The Illustrious (The Sublime Electricity Book #1)

by Pavel Kornev

  "Ramon, would you be so kind as to look away from your newspaper for a minute," I then asked my partner, knowing in advance that the stout man would just pretend to be engrossed in his reading, when he was actually using a very poorly thought-out method of drawing out an unpleasant conversation.

  It simply couldn't be any other way – the Atlantic Telegraph article the constable had fixed his eyes on was on the funeral of a famous driver, and there was little that annoyed my coworker more than a society column.

  Ramon, with a hopeless sigh, set the newspaper aside and turned to me.

  "Yes, Leo?"

  I took a pitcher of lemonade from the Fleming who'd just returned from the icebox, filled my glass and, only after that, choosing my words carefully, said:

  "Ramon, if you, despite the inspector's order, decided to inform the administration about the tunnels, why didn't you warn me first? You made me look like an idiot, whether you know it or not."

  Instead of an answer, the constable swung his paper at me. At first, I didn't understand how the driver's suicide was related to us, then I saw the next headline over and cursed out soundlessly.

  "Tragic Events in the Judean Quarter!" cried out the header of the article below.

  What horrible luck!

  You couldn't think up a more banal story if you tried. The barber shop having been closed for several days in a row put the neighbors on alert. They then decided to check on the owner, discovered a basement full of corpses and called the police.

  "I thought you read the papers," Ramon admonished me.

  "I do. Normally. Just not today," I frowned. "Curses! They practically turned me inside out!"

  "Did you try to weasel out of it?"

  "I did, and how!"

  "And how did it all end?"

  "They put me on leave until the end of the investigation."

  Ramon shook his head.

  "So it turns out I'm still lucky," he chuckled. "I just told LeBrun everything right away."

  "LeBrun?" I grew surprised. "He interrogated you?"

  "Did he not interrogate you?"

  "There was another man there also," I shook my head, not wanting to go into detail.

  At that moment, the clocks had begun to strike twelve. Ramon Miro looked at them with annoyance, slipped off the high chair and finished his wine in a couple of gulps.

  "Time for work," he said, fastening the copper buttons of his uniform.

  "Where did they assign you off to?"

  "Street patrol, where else?" the constable snorted, put on his service cap, and adjusted it by grabbing the peak.

  "Be a friend and check out the pawn-shops," I then asked. "There's a trinket I want you to ask about down there."

  "And what do I get out of it?"

  "I'm sure I'm not going to get this for just ten francs, right?"

  "Twenty."

  "My top price is a fiver. You'll have to lounge about on the street with nothing to do otherwise!"

  "Alright," the constable agreed, "I'll ask about it. What kind of trinket are we talking about?"

  "Nothing special, a class ring from the student brotherhood of Munich University."

  "I'll get on it right away," Ramon promised.

  "Are you leaving your paper?" I asked, having finished my lemonade.

  "Take it," the constable gave me permission and went out onto the street.

  With the shift change, the number of free seats in the bar had grown a good deal, so I took the issue of the Atlantic Telegraph and carried my pitcher to a table by the window.

  The sun outside was really baking. Shadows pressed up to the buildings like frightened dogs to their master's legs, and the wind that tore into the open window just barely moved the curtains. That at least teased a potential promise of coolness, rather than being able to truly chase off the heat that had rolled over the city. I did not want to go onto the street.

  I filled my glass with lemonade again and thought about whether to order lunch, but I remembered my empty wallet just in time and decided to just wait for the dinner that Elizabeth-Maria was making.

  I finished the lemonade and began looking into the correspondence I'd brought with me from home, but it didn't have too much variety. Everywhere bills, demands of payment, notices of rate increase and missed payment.

  Francs, francs, francs! They were all that was on anybody's mind!

  The golden calf had long held our world in bondage, and nobody, not the socialists, nor the anarchists had been able to unseat this wretched idol. Everyone needs money, and I was in no way an exception.

