The Cleansing Flames Part 32

'Suppose the police come to the apartment.'

'What good would a change of clothes do you?'

'I might be able to effect my escape.'

'And how would you do that? By flying out the window?'

'If I were in disguise, I might be able to slip past them.'

'You do not think they will send someone who can recognise you, no matter what clothes you are wearing?'

'What if it is not the police, but someone who might inform on me?'

'You are not to open the door to anyone. Is that clear?'

'If I am to be a prisoner here, then I may as well hand myself in. At least then we will have the political advantage of a trial.'

'If that is what you wish, I shall not stand in your way.'

'But it is not what the central committee wishes.'

'Then do not do it.'

'So I am to be a prisoner!'

'My friend,' began Varvara Alexeevna more gently, 'we are all prisoners. It is simply that when you put yourself outside the law, outside society, your imprisonment becomes visible. You notice it for the first time, and you rail against it.'

'I thought I would become free.'

'Yes, and that is what makes it all the harder to endure.'

'I would feel better if I could wear some different clothes. Safer.' After a moment, Virginsky added, 'These are the clothes I was wearing when I shot him.'

Virginsky's voice had taken on a distant quality, half wistful, half appalled. He seemed chastened. This proved decisive to Varvara Alexeevna. 'You may help yourself to my husband's clothes.' She looked him up and down, her gaze softly scrutinising. 'You are about the same size, you and he.'

'But he is not a workman,' objected Virginsky. 'Tatyana Ruslanovna said I was to be given a workman's clothes.'

'No, he is not a workman. He is a skilled engineer.' Varvara Alexeevna's head tilted sharply with pride. 'Tatyana Ruslanovna also said you were to grow a beard. How are you getting on with that?' Varvara Alexeevna's tone was gently mocking.

'I intend to devote all my energies to it.' Virginsky smiled. 'I fear I will have little else to do.'

Varvara Alexeevna's expression suddenly darkened. 'You are a cold-blooded man,' she said. 'You frighten me more than the others. They have no experience of the things they dream about. But you . . . you raised a gun at one of your colleagues and fired. And here you are, a day later, calmly sitting down to breakfast and arguing about a suit of clothes. Are you really not afraid that he might die, and that the sin of his murder will be on your soul?'

Virginsky thought for a long time before replying: 'I do not believe in the soul.'

Varvara Alexeevna shuddered and quickly put on her shawl. 'Yes, of course. None of us believes in the soul, these days. Or at least that is what we profess. To be able to act on such a profession, however that is a different matter.' Varvara Alexeevna stared at the floor for a moment before continuing. 'I must go out.'

'I hope I am not driving you from your own apartment?'

The look she gave him was not rea.s.suring. 'There is tea in the samovar if you need it. I believe you will find some bread for lunch. I trust we shall see you later.'

She closed the door behind her with unseemly alacrity. It shocked Virginsky to realise that she was afraid to be in the apartment alone with him. He frowned as he listened to the sound of her locking him in.

29.

New people If her look had made him feel like a murderer, to be left alone in the apartment made him feel like a thief. Her invitation for him to help himself to her husband's clothes did not help.

The couple's bedroom adjoined the sitting room. It was a dark, sag-draped s.p.a.ce, clogged with furniture and ornaments. Varvara Alexeevna's taste for frivolous possessions seemed to emanate from here, spilling out into the rest of the apartment in the centrifugal scatter of a storm.

There was a hook on the inside of the bedroom door which fitted into a metal loop on the frame, to form a rudimentary lock. For some reason he could not explain, knowing he was alone in the apartment, he pushed the hook into its eye.

Tatyana Ruslanovna had warned him to stay away from the windows. But the angular projections of light that were distributed about the apartment like so much celestial bunting were more compelling than her injunction. He stood to the side of the frame and looked down at the courtyard. A solitary figure, a man in artisan's clothes, could just be made out, lurking by the entrance. It could have been Virginsky's imagination, but he felt sure that the man was looking up at the apartment. This was precisely what he expected. In fact, it comforted him to see the man there. Everything was as it should be, as far as that was possible. He moved slowly back from the window.

