The State Counsellor

CHAPTER 12 Giraffes

There were problems with the move to a new apartment - the police spies were running such a fine-toothed comb through the whole of Moscow that it was too dangerous to turn to sympathisers for help. There was no way of telling which of them was under surveillance,

They decided to stay at Vorontsovo Polye, especially in view of one consideration: If TG was so well informed about the gendarmes' plans, why make his relationship with the group any more complicated than it was? Whoever the mysterious correspondent might be, and whatever goals he was pursuing, he was clearly an ally, and a truly invaluable one.

The previous day's operation at the Petrosov Baths could hardly have gone worse. First, they had lost Nail, killed outright by a bullet from the deputy director of police. That preternaturally evasive gentleman had got away again, even though Green himself had led the pursuit; and the job with State Counsellor Fandorin had been botched too. Emelya, Schwartz and Nobel should have gone down into the yard and finished him off. The deep snow could have cushioned his fall. It was quite possible that the Governor General's deputy had got away with minor injuries like broken legs and ruptured kidneys.

The evening before, when the Combat Group, its numbers enlarged by the Muscovites who had passed the test of the expropriation, was preparing for the operation at the Petrosov Baths, Needle had brought the chemicals and the detonators from Aronson. So today Green had set up a laboratory in the study and started work on augmenting his arsenal. He made a burner for heating the paraffin out of a kerosene lamp and adapted a coffee-grinder for grinding up the picronitric acid, while the place of a retort was taken by an olive-oil jar, and a samovar made a tolerable stall. Bullfinch made the casings and filled them with screws.

The others took it easy. Emelya was still reading his Count of Monte Cristo and only looked into the study occasionally to share his feelings about what he had read. The novices - Marat, Beaver, Schwartz and Nobel - had nothing to offer in any case. They settled down to a game of cards in the kitchen. Although they were only playing for finger-flicks to the forehead, the game was heated and noisy, with plenty of laughter and shouting. That was all right. They were only young lads, high-spirited - let them have a bit of fun.

Putting together the explosive mixture was painstaking work; it took many hours and required total concentration. One slip of the hand and the entire apartment would be blown sky-high, taking the attic and the roof with it.

Some time after two in the morning, when the process was only half-completed, the telephone rang.

Green picked up the earpiece and waited to see who would speak.

Needle.

'The private lecturer has fallen ill,' she said in a worried voice. 'It's very strange. When I got back from your apartment I took a look at his windows through my binoculars, just to check - in case his generosity with the chemicals might not have gone unnoticed. I saw the curtains were closed.' She suddenly broke off, perturbed by his silence. 'Hello, is that you, Mr Sievers?'

'Yes,' he replied calmly, remembering that closed curtains meant 'disaster'. 'This morning? Why didn't you let me know?'

'What for? If he's been taken, there's nothing we can do to help. We'd only make things worse.'

'Then why now?'

'Five minutes ago one of the curtains was opened!' Needle exclaimed. 'I immediately phoned the Ostozhenka Street apartment and asked for Professor Brandt, as agreed. Aronson said: "I'm afraid you have the wrong number." Then he said it again, as if he was asking me to hurry. His voice sounded pitiful, it was trembling.'

The code phrase meant that Needle should come to the apartment alone - Green remembered that. What could have happened to Aronson?

‘I’ll go,' he said, 'and check.'

'No, you mustn't. It's too risky. And why should you? He can't be in serious danger, and we have to take care of you. I'm going to Ostozhenka Street, and then I'll come to your apartment.'

'All right.'

He went back to his improvised laboratory, but a mounting sense of alarm prevented him from concentrating on the job at hand.

A strange business: first the signal for disaster, and then suddenly an urgent summons. He shouldn't have sent Needle. It was a mistake.

'I'm going out,' he told Bullfinch, and stood up. 'Something I have to do. Emelya's in charge. Don't touch the mixture.'

'Can I go with you?' Bullfinch asked eagerly. 'Emelya's reading, the others are playing cards, what am I going to do? I've done all the tins. I'm bored.'

Green thought for a moment and decided: Why not? If anything went wrong, at least he could warn their comrades.

'If you like. Let's go.'

From the street everything looked clear.

First they drove past in a cab and examined the windows. Nothing suspicious. One curtain closed.

Then they separated and walked along Ostozhenka Street. No idly loitering yard-keepers, no sharp-eyed vendors of spiced honey punch, no one casually strolling by.

