . .

Before Columbine could finish writing the word, the silence of the night was broken by the ringing of her doorbell.

Who could it be at this hour, after two in the morning?

At any other time she would have been afraid. Everyone knew that a doorbell rung in the middle of the night boded no good. But what should she be afraid of, when she had already settled her final account with life?

Maybe she shouldn’t answer? Let them ring away.

Lucifer was warming himself on her bosom: she settled his little head more comfortably in the hollow over her collarbone and tried to concentrate on her diary, but the continuous ringing would not let her.

All right, she would have to go and see what surprise life had in store for her just before it came to an end.

Columbine didn’t bother to turn on the gas lamp in the hallway. She had already guessed who had come to visit her so late – Genji, it couldn’t be anyone else. He had sensed something. Now he would start remonstrating with her again, trying to convince her. She would have to pretend that she agreed with everything, wait for him to go and then . . .

She opened the door.

It was dark on the stairway too. Someone had turned off the light. She could make out a vague silhouette. Tall and massive – no, it wasn’t Genji.

Her visitor didn’t say anything, all she could hear was loud, fitful breathing.

‘Did you want to see me?’ Columbine asked, peering into the darkness.

‘Yes, you!’ a hoarse voice rasped – it sounded so savage and malevolent that she took a sharp step back.

‘Who are you?’ she cried out.

‘Your death! With a small letter.’

Columbine heard gruff, throaty laughter. She thought she recognised the voice, but she was so frightened that she couldn’t understand a thing, and before she could gather her wits the shadow stepped into the hallway and seized her round the neck with fingers of iron.

The voice hissed: ‘You’ll be black and blue, with your tongue hanging out. A fine Chosen One!’

The terrible visitor laughed again, wheezing like a decrepit old dog barking.

The reply to his laughter was an angry hiss from Lucifer, who had woken up. The bold little snake had grown a lot in the last few weeks of feeding on milk and minced meat. He sank his fangs into the attacker’s hand.

The attacker growled, grabbed the grass snake by the tail and smashed it against the wall. It only took a second, but that was enough for Columbine to dart away. She didn’t make a decision or choose her moment, she simply went away, following her instinct like an animal.

She ran down the corridor with her mouth wide open, but not uttering a sound. She ran blindly, with no idea of where she was going or why, urged on by the most effective goad of all – the fear of death, vile and loathsome. It was not Death lumbering along after her, but death – filthy, foul-smelling and terrifying. The death from her childhood. With the rich, thick soil of the graveyard. The white death-worms. The grinning skull with holes instead of eyes.

A sudden thought occurred to her: she should run into the bathroom, bolt the door and then shout and hammer on the steel pipe so that the neighbours would hear. The bathroom door opened outwards, the handle was flimsy, if he tugged hard, it would break off, and the door would stay locked.

It was a wonderful idea, good enough to save her. But it would take three seconds, or at least two, for her to do it, and she didn’t have them.

In the doorway of the room a hand grabbed her sleeve from behind. Columbine jerked away as hard as she could, sending buttons flying. But she recovered her voice.

‘Help!’ she shouted at the top of her lungs. And then she carried on shouting. As loud as she could manage.

She darted out of the room to the left, into the kitchen. There was the door of the bathroom, she could hear the water splashing out of the tap. No, not enough time.

Left again out of the kitchen, into the corridor. The circle was completed. Where to now? Back into the room or out on to the stairs? The front door was still open.

Better on to the stairs. Maybe someone would look out of their door?

She flew out on to the dark landing with a scream and went dashing down the steps. If only she didn’t stumble!

Columbine’s long skirt hampered her. She tugged it up above her knees with a jerk.

‘Stop, thief! Stop!’ the hoarse voice roared behind her.

Why ‘thief’? Columbine wondered, and at that very moment, just before the final flight of steps, the heel of her shoe slipped sideways with a crunch.

The fugitive screeched and fell, landing with her chest and stomach on the steps, and slid downwards. She hit her elbows against the stairs, but she didn’t feel any pain, she was just very afraid.

Realising she wouldn’t have time to get up, she pressed her forehead against the floor. It was cold and smelled of dust. She squeezed her eyes shut.

The door of the entranceway banged loudly and someone shouted out: ‘Don’t move! I’ll fire!’

The hoarse voice answered: ‘Here, take this!’

There was a deafening crash and Columbine’s ears were suddenly blocked. She hadn’t been able to see anything in the dark, and now she couldn’t hear anything either.

As well as the dust, there was another smell now. An acrid smell, vaguely familiar. She remembered what it was – gunpowder. When her brother Misha used to shoot crows in the garden it had smelled like that.

She heard a faint voice in the distance.

‘Columbine! Are you alive?’

Genji’s voice.

Hands that were strong but gentle, not rough like those others, turned her over on to her back. She opened her eyes and then squeezed them shut again.

There was an electric torch shining straight into them.

‘That’s blinding,’ Columbine said.

Then Genji put the torch down on a step and she could see that he was leaning against the banisters with a smoking revolver in his hand; his top hat had slipped to one side and his coat was unbuttoned.

Columbine asked in a whisper: ‘What was all that?’

He picked up the torch again and pointed the beam to one side. Caliban was sitting by the wall, with his dead eyes staring down at the floor. There was a trickle of something dark running from his half-open mouth and another trickle, absolutely black, running from the round hole in his forehead.

He’s dead, Columbine guessed. The bookkeeper was still clutching a knife in his hand, holding it by the blade instead of the handle.

‘He was about to throw it,’ Genji explained. ‘He must have learned that from his shipmates while he was still sailing the seas. But I fired first.’

Even though her teeth were chattering and she had hic-cups, Columbine asked: ‘W-why? What f-for? I was g-going to do it anyway, myself . . .’

How strange, she thought, now I’m stammering, but he isn’t.

‘Later, later,’ Genji said to her.

He carefully picked the young lady up in his arms and carried her up the stairs. Columbine pressed her head against his chest. She felt very content just then. He was holding her so comfortably, just right. As if he had made a special study of how to carry enervated and exhausted young women.

She whispered: ‘I’m a doll, I’m a doll.’

Genji leaned his head down and asked: ‘What?’

‘You’re carrying me like a broken doll,’ she explained.

A quarter of an hour later Columbine was alone in her flat, sitting with her feet pulled up on to the armchair, wrapped in a rug and crying.

Alone because, after wrapping her in the rug, Genji had gone to get a doctor and the police.

With her feet pulled up because the entire floor was wet – the bath had overflowed.

But she was not crying because she was afraid (Genji had told her there would be nothing more to be afraid of). She was crying in grief: brave Lucifer was lying on her knees still and lifeless, like a patterned ribbon.

Columbine sobbed and sniffed as she stroked the rough scales on her rescuer’s back.

But she stopped crying when she turned to look in the mirror and saw the crimson graze on her forehead, her swollen nose and red eyes and the blue stripes on her neck.

She ought to tidy herself up a bit before Genji got back.

III. From the ‘Agents’ Reports’ File

To His Honour Lieutenant-Colonel Besikov

(Private and confidential)

Dear Lieutenant-Colonel,

You may consider the epic story of the ‘Lovers of Death’ at an end. I shall try to set forth for you the events of this evening without omitting anything of significance.

When we all gathered at the usual time at Prospero’s apartment, I immediately realised that something quite exceptional had happened. The meeting was not chaired by Blagovolsky, but the Stammerer, and it soon became clear that our Doge had been overthrown and the reins of power had been taken up by the strong hands of a new dictator, although not for long and only in order to declare the society disbanded.

It was from the Stammerer that we learned of the quite incredible events of the previous night. I will not retell them here, because you have undoubtedly been informed about everything by your own sources. I presume that the Moscow police and your people are searching for the Stammerer in order to question him about what happened, however, I cannot help you with that. It is absolutely obvious to me that the man acted correctly, and if he does not wish to meet representatives of the law (and his words certainly gave me that impression), that is his right.

The necessity for the killing, which was committed in self-defence, was also confirmed by Columbine, who almost met her end at the hands of the insane Caliban (the aspirant to whom I have referred in previous reports as the Bookkeeper – his real name is no doubt already known to you). The poor girl’s neck, which still bore the signs of the violence done to her, was covered with a scarf, a bruise was clearly visible under a thick layer of powder on her forehead, and her voice, usually so clear, was quite hoarse from crying desperately for help.

The Stammerer began his lengthy speech by denouncing the idea of suicide, a matter in which I am entirely in agreement with him. However, with your permission, I shall not reproduce this inspired monologue, since it is of no interest to your department. I will only note that the speaker was remarkably eloquent, although he stammered more than usual.

However, the information that the Stammerer provided will probably be of some use to you. This part of his speech I shall relate at length and even in the first person, without reproducing the stammer, in order to be able to interpose my own comments from time to time.

The Stammerer began as follows, or pretty much so.

‘I live abroad for most of the time and only rarely visit Moscow, since for some time now the climate of my native city (I thought he was a Muscovite, from his accent) has not been very good for my health. But I follow events here carefully: I receive letters from friends and read the major Moscow newspapers. Reports of an epidemic of suicides and the “Lovers of Death” could not fail to attract my attention, since not too long ago I happened to deal with the case of the “Nemesis” club in London – a criminal organisation which had mastered the rare criminal speciality of driving people to commit suicide in order to profit from their deaths. It is hardly surprising that the news from Moscow made me prick up my ears. I suspected that there might be a perfectly natural and practical reason for the unusually high frequency of motiveless suicides. Was the story of the “Nemesis” club being repeated, I wondered. What if certain malevolent individuals were deliberately pushing gullible or easily influenced people to take the fatal final step?

‘Two days after I arrived in Moscow yet another versifier, Nikifor Sipyaga, took his own life. I went to examine his flat and became convinced that he had indeed been a member of the “Lovers of Death”. The police did not even bother to enquire who paid for this poor student’s quite decent accommodation. I, however, ascertained that the deceased’s flat was rented for him by a certain Sergei Irinarkhovich Blagovolsky, a man who had led an unusual and rather eccentric life. My conjecture was confirmed by observation of Mr Blagovolsky’s home: it was the place where the secret meetings were being held.

‘Having managed to become one of you without any great difficulty, I was able to continue my investigations from within the club. At first all the evidence definitely pointed to one particular individual. (The Stammerer cast an eloquent glance at Prospero, who was sitting there hunched over pitifully.) However, more thorough investigation of the string of suicides and, in particular, the most recent events – the murders of Gdlevsky and Lavr Zhemailo (yes, yes, Mr Zhemailo was also murdered), as well as the attempt on Mademoiselle Columbine’s life – have thrown a completely different light on this whole story. It is a strange story, so tangled and confused that there are many details I have still not untangled completely, but yesterday’s events served me as the sword with which to slice through this Gordian knot. The details have ceased to be important, and it will in any case not be very difficult to establish them now.

‘Lorelei Rubinstein poisoned herself with morphine after three black roses appeared in her bedroom in some mysterious fashion, one after another, and this woman obsessed with the idea of suicide took them as a summons from Death. I was able rather easily to establish that the black roses had been put in Lorelei’s room by the aunt who lived with her, an avaricious and stupid individual. She had no idea that she was doing anything wrong. She thought she was helping the latest admirer of the poetess’s talent. For performing this rather strange but, at first glance, innocent errand, the stranger paid her five roubles on each occasion, making it a condition of payment that she keep the matter secret. During my first conversation with this woman, I could see that she was frightened – she already knew what her simple assistance had led to. And when she told me that the dead roses were a single bouquet, I knew immediately that she was lying – the three flowers were at different stages of withering.

‘I went back to the woman again, with no witnesses, and made her tell me the truth. She confessed everything and gave me a very rough description of the mysterious admirer, saying that he was tall, uncouth and clean-shaven with a coarse voice. I was unable to get any more out of her – she is unintelligent, unobservant and has weak eyesight. It is clear now that it was Caliban who visited her, but at the time I still suspected Mr Blagovolsky and only realised later that my theory was wrong. If I had demonstrated a little more astuteness, the schoolboy and the reporter and, probably, Caliban himself would still be alive.’

He paused in order to rein in his feelings. One of us took advantage of the silence to ask: ‘But why did Caliban want to drive some to suicide and kill others, and in such a cruel manner?’

The Stammerer nodded, as if acknowledging the reasonableness of the question.

‘You are all aware that he was not an entirely normal individual. (I thought this remark amusing. As if all the other ‘lovers’ were normal!) However, there were circumstances in his life of which I have become aware only now, after his death. Caliban, or Savely Akimovich Papushin (that is his real name), worked as a bookkeeper on board a merchant vessel in the Volunteer Fleet. His ship was travelling on the route from Odessa to Shanghai when it was caught in a typhoon. Only three members of the crew survived and managed to reach a small deserted island in a life boat. To be precise, it was not so much an island as a series of rocky cliffs protruding from the surface of the ocean. A month and a half later a British tea clipper that happened to be in those waters discovered a single survivor – Papushin. He had not died of thirst because it was the rainy season. He did not explain how he had managed to survive for so long without food, but the remains of his two comrades were discovered on the sand: skeletons that had been gnawed absolutely clean. Papushin said that crabs had devoured the corpses. The English did not believe him and held him under lock and key until they arrived at their first port of call and then handed him over to the police authorities. (I myself have absolutely no doubt that our bookkeeper killed his two comrades and gobbled them up – it is enough to remember the bloodcurdling verse that he composed, which always included cliffs, waves and skeletons searching for their own flesh.) Papushin was held in a psychiatric clinic for more than a year. I spoke with his psychiatrist, Dr Bazhenov, today. The patient was plagued by constant nightmares and hallucinations, all connected with the subject of cannibalism. During the first week of treatment he swallowed a spoon and a shard of a broken plate, but he did not die. He did not make any further attempts at suicide, having decided that he was unworthy of death. Eventually Papushin was released on condition that he report for regular examinations and interviews with his doctor. At first he came, but then he stopped. During his final interview he seemed calmer and said that he had found people whom would help him “solve his problem”.

‘We all remember that Caliban was the most zealous advocate of voluntary death. He waited impatiently for his own turn to come and was bitterly jealous of others’ “luck”. Every time the choice fell on someone else, he fell into black despair: Death still considered him unworthy to join the comrades whom he had killed and eaten. But had he not changed, purged himself through contrition, did he not serve Death faithfully, love and desire her passionately?

‘I became a member of the club too late, and it is hard for me now to tell how or why Papushin reached his decision to push certain of the aspirants into suicide. In Ophelia’s case, he probably simply wanted to get rid of her, to put an end to the spiritualist seances – he no longer believed that the angry spirits of the “lovers” would ever summon him. Here, as in Avaddon’s case, Caliban displayed an uncommon ingenuity, of which I would never have suspected him capable. It is, however, well known that individuals of a maniacal bent can be exceptionally cunning. I will not go into the technical details here, since they have no bearing on our immediate business.

‘Why did he decide to push the Lioness of Ecstasy over the edge? Possibly she irritated him with her excessively rapturous manner. The cruel joke that Papushin played on poor Lorelei probably seemed very witty to his sick, perverted mind. I cannot suggest any other motive.

‘In Gdlevsky’s case, however, everything is quite clear. The boy boasted too much about how greatly Death favoured him. The story of the Friday rhymes is genuinely astonishing – there are too many coincidences. I suspected foul play and tried to pursue the organ grinder whose song Gdlevsky had taken as his final Sign. But the tramp seemed to have disappeared into thin air. That evening I walked round all the streets in the vicinity, but failed to find him . . .

‘Caliban’s love for Death was genuine insanity. He loved her passionately, in the way that men love femmes fatales. In the way that Josй must have loved Carmen and Rogozhin loved Nastasya Filippovna – constantly tormented by desire and consumed by desperate envy of his more fortunate rivals. And the schoolboy actually boasted about his imaginary triumph! In killing Gdlevsky, Caliban eliminated a rival. He deliberately arranged things so that you others would realise it was no suicide and the boy was a usurper, Death did not walk to the altar with him. To use the language of the newspapers, it was a genuine crime of passion.’

The mention of newspapers reminded me of Lavr Zhemailo.

‘But what happened to Cyrano?’ I asked. ‘You said it was a murder. Papushin again?’

‘Certainly, Zhemailo’s death was no suicide,’ the Stammerer replied. ‘Caliban somehow discovered who Cyrano was. A few minutes before his death the journalist phoned his newspaper’s offices (it must have been from here, it couldn’t have been anywhere else) and promised to deliver an incredible news story. I don’t know what he had in mind, but I remember the events of that evening very clearly. Cyrano went across to the bookshelves, looked at the spines of the books, and took out one volume. Then he went out and didn’t come back again. That was at about ten o’clock in the evening. The autopsy established that he died no later than eleven.’

(So that was the meaning of the mysterious movement of the door that I observed in the study that evening! While I was eavesdropping on Cyrano from the corridor, at the same time Caliban was hiding on the other side, in the dining room. That was when he had seen through the correspondent’s mask!)

‘The police surgeon,’ continued the Stammerer, ‘determined that Zhemailo died of asphyxiation, even though, in addition to the furrow left by the rope, his neck bore the clear imprints of fingers. Papushin obviously followed the journalist, overtook him on the boulevard, which was completely deserted at that late hour, and strangled him, which would not be difficult, since nature had endowed the killer with such great strength. Short, flabby Cyrano could not possibly have offered any serious resistance to the enraged bookkeeper. Afterwards Caliban hung the body on a tree, using the victim’s trouser belt. This was no crime of passion but an act of revenge. Caliban regarded membership of the club as a sacred ministry, Cyrano was a villainous traitor. That was why he hung him on a Judas tree, an aspen.’

(At this point, to be quite honest, I broke into a cold sweat. I imagined what the madman would have done to me if he had found out about my correspondence with you. Do you at least understand the monstrous risk to which I exposed myself in carrying out your assignment?

My heart started pounding, my fingers started trembling and after that I listened less attentively, and so I will convey the conclusion of the speech in somewhat abbreviated form.)

‘The fact that he had got away with the two previous murders and his ever-increasing resentment drove Papushin into attempting yet another crime. He decided to kill Columbine, Death’s new favourite. The madman must have found it particularly hard to bear the humiliation he had suffered when his cherished message from the Eternal Bride was publicly declared a forgery. And Columbine had already stated that fire did not touch her Signs.

