by Boris Akunin
‘And which of the women is an agent of Evil?’ Vulpinova asked.
‘You would never guess. Varya, Ranevskaya’s adopted daughter.’
‘How is that possible? She’s such a sweetheart!’ Gullibin exclaimed in amazement.
‘You haven’t read the play properly, Vasya. Varya is a hypocrite. She is planning to go away on a pilgrimage or enter a convent, but she feeds God’s wandering pilgrims on nothing but peas. She is usually played as modest, self-effacing and hard working. But what damned hard work has she ever done? A household manager who has reduced an estate with a luxurious cherry orchard to ruin and destruction. The only bright note in the play is the timid attempt by Petya and Anya to become more intimately involved, but Varya doesn’t give this fresh, young shoot a chance to blossom, she is always on guard. Because in the kingdom of Evil and Death there is no place for real, live Love.’
‘That’s very profound. Very,’ Vulpinova said pensively. A rapid sequence of grimaces ran across her face: false piety, saccharine sweetness, envy, spite.
‘And who will be the embodiment of Good? Petya Trofimov?’ asked Gullibin, apparently trying to prompt the director.
‘I thought about that. Garrulous, starry-eyed Good facing up to all-conquering Evil? Too hopeless. Trofimov will be yours, of course, Vasya. Play him in the classic manner, a “lovable simpleton”. And the mission of battling against Evil will be taken on by the victorious Lopakhin.’ Noah Noaevich gestured in the direction of the company’s leading man, who astounded Erast Petrovich by sticking out his tongue at the devastated Mephistov. ‘In order to lead Russia out of the beggarly, wretched state that she is in, we have to cut down the cherry orchards that no longer produce a harvest. We have to work on the earth and populate it with energetic, modern people. I advise you, Hippolyte, to play our benefactor, Andrei Gordeevich Shustrov, photographically. But – and this is a very important nuance – Good, by virtue of its magnanimity, is blind. And therefore at the end Lopakhin hires Yepikhodov to work for him. When the audience hears this news, it must shudder in sinister foreboding. Sinister foreboding is the key to the production’s interpretation in general. Everything will come to an end soon, and the ending will be wretched and ugly – that is the mood of the play, and also of our epoch.’
‘Of course, I’m Ranevskaya?’ the grande dame Reginina asked in a sweet voice.
‘Who else? An ageing but still beautiful woman, who lives for love.’
‘What about me?’ asked Eliza, unable to restrain herself. ‘Surely not Anya? She’s still a girl.’
Stern leaned down over her and cooed:
‘Come now, you mean you can’t play a girl? Anya is Light and Joy. And so are you.’
‘Have pity, the reviewers will laugh! They’ll say Altairsky has started putting on youthful airs!’
‘You will enchant them. I order you to have a dress made, covered in glitter, so that it scatters dots of sunlight everywhere. Every entrance you make will be a celebration!’
Eliza stopped arguing, but she sighed.
‘Who do we have left?’ asked the director, glancing into a little notebook. ‘Mr Sensiblin will play Gaev. An old-style thinker, fine and decent values, but obsolete, everything’s clear here.’
‘What’s clear? Why is it clear?’ asked the ‘philosopher’, flying off the handle. ‘Give me a sketch! The development of the character.’
‘What development? A global conflagration is about to flare up, and our Gaev will be consumed by it, along with his most venerable cupboard. You’re always complicating things, Lev Spiridonovich … Right, let’s move on.’ Stern jabbed his finger at little Comedina. ‘We’ll age Zoya a bit – and you’ll play the conjuror, Charlotta. Shiftsky gets the servant Yasha. Aphrodisina is the maid Dunyasha. I’ll take Feers. And you, Nonarikin, will play Simeonov-Pishchik and all sorts of bits and pieces like Passer-By or Station Master …’
‘Simeonov-Pishchik?’ Stern’s assistant echoed in a tragic whisper. ‘Pardon me, Noah Noaevich, but you promised me a big part! You liked the way I played Solyony in The Three Sisters! I was counting on Lopakhin!’