The building was definitely not under surveillance.

Somewhat reassured, Green sent Bullfinch to the barber's directly opposite Aronson's entrance - to have the fluff on his cheeks shaved. He told him to sit by the window there and keep an eye on the alarm signal. If the second curtain was opened, he should go up. If nothing happened to the curtains for more than ten minutes, it meant there was an ambush in the apartment and he should leave immediately. There was a brass plate on the door:

PRIVATE LECTURER

SEMYON LVOVICH ARONSON

He stopped beside it and listened for a long time, because there were very strange sounds coming from the apartment: long low howls, as if someone had locked a dog inside. Once there was a very brief, piercing shriek - hard to interpret: it was as if someone had tried to yell at the top of his voice but choked.

People didn't choke on screams for no reason, and Aronson didn't have a dog, so Green took out his revolver and rang the bell. He looked around, weighing up his position: thick walls, solidly built. A shot there on the stairs would be heard, of course, but a shot inside probably wouldn't.

Rapid footsteps in the corridor. Two men.

The chain jangled, the door opened slighdy, and Green struck out with his gun butt, straight between a pair of moist, gleaming eyes.

He shoved the door as hard as he could, jumped over the fallen man (all he noticed was a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up) and saw another man who had staggered back in surprise. He grabbed this man by the throat to stop him shouting and slammed his head against the wall. Then he supported the limp body and let it slide slowly to the floor.

A familiar face: he'd seen that curled moustache and that camlet jacket before somewhere.

'What's happening?' a voice asked from somewhere further inside the apartment. 'Have you got him? Bring him here!'

'Yes, sir!' Green bellowed and ran along the corridor towards the voice - straight ahead and to the right, into the drawing room.

He recognised the third man's pink face and white hair immediately, and at the same time recalled the first two: Staff Captain Seidlitz, the head of General Khrapov's guard, and two of his men. He'd seen them in the carriage at Klin.

The room was full of things that required examination, but there was no time for that now, because when he saw the stranger with a revolver in his hand, the gendarme (not in uniform this time - he was wearing a sandy-coloured three-piece suit) bared his teeth in a scowl and reached under his jacket. Green fired one shot, aiming at the head to finish the job, but his aim was poor. Seidlitz clutched at his throat where the bullet had torn it open, made a gurgling sound and sat down on the floor. His whitish eyes glared balefully at Green. He had recognised him.

Green didn't want to fire again. Why take the risk? He stepped towards the wounded man and smashed in his temple with the butt of his revolver.

Only then did Green allow himself to glance at Aronson and Needle. She was tied to a chair. Her dress was torn across her chest, and he could see the white skin and the shadowy cleavage. There was a gag in her mouth, her lips were split and she had a bruise that was turning blue under her eye. The private lecturer seemed to be in a very bad way. He was sitting at the table with his head lowered on to his arms, swaying rhythmically, howling quietly and insistently.

'One moment,' said Green, and ran back into the corridor. The stunned agents might come round at any moment.

First he finished off the one who was lying motionless on his back. Then he turned to the other, who was slumped against the wall, batting his eyelids senselessly. A swing of the arm, a crunch of bone. It was done.

He ran back to the room and pulled back the curtain to signal to Bullfinch and let in more light.

He didn't touch Aronson - it was obvious he wouldn't get any sense out of him.

He untied Needle and took the gag out of her mouth; carefully dabbed her bleeding lips with his handkerchief.

'Forgive me.' That was the first thing she said. 'Forgive me. I almost got you killed. I always thought I'd never let myself be taken alive, but when they grabbed my elbows and dragged me in here, I simply froze. And I could have done it, when they put me in the chair. I could have pulled out the needle and stuck it in my throat. I've imagined how it would be a thousand times. But I didn't...' She suddenly started sobbing and a tear rolled down across her bruised cheekbone.

'It doesn't matter,' Green reassured her. 'Even if you had done it, I'd still have come anyway. So it's all right.'

His explanation failed to console Needle; on the contrary, it only upset her more. Tears started streaming from both her eyes.

'Would you really have come?' she said, asking a question that made no sense.

Green didn't even bother to answer it. 'What is all this?' he asked. 'What's wrong with Aronson?'

