HOW SENKA WAS A MAMSELLE
‘Whoah, whoah, you pests,’ the driver barked at his blacks, and the beautiful horses stopped dead on the spot. The lead horse curved his elegant neck, squinted at the driver with a wild eye and stamped his metal-shod hoof on the cobblestones, sending sparks flying.
That was how they drove up to the ‘Kazan’ lodging house, in grand style. The Bosun selling his whistles and the small fry jostling around him turned to look at the classy landau (three roubles an hour!) and stared at the Abrek, or Caucasian warrior, and his female companion.
‘Wait here!’ the Abrek told the driver, tossing him a glittering gold imperial.
He jumped down without stepping on the footboard, took hold of Senka the mamselle by the sides and set him down lightly on the ground, then made straight for the gates. He didn’t even say the magic word ‘sufoeno’ that Senka had taught him, just declared portentously:
‘I am Kazbek.’
And the Bosun accepted that, he didn’t blow his whistle, just narrowed his eyes a bit and nodded to this handsome Southerner, as if to say: Go on in. He gave Senka a fleeting glance, too, but didn’t really take any notice of him – and the tight knot in Senka’s belly loosened up.
‘More g-gracefully,’ Erast Petrovich said in his normal voice in the courtyard. ‘Don’t wave your arms about. Move with your hips, n-not your shoulders. Like that, that’s g-good.’
When he knocked, the door opened slightly and a young lad Senka didn’t know stuck his nose out. The new sixer, Senka guessed, and – would you believe it? – he felt something like a pin pricking at his heart. Could it be jealousy?
Senka didn’t like the look of the lad at all. He had a flat face and yellow eyes, like a cat.
‘What you want?’ the lad asked.
Mr Nameless said the same thing to him: ‘I am Kazbek. Tell the Prince.’
‘What Kazbek?’ the sixer asked with a sniff, and his nose was immediately grabbed between two fingers of iron.
The Caucasian warrior swore in a guttural voice, smacked the flat-faced lad’s head against the doorpost and gave him a push. The lad collapsed on the floor.
Then Kazbek stepped inside, strode over the boy on the floor and set off determinedly along the corridor. Senka hurried after him, gasping. Looking round, he saw the sixer holding his forehead and batting his eyelids in a daze.
Oh Lord, Lord, now what was going to happen?
In the big room Maybe and Surely were playing cards, as usual. Lardy wasn’t there, but Deadeye was lying on the bed with his boots up on the metal bars, cleaning his fingernails with a little knife.
The Caucasian made straight for him. ‘Are you the Jack? Take me to the Prince, I want to talk. I am Kazbek.’
The twins stopped slapping their cards down on the table. One of them (Senka had never learned to tell which was which) winked at the young lady, the other gaped stupidly at the silver dagger hanging from the visitor’s belt.
‘Kazbek is above me. Alone up on high,’ Deadeye said with a serene smile, and bounced up to his feet. ‘Let’s go, now that you’re here.’
He didn’t ask any questions, just led them through. Oh, this didn’t look good at all.
The Prince was sitting at the table, looking terrible, all puffy – he must have drunk a lot. He wasn’t very much like the handsome fellow Senka had seen that first time (only a month ago!). His fine satin shirt was all crumpled and greasy, his curly hair was tangled and his face hadn’t been shaved. As well as empty bottles and the usual jar of pickled cucumbers, there was a golden candlestick on the table, with no candles in it.
Senka’s enemy looked up at the newcomers with bleary eyes. He asked the Caucasian: ‘Who are you? And what do you want?’
‘I am Kazbek.’
‘Who?’
‘He must be the one who arrived from the Caucasus not long since with twenty horsemen,’ Deadeye said in a low voice, leaning against the wall and folding his arms. ‘I told you about him. They showed up three months ago. Put the bite on the Maryina Roshcha bandits, took over all the girls and the paraffin shops.’
The Caucasian warrior chuckled, or rather, he twitched the corner of his mouth.
‘You Russians came to our mountains and you do not leave. And I have come to you and I shall not leave soon either. We shall be neighbours, Prince. Neighbours can get along – or not. They can talk with their knives, we know how to do that. Or they can be kunaks – blood brothers, you call it. Choose which you like.’
‘It’s all the same bollocks to me,’ the Prince replied languidly. He downed a glass of vodka, but didn’t take a cucumber to follow it. ‘Live any way you like, as long as you don’t get under my feet, and if you annoy me, we can get the knives out.’
