The Cleansing Flames (31 page)

Her hand was still on his face. But it was as if he noticed it for the first time only now.

Perhaps he saw her gesture as a reminder of a tenderness that had once existed between them, or the promise of one to come. He lowered the phial and gave it to Tatyana Ruslanovna.

With a nod to Totsky, she placed it carefully on the table.

There was a groan from Dolgoruky. He moved towards the door and drew open the bolt. His look back to the room before he slipped out was defeated, spent.

Virginsky felt torn. He did not want to let Totsky and Tatyana Ruslanovna out of his sight. He had been puzzled by their presence in the workshop when he and Dolgoruky arrived. More than puzzled: he acknowledged the stirring of an obscure jealousy. He wanted to know what they had been doing there together, what they had been talking about. But he realised that these were things he would never be able to get to the bottom of. And so the next best thing was to watch them closely from now on. At the same time, Dolgoruky’s sudden departure left him feeling unusually anxious, almost desolate.

Something unwelcoming in Totsky’s eyes, coupled with the nervous twitch of his concealed hand, impelled Virginsky to run after Dolgoruky.

Virginsky caught up with Dolgoruky as he turned into Kalashnikovsky Prospect, heading towards the river. ‘What is the situation with Tatyana Ruslanovna and Totsky? Surely they are not –?’

‘My dear fellow, I fear you are rather too fascinated with the sexual side of things. When the new social order is established, such matters will be taken care of openly, rationally, hygienically – and without the slightest hint of prudery or shame.’

They reached the embankment. The wide river stretched out in front of them, a low black shifting void that, like a vacuum, ultimately drew everything to it. Virginsky thought of Pseldonimov.

‘Was that the printing press he used to print your confession?’

‘What’s that, Magistrate?’

‘Pseldonimov. He was a printer.’

‘You found that out, did you?’

‘Yes. He stole a printing press from his employer. Was that it, the one in the workshop?’

‘Why are you so anxious to know, Magistrate?’

‘Did you kill Pseldonimov?’

‘What does it matter to you now? You are not a magistrate any more, Magistrate.’

Dolgoruky’s glance was distracted, mildly irritated, as he scanned the quayside. A cluster of boats was moored around a wooden jetty projecting from the end of Kalashnikovsky Prospect. They bobbed and clattered reassuringly in the gently lapping water. A couple of stevedores tossed sacks of grain carelessly from a barge. They took a moment to straighten and take in Virginsky, but seemed unable to make sense of him. With a sullen glower, they turned to grapple with the remainder of the sacks.

There was a small squat church set back a little from the riverfront, tucked between two vast warehouses. For some reason it reminded Virginsky of Porfiry Petrovich, with its central dome raised like a bald head above rounded shoulders.

Dolgoruky suddenly set off towards the church with a purposeful step. He crossed himself and went in.

Virginsky caught the closing door and followed him in. A high, silvered glamour hung in the air, a weightless pallor that could have been taken for something numinous. Virginsky was not so simple-minded; he saw it was just an effect of the light, alive with spinning dust, not divinity.

The place was crowded out with icons, in heavy encrusted frames. There were those on the iconostasis, the doors of which were closed of course. The walls too were covered with religious luminaries, the static, two-dimensional figures seeming to rush towards him, as if they had been waiting all eternity for someone to oppress.

Virginsky instinctively spoke in hushed tones: ‘Wait. A moment! Dolgoruky! Let’s talk.’

Dolgoruky felt no such inhibitions. His voice ruptured the hallowed silence like tearing fabric. ‘He will not follow me in here!’

‘Is that really why you came in here? To escape your demon?’

‘You may put it like that if you wish.’

‘But you cannot spend the rest of your life in here. You must go out at some point.’

‘Must I? What if I end my life in here?’

‘Commit suicide in a church? That would be . . .’

‘Don’t say sacrilegious! Now you are one of us, you shouldn’t care about things like that.’

‘I wasn’t going to say that. You may commit any blasphemy you like as far as I am concerned. I was merely remembering what Tatyana Ruslanovna said.’

‘Tatyana Ruslanovna! It is always Tatyana Ruslanovna with you!’

Virginsky didn’t know quite how to take this outburst. ‘But it’s true. It would be a waste. You must use your death more carefully, not squander it.’ He watched the prince carefully, as if he believed that if he took his eyes off him for one moment, he would go through with his threat. ‘But tell me, do you really have the means to kill yourself now?’

