by Boris Akunin
‘And who is the Eternal Bride?’
His reply was a single short word, at the sound of which Columbine’s mouth immediately went dry.
‘Death.’
‘But . . . but why is death a bride? After all, some of the aspirants are women – Lorelei Rubinstein, for instance. Why should she want a bride?’
‘We just say that because in Russian “death” is a feminine noun. It goes without saying that for women Death is the Eternal Bridegroom. In general everything about the club is highly poetic. For the male aspirants Death is like La Belle Dame sans Merci, or the Beautiful Lady to whom we dedicate our poems and, if necessary our very lives. For the female aspirants Death is a Handsome Prince or an Enchanted Tsarevich, it’s a matter of taste.’
Columbine wrinkled up her brow in concentration.
‘And how is the rite of marriage performed?’
At that Petya glanced at her as if he were gazing at some wild savage with a bone through her nose. He narrowed his eyes incredulously.
‘You mean to say you’ve never heard of the “Lovers of Death”? Why, all the newspapers write about it!’
‘I don’t read the newspapers,’ she declared haughtily, ‘It’s too ordinary.’
‘Good Lord! So you don’t know anything about the Moscow suicides?’
Columbine shook her head cautiously.
‘Four of our people have already become wedded to Death,’ said Petya, moving closer, with his eyes gleaming. ‘And a replacement was found for each of them straight away! And I should think so – the whole city’s talking about us! Only no one knows where we are and who we are! If you came to Moscow to “write a full stop”, then you really have been incredibly lucky. You’ve drawn the lucky ticket, so to speak. Gone straight to the person who can really help you. We have a chance to leave this life without any vulgar provincialism, not to die like a sheep in slaughterhouse, but poetically, meaningfully, beautifully! Perhaps we might even depart together, like Moretta and Lycanthrope.’ His voice rang with inspiration. ‘It’s Moretta’s place that I want to propose you for!’
‘But who is this Moretta?’ Columbine exclaimed rapturously, affected by his agitation, but still not understanding a thing.
She was aware of this shortcoming in herself – a certain slowness of wit. No, she did not think of herself as stupid (she was cleverer than many, thank God), it was just that her mind worked rather slowly – sometimes even she found it irritating.
‘Moretta and Lycanthrope are the latest Chosen Ones,’ Petya explained in a whisper. ‘They received a Sign and shot themselves straight away, eleven days ago. Lycanthrope’s place is already taken. Moretta’s vacancy is the last one.’
Poor Columbine’s head was spinning. She grabbed hold of Petya’s arm.
‘Sign? What sign?’
‘Death gives his Chosen One a Sign. You must not kill yourself without the Sign – it’s strictly forbidden.’
‘But what is this Sign? What is it like?’
‘It’s different every time. There’s no way to guess in advance, but it’s quite impossible to mistake it . . .’
Petya looked keenly at his pale-faced companion. He frowned.
‘Are you frightened? You should be, we’re not playing games. Look, it’s still not too late to go. Only remember the oath that you swore.’
She really was frightened. Not of death, of course, only that now he might change his mind and not take her with him. Appropriately enough, she recalled the signboard for the Möbius insurance company.
‘I’m not afraid of anything with you,’ Columbine said, and Petya beamed.
Taking advantage of the fact that she herself had taken him by the arm, he started stroking her palm with his finger, and Columbine was overwhelmed by the infallible presentiment that it would definitely happen today. She responded to his grip. And they rode on like that through the squares, streets and boulevards. After a while their hands started sweating and Columbine, who regarded this natural phenomenon as vulgar, freed her fingers. However, Petya had grown bolder now and he triumphantly placed his hand on her shoulder and stroked her neck.
‘A snakeskin collar?’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Very bon ton.’
He suddenly gave a quiet cry.
Columbine turned her head and saw Petya’s pupils rapidly expanding.
‘There . . . there . . .’ he whispered, unable to move a muscle. ‘What is it?’
