Erast Fandorin 04 - The Death of Achilles

by Boris Akunin

  “It’s just here, on Sofiiskaya Street. She sings there most evenings. The restaurant’s nothing special, doesn’t compare with ours or the Slavyansky Bazaar. It’s mostly Germans, begging your pardon, who go there. Our Russian men only go to gawk at Wanda. And engage her services, if their intentions are serious.”

  “And how are her services engaged?”

  “You have to go about it the right way,” said Timofei, amused, and he set about describing it. “First of all you have to invite her to your table. But if you just call her over, she won’t sit with you. The very first thing you do is send her a bunch of violets, and it has to be wrapped in a hundred-ruble note. The mam’selle will take a look at you from a distance. If she takes a dislike to you straightaway, she’ll send the hundred rubles back. But if she doesn’t, it means she’ll come and sit with you. But that’s only the half of it, sir. She might sit down and chat about this and that and still refuse you afterward. And she won’t give the hundred rubles back because she’s spent time on you. They say she earns more from the hundred-ruble rejects than the five-hundred-ruble fees. That’s the way this Miss Wanda’s set herself up.”

  That evening achimas sat in the Alpine Rose, sipping a decent Rhine wine and studying the songstress. The young German woman really was attractive. She looked like a bacchante. Her face wasn’t German at all — it had a bold, reckless look to it, and there was a glint of molten silver in her green eyes. Achimas knew that special tint very well as the exclusive trait of the most precious members of the female species. It was not plump lips or a finely molded little nose that caught men’s fancy, it was that silver sheen that blinded them with its deceptive glimmer and drove them out of their minds. And what a voice! As an experienced connoisseur of female beauty, Achimas knew that half the enchantment lay in the voice. When it had that chesty resonance and that slight hint of hoarseness, as if it had been seared by frost or, on the contrary, scorched by fire, it was dangerous. The best thing you could do was follow Odysseus’s lead and tie yourself to the mast, otherwise you would drown. The bold general would never be able to resist this siren, not for the world.

  However, Achimas still had a certain amount of time in hand. Today was only Tuesday and Sobolev would arrive on Thursday, so he had an opportunity to take Mademoiselle Wanda’s measure more precisely.

  During the evening she was sent a bouquet of violets twice. One, from a fat merchant in a scarlet waistcoat; Wanda returned it immediately, without even touching it. The merchant left immediately, stamping his heels and cursing.

  The second bouquet was sent by a colonel of the Guards with a scar across his cheek. The songstress raised the bouquet to her face and tucked the banknote into her lacy sleeve, but it was some time before she took a seat beside the colonel, and she didn’t stay with him for long. Achimas couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but the conversation ended with Wanda throwing her head back with a laugh, smacking the colonel across the hand with her fan, and walking away. The colonel shrugged his gold-trimmed shoulders philosophically and after a while sent another bouquet, but Wanda returned it immediately.

  And yet when a certain red-cheeked, blond-haired gentleman, whose appearance was clearly far less impressive than the officer’s, casually beckoned the proud woman to him with his finger, she took a seat at his table immediately, without making him wait. The blond man spoke to her indolently, drumming on the tablecloth with his short fingers covered in ginger hairs, and she listened without speaking or smiling, nodding twice. Surely not her pimp, Achimas thought in surprise. He didn’t look the part.

  However, when Wanda emerged from the side entrance at midnight (Achimas was keeping watch outside), it was the red-cheeked man who was waiting for her in a carriage and she drove away with him. Achimas followed them in a single- seater carriage, prudently hired in advance at the Metropole. They drove across the Kuznetsky Bridge and turned onto Petrovka Street. Outside a large building on the corner with a glowing electric sign that said ‘Anglia,’ Wanda and her companion got out of their carriage and dismissed the driver. The hour was late and the unattractive escort was clearly going to stay the night. Who was he, a lover? But Wanda didn’t look particularly happy.

  He would have to ask ‘Mr. Nemo’ about this.

  * * *

  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.”

  * * *

  SEVEN

  At the hotel there was a courier waiting for Achimas with a telegram from St. Petersburg:

  “He has taken a month’s leave and left for Moscow by train. He will arrive tomorrow at five in the afternoon and stay at the hotel Dusseaux, Theater Lane, suite 47. He is accompanied by seven officers and a valet. Your fee is in a brown briefcase. His first meeting is set for 10 a.m. on Friday with the commander of the Petersburg district Ganetsky. I remind you that this meeting is undesirable. NN.”

  From early in the morning on Thursday 24 June Achimas, wearing a striped blazer and straw boater and with his hair neatly parted and bril-liantined, was hard at work in the vestibule of the Dusseaux. He managed to establish sound business relations with the porter, the doorman, and the janitor who serviced the wing destined for the honored guest. Two important factors had greatly facilitated the establishment of these relations: the first was a correspondent’s identity card from the Moscow Gazette, thoughtfully provi
ded by Mr. Nemo, and the second was his generous greasing of palms (the porter had received a twenty- five-ruble note, the doorman a tenner, and the janitor three rubles). The three rubles proved to be the most profitable investment, for the janitor sneaked the reporter into suite 47.

  Achimas gasped and sighed at the luxurious appointments, noted which way the windows faced (out into the yard, in the direction of Rozhdestvenka Street, very good), and also took note of the safe built into the wall of the bedroom. That was helpful, too — he wouldn’t need to turn everything upside down searching for the money. The briefcase would naturally be lying in the safe, and the lock was a perfectly ordinary Van Lippen, five minutes’ fiddling at the most. In gratitude for services rendered, the correspondent of the Moscow Gazette handed the janitor another fifty kopecks, but so clumsily that the coin fell out of his hand and rolled under the divan. While the janitor was crawling around on all fours, Achimas adjusted the latch on the frame of one half of the window, positioning it so that it was just barely held in place and the window would open at the slightest push from the outside.

  At half past five Achimas was standing in the crowd of correspondents and idlers at the entrance of the hotel, waiting with a reporter’s notebook in his hand to observe the great man’s arrival. When Sobolev emerged from his carriage in his white uniform, some people in the crowd made an attempt to shout ‘hurrah,’ but the hero gave the waiting Muscovites such an angry glance and his adjutants began gesturing so frantically that the cheering petered out before it had really begun.

  Achimas’s first thought was that the White General bore a remarkable resemblance to a catfish: protruding forehead, slightly bulging eyes, drooping mustache, and flaring sideburns so broad that they reminded him of gills. But no, a catfish was lazy and good-natured, whereas the general looked around him with such a steely gaze that Achimas immediately reclassified him among the large marine predators. A hammerhead shark at the very least.

  Swimming along ahead of him was his pilot fish, a bold Cossack captain, cleaving ferociously through the crowd with broad sweeps of his white gloves. Three officers walked on either side of the general. Bringing up the rear was a valet, who walked as far as the door and then turned back to the carriage and began supervising the unloading of the luggage.