The Cleansing Flames Part 7

'There is no chit for a patch,' said Zamyotov, with a sharp shake of negation. 'Therefore it cannot be done.'

'Can you not go to the Imperial State Printing Works yourself and talk to the manager?'

The clerks who were present were evidently scandalised by this suggestion.

Porfiry waved them away. 'Take these out of my sight.' He handed the ream of posters, still wrapped in brown paper, to Virginsky.

The room emptied of all except Porfiry and Nikodim Fomich. Porfiry sat down at his desk and lit a cigarette without looking at the police chief.

'You alright, dear friend?' ventured Nikodim Fomich.

'It's d.a.m.ned frustrating.'

'Of course. But perhaps we won't need the posters, after all. Pavel Pavlovich tells me you went to meet a possible witness.'

'He did not keep the appointment.'

'Ah.' Nikodim Fomich sank into the sofa with a groan. 'How aggravating for you.'

'It's more than aggravating, Nikodim Fomich.' Porfiry took the anonymous letter from his pocket. He waved it vaguely at Nikodim Fomich, who was forced to heave himself out of the loosely upholstered sofa to receive it.

'I wouldn't place too much store by these ominous hints,' p.r.o.nounced Nikodim Fomich. 'This letter may well be a fraud, written by some self-dramatising egoist.'

'He knew the number of sailors.'

'Very well, let us grant that it is what it seems to be. Even so, anything may have prevented him from meeting you. He may have been detained by a woman, or fallen into a ditch, or been waylaid in a tavern. He may simply have thought better of his original intention. If he is mixed up in this affair in some way, we may imagine that his state of mind is far from stable. You're the psychologist, Porfiry Petrovich.' Nikodim Fomich handed the letter back to Porfiry conclusively. 'It may simply be someone playing a trick on you. A great prankster like you ought to be constantly on the alert for hoaxes.'

Porfiry gave an offended flutter of eyelids. 'I don't think it is a prank. For some reason I have an ominous feeling.'

'Have you any idea who the writer might be? He obviously knows of you.'

'I've been trying to recollect. I did not read any of the newspaper accounts of the Raskolnikov trial at the time.'

'They will be archived.'

'Yes, that's true. I will look into it.'

'And so, what do you make of these fires?' asked Nikodim Fomich, settling again on the sofa.

'I know only what I have read in the papers. I have not been called to investigate in an official capacity.'

'A nasty business,' p.r.o.nounced Nikodim Fomich. 'The Tsar must crack down heavily on the intellectuals. Suspend the universities. Tighten up censorship. It is the circulation of dangerous ideas that is responsible for these outbreaks, do you not agree, Porfiry Petrovich? The young people are too much in the thrall of these nihilists.'

'Certainly I agree with your last statement, though I cannot concur with the measures you propose. All that has been tried, without success. In fact, it is counterproductive, as it only results in greater resistance. It invests the dangerous ideas you speak of with a glamorous appeal they would not otherwise possess. It is that which draws the youth, like moths to a candle flame. Far better to expose these ideas to the fresh, cleansing air of careful scrutiny and rational dispute. Then the young people would see them for what they are and reject them. We must learn to trust our own children.'

'Good grief, Porfiry Petrovich. I never thought I would hear such views from you.'

'That is because you do not really know me, Nikodim Fomich.'

'But you are one of my oldest friends!'

Porfiry declined to comment; in fact, he scrupulously avoided looking at Nikodim Fomich. At last he muttered, 'Because we have known one another for a long time, it does not mean . . .' But he trailed off without completing the sentiment.

Nikodim Fomich watched his old friend closely, uneasily. 'What do they hope to achieve, Porfiry Petrovich? Can you tell me that?'

'They wish to build a new world, a fairer, better world. But first, they have decided that they must destroy the old one.'

'Even if that means killing women and children?'

