by Boris Akunin
It would be easier to carry out her intentions in public view. She would just have to imagine that she was playing a part.
Eliza swung round. She shuddered, as if she had only just noticed the man in the long coat. He grinned under his black moustache.
She cried out and lengthened her stride a little.
The clatter of heels behind her also speeded up.
I mustn’t hit the people walking behind him, Eliza thought. She counted to five in her mind.
‘Torturer! Monster!’ she exclaimed in a resounding voice. ‘I can’t take any more!’
Genghis Khan, startled, shied away to one side. Now she could fire at will, behind him there was nothing but the dark, empty square.
‘As God is my judge!’ Eliza improvised. ‘I may perish, but you will also meet your end!’
She drew the pistol out of her muff with an elegant gesture and took a step forward. Her hand did not tremble, her supreme artistic elation rendered every movement irreproachable.
The khan shuddered and dropped his top hat.
‘Die, Satan!’
She squeezed her forefinger as hard as she possibly could, but there was no shot. She pressed the trigger again and again – but it didn’t yield.
‘The safety catch! The safety catch!’ Nonarikin hissed behind her.
Everything went dark in front of Eliza’s eyes. This was a disaster!
The admirers started shouting and waving their arms about. Genghis Khan also came to his senses. He didn’t reach into his coat to take out a gun, but simply turned up his collar, swung round and darted away at a trot, dissolving into the darkness.
A flashgun flared again. The camera recorded Eliza Altairsky-Lointaine in a most effective pose: with her arm extended and a pistol in her hand.
‘Bravo! Is that from a future production?’ the admirers babbled. ‘How original! We adore you!’ a woman exclaimed. ‘I haven’t missed a single one of your performances! I absolutely idolise you! I’m a reporter for the Evening News, will you allow me to ask a question?’
‘What went wrong?’ Eliza asked her second in an appalling whisper. ‘Why didn’t it fire?’
‘But you didn’t take off the safety catch …’
‘What safety catch? What safety catch are you talking about?’
Georges took her by the arm and led her away.
‘Oh, come on now! We fired in the basement, didn’t we … You saw it! And I reminded you …’
‘I don’t recall. I was agitated. And then, when I fired the Nagant, there wasn’t any safety catch.’
‘Good Lord, every grammar school boy knows that, unlike a revolver, a pistol has a little lever like this, look, there it is!’
‘I am not a grammar school boy!’ Eliza sobbed hysterically. ‘This is all your fault! Call yourself a second! You didn’t explain anything properly! My God, get them away from me, will you? And you go away too! I don’t want to see anyone!’
She ran on ahead, choking on her sobs. Nonarikin obediently hung back.
‘Madam Altairsky is tired! Please show her some consideration!’ she heard his voice say behind her. ‘Please come to the performance, ladies and gentlemen. Please allow the artistes to have a private life of their own!’
The world of theatre is full of legends about the most shameful, monstrous fiascos. Not even the most famous of actresses does not have a nightmare in which she forgets her part or makes an appalling blunder that results in malevolent silence from the audience and then whistling and booing and the shuffling of chairs. Eliza had been certain that nothing of the sort would ever happen to her. But now she had flunked the most important entrance of her life quite disgracefully. As she stumbled blindly along the hotel corridor, she was not thinking of the consequences of her attack on Genghis Khan (there would definitely be some), but about her own absolutely hopeless incompetence.
Real life was not a theatre. There was no worker to strike a sheet of metal behind the scenes to make the shot ring out, and the villain would not tumble over of his own accord. The curtain would not descend to save her from the raging public. She could not simply take off her costume and her make-up.
I am talentless, my life is mediocre, and I have deserved my fate, thought Eliza. She sat there in the dark room, without taking off her hat, like some little bird huddling up in its feathers to warm itself, broken and exhausted. She fell asleep without realising it.