‘At this point I should really explain that it was Papushin’s profound conviction – a conviction that the Doge did everything possible to support and encourage – that suicide is the noblest manner in which to leave this life or, as Sterne put it, the aristocrat of deaths. By preventing Columbine from dying of her own free will, Caliban would have exposed her as a usurper – in exactly the same way as he had already done with Gdlevsky.

‘And that is exactly what would have happened yesterday if I had not felt concerned about Mademoiselle Columbine’s state of mind and decided to see her home. We said goodnight outside the house, but I decided to keep an eye on her windows so that I could intervene immediately if I noticed anything suspicious. Naturally, the idea of a murder never even entered my head – what I was afraid of was that the young woman intended to take her own life.

‘One of her windows was lit and every now and then I saw a shadow move across the curtain. It was already very late, but Mademoiselle Columbine had still not gone to bed. I wondered if I should go upstairs? But how would it look, a man visiting a solitary young woman at that time of night? No, it was absolutely unthinkable.

‘I didn’t see Caliban make his way into the entrance, he entered from the yard, through the back door. At a quarter past two I thought I heard muffled screams from somewhere above me, but I could quite well have been mistaken. I listened closely and a few seconds later I quite distinctly heard someone shout: “No! No! Skulls! Worms!” The shouts were coming from the entrance. I didn’t understand what the words meant, and I still do not understand why Mademoiselle Columbine uttered them, but I immediately dashed towards the front door. Just in time, as it turned out. A few moments later it would have been too late.’

(At this point Columbine had a fit of hysterics. She started sobbing, threw herself on the Stammerer’s chest, babbled incoherently and kissed him several times on the forehead and cheeks, inflicting some damage to the dandy’s coiffure and collar. After the distressed maiden had been given a drink of water and seated in an armchair, the Stammerer concluded his address.)

‘That is all, ladies and gentlemen. I hereby declare the club of “Lovers of Death” disbanded. There is no Death with a capital letter. That is one. The death that does exist has no need of lovers, male or female. That is two. Your turn to meet this boring lady will inevitably come, but all in good time. It is one meeting that you cannot avoid. That is three. Goodbye.’

We left in silence, and the commonest expressions on people’s faces were bewilderment or indignation. No one said goodbye to Prospero, not even his odalisques. He just sat there, completely crushed. And I should think so! How could this adored clairvoyant and self-appointed saviour of souls have been so fatally mistaken? He himself had introduced a dangerous maniac into the club and given him every patronage and favour – in effect, he had encouraged a murderer! I would not like to be in his skin.

Or would I? So help me, I believe the position of a deposed idol, who yesterday was exalted to the heavens and today is cast down, humiliated and trodden in the dirt, offers a gratification no less acute than is to be found in the most triumphant success. We Germans know about such things, because we have absolutely no sense of measure. The subtle sweetness of disgrace that is known only to the proud was felt very keenly by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, the most German of all Russian writers. It is such a pity that we have not had a chance to talk about literature. And now we never shall.

And so I conclude my final report, for I have fulfilled the terms to which I agreed. You can in turn report to your superiors that the epidemic of suicides in Moscow is now over. Attribute this achievement to your own efforts – I do not mind. I am not ambitious, it is not honours and a career that I require from life, but something quite different, something that I am afraid you cannot appreciate or understand.

Goodbye, Lieutenant-Colonel, remember me kindly. And I shall try to remember you kindly too.

Your ZZ

20 September 1900

1. Soon

2. Come

CHAPTER 6I. From the Newspapers

By Motor to Paris

At noon tomorrow a Russian sportsman will set out from Moscow to Paris on a three-wheeled motor vehicle. E.P. Neimless has set himself the goal of establishing a new distance and speed record for self-propelled carriages.

In his bold challenge Mr Neimless intends to cover the 2800 versts separating the capitals of the two friendly nations in twelve days, not including day-time or night-time halts or any halts that may be required for repairs or due to the poor condition of the roads. This latter circumstance, that is, the appalling state of the roads, especially in the Wisla region, is the greatest obstacle to the success of this hazardous venture. We all recall last year’s incident in which Baron von Liebnitz’s auto was shaken to pieces by the potholes near Pinsk.

The starting point of Mr Neimless’s journey will be Moscow’s Triumphal Arch. He will be escorted by his valet in a britzka, which will carry his luggage and spare parts for the three-wheeler. We shall be following the daredevil’s progress and printing telegrams received from points along his arduous route.

The Moscow Gazette, 22

September (5 October) 1900

p.4

II. From Columbine’s Diary

I wake in order to fall asleep

It turns out that I know nothing. Who I am, why I am alive or what life really is. Genji once quoted some ancient Japanese sage who said: ‘Life is a dream seen in a dream.’

The ancient Japanese was absolutely right. Only half an hour ago I thought that I was awake. That I had been asleep for many days and only woken when the light of the electric torch shone into my eyes and a worried voice asked: ‘Columbine, are you alive?’ And at that moment I dreamed that I awoke from a dream. I seemed to hear the sounds of the real world again, to see its living colours, and the glass bell jar separating me from reality was shattered. There was no Eternal Bridegroom called Death, no mysterious and alluring World Beyond, no mystical Signs, no spirits, no summons from out of the blackness.

For three days after I was almost snatched away by ‘death with a small letter’, I revelled in my imaginary freedom – I laughed a lot and cried a lot, I marvelled at the most common everyday nonsense, ate cakes and sewed a quite incredible dress. I pricked all my fingers very badly, I was working with such awkward material. Every time I cried out I felt even happier, because the pain confirmed the reality of existence. As if pain could not be dreamed!

Today I put on my stunning new outfit and was absolutely delighted with it. No one else has a dress like it. It is made of ‘devil’s leather’, it glitters and shimmers and crackles. Genji bought a driving suit of the same material for his motor journey, and I immediately fell in love with it.

The dress is absolutely unendurable. I always feel either hot or cold in it, but how it sparkles! Everyone in the street kept turning to look at me.

I was absolutely certain that the sun, the sky, the crackling dress, and the handsome man with the dark hair and the calm voice really did exist, that this was real life and I didn’t want anything else.

The gaudy fairground sideshow erected by that old liar Prospero had collapsed like a house of cards at the first breath of a fresh, realwind.

Genji escorted me to my door again, as he had done for the previous two days. He thought that after what had happened I was afraid to climb the stairs alone. I wasn’t afraid at all, but I wanted him to escort me.

He treats me like a porcelain vase. Before he leaves he kisses my hand. I am sure that he has feelings for me. But he is a gentleman and no doubt he feels bound by the fact that he saved my life: what if I do not spurn him simply out of a feeling of gratitude? How funny he is! As if gratitude had anything at all to do with love. But I like him even more for it.

Never mind, I thought. What’s the hurry? Let him go on his stupid motor trip. If something starts between us now, he won’t be able to test his oil-stove on wheels, and he wants to do it so much. All men really are still boys, no matter what their age.

After Paris I’ll really take him in hand. God willing, the oil-stove will break down a hundred versts from Moscow, and then he will be back soon, I fantasised. But I am prepared to wait three weeks, let him set his record. Life is long and there is so much time for happiness.

I was wrong. Life is short. And Genji was only a dream, like everything else – the sun, the sky, the new dress.

I have just woken up.

I came home, drank some tea, twirled in front of the mirror for a moment to admire the way the devil’s leather sparkled in the bluish light of the lamp. And then my eyes fell on a small volume in leather binding with gold-edged pages. I sat down, opened the book where it was marked and started to read.

It was a farewell gift from Prospero. A medieval German tract with a long title: The Secret Meditations of an Anonymous Author on the Experiences of his Life and What he has Heard from People Worthy to be Trusted. Two days earlier, when everyone walked out into the street in silence, leaving the Doge alone, and no one even said goodbye, I was touched by his imploring glance and I went back from the door, shook his hand and kissed him on the cheek – in memory of all that there had been between us.

He understood what my kiss meant, and he didn’t try to kiss me in return or take me in his arms.

‘Goodbye, my child,’ he said in a sad, formal voice which acknowledged that everything that used to be was over for ever. ‘You were the belated festival of my life, and no festival can last for long. Thank you for warming my weary heart with the glow of your sweet warmth. I have prepared a small gift for you – as a token of my gratitude.’

He picked a small volume up off the table and took a sheet of paper out of his pocket.

‘Do not read this treatise from cover to cover, it contains many things that are dark and obscure. At your age you should not burden your mind with such doleful wisdom. But you must read the chapter entitled “Cases in which love is more powerful than death”. Look, I’m marking it with this sheet of paper. And note the sheet of paper too, it is more than three hundred years old. Extremely precious paper from the sixteenth century, with the watermarks of the French king Franзois I. Perhaps when you’ve read the chapter I’ve marked, you might feel like writing me a short letter. Use this sheet of paper – adorned with your writing, it will become one of the most precious relics of my empty and worthless life . . . And do not think badly of me.’

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.

My life has been sheared in half

Like a length of woven cloth.

The two halves have been torn apart

Now I cannot keep them both.

Skewed the line that severed them

Though the knife was keen and sharp.

They can never be joined again.

The rent is too wide, the gap too far.

Once the cloth was white as snow,

Now its weave is solid black.

Even if I should wish to go,

How can I ever jump back?

Overhead the Milky Way,

Below the dreadful dark abyss;

If I run hard and really try

Perhaps something will come of this?

But my foot will never reach

Across the yawning gap below.

I shall fall straight down from the sky,

Down into the homespun snow.

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.

III. From the ‘Agents’ Reports’ File

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.

The man in leather climbed out of his ugly apparatus, walked up the steps on to the porch and rang the bell.

It was the Stammerer, looking very intense, pale and sombre.

‘Has something happened?’ I asked, surprised and alarmed by this nocturnal visit. This gentleman had never previously shown any interest in my person. I thought he had never even noticed that I existed. And how could he have found out where I live?

I could only assume that somehow the Stammerer had discovered that I had tried to follow him and had come to demand an explanation.

But when he spoke, it was about something completely different.

‘Maria Mironova, whom you knew under the name of Columbine, has jumped out of her window,’ the Stammerer informed me, without any greeting or apology for the late intrusion. I don’t know why I continue to call him by the nickname that I myself invented. There is no longer any point to this ludicrous trick, and in any case you know more about this man than I do. I do not know what he is really called, but in our club he was known by the strange name of Genji.

Not knowing what to say to this dismal news, I simply muttered: ‘How terrible. I hope at least she didn’t suffer before she died.’

‘Fortunately, she is still alive,’ Genji declared impassively. ‘A fantastic piece of luck. Columbine did not simply throw herself out of the window, for some reason she t-took a run and jumped – a very long way. That is what saved her. Of course, even though the side street is narrow, she could not possibly have jumped to the other side, but luckily for her, directly opposite her balcony there is an advertising sign – a tin angel. Columbine’s hem caught on the angel’s hand and she was l-left hanging there. Her dress was made of incredibly strong material – the same as my driving suit. It didn’t tear. The poor girl was stuck ten sazhens above the ground, unconscious and dangling head down, like a doll. And she was there for a long time, because no one noticed her in the dark. It was very difficult to get her down, they had to call the fire brigade to help. The young lady was taken to hospital, and when she recovered consciousness and was asked for the address of a relative, she gave them my telephone number. They phoned me and asked: “Does Mr Genji live here?”.’

I realised that he was not really speaking impassively, but making an immense effort to control his powerful agitation. The longer I listened to my late visitor, the more I wondered why he had come to me. What did he want? Genji is not the kind of man who needs someone to talk to after he has suffered some kind of shock. And in any case, I was not suited to playing the role of his confidant.

‘Have you come to me as a doctor?’ I enquired cautiously. ‘Do you want me to visit her in the hospital? But the young lady must have been examined already. And then, I am not a general practitioner, I’m an anatomist. My patients have no need of medical assistance.’

‘Miss Mironova has already been released from hospital, there is not a single scratch on her. My valet took her to my apartment, gave her hot Japanese vodka and put her to bed. Columbine will be p-perfectly all right now,’ said Genji, removing his gigantic goggles, and the gaze of his steely eyes made me feel uneasy. ‘I need you, Mr Horatio, not as a doctor, but in a different capacity. Your capacity as a collaborator.’

I raised my eyebrows in puzzlement, trying to pretend that I did not understand the term, but I turned cold inside.

‘Don’t waste your time, I saw through your cover a long time ago. You were eavesdropping on my conversation with Blagovolsky when I d-declared my purpose in joining the club. The door was slightly open and I saw a glint of light on glass through the crack. You are the only aspirant who wears spectacles. At the time, I admit, I thought you were the ubiquitous reporter Lavr Zhemailo. But the death of the journalist made it clear that I was mistaken. Then I asked my servant, with whom you are slightly acquainted, to take a look at you, and he confirmed my second hypothesis – you were the person who tried to t-trail me. On my instructions, Masa then proceeded to trail you. The gentleman in the check jacket whom you met yesterday on First Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street serves in the Gendarmes Department, does he not?’

I shuddered and asked: ‘What do you want with me? I’ve done you no harm, I swear it! The story of the “Lovers of Death” is over and done with, and the club has been disbanded.’

‘The club has been disbanded, but the story is not yet over. From the hospital I went to Columbine’s flat, and there I found this.’ Genji took a sheet of odd-looking marbled paper out of his pocket. Through the marbling I could see the words Ich warte. ‘This is the reason why Columbine jumped out of the window!’

I gazed at the paper in confusion and asked: ‘What does this mean?’

‘It means that my conclusions were erroneous because I accepted answers that were too facile and closed my eyes to a number of details and circumstances that didn’t fit the overall picture,’ Genji replied. ‘And that very nearly led to the death of a young woman whose life matters to me. You, Horatio, are going to come with me. You will be an official witness, and afterwards you will report what you have seen and heard to your gendarme b-bosses. For certain reasons that it is not necessary for you to know, I myself prefer not to meet the Moscow police. And I shall not be staying in the city for long. It would delay my record attempt.’

I did not understand the comment about a record attempt, but I decided not to ask. Still looking me in the eye, Genji added: ‘I know you are not an irredeemable scoundrel. You are simply a weak man, a victim of circumstances. Your case is not entirely hopeless. As it says in the scriptures: “Out of the weak shall come forth the strong.” Let’s go.’

His tone was peremptory and I could not resist. And, indeed, I did not wish to.

We drove to Rozhdestvensky Boulevard in the motor. I sat between Genji and his strange companion, clutching the handrail with both hands. The nightmarish device was driven by the young Jew, and on the corners, he cried out: ‘Pull, my beauties!’ We were moving so fast and jolting so hard that the only thought in my mind was how to avoid being thrown out of my seat.

Genji told the driver to stop at the corner. ‘We’ll go on from here on foot,’ he said. ‘The engine makes too much noise.’

The youth stayed to watch the auto and the two of us walked up the side street.

Despite the late hour, there was light in the windows of the familiar house.

‘The spider,’ Genji muttered, pulling off his gauntlets with immense cuffs. ‘Sitting there rubbing his feet together. Waiting for a moth to get caught in his web . . . When I have finished, you will summon the police by t-telephone. Give me your word that you will not try to detain me.’

‘I give you my word,’ I muttered obediently, although I still did not understand a thing.

The Doge opened the door to us without bothering to ask who had come to see him in the middle of the night. He was wearing a velvet dressing gown that looked like an old-fashioned caftan, with a white shirt and tie visible between the lapels. Prospero looked at us for a moment without speaking, laughed and said: ‘An interesting pair. I didn’t know that you were friends.’

I was astounded to see that he looked quite different from the way he had been at our last meeting – not pitiful and bewildered, but confident, even triumphant. Just like in the old days.

‘To what do I owe the honour of this late visit from such sullen guests?’ the Doge asked in the same derisive tone of voice, as he showed us through into the drawing room. ‘No, don’t tell me, let me guess. The suicides are continuing? The dissolution of the pernicious club has had no effect? And what did I tell you!’ He shook his head and sighed.

‘No, Mr Blagovolsky,’ Genji said in a quiet voice, ‘the c-club is no longer active. But there is just one final formality to be settled.’

Before he could say another word, the Doge leapt backwards spryly and pulled his Bulldog revolver out of his pocket. I gasped in surprise and dodged to one side.

Genji, however, was not perturbed in the slightest. He flung a heavy gauntlet into Blagovolsky’s face, at the same moment raising one foot in a brown shoe and gaiter and kicking the revolver with incredible agility.

The weapon was sent flying before it could be fired. I quickly picked it up and handed it to my companion.

‘May I consider this a confession?’ Genji asked in cold fury. His usual stammer had completely disappeared. ‘I could shoot you, Blagovolsky, this very moment, and it would be legitimate self-defence. But let us do everything according to the law.’

Prospero had turned pale and his recent scornful manner had disappeared without trace.

‘What confession?’ he muttered. ‘What law are you talking about? I don’t understand any of this. I thought you had gone insane, like Caliban, and come here to kill me. Who are you really? What do you want from me?’

‘I can see this is going to be a long conversation. Sit down,’ said Genji, pointing to a chair, ‘I knew you would try to deny everything.’

The Doge squinted warily at the revolver.

‘All right, all right. I’ll do whatever you say. But let’s go to the study. There’s a draught here and I’m feeling chilly.’

We walked through the dark dining room and sat down in the study: our host at the writing desk, Genji facing him in a huge armchair for visitors, and I at one side. The wide desk was in a state of great disorder, covered with a jumble of books with bookmarks and sheets of paper covered with writing. At the very centre there was an impressive inkstand of gleaming bronze in the form of several heroes from Russian folktales, and at one edge there was the familiar roulette wheel, which had been exiled from the drawing room and found sanctuary at the very heart of the house. No doubt the Wheel of Fortune was meant to remind our host of his days of former glory.

‘Listen carefully and remember everything,’ Genji told me, ‘so that you can present everything as clearly as possible in your report afterwards.’

Allow me to say that I took my obligations as a witness seriously. I had brought from home the pencil and notebook previously acquired on your advice. If I had not been so prudent, it would not be easy for me now to reconstruct so precisely everything that was said.

At first Blagovolsky ran his fingers nervously across the green baize of the desk, but then he made an effort to control himself, put his left hand under the desk and his right hand on the helmet of the Russian folk-hero inkwell and remained in that position.

