The Third Section (51 page)

‘After all you knew about him – about what he was.’ Tamara was merely shocked, but in her voice it sounded like scolding.

‘I know, Toma. I’m sorry.’ Raisa’s eyes filled with tears and she ran over to Tamara. This time her embrace was strong and sincere. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeated. ‘But do we have to talk about it?’

‘I think we all deserve to know,’ said Tamara softly.

‘You’re right. You’re right. But just not now. Tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow then,’ said Tamara. As she spoke she remembered that she was off to Saint Petersburg tomorrow, but it wasn’t worth pointing that out just now.

Raisa stepped back and tried to smile, blinking to clear the teardrops from her eyes. Tamara handed over her handkerchief, and Raisa wiped them away. She went back to her dressing table and resumed the application of her make-up, as ever without any need for a mirror.

‘Now I must get ready for work,’ she said.

‘Oh no you don’t!’

Raisa looked at her. ‘Really, Tamara, believe me, it’s what I need to do. I need things to be normal.’

Tamara stood and sighed. ‘OK. But if you change your mind, don’t think for a minute that you have to stick with it. Just give me a call.’

‘I will,’ said Raisa with a smile. ‘I won’t, but if I do, I will.’

Tamara left her and went back downstairs. There was an air of impatience in the room. Tamara circulated and refilled empty glasses. A year ago she would have taken one of them upstairs herself at a busy time like this, but now she was less keen. If one of them asked, she might, but none of them chose to. Did they think of her as old now, she wondered. Konstantin didn’t see her in that way. At least she hoped not – it had been five months since they had laid eyes on one another.

It was only a few minutes after Tamara had left her that Raisa appeared at the top of the stairs and floated down them. Her eyes gleamed and her smile was small and knowing. Every man in the room preened himself. Some had been waiting for over half an hour, but the rule was generally not one of first come, first served. Raisa knew her regulars, and knew that it was they who merited special treatment.

Her eyes fell on a man in his late sixties, a General Maciejewski, though he wasn’t in uniform and his full name would never be used. She stretched out her arm, pointing her index finger directly at him, and beckoned. He stood and came over to the stairs.

‘Have you missed me?’ she murmured to him. He pulled a face
that
could be taken as a yes or a no, but said nothing. ‘Well, we’ll soon fix that,’ she continued. She let him walk up the stairs ahead of her, one step at a time because of an injured leg. Tamara couldn’t help but be reminded of Dmitry.

‘And when you came round?’ Yudin’s voice was eager. Dmitry could not deny that it was a compelling story, but it was not the stuff of entertainment.

‘It was morning,’ he explained. ‘Not all that late.’

‘And I take it you were alone?’

‘Utterly.’ From somewhere deep in his subconscious, he had chosen precisely the right word. His voice almost cracked as he spoke it.

‘So what did you do?’

Dmitry emitted a hollow laugh. ‘I went to the house and asked after her.’

‘You did what?’

‘What else was there to do? Madame Zhiglova was very polite. She even guessed who I was. She was quite concerned when she went up to Raisa’s room and found she wasn’t there – and saw the broken window.’

‘So why didn’t you come straight back after that?’

‘I don’t know.’ Dmitry felt he had been on the brink of insanity. Even what he told Yudin now was just an attempt to make sense of a kaleidoscope of recollections and emotions. ‘I remembered what I’d heard in stories – about the undead lurking in graveyards close to where they died, so I booked into an inn and went back there every night. But there was nothing. And then this morning Madame Zhiglova came and found me, and told me that she’d had a letter from Raisa saying that everything was fine and that she wasn’t to worry.’

‘I see.’

‘The letter was from Moscow.’

‘My God!’ exclaimed Yudin.

‘I’ve seen her, Vasya.’ There were tears in Dmitry’s eyes now. ‘She’s back at Degtyarny Lane, as if nothing had happened.’

‘At Degtyarny Lane?’ Yudin raised his voice. ‘What about Tamara Valentinovna? We must do something.’

‘I know. I know. But … I can’t. How can I chase across the country to save her one day, and then destroy her the next?’

‘You must, Mitka. Think of what she’s become.’

‘I can’t,’ he moaned.

‘Then I
will
.’ The determination in his voice was unshakeable.

Dmitry looked up at him, his eyes glistening. ‘I can’t ask you to do that, Vasya.’

‘I hope you don’t plan on asking me not to.’

Dmitry shook his head. Yudin was right. It was not for him to force his cowardice on to others. ‘No. No,’ he said. ‘You must do what you know is right.’

Yudin nodded, but did not seem to relish the prospect. Then he posed a question which Dmitry had already asked himself. ‘Why do you think he let you live?’

‘Tyeplov, you mean?’

Yudin nodded. ‘It seemed like he had the perfect opportunity to have his revenge on you,’ he said.

The answer was all too easy. ‘You think he hasn’t?’ Dmitry wailed. ‘You think that for me to die there quickly wouldn’t have been a blessing compared with the state I’m in now? To go on living, knowing that the woman I love has been transformed into a creature like him?’

‘Love?’ asked Yudin simply.

‘Loved. She’s beyond any human affection now.’ It was the most categorical lie he had ever spoken.

‘Of course she is,’ said Yudin. ‘We found where Tyeplov was living, by the way.’ He seemed happier now to change the subject, if only slightly. ‘Gribov remembered the address where the letters from Raisa had been sent. It’s not far from the theatre. There was a cellar, and a coffin. I burned it – he won’t be able to return there. But … I found the letters.’ He reached into his drawer and placed a bundle of papers on the desk. ‘I suspect he destroyed the earlier ones.’