Deadeye warned him in a low voice: ‘Prince, you can’t deal with them like that. He’s come alone, but we can be certain the others are hiding somewhere not so far away. He only has to whistle and there’ll be daggers everywhere.’
‘Let them bring on the daggers,’ the Prince hissed. ‘We’ll see who comes off best. All right, Deadeye, don’t be so gutless’ – and he laughed. ‘What are you glowering at, Kazbek? I’m laughing. The Prince is a jolly man. Right then, kunaks it is. Let’s shake on it.’
He stood up and held out his hand. That made Senka feel a bit better – he’d been preparing his soul to join the holy saints in heaven.
But the Abrek didn’t want to shake hands.
‘In our mountains just squeezing fingers is not enough. You have to prove yourself. One kunak must give the other the thing most precious to him.’
‘Yeah?’ The Prince swung his arm out from the shoulder. ‘Well, ask for anything you like. The Prince’s heart is as open as a Khitrovka mamselle. Look at this candlestick here, it’s pure gold. I took it off this merchant just the other day. Like me to give it to you.’
Kazbek shook his head in the shaggy astrakhan hat.
‘Then what do you want? Tell me.’
‘I want Death,’ the Caucasian said in a low, passionate voice.
‘Whose death?’ the Prince asked, startled.
‘Your Death. They say that is the most precious thing you have.
Give me that. Then we shall be kunaks to the grave.’
Senka was the first to catch on. Well, that was it now, for sure. Now there’d be fountains of blood, and some of it Senka’s: dear old mum, welcome your poor son Senya into heaven with the angels.
Deadeye caught on too. He stayed where he was, but the fingers of his right hand slipped quietly into his left sleeve. And inside that sleeve there were little knives on a leather cuff. He had only to fling a couple, and that would be the end of the visitors.
The Prince was the last to twig. He opened his mouth wide and tore open his collar so they could see the veins on his neck, but the shout couldn’t force its way out – his fury strangled it in his throat.
Kazbek went on as if nothing had happened. ‘Give me your woman, Prince. I want her. And for you, see, I have brought the best of my mamselles. As slim and supple as a mountain goat. Take her. I give her to you.’
And he pushed Senka out into the middle of the room.
‘A-a-agh!’ Senka squealed. ‘Mum!’
But his whimper was drowned by the Prince’s loud roar: ‘I’ll rip your throat out! With my teeth! You carrion!’
He picked up the big two-pronged fork for getting cucumbers out of the jar and was about to throw himself on the Abrek, but suddenly out of nowhere a small black revolver glinted in the Caucasian’s hand.
‘You – hands on your shoulders!’ Kazbek said to the Jack. He didn’t say a word to the Prince, but his eyes were blazing.
Deadeye raised one eyebrow as he contemplated the black hole of the gun barrel. He showed the Caucasian his empty hands and put them up. The Prince swore obscenely and flung the fork down on the floor. He didn’t look at the gun, he stared into the eyes of the man who had insulted him and chewed on his lips in a fury – a trickle of red blood ran down his chin.
‘I’ll kill you anyway!’ he shouted hoarsely. ‘I’ll get you, even in Maryina Roshcha. I’ll rip your guts out for this, and make sausages with them!’
Kazbek clicked his tongue. ‘You Russians are like women. A man does not shout, he talks quietly.’
‘So she’s been with you too, with you!’ the Prince shouted, not listening to a word. He wiped away an angry tear and grated his teeth. ‘The whore, the bitch, I’ve no more patience for her!’
‘I came to you like a man, honestly,’ said the Abrek, knitting his black brows, and his blue eyes glinted with a cold flame. ‘I could have stolen her, but Kazbek is not a thief. I ask you like a friend: give her to me. If you do not give her, I shall take her like an enemy. Only think first. I do not take her for nothing.’
He pointed to Senka cringing in the middle of the room.
The Prince gave poor innocent Senka a shove that sent him flying against the wall and sliding down on to the floor:
‘I don’t want your painted whore!’
Senka had hurt his shoulder and he was terrified, but those words that were meant to be insulting were sweet music to his ears. The Prince didn’t want him, Jesus be praised!
‘I throw the mamselle into the bargain, so you will not be left without a woman.’ The Abrek laughed. ‘But the most precious thing I have, the thing I will give you, is silver, much silver. You have never had so much ...’
