Special Assignments

by Boris Akunin

  Today, though, it was Wednesday.

  Anisii read the announcement in the reception room: 'Consultation with the professor - ten roubles. Appointment with the doctor - five roubles. Appointment with the female doctor Roganova - three roubles.'

  A bit on the expensive side,' Tulipov complained to the attendant. 'My sister's retarded. Won't they take a retarded patient cheaper?'

  At first the attendant replied sternly: 'It's not allowed. Come back on Monday or Tuesday'

  But then he looked at Sonya, standing there with her mouth open, and his heart softened.

  'You could go to the obstetrical department, to Lizaveta Nesvitskaya. She's as good as a doctor, even though she's only called a midwife. She charges less, or nothing at all, if she takes pity on someone.'

  This was excellent. Nesvitskaya was at work.

  They walked out of the waiting room and turned into a small garden. As they were approaching the yellow, two-storey building of the obstetrical department, something dramatic happened. A window on the first floor slammed open and there was a loud tinkling of glass. Anisii saw a young woman climb up into the window, wearing just her nightdress, with her long black hair tangled across her shoulders.

  'Go away you torturers,' the woman howled. 'I hate you. You're trying to kill me!'

  She looked down - the storeys in the building were tall and it was a long way to the ground - then she pressed her back against the stone wall and began edging along the parapet in small steps, away from the window. Sonya froze, watching with her mouth hanging open slackly. She'd never seen a wonder like this before.

  Immediately several heads appeared at the window and began trying to persuade the black-haired woman not to play the fool and come back.

  But it was clear that the woman was distressed. She was swaying, and the parapet was narrow. She was about to fall or jump. The snow below had melted, the earth was bare and covered with stones with some kind of iron rods sticking up out of it. It would be certain death or severe injury.

  Tulipov looked to the left and the right. People were gaping, but the expression on all their faces was confusion. What should he do?

  'Bring a tarpaulin, or at least a blanket!' he shouted to an orderly who had come out for a smoke and frozen at the sight, with his small cigar clutched in his teeth. He started and went darting off, but he was unlikely to be in time.

  A tall woman pushed her way through the people clustered at the window and climbed determinedly out on to the window sill - a white coat, steel pince-nez, hair pulled into a tight knot at the back of her head.

  'Ermolaeva, don't be so stupid!' she shouted in a commanding voice. 'Your son's crying; he wants his milk!' And then she set off boldly along the parapet.

  'It's not my son!' the dark-haired woman squealed. 'It's a foundling! Don't come near me, I'm afraid of you!'

  The woman in the white coat took another step and reached out her hand, but Ermolaeva turned away and jumped with a howl.

  The spectators gasped - at the very last instant the doctor had managed to grab the crazed woman just below the collar. The night-shirt tore, but it held. The dangling woman's legs were shamefully exposed, and Anisii began blinking rapidly, but immediately felt ashamed of himself - there was no time for that sort of thing now. The doctor grabbed hold of a drainpipe with one hand and held Ermolaeva with the other. Now she'd have to let the other woman go, or come tumbling down with her.

  Anisii tore his greatcoat off his shoulders and waved to two men standing nearby. They stretched the coat out as far as it would go, and stood under the dangling woman.

  'I can't hold on any longer! My fingers are slipping!' the iron doctor shouted, and at that very moment the black-haired woman fell.

  The blow knocked them all down into a heap. Tulipov jumped up and shook his jarred wrists. The woman lay there with her eyes closed, but seemingly alive, and there was no sign of any blood. One of Anisii's helpers, who looked like a shop assistant, sat on the ground and whimpered, clutching his shoulder. Anisii's greatcoat was a sorry sight - it had lost both sleeves and the collar had split - a new greatcoat, he only had it made last autumn: forty-five roubles.

  The woman doctor was already there - she must have moved really fast. She squatted down over the unconscious woman, felt her pulse, rubbed her hands and feet: 'Alive and unhurt.'

  To Anisii she said: 'Well done for thinking of using your coat.'

  'What's wrong with her?'

