by Boris Akunin
Varya moved closer to Erast Petrovich and asked: “Why does he call you Erasmus?”
“It’s just something that happened,” said the secretive Fandorin, avoiding the question.
“Alas,” Sobolev sighed loudly. “Kriedener’s probably already advancing on Plevna, and I’m stuck in here like a low card in the discard pile.”
Perepyolkin stuck close to his idol, pretending he was also interested in the game.
The angry McLaughlin, standing all alone with a chessboard under his arm, muttered something in English and then translated it into Russian himself.
“It used to be a press club; now it’s a low gambling den.”
“Hey, my man, do you have any Shustov cognac? Bring it over!” cried the hussar, turning to the bartender. “We might as well have some real fun while we’re at it.”
The evening was promising to turn out very cheerfully.
THE NEXT DAY, HOWEVER, the press club had changed beyond all recognition, with the Russians sitting there looking gloomy and depressed, while the correspondents were talking excitedly in low voices, and every now and then, when one of them learned some new details, he would go running to the telegraph office—what had happened was a sensation of the first order.
Already at lunchtime the dark rumors had begun to spread round the camp, and as Varya and Fandorin were walking back from the shooting range after five (the titular counselor was teaching his assistant to use a Colt revolver), they had been met by a sullenly agitated Sobolev.
“A fine business,” he said, rubbing his hands together nervously. “Have you heard?”
“Plevna?” Fandorin asked forlornly.
“A total rout. General Schilder-Schuldner went at it all out—he wanted to catch Osman Pasha. We had seven thousand men, but the Turks had far more. Our columns attacked full on and were caught in a crossfire. Rosenbaum, the commander of the Arkhangelsk Regiment, was killed, Kleinhaus, the commander of the Kostroma Regiment, was fatally wounded, and Major General Knorring was brought back on a stretcher. A third of our men were killed. Absolute carnage. So much for those three battalions. And the Turks were different, too, not like before. They fought like devils.”
“What about Paladin?” Erast Petrovich asked rapidly.
“He’s all right. He turned bright green and kept babbling excuses; Kazanzaki’s taken him away for interrogation. Well, now the real thing will start. Perhaps now they’ll give me a posting. Perepyolkin hinted that there might be a chance.” And the general set off toward the staff building with a spring in his step.
Varya had spent the time until evening in the hospital, helping sterilize surgical instruments. So many wounded had been brought in that they had been obliged to set up another two temporary tents. The nurses were dog-tired. The air was filled with the smell of blood and suffering and the screams and prayers of the wounded.
It was almost night before she was able to escape to the correspondents’ marquee where, as has already been mentioned, the atmosphere was strikingly different from the day before.
The only place where life continued in full swing was at the card table, where the game was now in its second uninterrupted day. Pale-faced Zurov puffed on a cigar as he rapidly dealt out the cards. He had not eaten a thing, but he had been drinking incessantly without getting even slightly drunk. A tall heap of banknotes, gold coins, and promissory notes had sprung up beside his elbow. Sitting opposite him, tousling his hair in insane frenzy, was Colonel Lukan. Some officer or other was sleeping beside him with his light-brown head of hair slumped onto his folded arms. The bartender fluttered around them like a fat moth, plucking the lucky hussar’s least wish out of the air on the wing.
Fandorin was not at the club, and neither was Paladin. McLaughlin was playing chess, while Sobolev, surrounded by officers, was poring over a three-verst map and hadn’t even glanced at Varya.
Already regretting that she had come, she said: “Count, are you not ashamed? So many people have been killed.”
“But we are still alive, mademoiselle,” Zurov replied absentmindedly, tapping on a deck of cards with his finger. “What’s the point of dying before your time has come? Oh, you’re bluffing, Luke. I raise you two.”
Lukan tugged the diamond ring off his finger.
“I’ll see you.” He reached out a trembling hand toward Zurov’s cards, which were lying casually facedown on the table.
At that instant Varya saw Lieutenant Colonel Kazanzaki glide soundlessly into the tent, looking hideously like a black raven that has caught the sweet smell of a putrid corpse. Remembering what the gendarme’s previous appearance had led to, she shuddered.
