A Razor Wrapped in Silk

10 At the Officers’ House

The knock, when it came, was not the one Afanasy had been expecting. At the time, he was sprawled on the sofa, one arm inside Captain Mizinchikov’s left boot. His other hand worked blacking into the leather with a soft rag. A pipe was clamped between his teeth, filling the room with the thick, scented fug of smoking tobacco.

Both ‘his’ officers were out for the evening and he did not expect them back until the small hours. This perhaps explained the liberty he took in polishing boots in the officers’ sitting room.

Despite his lolling pose, Afanasy was in a hurry to complete his evening duties, eager to have them out of the way by the time he heard Olga’s muted tap on the felt-lined apartment door. It was a sound that managed to be at once playful, timid and teasing. By now she would have put the little ones to bed, and her husband would be out of the way, off on one of his benders. Vanya, the dvornik, knew to admit her with a discreet wink, no questions asked. He was a good sort, that Vanya.

Afanasy had distractedly been aware of some kind of commotion, a hammering on the street door, voices raised, the stamp of boots on the stairs, but his attention had been directed inwards. He had a lot on his mind. It seemed Olga had recently developed a guilty conscience regarding her feckless husband.

She had threatened to break off their relationship altogether, only relenting when he had promised her more of the gifts — jewellery, silverware, money — with which he had won her affections in the first place, but which had not been forthcoming in recent months.

Times had been hard. His generosity to her depended much on the combined good fortune and gullibility of ‘his’ officers. But both Captain Mizinchikov and his co-lodger Staff-Captain Herzenstube had suffered extended runs of bad luck at the gaming tables of the Officers’ Casino, and so there had been little point touching them for funds. Afanasy had never resorted to open theft, though he did not scruple at lying, having invented for his perfectly healthy and unsuspecting mother a vague but life-threatening disease. Like any good Russian son, he wanted the best for his mother. But the best medical care was inevitably expensive and he was periodically overwhelmed by doctor’s bills he had no hope of paying. Fortunately, Captain Mizinchikov and Staff-Captain Herzenstube were also both good Russians sons, and it cut them to the quick to see their loyal and hard-working orderly in such a desperate predicament through no fault of his own, but through filial devotion — the noblest of sentiments.

He sincerely hoped their fortunes would change tonight, for he didn’t know how much longer he could count on ensuring Olga’s fidelity with promises alone.

These thoughts were interrupted by the explosion of raps on the apartment door. The harshness of the noise startled him. It sounded as though some hard metallic implement was being employed, with the intention of breaking down the door.

No, this was not Olga.

His heart was pounding as he leapt to his feet, one arm still plunged into the boot. Hesitating only to take courage from a glance at the St George’s cross of the regimental banner, with its inscription ‘Awarded for conspicuous valour in the Battle of Kulm, 17th August, 1813’, he ventured into the corridor, holding his booted arm out in front of him, as both a shield and a weapon.

The violent rapping had ceased. Now the cry was raised for him to ‘Open up!’.

The face that he saw as the door sprung open took his breath away. It was hardly a face at all, more like an unfinished model executed by a poor craftsman. In places the skin was unnaturally smooth, and glistened with a lurid pink hue; in other places it was pitted and ridged. The mouth was a slit, the enlarged nostrils seemed almost to swallow up what there was of a nose. But the most unsettling feature was the eyes. As Afanasy stared into them, a shiver of revulsion passed through him. The lids were stretched taut and were without lashes. It seemed that it would have been impossible for them to blink, at least not without causing the possessor of this unfortunate face some discomfort. This gave the eyes a strange fixity of expression. In them burnt a constant fire of rage and resentment, as if those eyes held the world responsible for the disfigurement around them.

‘Where is Mizinchikov? We have a warrant for his arrest.’ The effort of barking these terse demands distorted the face into a sinewy, flushed knot.

‘He’s not here.’ It was only now that Afanasy took in the grey uniform and the kepi, beneath which sprouted strands of unruly red hair. He noticed too the silver-bossed walking stick in the police officer’s hand. Two other policemen crowded at his shoulder, together with a gentleman in a frock coat. The latter seemed notably ill at ease and shifted distractedly, as if he was in a hurry to be elsewhere. ‘What’s this about?’ asked Afanasy.

‘I’ll ask the questions.’ Then, as if to prove his point, the officer with the disfigured face said, ‘What do you mean by brandishing that boot at me?’

Afanasy looked down at the boot on his hand and shrugged. ‘I was just cleaning it.’

The officer raised his walking stick and placed the tip against Afanasy’s chest. He held it there for a moment before thrusting it sharply forwards, forcing Afanasy to take a step back. He then lurched past him into the apartment, opening every door he passed.

