The Death of Achilles

SIX

In order to avoid any risk of simply wasting his time, Achimas did not wrap his violets in a hundred-ruble note, but threaded them instead through an emerald ring bought that afternoon at Kuznetsky Most. A woman might refuse money, but she would never reject an expensive bauble.

Naturally, the ploy was successful. Wanda inspected the present curiously and then looked around, seeking out the giver with equal interest. Achimas bowed slightly. Today he was wearing an English dinner jacket and a white tie with a diamond pin, which lent him an appearance somewhere between an English lord and a modern entrepreneur — the new cosmopolitan breed that was just beginning to set the tone in Europe and Russia.

Yesterday’s peremptory blond gentleman, concerning whom Achimas had received exhaustive (and extremely interesting) information, was not in the restaurant.

When she finished her song, Wanda sat down across from Achimas, glanced into his face, and suddenly said: “What transparent eyes. Like a mountain stream.”

For some reason Achimas’s heart fluttered momentarily at that phrase. It had triggered one of those vague, elusive memories that the French call dejd-vu. He frowned slightly. What nonsense; Achimas Welde was not one to be hooked by cunning feminine wiles.

He introduced himself: “Merchant of the First Guild Nikolai Niko-laevich Klonov, chairman of the Ryazan Commercial Association.”

“A merchant?” the green-eyed woman asked in surprise. “You don’t look like one. More like a sailor. Or a bandit.”

She laughed gruffly and for the second time Achimas was caught off guard. No one had ever told him that he looked like a bandit before. He had to appear normal and respectable — it was a necessary condition of his profession.

The songstress continued to surprise him.

“And you don’t have a Ryazan accent,” she remarked with casual mockery. “You wouldn’t happen to be a foreigner, would you?”

Apparently Achimas’s speech was marked by an extremely slight, almost indistinguishable accent — a certain non-Russian metallic quality retained from his childhood, but to detect it required an extraordinarily subtle ear. Which made it all the more surprising to hear such a comment from a German.

“I lived in Zurich for a long time,” he said. “Our company has an office there. Russian linen and calico.”

“Well, and what do you want from me, Swiss-Ryazan businessman?” the woman continued, as if it were a perfectly ordinary question. “To strike some lucrative deal with me, perhaps? Have I guessed right?”

Achimas was relieved — the songstress was merely flirting.

“Precisely,” he said seriously and confidently, in the manner he always used when speaking to women of this type. “I have a confidential business proposition to put to you.”

She burst into laughter, exposing her small, even teeth.

“Confidential? How elegantly you express it, Monsieur Klonov. Generally speaking, the propositions put to me are extremely confidential.”

Then Achimas remembered that he had said the same thing in almost the same words to ‘Baron von Steinitz’ a week before. He smiled despite himself, but immediately continued in a serious voice: “It is not what you think, mademoiselle. The Ryazan Commercial Association, of which I have the honor to be the chairman, has instructed me to give an expensive and unusual present to a worthy and famous individual who hails from our district. I may choose the present at my own discretion, but our compatriot must be pleased with it. This person is greatly loved and esteemed in Ryazan. We wish to present our gift tactfully and unobtrusively. Even anonymously. He will never even know that the money was collected by subscription from the merchants of his hometown of Ryazan. I thought for a long time about what to give the fortunate man. Then when I saw you I realized that the very finest gift is a woman like yourself.”

It was amazing, but she blushed.

“How dare you!” Her eyes flashed in fury. “I am not a thing, to be given as a gift!”

“Not you, mademoiselle, only your time and your professional skills,” Achimas declared sternly. “Or have I been misled, and you do not trade in your time and your art?”

She looked at him with hatred in her eyes.

“Do you realize, Merchant of the First Guild, that one word from me would be enough to have you thrown out into the street?”

He smiled, but only with his lips.

“No one has ever thrown me out into the street, mademoiselle. I assure you that it is quite out of the question.”

Leaning forward and looking straight into those eyes glittering with fury, he said: “It is not possible to be only half a courtesan, mademoiselle. Honest business relations are best: work in exchange for money. Or do you ply your trade for the pleasure of it?”

The sparks in her eyes faded and the wide, sensuous mouth twisted into a bitter smile.

“What pleasure? Order me some champagne. It’s the only thing I drink. Otherwise in my ‘trade’ you’d never stop drinking. I’m not going to sing any more today.” Wanda made a sign to a waiter, who evidently knew her habits, for he brought a bottle of Clicquot. “You are quite right, Mr. Philosopher. It is only deceiving oneself to be half for sale.”