Dolgoruky cast about frantically. ‘There is always the means.’

‘No. You will not do it,’ said Virginsky decisively, more for his own benefit than Dolgoruky’s.

Dolgoruky seemed to take this as a challenge. ‘Won’t I?’

‘Perhaps you came in here to pray.’ Virginsky’s tone was mocking.

Dolgoruky’s answer was swift and unexpected. He lifted an immense
manoualia
, one of several candle-stands arranged on the floor around the altar. As tall as a child, it appeared to be solid silver with gold chasing. From the strenuous groan he let out, it must have been heavy. The fat beeswax candle fell to the floor as he hefted the
manoualia
over his head. He ran towards the iconostasis and thrust the stand forwards and down, as if he were wielding a club, or a battering ram into Heaven. The flimsy panel exploded into splinters. Dolgoruky pulled his hands away from the candle-stand, leaving it hanging out of the ruptured iconostasis. The saints around it continued in their frozen, mute benediction, undisturbed by the violent intrusion.

Virginsky looked around nervously, expecting a priest to come out from behind the iconostasis to investigate. But it seemed they really were alone in the church. ‘Why did you feel the need to do that?’

‘It was intolerable that it should not be done. Did you not feel that?’

‘Botkin’s manifesto calls for such acts, I suppose.’

‘Botkin has a manifesto?’

‘ “God the Nihilist”. Is that not his?’

‘Botkin leaves the writing of manifestos to others. His chosen medium is fire.’

‘Did he start the fire at Kozodavlev’s apartment?’

‘Really, Magistrate, you must get out of this habit of asking questions! It is likely to invite suspicion.’

Virginsky dipped his head in embarrassment. To recover, he affected a bantering tone: ‘Well, then. Why stop at smashing one icon? Should you not destroy them all?’

‘That is a very good idea. But you must help me.’ Dolgoruky retracted the
manoualia
from the shattered icon and offered it to Virginsky.

‘That is senseless. It serves no purpose.’

‘You are wrong, Magistrate. This is my medium. Destruction. Vandalism. The message is clear enough. Take it.’

Virginsky obeyed. The candle-stand was not as heavy as he had expected it to be. ‘Your medium. It is not mine.’

‘You baulk at smashing an icon, but you happily take potshots at your colleague.’

‘I see no need to run unnecessary risks. If someone were to come in . . .’

‘I’ll leave it to you to take care of them. You are the cold-blooded assassin, after all.’

‘I did what I was called upon to do, for the cause. You are simply breaking things to make yourself feel better.’

Dolgoruky gave an ugly, venomous scowl.

‘There is some strange craving for perversity in you,’ continued Virginsky, at last placing the
manoualia
down. ‘The demon you imagine hounding you is simply a projection of that. Your tragedy is that you are not half the criminal you imagine yourself to be. This . . .’ Virginsky gestured to the gaping hole in the icon panel. ‘This is just a petulant child smashing up his toys.’

‘A projection? I understand what you mean by that. Some kind of hallucination. But no. It is not a projection. It is real.
Corporeal!
’ Dolgoruky shouted the last word. As its echo died, he looked around the church defiantly. ‘Is there no priest here? Why does the priest not come out?’

Virginsky at last understood: ‘That’s why you smashed the icon! You wanted to draw out the priest.’

Dolgoruky’s look was abashed.

‘You want to be exorcised, is that it? You want a priest to cast out your demon?’

Dolgoruky seemed to buckle under Virginsky’s questions, as if he could not bear to have his intentions made explicit.

‘You don’t need a priest, Dolgoruky. You need someone who will understand you. A kindred spirit.’

‘Do you imagine yourself to be such a one?’

‘I too have committed a crime. I may yet turn out to be a murderer. This morning you asked me why I shot Porfiry Petrovich. Perhaps the true reason, the most honest reason, is that I did it to fulfil my destiny. To become the man I am meant to be.’

‘And then what? What happens when you have fulfilled your destiny?’

‘I don’t know,’ confessed Virginsky heavily. ‘I suppose once a man has fulfilled his destiny, there is nothing left for him to do but die.’

‘Do you want to die now? Here?’

‘Not particularly. It’s harder than you think to fulfil your destiny.’

Dolgoruky’s hand delved into a pocket and came out holding a penknife. He peeled open a blade that caught the hanging light, glinting like a new-forged idea.

‘You would kill me with a pocket knife?’ Virginsky’s voice quivered. It seemed that he was more outraged at the proposed weapon than at the prospect of being murdered.

