made for the living room with quick steps as the cause of Sveta’s discomfort became clear. She was twisting and turning her head, writhing this way and that as best she could, trying to escape the attentions of Pericles. The naughty cat was seated on top of the box, clinging on with the sharpest claws of one paw and fishing for the whites of her eyes with the other. As she twisted, the box rattled and tipped, working itself towards the edge of the chairs. Gor swore under his breath and dashed across the room.
‘Pericles! Away, sir!’ He took a threatening stride towards the cat and brandished the body of the rabbit like a rolled-up newspaper. The cat dodged the blow and sprang from the box, arcing through the air to land with a thump in the doorway before retiring from the room with an indignant flick of his fluffy white tail.
Gor stood panting as he observed Sveta with a deep grimness: she was still in the box, and the box was still balanced on the chairs. But now she had a trail of sticky rabbit blood stretching from ear to lipsticked mouth, and her eyes, round and wet and shivering, were fixed on the contents of his right hand. There was a moment of silence.
‘My dear Svetlana Mikhailovna—’ he began in his business baritone. It was interrupted by a high-pitched shriek.
‘Let me out of here! Let me out!’
‘Yes.’ He concurred, and placed the rabbit corpse in the nearest suitable receptacle – a fruit bowl on the sideboard – before approaching the box. ‘I am sorry about this, Sveta. This is most peculiar.’
Her response was a mixture of words and sounds and wateriness, unintelligible and upsetting. Gor undid the clasps with tacky fingers and lifted the lid, offering Sveta his hand so that she could climb out safely. She stared at his bloody fingers, tutted and turned away, instead making her own route out of the box, backing out, behind first, wobbling, sniffing and shaking her head.
‘You may want to, er, freshen … your appearance, Sveta. I am sorry … this is most unfortunate. Please, follow me – the bathroom is this way.’
She nodded and he led her to the hall, pointing out the way to the bathroom with a gentle, blood-stained hand. Sveta locked the door behind her. He heard her shriek as she looked in the mirror, but her snuffles and cries were soon masked by the knocking of the pipes as water ran in the sink. He washed his own hands in the kitchen, rolling them over and over in the stream of cold water and the froth of the soap.
Back in the living room, he sat on the piano stool, shoulders hunched, and observed the small, furry corpse in the fruit bowl. It was a domestic rabbit: someone had owned this little creature, most likely as a pet, not for food or fur. The rain beat on the windows and thunder rumbled in the distance. He observed the rabbit, and wondered why it was not wet. There was a movement in the hall.
‘Do your cats always knock on the door when they bring you a trophy?’ Sveta asked. She already had on her coat and scarf. Gor couldn’t blame her. She eyed the fruit bowl with curiosity and disgust. ‘You’re not going to eat that, are you?’
‘What? No! Sveta, really, what sort of man do you think I am?’
‘Well, I’m not at all sure. You hear all sorts of things.’ She pulled a face. ‘Each to their own, I suppose. It’s been … well, anyway, I must be going.’ She tightened her headscarf, and added, ‘But where’s its head?’
‘That is the oddest thing. I have no idea! My cats do not go out: they are far too valuable. So the perpetrator of this act was not my cat. I really don’t know why this creature was on my doorstep. Or who saw fit to alert me to it. Or how it met its end. Or where its head might be.’
‘It’s a mystery,’ said Sveta, pulling white faux gloves over hands that shook very slightly, and still eyeing the rabbit.
‘Yes. But not one that I find attractive. In fact, there have been a few things lately—’
‘Honestly, in other circumstances I would willingly stay and chat, but I have to go,’ she broke in. ‘I have a hair appointment.’
‘Oh yes, of course. Well, thank you for your help today. I think it went well, all things considered.’ He coughed and paused, but she did not respond. He would have to try harder. While she was far from perfect, he needed an assistant, and with bookings starting to come in for the new year, he needed one now, to get things in order. She would have to be charmed. ‘I hope you are, um, uninjured, by your experiences? I am sorry about the rabbit and the, er, consequences – I was trying to prevent Pericles from doing something he’d regret.’
Sveta’s mouth twisted, and she nodded, but again said nothing.
‘We have the whole of the autumn to rehearse, and I was very impressed by your … by your … determination, today.’ He struggled to find kind words. ‘So, if you are willing, I think we can be ready for the new year.’ He spoke slowly. ‘I think we can become a convincing magical act, if we rehearse. What do you say?’
She looked into the shadowed pools of his eyes, eyes that were so full of sadness, eyes that were asking her a question: could she, would she? He needed her, that was clear. She hesitated, and pursed her lips.
‘Very well.’
He smiled, the skin stretching over his cheekbones and making him look even more like a corpse.
‘Although I have to say, I won’t stand for any more funny business. And next time, I really insist – no chairs, and no cats!’
‘Yes, Sveta, very well. I think next Tuesday afternoon, at around four p.m., if you can spare the time, would give us a golden opportunity to perfect your … your fine performance under the saw? And I will try to make sure that the magical cabinet is ready for you by then. On reflection, I agree – we would be more “in character”, as you say, with the cabinet in use, and with the cats quartered in the kitchen, perhaps.’
Sveta suppressed a shudder at the thought of the kitten-infested cabinet, but said nothing. Instead, she opened her mouth as if to yawn, and ran her finger and thumb across the corners of her mouth – a movement originally designed to remove excess lipstick, but now a nervous habit. ‘I look forward to it,’ she said when she’d finished, her hamster-like face embellished with a smile.
After one more shriek and tussle as she spied Pericles perched on her hugely bulky brown handbag, she was gone, leaving only a vague impression of lily-of-the-valley and mothballs. Gor took a seat in his old armchair, stroked the worn leather of its familiar arms, and stared at the body of the rabbit. He would have to dispose of it somehow – but the rubbish chute did not seem fitting, and anyhow, it was blocked again. He’d better take it to the dacha and give it a proper burial in the soft, brown earth of his rambling vegetable patch. It would have to be tomorrow, though. Night was falling, dropping with the rain out of the lowering sky.
Usually, damp weather made Gor feel content. But not today. The drumming on the windows was making him uneasy, making it impossible for him to hear anything else. Still the rabbit lay in the fruit bowl, the cats circling on the floor below, tails raised like shark fins, their eyes disappearing as their faces creased into silent mews of desire. The rabbit would have to go now, he realised. He pulled himself out of the chair and headed for the kitchen, intent on finding some paper to wrap the body. Lightning flashed across the sky as he moved and he counted for the thunder clap: one-Yaroslavl, two-Yaroslavl, three-: a boom shook the apartment block. Only two kilometres away. It was odd to have a thunderstorm in the autumn: there had been no real heat today.
He gathered up the body and wrapped it in the brown paper, tying up the package with an abundance of string found in a kitchen drawer. He then placed it in the long-empty freezer compartment, so that it was out of the way of the marauding cats, and safe from the effects of decomposition.
Back in the living room Gor shut the old yellow curtains and pulled out the piano stool. He cracked each knuckle in turn, placed his fingers over the keys, closed his eyes and began a finger race up and down the notes. Today was no day for music – his quarry was the scales: every scale, every key, major, minor, arpeggios, contra-motion, two-three-four octaves. These were sets of notes that could only be