'The end justifies the means.' After a moment, Porfiry added, 'They would say.' Porfiry considered the smouldering tip of his cigarette. 'However, it is not our concern, Nikodim Fomich. Another department investigates such crimes, as you know.'

Nikodim Fomich nodded morosely. 'The Third Section. Of course. I know you disapprove of their means, but I wonder, at times like this, perhaps their way is the only way?'

'You cannot fight criminality with criminality.'

'That's rather strong, isn't it?'

'I speak only from experience.' Porfiry Petrovich took a long draw on his cigarette.

Nikodim Fomich slapped his hands down on his thighs conclusively. 'No one can deny that you have your fair share of that!'

Porfiry fixed Nikodim Fomich with a critical glare. 'What do you mean to suggest by that?'

'Merely that you are one of our most experienced investigators.'

'In other words, that I am over the hill.'

'Now now, Porfiry Petrovich! It's not like you to take offence so easily! Experience is an exceedingly valuable quality in an investigator, as you know. When coupled with the energy of youth, which for you is provided by Pavel Pavlovich, the result is a formidable combination.'

'Now you are saying that I have no energy of my own!'

'Really, you are determined to twist my words. I wonder why you are so out of sorts.'

'Perhaps I have simply had enough for the day.' Porfiry stubbed out his cigarette. The vitality that he had absorbed at the fair seemed now to have deserted him. He closed his eyes for a moment, and saw once again Dr Pervoyedov's long metal probe sink into the waxy ma.s.s where the unknown man's heart had been.

When he opened his eyes, he could not say how much later, the room was in darkness and Nikodim Fomich had gone.

The following day, a Wednesday, and the third day since the body had come to light, Porfiry Petrovich left Virginsky to sort out the confusion over the posters and set out for a stroll along Sadovaya Street. He chose to walk as much to prove Nikodim Fomich wrong He did not need anyone else's energy! as to take advantage of the continuing fine weather.

At Nevsky Prospect, Sadovaya Street kinked north and became Malaya or little Sadovaya Street. This took him to Bolshaya or great Italyanskaya Street, which ran parallel to Nevsky Prospect for a third of the latter's length, one block to the north. Until the previous year, it had simply been Italyanskaya Street, without the aggrandising adjective. The Ministry of Justice, at number 25, was on the corner with Malaya Sadovaya Street, at the congruence of the great and the small, or so the respective street names suggested.

A former residence of the Shuvalov family, the ministry building was a pale-blue baroque palace, three storeys high, extending itself over an entire block of Bolshaya Italyanskaya Street. It was ironic to think that a scion of the Shuvalov family, Count Pyotr Andreevich, was the current head of the Tsar's secret police, the notorious Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery. It was a department that, to Porfiry's mind, had little to do with justice. Some dark exchange seemed to lie behind the coincidence. It was almost as if the Shuvalovs had vacated their home to justice, only to settle themselves into the seat of true power. It seemed to indicate a clarity of vision that was both blithe and ruthless, and therefore typically aristocratic.

The entrance was set in an imposing porch, banded with bone-white columns. It put Porfiry in mind of a general puffing out his chest to draw himself up to his full height: the usual baroque embellishments festooned ap.r.o.ns, rusticated columns, three varieties of window styles were the general's decorations.

The great lobby, a full two storeys high and therefore with a double set of windows to illuminate it, was flooded with a hovering silvery light. Something about it made him want to hold his breath. It seemed to have the same effect on others too: the atmosphere was hushed, despite the confluence of lawyers and civil servants. A representation of the double-headed eagle of the Romanov family crest, carved out of black marble, was set into a niche, high in the facing wall, looking down on all who entered with its strange bidirectional gaze. The floor was given over to a monochrome mosaic of that same allegorical figure that Porfiry had seen unveiled in the Summer Garden: Nemesis. The axe head projecting from the bundle of rods of the fasces was more clearly discernible here. In her other hand, she held the flame of truth.