Dolgoruky shook his head, a smile flexing briefly in a spasm of irony. ‘I am not going to kill you. I am going to show you something that may make you want to kill me. You may even use this knife if you wish.’

Dolgoruky began to unpick the lining of his coat, skilfully nicking the stitches with the tip of the blade. He teased out a small sheet of paper from the hole he had created and handed it to Virginsky.

‘What is this?’

‘My confession.’

‘Are you sure you want me to read it?’

Dolgoruky closed his eyes. His head dipped in an almost imperceptible gesture of assent.

Virginsky’s hands were shaking when he held the sheet back to Dolgoruky. Dolgoruky was slumped on the floor, his back against the iconostasis. He looked up but made no move to take the manifesto.

‘Do you understand now?’ Dolgoruky’s voice was a rasping whisper.

‘Yes.’

‘Can you tell me what I should do?’

‘It is not for me to say.’

‘This was not the end of it, you know.’

‘I know. You killed Pseldonimov because he printed this for you. You could not bear that he knew your secret.’

‘Do you think I would care about that? Why would I have it printed if I cared who saw it?’

‘A change of heart? Your original intention was to distribute the confession to all and sundry, but when the documentation of your crimes was there in front of you, you lost your nerve. More than that, you panicked.’

‘It was not like that.’

‘But you did kill Pseldonimov?’

‘What is this, Magistrate? Have I not confessed to enough crimes for your liking?’

‘You said this was not the end of it. I am merely trying to find out what you meant by that.’

‘The girl . . . the child . . . I raped. You read that part?’

Virginsky swallowed, it seemed with great difficulty, as if the process of swallowing was entirely unnatural to him, something he had to force himself to do. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘She . . . she killed herself.’ Dolgoruky watched Virginsky closely to see how he absorbed this information. His own face seemed to mirror the revulsion he imagined Virginsky was feeling. ‘And I knew. I knew that was what she was going to do. I saw it in her eyes. She said she was going to the storeroom. But I knew she was going to hang herself. And I did nothing to prevent it.’

‘Of course you didn’t. There was nothing you could do. You had already killed her when you . . .’ Virginsky released his grip on the printed confession. It fell with a swooping, distraught flutter. There was hatred in Dolgoruky’s eye as he tracked its descent. ‘. . . did this,’ completed Virginsky.

‘I thought you were a kindred spirit,’ said Dolgoruky, his voice laden with bitter disappointment.

‘Why did you not put the child’s suicide in your confession?’

‘I . . .
could not!
’ Dolgoruky began to sob.

‘Yes, of course. There is a limit to what we are able to face up to in ourselves. But tell me, did you really show this document to Marfa Timofyevna?’

Dolgoruky nodded, wincing at the memory.

‘Ah! There you have it. You wanted her to think badly of you, but not so badly as all that! You censored the account for her consumption.’

‘You don’t know what it cost me to show her even this. And is
this
not bad enough, Magistrate? It does not require a great leap of the imagination to go from this to the child’s suicide. What else was left for her? What else is left for me?’

Virginsky looked away, deliberately evading Dolgoruky’s final question. ‘Why did you show it to her?’

‘She loved me!’ cried Dolgoruky. ‘At least, she said she loved me. But she didn’t know who I was.’

‘In the end, she could not believe you capable of this. That is a sign of her love, is it not?’

‘But it is a false love, based on falsity.’

‘And you would rather have her hatred, so long as it is based on truth?’

‘I would rather have her love, based on truth. But it seems that is not possible.’

Virginsky stared intently at the discarded handbill. ‘What kind of woman could love a man capable of
that
?’ The question escaped without thought. But they had passed the point where tact was necessary or even possible.

Dolgoruky gave a bitter laugh. ‘Tatyana Ruslanovna, perhaps.’

Virginsky declined to answer. He suddenly felt an overwhelming revulsion for Dolgoruky, who appeared to him like an insect, deserving only to be crushed. He imagined himself picking up the
manoualia
once more, this time bringing it down on Dolgoruky’s head. His feelings were entirely without pity now. He would do this, he imagined, purely to rid himself of Dolgoruky’s existence, which had become suddenly intolerable to him. Instead, he satisfied himself with humiliating Dolgoruky: ‘One speaks of a woman’s ruin. Certainly, you brought about the ruin of that child. But it seems to me that you have also caused your own ruin, Dolgoruky.’ He paused before finally answering the question Dolgoruky had asked earlier: ‘There is nothing left for you.’

