‘But why n-not? Because I’m a diplomat? Then I’ll resign! Because you’re afraid of Bullcox? I’ll challenge him to a duel and kill him! Or, if… if you feel sorry for him, we’ll just go away from here!’
‘That’s not the problem,’ she said patiently, as if she were talking to a child. ‘That’s not it at all.’
‘Then what is?’
‘Look at that left eyebrow of yours. It runs in a semicircle, like that… And higher up, right here, there’s the start of a little wrinkle. You can’t see it yet, but it will show through in five years or so.’
‘What has a wrinkle got to do with anything?’ asked Erast Petrovich, melting at her touch.
‘It tells me that you will be loved by very many women, and I probably wouldn’t like that… And then this slightly lowered corner of the mouth, it testifies that you will not get married again before the age of sixty.’
‘Don’t make fun of me, I’m really serious! We’ll get married and go away. Would you like to go to America? Or New Zealand? Lockston has been there, he says it’s the most beautiful place on earth.’
‘I’m serious too,’ said O-Yumi, taking his hand and running it over her temple. ‘Can you feel where the vein is? A soon and a quarter from the edge of the eye. That means I shall never marry. And then I have a mole, here…’
She parted the edges of her kimono to expose her breasts.
‘Yes, I know. And what does that signify, according to the science of ninso?’ Fandorin asked and, unable to resist, he leaned down and kissed the mole under her collarbone.
‘I can’t tell you that. But please, don’t talk to me again about marriage, or about Algie.’
There was no smile in her eyes any more – a stark, sad shadow flitted though them.
Erast Petrovich could not tell what hurt the most: that name ‘Algie’, the firmness of the refusal, or the absolutely ludicrous nature of the reasons cited.
‘She has turned me into a halfwitted infant…’ – the thought flashed briefly through Fandorin’s mind. He remembered how Doronin had recently said to him: ‘What’s happening to you, my dear boy? You grow fresher and younger before my very eyes. When you arrived, you looked about thirty, but now you look your real age of twenty-two, even with those grey temples. The Japanese climate and dangerous adventures clearly agree with you.’
Speaking quickly, almost babbling in order not to give himself time to come to his senses, he blurted out:
‘If that is how things are, we shan’t meet any more. Not until you leave him.’
He said it – and bit his lip, so that he couldn’t take back what he had said straight away.
She looked into his eyes without speaking. Realising that he wouldn’t hear anything else, she dropped her head. She pulled the lowered kimono back up on to her shoulders and slowly walked out of the pavilion.
Fandorin did not stop her, he did not call out, he did not even watch her go.
He was brought round by a pain in the palms of his hands. He raised his hands to his eyes and stared in bewilderment at the drops of blood, not realising straight away that the marks were made by his fingernails.
‘So that’s all,’ the titular counsellor told himself. ‘Better this than become a complete nobody. Farewell, my golden dreams.’
He jinxed himself: there really were no more dreams, because there was no sleep. On arriving home, Erast Petrovich undressed and got into bed, but he couldn’t fall asleep. He lay on his side, looking at the wall. He could hardly even see it at first – just a vague greyness in the gloom; and then, as dawn approached, the wall started turning white and faint blotches appeared on it; and then they condensed into rosebuds; and then, after everything else, the sun glanced in at the window, kindling the gilded lines of the painted roses into life.
He had to get up.
Erast Petrovich decided to live as if everything in the world was arranged serenely and meaningfully – it was the only way he could counter the chaos swirling in his soul. He performed his daily weights exercises and respiratory gymnastics, then learned from Masa how to kick a spool of thread off the pillar of the bed, bruising his foot quite painfully in the process.
The physical exercise and the pain were both helpful, they made it easier to focus his will. Fandorin felt that he was on the right path.
He changed into a stripy tricot and set off on his usual morning run – to the park, then twenty circuits along the alley around the cricket field.
His neighbours on the Bund, mostly Anglo-Saxons and Americans, were already accustomed to the Russian vice-consul’s whims, and on seeing the striped figure swinging its elbows rhythmically, they merely raised their hats in greeting. Erast Petrovich nodded and ran on, focusing on counting his out-breaths. Today he found it harder to run than usual, his breathing simply refused to settle into an even rhythm. Clenching his teeth stubbornly, the titular counsellor speeded up.
… Eight, nine, three hundred and twenty; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, three hundred and thirty; one, two, three, four…
Despite the early hour, there was already activity on the cricket pitch: the Athletics Club team was preparing for the Japan Cup competition – the sportsmen were taking turns to throw the ball at the stumps and then dash as quickly as they could to the other end of the wicket.
Fandorin did not get round the pitch. Halfway through his first circuit someone called his name.
There in the thick bushes was Inspector Asagawa, looking pale and drawn, with his eyes blazing feverishly – looking, in fact, very much like Erast Petrovich.
The vice-consul glanced around to see whether anyone was watching.
Apparently not. The players were engrossed in their training, and there was no one else in the park. The titular counsellor ducked into the acacia thickets.
‘Well?’ the inspector asked, pouncing on Fandorin without so much as a ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’. ‘I’ve been waiting for a week already. I can’t bear it any longer. Do you know that yesterday Suga was appointed the intendant of police? The old intendant was dismissed for failing to protect the minister… I am burning up inside. I cannot eat, I cannot sleep. Have you thought of anything?’
Erast Petrovich felt ashamed. He could not eat or sleep either, but for a completely different reason. He had not remembered Asagawa even once during the last few days.
‘No, n-not yet…’
The inspector’s shoulders slumped dejectedly, as if he had been deprived of his last hope.
‘Yes, of course…’ he said morosely. ‘In your European terms there is nothing to be done here. No clues, no evidence, no witnesses.’ He turned even paler and shook his head decisively. ‘Well, so be it. If we cannot do it in the European away, I shall act in the Japanese way.’
‘What is “the Japanese way”?’
‘I shall write a letter to His Majesty the Emperor, expounding all my suspicions concerning Intendant Suga. And I shall kill myself to prove my sincerity.’
‘Kill yourself? Not Suga?’ exclaimed Fandorin, dumbfounded.
‘To kill Suga would not be to punish a criminal, but to commit a new crime. We have an ancient, noble tradition. If you wish to attract the attention of the authorities and the public to some villainy – commit seppuku. A deceitful man will not cut his stomach open.’ Asagawa’s eyes were inflamed and melancholy. ‘But if only you knew, Fandorin-san, how terrible it is to commit seppuku without a second, without someone who will put an end to your suffering with a merciful sword-stroke! Unfortunately, I have no one to turn to with this request, my colleagues will never agree. I am entirely alone…’ Suddenly he started and seized the vice-consul’s arm. ‘Perhaps you? Only one stroke! I have a long neck, it will not be hard to hit it!’
Fandorin recoiled and exclaimed: