The Turkish Gambit Page 23
“What nonsense! What did Mizinov say?”
“He was furious. But a promise is a promise. When the negotiations are c-completed, I shall travel from Constantinople to Port Said, and from there by steamship to Japan. I have been appointed second secretary at the embassy in Tokyo. There is nowhere further away than that.”
“To Japan . . .” The tears broke through after all, and Varya furiously wiped them away with her glove.
The bell rang and the locomotive sounded its whistle. Petya stuck his head out the window of the carriage.
“Varya, it’s time. We’re leaving.”
Erast Petrovich hesitated and lowered his eyes.
“G-good-bye, Varvara Andreevna. I was very glad—” He did not finish the phrase.
Varya clutched hold of his hand impetuously and began blinking rapidly, shaking the teardrops off her eyelashes.
“Erast,” she began in sudden haste, but the words stuck in her throat and would not come out.
Fandorin jerked his chin and said nothing.
The wheels clanked and the carriage swayed.
“Varya, they’ll take me away without you!” Petya shouted despairingly. “Quick!”
She glanced around, hesitated for just one more second, and leapt onto the step as it glided along the edge of the platform.
“FIRST OF ALL, a hot bath. Then Filippov’s bakery and some of that apricot pastille you’re so fond of. And then the bookshop for all the new publications, and then the university. Can you imagine all the questions everyone will ask, all the—”
Varya stood at the window, nodding in time to Petya’s contented babbling. She wanted to keep the black figure left behind on the platform in sight for as long as possible, but the figure was acting strangely, blurring like that . . . Or could there perhaps be something wrong with her eyes?
THE TIMES (London)
10 March (26 February) 1878
HER MAJESTY’S
GOVERNMENT SAYS “NO”
* * *
Today, Lord Derby announced that the British government, supported by the governments of the majority of European states, categorically refuses to recognize the exorbitant peace terms imposed on Turkey by the rapacious appetites of Tsar Alexander. The Treaty of San Stefano is contrary to the interests of European security and must be reviewed at a special congress in which all the great powers will take part.
About the Author
Boris Akunin is the pen name of Grigory Chkhartishvili, who was born in the republic of Georgia in 1956. A philologist, critic, essayist, and translator of Japanese, Akunin published his first detective stories in 1998 and has already become one of the most widely read authors in Russia. He has written eleven Erast Fandorin novels to date, and is the author of two other series as well.
He lives in Moscow.
About the Translator
Andrew Bromfield was born in Hull in Yorkshire, England, and is the acclaimed translator of the stories and novels of Victor Pelevin. He also translated into English Boris Akunin’s first two Erast Fandorin mysteries, The Winter Queen and Murder on the Leviathan.
ALSO BY BORIS AKUNIN
The Winter Queen
Murder on the Leviathan
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Translation copyright © 2005 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Random House and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This work was originally published in Russian in 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Boris Akunin.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Akunin, B. (Boris)
[Turetskii gambit. English]
The Turkish gambit: a novel / Boris Akunin; translated by Andrew Bromfield.
p. cm
I. Bromfield, Andrew. II. Title.
PG3478.K78T8713 2005
891.73′5—dc22
2004051448
Random House website address: www.atrandom.com
eISBN: 978-1-58836-439-5
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