Special Assignments (22 page)

How is it possible for the monotonous coloration of a blossoming poppy to match the variety of shades of human blood -from the shrill scarlet of the arterial current to the regal purple of the veins? How can the vulgar shade of the bluebell rival the tender blue pattern of the capillaries, or the autumnal colouring of the maple rival the deep blush of the menstrual discharge! The female body is more elegant and a hundred times more interesting than the male. The Junction of the female body is not coarse physical labour and destruction, but creation and nurturing. The elastic womb is like a precious pearl oyster. An idea! Some time I must lay open an impregnated womb to expose the maturing pearl within the shell-yes, yes, without fail! Tomorrow! I have been fasting too long already, since Shrovetide. My lips have shrivelled with repeating: 'Reanimate my accursed heart through this sacrificial fast!' The Lord is hind and charitable. He will not be angry with me for lacking the strength to hold out six days until the Blessed Resurrection. And after all, the third of April is no ordinary day: it is the anniversary of the Enlightenment. It was the third of April then too. What date it was in the other style is of no importance. The important thing is the music of those words: the third of April.

I have my own fast, and my own Easter. When the fast is broken, let it be in style. No, I will not wait until tomorrow. Today! Yes, yes, lay out a banquet. Not merely to sate myself but a surfeit. Not for my own sake, but to the glory of God.

For He it was who opened my eyes, who taught me to see and understand true beauty. More than that, to disclose it and reveal it to the world. And to disclose is to create. I am the Creator's apprentice.

How sweet it is to break the fast after a long abstinence. I remember each sweet moment; I know my memory will preserve it all down to the minutest detail, without losing a single sensation oj vision, taste, touch, hearing or smell.

I close my eyes and I see it...

Late evening. I cannot sleep. Excitement and elation lead me along the dirty streets, across the empty lots, between the crooked houses and the twisted fences. I have not slept for many nights in a row. My chest is constricted, my temples throb. During the day I doze for half an hour or an hour and am woken by terrible visions that I cannot remember when awake.

As I walk along I dream of death, of meeting with Him, but I know that I must not die, it is too soon; my mission has not been completed.

A voice from out of the darkness: 'Spare the money for half a bottle.' Trembling, hoarse from drinking. I turn my head and see the most wretched and abominable of human beings: a degraded whore, drunk and in tatters, but even so, grotesquely painted with ceruse and lipstick. I turn away in squeamish disgust, but suddenly my heart is pierced by the familiar sharp pity. Poor creature, what have you done to yourself! And this is a woman, the masterpiece of God's art! How could you abuse yourself so, desecrate and degrade the gift of God, abase your precious reproductive system?

Of course, you are not to blame. A soulless, cruel society has dragged you through the mud. But I shall cleanse and save you. My heart is serene and joyful.

Who could have known it would happen? I had no intention of breaking the fast-if I had, my path would not have lain through these pitiful slums, but through the fetid lanes and alleys of Khitrovka or Grachyovka, where abomination and vice make their home. But I am overflowing with magnanimity and generosity, only slightly tainted by my impatient craving.

'I'll soon cheer you up, my darling,' I tell her. 'Come with me.' I am wearing men's clothes, and the witch thinks she has found a buyer for her rotten wares. She laughs hoarsely and shrugs her shoulders coyly: 'Where are we going? Listen, have you got any money? You might at least feed me, or better still buy me a drink.' Poor little lost sheep.

I lead her through the dark courtyard towards the sheds. I tug impatiently on one door, a second - the third is not locked.

The lucky woman breathes her cheap vodka fumes on my neck, and giggles: 'Well fancy that! He's taking me to the sheds; he's that impatient.'

A stroke of the scalpel, and I open the doors of freedom to her soul.

Liberation does not come without pain; it is like birth. The woman I now love with all my heart is in great pain; she wheezes and chews on the gag in her mouth, and I stroke her head and comfort her - 'Be patient.' My hands do their work deftly and quickly. I do not need light: my eyes see as well at night as they do during the day.