  My mood was finally spoiled. Without giving them a thorough review, I sent the papers into the trash can, drained my glass of lemonade in a few gulps and set off for home.

  4

  BOREDOM IS A SCARY THING. Boredom day after day, and night after night can unravel a man. It eats away at his soul and deprives him of his taste for life.

  When I was a child, I would sit for hours on the window sill looking out a spyglass at the rooftops of the city below. It wasn't the most fun activity for a four- or five-year-old child but, for me then, any opportunity to occupy myself with something was important: watching our chef work, chasing impudent jackdaws from the garden, playing chess with my imaginary friend, or even fixing the mechanism in my broken alarm clock.

  My father would often disappear in the city. My mother was very ill. Servants bustled around the house, and I hadn't yet grown up enough for library books. I could only search out the odd picture book and leaf through my mom's favorite tome, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with illustrations by John Tenniel.

  Until I was five, I was left to my own devices, meaning I was locked behind the manor gates. It was no wonder that I knew every nook and cranny in the house and every bush in the garden. I invented hundreds of ways of having fun, but none of them could hold me for long. And that was when the boredom came. Sometimes, it bubbled up so much that I wanted to howl like a wolf.

  Later, I considered those years the happiest of my life.

  Why was I remembering this now?

  This was all Senior Inspector Moran's fault. After talking with him, I wanted to lock myself in the library and not poke my nose out in the street. Not look anyone in the eye for a few weeks, not attract any attention; wait for the ripples on the water to settle.

  But I didn't.

  WHEN I GOT BACK HOME, Elizabeth-Maria was sitting on the lower step of my porch, snapping off the thick black blades of the aster leaves she'd ripped out of my flower garden one at a time.

  "A letter came for you," she said, not looking up from her activity.

  I took a piece of thick expensive paper from a sealed envelope and snorted in surprise. It was my uncle inviting me over for a visit.

  What suddenly came over him?

  Elizabeth-Maria squinted at me and asked:

  "Would you like me to come with you?"

  "No," I refused. "And don't spoil the flowers."

  "The dead black flowers. Do you really like them?"

  "I like things to be tidy."

  The girl got up from the step and adjusted my neckerchief.

  "Introduce me to your uncle. I’m quite sure he'll grow more accommodating. He won't be able to stand his ground against my charms..."

  "No."

  The forthcoming conversation was definitely not going to be of the pleasant variety, and the last thing I wanted was to curse my own kin because a succubus wanted to play games.

  "I'm bored!" Elizabeth-Maria complained.

  "Read the papers," I offered, handing the girl the newspaper I'd brought with me from the bar. "We don't have such things in hell."

  She pursed her lips but did not make a scene.

  "Shall I set the table?" she merely asked, setting the newspaper aside.

  I began to think whether I should drink some of the expensive tea first, but the country estate where my uncle spent a large part of his time was quite a long journey from here. In the end, I decided not to waste the t
ime, and shook my head:

  "Business first."

  "Don't be late. There's ragout for dinner," the girl warned and added with an aspiration: "It’ll be hot as fire!"

  "I’m not making any promises," I answered dryly and walked to the gate.

  Any time the succubus talked about food, I got a bad feeling that she was fattening me to slaughter.

  Foolishness? I'd like to believe so.

  A deal's a deal, so now either I get rid of her, or she gets my soul.

  There was no third option.

  THE NEW BABYLON CENTRAL Train Station was rightly considered a city within a city. The main building had a high glass cupola, administrative area, pedestrian bridges, boiler-houses, innumerable intersections, crossings and detours, guard houses, and rows of identical packhouses and coalhouses. In total, it took up the same area as a whole neighborhood. And if New Babylon seemed at times to me a hellish boiler-room, fueled by human beings from all over the world, the Central Train Station was its boiling point.

