The Cleansing Flames (St Petersburg Mystery)

by R. N. Morris

  The skin came away in tatters, large looping holes where the formation of adipocere disrupted it.

  ‘All flesh is as grass,’ said Dr Pervoyedov, as the sheet of skin fell apart in his hands. ‘Except when it is soap.’ The doctor handed the remnants to his diener and turned back to the body.

  ‘Look at this, Porfiry Petrovich.’

  More than anything in the world, Porfiry did not want to accept that invitation.

  He took a step closer. Dr Pervoyedov was probing the white mounds that had formed on the chest with a long metal implement. ‘Here the adipocere goes deep. The heart has all but gone, it seems. I will be able to tell more when I cut the ribs away.’

  ‘His heart has gone?’

  ‘Yes. Turned to soap.’

  Porfiry felt unspeakably sorry for the man on the table.

  *

  The air had never tasted fresher. Porfiry drew in great, bursting draughts as if he had just been rescued from drowning. He cocked his head to one side and listened to the riotous sounds of the nearby fair. And then lit a cigarette.

  ‘We must not resist it, Pavel Pavlovich.’

  ‘But should we not get back to the department?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But first we must greet Yarilo.’

  ‘I would rather not.’

  ‘Are you afraid?’

  ‘What do you mean? Of what could I possibly be afraid?’

  ‘It takes courage to acknowledge every aspect of one’s personality.’

  ‘One may acknowledge the aspects to which you are referring without being enslaved to them.’

  ‘Yarilo, god of regeneration. Of resurrection. Of life, reborn out of death. Striking how these ideas recur, is it not? As if there is some deep, eternal truth behind them.’

  ‘Or rather, it is because they answer some deep, eternal need in man. Man creates his gods to meet his needs.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I have always loved the balagany.’

  ‘I find them rather tiresome. If it is all the same to you, I shall see you back at your chambers.’ Virginsky gave a curt nod.

  Porfiry answered with a flurry of angry blinks. His smile hardened. ‘As your superior, I command you. You will come to the fair with me.’ Porfiry’s hand tightened around Virginsky’s wrist. ‘Furthermore, you will enjoy yourself.’

  *

  Porfiry treated Virginsky to hot boiled potatoes from an old woman selling them out of her apron. He led the way through the crowd, holding his napkin of potatoes reverently out in front of him, as if it were a holy relic in procession.

  He was happy to go where the crowd let him, carried along by the press of jostling shoulders. Every now and then, the throng eased around him and he would take the opportunity to guzzle a mouthful of potato. Following listlessly in Porfiry’s wake, Virginsky left his fare untouched for as long as possible. But eventually even he could not hold out against the wholesome smell.

  As they moved about the fairground, the clash of sounds around them constantly mutated. An ever-shifting power struggle was being waged. One moment, a trombone band dominated, blaring out a snatch of ‘The Petersburg Theatre Goer’. The next, it was an organ grinder singing along to ‘Katenka Goes Throughout the Village’; he turned the brass handle of his street organ to grind out the melody, as if it were a form of auditory sausage meat. The shimmer of a balalaika swayed in time with the swinging cradle in which a young man serenaded his sweetheart. The shrieks of children running in and out of their legs were chased away by the yelps of a hungry dog. A moment later, screams of unfettered delight from the slopes of the artificial ice mountains sent their gaze soaring.

  And all the time, the barkers’ cries rang out from competing booths.

