Authors: Boris Akunin
‘What can you expect from Deadeye, he’s not even human. But the Prince wasn’t always that way, I remember. At first I even wanted . . .’
Senka never found out what it was she wanted, because at that very moment they heard a knock, a special one: tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, and then two more times, tap-tap.
Death started and jumped up: ‘It’s him! Talk of the devil. Come on, get up, quick. If he sees you, he’ll kill you. He won’t care that you’re just a kid. He’s so awfully jealous.’
Senka didn’t have to be asked twice – he was up off that sofa in a flash, he wasn’t even offended by that ‘kid’.
He asked in a frightened voice: ‘Which way? The window?’
‘No, it takes too long to open.’
Senka made for one of the two white doors at the back of the room.
‘You can’t go in the bathroom. The Prince is fussy about keeping clean, the first thing he always does is go and wash his hands. Go in there.’ And she nodded to the other door.
Senka didn’t care – he’d have climbed into a hot oven to get away from the Prince. He was knocking again now – louder than before.
Senka flew into a little room that was like a closet, or even a cupboard, only inside it was all covered in white tiles. On the floor by the wall there was a big vase or bowl – it was white too.
‘What’s this?’ Senka asked.
She laughed. ‘A water closet. A privy with flushing water.’
‘And what if he gets the urge?’
She laughed even louder: ‘Why, he’d burst before he’d go to the privy in front of a lady. He’s a prince, after all.’
The door to the closet slammed shut, and she went to open up. Senka heard her shout: ‘All right, I’m coming, I’m coming, no need for that racket!’
Then he heard the Prince’s voice: ‘What did you lock yourself in for? You never lock yourself in!’
‘Someone filched a shawl from the porch, crept in during the night.’
The Prince was already in the room. ‘That must have been a vagrant, passing through. No one in Khitrovka would dare do that. Don’t worry, I’ll put the word out, they’ll get your shawl back and find the thief – he’ll be sorry.’
‘Oh, never mind about the shawl. It was old anyway, I was going to throw it out.’
Then it went quiet for a while, something rustled and there was a slobbery sound.
She said: ‘Well, hello.’
‘They’re necking,’ Senka guessed.
The Prince said: ‘I’ll go and wash my hands and face. I’m all dusty.’
Water started running on the other side of the wall, and the sound went on for a long time.
Meanwhile Senka looked around in the privy cupboard.
There was a pipe sticking out over the bowl, and higher up there was a cast-iron tank with a chain dangling from it – he had no idea what it was for. But then Senka had no time for idle curiosity – he had to scarper while he was still in one piece.
And right up by the ceiling was a bright little window – not very big, but he could get through it. If he stood on the china bowl, grabbed hold of the chain, and then the tank, he could reach it all right.
He didn’t waste any time on second thoughts. He climbed up on the bowl (oh, don’t let the damn thing crack!) and grabbed the chain.
The bowl stood the test all right, but that chain played him a shabby trick: when he tugged on it, the pipe started roaring and water came gushing out!
Senka almost fainted, he was so afraid.
Death stuck her head in: ‘What are you doing? Have you lost your wits?’
And just then the next door slammed as the Prince came out of the bathroom. So Death swung round towards him, as if she’d just finished her business.
She closed the door behind her, firmly.
Senka stood there for a while with his hand on his heart while he gathered his wits. Once he’d recovered a bit, he squatted down on his haunches and started wondering how beautiful women did the necessary. It was nature, they had to, but it was impossible to imagine Death doing anything like that. And where could you do it in here? Not in this snow-white china bowl! It was beautiful, the sort of thing you could eat fruit jelly off.
So Senka still wasn’t sure – he found it easy to imagine that specially beautiful women had everything arranged in some special kind of way.
Once he got comfortable in the closet, he wanted to know what was going on outside.
He pressed his ear against the door and tried to listen, but he couldn’t make out the words. He tried sticking his ear here and there and finally crouched down on all fours, with his ear on the floor. There was a crack under the door, so he could hear better that way.
He heard her voice first: ‘I told you – I’m not in the mood for fooling around today.’
‘But I brought you a present, a sapphire ring.’
‘Put it over there, by the mirror.’