‘Please be so good as to explain to me what all this is about, gentlemen,’ he said with dignity. ‘You would appear to be accusing me of something.’

Genji tried to turn his chair, but it proved to be too massive, and the ends of its thick legs were buried in the deep pile of a square rug that evidently must have been made to order – it was an exact fit for the chair. The Stammerer was obliged to sit in a half-turned position.

‘Yes, I accuse you of the most ignoble form of murder – driving people to commit suicide. But I also blame myself, because on two occasions I have made unforgivable mistakes. The first time was here in this very study when you artfully wove truth and falsehood together in the performance that you put on for me, pretending to be a well-intentioned innocent. The second time I allowed myself to be deceived when I mistook the devil’s tail for the devil himself.’ Genji set the Bulldog on the edge of the desk. ‘You are aware of what you are doing, your reason is sound, your actions are thoroughly planned for many moves ahead, but you are insane nonetheless. You are obsessed with power. You admitted this yourself during our previous discussion, with such convincing sincerity and such an innocent expression on your face that I allowed myself to be taken in. Ah, if only I had thought of taking a little of that liquid for analysis on the evening when you broke the goblet! I am sure it was no sleeping draught, but absolutely genuine poison. Otherwise why would you have needed to destroy the evidence? Alas, I have made too many mistakes and the price paid for them has been far too high . . .

‘I understand the mechanism of your insanity,’ Genji continued. ‘You made three attempts to die three times in your life and each time you took fright. You established the suicide club in order to redeem the guilt that you felt for having cheated Death. You threw others instead of yourself into its ravenous jaws, ransomed yourself from Death with the lives of others. How you loved to imagine yourself as the mighty magician Prospero, exalted far above ordinary mortals! I shall never forgive myself for believing your fairytale about saving lost souls. You were not trying to save anyone. On the contrary, you took a romantic passion engendered by our age of crisis – a passion that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred would have passed of its own accord – and skilfully nurtured the young shoot of a love of death. Oh, you are a very skilful gardener and there was no subterfuge that you disdained. You were very inventive in arranging the so-called “Signs”, sometimes exploiting fortuitous circumstances but usually creating them for yourself. You, Blagovolsky, are an excellent psychologist, you unerringly divined the weak spot of every one of your victims. And in addition, I have noticed that you possess considerable skill in the techniques of hypnosis.’

Oh, this was absolutely true! On numerous occasions, I myself had noted the magnetic power possessed by Prospero’s gaze, especially in the gentle illumination of the brazier or candles. I always had the feeling that those black eyes could pierce to the very deepest recesses of my soul! Hypnosis – why, naturally, hypnosis explained everything!

‘I became a member of your flock too late,’ Genji continued, ‘I do not know how you drove the photographer Sviridov and the teacher Soimonov to suicide. No doubt each of them received certain “Signs” for which you were responsible, but it is too late now to reconstruct the chain of events. Those who were to die were named by Ophelia during a spiritualist seance. You apparently had nothing to do with it. But I am no novice in such matters, and it was immediately obvious to me that there was a hypnotic connection between you and the medium – you could communicate with her without words. As the spiritualists say, she was tuned to your emanations – a single look, gesture or hint was enough for Ophelia to guess what you wanted. You could implant any thought that you wanted in her mind, the girl was no more than your mouthpiece.’

‘All very lyrical,’ said Blagovolsky, interrupting the address for the prosecution for the first time. ‘And very significant. In my opinion, Mr Genji, it is you who is insane, not I. Do you really think that the authorities will pay any attention to your fantasies?’

He had already recovered from his initial shock. He clasped his fingers together in front of him and stared intently at Genji. A strong man, I thought. It looks as if the Stammerer has met his match.

‘Write, Horatio, write,’ Genji told me. ‘Note down as much detail as possible. Every link in the chain is important here. And the evidence will follow.

‘The double suicide of Moretta and Lycanthrope went very smoothly, and once again there was no apparent criminal involvement. Acting under your hypnotic suggestion or, perhaps, on your direct instructions, Ophelia declared at the seance that a messenger in a white cloak would appear to the Chosen One that night, bringing the word. Your calculations were precisely right: the members of the club were impressionable people, mostly of a hysterical disposition. It is strange, therefore, that only two of them dreamed of a messenger in a white cloak who appeared to them that night. And then, according to the farewell verse, the stranger who appeared to the youth was severe, with black eyes, and he arrived in the usual manner, through the door, while the girl dreamed of someone with bright eyes, who preferred the window, but then who would cavil over the petty details of a mystical vision?’

‘Nonsense,’ Prospero snorted. ‘Irresponsible conjecture. Keep writing, Horatio, keep writing. If I am destined to die at the hands of this madman, let the crime not go unpunished.’

I looked at Genji in confusion, and he smiled reassuringly.

‘Don’t be concerned. We are coming to the evidence now. The first evidence was provided to me by Avaddon, who died the day before I began my investigation. The clues were still perfectly fresh and the murderer had not had time to cover his tracks.’

‘Murderer?’ I exclaimed. ‘So the student was murdered?’

‘As surely as if he had been hanged on a gallows. It began, like the previous cases, with a sentence pronounced by Ophelia under hypnosis. And the business was brought to its conclusion by Signs: the howling of a Beast or, rather, a terrifying, inhuman voice repeating something that sounded like “go, go”. The voice was heard by the neighbours next door, so it could not possibly have been a hallucination. I examined the flat very carefully and discovered something rather curious. The hinges and keyhole of the door leading to the back staircase had been oiled very thoroughly, and very recently too. I inspected the lock with a magnifying glass and discovered fresh scratches showing that it had been opened with a key several times, and always from the outside, but no key had ever been inserted in the keyhole from the inside. I could not possibly imagine that the occupant of the flat had lived with the door on to the back staircase unlocked all the time. Therefore, someone must have unlocked it, entered the flat, done something there and quickly withdrawn.

‘The next time I visited the flat I went under cover of night and conducted a more exhaustive search, hoping to discover traces of some technical device capable of producing sound. Under the upper cornice of the kitchen window I found two lead pipes like those that are used in pneumatic alarms. They were both artfully concealed under the plaster and had openings that were stopped with corks. I removed the corks, but nothing happened. I had almost decided that they be must some innovative kind of ventilation system, when a gust of wind shook the window pane, and I distinctly heard a low, hollow wail: “G-o-o-o, g-o-o-o”. In the dark gloom of the flat it was genuinely terrifying. There was no doubt at all that the sound was produced by the concealed pipes. I replaced the corks, and the wailing immediately stopped. The ancient Egyptians used to employ something rather similar in the pyramids to prevent robbers from desecrating the sarcophagi. Combinations of pipes of different forms, installed where there was a draught, could produce entire words and even phrases. You used to be an engineer, Mr Blagovolsky, and rather a talented one, I believe. It would have been easy for you to design an essentially very simple structure like this. And that explained the mystery of the back entrance. In order to drive the occupant of the flat into suicide, the intruder entered the kitchen on a wild, windy night, removed the corks from the pipes and then calmly left, quite confident of the result of his actions. I knew that you had rented and furnished the flat for the poor student. That is one. The neighbours testified that the Beast did not fall quiet until morning, although Nikifor Sipyaga hanged himself some time before dawn. That is two. Why, one wonders, would the Beast continue calling on him to leave this world when he was already in the next one? I recalled you having told me that you felt concerned about Avaddon and you set out to visit him at the crack of dawn. That was when you closed the openings in the pipes. And that is three.’

‘Well now, the pipes are genuine evidence,’ Blagovolsky admitted. ‘But the question is, against whom? Yes, I helped the poor student with his lodgings. And I was the first to find the body. Is that suspicious? Possibly. But no more than that. No, no, Mr Prince, you have not proven my guilt. Poor Avaddon was one of the incurable cases. No one could have saved him from suicide. He only needed a pretext to lay hands on himself.’

Even so, I could see that Genji’s arguments had had an effect on the Doge – he started fidgeting again and reached out to touch the bronze inkwell, as if it could help him.

Genji got up out of his chair and started walking round the room.

‘But what about Ophelia? Do you also classify her as an “incurable case”? The young girl had absolutely no desire to die, she was simply fascinated by everything mysterious and inexplicable. She really did possess abilities that modern science is unable to define and analyse. And you exploited her gift to the full. When I led the seance instead of you and summoned the spirit of Avaddon, Ophelia’s incredible sensitivity allowed her to sense or guess what I wanted. In the East they believe that powerful feelings can be preserved for a long time. A strong outpouring of positive or negative energy always leaves its mark. That is the reason why certain places are “cursed” or “blessed”. They possess a specific aura. And people like Ophelia possess the rare ability to sense this aura. As she went into her trance, the girl sensed the fear, horror and hopelessness that Avaddon felt during the final minutes of his life. Perhaps the mention of “howling” and a “beast” was simply prompted by Avaddon’s farewell poem and there was nothing mystical involved, but you were frightened. What if Ophelia, with her exceptional gifts, should happen to sense foul play? For after all, Blagovolsky, despite your cynical manipulation of human superstition, in your heart you yourself are a mystic and you believe in all sorts of dark supernatural nonsense.’

I thought I saw Prospero shudder at that point, but I cannot vouch for it. Genji sat back down in his chair.

‘Bravo,’ he said. ‘You are cautious. I deliberately left the revolver on the desk, then stood up and moved away a little, hoping that you would try to kill me. I have my trusty Herstahl in my pocket, and I would have put a hole in your head with a perfectly clear conscience, and then our pointless conversation would have been at an end.’

‘Why is it pointless?’ I asked. ‘You wish Mr Blagovolsky to be put on trial, do you not?’

‘I am afraid that trying him will do more harm than good,’ Genji sighed. ‘A sensational trial with glib speeches from eloquent advocates, an imposing defendant, a horde of reporters. What wonderful publicity for other would-be fishers of souls! The judgement of the court is hardly likely to frighten them.’

‘From what I have heard so far, only one judgement could be passed – innocent,’ Blagovolsky said with a shrug. ‘And your trap with the revolver is simply farcical. Do I look like a total dunce? You’d better get on with your story. You tell it rather well.’

Genji nodded imperturbably.

‘Indeed, let us go on. After the spiritualist seance that I led, you decided Ophelia was becoming too dangerous. What if she told someone about the hypnotic commands that you sent to her? It is not such a rare thing for a subject to break free of a hypnotist’s control. So far the girl was still only under your influence, but during the seance you saw that she submitted to the will of another controller with equal ease . . . What I could not understand was how it was possible to drive someone who had no intention at all of killing herself to commit suicide? I found the answer to this question in Ophelia’s implicit faith in supernatural phenomena, her irrational, unconditional submission to the Miraculous and, in general, the undoubtedly anomalous workings of her psyche – these were factors that the criminal could have exploited. And he only needed a few moments to put his plan into action. The girl returned home, happy and full of the joy of life, and went into her room, only to come back out almost immediately, transformed beyond all recognition. She said goodbye to her mother, walked to the bank of the river and threw herself into the water . . . There was one thing Ophelia had said that I could not get out of my mind – that she had been given a sign like the one sent to King Balthazar. And then I had an idea. I went to her house at night and cut the outer pane out of the window of her bedroom. The poor widow must have been surprised in the morning when she discovered that it had mysteriously disappeared. When I shone ultraviolet light through the glass I discovered a blurred, but perfectly legible inscription made with phosphorescent ink. This is a copy that I made of it.’

I recalled the Stammerer’s mysterious manipulations at the small house beside the Yauza. So that was what the self-appointed investigator had been doing that night!

Genji took a large sheet of paper, folded in four, out of his pocket and spread it out on the table. The inscription looked like this:

‘What’s that?’ I asked, examining the incomprehensible symbols.

He took the sheet of paper, turned it round and held it in front of the table lamp. Now I could read the letters, illuminated from behind:

Stirb²

‘When she entered her room, Ophelia saw a word written in glowing letters of fire that seemed to be floating in the air. It told her quite unambiguously to die. The Prince of Death had expressed his will quite clearly, and the poor girl did not dare oppose it. Ever since she was a child she had believed implicitly in the secret signs of destiny. Meantime . . .’ – Genji crumpled up the sheet of paper and tossed it on the desk in front of the Doge – ‘. . . you were certainly still outside, observing events. The most revolting thing about the entire story is not the murder, but the fact that when you had already condemned the girl to death, you decided to enjoy her almost childish body beforehand. You knew perfectly well that she secretly adored you, even worshipped you. You told her to stay when the other aspirants left and I presume that you demonstrated the exceptional ardour of your love – in any case, when Ophelia came home she looked absolutely happy. The nearness of death inflames your lust, does it not? You had thought everything through carefully. After sating your passion, you gallantly drove your victim home, said good night to her at the gate and then quickly wrote your fateful instruction on the bedroom window. You waited to make sure that the trick had worked, quickly wiped the window clean and then went back home. But there was one thing you failed to take into account, Sergei Irinarkhovich. The pane of glass is evidence, incontrovertible evidence.’

‘Incontrovertible evidence?’ Blagovolsky repeated with a shrug. ‘But how can you prove that I was the one who scribbled that word on the glass?’

I also thought that Genji seemed overconfident. Yes, I remembered that Prospero had told Ophelia to stay that evening and, knowing his habits, could easily imagine what had happened after that. However, that was not sufficient for a formal charge in law.

‘You are an engineer,’ Genji said to the Doge, ‘and you probably follow the progress of science. Has the discovery announced by the London police in June this year really escaped your notice?’

Blagovolsky and I both looked at the speaker in puzzlement.

‘I am referring to the Galton-Henry dactyloscopic method which makes it possible for the first time to identify a criminal from the prints left by his fingers. The finest minds in criminal investigation have been struggling for years with the problem of creating a system for classifying the papillary patterns on the tips of the fingers. The clearest prints of all are left on glass. You may have wiped off the phosphorescent letters with your handkerchief, but you did not wipe away all the prints of your fingers. I have photographs of the criminal’s dactylograms here with me. Would you compare them with your own?’

So saying, Genji took a small metal box out of the immense pocket of his leather jacket and opened it to reveal a small cushion impregnated with dark paint or ink, like those that are used for official stamps.

‘I would not,’ Prospero replied rapidly, jerking his hands away and putting them under the table. ‘You are quite right, scientific progress is constantly surprising us, and the surprises are not always pleasant ones.’

The comment was as a good as a confession!

‘When it came to the Lioness of Ecstasy, you dispensed with complicated tricks,’ said Genji, going on to the next victim. ‘This woman whose spirit was broken by grief really did long for death and she unhesitatingly accepted the appearance of three black roses on her bed as a Sign. This, as we know, was not a difficult trick to arrange.’

‘But last time you said the flowers were delivered by Caliban.’ I reminded him.

‘Yes, and that was the circumstance that led me astray. Since you have mentioned Caliban, Horatio, let us consider the real part played by this singular individual in our story. The bookkeeper confused the case very badly, he threw me off the track and diverted all suspicion from the main criminal. My mistake almost cost gullible Columbine her life.

‘You, Prospero, had good reason for favouring this madman, who had been driven insane by extreme suffering and a tormented conscience. He really was your obedient Caliban, the servant of the all-powerful wizard – a servant who was blindly and irrationally devoted to you. You praised his abominable verse, you showed him all sorts of favours and – most importantly of all – he dreamed that you would intercede for him and win the goodwill of Death, so that his “term of imprisonment” would be reduced. At first he dutifully carried out your instructions, obviously without much idea of their real significance. I assume that the concealed pipes in Avaddon’s flat were installed by Caliban – you would hardly have been able to manage such a difficult job, requiring a high level of manual skill and uncommon physical strength, and you would not have risked giving such an unusual commission to a stranger. Give three black roses to Lorelei’s domestic companion? Why not? You obviously told Papushin that you wanted to play a joke on the Lioness, whose extravagant mannerisms Caliban had always found so irritating.

‘How could I ever have believed that this burly halfwit was the evil genius of the “Lovers of Death”? How could he ever have invented the tricks with the letters of fire and the wailing beast? How right the Chinese sage was when he said “The obvious is rarely true” . . .’ Genji shook his head angrily. ‘But your faithful genie did not stay in his bottle, he escaped and started acting on his own initiative. The searing pain of his desperate desire for death became ever more excruciating. When he took his revenge on Gdlevsky, the bookkeeper ruined your entire artful plan, which was so near to realisation. Why did you need to destroy that proud, talented boy? Merely in order to flatter your own vanity? First the Russian Sappho, then the Russian Rimbaud – and both of them would take their own lives in obedience to your will. You would deprive modern Russian poetry of two of its most brilliant names, while remaining in the shadows, and you had every chance of getting away scot-free. How pitiful, compared to you, were those trivial destroyers of genius, Dantes and Martynov!

‘Or did it all happen far more simply and intuitively? A romantic youth, enthralled with his mystical theory of rhyme, happened by chance to open a book at the word “breath”, which rhymes with “death” and haughtily informed you about this miraculous Sign. The next Friday you had already made thorough preparations by leaving a book on the table, knowing that Gdlevsky would immediately grab it to tell his own fortune. I remembered the book and I took the first possible opportunity to examine it carefully.’ Genji turned towards me. ‘Horatio, if it’s not too much trouble, would you mind going to the drawing room and bringing back the collected plays of Shakespeare from the third shelf ?’

I immediately did as he asked and found the book without any difficulty. When I took it down off the shelf, I gasped: it was the same volume that Cyrano had examined on the last evening of his life!

As I walked back I turned the book this way and that, but I failed to observe anything suspicious about it. Nature, alas, did not endow me with exceptional powers of observation, as Genji confirmed when he took the volume from my hands.

‘Look at the top of the book. Do you see the yellow colour extending to the middle of the pages? That is ordinary office glue. Try opening the book at random, at any page.’

I tried opening the book between my finger and thumb and could scarcely believe my eyes – it opened at the title page of Macbeth.

‘Now do you understand?’ Genji asked me. ‘The result of Gdlevsky’s divination on the second Friday had been determined beforehand.’