He had not expected Kirill Kirillovich to be the owner of an extensive wardrobe. In addition to the work suit he was wearing that day, Virginsky had counted on finding an additional suit for best, although he was not sure that a committed revolutionist would succ.u.mb to such conventionalities. However, Virginsky had not reckoned on the fact that a resourceful revolutionist might find it expedient to acc.u.mulate a range of clothes, which might be termed outfits, or even disguises. He could think of no other reason why Kirill Kirillovich would possess a number of different coloured peasant smocks, as well as a merchant's kaftan, and a tailored European suit with a swallow-tailed jacket. He was not altogether surprised to find a priest's robe hanging in the wardrobe. He chose a pair of loose workman's trousers and a rough red smock. He then searched the bottom of the wardrobe and found a pair of felt boots, which he tucked the trousers into. Finally, he put on a leather belt to cinch the smock.

It was strange to stand before a mirror in another man's clothes. He was surprised how unlike himself he looked. He wondered whether that was the result of the change of clothes, or of a greater change that had taken place inside him. But in St Petersburg, a city of costumes and uniforms, the power of appearance could not be underestimated. It was never a question of mere appearance. A man could make himself whatever he wanted to be, simply by appearing to be it.

He was startled out of his self-absorption by a knock at the apartment door. His heart picked up the sharp rhythm and echoed it internally. He froze. The silence after the knocking ceased throbbed with catastrophe. The knocking was repeated. Virginsky thought he recognised the complicated pattern of the entry code. He relaxed minutely, though his heart still kept up its percussive chorus.

He let himself out of the bedroom and moved noiselessly to the apartment door. He sensed the presence of the other in the silence. He laid a hand flat on the door, as if to reach out to whoever was there. He withdrew the hand as the knocking was repeated, the same pattern, more urgently.

A voice, Dolgoruky's, hissed: 'Magistrate! Open up. It's me, Dolgoruky.'

'I can't. She's locked me in.'

There was laughter from the other side. 'She's not taking any chances, that one.'

'What do you want?'

To Virginsky's astonishment, he heard a key fit into the lock. A moment later the door was open. The Prince's gaze swept over him hungrily. 'My, my, magistrate, what have you done?'

Virginsky closed the door quickly. 'You have a key?'

'Of course. This is my apartment. That is to say, it was. I put it at the disposal of the central committee and they handed it over to Kirill Kirillovich and Varvara Alexeevna. I must have forgotten to surrender all the keys.'

'But you live in that squalid room? With all those others.'

'One must make sacrifices for the revolution.'

The look Virginsky bestowed on Dolgoruky was almost one of admiration. There were many questions he could have asked. He settled for, 'Why did you knock, if you had a key?'

'It's hardly polite, is it, to go barging in uninvited.' Dolgoruky's sheepish expression suggested another motive.

Only now did Virginsky think of the question he should have asked in the first place: 'How did you know I was here?'

'Everyone knows you are here. That is to say, all our people do, at least.'

'Which means that the authorities will by now. Tatyana Ruslanovna believes there is an agent in our midst.'

'Oh, it is never as simple as that, in my experience. Do you not agree?'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'And so you shot him!' cried Dolgoruky abruptly. 'You really shot him, that horrible little man. I must say, I couldn't be more pleased.'

'I didn't do it to please you.'

Dolgoruky seemed surprised by this. 'Why did you do it?'

The question seemed to throw Virginsky. 'I would have thought that was obvious. To strike at the heart of the administration . . . The central committee called for an act of singular daring . . .'

'Yes, but why did you take it upon yourself to be the one? And why did you shoot him?'

'Do you have any news . . . concerning his condition? Is he . . . ?' Virginsky was unable to complete the question.

'He's still alive, if that's what you mean. He is being cared for at the Obukhovsky Hospital. Perhaps we should go there and finish the job off?' Dolgoruky grinned maliciously.

'I . . . I imagine he is closely guarded.'

'Yes, but to a daredevil like you, what does that matter? I like your disguise, by the way. That will serve you well. You can turn up at the hospital pretending to be a workman there is always some work or other to be done in those filthy, crumbling wrecks. In amongst your bag of tools, you hide a gun, or some dynamite do you know what dynamite is?'

Virginsky nodded.