She drained her glass to the last drop, but would not allow him to fill it again. Everything was going well and the only thing that was causing Achimas any concern was the way everyone around them was staring at him, Wanda’s favored client. But never mind, he would leave the restaurant alone; they would think him just another loser and immediately forget him.

“People don’t often speak to me like that.” The champagne had not lent her gaze sparkle — on the contrary, it had rendered it sad. “They mostly cringe and fawn. At first. And then they start talking to me in a familiar fashion, trying to persuade me to be their kept woman. Do you know what I want?”

“Yes. Money. The freedom that it brings,” Achimas remarked casually as he thought out the details of his subsequent actions.

She gaped at him, astounded.

“How did you know?”

“I am exactly the same,” he replied curtly. “So how much money do you need in order finally to feel that you are free?”

Wanda sighed.

“A hundred thousand. I worked that out a long time ago, when I was still a stupid fool eking out a living from giving music lessons. I’m not going to talk about that. It’s not interesting. I lived in poverty for a long time; I was almost destitute. Until I was twenty years old. And then I decided, that’s enough, no more. I’m going to be rich and free. And that was three years ago.”

“Well, and are you rich and free?”

“In another three years I shall be.”

“Then that means you already have fifty thousand?” Achimas laughed. He liked this songstress very much.

“Yes,” she laughed, this time without bitterness or defiance, but fervently, the way she sang her Parisian chansonettes. He liked that, too — the fact that she didn’t wallow in self-pity.

“I can shorten your term of hard labor by at least six months,” he said, spearing an oyster with a little silver fork. “The association collected ten thousand for our gift.”

Recognizing from the expression on Wanda’s face that she was in no mood to think things over coolly and was on the point of telling him to go to hell and take his ten thousand with him, Achimas added hurriedly: “Don’t refuse, or you will regret it. And, in any case, you don’t yet know what I have in mind. Oh, Mademoiselle Wanda, he is a great man. Many women, even from the very best society, would gladly pay handsomely to spend the night with him.”

He stopped, knowing that now she wouldn’t walk away. The woman had not yet been born whose pride was stronger than her curiosity.

Wanda glared angrily at him. Then she gave way and snorted: “Well, tell me then, don’t torment me like this, you serpent from Ryazan.”

“It is none other than General Sobolev, the incomparable Achilles and Ryazan landowner,” Achimas declared with a solemn air. “That is who I am offering you, not some rough merchant with a belly down to his knees. Later, when you are free, you can write about it in your memoirs. Ten thousand rubles and Achilles into the bargain — that sounds like a good arrangement to me.”

He could see from the young woman’s face that she was of two minds.

“And there’s something else I can offer you,” Achimas added in a very quiet voice, almost a whisper. “I can rid you forever of the society of Herr Knabe. If you would like that, of course.”

Wanda shuddered and asked in a frightened voice: “Who are you, Nikolai Klonov? You’re no merchant, are you?”

“I am a merchant.” He clicked his fingers to get them to bring the bill. “Linen, calico, duck. Don’t be surprised at how well-informed I am. The association has entrusted me with a very important job, and I like to be thorough in my work.”

“That’s why you were staring so hard yesterday, when I was sitting with Knabe,” she said suddenly.

Observant, thought Achimas, not yet sure if that was good or bad. And that intimate tone that had appeared in her voice required some kind of response, too. Which would be more convenient, closeness or distance?

“But how can you rid me of him?” Wanda asked avidly. “You don’t even know who he is.” Then, suddenly seeming to remember something, she interrupted herself. “Anyway, what gives you the idea that I want to get rid of him?”

“It is up to you, mademoiselle,” Achimas said with a shrug, deciding that in the present case distance would be more effective. “Well, then, do you accept the proposal?”

“I do.” She sighed. “Something tells me I won’t be able to shake you off anyway.”

Achimas nodded.

“You are a very intelligent woman. Don’t come here tomorrow. But be at home at about five in the evening. I shall call for you at the Anglia and we will finalize everything. And do try to be alone.”

“I shall be.” She looked at him rather strangely — he didn’t understand the meaning of that look.

“Kolya, you won’t deceive me, will you?”

Not only the words themselves, but the very intonation with which they were spoken, suddenly sounded so familiar that Achimas’s heart skipped a beat.

He remembered. It really was dejd-vu. This had happened before.

Evgenia had said the same thing once, twenty years earlier, before they robbed the iron room. And the words about his transparent eyes, they were hers, too, spoken when she was still a little girl in the Skyrovsk orphanage.

Achimas unfastened his starched collar — he had suddenly found it hard to breathe.

He said in a steady voice, “On my honor as a merchant. Well, then, mademoiselle, until tomorrow.”