Needle tried to pull herself together. 'That's the head of Khrapov's guard. I didn't realise at first; I thought he was from the Okhranka. But they don't act like this. He's some kind of madman. They've been here since yesterday evening. They were talking; I heard them. The white-haired one wanted to find you. He's scoured the whole of Moscow.' Her voice was firmer now; her eyes were still wet, but the tears had stopped flowing. Aronson's apartment was under secret surveillance by the Okhranka for days. Obviously since the business with Rahmet. And he' - she nodded again towards the dead staff captain -'bribed the police agent who was in charge of the observation.'

'Seidlitz,' Green explained. 'His name's Seidlitz.'

'The police agent?' Needle asked, astonished. 'How do you know?'

'No, that one,' he said with a sharp nod, annoyed with himself at having wasted time on an irrelevant detail. 'Go on.'

'Yesterday the agent told Seidlitz that I'd been here to see Aronson and left with some kind of bundle. An agent tried to follow me, but he failed. I didn't see the tail, but just in case I turned into a tricky little passage on Prechistenka Street. A habit.'

Green nodded, because he had the same kind of habits himself.

'When the agent told Seidlitz, he suddenly turned up here with two of his men and they tortured Aronson all night long.

He held out until the morning, and then broke down. I don't know what they did to him, but you can see for yourself... He just sits there like that. Rocking to and fro, howling

Bullfinch came running in from the corridor. White-faced and wide-eyed. 'The door's open!' he shouted. 'There are bodies!' Then he saw what was in the drawing room, and fell silent.

'Close the door,' said Green. 'Drag those two in here.'

He turned back to Needle. 'What did they want?'

'From me? They wanted me to say where you were. Seidlitz only asked questions and swore; it was that one, with his sleeves rolled up, who beat me.' (Bullfinch, deadly pale, was just dragging the agent in the white shirt across the parquet floor.) 'Seidlitz asked and I didn't answer; then that one beat me and held my mouth shut, so that I couldn't scream.' She put her hand to her cheekbone and frowned.

'Don't touch,' said Green. 'I'll do it. But him first.'

He went across to the deranged private lecturer and touched him on the shoulder.

Aronson straightened up with a sickening howl and shrank back against the armrest of his chair. The swollen, unrecognisable face gazed at Green with a single, wildly goggling eye. There was a gaping crimson hole where the other eye should have been.

'A-a-a,' Aronson sobbed. 'It's you. Then you have to kill me. Because I'm a traitor. And because I can't go on living any more anyway.' The private lecturer's words were hard to understand, because his mouth was full of short, pointed stumps instead of teeth.

'At first they just beat me. Then they hung me upside down. Then they drowned me. It all happened in the bathroom, there ...' He pointed towards the corridor with a trembling finger.

Green saw that Aronson's shirt was streaked with dried blood. There were spots on his fingers too, even on his trousers.

'They're totally insane. They don't understand what they're doing. I could have stood anything - prison and hard labour, honestly.' The private lecturer grabbed hold of Green's hand.

'But I can't go on without my eyes! I've always been afraid of going blind, ever since I was a child! You can't even imagine ...' He started shaking all over, swaying and whimpering again. Green had to shake him by the shoulders.

The private lecturer came to his senses and started lisping again: 'The albino said - it was morning, and I'd thought the night would never end - he said: "Where's Needle? I'm only going to ask you again twice. After the first time, I'll burn out your left eye with acid, and after the second time, I'll burn out your right eye. The same as your people did to Shverubovich." I didn't say anything. Then ...' A dull sob erupted from deep in Aronson's chest. 'And then he asked the second time and I told him everything. I couldn't stand any more! When she telephoned, I could have warned her, but I didn't care any longer

He grabbed hold of Green with his other hand as well and implored him in a frantic whisper: 'What you have to do is shoot me. I know that's nothing for you. I'm finished now in any case. A broken man, with only one eye, and after this' - he jerked his chin towards the dead bodies - 'I'm a dead man. They'll never forgive, and your people won't either.'

Green freed his hands and said severely: 'If you want to shoot yourself, go ahead. Take Seidlitz's revolver over there. But it's stupid. And there's nothing to forgive. Everyone has his limits. And you can be useful to the cause even with one eye. Even with no eyes at all.'

'I probably wouldn't have held out either,' said Needle. 'It's just that they hadn't really tortured me yet.'

'You'd have held out.' Green turned away from both of them to give Bullfinch his instructions. 'Take him to the hospital. He's a chemist. An explosion in his private laboratory. Then leave immediately.'

'What about this?' Bullfinch pointed to the bodies.

'I'll handle it.'

When the two of them were left on their own, he started tending her face.

