The White Guard - Mikhail Bulgakov [91]
'Put the light out!' Nikolka ordered.
The light went out, and a freezing blast of air lashed into the room. Nikolka eased himself half way out into the icy black space and hooked the loop round one of the spikes, from which the tin hung at the end of a two foot length of cord. Nothing was visible from the street, since the fireproof wall of No. 13 was built at an angle to the street. The very narrow gap between the two houses was covered by the large signboard belonging to a dressmaker's workshop in No. 11. The tin could only be seen by someone actually climbing into the gap, which no one was likely to do before spring thanks to the huge piles of snow which had been shovelled out of the yard, forming an ideal fence in front of the
house. The chief advantage of the hiding place, however, was that it could be checked without opening the main casement of the window: one only had to open the little pane at the top, push one's hand through and feel for the cord, taut as a 'cello string. Perfect.
The light was switched on again, and kneading the putty which Anyuta had left over from the fall, Nikolka sealed up the casement again. Even if by some miracle the tin were found, they would always be ready with the answer: 'What? Whose box? What revolvers, Tsarevich . . . ? Impossible! No idea. God only knows who put it out there! Somebody must have climbed up on the roof and hung it from there. Not many other people around here? Well, so what? We're peaceful, law abiding folk, why should we want a picture of the Tsarevich . . .'
'A perfect job, brilliantly done, I swear it', said Lariosik. It could not have been better - easy to reach, yet outside the apartment.
*
It was three o'clock in the morning. Evidently no one would be coming tonight. Her eyelids heavy with exhaustion Elena tiptoed out into the dining-room. It was Nikolka's turn to take over from her by Alexei's bedside. He would keep watch from three till six, then Lariosik from six till nine.
They spoke in whispers.
'So if anyone asks, he's got typhus', Elena whispered. 'We must stick to that story, because Wanda has already been up from downstairs trying to find out what's the matter with Alexei. I said it was suspected typhus. She probably didn't believe me, because she gave me a very funny look . . . and she kept on asking questions -how were we, where had we all been, wasn't one of us wounded. Not a word about his being wounded.'
'No, of course not', Nikolka gestured forcibly. 'Vasilisa is the biggest coward in the world! If anything happened he'd babble to anybody that Alexei had been wounded if it meant saving his own skin.'
'The swine!' said Lariosik. 'What a filthy thing to do.'
Alexei lay in a coma. After the injection his expression had become quite calm, his features looked sharper and finer. The soothing poison coursed through his bloodstream and kept vigil. The gray figures had ceased to act as though they belonged to his room, they departed about their affairs, the mortar had finally been removed altogether. Whenever strangers did appear they now behaved decently, fitting in with the people and things which belonged legitimately in the Turbins' apartment. Once Colonel Malyshev appeared and sat down in an armchair, but he smiled as much as to say that all would be for the best. He no longer growled menacingly, no longer filled the room with heaps of paper. It was true he did burn some documents, but he refrained from touching Alexei's framed diplomas and the picture of his mother, and he did his burning in the pleasant blue flame of a spirit lamp, which was reassuring because the lighting of the spirit lamp was usually followed by an injection. Madame Anjou's telephone bell rang constantly.
'Rrring . . .' said Alexei, trying