by Boris Akunin
She got up and shook off the red drops.
The hotel operator.
‘A Mr Fandorin is asking for you. Shall I connect him?’
‘Him! Surely he couldn’t have sensed anything! Oh God, and she hadn’t thought about him at all during these terrible hours. She hadn’t allowed herself to. In order not to undermine her resolution.
‘Yes, yes, connect us.’
Now he would say: ‘My darling, my only one, come to your senses! I know what is on your mind, stop!’
‘P-please forgive this late call,’ said the dry voice in the earpiece. ‘I have done as you asked. I wanted to give it to you at the theatre, but circumstances of which you are aware prevented me. I mean the verse. The pentastitch,’ he explained when he heard no response. ‘Do you remember, you asked me?’
‘Yes,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘It’s very kind of you not to have forgotten.’
But what she wanted to say was: ‘My beloved, I am doing this for you. I am dying, so that you can live …’
Eliza found this unspoken line very moving. She wiped away a tear.
‘Will you write it down? I’ll d-dictate it.’
‘Just a moment.’
Oh God, this was just what was needed to render her departure ideally beautiful! Her beloved had telephoned to dictate her deathbed poem! It would be found on the table. But no one, no one apart from Erast Petrovich, would know all the beauty of what had happened. This truly was genuine ‘yugen’!
He dictated it in a monotonous voice and she wrote it down without thinking about the words, because she was looking into the mirror all the time. Ah, what a scene! Eliza’s voice, repeating the lines, tranquil, even cheerful, a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes. It was a pity that no one would see or hear it. But it was absolutely the best thing she had ever played in her life.
She wanted to say something special to him at the end, so that the meaning would be revealed later, and he would remember those words to the end of his days. But nothing adequate to the moment occurred to her, and Eliza did not want to spoil it with banality.
‘There, b-basically that’s all. Goodnight.’
There was a note of anticipation in his voice.
‘Are you not going to ask about Shustrov?’ he asked after a pause. ‘Are you not interested?’
‘That does not interest me,’ Eliza gasped in a rustling half-whisper: ‘Goodbye …’
‘Goodnight,’ Erast said, even more coolly than at the beginning of the conversation.
The line went dead.
‘Ah, Erast Petrovich, how cruelly you will repent,’ Eliza told the mirror.
She looked at the piece of paper and decided to make a fair copy of the verse. Because her left hand had been occupied with holding the receiver, the lines had sprawled in higgledy-piggledy fashion, it looked untidy.
Only now did she really read it and grasp the meaning.
In another birth,
Not a flower, but a bee
Would I inhabit.
Oh woe, this malicious lot –
A geisha’s timorous love …
The part about ‘another birth’ was clear, the Japanese believed in the transmigration of the soul, but what was the sense of ‘not a flower, but a bee’? What did that mean?
Suddenly she understood.
Not to be the eternal object of others’ lust, but to be transformed oneself into desire, into resoluteness, oneself. To choose one’s own flower, to buzz and to sting!
To wither and wilt without resistance or to be picked – that was the lot of a geisha and the lot of a flower. But a bee had a sting. And if an enemy attacked, a bee made use of its sting, with no concern for the consequences.
This was the signal that life had sent Eliza at the final moment.
She must not surrender without a struggle! She must not capitulate in the face of Evil. Eliza’s mistake was that she had behaved too much like a woman: she had wanted other men to protect her against Genghis Khan, and when there were no defenders left, she had simply lost heart, dropped her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. What shameful weakness!
But she would become a bee right here and now, in her present incarnation! She would exterminate the enemy, save the one she loved and be happy as well! ‘Only he is worthy of happiness and freedom who da-de-da-de-da follows them into battle!’ In her agitation, part of Goethe’s strophe had slipped her mind, but that was not important.
To strike down the Dragon herself! To appear before Erast strong and free!
The superb magnificence of this idea filled Eliza with ecstasy.
