HOW SENKA CAUGHT DESTINY
BY THE TAIL
It was a good thing Senka knew where that Kazan lodging house was, or there was no way in hell he could have found it. There was no sign, nothing. The gates were locked tight shut, with only the little wicket gate slightly open, but you couldn’t walk straight in, just like that. Right in front of the iron bars there was a crippled beggar perched on his dolly, with empty trousers folded up where his legs ought to be. He had big broad shoulders, though, and a red face like tanned leather, and the arms sticking out of the sleeves of his sailor’s vest were covered in coarse red hairs. He might be a cripple, but a smack from that mallet he used to push his dolly about would knock the life clean out of you.
Senka didn’t go up to the man with no legs straight off, he took a good look at him first.
The man wasn’t just sitting there doing nothing, he was selling bamboo whistles. Shouting his wares lazily in a hoarse bass voice: ‘Roll up now, if you’ve any brains in your heads, bambood whistels, only three kopecks a time.’ There were little kids jostling round the cripple, sampling his goods by blowing into the smooth yellow sticks. Some of them bought one.
One boy pointed to the little brass pipe hanging round the invalid’s thick neck and said: ‘Let me try that whistle, mister.’ The cripple flicked the boy’s forehead: ‘That ain’t no toy whistle, that’s a bosun’s pipe, it ain’t meant for snot-nosed kids like you to blow.’
That told Senka everything he needed to know. This sailor was only plying his trade for show, of course, he was really a lookout. It was a smart set-up: any sign of trouble, and he’d blow on that brass whistle of his – it must make a loud piercing sound – and that was the signal for the others to look sharp and clear out. And the magic word that Death had told him, ‘sufoeno’, that was ‘one of us’, only back to front, like. Since olden times the bandits and thieves in Moscow had always mangled the language, so outsiders wouldn’t understand: they added bits onto words or swapped them around, or thought up other tricks.
He walked up to the lookout, leaned right down to his ear and whispered the word he’d been told to say. The sailor gave him a sharp glance from under bushy eyebrows, twitched his big ginger moustache and didn’t say a word, just shifted his dolly away from the gate a bit.
Senka went into the empty yard and stopped. Was this really the place where the Prince and his gang had their hideout?
He pulled his shirt down and brushed one sleeve across his boots to make them shiny. He took off his cap, then put it back on. At the door of the building he crossed himself and muttered a little prayer –a special one about granting wishes that a certain good person had taught him a long time ago: ‘Look down, O Lord, in Thy mercy, heed the prayers of the humble and meek and reward me not according to my deserts, but according to my desires.’
He plucked up his courage and tugged at the door – it was locked. So then he knocked.
It was a few moments before it opened, and even then it was only by a crack. An eye glinted in the darkness.
Just to be on the safe side, Senka repeated: ‘Sufoeno.’
Someone behind the door asked: ‘What do you want?’
‘I’d like to see Deadeye . . .’
At that the door opened wide and Senka saw a young lad in a silk shirt with a fancy belt and Moroccan leather boots. He had a silver chain dangling out of his waistcoat pocket with a little silver skull on it – you could see straight off he was a real top-notch businessman. And he had that special kind of glance, like all the businessmen did: quick and piercing, it didn’t miss a thing. Senka felt really jealous: the lad was the same age as him, and not even as tall. Some people have all the luck!
‘This way,’ the lad said, and walked on in front, without looking at Senka any more.
The dark collidor led to a room where two men were playing cards, slapping them down hard on a bare table. Each of them had a heap of banknotes and gold imperials lying in front of him. Just as Senka and his guide walked in, one of the players flung his cards down and yelled:
‘You’re cheating, you whore’s tripes! Where’s the queen?’ And he punched the other man smack on the forehead.
The other man got up from the table and fell backwards. Senka gasped – he was afraid the man would smash the back of his head open. But as he fell, he turned a backward somersault, just like an acrobat in the circus big top, then jumped up smartly on to the table and lashed the man who had hit him across the kisser with his foot! ‘You’re the cheat!’ he shouted. ‘The queen’s been played!’
Well, of course, the one with the boot in his face tumbled over. Gold went rolling and jangling across the floor, and paper money went flying in all directions – what a sight!
Senka was scared, he thought someone was about to get killed. But the other lad just stood there grinning – he thought it was funny.
