The Cleansing Flames Part 11

By the middle of the following afternoon, that of Friday, 21 April, Porfiry had finished reading all four instalments of Swine. He put the last copy of Russian Soil to one side with a dissatisfied expression. He could not say with any certainty what he had just read. Despite the a.s.sertions of that preface, much of the main narrative read as a novel, and a bad novel at that. It was full of cheap novelistic tricks. Indeed, the preface itself could be taken as the first of them. What more transparent novelistic trick could there be than to a.s.sert the truth of what is to follow?

And yet, the force of the preface gave him pause. The apparent authenticity of the sentiments expressed seemed to sit at odds with the lurid and contrived narrative that followed. The plot displayed a laughable reliance on coincidence and a lamentable taste for melodrama. The 'personalities' portrayed were flat and unconvincing.

That said, it did occur to Porfiry that perhaps individuals in such situations find themselves speaking and acting like characters in a bad novel; if a true account of their acts were written down, the result would be indistinguishable.

He had read the serial half in the hope that it might shed some light on the case he was investigating. On that front, he was not entirely disappointed, although he remained suspicious of the parallels he found. He was looking for a man shot through the head and cast into a ca.n.a.l, and he found him, or something similar. In point of fact, in Swine, the body was thrown into a lake, rather than a ca.n.a.l, and one located on a remote country estate and not in the centre of St Petersburg. Striking as any similarities were, Porfiry was not unduly excited by them. The crime in the novel was clearly modelled on a notorious case of a few years earlier, which had been widely reported when it came to trial. The body in that case, also shot through the head, had been disposed of in a lake.

Besides, when it came to disposing of their victims' bodies, there was a limited number of choices open to murderers. Immersion in water was not so unique that its occurrence in the novel and in the current case could be seen as significant. More significant, as far as Porfiry was concerned, was the location chosen for disposal: in the case he was investigating, this was the Winter Ca.n.a.l, right under the Tsar's nose. Nothing in Swine resembled this in any way.

More generally, he had hoped to gain some insight into the 'men of the shadows' who organised and controlled the types of grouping described in the novel. In Swine, such figures were given names that left one in no doubt as to their role in the narrative. The cruel and ruthless taskmaster who drove the revolutionaries to murder was 'Tatarin'; the shadowy mastermind whose fiendish plans set their crimes in motion was simply 'Dyavol', or Devil. To Porfiry, these characters had no humanity beyond the traits encompa.s.sed by their names, which made it difficult for him to believe that they were based on real personalities. In fact, they reminded him of identifiable characters from other books; they were a little too much the stock villains of low literature.

This thought prompted him to turn his attention to the other novel found in Kozodavlev's drawer, Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done? The Peculiar Man of that novel, Rakhmetov, seemed to have provided the model for one of the characters of Swine, an ascetic called Monakh. Porfiry had read the book before, soon after its publication in 1863; almost ten years ago, he realised. The character of Rakhmetov, sleeping on a bed of nails to prepare for the struggle ahead, had struck him at the time as a rather preposterous construction. But then again, he was no less realistic than any of the other characters in the book. If the danger of such creations was that they might lead the youth of Russia to emulate them, then really there was no danger. One had to give the youth of Russia more credit. When it came down to it, they were just too sensible to fall for all that idealised nonsense, or so Porfiry believed. The self-negating sacrifice of Chernyshevsky's improbable hero Lopukhov (which, under the tortuous rationalising of the novel, was an act of supreme self-interest), faking his own suicide in order to leave his wife free to marry her lover who in their right mind would wish to emulate him?

At the very moment Porfiry formulated that question, Virginsky came into his chambers. He was holding a large sheet of paper, the blank side of which was directed towards Porfiry.

'Ah, it has come in already, has it? The revised poster. And I see that everything is in order, this time.'

'But I haven't shown it to you yet,' said Virginsky, somewhat crestfallen.

'You don't need to. I can tell by the eagerness of your step, and by your smile, which though slight manages to transmit both relief and satisfaction. In addition, the fact that you are withholding the printed side of the poster, making ready to reveal it to me with a grand flourish, as if you were unveiling a masterpiece all this leads me to suspect that the Imperial State Printing Works has not let us down this time.'

'Yes, well, here it is.' Virginsky turned the poster over. 'Do you approve it for release?'

Porfiry barely glanced at it. 'Is the wording correct?'

'It is.'

'Very well. Release it. Have it posted in all the city's police bureaux, and in the usual public places.'

'Do you not wish to check it?'

'I trust you, Pavel Pavlovich.'

The casually issued statement seemed to take Virginsky aback.

'Before you go,' continued Porfiry. 'This book.' He held up the copy of What Is to Be Done? 'You have read it, of course.'

'Of course. We have talked of it before, I believe. You have mocked me for admiring it too much.'

'You do admire it, don't you?' Porfiry's surprise at this fact was renewed in his voice. 'And bound up in your admiration of the novel is your admiration of the characters? These new men and women.'

'Yes.'

'You see it as a . . . how can I put it? As a programme . . . a manual . . . or even a manifesto? It is not a novel, it is a guide to how one may live one's life?'

'Certainly, I believe that it may point the way to a better basis for relationships between the s.e.xes.'

'But this character, Lopukhov, the one who fakes his own suicide . . .' Porfiry flicked through the pages. 'Let me find it. The note he left. Ah, yes. Here it is. "I was disturbing your peace and quiet. I am quitting the scene. Don't pity me; I love you both so much that I am very pleased with this decisive act. Farewell." I ask you, Pavel Pavlovich! How would you describe the man who wrote that? A doormat, perhaps? I mean to say . . . the way he just takes himself off like that! Can we really believe it? Would you do that?'

'If I believed that my disappearance was the only way to bring about the happiness of the woman I loved, and if I truly loved her, then, yes . . . I would like to think that I would be capable of such an act. It is not so strange. It is logical. He loves Vera Pavlovna. She loves another. He makes way for the man she loves.'

'But a real man would not act like that. You would not act like that. Not in that situation. Love is not logical, Pavel Pavlovich.'

'There are men and women who are living their lives in accordance with the precepts of that book. Marriage is the only way for many women to escape the control of their families. But traditional marriage only replaces one form of control with another. It is not true freedom for the woman. Therefore, many young people are entering into a new kind of marriage, a marriage of friendship and equality, in which the woman is not expected to bow down before the man. Such a marriage truly does bring about the liberation of the woman, because she is free to live her life as she wishes, not as her husband wishes. And if she wishes to take a lover, she is free to do so.'

'Yes, yes, that's all very well. But is it really possible to imagine a husband so devoid of jealousy that he negates his own life, faking his suicide and a.s.suming a new ident.i.ty, solely to allow his wife's future happiness?'

There was a pause before Virginsky answered: 'Yes.'

'Well, he is a fool.'

'I shall see to the distribution of the poster.'

'And really, does the author take us for fools? The police and the judicial authorities, I mean? That we would not see through the manifest fraud of that supposed suicide! A bullet in a cap! The cap was fished out of the water near Liteiny Bridge! The cap belonged to Lopukhov! Therefore, Lopukhov must have killed himself on Liteiny Bridge and fallen in the river!'

'Unfortunately, Chernyshevsky did not think to make you a character in his novel, Porfiry Petrovich.'

'Well, I would have seen right through it if he had.'

'I have no doubt.'

'I see that I must read this tiresome book again,' grumbled Porfiry. 'We cannot overlook the possibility that it may have some bearing on the case. But, good G.o.d, I do not find the company of these new men and women at all congenial!' He flashed a sour glance to Virginsky, as if he counted him one of their number.

Porfiry finished reading What Is to Be Done? on Sunday morning. He put the book down and left his apartment.

He headed straight for Haymarket Square, where he joined the traffic of worshippers flowing to and from the Church of the a.s.sumption of the Virgin Mary. The cathedral stood like a bastion over the square, its minaret-like towers a.s.serting the essential orientalism of the Orthodox religion. It both drew and repelled: it drew the faithful, the true believers, the true Russians, eastern- and inward-looking; and it repelled all those who would look to the west, outside Russia, for their ideas and influences.

