The Gentle Axe

While the Girl Slept

The sudden intrusion of green on the snow-covered pavement startled Porfiry. Perhaps he was the only man in St. Petersburg who had forgotten what time of the year it was. But the depth of the green and the darkness of it shocked him into remembering.

Christmas trees of various sizes tumbled out from the Gostinny Dvor indoor market. The trees came from Finland. Some of them were still unadorned, others already decked with ribbons and painted baubles. The traders walked between them, hawking for business.

Porfiry tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Here.” To Salytov, he added, “Give me a moment. It’s important.”

He jumped down from the drozhki. It was half an hour before he returned. He was carrying a small package wrapped in gaudy paper.

“I wanted to get something for the child. She has a child, you know. A daughter.”

“The whore?” answered Lieutenant Salytov sullenly, looking straight ahead as the driver’s whip snapped the air.

A slight smile showed on Porfiry’s lips.

“What a temper you were in that morning, Ilya Petrovich!” Porfiry cast a wary glance toward Salytov. The lieutenant’s face was already pink from the cold air. It darkened at Porfiry’s words, clashing violently with his orange whiskers. Porfiry saw and continued: “We could hear your shouting throughout the headquarters. If only you hadn’t let Govorov get away, perhaps we would have solved the case by now.”

Salytov brought his fur-sheathed fist down on the edge of the drozhki. “I didn’t let him get away! It wasn’t a question of letting him get away. He wasn’t in custody. He was the aggrieved party. The one pressing charges. No one expected him to go missing like that. And besides, we didn’t know he was Govorov then. We didn’t know who he was at all.” Salytov caught Porfiry’s smile out of the corner of his eye. “Damn you, Porfiry Petrovich!”

“I’m sorry. I was being mischievous, I admit. But with a purpose. I want you to frighten her-Lilya Ivanovna-the whore, as you called her. I want you to bully her as you have never bullied anyone. Then, when I tell you, I want you to leave her to me.” Porfiry held up the present he had bought for Lilya’s daughter. “I shall take over.”

“Does it ever occur to you, Porfiry Petrovich, that your methods may one day backfire on you?”

Porfiry’s answering smile was unperturbed.

Porfiry rapped brightly on the door, holding the gift he had bought for Vera in his other hand. He was still smiling as he said to Salytov, “Remember, be severe.”

“Do you really feel the need to prompt me?” answered Salytov, and then blushed.

“My goodness, Ilya Petrovich! Is that a joke? A joke at your own expense?”

“Have the good grace not to-” Salytov broke off, flustered. A kind of flinching shudder gripped him. He looked away from Porfiry and continued to flex his neck in the aftermath of his convulsion.

“No jokes when we’re inside, please. Leave that to me.”

“If we ever get inside.” Salytov pounded on the door with a clenched hand. The silence that followed seemed enlarged by the violence of the blows.

“Perhaps they’ve moved,” wondered Porfiry aloud, after a moment.

Salytov tried the handle, which turned. The door opened inward but soon came up against something.

Salytov leaned his shoulder into the door and pushed hard. The unseen obstacle yielded with a sigh as it was moved along the floor.

“My God. My Christ,” murmured Porfiry, closing his eyes. His fingers tightened around the little present. He followed Salytov into the room.

“This has just happened,” said Salytov, his own eyes greedy for the havoc. “The blood is fresh.”

“No!” cried Porfiry. “Don’t say it.”

“If we had come straight here-”

“How did this happen? How could this happen?”

The child, Vera, lay on the bed. Her body was in the typical pose of a sleeping child, the disposition of her hands angled by dreams. On her face, they wanted to see an innocent pout, perhaps a shadow of childhood anxieties, or even a hint of willful petulance. Anything but the bloody pulp, the mess of blood and bone and tissue, that confronted them. It seemed that someone had deliberately and laboriously obliterated her face.

“God help us. God help us. God help us.” Porfiry felt his knees begin to buckle. He lurched backward. A flailing arm struck the door. It swung to. He fell back against it. “This is not right,” he groaned.

“Let us hope she was asleep,” said Salytov grimly.

“Why would anyone do this?”