  Porfiry took in the sideshows with the air of a wine connoisseur given free run of a well-equipped cellar – with an unhurried excitement, in other words, and in the full expectation that he would not be disappointed. His promiscuous eye ranged over the dizzying choices. The flash and dazzle of the fire-eater’s torches held him entranced until all the flames were swallowed out. He gasped at the speed of a juggler’s batons spinning in the air. He felt his mouth kink into an anticipatory grin at the sight of an actor in harlequin costume, who was balancing on one of the balconies of an enormous booth, as if about to leap off into the crowd below. The fellow raised himself on his tiptoes and stretched his arms out to either side like wings. The assembled spectators drew in their breath as one, as the performer flexed his body with a few lithe dance steps on the balcony rail. At the next balagan window, puppet masters with magnificent priestly beards perched on the sill, dangling their brightly coloured marionettes or turning the wooden heads of their child-sized dummies. The most imbecilic displays were strangely compelling: a dog in a tutu dancing on its hind legs; a monkey in a hussar’s costume riding a tricycle. Porfiry smiled at them both and turned to see if Virginsky shared his delight. He did not seem to notice the younger man’s sullen glare.

  Staggering like a drunk, Porfiry walked straight into a boy pushing a handcart of pastries for sale. He had finished his potatoes and was hungry for something else to consume, but the child got away from him, perhaps frightened off by his uncontrolled bulk. At the same time, his nostrils caught the scents from a nearby gingerbread and oranges stall. He was tempted by the cries of the ice seller: ‘Ice! Ice! Chocolate, vanilla, coffee and rose! Who will taste my delicious ice?!’ But in the end he settled on a gingerbread man each for himself and Virginsky. The younger man took the biscuit with a quizzical frown.

  The next stall along sold puppets and dolls. Virginsky shook his head warningly at Porfiry, who seemed unduly interested in the goods on display.

  ‘Are you quite well, Porfiry Petrovich?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘First you buy gingerbread men, now you are casting longing glances at these childish trifles. I fear you have reverted to some infantile stage of your existence.’

  Porfiry gave a heavy sigh. ‘Perhaps I am trying to recapture my lost youth. Can you blame me for that? Or it may be that I’m simply trying to get the smell of death out of my nostrils.’ He craned his head towards some cherubs carved from wax, hanging from a willow branch. ‘It amounts to the same thing, does it not?’ He held out a hand towards one of the cherubs, and set it spinning. ‘Even here I am reminded of what I seek to escape. It could be made from Dr Pervoyedov’s adipocere, could it not?’ Turning from the stall with a wistful smile, he surveyed the balagan booths, ready to make his choice at last. ‘Pulchinella!’ he announced, happily, and set off with renewed energy.

  ‘Must we?’ complained Virginsky, hurrying to keep up. ‘I confess I can never make any sense of these shows.’

  ‘That is because you are watching with the wrong part of your mind. You approach it too rationally. It is not your fault. It is the fault of your generation, and it applies to everything you do.’

  ‘I am surprised to hear you, of all people, decry the use of too much rationality.’

  ‘You’re right, Pavel Pavlovich. I place great store by rationality. But it is like a muscle. One must exercise it, for sure. But one must also rest it from time to time.’

  It was a pantomime show, presented on the platform of a makeshift wooden theatre. The actor playing Pulchinella was dressed in the traditional white costume, his face half-covered by a black mask. The performance had reached the part where Pulchinella – in his peculiar high, rasping voice – has announced his intention to marry. It seemed that a bride had been selected for him, a ninety-nine-year-old woman, living for some reason in the Semyenovsky Regiment.

  ‘It makes no sense,’ complained Virginsky. But Porfiry, like the other spectators, was delighted when the promised bride did not materialise and instead Pulchinella was attacked by a dog.

  A seemingly random succession of characters came onto the stage in succession, to be attacked and fought off by Pulchinella. The action was chaotic. It culminated in the appearance of a devil, who it seemed had come to claim the incorri
gible Pulchinella. A fight ensued, of course, ending with Pulchinella riding the devil like a horse. It was at this point, just as the drama was coming to its bewildering end, that Petrushka entered the stage.

  ‘Why?’ cried Virginsky, in exasperation. ‘I ask you in all seriousness, Porfiry Petrovich, what purpose is served by his entrance? Why do we need Petrushka when we have Pulchinella? And why now, when the thing is nearly over?’

  Porfiry waved away the objection.

