by Boris Akunin
At the first stage a simple truth had been revealed to Fandorin, one that a less intelligent and complex individual would have grasped much sooner. (However, we must make allowances for the fact that Erast Petrovich had considered this page of his life to have been read and closed for ever a long time ago.)
I’m in love, he suddenly told himself, this fifty-five-year-old man who had seen and experienced so many things of every possible kind in the course of his life. He was incredibly surprised and even burst into laughter in the silence of the empty room. There can be no doubt, unfortunately – so I’m in love, then? In love, like a boy, filled with youthful passion? Ah, what nonsense! How shamefully absurd, how positively vulgar! To burn one’s heart out by the age of twenty-two, then live for a third of a century with the feebly glowing ashes, dauntlessly enduring the crushing blows of fate and maintaining one’s cold reasoning even in situations of deadly danger; to attain spiritual peace and clarity at an age that is not yet old – and then lapse back into puerility, to find oneself in the laughable position of someone in love!
And worst of all, with whom? An actress, that is, a creature who is bound to be unnatural, spoilt, false, accustomed to turning heads and breaking hearts!
But that was only half the problem. The second half was even more humiliating. This feeling of amorous infatuation was not mutual, it was unrequited, there was not even the slightest sign of interest from the other party.
In past years so many women – beautiful and intelligent, brilliant and profound, infernal and angelic – had bestowed their adoration and passion on him, but the most he had ever done was allow them to love him, almost never losing his own cool composure. But this one had declared: ‘I belong only to myself!’ And she had looked at him as if he were a bothersome fly!
In this way Erast Petrovich moved on, without even noticing it, to the next stage – of resentment.
Why, belong to whomever you wish, madam, what business is that of mine? I have fallen in love? How could I ever get such nonsense into my head! He laughed once again (this time not in surprise, but anger). He ordered himself to put this prima donna with the jarring pseudonym out of his mind immediately. Let them work out for themselves in that little theatre of theirs who was playing these vile tricks with vipers on whom. Merely being in that madhouse of theirs was dangerous for the psyche of a rational individual.
Erast Petrovich’s will was steely. He had decided, and that was the end of it. He did his evening gymnastics and even ate dinner. Before going to sleep he read some Marcus Aurelius and turned out the light. And in the darkness the apparition descended on him with renewed force. Suddenly her face appeared, with those eyes that looked straight through him, and he heard that gentle, deep voice. And he had neither the strength nor – even worse – the desire to drive away this Distant Princess.
Fandorin tossed and turned until dawn, attempting every now and then to rid himself of the enticing vision. But he was obliged to admit that the dose of venom was too strong and his organism had been poisoned irrevocably.
He got dressed, took his jade beads and set about the problem properly, in real earnest. And so began the third stage – the stage of comprehension.
I am in love, to deny it is absurd. That is one. (He clicked a little green sphere.)
Evidently, without this woman my life will be miserable. That is two. (Another click.)
Which means that I have to do whatever will make her mine – it is that simple. That is three.
Such was the entire chain of logic.
He felt better immediately. For a man of action such as Fandorin, a clearly defined goal stimulates a burst of positive energy.
First of all he had to amend the current constitution, which made absolutely no provision for such a sudden somersault on the harmonious path to old age.
A man walks through that field, the crossing of which is the living of one’s life, calmly contemplating the smooth line of the horizon, which appears to be gradually brightening and moving closer. The path he treads is pleasant, his stride is steady. The clouds eddy calmly in the sky above his head – no sun and no rain. And suddenly there is a peal of thunder, a flash of lightning, and a furious lance of electricity transpierces his entire being, darkness swoops down onto the ground, he can see neither the path nor the horizon, he cannot tell which way to walk and – even worse than that – whether he should walk in any direction at all. Man proposes and God disposes.