“It is the act of a madman.”

Porfiry shook his head. “No. There is reason behind this. Cold reason.

Did you see what he has done to her face? Why does he not want us to see her face?”

And now they saw the girl’s mother. Lilya Ivanovna was lying on the floor near the stove, her head pooled in blood, her hair clotted in dark, damp ringlets. Her eyes and mouth were open. As if she had seen and named her attacker at the same moment. Her wound was not immediately evident.

Salytov crossed the floor and dropped to one knee beside Lilya’s body, examining her head where it touched the blood-drenched floor. “She must have been struck in the back of the head,” he said. “And then turned over post-mortem. Or perhaps she turned herself over before dying. There is blood all over the stove. And on the walls. The little girl was asleep. She must have been asleep. Let’s say she was asleep. Let’s pray she was. The mother turned her back for a moment and was struck down. Suggesting her assailant was someone known to her. The murderer then turned his attention to the girl.” Salytov looked back, tracing the murderer’s movements. He gasped and reared back and pointed. He was pointing at the floor next to Porfiry.

Porfiry looked down. Now that the door was closed, they could see what had been blocking it: Zoya Nikolaevna, in a silver fox fur coat that was stained with her own blood at the shoulders and down one side. That side of her head was glistening and red and wrong.

All around, the painted saints and the beautiful gilded Christs averted their gaze. But this turning away had not saved them from defilement. Streaks and spots of blood added a new garishness to their colors.

“He killed the mother while the girl slept,” Salytov insisted. “Then he killed the girl. Then the old woman came back. And he killed her as soon as she stepped inside. No time even to scream.”

“God, no!” said Porfiry. He stood and tottered and fell back against the door. He looked down again at the package in his hand. “This is my fault. This is all my fault. If we hadn’t stopped-”

“You weren’t to know,” said Salytov unconvincingly.

“Who has done this?” Porfiry’s stricken gaze demanded the answer of Salytov.

The policeman’s expression seemed almost insolent. He held his back and neck very straight. “Pull yourself together, Porfiry Petrovich.” Salytov nodded sharply, as if in approval of his own words. Then he suddenly seemed at a loss.

Porfiry pushed himself away from the door and staggered like a drunk toward Salytov. Salytov watched him in horror, unsure whether he was coming to throttle or embrace him. At the very end Porfiry veered to one side and stooped sharply, as if he would throw himself headlong onto the floor. One arm shot out in front of him and clutched at something. He somehow managed to keep his balance and stand up.

“What have you there?” said Salytov. He could not make his voice sound natural.

Porfiry held toward him the hand that contained the present for Vera.

“I meant the other hand.”

“Don’t you want to know what I got for her? I chose it very carefully.”

Salytov didn’t answer.

“Look! Look at it!”

Salytov stood up to open the package. It contained a pair of painted wooden figures, a hussar and his lady, with crudely carved but cheerful faces. “What’s in your other hand?” demanded Salytov, without commenting on the toys.

Porfiry opened his palm to reveal a small glass vial. The label said LAUDANUM.

The cabinetmaker Kezel’s wife opened the door. Her face was bruised and swollen. Her nose had become a broad glistening mound of purple and yellow.

Salytov pushed past her. “Where’s Virginsky?” He possessed the apartment with his straight posture and searching glance. The place was immaculately clean, the furniture simple but new, solid and well made. “No sign of blood,” said Salytov to no one.

Porfiry came in more hesitantly. He looked into the woman’s eyes for a long time, finding something there that he almost understood.

“He isn’t here.” Her voice was empty.

“Why does your husband beat you?” Porfiry asked. He sounded startled by his own words.

Fear and perplexity rippled her face.

“You would be pretty if he didn’t beat you.”

“When was he here last? Virginsky?” Salytov barked. “Come on! Come on!”

“Just now.” She was still looking at Porfiry as she answered, as if she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. She had found something answering in his eyes.

“What state was he in? Did you notice anything unusual about him?” demanded Salytov.

The woman looked to Porfiry for an explanation.

“Was there any blood on him? Did he have to clean himself up?”