‘An Egyptian cobra,’ she explained. ‘Live. You know, Cleopatra killed herself with one like that.’
He shuddered and pressed himself back against the window, clasping his hands against his chest.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Columbine. ‘Lucifer doesn’t bite my friends.’
Petya nodded, with his eyes fixed on the moving black collar, but he didn’t come close again.
They got off on a green street running up a steep incline, which Petya said was Rozhdestvensky Boulevard. Then they turned into a side street.
It was after nine and dark already, the streetlamps had been lit.
‘There, that’s Prospero’s house,’ Petya said in a quiet voice, pointing to a single-storey detached building.
All that Columbine could really make out in the darkness were six curtained windows filled with a mysterious reddish glow.
‘What have you stopped for?’ asked Petya, trying to hurry his companion along. ‘Everyone’s supposed to arrive exactly at nine, we’re late.’
But at that precise moment Columbine was overcome by an irresistible urge to run back on to the boulevard, and then down to the broad, dimly lit square, and on, and on. Not to that cramped little flat in Kitaigorod, to hell with it, but straight to the station and straight on to a train. The wheels would start to hammer, reeling the stretched thread of the rails back up into a ball, and everything would just be like it was before . . .
‘You were the one who stopped,’ Columbine said angrily. ‘Come on, take me to these “lovers” of yours.’
Columbine hears the voices of the spirits
Petya opened the street door without knocking and explained: ‘Prospero doesn’t hold with having servants. He does everything himself – it’s a habit from his time in exile.’
It was completely dark in the hallway, and Columbine couldn’t make anything out properly, apart from a corridor that led on into the house and a white door. The spacious salon located behind the door proved to be not much brighter. There were no lamps lit, only a few candles on the table and, a little to one side, a cast-iron brazier with coals glowing scarlet. Crooked shadows writhed on the walls, the gilded spines of books gleamed on shelves, and the pendants of an unlit chandelier twinkled up under the ceiling.
It was only after Columbine’s eyes had adjusted a little to the dim lighting that she realised there were quite a few people in the room – probably about ten, or even more.
The aspirants did not seem to regard Petya as a very significant individual. Some nodded in response to his timid greeting, but others simply carried on talking to each other. Columbine found this cool reception offensive, and she decided to maintain an independent line. She walked up to the table, lit a papirosa from a candle and, projecting a loud voice right across the room, asked her companion: ‘Well, which one here is Prospero?’
Petya pulled his head down into his shoulders. It went very quiet. But, noticing that the glances directed at her were curious, Columbine immediately stopped being afraid. She set one hand on her hip, just like in the advertisement for Carmen papiroses, and blew a stream of blue smoke up into the air.
‘Oh come now, lovely stranger,’ said a pasty-looking gentleman in a shantung cotton morning coat, with his hair combed across a bald spot in true virtuoso fashion. ‘The Doge will arrive later, when everything’s ready.’
He walked closer, stopped two paces away from her and began unceremoniously examining Columbine from top to bottom. She replied by looking at him in precisely the same way.
‘This is Columbine, I’ve brought h
er as a candidate,’ Petya bleated guiltily, for which he was immediately punished.
‘Cherubino,’ the new candidate said in a sweet voice. ‘Surely your mama must have taught you that you should introduce the man to the lady, and not the other way round?’
The man in the morning coat immediately pressed his hand to his chest, bowed and introduced himself: ‘I am Kriton. You have a quite insane face, Mademoiselle Columbine. It possesses a ravishing amalgam of innocence and depravity.’
The tone of his voice indicated that this was a compliment, but Columbine felt offended by the ‘innocence’.
‘Kriton – that’s something chemical, isn’t it?’ It was an attempt to mock, to show this shabby, well-worn individual that he was not dealing with some kind of ingénue, but a mature, self-confident woman. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, it was even worse than that time in the literature exam when she called Goethe Johann-Sebastian instead of Johann-Wolfgang.