Porfiry was drawn. He felt the simple need to be in an Orthodox church. Perhaps it was a reaction against the book he had just finished reading. He had never considered himself as a Slavophile; on the contrary, he had prided himself on being receptive to new ideas, from wherever they came. He knew that if Russia was to progress, as she must, she could not afford to isolate herself from the rest of Europe. It was simply that, increasingly as he grew older, he found himself comforted by the overwhelming scent of incense and the warm dazzle of the candle-lit icons. And the only G.o.d he could believe in was the Russian G.o.d.

Porfiry crossed himself as he entered.

The throng inside the church was lively, almost excitable. As always, there was a loose informality to the congregation. People came and went all the time, while the priests and monks continued to chant and drone. There was a soft murmur of chatter which echoed and overlapped, giving the impression that the mult.i.tude of saints and celestial beings depicted on the tiers of icons all around were joining in the conversations. The priests took a dim view of all this talking in church, but there was little they could do to stop it. The Church invited its flock to be as children in their Father's house. It could hardly be surprised if some of them behaved like naughty children.

The three doors of the iconostasis stood open, as they had done since Midnight Ma.s.s on Good Friday. This towering screen, a full six tiers of icons in height, shielded the altar sanctuary from the congregation in the nave. Encrusted with a grid of thick gilt frames, populated with holy personages, it symbolised the division between Heaven and Earth. For most of the year the doors were kept closed, with only the clergy being allowed to pa.s.s through them. The doors would close again later that day, at the None, or Ninth Hour of prayer, that is to say, at about three o'clock that afternoon. Porfiry felt a surge of emotion as he considered the symbolism of the doors' opening. He felt a corresponding opening of his heart. It seemed to be a gesture of transcendent generosity on the part of the Church. Heaven stood open to him, and to all the miscreant congregation. He was possessed by hope. And yet, at the same time, he was aware of the imminent closure. And so, he seemed to feel, and regret, the loss of that hope at the same time as he experienced the hope itself.

A priest intoned the day's reading, John, Chapter 20, Verses 19 to 31. It was the story of Thomas, of course, for this was Thomas Sunday. Thomas, who needed not only to see the risen Christ but also to thrust his fingers into His wounds before he would declare: 'My Lord and my G.o.d.'

The point was, of course, not that Thomas had doubted. But that he had come to believe. Porfiry thought of Virginsky. He moved his lips in prayer for his junior colleague.

11.

A sheepskin coat tied with string.

The following day, Lieutenant Ilya Petrovich Salytov stood before the poster that had just been pinned up in the receiving hall of the Haymarket District Police Bureau in Stolyarny Lane. Salytov had once been known as 'Gunpowder,' on account of his fiery temper. But ever since he had been disfigured in a bomb atrocity, about six years earlier, his colleagues had tactfully dropped the soubriquet.

The face in the poster fascinated him, possibly because it was even more grotesque than his own. But, also, it seemed somehow familiar to him. It stirred the muddy depths of his memory.

Salytov read the accompanying text, and, as directed, tried to discount the waxen patches on the cheeks. But he found that it was no simple matter to overlook something so startling, especially once it had been pointed out to him.

He concentrated on the eyes. He could not shake off the feeling that he had once before stared into two eyes as tiny and loathsome as these. He felt an eddy of anger rise up from those murky depths where that particular half-memory was buried, the resurgence of an old rage. But that was all that he could summon, for the moment at least.

Whether it was the strange transformation that had occurred in the face on the poster, or because the thought of his injury was never far from his mind, Salytov found himself thinking back to his hospitalisation after the bomb blast. He imagined the raw, shredded agony of his face once again wrapped in moist bandages. He pictured the nurse slowly easing and teasing the bandages away from his melded flesh. He saw again the involuntary look of horror that she could not suppress, and then the sad dip of her head as she avoided his eyes. At his insistence, she had held a mirror up to him.

