The Cleansing Flames

A cleansing solution

A crowded omnibus ground its way lugubriously down the centre of the broad avenue, the horses’ hooves clashing angrily with the cobbles. It was like a giant, round-shouldered beetle trudging unthinkingly along a predetermined path. Lighter, more limber vehicles — carriages, cabs and carts — passed either side of it in both directions, mayflies speeding off towards their destinies. Pedestrians dodged between the traffic: fashionable women in pairs, nursemaids with their infant charges, young bucks in military uniforms, cooks and housekeepers engrossed in the day’s marketing. A tradesman in cap and apron cleared the deposits of manure from the road in front of his store.

The sky above Nevsky Prospect was filled with magnified brilliance. The promise Virginsky had glimpsed on the walls and floor of the apartment was fulfilled a thousand times over. The street was wide and long and inhumanly straight, but the sky was touched with infinity. The strings of buildings along either side were silhouetted into insignificance, the relentless stuccoed facades drained of detail.

‘This is insane. The police will be looking for me.’

‘And you may be assured that this is the one place they will not look! Indeed, have we not passed three policemen already, and not one of them gave you a second glance?’

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Dolgoruky?’

‘Why would I not?’

‘Because it’s dangerous. It may end badly, for you, as well as for me.’

Dolgoruky grinned. ‘Come now, what’s the point of being alive if one cannot take a stroll along Nevsky Prospect?’

‘I have always found it to be an overrated activity.’

Dolgoruky suddenly turned and ran out into the middle of the road, racing after the omnibus, which was heading back the way they had come. After a moment of reluctance, during which he considered the prospect of his abandonment, Virginsky gave chase.

But it was enlivening to haul himself onto the moving tailboard. A clog of passengers was getting ready to disembark at the next stop. They viewed Dolgoruky and Virginsky with disapproval. But Virginsky was immune to their animosity. He was in possession of a rare privilege, the privilege earned through audacity. He felt himself exalted. Imbued with a sense of his own superiority, he deigned to pity them their pinched faces and mundane concerns.

The Prince bounded up the iron steps to the ‘Imperial Deck’. Virginsky felt the tremor of passage in his legs as he worked his way down the narrow aisle to take the seat next to Dolgoruky. He had to admit that it felt good to be raised as high as possible in the open day, and to be moving forward in it too.

But then he remembered that they had been walking in the opposite direction. ‘We’re going back on ourselves,’ he observed.

Dolgoruky gave a frown of irritation. ‘What of it?’

‘It rather suggests that you have no particular destination in mind, but are simply leading me a merry dance.’

‘Did you see anyone else get on the omnibus at the same time as us?’

Virginsky cast a nervous glance behind, before turning to reassess the man next to him. The speed with which they had changed direction, dodged through traffic, and leapt onto a moving omnibus was evidence not of his mad unpredictability, but of a carefully worked-out plan to lay a false trail.

Dolgoruky gave the signal to get up as they approached Znamenskaya Square. Virginsky felt the drub of manageable panic in his heart, followed by a strange hilarity. The Nikaelovsky Station was at Znamenskaya Square, terminus for trains to Moscow.

‘Where are we going?’

But Dolgoruky would not answer. Virginsky realised that he was utterly in the other man’s hands, incapable of acting without his direction.

From Znamenskaya Square, they walked deep into the Rozhdestvenskaya District, at the eastern edge of St Petersburg, bounded by the Neva. It was a largely industrial area, and one which Virginsky knew well enough from a recent case. It occurred to him that he might be recognised, by one person at least, although the chances were admittedly remote. To his knowledge, Maria Petrovna Verkhotseva still had her school in the area.

The unlikely possibility of encountering Maria Petrovna quickly transformed itself in his mind into a fixed certainty. And now, far from dreading it, he almost welcomed it. Let her see what he had become! Let her see the company he kept now! The clothes he wore. The hunted, dangerous look in his eyes.

Dolgoruky led him along Kalashnikovsky Prospect, as the old Malookhtinsky Prospect was now known. They could smell the river’s proximity, though they turned down a muddy side street before they reached the embankment.

They had entered a light-industrial zone, small brick workshops that gave every impression of being hurriedly thrown up, as if shame had been the driving force to their construction. The yards around them merged together into one formless wasteland, churned up and littered with all kinds of detritus: rusting machinery, charred furniture, decomposing organic matter. It was an undefined area, the city’s edge petering away.