'There! What could be simpler?'

'I don't have . . . any tools,' objected Virginsky lamely. He added, 'I cannot conceive of acting without the authorisation of the central committee.'

'Why not? You did before.'

'No, you are mistaken. As I said, I was called upon '

'I think not. I was there, remember. I don't think anyone explicitly called upon you to do what you have done. You acted on your own initiative. The central committee would be within their rights to hang you out to dry.'

'They would not dare!'

'Oh my goodness, listen to him! Now he threatens the central committee!'

'What do you want, Dolgoruky?'

'Do you have any tea?'

'No. There is no tea. And no one to provide it.'

'What did it feel like?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'When you squeezed the trigger and saw what you had done. When you saw him there bleeding . . . What did you feel?'

Virginsky hesitated before answering. 'I don't know. It's hard to say. I felt . . . different. I felt as if my life would never be the same again.'

Dolgoruky shook his head impatiently. 'Of course! That goes without saying. That is nothing. But . . . you felt free? For the first time in your life, you were free!'

'Yes, for a moment. In the instant I pulled the trigger. As the bullet was released. Yes, then, in that moment, I was free.' Virginsky shook his head violently, as if he were trying to cast out from it a weight of unhappiness. 'But look at me now. I am a prisoner in this infernal apartment. Can you believe she locked me in?! And when I am moved from here, I will be a prisoner somewhere else.'

'Until the moment when your crime is multiplied across society. When an army of men like you each stands up and shoots . . . a magistrate here, a minister there, a governor in this province, the marshal of the n.o.bility in that! When your lead is followed, and widespread destruction is unleashed, you will be once again free.'

Virginsky sighed, as if he found Dolgoruky's vision oppressive. He gave him a critical look. 'And what if no one rises up?'

'Don't be despondent, my friend. The day will come. And you have helped to hasten it. I was talking to someone who . . .' Dolgoruky broke off, and began to pick his words more carefully: 'Someone who . . . considers himself . . . to be a friend of yours . . . to have your best interests at heart. Who, it might be said, has followed your career with interest.'

'Who is this?'

'I am not at liberty to reveal his name. It is too dangerous for you, as well as for him. Still and all, this man let us just call him "Dyavol," for that is a soubriquet it amuses him to answer to this man '

'Dyavol? The Devil? Is this your demon that you're talking about?' Virginsky gave a sarcastic laugh.

'No. This is a real man. A man of flesh and blood. He is known as Dyavol amongst our people, though in truth, I look upon him more as some kind of G.o.d. He has had a tremendous influence on me.'

'Not Lebezyatnikov?!' cried Virginsky incredulously.

'Don't try to get his name out of me. I will not even answer your questions. However, as I was saying, if you would only let me finish you would hear something that redounds to your considerable credit . . .'

'Go on.'

'This man, this great man, believes that your action may well prove crucial in heralding in the next, necessary phase of the struggle that will bring about the end of the regime. Widespread violence and destruction are on the brink of being unleashed. This is palpable. I for one feel it. When the time comes, you will take your place amongst the heroes of the revolution.'

'I would like to meet this man. Would this be possible?'

'Quite out of the question.'

'You know,' began Virginsky tentatively. 'Last night, I thought about your demon. I imagined I had a demon of my own. I will not say he was real to me. But certainly I considered the possibility of his reality.'

Dolgoruky's reaction was unsurprised, matter-of-fact. 'This is what happens when you take the step that you and I have taken. When one transgresses . . .'

'What did you do, Dolgoruky? What was your crime?'

'The more one transgresses, the more real one's demon becomes. All this is very perplexing and ironic. I don't believe in demons, and the only G.o.d I acknowledge is . . . myself. And perhaps, also, the great man I have just told you about. And to prove that I don't believe in it all, I set about . . .' There was something shocking about the innocently mischievous giggle that Dolgoruky let out. Virginsky had the sense that it was far from appropriate to the enormity of Dolgoruky's actual crimes. 'Sinning.' He put his hand in front of his mouth like a naughty child. 'Yes. I sinned to banish the demon, but it only made him more real.'

Virginksy looked over Dolgoruky's shoulder. 'Is he here now?'