by Boris Akunin
“And now for the essence of the matter.” The sorcerer’s tone of voice had changed yet again, from caustically regretful to dry and businesslike. This was not the famous orator speaking, but the learned pedant, expounding scientifically proven facts that were obvious to any even slightly rational individual. “I shall tell you, gentlemen, how everything really happened. I have known the truth from the very beginning. However, I ordered the accused to hold their tongues because the local investigators are quite clearly not impartial; they thirst for vengeance and would probably have distorted the circumstances of the case, as pettifogging scribes have delighted in doing throughout the ages in our long-suffering Rus.”
Gurii Samsonovich paid not the slightest attention to the applause awarded this remark by the liberal section of the audience. He simply waited until they had finished clapping and then continued.
“Night, an empty road. The moon gleams eerily through the gray clouds. There is a smell of rain in the air and the wind howls softly. Two people walk along the road: one with a beard and his hair trimmed evenly all around, the other still entirely a child. The man has his arm around the boy’s shoulders, and the boy is leaning his light-haired head against his father’s shoulder, half-dozing as they walk along. All around there is silence—not a soul, not a movement, only the mournful hooting of an owl from the forest…”
Lomeiko put his hand over his eyes, and one might have thought that there, on his palm, his sight beheld living pictures and he was merely relating what he saw.
“Suddenly a dim figure rises up at the edge of the road. The stranger raises his hand, as if he wants something. The merchant, suspecting nothing, asks: ‘What do you want, good man?’ And then the stranger strikes him in the throat with a knife and throws him to the ground and rips open a bloody wound from ear to ear. Paralyzed with fear, the child watches, sobbing, as his father is murdered. And then the stranger gets to his feet, seizes the boy by his thin shoulders, and, peering straight into the eyes gaping wide in terror, slits that thin throat with his sharp blade. The entreaty for mercy becomes a croaking wheeze, then a gurgle…
“But wait, that is not yet everything!” exclaimed the advocate, appealing to his hysterically sobbing listeners. “I have not yet described to you the greatest horror—how the murderer hacks into the lifeless bodies as he removes the heads. How the vertebrae crunch, how the black blood spurts up like a fountain…And now look at Vladimir Lvovich.” A rapid turn, an extended arm. “Tell me, in all conscience, can you see a former Guards lieutenant, a synodical inspector, as such a butcher? But of course not!…And now for the murder of the photographic artist Poggio. Despite all the conjecture indulged in by the prosecutor, it is perfectly evident that this is a crime of passion. Vladimir Lvovich has spent a considerable time in your town and you have, of course, been able to study his character and his habits. You are familiar with his customary coolness, and his blasé manner that produces such an unpleasant impression on so many people. Can you really imagine this restrained, rational man swinging a tripod, ripping photographs to pieces in a frenzy, and trampling on photographic plates? Why, take a closer look at him! He is a slender man, of delicate physique, not broad in the shoulders. Would he really have had the Satanic strength to strike such a heavy blow with the tripod?”
After this first substantive argument (for everything else so far had been no more than psychology), Gurii Samsonovich returned to the realm of feelings, while continuing to speak in the same severe and far from sentimental tone.
“Very well, gentlemen, let us leave the conclusions of logic and reason aside. Let us turn to the heart, to the instinct that never misleads us. It sometimes happens that reason repeats insistently to us: This is black, black, and we begin to believe it is so, then the heart suddenly awakes and shakes its head”—the advocate’s evocation of the heart shaking its head did not sit so very smoothly, but everyone was so carried away by his speech that they paid no attention to the dubious nature of the image—“and exclaims: ‘What do you mean by saying it is black, when it is white?’ I appeal to the ladies sitting in the hall. Many of you have joked, laughed, and—I beg your pardon—flirted with Bubentsov. You have made music with him, gone on picnics, and so on and so forth. Can you really imagine that this lover of female beauty was capable of smashing the Princess Telianova’s head with a stone? Just look at this nightmarish, crude implement.” Lomeiko pointed to the weighty cobblestone lying on the material evidence table. “Can you even imagine Vladimir Lvovich with such a weapon in his hand?”
