He Lover of Death Read online

  When he got the chance, he used to steal all sorts of small things from the shop: thread maybe, or a pair of scissors, or some buttons. He sold what he could at the Sukharevka flea-market and threw away the things that were no use. He got beaten for it sometimes, but only on suspicion – he was never caught in the act.

  But when he finally did get his fingers burned, it was really bad, the smoke was thick and the fiery sparks flew. And it was Senka’s compassionate heart to blame for the whole thing, for making him forget his usual caution.

  After he hadn’t heard anything about his brother for three whole years, he finally got word from him. He often used to comfort himself by thinking how lucky Vanka was, and how happy he must be, living with Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov, not like Senka. And then this letter came.

  It was amazing it ever got there at all. On the envelope it said: ‘My brother Senka hoo lives with Uncle Zot in Sukharevka in Moscow’. It was lucky Uncle Zot knew one of the postmen who worked at the Sukharevka post office, and he guessed where to bring it, may God grant him good health.

  This was what the letter said:

  Deer bruther Senka, how are you geting on. Im very unhapy living heer. They teech me letters and scowld me and misstreet me, even thowits my naymday soon. I askd them for a horsy, but they tayk no notiss. Come and tayk me away from these unkind peeple. Yor little bruther Vanka.

  When Senka read it, his hands started trembling and the tears came pouring out of his eyes. So this was his lucky brother! That magistrate was a fine one. Tormenting a little child, refusing to buy him a toy. Then why did he want to raise the orphan in the first place?

  Anyway, he took serious offence for Vanka, and decided it would be cruel and heartless to abandon his brother so.

  There wasn’t any return address on the envelope, but the postman told him the postmark was from Tyoply Stan, and that was about eight miles outside Moscow if you took the Kaluga Gate. And he could ask where the magistrate lived when he got there.

  Senka didn’t take long to make up his mind. After all, the next day was St Ioann’s day – little Vanka’s name day.

  Senka got ready to set out and rescue his brother. If Vanka was so unhappy, he was going to take him away. Better to suffer their grief together than apart.

  He spotted a little lacquered horse in the toy shop on Sretenka Street, with a fluffy tail and white mane. It was absolutely beautiful, but really pricey – seven and a half roubles. So at midday, when there was only deaf old Nikifor left in his uncle’s shop, Senka picked the lock on the cash box, took out eight roubles and did a runner, trusting to God. He didn’t think about being punished. He wasn’t planning on ever coming back to his uncle, he was going away with his brother to live a free life. Join a gypsy camp, or whatever came along.

  It took him an awful long time to walk to that Tyoply Stan, his feet were all battered and bruised, and the farther he went, the heavier the wooden horse got.

  But then it was very easy to find Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov’s house, the first person he asked there pointed it out. It was a good house, with a cast-iron canopy on pillars, and a garden.

  He didn’t go up to the front door – he felt too ashamed. And they probably wouldn’t have let him in anyway, because after the long journey Senka was covered in dust, and he had a cut right across his face that was oozing blood. That was from outside the Kaluga Gate, when he was so knackered, he hung on to the back of an old cart, and the driver, the rotten louse, lashed him with his whip – it was lucky he didn’t put his eye out!

  Senka squatted down on his haunches, facing the house, and started thinking about what to do next. There was a sweet tinkling sound coming from the open windows – someone was slowly trying to bash out a song that Senka didn’t know. And sometimes he could hear a thin little voice he thought must be his Vanka’s.

  Senka finally plucked up his courage, walked closer, and stood on the step to glance in the window.

  He saw a big, beautiful room. And sitting at a great big polished wooden box (it was called a ‘piano’, they had one like it in the college too) was a curly-haired little boy in a sailor suit, stabbing at the keys with his little pink fingers. He looked like Vanka, and not like him at the same time. So peachy and fresh, you could just gobble him up like a spice cake. Standing beside him was a young lady in glasses, using one hand to turn the pages of a copy book on a little stand, and stroking the little lad’s golden hair with the other. And in the corner there was a great big heap of toys. With toy horses, too, much fancier than Senka’s – three of them.