  ‘He is entirely superfluous to the drama!’ But Virginsky appeared to be the only member of the audience who objected to Petrushka’s appearance, for it was met with frenzied cheering by all around.

  A canvas screen dropped down behind the actors, on which was depicted an enormous devil’s head, with an open mouth. One by one, the cast climbed through the hole, apart from Pulchinella, who was pulled through by the hands of the others, resisting to the last.

  5

  A rendezvous with no one

  Porfiry found the following letter waiting for him back at his chambers:

  Dear Sir,

  I have chosen to write to you because of your involvement several years ago in the case of the student who murdered the old woman and her sister. Covering the case as a journalist, I was obliged to attend the trial, where I was favourably impressed by the humane way you conducted the prosecution, as I believe I made clear in the account I wrote for a certain publication at the time. Indeed, it might have surprised you to have read such an account in such a journal.

  I have an interesting story to tell you. Some sailors went swimming in the Winter Canal. Five men jumped in, but six men came out. How could that be?

  If you would like to know the answer to this riddle, meet me at the Summer Garden, near the northern entrance, at three o’clock, today. It is my favourite time to visit the Summer Garden, when the statues emerge from their winter coffins. I would prefer not to visit you at your chambers because there are spies in every government department. If I am seen there it will mean certain death for me.

  Of course, if this letter falls into the wrong hands, I will be dead by the time you come to meet me. Therefore I have greater cause than usual to hope that we shall meet this afternoon. How will you know me? Do not fear. I will know you. Please come alone. I’m afraid this must be one of those tiresome anonymous letters, of which I am sure you receive far too many.

  ‘Is it genuine?’ asked Virginsky.

  Porfiry handed the letter over to the younger magistrate. ‘It appears to be. The letter bears yesterday’s date. It was written and sent before the newspapers appeared. I think we may have found our mysterious onlooker.’

  ‘He is a journalist, or so he claims. Perhaps he learnt about the incident professionally?’

  ‘He mentions the number of sailors, which I do not believe was given in the information we released to the newspapers.’

  ‘That’s true,’ conceded Virginsky. ‘So you will go to meet him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Is that not what he requests?’

  Virginsky frowned. ‘Do you have any idea who he is? He claims to know you.’

  ‘I hope I shall find out soon enough,’ said Porfiry.

  *

  He saw the padlocked chains from a distance. Both of the high, elaborate gates in the northern fence were secured. It should not have surprised him but it did. The Summer Garden was, of course, closed. It was that time in late April when visitors were kept from the park in order to allow the ground to recover from the thaw. Had his anonymous correspondent forgotten this? Possibly, though the letter had not explicitly said that they should meet inside the park, merely ‘near the northern entrance’.

  Porfiry approached the railing with a sinking heart. He had been looking forward to a stroll along the tree-lined avenues and had purposely arrived with a few moments to spare. The pink granite of the columns in which the gates were set seemed flushed by the glow of spring. The sun also sparkled in the golden embellishments to the wrought iron, almost compensating him for his exclusion. He peered through two vertical bars. The paths were indeed sodden, justifying the temporary closure. The grey wooden boards that protected the statues from the winter frost had already been removed, though the statues were still swathed in white sheets. There was something unmistakably eerie about the rows of enshrouded figures on podiums. They seemed to hold the potential for movement, as if they were simply waiting for the wrappings to be taken off, before springing to life. Porfiry must have been in a morbid frame of mind, for he added the thought: And wreaking havoc. It was not clear to him why the latent beings beneath the sheets should choose havoc-wreaking above any more harmless activity.

  Checking his fob-watch, he saw that he was early for his appointment. He did not wish to draw attention to himself by loitering, so he decided to walk a circuit of the perimeter, striking off in the direction of the Summer Palace. The proximity of that modest palace, little more than a large house in fact, reminded him that he was very close to the spot where, almost exactly six years ago, Dmitry Karakozov had made his attempt on the Tsar’s life.