‘It is from “Egyptian Nights”, the man in shantung cotton replied with a condescending smile. ‘Do you remember this?’
Tra-ta-ta-ta, the sapient youth,
Who life’s sweet blandishments embraces,
Kriton, the bard of pleasure’s truth,
Singer of Cupid and the Graces.
No, Columbine didn’t remember that at all. She couldn’t even remember who the Graces were.
‘Do you like to make wild, abandoned love in the night, on the roof, to the hurricane’s roar, with the teeming rain lashing your naked body?’ Kriton enquired without lowering his voice, ‘I truly love it.’
The poor Irkutsk girl was unable to find an answer to that. She looked round at Petya, but the rotten traitor moved away with a preoccupied air, striking up a conversation with a poorly dressed young man of very unattractive appearance: bright, bulging eyes, a wide, mobile mouth and blackheads scattered across his face.
‘You must have a fine taut body,’ Kriton surmised. ‘Whiplash-lean, like a young predator. I can just see you in the pose of a panther prepared to pounce.’
What should she do? How should she answer?
According to the Irkutsk code of conduct, she ought to slap the impudent fellow across the face, but here, in this club of the elect, that was unthinkable – they would think her a hypocrite or, even worse, a prim and proper provincial. And what was so insulting anyway, Columbine thought to herself. After all, this man said what he thought, and that was more honest than striking up a conversation about music or the various ills of society with a woman who had taken your fancy. Kriton looked absolutely nothing like a ‘young sage’, but even so the audacious things he said made Columbine quite feverish – no one had ever spoken to her like that before. However, on looking more closely at the outspoken gentleman, she decided that he probably did bear a certain resemblance to the god Pan.
‘I wish to teach you the terrible art of love, young Columbine,’ the goat-hoofed seducer cooed and squeezed her hand – the same one that Petya had recently squeezed. Columbine stood there woodenly and submissively allowed him to knead her fingers. A long stub of ash fell from her papirosa on to the carpet.
But just then a rapid whispering ran across the salon, and everybody turned towards a tall leather-upholstered double door.
It went absolutely quiet and she heard measured footsteps approaching. Then the door swung open without a sound and a figure – improbably broad, almost square – appeared on the threshold. But the next moment the man stepped into the room, and it was clear that his build was absolutely normal, he was simply wearing a wide gown like those worn by European university professors or doctors of philosophy.
No greetings were pronounced, but it seemed to Columbine that the moment those leather doors opened soundlessly, everything around her changed in some elusive manner: the shadows became blacker, the fire became brighter, sounds were suddenly more subdued.
At first she thought the man who had come in was really old: he had grey hair, cut in an old-fashioned style, the same length all round. Turgenev, Columbine thought. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. He looks just like him. Exactly like the portrait in the grammar-school library.
However, when the man in the gown halted beside the brazier and the crimson glow lit up his face from below, the eyes were not those of an old man at all – they were a refulgent black, and they glowed even brighter than the coals. Columbine made out a thoroughbred aquiline nose, thick white eyebrows and fleshy cheeks. Venerable – that’s what he is, she said to herself. Like in Lermontov: ‘The venerable grey-haired sage’, Or was it really Lermontov? Well, it didn’t matter.
The venerable sage ran his gaze slowly round the assembled company and it was clear immediately that not a single detail or, perhaps, secret thought could possibly escape those eyes. The calm gaze rested on Columbine for just a moment, no longer, and she suddenly swayed and trembled all over.
Without even realising it, she pulled her hand away from the ‘teacher of terrible love’ and pressed it to her breast.
Kriton whispered in her ear in a derisive tone: ‘And this is from Pushkin.
Not only in youth’s downy cheek
And curly locks of tender brown
Will passion its true object seek.
The furrowed brow and elder’s frown
May fire beauty’s imagination
With a consuming conflagration.