The electrical vibration swept through Fandorin’s body and soul. He felt like a tortoise that has suddenly lost its shell. It was terrifying and shameful, but the sensation was beyond expression in words, as if … as if his entire skin was breathing. And also as if he had been dozing and had suddenly woken up. To put it in more melodramatic terms: he had risen from the dead. I seem to have read my own funeral rites too soon, thought Erast Petrovich, telling his beads faster and faster. For as long as life goes on, it can throw up any kind of surprise – either happy or catastrophic. And moreover, the most significant among these surprises are combinations of both the former and the latter.
Fandorin sat in an armchair, watching the window frame slowly filling up with light and focusing his bewildered mind on the changes that were taking place within him.
That was how Masa found him when he glanced cautiously in at the door after seven o’clock in the morning.
‘What has happened, master? Since yesterday you haven’t been yourself at all. I haven’t pestered you about it, but this worries me. I’ve never seen you like this.’
After a moment’s thought, the Japanese corrected himself.
‘I haven’t seen you like this for a long time. Your face has become so young. Like thirty-three years ago. I think you must have fallen in love!’
Fandorin gaped at his clairvoyant servant in absolute amazement and Masa slapped himself on his gleaming pate.
‘Just as I thought! Oh, this is very alarming! Something must be done about it.’
This is my only friend, who knows me better than I know myself, thought Erast Petrovich. It is pointless trying to conceal anything from him, and in addition, Masa has an excellent understanding of female psychology. Here is a person who can help!
‘Tell me, how does one win the love of an actress?’ Fandorin asked, not beating about the bush, but going straight to the point, and speaking in Russian.
‘Genuine rove or make-berieve?’ his servant enquired in a businesslike tone.
‘How’s that? What does “make-believe love” mean?’
Masa preferred to speak of these delicate matters in his native language, which he regarded as more refined.
‘An actress is the same as a geisha or a courtesan of the highest rank,’ he began explaining with an expert air. ‘For a woman like that, love can be of two kinds. It is easier to win her acted love – she knows how to act it out superbly. A normal man does not need anything more than that. In the name of such a love a beautiful woman may make certain sacrifices. For instance, crop her hair in proof of her passion. Sometimes even cut off a piece of her little finger. But no more than that. But sometimes, although quite rarely, the heart of such a woman is transfixed by genuine feeling – the kind for which she might consent to a double suicide.’
‘Oh, go to hell with your exotic Japanese ideas!’ Erast Petrovich exclaimed furiously. ‘I’m not asking you about a geisha, but an actress, a normal European actress.’
Masa pondered.
‘I have had actresses. Three. No, four – I forgot the mulatto from New Orleans, who danced on the table … I believe you are right, master. They are different from geishas. Winning their love is much easier. Only it is difficult to tell if it is acted or genuine.’
‘Never mind that, I’ll puzzle it out somehow,’ Fandorin said impatiently. ‘Easier, you say? Much easier in fact?’
‘It would be really easy if you were a director or an author of plays or if you wrote articles about the theatre in the newspapers. Actresses acknowledge only these three typ
es of men as superior beings.’
Remembering the smile that had lit up Eliza’s face when she took him for a theatre critic, Fandorin fixed his consultant with an intent gaze.
‘Well? Go on, go on!’
Masa continued judiciously.
‘You cannot be a director, for that you need to have your own theatre. Writing reviews is not difficult, of course, but much time will pass by before you make a name for yourself. Write a good play, in which the actress will have a beautiful part. That is the simplest way of all. I have engaged in literary composition. It is not a difficult business, and even enjoyable. That is my advice to you, master.’
‘Are you making fun of me? I don’t know how to write plays!’
‘In order to prove one’s love to a woman, it is necessary to perform feats of heroism. For such a man as you, overcoming a hundred obstacles or defeating a hundred wrongdoers is no great feat. But to compose a wonderful play for the sake of your beloved – that would be a genuine proof of love.’
Erast Petrovich sent his specialist adviser to the devil and was left alone again.
But the idea that had seemed idiotic at first kept running round Fandorin’s head and eventually beguiled him.