  Before Senka could make any sense of this amazing sight, a carriage drawn by two horses suddenly came out from round the corner. He only just managed to jump down in time and squeeze up against the fence.

  Justice of the Peace Kuvshinnikov himself was sitting in the carriage. Senka recognised him straight off.

  Vanka stuck his head out of the window and shouted as loud as he could:

  ‘Did you bring it? Did you bring it?’

  The magistrate laughed and climbed down on to the ground. ‘I did,’ he said. ‘Can’t you see for yourself? What are we going to call her?’

  That was when Senka spotted the horse tethered to the back of the carriage, a sorrel foal with plump round sides. It looked like a grown-up horse, only it was really small, not much bigger than a goat.

  Vanka started chirruping away: ‘A pony! I’m going to have a real pony!’ And so, Senka turned back and trudged all the way to the Kaluga Gate. He left the wooden horse in the grass at the side of the road. Let it graze there. Vanka didn’t need it – maybe some other kid would get good use out of it.

  As Senka walked along, he dreamed about how time would pass and his life would change miraculously, and he would come back here in a big shiny carriage. The servant would carry in a little card with gold letters, with everything about Senka written in the finest fancy style, and that young lady with the glasses would say to Vanka: ‘Ivan Trofimovich, your brother has come to visit’. And Senka would be wearing a cheviot wool suit and button-down spats, and carrying a cane with an ivory knob on it.

  It was already dark when he finally staggered home. It would have been better if he hadn’t come back at all, just run off straight away.

  Right there in the doorway Uncle Zot thumped him so hard he saw stars, and knocked out the front tooth that left such a handy gap for spitting. Then, when Senka fell down, his uncle gave his ribs a good kicking: ‘That’s just for starters, you’ll get what you deserve later. I went to the police about you,’ he yelled, ‘I wrote out a complaint for the local sergeant. You’ll go to jail for stealing, you little bastard, they’ll soon straighten you out in there.’ And he just kept on and on barking out his threats.

  So Senka did run away. When his uncle got tired kicking and punching and went to take the yoke down off the wall – the one the women used to carry water – Senka darted out of the porch, spitting blood and smearing the tears across his face.

  He shuddered through the night at the Sukharevka market, under a load of hay. He was feeling miserable and sorry for himself, his ribs ached, his battered face hurt, and he was really hungry too. He’d spent the half-rouble left over from the horse on food the day before, and now he had nothing but holes in his pockets.

  Senka left Sukharevka at dawn, to get well out of harm’s way. If Uncle Zot had snitched on him to the coppers, the first constable who came along would grab him and stick him in the jug, and once you were in there, you didn’t get out in a hurry. He had to make for somewhere where no one knew his face.

  He walked to another market, the one on Old Square and New Square, under the Kitaigorod wall, and hung about beside the row of food stalls, breathing in the smell of the pies and the baked goods, shooting quick glances this way and that in case any of the tradeswomen got careless. But he didn’t have the nerve to snitch anything – after all, he’d never stolen openly like that before. And what if he got caught? They’d kick him so hard, it would make Uncle
Zot seem like a doting mother.

  He wandered round the market, keeping well away from Solyanka Street. He knew that over there, behind that street, was Khitrovka, the most terrible place in all Moscow. Of course, there were plenty of con merchants and pickpockets in Sukharevka too, but they were no match for the thieves of Khitrovka. From what he’d heard, it was a terrifying place. Stick your nose in there, and they’d have you stripped naked before you could say knife, and you could be grateful if you managed to escape with your life. The flophouses there were really frightening, with lots of cellars and underground vaults. And there were runaway convicts there, and murderers, and all sorts of drunken riff-raff. And they said that if any youngsters happened to wander in there, they disappeared without a trace. They had some special kind of crooks there, grabbers, they were called, or so people said. And these grabbers caught young boys who had no one to look out for them and sold them for five roubles apiece to the Yids and the Tartars for depraved lechery in their secret houses.

