He Lover of Death (21 page)

Senka knew that already, but how could he not come? After his society studies, and especially George’s practical classes, he had barely a quarter of the two thousand roubles left. He’d blown fifteen hundred in a week – that was an absolute
disaster
for him. He needed to
restore his financial status
urgently.

So he went down underground and restored it.

He wanted to take two rods, but changed his mind and took only one. No point in flashing it about just for the sake of it. Money to spare needs good care. It was time he started following that principle.

The jeweller Ashot Ashotovich greeted Senka like his long-lost brother. He left the parrot to keep an eye on the shop, took his guest in behind the curtain and treated him to cognac and biscuits. Senka gnawed on his biscuits and sipped on his cognac in a most cultured fashion, then he showed the jeweller the rod, but he didn’t led him hold it. Instead of four hundred roubles, he asked for a thousand. Now, would this shark pay up or not?

Samshitov gave him a thousand, all right, didn’t even say a word.

So what it said in Judge Kuvshinnikov’s book, about the real price, was true.

The jeweller kept pouring the cognac. He thought the Khitrovka halfwit would get drunk and let something slip. He asked whether there would be more rods and when that might be.

Senka was cunning with him. ‘That’s the last rod for a thousand, there was only one. You put me in touch with the client, Mr Samshitov, perhaps then more will turn up.’

Ashot Ashotovich blinked his ink-black eyes and sniffed a bit. But he knew his days of taking Senka for a ride were over.

‘What about my commission?’ he asked.

‘The regular rate, twenty per cent.’

Ashot Ashotovich started getting agitated. Twenty’s not enough, he said. Only I know the real clients, you can’t find them without me. You have to give me thirty per cent.

They haggled and settled on twenty-five.

Senka left the jeweller his address, so he could send word when anything came up, and left feeling very pleased with himself.

Samshitov called after him: ‘So I can hope, Mr Spidorov?’

And the parrot Levonchik squawked: ‘Mr Spidorov! Mr Spidorov!’

He went back to the cab and changed into his decent clothes, but he didn’t ride home in the carriage, he walked. He was going to be prudent from now on. An extra half-rouble was no great expense, of course, but he had to stick to the principle.

On the corner of Tsvetnoi Boulevard he looked round – he had a strange feeling he was being watched.

And who was the figure under a street lamp but his old friend Prokha! Had he followed him from Khitrovka, then?

Senka went dashing over to Prokha and grabbed hold of him by the sides. ‘Give me back the timepiece, you louse!’

He’d been walking around for almost a week with a new timepiece, but Prokha wasn’t to know that. If you stole from your own, you had to answer for it.

‘You’re dolled up very handsome, Speedy.’ Prokha hissed, and pulled himself free with a jerk. ‘Looking for a poke in the mug, are you?’

He slipped his hand in his pocket – and Senka knew he had the lead bar in there, or something even worse.

Suddenly there was the sound of a whistle and tramping feet, and a constable came rushing towards them – to protect the decent young man from the urchin.

Prokha shot off up Zvonarny Lane, into the darkness.

That’s right, you ragged prole. This ain’t Khitrovka, this is a nice
decent neighbourhood.
He shuddered at the idea – ‘a poke in the mug’.

HOW SENKA WAS
DEATH’S LOVER

Of all the lessons taught by Masa, Senka paid the most avid attention to that supreme branch of learning – how to conquer the hearts of women.

The Japanese proved to be a genuine expert in this area, both in the language of courtship, and the actual horsing around. No, it would be better to put it this way:
in theory and in practice.

For a long time Senka couldn’t understand why the slanty-eye Jap made Madam Borisenko go all bashful like that, why she was so fond of him. One time he came down to breakfast early, before the other guests arrived – and well, well! There was the landlady sitting on Masa’s knees, lavishing kisses on his thick neck, and he was just screwing his eyes up in pleasure. When she saw Senka, she squealed and blushed and darted out of the room like a young miss – but she must have been at least thirty.

