A Razor Wrapped in Silk

9 A repellent curiosity

The audience and performers were held together in the candy box theatre. Most had been interviewed once by now and were impatient to be gone.

A stale bodily smell hung in the room. As Porfiry entered, he saw a woman spray cologne from an atomiser to dispel it.

At his side, Virginsky drew himself up in preparation to addressing the room. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘Would those of you who have already been interviewed please take a seat on the left hand side of the auditorium and those of you yet to be interviewed on the right.’ Virginsky indicated the relevant directions with clear arm gestures. ‘Once I have confirmed that I have your statement, you may go.’

This announcement was met with a mixture of ironical cheering and despondent jeers. It prompted a flurry of movement, the crowd’s weariness temporarily dispelled by the novelty of having something to do.

As the witnesses moved about, Porfiry scanned the auditorium and was surprised to see the man he was looking for dressed in the garb of a butler, sitting on the edge of the diminutive stage as if it were an upturned crate. He regarded the activity around him with a bored detachment. The unexpected servant’s livery was not the only change that had come over him. The slight, boyish man had filled out into a barrel-shaped figure. His face too was fuller and fleshier. Whereas once it had appeared smooth and unnaturally youthful, it was now so deeply lined that the effect was equally unnatural. There was still something childlike about his features, but he looked like a child who had aged prematurely, through some strange disease. He held a cigarette in an ebony holder, and watched, engrossed, as the swirls of smoke rose and drifted from its burning tip.

‘Prince Bykov?’

The prince looked up vacantly, the tedium of the night instilling a glazed stupefaction into his face. The sight of Porfiry galvanised him. He sat up sharply. Something like panic flashed in his eyes. ‘You?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I am the investigating magistrate. A woman has been murdered. Of course, you know that.’

‘How could I not. She ruined my play.’

‘That was very thoughtless of her.’

‘Oh, yes, I know. I shouldn’t say such things. It is callous and unfeeling of me. But I am an artist. I make no apologies for that. Artists are above the norms of morality.’

‘It is very dangerous of you to make such admissions to a magistrate.’

‘Surely you do not suspect me of involvement in this lurid crime? To begin with, there is the question of taste.’ Prince Bykov screwed his face into a wrinkled clump of disgust. ‘Besides, I was on stage at the time.’ The prince held his arms outstretched to indicate his costume. ‘I might also say that I had no motive. Indeed, I had every motive to keep her alive, at least until the end of my play.’

‘And then?’

‘Oh, I would happily have murdered her then. Yelena’s beauty was extraordinary. But her talent was rather less than average. And her temperament, frankly, appalling. The last few weeks have been a torture for me.’

Porfiry smiled indulgently. ‘I was interested in the title of your play. The Vanished Lover. I wonder, did you ever go to Switzerland?’

Prince Bykov gave a start, then looked the magistrate up and down with a new interest. Somehow what he saw seemed to relax him perceptibly. ‘You have a good memory, Porfiry Petrovich. I did indeed go to Switzerland.’

‘And did you find … what you were looking for?’

‘No. And so, I am back in Petersburg.’

Porfiry smiled distantly and nodded. ‘Your friend — Ratazyayev … that was his name, was it not?’

‘Again, I congratulate you on your memory.’

‘Whatever became of him, I wonder?’

‘I have no idea. He vanished from my life without a trace. I have given up looking for him now.’

‘When you stop looking for something is often when you find it.’

‘Is that a proverb?’

‘No.’

‘It should be.’

‘However, they do say wild ducks and tomorrow both come without calling.’

Prince Bykov snorted smoke appreciatively. ‘Yes, a wild duck. That’s Ratazyayev all right.’

Prince Bykov’s smile became wistful. ‘The thing is, I no longer wish to find him. I certainly do not wish him to head my way. A bird may be known by its flight, you know. He flew … away.’ Prince Bykov made a fluttering sweep with the hand that held the cigarette, trailing smoke. ‘And so, by that act of his, for the first time, I truly knew him.’

