by Boris Akunin
His love for Eliza was a desperate attempt to take a grip on life, to move away from the self-destruction to which his obsession with art was leading. And in his love Nonarikin behaved exactly like Lieutenant Solyony: he conducted an absurd siege of the object of his passion, suffered fierce jealousy and exerted cruel revenge on his unfortunate Tuzenbach rivals.
What could possibly be more absurd than the trick with the viper? Georges was there beside Eliza and was the only one out of all of them who did not lose his head, because he was the one who put the snake in the basket. In the steppes of Central Asia Nonarikin had probably learned to handle reptiles – a hobby of that kind would suit the demon lieutenant. (Let us not forget that Nonarikin kept a phial of cobra venom, with which he smeared the tip of a rapier.) He knew that the bite of a viper in September is not particularly dangerous and deliberately offered it his hand. He was counting on arousing in his Fair Lady a passionate gratitude that would subsequently grow into love. Georges certainly did arouse her gratitude, but was unaware that in women gratitude and love are administered by different departments.
Simultaneous with this disappointment there was another, an artistic one. Nonarikin was not given the role of Lopakhin for which he had been hoping so badly. It went to Hippolyte Emeraldov. Devastated by the ingratitude of Stern, his adored teacher, the assistant director rebelled – as another assistant, the angel Satan, once rebelled against the Eternal Teacher. Any personality with a maniacal bent, teetering on the edge of insanity, can undergo a sudden qualitative shift. Something clicks in the brain, a certain idée fixe arises and takes shape, and its false irrefutability is absolutely blinding, it takes over the mind and that’s it, there is no way back.
For Georges it was the crazy idea of eleven 1s and one figure 9 that became such an epiphany. Apparently it arose suddenly, in a moment of total despair, and Nonarikin was spellbound by its brilliance. And yet at the beginning he was still prepared to spare the world and not destroy it. The first entry in the Tablets says: ‘Take thought!’
The future benefit performance artist gave the theatre world a chance to do that. He killed Emeraldov, who had not only ‘stolen’ his role, but was also pressing his attentions on Eliza in a way that was provocative and insolent. Nonarikin’s calculation was obvious and at first seemed to have proved correct. The director instructed his assistant to play the part of Lopakhin at rehearsals, until a worthy replacement could be found for Emeraldov. There can be no doubt that if Stern had done as he intended and invited in a celebrity from outside – Leonidov or someone else – then Russian theatre would have suffered another loss. On the eve of the premiere, some accident would have happened to Lopakhin, and Nonarikin would have had to be allowed out onto the stage. But Fandorin had appeared with his Japanese drama and the plan, composed with the thoroughness of an engineer, collapsed.
And when it became clear to the assistant director that it was pointless to hope that his feelings for Eliza might be requited, he gave himself over completely to his apocalyptic idea. In the subsequent entries, which were made as a new 1 appeared in the calendar, there was no ‘Take thought!’ The sentence had been pronounced and confirmed. The theatre world would be sent flying to kingdom come and Eliza, having failed to become his bride on earth, would become his Heavenly Bride.
A bride must maintain her chastity until the wedding. Therefore the ‘bridegroom’ killed those whom he suspected of endangering her virtue.
And so the young fool Limbach died. Of course, the cornet received his pass to the actors’ floor from the assistant director. The boy must have been tremendously pleased by the idea of waiting for Eliza in her own changing room – in order to congratulate her on the premiere tête-à-tête.
The scene was set skilfully. It is well known that maniacal personalities in the grip of their overarching idea can manifest incredible ingenuity. The blow with the knife across the stomach was intended as a reminder of the hussar’s threat to commit hara-kiri. In case that trick didn’t work (and by this time Nonarikin already knew that Fandorin was conducting an investigation and that he was a man of experience) the criminal took precautionary measures. Firstly, he acquired a clasp knife – the preferred weapon of Moscow’s bandits. Secondly, he wrote the letters ‘Li’ in blood on the door. This was a cunning trick, and it achieved its purpose. If the investigation or Fandorin did not believe in the ‘hara-kiri’, a different interpretation of the incomplete name could be hinted at – which Nonarikin did very deftly. Apparently by chance he turned the conversation to the subject of Mr Whistle’s past, and before the former policeman’s real name – Lipkov – could be pronounced, the maniac immediately withdrew into the shadows – he knew that the bait would be swallowed.
