Mamiya’s Failed Attempt to Assassinate Boris

Lieutenant Mamiya’s failed attempt to assassinate Boris turns a long-imagined act of revenge into a controlled trial that Boris has arranged to defeat. Mamiya is given two chances to kill him, but both shots miss; Boris then sends him away under a curse that shapes Mamiya’s understanding of his life. The episode ends not with the death Mamiya hoped might give his survival meaning, but with his return to Japan and the telling of his story to Mr. Okada.

The chance to act

As repatriation approaches, Mamiya finds himself alone with Boris late at night in the office. Boris is writing a letter; his Walther PPK, normally kept close at hand, hangs in its holster on the coat rack. Mamiya knows the gun and has rehearsed how he would operate it with one hand. He takes it as he passes the rack, works the safety and slide, and raises it toward Boris.

The scene converts Mamiya’s imagined assassination into a sequence of practical actions: taking the pistol, chambering a cartridge, and aiming. Yet Boris calmly says the gun is unloaded. He demonstrates that he has anticipated Mamiya’s intentions, opening a desk drawer to show him the cartridges. The apparent opportunity was a trap, and Boris makes clear that he has long known Mamiya wanted to kill him.

Two chances, two misses

Boris does not end the encounter by disarming or killing Mamiya. Instead, he throws two live cartridges at his feet and offers a second attempt, on the condition that Mamiya keep Boris’s secrets if he fails. Mamiya agrees, loads the cartridges into the pistol, and fires from six feet away. The bullet passes Boris and strikes the wall. Mamiya cannot accept the miss: his earlier target practice in Hsin-ching and the pistol’s balance make his failure seem impossible to explain as poor marksmanship.

Mamiya cocks the hammer again and aims. The Tartar enters, points his own gun at Mamiya, and is ordered by Boris to stay out of the matter. Mamiya fires a second time, holding the pistol steady. The shot again misses Boris, this time breaking the wall clock behind him. Boris remains composed, while the pistol falls from Mamiya’s hand. The repeated failure makes the outcome feel less like a contest of skill than a limit Boris claims Mamiya cannot cross: Boris tells him he is not qualified to kill him.

The curse and the return

After retrieving the pistol, Boris returns it to its holster and pats Mamiya’s arm. He declares that Mamiya will carry a curse home: wherever he goes, he will never be happy, love anyone, or be loved. Boris says he will not kill him, but presents that choice not as mercy or goodwill; he claims to kill only those he has reason to kill. He also says their parting is final and names Nakhodka as Mamiya’s next destination.

A week later, Mamiya leaves the camp by train for Nakhodka. After further, unspecified experiences, he reaches Japan at the beginning of the following year. Boris’s prediction that the two will never meet again gives the failed attempt a clear ending in the narrated action, even as the curse continues to govern the meaning Mamiya gives his survival.

The story as a second outcome

In his letter to Mr. Okada, Mamiya describes himself as defeated and lost, and understands his life through Boris’s curse: he believes he loves no one and is loved by no one. He calls himself a walking shell, anticipating disappearance into darkness. Yet the act of telling complicates that bleak conclusion. Mamiya says that passing the story on to Mr. Okada allows him to disappear with some contentment, and closes by wishing Mr. Okada a good life without regrets. The assassination fails as an attempt to change the past or make survival meaningful through Boris’s death; the account itself becomes Mamiya’s remaining act of transmission.