His gaze must have fallen on that image countless times in his life. Small wonder that when he had seen the statue in the park he had the sense that he had contemplated the figure before. And yet he was not aware of ever consciously considering it. It was simply the ground he walked on whenever he came to the Ministry.

He took the stairs to the second floor. His step was slow and plodding today, and fell with a heavy reverberation. The exertions of the previous day had taken it out of him. Naturally, it had not been the first time in his career that he had attended the forensic examination of a corpse, but for some reason this one seemed harder than usual to get beyond. The trip to the fair had not wholly succeeded in dispelling his gloom or in taking the whiff of death from his nostrils, as he had put it to Virginsky. The disappointments of the afternoon, the non-appearance of his mysterious correspondent and the mistake over the poster, had set him back disproportionately. He was aware of a winter tightness lingering in his chest. He acknowledged that it was getting harder each year to shake it off. And yet the exercise, surely, must do him some good? Why then did he feel like a swimmer who has been carried too far out to sea and is in fear of not being able to regain the sh.o.r.e?

Porfiry looked down, as if he could no longer sustain the weight of his head. The black and white tiles of the corridor brought to mind Pulchinella, dressed in white, with his black half-mask. Porfiry smiled to himself at the memory of Virginsky's bewilderment. It was simple really. Just the old ant.i.thesis: Death in life. Life from death. And why Petrushka as well as Pulchinella? Because life is abundant and excessive, and uncontrollably anarchic.

Porfiry lifted his head and quickened his step. He was picturing himself in Pulchinella's costume.

It was not long before he reached the Ministry of Justice library. It took a moment for him to catch his breath, then he made his request of the librarian.

The silver-whiskered clerk observed him with a critical and unpromising eye. 'You must fill in a chit.'

'Of course, yes. The inevitable chit.'

The librarian handed him a small printed form and a pencil stub. 'First, take a seat. Fill in your place number here. The date and t.i.tle of the journal you require here.'

'But I may require more than one issue, of more than one t.i.tle.'

'Then you will need more chits. Please help yourself to as many as you need.'

'I would really like you to bring all of the newspapers that you have from that time.'

'I will be happy to do so if you fill in the necessary chits.'

Porfiry placed a finger to the bridge of his nose and pressed, hard. 'Sometimes I cannot help thinking that there must be . . .'

'What?'

'Nothing. Never mind. I will fill in the chits. And if I do not find what I am looking for at first, I will fill in more chits.'

'That's the way,' nodded the librarian.

Porfiry took a seat at the end of a long table, subdivided by low screens into separate places. Next to him, a young magistrate was snoring over an open law book. Porfiry coughed sharply. His neighbour woke with a start and applied himself with renewed vigour to the case he had been studying.

Although he would not have admitted it, Porfiry found the necessity of filling in the chits useful. It forced him to focus his mind. The letter writer had expressed the view that Porfiry would be 'surprised' to read a favourable account of himself in the journal in question. That suggested a radical publication, by instinct unlikely to acknowledge anything praiseworthy in the behaviour of a state prosecutor. Then again, what had impressed the writer was the humanity of Porfiry's conduct, by which Porfiry took him to mean his compa.s.sion for the murderer. One would naturally be very surprised to find sentiments of that nature meeting with approval in any conservative paper. He had only to think of the fulminating leaders of The Russian Soil. On balance, he was inclined to start with the radical journals.

The leading radical t.i.tles at the time of the trial were The Contemporary and The Russian Word. The latter, with the emergence of the brilliant publicist Pisarev, was the more extreme of the two. Its stance was anti-state by default, leading to its enforced closure in the following year, in the aftermath of Karakozov's attempt on the Tsar's life. It would truly be surprising to find an article expressing approval of a government-employed magistrate in its pages.