Senka couldn’t resist it, so he asked Masa – that very day, during the break after the morning scuffle. Sensei, he said, how come you have such great success with women? Do a poor orphan the kindness of sharing your savvy.

Well, the Japanese read him an entire lecture, it was just like that time George took Senka to his institute. Only Masa was easier to understand than the professor, even if he was from foreign parts.

In summary, the wisdom came out like this.

In order to unlock a woman’s heart, you needed three keys, Masa taught. Confidence in yourself, an air of mystery and the right
approach.
The first two were easy, because they only depended on you. The third was harder, because you had to work out what sort of woman you were dealing with. This was called knowledge of the soul or, in scientific terms, psychology.

Women, Masa explained, were not all alike. They could be divided into two species.

‘Only two?’ Senka asked in amazement. He was listening very attentively, and really regretted that he didn’t have a piece of paper handy to take notes.

Only two, the sensei repeated gravely. Those who needed a father, and those who needed a son. The important thing was to determine the correct species, and without practice this was not easy, because women loved to pretend. But once you had determined this, the rest was simple. With a woman of the first species you had to be a father: not ask her about her life, and in general talk as little as possible –show her the strictness of a father. With a woman of the second you had to make sad eyes, sigh and look up at the sky all the time, so she would understand that you would be completely lost without her.

But if you did not want a woman’s soul, and her body was enough, the teacher continued, then it was more straightforward.

Senka exclaimed eagerly: ‘Yes, yes, that’s enough!’

In that case, Masa said with a shrug, you didn’t need words at all. Breathe loudly, make eyes like this, don’t answer clever questions. Don’t show her your soul. Otherwise it’s not fair – you don’t want the woman’s soul, after all. For her you must be a
rittur animur,
not a person.

‘Who?’ asked Senka, confused at first. ‘Ah, a little animal.’

Masa repeated the phrase with relish. Yes, he said, a
rittur animur.
Who will come running, sniff her under the tail and climb up on her straight away. Everybody wants women to be shy and seem virtuous – women get fed up of that. But why be shy of a little animal? It’s only an animal, after all.

The sensei spent a long time teaching Senka about this kind of thing, and even though Senka didn’t take notes, he remembered every last word.

And the very next day, an appropriate opportunity for a practical lesson came along.

George invited him to go to Sokolniki Park for a
picnic
(that was when you went into the woods and sat on the grass and ate with your hands, without making any fuss). He said he would bring along two girl students. He’d been after one of them for ages and, he said, the other will be just right for you (by that time they’d already drunk to
Bruderschaft
and were on intimate terms). A modern miss, he said, with no prejudices.

‘A tramp, is she?’ Senka asked.

‘Not exactly,’ George answered evasively. ‘But you’ll see for yourself.’

They got into a fancy gig, and off they went. Senka soon realised the student had bamboozled him. George’s girl was plump and jolly, and she kept laughing all the time, but he’d lumbered his comrade with some kind of dried fish with glasses and tight-pursed lips. And he’d done it on purpose, too, so this miserable specimen wouldn’t interfere with him trying to get off with her girlfriend.

While they rode along, Four-eyes yammered on about things Senka didn’t understand. Nietzsche-schmietzsche, Marx-schmarx.

Senka wasn’t listening, he was thinking about something else. According to Masa’s science of women, if you made the right approach, with psychology, you could get any woman, even a bighead like this one. What was it Masa had taught him? Simple women love gallant manners and clever words, but with the educated ones, on the contrary, you had to be simpler and rougher.

Maybe he should try it –just to check.

So he did.

She said: ‘Tell me, Semyon, what do you think about the theory of social evolution?’

He didn’t say a word, just laughed.

She started getting nervous and batting her eyelids. I suppose, she said, you probably support the violent overthrow of social institutions. And he just cocked his head and pulled a face – that was his only response.

In the park, when George took his gigglebox for a ride in a boat (Senka’s girl didn’t want to go, said the water made her feel dizzy), the time came for action.