  'Puerperal fever. Temporary insanity. Rare, but it happens. What's wrong with you?' she said, turning to the shop assistant. 'Put your shoulder out? Come here.' She took hold of him with her strong hands and gave a sudden jerk - the shop assistant gave a loud gasp.

  A female medical assistant ran up, caught her breath and asked: 'Lizaveta Andreevna, what shall we do with Ermolaeva?'

  'Put her in the isolation ward - under three blankets; give her an injection of morphine. Let her sleep for while. And be careful not to take your eyes off her.' She turned to go.

  'I was actually coming to see you, Miss Nesvitskaya,' Anisii said, thinking: The Chief was right not to exclude women from suspicion. A mare like this could easily choke you with her bare hands, never mind slicing you up with a scalpel.

  'Who are you? What's your business?' The glance through the pince-nez was stern, not feminine at all.

  'Tulipov, Provincial Secretary. Look, I've brought an imbecile for a consultation on women's matters. She seems to suffer a lot with her periods. Will you agree to take a look at her?'

  Nesvitskaya looked at Sonya and asked briskly: An imbecile? Does she have a sex life? Are you cohabiting with her?'

  'Of course not!' Anisii exclaimed in horror. 'She's my sister. She was born like this.'

  'Can you pay? From those who can afford it I take two roubles for an examination.'

  'I'll pay, with the greatest of pleasure,' Tulipov hastened to reassure her.

  'If paying gives you that much pleasure, then why come to me and not to the doctor or the professor? All right, let's go to my surgery'

  She set off with rapid, broad strides. Anisii grabbed hold of Sonya's hand and followed her. He worked out his line of behaviour as he went.

  There was no doubt about her type: a classic 'lioness'. The recommended approach was to act embarrassed and to mumble. That made lionesses soften.

  The midwife's surgery was small and neat, with nothing superfluous: a gynaecological chair, a table and a chair. There were two brochures on the table: 'Problems of hygiene and women's clothing', written by A. N. Sobolev, docent of obstretics and women's ailments, and 'Proceedings of the Society for the Propagation of Practical Knowledge Among Educated Women'.

  There was an advertisement hanging on the wall:

  LADIES' HYGIENIC PADS

  Manufactured from sublimated timber fibre

  A very comfortable fastening, with the use of a belt, to be worn by ladies during difficult periods. The price of a dozen pads is one rouble. The price of the belt is from 40 kop. to 1 r. 50 kop.

  Egorov's House, Pokrovka Street

  Anisii sighed and began to mumble: 'You see, the reason I decided to come to you, Miss Nesvitskaya is... well, you see, I've heard that actually you have the highest possible qualifications, although you hold a position that doesn't correspond at all to the learning possessed by such a worthy individual... Of course, not that I have anything at all against the title of midwife ... I didn't mean to belittle or, God forbid, express any doubts, on the contrary in fact...'

  He thought he'd done really well, and even managed to blush a little, but Nesvitskaya's response astonished him: she took Anisii firmly by the shoulders and turned his face to the light

  'Well now, well now, I know that look around the eyes. Would you be a police spy, then? You've started working with a bit of imagination now, even picked up an imbecile from somewhere. What else do you want from me? Why can't you just leave me in peace? If you're thinking of making something of my illegal practice, then the director kn
ows all about it.' She pushed him away in disgust.

  Tulipov rubbed his shoulders - she had a fierce grip. Sonya pressed herself against her brother in fright and began to whine; Anisii stroked her hair.

  'Don't you be frightened. The lady's only joking, playing games. She's kind, she's a doctor... Elizaveta Andreevna, you're mistaken about me. I work in the chancellery of His Excellency the Governor-General. In a very modest position, of course, the lowest of the low, so to speak. Tulipov, Provincial Secretary. I have my identification with me, if you'd like me to show you it. Or is there no need?' He spread his arms timidly and smiled shyly.

  Excellent! Nesvitskaya felt ashamed, and that was the very way to get a lioness to talk.