Kezel’s wife nodded numbly. “He had blood on his hands.”

“Just on his hands?” asked Porfiry. “What about his clothes? Did he have to change his clothes?”

The woman flinched, as if expecting a blow. She closed her eyes and forced out, “I don’t know.” Her voice was high and strained, on the edge of tears. “I don’t think so,” she squeezed out.

“It’s all right,” said Porfiry softly. “But tell me, why did he hit you this last time? Was it to do with Virginsky?”

Her eyes swelled with panic. “It was the samovar.”

“The samovar?”

“It went missing. Someone stole it.”

“Someone stole your samovar?” Porfiry was incredulous. He couldn’t understand how he came to be having a conversation about a stolen samovar so soon after what he had just seen. He sensed Salytov’s impatience. Meeting it with a glance, he nodded as Salytov indicated that he was going into Virginsky’s room. “He beat you because someone stole your samovar?” Porfiry welcomed the rage that he felt rushing through him. He said to himself that if Kezel came home now, he would kill the man without regret. He imagined closing his hands around the cabinetmaker’s neck.

Porfiry was suddenly disgusted by his own self-pity and self-delusion.

“Do you know who stole the samovar?” Porfiry felt a strange hilarity threatening to burst out. He had to struggle to keep his face straight.

The woman shook her head tensely.

Porfiry closed his eyes. The image of blood-splashed icons forced itself on him. “Who did your husband think had taken the samovar?” He saw Vera playing in the snow with her friends. But her face was smashed and bloody. She came toward him and tried to speak. Her nose flapped loosely every time she opened the raw gash that had been her mouth. No words came out, but she dribbled bloody mucus. Porfiry opened his eyes and studied the bruises on Madame Kezel’s face. He wanted to touch the places where her skin had ruptured.

“Pavel Pavlovich,” she answered at last.

“Virginsky,” Porfiry nodded. “And was he right?”

Kezel’s wife looked down at the floor.

“He didn’t steal it though, did he? You gave it to him. You gave it to him knowing that your husband would miss it-how could he not miss it? — and knowing that your husband would take it out on you. My dear, you love Virginsky almost as much as you hate yourself.”

“I don’t hate myself,” she answered firmly. “I hate my husband.”

“Of course. Like every good Russian, he loves his tea. What a perfect way to punish him, to give away the samovar. So tell me, what did Pavel Pavlovich want with the samovar?”

“He pawned it. He said he would get it back. He was going to get it back now. When he saw what Kezel had done to me.”

“He was going to the pawnbroker’s?”

Salytov came out of Virginsky’s room. “I found more vials of laudanum. And this.” He handed Porfiry a scribbled note.

Father,

I am your son. I see that now and cannot deny it. I am as foul and as loathsome and as capable of crime as you. I have proved myself capable of the worst crimes imaginable. And I hate myself more than I have ever hated you. I can’t live with what I have become. A criminal and a coward. I shall throw myself in front of a galloping troika. It is the only way for a Russian to kill himself. I will be free of you and you will be free of me.

But you shouldn’t have beaten her. How could you beat her?

Your son, Pavel Pavlovich.

The bell complained fussily as Salytov threw open the door to Lyamshin’s. Porfiry was aware that he was allowing the policeman to take the lead now. Remembering his exchange with the Jewish pawnbroker, he had an uneasy feeling.

The last time he had set foot in the shop, the objects around him had seemed enticing. He had chosen to invest them with mystery and desire. He had plunged his fingers between some of them. Even the sense of tragedy they had inspired was romantic. It moved without touching him. Now the feeling they provoked in him was more visceral and stifling. These were not neutral everyday objects; they were the forms of despair. Despair was the one raw material from which they had all been shaped, not porcelain or brass or Karelian birch. And they were imbued with a destructive malevolence.

Porfiry recognized the man behind the counter and could tell that he had been recognized. Distrust closed the man’s features.

Porfiry put a restraining hand on Salytov’s shoulder. “Please, Ilya Petrovich, let me talk to him,” he said in an undertone.

Salytov writhed away from his touch. “What does it matter?” he said angrily.