And she had a dream that was quite unbearable, absolutely terrifying. She was sitting in her dressing room, all the walls were covered with mirrors and she tried to look at herself – but there was no reflection. No matter which way she turned or which mirror she looked into – there was nothing. And although she had the feeling that there was something black right there beside her, she couldn’t catch a glimpse of it. She sat there, turning her head faster and faster, right and left, right and left, but there was still no Eliza to be seen. I’ve taken off my stage costume and make-up, and without the part I don’t exist, she realised, and felt so afraid that she woke with a groan and with tears in her eyes.
If the sun had been shining outside the window, perhaps she would have felt some relief. But the dirty November dawn was even worse than the darkness, and her entire body was numbed from her uncomfortable pose during the night. Eliza felt dirty, unwell and old. She glanced fearfully round the room. The vague outlines of things, visible through the dim light, frightened her. A large mirror glimmered on the wall, but not for anything in the world would Eliza have glanced into it now. The real world pressed in on her from every side, it was menacing and unpredictable, she didn’t understand the way its plot lines developed and she didn’t dare to surmise what the denouement would be.
She jumped up and started dashing aimlessly round the room. She had to get away from here, away! But where to?
To where everything was familiar and predictable. To the theatre! Its walls were like an impregnable fortress. It denied access to strangers, and to real life with all of its dangers. There she would be in her own kingdom, where everything was familiar and comprehensible and nothing was frightening.
Following poor Limbach’s death, Eliza had been given a new dressing room, at the opposite end of the corridor, a very bright and cheerful room – Noah Noaevich had given the instructions. And now she suddenly felt an irresistible urge, this very second, to run out of this appalling, absolutely alien hotel room and dash across the square, so that she would be there, among the posters and the photographs that reminded her of her former triumphs … that reminded her that Eliza Lointaine really did exist.
It was only the habit of discipline in everything that concerned her appearance and her clothes that prevented her from dashing out immediately. With quite incredible haste – in about an hour – Eliza tidied herself up, changing her clothes, putting on her perfume and arranging her hair in a tight style. That lent her a certain amount of strength. She was at least reflected in the mirror. Well, she was pale and her eyes were sunken, but in combination with medium-blue velvet and a wide-brimmed hat, this morbid air actually looked rather interesting.
As Eliza walked along the street, men looked round at her. She was gradually starting to calm down. Once inside the echoing foyer of the theatre, she sighed in relief. There was more than an hour and a half remaining until the rehearsal. She would recover her spirits before eleven. And after that … But she didn’t allow herself to think about what would happen after that.
Ah, how good it felt in the theatre when it was empty. The twilight wasn’t frightening, and even the rustling of her footsteps was comforting.
She also loved the dark, deserted auditorium. Without actors, this wide space was lifeless; it was waiting obediently and patiently for Eliza to fill it with her light.
She opened the door slightly – and stopped.
In the distance the lamp was lit on the director’s desk in front of the stage. Someone who was standing with his back to her swung round sharply at the creak. The figure was tall, with broad sho
ulders.
‘Who’s there?’ Eliza called out in fright.
‘Fandorin.’
So that is the force that drew me here! Eliza suddenly realised. It is destiny. It is salvation. Or final annihilation – it is all the same now.
She moved forward quickly.
‘Did you also feel the call?’ she asked tremulously. ‘Was it instinct that drew you here?’
‘It was chemistry that drew me here.’
Eliza was surprised for a moment, then she realised that he meant internal chemistry, the chemistry of hearts!
Only Fandorin’s voice did not sound the way it ought to. Not agitated, but preoccupied. When she drew closer, Eliza saw that he was holding the Tablets in his hands.
‘L-look. This was not here yesterday.’
She glanced absent-mindedly at the page with today’s date on it. Written at the top in sprawling characters was: ‘FOUR 1S UNTIL THE BENEFIT PERFORMANCE. PREPARE!’
‘No, it wasn’t. I was the last to leave, after midnight,’ Eliza said with a shrug. ‘But why are you concerned about this endless, stupid joke?’