The gift given to the woman one loves should be the thing that brings her the greatest joy. Eliza is an actress. The theatre is her life. Her greatest joy is a good role. Ah, if only it really were possible to present Eliza with a play in which she would wish to act! Then she would stop looking at me with polite indifference. Masa has given me a very intelligent piece of advice. It is only a shame that it is quite impracticable …
Impracticable?
Erast Petrovich reminded himself of the many times in his life when he had encountered challenges that appeared insuperable at first. However, a solution had always been found. Will, intellect and knowledge were capable of overcoming any obstacle.
He had ample will and intellect. But knowledge was more of a problem. Fandorin’s familiarity with the business of playwriting was minimal. The task facing him was comparable to the heroic feats of Hercules. But he could at least try – for the sake of a goal such as this.
One thing was clear. It was unbearable not to see Eliza, but he must not appear before her as merely one more member of the grey crowd. He had already received one fillip to the nose, that was enough. If there was to be another encounter, he must present himself for it fully prepared.
And so the harmonious man moved on to the concluding stage – unswerving determination.
Erast Petrovich set about realising his purpose with comprehensive thoroughness. First he surrounded himself with books: collections of plays, monographs on dramatic art, treatises on stylistics and poetics. Fandorin’s skills of rapid reading and concentration, coupled with his feverish excitement, allowed the future dramatist to plough through several thousand pages in four days.
Fandorin spent the fifth day doing absolutely nothing, devoting himself entirely to meditating and creating an inner Void, which would give rise to the animating Impulse that people of the West call Inspiration and people of the East call Samadhi.
Erast Petrovich already knew exactly what kind of play he was going to write – the correct line to take had been prompted by the conversation with Stern about an ‘ideal play’. All that remained was to wait for the moment when the words would start flowing of their accord.
As evening was coming on, the inspiration-seeking Fandorin started swaying in a distinct rhythm and his half-closed eyelids opened wide.
He dipped a steel pen into an inkwell and traced out the long title. His hand moved slowly at first, then faster and faster, barely able to keep pace with the torrent of words that came bursting out. Time enveloped the study in a glimmering, undulating cloud. In the dead of night, with the regal full moon shining majestically in the sky, Erast Petrovich suddenly froze, sensing that the flow of magical energy had run dry. He dropped the pen, leaving a blot on the paper, leaned back in his armchair and finally fell asleep for the first time in days. The lamp carried on burning.
Masa entered the room soundlessly and put a warm rug over his master. He started reading what had been written and sceptically shook his large head, as round as the moon.
Seven 1s
UNTIL THE BENEFIT PERFORMANCE
THE VENGEANCE OF GHENGIS KHAN
She might as well not even go to bed. It was the same thing all over again: a face spattered with cabbage and a red beard surrounding lips that sang without making any sound.
In fact the dream always began very pleasantly, with her apparently driving along a country high road, not in an automobile, but in a carriage: the rhythmic clopping of hooves and jangling of harnesses, the gentle swaying of the springs sending sweet, visceral tremors surging upwards from below. No one there beside her, a mood so buoyant, she felt she could soar up into the air, her soul filled with a premonition of happiness, and she doesn’t want anything else at all. Just to keep on swaying like this on the springy seat and waiting for the joy that is already so close …
Suddenly there is a tap at the left-hand window. She looks – and sees a livid face with its eyes closed and scraps of cabbage dangling from its luxurious black moustache streaked with white. A hand with a signet ring on one finger adjusts the necktie and it starts wriggling. It isn’t a necktie, but a snake!
And then another tap – from the right. She jerks round, and there is the singer with the bright red beard. He looks at her soulfully, opens his mouth wide and even extends his arm in a fluent gesture, but she doesn’t hear anything.
Only the tapping on the glass: tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap!
At one time the dreams almost stopped. She wasn’t even very frightened when she saw that familiar bald spot and that glance blazing with hatred below the fused black eyebrows in the third row of the opera stalls at Poor Liza. She had known that he would turn up sooner or later, she was inwardly prepared for it and very pleased with her own self-possession.