Footsteps. Then the Prince again, angry (Senka cringed):
‘Seems like you’re not in the mood very often. Other women can’t wait to get on their back, but you’re as prickly as a hedgehog.’
She said (real reckless!): ‘If you don’t like me, then clear off, I won’t try to stop you.’
He said (even angrier): ‘Get off your high horse! You owe me an apology. Where did you find that snot-nosed kid Speedy?’
Oh, Lord in Heaven, thought Senka!
‘Why, don’t you like him?’ Death asked. ‘They told me he saved your life.’
‘He’s a bright enough lad, only he’s too wet. If you see him, tell him this: once you’re in my deck, there’s only two ways you leave the Prince – the coppers put you away or you go into the cold damp ground.’
‘What’s he done?’
‘He’s done a runner, that’s what.’
She said: ‘Let him go. It’s my mistake. I thought he’d be useful to you. But clearly he’s not made of the right stuff.’
‘I won’t let him go,’ the Prince snapped. ‘He’s seen everyone, he knows everything. You tell him: if he doesn’t show up, I’ll hunt him down and bury him. Anyway, that’s enough of that nonsense. Last night, Death, my little darling, I picked up a fine load of loot, more than three thousand, and today I’m going to take even more, I’ve got a really grand lead. You know Siniukhin, the pen-pusher, lives in Yeroshenko’s basement?’
‘I know him. A drunk, used to be a clerk in the civil service. Has he given you a lead, then?’
The Prince laughed. ‘Ah – it’s not from him, it’s
about
him.’
‘But how can you get anything out of a miserable wretch like him? He can hardly feed his wife and children.’
‘I can, Death, my little darling, I most certainly can! A certain little person whispered to Lardy, and Lardy whispered to me. The pen-pusher found old treasure somewhere underground, heaps and heaps of gold and silver. He’s been drinking vodka for three days now, with salted mushrooms and salmon. He’s bought his old woman dresses, and boots for the kids – Siniukhin, who never had more than ten kopecks to his name! He sold Hasimka the Fence some old money, a whole handful of silver coins, then he got drunk in the “Labour” and boasted he was not much longer for Khitrovka, he was going to live in an apartment of his own, like before, dine off fancy food on a white tablecloth. I’m going to have a little chat with Siniukhin tonight. Let him spread his good luck around a bit.’
Suddenly the room went quiet, but it wasn’t just quiet, it was creepy. Senka pressed his ear hard up against the crack – he could tell there was something wrong.
Then the Prince roared: ‘So what’s this, then? Boots? And the sofa’s all creased up?’
There was a clatter as a chair fell over, or something of the sort.
‘You whore! You slut! Who is he? Who? I’ll kill him? Hiding, is he? Where?’
Well, Senka didn’t hang around after that. He closed the latch on the door, leapt up on the bowl, grabbed the chain, hauled himself up (ignoring the roar of the water), pushed open the window and dived out head first.
Behind him he heard a crunch and a crash as the door swung open, and then a bellowing voice: ‘Stop right now! I’m going to rip you to pieces!’
But Senka skidded down like a fish. With a hand from God, or somehow else, he managed not to break his neck. He tumbled awkwardly then darted off across the broken stone and brick towards the passage.
But he didn’t run very far. He stopped and thought:
He’s going to kill her now, the Prince is. Kill her for nothing.
His feet carried him back, of their own accord. Then he stood under the windows and listened. It was quiet. Had he done her in already?
Senka rolled an old barrel to the window of the privy, stood it on end and began to climb back in. He didn’t know why he was doing it. He didn’t want to think about it. He had this stupid thought running round his head:
you can’t kill Death.
It wasn’t possible – or was it – to kill Death? And then he thought:
I did enough running last night. I’m no hare, especially on broken bricks without boots.
When he got back in the closet, it was clear the Prince hadn’t killed her yet, and it didn’t look like he was about to.
Suddenly Senka didn’t feel so brave any more. Especially when, through the door, which was broken off its top hinge, he heard this: ‘Tell me, in God’s name. Nothing will happen to you, just say who it is.’
There was no answer.
Senka peeped out warily. Oh Lord, the Prince had a flick-knife and he was pointing it straight at Death’s chest. Maybe he would kill her after all?
He even said: ‘Don’t play games with me – I might just lose control. Killing someone’s like swatting a fly for the Prince.’
