by Boris Akunin
The false nose slid completely to one side and Momos finally tore the damn thing off and flung it into a snowdrift. 'Oof,' he said. 'It's a long time since I've run so hard.'
Mimi sat down beside him and lowered her head on to his shoulder. 'Momochka, there's something I have to confess to you ...'
What is it?' he asked cautiously.
'It wasn't my fault, honestly ... The thing is ... He wasn't a eunuch after all.'
'I know,' Momos muttered, furiously brushing the green needles off her sleeves. 'It was our acquaintance Mr Fandorin and his gendarme Leporello. They really took me for a ride. First class all the way'
Are you going to get your own back?' Mimi asked timidly, looking up into his face.
'Oh, to hell with them. We need to clear out of Moscow. And the sooner the better.'
But in fact they didn't clear out of inhospitable Moscow, because the following day Momos had the idea for the grandiose scheme that he appropriately named 'La Grande Operation'. The idea occurred to him by pure chance, through a most amazing confluence of circumstances.
They were retreating from Moscow in strict order, taking every conceivable precaution. At the crack of dawn Momos had gone to the flea market and bought the equipment required for a total sum of three roubles, seventy-three and a half kopecks. He had removed all the make-up from his face, donned a five-sided cap with a peak, a quilted jacket and high boots with galoshes, transforming himself into an entirely unremarkable petty tradesman. Things had not been so simple with Mimi, because the police already knew what she looked like. After a little thought he had decided to turn her into a boy. In a sheepskin cap with earflaps, a greasy sheepskin jacket and huge felt boots she became absolutely indistinguishable from the kind of light-fingered Moscow juveniles to be found darting around the Sukharev Market - better watch out for your pocket!
In fact, Mimi really could rifle through other people's pockets quite as briskly as any regular market thief. Once, when they had found themselves all washed up in Samara, she had deftly relieved a rich merchant's waistcoat pocket of his grandfather's turnip watch. The watch was rubbish, but Momos knew it had sentimental value for the merchant. The inconsolable provincial had offered a reward of a thousand roubles for the family heirloom and been most voluble in his thanks to the girl student who found the watch in a roadside ditch. With those thousand roubles, Momos had opened up a Chinese pharmacy in that peaceful town and done a very good trade in herbs and roots for treating the various ailments suffered by merchants.
But what was the point in recalling former successes, when here they were, retreating from Moscow like the French, downcast and despondent? Momos assumed that there would be agents watching for them at the stations and he had taken appropriate measures.
First of all, in order to mollify the dangerous Mr Fandorin, he had sent all of Countess Addy's things to St Petersburg. He had, admittedly, been unable to resist adding a postscript to the accompanying receipt: 'To the Queen of Spades from the Jack of Spades.' He had sent the jade beads and the prints he had borrowed back to Malaya Nikitskaya Street via the municipal post, but without any postscript, preferring in this case to err on the side of caution.
He had decided not to put in an appearance at any railway station, but despatched his suitcases to the Bryansk Station in advance, to be loaded on to the following day's train. He and Mimi were going on foot. Once past the Dorogomilovskaya Gates, Momos was intending to hire a driver and ride in his sleigh as far as the first railway station, in Mozhaisk, where he would be reunited with his baggage on the following day.
He was in a sour mood, but meanwhile Moscow was still celebrating. It was Forgiveness Sunday, the final day of wild Pancake Week. At dawn the next day the fasting and praying would begin, the coloured globes would be taken down from the street lamps, the brightly painted fair booths would be dismantled and the number of drunks would sharply decrease; but today the people were still finishing up their revels, their food and their drink.
At the Smolensk market they were riding in 'diligences' down an immense wooden slope, everybody laughing and whistling and squealing. Everywhere you looked, they were selling hot pancakes - with herring heads, with buckwheat, with honey, with caviar. A Turkish conjuror in a red fez was cramming crooked yataghans into his white-toothed maw. An acrobat was walking on his hands and jerking his legs about in an amusing fashion. Some swarthy-faced, bare-chested fellow in a leather apron was belching tongues of flame out of his mouth.
