He Lover of Death

HOW SENKA WAS DISILLUSIONED WITH PEOPLE

Erast Petrovich stepped unhurriedly into the centre of the room and tipped his hat (today he was wearing a checked cap with the earflaps turned up).

‘Do not be alarmed, dear lady. I will not d-do you any harm.’

Death did not turn round, she looked at her uninvited guest through the cracked mirror. She shook her head and ran her hand across the surface, then she looked over her shoulder, with a surprised expression on her face.

He bowed gently. ‘No, I am not a v-vision or a hallucination.’

‘Then go to hell,’ she snapped, and turned back to the mirror. ‘What a nerve you have! I only need to say the word, and you’ll be torn to pieces, whoever you are.’

Erast Petrovich walked closer. ‘I see you were not at all f-frightened. You really are a m-most unusual woman.’

‘Ah, so that was why the door creaked,’ she said, as if she was talking to herself. ‘And I thought it was a draught. Who are you? Where did you spring from? Did you jump up out of the sewer, then?’

He replied sternly to that: ‘For you, m-mademoiselle, I am an emissary of fate, and fate “jumps up” out of anywhere it sees f-fit, sometimes from very strange places indeed.’

At that she finally turned round to face him with a look in her eyes that seemed puzzled, not contemptuous – hopeful even, Senka thought.

‘An emissary of fate?’ she repeated.

‘Why, don’t I look the p-part?’

She moved towards him and looked into his face.

‘I don’t know . . . perhaps you do.’

Senka groaned – they couldn’t have stood in a less fortunate position. Mr Nameless’s tall figure concealed Death completely, and even he was visible only from the back.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Then I shall speak p-poetically, as behoves an emissary of fate. My lady, a cloud of evil has c-condensed above the part of Moscow where you and I now stand. From time to t-time it waters the earth with a b-bloody rain. This cloud of iron-grey is not b-borne away by the wind, it seems to be held in place by some k-kind of magnet. And I suspect that m-magnet is you.’

‘Me?’ Death exclaimed in an agitated voice, and took one step to the side. Senka could see her clearly now. Her face looked bewildered, nothing like the way it usually was.

Erast Petrovich also moved, as if he wanted to keep some distance between them.

‘A wonderful t-tablecloth,’ he declared. ‘I have never seen such a marvellous d-design before. Who embroidered it? You? If you did, you have genuine t-talent.’

‘That’s not what you were talking about,’ she interrupted. ‘What makes you think the blood is shed because of me?’

‘The fact, Madame Death, that you have g-gathered around your good self the most d-dangerous criminals in the city. The Prince, a murderer and b-bandit, who supports you. A monster by the name of D-Deadeye, who supplies you with c-cocaine. The Ghoul, an extortionist and low scoundrel, whom you also seem to covet f-for some reason. What do you want with this c-cabinet of curiosities, this collection of aberrations?’

She said nothing for a long time. Senka thought she wasn’t going to answer at all. But then she did.

‘I suppose I need them.’

‘Who are you?’ Mr Nameless exclaimed angrily. ‘A g-greedy wealth-grubber? A vainglorious woman who likes to imagine herself as the q-queen of villains? A hater of men? A madwoman?’

‘I am Death,’ she declared quietly and solemnly.

He muttered in a barely audible voice: ‘Another one? Isn’t that t-too many for one city?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

He walked up close to her and said sharply, insistently: ‘What do you know about the m-murder of the Siniukhins and the Samshitovs? These c-crimes bear the signs of some strange satanic idolatry: either the eyes are p-put out, or every living thing is exterminated, even a p-parrot in its cage. A genuine b-banquet of death.’ His shoulders twitched.

‘I don’t know anything about that. Who are you, a policeman?’ She looked into his eyes. ‘No, they don’t have people like that in the police.’

He shook his head abruptly, in either annoyance or embarrassment.

‘I b-beg your pardon, I forgot to introduce myself. Erast Petrovich N-Nameless, engineer.’

‘An engineer? Then why are you interested in murders?’

There are two phenomena that n-ever leave me indifferent. The first is when evildoing g-goes unpunished and the second is a mystery. The f-former rouses an anger in my soul that will not allow me to breathe until j-justice has been restored. And the latter d-deprives me of sleep and rest. In this story both phenomena are evident: m-monstrous iniquity and a mystery – you. I have to s-solve this mystery.’

She smiled mockingly. ‘And how do you intend to solve me? In the same way as the other lovers of riddles?’

‘That has yet to be s-seen,’ he replied after a brief pause. ‘But you are quite right, there is a t-terrible draught.’

He swung round, walked straight towards Senka and closed the door; he even propped it shut with a chair. Now Senka couldn’t see a thing, and he could hardly hear anything that was happening in the room.

But he didn’t even want to hear any more anyway. He crawled out through the window, feeling sad. With a broken heart, you might say.

Senka was overwhelmed by total and complete disillusionment with human beings. Take this Erast Petrovich: he seemed like a serious man, very dignified, but he was the same kind of randy goat as all the rest of them. And the airs and graces he put on! Who could you trust in this world, who could you respect?

It went without saying that Mr Nameless would have her ‘solved’ now in a jiffy. Solving a floozie like that didn’t take any real effort, Senka thought, beating himself up. Oh, women! Cheap, treacherous creatures! The only one who was true was Tashka. She might be a mamselle, but she was honest. Or was that just because she was still young yet? Probably when she grew up, she’d be like all the rest of them.