It was painful for Erast Petrovich to realise how many mistakes he had made. How long he had allowed the murderer to lead him around by the nose!
The most annoying thing of all was that his very first theory, the most obvious of all, had led him directly to Nonarikin, but the assistant director had managed to wriggle his way out of things and even gain Fandorin’s trust … How shameful, how very shameful!
The initial miscalculation had been that Erast Petrovich thought the poisoning of the leading man to be a cold-blooded, carefully planned murder, but in actual fact it was the action of an artist who unhesitatingly laid his own life on the line. Unfortunately, Fandorin failed to guess that the poisoner had played a game of equals with Emeraldov, tempting his own fate. Strictly speaking, it had not been a murder, but a dual. Only poor Hippolyte had not been aware of that, he had not known that in selecting a goblet he was deciding his own fate. It is quite possible that the drinking companions clinked goblets and both drank – the ‘demonic personality’ also wanted to test Fate, to confirm his own chosen status.
Nonarikin decided to proceed in exactly the same way with Fandorin after he picked up the trail – only using a poisoned sword instead of wine. What a great directorial innovation these striking interludes with a fatal outcome must have seemed to Georges! But Erast Petrovich’s perennial good luck did not let him down. The hunter almost fell into his own trap, but he managed to scramble out of it – thanks to the remarkable ingenuity and false testimony of Comedina, the woman who was in love with him and was certain (he had no doubt) to shield him.
This risky episode did not bring the ‘artist of Evil’ to his senses. The morbid idea of a benefit performance had taken too strong a hold of his inflamed brain. It was easier to abandon his faith in Fate. ‘Fate is blind,’ said Nonarikin, as we recall. ‘Only the artist is sighted.’
He was undoubtedly a very gifted artist. Stern underestimated this ‘player of third-level roles’. Georges played the part of a stupid but noble blockhead with great talent.
The Sokolniki operation was quite dangerous for him. His entire, painstakingly constructed story could have collapsed if Fandorin had backed the Tsar up against the wall and forced him to talk frankly. Probably, as he walked through the park with Erast Petrovich that night, the maniac had hesitated – would it not be safer to shoot the overzealous investigator in the back? However, intuition whispered to the schemer that it would be best not to do that. Fandorin’s very gait (the tiger’s stride of a sinobi keyed up for action) indicated that it was impossible to take a man like this by surprise.
Nonarikin acted more cunningly than that. He led the pinschers away from the house and came back himself in order to eavesdrop. As soon as the conversation with the Tsar took an undesirable turn, Georges put in an appearance – once again displaying a total lack of fear in the face of danger. Like a total blockhead, Erast Petrovich raced halfway across Europe, following a false trail. It was a good thing that he didn’t go sailing off to America. On the day after his arrival, the twelfth of November, he would have read in the New York Times about a mysterious explosion in the theatre.
In killing Shustrov, yet another pretender to the hand of the Bride, Nonarikin did not try very hard to disguise his work. He permitted himself the inc
autious artistic gesture of decorating the throat of his rival with eleven 1s. But even with this hint, Fandorin failed to guess the criminal’s concept in time and avert the psychopathological ‘benefit performance’. Because of the conflict between his reason and feelings, Erast Petrovich very nearly allowed the theatre company, this molecular model of humankind, to be annihilated.
When he reread The Apocalypse, Fandorin often paused over the line that speaks of how ‘those watching over the house will tremble’, and he thought that those who watch over a house have no right to tremble. They must be firm, keep their eyes wide open to avert danger in good time. All his life he had numbered himself as a member of this army. And now look – he had trembled, manifested weakness. In the house that he had undertaken to protect, the apocalypse had very nearly come about. No more trembling, Erast Petrovich told himself, when the sick man was led away by the orderlies and the hysterical tension in the hall dissipated somewhat. I am a mature individual. I am a man. No more playing the child.