The trial had lasted barely five days. Most of that time had been taken up in establishing the mental state of the perpetrator, and in arguments concerning sentence. His guilt had never been in question. Indeed, he had confessed to his crime. A disproportionate number of days had been consumed by the ultimately fruitless task of trying to understand why he had committed it. That was not to say that it was not a question worth asking. On the contrary, it was an essential question. It was just that Porfiry's colleagues had not had the remotest idea of how to go about answering it. The defendant himself was little help. And so the debate had raged, an emotional whirlpool of ever-increasing exasperation and incomprehension. The more they discussed it, the less they understood it.

The Russian Word had been a monthly journal, and so Porfiry filled in three chits, one for the month before the trial, one covering the trial itself, and one to cover its conclusion and aftermath. As a precaution, he completed chits for the corresponding issues of The Contemporary.

The elderly librarian's substantial eyebrows shot up when he saw the t.i.tles Porfiry had requested. 'You did not tell me that you wished to consult these particular papers.' The habitual dourness of his expression sharpened into horror.

'You did not ask me. Is there some problem?'

'Wait there.'

The librarian moved with a sprightliness that belied his evident age, and which Porfiry could only envy, to disappear through a door at the rear of the library.

A moment later he re-emerged, followed by what could only be described as a younger version of himself. The side whiskers had not yet turned silver but the eyebrows were well on their way to achieving a beetling prominence. More importantly, the gaze was equally discouraging.

It must have been a disconcerting experience for both parties to work together: one man confronted daily by the image of his future, the other by that of his past.

'You are aware,' began the younger librarian, who was evidently more senior in rank, 'that one of the t.i.tles you have requested is a restricted publication.'

'I was not aware of that. I was not even aware that there is a list of restricted publications.'

'That is hardly surprising. The list itself is restricted.'

'Ah, I see. I take it you are talking about The Russian Word?'

'Yes. There will be no difficulty with your seeing The Contemporary.'

'However, it was The Russian Word that I was particularly desirous of seeing.'

'That will not be possible.'

'But you don't understand, I am an investigating magistrate pursuing a murder enquiry. I believe there may be vital information in the issues of The Russian Word from that period.'

'Timofei Ivanovich will be happy to retrieve the copies of The Contemporary that you have requested from the stacks, if you will return to your place.'

'Yes, of course. That is indeed considerate of him, as I do not believe the journals in question will be able to walk to my place on their own.' The barb failed to dent either librarian's stony mask, and Porfiry immediately regretted it. Sarcasm was not the way to win these people over. 'It is true that I do want to look at The Contemporary, but I also want to look at The Russian Word. In fact, I particularly want to. You do understand, don't you? I want to consult both t.i.tles. There must be some way for me to see The Russian Word?'

'There is only one way,' said the younger librarian, but not in a way that encouraged hope.

'Yes?'

'But that would mean filling in a different chit.' This was given as an insurmountable obstacle.

'Of course! Whatever is necessary!'

'Which you must then have signed by the head of the Third Section, Count Shuvalov himself.'

Porfiry was momentarily speechless. When he found his voice, all he could say was, 'Count Shuvalov? Are you sure?'

The two heads of elder and younger librarian nodded in unison.

'Must we trouble Count Shuvalov with a trivial request for a couple of old journals?'

'The request is not trivial. It is a restricted publication. If it falls into the wrong hands, who knows what incendiarism it might provoke.'

'I am a government employee! In fact, an employee of the Ministry of Justice. I require the copies in connection with work I am conducting on behalf of the Ministry.' Porfiry held up his hands. 'Surely these are not the wrong hands?'

'We must believe that it has been restricted for good reason.'

'Ah, but you see, at the time, back in 1866, it was not restricted. Anyone could read it! Indeed there must be many copies of this very issue in open circulation, thousands even, gathering dust on the shelves of respectable professional gentlemen.'

'Shall I tell Timofei Ivanovich to fetch the copies of The Contemporary?' There was something new to the younger librarian's tone as he asked this. Porfiry was alert to the nuance and so he nodded a.s.sent.