  Tm sorry, I see them everywhere ... You must understand ...' She picked up a papyrosa from the table with a trembling hand and lit it, but not straight away, only with the third match. So much for the iron doctor.

  'I'm sorry I suspected you. My nerves are all shot. And then this Ermolaeva ... Ah, yes, you saved Ermolaeva, I forgot... I must explain myself. I don't know why, but I'd like you to understand

  'The reason you want to explain yourself to me, madame,' Anisii answered in his thoughts, 'is because you're a lioness, and I'm acting like a hare. Lionesses get on best of all with timid, defenceless little hares. Psychology, Lizaveta Andreevna.'

  But together with his satisfaction, Tulipov also experienced a certain moral discomfort - he was no police spy, but he was still doing detective work and using his invalid sister as a cover. The doctor had been right.

  She smoked the papyrosa quickly, in a few puffs, and lit another one.

  Anisii waited, fluttering his eyelids pitifully.

  'Smoke?' Nesvitskaya pushed the box of papyrosas towards him.

  Tulipov generally didn't smoke, but lionesses like it when they can order people about, so he took one, inhaled the smoke and started to cough violently.

  'Yes, they're a bit strong,' the doctor said with a nod. 'It's a habit. The tobacco's strong in the North, and in the summer there you can't get by without tobacco - all those mosquitoes and midges.'

  'So you're from the North?' Anisii asked naively, clumsily shaking the ash off his papyrosa.

  'No, I was born and brought up in St Petersburg. Until the age of seventeen I was my mother's little darling. But when I was seventeen, men in blue uniforms came for me in droshkies. They took me away from my mother and put me in a prison cell.'

  Nesvitskaya spoke in short, abrupt phrases. Her hands weren't trembling any more; her voice had become harsh and her eyes had narrowed in anger - but it wasn't Tulipov she was angry with, that was clear.

  Sonya sat down on a chair, slumped against the wall and began sniffing loudly - she was exhausted from all these new impressions.

  'What did they arrest you for?' the hare asked in a whisper.

  'For knowing a student who had once been in a house where revolutionaries sometimes used to meet,' Nesvitskaya said with a bitter laugh. 'There had just been another attempt on the life of the Tsar, and so they hauled in absolutely everybody. While they were getting to the bottom of things, I spent two years in solitary confinement. At the age of seventeen. I don't know how I managed not to go insane. Perhaps I did ... Then they let me out. But to make sure I didn't strike up any inappropriate acquaintances, they sent me into administrative exile - to the village of Zamorenka in the Arkhangelsk province. Under official surveillance. So I have special feelings about blue uniforms.'

  And where did you study medicine?' Anisii asked, with a sympathetic shake of his head.

  'At first in Zamorenka, in the local hospital. I had to have something to live on, so I took a job as a nurse. And I realised that medicine was the thing for me. It's probably the only thing that makes any sense at all ... Later I ended up in Scotland and studied in the medical faculty, the first woman in the surgical department - they don't let women get ahead too easily there, either. I made a good surgeon. I have a strong hand; from the very beginning I was never afraid of the sight of blood, and I'm not disgusted by the sight of people's internal organs. They're even quite beautiful in their own sort of way'

  Anisii was on the edge of his seat. And you can operate?'

  She smiled condescendingly: 'I can perform an amputation, and an abdominal operation, and remove a tumour. And instead of that, for all these months ...' She gestured angrily.

  What 'instead of that'? Disembowelling streetwalkers in woodsheds?

  Possible motives?

  Tulipov slyly examined Nesvitskaya's unattractive, even rather coarse face. A morbid hatred of the female body? Very possible. Reasons? Her own physical unattractiveness and uncertain personal situation, being forced to carry out a midwife's duties, work that she did not like, the daily contemplation of patients whose lives as women had worked out happily. It could be almost anything, even including concealed latent insanity as a result of the injustice she had suffered and solitary confinement at a tender age.

  All right, let's take a look at your sister. I've been talking too long. It's not even like me.'

  Nesvitskaya removed her pince-nez and wearily rubbed the bridge of her nose with her strong fingers, then for some reason massaged the lobe of her ear; and Anisii's thoughts naturally turned to the sinister ear in the box.