“No! Never!” Olympiada Savelievna called loudly from the hall, and many of the ladies passionately supported her.
“You doubt it,” stated the impassioned defender. “And you are right to do so, because this accused has not committed any crime. You will ask me, Who then killed these unfortunates? Who is this monster? And I shall answer you gladly. The gentlemen investigators have failed to see the forest for the trees, but to the unbiased eye of the unblinkered man the essence of the matter is perfectly clear.”
The advocate set his hands on his sides, thrust out his beard, and advanced his main forces into battle.
“Yes, Bubentsov is guilty. Not of murder, but of pardonable blindness. Like many others present here, as it happens. He, like you, failed to recognize the savage monster who had long enjoyed his patronage. Yes, yes, you have understood me correctly. The murderer in every case was Murad Djuraev, it is absolutely clear. To a man like Djuraev, slitting the throat of the merchant and his son would have meant nothing. And the thirty-five thousand that Vonifatiev had on him was huge money for Djuraev. He was in Drozdovka that day, he learned about the purchase of the forest, and after that everything was very simple. It is far easier for a coachman to absent himself from the house than a guest, especially such a distinguished one. And as you can well understand, this bashi-bazouk would have had no problem with the severing of the heads.”
This was a clear, indubitable touché, and the best possible confirmation of that was the low murmur that rippled around the hall.
“Now let us recall the circumstances of Poggio’s death. On that night, Djuraev was behaving violently. He wandered around the taverns and inns, appearing and disappearing by turns. Nobody seems to have wondered why this non-drinking Caucasian had suddenly launched into a drunken debauch. But here again the case is quite clear. If there was anything human about Djuraev, it was his doglike devotion to his master. Djuraev knew that Bubentsov and Poggio had quarreled over a woman. In the Caucasus the attitude to conflicts of that sort is quite different from here, among us cynical and comfortable Europeans. Let us not forget that from Djuraev’s point of view, Naina Telianova was not simply some infidel woman, but the daughter of a Caucasian prince. We must assume that Murad approved of his master’s choice—apparently even more so than his master did.” (This subtle comment was received with total sympathy by the female section of the audience.) “Mr. Spasyonny has informed me that he told the Circassian about the scandal that occurred at the vernissage—about how Poggio had attempted to shame Princess Telianova by exhibiting immodest photographs to public view. Those of us who have been to the Caucasus can imagine how insulting such an act is to a young woman’s honor and the honor of all who are linked to her by ties of blood or in any other manner. The woman that the Circassian regarded as a bride worthy of his master—I beg the pardon of the ladies present—was exhibited naked for the amusement of the public.”
Oh, what a tremor ran around the hall, how the reporters’ pencils scraped!
“In the Caucasus, such insults are redeemed with blood. Hence the peculiar ferocity of the murder and the frenzied destruction of the pictures—every last one of them. Only the indomitable eastern temperament is capable of such frenzied violence. Those feeble speculations that we have heard from the prosecutor concerning the aspen and the mattock are good for nothing more than a crime novel. The investigation has attempted to construct the entire edifice of the accusation upon a coincidence that is
entirely accidental. It is hardly to be wondered that this absurd construction has collapsed at the very first blow. And the case of the third murder could not be simpler. Djuraev had killed the main offender, but he was not satisfied with that. The drunkenness had passed, but the pain of the insult inflicted on his master continued to torment his savage heart. After all, the woman who had very nearly become his master’s wife had insulted him even more deeply than Poggio. Not only had she betrayed him, she had behaved like a contemptible loose woman. In the Islamic world, as we know, such women are stoned to death. And that was what Djuraev did. He took a stone and he killed Telianova. And as for the fact that he also killed the entirely innocent maid, what did one more Christian soul mean to a savage like him?”
Gurii Samsonovich sighed sorrowfully and gestured briefly with one hand.
