by R. N. Morris
The drunk’s answer was a deep and inarticulate growling.
His companion gripped the handrail of the stairs and swayed as if he were at the prow of a listing ship. He swallowed portentously. His body lurched dangerously after Salytov as he passed. But the sober policeman moved too quickly for him. He left them on the stairs and did not look back.
Wan candle flames glimmered on the half-dozen tables and along the bar. The uncertain light, pocketed in gloom, seemed to encourage introspection among the isolated drinkers. Not a single face turned toward him. In one corner of the room, a woman wrapped in a grubby shawl was squeezing random notes out of a ruptured concertina. The anxious expectancy that these sounds induced was incompatible with conversation. There was no laughter, no voices raised in conviviality; only groans and sighs of despondency sounded in the gaps between the instrument’s wheezes.
Salytov pushed through his own resistance to the wooden bar, where a skinny adolescent potboy was intent on smearing glasses with a dirty rag. The youth paused now and then, prompted somehow by the irregular rhythms of the concertina. It was as if he couldn’t continue his task until the next note had sounded. He wore a soiled and belted rubashka, the embroidery of which was coming apart.
“Who’s in charge here?” The boy responded to Salytov’s abrupt demand with a look of stupefied amazement. “The landlord, idiot!” Salytov brought a fist down on the bar. The noise it made was less impressive than he had hoped, but still it was enough to startle the boy a second time. It seemed also to silence the concertina player, at least temporarily. “Why are you staring at me like that? Why will you not speak? Are you a mute? Are you an imbecile?” Fear bloated the boy’s eyes. This only infuriated Salytov more. “Can you people not understand-?” He broke off, unable to voice what it was he wanted to be understood. His sense of contamination was incommunicable. He resorted to announcing: “I am Lieutenant Ilya Petrovich Salytov of the Haymarket District Police Bureau.” And now the boy’s mouth was gaping. “Don’t you understand Russian? Where is he?”
“Who?” came finally, in a cracked voice that managed to span several octaves in one word.
“The landlord, you idiot!”
“He’s in the other room.”
“Call him then! Don’t you people understand anything?” He could feel it on his scalp now, the contamination. It had spread over the surface of his body and was now seeping into him. Every second he was forced to spend in these places deepened it. A shudder of loathing passed through him. He scanned the floor for cockroaches and looked back at the boy as if he had found one.
But without the boy calling, a rotund man with indolent eyes appeared behind him. His face was dirty, his hair and beard knotted. His pear-shaped body bulged beneath a greasy leather apron. “It’s all right, Kesha.” There was a note of suspicion in his bass voice. Wariness flickered in his eyes as he took Salytov in.
“You are the proprietor of this”-Salytov looked around as if he would find the word he was looking for daubed on the walls, then settled for a sarcasm-“establishment?”
The landlord nodded minimally.
“Lieutenant Salytov of the Haymarket District Police. I am conducting an official investigation. You must cooperate or face the consequences.” Salytov reached into the pocket of his greatcoat, then passed across the photograph of Ratazyayev. “Do you recognize this man?”
The landlord studied the photograph without comment. He blinked once with great emphasis, making his face a mask of imperturbability. “We get a lot of people in here,” he said finally, handing the photograph back.
“But do you recognize him?”
“Not particularly.”
“Not particularly!” shouted Salytov with sudden spluttering rage. “What on earth do you mean by not particularly? Either you recognize the man or you do not.”
“In that case, I should say, all things considered, I do not.”
“Are you trying to make a fool out of me? Is that your game? I warn you, do not try to make a fool out of me.”
One of the landlord’s eyebrows rose and fell eloquently.
“Do not raise your eyebrow at me! You dare to raise your eyebrow at me? Impertinent-” Salytov struck the man across the face with the back of his hand. The potboy jumped back in shock. But the landlord hardly turned his head and swung it back immediately as if eager for another blow. He faced Salytov now with lowered eyes. “That will teach you to raise your eyebrow at me.”
The landlord nodded in meek penitence.
“Now, I ask you once again, do you recognize this man? Look at the photograph carefully.” Salytov thrust the picture into the landlord’s face, so that he had to lean back to see it.
“Now that I think about it, perhaps he has been in here, once or twice.” The landlord’s voice was flat and calculated. He spoke deliberately, without a trace of fear.
“He is known to frequent the filthiest dives in the Haymarket area. Why would he not come in here?” When it seemed the witticism would not receive the appreciation it merited, Salytov continued his questioning. “When was the last time?”
“I don’t remember, your excellency.” Despite his readiness to use the honorary title, the landlord’s tone remained dangerously neutral. Salytov eyed him suspiciously, even nervously.
“Today? Has he been in here today?”
“No, your excellency.”
“Last night?”
“No. We haven’t seen him for a while, your excellency.” A new note, of strained impatience, crept into the landlord’s voice. He flashed a decisive glance at Salytov and risked: “Or the other one.”
“The other one? What other one?” The kindling of Salytov’s curiosity relaxed his aggression. He dropped the hand holding the photograph.
“He often comes in with another man.”
“Name?”