I lay open the profaned, filthy integument of the body, the soul of my beloved sister soars upwards and I am transfixed by awe before the perfection of God's machinery.

When I lift the hot bread-roll of the heart to my face with a tender smile, it is still trembling, still quivering, like a golden fish fresh from the water, and I kiss the miraculous fish on the parted lips of its aorta.

The place was well chosen, no one interrupts me, and this time the Hymn to Beauty is sung to the end, consummated with a kiss to her cheek. Sleep, sister; your life was revolting and horrible, the sight of you was an offence to the eye, but thanks to me you have become beautiful...

Consider that flower again. Its true beauty is not visible in the glade or in the flower-bed, oh no! The rose is regal on the bodice of a dress, the carnation in the buttonhole, the violet in a lovely girl's hair. The flower attains its glory when it has been cut; its true life is inseparable from death. The same is true of the human body. While it is alive, it cannot reveal its delightful arrangement in all its magnificence. I help the body to ascend its throne of glory. I am a gardener.

But no, a gardener merely cuts flowers, while I also create displays of intoxicating beauty from the organs of the body. In England a previously unheard-of profession is becoming fashionable nowadays - the decorator, a specialist in the embellishment and adornment of the home, the shop window, the street at carnival time.

I am not a gardener; I am a decorator.

CHAPTER 2

From Bad to Worse

Holy Week Tuesday, 4 April, midday

Those present at the emergency meeting convened by the Governor-General of Moscow, Prince Vladimir Andreevich Dolgorukoi, were as follows: the Head Police Master and Major-General of the Retinue of His Imperial Majesty, Yurovsky; the Public Prosecutor of the Chamber of Justice of Moscow, State Counsellor and Usher of the Chamber, Kozlyatnikov; the head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the police, State Counsellor Eichmann; the Governor-General's Deputy for Special Assignments, Collegiate Counsellor Fandorin; and the Investigator for Especially Important Cases of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Moscow, Court Counsellor Izhitsin.

'Oh this weather, this appalling weather, it's vile.' These were the words with which the Governor-General opened the proceedings. 'It's simply beastly gentlemen. Overcast, windy, slush and mud everywhere and, worst of all, the River Moscow has overflowed its banks more than usual. I went to the Zamo-skvorechie district - an absolute nightmare. The water's risen three and a half
sazhens!
It's flooded everything up as far as Pyatnitskaya Street. And it's no better on the left bank either. You can't get through Neglinny Lane. Oh, I shall be put to shame, gentlemen. Dolgorukoi will be disgraced in his old age!'

All present began sighing anxiously, and the only one whose face expressed a certain astonishment was the Investigator for Especially Important Cases. The Prince, who possessed exceptionally acute powers of perception, felt that perhaps he ought to explain.

'I see, young man, that you ... er ... Glagolev, is it? No, Luzhitsin.'

'Izhitsin, Your Excellency' the Public Prosecutor prompted Prince Dolgorukoi, but not loudly enough - in his seventy-ninth year the Viceroy of Moscow (yet another title by which the all-powerful Vladimir Andreevich was known) was hard of hearing.

'Please forgive an old man,' said the Governor good-naturedly, spreading his hands. "Well then, Mr Pizhitsin, I see you are in a state of ignorance ... Probably your position does not require you to know. But since we are having this meeting... well then' -and the Prince's long face with its dangling chestnut-brown moustaches assumed a solemn expression - 'at Easter, Russia's first capital city will be blessed by a visit from His Imperial Highness. He will arrive without any pomp or ceremony - to visit and worship at the holy places of Moscow. We have been instructed not to inform the citizens of Moscow in advance, since the visit has been planned as an
impromptu,
so to speak. However, that does not relieve us of responsibility for the standard of his reception and the general condition of the city. For instance, gentlemen, this morning I received a missive from His Eminence Ioannikii, the Metropolitan of Moscow. His Reverence writes to complain that what is going on in the confectionery shops of Moscow before the holy festival of Easter is a downright disgrace: the shop windows and counters are stacked high with boxes of sweets and candy with pictures of the Last Supper, the Way of the Cross, Calvary and so forth. This is sacrilege, gentlemen! Please be so good, my dear sir,' said the Prince, addressing the Head Police Master, 'as to issue an order to the police today to the effect that a strict stop must be put to such obscenities. Destroy the boxes, donate their contents to the Foundlings' Hospital. Let the poor orphans have a treat for the holiday. And fine the shopkeepers to make sure they don't get me into any trouble before the Emperor's visit!'