Dmitry ignored them. ‘Have you read them?’

‘I couldn’t bear to.’ Yudin paused, then spoke with an air of confidentiality. ‘I take it you were unaware of her condition.’

‘Condition?’ The word drove through Dmitry’s mind like a hot
poker
. ‘She wasn’t …’ He couldn’t bear even to imagine it. ‘My child?’

Yudin looked horrified to have put the thought into his mind. ‘No, no,’ he said quickly. ‘Not that. Almost the reverse. I’ve known for some months, I’m afraid – she was consumptive.’

‘What?’ It seemed so irrelevant now, after what had taken place, but somehow the idea began to penetrate Dmitry’s mind – to infiltrate it.

‘I don’t know why she chose me to confide in – perhaps because it’s I who knows you best. She didn’t even tell Tamara.’

‘She was dying?’ gasped Dmitry.

‘A few months at most, so they told her.’

For the first time in days, Dmitry heard music once again playing in his mind. It was the sound of hope. Dmitry felt as though he had been falling from a cliff and with flailing hands had grasped some thread of cotton dangling from above, something so fragile, so insubstantial, that only a fool would place hope in it, and yet which might save him. There was a chance that Raisa’s actions in some bizarre way made sense.

He snatched up the letters and began to read them. They were not the billets-doux he had been expecting – far from it. They were precise and rational – almost clinical. Of course, it was only half of a correspondence; Dmitry could not see what Tyeplov had written back, but each subsequent letter from Raisa implied that she had received the responses she had been hoping for. There were fragments that spoke to him as if she had been in the room, standing beside him.

And what of any disease that a man or woman might have been suffering before the transformation? Would such an ailment go on to afflict them once they had become like you?

In the next letter, she pressed the point.

And so even if the person were to be on the very verge of death, they would, on reawakening, emerge into a life of immortality? You can assure me of that?

It all made perfect sense. He could not condone her for seeking to escape death by abandoning everything that was good, but it was at least understandable. It was not whim, caprice or mere vanity. But there was more.

You tell me of the changes that would take place; the new strengths and the new weaknesses. But what of those things that remain the same? Could I still laugh? Could I still enjoy the sensation of a man’s arms around me? Could I still love?

And then:

You lead me to doubt you. I ask if I could laugh or love, or even cry, and you tell me that not only could I, but that those emotions would be a thousand times stronger than what I experience now. Why should I trust what you say? Why should you choose to help me? And yet, how will it benefit me to doubt you? You offer me my only hope
.

Then there was the first mention, obliquely, of Dmitry himself.

Your candour can only do you credit. You are right; it is vain of me to think that you would do this for my benefit. I do not know what went on between you and Aleksei Ivanovich, but you clearly owe him a great debt and, I suspect, a little love. I can only thank God that you allow some of that obligation to be transferred to his son, and, through him, to me. I pray that he will choose to benefit from it as I do
.

Dmitry glanced up at Yudin. His face carried that familiar, fatherly look of benevolence. He didn’t probe or question or attempt to force Dmitry into revealing what the letters contained, he simply waited, knowing that he would be told everything that he deserved to know.

Dmitry read on.

You tell me of the acts which you and I must perform together for my salvation to take place. I will not hide from
you
the fact that they terrify and revolt me, but I am not so timid as to shy away from them merely because of that. But the question on which everything must hinge is: will I, once transformed, be possessed of that same ability to make others (one other in particular) into a being such as myself?

It could only be that she received an answer in the affirmative. Her next letter expanded on it.

You make it sound so beautiful. The Bible talks of a man and a woman becoming ‘one flesh’ but what you speak of might better be described as ‘one soul’. And yet if that can be the state that exists between Dmitry and me, will not the same apply between me and you? If that one hurdle can be overcome, then I can foresee only bliss for us
.

Then came the final letter. It was dated 14 August – just two days before the letter from Tyeplov arranging to meet her. That one had to be a response to this.

You have convinced me. There is so much that I must take on trust, but so much that I have to gain by trusting. It is only the faithless who have no hope of heaven. I am willing, more than willing, just as you tell me I must be. I can only hope that, when the time comes, Dmitry will feel the same. But I will not tell him beforehand. My act of faith must be my own. If he chooses not to join me, I will not blame him, he will be acting out of goodness
.

Write to me and tell me when you will come. I am ready. I will be waiting. Come soon
.

Raisa Styepanovna Tokoryeva

Dmitry lowered the final letter. He had not put any of them back on the desk, but let them rest in his lap. His face glowed with a mixture of passion and shame. He felt tears pricking at his eyes. He remembered what Tyeplov had said to him in Klin. ‘She’s ready for you, Mitka,’ and ‘She’s beyond death now.’ It all made sense.

‘No man likes to read of his own betrayal at the hands of the woman he loves,’ said Yudin.

Dmitry shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. It’s not that at all.’ He tried to think what he should do, but in his mind there was only Raisa. He felt her pain, her indecision and her hope pouring out to him in every line he read. She had suffered so terribly, made so awful and profound a choice, and yet that did not mean that she had chosen correctly. He looked around the room. It was dark and dank and stuffy – no place to be thinking of her, of how he might regain her.

Yudin reached out his hand across the desk. ‘Might I see?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Dmitry, snatching up the letters and putting them in his pocket. He knew that it was perhaps the most stupid thing he had ever done, that if anyone had the wisdom to tell him how to act then it was Yudin, but for that very reason he feared Yudin’s opinion of what he should do might not tally with his own – even though, as yet, he had no opinion.