  But as it turned out that was all horseshit. Well, everything about the flophouses and the drunken riff-raff was true, but there weren’t any grabbers in Khitrovka. When Senka let slip about the grabbers to his new mates, they laughed him down something rotten. Prokha said that if someone wanted to grab a bit of easy money off kids, that was fine, but forcing youngsters into doing filthy things – that just wasn’t on. The Council wouldn’t stand for anything like that. Slitting a throat or two in the middle of the night wasn’t a problem, if some gull showed up because he was drunk or just plain stupid. They’d found someone in Podkopaevsky Lane just recently, head smashed in like a soft-boiled egg, fingers cut off to get the rings, and his eyes gouged out. It was his own fault. You shouldn’t go sticking your nose in where you aren’t invited. The mice shouldn’t play where the cats are waiting.

  ‘Only why put his eyes out?’ Senka asked in fright.

  But Mikheika the Night-Owl just laughed and said: ‘Go and ask them as put them out.’

  But that conversation came later, when Senka was already a Khitrovkan.

  It all happened very quickly and simply – before he even had time to sneeze, you might say.

  There was Senka walking along the row of spiced tea stalls, sizing up what there was to filch and plucking up his courage, and suddenly this almighty ruckus started up, with people shouting on all sides, and this woman was yelling. ‘Help! I’ve been robbed, they’ve took me purse, stop thief!’ And two young lads, about the same age as Senka, came dashing along the line of stalls, kicking up the bowls and mugs as they ran. A woman selling spiced tea grabbed one of them by the belt with a great ham of a hand and pulled him down on to the ground. ‘Gotcha,’ she shouted, ‘you vicious little brute! Now you’re for it!’ But the other young thief, with a sharp pointy nose, leapt off a hawker’s stand and thumped the woman on the ear. She went all limp and slipped over on her side (Prokha always carried a lead bar with him, Senka learnt that later). The lad with the pointy nose jerked the other one up by the arm to get him to keep on running, but people had already closed in from all sides. They’d probably have beaten the two of them to death for hurting the woman, if it wasn’t for Senka.

  He roared at the top of his voice:

  ‘Good Orthodox people! Who dropped a silver rouble?’

  Well, they all went dashing over to him: ‘I did, I did!’ But he squeezed through between their outstretched hands and shouted to the young thieves:

  ‘Don’t stand there gawping! Leg it!’

  They sprinted after him, and when Senka hesitated at a gateway, they overtook him and waved for him to follow.

  After they stopped at a quiet spot to get their breath back and shook hands. Mikheika the Night-Owl (the one who was shorter, with fat cheeks) asked him: ‘Who are you? Where are you from?’

  And Senka answered: ‘Sukharevka.’

  The other one, who was called Prokha, bared his teeth and grinned, as if he’d heard something funny. ‘So what made you leave Sukharevka in such a hurry?’

  Senka spat through the gap in his teeth – he hadn’t had time to get used to the novelty of it yet, but he still spat a good six feet.

  And all he said was: ‘Can’t stay there. They’ll put me in jail.’

  The two lads gave Senka a respectful kind of look. Prokha slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come and live with us, then. No need to be shy. No one gets turned in from Khitrovka.’

  HOW SENKA SETTLED IN AT

  THE NEW PLACE

  So this was the way he and the lads lived.

  During the day they went ‘snitching’, and at night they went ‘bombing’.

  They did most of their thieving round that same Old Square where the market was, or on Maroseika Street, where all the shops were, or on Varvarka Street, from the people walking by, and sometimes on Ilinka Street, where the rich merchants and stockbrokers were, but definitely no farther than that, oh no. Prokha – he was their leader – called it ‘a dash from Khitrovka’. Meaning that if anything went wrong, you could hightail it to the Khitrovka gateways and side alleys, where there was no way anyone could catch a thief.

  Senka learned how to go snitching quickly enough. It was easy work, good fun.

  Mikheika the Night-Owl picked out a ‘gull’ – some clueless passerby – and checked to make sure he had money on him. That was his job. He moved in close, rubbed up against the gull and then gave them the nod: yeah he’s got a wallet on him, over to you. He never pinched anything himself – his fingers weren’t quick enough for that.