Porfiry walked past Salytov, up to the counter. The pawnbroker shifted uncomfortably, waiting. “You remember me,” said Porfiry.

The pawnbroker nodded.

“The last time I was here, we talked about the student Virginsky. Have you seen him recently?”

“He came in yesterday.” The man’s eyes darted from side to side, as if looking for escape.

“To pawn a samovar.”

“That’s right.” Surprise and a reluctant admiration showed in the man’s eyes.

“Did he not come in today, just now, to redeem it?”

The pawnbroker shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

“Perhaps one of your assistants dealt with him?”

“But the samovar is still here. He hasn’t redeemed the pledge.”

“Can you show it to me?”

The pawnbroker pointed high up behind Porfiry. Porfiry turned to see a shelf of samovars. “It’s the one on the end. The end nearest you.”

Porfiry winced to think that Madame Kezel had received a beating over the loss of such a tarnished and battered object. It was an ugly, ordinary samovar. He signaled his dejection to Salytov. They left the shop without further questions.

They came out into the echo and blur of the flea market and the excited bustle of the great Apraxin Arcade. The scent of pine trees and spiced pastries rushed them. Porfiry felt weak and suddenly hungry and nauseous at the same time.

“What will you do?” asked Salytov.

“Stay here. Watch.”

“You think he’ll come here?”

Porfiry shrugged. “It depends if he has the money to redeem the samovar.”

“Perhaps he took money from them. That may have been the motive.”

“No.” Porfiry shook his head impatiently, almost angrily. “He may have taken money, but it wasn’t the motive. There is more than money to this.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Salytov.

“Go back to the station. Wait for me there.”

Salytov seemed reluctant to take his leave. “He may be dangerous,” he said. “If you try to apprehend him, he may-”

“I’m not going to apprehend him. I just want to talk to him.”

“But you can’t let him go, if you see him.”

“I hope to persuade him to give himself up.”

“I should stay with you,” said Salytov after a slight pause.

Porfiry smiled weakly. “Really, Ilya Petrovich. There is no need. He won’t do anything here. Not with all these people around.” Porfiry gestured vaguely to the rushing crowds.

“He may panic. Who knows what he will do if he panics.”

“But I can’t believe it’s him. I’ve looked into his eyes. They were not the eyes of a murderer.”

“You can’t know that!”

Porfiry was shaking his head insistently. “He is not the murderer. How could he be the murderer and be moved by Madame Kezel’s wounds?”

“He had blood on his hands! The note. It was as good as a confession.”

“But it was not a confession. Not to murder. Perhaps it was a confession to some other crime. The crime of taking the samovar. The crime of causing Madame Kezel’s beating.”

“Then explain the vial of laudanum we found.”

“He was there!” Porfiry’s cry was anguished. “But so were we, were we not?” he pleaded desperately.

“We had reason to be.”

“Go,” commanded Porfiry.

Salytov nodded tersely and turned his back on the investigating magistrate.

THERE WAS A bookstall near the entrance to Lyamshin’s. Porfiry positioned himself on the far side of it, so he could keep an eye on the door to the pawnbroker’s without being seen by anyone who went in or out of the shop. He pretended to browse the books and nourished himself on the fumes from the bookseller’s samovar.

He had no definite plan. It was hard to shake off the feeling that he was wasting his time. But he had to be somewhere. It seemed to fulfill some deep consoling need that he was here. Dimly, he sensed that this surveillance exercise was not strictly rational.

An hour passed. Porfiry had gone from watching for Virginsky to simply willing him to appear. He tried to superimpose the student’s face on everyone who came into view. He began to ask himself how much longer he would give it. The tenuous sense of purpose he had felt initially had evaporated. All that kept him there now was the lethargy of depression.

He looked down at the book in his hands. The words communicated nothing to him.

When he looked up, there were tears in his eyes.

“Do you want that book, or what?” demanded the bookseller roughly. Porfiry nodded. “Fifty kopeks.”

He handed over the money, still without knowing what book he was buying. It is as senseless as any of my other acts.