Dolgoruky seemed to pick one at random. He stooped over his hand as it rapped out the now familiar rhythm on the rough plank door. After a moment, a bolt shifted inside and the door was opened a crack. Dolgoruky was careful to position himself in front of Virginsky, so that only he would be seen by the doorkeeper. As the door began to open wider, he pushed himself into it, holding it so that Virginsky could come round him. As soon as they were both inside, he slammed the door to and replaced the bolt.

It was dim in the workshop, after the glare of the day. There were no lamps lit, Virginsky noted. It was several degrees cooler inside the workshop than out. Something chemical and corrosive in the chill air clawed at his corneas, drawing tears. The smell that came with it was like a punch expanding behind his nose. The light from outside was filtered through a few small, grubby panes high up in the walls. Virginsky blinked away his tears. His eyes were slow to adapt to the gloom, due to the pungent sting in the air. Gradually the featureless shadow who had admitted them became recognisable as Totsky, the young journalist from Affair, whom Porfiry had teased by calling ‘Bazarov.’ Virginsky sensed another presence, revealed in the sigh of shifting silk somewhere behind the journalist.

The young man stood awkwardly, one hand in the pocket of a threadbare tweed jacket, the other splayed tensely as if in readiness for a fight. He glared with undisguised hostility back at Virginsky. ‘Why have you brought him here?’ he demanded of Dolgoruky.

Virginsky turned to Dolgoruky in confusion. ‘Is he —?’

‘Dyavol? No.’ Dolgoruky chuckled at the absurdity of the idea.

The presence that Virginsky had sensed earlier stepped out of shadows. The bell-like shape of the figure confirmed it was a woman. The voice confirmed it was Tatyana Ruslanovna: ‘You were told to remain in the apartment!’ There was a harsh, unforgiving edge to her voice that was new to Virginsky. It filled him with despondency.

‘I. . that is to say, Konstantin Arsenevich thought. .’ Virginsky felt foolish and cowardly for trying to shift the blame onto Dolgoruky.

‘What Konstantin Arsenevich thought is immaterial. You do not take orders from Konstantin Arsenevich. You take orders from the central committee. Your instructions were clear.’

‘Come now, Tatyana Ruslanovna,’ began Dolgoruky smoothly. ‘You yourself know I am impossible to resist! Don’t be too hard on the boy.’

‘He is not a boy. He should not be behaving like a child. He is old enough to take responsibility for his own actions. This does not bode well at all.’

‘But you must realise this is devastating for him to hear. After all, you know he only shot his friend to get you into bed!’

Virginsky felt the heat rise to his face. To his surprise, Tatyana Ruslanovna did not react to Dolgoruky’s words with equal force. In fact, she merely laughed: the lewd, broken laugh he remembered from an earlier time, an earlier Tatyana Ruslanovna.

‘The poor fool was going mad from boredom in that apartment. I mean, look at him. He’d taken to dressing up to amuse himself.’ Dolgoruky’s laughter was disproportionate, bordering on manic.

Tatyana Ruslanovna shook her head. ‘This will not do, Dolgoruky.’

The Prince’s face snapped into an expression of exaggerated solemnity. ‘But he is one of our people now. Surely?’ Dolgoruky seemed suddenly abashed. He added hurriedly, addressing the floor, ‘I promised to introduce him to Dyavol.’

‘You had no right to make such a promise,’ said Totsky.

Dolgoruky straightened up and gave Totsky a defiant look. ‘Dyavol and I, we have our own relationship. It exists without reference to you.’

Totsky turned to Tatyana Ruslanovna. ‘Once again, this man proves himself to be reckless and ill disciplined. There can be no place for him, and his kind, in the movement.’

But all Tatyana Ruslanovna said was, ‘Dyavol is not here.’

‘Pity,’ said Dolgoruky. ‘I will have to settle for showing him the next best thing.’

‘Which is?’ wondered Virginsky.

‘Dyavol’s toys.’

‘No,’ said Totsky quickly. ‘For one thing, they are not toys. This is not a game, Dolgoruky.’

Virginsky made out several workbenches and tables arranged about the place. A number of glass phials and bottles were laid out on one table, together with a range of laboratory equipment, such as retorts and beakers. Elsewhere, he noticed a poised and sprung machine, which he identified as a small printing press; it confronted him with its circular platen, moon-faced and disconsolate.