“I don’t know, your excellency. It’s not my business to inquire into the names of my clientele.”
“I could have you pulled in as the accomplice to a very serious crime.” But Salytov was distracted. The threat was delivered without conviction, almost out of habit. “You are guilty of aiding and abetting men wanted by the police,” he added sharply, as if remembering himself.
“I didn’t know they were wanted by the police, your excellency.” The landlord spoke with measured guile. “If I had, I would have made sure I got their names. As it is, I don’t know the names of any of these people.” He gestured toward the stupor-frozen faces peering out of the gloom. “They come in, they drink, they leave. I don’t interfere with them. Perhaps Kesha can help you.” The landlord nodded permissively to the potboy, whose face was suddenly stretched by panic at the prospect of having to talk to the police officer.
A slow sneer writhed over Salytov’s features. “Very well. You. Talk.”
Kesha’s gaze flitted anxiously between the landlord and the policeman.
Salytov held up the photograph. “So you know these men?”
Kesha nodded.
“Speak!” barked Salytov.
“Y-y-y-yes.”
“Names? Did you ever hear them address each other by name?”
“I think s-s-s-so.”
“Good. So what are their names?”
“That’s Ra-Ra-Ra-Ra….” The boy’s stammering dried up.
“Ra-Ra-Ra? What sort of a name is Ra-Ra-Ra, you imbecile?”
“Ra-Ra-Ratazyayev!” The name came out, eventually, in an angry rush.
“I know it’s Ra-Ra-Ratazyayev, you idiot. I don’t need you to tell me it’s Ra-Ra-Ratazyayev. I want to know about the other one. The man he comes in here with.”
“Govorov.” This time, the name was produced without stammering, in a sudden, involuntary regurgitation.
“Govorov? Are you sure?”
Kesha nodded frantically.
“So. Govorov. What can you tell me about this Govorov?”
Kesha’s shrug was anything but nonchalant. It was as much a wince anticipating pain as a gesture of h
elplessness. He was desperate to know what it was Salytov wanted to be told about this Govorov. Then he could get on with telling it. But only one thing came to mind: “He has photographs.”
“Go on.”
The boy’s lips rippled uncomfortably. Another spasm of a shrug shook him.
“Tell me more about these photographs. What were they of?”
“Stupid.”
“What is so stupid about them?”
“Just…stupid.”
“You are the stupid here, boy. Tell me exactly what you saw when you looked at the photographs.”
“Girls.”
“Girls? What is so stupid about that? Don’t you like to look at photographs of girls?”
“They had no clothes on.”
Salytov let out a great “Ha!” of amusement. “What’s wrong with you? That’s not stupid, that’s…” The word eluded Salytov. “Do you have any of these photographs?”
Kesha frowned and shook his head. “I didn’t like to look at them.”
“Come, come! A boy of your age! Listen, I will not arrest you for looking at a few smutty photographs. Tell the truth now, Kesha.” The boy was startled to hear his name from Salytov. “What did you do with the photographs?”
“I wouldn’t take them! I wouldn’t look at them!” insisted Kesha hotly.
“Why ever not? Are you a skopsy? Have you cut off your balls and dick, is that it? Or are you-” A look of horrified disgust came over Salytov.
“It’s nothing like that. It was their faces. They looked afraid.”
“They’re just whores.”
“They were-some of them-they were just little girls. I have a little sister. It’s not right.”
“They are born whores, girls like that. Why else do you think they do it?”
“I didn’t like to look at them.”
“You have a saint here, cleaning your pots,” Salytov joked to the landlord.
“He is a good boy, Kesha is.”
“He is a liar. I know boys. He is a liar, or worse.” Salytov looked at Kesha distastefully. “Tell me, skopsy, did he show these photographs to anyone else?”
“He was always showing them to people. He would sell them to whoever would buy them, and-” There was a warning look from the landlord. Kesha broke off.
The fire returned to Salytov’s complexion. “Damn you! What’s this?”
“I remember the man myself, now,” put in the landlord quickly. “Once he tried to pay for his kvas with some of these pictures.”
“Strange how your memory returns. Did you accept the pornography as payment?”
“He told me he was an artist. They are what he called artistic poses. Nobody said anything about pornography.”
“Get them.”
The landlord moved slowly, reluctance thickening his torpor. His eyes were the last part of him to turn.
“Hurry it up!” barked Salytov. He smirked at the landlord’s waddling gait as he hurried into the back room.
Approximately the size of playing cards, the photographs were no worse than many he had seen. True, the faces had a certain bewildered quality, but he found that only added to the piquancy. He shuffled through them briskly, ruthlessly, careful not to dwell on any one image or to betray an interest other than professional. And yet the luminous pallor of the flesh, the crisp darknesses of exposed and in some cases immature genitalia, drew his eye and hardened his pulse. He recognized, in among the stilted pageant, the young prostitute who had been brought into the station, accused of stealing a hundred rubles. In the instant that her photograph flashed before him, he assessed the fullness of her breasts.