Dolgoruky drew his head up with a perverse pride. ‘Thank you.’ It seemed that he had reached a decision. Virginsky felt strangely reticent to discover what it was. He turned from the Prince and walked out of the church.

As he headed back along Kalashnikovsky Prospect, Virginsky felt, for the first time that day, exposed. More than that, he felt bereft. It was as if Dolgoruky’s presence had acted like a talisman, and although he could not bear to be in the man’s company any longer, he missed the strange invulnerability that the Prince inspired. A sudden ache of loneliness and longing came over him. He realised he was tiring of these people, tiring of the position in which he had placed himself. He looked down the muddy lane where the workshop was located. Should he go back in there? What would he find if he did? Totsky and Tatyana Ruslanovna locked in a filthy embrace? It was absurd. He could not imagine anything more unlikely in that chill shed. And yet, her broken laugh, and Dolgoruky’s suggestion that she was capable of loving a man such as him, a child-rapist, no less, not to mention all the rest of his insinuations . . . But Totsky? Surely she would draw the line at Totsky?

He had seen all that he needed to see, he decided. It was now a matter of urgency to get back to the apartment building in Moskovskaya District.

*

The man Virginsky had noticed before was back in place, just at the entrance to the courtyard. They confronted one another with a complicated and confused exchange of panic. Virginsky was afraid that the man might say something to him, or, even worse, that he might say something to the man. The other shook out a brief, sharp warning. This annoyed Virginsky, who felt that if anyone had the right to toss his head in warning, it was he. He glared at the man and moved on.

So, that is how things stand!
thought Virginsky as he climbed the stairs.

Varvara Alexeevna let him in. ‘Where have you been?’ Her eyes tracked down and took in his workman’s clothes. A flicker of amusement undermined her attempt at severity.

‘Dolgoruky came for me.’

‘How did you get out?’

‘Dolgoruky had a key. He said the apartment is really his.’

‘That’s a lie. If he has a key he must have stolen it.’

‘I suppose that is entirely possible, knowing Dolgoruky.’

‘And how were you going to get back in if I had not been here? He locked the door behind you, did he not?’

Virgkinsky frowned and blushed in quick succession.

Varvara Alexeevna shook her head dismissively. ‘Foolish man!’

‘I had no choice. I had to go with him. He said Dyavol wanted to see me.’ Virginsky felt a tingle of self-consciousness at the lie.

‘You saw Dyavol?’

‘No. It turns out that Dolgoruky lied to me. I only saw Totsky. And Tatyana Ruslanovna.’

‘Still and all, you should not have gone out.’

Something about her use of the expression ‘still and all’ prompted Virginsky to ask: ‘Who is Dyavol, do you know?’

‘No one has ever met him, apart from Dolgoruky, and Botkin, and maybe a few others.’

‘Tatyana Ruslanovna?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Pseldonimov?’

‘Why do you ask about Pseldonimov?’

‘Did you know him?’

‘He was one of our people, I know that.’

‘And now he is dead. What about Kozodavlev? Had he ever met Dyavol?’

‘Why are you asking me these questions? Like a . . . like a magistrate!’

‘Forgive me. It is an unpleasant habit of mine. I used to be a magistrate. Until very recently, in fact. I still have the magistrate’s instincts. I can’t help myself.’

‘It is a habit you had better get out of. It will not stand you in good stead with our people.’

‘Yes, of course.’ And although he tried to, he could not resist another question. Indeed, he was not even aware of asking it: ‘Where is Kirill Kirillovich?’

‘He will not be back for another hour or so. Now, if you will forgive me, I wish to rest until Kirill Kirillovich’s return.’ Varvara Alexeevna did not look at him as she said this. Neither did she wait for his courteous bow, before disappearing into the bedroom. He heard the scratch of the hook slotting into its eye, locking the door.

Virginsky moved along the hallway. The light in the apartment was more diffuse now, the flaring panels of sunlight gone. He wondered how long he had spent chasing around after Dolgoruky. His grumbling stomach told him it must have been the best part of the day.

As he entered the main room he saw his service uniform draped over the sofa, almost as if there was a man – a strange two-dimensional, headless man – sitting there. It seemed that Varvara Alexeevna must have arranged the clothes like this deliberately, perhaps to give him a shock when he came in. Or perhaps her motives were more subtle and psychological: the bottle-green frock coat with the polished brass buttons was a reminder of the man he had once been; it could also be intended to serve as a warning of the powers aligned against him now.