Yes, the trick had been precisely calculated for psychological effect. And I suddenly realised that this was the ‘bombshell’ that Cyrano had intended to print in the morning edition of his paper. Like Genji, he had discovered the trick with the glue and immediately realised that he could season his investigation with a spicy sauce. The entire business had suddenly acquired a criminal flavour. Poor Cyrano had not suspected that he would be blown up by his own bombshell . . .

‘On the third Friday you decided to make absolutely sure of things and leave Gdlevsky no chance. After his “good luck” on the first two Fridays, the youth’s nerves were naturally so wrought up that he was seeing Signs in everything going on around him. It would not have been at all surprising if he had discovered his fateful rhyme without any assistance from you, but to guarantee the outcome you arranged for him to find what he was seeking right outside your house. You paid a wandering organ grinder to sing a song with a particular refrain – but only until a certain young man whose appearance you described in detail would enter the house. I don’t think you explained your plans to the organ grinder, but you did impress on him that once he had completed his assignment he should clear out as quickly as possible, and the old man did precisely that, with all the speed that he could muster. When I dashed out into the street two minutes later, I couldn’t find him anywhere.

‘And so Gdlevsky had been condemned to death by you and would certainly have carried out the sentence himself, if not for Caliban, who had been jealous of your young favourite for a long time. Now it seemed that Gdlevsky was favoured not only by you, but also by Death, and the insane bookkeeper decided to do away with his fortunate rival . . .

‘The killing of the reporter Lavr Zhemailo was the only death in which you were not directly involved. That is, if we do not take into account that you once called the newspaper informer a Judas, who would betray you as Christ was betrayed. To Caliban you really were his Saviour, and so when he discovered Cyrano’s true occupation, he killed him and hung him on an aspen tree.’

At that moment I must confess that I experienced a certain inner satisfaction. Not a very worthy feeling, but understandable. Apparently you do not know everything and do not notice everything, clever Mr Investigator, I thought to myself. You do not know that Caliban eavesdropped on Cyrano’s telephone conversation with his newspaper office.

Genji moved on to the final point of his prosecution speech.

‘Your preparations for Columbine’s suicide were the most thorough and cunning of all. First you slipped her the three pieces of card with inscriptions in German. The day before yesterday the young lady gave them to me and told me that they did not burn in fire. I subjected the paper to chemical analysis and discovered it had been impregnated with a solution of alums, which had rendered it non-flammable. An old trick that was once used by the Count of St Germain. In order to prompt Columbine to check whether the notes would burn, you deliberately slipped Papushin a note from Death as well, only it was written on ordinary paper. The scheme worked perfectly, but there was one thing you failed to anticipate – Caliban felt slighted and decided to take his revenge on Death’s Chosen One, just as he had done with Gdlevsky. Fortunately I happened to be at the scene.’

I noticed that Blagovolsky’s behaviour had changed now. The Doge was no longer objecting or trying to dispute any of his accuser’s assertions. He sat there hunched up, with his face completely drained of blood and his eyes – I could see that they were filled with fear and alarm – trained steadily on the speaker. Prospero must have felt that the end was approaching. His nervous state was also evident from the movements of his hands: the fingers of his right hand were stroking the bronze hero’s helmet again, while the fingers of his left clenched and unclenched spasmodically.

‘Fate gave you a generous gift in the person of Caliban. You had a very good chance of getting away with everything by shifting the blame for all your crimes on to the dead maniac’s shoulders. But you were unable to control yourself, you could not stop. Why did you decide to finish the girl off after all? That is the greatest riddle for me. Could you not forgive Columbine because she had grown indifferent to your charms? Or, as happens so often with hardened killers, did you really, somewhere deep in your heart, want someone to expose you and stop you?’

‘No, Mr Psychologist,’ said Prospero, suddenly breaking his silence. ‘It was neither of those. I simply do not like to abandon a job halfway through when it is going well.’

I immediately took down what he had said word for word: another indirect admission of guilt.

Genji’s face darkened slightly; he was evidently taken aback by this audacious reply.

‘Your attempt to finish your “job” was certainly most inventive. Columbine told me about the magical words “Ich warte” that appeared out of nowhere on a blank sheet of paper. Most impressive! It is hardly surprising that the girl immediately believed implicitly that it was a miracle. I visited Columbine’s flat and inspected both the sheet of paper and the book very closely. Another cunning chemical trick. Several pages before the bookmark you had glued into the book a piece of paper with the two fateful words written on it in lead acetate. And the marbled paper used as a bookmark had been soaked in a solution of sulphurated potash. When the book was closed, the lead acetate started seeping through the pages and about a day later the letters appeared on the marbled paper. This method of secret writing was developed by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, so it is not original to you. You merely found a new use for the old recipe.’

Genji turned towards me and leaned on the armrest of his chair.

‘That is all, Horatio, the facts have been set forth. As for the material evidence, the window pane with the dactylograms is under guard in the porter’s lodge of the Spassky Barracks, the pipes in Avaddon’s flat are still in place, and I left the book from Blagovolsky’s library and the sheet of marbled paper in Columbine’s flat. No doubt the sheet of paper glued into the book and the sheet that was soaked in potash also bear the criminal’s fingerprints. The investigation should not encounter any difficulties. There is the telephone – make the call. As soon as the police arrive I shall withdraw, and you remember that you gave me your word.’

I stood up to walk across to the telephone hanging on the wall, but Blagovolsky gestured for me to wait.

‘Don’t be in such a hurry, Horatio. The gentleman detective has demonstrated his eloquence and perspicacity. It is only fair that I should have the right of reply.’

I glanced enquiringly at Genji. He nodded, with a wary glance at Prospero, and I sat down again.

Blagovolsky chuckled, opened the helmet lid of the inkwell and closed it again, then drummed his fingers on it.

‘You have unfolded an entire psychological theory that presents me as a cowardly halfwit. According to you, everything I have done can be explained by panic induced by fear of death; an attempt to wheedle a respite out of death by offering up human sacrifices. Nonsense, Mr Genji. Why underestimate and belittle your opponent? At the very least that is imprudent. Perhaps I was once afraid to die, but that was a very, very long time ago, before the stone walls of a prison cell exterminated all strong feelings and passions in me. Apart from one that is, the most exalted of all – the desire to be God. A long period of solitary confinement brings home very clearly the simple truth that you are alone in the world and the entire universe is in you, and so you are God. If you so wish, the universe will live. If you do not, it will die, with everything that it contains. That is what will happen if I, God, commit suicide. In comparison with this catastrophe, all other deaths are mere trifles. But if I am God, then I must rule, must I not? That is only logical, it is my right. My rule must be real and undivided. And do you know what God’s real power over people is? It is not a general’s epaulettes, a minister’s portfolio, or even a king’s throne. In our times dominion of that kind is becoming an anachronism. It will not be enough for the rulers of the new century that is beginning. There must be power, not over bodies, but over souls. Say to someone else’s soul, “Die!” – and it dies. As it was with the Old Believers, when hundreds threw themselves into the fire if the elder willed it, and mothers cast their infants into the flames. But the elder left the burning community and went to save another flock. You, Mr Genji, are a limited man and you will never understand this supreme pleasure . . . Ah, why am I wasting time on you? To hell with you, you bore me.’

After pronouncing the last two phrases in a rapid flurry of speech, Prospero suddenly cut his speech short. He turned the bronze inkwell figure clockwise, there was a loud metallic clang and a hatch opened under the chair on which Genji was sitting, creating a hole the precise size of the square rug. The rug, the chair and the man sitting in it disappeared into the black hole.

I shouted out in horror, with my eyes fixed on that opening in the floor.

‘Another of my engineering designs!’ Prospero exclaimed, choking on fitful laughter. ‘The most ingenious one of all!’ he waved his hand in the air, unable to cope with his paroxysm of merriment. ‘There sits the pompous fellow, the master of life. And then a turn of a lever, releasing a spring and bang! Please be so good as to fall down my well-shaft.’

Wiping away his tears, he told me: ‘You know, my friend Horatio, last year I got the idea of deepening the basement. When the workers started digging they discovered an old brick-lined well. Very deep, almost thirty sazhens. I told them to build the shaft upwards with bricks so that it reached the floor at this point. And then I built the hatch on the top myself. I like to do a bit of work with my hands in my spare time, it helps me to relax. The late Mr Genji was mistaken in thinking that I was shy of physical work – I built the voice imitator in Avaddon’s flat myself. But I installed this secret hatch for amusement, not for use. I would sit here with a visitor, talking about this and that. With him in the place of honour in the armchair, and me at the desk, toying with the lever. And I would think to myself: “Your life, my little pigeon, is in my hands. Just a little turn, and you’ll disappear from the face of the earth. It’s very helpful for your self-respect, especially if the visitor is haughty and pompous, like our Japanese prince who has just met such an untimely end. I never thought that my little toy would come in so useful.’

I sat there turned to stone, listening to this bloodcurdling speech, and feeling more afraid with every moment. I had to run, to get away from there immediately! He would never let me go alive – he would throw me down the well too.

I was about to make a dash for the door, but then my eye fell on the Bulldog, still lying on the edge of the desk. Prospero would grab the gun and shoot me in the back.

Well then, I had to get the gun myself!

The desperate nature of the situation lent me courage. I jumped up and reached for the gun, but Blagovolsky proved quicker and my fingers landed on his hand, which was already covering the revolver. A moment later we were struggling with each other, both clutching the gun with both hands. Taking small steps, we skirted round the table and then started jigging on the spot, as if we were performing some macabre dance.

I kicked at him and he kicked back, hitting me on the ankle. It was very painful, but I didn’t open my fingers. I jerked the gun towards me with all my strength and we both lost our balance and went tumbling to the floor. The Bulldog slipped out of our hands, slid across the gleaming parquet floor and stopped halfway over the edge of the hatch, swaying uncertainly. I scrambled towards it on my hands and knees, but I was too late. As if it had finally made up its mind, it tumbled over the edge.

A few dull thuds, growing fainter. Then silence.

Taking advantage of the fact that I had my back to him, Prospero grabbed me by the collar with one hand and by my coat-tail with the other and started dragging me across the floor towards the pit. Another second and it would all have been over, but by good fortune my fingers struck the leg of the desk and I clung to it with a grip of iron. My head was already hanging over the hole, but Blagovolsky could not move me another inch, no matter how he tried.

I was straining every muscle so hard that it was a while before I looked down into the hole – and in any case my eyes needed time to adjust to the darkness. The first thing I saw in the gloom was a vague rectangular shape that I only recognised a few seconds later as the chair, turned on its side – it had got stuck in the shaft, after falling less than a sazhen. And then I noticed two white spots below the chair. They were moving, and I suddenly realised that they were white shirt cuffs protruding from Genji’s leather sleeves! I couldn’t see his hands, but the starched cuffs were clearly visible through the darkness. So Genji had not gone plunging to the bottom, he had managed to grab hold of the chair when it got stuck!

This discovery emboldened me, although there did not really seem to be any real reason to rejoice: if Genji was not helped, he could only hold out like that for two or three minutes, and then he would fall in any case. And who was going to help him? Certainly not Blagovolsky!

Thank God, the Doge couldn’t see into the hole, and he had no idea that his main adversary was still alive, although quite helpless.

‘Horatio, do you play chess?’ Prospero’s faltering voice gasped behind me.

I thought I must have misheard.

‘In chess this kind of situation is called a stalemate,’ he went on. ‘Unfortunately, I am not strong enough to shove you into the well, and you cannot let go of the leg of the desk. Are we going to go on lying on the floor like this for ever? I have a better suggestion. Since force has not produced the desired result, let us return to a state of civilisation. By which I mean, let us negotiate.’

He stopped pulling on my collar and stood up. I also hastily jumped to my feet and moved as far away as possible from the hatch.

Both of us looked very much the worse for wear. Blagovolsky’s tie had slipped to one side, his grey hair was dishevelled and the belt of his dressing gown had come untied; I was no better, with a torn sleeve and missing buttons, and when I picked up my spectacles, I discovered that the right lens was cracked.

I was completely bewildered and did not know what to do. Run out into the street to get the police constable standing on Trubnaya Square? It would be ten minutes before I got back. Genji could not hold on for that long. I glanced involuntarily at the hole in the floor.

‘You’re right,’ said Blagovolsky, tying up his dressing gown. ‘That gap in the floor is distracting.’

He took a step forwards and turned the bronze figure anti-clockwise. The cover of the hatch slammed shut with a clang, making things even worse! Genji had been left in total darkness.

‘Now there are just the two of us, you and I,’ said Prospero. He looked into my eyes, and I felt the familiar magnetic influence of his gaze enveloping me and drawing me in. ‘Before you make any decision, I want you to listen carefully to your own heart. Do not make a mistake that you will regret for the rest of your life. Listen to me, look at me, trust me. The way you used to trust me, before this outsider invaded our world and spoiled and perverted everything . . .’

The sound of his clear baritone voice flowed on and on, until I no longer understood the meaning of the words. I realise now that Prospero had put me under his hypnotic influence, and very successfully too. I am highly suggestible and easily submit to the will of a stronger person, as you know very well from your own experience. And in addition, it is in my nature to take pleasure in my subservience – it is as if I dissolve into the personality of the other individual. While Genji was with me, I obeyed him unquestioningly, but now I was in the power of the Doge’s black eyes and mesmerising voice. I write about this bitterly, but soberly, in the full awareness of the more shameful aspects of my own nature.

It took very little time for Blagovolsky to transform me into a mesmerised rabbit, unable to move in the gaze of the python.

‘The superfluous third party is no longer with us, no one will disturb us,’ said the Doge, ‘and I shall tell you how everything really was. You are intelligent, you will be able to distinguish the truth from lies. But first you and I will have a drink – for the peace of the uninspired soul of Mr Genji. And in accordance with Russian tradition, let us drink vodka.’

And so saying, he walked into the corner, where there was a huge carved wooden cupboard standing in a niche. He opened its doors and I saw large bottles, carafes and goblets.

Now that I no longer felt his spellbinding stare on me, my mind seemed to awaken and start working again. I looked at the clock on the wall and saw that less than five minutes had gone by. Perhaps Genji was still holding on! However, before I could come to any decision, Blagovolsky came back to the desk and trained his black eyes on me, and once again I was overcome by a blissful apathy. I was no longer thinking about anything, only listening to the sound of his masterful voice. We were standing on opposite sides of the desk. The disgraced roulette wheel was between us and its nickel-plated rays glinted and sparkled.

‘Here are two glasses,’ said the Doge, ‘I don’t usually drink vodka – I have a sick liver, but after a shock like that I could do with a pick-me-up. Here.’

He set the glass on one of the pockets of the Wheel of Fortune (I remember it was a black one), gently pushed a little lever, and the crystal vessel described a semicircle as it slowly moved towards me. Prospero halted the roulette wheel and set the second glass down on another black pocket in front of him.

‘You will trust me and only me,’ the Doge said, speaking slowly and ponderously. ‘I am the only one who sees and understands the workings of your soul. You, Horatio, are not a man, but half a man. That is why you need to seek out your other half. You have found it. I am your other half. We shall be like a single whole, and you will be calm and happy . . .’

Just at that moment there was a sharp cracking sound from under the floor and we both shuddered and turned to look. One of the parquet blocks on the door of the secret hatch had split in half and there was a small round black hole in the middle of the crack.

‘What the devil . . .’ Prospero began, but then there was another bang, and then another – five or six in all.

Several more holes appeared beside the first. Chips of wood were sent flying, two parquet blocks jumped out of the floor, and white crumbs of plaster showered down from the ceiling. I guessed that Genji must be firing into the cover of the hatch. But what for? How would that help him?

I soon found out. There were several dull blows against the underside of the hatch: one, two, three. And then, on the fourth blow, several parquet blocks stood up on end and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw a fist emerge from the hole. It was incredible, but Genji had managed to punch through the cover of the hatch with his bare hand – at the spot where the bullets had made holes in it!

The fist opened, the fingers grasped the edge of the hole that had been made and began pulling the cover down, overcoming the resistance of the spring.

‘He’s the devil himself!’ Prospero exclaimed, flinging himself across the desk on his stomach and seizing the inkwell.

I had no chance to stop him. Blagovolsky turned the heroic folklore figure and the hatch swung shut. I heard a groan and a dull blow, and a moment later an ominous rumbling sound receding into the distance.

The impact of the Doge’s sudden movement shook the desk: the roulette wheel trembled and turned through another half-circle. A few drops of vodka splashed out of the glasses into the pockets of the wheel.

‘Ooph,’ Prospero exclaimed in relief. ‘What a persistent gentleman. And all because we didn’t drink in time for the peace of his soul. Drink it down, Horatio, drain your glass. Or else he’ll climb back out again. Come on!’

The Doge knitted his brows menacingly and I meekly picked up my vodka.

‘We drink on one, two, three,’ Blagovolsky told me. ‘And damn my sick liver. One, two, three!’

I tipped back the glass and almost choked as the fiery liquid seared my throat. I should say that I am no lover of the Russian national beverage and usually prefer Moselle or Rheinwein.

When I wiped away the tears that had sprung to my eyes, I was astounded by the change that had come over Blagovolsky. He was standing absolutely still, clutching his throat with one hand, and his eyes were staring out of his head. I am unable to describe the expression of boundless horror that contorted the Doge’s face. He wheezed, tore at his collar and doubled over.

I couldn’t understand a thing, and events began following each other so rapidly that I could barely turn my head fast enough.

First there was a knocking sound and when I looked round I saw a hand grab the edge of the hatch. Then a second hand did the same, and a moment later Genji’s head appeared out of the hole – his hair was dishevelled and his scowling forehead was covered with scratches. A few moments later this amazing man had already climbed out and was brushing the white dust off his elbows.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Genji asked, wiping his grazed and bloody fingers with a handkerchief.

The question referred to the Doge, who was rolling about on the floor and howling desperately. He kept trying to get to his feet, but could not.

‘He drank some vodka, and he has a sick liver,’ I explained stupidly, still not recovered from my stupor.

Genji stepped across to the desk. He picked up my glass, sniffed it and put it down again. Then he leaned down to the roulette wheel and looked at the spot where Blagovolsky’s glass had stood. I saw that the spilled drops of vodka had left strange white marks on the black pocket.

Genji bent over, looked at Prospero writhing convulsively on the floor and remarked in a low voice: ‘It looks like “royal vodka”, a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid. It must have completely burned away his oesophagus and stomach. What a terrible way to die!’