“And now the final thing. Do not forget that, at the arrest, it was Djuraev who offered resistance to the authorities. Naturally—he was the only one who had good reason to do so.”
Lomeiko concluded hastily and unspectacularly, which was evidently the very latest chic fashion in the capital.
“That is all I have to say, gentlemen. As you see, I have tormented you less than the prosecutor did. Because I have arguments, and he has only sentiments. Decide—it is your right and your duty. But the matter is absolutely clear.”
THERE WAS NO ovation because the reaction to the speech was mixed: Bubentsov’s supporters were openly triumphant and his opponents were quite clearly nonplussed.
The prosecutor immediately raised his hand and the debate between the two sides began.
“And so your defendant is an innocent lamb who did not even suspect what a wolf he was warming under his coat?” Berdichevsky vehemently declaimed the excellent phrase that had only just come to mind.
Many people laughed, because Vladimir Lvovich did not resemble a lamb in the least. Encouraged, Matvei Bentsionovich continued: “Does the counsel for the defense not feel that the business of the heads was altogether too convenient for the synodical inspector? No sooner had Bubentsov arrived here in Zavolzhie to eradicate the practice of paganism than all of a sudden headless bodies were discovered, exactly as in the famous four-hundred-years-old chronicle!”
Lomeiko inquired ironically: “Perhaps my client wrote the chronicle himself?”
Again there was laughter, and rather louder than the previous time. When it came to the art of bandying words, Matvei Bentsionovich was clearly no match for the fencer from the capital.
“It does not matter so much who actually carried out the killing,” said Berdichevsky, making a cardinal concession, because he had no way to refute the defense’s arguments. “It is possible that Bubentsov did not dirty his own hands. But if the blood was spilled by Djuraev, he was acting with Bubentsov’s knowledge!”
“Do you have proof?” asked the advocate, screwing up his eyes, “or are you simply vaporing, as you did so recently?”
“An ignorant, benighted Caucasian could not have worked out such a cunning plot by himself,” Berdichevsky began anxiously. “And he was hardly likely to have understood the subtleties of photographic art. He not only tore up the photographs, but also smashed the plates. Where did he come by such knowledge of the photographic process? And, let me remind you, the murderer removed precisely the picture and the plate that could have given away the spot where the bodies were buried. How will you explain that?”
Gurii Samsonovich smiled condescendingly.
“Why, very simply, my dear colleague. As he was wrecking the exhibition, Djuraev noticed that one of the pictures showed a place that he remembered only too well. On looking more closely, he saw the mattock that he had forgotten. It was not hard to imagine what danger this picture posed for the murderer. There is the answer to your riddle. And in addition, Mr. Prosecutor, I should like to protest in the most vigorous terms against the revolting contempt for other nationalities implied by your words. ‘An ignorant, benighted Caucasian.’ You make it sound as if he were not entirely human. And yet he was very human indeed, only with different traditions and beliefs, and with his own ideas of honor, far stricter than ours. It is a great pity that the police killed Djuraev. I would have gladly argued in his defense. We always measure everyone with our own yardstick, but Russians are not the only people in this world.”
The defender’s reward for these just words was passionate applause from the progressive section of the public, with the journalists applauding most loudly of all. Berdichevsky blushed painfully, because he subscribed to the very same views.
“And what of the attempt to escape? Why did Bubentsov need to flee, if he was innocent?” asked Matvei Bentsionovich, suddenly recollecting this point.
Lomeiko paused, as if he was embarrassed by such a simpleminded question.
“I beg your pardon, but what else was there left for him to do when the Circassian opened fire? Your valiant plodders would have riddled all three of them with bullets. And Bubentsov could not possibly believe that there would be a fair trial. And we can see that he was right.”
Berdichevsky looked at the defendant and saw Vladimir Lvovich’s lips tremble in a triumphant smile.
“How long can this go on?” the deputy chief procurator said rather loudly. “It seems that everything could hardly be any clearer.”
Matvei Bentsionovich cast a glance filled with anguish at His Grace Mitrofanii, who suddenly gave him a certain sign.
