by Boris Akunin
The figure, the walk, the turn of the head – everything was exactly the same!
‘Pardon me …’
Fandorin turned round and almost tore the field glasses out of the cornet’s hand by force.
The face … No, the face was different, but that expression of the eyes, that trusting smile, that anticipation of happiness and open acceptance of destiny! How could all of that be reproduced so authentically, so relentlessly? He even squeezed his eyes shut and didn’t protest when the hussar took his field glasses back, whispering angrily:
‘Give them back, give them back, I want to adore her too!’
To watch poor Liza fall in love with the happy-go-lucky Erast and watch him betray her love for other infatuations, allowing her life to be destroyed, was painful and yet at the same time … revivifying – yes, that was the strange but absolutely precise word for it. As if Time with its sharp claws had stripped away the horny, calloused skin covering his soul and now it was oozing blood as it recovered its sensitivity and vulnerability.
Fandorin closed his eyes once again; he couldn’t bear to watch the scene of Liza’s lapse from virtue, which was presented by the director in an extremely bold, almost naturalistic manner. The maiden’s naked arm, with the fingers outstretched, was first picked out by a bright beam of light, then it started drooping, sinking downwards like a wilting flower stem.
‘Oh, well done, Lointaine!’ Tsarkov exclaimed when everyone started applauding. ‘Her acting is miraculous! As good as the late Komissarzhevskaya!’
Fandorin cast an angry glance at him. What he had said seemed like blasphemy to Erast Petrovich, who was finding the owner of the box more and more irritating. Several times some person or other came in to whisper with him – although that didn’t really matter all that much when Liza, that is, Eliza Lointaine, wasn’t on stage. During the musical interludes Fandorin’s talkative neighbour leaned across his armchair and began sharing his impressions or telling Erast Petrovich something about the theatre or the performers. For instance, concerning the romantic lead, Emeraldov, Tsarkov said disdainfully that he was ‘not a partner up to her level’. This seemed wrong to Erast Petrovich. He was wholeheartedly on the side of this character, he didn’t feel jealous when the theatrical Erast embraced Liza and, in defiance of all logic, he hoped that the young nobleman would see reason and return to his beloved.
Fandorin only began listening to the experienced theatre enthusiast’s tittle-tattle when Tsarkov said something about the prima donna. Thus, during a long scene that Erast Petrovich found uninteresting – set in a gambling club, with the hero’s officer friend trying to persuade him to stop, while the card sharp egged him on to try to recover his losses, Tsarkov communicated something about Altairsky-Lointaine that brought a frown to Fandorin’s face
‘Ah, yes, Lointaine is definitely a pearl of great price. Thank God that a man has turned up who will not begrudge the funds to provide a worthy setting. I am thinking of Mr Shustrov of the Theatrical and Cinematographic Company.’
‘Is he her b-benefactor?’ Erast Petrovich asked, suddenly aware of an unpleasant, chilly sensation in his chest and feeling angry with himself because of it. ‘Who is he?’
‘A very capable young entrepreneur, who inherited a gingerbread and cracknel bakery from his father. He studied in America and manages his business in the tough American style too. He crushed all his competitors and then sold his cracknel kingdom for a very good price. Now he’s creating an entertainment empire – a new venture, with great prospects. I don’t think he has any romantic interest in Altairsky. Shustrov is an unromantic man. It is really more of an investment, with a view to her potential as an artiste.’
He carried on, saying something else about the Napoleonic plans of the former cracknel manufacturer, but Fandorin, having calmed down now, was no longer listening and he even interrupted the babbler with a rather uncivil gesture when Liza appeared on the stage again.
Although Erast Petrovich’s other companion did not importune him with conversation, Fandorin found him just as irksome as Tsarkov. Every time Altairsky-Lointaine made an entrance, he responded with howls of ‘Bravo!’ and his resounding voice left Fandorin’s ears deafened.
‘Stop that! You’re distracting me,’ Fandorin repeatedly told him angrily.
