by Pavel Kornev
If he wanted, the poet could convince anyone of anything, even a fallen one.
"I may have lost my hearing, but you've lost your conscience, Albert," I declared, making myself a bit more comfortable. "You're a scoundrel. A scoundrel and a dishonest person. Do you know why I didn't come shake your hand? I'm afraid I would lose control, and end up giving you a wallop to the snout!"
And, it must be said, my declaration was only partially exaggerated. I really was very, very upset with my old friend. I was trying not to show that, though, hiding my offense behind overly sharp words.
"You're overdramatizing things as usual, Leopold," the poet reproached me, got up from the couch and pulled at the belt of his eastern-style robe.
"Is that so?" I was taken aback, taking a second pillow from under my head and tossing it at the poet. "I almost got roasted because of your loose lips!"
Albert hit back the pillow with a lazy movement and drew the curtain the rest of the way, finally plunging the apartment into complete darkness. After that, he walked up to the bar and poured himself a glass of wine.
"Gosh, I didn't foresee particular complications," he shrugged his shoulders. "And that is so, Leo! Nothing bad did happen to you, in the end, isn't that right?"
"Nothing bad, you say?" I objected, fighting back the desire to give the man a few punches to the ear. "Albert, you were asked to write poems, nothing more! Why the devil did you talk about that to a newspaperman?! After all, you knew perfectly well that the father of my beloved wouldn't let such a rumor go unpunished!"
The poet turned returned to the couch and collapsed with a glass of wine among a great many pillows.
"Your beloved, Leo? I didn't mishear?" He snorted. "Did the Illustrious Elizabeth-Maria von Nalz know about your feelings? No? Did you plan on explaining yourself at all? Or were you planning to send my poems in an anonymous letter?"
I kept silent, as that was precisely what I had been intending to do.
My silence turned out to be more eloquent than any words, and the poet waved it off, practically spilling his wine on the floor.
"Leopold! You must stop hiding your feelings. You cannot allow your easily-embarrassed nature to take over..."
"What the devil are you talking about embarrassment for?!" I exploded. "Albert, a month from now, she will be marrying the nephew of the Minister of Justice! What was left for me to do?"
"Drop it, Leo! Do you love her?"
"I do!"
"So, tell her. Fight for your love!"
"You don't understand a thing..."
Albert finished his wine and asked:
"How much time have you wasted on this? Six months?"
"That's about right." I laid back on the ottoman and stared at the ceiling again. "The chance will never present itself. And you ruined everything. You don't even know what unpleasant things you dragged me into."
"Blaming others for your own problems is a natural defensive reaction of the psyche, but if you choose that route, you'll never overcome your own weaknesses," the poet retorted without missing a beat. "Leopold, I know you well. I understand how hard it is for you to make friends. Yes, I did wrong when I decided to prod you along, but my intentions were good! You should have gathered the bravery long ago to tell her how you feel!"
"Does that mean I'm at fault for all this?"
"Who else would be?" Albert grew surprised.
"You're such a creep!" I exclaimed. "A conscienceless scumbag!"
"Tell me honestly: would you have ever gotten up the nerve to tell her how you felt if I hadn't pushed you?"
"Are you my psychiatrist?" I snapped.
"I just wanted to help!"
"Well, stop it. What we talk about is for our ears only. It's like you decided to help me treat a migraine by getting me beheaded, see? What if I inform on your lampoons of her Imperial Majesty? I'd be doing it out of concern for your predilection for alcohol, of course. At the work camp you'll have no choice but to part with that pernicious little habit!"
"I'll think about it," promised the poet, capitulating suspiciously quickly somehow. Usually, he didn't miss the chance to argue, but today, he was looking unusually scatter-brained; it seemed as if his thoughts were straying somewhere very, very far away.
Albert took a puff on the hookah's mouthpiece, fell limply onto the pillow and released a long stream of aromatic smoke toward the ceiling, adding to the cloud already hovering at the top of the room.