But after the performance, when a snake’s head with exactly the same frenzied little eyes had suddenly thrust up out of the rosebuds, the nightmare had overwhelmed her again with even greater, more crushing force. If not for dear Nonarikin, so touchingly smitten with her … Brrrr, it was best not even to think about it.
For two days afterwards she had not allowed herself to sleep, knowing what it would lead to. On the third day tiredness got the better of her and, of course, the awakening was horrific. With screaming, convulsive sobbing and hiccupping. Since then it had been the same thing every night: the same old dream from St Petersburg, but now the snake had taken up residence in it.
In the dormitory of the ballet school, before she went to sleep little Liza often used to act out for her friends the stories of heroines who were dying. Either from slow-acting poison, like Cleopatra, or from consumption, like the lady with the camellias. Juliet killing herself with a dagger was suitable too, because before she finally stabs herself, she declaims a touching monologue. Liza enjoyed lying there with her eyes closed and listening to the girls sobbing. Later they all went in for dance and some even became well known, but a ballerina’s career is short, and Liza wanted to work in the theatre until her old age, like Sarah Bernhardt, and so she chose drama. She dreamed of collapsing lifelessly on the stage, like Edmund Kean, so that a thousand people would see it and sob, even though they thought it was all part of the role, and of drawing her final breath to the sound of applause and shouts of ‘Bravo!’
Liza rushed into marriage early. She was playing Princess Reverie (La Princesse Lointaine) to Sasha Lumpin’s enamoured Prince Geoffroi. Her first success, the first time she had felt the intoxication of universal adoration. In the season of youth it is so easy to confuse a play with real life! Of course, they separated very soon. Actors should not live together. Sasha faded away somewhere in the provinces, and all that remained of him was his name. But a leading lady cannot be called Liza Lumpina, and so she became Eliza Lointaine.
If her first marriage wa
s simply a failure, the second turned out to be a catastrophe. Once again, she had only herself to blame. She was seduced by the dramatic flair of a sudden shift in the direction of life, by the tinsel and glitter of a superficial effect. And ultimately, by a resounding title. How many actresses had married simply so that they would be called ‘Your Excellency’ or ‘Your Ladyship’? But this had an even more grandiose ring: ‘Your Most Exalted Dignity’. That was the title by which the wife of a khan was supposed to be addressed. Iskander Altairsky was a brilliant officer in the Escort Lifeguards, the oldest son of the ruler of one of the khanates of the Caucasus, which had been annexed to the empire during the time of General Alexei Yermolov. He threw his money about and wooed her handsomely, he was good looking, despite his premature baldness, and in addition impetuous and voluble in the Asiatic manner. He declared that he was willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of love – and he kept his word. When his superiors refused him permission to marry, he resigned and abandoned his military career. He ruined his relationship with his father and renounced his rights of inheritance in favour of his younger brother; an actress, especially a divorced one, could not be the wife of the heir to a khanate. But the outcast was allocated a very decent annual allowance. And most important of all, Iskander swore not to make any difficulties over the theatre and consented to a childless marriage. What more could she have wished for? Her stage rivals were positively bursting with envy. Lida Yavorskaya, whose title by marriage was Princess Baryatinskaya, even emigrated from Russia – princesses were ten a penny in St Petersburg, but there was only one khatun.
Her second marriage fell apart even more quickly than the first – immediately after the wedding and the wedding night. And the reason was not that in his exorbitant excitement her husband was incapable of proving himself in the appropriate manner (that was actually quite touching, in fact), but the conditions that he propounded to her the following morning. Altairsky’s status as a khatun entailed certain obligations, Iskander told her strictly: ‘I promised not to interfere with your passion for the theatre and I will keep my word. But you must avoid plays in which you will have to embrace men or, even worse, kiss them.’ Eliza had laughed, thinking that he was joking. When it became clear that her husband was absolutely serious, she spent a long time trying to make him see sense. She explained that it was impossible to play a heroine’s roles without embraces and kisses; and furthermore, it was now becoming fashionable to show the act of carnal triumph explicitly on the stage.