any more, and before long she ran away from her parents’ house with this gent, a military man, and started living in his house, on Arbat Street. And she turned into a real swanky dame: dressed up like a lady and came to visit her mama and papa in a shiny varnished carriage, with a lacy parasol. The officer couldn’t marry her, he didn’t have his father’s blessing, but he adored her madly, absolutely doted on her.
Only number three was done for as well. He was a strong young gent, with bright rosy cheeks, but after he lived with her for a while, all of a sudden he startedwasting away. He turned all pale and feeble, his legs wouldn’t hold him up. The doctors tried everything they could think of, sent him away to take the waters, and off to foreign parts, but it was all a waste of time. They said there was some kind of canker growing inside him, and it had nibbled all his insides away.
Well then, after she buried her officer, even the slow-witted could see there was something wrong with the girl. And that was when they changed what they called her.
There was no way she could go back to Dobraya Sloboda, and she didn’t want to anyway. Her life was all different now. Ordinary folks steered clear of her. When she walked by, they crossed themselves and spat over their shoulders. But everyone knows the kind that did cosy up – rakish, dashing types who couldn’t give a damn for death. And after she sucked all the juice out of that last gent –well, you’ve seen for yourself what she turned into then. Far and away the best-looker in the whole of Moscow.
And it carried on. Kolsha the Spike (he was a big-time bandit, used to work the Meshchani patch) stepped out in style with her for a couple of months – then his own lads took their knives to him, because he wouldn’t divvy up the loot.
Then there was Yashka from Kostroma, the horse thief. Used to walk pure-blood trotters straight out of the stable, sold them to the gypsies for huge money. Carried thousands of roubles around in his pockets sometimes. He begrudged her nothing, she was swimming in gold. But the police narks shot Yashka down six months past.
And now there’s the Prince. Three months and counting. Sometimes he puts on a brave face, but sometimes he rants and raves. He used to be a respectable thief, but now doing someone in means no more to him than squashing a fly. And all because now he’s taken up with Death, he knows he isn’t long for this world. It’s like that saying: invite death to come visiting, and you end up in the graveyard. People don’t get their monikers for nothing, especially one like that.
‘What moniker d’you mean?’ Senka asked eagerly after he’d listened to the story with his mouth hanging open. ‘You still haven’t told me, Prokha.’
Prokha stared at him, then tapped his knuckles on his own forehead. ‘Why, you half-baked simpleton,’ he said. ‘Sowhat do they call you Speedy for? I’ve just spent the best part of an hour explaining that to you. Death – that’s her moniker. That’s what everyone calls her. She don’t mind, she answers to it, she’s well used to it.’
HOW SENKA BECAME A
KHITROVKAN
Prokha thought Senka was called Speedy, him being a smart lad, with lots of gumption, eyes darting about left and right, always quick with an answer, never stuck for a word. But actually Senka’s nickname came from his surname. His father’s name used to be Trifon Stepanovich Spidorov. What his name was now, only God knew. Maybe he wasn’t Trifon Stepanovich any longer, but the Angel Trifaniil instead. Except that his old dad wasn’t likely to have been made an angel – he drank too much, although he was a good man. But as for his mum, she was definitely somewhere not too far from the Throne of Light.
Senka often thought about that – which of his parents had ended up where. He wasn’t sure about his father, but he had no doubts about his mother and brothers and sisters, the ones who’d died from cholera with their parents. He didn’t even pray for them to get into the Kingdom of Heaven – he knew they were already there.
When the cholera hit their suburb three years before, it had carried off a lot of folk. Senka and his little brother Vanya were