"It's too smoky," I complained. "Smoke outside, smoke in here..."
Atypically, my friend didn't react to my declaration in any way. He spent some time in silence lying on the couch, then suddenly raised himself up on one shoulder and asked:
"Would you care for a bit of lemon sharbat?"
"I wouldn't say 'no,'" I decided, though I did begin to suspect that there may have been some hidden purpose to his initially innocent-seeming offer.
Albert jerked on the bell cord, calling a servant, and took a puff on the hookah pipe once again. He wasn't looking in my direction, merely smiling mysteriously, clearly fostering some kind of rotten scheme in his mind.
A few minutes later, the door creaked, and I turned around and shuddered at the sight of shadows creeping into the room. But I wasn't able to pop my glasses down from my nose before the fleshless figure stepped out of the electric light at its back and revealed a short, well-built girl, black-haired and sweet looking.
"Sir," she bowed over the ottoman and extended me a small wooden tray with a crystal pitcher and a high glass.
"Thank you," I called back after a second of hesitation, accepting the refreshment.
The girl, leaving a subtle floral aroma in her wake, walked over to the poet's couch. There, she turned around graciously, and on the backdrop of the curtained window, her classical profile could be seen clearly, with a proper little nose and a high forehead. Her body, though, remained hidden by a floor-length dress.
"Albert, dear, would you like anything else?" the girl wondered with an entrancing voice.
"No, my love," the poet answered, dismissing his new flame with a wave of the hand, "you may go..."
She, slightly pumping her thighs, walked out into the corridor.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?" the poet smiled dreamily. "You should hear how she sings! And see how she dances! A real treasure!"
I filled my high glass with the turbid drink and asked:
"And just where did you dig up a treasure like her?"
A rollicking laugh could be heard in the corridor.
"I come from Helicon!" the girl looked back toward us. "It's in Boeotia, a charming place! You should be sure to visit it. The views..."
"Kira!" the Poet hissed at his girlfriend; she faltered and hurried to close the door behind her.
I finished my lemon sharbat and nodded:
"Excellent."
"I asked her to make it without vodka, just for you," Albert said and sighed. "Well, what do you think of my she-devil? My world in a viewing glass..."
"My friend," I shook my head, "it's time for you to settle down. Fickleness in your relationships doesn't lead to anything good."
"Whatever do you mean!?" The poet objected. "Women love me. What am I supposed to do with that?"
"That is a problem, yes," I nodded and took a seat on the ottoman. "One of your admirers, I'm reminded, even wanted to eat you alive."
Albert gave an uncomfortable shiver.
"The deaf witch!" he cursed out, and took a seat on the couch. "That crazy enchantress practically killed me, Leo. What was the name of the whorehouse...?"
"Athens," I offered, standing to my feet and walking over to the poet's desk.
Unlike before, there were no work notes, rough drafts or loose paper on it whatsoever. Even the waste paper basket was totally empty. The only thing in it was a dark loose ash. I pulled in air through my nose and decided that the smoke hovering around the apartment might not all be from the hookah. Perhaps, it was mostly from this other source.
It smelled like burned paper, and that couldn't be covered up, even by the heavy aroma of fragrant tobacco.
"By the way, Leopold," the poet suddenly shuddered, "what wind blew you into that whorehouse? How old were you, fifteen?"
"Fourteen."
"Isn't that a bit young for a night out chasing whores?"
"I was looking for my father," I said, opening the sideboard. In the bar, I discovered a few bottles of strong alcohol: rum, vodka, calvados and absinthe. There was no wine at all.
"You were looking for your father?" The poet grew surprised. "Is that so?"
"Yes."
"What on earth for?"
"I was afraid he'd do something stupid," I answered, cracking open the blinds. Under the window, I saw five empty bottles. I then found myself suddenly overcome by the impression that the furniture wasn't in the right place.
"What are you looking for?" Albert asked in surprise, filling his glass once again.
"Nothing now," I answered, drinking the last of my sharbat.
The poet took a few greedy gulps and asked:
"Do you miss him?"
"My father?" I asked in confusion, caught off guard by the unexpected question. "It was never calm with him," I said after a short wait, "but yes, I do miss him.
After my mother's death, my father tore off into a crazy mad dash that lasted ten years. We didn't often stay in one place longer than six months, but we never left New Babylon, as if we were trapped in a gigantic whirlpool.
Who was he running from? From his past? Or from himself and his own fears?
I still do not know. I didn't think about these kind of things back then."
"Was it hard to return to a home that had stood empty for so many years?" Albert asked, looking pensively into the far corner. His glass had run dry, but it seemed he hadn't even noticed. "To start a new life..."
"Albert!" I brought my friend down a peg. "Have you been bitten by some kind of exotic fly?"
"I'm fine!" he waved it off, setting his glass on the floor and interlacing his fingers. "It's all because of the Spring. Something always goes wrong in the Spring. Heat. Sun. The days grow longer, the sun comes up earlier, it grows dark later. I feel like I'm in prison here! If it weren't for Kira, I'd have gone mad long ago..."
Thanks to one of the wonderful hereditary diseases found in the illustrious, Albert couldn't bear direct sunlight. Of course, would be hard to imagine any creative type getting out of bed at sunrise, even under threat of being shot. So I reminded him:
"The whole night is at your disposal."
"The night, yes," Albert nodded, but somehow anxiously. "My apologies, Leopold. It's all this Springtime blues."
I doubted that.
"You burned your manuscripts and lapped up all the wine you had in your bar cabinet. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you usually write when you drink."
"I tried!" Albert shouted, upset. He shrugged his shoulders, wrapped himself in his robe and repeated: "I tried! All these days I tried... It's just that nothing comes to mind! My muse has left me..."
"Balderdash!"
"Balderdash," the poet nodded and led his finger over the scar that was peeking up from under his short reddish beard. "And yet, still true. I feel full of mediocrity. And all over some little bauble! It's stupid, it's horribly stupid..."
I shifted my chair away from the desk toward the table, took a seat on it and demanded:
"Tell me."
"You’ll never believe it. You'll think I've lost my mind."
"I have a vivid imagination."
Albert folded, then raised his left arm with a crooked pinky and asked:
"You haven't noticed?"
I shook my head.
"No," but immediately corrected myself: "The ring!"
"It was a class ring," the poet corrected me. "The class ring of my student brotherhood."
"Did you lose it?"
"Did I lose it?" Albert cringed. "Leo, look at my finger! They broke it on the day I joined the brotherhood! My pinky healed back crooked, so to take the class ring off, I'd have to break it again. Curses! I couldn't even pawn this little trinket when I was dying of a hangover without a centime in my wallet!"
"And you don't remember where it went?"
"Naturally, I don't remember! A few days ago, I woke up, and it wasn't there. I've checked everything top to bottom three times. Three times, Leo! I moved all the furniture, looked in every nook and cranny! But nothing. I asked Kira to look; she didn't find it either, and neither did my servants."
"Well, how could you with it so dark in here?!"
"Don't take me for an idiot, Leo!"
"Do you think it was stolen?"
"How? How could they do that without cutting off my finger?"
"Was the class ring valuable?"
"A class ring? Are you kidding? When it was new, I think it cost five francs."
"Then why is it so important to you?" I asked, not understanding a thing. "What are you so upset over?"
Albert looked my way unhappily in reply, sank down back-first into his pillow and went silent.
"That class ring was given to me at sixteen. A few hours after that, I fought in my first and last duel. That's where my pinky got broken and my mug got fixed up," the poet answered after a long pause, rubbing the scar that gave definition to his left cheek. "And that very evening, I lost my innocence to the daughter of the doctor who stitched my wounds! An absolute hell-cat! When I wrote my first poem, my class ring was on my finger. That is even more serious than the doctor's daughter! I've worn it for half of my life, do you understand, Leo? I cannot get by without it. I cannot do anything more without it. I simply cannot."