He lowered himself into a chair beside Eliza, who was the only one not screaming or waving her arms about in terror, but was simply sitting there, looking dully straight ahead.
‘That’s it, the nightmare is over, the chimera has been dissipated. I have a suggestion.’ He took hold of her cold, feeble fingers. ‘Let us not play at life, but live.’
She did not seem to have heard his concluding words.
‘Over?’ Eliza repeated, and shook her head. ‘Only not for me. My personal nightmare has not gone away.’
‘You mean your ex-husband? Khan Altairsky? It is him that you call Genghis Khan, is it not?’
She shuddered and looked at him in horror.
‘My God, Erast Petrovich, you promised to forget … It is my psychosis, you said so yourself … I didn’t mean at all …’
‘Now then. You got it into your head that Emeraldov, Limbach and Shustrov were murdered by your ex-husband, out of jealousy. And they certainly were murdered. Only it was not Altairsky who did it, but Nonarikin. He is no longer dangerous. So don’t worry any further.’
Erast Petrovich wanted to move on as quickly as possible to the most important thing – to the reason why he had sat down beside Eliza. To talk to her at long last without leaving anything unspoken, without any stupidities, in a manner that befitted adults.
But Eliza did not believe him. He could still read only fear in her eyes.
‘Very well,’ Fandorin said with a gentle smile. ‘I shall meet with your husband and have a talk with him. I shall get him to leave you alone.’
‘No! Don’t even think of doing that!’
The others turned round at her shout.
‘It’s all over and done with,’ Stern said nervously. ‘Get a grip on yourself, Eliza. The other ladies have already calmed down, don’t start up all over again.’
‘I implore you, I implore you,’ she whispered, holding Fandorin’s hand. ‘Don’t get involved with him. He’s not like poor, crazy Georges. The khan is a fiend from hell! You are mistaken if you think that Nonarikin killed everyone. Of course, after the “benefit performance”, it is possible to believe absolutely anything, but it is coincidence! Georges is not capable of cold-blooded murder. Since I have let it slip, you may as well know everything! Genghis Khan is the most dangerous man in the world!’
Erast Petrovich could see that she was on the verge of breaking down, so he tried to talk to her as judiciously as possible.
‘Believe me, the most dangerous people in the world are madmen with the ambitions of an artist.’
‘The khan is absolutely insane! He lost his mind from jealousy!’
‘And does he have any artistic ambitions?’
Eliza was flustered slightly by that.
‘No …’
‘So he and I will c-come to some sort of arrangement,’ Fandorin concluded, getting to his feet.
The conversation about the most important thing would in any case have to be postponed until a later time, when Eliza had stopped worrying about her Caucasian Othello.
‘My God, aren’t you even listening to me? Emeraldov was killed in exactly the same way as Furshtatsky! Shustrov’s throat was slit with a razor – just like Astralov’s. All of it was done by Genghis Khan. He told me: “The wife of the Khan Altairsky cannot have lovers and cannot marry anyone else!” What has Nonarikin got to do with anything? When Furshtatsky was killed (he was an entrepreneur, he got engaged to me in St Petersburg), I wasn’t acting with the Ark yet and I didn’t even know Georges!’
‘Astralov, the tenor?’ Erast Petrovich asked with a frown, recalling that the famous St Petersburg singer really had slit his throat with a razor several months earlier.
‘Yes, yes! When Furshtatsky died, the khan telephoned me and confessed that he had done it. And at Astralov’s funeral, he did this!’
She ran one finger across her throat and started shuddering.
‘There’s nowhere I can hide from him! He knows every step I take! I have found notes from him everywhere. Even in my dressing room! Even in the room in the Metropole! As soon as I moved in, I found a note in the bathroom: “Anyone who dares to become close to you will die”. At that time no one but Stern even knew which room I was going to be in! And Nonarikin didn’t know!’
‘Really?’ Fandorin sank back down into the chair. ‘In the entire company only Noah Noaevich knew exactly where you were staying?’
‘Yes, he was the only one! Vasya and Sima took me there. Vasya opened the suitcases and Sima hung up my dresses and set out my toiletries …’
‘Where, in the bathroom? Please excuse me,’ Erast Petrovich interrupted her. ‘I have to leave you. We will definitely talk again. Later.’