The man who had started the fight rubbed his cheekbone.
‘The queen’s been played, you say? Why, so it has. All right, let’s get on with the game.’
And they sat down as if nothing had happened and gathered up the scattered cards.
Senka looked a bit closer and his jaw dropped in amazement and his eyes almost popped out of his head. Looking closer, he saw the two players had the same face, you couldn’t tell them apart. They both had snub noses, yellow hair and thick lips, and they were dressed exactly the same. It was incredible!
‘What’s your problem?’ his guide asked, tugging on Senka’s sleeve. ‘Let’s go.’
They walked on. Another collidor, and another room. This one was quiet, with someone sleeping on a bed. He had his kisser turned to the wall, all you could see was a fat cheek and a jug-ear. The great hefty hulk was stretched out, snoring away with his boots still on.
Senka’s guide took small steps, walking quietly on the tips of his toes. Senka did the same, only quieter.
But, as the hulk went on snoring, one hand stuck out from under the blanket, and a black gun barrel glinted in it.
‘It’s me, Lardy, it’s me,’ the young businessman said quickly.
The hand went back down, but the sleeper still didn’t turn towards them.
Senka took off his cap and crossed himself – the wall was covered with icons, just like the icon screen in a church. There were holy saints, and the Virgin, and the Most Holy Cross.
A man was sitting by the opposite wall with his long legs stretched out, and his feet propped up on a table in shiny bright half-boots. He had specs and long straight flaxen hair and he was twirling a sharp little knife, no bigger than a teaspoon in his fingers. He was dressed neatly too, like a gent, even had a string tie. Senka had never laid eyes on a bandit dressed like that before.
Senka’s guide let him go ahead and said:
‘Deadeye, the ragamuffin’s to see you.’
Senka gave him an angry sideways glance. He could have thumped him for that word, ‘ragamuffin’. But then the man called Deadeye did something that made Senka gasp: he flicked his hand, and the little knife flashed across the room in a silver streak and stuck dead in the eye of the Most Blessed Virgin.
And that was when Senka spotted that the eyes had been gouged out of all the saints on the icons, and the Saviour on the Cross had little knives sticking out where there ought to be nails.
Deadeye took another knife out of his sleeve and flung it into the eye of the Infant Jesus, as he lay in Mary’s arms. And after that he turned to look at Senka, who was stupefied.
‘Well, what do you want, kid?’
Senka walked up to him, glanced round at the other lad, who was hanging about by the door, and said quietly, just like he’d been told to:
‘Death’s waiting, she’s desperate.’
Once he’d said it, he felt scared. What if Deadeye didn’t understand? What if he asked: ‘What’s she waiting for?’ Senka didn’t have a clue.
But Deadeye didn’t ask anything of the kind; instead he said to the other lad in a low, polite voice: ‘Mr Sprat, would you please be so good as to conceal your face behind the door.’
Senka realised that he’d told the other lad to push off, but Sprat didn’t seem to twig, and just stood there.
So Deadeye launched another falcon – a knife, that is – out of his right sleeve and it stuck in the doorpost, thwack, just an inch from Sprat’s ear. Then, the lad disappeared in a flash.
Deadeye examined Senka through his specs. The eyes behind the lenses were as pale and cold as two little lumps of ice. He took a square of folded paper out of his pocket and held it out. Then he said in a polite voice: ‘There you are, kid. Say I’ll call round tonight at about eight o’clock . . . No, wait.’
He turned towards the door and called: ‘Hey, Mr Sixer, are you still here?’
Sprat stuck his head back in through the door. So he had two nicknames, then, not just the one?
He sniffed and asked warily: ‘You won’t do that again with the knife, will you?’
Deadeye’s reply was impossible to understand: ‘I know the pen of gentle Parni is not in fashion in our day1 When is our rendezvous, by which I mean the meet with the Ghoul?’
Sprat-Sixer understood, though. ‘At seven,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ the odd man said with a nod. Then he turned to Senka. ‘No, I can’t make it at eight. Say I’ll be there at nine, or maybe not till ten.’
Then he turned away and started gazing at the icons again. Senka realised the conversation was over.
On his way back, cutting through the yards and alleys of Khitrovka to shorten the way, he thought: They’re the real thing, all right! It was no wonder the Prince was Moscow’s number-one bandit with eagles like that in his gang. He thought there was nothing he wouldn’t give for the chance to hang out in the den with them, like one of the boys.