Senka’s mysterious behaviour had driven the young lady into a real state – she kept jabbering on and on, just couldn’t stop. In the middle of an endless speech about someone called Proudhon and someone called Bakunin, he leaned forward, put his arms round Four-eyes’ bony shoulders and kissed her real hard on the lips. Didn’t she squeal! She pushed her hands against his chest, and Senka almost let go – he was no rapist, no sirrah. He was bracing himself for a slap round the face – though with those dainty little hands, she probably wouldn’t even make him flinch.

She resisted all right, but she didn’t push him off. Senka was surprised, and he carried on kissing her, feeling her ribs with his hands and unfastening the buttons on the back of her dress: maybe she’d come to her senses?

The girl student murmured: ‘What are you doing, Semyon, what is this . . . Is it true what George says, that you’re . . . Ah, what are you doing! . . . That you’re a proletarian?’

Senka growled to make himself seem more like an animal and got really cheeky, slipping his hand in under her dress where it was unbuttoned. The young lady’s back was bare at the top, where her backbone stuck out, but lower down he could feel silk underwear.

‘You’re insane,’ she said, panting. Her specs had slipped offside-ways and her eyes were half closed.

Senka ran his hands over her this way and that for about a minute, just to make absolutely sure that Masa’s theory was correct, and then backed off. She was awfully bony, but then he hadn’t started this out of mischief – it was a
scientific experiment,
as they said in cultured circles.

While they were driving back from Sokolniki, the scholarly girl didn’t open her mouth once – she kept staring hard at Senka, as if she was expecting something, but he wasn’t thinking of her at all, he was having a real epiphany.

So that was the power of learning for you! Knowledge could overcome any obstacle!

The next day at first light he was waiting at the door for Masa.

When his teacher arrived, he led him straight to his room, didn’t even let him take his tea.

And he begged Masa in the name of Christ the Lord: Teach me, Sensei, how to win the heart of the creature I adore.

Masa was fine about it, he didn’t mock Senka’s feelings. He told him to explain in detail what kind of creature they were dealing with. Senka told him everything he knew about Death, and at the end he asked in a trembling voice: ‘Well, Uncle Masa, is there really no way I can smite a swan like that with Cupid’s arrow?’

His teacher folded his hands on his belly and smacked his lips. Why, he asked, is there no way? For the true admirer all things are possible. And then he said something Senka didn’t understand: ‘Death-san is a woman of the moon.’ There are women of the sun and women of the moon, he explained, they’re born into the world like that. I prefer women of the sun, he said, but that’s a matter of taste. Women of the moon, like your Death-san, he said, have to be approached like this – and he went through the whole thing with Senka, blow by blow, may God grant him the very best of health.

That very evening Senka set out to see Death – and seek his good fortune.

He didn’t dress the way he’d had been planning to earlier – in a white tie with a bouquet of chrysanthemums. He kitted himself out in line with Masa’s teachings.

He put on the old shirt that Death had once darned for him, and deliberately tore it under one arm. He bought a pair of patched boots at the flea market, and sewed a patch on a pair of trousers that were perfectly sound.

When he took a look at himself in the mirror, it even made him feel all weepy. He was just sorry that he’d put that tooth in the day before – the gap would have made him look even more pitiful. But he reckoned that if he didn’t open his mouth too wide, the gold wouldn’t glitter too brightly.

Everything was washed and clean, and he’d been to the bathhouse too. Masa had impressed that on him: ‘Poor, but crean, they don’ rike dirty admirers.’

Senka got out of the cab on the corner of Solyanka Street and walked up along the Yauza Boulevard. He knocked loudly, but his heart was pounding away even louder.

Death opened the door without calling out, just like she did the time before.

Senka thought she was glad to see him, and the vice gripping his heart loosened a bit. Remembering that tooth, he didn’t open his mouth – anyway, the sensei had told him not to wag his jaw unless he really needed to. He was supposed to gaze at her with a pure, trusting look and keep blinking – that was all.

They went into the room and sat down on the sofa, side by side (Senka thought this was a good sign).

He’d had a special haircut done on Neglinnaya Street –
‘mon ange’,
it was called: mop-headed and fluffy on top, with a strand hanging down over his forehead, pathetic but appealing.