The Diamond Chariot

by Boris Akunin

  Shirota was making signs to the functionary: he had pinched his finger and thumb together and was running them through the air. Ah, he meant the receipt.

  Erast Petrovich shrugged, as if to say: It’s too awkward, later. But the Japanese himself presented the lady with the paper, and she signed with a pencil in a curly flourish.

  Shirota sat down at the table, took out a sheet of paper and a travelling inkwell and prepared to write out the death certificate.

  ‘What were the cause and the circumstances of the demise?’ he asked briskly.

  Sophia Diogenovna’s face instantly melted into a tearful grimace.

  ‘Papa came home in the morning at about seven o’clock. He said, I feel bad, Sophia. I’ve got this aching in my chest …’

  ‘In the morning?’ Fandorin asked. ‘Was he working at night, then?’

  He was sorry he had asked. The tears poured down in torrents from Blagolepova’s eyes.

  ‘No-o,’ she howled. ‘He’d been in the “Rakuen” all night long. It’s a place like a tavern. Only in our taverns they drink vodka, and in theirs they smoke a noxious weed. I went there at midnight and implored him: “Father, let’s go home. You’ll spend everything on smoking again, and our apartment isn’t paid for, and the oil for the lamp has run out …” He wouldn’t come, he drove me away. He almost beat me … And when he dragged himself home in the morning, there was nothing in his pockets, they were empty … I gave him tea. He drank a glass. Then he suddenly looked at me and said: “That’s that. Sophia, I’m dying. Forgive me, my daughter”. And he put his head on the table. I started shaking him, but he was dead. He was staring sideways, with his mouth open …’

  At that point the sad narrative broke off, drowned in sobbing.

  ‘The circumstances are clear,’ Shirota declared solemnly. ‘Shall we write: “Sudden death from natural causes”?’

  Fandorin nodded and shifted his gaze from the sobbing spinster to the deceased. What a strange fate! To die at the end of the world from the heady Chinese poison …

  The clerk scraped his pen over the paper, Sophia Diogenovna cried, the vice-consul gazed morosely at the ceiling. The ceiling was unusual, faced with planks. So were the walls. As if they were inside a crate. Or a barrel.

  For lack of anything else to do, Erast Petrovich walked over and touched the rough surface with his hand.

  ‘Papa put that up with his own hands,’ Blagolepova said in an adenoidal voice. ‘So it would be like in a mess room. When he was a cabin boy, the ships were still all wood. One day he looked at the wall and suddenly waved his hand and shouted out: “A name is a mortal’s fate, and there’s no getting away from it! The name you’re given decides the way you live your whole life. Haven’t I flapped about all over the place? I ran away to sea from the seminary, I’ve sailed the seven seas, but even so I’m ending my life as Diogenes – in a barrel”.’

  And. moved by her reminiscences, she started gushing even more profusely. The titular counsellor, wincing in sympathy, handed Sophia Diogenovna his handkerchief – her own needed to be wrung out.

  ‘Thank you, kind man,’ she sobbed, blowing her nose into the fine cambric. ‘And I should be even more grateful, grateful for ever, if you could only liberate my property.’

  ‘What property?’

  ‘The Japanese man Papa sold the launch to didn’t pay him all the money. He didn’t give him it all at once, he said: “You’ll smoke yourself to death”. He paid it out in parts, and he still owed seventy-five yen. That’s a lot of money! There was no paper contract between them, that’s not the Japanese custom, so I’m afraid that the hunchback won’t give me it, he’ll deceive a poor orphan.’

  ‘Why hunchb-back?’

  ‘Why, he has a hump. He’s got one at the front and another one at the back. A genuine monster and a bandit. I’m afraid of him. Couldn’t you go with me, Mr Vice-Consul, since you’re a diplomat from our great homeland, eh? I’d pray to God for you with all my strength!’

  ‘The consulate does not engage in the collection of debts,’ Shirota said quickly. ‘It is not appropriate.’

  ‘I could go in a private capacity,’ the soft-hearted vice-consul suggested. ‘Where can I find this man?’