‘I beg your pardon,’ Cornet Limbach muttered, without tearing himself away from his field glasses, but only a second later he yelled again. ‘Divine! Divine!’
The actress had a multitude of ecstatic admirers in the auditorium. In fact it was rather strange that all their howling didn’t prevent her from playing her part – it was as if she didn’t hear them. Which was not the case with her partner, Mr Emeraldov – when he made his first entrance and women’s voices started squealing and shrieking in the hall, he pressed his hand to his heart and bowed.
Under other circumstances the emotional response of the audience would have irritated Fandorin, but today he was almost a different person. He seemed to have a lump in his own throat and did not find the audience’s reactions excessive at all.
Despite his own agitation, which was probably provoked less by the actors’ performance than by his own memories, Fandorin did note that the reaction of the auditorium was in fact determined by the psychological patterning of the production, in which comic scenes alternated with sentimental ones. By the time the finale came, the audience was sitting there, sobbing in hushed silence, and the curtain fell to thunderous applause and cheers.
A minute before the ending, the striped whistler entered the box and stood respectfully behind its owner. He was pressing his green briefcase against his side with his elbow and holding a little notebook and pencil in his hands.
‘Well then,’ Tsarkov said to him. ‘I’ll thank her and Stern in person. Arrange something or other absolutely top class. Emeraldov can make do with you. Give him my card. Well, and some wine, I suppose. Which does he like?’
‘Bordeaux, Chateau Latour, twenty-five roubles a bottle,’ the striped man said, glancing into the little book. He whistled quietly. ‘He certainly has good taste.’
‘Half a dozen … Hey, you, be quiet!’ The final remark was to the hussar, who had started shouting: ‘Loi-oin-taine! Loi-oin-taine!’ the moment the curtain came down.
Erast Petrovich offended the cornet too.
‘Let me have those,’ he said, confiscating the boy’s field glasses again. He wanted very badly to take a look at what the astounding actress’s face was like when she was no longer acting.
‘But I have to see her accept my basket!’
The young officer tried to tear the field glasses out of Fandorin’s hand, but he might as well have tried to tear the sword out of the hands of the bronze figures of Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square.
‘Consider it the price of your seat,’ Erast Petrovich hissed, adjusting the little wheel.
No, not the least bit like her, he told himself. About ten years older. The face isn’t oval, but more angular. And the eyes aren’t youthful at all, they’re weary. Ah, such eyes …
He put down the field glasses, because he suddenly felt unaccountably dizzy. Well, well, what next?
The actors did not come out for their bows by turns, in the way it was usually done in the theatre, but all at once: the male and female leads at the front, with the others in the second row. The one who had played Death, that is, Noah Stern himself, did not appear at all – he remained brilliantly absent, so to speak.
The applause continued unabated as attendants carried flowers out onto the stage from both sides, first the bouquets, and then the baskets – the smaller ones first, followed by the larger ones. About half of the tributes went to Emeraldov and half to Altairsky. Other players received perhaps one or two bouquets, but not everyone got something.
‘Now they’ll bring mine out. Give me those back! There it is! I spent a month’s pay on it!’
The hussar clung on to Fandorin’s arm and the field glasses had to be relinquished.
; The basket was genuinely sumptuous – an entire cloud of white roses.
‘She’s going to take mine, mine!’ the cornet repeated, seeming not to notice that in his excitement he was tugging on the other man’s sleeve.
‘Here, if you please. I can see that you are interested.’
Mr Tsarkov politely held out his mother-of-pearl lorgnette on a handle. Erast Petrovich grabbed the trinket, raised it to his eyes and was surprised to discover that the lenses were every bit as effective as those in the officer’s field glasses.
Once again the smiling face of Eliza Altairsky-Lointaine appeared close, very close, in front of his eyes. She was glancing downwards and off to one side, and the wings of her delicately chiselled nose were trembling slightly. What could have upset her? Surely not the fact that the final basket presented to Emeraldov (lemon-yellow orchids) was more sumptuous than her white roses? Hardly. This woman could not be infected with such petty vanity!