‘I’ll ram that silver down your throat, you filthy swine!’ the Prince retorted. And he ranted for a long time, shouting incoherent threats and obscenities.
‘How much is “much”, my dear fellow?’ Deadeye asked when the Prince finally choked on his hatred and fell silent.
‘It will take more than one wagon to carry it away. I know you have been searching for this silver for a long time, but I have found it. For Death, I will give it to you.’
The Prince was about to start bawling again, but Deadeye raised one finger: Ssssh, not a word.
‘Do you mean the Yerokha pen-pusher’s treasure?’ the Jack asked in a grovelling voice. ‘So you’ve found it? Oh, most artful son of the Caucasus.’
‘Yes, now the treasure is mine. But if you wish, it will be yours.’
The Prince tossed his head like a bull driving away horseflies. ‘I won’t give you Death! Not for all your silver and gold, I won’t! She’ll never be yours, you dog!’
‘She is mine already,’ the Caucasian said, stroking his beard with his free hand. ‘As you wish, Prince. I came here honestly, and you have called me “dog”. I know already that in Moscow you can curse in many different ways, but “dog” is answered with the knife. We shall fight. I have more guards than you, and every one is a mountain eagle.’
Kazbek started backing towards the door, holding his revolver at the ready. Senka jumped up and pressed himself against his master.
‘Where are you going, you snake?’ the Prince roared. ‘You’ll never get out of here alive! Go on, fire! My wolves will finish you off!’
One of the twins stuck his head in the door. ‘What did you shout for, Prince? Were you calling us?’
Without taking his eyes off the Prince and Deadeye for a single moment, the Abrek grabbed Maybe or Surely just below the chin with his left hand, held him like that for a couple of seconds and let go. The young man collapsed in a heap and tumbled over on to his side.
‘Wait, dear fellow!’ said Deadeye. ‘Don’t go. Prince, this man came to you in peace, as a friend. What difference does one woman more or less make? What will the lads say?’ Then he started talking in poetry again. ‘Dear heart, Prince, do not ponder, I know of a certain wonder.’
Ah-ha, thought Senka, I know that poem too. That’s what the Swan Queen told Prince Gvidon: Don’t go getting in a lather, I’ll fix you up in fine fashion.
But the Khitrovka Prince apparently hadn’t read that fairy tale, he just looked blankly at Deadeye. The Jack winked back – Senka could see that very clearly from the side.
‘Treasure, you say?’ the Prince muttered. ‘All right. For the pen-pusher’s treasure, I’ll swap. But the silver up front.’
‘On your luck?’ Kazbek asked. ‘As a thief?’
‘On my luck as a thief,’ the Prince confirmed, and ran his thumb across his throat, the way you were supposed to when you swore an oath. But Senka spotted another bit of cunning: the Prince held his left hand behind his back, and he had the thumb between his fingers –that meant his word as a thief wasn’t worth a bent kopeck. He’d have to tell Kazbek – that is, Erast Petrovich – about this villainous trick.
‘Good.’ The Abrek nodded and put his weapon away. ‘Come to the Yeroshenko basement tonight, to the hall that is a dead end. Just the two of you come, no more. At exactly a quarter past three. If you come earlier or later, there is no deal.’
‘We’ll come alone, but won’t your wolves take their knives to us?’ asked the Prince, narrowing his eyes.
‘Why go to the basement for that?’ Kazbek asked with a shrug. ‘If we wanted, we could slice you into kebabs anyway. I need faithful kunaks in Moscow, friends I can trust . . . You will be met in the basement and taken to the right place. When you see who meets you, you will understand: Kazbek could have given you nothing and just taken it for free.’
The Prince opened his mouth to say something (to judge from his fierce grin, it was something angry), but Deadeye put a hand on his shoulder.
‘We’ll be there at quarter past three in the morning, dear fellow. On my luck as a thief.’
The Jack swore without any tricks, both of his hands were out in the open.
‘So you’re not taking the mamselle?’ the Caucasian asked from the doorway.
Senka turned cold. Ai, Erast Petrovich, why are you trying to destroy me? Holy Saint Nicholas and the Virgin Intercessor, save me!
But the Prince, may God lop a thousand years off his torments in hell, just cleared his throat and spat on the floor.
Senka was saved.