“Mr. Chairman,” Berdichevsky immediately declared. “I would like to ask you to hear a witness for the prosecution.”
When it emerged that the bishop of the province himself was going to testify, the defender leapt to his feet and shouted: “I protest! The bishop had nothing to do with the investigation; I have studied the materials of the case very closely. And so His Grace’s speaking can be nothing other than an attempt to exploit the authority of such a respected individual to influence the jury.”
Mitrofanii smiled, amused at the thought that the court might not allow him to speak. The chairman of the court, his swollen-veined physiognomy flushed bright scarlet, replied sharply to the luminary from the capital.
“Not so! Although the bishop did not formally take part in the investigation, it is well known to everyone that he guided the activities of the investigators. In addition, His Grace’s perspicacity in such matters is well known, and not only in our province”—the judge pronounced the last word with especial emphasis, in rancorous revenge on the barrister for his earlier jibes—“but also beyond its boundaries.”
“As you wish,” said Gurii Samsonovich, bowing his head meekly, but before he sat down, he added: “I implore you, Your Grace, not to abuse your word as a pastor! It carries great weight, but the responsibility that comes with it is also great.”
THE ENTRANCE OF this witness created a genuine sensation, and in his zeal one of the illustrators even slid down from his chair onto the floor and gradually crept closer in order to capture the bishop’s solemn and majestic posture as he pronounced the words of the oath.
Mitrofanii did not address the jury directly, but immediately turned to face the counsel for the defense, as if acknowledging that he was the key figure in this bitter legal battle.
“You spoke of responsibility,” His Grace began clearly and loudly. “And you spoke the absolute truth. Everyone who speaks before a human court of law bears a great responsibility. But we bear an incomparably greater responsibility before another court to come. However, you appear to have forgotten about that.”
Gurii Samsonovich lowered his head meekly, as if not daring to contradict such a venerable opponent while yet remaining true to his own opinion.
“You are, after all, a talented man with a subtle mind,” Mitrofanii continued reproachfully. “Why do you indulge in these verbal acrobatics? The merchant and his son, the three poor Zyts, the artist, the two young women, and this Caucasian as well—see how many souls have perished. And all of them, as ill luck would have it, are connected with Bubentsov. You wil
l not attempt to deny that, surely? Here in Zavolzhie everything had been calm and peaceful. Then this man appeared and it was as if he had cast a curse on our blessed district. There came murders, mutual suspicion, hatred, baseness, informing, mistrust in families, fear. I shall now say something that many freethinkers and atheists will regard as superstition and backwardness, but it is the pure truth. Prowling around us and among us are those who bear in their souls the spirit of evil. There are many of these people, and they look exactly the same as everyone else. Therefore we do not fear them, but we open our hearts and our embraces to them.” At this point His Grace scanned with an expressive glance the gallery where the ladies of Zavolzhsk were sitting. “And we only come to recognize these bearers of evil when for some reason, for certain requirements of their own, they decide to wound us or destroy us. And then we wail and lament, but it is nearly too late to save ourselves, because these evil powers have teeth of steel, claws of iron, and their hearts are hewn from stone.”
The bishop resembled an Old Testament prophet now, and Mitrofanii’s voice thundered as if he were leading his cavalry squadron into the attack on the English hussars in the Valley of Death at Balaclava.
“Do you know what a disaster befell our province? Evil came to us. And we who live here have all felt it—some sooner and some later. Your defendant is not only an evil man, he is a servant of evil. His entire life, his entire behavior, testify to that. And a dangerous servant, because he is intelligent, cunning, resourceful, bold, and handsome. Yes, yes, handsome. The Evil One has endowed him with a mellifluous tongue, an entrancing voice, and the power to subdue the weak with many other gifts.”
At this point Bubentsov did something foolish: He pretended to menace the bishop from behind with horns, and he stuck out his tongue. Someone snorted in laughter, but on the majority of those present the antic left an extremely unpleasant impression.