Once he was past Khitrovka Lane, where the labourers were kipping in lines, Senka stopped under a withered poplar tree and unfolded the little package. He was curious to see what was so precious that Death was willing to hand over a fiver to get it.
White powder, it looked like saccharine. He licked it – sweetish, but it wasn’t saccharine, that was a lot sweeter.
He was so distracted, he didn’t see Tashka come walking up.
‘What’s this, Senka,’ she said, ‘are you doing candy cane now?’
That was when Senka finally twigged. Of course, it was cocaine, why hadn’t he guessed? That was why Death’s pupils were blacker than night. That was it, and that meant. . .
‘You don’t lick it, you sniff it up your nose,’ Tashka explained.
It was still early, so she wasn’t dolled up or wearing make-up, and she had her purse in her hand – she must be going to the shop.
‘Don’t do it, Senka,’ she said. ‘You’ll rot your brains away.’
But he still took a pinch anyway, stuck it in his nostril and breathed in as hard as he could. Why, it was disgusting! The tears streamed out of his eyes, and he sneezed and sneezed until his nose started running.
‘Well, you ninny, happy now?’ asked Tashka, wrinkling up her nose. ‘Chuck it, if you know what’s good for you. Why don’t you tell me what I’ve got here?’
And she pointed to her head. She had a daisy and two flowers that Senka didn’t recognise in her hair.
‘A meadow for cows, that’s what.’
‘It ain’t a meadow, it’s three messages. The marjoram signifies “I hate men”, the daisy signifies indifference and the silver-leaf signifies “cordially inclined”. Say I’m going with a customer who makes me feel sick. I stick the marjoram in my hair to show I despise him, and the thickhead’s none the wiser. Or I’m standing here with you, and I have the silver-leaf in my hair, because we’re mates.’
She took the other two out and left just the silver-leaf to make Senka feel happy.
‘And what do you use the indifference for?’
Tashka’s eyes glinted and she ran her tongue over her cracked lips. ‘That’s for when someone falls in love with me and starts giving me sweets and beads and stuff. I won’t send him packing, because maybe I like him, but I still have to keep my pride. So I stick on the daisy, let him suffer
‘Who’s the admirer?’ Senka snorted, wrapping up the cocaine the way it was before. He stuck it in his pocket, and something in there clicked – the green beads he’d lifted off the Chinee. So, since they were on the subject anyway, he said: ‘How would you like me to give you some beads without any courting?’
He took them out and waved them under Tashka’s nose. She lit up.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘they’re really lovely. And my favourite colour, “esmerald”, it’s called! Will you really give them to me?’
‘Yes, take them, I don’t mind.’
So he gave them to her – seventy kopecks was no great loss.
Tashka put the beads round her neck straight away. She gave Senka a quick peck on the cheek and legged it off home, as quick as she could – to get a look in the mirror. And Senka ran off too, to the Yauza Boulevard. Death was probably tired of waiting by now.
He showed her the little packet, keeping her at arm’s length, then put it back in his pocket.
She said: ‘What are you doing? Give it here, quick!’
Her eyes were all wet and watery, and her voice was shaking.
Senka said: ‘Ah, but what did you promise me? You write the Prince a note, so he’d take me into his gang.’
Death dashed at him and tried to take it by force, but she was wasting her time – Senka ran round the table to get away from her. After they’d played catch for a while, she begged him: ‘Give me it, you fiend, don’t torture me.’
Senka suddenly felt sorry for her: she was so beautiful, but so unhappy. That rotten powder was no good for her. And then it occurred to him: maybe the Prince wouldn’t listen to what a mamselle thought about important business, not even the lover he truly adored. Ah, but no, the lads had told him the Prince could never refuse her a thing.
While he was wondering whether to give her the cocaine or not, Death suddenly went limp and dropped her head. She sat down at the table and propped her forehead on her hands, like she was really, really tired, and said:
‘Oh, to hell with you, you little beast. You’ll grow up into a big bad wolf anyway.’
She gave a quiet moan, as if she was in pain. Then she took a scrap of paper, wrote something on it in pencil and tossed it to Senka.
‘Here, may you choke on it.’
When he read the note, he could hardly believe his luck. The sprawling handwriting said:
‘Prince,take this youngster on. He’s just the kind you need. Death.’