The pain this knowledge had entailed filled the prince’s eyes with moisture, and Porfiry found himself blinking in sympathy, although his own eyes were, he was sure, quite dry.

*

As he was leaving the theatre, Porfiry caught sight of Maria Petrovna deep in conversation with the shovel-bearded man to her right. They were sitting with those who had already been interviewed, but she seemed in no hurry to leave. She left it to others to clamour around Virginsky, demanding to be released. She looked up as Porfiry approached. Her face lit up in recognition and perhaps even pleasure. Porfiry had the impression she had been waiting to speak to him. She rose from her seat, squeezing out along the row. The shovel-bearded man gave Porfiry a look of passing curiosity.

‘I did not expect to see you again so soon, Porfiry Petrovich.’

‘Nor I you, Maria Petrovna.’

‘This is a terrible business.’

Porfiry nodded gravely.

‘Naturally, I will do whatever I can to help.’

One or two people watched them with half-aroused interest, latching on to any novelty as a relief from their boredom. Porfiry sensed their attention. ‘Perhaps you would care to step outside?’

They entered the dimly lit corridor.

‘May I ask you about Yelena?’

The name sapped Maria Petrovna’s face of energy and colour. Her eyes shot downwards. ‘Poor Yelena. It’s so horrible.’

‘You were good friends?’

‘I had not seen her for many years. But we were once close.’

‘I am very sorry. Death is always difficult to bear, but the death of one so young, under such circumstances, it touches everyone.’

‘Her fiance must be devastated,’ said Maria.

‘Yes, I am sure.’

‘When I saw him, he appeared strangely calm.’ Maria Petrovna’s voice became distant.

‘Do you know the officer concerned? Captain Mizinchikov?’

‘I had never seen him before tonight.’

‘And what of Ivan Iakovich Bakhmutov?’

‘I do not know that man at all.’

‘Can you shed any light on Yelena’s relationship with Captain Mizinchikov?’

‘No. I’m sorry. As I said, it is many years since we last spoke. I regret — I greatly regret — that I did not get the chance to speak to her tonight. I only know what Aglaia Filippovna told me.’

‘You spoke to Aglaia Filippovna?’

‘Yes.’

‘When was this?’

‘Before the performance. At the time of the terrible scene in the entrance hall.’

‘Ah yes. The slapping.’

‘Yes.’ Maria Petrovna’s face was pinched with disapproval.

‘Aglaia Filippovna spoke about her sister?’

‘Yes. She said that the man called Bakhmutov had once kept her as a mistress and that she was his to dispose of as he wished.’

‘I see. Certain things are beginning to make sense. I thank you, Maria Petrovna.’

‘Porfiry Petrovich?’

‘Yes?’

‘May I see her?’

Her eyes oscillated wildly, as if seeking escape from the prospect she had just voiced.

Porfiry tried to calm them with his own gaze. ‘I do not advise it. Do you want your abiding memory of her to be as she is now, or as she was when you were friends? She has been brutally attacked. These sights have a way of etching themselves on the soul. You are tired. Go home.’

‘You don’t understand. There are things I have to say to her.’

‘She cannot hear you. Go home. Kneel before the icon and pray for her soul. Give your words to God. He will pass on your message.’

‘You are a believer?’

‘Yes,’ said Porfiry.

‘Even with these sights etched on your soul?’

‘I have to believe. If I did not, I would go mad.’

‘But what if belief is itself a form of madness? There is no logic in it.’

‘On the contrary, it is supremely logical. It is the only thing that makes sense of … of everything.’

‘How did he kill her?’

‘Her throat was … cut open.’

‘Yes. That’s what people are saying. Was there a lot of blood?’

‘Yes.’

‘You must let me see her. Spare me the torment of imagining this!’

‘To see it is a greater torment.’

‘You have seen it.’

‘My profession requires me to.’

‘And my love … requires … me … to,’ echoed Maria Petrovna, though her final words were almost swallowed by her sobbing.

*

Porfiry led her down to the room. Neither spoke. Once, Maria Petrovna reached out and touched a wall, as if to convince herself of the reality of what she was experiencing.