She called reception.
‘Collect two crystal vases of Bordeaux from my room. Take them to the Madrid lodging rooms for the actors of the Noah’s Ark theatre, from me,’ she said. ‘Let them drink to the victory of Light over Darkness!’
‘How very high-tone that is, madam,’ the receptionist exclaimed admiringly.
THE BATTLE WITH THE DRAGON
Kill him, in the same way that a mad dog is killed – with no moral compunctions, no Christian commandments. So that he can never bite anyone again.
And the most miraculous thing was that there would be no penalty for this deed. That is, of course, there would be a sensational trial, with a jury, with a crush in the courtroom, with journalists. The idea of a trial did not frighten Eliza at all. Quite the contrary. A deliberately casual hairstyle. Clothes that were simple, but eye-catching – all in mourning style, with a light glint of steel, as befits a female warrior. They would definitely acquit her. The case would definitely create a furore right across Europe. And quite definitely no Sarah Bernhardt or Eleanor Duzet had ever seen such glory, even in their sweetest dreams.
All this was wonderful and theatrical, with guaranteed applause. But first she had to kill a man. Not that Eliza felt sorry for Genghis Khan, she most certainly did not. She didn’t even consider him to be a human being – he was an ugly anomaly, a cancerous tumour that had to be excised as soon as possible. But Eliza had no idea of how to kill a man. She had done it on stage many times – for instance, when she played the Comtesse de Teroir in The Victim of Thermidor. It had all been very simple there: she raised her hand holding the pistol, a worker behind the scenes struck a copper sheet, and the cruel Commissar of the Convention dropped to the ground with a howl. But in real life it must all be more difficult.
And it became clear to Eliza that she couldn’t manage without a consultant or a second – in short, an assistant.
She started running through the potential candidates.
Erast was excluded immediately. In her play a completely different role was allotted to him: ashamed, admiring and forgiven.
Swardilin? Too conspicuous, with his oriental appearance. And then he was a celebrity too now. She didn’t want to divide the glory between two actors.
Vasya? In the Japanese play he was a great swordsman, but in real life he was a ditherer. She was certain he had never held a gun in his hand in his life. What was needed here was some kind of military man …
What about Georges? Firstly, he was a former officer. Secondly, he was devotedly and quite patently in love with her. Thirdly, he was a genuine knight, a man of honour. Fourthly, he was a hero – it was enough to recall how he had grabbed hold of that snake, brrrr … He was discreet. And – very importantly – he was accustomed to remaining in the shade.
The following day she withdrew into an empty box with Nonarikin and, after making him take an oath of silence and obedience, she told him everything. He listened with his eyes blazing, sometimes even grinding his teeth at the villain who had caused her so much grief and had killed five entirely innocent people with impunity. Eliza’s story did not arouse any doubts in Nonarikin, and she was especially grateful to him for that.
‘So that’s what it’s all about …’ the assistant director whispered, striking his fist against his forehead. ‘Ah, it’s all so … Fate, destiny! Now it’s all clear. And we …’
‘Who is this “we�
��?’ Eliza asked cautiously. ‘Who do you mean?’
‘It is of no consequence. I am bound by my word of honour, obliged to maintain silence.’ Georges set his hand over his lips. ‘And I am eternally grateful to you for your trust. You don’t have to tell me any more. Do you know the address at which I can find the ogre? Don’t worry, I shall manage things without the police. I shall force him to shoot at two paces, by lots, with no chance. And if he refuses, I shall kill him on the spot!’
This was what Eliza had been afraid of.
‘I have to kill him myself. With my own hands. The last thing I want is for you to be exiled to hard labour because of me!’
‘My lady, for your sake I would do more than serve hard labour – for your sake I … I … am prepared to save the entire accursed world from destruction!’ And he reached his arm out above the hall of the theatre in such a funny, touching manner. ‘Ah, if only your eyes could be opened, if only you could see what I am really like! If only you could love me – that would change everything!’
