The Diamond Chariot (26 page)

There were two of them. Gazing out at Fandorin on the left was Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, and on the right was a plump-cheeked Oriental with his thick eyebrows knitted in a menacing lour. The titular counsellor was already very familiar with the engraving from the portrait by Kiprensky, and it held no great interest for him, but he was intrigued by the second portrait. It was a garishly coloured wood-block print that could not have been expensive, but it had been done so expertly that the irascible fat man seemed to be glaring straight into the vice-consul’s eyes. A fat neck with naturalistic folds of flesh could be seen under the open, gold-embroidered collar, and the forehead of the Japanese was tightly bound in a white bandana with a scarlet circle at its centre.

‘Is he some kind of poet?’ Fandorin enquired.

‘Not at all. That is the great hero Field Marshal Saigo Takamori,’ Shirota replied reverently.

‘The one who rebelled against the government and committed suicide?’ Erast Petrovich asked in surprise. ‘Surely he is regarded as a traitor to the state?’

‘He is. But he is still a great hero. Field Marshal Saigo was a sincere man. And he died a beautiful death.’ A wistful note appeared in the clerk’s voice. ‘He ensconced himself on a mountain with samurai from his native Satsuma. The government soldiers surrounded him on all sides and started shouting: “Surrender, Your Excellency! We will deliver you to the capital with honour!” But the field marshal did not capitulate. He fought until he was hit in the stomach by a bullet, and then told his adjutant: “Chop my head from my shoulders”.’

Fandorin gazed at the heroic field marshal without speaking. How expressive those eyes were! The rendition of the portrait was truly masterful.

‘But why do you have Pushkin here?’

‘A great Russian poet,’ Shirota explained, then thought for a moment and added, ‘Also a sincere man. He died a beautiful death.’

‘There is nothing the Japanese like better than someone who died a beautiful death,’ Vsevolod Vitalievich said with a smile. ‘But it’s too soon for us to die, gentlemen, there is a slew of work to be done. What’s our most urgent business?’

‘The corvette
Horseman
has ordered a hundred
pood
s of salt beef and a hundred and fifty
pood
s of rice,’ said Shirota, taking several sheets of paper out of a file as he started his report. ‘The first mate of the
Cossack
has requested a repair dock to be arranged in Yokosuka as soon as possible.’

‘These are matters that fall within the competence of the brokers,’ the consul explained to Fandorin. ‘The brokers are local traders who act as intermediaries and answer to me for the quality of deliveries and work performed. Carry on, Shirota.’

‘A note from the municipal police, asking if they should release the assistant engineer from the
Boyan
.’

‘Reply telling them to keep him until tomorrow. And first let him pay for the broken shop window. What else?’

‘A letter from the spinster Blagolepova,’ said the clerk, holding out an opened envelope to the consul. ‘She informs us that her father has died and asks us to issue a death certificate. She also petitions for the payment of a gratuity.’

Doronin frowned and took the letter.

‘“Passed away suddenly” … “completely alone now” … “do not leave me without support” … “at least something for the funeral” … Hmm, yes. There you are, Erast Petrovich. The routine but nonetheless sad side of a consul’s work. We care not only for the living, but also the dead subjects of the Russian Empire.’

He glanced at Fandorin with an expression that combined enquiry with guilt.

‘I realise perfectly well that this is infamous on my part … You have barely even arrived yet. But you know, it would be a great help to me if you could visit this Blagolepova. I still have to write a speech for the ceremony today, and it is dangerous to put off the inconsolable spinster until tomorrow. She could turn up here at any moment and give us a performance of the lamentations of Andromache … Would you go, eh? Shirota will show you the way. He can draw up everything that’s required and take any necessary action, you’ll only have to sign the death certificate.’

Fandorin, who was still contemplating the portrait of the hero who had been beheaded, was about to say: ‘Why, certainly’, but just at that moment the young man thought he saw the field marshal’s black-ink eyes glint as if they were alive – and not aimlessly, but to convey some kind of warning. Astonished, Erast Petrovich took a step forward and even leaned towards the picture. The miraculous effect instantly disappeared, leaving nothing but mere painted paper.