  He wondered whether this momentous event had played a part in his correspondent’s choice of meeting place, consciously or otherwise.

  Porfiry thought back to the trial of Raskolnikov, without doubt the murderous student referred to in the anonymous letter. The courtroom had been crowded with the gentlemen of the press, scrutinising his every word and even gesture. That was to be expected: Raskolnikov’s crime, sensational enough in itself, had been interpreted as having a wider significance. It had been seen as a symptom of the nihilistic disease that was corrupting the younger generation at the time, and that had, if anything, become more virulent in the years since. Karakozov’s assassination attempt had been made the following year. How the state dealt with Raskolnikov was to be seen as a litmus test for how it would deal with all its malcontent young men. Too much leniency would provoke the reactionaries; excessive severity would incite the radicals.

  As always in Russia, a matter of justice had become a political battleground: Porfiry had found himself caught in the middle.

  He tried to picture the journalists’ faces. Had there been one among them whom he could identify as the writer of that letter? One man in whose eyes he had noticed a particular sympathy, the beginnings of a bond perhaps?

  It seemed so long ago now. And at the time, he remembered, he had made a conscious effort to block out their faces, not to mention their pencils, sharpened for blood, hovering over their notebooks. If he had thought too much about what the press were going to write about him, he could not have done his job. He concentrated instead on the humanity of the young man whose terrible error had brought him to that courtroom. Yes, his error was grievous, his crimes appalling. But he was still a man. A human heart beat within his breast. He possessed a soul, one that had become infected with ideological disease admittedly, but a soul nevertheless. A soul capable of being saved. Indeed, it was the duty of all those older, wiser heads charged with the administration of justice – judges, prosecutors, defence attorneys, all – it was their duty to work together urgently to bring about this salvation. Porfiry had come to believe that Raskolnikov’s soul was nothing other than the soul of Russia’s youth. If they turned their back on him, they turned their back on a whole generation – on the future, in fact.

  And so, with this thought in mind, he had called for clemency. He had joined with those who urged that the accused be treated with compassion, as one suffering from a mental derangement.

  In short, he had not called for the maximum sentence. Further, he had himself brought to light many of the strange psychological contradictions in the case that had helped to convince the jury of Raskolnikov’s insanity and had so led to mitigation in sentencing.

  Which of those journalists, he now wondered, would have viewed this conduct with approval? Porfiry paused in his circuit. He closed his eyes and tried once again to bring their faces to mind. Nothing
. However, he felt sure that he would immediately recognise the individual should he come towards him now. He opened his eyes and looked about him hopefully. There were not many people about (why would anyone come to the Summer Garden when it was closed?), but none of the faces he saw struck a chord.

  Porfiry took the letter from his pocket. The line he wished to consult was, ‘It might have surprised you to read such an account in such a journal.’ What could the writer have meant by that? he wondered.

  He folded the letter along its creases and returned it to his pocket. He had not yet completed his circuit and was still early for the meeting; nevertheless, he turned and headed back to the northern gate.

  He looked expectantly into the faces of everyone who approached, including the women, and even, rather foolishly, the children. Not once did he feel any glimmer of recognition. More to the point, it was clear that no one recognised him.

  Sudden activity within the park drew his attention: the squeak of a handcart being pulled around by couple of workmen in long artisan’s waistcoats. Porfiry was unduly excited to see that they were about to take the covers off the statues. He watched as they picked away at the first of the sheets, pulling it away to reveal a female figure, in the classical style, semi-naked but nondescript. An allegory. Porfiry had to admit he was disappointed. She did not leap from the podium and run along the main avenue, her laughter tinkling stonily like dropped pebbles. Porfiry smiled at the fanciful image, which his imagination further embellished with the fantasy of the two workmen giving chase. In reality, the men simply busied themselves with folding up the redundant sheet, which they placed in the handcart, before moving on to the neighbouring sculpture.