‘Nowhere beyond the bounds of the stage has anyone ever declared their love for me so … majestically …’ – it took Eliza a moment or so to find the right word. ‘You are my knight, and I am your lady. That is a beautiful relationship. Let us not move beyond it. And there is no need for you to intercede for me. At the moment I am not in need of a protector, but an assistant. Remember, you swore an oath to obey. You are a man of your word, are you not?’
His fervour was extinguished. His shoulders fell and his head slumped.
‘Have no fear. Nonarikin keeps his word. And the role of a deputy is nothing new to me. One in nine persons, as Noah Noaevich likes to joke …’
Feeling calmer now, she explained that his assistance would be clandestine. Otherwise it would not be a crime committed in a state of passion, motivated by the impulse of the moment, but a premeditated murder involving conspiracy – a horse of quite a different colour.
‘Command me, my sovereign. I shall do everything you say,’ Georges said in a voice that still sounded bitter, but calmer.
‘Get me a pistol and teach me how to shoot with it.’
‘I have a revolver, a Nagant. A little heavy for your hand, but you will be shooting point blank, will you not?’
‘Oh, yes!’
This conversation took place on the sixth of November. For three days in succession, after the rehearsal they went down into the stone-vaulted basement, where the scenery from long-forgotten productions was stored, and Eliza learned to fire the gun without squeezing her eyes shut. The shots sounded deafening, the thunder rumbled and rolled about, unable to find any way out from under the heavy vaulting. But upstairs – they checked – the shooting could not be heard.
On the first day nothing went well. On the second, at least Eliza did not drop the revolver after a shot. She emptied the entire cylinder, but failed to hit the dummy even once. Eventually, on the third day, holding the heavy revolver in both hands and shooting at extremely close range, she shot holes in the dummy with five bullets out of seven. Nonarikin said that was quite a good result.
There was no more time left to practise. The next day, Thursday, after the performance, vengeance was due to be enacted.
Eliza had no doubt that Genghis Khan would show up at the theatre. He had never missed a single performance previously and now, over the freshly dug grave of the man who could have been her husband, he would certainly want to put in an appearance. Two days earlier, in the evening, she had seen him following her across the square from the theatre to the hotel, concealed in a gaggle of admirers. After the newspapers had reported – not openly, but in perfectly transparent hints – that the suicide of ‘the young millionaire’ had resulted from the intransigence of a certain ‘only too well-known actress’, curious theatregoers had lain in wait for Eliza at the stage door and dogged her footsteps but, thank God, they had not pestered her, only gaped reverentially from a distance.
That evening she played breathtakingly, as if there were some magical force bearing her round the stage, and at times it seemed that at any moment she would fly up into the air, flapping the sleeves of her kimono like wings. Never before had the public devoured her so avidly with its eyes. Eliza could feel that avid attention, she revelled in it and was intoxicated by it. In the wings Vulpinova, who had also been given a highly dramatic role, hissed: ‘This is theft! Stop stealing my moves! Aren’t your own enough for you?’
Genghis Khan was in the terraced stalls. Eliza didn’t see him at first, but during the love scene in the third act a familiar silhouette suddenly rose up, towering over the seated viewers. The murderer, whose fate today was to be the victim, stood up and leaned against a column, crossing his arms. If he was counting on putting the actress off, then he miscalculated – Eliza only embraced Masa with even greater passion.
After the performance, as usual, they drank a glass of champagne. Stern was very pleased and said he would record his impressions of how they had each played their parts in the Tablets.
At the very end of the brief gathering Fandorin suddenly appeared. He congratulated the company on a successful performance – probably out of politeness, because Eliza had not seen him in the hall. She looked at him only once, briefly, and turned away. He didn’t look at her at all. Just you wait, Erast Petrovich, you’ll be sorry, she thought in sweet gloating. And very soon.