There were men in some of the photographs. Their faces were always turned away, cropped off or blurred by movement: never shown. Unlike the women, the men were clothed, although in some cases their sexual organs, in varying states of rigidity, were exposed. In one instance, the male subject had been captured at the moment of his self-induced ejaculation. The beads of his semen hung in the air; their trajectory seemed to be toward the female model’s abdomen. She viewed their approach without enthusiasm.
Salytov turned the photographs over and shuffled through them again. An address was written on the reverse of one.
“This. What is this?” said Salytov, laying it down on the counter.
“Three Spassky Lane,” read the landlord.
“Is this Govorov’s address?”
“I suppose it must be. I never noticed it before now.” The landlord avoided Salytov’s eye.
“I find that hard to believe. It’s more likely that he wrote it for you deliberately. So that you would know where to go if you wanted more of the same.”
“Well, I don’t remember. Besides, I don’t spend much time looking at the backs of photographs.”
“This is police evidence now,” said Salytov with a provocative grin. He pocketed the photographs. The landlord didn’t offer a protest, unless a slight hunching of the shoulders could be read as such. “If you see either of these men again, Ratazyayev or Govorov, send Kesha to the police bureau on Stolyarny Lane. Detain them until we get here. Is that understood?”
Salytov didn’t wait for an answer. He delivered a warning nod with the precision of a hammer blow. The concertina player started up again. Salytov had the fanciful idea that her playing was not just mournful but diseased. In his mind, tuberculosis floated in the ragged notes. He turned suddenly and fled. The sense of contamination pursued him, even as he took the steps two at a time.
Seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five…
Virginsky counted his steps. But no matter how far he walked, he couldn’t put any distance between himself and his humiliation. It was always there with him, staring him in the face, in the form of the boots Porfiry Petrovich had given him. So it had come to this: he was a charity case. And to accept charity from such a man! Virginsky had not forgotten how they came for him in the night, nor the words with which the magistrate pointed him out: “That is the man. That is Virginsky.” And then this same Judas had the nerve to argue that he should relinquish his freedom voluntarily!
That man is the devil, he said to himself. To think I nearly went along with it.
He realized that he had lost count of his steps. It was difficult to count and think at the same time. That was the point, of course-the point of the counting. If he could only concentrate on his counting, he wouldn’t have to think about his humiliation. He picked up from the last number he could remember, not knowing how many steps he had missed.
Seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight…
He was walking along the side of the solidified Yekaterininsky Canal, toward the Nevsky Prospect. It was not a day to be out unless you had good reason. The cold wind assaulted his face and mocked his tattered overcoat. The ice cut into him and spread along his nerve fibers with greedy, destructive haste. There was a bend in the canal. The towpath kinked sharply northward. On his right was the Imperial Bank, turning its curved back on him jealously. You shall not have any of this, it seemed to say. On the other side, across the canal, loomed the massive bulk of the Foundling Hospital. It struck him as an ironic juxtaposition.
Virginsky stopped to consider the significance of it. He felt weak, unable to think. And yet it was suddenly pressingly important to him to work out what it meant to be standing between the Imperial Bank and the Foundling Hospital.
As he stood there, a man even more destitute than he shuffled past, his meager jacket and trousers padded with straw and newspaper. The tramp seemed to have come from nowhere, his footsteps almost silent. There were many such individuals in Petersburg, anonymous and interchangeable. As one died, another would appear. Virginsky did not attempt to meet his eye, though he did look at his feet. The man wore an old, disintegrating pair of felt boots, soaked and filthy.
Virginsky acknowledged the superstitious dread that had prevented him from looking into the man’s face. He was remembering a story he had once read about a man haunted by his double.
/> He let the tramp disappear around the bend in the path before starting his steps again.
Seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one…
When he turned the corner the tramp was not in view.
Eighty-two…
The canal path brought him into the Nevsky Prospect alongside the Kazan Cathedral. The width and prosperity of the street intimidated him. He felt that the wind that purged it would destroy him, deliberately. Only the affluent, layered in furs, could venture into it.
Virginsky decided to shelter in the colonnade of the Kazan Cathedral. Though he would describe himself as an atheist, he had always liked this place. The semicircular sweep of the colonnade was vaguely reminiscent of arms held open for embrace. He responded to the grandeur of the design without being awed by it. It seemed to contain within it something welcoming and benign. He believed the humanity of the peasant stonemason shone through.
The wind had blown between the columns a light scattering of snow dust, which every now and then it moved around or added to. Looking at the palimpsests of footprints on the paving stones, Virginsky’s mind went blank. He was suddenly unable to count his own steps.
His humiliation came back to him and the dim memory of a resolve to end it. He remembered a plan, conceived in a police cell or possibly even before then. He seemed to spend his life reaching the same resolve, drawing up the same plan. Would he ever find the courage to put it into action?
But already he had forgotten what the plan was and would have to wait for it to come back to him. In the meantime…
One, two, three…
He set off again, walking the colonnade.
It was not that he was simpleminded. It was just that he was hungry. If only he could find a solution to that, the hunger, and the humiliation that came with it. But that was it, he suddenly remembered. That was why he was here in the Nevsky Prospect. To bring an end to the hunger.