  Then it was Senka’s turn. His job was to surprise the gull so his jaw dropped open and he forgot all about his pockets. There were several ways of going about it. He could start a fight with Night-Owl – people loved to gawp at that. He could suddenly start walking down the middle of the road on his hands, jerking his legs about comically (Senka had been able to do that ever since he was a little kid). But the simplest thing of all was just to collapse at the gull’s feet, as if he was having a fit, and start yelling: ‘I feel real bad, mister (or missus, depending on the circumstances). I’m dying!’ If it was someone soft-hearted, they were bound to stop and watch the young lad writhing about; and even if you’d picked a real cold fish, he’d still look round, out of sheer curiosity, like. And that was all Prokha needed. In and out like a knife, and the job was done. It used to be your money, but now it’s ours.

  Senka didn’t like bombing so much. In fact, you could say he didn’t like it at all. In the evening, somewhere not far from Khitrovka, they picked out a ‘beaver’ who was all on his own (a beaver was like a gull, only drunk). Prokha did the important work here too. He ran up from behind and smashed his fist against the side of the beaver’s head – only he was holding a lead bar in that fist. When the beaver collapsed, Speedy and Night-Owl came dashing in from both sides: they took the money, the watch and a few other things, and tugged off the jacket and the low boots, if they looked pricey. If the beaver was some kind of strongman who wasn’t felled by the lead bar, they didn’t mess with him: Prokha legged it straight away, and Skorik and Filin never stuck their noses out of the gateway.

  So bombing wasn’t exactly complicated, either. But it was disgusting. At first, Senka was terrified Prokha would hit someone so hard he’d kill them, but then he got used to that. For starters, it was only a lead bar, not knuckledusters or a blackjack. And anyway, everyone knew that God himself looked after drunks. And they had thick heads.

  The lads sold their loot out of Bunin’s flophouse. Sometimes they only made a rouble between them, but on a good day it could be as much as fifty. If it was just a rouble, they ate ‘dog’s delight’ – cheap sausage – with black rye bread. But if the takings were good, they went to drink wine at the Hard Labour or the Siberia. And after that the thing to do was visit the tarts (‘mamselles’ they were called in Khitrovka), and horse around.

  Prokha and Filin had their own regular mamselles. Not molls, of course, like proper thieves had – they didn’t earn enough to keep a
moll just for themselves – but at least not streetwalkers. Sometimes the mamselles might even feed them, or lend them some money.

  Senka soon acquired a little lady-friend of his own too. Tashka, her name was.

  That morning Senka woke up late. He couldn’t remember anything that had happened the day before, he had been too drunk. But when he looked, he saw he was in a small room, with just one window, curtained over. There were plants in pots on the windowsill, with flowers – yellow, red and blue. In the corner, lying on the floor, was a withered old woman, a bag of bones, tearing herself apart with this rasping cough and spitting blood into a rag – she had consumption, for sure. Senka was lying on an iron bedstead, naked, and there was a girl about thirteen years old, sitting at the far end of the bed with her legs crossed under her, looking at some book and laying out flowers and muttering something under her breath.

  ‘What’s that you’re doing?’ Senka asked in a hoarse voice.

  She smiled at him. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘that’s white acacia – pure love. Red celandine – impatience. Barberry – rejection.’

  Queer in the head, he thought. He didn’t know then that Tashka was studying the language of flowers. Somewhere or other she’d picked up this book called How to Speak with Flowers, and she’d really taken to the idea of talking with flowers instead of words. She’d spent almost all the three roubles she got from Senka the night before on flowers – run to the market first thing and bought a whole bundle of leafy stuff, then started sorting it all out. That was what Tashka was like.

  Senka spent almost the whole day with her that time. First he drank brine to cure his sore head. Then he drank tea with some bread. And after that they sat there doing nothing. Just talking

  Tashka turned out to be a nice girl, only slightly touched. Take the flowers, for instance, or that mum of hers, the miserable drunk with consumption, no good for anything. Why did she bother with her, why waste her money like that? She was going to die anyway.