He Lover of Death (2 page)

Well, everybody thinks, she’s drowned, and they’re running around, waving their arms in the air. Only she wasn’t drowned, she was dragged about fifty fathoms under the ice and cast up through a hole where some women were doing their laundry.

They snagged her with a boathook or some such thing and dragged her out. She looked dead, all white she was, but after she lay down for a while and warmed up again, she was as good as new. Alive and kicking.

Because she was harder to kill than a cat, they called her Lively, and some even called her the Immortal, but that wasn’t her final moniker. That changed later.

A year went by, or maybe a year and a half, and then didn’t her parents try to marry her off again. And by now the girl was a more beautiful blossom than ever. Her bridegroom was this merchant, not young, but filthy rich. It was all the same to her – Lively, I mean –a merchant would do as well as anyone. Those that knew her then say she was pining badly for her bridegroom, the one who was killed.

So then what happens? The day before the wedding, at the morning service in church, the new bridegroom suddenly starts wheezing and flinging his arms about and then flops over on his side. He twitched a leg and flapped his lips for a bit, and went to his eternal rest. Carried off by a stroke.

After that, she didn’t try to get married any more, and before long she ran away from her parents’ house with this gent, a military man, and started living in his house, on Arbat Street. And she turned into a real swanky dame: dressed up like a lady and came to visit her mama and papa in a shiny varnished carriage, with a lacy parasol. The officer couldn’t marry her, he didn’t have his father’s blessing, but he adored her madly, absolutely doted on her.

Only number three was done for as well. He was a strong young gent, with bright rosy cheeks, but after he lived with her for a while, all of a sudden he startedwasting away. He turned all pale and feeble, his legs wouldn’t hold him up. The doctors tried everything they could think of, sent him away to take the waters, and off to foreign parts, but it was all a waste of time. They said there was some kind of canker growing inside him, and it had nibbled all his insides away.

Well then, after she buried her officer, even the slow-witted could see there was something wrong with the girl. And that was when they changed what they called her.

There was no way she could go back to Dobraya Sloboda, and she didn’t want to anyway. Her life was all different now. Ordinary folks steered clear of her. When she walked by, they crossed themselves and spat over their shoulders. But everyone knows the kind that did cosy up – rakish, dashing types who couldn’t give a damn for death. And after she sucked all the juice out of that last gent –well, you’ve seen for yourself what she turned into then. Far and away the best-looker in the whole of Moscow.

And it carried on. Kolsha the Spike (he was a big-time bandit, used to work the Meshchani patch) stepped out in style with her for a couple of months – then his own lads took their knives to him, because he wouldn’t divvy up the loot.

Then there was Yashka from Kostroma, the horse thief. Used to walk pure-blood trotters straight out of the stable, sold them to the gypsies for huge money. Carried thousands of roubles around in his pockets sometimes. He begrudged her nothing, she was swimming in gold. But the police narks shot Yashka down six months past.

And now there’s the Prince. Three months and counting. Sometimes he puts on a brave face, but sometimes he rants and raves. He used to be a respectable thief, but now doing someone in means no more to him than squashing a fly. And all because now he’s taken up with Death, he knows he isn’t long for this world. It’s like that saying: invite death to come visiting, and you end up in the graveyard. People don’t get their monikers for nothing, especially one like that.

‘What moniker d’you mean?’ Senka asked eagerly after he’d listened to the story with his mouth hanging open. ‘You still haven’t told me, Prokha.’

Prokha stared at him, then tapped his knuckles on his own forehead. ‘Why, you half-baked simpleton,’ he said. ‘Sowhat do they call you Speedy for? I’ve just spent the best part of an hour explaining that to you. Death – that’s her moniker. That’s what everyone calls her. She don’t mind, she answers to it, she’s well used to it.’

HOW SENKA BECAME A
KHITROVKAN

Prokha thought Senka was called Speedy, him being a smart lad, with lots of gumption, eyes darting about left and right, always quick with an answer, never stuck for a word. But actually Senka’s nickname came from his surname. His father’s name used to be Trifon Stepanovich Spidorov. What his name was now, only God knew. Maybe he wasn’t Trifon Stepanovich any longer, but the Angel Trifaniil instead. Except that his old dad wasn’t likely to have been made an angel – he drank too much, although he was a good man. But as for his mum, she was definitely somewhere not too far from the Throne of Light.