  ‘It’s not far, just across the river,’ said the spinster, immediately stopping her crying and gazing hopefully at Fandorin. ‘“Rakuen”, it’s called, that means “Heavenly Garden” in their language. Papa worked for the boss there. He’s called Semushi, it means Hunchback. Papa gave everything he earned at sea to that bloodsucker, for the drug.’

  Shirota frowned.

  ‘The “Rakuen”? I know it. An absolutely infamous establishment. The Bakuto (they are very bad men) play dice there, and they sell Chinese opium. It is shameful, of course,’ he added in an apologetic tone of voice, ‘but Japan is not to blame. Yokohama is an open port, it has its own customs. However, a diplomat cannot appear in the “Rakuen” under any circumstances. There could be an Incident.’

  The final word was pronounced with special emphasis and the clerk even raised one finger. Erast Petrovich did not wish to be involved in an Incident, especially not on his first day of work as a diplomat, but how could he abandon a defenceless young woman in distress? And then again, it would be interesting to take a look at an opium den.

  ‘The regulations of the consular service enjoin us to render assistance to our compatriots who find themselves in extremity,’ Fandorin said sternly.

  The clerk did not dare to argue with the regulations. He sighed and resigned himself to the inevitable.

  They set out for the den on foot. Erast Petrovich had refused in principle to take a riksha from the consulate, and he did not yield now.

  The young man found everything in the native quarter curious: the hovels nailed together haphazardly out of planks, and the paper lanterns on poles, and the unfamiliar smells. The Japanese people seemed exceptionally ugly to the young functionary. Short and puny, with coarse faces, they walked in a fussy manner with their heads pulled down into their shoulders. The women were especially disappointing. Instead of the wonderful, bright-coloured kimonos that Fandorin had seen in pictures, the Japanese women were dressed in washed-out, formless rags. They walked in tiny little steps on their monstrously bandy legs, and their teeth were absolutely black! Erast Petrovich made this appalling discovery when he saw two busybodies gossiping on a corner. They bowed to each other every second and smiled broadly, looking like two black-toothed witches.

  But even so, the titular counsellor liked it much better here than on the decorous Bund. This was it, the real Japan! It might be plain and dowdy, but even this place had its merits, thought Erast Petrovich, drawing his first conclusions. Despite the poverty, it was clean everywhere. That was one. The simple people were extremely polite and he could not sense any air of abjection about them. That was two. Fandorin could not think of a third argument in favour of Japan quite yet, and he postponed any further conclusions until later.

  ‘The shameful quarter starts at the other side of the Ivy Bridge,’ said Shirota, pointing to a arched wooden bridge. ‘Teahouses, beer parlours for the sailors. And the “Rakuen” is there too. There, you see it? Over there by the pole with a head on it.’

  As he stepped on to the bridge, Erast Petrovich looked in the direction indicated and froze. A woman’s head with an intricate hairstyle was hanging on a tall pole. The young man wanted to turn away immediately, but he held his glance still for a moment, and after that he could not turn away. The dead face was frighteningly, magically lovely.

  ‘That is a woman by the name of O-Kiku,’ the clerk explained. ‘She was the finest courtesan in the “Chrysanthemum” establishment – the one over there, with the red lantern at the entrance. O-Kiku fell in love with one of her clients, a kabuki actor. But he grew cold towards her, and then she poisoned him with rat poison. She poisoned herself too, but she vomited, and the poison did not take effect. They washed out her stomach and then cut off her head. Before the execution, she
composed a beautiful haiku, a verse of three lines …’

  Shirota closed his eyes, concentrated and declaimed in a singsong voice:

  ‘A tempest at night,

  But dawn brings complete silence –

  A flower’s dream ends.’

  And he explained:

  ‘The flower is herself because “kiku” means “chrysanthemum”. The hurricane is her passion, the silence is her forthcoming execution, and the dream is human life … The judge ordered her head to be kept outside the door of the tearoom for a week – as a lesson to the other courtesans and to punish the proprietress. Not many clients will favour a shop sign like that.’