But really, he had to smile at Varvara Alexeevna’s stupidity. What if someone had come in and searched the apartment while they were out? He thought about knocking on her door and pretending to be angry about it. While he was at it, he would ask her about food.

But then a furtive embarrassment came over him as he tried to remember where he had left the clothes when he had changed out of them. On the floor in the couple’s bedroom, he surmised. He remembered her rebuke of ‘Foolish man!’ He realised that her displaying the uniform in that manner was just another way of saying the same thing.

So must he hide them, or even destroy them? The simplest and most effective way to achieve the latter would be to burn the clothes, feeding them into the couple’s stove. But the idea repelled him in a way he could not fathom. He bundled the clothes up hurriedly and stowed them beneath the table. It was hardly a permanent solution but somehow it freed him to concentrate on what he needed to do.

He crossed to the window, or rather to the wall beside the window, doing his best to keep out of sight of anyone watching the apartment. The room was on the same side of the corridor as the bedroom, so that its window also overlooked the courtyard. Virginsky peered down. The man was still there.

There was a small escritoire in the corner of the room. Virginsky found writing paper and pens in the drawer and drafted his initial report, which he made sure fitted onto one side of paper. He folded the sheet into a paper dart, with the plain side out.

This time Virginsky stood in full view of the window. The man in the courtyard bristled to attention. They exchanged minute nods, understanding one another’s gestures perfectly despite the distance between them. There was no one else in the courtyard. Virginsky opened the casement window, wincing at the creak of its hinges, and threw out the dart.

The man in the courtyard seemed determined to disregard the missile. As soon as it began its twisting descent, he looked sharply away from it, and continued to ignore it after it had landed. A terrible thought struck Virginsky: what if the fellow was not the man he had taken him to be? That is to say, what if he was exactly what he appeared to be, an idle loiterer, or even a burglar in waiting? Worse still, what if he was wholly and dangerously mistaken about him; that is to say, he was not a police agent, but one of ‘our people,’ watching the apartment for any slips on his part, a slip of precisely the kind he had just committed.

At last, as if in response to a signal, the man began to walk across the courtyard, though without looking down at the paper dart on the ground. Even so, he was walking straight towards it.

Virginsky’s heart was pounding hard. Surely he had not been mistaken? Porfiry Petrovich had promised him that there would be a man in place, through whom he would be able to communicate. This fellow had to be that man. But if he were not, Virginsky had just, in all probability, written his own death warrant.

The man stooped and retrieved the dart, moving on without opening it. He glanced up at the window. Virginsky tried to interpret his look, for he felt that it must contain the secret of his own fate. But the look was all too brief and utterly inscrutable.

Virginsky turned to the mantelpiece to consult the ormolu clock, wondering how much longer he would have to wait for something to eat. But he saw that Varvara Alexeevna had removed it. Its absence struck him as pointed, and yet he felt a strange sense of injustice at this. After all, it was Botkin who had threatened to smash the clock, not him. Whatever else she might think of him, she had no reason to believe he was a vandal, or a thief.

*

In the adjoining room, Varvara Alexeevna lay on top of the bed, overwhelmed by the sensation of her heartbeats resonating throughout her body. She felt as though her core had been drained from her, leaving a vacuum that seemed to be expanding all the time, pressing up against her epiglottis. It was as if she was on the brink of regurgitating her soul, or what her soul had become now that she no longer believed in it.

She had delivered four babies that day, the first to a merchant’s wife in Vasilevsky Island, the second to a clerk’s wife in Narvskaya District, the third to a prostitute in Kazanskaya District, and the fourth to the wife of a factory worker, who already had six other children, huddled together in a damp cellar in Spasskaya District. Perhaps the strange physical sensations she was experiencing were symptoms of a kind of elation. She ought to be at least satisfied with a good day’s work. The babies had all been born alive, although she could not vouchsafe how long they would remain so. The mothers too had survived the trauma of childbirth. And yet she could not shake off the sense that she was helping to bring children into a terrible world, and therefore she was complicit in fashioning the joyless, loveless destinies that awaited them; in their oppression, in other words. Many of the babies she delivered were unwanted. They would grow up – if they survived infancy – experiencing only hardship and misery. In all likelihood, the girls would become prostitutes; the boys, drunken brutes, fathering more unwanted children. And so it went on. Ignorance breeding ignorance.