He relived that moment now. Curiously, when, in his imagination, he turned his gaze to the gla.s.s, it was the face on the poster that he saw, not his own.

'Do you know what day it is tomorrow, Pavel Pavlovich?' said Porfiry. He too was studying the face of the unknown man recovered from the Winter Ca.n.a.l. He had pinned up a copy of the original poster, which bore the wording 'Wanted'. Perhaps there was something perverse about his preference for this version, now that the corrected posters had been delivered; the possibility could not be discounted that he kept it as a rebuke to Virginsky. Next to it he had fixed a photographic enlargement of Kozodavlev's face, taken from the Affair staff photograph.

'I should hope so. Today is Monday, therefore tomorrow will be Tuesday,' answered Virginsky.

'Yes, but what is special about this particular Tuesday?' It was almost as if Porfiry was addressing the face on the poster.

'If you are referring to some obscure religious festival, or saint's day, then I am afraid I cannot help you. I long ago gave up trying to retain the arcane intricacies of the Christian calendar in my mind.'

'But this is a very important one, for us at least.'

'For us?'

'Yes. As magistrates engaged in a murder investigation. Tomorrow is the Tuesday of Thomas Week. The festival of Radonitsa, when we are duty bound to remember the dead.'

'I see.'

'You knew really, didn't you? Your parents must have taken you to the cemetery on Radonitsa, to place painted eggs on the graves of your ancestors.'

'Perhaps so.'

'You feasted on funeral kutia, and all the other delicacies of the day.'

'If you say so.'

'I do. Tomorrow . . .'

'Yes?'

'Are you intending to visit a cemetery at all?'

'I had not thought to do so.'

'I would just like you to know that you have my permission.'

'I thank you, but that will not be necessary.'

'You should not cut yourself off from the rituals of your nation, Pavel Pavlovich. You might be surprised to discover a new sense of wholeness and well-being. The old rituals are there for a reason, you know.'

'But I do not believe,' said Virginsky flatly.

'It is not always necessary to believe. Sometimes it is enough to embrace. There is a rhythm and a pattern to the old ways that is deeply consonant with the rhythms and patterns of life. Tomorrow we feast in memory and celebration of the dead. If you are not going to the cemetery, then I will bring in some funeral kutia to eat here in chambers.'

'Please, there is no need.'

'It is no trouble.' Porfiry turned from the poster and crossed to his desk. 'During Bright Week, we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and G.o.d. And then in Thomas Week, we look forward to the resurrection of all the dead, at least of all those who have died believing.' Porfiry gave Virginsky a warning look. 'In the meantime, we witness all around us the resurrection of nature, the rebirth and resurgence of life as spring bursts out from beneath the thawing snow. It is no coincidence that the marriage season begins in Thomas Week. After we have given due remembrance to the dead, we turn our hearts to the living and the continuance of life. It makes perfect sense, Pavel Pavlovich. You must see that. You must feel it.'

There was a knock at the door. Porfiry looked up to see Nikodim Fomich enter.

'Good day, Porfiry Petrovich.' The chief superintendent held out a brown envelope.

'What have you there?'

'The police report on the fire in Bolshaya Morskaya Street.'

Porfiry sprang to his feet and hurried over to Nikodim Fomich. He took the envelope eagerly. 'Ah . . . and so it is not as we feared? It did not go to the Third Section!'

'In point of fact, it did. The official file has disappeared into that department, in all likelihood never to be seen again. However, a diligent clerk to whom we have cause to be grateful made a copy of the police report and retained it in a separate file at the Admiralty District Police Department. I was able, through my contacts there, to arrange for the loan of that duplicate file.'

'You have read it?'

'Yes.'

'Does it shed any light on the disappearance of Kozodavlev?' Porfiry took out the report, a single sheet, filled with a clerk's neat copperplate, and scanned it.

'It seems most likely that your Kozodavlev fellow did indeed perish in that fire. We may reasonably conjecture that the fire had its beginnings in his apartment. The reasons for that conclusion you will no doubt read for yourself. I should warn you, Porfiry Petrovich, that if you do go raking over these particular coals you will stir up an unholy cloud of smoke. You will undoubtedly attract the attention of certain interested parties.'

