The Cleansing Flames

Desecration

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.