‘Most venerable cupboard yourself,’ Sensiblin muttered rather loudly, also obviously dissatisfied with his role.
‘Ho-ho, Lopakhin!’ said Emeraldov, twirling his finger beside his temple as he mocked the director’s assistant.
The half-pint ‘principal boy’ intervened on Nonarikin’s behalf.
‘And why not! It would be really interesting! What sort of Lopakhin will you make, Hippolyte Arkadievich? You don’t look like a peasant’s son.’
The handsome devil simply brushed her aside, like a gnat.
‘When you gave me Solyony to play, I thought you’d started believing in me,’ Nonarikin carried on in a whisper, clutching at the director’s sleeve. ‘How can I play Pishchik after Solyony?’
‘Let go of me, will you!’ Stern exclaimed angrily. ‘You didn’t play Solyony, you simply “represented” him. Because I let you play yourself. A poor man’s Lermontov!’
‘Don’t you dare say that!’ The assistant’s pale face came out in crimson blotches. ‘You know, that’s just the last straw. After all, I’m not asking for much, I’m not fishing for the director’s job.’
‘Ha-ha,’ said Noah Noaevich, emphasising the syllables separately. ‘That’s all we need. So you have ambitions to direct, do you? Some day you’ll astound everyone. You’ll put on a show that will make everyone gasp.’
He said this in a frankly mocking tone, as if he were trying to provoke his assistant into a fracas.
Fandorin screwed up his face in anticipation of screams or hysterics or some other kind of outrageous behaviour. But Stern demonstrated that he was a superlative psychologist. In response to the direct affront, Nonarikin collapsed, shrivelling up and letting his head droop.
‘What am I?’ he asked quietly. ‘I’m nothing. Let it be as you wish, teacher …’
‘Right, that’s the way now. Colleagues, collect your copies of the text. My remarks, as usual, are in red pencil.’
Dissatisfied silences. Everyone took a copy out of the pile lying on the table, and Erast Petrovich noticed that the folders were different colours. Obviously, each colour signified a particular persona – yet another tradition, perhaps? The leading man unhesitatingly took the red folder. The prima donna took the pink one and handed a light blue one to Reginina, saying: ‘Here’s yours, Vasilisa Prokofievna.’ The ‘philosopher’ gloomily tugged out the dark-blue folder, Mephistov took the black one, and so on.
Just then an attendant looked in and said that ‘Mr Director’ was wanted on the phone. Stern had obviously been expecting this call.
‘Half an hour’s break,’ he said. ‘Then we get down to work. In the meantime, I ask each of you to glance through your role and refresh your memory of it.’
No sooner had the manager gone out than the taboo on the subject that everyone was excited about ceased to operate. Everyone started talking about what had happened the day before, and nothing could have suited Fandorin better. He sat there, trying not to attract any attention to himself, watching and listening, hoping that the guilty party would give himself or herself away somehow.
To begin with, emotions predominated: sympathy for ‘dear Eliza’, admiration for Nonarikin’s courageous feat. At the men’s request, he unwound the bandages on his hand and showed them the bite.
‘It’s nothing,’ the director’s assistant said courageously. ‘It doesn’t even hurt any more.’
But the peaceful phase of the general discussion did not last for long.
The fuse was lit by the female intriguer.
‘How deftly you managed to pull your own hand away, Eliza,’ Vulpinova remarked with an unpleasant smile. ‘I would have just frozen in fright and been bitten. But it was as if you knew there was a snake hidden in the flowers.’
Altairsky swayed back on her feet, as if she had been slapped across the cheek.
‘What are you insinuating?’ Gulli
bin protested. ‘Surely you’re not trying to say that Eliza set the whole thing up herself?’
‘The idea never entered my head!’ said the schemer, throwing her hands up in the air. ‘But now that you bring the subject up … A yearning for sensational fame drives some people to take even more desperate steps than that.’
‘Don’t listen to her, Eliza!’ said Gullibin, taking the stunned Altairsky by the hand. ‘And you, Xanthippe Petrovna, you’re doing this deliberately. Because you know that everybody suspects you.’
Vulpinova gave a loud laugh.