I started shaking when I realised that the villainous Prospero had intended the poison for me, and only a lucky chance – the jolt that had turned the Wheel of Fortune – had saved me from a hideous fate.

‘Let’s go, Horatio,’ said Genji, tugging on my sleeve. ‘There’s nothing more for us to do here. The unfortunate Radishchev d-died in exactly the same way. There is no way to save Blagovolsky. And no way to ease his suffering either – except by shooting him. But I shall not render him that service. Let’s go.’

He walked towards the door and I hurried after him, leaving the dying man howling in agony behind us.

‘But . . . but how did you manage to climb out of the well? And then, when Blagovolsky closed the hatch again, I distinctly heard a rumbling sound. Didn’t you fall?’ I asked.

‘It was the chair I was standing on that fell,’ Genji replied, pulling on his massive gauntlets. ‘I shall miss my Herstahl very badly. It was an excellent revolver. You can’t b-buy them anywhere, they have to be ordered from Brussels. Of course, I could climb down the well and look for it on the bottom, but I really don’t feel like going back into that hole. Br-r-r!’

He shuddered, and so did I.

‘Wait about a quarter of an hour and then phone the p-police,’ he said when we parted.

As soon as he was gone, an unexpected thought struck me like a bolt of lightning. The Doge of the suicide club killed himself! There’s higher justice for you! So God does exist!

This idea now occupies my mind more and more. I am even willing to concede that all the shocking events of the recent past had only one purpose: to bring me to this revelation. Ah yes, but that is no concern of yours. I have already written far more than necessary for an official document.

In summary of the above, I testify on my own responsibility that everything happened as I have described it.

Sergei Irinarkhovich Blagovolsky was not killed by anyone. He died by his own hand.

And now goodbye.

With every assurance of my most sincere disrespect,

F.F. Weltman, doctor of medicine

P.S. I considered it my duty to inform Mr Genji of the interest shown in him by yourself and the ‘highly placed individual’ of your acquaintance. He was not in the least surprised and asked me to tell you and the ‘highly placed individual’ not to trouble yourselves with any further searches or attempts to cause him any unpleasantness, since tomorrow (that is, in fact, today) at noon he is leaving the city of Moscow and his God-fearing homeland and taking his friends with him.

It was for this reason – in order to give Mr Genji time to travel beyond the bounds of your jurisdiction – that I did not telephone the police from the scene of last night’s events, but waited for the whole day and am sending you this letter in the evening, not by courier, but via the ordinary post.

Genji is not at all like Isaiah, but his prophecy concerning me appears to have come true: the strong has come forth out of the weak.

1. I’m waiting

2. Die (German)

HE LOVER OF DEATH

HOW SENKA FIRST SAW DEATH

Of course, that wasn’t what she was called to begin with. It was something ordinary, a proper Russian name. Malaniya, maybe, or Agrippina. And she had a family name to go with it, too. Well everyone’s got one of them, don’t they? Your lop-eared mongrel Vanka doesn’t have a family name, but a person’s got to have one, because that’s what makes them a person.

Only when Speedy Senka saw her that first time, she already had her final moniker. Nobody ever spoke about her any other way –they’d all forgotten her first name and her family name.

And this was how he happened to see her.

He was sitting with the lads on the bench in front of Deriugin’s corner shop. Smoking baccy and chewing the fat.

Suddenly, up drives this jaunty little gig. Tyres pumped fat and tight, spokes painted all golden, yellow leather top. And then out steps a bint, the like of which Senka has never seen before, not on the swanky Kuznetsky Most, not even in Red Square on a church holiday. But no, she wasn’t a bint – a lady, that’s what she was, or, better still, a damsel. Black plaits in a crown on top of her head, a fancy coloured silk shawl on her shoulders, and her dress was silk too, it shimmered. But the shawl or the dress didn’t matter, it was her face, it was so . . . so . . . well, there’s just no words for it. One look, and you melted inside. And that was what Senka did, melted inside.

‘Who’s that fancy broad?’ he asked, and then, so as not to give himself away, he spat through closed teeth (he could gob farther than anyone else like that, at least six feet – that gap at the front was very handy). ‘It’s plain to see, Speedy,’ Prokha said, ‘that you’re new round here.’ And right enough, Senka was still settling into Khitrovka back then, it was only a couple of weeks since he’d taken off from Sukharevka. ‘That ain’t a broad,’ says Prokha. ‘That’s Death!’ Senka didn’t twig straight off what death had to do with anything. He thought it was just Prokha’s fancy way of talking –like, she’s dead beautiful.

And she really was beautiful, no getting away from that. High clear forehead, arched eyebrows, white skin, scarlet lips and o-o-oh –those eyes! Senka had seen eyes like that on Cavalry Square, on the Turkestan horses: big and moist, but glinting with sparks of fire at the same time. Only the eyes of the damsel who got out of that fancy carriage were lovelier even than the eyes on those horses.

Senka’s own eyes popped out of his head as he gaped at the miraculously beautiful damsel, and Mikheika the Night-Owl brushed the baccy crumbs off his lip then elbowed him in the side: ‘Ogle away, Speedy,’ he says, ‘but don’t overdo it. Or the Prince will lop your ear off and make you eat it, like he did that time with that huckster from Volokolamsk. He took a shine to Death too, that huckster did. But he ogled too hard.’

And Senka didn’t catch on about Death this time either – he was too taken by the idea of eating ears.

‘What, and did the huckster eat it, then?’ he asked in amazement. ‘I wouldn’t do that, no way.’

Prokha took a swig from his beer. ‘Yes you would,’ he said. ‘If the Prince asked you nice and polite, like, you’d be only too happy to do it and you’d say thank you, that was very tasty. That huckster chewed and chewed on his ear, but he couldn’t swallow it, and then the Prince lopped off the other one and stuck it in his mouth. And to make him get a move on, he kept pricking him in the belly with his pen – his knife, I mean. That huckster’s head swelled up afterwards and went all rotten. He howled for a couple of days, and then croaked, never did get back to that Volokolamsk of his. That’s the way things are done in Khitrovka. So just you take note, Speedy.’

It goes without saying that Speedy had heard about the Prince, even though he hadn’t been doing the rounds in Khitrovka for long. Who hadn’t heard about the Prince? The biggest hotshot bandit in the whole of Moscow. They talked about him at the markets, they wrote about him in the papers. The coppers were hunting him, but they couldn’t even get close. Khitrovka didn’t give up her own –everyone there knew what happened to squealers.

But I still wouldn’t eat my ear, thought Senka. I’d rather take the knife.

‘So, is she the Prince’s moll, then?’ he asked about the amazing damsel, out of simple curiosity, like. He’d decided he wasn’t going to gape at her any more, wasn’t really that interested, was he? And anyway, there was no one to gape at, she’d already gone into the shop.

‘Ith she?’ Prokha teased him (not all of Senka’s words came out right since one of his teeth was smashed out). ‘You’re the one who’s a moll.’

In Sukharevka, if you called one of the lads a moll, you earned yourself a right battering, and Senka took aim, ready to smash Prokha in his bony kisser, but then he changed his mind. Well, for starters, maybe the customs were different round here, and it wasn’t meant to be an insult. And then again, Prokha was a big strapping lad, so who could tell which of them would get the battering? And last but not least, he was really dying to hear about that girl.

Well, Prokha kept putting him off for a while, but then the story came out.

She used to live all right and proper, with Mum and Dad, out in the Dobraya Sloboda district, or maybe Razgulyai – anyway, somewhere over on that side of town. She grew up a real good-looker, as sweet as they come, and she had no end of admirers. So, just as soon as she came of age, she was engaged. They were on their way to the church to get married, she and her bridegroom, when suddenly these two black stallions, great huge brutes, darted right in front of their sleigh. If only they’d guessed they ought to say a prayer right then, things would have gone different. Or at least crossed themselves. Only no one guessed, or maybe there wasn’t enough time. The horses were startled something wicked by the black stallions and they went flying off the bank into the Yauza river on a bend. The bridegroom was crushed to death and the driver drowned, but the girl was fine. Not a scratch on her.

Well, all right, all sorts happen, after all. They took the lad off to bury him. And the bride walked beside the coffin. Grieving something awful, she was – they said she really did love him. And when they start crossing the bridge, right by the spotwhere it all happened, she suddenly shouts out: ‘Goodbye, good Christian people,’ and leaps head-first over the railings, down off the bridge. There had been a hard frost the day before, and the ice on the river was real thick, so by rights she should have smashed her head open or broken her neck. Ah, but that wasn’t what happened. She fell straight into this gap with just a thin crust of ice, dusted over with snow, plopped under the water – and was gone.

Well, everybody thinks, she’s drowned, and they’re running around, waving their arms in the air. Only she wasn’t drowned, she was dragged about fifty fathoms under the ice and cast up through a hole where some women were doing their laundry.

They snagged her with a boathook or some such thing and dragged her out. She looked dead, all white she was, but after she lay down for a while and warmed up again, she was as good as new. Alive and kicking.

Because she was harder to kill than a cat, they called her Lively, and some even called her the Immortal, but that wasn’t her final moniker. That changed later.

A year went by, or maybe a year and a half, and then didn’t her parents try to marry her off again. And by now the girl was a more beautiful blossom than ever. Her bridegroom was this merchant, not young, but filthy rich. It was all the same to her – Lively, I mean –a merchant would do as well as anyone. Those that knew her then say she was pining badly for her bridegroom, the one who was killed.

So then what happens? The day before the wedding, at the morning service in church, the new bridegroom suddenly starts wheezing and flinging his arms about and then flops over on his side. He twitched a leg and flapped his lips for a bit, and went to his eternal rest. Carried off by a stroke.

After that, she didn’t try to get married any more, and before long she ran away from her parents’ house with this gent, a military man, and started living in his house, on Arbat Street. And she turned into a real swanky dame: dressed up like a lady and came to visit her mama and papa in a shiny varnished carriage, with a lacy parasol. The officer couldn’t marry her, he didn’t have his father’s blessing, but he adored her madly, absolutely doted on her.

Only number three was done for as well. He was a strong young gent, with bright rosy cheeks, but after he lived with her for a while, all of a sudden he startedwasting away. He turned all pale and feeble, his legs wouldn’t hold him up. The doctors tried everything they could think of, sent him away to take the waters, and off to foreign parts, but it was all a waste of time. They said there was some kind of canker growing inside him, and it had nibbled all his insides away.

Well then, after she buried her officer, even the slow-witted could see there was something wrong with the girl. And that was when they changed what they called her.

There was no way she could go back to Dobraya Sloboda, and she didn’t want to anyway. Her life was all different now. Ordinary folks steered clear of her. When she walked by, they crossed themselves and spat over their shoulders. But everyone knows the kind that did cosy up – rakish, dashing types who couldn’t give a damn for death. And after she sucked all the juice out of that last gent –well, you’ve seen for yourself what she turned into then. Far and away the best-looker in the whole of Moscow.

And it carried on. Kolsha the Spike (he was a big-time bandit, used to work the Meshchani patch) stepped out in style with her for a couple of months – then his own lads took their knives to him, because he wouldn’t divvy up the loot.

Then there was Yashka from Kostroma, the horse thief. Used to walk pure-blood trotters straight out of the stable, sold them to the gypsies for huge money. Carried thousands of roubles around in his pockets sometimes. He begrudged her nothing, she was swimming in gold. But the police narks shot Yashka down six months past.

And now there’s the Prince. Three months and counting. Sometimes he puts on a brave face, but sometimes he rants and raves. He used to be a respectable thief, but now doing someone in means no more to him than squashing a fly. And all because now he’s taken up with Death, he knows he isn’t long for this world. It’s like that saying: invite death to come visiting, and you end up in the graveyard. People don’t get their monikers for nothing, especially one like that.

‘What moniker d’you mean?’ Senka asked eagerly after he’d listened to the story with his mouth hanging open. ‘You still haven’t told me, Prokha.’

Prokha stared at him, then tapped his knuckles on his own forehead. ‘Why, you half-baked simpleton,’ he said. ‘Sowhat do they call you Speedy for? I’ve just spent the best part of an hour explaining that to you. Death – that’s her moniker. That’s what everyone calls her. She don’t mind, she answers to it, she’s well used to it.’

HOW SENKA BECAME A KHITROVKAN

Prokha thought Senka was called Speedy, him being a smart lad, with lots of gumption, eyes darting about left and right, always quick with an answer, never stuck for a word. But actually Senka’s nickname came from his surname. His father’s name used to be Trifon Stepanovich Spidorov. What his name was now, only God knew. Maybe he wasn’t Trifon Stepanovich any longer, but the Angel Trifaniil instead. Except that his old dad wasn’t likely to have been made an angel – he drank too much, although he was a good man. But as for his mum, she was definitely somewhere not too far from the Throne of Light.

Senka often thought about that – which of his parents had ended up where. He wasn’t sure about his father, but he had no doubts about his mother and brothers and sisters, the ones who’d died from cholera with their parents. He didn’t even pray for them to get into the Kingdom of Heaven – he knew they were already there.

When the cholera hit their suburb three years before, it had carried off a lot of folk. Senka and his little brother Vanya were the only Spidorovs who kept a tight grip on this world. And whether that was good or bad depended on which way you looked at it.

For Senka it was probably bad, because his life was altogether different after that. His dad worked behind the counter in a big tobacco shop. He got a good wage and free baccy. When he was little, Senka always had clothes to wear and shoes on his feet. A full belly and a clean face, as they say. He was taught reading, writing and arithmetic at the usual age, he even went to commercial college for half a year, only when he was orphaned, that put an end to his studies. But then never mind his studies, that wasn’t the reason he was so miserable.

His brother Vanka was lucky. He was taken in by Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov – the one who always used to buy English baccy from their dad. The magistrate had a wife, but no children, and he took Vanka, because he was small and chubby. But Senka was already big and bony, the magistrate wasn’t interested in someone like that. So Senka was taken in by his second uncle, Zot Larionovich, in Sukharevka. And that was where Senka ran wild.

Well, what else could he do but run wild?

His uncle, the fat-bellied bastard, starved him. Didn’t even give Senka a seat at the table, even though he was flesh and blood. On Saturdays he used to beat him, sometimes for a reason, but mostly just for the hell of it. He didn’t pay him a kopeck, although Senka slaved away in the shop just as hard as the other boys, and they were paid eight roubles each. And the most hurtful thing of all was that every morning he had to carry his second cousin Grishka’s satchel to the grammar school for him. Grishka walked on ahead, full of himself, sucking on a fancy boiled sweet, and Senka trudged along behind, like a serf from the olden days, lugging that unbelievably heavy satchel (sometimes Grishka put a brick in it out of sheer mischief). He’d have loved to squeeze all the pus out of that Grishka like a fat, ripe boil, so he’d stop putting on airs and share his sugar candy. Or smash him across the head with that brick – but he couldn’t, he just had to lump it.

Well, Senka lumped it for as long as he could. For three whole years, near enough.

Of course, he used to get his own back too, whenever he could. You have to find some way of letting off steam.

Once he put a mouse inside Grishka’s pillow. During the night it gnawed its way to freedom and got tangled in his second cousin’s hair. That was a fine ruckus in the middle of the night. But it went off all right, no one suspected Senka at all.

Or that last Shrovetide, when they baked and boiled and roasted all that food, and gave the orphan only two little pancakes with holes in them and a tiny scraping of vegetable oil. Senka flew into a fury and he splashed some of that oat ‘decoction’ they took for constipation into the big pot with the thick cabbage soup. That’ll make you run, you greaseballs, let’s see you twitch and heave! And he got away with that too – they blamed the sour cream for going off.

When he got the chance, he used to steal all sorts of small things from the shop: thread maybe, or a pair of scissors, or some buttons. He sold what he could at the Sukharevka flea-market and threw away the things that were no use. He got beaten for it sometimes, but only on suspicion – he was never caught in the act.

But when he finally did get his fingers burned, it was really bad, the smoke was thick and the fiery sparks flew. And it was Senka’s compassionate heart to blame for the whole thing, for making him forget his usual caution.

After he hadn’t heard anything about his brother for three whole years, he finally got word from him. He often used to comfort himself by thinking how lucky Vanka was, and how happy he must be, living with Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov, not like Senka. And then this letter came.

It was amazing it ever got there at all. On the envelope it said: ‘My brother Senka hoo lives with Uncle Zot in Sukharevka in Moscow’. It was lucky Uncle Zot knew one of the postmen who worked at the Sukharevka post office, and he guessed where to bring it, may God grant him good health.

This was what the letter said:

Deer bruther Senka, how are you geting on. Im very unhapy living heer. They teech me letters and scowld me and misstreet me, even thowits my naymday soon. I askd them for a horsy, but they tayk no notiss. Come and tayk me away from these unkind peeple. Yor little bruther Vanka.

When Senka read it, his hands started trembling and the tears came pouring out of his eyes. So this was his lucky brother! That magistrate was a fine one. Tormenting a little child, refusing to buy him a toy. Then why did he want to raise the orphan in the first place?

Anyway, he took serious offence for Vanka, and decided it would be cruel and heartless to abandon his brother so.

There wasn’t any return address on the envelope, but the postman told him the postmark was from Tyoply Stan, and that was about eight miles outside Moscow if you took the Kaluga Gate. And he could ask where the magistrate lived when he got there.

Senka didn’t take long to make up his mind. After all, the next day was St Ioann’s day – little Vanka’s name day.

Senka got ready to set out and rescue his brother. If Vanka was so unhappy, he was going to take him away. Better to suffer their grief together than apart.

He spotted a little lacquered horse in the toy shop on Sretenka Street, with a fluffy tail and white mane. It was absolutely beautiful, but really pricey – seven and a half roubles. So at midday, when there was only deaf old Nikifor left in his uncle’s shop, Senka picked the lock on the cash box, took out eight roubles and did a runner, trusting to God. He didn’t think about being punished. He wasn’t planning on ever coming back to his uncle, he was going away with his brother to live a free life. Join a gypsy camp, or whatever came along.

It took him an awful long time to walk to that Tyoply Stan, his feet were all battered and bruised, and the farther he went, the heavier the wooden horse got.