And then yet another basket, a genuine palace of flowers, was carried out onto the stage. Who was it intended for – the prima donna or the leading man?
For her! This miracle of the florist’s art was set down in front of Altairsky to the sound of ecstatic shouting from the entire hall. She curtsied, lowering her face to the buds and embracing the flowers in her slim, white arms.
‘Oh, damn it, damn it …’ Limbach groaned pitifully, seeing that his high card had been trumped.
Erast Petrovich shifted his lenses to Emeraldov for a second. The picturesquely handsome features of Karamzin’s Erast were distorted in spiteful malice. Well, well, such passions because of mere flowers!
He looked at Eliza again, expecting to see her triumphant. But the actress’s lovely face was a frozen mask of horror: the eyes were gaping wide and the lips were set in a soundless scream. What was wrong? What had frightened her?
Suddenly Fandorin saw that one of the flower buds, still dark and unopened, was swaying to and fro and seemed to be reaching upwards.
Good Lord! It wasn’t a bud! Fandorin distinctly made out the diamond form of a snake’s head framed in the double circle of his vision. It was a viper, and it was reaching directly towards the petrified leading lady’s bosom.
‘A snake! There’s a snake in the basket!’ Limbach howled, and he vaulted over the parapet, down into the gangway.
Everything happened in a few brief instants.
People in the front rows of the orchestra stalls were screaming and waving their arms about. The rest of the audience, not understanding what was happening, launched into a new storm of applause.
The swashbuckling hussar jumped to his feet, snatched his sword out of its scabbard and dashed towards the stage. But the white figure of Pan, made up to resemble marble, came to Altairsky’s rescue even sooner. Since he was standing behind the actress’s back, the horned god had spotted the fearsome denizen of the flower basket before anyone else. He ran up, fearlessly grabbed the reptile by the neck and snatched it out into the open.
Now the entire audience could see what was happening. The ladies started squealing. Madam Altairsky swayed on her feet and fell over onto her back. Then valiant Pan cried out – the reptile had bitten him on the hand. He swung it hard and smashed it against the floor, then started trampling it with his feet.
The theatre was filled with screams, the clattering of chairs and screeching.
‘A doctor! Call a doctor!’ voices shouted from the stage.
Someone fanned Eliza with a shawl and someone else led the bitten hero away.
And a tall, very thin man with his head completely shaved appeared right at the back of the stage.
He stood there with his arms folded, contemplating all this babel and smiling.
‘Who is that? Back there, behind all the others?’ Fandorin asked his omniscient companion.
‘One moment,’ said the companion, concluding a quiet conversation with his striped minion. ‘Find out who was responsible and punish them!’
‘It shall be done.’
The whistler walked rapidly out of the box and Mr Tsarkov turned towards Erast Petrovich with a polite smile, as if nothing untoward had occurred.
‘Where? Ah, that is Noah Noaevich Stern in person. He has taken off his Mask of Death. Just look how he’s glowing! And he has good reason to be delighted. What a stroke of luck! Now the Muscovites will go absolutely mad about the Ark.’
What a strange world, thought Fandorin. Incredibly strange!
INITIAL ACQUAINTANCE
The prime minister died at the very time when Erast Petrovich was in the theatre. The next day flags with black ribbons attached to them were hung everywhere and the newspapers appeared with huge headlines of mourning. In the liberal papers they wrote that, although the deceased was a proponent of reactionary views, the last chance for a renewal of the country without turmoil and revolution had died together with him. In the patriotic papers they cursed the Hebraic tribe to which the killer belonged and saw a special meaning in the fact that Stolypin had passed away on the anniversary of the ascension of the Most Orthodox Prince Gleb, thereby augmenting the host of the martyrs of the Russian land. Publications of the melodramatic, gutter-press disposition vehemently quoted Pyotr Arkadievich Stolypin’s will, in which he had apparently requested to be buried ‘where I am killed’.