He took one last look at the door to Lyamshin’s. A man of more than average height was just pushing it open. Something about this figure’s back struck Porfiry as familiar. He watched as the man cast a furtive glance over his shoulder before going inside. That quick glimpse was all that Porfiry needed. The pallor of the man’s face was unmistakable, as were his thin compressed lips and his cold gray eyes.

“Porfiry Petrovich!” Porfiry frowned to hear his name called. Lieutenant Salytov was running up to him. His shout drew the attention of more than a few passersby.

“Shhh!” Porfiry beat the air with an outstretched palm, signaling Salytov to be quiet.

Salytov stopped a pace in front of him, out of breath. “But there’s something you need to know. I came straight over to tell you. I hoped I would find you here. We’ve had a report of a student trampled to death on the Kazansky Bridge.”

“Virginsky?”

“It’s impossible to say for certain. The head was mangled by the horses’ hooves. But the rest of the victim’s appearance fits Virginsky’s description.”

Porfiry looked back at the door to the pawnbroker’s. “Nothing makes sense,” he said. “There is no logic to any of this.”

“I am going there now,” said Salytov, squinting as if into the sun. But there was no sun, of course, in the gloomy arcade. “Will you come with me?”

Porfiry heard the agitated jangle of the bell to the pawnbroker’s. “Look,” he said, indicating the tall, thin gentleman with the pinched mouth who was coming out.

“Vadim Vasilyevich,” murmured Salytov.

Porfiry nodded in confirmation.

The publisher’s secretary was holding a small and densely ornamented gold box. He sheltered it protectively in both hands, as though it were a damaged bird he had rescued.

“Vadim Vasilyevich!” Porfiry raised a hand as he called out.

The secretary looked up at his name. For a moment, he seemed to contemplate making a run for it, but the sight of Salytov bearing down on him deterred him.

“May I see what you have there?” asked Porfiry, as he strode up to him.

Vadim Vasilyevich handed the box over without a word. It was heavy in Porfiry’s hands. He tried the lid, but it was locked.

“Do you have the key?”

“I do not.” Vadim Vasilyevich’s bass voice resounded with antagonism.

“You have just redeemed this?” Porfiry turned the elaborate box in his hands.

“You spied me coming out of the pawnbroker’s, I believe.”

“Why would a gentleman like yourself have need of the services of a pawnbroker?”

Vadim Vasilyevich hesitated before answering. “I have redeemed it on behalf of a friend.”

“Osip Maximovich?”

The secretary’s silence was answer enough.

“The question is even more pertinent. Why would a gentleman like Osip Maximovich have need of the services of a pawnbroker?”

“I really do not know. Except to say, even a gentleman may find himself in pressing circumstances.”

“The business is failing?”

“No. There is no question of that. It is just, sometimes, it pleases Osip Maximovich to engage in eccentricities. I really do not know why he pawned this object. I only know that he was most desirous of having it returned to him.”

“He commissioned you to redeem it on his behalf?”

“You may put it like that, but it was not so formal.”

“What were his words to you when he asked you to undertake this commission?”

“I cannot recall.”

“Cannot? Or will not?”

“He said it was time for him to have it back. That was all.”

“I see.” Porfiry handed the box back to the secretary. “Then please, return it to him with my compliments.”

Vadim Vasilyevich looked uncertainly at Porfiry. “May I go now?”

Porfiry nodded tersely. Vadim Vasilyevich clutched the ornamental box to his chest and hurried away.

Porfiry’s gaze scoured Salytov’s bewildered face. “Lead the way,” he said at last.

There was feverish excitement in his gaze as he followed Salytov across the flea market toward the Nevsky Prospect exit.

It was a fine day, cold but clear. The city glistened in the frost-refracted sunlight, like a newly forged weapon.

Porfiry dawdled as if he wanted the short walk to the Kazansky Bridge to last forever. Salytov repeatedly had to stop and wait for him, frowning severely as he bit the inside of his cheek. Then he would nod and turn as Porfiry drew level, and walk ahead again. They did not speak.