What deep eyes he has, she thought. If only he would look at me like that for ever.
Fandorin replied in a quiet voice.
‘Where there is murder, there are no jokes.’
Two 1s
UNTIL THE BENEFIT PERFORMANCE
NEW AND OLD THEORIES
Erast Petrovich’s words simply burst out of their own accord – he had still not recovered after she appeared here suddenly. But, thank God, Eliza didn’t hear them.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. It d-doesn’t mean anything …’
And he thought: It’s dangerous for me to look at her from close up. The symptoms of the illness are intensified. He hid the extractor behind his back to avoid being drawn into explanations. Although he would have to justify his presence here in some way or other.
How she was looking at him. If any other woman were to look like that, he could be certain that she loved him with all her heart. But she was an actress …
The only time she had demonstrated unfeigned feeling was when she fainted at the news of her fiancé’s death. At that moment a sharp pain had transfixed Erast Petrovich’s heart. So she had not been planning to marry the millionaire out of calculation, but out of love?
This thought had tormented him afterwards for the whole day. Eventually he had committed an unworthy action. Late in the evening he had telephoned the Metropole hotel, after first enquiring from Stern which room Eliza was occupying, and then stuck in a hatpin: he read her the venomous tanka. The meaning of the pentastitch was obvious: your love is not worth a bent farthing, madam; perhaps in the next life you will prove more useful.
She had answered him in an absolutely lifeless voice. Pretended that she didn’t care a fig for anything; she had even laughed, but she had not fooled him. If even an artiste like her could not conceal her grief, then it was very great. But then why had she refused Shustrov? In truth, the soul of an actress was as dark as the twilight behind the stage.
Fandorin felt ashamed. He had promised himself he would leave Eliza in peace. And in the days that followed he had kept his distance. Only yesterday evening he had been obliged to appear where she could see him, but he had not gone close.
Yesterday it had been impossible not to come to the theatre. The interests of the investigation had required it.
Apart from anything else, Shustrov’s death had struck a very powerful blow at Fandorin’s vanity. The theory on which he had spent so much time and effort had burst like a soap bubble. Mr Whistle was dead and the Tsar was on the other side of the Atlantic. The gang of Moscow ticket touts no longer existed and could not have had anything to do with the millionaire’s death.
Erast Petrovich had little doubt that it was not suicide. Shustrov was not the kind of man to do away with himself because of a rejected proposal of marriage. But he had had to visit the scene of the tragedy and check everything in person, and then castigate himself and set in order his raging feelings and tangled thoughts.
‘Let’s go to Prechistenka,’ he said to ‘Monsieur Simon’ while the ladies were fussing over Eliza after she fainted. ‘I have to see this.’
Masa cast an eloquent glance at his master, ran into a gaze that expressed nothing, sighed and turned away.
Erast Petrovich had not mended his relations with his comrade since returning from Europe. After learning of Eliza’s impending marriage, Fandorin had returned home to Cricket Lane in a mood darker than a storm cloud. He didn’t want to talk about anything. And he had nothing to boast about. After all, he hadn’t managed to catch the Tsar. From the very beginning the operation had gone awry and it had concluded in failure, and Erast Petrovich had only himself to blame. If he had taken Masa to Sokolniki instead of the half-witted Georges, things would have turned out quite differently
‘Leave me alone,’ Fandorin had told his servant. ‘No questions.’
And, naturally, the Japanese had taken offence. Not only had his master disappeared for almost two weeks without really explaining anything, but he didn’t want to tell Masa anything either! Nothing of the kind had happened even once in thirty-three years.
‘Then I won’t tell you anything either!’ Masa had declared, obviously meaning Eliza and his relationship with her.
‘Certainly, by all means.’
In any case, Fandorin had not wished to hear anything about the rich love life of Madam Altairsky-Lointaine. Let her bill and coo with whomever she wished, and marry whomever she wished. That was her business.