He brought a bottle of alcohol and some cotton wool from the bathroom (it was bad in there - blood everywhere and pools of vomit). He washed the grazes and gently brushed ointment on the bruise.

Needle sat there with her head thrown back and her eyes closed. When Green gently parted her lips with his fingers, she submissively opened her mouth. He carefully touched her teeth, so white and even. One right incisor wobbled, but not much. It would set back in.

Green had to unfasten her torn dress even further. He saw a blue spot below her collarbone and pressed gently on the fine, tender skin over the bone. Not broken.

Needle suddenly opened her eyes. As she looked up at him her gaze was confused, even frightened. Green felt his throat tighten, and he forgot to remove his hand from her exposed breast.

'You're scratched,' Needle said in a quiet voice.

He involuntarily put his hand over his scratched cheek, a reminder of the stupid failure at the baths.

And I'm all battered and beaten. I look horrible, don't I?' I'm plain enough anyway. Why are you looking at me like that?'

Green blinked guiltily, but he didn't look away. She didn't look plain to him at all now, although the blue patch on her cheekbone was growing more distinct by the moment. He couldn't believe he had thought this face was lifeless and withered. It was full of life and feeling, and he had been wrong about Needle's colour: it wasn't a cold grey; it was warm, with a hint of turquoise. Her eyes turned out to be turquoise too, and they had the frightening ability to look deep into Green's soul and draw the long-forgotten, irrevocably faded azure back up to the surface.

The fingers that were still pressed against her skin suddenly felt hot. Green tried to pull them away, but he couldn't. And then Needle put her hand over his. The contact made both of them tremble.

'It's impossible ... I swore to myself... It's absolutely pointless ... It will pass in a moment, just a moment ...' she murmured incoherently.

'Yes, it's pointless. Absolutely,’ he agreed fervently.

He leaned down impulsively, pressed his lips against her swollen ones, and felt the taste of blood on his tongue ...

Before they left, Green paused in the doorway so that he would never forget the strange place where this thing he was afraid to name had happened.

An overturned armchair. The rolled-up edge of a carpet. Three bloody bodies. A harsh smell of kerosene and a very faint odour of gunpowder.

Needle said something unexpected. Something that made Green shudder.

'If there's a child ... what will it be like after this?'

Green lit the match and threw it on the floor. The dancing flame traced a bright blue trail across the drawing room.

Night. Quiet.

Apart from Emelya, rustling the pages of his book in the study, everyone was sleeping.

In the bedroom Green sat beside the bed, looking at Needle. She was breathing regularly, occasionally smiling at something in her sleep. He couldn't leave her - she was holding on tight to his hand.

He sat there like that for an hour and ten minutes. Four thousand, two hundred and seventeen beats of his heart.

After what had happened, Needle couldn't be allowed to go home, and so Green had brought her to the secret apartment. She hadn't said a word all evening, hadn't joined in the conversations, just smiled a gentle smile he had never seen before. Before that day he had never seen her smile at all.

Then they had started getting ready for bed. The lads had settled down on the floor in the drawing room, giving up the bedroom to the woman. Green had said he was going to finish preparing the explosive mixture.

He went in to see Needle. She took hold of his hand and lay there, looking at him, for a long time. They didn't say anything.

When she did speak it was brief, something unexpected again: 'We're like a pair of giraffes.' And she laughed quietly.

'Why giraffes?' he asked, frowning because he didn't understand.

'When I was little I saw a picture in a book: two giraffes; gangling and clumsy; standing there with their necks twined together, the ungainly creatures, looking as if they didn't know what to do next.'

Needle closed her eyes and fell asleep, and Green thought about what she had said. When her fingers finally trembled and released their grip, he cautiously got to his feet and walked out of the bedroom. He really did have to finish making the explosive jelly.

As he stepped out into the corridor, he happened to glance in the direction of the hallway and froze on the spot.

Another white rectangle. Lying below the slit in the door. A letter:

You botched it. You let them both get away. But you have a chance to redeem your error. Pozharsky and Fandorin are having another secret meeting tomorrow. In Briusov Square, at nine in the morning.

TG

Green caught himself smiling. Even more astonishing was the thought that had just come to him.

God did exist after all. His name was TG, he was an ally of the revolution and he had a Remington No. 5 typewriter.

Wasn't that what they called a 'joke'?

Something was changing, in him and in the world around him. For the better or for the worse - he couldn't tell.