“Mr. Kazanzaki,” said McLaughlin, turning toward the new arrival, “where is Paladin?”
The lieutenant colonel paused portentously, waiting for the club to become quiet. He answered curtly: “I have him. He is writing an explanation.” He cleared his throat and added ominously, “And then we’ll make up our minds.”
The awkward silence that ensued was broken by Zurov’s nonchalant light bass: “So this is the famous gendarme Kozinikinaki? Greetings to you, Mister Split-Lip.” He waited, his eyes gleaming insolently as he stared expectantly at the lieutenant colonel’s flushed features.
“And I have heard about you, Mister Brawler,” Kazanzaki replied unhurriedly, also staring hard at the hussar. “A notorious character. Pray be so good as to hold your tongue, or I shall call the sentry and have you taken to the guardhouse for gambling in camp. And I shall arrest the bank.”
“There’s no mistaking a serious man,” chuckled the count. “Understood, I’ll be as silent as the grave.”
Lukan finally turned over Zurov’s cards, gave a protracted groan, and clutched his head in his hands. The count inspected the ring he had won with a skeptical eye.
“No, Major, no, there’s no damned treason here!” Varya heard Sobolev say irritably. “Perepyolkin’s right—he’s the brains on the staff. Osman simply covered the ground at a forced march, and our blustering sabre-rattlers didn’t expect that kind of energy from the Turks. We have a formidable enemy to fight now, and this war is going to be fought in earnest.”
CHAPTER SIX
In which Plevna and Varya
each withstand a siege
DIE WIENER ZEITUNG (Vienna)
30 (18) July 1877
Our correspondent reports from Shumen, where the headquarters of the Turkish Army of the Balkans is located.
The fiasco at Plevna has left the Russians in an extremely foolish position. Their columns extend for tens and even hundreds of kilometers from the south to the north, their lines of communication are defenseless, their rear lines exposed. Osman Pasha’s brilliant flanking maneuver has won the Turks time to regroup, and a little Bulgarian town has become a serious thorn in the shaggy side of the Russian bear. The atmosphere in circles close to the court in Constantinople is one of cautious optimism.
ON THE ONE HAND, things were going very badly; you might even say they could not possibly be any worse. Poor Petya was still languishing under lock and key—after the Plevna bloodbath the noxious Kazanzaki had lost interest in the cryptographer, but the threat of a court-martial remained as real as ever. And the fortunes of war had proved fickle—the golden fish that granted wishes had turned into a prickly scorpion fish and disappeared into the abyss, leaving their hands scratched and bleeding.
But on the other hand (this was something Varya was ashamed to admit even to herself) her life had never been so . . . interesting. That was the word: interesting. That was it exactly.
And the reason, in all honesty, was obscenely simple: It was the first time in Varya’s life that she had been courted at the same time by so many admirers—and such admirers, too. Her recent traveling companions on the railway or the scrofulous students of St. Petersburg could not possibly compare. No matter how hard she tried to suppress them, these banal womanish feelings still sprang up like weeds in her vain, foolish heart. It was really awful.
For
instance, on the morning of the eighteenth of June (a most important and memorable day, concerning which more below), Varya woke with a smile on her face. Before she was even fully awake and had barely even sensed the sunlight through her tightly shut eyelids, even as she was still stretching sweetly, she was already in a cheerful, happy, festive mood. It was only afterward, when her mind had woken up as well as her body, that she remembered about Petya and the war. With an effort of will, Varya forced herself to frown and think about sad realities, but something quite different kept creeping into her stubborn, drowsy head, in the manner of Agafya Tikhonovna: if she could add to Petya’s devotion Sobolev’s fame, and Zurov’s daredevil panache, and Paladin’s talent, and Fandorin’s piercing glance . . . but no. Erast Petrovich did not suit the case, for not by any stretch of the imagination could she number him among her admirers.