The Governor-General nervously adjusted his curly wig, which had slipped a little to one side, and was about to say something else, but instead began coughing.

An inconspicuous door that led to the inner chambers immediately opened and a skinny old man dashed out from behind it, moving silently in felt overshoes with his knees bent. His bald cranium shone with a blinding brilliance and he had immense sideburns. It was His Excellency's personal valet, Frol Vedishchev. Nobody was surprised by his sudden appearance, and everybody present felt it appropriate to greet the old man with a bow or at least a nod for, despite his humble position, Vedishchev had the reputation in the ancient city of being an influential and in certain respects omnipotent individual.

He rapidly poured drops of some mixture from a small bottle into a silver goblet, gave them to the Prince to drink and disappeared with equal rapidity in the reverse direction without so much as glancing at anyone.

'Shank you, Frol, shank you, my dear,' the Governor-General mumbled to his favourite's back, shifted his chin to put his false teeth back in place and carried on without lisping any more. 'And so, if Erast Petrovich Fandorin would be so good as to explain the reason for the urgency of this meeting... You know perfectly well, my dear friend, that today every minute is precious to me. Well then, what exactly has happened? Have you taken care to make sure that rumours of this vile incident are not spread among the inhabitants of the city? That's all we need on the eve of the Emperor's visit...'

Erast Petrovich got to his feet and the eyes of Moscow's supreme guardians of law and order turned to look at the Collegiate Counsellor's pale, resolute face.

'Measures have been taken to maintain secrecy, Your Excellency' Fandorin reported. 'Everybody who was involved in the inspection of the scene of the crime has been warned of the responsibility they bear and they have signed an undertaking not to reveal anything. Since the yard-keeper who found the body is an individual with an inclination to intemperate drinking and cannot answer for himself, he has been temporarily placed in a s-special cell at the Department of Gendarmes.'

'Good,' said the Governor approvingly. 'Then what need is there for this meeting? Why did you ask me to bring together the heads of the criminal investigation and police departments?

You and Pizhitsin could have decided everything between you?'

Erast Petrovich cast an involuntary glance at the investigator for whom the Governor had invented this amusing new name, but just at the moment the Collegiate Counsellor was not in the mood for jollity.

'Your Excellency, I did not request you to summon the head of the Criminal Investigation Department. This case is so disturbing that it should be classified as a crime of state importance, and in addition to the Public Prosecutor's Office it should be handled by the operations section of the gendarmes under the personal control of the Head Police Master. I would not involve the Criminal Investigation Department at all, there are too many incidental individuals there. That is one.'

Fandorin paused significantly. State Counsellor Eichmann started and was about to protest, but Prince Dolgorukoi gestured for him to remain silent.

'It seems I need not have bothered you, my dear fellow,' Dolgorukoi said amiably to Eichmann. 'Why don't you go and keep up the pressure on your pickpockets and swindlers, so that on Easter Sunday they break their fast at home in Khitrovka and, God forbid, don't show their noses outside. I am relying on you.'

Eichmann stood up and bowed without speaking, smiled with just his lips at Erast Petrovich and went out.

The Collegiate Counsellor sighed in the realisation that he had now acquired a lifelong enemy in the person of the head of Moscow's Criminal Investigation Department, but this case really was horrific, and no unnecessary risk could be justified.

'I know you,' said the Governor, looking anxiously at his trusted deputy. 'If you say "one", it means there will be a "two". Speak out; don't keep us on tenterhooks.'

'I greatly regret, Vladimir Andreevich, that the sovereign's visit will have to be cancelled,' Fandorin said in a very low voice, but this time the Prince heard him perfectly.

'How's that - "cancelled"?' he gasped.