This tragic news (they telephoned Erast Petrovich when he got back from the theatre) failed to make any special impression on him. The man who made the call, a high-ranking bureaucrat, also said that the council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had discussed whether Fandorin should be involved in the investigation, but the commander of the Corps of Gendarmes had categorically objected to this and the minister had made no comment.
It was remarkable that Erast Petrovich did not feel mortified in the least; on the contrary, he actually felt relieved, and if he did not sleep a wink the whole night long, it was not out of resentment, or even out of fearful concern for the fate of the state.
He paced to and fro in his study, looking down at the bright glimmers reflected from the parquet; he lay on the divan with a cigar, looking up at the white ceiling; he sat on the windowsill and gazed hard into the blackness – but all the while he saw the same thing: a slim arm, languid eyes, a snake’s head among flower buds.
Fandorin was accustomed to subjecting facts to analysis, but not his own emotions. And even now he did not stray from the path of rational inference, sensing that the slightest sideways step would send him tumbling into a quagmire, and he did not know how to scramble out of it.
Setting out a line of logic created the illusion that nothing special had happened. Just another investigation, the world had not been turned on its head.
Madam Altairsky’s fear had been justified. The danger really did exist. That was one, thought Erast Petrovich, bending down one finger – and he caught himself smiling. She isn’t a hysterical girl who imagines things, she isn’t a psychopath!
She obviously had some kind of ferocious enemy with a perverse imagination. Or enemies. That was two. How could anyone possibly hate her?
Judging from the theatricality of the attack on her life, the culprit or culprits should be sought first of all within the theatre company or on its immediate periphery. It was unlikely that someone who did not have backstage access could have placed the reptile in the basket. However, that would have to be checked. That was three. But what if the snake had bitten her? Oh, God!
He had to go to the theatre, take a close look at everything and, most important of all, try to get Madam Altairsky-Lointaine herself to speak frankly. That was four. I shall see her again! I shall talk to her!
The inner dialogue continued in this way right through until the morning, with feverishly agitated emotions constantly hindering the work of thought.
Eventually, after dawn, Fandorin said to himself: What the blazes is this? I think I must be unwell. He lay down and with an effort of will forced himself to relax and fall asleep.
Three hours later Fandorin got up wel
l rested, performed his usual physical exercises, took an ice bath and walked on a tightrope stretched across the courtyard for ten minutes. Control over his interior world was re-established. Erast Petrovich ate a hearty breakfast and looked through the Moscow newspapers that had been delivered; a brief glance at the sad headlines – and then rapidly on to the current events pages. Even the publications that lacked a theatre review section had published reports about the play at Noah’s Ark and the snake. Some reporters were appalled, some joked about it, but all of them, without exception, wrote about it. The reporters’ theories (envy among actors, a spurned admirer, a malicious joke) were of no real interest because they were so obvious. The only useful information that Fandorin gleaned from this reading was the fact that the actor who was bitten (Mr Nonarikin) had been given an injection of antivenom and the state of his health was no longer any cause for concern.
Olga Leonardovna called several times in an agitated state, but Masa had been instructed to tell her that his master was not at home. Erast Petrovich did not feel like wasting time and mental energy on sentimental conversations. Those resources could be put to far better use.
The manager of Noah’s Ark met his visitor at the service entrance, shook his hand in both of his own and led him to his office – all in all, he was hospitality itself. During their telephone conversation Fandorin had thought that Stern seemed a little wary, but the theatre director had agreed immediately to meet.
‘Madam Chekhov’s wish is sacred to me,’ Stern said, offering Erast Petrovich a seat in an armchair. His narrow, intent eyes slid over the visitor’s impervious face and elegant cream suit and halted on the pointy-toed shoes of crocodile leather. ‘She called yesterday and asked for a complimentary ticket for you, but it was too late, there wasn’t a single good seat left. Olga Leonardovna said she would arrange things somehow without my help, but she wanted me to set aside some time for you after the performance. She called again this morning to ask if the meeting had taken place …’