Nothing really seemed clear as far as the titular counselor was concerned. Varya’s position as his assistant remained, as ever, purely nominal. Fandorin did not initiate her into his secrets, although he was apparently dealing with serious business of some kind, not mere trivialities. He either disappeared for long periods or, on the contrary, simply sat in his tent receiving visits from Bulgarian peasants wearing smelly sheepskin hats. Varya guessed that they must be from Plevna, but her pride would not allow her to ask any questions. What was so remarkable about that, anyway? It wasn’t as if people from Plevna were rare visitors to the Russian camp. Even McLaughlin had his own informant, who provided him with exclusive intelligence about life in the Turkish garrison. Of course, the Irishman did not share this knowledge with the Russian command, stubbornly citing his “journalistic ethics,” but the readers of the Daily News knew all about Osman Pasha’s order of the day and the massive redoubts that were springing up around the besieged town, growing more powerful by the hour.
This time, however, the Western Division of the Russian army was making thorough preparations for battle. The storming of Plevna was set for today, and everybody was saying that the “misunderstanding over Plevna” was certain to be cleared up. Yesterday Erast Petrovich had traced out a diagram of all the Turkish fortifications for Varya on the ground with a stick and explained that, according to absolutely reliable information in his possession, Osman Pasha had twenty-thousand askers and 58 artillery pieces, while Lieutenant General Kriedener had moved up thirty-two thousand soldiers and 176 field guns into the town, and the Romanians were due to arrive at any time. A cunning and strictly secret disposition of forces had been devised, involving a concealed outflanking maneuver and a diversionary attack. Fandorin had explained it all so well that Varya had immediately believed in the imminent victory of Russian arms and stopped paying much attention—she was more interested in watching the titular counselor and trying to guess what his relation was with the blond girl in his locket. Kazanzaki had said something odd about a marriage. Could she really be his wife? But she was too young; she was no more than a little girl.
Varya knew about her because three days earlier, when she looked into Erast Petrovich’s tent after breakfast, she had seen him lying sound asleep on his bed, fully dressed, even wearing his dirty boots. He had been missing for the whole previous day, which meant he had probably only returned shortly before dawn. Just as she was about to creep quietly away, she had suddenly noticed the silver locket dangling out of the sleeping man’s collar onto his chest. The temptation had been too great. Varya had tiptoed across to the bed, keeping her eyes fixed on Fandorin’s face. Lying there, breathing regularly with his mouth slightly open, the titular counselor looked like a mischievous little boy who has smeared powder on his temples as a joke.
Varya had gingerly picked up the locket between her finger and thumb, clicked open the lid, and seen the tiny portrait. A pretty little china doll, a real Mädchen Gretchen: golden curls, little eyes and little mouth, tiny cheeks. Really nothing special. Casting a glance of disapproval at the sleeper, Varya had suddenly blushed bright red—the clear blue eyes with the pitch-black pupils were peering gravely at her from under their long lashes.
Trying to explain would have been stupid. Varya had simply fled, which wasn’t so very clever either, but at least an unpleasant scene had been avoided. Strangely enough, afterward Fandorin had behaved as though the episode had never happened.
He was a cold, disagreeable man, he rarely joined in other people’s conversations, and when he did he was bound to say something that made Varya’s hackles rise. Take, for instance, that argument about parliament and the sovereignty of the people that had blown up during the picnic (a large party of them had gone off into the hills and dragged Fandorin along with them, although he had been dying to go back and skulk in his lair).
Paladin had started telling them about the constitution that had been introduced in Turkey the year before by the former grand vizier, Midhat Pasha. It was very interesting. Would you believe it—an uncivilized Asiatic country like that, but unlike Russia it actually had a parliament.
Then they had started arguing about which parliamentary system was the best. McLaughlin was for the British system and Paladin, even though he was a Frenchman, was for the American, while Sobolev campaigned for some indigenous Russian system involving the nobility and the peasantry.
When Varya had demanded suffrage for women, they had all made fun of her and that crude soldier Sobolev had started scoffing: “Oh, Varvara Andreevna, once you women are given the vote, you’ll elect a parliament full of nothing but your own handsome little darlings and sweethearts. If you women had to choose between Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and our Captain Zurov, who would you cast your vote for? You see?”
