‘I’ll admit anything you like, just don’t press that button! Turn off the clock!’ Noah Noaevich implored him, keeping his eyes fixed on the madman’s left hand, which remained glued to the casket. ‘Your concept with the figures is outstanding, phenomenal, brilliant, we all appreciate the beauty of it, we are all enraptured, but…’
‘Shut up!’ The assistant waved his pistol towards the director and Stern bit his tongue. ‘There is nothing in the world apart from art. It is the only thing that is worth living and dying for. You have told me that a thousand times. We are all people of art. My benefit performance is a supreme act of art. So rejoice together with me!’
Suddenly the little ‘leading boy’ jumped up off her seat.
‘And love?’ she cried out piercingly. ‘What about love? All the world is not a stage, all the world is love! Lord, how much I love you, and you don’t understand! You have brain fever, you’re ill. Georges, I’ll do anything for you. I don’t need anyone but you! Don’t destroy these people, what are they to you? They don’t appreciate your great soul, then to hell with them! I’ll adore you for all of them! We can get out of here and go away!’
She reached her arms out to him. Despite her panic and terror, Eliza was moved, although she thought the monologue was delivered too fiercely. Eliza would have pronounced all those words differently – with no shouting, in half-tones.
‘Ah yes, love!’ Nonarikin squinted downwards at the electrical chronometer mounted in the little casket. ‘I’d forgotten all about that. Have I not fought for my love? Have I not laid low the insolent who have come between me and my Fair Lady? But she spurned me. She did not wish to be united with me on the bed of Life, so we shall be united on the bed of Death! Today is not only my benefit performance, but also my wedding! Sit down, half-woman!’ he shouted at Comedina. ‘The sight of you is an insult to the final minutes of my existence. And you, cold goddess, come here! Quickly, quickly! There are only four minutes left!’
Staring into the barrel of the Bayard that was aimed at her, Eliza got to her feet. She looked round helplessly at Fandorin.
‘Quickly,’ he whispered, ‘or else the psychopath will fire.’
She didn’t know how she walked up onto the stage and sat down beside Nonarikin. Below her eyes, directly in front of her, the figures on the counter glowed brightly: 11.08 – and the rapidly changing seconds.
‘At the final moment I shall take hold of your hand,’ the assistant director said in a quiet voice. He smelled very strongly of floral eau de cologne. ‘Don’t be afraid, the genuine comets are you and I.’
At that Eliza started shuddering in earnest.
‘L-listen, artist of Evil,’ Fandorin said in a loud voice, after whispering something to the Japanese. ‘Your arithmetic is faulty. The beauty of the benefit performance is marred. There are not eleven of us here before you, but twelve. One too many. Let me out of here.’
Nonarikin frowned.
‘I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, you are the twelfth. A playwright is entirely out of place here. I myself am the author of this play entitled The Apocalypse. Leave. Via the wings. And tell everyone about my benefit performance!’ He menaced Fandorin with the pistol as the playwright ran up onto the stage. ‘Only no tricks, now. If you hurry, you’ll be in time.’
‘Th-thank you.’
And the man whom Eliza loved so passionately, so awkwardly, ran away as fast his legs would carry him. Who could have imagined that he would behave in such a pitiful and unworthy manner! The world around her seemed to have gone completely mad. Her absurd and senseless life was ending in the same way: absurdly and senselessly.
TWICE ELEVEN
The tenth minute of the twelfth hour began.
The director of The Apocalypse sat there with a blissful smile on his face, keeping one hand on the button. The other was clutching the pistol.
‘How fine this is, such great happiness,’ the madman kept repeating. ‘And you are with me. Just a little bit longer, only a minute and a half…’
They were sitting beside each other on mats, Japanese-style.
Noah Noaevich’s mouth gaped open, but no sounds came out. In the final moments of his life his perennial loquaciousness had deserted him.
The ‘villain’ and the ‘villainess’ were weeping, with their arms round each other.
Poor Comedina was huddled up limply, like a rag doll that has been flung aside.
Sensiblin tried to take Vasilisa Prokofievna by the hand and seemed to beg her forgiveness, but Reginina shoved him away – she wouldn’t forgive him.
Aphrodisina tried to smile flirtatiously.
‘Georges, you’re just joking, aren’t you? There aren’t any bombs, are there? You just want to give us a fright?’
The poor coquette! Women of that type are so full of life that they simply can’t imagine their own death!
Shiftsky got up. His mobile features wrinkled up tearfully.
‘Georges, let me go! I never aimed to be one of the leaders. If you’re a number 9, then I’m no better than a number 6!’
‘You’re trying to be funny,’ Nonarikin replied. ‘Without artful dodgers the world is incomplete. Sit down!’
Eliza was astounded that with only a minute left, the only one to pray was Vasya Gullibin. He closed his eyes, folded his hands together and worked his lips.
‘It’s not good,’ Masa said suddenly, pressing a red, blood-soaked handkerchief to his wound. ‘If you want to die, it must be beautifur. But you have two zeros.’
‘What two zeros?’ Nonarikin asked with a frown.
‘The seconds. They should orso be ereven.’
Georges looked at his electric clock.
‘But then it won’t be eleven digits,’ he objected. ‘Although, of course, two zeros… It’s not really… I agree.’
‘It wirr be thirteen digits. That’s even better. The most beautifur number. And thirteen prus nine is twenty-two. Twice ereven – that’s twice as good!’
‘Why, that’s right!’ said Georges, brightening up. ‘The Japanese know all about beauty! Eleven seconds won’t change anything. I’ll reset the chronometer this moment!’
And now I have time to pray too, thought Eliza. Our Father, Who art in heaven…
She raised her eyes. Of course, she was not expecting to see the sky. Up there the velvet top mask of the curtain was swaying slightly, there were dark girders and the black gangway with its dangling cables. What else should an actress look at as she prepared to take her leave of this life?
Oh God, what was that?
Right above Nonarikin’s head, Fandorin was slipping down one of the cables used to secure the scenery to its fly-bars, moving rapidly hand over hand. In two minutes he had managed to run up onto the gangway, creep out to the very centre and start climbing down. But what for? He could have been somewhere safe now, and instead of that he would be killed together with everyone else! He wouldn’t have time to climb down in the few remaining seconds in any case. And even if he did, Nonarikin would simply press the button – he was on his guard!
Her prayer was left unspoken.
The author of the benefit performance took his finger off the button and started turning a little wheel on the clock face, setting the number 11 in the second frame. He pushed a little lever, obviously changing the time of the detonation. At that very instant Fandorin jumped from more than twenty feet up in the air and landed directly on top of Nonarikin. Something crunched, Eliza was thrown aside, and when she got up, there were two motionless bodies lying beside her, one on top of the other. In the little middle window of the clock two single digits popped up, but the seconds were still blinking.