They descended by a back staircase. Porfiry had a vertiginous sense of disaster. He tried to make his steps as quiet as he could, to make himself weightless, as if he believed he could float away from this.

He had no wish to see the dead woman again. However, he realised that he would have to watch Maria Petrovna as she confronted her friend. He wanted to witness the transformations wrought in her face. The recognition of this repellent curiosity created an invisible force of resistance against which he had to push.

A door as bland and blank as any other faced them as they reached the foot of the stairs. A politseisky stood to one side, the only indication of anything untoward.

‘She is here?’

Porfiry nodded.

Maria glared at the door with starting eyes; her hand shook as she reached for the handle.

‘You do not have to go through with this,’ said Porfiry, grasping her careening hand in his.

She looked down at his protective hold. A smile, small and faltering, flickered on her lips. Then she looked into his eyes, her gaze pleading and urgent. ‘Let me see her.’

*

Her cry shamed him. High, like a wheeling bird, it was the inarticulate voicing of flesh crying out to flesh, her throat opening without the intercession of thought, beyond consciousness, knowing only the need to voice.

He watched her face, as he had known he would. He watched and mentally recorded the rippling fluctuations of her horror and her suffering. He told himself that it was right that she should have someone with her as she endured this, some living person to reassure her that life triumphs over death. But it felt like a platitude. The thought came from somewhere: that life should triumph over death is no consolation to the dead. Then he remembered that other life, the eternal life that comes after death, and marvelled that he had forgotten something so important, so central to his being. He had declared himself a believer but minutes earlier. But was it merely a pretence, empty words, another piece of play-acting?

He held out an arm to steady her. She clutched at it with both hands, like a bird clawing food. But instead of lifting him into the air, she pushed down with all her weight. His arm shuddered with the effort of keeping her upright. He had to shift position or she would take them both down. He stepped towards her, into her collapse, and held her with both arms around her body. Her head was on his shoulder, rolling in a strange, infinitely soft motion of denial. She clung on to him. He could feel the quivering spasm of her chest against his own. At some point their breathing became synchronised. He was very aware of the heat of her body.

Eventually, the burden of her physical weight eased, and a different weight replaced it. He felt it in his face and in his chest, a weight of longing and loss. They drew apart, their heads bent, each scrupulously avoiding the other’s eye.

The door swung open with a rude, intrusive force. Porfiry and Maria hastened to increase the distance between them.

‘Ah, Porfiry Petrovich, there you are.’ It was Virginsky. He held before him a black military hat, with a chain chin-strap and an extraordinarily long plume standing irrepressibly upright. As he took in the presence of Maria, and the quickly changing configuration of their bodies, his eyes contracted with suspicion. ‘One of the men found this,’ he said at last. ‘Outside.’

‘A shako,’ said Porfiry.

‘It’s Captain Mizinchikov’s,’ said Maria. ‘He was holding it earlier. When Yelena struck him.’

Porfiry took the hat and turned it in his hands. The name MIZINCHIKOV was sewn into the lining. ‘It would appear so. Apparently, he abandoned it in his haste to flee the palace. Possibly also to make himself less conspicuous.’ He handed the shako back to Virginsky. ‘Take it back to the bureau. But first we must see to it that Maria Petrovna is escorted safely home. Can you assign a politseisky?’

‘No, there is no need. I shall take a cab. No harm will come to me,’ protested Maria.

‘You have had a terrible shock. I know how hard it is to bear these things.’

‘Then why did you put her through it?’ demanded Virginsky, his face flushed with unexpected heat.

Porfiry met the accusation with a look of mild hurt.

‘Pavel Pavlovich, I asked to see Yelena,’ said Maria. ‘Porfiry Petrovich tried to prevent me.’

Porfiry hung his head and shied away from Virginsky’s sceptical scrutiny, as if he was unworthy of Maria’s defence.

‘I see,’ said Virginsky. He nodded slowly while he calculated what his next words should be. ‘Then … I … apologise,’ came eventually.

Porfiry winced at the stilted tone. ‘We shall say no more of it.’ He fled the room with his head down.