  How was the Chief getting on? Had he managed to figure out who had sent the 'smopackadj'?

  Again it is evening, the blessed darkness concealing me beneath its dusky wing. I am walking along a railway embankment. A strange excitement constricts my chest.

  It is surprising how it throws one off balance to see acquaintances from a former life. They have changed, some are even unrecognisable, and as for me, it need hardly be said.

  I am troubled by memories. Stupid, unnecessary memories. Everything is different now.

  Standing at the crossing, outside the barrier, there is a young girl begging. Twelve or thirteen years old. She is shuddering from the cold, her hands are covered in red goose bumps, her feet are wrapped in some kind of rags. Her face is horrible, simply horrible: suppurating eyes, cracked lips, a runny nose. A miserable, ugly child of humanity.

  How can I not pity such a creature? This ugly face can also be made beautiful. And there is really nothing I have to do. It is enough simply to reveal the true Beauty of its gaze.

  I follow the girl. The memories are no longer troubling me.

  CHAPTER 5

  Fellow Students

  Holy Week Wednesday, 5 April, afternoon and evening

  After despatching his assistant on his errand, Erast Petrovich prepared himself for some intense thinking. The task appeared to be far from simple. Irrational enlightenment would be very welcome here, and so the right place to begin was with meditation.

  The Collegiate Counsellor closed the door of his study, sat down on the carpet with his legs crossed and tried to rid himself of all thoughts of any kind - still his vision, shut off his hearing; sway on the waves of the Great Void from which, as on so many previous occasions, there would come the sound, at first barely audible, and then ever more distinct, and finally almost deafening, of the truth.

  Time passed. Then it stopped passing. A cool calm began rising unhurriedly within him, from his belly upwards; the golden mist in front of his eyes grew thicker, but then the huge clock standing in the corner of the room churred and chimed deafeningly: bom-bom-bom-bom-bom!

  Fandorin came to himself. Five o'clock already? He checked the time on his Breguet, because the grandfather clock could not be trusted - and he was right: it was twenty minutes fast.

  Immersing himself in a meditative state for a second time proved harder. Erast Petrovich recalled that at five o'clock that afternoon he was due to take part in a competition of the Moscow Bicycle Enthusiasts' Club, to support the poor widows and orphans of employees of the military department. Moscow's strongest sportsmen and the bicycle teams of the Grenadier Corps were competing. The Collegiate Counsellor had a good chance of repeating his success of the previous y
ear and taking the main prize.

  Alas, there was no time now for sports competitions.

  Erast Petrovich drove away the inappropriate thoughts and began staring at the pale-lilac pattern of the wallpaper. Now the mist would thicken again, the petals of the printed irises would tremble, the flowers would begin breathing out their fragrance and satori would come.

  Something was hindering him. The mist seemed to be carried away by a wind blowing from somewhere on his left. The severed ear was lying there, in the lacquered box on the table. Lying there, refusing to be forgotten.

  Ever since his childhood, Erast Petrovich had been unable to bear the sight of tormented human flesh. He had lived long enough, seen all sorts of horrific things, taken part in wars and yet, strangely enough, he had still not learned to regard with indifference the things that human beings did to their own kind.

  Realising that the irises on the wallpaper would not breathe out any scent today, Fandorin heaved a deep sigh. Since he had failed to arouse his intuition, he would have to rely on his reason. He sat down at the table and picked up his magnifying glass.

  He began with the wrapping paper. It was just ordinary paper, the kind used to wrap all sorts of thing. Nothing to go on there.

  Now for the handwriting. The writing was uneven and the letters were large with careless endings to their lines. If you looked closely, there were tiny splashes of ink - the hand had been pressed too hard against the paper. The writer was most probably a man in the prime of life. Possibly unbalanced or intoxicated. But he could not exclude the possibility of a woman with strong emotional and hysterical tendencies. In that regard he had to take into account the flourishes on the O’s and the coquettish hooks on the capital F’s.