  I bought a first class ticket thanks to Albert Brandt, who had lent me the money. Not in the habit of returning a debt before it came due, I stuck the change in my wallet, and went to find the schedule board, then headed for the platform my train would be departing from. I was quickly lured in by the aroma of fresh baked goods and coffee, but I held myself together and walked straight past. The train was supposed to arrive any minute, and the last thing I wanted to do was be late and spend another half hour in this bedlam. My head was already spinning as it was.

  My father and I used to come here often; he would meet with his people, and I would stare out of the waiting room at the trains, eating profiteroles in the very same bistro I was now walking so hurriedly past. It was surprising, but the hustle and bustle here never bothered me before. Now, though, I was ready to climb up the walls just to get a bit further from this ceaselessly babbling throng.

  But there were no less people on the platform. At the far end, there was turmoil purer than that in front of the ticket booth at a cinema on premier day; mountains of parcels and other freight towered over me, children ran by, and someone was crying uncontrollably. The passengers on the other side were all in worn and patchy clothes; sun-burnt, grubby and quarrelsome. The third-class tail cars were normally chalk-full, and the narrow benches along the sides could only provide consolation to a small cohort of travelers.

  Nearer the middle of the platform, it was hard to even remember the earlier jostling. The public that gathered there was somewhat more dignified and respectable. Gentlemen in derby hats, black morning coats, perfectly ironed striped trousers and lacquered half boots were standing around ash-trays, smoking and conducting unhurried conversations about theater premiers, grain prices and the fate of the world. There were absolutely no ladies among this category of passenger.

  Wooden benches with comfortable backs seemed a completely rational compromise between comfort and price to me, and I would have bought a second class ticket without fail if it weren't for the obtrusive traveling companions. All these insurance agents and salesmen had a passion as they loved to tell you, and I had no desire to work up a migraine hearing out their endless high-sounding nonsense and emitting no less banal thoughts in reply. It was better to overpay a bit.

  I showed the attendant my first class ticket and walked through a gate to the soft seats that could fit just six passengers.

  An aristocrat accompanied by either his daughter or young wife; a mustached soldier in an infantry uniform with a saber at his side; an important looking engineer in a company-issued pea-coat with an emblem composed of little gilded hammers and calipers; and a young couple – a lank emigrant from the New World and his giggly bride. They were all sizing me up with cautious gazes, and they all found me equally unfit for a casual conversation. Communication in the car was limited to polite nods and that fact left me beyond satisfied.

  I didn't like meeting new people, and didn't seek it out. Actually, people in general... I didn't like.

  Further on the voyage, a freight train thundered past, enshrouded in black smoke. Its cars were all of one type and could be distinguished from one another only by the letter combinations printed on them. Behind it dashed a postal express train, then – right on time – our train arrived.

  The third-class passengers immediately crowded up to the very edge of the platform and, just as much as one, recoiled back when a drawn out honk rang out and their legs were shrouded with wisps of white steam. Salesmen and clerks on business, in no particular hurry, set about extinguishing their cigarettes and tapping out their pipes. My traveling companions, though, began giving orders to their baggage-handlers. I was first to walk through the invitingly flung-open doors of our car. I took a seat on my own, removed my derby hat and carelessly threw myself into the soft back of my seat.

  Unlike the second class cars, which were split up into six-seat coupes, this Pullman car had a spacious salon with paintings on the walls, comfortable soft armchairs and couches. There were also separate rooms for passengers traveling significant distances, but the only long-distance passengers with us now were the couple.

  Two short honks rang out in short order and the train slowly, without a single jerk, touched off on its way. The train rolled out from under the station's glassed-in cupola, and the wheels started beating out a happy refrain on the rail ties. Out the window, the reserve tracks swept by, followed by endless rows of packhouses; stewards began bringing around refreshing beverages and I picked out a lemon soda. When I glanced out the window again, the train station was already behind us. The train drove across the bridge and was now rolling through the factory outskirts.