  Fandorin was impressed by the story he had been told, and by Japanese justice, and most of all by the wonderful poem. But Sophia Diogenovna remained unmoved. She crossed herself at the sight of the severed head without any excessive fright – in all the years she had lived in Japan, she must have become accustomed to the peculiarities of the Japanese system of justice. Blagolepova was far more interested in the ‘Rakuen’ – the young lady gazed at the stout oak door with eyes wide in terror.

  ‘There is nothing for you to be afraid of, madam,’ Erast Petrovich reassured her, and was about to enter, but Shirota slipped ahead of him.

  ‘No, no,’ he declared with a most decisive air. ‘This is my responsibility.’

  He knocked and stepped into a small dark passage that reminded Fandorin of the antechamber of a bathhouse. The door immediately slammed shut, evidently impelled by a concealed spring.

  ‘That’s a procedure they have here. They let people in one at a time,’ Blagolepova explained.

  The door opened again, as if of its own accord, and Fandorin let the lady go ahead.

  Sophia Diogenovna babbled ‘Merci’ and disappeared into the antechamber.

  Finally, it was the titular counsellor’s turn.

  For five seconds he stood in total darkness, then another door opened in front of him, admitting a smell of sweat and tobacco and another unfamiliar, sweetish aroma. ‘Opium’, Erast Petrovich guessed, sniffing the air.

  A short, thickset, strong-looking fellow (predatory facial features, wearing a bandana with squiggles on it round his forehead) started slapping the functionary on the sides and feeling under his armpits. A second fellow, who looked exactly the same, brusquely searched Sophia Diogenovna at the same time.

  Fandorin flushed, prepared to put an end to this intolerable impudence there and then, but Blagolepova said rapidly:

  ‘It’s all right, I’m used to it. They have to do this, they get far too many wild characters coming here.’ And she added something in Japanese, in a tone that sounded soothing.

  Shirota had already been let through – he was standing a little to one side, with a perfectly clear air of disapproval.

  But the vice-consul found it all very interesting.

  At first glance the Japanese den of iniquity reminded him very strongly of a Khitrovka tavern of the very worst kind. Only in Khitrovka it was very much dirtier and the floor was covered with gobs of spittle, but here, before stepping on to the straw mats covering the floor, he had to take off his shoes.

  Sophia Diogenovna became terribly embarrassed, and Fandorin could not immediately understand why. Then he noticed that the poor spinster had no stockings, and he delicately averted his eyes.

  ‘Now, which man here is the one who owes you money?’ he asked brightly, gazing around.

  His eyes quickly accustomed themselves to the dim lighting. There were motionless figures lying and sitting on straw mattresses in the far corner. No, one of them moved: a gaunt Chinese with a long plait blew on the wick of an outlandish-looking lamp that was standing beside him; he used a needle to turn a little white ball that was heating over the flame, then stuffed the ball into the opening of a long pipe and took a long draw. He shook his head for a few moments, then flopped back on to a bolster and took another draw.

  In the middle of the room about half a dozen or so gamblers were sitting at a table with tiny little legs. Several other men were not playing, but watching – all exactly the same as in some Daredevil Inn or Half-Bottle Tavern.

  Fandorin identified the owner without any prompting. The half-naked man with an unnaturally bloated upper body shook some kind of small cup, then tossed two little cubes on to the table. That was clear enough – they were playing dice. But it was astonishing that the result of the game didn’t arouse any emotions at all in the men sitting round the table. In Russia the winners would have burst into a string of joyful obscenities and the loser would have sworn obscenely too, but viciously. However, these men silently sorted out the money, most of which went to the hunchback, and then started sipping some kind of murky liquid from little cups.

  Taking advantage of the break, Sophia Diogenovna walked up to the owner, bowed obsequiously and started asking him about something. The hunchback listened sullenly and drawled: ‘Heh-eh-eh’ once, as if he was surprised at something. (Erast Petrovich guessed that this was his reaction to the news of the captain’s death.) He heard the woman out, shook his head sharply and muttered: ‘Nani-o itterunda!’ – and then several brief, rumbling phrases.

  Blagolepova started crying quietly.

  ‘What? Does he refuse?’ Fandorin asked, touching the lady’s sleeve.

  She nodded.