“Gentlemen, can people be elected to parliament compulsorily?” the hussar had asked in alarm, and the general mood had become even merrier.
Varya had struggled in vain to explain about equal rights, citing the American territory of Wyoming, where women had been allowed to vote, and nothing terrible had happened to Wyoming as a result. No one had taken anything she said seriously.
“Why don’t you say anything?” Varya had appealed to Fandorin, who had promptly distinguished himself by saying something that would have been better left unsaid altogether.
“Varvara Andreevna, I am opposed to democracy in general.” (He had blushed even as he said it.) “One man is unequal to another from the very beginning, and there is nothing you can do about it. The democratic principle infringes the rights of those who are more intelligent, more talented, and harder working; it places them in a position of dependence on the foolish will of the stupid, talentless, and lazy, because society always contains more of the latter. Let our compatriots first learn to rid themselves of their swinish ways and earn the right to bear the title of citizen, and then we can start thinking about a parliament.”
This absolutely outlandish declaration had left Varya completely flummoxed, but Paladin had come to the rescue.
“Nonetheless, if a country has already introduced voting rights,” he had said gently (the conversation, of course, was conducted in French), “it is surely unjust to disenfranchise half of mankind, and the better half at that.”
Remembering those remarkable words, Varya smiled, turned on her side, and began thinking about Paladin.
Thank God Kazanzaki had finally left the man in peace. It had been General Kriedener’s decision to base his strategy on the contents of some interview—poor Paladin had been eating his heart out and pestering absolutely everyone he met with his explanations and excuses. Varya liked him even more when he was feeling guilty and miserable like that. Previously she had thought him a tad too conceited, too accustomed to general admiration, and she had deliberately kept her distance, but now the need for that had fallen away and Varya had begun to behave quite naturally and affectionately with the Frenchman. He was cheerful and easy to be with, not like Erast Petrovich, and he knew such a terrible lot—about Turkey and the ancient history of the East, and French history. All those places he had seen, driven by his thirst for adventure
! And how charmingly he narrated his little récits drôles!—so witty, so lively, without any posturing at all. How Varya adored it when Paladin responded to one of her questions with a significant pause and an intriguing smile and then said: “O, c’est toute une histoire, mademoiselle.” And then, unlike the tight-lipped Fandorin, he would immediately tell her the story.
Most of the time the stories were funny, but sometimes they were frightening.
Varya remembered one of them particularly well.
“Mademoiselle Barbara, you berate Orientals for their lack of respect for human life, and you are quite right to do so.” (They had been discussing the atrocities committed by the Bashi-Bazouks.) “But, after all, these are savages, barbarians, who have not yet developed much beyond the level of tigers or crocodiles. Let me describe to you a scene that I observed in that most civilized of countries, England. O, c’est toute une histoire . . . The British place such a high value on human life that they regard suicide as the most heinous of sins—and the penalty they apply for an attempt to do away with oneself is capital punishment. They have not yet gone that far in the East. Several years ago, when I was in London, a prisoner in the jail was due to be hanged. He had committed a terrible crime—somehow he had obtained a razor and attempted to cut his own throat. He had even been partly successful, but he was saved by the timely intervention of the prison doctor. Since I found the judge’s logic in this case quite astounding, I decided I must watch the execution with my own eyes. And after using my connections to obtain a pass for the execution, I was not disappointed.
“The condemned man had damaged his vocal cords and could do no more than wheeze, so they dispensed with his final word. Quite a long time was spent on squabbling with the doctor, who claimed that the man could not be hanged—the cut would reopen and the hanged man would be able to breathe directly through his trachea. The prosecuting counsel and the governor of the prison consulted together and ordered the executioner to proceed. But the doctor was proved right: The pressure of the noose immediately reopened the wound and the man dangling at the end of the rope began sucking in air with an appalling whistling sound. He hung there for five, ten, fifteen minutes and still did not die, although his face turned blue.