‘Search every room,’ he barked over his shoulder. The two policemen rushed in like a small swarm, disappearing together into the first of the rooms, Afanasy’s own.

‘You won’t find him in there!’ protested Afanasy. ‘You won’t find him anywhere. He’s not here, I tell you.’

The gentleman in the frock coat, who was hanging back diffidently on the landing, cleared his throat to signal his presence. ‘I say, Lieutenant Salytov, sir, if you’ll not be needing me any more …’

The disfigured officer withdrew a folded paper from his uniform and turned sharply back towards the man. He shook the paper open in one hand. ‘Sign here and you may go.’

The gentleman in the frock coat stared at the hand that gripped the paper. The skin on the back of the hand was hairless and utterly without texture, as smooth as molten wax. ‘I don’t have anything to write with,’ he said at last.

‘You!’ Lieutenant Salytov snapped at Afanasy. ‘Fetch pen and ink.’

‘There are writing implements in Captain Mizinchikov’s room. At his desk. I will gladly show the gentleman … and your honour, too.’

Salytov paused to consider the suggestion. The moment trembled with unpredictability. ‘Very well. Lead the way.’

Afanasy extricated his arm from the captain’s boot, which he placed upright on the floor.

Captain Mizinchikov’s room was behind the third door. In the light from the corridor, it appeared small and well-ordered, its Spartan furnishings no doubt facilitating tidiness. Afanasy retrieved a candle from a shelf and lit it, revealing a few faded prints of battle scenes on the walls, together with a monochrome portrait of the Tsar. There was an icon of St George in one corner. A small writing desk was crammed in beneath the black square of the window, its green leather surface cleared of papers. At the rear of the desk, three pens sprouted from an ivory pen stand decorated with the double-headed eagle of the Romanov crest.

Lieutenant Salytov pointed to an oil lamp hanging above the desk. ‘Light that too.’

In the spreading glow of the lamp, he took a moment to scan the room, stooping slightly to peer beneath both the desk and the bed. He then satisfied himself that Captain Mizinchikov was not hiding amongst the uniforms in the wardrobe. At last he laid the piece of paper on the desk and nodded abruptly at the man in the frock coat.

The gentleman put on a pair of dusty, smeared spectacles in wire frames and squinted at the document. ‘What exactly am I signing, may I ask?’ He smiled a tense, appeasing smile.

Lieutenant Salytov exhaled his impatience. ‘It is merely to indicate that you have witnessed a search of these premises — the apartment of Captain Mizinchikov, at the Officers’ House of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, Kirochnaya, 35 — at the time and date specified …’

‘There is no time or date indicated. And no address given, either.’

‘Don’t worry about that. We will fill in those details later. The important thing is that you testify that force was not used. The police freely admitted. That any evidence offered in court as a result of this search was indeed found here. So on and so forth. It is all there in black and white. All you have to do is sign.’

‘You have completed the search then?’

‘That doesn’t matter. Just sign it now and we finish the search after you have gone.’

‘But what if you break something after I’ve gone.’

‘That won’t happen. The sooner you sign, the sooner you can go about your business. Whatever that may be,’ Salytov added with a distasteful sneer.

‘Perhaps I should make a note that I left before the search was completed?’

‘That will only get you into trouble.’

‘With all respect, Lieutenant Salytov, does this not rather make a mockery of the whole system? I mean to say, why go to the bother of bringing a civilian witness along if you are not going to require him to … witness?’

‘This is the way it is done. Let me assure you that you have discharged your duty as a citizen here tonight. There is no reason to detain you further. All that remains is for you to sign the statement and you may go.’

There was a crash from the next room.

‘Should we not …?’ began the civilian witness, pointing vaguely in the direction of the noise.

‘No.’ Lieutenant Salytov’s voice was chillingly calm. It was far more menacing than any amount of bluster.

‘In that case, it’s probably for the best if I leave you to it.’ The witness took up a pen. ‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing.’ He stooped over the desk and signed with a flourish. He nodded once and was gone without a further word. His pounding footsteps could be heard as he threw himself down the stairs.

Lieutenant Salytov pocketed the document and pulled open a small drawer in the desk. A flash of colour caught his eye: crimson, glistening garishly. For one absurd and shocking moment he was convinced that the drawer was filled with blood. But as he pulled it to its full extent, he saw the brilliant red was contained within a narrow rectangle. He realised that it was some sort of cloth; the sheen suggested silk, which his touch confirmed. The silk glided under his fingers. He could feel that there was something wrapped inside it, something weighted and hard, that gave the silk around it shape. Salytov pulled back the loosely folded material, revealing a cut-throat razor, the blade closed inside a nacre handle.