  ‘This man says he has paid the captain in full. The captain has spent the entire launch from the funnel to the anchor on opium,’ Shirota translated.

  ‘He’s lying!’ Sophia Diogenovna exclaimed. ‘Papa couldn’t have smoked enough for all the money! He told me himself that there were still seventy-five yen left!’

  The owner gestured with one hand and spoke to Fandorin in appalling English:

  ‘Want play? Want puh-puh? No want play, no want puh-puh – go-go.’

  Shirota whispered, looking round anxiously at the well-muscled young fellows with the white bandanas on their foreheads, who were slowly approaching the table from different sides of the room:

  ‘There’s nothing we can do. There’s no receipt – we can’t prove anything. We must leave, or else there could be an Incident.’

  Sophia Diogenovna was weeping quietly, inconsolably. Fandorin’s cambric handkerchief was already soaked through, and she took out her own, which had dried off slightly.

  ‘What kind of game is this?’ Erast Petrovich asked curiously. ‘Is it d-difficult?’

  ‘No, it is absolutely simple. It is called “Choka-hanka” – that is, “Odds and evens”. If you place money to the left of that line there, it means you are betting on evens. If you place it on the right, you are betting on odds.’ The clerk spoke in nervous haste, all the while tugging the vice-consul towards the door with his finger and thumb. ‘Do let us go. This is absolutely not a good place.’

  ‘Well then, I’ll try it too. I believe at the current rate the yen is worth two roubles?’

  Erast Petrovich squatted down awkwardly, took out his wallet and counted out fifteen red ten-rouble notes. That made exactly seventy-five yen. The embassy functionary put his stake to the left of the line.

  The owner of the den was not at all surprised by the sight of banknotes with a portrait of the bearded Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov; Russians had evidently been rather frequent visitors to the ‘Rakuen’. But the hunchback was surprised by the size of the stake, for none of the other players had put more than five yen on the table.

  Everything went very quiet. The idle onlookers moved closer, with the guards in white bandanas who had given poor Shirota such a bad fright towering over them. A stocky, round-faced Japanese with a little waxed ponytail on the shaven back of his head had been about to move towards the door, but his attention was caught too. He changed his mind about leaving and froze on the spot.

  The little cup swayed in the hunchback’s strong hand and the dice rattled against its thin walls – a sweep of the arm, and the two little dice went tumbling across the low table. The red one rolled over a few times and stopped, sho
wing five dots on its upper surface. The blue one skipped as far as the very edge and stopped right in front of Erast Petrovich, displaying three dots.

  A sigh ran round the table.

  ‘Did I win?’ Erast Petrovich asked Shirota.

  ‘Yes!’ the clerk said in a whisper. His eyes were blazing in elation.

  ‘Well then, tell him that he owes me seventy-five yen. He can give the money to Miss Blagolepova.’

  Erast Petrovich started getting up, but the owner grabbed his arm.

  ‘No! Must play three! Rule!’

  ‘He says that under the rules of the establishment, you have to play at least three times,’ said Shirota, pale-faced, although Fandorin had already understood the meaning of what was said.

  The clerk apparently tried to argue, but the owner, who had just tipped a heap of yen on to the table, started shifting them back towards him. It was clear that he would not let the money go without repeating the game.

  ‘Leave it,’ Erast Petrovich said with a shrug. ‘If he wants to play, we’ll play. It will be worse for him.’

  Once again the dice rattled in the little cup. Now everyone on the room had gathered round the table, apart from the apathetic smokers and the two guards at the door, but even they stood up on tiptoe, trying to get at least a glimpse of something over the bowed backs.

  The only person who was bored was the titular counsellor. He knew that by a mysterious whim of fate he always won in any game of chance, even in games of which he did not know the rules. So why should he be concerned about a stupid game of ‘Odds and evens’? In his place another man would have become a millionaire ages ago, or else gone insane, like Pushkin’s Herman in The Queen of Spades, who was unable to endure the mystical whimsicality of Fortune. But Fandorin had made it a rule always to trust in miracles and not attempt to squeeze them into the pigeonholes of human logic. If miracles happened, then Thank You, Lord – looking a gift horse in the mouth was bad form.