‘Why of course, who else? But I happen to have noticed a certain curious little detail. As a true knight, during the bows you usually snatch the most beautiful basket and personally hand it to the lady of your heart. But this time you didn’t. Why?’
Gullibin couldn’t think of any answer to that and merely shook his head indignantly.
Mr Mephistov smacked his lips and declared sombrely:
‘I wouldn’t be surprised at anything. That is, at anyone.’ And he ran his glance over each of them in turn.
Everyone reacted differently when the villain directed his suspicious gaze at them. Some protested, some cursed and swore. Comedina stuck out her tongue. Reginina laughed derisively and went out into the corridor. Sensiblin yawned.
‘Oh, to hell with all of you. I think I’ll just go out for a smoke and study my part …’
However, a genuine fracas failed to materialise. A couple of minutes later everyone had drifted away, leaving the two ‘villains’ rather disappointed.
‘Anton, dear, you could pull a trick like that just to throw the cat among the pigeons,’ Vulpinova said to her stage partner, apparently out of sheer inertia. ‘Confess, did you do it?’
‘Drop that now,’ Mephistov responded listlessly. ‘Why should we bait each other? I’ll go and sit in the theatre and try on Yepikhodov for size. What sort of role is that …’
The scheming woman appeared to be still unsatisfied. Since there was no one left in the green room apart from Fandorin, she tried her claws on the newcomer.
‘Mysterious stranger,’ she began insinuatingly. ‘You appeared so suddenly. Just like that basket yesterday, and no one knows who sent it.’
‘I beg your pardon, I have no time,’ Erast Petrovich replied coolly, and got up.
First he looked into the auditorium. Several of the actors were sitting in there, looking into their various-coloured folders, each of them alone and widely separated from the others. Eliza was not among them. He went into the corridor, where he walked past Shiftsky, who had ensconced himself on the windowsill, past Sensiblin, who was puffing on his pipe, and past gloomy Nonarikin, who was staring at his one and only page of text.
He found Altairsky-Lointaine on the stairs. She was standing at the window with her back to Erast Petrovich and hugging her own shoulders. The text in the pink cover was lying on the banisters.
Enough of this playing the fool, Fandorin told himself. I like this woman. At any rate, I find her interesting, she intrigues me. So I have to start talking to her.
He looked at himself in the mirror that happened to be conveniently located close by and felt happy with his appearance. There had never been an occasion when the ladies remained indifferent to the way he looked – especially if he wished to please.
Erast Petrovich walked up to her and cleared his throat delicately. When she looked round, he said gently:
‘You shouldn’t have got upset. You only gave that wicked-tongued lady more satisfaction.’
‘But how could she dare?’ Eliza exclaimed piteously. ‘To suggest that I …’
She shuddered in revulsion.
Keenly aware of how close she was standing – a mere arm’s length away – Fandorin continued with a subtle smile.
‘Women of the mentality of Madam Vulpinova simply cannot exist without an atmosphere of scandal. You must not allow her to draw you into her games. This psychological personality type is called a “scorpion”. Essentially they are unhappy, very lonely people …’
The beginning of the conversation had gone well. Firstly, he had managed not to stammer even once. Secondly, Elizaveta was bound to ask about psychological types, and then Fandorin would have a chance to encourage her interest in him.
‘Ah, I do believe that is right!’ Altairsky-Lointaine said in surprise. ‘Xanthippe does seem to be broken inside somehow. She plays mean tricks, but there is something pitiful and supplicating in her eyes. You are an observant individual, Mr …’ She hesitated.
‘Fandorin,’ he reminded her,
‘Yes, yes, Mr Fandorin. Stern said that you are a connoisseur of modern literature, but you are not simply a repertoire manager, are you? One can sense a certain … specialness about you.’ It took her a moment to find the word, but it caught Erast Petrovich’s fancy. And what he liked even more was the enchanting smile that appeared on her face. ‘You have such a good understanding of people. You must write theatre reviews, do you not? Who are you?’
After thinking for a moment, he replied:
‘I … am a traveller. But unfortunately, I don’t write reviews.’
