He Lover of Death (19 page)

He walked that way down Myasnitskaya Street, Lyubanka Street and Theatre Lane. And when he got a stiff neck from looking ahead of him all the time, he got into the carriage.

They drove as far as the apple orchards in Konkovo, all unhurried, but just before Tyoply Stan the passenger told the driver to put on some speed so they would drive up to the judge’s house at a spanking pace, looking good, with
real chic.

He walked into the house in fine old fashion, said
bonjour
and bowed.

Judge Kuvshinnikov replied: ‘Hello, Semyon Spidorov,’ and asked him to take a seat.

Senka sat there modestly and politely. He took off his right glove, but not the left, the way you’re supposed to at the start of a visit, and put his hat on the floor, only without any napkin. And when he’d managed all that, he took a proper look at the judge.

Ippolit Ivanovich had got old, you could see that from close up. His horseshoe moustache had turned grey. The long hair hanging down below his ears was all white too. But his gaze was the same as ever: black and piercing.

Senka’s old dad used to say that in the whole wide world you could never find anyone cleverer than Judge Kuvshinnikov, and so, when he gazed into Ippolit Ivanovich’s stern eyes, Senka decided he would forget the rules of etiquette and behave with genuine courtesy, as he had been taught, not by George, and not by a book, but by a certain individual (we’ll get to him later, we’ve got ahead of ourselves).

This individual had told him that genuine courtesy was founded not on polite words, but on sincere respect: Respect any person as far as that is possible, until that person has shown himself unworthy of your respect.

Senka had thought about this strange assertion for a long time, and eventually explained it to himself like this: It’s better to flatter a bad man than offend a good one – wasn’t that it?

So he didn’t try to make polite conversation with the judge about the pleasantly cool weather; he said in all honesty, with a bow: ‘Thank you for raising my brother, an orphan, as your own son and not offending him in any way. And Jesus Christ will show you even greater gratitude for it.’

The judge leaned forward and said there was no need for thanks, Vanya brought himself and his wife nothing but joy and delight in their old age. He was a lively boy, with a tender heart and great abilities.

Well, that was that. Then they said nothing for a while.

Senka racked his brains – how could he bring the conversation round to seeing his little brother? He started sniffing with the strain of it, but immediately remembered that ‘the loud sniffing in of nasal fluid in company is absolutely impermissible’, and quickly pulled out his handkerchief to blow his nose.

The judge said: That friend of yours who called this morning said you were a “well-to-do merchant-trader” . . .’

Senka thrust out his chest, but not for long, because Ippolit Ivanovich went on like this: ‘Where did the money come from, for the shiny carriage, the frock coat and the top hat? I correspond with your guardian, Zot Larionovich Puzyrev. All these years I’ve been sending him a hundred roubles every three months for your keep, I receive reports. Puzyrev wrote that you didn’t want to study at the grammar school, that you are wild and ungrateful and consort with all sorts of riff-raff. And in his last letter he informed me that you had become a thief and a bandit.’

Senka was so taken by surprise that he leapt to his feet and shouted – it was stupid of course, he should have kept his mouth shut: ‘Me, a thief? When did he ever catch me?’

‘When they do catch you, Senya, it will be too late!’

‘I didn’t want to go to the grammar school? He was getting a hundred roubles for me?’

Senka choked. What a skunk his Uncle Zot was! Smashing those windows was too good for him, he should have set the house on fire!

‘So where does your wealth come from?’ the judge asked. ‘I have to know before I can let you see Vanka. Perhaps your frock coat was cut from blood and sewn with tears.’

‘It’s not cut from any blood. I found a treasure, an old one,’ Senka muttered, realising as he said it that no one would ever believe
that.

So much for driving up in grand style and presenting his little brother with the sweets! His old dad was right: the judge was a clever man.

But Kuvshinnikov turned out to be even cleverer than that. He didn’t smack his lips in disbelief, he didn’t shake his head. He asked calmly: ‘What kind of treasure? Where from?’

‘Where from? From the Khitrovka basements, that’s where from,’ Senka replied sullenly. ‘There were some silver rods there, with a stamp on them. Five of them. They’re worth a lot of money.’

‘What kind of stamp?’

‘How would I know? Two letters: “Y” and “M”.’