Salytov wrapped the razor back in the silk and pocketed it. He turned his attention to the other contents of the drawer, a bundle of letters tied up with a ribbon, also of red silk. He untied the ribbon and watched the letters spring apart, as though they couldn’t abide each other’s company.

At the thump of boots behind him, Salytov almost guiltily removed his hand from the bundle.

‘No sign of him,’ one of the policemen announced.

‘I told you,’ said Afanasy.

Salytov said nothing. His hand returned to the letters. He lifted the first one and read.

I have never loved you, any more than I have loved any man. I have tried on the idea of loving you, as I might a dress. But it did not fit. I could not walk freely. I was not myself. You might even say the idea of loving you clashed with my complexion. Console yourself with the knowledge that I do not love Naryskin. The idea of loving Naryskin is absurd. Naryskin is absurd. But the idea of marrying Naryskin is not absurd. Naryskin is a Prince. I have always dreamed of marrying a Prince. The fact that he is rich is also in his favour. If only you had been richer, I might have married you. If you had been richer, you would not have sullied yourself and insulted me by that shameful act. Poverty cannot but be shaming.

Of course, it is horribly cruel of me to confide this to you, of all people. I do it so that you should know the character of the woman who has betrayed you, so that you might feel less torment at my betrayal. I do it out of kindness and generosity. I do it to set you free. Consider yourself to have had a lucky escape.

You may also consider that you have brought this on yourself. How could I love you now?

In the same spirit, let me inform you that I have tried on the idea of loving many men, and none of them suited. Be under no illusion, as with you, so with them. That is to say, I gave myself to them completely. One cannot try on the idea of loving a man without trying on the man. You must know by now that it pleases me to express myself in such crude

‘What shall we do now, sir?’

Salytov swallowed thickly and put the letter back with the bundle. ‘No wonder he killed her, the whore.’ He looked at the letters distastefully. ‘There are some letters in this drawer. Gather them up and bring them back to the bureau.’

‘You can’t take them. They’re Captain Mizinchikov’s private property,’ cried Afanasy. But the cold glare of Salytov’s eyes drained the conviction from his voice even before he had finished his protest.

11 An extraordinary meeting

Bakhmutov saw the tramp on the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and Yekaterininsky Canal. He had just breakfasted and was looking out of his dining room window to gauge the day, prior to going down for business. The sight of a destitute would not normally have engaged his attention, but this man was staring fixedly at the bank as if he had some business with it. The beggar’s overcoat hung off him in ragged strips; only the turned-up collar was intact. There was something pathetic about the way the man’s head sank down into the flimsy band of cloth, the only protection against the weather that his old coat still had to offer. The man also wore a soft cap, pulled down as far as possible. It was almost as if he believed his head was the only part of him worth preserving.

A carriage passed between the beggar and the object of his attention. When it had gone, his gaze shifted up to the top storey window from which Bakhmutov looked out. Bakhmutov instinctively shrank from the man’s accusing eyes.

‘The poor will always be with us,’ he murmured to himself, pulling the drape in front of him. But he knew that there was something more personal in the beggar’s challenging look.

*

For a wealthy man, Ivan Iakovich Bakhmutov lived almost frugally in the four-roomed apartment he kept above his bank. He maintained only one servant, for example. However, this was occasioned by an unwillingness to share his private life, any more than was necessary, with people who might conceivably come to bear a grudge against him. Tittle-tattle was the poor man’s weapon against the rich, and it was a powerful one.

If his own apartment was furnished comfortably rather than extravagantly, the public rooms of the bank evinced a discreet commitment to the aesthetic of wealth. The marble-clad walls breathed affluence from their mineral pores. Art hung over the marble, huge canvasses within massive gilt frames that hinted at the gold locked away in the vaults. This was a business calculation on Bakhmutov’s part. He had argued successfully to his board that such expenditure was necessary to inspire confidence in a financial institution.

The back room of the bank, the counting house, was more functionally done out. The clerks’ stools were not upholstered in watered silk, nor were their desks carved from mahogany. But they served their purpose well enough.

Velchaninov looked up and greeted his employer with a wincing smile. Bakhmutov gave a slight nod to acknowledge the other man’s solicitude.

‘Baron von Lembke is waiting for you, sir.’

Bakhmutov wrinkled his mouth distastefully. ‘Ardalion Gavrilovich, there is a disreputable individual loitering outside the bank. Some kind of tramp. Kindly see to it that he is moved along.’

‘I shall see to it myself, Ivan Iakovich.’

‘No. That will not be necessary. Get one of the doormen to do it.’

‘Very well, sir.’