"It will pass."
"I feel like I've lost a finger!"
"Not the biggest loss."
"Get away!"
Albert flung a pillow at me, but I was on my guard and gave slight duck. The pillow landed in a tube full of umbrellas, tipping it over on its side with a crash.
"Curse me!" The poet gasped.
"Shall we go for a walk this evening?" I suggested, trying to distract my friend from his intense thinking.
"I do not want to," Albert refused and suggested: "You can go. Ask Kira," but immediately sat up on his elbow. "Stop, Leo! You're a policeman, after all, so you find the ring!"
"You're drunk, my friend," I sighed, taking the half-empty bottle of wine near the couch and stashing it away in the bar cabinet. "Hire a private detective."
"Do you trust those impostors? They'd hang me out to dry for the newspapermen!"
"You'll know how it feels to be in my skin one day."
"From a business perspective – it's easy," Albert frowned. "But just imagine how much a detective would ask for if he found it! I'd be in his hands!"
"Make an agreement with a respectable agency."
"They're all the same," the poet waved it off, noting with surprising sobriety: "Also, it would be no challenge to simply find a similar-looking class ring in a pawnshop, but I don't need someone else's class ring. I need that very one. That's it, Leo. Will you help me?"
I looked at my friend's sorrowful face and relented.
"Alright, but now I need to go to work. I'll come by this evening and take a look around."
"You're a true friend, Leo! I've been feeling so sick since this morning, I'm at my wit's end, but then I had a talk with you, and it took a load off my mind!" Albert took a nip on the hookah, but immediately shuddered and reminded me: "Just don't forget to send Kira! She calms me down."
"So that's what you're calling it now?"
"Don't be vulgar. Her love is the only thing I've got left..."
"Oh well," I frowned and walked out the door.
I found Kira on the first floor. The girl was looking closely at a hand-held mirror and quietly singing an unfamiliar melody.
"Albert called for you," I said, putting on my derby hat.
"That's how it goes!" the girl laughed uncontrollably. "He doesn't let me out of his sight for a
minute!"
"But that's a good thing, isn't it?" I snorted and went out onto the street without waiting for an answer.
The poet's new girlfriend caused an incomprehensible vexation in me.
3
THE POLICE HEADQUARTERS BUILDING was overwhelming. With its tabernacle roof and stone gutters, it towered confidently over the suburban homes, making you feel like a single gear in the huge mechanism of the state apparatus. In total, the Newton-Markt occupied a whole block and was a true labyrinth of stairs, internal courtyards, corridors and offices. But there were also cramped chambers, damp interrogation rooms and underground vaults for notorious recidivists.
If I were to be arrested for double murder and working with a demon, that's right where I'd be locked up, in the very deepest and darkest underground they could find.
I wouldn't like to find out what that's like...
"Fresh edition of Capital Times! Get your Capital Times here!" the boy began squealing, his cart tossing about on the uneven bridge. "Clashes on the Island of Arabia! Constantinople garrison on high alert! Get your newspaper here! Alexandria and Tehran holding negotiations on military alliance! The Imperial Navy has sent additional ships to the Sea of Judea!" The boy noticed my interest and immediately demanded: "Mister, don't you wanna buy a newspaper?!"
I waved him off and crossed the street to the Newton-Markt. There was something quivering repugnantly in my gut, but my resolve was steeling with every step.
They don't know about it. They don't know about it. They don't know about it.
But then came the treacherous voice of logic: They don't know about it yet...
On my way in, no one paid me any special mind. I calmly passed the guard checkpoint and walked up to the third floor. When I got there, who should I find waiting for me near Inspector White's office, but the chancellery clerk looking bored in a gray frock coat, starched dress shirt and a thin tie.
"Detective Constable Orso?" he shuddered at my appearance, extending me a sheet of paper. "Senior Inspector Moran would like to speak with you. Sign here, please."
The messenger was carrying a portable ink well and a pen with an iron quill; I placed my signature.