The smile faded away, together with the interest that he had read in her magically elusive gaze.
‘They say it is fascinating to travel. But I have never understood the pleasure in constantly moving from one place to another.’
The eloquent glance that she cast at the pink folder could mean only one thing: leave me in peace, this conversation is over.
But Erast Petrovich did not want to leave. He had to tell her something to make her realise that their meeting was not accidental, that this was some incomprehensible but incontrovertible scheme of destiny.
‘Eliza … Pardon me, I don’t know your patronymic.’
‘I don’t acknowledge patronymics.’ She picked up the text. ‘They exude an odour of stagnation and barbarity. As if you were your procreator’s property. But I belong only to myself. You may call me simply Eliza. Or, if you wish, Elizaveta.’
Her tone of voice was indifferent, even rather cold, but Fandorin became even more agitated.
‘Precisely, you are Elizaveta, Liza. And I am Erast! D-do you understand?’ he exclaimed with an impulsiveness that he had never suspected in himself, and also, stammering quite excessively. ‘I saw the finger of fate in that … that g-gesture of yours with your arm outstretched … And in S-September too …’
He hesitated, seeing that she didn’t understand a thing. No reciprocal stirring of the soul, no reaction at all apart from slight puzzlement. But there was nothing surprising in that. What meaning did Erast have for her, or September, or a white arm?
He clenched his teeth. The last thing he needed was for Liza, that is, Eliza, to take him for a madman or an overexcited admirer. She was already surrounded by more than enough of both of those, without Fandorin.
‘I meant to say that I was astounded by your performance yesterday,’ he said in a more composed manner, trying all the time to catch her elusive glance and hold it. ‘I have never experienced anything like it before. And of course, the coincidence of the names shook me. I am called Erast, you see. Petrovich …’
‘Ah, yes indeed. Erast and Liza.’ She smiled again, but distractedly, without even a trace of warmth. ‘What’s all that howling? They’re squabbling again …’
He looked round in annoyance. Someone really was shouting upstairs. Fandorin recognised the director’s voice: ‘Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Who did this?’ – the voice was coming from the direction of the green room.
‘I have to go. Noah Noaevich has come back and he seems to be angry about something.’
Erast Petrovich followed Eliza with his head bowed, cursing himself for flunking the first conversation. Never once since the days of his early youth had he behaved so idiotically with a woman.
‘I want to know who did this!’
Noah Noaevich, looking enraged, was standing at the door of the sitting room (sometimes the green room was referred to
in that way) holding the ‘Tablets’ open in his hands.
‘Who dared to do this?’
Fandorin glanced into the open book. Immediately below the solemn entry about Independence Day, someone had scribbled in large, crooked letters, using a purple indelible pencil: ‘EIGHT 1S UNTIL THE BENEFIT PERFORMANCE. TAKE THOUGHT!’
Everyone came up to look and was left puzzled.
‘The theatre is a temple! The actor’s ministry is an exalted mission! We cannot survive without reverence and our sacred objects!’ Stern exclaimed, almost in tears. ‘Whoever did this wished to insult me, all of us and our art! What sort of scribble is this? What does it mean? How many times do I have to repeat that in my theatre there are no benefit performances and there never will be? That’s the first point. And the second point is that desecrating our sacred object is the same as defiling a church! Only a vandal could do such a thing!’
Some of them listened to him with sympathy, some shared his indignation, but snickering could also be heard.
‘Go away, all of you,’ the director said in a weak voice. ‘I don’t want to see anyone … It’s impossible to work today. Tomorrow, tomorrow …’
Fandorin took advantage of the fact that everyone was looking at the suffering martyr to keep his own eyes fixed on Eliza. She seemed to him unattainably distant, truly the star Altair, and that thought was painful.
He realised that something would have to be done about this pain, it would not pass off on its own.
THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS THAT CANNOT BE SOLVED
For the second night in a row Erast Petrovich was unable to get to sleep. And, moreover, his thoughts were by no means occupied with deductive reasoning concerning the snake in the flower basket. The internal condition of the harmonious man had skipped through several consecutive stages at once.
