After the performance, as usual, they drank a glass of champagne. Stern was very pleased and said he would record his impressions of how they had each played their parts in the Tablets.
At the very end of the brief gathering Fandorin suddenly appeared. He congratulated the company on a successful performance – probably out of politeness, because Eliza had not seen him in the hall. She looked at him only once, briefly, and turned away. He didn’t look at her at all. Just you wait, Erast Petrovich, you’ll be sorry, she thought in sweet gloating. And very soon.
Then Nonarikin made an announcement: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow, as usual, we rehearse at eleven. But please bear in mind that from now on those who are tardy will be subject to the appropriate measures, without any exceptions. A fine of one rouble for every minute that you are late!’ Everyone grumbled about that, clamoured briefly in outrage and started going home.
‘The khan is here,’ Eliza whispered to her second. She was trembling. ‘Be prepared and wait. Today all will be resolved!’
‘I simply can’t settle my nerves,’ Nonarikin said when they were left alone. ‘What if you hesitate and he shoots first? Come to your senses! What sort of business is this for a woman?’
‘Not for anything. The die has been cast.’
Eliza smiled bravely and flung up her chin. The sudden movement set her head spinning and she felt afraid that she might faint. But it was all right, it passed off. Only her knees were trembling.
Then Georges sighed and took something small, made of black metal, out of his pocket.
‘You are a heroine. Who am I to stand in the way of your heroism? This is for you, take it.’
She took the light pistol that almost fitted her hand.
‘What is this? What for?’
‘A Bayard. A noble weapon with a noble name. I spent everything I had left over from my salary on it. And I’ll keep the Nagant. If you are in danger, I shall be ready. This at least you cannot deny me!’
Tears welled up in his eyes.
‘Thank you… Now I shall not be afraid. Almost… But how do I fire it?’
‘Let’s go down into the basement. I’ll show you.’
They walked down the steps and she fired an entire clip. This was an entirely different matter! She could hold the weapon in one hand, she hardly felt any recoil at all, and the bullets made a neat, close pattern in the dummy.
Georges was pleased too. He put in new bullets, clicked something and handed the pistol back to Eliza.
‘Now just take off the safety catch and fire away! Remember, I’m here. I’m watching out.’
On the way to the exit she repeated her instructions to her second.
‘No matter what, do not look round. Do not interfere in anything. Only if I call out for you to help, all right?’
He nodded, becoming gloomier by the moment.
‘Don’t even think of taking out your Nagant. That will be the end of both of us!’
He nodded again.
‘Only if the khan prepares to shoot. Is that all clear?’
‘Yes, it’s clear…’ Nonarikin muttered.
At that moment they were walking through the auditorium.
‘Wait a moment.’
She felt a sudden urge to look at the stage curtain. Perhaps she would never see it again. And if she did, it would not be soon. They would probably put her prison for the duration of the trial, wouldn’t they?
The cleaners were already completing their work: they brought in Noah Noaevich’s desk and stood it beside the stage – for the next day’s rehearsal. Then they stood a lamp on it, precisely at the centre, as Stern preferred. Then they set out fresh sheets of paper and sharpened pencils and – with special respect – the Tablets.
Eliza suddenly felt a desire to read what Noah Noaevich had written about the way she had acted today.
It made pleasant reading: ‘For E.L. – Miraculous nervous tension! The recipe for success: stretch the string to the limit. But do not snap it!’
That was on the stage. But in real life sometimes it had to be snapped.
Before she went outside, Eliza filled her lungs with air and looked at her watch. Precisely midnight. An ideal hour for bloodshed.
She stepped out onto the pavement like Mary Stuart stepping onto the scaffold.
Despite the late hour, there was a crowd standing at the entrance. There was clapping and exclamations, several men handed her bouquets, someone asked her to sign a photocard. A flashgun flared.
As she nodded and smiled, out of the corner of her eye Eliza followed the movements of a figure in a long black coat and a gleaming top hat.
He was here, here!
She handed the flowers to Nonarikin, who just barely managed to wrap his left arm round them, while keeping his right hand in his pocket.
Twenty steps farther on Eliza took her powder compact out of the pocket of her muff, in order to glance into the little mirror. About half a dozen admirers, both male and female, were following her at a respectable distance, and striding along at the head of them, with his heels clattering loudly, was Genghis Khan.
It would be easier to carry out her intentions in public view. She would just have to imagine that she was playing a part.
Eliza swung round. She shuddered, as if she had only just noticed the man in the long coat. He grinned under his black moustache.
She cried out and lengthened her stride a little.
The clatter of heels behind her also speeded up.
I mustn’t hit the people walking behind him, Eliza thought. She counted to five in her mind.
‘Torturer! Monster!’ she exclaimed in a resounding voice. ‘I can’t take any more!’
Genghis Khan, startled, shied away to one side. Now she could fire at will, behind him there was nothing but the dark, empty square.
‘As God is my judge!’ Eliza improvised. ‘I may perish, but you will also meet your end!’
She drew the pistol out of her muff with an elegant gesture and took a step forward. Her hand did not tremble, her supreme artistic elation rendered every movement irreproachable.
The khan shuddered and dropped his top hat.
‘Die, Satan!’
She squeezed her forefinger as hard as she possibly could, but there was no shot. She pressed the trigger again and again – but it didn’t yield.
‘The safety catch! The safety catch!’ Nonarikin hissed behind her.
Everything went dark in front of Eliza’s eyes. This was a disaster!
The admirers started shouting and waving their arms about. Genghis Khan also came to his senses. He didn’t reach into his coat to take out a gun, but simply turned up his collar, swung round and darted away at a trot, dissolving into the darkness.
A flashgun flared again. The camera recorded Eliza Altairsky-Lointaine in a most effective pose: with her arm extended and a pistol in her hand.
‘Bravo! Is that from a future production?’ the admirers babbled. ‘How original! We adore you!’ a woman exclaimed. ‘I haven’t missed a single one of your performances! I absolutely idolise you! I’m a reporter for the Evening News, will you allow me to ask a question?’
‘What went wrong?’ Eliza asked her second in an appalling whisper. ‘Why didn’t it fire?’
‘But you didn’t take off the safety catch…’
‘What safety catch? What safety catch are you talking about?’
Georges took her by the arm and led her away.
‘Oh, come on now! We fired in the basement, didn’t we… You saw it! And I reminded you…’