Senka often thought about that – which of his parents had ended up where. He wasn’t sure about his father, but he had no doubts about his mother and brothers and sisters, the ones who’d died from cholera with their parents. He didn’t even pray for them to get into the Kingdom of Heaven – he knew they were already there.

When the cholera hit their suburb three years before, it had carried off a lot of folk. Senka and his little brother Vanya were the only Spidorovs who kept a tight grip on this world. And whether that was good or bad depended on which way you looked at it.

For Senka it was probably bad, because his life was altogether different after that. His dad worked behind the counter in a big tobacco shop. He got a good wage and free baccy. When he was little, Senka always had clothes to wear and shoes on his feet. A full belly and a clean face, as they say. He was taught reading, writing and arithmetic at the usual age, he even went to commercial college for half a year, only when he was orphaned, that put an end to his studies. But then never mind his studies, that wasn’t the reason he was so miserable.

His brother Vanka was lucky. He was taken in by Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov – the one who always used to buy English baccy from their dad. The magistrate had a wife, but no children, and he took Vanka, because he was small and chubby. But Senka was already big and bony, the magistrate wasn’t interested in someone like that. So Senka was taken in by his second uncle, Zot Larionovich, in Sukharevka. And that was where Senka ran wild.

Well, what else could he do
but
run wild?

His uncle, the fat-bellied bastard, starved him. Didn’t even give Senka a seat at the table, even though he was flesh and blood. On Saturdays he used to beat him, sometimes for a reason, but mostly just for the hell of it. He didn’t pay him a kopeck, although Senka slaved away in the shop just as hard as the other boys, and they were paid eight roubles each. And the most hurtful thing of all was that every morning he had to carry his second cousin Grishka’s satchel to the grammar school for him. Grishka walked on ahead, full of himself, sucking on a fancy boiled sweet, and Senka trudged along behind, like a serf from the olden days, lugging that unbelievably heavy satchel (sometimes Grishka put a brick in it out of sheer mischief). He’d have loved to squeeze all the pus out of that Grishka like a fat, ripe boil, so he’d stop putting on airs and share his sugar candy. Or smash him across the head with that brick – but he couldn’t, he just had to lump it.

Well, Senka lumped it for as long as he could. For three whole years, near enough.

Of course, he used to get his own back too, whenever he could. You have to find some way of letting off steam.

Once he put a mouse inside Grishka’s pillow. During the night it gnawed its way to freedom and got tangled in his second cousin’s hair. That was a fine ruckus in the middle of the night. But it went off all right, no one suspected Senka at all.

Or that last Shrovetide, when they baked and boiled and roasted all that food, and gave the orphan only two little pancakes with holes in them and a tiny scraping of vegetable oil. Senka flew into a fury and he splashed some of that oat ‘decoction’ they took for constipation into the big pot with the thick cabbage soup. That’ll make you run, you greaseballs, let’s see you twitch and heave! And he got away with that too – they blamed the sour cream for going off.

When he got the chance, he used to steal all sorts of small things from the shop: thread maybe, or a pair of scissors, or some buttons. He sold what he could at the Sukharevka flea-market and threw away the things that were no use. He got beaten for it sometimes, but only on suspicion – he was never caught in the act.

But when he finally did get his fingers burned, it was really bad, the smoke was thick and the fiery sparks flew. And it was Senka’s compassionate heart to blame for the whole thing, for making him forget his usual caution.

After he hadn’t heard anything about his brother for three whole years, he finally got word from him. He often used to comfort himself by thinking how lucky Vanka was, and how happy he must be, living with Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov, not like Senka. And then this letter came.

It was amazing it ever got there at all. On the envelope it said:
‘My brother Senka hoo lives with Uncle Zot in Sukharevka in Moscow’.
It was lucky Uncle Zot knew one of the postmen who worked at the Sukharevka post office, and he guessed where to bring it, may God grant him good health.