But then it was very easy to find Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov’s house, the first person he asked there pointed it out. It was a good house, with a cast-iron canopy on pillars, and a garden.

He didn’t go up to the front door – he felt too ashamed. And they probably wouldn’t have let him in anyway, because after the long journey Senka was covered in dust, and he had a cut right across his face that was oozing blood. That was from outside the Kaluga Gate, when he was so knackered, he hung on to the back of an old cart, and the driver, the rotten louse, lashed him with his whip – it was lucky he didn’t put his eye out!

Senka squatted down on his haunches, facing the house, and started thinking about what to do next. There was a sweet tinkling sound coming from the open windows – someone was slowly trying to bash out a song that Senka didn’t know. And sometimes he could hear a thin little voice he thought must be his Vanka’s.

Senka finally plucked up his courage, walked closer, and stood on the step to glance in the window.

He saw a big, beautiful room. And sitting at a great big polished wooden box (it was called a ‘piano’, they had one like it in the college too) was a curly-haired little boy in a sailor suit, stabbing at the keys with his little pink fingers. He looked like Vanka, and not like him at the same time. So peachy and fresh, you could just gobble him up like a spice cake. Standing beside him was a young lady in glasses, using one hand to turn the pages of a copy book on a little stand, and stroking the little lad’s golden hair with the other. And in the corner there was a great big heap of toys. With toy horses, too, much fancier than Senka’s – three of them.

Before Senka could make any sense of this amazing sight, a carriage drawn by two horses suddenly came out from round the corner. He only just managed to jump down in time and squeeze up against the fence.

Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov himself was sitting in the carriage. Senka recognised him straight off.

Vanka stuck his head out of the window and shouted as loud as he could:

‘Did you bring it? Did you bring it?’

The magistrate laughed and climbed down on to the ground. ‘I did,’ he said. ‘Can’t you see for yourself? What are we going to call her?’

That was when Senka spotted the horse tethered to the back of the carriage, a sorrel foal with plump round sides. It looked like a grown-up horse, only it was really small, not much bigger than a goat.

Vanka started chirruping away: ‘A pony! I’m going to have a real pony!’ And so, Senka turned back and trudged all the way to the Kaluga Gate. He left the wooden horse in the grass at the side of the road. Let it graze there. Vanka didn’t need it – maybe some other kid would get good use out of it.

As Senka walked along, he dreamed about how time would pass and his life would change miraculously, and he would come back here in a big shiny carriage. The servant would carry in a little card with gold letters, with everything about Senka written in the finest fancy style, and that young lady with the glasses would say to Vanka: ‘Ivan Trofimovich, your brother has come to visit’. And Senka would be wearing a cheviot wool suit and button-down spats, and carrying a cane with an ivory knob on it.

It was already dark when he finally staggered home. It would have been better if he hadn’t come back at all, just run off straight away.

Right there in the doorway Uncle Zot thumped him so hard he saw stars, and knocked out the front tooth that left such a handy gap for spitting. Then, when Senka fell down, his uncle gave his ribs a good kicking: ‘That’s just for starters, you’ll get what you deserve later. I went to the police about you,’ he yelled, ‘I wrote out a complaint for the local sergeant. You’ll go to jail for stealing, you little bastard, they’ll soon straighten you out in there.’ And he just kept on and on barking out his threats.

So Senka did run away. When his uncle got tired kicking and punching and went to take the yoke down off the wall – the one the women used to carry water – Senka darted out of the porch, spitting blood and smearing the tears across his face.

He shuddered through the night at the Sukharevka market, under a load of hay. He was feeling miserable and sorry for himself, his ribs ached, his battered face hurt, and he was really hungry too. He’d spent the half-rouble left over from the horse on food the day before, and now he had nothing but holes in his pockets.

Senka left Sukharevka at dawn, to get well out of harm’s way. If Uncle Zot had snitched on him to the coppers, the first constable who came along would grab him and stick him in the jug, and once you were in there, you didn’t get out in a hurry. He had to make for somewhere where no one knew his face.

He walked to another market, the one on Old Square and New Square, under the Kitaigorod wall, and hung about beside the row of food stalls, breathing in the smell of the pies and the baked goods, shooting quick glances this way and that in case any of the tradeswomen got careless. But he didn’t have the nerve to snitch anything – after all, he’d never stolen openly like that before. And what if he got caught? They’d kick him so hard, it would make Uncle Zot seem like a doting mother.

He wandered round the market, keeping well away from Solyanka Street. He knew that over there, behind that street, was Khitrovka, the most terrible place in all Moscow. Of course, there were plenty of con merchants and pickpockets in Sukharevka too, but they were no match for the thieves of Khitrovka. From what he’d heard, it was a terrifying place. Stick your nose in there, and they’d have you stripped naked before you could say knife, and you could be grateful if you managed to escape with your life. The flophouses there were really frightening, with lots of cellars and underground vaults. And there were runaway convicts there, and murderers, and all sorts of drunken riff-raff. And they said that if any youngsters happened to wander in there, they disappeared without a trace. They had some special kind of crooks there, grabbers, they were called, or so people said. And these grabbers caught young boys who had no one to look out for them and sold them for five roubles apiece to the Yids and the Tartars for depraved lechery in their secret houses.

But as it turned out that was all horseshit. Well, everything about the flophouses and the drunken riff-raff was true, but there weren’t any grabbers in Khitrovka. When Senka let slip about the grabbers to his new mates, they laughed him down something rotten. Prokha said that if someone wanted to grab a bit of easy money off kids, that was fine, but forcing youngsters into doing filthy things – that just wasn’t on. The Council wouldn’t stand for anything like that. Slitting a throat or two in the middle of the night wasn’t a problem, if some gull showed up because he was drunk or just plain stupid. They’d found someone in Podkopaevsky Lane just recently, head smashed in like a soft-boiled egg, fingers cut off to get the rings, and his eyes gouged out. It was his own fault. You shouldn’t go sticking your nose in where you aren’t invited. The mice shouldn’t play where the cats are waiting.

‘Only why put his eyes out?’ Senka asked in fright.

But Mikheika the Night-Owl just laughed and said: ‘Go and ask them as put them out.’

But that conversation came later, when Senka was already a Khitrovkan.

It all happened very quickly and simply – before he even had time to sneeze, you might say.

There was Senka walking along the row of spiced tea stalls, sizing up what there was to filch and plucking up his courage, and suddenly this almighty ruckus started up, with people shouting on all sides, and this woman was yelling. ‘Help! I’ve been robbed, they’ve took me purse, stop thief!’ And two young lads, about the same age as Senka, came dashing along the line of stalls, kicking up the bowls and mugs as they ran. A woman selling spiced tea grabbed one of them by the belt with a great ham of a hand and pulled him down on to the ground. ‘Gotcha,’ she shouted, ‘you vicious little brute! Now you’re for it!’ But the other young thief, with a sharp pointy nose, leapt off a hawker’s stand and thumped the woman on the ear. She went all limp and slipped over on her side (Prokha always carried a lead bar with him, Senka learnt that later). The lad with the pointy nose jerked the other one up by the arm to get him to keep on running, but people had already closed in from all sides. They’d probably have beaten the two of them to death for hurting the woman, if it wasn’t for Senka.

He roared at the top of his voice:

‘Good Orthodox people! Who dropped a silver rouble?’

Well, they all went dashing over to him: ‘I did, I did!’ But he squeezed through between their outstretched hands and shouted to the young thieves:

‘Don’t stand there gawping! Leg it!’

They sprinted after him, and when Senka hesitated at a gateway, they overtook him and waved for him to follow.

After they stopped at a quiet spot to get their breath back and shook hands. Mikheika the Night-Owl (the one who was shorter, with fat cheeks) asked him: ‘Who are you? Where are you from?’

And Senka answered: ‘Sukharevka.’

The other one, who was called Prokha, bared his teeth and grinned, as if he’d heard something funny. ‘So what made you leave Sukharevka in such a hurry?’

Senka spat through the gap in his teeth – he hadn’t had time to get used to the novelty of it yet, but he still spat a good six feet.

And all he said was: ‘Can’t stay there. They’ll put me in jail.’

The two lads gave Senka a respectful kind of look. Prokha slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come and live with us, then. No need to be shy. No one gets turned in from Khitrovka.’

HOW SENKA SETTLED IN AT THE NEW PLACE

So this was the way he and the lads lived.

During the day they went ‘snitching’, and at night they went ‘bombing’.

They did most of their thieving round that same Old Square where the market was, or on Maroseika Street, where all the shops were, or on Varvarka Street, from the people walking by, and sometimes on Ilinka Street, where the rich merchants and stockbrokers were, but definitely no farther than that, oh no. Prokha – he was their leader – called it ‘a dash from Khitrovka’. Meaning that if anything went wrong, you could hightail it to the Khitrovka gateways and side alleys, where there was no way anyone could catch a thief.

Senka learned how to go snitching quickly enough. It was easy work, good fun.

Mikheika the Night-Owl picked out a ‘gull’ – some clueless passerby – and checked to make sure he had money on him. That was his job. He moved in close, rubbed up against the gull and then gave them the nod: yeah he’s got a wallet on him, over to you. He never pinched anything himself – his fingers weren’t quick enough for that.

Then it was Senka’s turn. His job was to surprise the gull so his jaw dropped open and he forgot all about his pockets. There were several ways of going about it. He could start a fight with Night-Owl – people loved to gawp at that. He could suddenly start walking down the middle of the road on his hands, jerking his legs about comically (Senka had been able to do that ever since he was a little kid). But the simplest thing of all was just to collapse at the gull’s feet, as if he was having a fit, and start yelling: ‘I feel real bad, mister (or missus, depending on the circumstances). I’m dying!’ If it was someone soft-hearted, they were bound to stop and watch the young lad writhing about; and even if you’d picked a real cold fish, he’d still look round, out of sheer curiosity, like. And that was all Prokha needed. In and out like a knife, and the job was done. It used to be your money, but now it’s ours.

Senka didn’t like bombing so much. In fact, you could say he didn’t like it at all. In the evening, somewhere not far from Khitrovka, they picked out a ‘beaver’ who was all on his own (a beaver was like a gull, only drunk). Prokha did the important work here too. He ran up from behind and smashed his fist against the side of the beaver’s head – only he was holding a lead bar in that fist. When the beaver collapsed, Speedy and Night-Owl came dashing in from both sides: they took the money, the watch and a few other things, and tugged off the jacket and the low boots, if they looked pricey. If the beaver was some kind of strongman who wasn’t felled by the lead bar, they didn’t mess with him: Prokha legged it straight away, and Skorik and Filin never stuck their noses out of the gateway.

So bombing wasn’t exactly complicated, either. But it was disgusting. At first, Senka was terrified Prokha would hit someone so hard he’d kill them, but then he got used to that. For starters, it was only a lead bar, not knuckledusters or a blackjack. And anyway, everyone knew that God himself looked after drunks. And they had thick heads.

The lads sold their loot out of Bunin’s flophouse. Sometimes they only made a rouble between them, but on a good day it could be as much as fifty. If it was just a rouble, they ate ‘dog’s delight’ – cheap sausage – with black rye bread. But if the takings were good, they went to drink wine at the Hard Labour or the Siberia. And after that the thing to do was visit the tarts (‘mamselles’ they were called in Khitrovka), and horse around.

Prokha and Filin had their own regular mamselles. Not molls, of course, like proper thieves had – they didn’t earn enough to keep a moll just for themselves – but at least not streetwalkers. Sometimes the mamselles might even feed them, or lend them some money.

Senka soon acquired a little lady-friend of his own too. Tashka, her name was.

That morning Senka woke up late. He couldn’t remember anything that had happened the day before, he had been too drunk. But when he looked, he saw he was in a small room, with just one window, curtained over. There were plants in pots on the windowsill, with flowers – yellow, red and blue. In the corner, lying on the floor, was a withered old woman, a bag of bones, tearing herself apart with this rasping cough and spitting blood into a rag – she had consumption, for sure. Senka was lying on an iron bedstead, naked, and there was a girl about thirteen years old, sitting at the far end of the bed with her legs crossed under her, looking at some book and laying out flowers and muttering something under her breath.

‘What’s that you’re doing?’ Senka asked in a hoarse voice.

She smiled at him. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘that’s white acacia – pure love. Red celandine – impatience. Barberry – rejection.’

Queer in the head, he thought. He didn’t know then that Tashka was studying the language of flowers. Somewhere or other she’d picked up this book called How to Speak with Flowers, and she’d really taken to the idea of talking with flowers instead of words. She’d spent almost all the three roubles she got from Senka the night before on flowers – run to the market first thing and bought a whole bundle of leafy stuff, then started sorting it all out. That was what Tashka was like.

Senka spent almost the whole day with her that time. First he drank brine to cure his sore head. Then he drank tea with some bread. And after that they sat there doing nothing. Just talking

Tashka turned out to be a nice girl, only slightly touched. Take the flowers, for instance, or that mum of hers, the miserable drunk with consumption, no good for anything. Why did she bother with her, why waste her money like that? She was going to die anyway.

And in the evening, before she went out on the street, Tashka suddenly said: ‘Senka, let’s you and me be mates, shall we?’

‘All right,’ he said.

They hooked their little fingers together and shook them, then kissed each other on the lips. Tashka said that was what mates were supposed to do. And when Senka tried to paw her after the kiss, she said to him: ‘Now what do you think you’re doing? We’re mates. And mates don’t go horsing around. And you shouldn’t do it with me, anyway, I’ve got the frenchies, picked it up off this shop clerk. You do the jig-a-jig with me and that snotty nose of yours will fall right off.’

Senka was upset.

‘What do you mean, the frenchies? Why didn’t you say anything yesterday?’

‘Yesterday,’ she says, ‘you was no one, just a customer, but now we’re mates. Never mind, Senka, don’t be scared, it ain’t a sickness that takes to everyone, especially not from just one time.’

He calmed down a bit then and started feeling sorry for her.

‘What about you?’

‘Phooey,’ she said. ‘There’s plenty round here have got that. They keep going somehow. Some mamselles with the frenchies lives to be thirty, even longer, sometimes. Thirty’s more than enough, if you ask me. Mum over there’s twenty-eight, and she’s an old woman – her teeth have all fallen out, and she’s covered in wrinkles.’

Senka still called Tashka his mamselle in front of the lads. He was ashamed to tell them the truth – they’d just laugh him down. But it was okay, what did that matter anyway? You could horse around with anyone you wanted if you had three roubles, but where could he find another good mate like her?

Anyway, it turned out it was possible to live in Khitrovka, and even better than in some other places. Of course, the place had its own laws and customs, like anywhere else, you had to have those, to make it easier for people to live together and understand what they could and couldn’t do. There were lots of laws, and you needed to live in Khitrovka a long time to remember them all. Mostly the way of things was clear and simple, you could figure it out for yourself: treat outsiders anyway you like, but don’t touch your own; live your own life, cause your neighbour no strife. But there were some laws you couldn’t make any sense of, no matter how hard you racked your brains.

For instance, if someone crowed like a cock any earlier than two in the morning – out of mischief, or drunkenness, or just playing the fool – you were supposed to thrash him within an inch of his life. But no one in Khitrovka could explain to Senka why. There must have been some point to it at some time, only now even the oldest old men couldn’t remember what that was. But even so, you still couldn’t crow like a cock in the middle of the night.

Or take this, for instance. If any of the mamselles started putting on airs and cleaning her teeth with shop powder, and her client caught her out, then he had the right to knock all her teeth out, and the mamselle’s pimp had to accept the loss. Clean them with crushed chalk if you want to be posh, but stay clear of that powder, that was invented by the Germans.

There were two kinds of laws in Khitrovka: those from times gone by, the way things used to be in the olden days, and new ones – those were announced by the Council when they were needed. Say, for instance, a horse-tram sets off down the street. Who ought to work it – the ‘twitchers’, who dip their fingers in all the pockets, or the ‘slicers’, who cut them open with a sharpened coin? The Council deliberated, and decided it wasn’t a job for the slicers, because the same crowd rode the horse-tram all the time, and soon they wouldn’t have any pockets left.

The Council was made up of ‘grandfathers’, the most respected thieves and tricksters, those who had come back from doing hard labour, or were so old and feeble they didn’t work any more. The grandfathers could untangle any kind of tricky knot, and if anyone offended against the Council’s rules, they meted out the punishment.

If someone made everybody else’s life a misery, they threw him out of Khitrovka. If he really fouled things up, they could even take his life. Sometimes they might give someone up to the law, but not for what the Council really thought he was guilty of – they ordered him to take the rap for someone else’s crimes, one of the ‘businessmen’s’. That way things worked out fairer all round. If you tried to cheat Khitrovka, you had to answer for it: purge your crime, bleach yourself white and help the good people, and they’d put in a good word for you in the jailhouse or in Siberia.

And they didn’t hand over a rogue they’d convicted to just anyone in the police, only to their own man, Boxman, the senior constable in the Khitrovka precinct.

This Boxman had served more than twenty years around here; Khitrovka wouldn’t be Khitrovka without him. If Khitrovka was a world, then he was like the whale it rested on, because Boxman was authority, and people can’t live without any authority at all, otherwise they start forgetting who they are. There has to be a little bit of authority, a tiny little bit, and not according to some rules on a piece of paper, thought up by some outsider in some place no one had ever seen, but according to justice – so that every man could understood why his face was getting blacked.

Tough but fair, that was what everybody said about Boxman, and Boxman really was his surname. He wouldn’t deliberately do you wrong. Everyone called him ‘Ivan Fedotovich’ to his face, as a mark of respect. Only Senka couldn’t tell if it was just a nickname that he’d got from his surname, or if it was because in olden times, so they said, all the constables in Moscow were called ‘boxmen’, because of the kiosks they used to stand in. Or maybe it was because he lived in the official police box on the edge of the Khitrovka market. Any time when he wasn’t pounding his beat, he sat at home in front of an open window, keeping a watch on the square, reading books and newspapers and drinking tea from his famous silver samovar with medallions that were worth a thousand roubles. And there weren’t any locks on the box. What would Boxman want locks for? In the first place, what good were they, when the place was surrounded by top-class lock-pickers and window-men? They could open any lock, easy as falling off a log. And in the second place, no one would go trying to filch anything from Boxman – not unless he was tired of living, that is.