All in all, Erast Petrovich’s hope of recovery had been premature. Once again he was mired in depression. Exclusively in order to distract himself and occupy his thoughts with something, the next day he had gone to the theatre and done what he had been intending to do; he looked through the delinquent entries in the Tablets.
At that point there were three of them.
From 6 September: ‘EIGHT 1S UNTIL THE BENEFIT PERFORMANCE. THINK BETTER OF IT’.
Then, on the second page for October, simply this: ‘SEVEN 1S UNTIL THE BENEFIT PEFORMANCE’.
And the latest entry, dated 1 November: ‘FIVE 1S UNTIL THE BENEFIT PERFORMANCE’.
The letters were large. The handwriting was the same. The messages were written in indelible pencil.
An obvious piece of nonsense. One of the actors was amusing himself – apparently in order to annoy the director and hear him roaring.
Erast Petrovich read through the ‘sacred book’ once again to see whether he had missed an entry about six units, but there wasn’t one. Then he got angry and set the journal aside. The joke was not only stupid, but careless. These higgledy-piggledy characters did not deserve his attention.
The next time he appeared in the theatre was on the fifth of November, a Saturday – when Eliza was due to give her answer to Shustrov. He struggled with himself, but came anyway. What would she be like on this day? Would she be embarrassed by him showing up or not? The bitter verse about a geisha’s love was lying in his pocket. Erast Petrovich had composed the tanka the previous night, tormented by insomnia. But he didn’t get a chance to give it to her. Events set off at a gallop when an old acquaintance of his, a character out of a previous life, came bursting into the auditorium.
Senya had changed greatly and Fandorin had not even recognised him immediately. He had been transformed into a lively young man of European appearance, who confused Russian words and French ones, but even so, every now and then his manners betrayed the semi-criminal youth from the Khitrovka, with whom Erast Petrovich had once lived through one of the very darkest adventures in his life as a detective.
On the way to Prechistenka, to the roaring of the Bugatti’s engine, they had spoken – or, rather, shouted – a little.
‘So how did it happen that you got involved in the cinematograph, dear sir? And why did you become Monsieur Simon?’
‘Oh, Erast Petrovich, s’il vous plaît, d
on’t take that formal tone, just talk to me the way you used to. I’ve been speaking to you and Mr Masa all these years. When I didn’t know que faire, I always asked you. And you would répondre: “Do it this way, Senya”. Or vice versa: “Don’t do that, don’t be a crétin”.’
He chattered away without a break. He was clearly delighted by this unexpected meeting and for a while even forgot about the sad event. That was nothing new for Senya. He had never been able to remain despondent for long
‘I became “Simon” because a Frenchman can’t pronounce “Semyon”, his tongue twists in a different fashion. And I fell in love with the cinéma, because there is nothing better in the world. The first time I saw A Trip to the Moon, I realised immediately that this was it, my chemin dans la vie – my path in life, as you say in Russian!’
‘M-merci,’ said Erast Petrovich, thanking his companion for the translation.
‘De rien. I went straight to the great Monsieur Méliès. I still couldn’t really speak their lingo then, my French would have made a cat laugh. Vous êtes génie, I told him. Je veux vivre et mourir pour cinéma! I wrote it on a piece of paper, in our letters. Learned it off by heart. But otherwise I didn’t have a word.’
‘And nothing else is needed. It says everything that matters. From an early age you had a qu-quite exceptional psychological talent.’
‘Then I left Méliès. The old man started losing his fleur, not keeping up with life. What’s the most important thing now for cinéma? Scale! Now Gaumont had got scale! Last year the two of us set up an electric theatre in Paris with three thousand, four hundred seats! But Gaumont wouldn’t make me a partner, so I left. And then things are crowded in France, everyone’s jostling for elbow space. You can only do real business here in your country, Russia. If you’re énergique.’
Keeping one hand on the steering wheel and waving the other around, he glanced at Fandorin, who had raised one eyebrow at the phrase ‘in your country’. But Senya misunderstood his surprise and started explaining.