‘Why, certainly,’ said the titular counsellor, turning towards his superior. ‘This very moment. Only, with your permission, I shall change my outfit. It is entirely unsuitable for such a doleful mission. But who is this young lady?’

‘The daughter of Captain Blagolepov, who would appear to have departed this life.’ Vsevolod Vitalievich crossed himself, but rather perfunctorily, without any particular air of devoutness. ‘May heaven open its gates to him, as they say, although the recently deceased’s chances of gaining entry there are none too great. He was a pitiful individual, totally degenerate.’

‘He took to drinking?’

‘Worse. He took to smoking.’ Seeing his assistant’s bewilderment, the consul explained. ‘An opium addict. A rather common infirmity in the East. In actual fact, there is nothing so very terrible about smoking opium, any more than there is about drinking wine – it’s a matter of knowing where to draw the line. I myself like to smoke a pipe or two sometimes. I’ll teach you – if I see that you are a level-headed individual, unlike Blagolepov. But you know, I can remember him as a quite different man. He came here five years ago, on a contract with the Postal Steamship Company. Served as captain on a large packet boat, going backwards and forwards between here and Osaka. He bought a good house and sent for his wife and daughter from Vladivostok. Only his wife died soon afterwards, and in his grief, the captain took to the noxious weed. Little by little the habit consumed everything: his savings, his job, his house. He moved to the Native Town, and for foreigners that is regarded as the ultimate downfall. The captain’s daughter was really worn out, she was almost starving.’

‘If he lost his position, why do you still call him “captain”?’

‘By force of habit. Recently Blagolepov had been sailing a little steam launch, taking people on cruises round the bay. He didn’t sail any farther than Tokyo. He was his own captain, and able seaman, and stoker. One in three persons. At first the launch was his property, then he sold it. He worked for a salary, and for the tips. The Japanese were happy to hire him, it was a double curiosity for them: to go sailing in a miraculous boat with a chimney, and to have a
gaijin
dancing attendance on them. Blagolepov squandered everything he earned in the opium den. He was a hopeless case, and now he’s given up the ghost …’

Vsevolod Vitalievich took a few coins out of the safe.

‘Five dollars for her for the funeral, as prescribed by the regulations.’ He sighed a little and took another two silver discs out of his pocket. ‘And give her these, without a receipt. A ship’s chaplain will read the burial service, I’ll arrange for that. And tell Blagolepova that she should go back to Russia as soon as she’s buried him, this is no place for her. God forbid she could end up in a brothel. We’ll give her a third-class ticket to Vladivostok. Well, go on, then. My congratulations on starting your new job at the consulate.’

Before he left the room, Erast Petrovich could not resist glancing round at the portrait of Field Marshal Saigo once again. And once again he thought he glimpsed some kind of message in the hero’s gaze – either a warning or a threat.

Three ancient secrets:
Rising sun and dying moon,
And a hero’s eyes.

THE BLUE DIE DOES NOT LIKE BADGER

Semushi scratched his hump with a rustling sound and raise his hand to indicate that bets were no longer being taken. The players – there were seven of them – swayed back on their heels, all of them trying to appear impassive.

Three for ‘evens’ and four for ‘odds’, Tanuki noticed, and although he had not staked anything himself, he clenched his fists in agitation.

Semushi’s fleshy hand covered the little black cup, the dice clacked against its bamboo walls (that magical sound!) and the two little cubes, red and blue, came flying out on to the table.

The red one halted almost immediately with the 4 upwards, but the blue one clattered on to the very edge of the rice-straw mats.

‘Evens!’ thought Tanuki, and the next moment the dice stopped with the 2 upwards. Just as he thought! But if he’d placed a bet, the detestable little cube would have landed on 1 or 3. It had taken a dislike to Tanuki – that had been proved time and time again.

Three players received their winnings and four reached into their pockets to get out new coins. Not a single word, not a single exclamation. The rules of the ancient noble game prescribed absolute silence.

The hunchbacked host gestured to the waitress to pour sake for the players. The girl squatted down beside each one of them and filled their beakers. She squinted quickly at Semushi, saw that he was not looking, and quickly crawled across on her knees to Tanuki and poured some for him, although she was not supposed to.