From his window the constable could hear everything and see everything, and what he couldn’t see or hear was whispered to him by his loyal informers. That was above board, it wasn’t forbidden by the Council, because Boxman was part of Khitrovka. If he’d lived by the written laws and not the laws of Khitrovka, they’d have knifed him ages back. No, when he took someone into the station, it was all done with the proper understanding: he had to do it, to show his bosse she was doing something. Only Boxman didn’t put anyone away very often – not unless he absolutely had to – mostly he taught people their lesson with his own hands, and they kowtowed to him and said thank you very much. In all the years he’d been there, only one pair of shysters had ever gone for him with a knife – escaped convicts, they were, not from Khitrovka. He beat the two of them to death with his massive great fists, and the police superintendent gave him a medal. Everyone respected him for it, and the Council gave him a gold watch for the inconvenience.

So once Senka had settled in a bit, it was clear enough that Khitrovka wasn’t such a terrible place. It was more cheerful there, and freer, and it goes without saying that he ate better. In winter, when it got cold, it would probably be tough, but then winter was still a long way off.

HOW SENKA GOT TO KNOW DEATH

It happened about ten days after Senka saw Death that first time.

He was hanging about on the Yauza Boulevard, in front of her house, spitting at the bollard they tied the horses to and staring at the half-open windows.

He already knew where she lived, the lads had shown him and, to tell the truth, this wasn’t the first day he’d spent cooling his heels here. Twice he’d been lucky and caught glimpses of her from the distance. One time, four days before, Death had come out of the house wearing a black shawl on her head and a black dress, got into the fancy gig that was waiting for her and driven off to church for mass. And just yesterday he’d seen her arm in arm with the Prince: dressed up like a lady, wearing a hat with a feather in it. Her beau was taking her somewhere – to a restaurant, maybe, or the theatre.

He took a gander at the Prince at the same time. Well, what was there to say, a superb figure of a man. After all, he was the most important hold-up artist in all of Moscow, and that’s no small potatoes. The governor-general, Simeon Alexandrovich, had it easy, he was born the tsar’s uncle, no wonder he was a governor and a general, but just you try climbing up to the top of the heap and making yourself mister big, number one, out of all the crooks in Moscow. It was a real rags-to-riches story. And his sidekicks were all really grand lads, everyone said so. They said some of them were really young too, not much older than Senka. Would you believe some people’s luck, ending up in the Prince’s gang straight off like that, when you were still green and sappy! They had respect, any girls they wanted, more money than they could ever count, and they dressed up like real fancy dandies.

When Senka saw him, the famous bandit was wearing a red silk shirt, a lemon satin waistcoat, and a crimson velvet frock coat. He had a boater perched on the back of his head, gold rings with precious stones on his fingers and calf boots that shone like mirrors. A real sight for sore eyes! A dashing light-brown forelock, blue eyes with a bold stare to them, a gold crown glinting in his red teeth, and a chin like chiselled stone, with a dimple right in the middle of it. They’re not just a couple – a real picture, that’s what they are, Senka thought, and sighed.

Not that he had any stupid dreams in his head that should give him reason to sigh, God forbid. He wasn’t trying to get Death to notice him either. He just wanted to get another look at her, so he could properly make out what was so unusual about her and why his insides clenched up tight, like a fist, the moment he laid eyes on her. So he’d been wearing down his soles here on the boulevard for days now. As soon as he finished thieving with the lads, he went straight to the Yauza.

He’d examined the house thoroughly from the outside. And he knew what it was like on the inside too. The plumber Parkhom, who fixed Death’s washbasin, told him the Prince had set up his lady love in real classy style, even laid in water pipes. If Parkhom wasn’t lying, then Death had a special room with a big china tub that was called a bath, and the hot water flowed into it straight out of a pipe, from this boiler up on the wall – gas-heated, it was. Death got washed in that tub almost every day that God sent. Senka imagined her sitting there all pink and steamy, scrubbing her shoulders with the sponge, and the fantasy made him feel all hot and steamy too.

The house was pretty impressive from the outside too. There used to be some general’s manor house here, but it burned down, and just this wing was left. It was pretty small, with only four windows along the boulevard. But this was a special spot, right smack on the boundary line between the Khitrovka slums and the well-heeled Serebryaniki district. On the other side of the Yauza, the houses were taller and cleaner, with fancier plastering, but here on the Khitrovka side, they weren’t so smart. Like the horses they sold at the horse market: look at it from the rump, and it seems like a horse all right, but from any other angle it’s definitely an ass.

And so the front of Death’s house that overlooked the boulevard was neat and dignified, like, but the back led out into a really rotten passage, and a gateway only spitting distance from Rumyantsev’s flophouse. You could see what a handy home the Prince had found for his girl – if anything happened, if he was ambushed at her place, he could dash out the back way, or even jump out of a window and make a beeline for the flophouse, and there was no way anyone could ever find him in all the underground collidors and passages there.

But from the boulevard, where the well-bred people strolled about between the trees, you couldn’t see the back passage, let alone Rumyantsev’s place. Khitrovkans couldn’t go out past the fancy railings – the coppers would sweep them up with their broom in a flash and stick them in their rubbish cart. Even here, on the Khitrovka waterside, Senka tried not to make himself too obvious, he stuck close to the wall of the house. He was behaving himself proper too, not like some kind of riff-raff, but even so, Boxman spotted him with his eagle eye as he was walking past and stopped.

‘What are you doing skulking over there?’ he asked. ‘You better watch yourself, Speedy, I’m warning you.’

Now that was him all over! He already knew who Senka was and what his moniker was, even though Senka was still new in Khitrovka. That was Boxman for you.

‘Don’t you dare nick a thing,’ he said, ‘you’re out of your jurisdiction, because this ain’t Khitrovka, it’s a civil promenade. You look out, young Speedy, you sly little monkey, I’ve got you under special observation until the first contravention of legality, and if I catch you, or even suspect you, I’ll issue you a reprimand across that ugly mug of yours, fine you a clout round the ear and sanction you round the ribs with my belt.’

‘I’m not up to nothing, Uncle Boxman,’ Senka whined, pulling a face. ‘I just, you know, wanted to take the air.’

And for that he got a cast-iron mitt across the back of his head, smack crunch between the ears.

‘I’ll teach you what for, snarling “Boxman” like that. What a damned liberty! I’m Ivan Fedotovich to you, all right?’

And Senka said meekly:

‘All right, Uncle Ivan Fedotovich.’

Boxman stopped scowling then. ‘That’s right, you snot-nosed little monkey.’ And he walked on – big, solemn and slow, like a barge floating off down the Moscow river.

So Boxman went and Senka stayed right where he was, looking. But now he wanted more so he tried to figure out how to get Death to come to the window.

He had nothing better to do, so he took the green beads out of his pocket, the ones he’d snaffled just that morning, and started studying them.

What happened with the beads was this.

As Senka was walking away from Sukharevka through the little lanes around Sretenka Street. . .

No, first you need to be told why he went to Sukharevka. Now that was really something to be proud of. . .

Senka didn’t just go off to Sukharevka for no reason, he went on good honest business – to get even with his Uncle Zot. He lived according to the laws of Khitrovka now, and those laws said you should never let a bad man get away with anything. You had to settle every score, and it was best to pay it back with interest, otherwise you weren’t really one of the lads – just some wet-tailed little minnow.

So Senka set out, and Mikheika the Night-Owl tagged along as well, to keep him company. If not for Mikheika, he probably wouldn’t have dared try anything like that in broad daylight, he would have done the job at night, but now he had no choice, he had to play the hard man.

And it all turned out fine, really grand in fact.

They hid in the attic of the Mцbius pawnshop, opposite his uncle’s shop. Mikheika just sat and gawped, it was Senka that did everything, with his own two hands.

He took out a lead pellet, aimed his catapult and shot it right into the middle of the shop window – crash! Uncle Zot had three of those huge glass windowpanes with ‘Haberdashery’ written across them in silver letters. And he was very proud of them. Sometimes he would send Senka to scrub those rotten panes as many as four times a day, so Senka had a score to settle with the windows as well.

The jangling and the spray of broken glass brought Uncle Zot running out of the shop in his apron, holding a tray of Swedish ivory buttons in one hand and a spool of thread in the other – he’d been serving a customer all right. He turned his head this way and that, and his jaw dropped open – he just couldn’t figure out how this awful thing could have happened to his window.

Then Senka fired again – and the second window shattered into jagged splinters. His uncle dropped his wares, flopped down on his knees and started collecting up the splinters of glass, like a total fool. It was just hilarious!

But Senka already had the third window in his sights. And the way it smashed was a real delight. There you go, dear Uncle Zot, take that, for all the care and affection you gave a poor orphan.

Feeling all giddy, Senka fired the last pellet, the biggest and heaviest, right at the top of his uncle’s head. The bloodsucker collapsed off his knees onto his side and just lay there, with his eyes popping out of his head. He stopped yelling completely – he was so astonished by it all.

Mikheika was cock-a-hoop at Senka’s daring: he whistled through four fingers and hooted like an owl – he was great at that, that was how he got the moniker Night-Owl.

And on the way back, as they were walking along Asheulov Lane, up behind Sretenka Street (Senka all calm and composed, Mikheika rattling away twenty to the dozen in admiration), they saw two carriages in front of some house there. They were carrying in suitcases with foreign labels on them, and some kind of boxes and crates. It seemed like someone had just arrived and was moving in there.

Senka was on a roll. ‘Shall we lift something?’ he said, nodding at the luggage. Everybody knew the best time for thieving was during a fire or when someone was moving house.

Mikheika was keen to show what he was made of too. ‘Yeah, why not?’ he said

The first to walk in through the doorway was the gent. Senka didn’t really get a proper look at him – all he saw were the broad shoulders and straight back, and a grey-haired temple under a top hat. But from the sound of his voice the gent wasn’t old, even if he did have grey hair. He shouted from inside the hallway, with a slight stammer.

‘Masa, t-take care they don’t break the headlamp!’

The servant was left in charge. A Chinee, or some kind of Turk-estani, he was – squat and bandy-legged with narrow eyes. And he was wearing a weird outfit – a bowler hat and a shantung silk three-piece, and instead of shoes on his feet he had white stockings and funny wooden sandals like little benches. An Oriental all right.

The porters with their leather aprons and their badges (that meant they were from the station, so the gent must have arrived by railway) carried all sorts of stuff into the building: bundles of books, some wheels with rubber tyres and shiny spokes, a shiny copper lamp, pipes with hoses.

Standing beside the Chinee, or whoever he was, was a man with a beard, obviously the landlord of the apartment, watching politely. He asked about the wheels: what did Mr Nameless need them for, and was he a wheel-maker by any chance?

The Oriental didn’t answer, just shook his fat face.

One of the drivers, clearly fishing for a tip, barked at Senka and Mikheika: ‘Hey, keep out of it, you little cretins!’

Let him yell, he’d never be bothered to get down off the box.

Mikheika asked in a whisper: ‘Speedy, what shall we nick? A suitcase?’

‘A suitcase? Don’t be daft,’ Senka hissed, curling up his lip. ‘Take a gander at the tight hold he’s keeping on that stuff.’

The Chinee was holding a travelling bag and a little bundle –chances were they were the most valuable things, which couldn’t be trusted to anyone else.

Mikheika hissed back: ‘But how do we get it? Why would he let go, if he’s holding on so tight?’

Senka thought about that for a bit and had an idea.

‘Just don’t you start snickering, Night-Owl, keep a straight face.’

He picked a small stone up off the ground, flung it and knocked the Oriental’s hat straight off his head – smack! Then he stuck his hands in his pockets and opened his mouth – a real angel, he was.

When Slanty-Eyes looked round, Senka said to him, very respectful, like:

‘Uncle Chinaman, your hat’s fallen off.’

And good for Mikheika – he didn’t even twitch, just stood there, batting his eyelids.

Righto, now let’s see what this pagan puts down on the step so he can pick up his hat – the travelling bag or the bundle.

The bundle. The travelling bag stayed in the servant’s left hand.

Senka was at the ready. He leapt forward like a cat pouncing on a sparrow, grabbed the bundle and shot off down the lane as fast as his legs could carry him.

Mikheika set off too, hooting like an eagle owl and chortling so much he dropped his cap. But it was a rubbishy old cap anyway, with a cracked peak, he wouldn’t miss it.

The Chinee stuck with them, though, he didn’t fall behind for a long while. Mikheika soon darted off into a gateway, so the Oriental had only Senka to chase after. He obviously wasn’t going to give up. Those little wooden benches kept clacking along the roadway, getting closer all the time.

By the corner of Sretenka Street, Senka felt like flinging that damn bundle away (he wasn’t feeling quite so bold without Mikheika), but then there was a crash behind him – the Chinee had caught one of his stupid sandals on a bottle and gone sprawling flat out.

Oho!

Senka carried on, dodging and twisting through the alleys for a while, before he stopped and untied the bundle to see what precious treasures were hidden inside. He found a set of round green stones on a string. They didn’t look like much, but who could tell, maybe they were worth a thousand.

He took them to a dealer he knew. The dealer fingered them and tried gnawing on them. ‘Cheap stuff,’ he said. ‘Chinese marble, jade stone it’s called. I can give you seventy kopecks.’

Senka didn’t take the seventy kopecks, he kept them for himself instead. The way those little stones clicked together was much too dainty altogether.

But never mind the blasted stones, we were talking about Death.

So, Senka was mooning around in front of the house, still trying to think of a way to lure Death to the window.

He took out the string of green beads and clicked them together –clack, clack, clack, they went. Like little china hammers, he thought, but what kind of hammers could you make out of china?

Then suddenly something clicked inside his head – clear and crisp just like those beads. Right, that’ll catch her eye! Dead simple.

He looked round and picked up a piece of glass. Then he caught a ray of late summer sunlight and shot a bright beam in through the gap in the curtains.

And who’d have thought it? Less than a minute later the curtains parted and Death herself glanced out.

Senka was so dazzled by the suddenness of it all, he forgot to hide the hand that was holding the piece of glass and the patch of sunlight started dancing about on Death’s face. She put her hand over her eyes, peered out and said:

‘Hey, boy!’

Senka took offence: I ain’t a boy, he thought. I ain’t even dressed like one: with my shirt and my belt, corduroy pants, these fancy new boots and a decent cap too, I took it off a drunk just two days back.

‘You can stick your boy up your . . . joy,’ Senka hissed back, although he didn’t like rude words, and almost never used them –they used to laugh at him for that. But this time the phrase just slipped out by itself – he was so blinded by the sight of Death, as if she was the one taunting him with the patch of sunlight.

She didn’t get embarrassed or angry – no, she just laughed.

‘Well, we’ve got a real Pushkin here. Do you live in Khitrovka? Come in, I’ve got a job for you. Come in, don’t be afraid, it’s not locked.’

‘What’s to be afraid of?’ Senka muttered, and set off towards the porch. He couldn’t rightly tell whether he was dreaming or awake. But his heart was hammering away.

He didn’t get a proper look at what Death had in her porch. She was standing in the doorway of the sitting room, leaning against the doorpost. Her face was in shadow, but her eyes still sparkled, like the light glinting on a river at night.

‘Well, what d’you want?’ Senka asked even more rudely, he was feeling so nervous.

He didn’t even look at the lady of the house, just stared down at his feet or glanced around.

It was a fine room. Big and bright. With three white doors, one across from the entrance and two more, one on each side. A Dutch stove with tiles, embroidered doilies all over the place, and the tablecloth was covered in fancy needlework too, so bright it was almost dazzling. The pattern was amazing: butterflies, birds of paradise, flowers too. Then he took another look and saw that all the butterflies and birds, and even the flowers, had human faces – some were crying, some were laughing, and some were snarling viciously with their sharp teeth.

Death asked him: ‘Do you like it? That’s my embroidery work. I have to do something with my time.’

He could feel her looking him up and down, and he desperately wanted to take a look at her from close up, but he was afraid – even without looking at her he was feeling hot one minute and cold the next.

Eventually he got up the courage to raise his head. Death was the same height as him. And he was surprised to see her eyes were black all over, like a gypsy girl’s.

‘What are you staring at, freckle-face? Why did you shine sunbeam light in through my window? I spotted you ages ago, hanging around outside. Fallen in love, have you?’

Then Senka saw her eyes weren’t completely black, they had thin rims of blue round them, and he guessed her pupils were open wide, the way his uncle’s favourite cat’s eyes went when they gave him valerian to drink for a laugh. And that eerie black stare was really frightening.

‘Yeah, right,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you.’

And he twisted his bottom lip up into a sneer. She laughed again.

‘Ah, you’re not just freckly, you’re gap-toothed too. You don’t want me, but maybe you wouldn’t mind some of my money. Just run an errand for me, I’ll tell you where to go. It’s not far, just the other side of Pokrovka Street. And when you get back, I’ll give you a rouble.’

Senka was so shaken, he blurted out:

‘I don’t want your rouble either.’

He was petrified, or he’d have come up with some smarter answer.

‘Then what do you want? Why are you skulking around outside? I swear to God, you’re in love. Come on, look at me.’ And she took hold of his chin with her fingers.

He slapped her hand away – don’t you paw me!

‘I ain’t in love with you, no way. What I want from you is . . . different.’ He had no idea what to come out with, and then suddenly, like an inspiration from God, it just slipped out. ‘I want to join the Prince’s gang. Put in a word for me. Then I’ll do anything for you.’

He was really pleased with himself for saying something so smart. For starters, it wasn’t anything shameful – and she’d been going on and on: ‘You’re in love, you’re in love’. And what’s more, he’d shown he was someone to be taken seriously, not just some young scruff. And then – what if she really did set him up with the Prince? Wouldn’t Prokha be green with envy!

Her face went dead and she turned away.

‘That’s no place for you. So that’s all the little beast wants!’

She grasped her shoulders in her hands, as if she was feeling chilly, although it was warm in the room. She stood like that for about half a minute, then turned back to Senka and pleaded with him, even took hold of his hand.

‘Go for me, will you? I’ll give you three roubles, not one. Do you want five?’

But by now Senka had realised he was the one in charge here, he had the power, although he didn’t have a clue why. He could see Death wanted something from Pokrovka Street very, very badly.