‘Those “curly locks of tender brown” are yours, are they?’ the young lady snapped back, stung. ‘And anyway, who needs you and your Pushkin!’
She stomped off ostentatiously and stood beside Petya.
‘That’s Prospero,’ he told her in a low voice.
‘I guessed that without you.’
Their host cast a brief glance at the two whisperers, and immediately absolute silence fell. The Doge reached out one hand to the brazier, so that he looked like Mucius Scaevola in the fourth-class history book. He sighed and uttered a single word: ‘Dark.’
And then everybody gasped as he placed a red-hot coal on his palm. He really was Scaevola!
‘I think it will be better like this,’ Prospero said calmly, raising the lump of fire to the large crystal candelabra and lighting the twelve candles one after another.
The light revealed a round table, covered with a dark tablecloth. The darkness retreated to the corners of the room and now that she could finally examine the ‘lovers of death’ properly, Columbine began turning her head in all directions.
‘Who will read?’ their host enquired, seating himself on a chair with a high carved back.
All twelve of the other chairs set around the table were simpler and lower.
Several people immediately volunteered.
‘The Lioness of Ecstasy will begin,’ Prospero declared.
Columbine stared wide-eyed at the famous Lorelei Rubinstein, She didn’t look as she might have been imagined from her poems: not a slim, fragile lily with impulsive movements and huge black eyes, but a rather substantial lady in a shapeless robe that hung down to her heels. The Lioness looked about forty, but that was in the semi-darkness.
She cleared her throat and said in a rumbling voice: ‘ “The Black Rose”. Written last night.’
Her plump cheeks quivered with emotion, her eyes darted upwards, towards the rainbow sparkling of the chandelier, her eyebrows knitted together dolefully.
Columbine gave Lucifer a gentle slap to stop him distracting her by slithering round her neck, and she became all ears.
The celebrated poetess declaimed wonderfully, intoning with real passion.
When will Night come, rapturous and enticing,
When will he make his entrance through my door,
Entering swiftly, without knocking,
This darling Guest that I am waiting for?
How luminous, in jail or roaming free,
The flame with which my chosen lover glows
But in the sacred darkness here with me
His eye will not descry the lone black rose.
And then the
sonorous Word shall be proclaimed
Sundering the dense silence like a pall.
Let it be so: what is not fated
Will then be gone once and for all.
Just think of it, she had heard a new poem by Lorelei Rubinstein, one she had only just written! She and these few chosen ones were the first!
Columbine began applauding loudly, but immediately broke off, realising that she had committed a faux pas. Applause was apparently not the done thing here. Everybody – including Prospero – looked at the enraptured young woman without saying a word. She froze with her hands parted and blushed. She had muffed it again!
The Doge cleared his throat and said to Lorelei in a quiet voice: ‘Your usual shortcoming: elegant, but unintelligible. But that black rose is interesting. What does the black rose mean to you? No, don’t tell me. I’ll guess for myself.’
He closed his eyes and lowered his head on to his chest. Everybody waited with bated breath, and the poetess’s cheeks flushed bright crimson.
‘Does the Doge write poems?’ Columbine asked Petya quietly.
He put a finger to his lips, but she knitted her brows angrily and he whispered back almost silently: ‘Yes, and they are works of genius, for certain. No one understands poetry better than he does.’
She found this reply strange.
‘ “For certain”?’
‘He doesn’t show his poems to anyone. He says that they’re not written for people to read and he will destroy everything he has written before his departure.’
‘What a shame!’ she exclaimed rather more loudly than was necessary.
Prospero glanced at his new guest again, but once more he said nothing.
‘I have it,’ he said, giving Lorelei an affectionate, sad smile. ‘I understand.’
Lorelei beamed and the Doge turned to a spruce, quiet little man with a pince-nez and a Van Dyke beard.
‘Horatio, you promised to bring some poems today at last. You know there’s nothing to be done about it – the Bride accepts only poets.’