This was what the letter said:

Deer bruther Senka, how are you geting on. Im very unhapy living heer. They teech me letters and scowld me and misstreet me, even thowits my naymday soon. I askd them for a horsy, but they tayk no notiss. Come and tayk me away from these unkind peeple. Yor little bruther Vanka
.

When Senka read it, his hands started trembling and the tears came pouring out of his eyes. So this was his lucky brother! That magistrate was a fine one. Tormenting a little child, refusing to buy him a toy. Then why did he want to raise the orphan in the first place?

Anyway, he took serious offence for Vanka, and decided it would be cruel and heartless to abandon his brother so.

There wasn’t any return address on the envelope, but the postman told him the postmark was from Tyoply Stan, and that was about eight miles outside Moscow if you took the Kaluga Gate. And he could ask where the magistrate lived when he got there.

Senka didn’t take long to make up his mind. After all, the next day was St Ioann’s day – little Vanka’s name day.

Senka got ready to set out and rescue his brother. If Vanka was so unhappy, he was going to take him away. Better to suffer their grief together than apart.

He spotted a little lacquered horse in the toy shop on Sretenka Street, with a fluffy tail and white mane. It was absolutely beautiful, but really pricey – seven and a half roubles. So at midday, when there was only deaf old Nikifor left in his uncle’s shop, Senka picked the lock on the cash box, took out eight roubles and did a runner, trusting to God. He didn’t think about being punished. He wasn’t planning on ever coming back to his uncle, he was going away with his brother to live a free life. Join a gypsy camp, or whatever came along.

It took him an awful long time to walk to that Tyoply Stan, his feet were all battered and bruised, and the farther he went, the heavier the wooden horse got.

But then it was very easy to find Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov’s house, the first person he asked there pointed it out. It was a good house, with a cast-iron canopy on pillars, and a garden.

He didn’t go up to the front door – he felt too ashamed. And they probably wouldn’t have let him in anyway, because after the long journey Senka was covered in dust, and he had a cut right across his face that was oozing blood. That was from outside the Kaluga Gate, when he was so knackered, he hung on to the back of an old cart, and the driver, the rotten louse, lashed him with his whip – it was lucky he didn’t put his eye out!

Senka squatted down on his haunches, facing the house, and started thinking about what to do next. There was a sweet tinkling sound coming from the open windows – someone was slowly trying to bash out a song that Senka didn’t know. And sometimes he could hear a thin little voice he thought must be his Vanka’s.

Senka finally plucked up his courage, walked closer, and stood on the step to glance in the window.

He saw a big, beautiful room. And sitting at a great big polished wooden box (it was called a ‘piano’, they had one like it in the college too) was a curly-haired little boy in a sailor suit, stabbing at the keys with his little pink fingers. He looked like Vanka, and not like him at the same time. So peachy and fresh, you could just gobble him up like a spice cake. Standing beside him was a young lady in glasses, using one hand to turn the pages of a copy book on a little stand, and stroking the little lad’s golden hair with the other. And in the corner there was a great big heap of toys. With toy horses, too, much fancier than Senka’s – three of them.

Before Senka could make any sense of this amazing sight, a carriage drawn by two horses suddenly came out from round the corner. He only just managed to jump down in time and squeeze up against the fence.

Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov himself was sitting in the carriage. Senka recognised him straight off.

Vanka stuck his head out of the window and shouted as loud as he could:

‘Did you bring it? Did you bring it?’

The magistrate laughed and climbed down on to the ground. ‘I did,’ he said. ‘Can’t you see for yourself? What are we going to call her?’

That was when Senka spotted the horse tethered to the back of the carriage, a sorrel foal with plump round sides. It looked like a grown-up horse, only it was really small, not much bigger than a goat.

Vanka started chirruping away: ‘A pony! I’m going to have a real pony!’ And so, Senka turned back and trudged all the way to the Kaluga Gate. He left the wooden horse in the grass at the side of the road. Let it graze there. Vanka didn’t need it – maybe some other kid would get good use out of it.