‘Where are you going?’ Eliza sobbed. ‘I implore you, do not try to do anything!’
He gestured reassuringly as he looked around for Masa.
He was sitting sulking in a chair.
‘Don’t be offended with me,’ Erast Petrovich said to him. ‘I have treated you quite terribly. Forgive me. Tell me, what do you think about your lady friend Aphrodisina?’
The Japanese replied sadly.
‘I’m not offended with you, master. What point is there in being offended with someone who is unwell? I am offended with Sima-san. How did you know that I was thinking about her now?’
The subject of discussion was close by, only about ten steps away. Flushed after all the turmoil and agitation, Sima was telling Shiftsky something heatedly, holding one hand on her breast.
‘… My poor heart almost burst with the terror of it! It’s still fluttering now!’
Kostya looked at the spot where Aphrodisina’s heart was fluttering and couldn’t tear his eyes away.
‘It needs someone to blow on it, then it will settle down. Just give the word,’ the ‘scamp’ suggested mischievously.
Masa complained.
‘That empty-headed girl only loved me for my beauty. Now that a bullet has mutilated my features, she does not even want to look at me. I walked over to her and she said to me: “Masik, you’re a rear hero, of course, but you smerr singed.” And she wrinkled up her nose. And she turned away from my wound in disgust! Kind Reginina-san bandaged me up. She’s still quite good looking, by the way. And in a good body …’
‘I’m interested in whether Aphrodisina is fond of money?’
‘That’s all she ever talks about. How much everything costs and what things she would buy herself if she had a bigger salary. The only time she doesn’t talk about money is when she makes love, but immediately after the love she starts asking for presents. I was wounded and bleeding to death, and she turned away from me!’
Sensing that she was being watched, Aphrodisina looked round, folded her lips into a rose bud and blew Masa a kiss.
‘Master, tell her that I do not want to know her any more!’
‘Straight away.’
Fandorin walked across to Sima and gave Shiftsky an eloquent glance – he immediately disappeared.
‘Mademoiselle,’ Erast Petrovich asked in a quiet voice, ‘how much does Khan Altairsky pay you?’
‘What?’ Aphrodisina squealed, fluttering her long eyelashes.
‘You spy on Eliza, you report everything about her to her husband, you plant notes, and so on. Do not dare to lie to me, or else I shall announce this to everyone, out loud. You will be thrown out of the c-company in disgrace … Very well, I shall amend the question. I am not interested in the amount of your remuneration. I need to know where I can find this g-gentleman.’
‘I beg your pardon! How could you!’ Sima’s eyes filled up with pure tears of the highest quality. ‘Eliza is my very best friend! The two of us are like sisters!’
Fandorin twitched the corner of his mouth.
‘I shall count t-to three. One, two …’
‘He rents an apartment in Abrikosov’s tenement building on Kuznetsky Most Street,’ Aphrodisina said rapidly. She blinked and the tears dried up. ‘You won’t give me away now, will you? Remember now, you promised!’
‘How long have you been in the khan’s pay?’
‘Since St Petersburg … Oh, dear, darling man! Don’t destroy me. Noah Noaevich will blacken my name in the world of theatre! I’ll never get work with any decent company! Believe me, I know how to be grateful!’
She started breathing rapidly and moved closer to Erast Petrovich. He squinted into her décolleté, winced and moved back.
Once again, with fantastic ease, the tears started flowing down Sima’s face.
‘Don’t look at me with such contempt! It’s unbearable! I’ll lay hands on myself!’
‘Don’t venture beyond the bounds of the “coquette”, mademoiselle.’
He bowed slightly and set off quickly towards the exit, simply gesturing for Masa to follow.
ON LOVE AND MARRIAGE
Before all the other business, he had to take the Japanese to a specialist in cerebral traumas. Erast Petrovich was concerned by the way that Masa was swaying from side to side and the greenish tinge of his complexion. His unusual loquacity was also suspicious. Fandorin knew from experience that when his servant chattered continuously, he was concealing the fact that he felt terrible.