‘This is where you print the manifestos,’ he observed.

‘Oh, we do more than that, my friend!’ Dolgoruky inhaled deeply. ‘Do you smell that? Do you know what it is?’

Virginsky sniffed but the smell seemed to burn the membranes of his nostrils. He started to cough, and placed a hand over his nose and mouth to protect his vital organs from the vicious air.

‘That’s how the world will smell when it has been burnt clean by us. This is where we make the ultimate cleansing solution, my friend. More powerful than carbolic acid. It will clean away the accumulated layers of filth that have clogged up our society for centuries. Burn and clean.’

‘Enough, Dolgoruky,’ warned Totsky.

Dolgoruky took a step towards the table. Totsky’s hand — the one that had been concealed in his jacket pocket — flashed up. In it, Virginsky saw a revolver. His heart beat sternly.

‘Halt!’

Dolgoruky turned towards the shouted command and saw the gun levelled at him. He stopped in his tracks. ‘Now, now. We are all friends.’

‘Back away from the table.’

‘I only want to show him — our newest recruit — what’s there. I believe it will strengthen his resolve and bind him more firmly to the cause.’

‘You are a dangerous fool.’

‘But you would not shoot me, old fellow.’

‘Oh, but I would, and with pleasure. I know you have your protectors, those who think you will be useful to the cause.’ Totsky flashed a resentful glower towards Tatyana Ruslanovna. ‘But as far as I am concerned, you are part of the order that must be wiped away.’

Dolgoruky took another step towards the table. ‘On second thoughts, perhaps it would be for the best if you shot me. It is strange how the organism’s first craven instinct is to cling on to life at all costs. But it is only now that I consider the full implications of what you are threatening, that I find it does not frighten me at all. In fact, I welcome it.’ His hand darted out and he grabbed one of the small phials, the dense brown glass like a congealing of negativity. ‘So shoot me! Shoot me now, and let us see what happens.’

‘Put it down. Carefully. You don’t know how to handle it.’

Dolgoruky grinned back at Totsky. ‘You will not shoot me? I find I have no more appetite for life.’

Totsky’s hand trembled, it seemed with the effort of preventing himself from squeezing the trigger. ‘Now is not the time or place.’

Dolgoruky’s grin became triumphant. He lifted the phial and held it high above his head.

‘What is it?’ murmured Virginsky.

‘Death,’ said Dolgoruky, with an exalted gleam in his eye. ‘This little bottle is enough to kill us all. And all I have to do is cast it to the ground. Is that not so, Totsky?’

‘Stop playing games, Dolgoruky. That is valuable materiel. We cannot afford to waste it.’ Still he kept the gun pointed at Dolgoruky, though his hand was shaking so badly now that it was far from certain that he would hit his target.

‘You are making bombs here?’ Virginsky’s voice brimmed with awe.

‘We are making the future, Magistrate.’

‘Enough!’ Tatyana Ruslanovna’s intervention was delayed but decisive. Virginsky had the feeling that this was often the case. He sensed that she enjoyed waiting to see how far a situation could progress in the direction of chaos, before deciding whether to help it on its way or return it from the brink. She stepped between the two men. ‘Totsky, put down the gun. You know you are not going to shoot him. And you are certainly not going to shoot me.’

Tatyana Ruslanovna watched him do as she had ordered: he placed the hand holding the gun back in his jacket pocket. She then turned to face Dolgoruky. Her hand became an extension of her tender gaze, laid softly on his cheek. ‘My dear, it is good that you are ready to die. But Totsky is right. Now is not the time or the place. It would be a waste of your death. A waste of you. There will come a time when we will call upon you to lay down your life. And rest assured that your death will be glorious and noble — and more than anything, useful.’

Still Dolgoruky did not lower the phial. ‘But he is outside now! If I do it now, I will destroy him too.’

‘Who is outside?’

Dolgoruky shook his head violently, refusing to answer.

‘Is there ever a time when he is not near you?’

‘Never!’ cried Dolgoruky, desperation straining his face.

‘Then you will have another opportunity to destroy him. We will choose the occasion carefully. There will be others destroyed. The oppressor and his agents. I urge you to save your death for that!’

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.