Mimi turned her head this way and that like a genuine little urchin. Entering into her role, she asked Momos to buy her a poisonous red sugar rooster on a stick and delighted in licking the wretched treat with her sharp little pink tongue, although in real life she preferred Swiss chocolate, of which she could devour as many as five bars a day
But the people on the brightly decorated square were not only making merry and guzzling down pancakes. There was a long line of beggars sitting along the wall of the rich merchants' Church of the Mother of God of Smolensk, bowing their heads down to the ground, asking forgiveness from the Orthodox faithful and granting them forgiveness in return. This was an important day for the beggars, a profitable day. Many people approached them with offerings - some brought a pancake, some a half-bottle of vodka, some a kopeck.
Some big shot or other in an unbuttoned mink coat and with his bald head uncovered came striding heavily out of the church on to the porch. He crossed his puffy, repulsive features and shouted out in a loud voice: 'Forgive me, good Orthodox people, if Samson Eropkin has done you wrong!'
The beggars began bustling about and cackling discordantly: 'And you forgive us, little father! Forgive us, our benefactor!'
They were clearly expecting offerings, but no one pushed himself forward. Instead they all lined up briskly into two rows, clearing the way through to the square, where the big shot's magnificent open sleigh was waiting for him - lacquered wood lined with fur.
Momos stopped to see how a fat-face like this would go about buying his way into Paradise. It was obvious from his face that he was as vicious a bloodsucker as the world had ever seen, but even he was aiming for the Kingdom of Heaven. Momos wondered just what price he put on the entrance ticket.
A massive, black-bearded hulk with the face of an executioner came striding out after the pot-bellied benefactor, towering up over him by a head and a half. The hulk had a long leather whip wound round his right hand and elbow, and in his left hand he was carrying a canvas pouch. Every now and then the master turned to his massive lackey, scooped money out of the pouch and presented it to the beggars - one coin to each of them. When a little old man with only one leg lost patience and reached for the alms out of turn, the bearded hulk gave a menacing bellow and in a single, lightning-swift movement untwined the whip and lashed the cripple across the top of his grey head with the very tip of it - how the old fellow gasped!
Every time the mink-coated benefactor thrust a coin into one of the outstretched hands, he intoned: 'I give not to you, you pitiful drunks, not to you - but to the Lord God All-Merciful and the Mother of God, the Intercessor, for forgiveness of the sins of the servant of God, Samson.'
Momos looked harder and was able to satisfy his curiosity: as he ought to have expected, the fat-faced distributor of alms was buying his escape from the fires of hell rather cheaply, giving the beggars one copper kopeck each.
'Evidently the sins of the servant of God, Samson, are not so very great,' Momos muttered aloud, preparing to continue on his way.
A voice roughened and hoarse from alcohol mumbled right in his ear: 'They're great, right enough, son, oh they're great. You can't be from Moscow, then, if you don't know the famous Eropkin?'
Standing beside Momos was a skinny, sinewy ragamuffin with a nervous, twitching, yellowish face. The ragamuffin reeked of stale, cheap alcohol, and his gaze, directed past Momos at the niggardly donor, was filled with a fierce, burning hatred.
'That Samson sucks the blood of nigh on half of Moscow,' the ji
ttery fellow explained to Momos. 'The dosshouses in Khi-trovka, the taverns in Grachi, at the Sukharev Market, and in Khitrovka again - they're almost all his. He buys up stolen goods from the Khitrovka "dealers" and lends money at huge rates of interest. In short, he's a vampire - a cursed viper, he is.'
Momos glanced at the repulsive fat man, who was already getting into his sleigh, with more interest now. Well, well, what colourful characters there did seem to be in Moscow.
And he cares nothing for the police?'
The ragamuffin spat. 'What police! He hangs about in the apartments of the Governor himself, Prince Dolgorukoi. But of course, Eropkin's a general now! When they were building the Cathedral he put up a million out of his profits, and for that he got a ribbon from the Tsar, with a big star and a position in a charitable institution. He used to be Samson the Bloodsucker, but now he's "Your Excellency". He's a thief, an executioner, a murderer.'
'Well now, I don't expect he's actually a murderer,' Momos said doubtfully.