The judge looked at Senka for a long time, without saying a word. Then he got up. ‘Let’s go into the library.’

That was a room covered all over from top to bottom with books. If all the books Senka had ever seen in his life were put together, there still probably wouldn’t be as many.

Kuvshinnikov climbed up a ladder and took a thick volume down off a shelf. He started leafing through from his perch.

‘Aha,’ he said.

Then: ‘Hmmm. Yes, yes.’

He looked at Senka over the top of his specs and asked. ‘“YM”, you say? And where did you find the treasure? Not in the Serebryanniki district, was it?’

‘No, in Khitrovka, honest to God,’ said Senka, crossing himself.

Ippolit Ivanovich climbed down the ladder quickly, put the book on a table and went over to a picture that was hanging on the wall. It was a queer-looking picture, like a drawing of the way pork carcasses were butchered that Senka had once seen in a German meat shop.

‘Here, take a look. This is a map of Moscow. This is Khitrovka, and this is Serebryanniki, the lane and the embankment. It’s just a stone’s throw from Khitrovka.’

Senka went over and tried to take it in. Just to be on the safe side, he said: ‘Of course.’

But the judge wasn’t looking at Senka, he was muttering away to himself: ‘Why, yes! In the seventeenth century that’s where the Silversmiths’ Quarter used to be, the place where the master craftsmen from the Yauza Mint lived. What do your rods look like? Like this?’

He dragged Senka across to the table where the book was. In a picture Senka saw a rod exactly like the ones he’d sold to the jeweller. And a big picture of the end, with the letters ‘MM’.

‘The “MM” means “Moscow Mint”,’ Kuvshinnikov explained. It was also called the New Mint or the English Mint. In the olden days Russia didn’t have much silver of its own, so they used to buy European coins – joachimsthalers, or yefimoks. Senka nodded again at the familiar word, but this time in earnest. ‘They melted the thalers down and made silver rods like that, then they drew them out into wire, cut pieces off it, flattened them and minted kopecks –“scales”, they were called. A lot of kopecks have survived, and even more thalers, but there are no silver billets, or rods, left at all. Well, naturally – they all were all used up.’

‘What about this one?’ asked Senka, pointing to the picture.

‘Well done,’ the judge said approvingly. ‘You use your head. Quite right, Spidorov. Only one rod came down to our times, minted at the Moscow or New Mint.’

Senka thought about that.

‘Why would those silversmiths have dumped the billets and not stamped coins out of them?’

Kuvshinnikov shrugged. ‘It’s a mystery.’ His eyes weren’t narrow and piercing now, they were wide-open and glowing, as if the judge was really surprised or delighted. ‘Although it’s not that great a mystery, if you give it a little thought. A lot of stealing went on in the seventeenth century, even more so than now. Look here, it says in the encyclopedia . . .’ – and he ran his hand down the page; ‘“For so-called ‘smelting losses’ the craftsmen were beaten mercilessly with a knout, and some had their nostrils torn out, but they were not dismissed, because silversmiths were in short supply”. Clearly they didn’t beat them hard enough if someone made a secret hoard of silver “lost in smelting”. Or perhaps it wasn’t the craftsmen they should have beaten, but the clerks.’

The judge turned to his book. Suddenly he whistled. Senka was really surprised: a man like that, and him whistling.

‘Senya, how did much did you sell your rods for?’

Senka didn’t see the point in lying. Kuvshinnikov was a rich man himself, he wouldn’t be jealous.

‘Four hundred.’

‘It says here that fifty years ago, at an auction in London, this bar was acquired by a collector for seven hundred pounds sterling. That’s seven thousand roubles, and in today’s money probably a lot more.’

Senka’sjaw dropped. Why, that Ashot Ashotovich, what a snake!

‘You see, Spidorov, if you’d given your treasure to the state treasury

‘What joy would I get out of that?’ Senka snarled, still smarting at the jeweller’s treachery.

‘Well, the silver was stolen from the treasury. It may have been two hundred years ago, but it’s the same state, still Russia. For handing over a treasure trove to the authorities, according to the law, the finder is entitled to a third of its value. So for your five bars, you would have received a lot more than just two thousand. And in addition you would have been an honest man, helping your motherland.’