Then Nonarikin made an announcement: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow, as usual, we rehearse at eleven. But please bear in mind that from now on those who are tardy will be subject to the appropriate measures, without any exceptions. A fine of one rouble for every minute that you are late!’ Everyone grumbled about that, clamoured briefly in outrage and started going home.
‘The khan is here,’ Eliza whispered to her second. She was trembling. ‘Be prepared and wait. Today all will be resolved!’
‘I simply can’t settle my nerves,’ Nonarikin said when they were left alone. ‘What if you hesitate and he shoots first? Come to your senses! What sort of business is this for a woman?’
‘Not for anything. The die has been cast.’
Eliza smiled bravely and flung up her chin. The sudden movement set her head spinning and she felt afraid that she might faint. But it was all right, it passed off. Only her knees were trembling.
Then Georges sighed and took something small, made of black metal, out of his pocket.
‘You are a heroine. Who am I to stand in the way of your heroism? This is for you, take it.’
She took the light pistol that almost fitted her hand.
‘What is this? What for?’
‘A Bayard. A noble weapon with a noble name. I spent everything I had left over from my salary on it. And I’ll keep the Nagant. If you are in danger, I shall be ready. This at least you cannot deny me!’
Tears welled up in his eyes.
‘Thank you … Now I shall not be afraid. Almost … But how do I fire it?’
‘Let’s go down into the basement. I’ll show you.’
They walked down the steps and she fired an entire clip. This was an entirely different matter! She could hold the weapon in one hand, she hardly felt any recoil at all, and the bullets made a neat, close pattern in the dummy.
Georges was pleased too. He put in new bullets, clicked something and handed the pistol back to Eliza.
‘Now just take off the safety catch and fire away! Remember, I’m here. I’m watching out.’
On the way to the exit she repeated her instructions to her second.
‘No matter what, do not look round. Do not interfere in anything. Only if I call out for you to help, all right?’
He nodded, becoming gloomier by the moment.
‘Don’t even think of taking out your Nagant. That will be the end of both of us!’
He nodded again.
‘Only if the khan prepares to shoot. Is that all clear?’
‘Yes, it’s clear …’ Nonarikin muttered.
At that moment they were walking through
the auditorium.
‘Wait a moment.’
She felt a sudden urge to look at the stage curtain. Perhaps she would never see it again. And if she did, it would not be soon. They would probably put her prison for the duration of the trial, wouldn’t they?
The cleaners were already completing their work: they brought in Noah Noaevich’s desk and stood it beside the stage – for the next day’s rehearsal. Then they stood a lamp on it, precisely at the centre, as Stern preferred. Then they set out fresh sheets of paper and sharpened pencils and – with special respect – the Tablets.
Eliza suddenly felt a desire to read what Noah Noaevich had written about the way she had acted today.
It made pleasant reading: ‘For E.L. – Miraculous nervous tension! The recipe for success: stretch the string to the limit. But do not snap it!’
That was on the stage. But in real life sometimes it had to be snapped.
Before she went outside, Eliza filled her lungs with air and looked at her watch. Precisely midnight. An ideal hour for bloodshed.
She stepped out onto the pavement like Mary Stuart stepping onto the scaffold.
Despite the late hour, there was a crowd standing at the entrance. There was clapping and exclamations, several men handed her bouquets, someone asked her to sign a photocard. A flashgun flared.
As she nodded and smiled, out of the corner of her eye Eliza followed the movements of a figure in a long black coat and a gleaming top hat.
He was here, here!
She handed the flowers to Nonarikin, who just barely managed to wrap his left arm round them, while keeping his right hand in his pocket.
Twenty steps farther on Eliza took her powder compact out of the pocket of her muff, in order to glance into the little mirror. About half a dozen admirers, both male and female, were following her at a respectable distance, and striding along at the head of them, with his heels clattering loudly, was Genghis Khan.