'You don't?' said the drunkard, looking at the other man for the first time. 'Of course, Samson Kharitonovich Eropkin wouldn't get his own hands bloody. But did you see that mute, Kuzma? What about that whip? He's not a man; he's a wild beast, a guard dog on a chain. He won't just kill anyone; he'll tear them limb from limb while they're still alive. And he's done it too - there have been cases! Ah, son, the things I could tell you about what they get up to!'
Well come on, you tell me. We'll sit for a while, and I'll pour you a glass,' Momos invited him. He was in no hurry to get anywhere, and he'd obviously run into an interesting sort of fellow. You could learn all sorts of useful things from people like that. 'Just let me give my little boy twenty kopecks for the carousel.'
They took a seat in the tavern. Momos asked for tea and rusks; the drinking man took a half-bottie of gin and salted bream.
The man with the story to tell took a slow, dignified drink, sucked on a fish tail and began working his way up to his subject: 'You don't know Moscow, so I suppose you've never heard about the Sandunovsky Baths?'
'Of course I have - those baths are famous,' Momos replied, topping up the other man's glass.
'That's just it: they're famous. I used to be the top man there in the gentlemen's department. Everybody knew Egor Tishkin. Let your blood for you, and trim a corn, and give you a first-rate shave - I could do it all. But what I was really famous for was the massage business. Clever hands, I used to have. The way I used to drive the blood through their veins and stretch their bones had all the counts and the generals purring away like kittens. And I could treat all sorts of ailments too - with various potions and decoctions. Some months I raked in as much as fifteen hundred roubles! I had a house, and a garden too. I had a widow who came round to see me - her husband used to be a clergyman.'
Egor Tishkin downed his second drink with no ceremony, in one, and didn't bother to take a sniff at his fish.
'That louse Eropkin singled me out. He always used to ask for Tishkin. The number of times I was even called out to his house. As good as at home there, I was. I used to shave his ugly, bumpy face, and squeeze out his fatty tumours and cure his impotence for him. And who was it saved him from his kidney stones? Who put his hernia back in? Ah, Egor Tishkin used to have golden fingers then. And now he's a naked, homeless beggar. And all because of him, all because of Eropkin! I tell you what, son: get me another drop. My soul's burning up.'
When he'd calmed down a bit, the former bathhouse master continued: 'He's superstitious, Eropkin. Worse than an old countrywoman. He believes in all sorts of signs: black cats, and cocks crowing and the new moon. And let me tell you, my dear man, that Samson Kharitonovich used to have this amazing wart in the middle of his beard, right smack in his dimple. All black, it was, with three ginger hairs growing out of it. He used to really pamper it, used to say it was his special sign. He deliberately let the hair grow on his cheeks, but he had his chin shaved to make the wart more obvious. And it was me that took that special sign of his away ... I wasn't feeling too well that day - had too much drink the night before. I didn't use to indulge very often - only on holidays - but my mother had just passed away, and I'd been taking comfort, the way you do. Anyway, my hand was shaking, and that was a sharp razor - Damascene steel. And I sliced Eropkin's damned wart clean off. Blood everywhere, and the screams! "You've destroyed my good fortune, you cack-handed devil!" And Samson Kharitonovich starts sobbing and trying to stick it back on, but it won't hold - it just keeps falling off. Eropkin went absolutely wild and called Kuzma. First he works me over with that whip of his, but that's not enough for Eropkin. "Your hands should be torn off," he says, "all your crooked fingers torn out one by one." Kuzma grabs hold of my right hand, sticks it in the crack of the door and slams it shut and there's this terrible crunch... I shout out: "Father, don't destroy me, you'll leave me without a crust of bread, at least spare the left one." But it was pointless: he mangled my left hand too ...'
The drunk waved one hand in the air and for the first time Momos noticed the unnatural way his fingers stuck out without bending.
Momos poured the poor fellow more drink and patted him on the shoulder. 'This Eropkin's a really ugly brute,' he said slowly, recalling the benefactor's bloated features. He really disliked people like that. If he hadn't been leaving Moscow, he could have taught the swine a little lesson. 'So tell me: do his taverns and dosshouses bring in a lot of money?'