Porfiry took Nikodim Fomich's hint. 'And what if I willingly make my chambers available to the officers of the Third Section, and offer my services to aid them in their investigations?'

'Perhaps they will accept your invitation. And perhaps you will wish that they had not.'

'Thank you for this,' said Porfiry. He held Nikodim Fomich for a moment with his gaze. There was a beseeching quality to Nikodim Fomich's expression. He seemed to be asking if he had been forgiven. Porfiry's nod seemed to answer that he had.

Some time before midnight of Monday, 17 April, fire engines of the St Petersburg Fire Co. attended a fire at the Koshmarov Apartment Building, Bolshaya Morskaya Street, 12. Police Officers of the Admiralty District were also in attendance. This report is entered on behalf of the attending officers, and is countersigned by them. The fire was concentrated on the fifth storey, although the storeys immediately below and above also sustained damage. All fatalities occurred on the fifth storey. The alarm being raised, a number of residents were safely evacuated, including many of those on the fifth floor, who had already come out of their apartments at the first whiff of fire. However, the ferocity of the flames on the fifth floor, coupled with the thick black smoke resulting, hampered attempts to save a small number of occupants living closest to the centre of the blaze. When the flames were finally dampened, approximately one hour after the first engine arrived on the scene, the bodies of six dead were discovered, including those of five juveniles. These latter were the children of the Prokharchin family, who had been left alone by their parents while they entertained themselves in a nearby tavern. The children are thought to have been sleeping, and to have died from smoke suffocation. The fire is believed to have originated in the apartment of the Prokharchins' neighbour, one Demyan Antonovich Kozodavlev, as the devastation and scorching is greatest there, particularly in the bedroom. It was here where the one adult body, that of a male, was found. This body is a.s.sumed to be that of Demyan Antonovich Kozodavlev himself, although a positive identification is impossible due to the severe disfigurement of the deceased's face through burns. Interviews with neighbours on his floor who survived the conflagration indicate that Kozodavlev was visited shortly before the fire by a disreputable-looking individual in a grubby sheepskin coat belted with string and a worker's cap. His appearance was variously described thus: 'He looked like a convict'; 'He had the eyes of a murderer'; 'A nihilist if I ever saw one.' Furthermore, it was noticed that this individual was carrying a large ceramic vessel, a.s.sumed to be a flagon of vodka. A violent altercation, in which voices were raised and oaths uttered, was heard to occur between the two men. The smell of burning was subsequently noted and various neighbours came out onto the stairwell, at which point the individual in the sheepskin coat and worker's hat was seen fleeing precipitously from Kozodavlev's apartment. Shortly afterwards, the fire took hold in earnest and the alarm was raised. Fortunately, the fire engines of the St Petersburg Fire Company were in the close vicinity, returning from a false alarm nearby. That the fire was not more widespread, giving rise to even greater devastation and casualties, is in large part due to the prompt arrival and brave action of the fire crews, who entered the building without thought of their own safety. A human chain was formed up the stairs, with fire buckets pa.s.sing both ways along it. The parents of the deceased children arrived at approximately ten minutes past midnight on Tuesday, 18 April. The mother being in a highly inebriated state, and in addition distraught over the fate of her children, who were at that time unaccounted for, had to be forcibly restrained from entering the burning building. The father's inebriation was such that he failed to comprehend the gravity of the situation. He apologised for his wife's 'intemperance,' as he called it, and seemed to find the presence of the firemen and police amusing. When it was explained to him that his children were in danger, he answered with a smile, 'The little ones? No, they are tucked up safely in bed.' He then expressed the opinion that it was time they were home too. It was pointed out to him by a neighbour that this was his home, in answer to which he replied, 'I'm sure it can't be.' At first he laughed at the suggestion, but becoming gradually serious, he fell at last silent. Soon after it was confirmed that all five children had perished. A large ceramic vessel, of the kind described by witnesses as belonging to the man in the sheepskin, was found empty in the hallway just outside Kozodavlev's apartment.

12.