Naturally, he did not thank her, and even deliberately turned his back. You had to be strict with women, unapproachable, that roused their spirit. If only the rolling dice could be managed that easily!

At the age of eighteen, Tanuki already knew that not many women could refuse him. That is, of course, you had to be able to sense whether a woman could be yours or not. Tanuki could sense this very clearly, it was a gift he had. If there was no chance, he didn’t even look at a woman. Why waste the time? But if – from a glance or the very slightest movement, or a smell – he could tell that there was a chance, Tanuki acted confidently and without any unnecessary fuss. The main thing was that he knew he was a good-looking man, he was handsome and knew how to inspire love.

Then what could he want, one might wonder, with this skinny servant girl? After all, he wasn’t hanging about here for his own amusement, he was on an important job. A matter of life and death, you might say, but still he hadn’t been able to refrain. The moment he saw the girl, he realised straight away that she was
his kind
, and without even pausing to think, he had applied all his skill in the way he acted with her: he put on a haughty face with a sultry expression in his eyes. When she came closer, he turned away; when she was at a distance, he kept his eyes fixed on her. Women notice that straight away. She had already tried to talk to him several times, but Tanuki maintained his mysterious silence. On no account must he open his own mouth too early.

It wasn’t so much that he was amused by the game with the servant girl – it was more that it helped to relieve the boredom of waiting. And then again, free sake was no bad thing either.

He had been hanging about in Semushi’s dive since yesterday morning. He had already blown almost all the money he had been given by Gonza, even though he only placed a bet every one and a half hours at the most. The accursed blue die had gobbled up all his coins, and now he only had two left: a small gold one and a large silver one, with a dragon.

Since yesterday morning he had neither eaten nor slept, only drunk sake. His belly ached. But his
hara
could endure it. Far worse was the fact that his head had started to spin – either from the cold or the sweetish smoke that came drifting from the corner where the opium smokers were lying and sitting: three Chinese, a red-haired sailor with his eyes closed and his mouth blissfully open, two rikshas.

Foreigners –
akuma
take them, let them all croak, but he felt sorry for the rikshas. They were both former samurai, that was obvious straight away. Their kind found it hardest of all to adapt to a new life. These were changed times, the samurai weren’t paid pensions any more – let them work, like everyone else. Only what if you didn’t know how to do anything except wave a sword about? But they’d even taken away the poor devils’ swords …

Tanuki guessed again – this time it would be ‘odds’, and it was! Two and 5!

But the moment he put up the silver yen, the dice betrayed him again. As usual, the red one settled first, on a 5. How he implored the blue one: give me odds, give me odds! And of course, it rolled over into a 3. His last coin but one had gone for nothing.

Snuffling in his fury, Tanuki put down his beaker, so that the servant could splash some sake into it, but this time the mischievous girl poured some for everyone except him – she was probably offended because he wasn’t looking at her.

It was stuffy in the room, the players were sitting there naked to the waist, wafting themselves with fans. If only he had a snake tattoo on his shoulder. Maybe not with three rings, like Obake’s, and not five, like Gonza’s – just one would do. Then the rotten girl would look at him differently. But never mind, if he carried out his assignment diligently, Gonza had promised him not only a fiery-red snake on his right shoulder, but even a chrysanthemum on each knee!

The very reason that Tanuki had been entrusted with this important mission was that he did not have a single decoration on his skin. He had not had any chance to earn them. But the hunchback would not have let in anyone with tattoos. That was why Fudo and Gundari had been put on the door, to prevent any Yakuza from other clans getting in. Fudo and Gundari told customers to roll up their sleeves and inspected their backs and chests. If they saw decorated skin, they threw the man out straight away.

Semushi was cautious, it was not easy to reach him. His ‘Rakuen’ gambling den had a double door: they let you in one at a time, then the first door was locked with some cunning kind of mechanism; on guard behind the inner door were Fudo and Gundari, two guards named in honour of the redoubtable buddhas who guarded the Gates of Heaven. The heavenly buddhas were truly terrible – with goggling eyes and tongues of flame instead of hair, but this pair were even worse. They were Okinawans, skilled in the art of killing with their bare hands.