'Reckon it at something like thirty thousand a month,' answered Egor Tishkin, angrily brushing away his tears.
'Oh, come on. You're exaggerating there, brother.'
The bathhouse attendant sat up suddenly: 'I ought to know! I tell you, his house was like my own home. Every day God sends, that Kuzma of his goes off to the Hard Labour and the Siberia, and the Transit Camp, and the other drinking establishments Eropkin owns. He collects up to five thousand in a day. On Saturdays they bring it to him from the dosshouses. There's four hundred families living in the Birdcage alone. And what about the pickings from the street girls? And the loot, the stolen goods? Samson Kharitonovich puts all the money in a simple sack and keeps it under his bed. That's his way. He once arrived in Moscow as a country bumpkin with that sack, and he thinks he came by his wealth because of it. In other words, he's just like an old woman - believes in all sorts of nonsense. On the first day of every month he gets his earnings out from under the bed and drives them to the bank. Driving along in a carriage and four with his dirty sack, as pleased as Punch. That's his most important day. The money's secret, from illegal dealings, so on the last day he has trained bookkeepers sitting there drawing up false documents for the whole bundle. Sometimes he takes thirty thousand to the bank, sometimes more - it depends how many days there are in the month.'
'He keeps that sort of money at home, and no one's robbed him?' Momos asked in amazement, becoming more and more interested in what he heard.
'Just you try robbing him. There's a brick wall round the house, dogs running around in the yard, the menservants - and then there's that Kuzma. That whip of Kuzma's is worse than any devolver: he'll slice a mouse running past in half for a bet. None of the "businessmen" ever bother Eropkin. They'd only come off worse. There was one time - five years ago it was -when one hothead tried it. They found him later in the knacker's yard. Kuzma had torn all his skin off in strips with his whip. Neat as a whistle. And no one said a word; everyone kept mum. You can be sure Eropkin has the police in his pocket. The amount of money he has, there's no counting it. Only his wealth won't do him any good, the tyrant - he'll die of stone fever. He's got kidney stones, and with Tishkin gone there's no one to cure him. You don't think the doctors know how to dissolve a stone, do you? Samson Kharitonovich's people came to see me. "Come on, Egorushka," they said, "he forgives you. He'll give you money too - just come back and treat him." I didn't go. Maybe he forgives me, but he'll never have my forgiveness!'
'So tell me: does he often hand out alms to the beggars?' asked Momos, feeling the blood beginnin
g to course recklessly through his veins.
Mimi glanced into the tavern, looking bored, and he gave her a sign: Don't interfere, this is business.
Tishkin propped his sullen head on his hand and his unsteady elbow slithered across the dirty tablecloth. 'Often. From tomorrow, when the Lenten Fast begins, he'll be coming to Our Lady of Smolensk every day. The bastard has an office here, on Pliushchikha Street. He'll get out of his sleigh along the way, hand out a rouble in kopecks and then ride on to rake in the thousands.'
'I tell you what, Egor Tishkin,' said Momos: 'I feel sorry for you. You come along with me. I'll get you a place to sleep for the night and give you a bit of money for a drink. You can tell me about your bitter life in a bit more detail. So you say he's highly superstitious, this Eropkin?'
It's just downright unfair, Momos thought as he led the stumbling martyr to the door. What sort of bad luck is this at the very last moment! It was February the shortest little month of all! Only twenty-eight days! There'd be thirty thousand less in the sack than in January or in March. But at least it was already the twenty-third. Not too long to wait until the end of the month, but still enough time to prepare properly. Only he'd have to get the luggage from the train.
There was an immense operation taking shape: he could wipe out all his Moscow fiascos in a single stroke.
The following day, the first day of the Week of the Adoration of the Cross, Smolenskaya Square was unrecognisable, as if the sorcerer Chernomor had shot by above the square in the night and with a single pass of his broad hands swept all the sinners, drunks, singers and shouters off the face of the earth, whisked away the spiced-tea men, piemen and pancake men, carried off the bright-coloured pennants, the paper garlands and the balloons, leaving behind only the empty fairground booths, only the black crows on the snow gleaming wetly in the sun, only the beggars on the porch of the Church of Our Lady of Smolensk.