Senka was about to say that could be put right – but he bit his tongue just in time. He would have to think long and hard before he started blabbing. Kuvshinnikov was sharp-witted, he’d worm the whole thing out of him in a trice.

The looks the judge was giving Senka were knowing enough as it was.

‘All right,’ said Kuvshinnikov. ‘Just give a little thought to where you’d take the bars, if you happened to find any more: to a fence or to the treasury. If you decide to follow the law, I’ll tell you how to do it. The newspapers will write about your patriotism.’

‘About what?’

‘About you not just filling your belly, but loving your homeland, that’s what.’

Senka wasn’t too sure about the homeland part. Where was his homeland, anyway? Sukharevka, was it, or Khitrovka? Why should he love those lousy dives?

Then Kuvshinnnikov surprised him again. He sighed. ‘So, Zot lied to me about the grammar school. And about everything else too, no doubt. . . Very well, he’ll answer to me for that.’

The judge turned sad and hung his grey head. ‘Forgive me, Senya, for buying off my conscience with a hundred roubles. I could have called to check how you were getting on at least once. When your father died, I wanted to take both of you in, but Puzyrev clung on to you like grim death – he’s my nephew, he said, my sister’s flesh and blood. But it would seem money was the only thing on his mind.’

Senka’s thoughts briefly turned away from money to something completely different: how would everything have turned out if he’d been taken in by Judge Kuvshinninkov instead of Uncle Zot?

But what point was there in eating his heart out now?

Senka asked sullenly: ‘Won’t you let me see Vanka?’

The judge paused for a moment before he answered. ‘Well now, you’ve spoken to me honestly, and you’re not an entirely hopeless case. So yes, you can see each other. Why shouldn’t you? Vanya’s French lesson has just finished. Go to the nursery. The maid will show you the way.’

And Senka needn’t have worried about his little brother.

When they told Vanka his big brother had arrived, he ran out to meet him, jumped right up and threw his arms round Senka’s neck.

‘Aha! I did it, I wrote him a letter! Senya, you look just the way I imagined you!’ Then he corrected himself. ‘Not imagined, remembered. You haven’t changed at all, even the tie’s still the same!’

What a brazen liar the little scamp was!

Senka gave him the bonbonnier and some other presents: binoculars and a penknife – the same one, with the nail file on it. Of course, Vanka immediately forgot all about his brother and started fiddling with the blades – but that was all right, kids will be kids.

Senka shook the judge’s hand when he said goodbye and promised to come again in a couple of days.

He walked back almost all the way to the Kaluga Gate, deep in thought.

Seven thousand a rod! If he didn’t force down the price, he could live like a king for a whole year – on just one rod.

He had to put his wits to work, use that noggin a bit.

As a certain individual, who has already been mentioned, had taught him: ‘He who think rittur, cry man’ tears.’

Story Four.
About the Japanese man Masa

Meaning: ‘He who thinks little, cries many tears’. This individual could not pronounce the Russian ‘l’ because there was no such letter in the language where he was from. But apparently they managed somehow, they got by.

So now it is time to tell you about Senka’s other teacher, who wasn’t hired, but self-appointed.

It happened like this.

The day after the ballet, when Senka was feeling unwell first thing in the morning, and then was cured by champagne and pate, he had an unexpected visitor.

There was a knock on the door – a quiet, well-mannered knock. He thought it was the landlady.

But when he opened the door he saw the Japanese, from yesterday.

Senka got an awful fright. Now the Jap would start belting him and asking why he had scampered off before being called to account for his stealing.

The Japanese said hello and asked: ‘Why you trembur?’

Senka told him straight: ‘I’m trembling because I’m afraid for my life. Afraid you might do me in, mister.’

The Japanese was surprised: ‘You mean, Senka-kun, that you afrai’ of death?’

‘Who isn’t afraid of it?’ Senka answered. The question sounded like a threat, and Senka backed away towards the window. He’d thought maybe he could leap from the window. But it was a bit on the high side, otherwise he’d definitely have jumped.

The Japanese continued to put the wind up Senka – making out he was even more surprised. ‘Why be afrai’? You no’ afrai’ to sreep at nigh’, are you?’

After a dark hint like that, Senka stopped feeling afraid of the height. He backed off all the way to the window and opened the curtain, as if he needed some air. Now if anyone tried to kill him, he could jump up on the windowsill in a single bound.