He snapped back:

‘No, you can give me a twenty-five note, and I still won’t go. But if you whisper in the Prince’s ear, I’ll be there and back in a flash.’

She pressed her hands to her temples and twisted up her face. It was the first time Senka had ever seen a dame wrinkle herself up like that and still look beautiful.

‘Damn you. Do what I tell you then we’ll see.’

And she told him what she wanted.

‘Go to Lobkovsky Lane, the Kazan boarding house. There’s a cripple with no legs at the gate. Whisper this special word to him, “sufoeno”.And don’t you forget it, or you’ll be in big trouble. Go into the boarding house and let them take you to a man, his name’s Deadeye. Tell him quietly, so no one else hears: “Death’s waiting, she’s desperate”. Take what he gives you and get back here quick. Do you remember all that? Repeat it.’

‘I’m no parrot.’

Senka stuck his cap on his head and dashed out into the street.

And he set off down the boulevard so fast, he even overtook two cabs.

HOW SENKA CAUGHT DESTINY BY THE TAIL

It was a good thing Senka knew where that Kazan lodging house was, or there was no way in hell he could have found it. There was no sign, nothing. The gates were locked tight shut, with only the little wicket gate slightly open, but you couldn’t walk straight in, just like that. Right in front of the iron bars there was a crippled beggar perched on his dolly, with empty trousers folded up where his legs ought to be. He had big broad shoulders, though, and a red face like tanned leather, and the arms sticking out of the sleeves of his sailor’s vest were covered in coarse red hairs. He might be a cripple, but a smack from that mallet he used to push his dolly about would knock the life clean out of you.

Senka didn’t go up to the man with no legs straight off, he took a good look at him first.

The man wasn’t just sitting there doing nothing, he was selling bamboo whistles. Shouting his wares lazily in a hoarse bass voice: ‘Roll up now, if you’ve any brains in your heads, bambood whistels, only three kopecks a time.’ There were little kids jostling round the cripple, sampling his goods by blowing into the smooth yellow sticks. Some of them bought one.

One boy pointed to the little brass pipe hanging round the invalid’s thick neck and said: ‘Let me try that whistle, mister.’ The cripple flicked the boy’s forehead: ‘That ain’t no toy whistle, that’s a bosun’s pipe, it ain’t meant for snot-nosed kids like you to blow.’

That told Senka everything he needed to know. This sailor was only plying his trade for show, of course, he was really a lookout. It was a smart set-up: any sign of trouble, and he’d blow on that brass whistle of his – it must make a loud piercing sound – and that was the signal for the others to look sharp and clear out. And the magic word that Death had told him, ‘sufoeno’, that was ‘one of us’, only back to front, like. Since olden times the bandits and thieves in Moscow had always mangled the language, so outsiders wouldn’t understand: they added bits onto words or swapped them around, or thought up other tricks.

He walked up to the lookout, leaned right down to his ear and whispered the word he’d been told to say. The sailor gave him a sharp glance from under bushy eyebrows, twitched his big ginger moustache and didn’t say a word, just shifted his dolly away from the gate a bit.

Senka went into the empty yard and stopped. Was this really the place where the Prince and his gang had their hideout?

He pulled his shirt down and brushed one sleeve across his boots to make them shiny. He took off his cap, then put it back on. At the door of the building he crossed himself and muttered a little prayer –a special one about granting wishes that a certain good person had taught him a long time ago: ‘Look down, O Lord, in Thy mercy, heed the prayers of the humble and meek and reward me not according to my deserts, but according to my desires.’

He plucked up his courage and tugged at the door – it was locked. So then he knocked.

It was a few moments before it opened, and even then it was only by a crack. An eye glinted in the darkness.

Just to be on the safe side, Senka repeated: ‘Sufoeno.’

Someone behind the door asked: ‘What do you want?’

‘I’d like to see Deadeye . . .’

At that the door opened wide and Senka saw a young lad in a silk shirt with a fancy belt and Moroccan leather boots. He had a silver chain dangling out of his waistcoat pocket with a little silver skull on it – you could see straight off he was a real top-notch businessman. And he had that special kind of glance, like all the businessmen did: quick and piercing, it didn’t miss a thing. Senka felt really jealous: the lad was the same age as him, and not even as tall. Some people have all the luck!

‘This way,’ the lad said, and walked on in front, without looking at Senka any more.

The dark collidor led to a room where two men were playing cards, slapping them down hard on a bare table. Each of them had a heap of banknotes and gold imperials lying in front of him. Just as Senka and his guide walked in, one of the players flung his cards down and yelled:

‘You’re cheating, you whore’s tripes! Where’s the queen?’ And he punched the other man smack on the forehead.

The other man got up from the table and fell backwards. Senka gasped – he was afraid the man would smash the back of his head open. But as he fell, he turned a backward somersault, just like an acrobat in the circus big top, then jumped up smartly on to the table and lashed the man who had hit him across the kisser with his foot! ‘You’re the cheat!’ he shouted. ‘The queen’s been played!’

Well, of course, the one with the boot in his face tumbled over. Gold went rolling and jangling across the floor, and paper money went flying in all directions – what a sight!

Senka was scared, he thought someone was about to get killed. But the other lad just stood there grinning – he thought it was funny.

The man who had started the fight rubbed his cheekbone.

‘The queen’s been played, you say? Why, so it has. All right, let’s get on with the game.’

And they sat down as if nothing had happened and gathered up the scattered cards.

Senka looked a bit closer and his jaw dropped in amazement and his eyes almost popped out of his head. Looking closer, he saw the two players had the same face, you couldn’t tell them apart. They both had snub noses, yellow hair and thick lips, and they were dressed exactly the same. It was incredible!

‘What’s your problem?’ his guide asked, tugging on Senka’s sleeve. ‘Let’s go.’

They walked on. Another collidor, and another room. This one was quiet, with someone sleeping on a bed. He had his kisser turned to the wall, all you could see was a fat cheek and a jug-ear. The great hefty hulk was stretched out, snoring away with his boots still on.

Senka’s guide took small steps, walking quietly on the tips of his toes. Senka did the same, only quieter.

But, as the hulk went on snoring, one hand stuck out from under the blanket, and a black gun barrel glinted in it.

‘It’s me, Lardy, it’s me,’ the young businessman said quickly.

The hand went back down, but the sleeper still didn’t turn towards them.

Senka took off his cap and crossed himself – the wall was covered with icons, just like the icon screen in a church. There were holy saints, and the Virgin, and the Most Holy Cross.

A man was sitting by the opposite wall with his long legs stretched out, and his feet propped up on a table in shiny bright half-boots. He had specs and long straight flaxen hair and he was twirling a sharp little knife, no bigger than a teaspoon in his fingers. He was dressed neatly too, like a gent, even had a string tie. Senka had never laid eyes on a bandit dressed like that before.

Senka’s guide let him go ahead and said:

‘Deadeye, the ragamuffin’s to see you.’

Senka gave him an angry sideways glance. He could have thumped him for that word, ‘ragamuffin’. But then the man called Deadeye did something that made Senka gasp: he flicked his hand, and the little knife flashed across the room in a silver streak and stuck dead in the eye of the Most Blessed Virgin.

And that was when Senka spotted that the eyes had been gouged out of all the saints on the icons, and the Saviour on the Cross had little knives sticking out where there ought to be nails.

Deadeye took another knife out of his sleeve and flung it into the eye of the Infant Jesus, as he lay in Mary’s arms. And after that he turned to look at Senka, who was stupefied.

‘Well, what do you want, kid?’

Senka walked up to him, glanced round at the other lad, who was hanging about by the door, and said quietly, just like he’d been told to:

‘Death’s waiting, she’s desperate.’

Once he’d said it, he felt scared. What if Deadeye didn’t understand? What if he asked: ‘What’s she waiting for?’ Senka didn’t have a clue.

But Deadeye didn’t ask anything of the kind; instead he said to the other lad in a low, polite voice: ‘Mr Sprat, would you please be so good as to conceal your face behind the door.’

Senka realised that he’d told the other lad to push off, but Sprat didn’t seem to twig, and just stood there.

So Deadeye launched another falcon – a knife, that is – out of his right sleeve and it stuck in the doorpost, thwack, just an inch from Sprat’s ear. Then, the lad disappeared in a flash.

Deadeye examined Senka through his specs. The eyes behind the lenses were as pale and cold as two little lumps of ice. He took a square of folded paper out of his pocket and held it out. Then he said in a polite voice: ‘There you are, kid. Say I’ll call round tonight at about eight o’clock . . . No, wait.’

He turned towards the door and called: ‘Hey, Mr Sixer, are you still here?’

Sprat stuck his head back in through the door. So he had two nicknames, then, not just the one?

He sniffed and asked warily: ‘You won’t do that again with the knife, will you?’

Deadeye’s reply was impossible to understand: ‘I know the pen of gentle Parni is not in fashion in our day^[1]

When is our rendezvous, by which I mean the meet with the Ghoul?’

Sprat-Sixer understood, though. ‘At seven,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ the odd man said with a nod. Then he turned to Senka. ‘No, I can’t make it at eight. Say I’ll be there at nine, or maybe not till ten.’

Then he turned away and started gazing at the icons again. Senka realised the conversation was over.

On his way back, cutting through the yards and alleys of Khitrovka to shorten the way, he thought: They’re the real thing, all right! It was no wonder the Prince was Moscow’s number-one bandit with eagles like that in his gang. He thought there was nothing he wouldn’t give for the chance to hang out in the den with them, like one of the boys.

Once he was past Khitrovka Lane, where the labourers were kipping in lines, Senka stopped under a withered poplar tree and unfolded the little package. He was curious to see what was so precious that Death was willing to hand over a fiver to get it.

White powder, it looked like saccharine. He licked it – sweetish, but it wasn’t saccharine, that was a lot sweeter.

He was so distracted, he didn’t see Tashka come walking up.

‘What’s this, Senka,’ she said, ‘are you doing candy cane now?’

That was when Senka finally twigged. Of course, it was cocaine, why hadn’t he guessed? That was why Death’s pupils were blacker than night. That was it, and that meant. . .

‘You don’t lick it, you sniff it up your nose,’ Tashka explained.

It was still early, so she wasn’t dolled up or wearing make-up, and she had her purse in her hand – she must be going to the shop.

‘Don’t do it, Senka,’ she said. ‘You’ll rot your brains away.’

But he still took a pinch anyway, stuck it in his nostril and breathed in as hard as he could. Why, it was disgusting! The tears streamed out of his eyes, and he sneezed and sneezed until his nose started running.

‘Well, you ninny, happy now?’ asked Tashka, wrinkling up her nose. ‘Chuck it, if you know what’s good for you. Why don’t you tell me what I’ve got here?’

And she pointed to her head. She had a daisy and two flowers that Senka didn’t recognise in her hair.

‘A meadow for cows, that’s what.’

‘It ain’t a meadow, it’s three messages. The marjoram signifies “I hate men”, the daisy signifies indifference and the silver-leaf signifies “cordially inclined”. Say I’m going with a customer who makes me feel sick. I stick the marjoram in my hair to show I despise him, and the thickhead’s none the wiser. Or I’m standing here with you, and I have the silver-leaf in my hair, because we’re mates.’

She took the other two out and left just the silver-leaf to make Senka feel happy.

‘And what do you use the indifference for?’

Tashka’s eyes glinted and she ran her tongue over her cracked lips. ‘That’s for when someone falls in love with me and starts giving me sweets and beads and stuff. I won’t send him packing, because maybe I like him, but I still have to keep my pride. So I stick on the daisy, let him suffer

‘Who’s the admirer?’ Senka snorted, wrapping up the cocaine the way it was before. He stuck it in his pocket, and something in there clicked – the green beads he’d lifted off the Chinee. So, since they were on the subject anyway, he said: ‘How would you like me to give you some beads without any courting?’

He took them out and waved them under Tashka’s nose. She lit up.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘they’re really lovely. And my favourite colour, “esmerald”, it’s called! Will you really give them to me?’

‘Yes, take them, I don’t mind.’

So he gave them to her – seventy kopecks was no great loss.

Tashka put the beads round her neck straight away. She gave Senka a quick peck on the cheek and legged it off home, as quick as she could – to get a look in the mirror. And Senka ran off too, to the Yauza Boulevard. Death was probably tired of waiting by now.

He showed her the little packet, keeping her at arm’s length, then put it back in his pocket.

She said: ‘What are you doing? Give it here, quick!’

Her eyes were all wet and watery, and her voice was shaking.

Senka said: ‘Ah, but what did you promise me? You write the Prince a note, so he’d take me into his gang.’

Death dashed at him and tried to take it by force, but she was wasting her time – Senka ran round the table to get away from her. After they’d played catch for a while, she begged him: ‘Give me it, you fiend, don’t torture me.’

Senka suddenly felt sorry for her: she was so beautiful, but so unhappy. That rotten powder was no good for her. And then it occurred to him: maybe the Prince wouldn’t listen to what a mamselle thought about important business, not even the lover he truly adored. Ah, but no, the lads had told him the Prince could never refuse her a thing.

While he was wondering whether to give her the cocaine or not, Death suddenly went limp and dropped her head. She sat down at the table and propped her forehead on her hands, like she was really, really tired, and said:

‘Oh, to hell with you, you little beast. You’ll grow up into a big bad wolf anyway.’

She gave a quiet moan, as if she was in pain. Then she took a scrap of paper, wrote something on it in pencil and tossed it to Senka.

‘Here, may you choke on it.’

When he read the note, he could hardly believe his luck. The sprawling handwriting said:

‘Prince,take this youngster on. He’s just the kind you need. Death.’

HOW SENKA SHOWED WHAT HE WAS MADE OF

‘I need you, do I? What good are you to me?’

The Prince rubbed the dimple in his chin furiously and gave Senka a scorching glance from his black eyes. Senka cringed, but this was no time to be shy.

‘She told me, “Go to him, Speedy, don’t you have no doubts, you’ll definitely be useful to the Prince, I ought to know,” that’s what she said.’

Senka tried to look at the big man with fearless devotion, but his knees were trembling. The whole gang was standing behind him: Deadeye, Sprat-Sixer, the pair with the same face and another one with fat cheeks (it must have been him who was dozing with his devolvert in his hand). Only the cripple with no legs was missing.

The Prince’s lodgings in the Kazan were right at the end of the collidor that Senka had been led along the day before. From the room with the desecrated icons, where Deadeye flung his knives about, you just had to go a little bit farther and turn a corner, and there was a big room, with a separate bedroom. Senka saw the bedroom only through the half-open door (well, it was just an ordinary bedroom: a bed covered with a coloured counterpane, a flail – a spiked steel ball on a chain – lying on the floor, and that was all he could make out), but the Prince’s sitting room was really grand. The Persian carpet covering the whole floor, so incredibly fluffy it was like walking on moss in a forest; carved wooden chests along the walls (oh, there must be some fine stuff in there!); bottles of vodka and cognac in a row on the huge table, with silver goblets, a well-hacked ham and a jar of pickled cucumbers. Every now and then the Prince stuck his hand into this jar, fished out the cucumbers with the most pimples and crunched on them with relish, making Senka’s mouth water. The big boss’s face was handsome all right, but it looked a bit puffy and creased. He’d obviously done some hard drinking, and a fair bit of sleeping too.

The Prince wiped his mouth with the hem of his silk shirt. He picked up the note again.

‘Has she gone crazy, or what? As if she didn’t know I’ve got a full deck. I’m the King, right?’

He bent down one finger, and Deadeye said:

‘Soon you’ll have as many titles as His Majesty the Emperor. Prince by name and king by nature, and soon you’ll be an ace too. By the grace of God, Ace of all Moscow, King of Khitrovka and Prince of Piss-ups.’

Senka thought the bit about ‘piss-ups’ was too brazen by half, but the Prince liked the joke and roared with laughter. All the others chuckled along. Senka didn’t really get what was so amusing, but just to be on the safe side, he smiled too.

‘When I’m Ace, there’ll be no more banter like that,’ said the Prince, putting down the note and bending his fingers down as he carried on counting. ‘Death’s my Queen, right? You, Deadeye, are the Jack. Lardy’s the tenner, Bosun’s the niner. Maybe’s the eighter, Surely’s the sevener. This ragamuffin’s a sixer at best, and I’ve already got one of those. Right, Sprat?’

‘Yes,’ said the lad from the day before.

Now Senka realised what the Prince was on about. The lads had told him that real businessmen, the ones who lived by bandit laws, had gangs called ‘decks’, and every deck had its own set. A set was made up of eight bandits, and they all had their own position. The top brass was the ‘King’, who had a moll or ‘Queen’; then there was the ‘Jack’, a kind of deputy; and then came the gang members from tenner to sixer. And no one had more than eight in their gang, it had been that way ever since the old days. That must be where the name ‘Jack’ came from, because he often used a black jack.

Senka gave Deadeye a look of special respect: so you’re the Jack. On top of being the King’s right-hand man, the Jack was usually responsible for ‘wet jobs’ – killings, that is.

‘There are no vacancies available presently,’ said Deadeye, using fancy words as usual, but Senka understood what he meant, that there were no free places in the gang.

But strangely enough, the Prince didn’t throw the little squirt out. He just stood there, scratching his head.

‘Two sixers – what kind of deck’s that? Whatever will the Council say to that?’ The Prince sighed. ‘Oh, Death, my little darling, the things you do to me . . .’

And from the way he sighed, Senka twigged that though the Prince might grouse and grumble, he didn’t have the nerve not to do Death’s bidding, even though he was such a big hero. Senka cheered up, stopped feeling wary, straightened his shoulders and looked round at the bandits. He stood proud, as though to say: You can sort this little snag out yourselves, I’ve done my bit. It’s Death’s fault, anyway.

‘All right,’ said the Prince. ‘What’s your name? Speedy? You stay put for the time being, Speedy, without any number. We’ll work out where to put you later.’

Senka squeezed his eyes shut, he was so happy.

Maybe he didn’t have a number, but now he was a real bandit, and more than that, he was in the number-one top gang in all of Moscow! Now then, Prokha, now then, Mikheika, let’s see you choke on that! And as soon as he started getting his share of the swag, he could take Tashka as his moll, so she wouldn’t go lying with anyone and everyone. She could sit at home and lay out her flowers.