The Kazansky Bridge rose in an angular peak over the frozen Yekaterininsky Canal. As they approached it, they could see the stooped backs of the small crowd that clustered on the incline, defying the repulsive effects of the sloping, icy pavement. A polizyeisky shouted and scowled discouragement, but the stubborn voyeurs refused to disperse. They gazed with desperate fixity at a point on the ground, beyond the sharp ridge, as yet unseen by Porfiry and Salytov. Another polizyeisky could be seen turning away traffic.

A private closed carriage, fitted with winter runners, was pulled up just in front of the bridge. The horses stamped and snorted, their eyes bulging with wild indignation. The liveried driver took a sly swig from a flask. Inside, a dark, indeterminate figure sat motionless and withdrawn.

As Porfiry stepped onto the bridge, he felt his feet slide from under him. A firm hand caught him under the armpit and prevented him from falling. It was hard to see solicitude in Salytov’s expression. He unhanded Porfiry quickly, as though with some distaste.

Now that he was in among them, Porfiry could tell that it was more than fascination that held the onlookers. A kind of profane and callous awe was evident in their faces. They were mostly poor folk, servants, seamstresses, prostitutes, ragpickers, and low-grade civil servants, shivering with grim excitement in threadbare coats. It seemed that for the moment they had found relief from their own misery by contemplating the fate of someone worse off than themselves. And yet there was a sense of community, solidarity even, in their gaze. Although the victim was in all probability a stranger to them, it seemed they took the death personally, and they directed sly, resentful glances toward the waiting carriage. At the same time, however, a flicker of triumph, which they could not suppress but dared not acknowledge, showed in their eyes. It was the triumph of the living over the dead, and for the moment that they were possessed by it, there was no room for any other feeling, not even pity.

Their shoulders, as Porfiry and Salytov pushed through them, were hard but unresisting. Salytov negotiated briskly with the polizyeisky, who seemed both relieved and embarrassed to see them. “They are like dogs, sir. Like dogs in heat,” he explained, gesturing to the crowd.

Salytov got details of the accident from a witness whom the polizyeisky had detained, a cavalry officer who happened to be on the bridge at the time. His rank and bearing lent authority to his account, and there was an immediate understanding between the two men. He spoke clearly and unhurriedly, neither agitated nor bored. He had seen worse, was the impression he gave, but he recognized the necessity of due process and was respectful of that, if not of the dead. It seemed he felt more pity for the horses than for the trampled man.

Porfiry paid only scant attention to the officer and found himself looking at the obscure figure in the closed carriage. Finally he walked over. The black and highly polished lacquer of the coach’s bodywork shone impenetrably. It reflected back the tragedy of the day, without allowing it to touch the passenger within. Porfiry looked through the window. A girl of about nineteen or twenty stared back at him. The spreading bulk of her furs set off the fine, haughty beauty of her face. Her expression communicated outrage at Porfiry’s presumed insolence.

For an instant he wanted to drag her out of the carriage and manhandle her over to where he knew the dead man lay. Instead he simply bowed his head and looked down at the family crest laid in gold leaf on the carriage door.

He turned away and, at last, surmounted the crest of the bridge. With sudden decisiveness, as if to emphasize the independence of his actions, he looked down.

Inevitably, his gaze went first to the head, which had exploded like a trampled fruit. The snow around the sprawl of flesh, bone, hair, and brains was a dirty pink slush. Madly, Porfiry stared at the mangled center of this dark vortex, as if he really believed he would be able to recognize Virginsky’s features there. And when he could not, he cast about desperately over the rest of the body. All the limbs had a rag-bag casualness to them, as if they had been arranged by someone in a hurry, or with only a partial understanding of how the human body fitted together. Even the shape of the dark overcoat failed to impose any form or coherence.

At the bottom of the coat, two brown, worn boots, cracked uppers and gaping soles advertising their antiquity, projected at impossible angles.

Porfiry’s heart began to pound. But then he felt a guilty sickness at his own jubilant excitement. Here was a man driven to death by poverty and despair, or possibly in an alcoholic stupor, which amounted to the same thing. He deserved better than Porfiry’s selfish relief.

Suddenly, from a clear sky, it began to snow.

Porfiry turned his back on the dead man and broke into a brisk walk away from the bridge. This time it was Salytov who had to hurry to keep up.