  No matter where you looked, the only thing around was gray fences, barbed wire, the gloomy hulks of workshops and smoke-besmirched pipes giving off wisps of stinking smoke. On the side tracks, from time to time, a steam train would pass with two or three freight cars, but as a passenger train, we had priority, so we shot ahead without stopping. Only when the endless factories were left behind us did the train slow its pace a bit, stopping at an open platform at the Western Train Station, which was decaying and badly cared-for.

  No one came into the first-class car there.

  After that, the train sped along the edge of the Emperor's Park, quickly blew by the sickly green of its smog-tormented trees, and entered a kingdom of warehouses and offices. Between its buildings, you could see the silver expanse of the Yarden peeking out from time to time. After that, the rails were laid through the residential outskirts. The clanging of our wheels began echoing off walls with chipping whitewash, their shabby exteriors interspersed with smudgy windows.

  The houses slightly thinned out. The train burst out of the city into a vast rural expanse and started consistently gaining speed, taking a run at a tangent track. First, villages were carried by the window, then they were replaced with small farms, gardens, pastures and meadows, cordoned off with short fences. On the horizon, there loomed groves of fruit trees. Small wetlands occasionally popped by with clean water glimmering between the tall bushes of bulrush, and the ribbons of shallow streams stretched among the sedges. There were cows wandering along the train tracks. White little sheep were also flickering by from time to time.

  It was as if I had found myself in a different world. A patented pastoral.

  OUR TRAIN WAS DRIVING through a field of yellow alfalfa flowers being grown for animal feed when it started to slow down. A piercing honk rang out. The breaks screeched. The car shook and the train came to a stop at a tiny station consisting of nothing but a couple administrative buildings and a lone angular warehouse.

  I got up from my chair and the remaining passengers, were staring with unhidden surprise at the freak who was intending to actually get off the train out here in the sticks. That didn't get to me at all; with a proud and independent look on my face, I walked over to the exit, crossed the empty platform, passed the closed ticket counters and, once on the street, allowed myself a saddened sigh.

  My
uncle hadn't taken the pains to send a carriage.

  No matter! Three kilometers wasn't such a great distance.

  So I walked up to my family estate along the country road, while colorful chickens searched for grains and bugs in the dust I kicked up.

  The sun, hanging at its apex, burned on my skin. Fifty steps later, I was already untying my neckerchief and unbuttoning the collar of my dress shirt, though that didn't bring me any particular relief. Then, having spit on the rules of common decency, I removed my jacket and threw it over a shoulder. The holster of my Roth-Steyr was pulling at my belt obnoxiously, but the road was empty, so there was no one around to worry about upsetting with my pistol.

  And even if I did upset someone, what did I care?

  The sight of the bright yellow alfalfa flowers was dizzying. The sun-warmed field gave forth surprising aromas, and this rural air was surprisingly easy to breathe. Grasshoppers chirped, lizards darted about quickly on the grass by the road, larks flittered by, and the shadows of vultures circling high above would occasionally glide over the road.

  And no matter where you looked, all around there was a brilliant blue sky! No smog or smoke, just the unaltered heavens in their natural azure.

  Was that a good thing? I would even say very good.

  But, like a true city-dweller, it threw me off somewhat. And it wasn't from the fear of getting lost in the field: the only road lead directly to my family estate. What threw me off was the endlessness of this open space.

  I wasn't used to that. The only time I had left New Babylon was when I was five and my mom wanted to pay respects to her family home. The meeting with my grandmother didn't go very well. Deep down, she thought my mother's marriage a bad match and treated her newly discovered relatives accordingly. So we didn't return until the death of the old Countess, nor afterward for that matter.

  Far, far in the distance there loomed an olive grove. I looked at my timepiece and increased my pace. Sometime later, from behind the trees, we started to see the roofs of the tenant's house. It had one lone pipe coming from it, and there was a liquid stream of smoke rising up from that. In the bushes next to the road, sheep were getting tangled in the bluebells. From far off, you could hear a cow mooing. A chained up dog was yapping lazily behind the fence.