‘But I’m not just anyone, I’m Death. Go on, then, swat me. Well, what are you gawping at? Either kill me, or get out.’
The Prince flung the knife at the mirror and ran out. The front door slammed.
Senka craned his neck and saw that Death had turned away. She was looking at herself in the broken mirror, and the cracks in the mirror were like a cobweb stretched over her face. The way she was looking at herself was weird, as if there was something she couldn’t understand. She caught sight of Senka, swung round and said:
‘You came back? That was brave. And you said you were a sparrow. You’re not a hawk, I know, but you’re not a sparrow, more like a swift.’
And she smiled – the whole thing was water off a duck’s back to her. Senka sat down on the sofa and pulled on the boots that had caused the disaster. He was breathing hard; after all, he’d had a bad scare.
She handed him his shirt. ‘Look, I’ve put my mark on you. From now on you’ll be mine.’
Then he saw that she hadn’t just stitched up his torn shirt, she’d embroidered a flower on it while he was sleeping, a strange flower with an eye like hers, like Death’s eye, in the middle. And the petals were coloured snakes with forked tongues.
He realised she was joking about the sign. He put the shirt on and said, ‘Thanks.’
Her face was really close to his, and it had a special kind of smell, sweet and bitter at the same time. Senka gulped and his eyelids batted, his mind went blank and he forgot everything, even the Prince. She didn’t want to mess around with the Prince. Which meant she didn’t love him, right?
Senka took a small step closer, and felt himself swaying, like a blade of grass in the wind. But he didn’t have the nerve to move his hands and hug her or anything.
She laughed and tousled Senka’s hair. ‘Keep away from the flames, little gnat,’ she said. ‘You’ll singe your wings. I’ll tell you what you should do. You heard what the Prince said about the treasure? You know Siniukhin, the pen-pusher? He lives under Yeroshenko’s flophouse, in the Old Rags Basement. A miserable man with a red nose like a big plum. I went to Siniukhin’s place once, when his son was sick with scarlet fever –I took the doctor. Go and warn him to take his family and get out of Khitrovka fast. Tell him the Prince is going to pay him a visit tonight.’
A swift was all right, no offence taken, but Senka drew the line at that ‘gnat’. She understood, and started laughing even harder. ‘Stop sulking. All right, then, I’ll give you just one little kiss. But no nonsense.’
He couldn’t believe it – he thought she was mocking a poor orphan. But even so, he pursed his lips up and pushed them out. But would she really kiss him?
She didn’t cheat, she touched his lips with hers, but then she started pushing him away.
‘Off you go to Siniukhin, run. You can see what a wild beast the Prince has turned into.’
As he walked away from her house, Senka touched his lips gingerly with his little finger – oh Lord, they were burning up! Death herself had kissed them!
HOW SENKA RAN AND HID AND
THEN GOT THE HICCUPS
It wasn’t Senka’s fault he didn’t get to the pen-pusher, there was good reason.
He made an honest effort, set straight out from Death’s house for Podkolokolny Lane, where Yeroshenkov’s flophouse was. It had apartiments with numbers upstairs – as many as a thousand people would snore away up there – and down below, under the ground, there were these massive deep cellars, and people lived there too: ‘diver-ducks’ who altered stolen clothes, paupers who had nothing, and the pen-pushers were the kind that settled there. Pen-pushers were a heavy-drinking crowd, but they tried not to overdo it, they needed to keep hold of a pen and set the words out right on paper. That was their trade, scribing letters for the unlearned: begging, weepy letters as often as not. They were paid by the page: one was five kopecks, two was nine and a half, and three was thirteen.
It wasn’t a long way from the Yauza Boulevard to the Yerokha (that was what Yeroshenko’s flophouse was usually called), but Senka never got to where he was heading.
When he turned the corner on to Podkolokolny Lane (he could already see the door of the Yerokha), Senka spotted something that stopped him dead in his tracks.
There was Mikheika the Night-Owl, and standing beside him, holding him tight by the shoulder was a short-arse in a check two-piece and bowler – the same Chinee Senka had nicked the green beads off the week before. Once you’d seen someone like that, you never forgot him. Big fat cheeks the colour of ripe turnips, narrow slits for eyes, a blunt little nose, but with a hook in it too.