Bakhmutov nodded to himself in satisfaction as his secretary sprang off his stool.

In the boardroom, von Lembke sat alone at the far end of the long oval table. Placed in front of him was a silver tray bearing a pot of coffee and two small cups, together with some pastries. The aroma of the coffee was overpowered by the cigar that von Lembke had just lit. At Bakhmutov’s entrance, von Lembke began to pour the coffee. ‘You’re late.’ Baron von Lembke was a man of bulk and yet there was something essential about his size. It was impossible somehow to imagine him being reduced to anything less than he was. There was a hard-boiled quality to his physique, though perhaps this was suggested by the utter baldness of his head. He held a cup out to Bakhmutov without looking up. Bakhmutov took the cup and walked to the far end of the table.

‘Late? Well, what do you expect after last night?’

‘I was not late. And I was there.’ Von Lembke had a way of barking out his words as if he were evicting them. ‘Here at ten o’clock sharp. And I do not have the advantage of living over the premises.’

‘It has been a terrible strain. I did not sleep at all.’

‘Terrible business. Terrible for business, too. For the bank.’

‘I fail to see the business implications,’ said Bakhmutov irritably as he took the seat at the opposite end of the table. ‘It is a private tragedy.’

‘It’s a scandal! No banking house wishes to be associated with a scandal. Reputation is everything. Confidence comes from reputation.’

‘But the bank is not associated with the scandal. There is no connection between what has happened and us.’

‘Don’t be naive. She was your mistress.’

‘Was. But no longer.’

‘You continued to take care of her. She lived in the apartment you provided. You put a carriage at her disposal.’

‘I was not so rash as to have the bank crest on the side of that carriage.’

‘Nevertheless, your name is linked to hers.’

‘But not in the financial pages, surely?’

‘Investors …’ Von Lembke took several deep puffs from his cigar, as if the smoke fuelled his irascibility, ‘don’t just read financial pages.’

‘I refuse to accept there is a financial aspect to this.’

‘There’s a financial aspect to everything. You know that the Moscow Merchants and their propagandists are always whipping up public opinion against us.’

‘Us?’

‘Outsiders. You, a Jew. Me, a foreigner.’

‘I am not a Jew. I am a Christian.’

‘In their eyes, you are a Yid. Always will be. You are Iakov’s son. Me, I’m no foreigner. I’m as Russian as you. But I have a foreign name. That’s enough for them.’

‘Your friends in the finance ministry will not back them. Which means the Tsar will not tolerate it. The Tsar is a father to all Russians.’

‘Don’t put your faith in this tsar. He lost heart after the reforms. They were meant to make everyone love him. Instead, they start taking potshots at him. We can all go to hell as far as he is concerned. And the next tsar — a real Jew-hater. Friend of the Slavophiles. Their campaign against foreign money — he’s on their side. Russian industry in Russian hands, that’s what they say. This affair gives them another stick to beat us with.’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘The decadent, sensualist Jew. Corrupter of Russian virgins.’

‘But I am not a Jew, I tell you.’

‘So, you do not deny the other charge.’ Von Lembke gave a smoky chuckle. ‘They are talking about founding a bank of their own. A Russian bank.’

‘This is a Russian bank. It has a Russian name on the plaque.’

‘The Tsar has already given his approval.’

‘Well, let them. There is room for another bank.’

‘And what if our Russian investors transfer their deposits to them?’

‘That will not happen. Our clients are our friends. Besides, we have reserves. And our loan business is turning over a good profit. We are a well-run bank.’

‘Owned by a Jew and a German.’

‘What’s wrong with that? The Finance Minister himself is a German. The Tsar surrounds himself with Germans.’

‘Public opinion is turning against the German influence at court.’

‘I care nothing about public opinion.’

‘Then you are a fool. At least be thankful we don’t have a French partner. However, if our aristocratic friends decide they prefer to pay interest into Russian pockets …’

‘My pockets are Russian. This suit was tailored here in St Petersburg!’

‘This is no laughing matter. The situation is grave.’

‘Our friends will not desert us.’

‘And our enemies? What if Mizinchikov was put up to it by our enemies?’

‘You’re being absurd. Mizinchikov loved her. He didn’t kill her because someone told him to. He killed her because she rejected him.’

‘I don’t know anything about that. I don’t pretend to understand love.’

‘You, but even you …’

‘Business. That’s what we must concentrate on.’

‘I agree, up to a point. However, I fear there is nothing we can do.’

‘Not true. We must bring a Russian in. A true Russian. Not a Yiddish convert. An old Russian. Get a proper Russian name on the plaque. That’ll carry some weight.’

Bakhmutov sipped his coffee without commenting on von Lembke’s proposal.