Master of Petersburg

by J. M. Coetzee

  ‘Very serious. Your duty is clear, you don’t need my advice. If and when Nechaev returns to his native country, you must arrest him. As for my son, what can you do? Arrest him too?’

  ‘Ha ha! You will have your joke, Fyodor Mikhailovich! No, we could not arrest him even if we wanted to, for he has gone to a better place. But he has left things behind. He has left papers, more papers than any self-respecting conspirator ought to. He has left behind questions too. Such as: Why did he take his life? Let me ask you: Why do you think he took his life?’

  The room swims before his eyes. The investigator’s face looms like a huge pink balloon.

  ‘He did not take his life,’ he whispers. ‘You understand nothing about him.’

  ‘Of course not! Of your stepson and the vicissitudes of his existence I understand not a whit, nor do I pretend to. What I hope to understand in a material, investigative sense, however, is what drove him to his death. Was he threatened, for instance? Did one of his associates threaten to disclose him? And did fear of the consequences unsettle him so deeply that he took his own life? Or did he perhaps not take his life at all? Is it possible that, for reasons of which we are still ignorant, he was found to be a traitor to the People’s Vengeance and murdered in this particularly unpleasant way? These are some of the questions that run through my mind. And that is why I took this lucky opportunity to speak to you, Fyodor Mikhailovich. Because if you do not know him, having been his stepfather and for so long his protector, in the absence of his natural parents, who does?

  ‘Then, as well, there is the question of his drinking. Was he used to heavy drinking, or did he take to it recently, because of the strains of the conspiratorial life?’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why are we talking about drinking?’

  ‘Because on the night of his death he had drunk a great deal. Did you not know that?’

  He shakes his head dumbly.

  ‘Clearly, Fyodor Mikhailovich, there is a great deal you do not know. Come, let me be candid with you. As soon as I heard you had arrived to claim your stepson’s papers, stepping, so to speak, into the lion’s den, I was sure, or almost sure, that you had no suspicion of anything untoward. For if you had known of a connection between your stepson and Nechaev’s criminal gang, you would surely not have come here. Or at least you would have made it plain from the outset that it was only the letters between yourself and your stepson that you were claiming, nothing else. Do you follow?’

  ‘Yes –’

  ‘And since you are already in possession of your stepson’s letters to you, that would have meant you wanted only the letters written by you to him. But why –’

  ‘Letters, yes, and everything else of a private nature. What can be the point of your hounding him now?’

  ‘What indeed! . . . So tragic . . . But to return to the matter of the papers: you use the expression “of a private nature.” It occurs to me that in today’s circumstances it is hard to know what “of a private nature” means any longer. Of course we must respect the deceased, we must defend rights your stepson is no longer in a position to defend, in this case a right to a certain decent privacy. The prospect that after our decease a stranger will come sniffing through our possessions, opening drawers, breaking seals, reading intimate letters – such would be a painful prospect to any of us, I am sure. On the other hand, in certain cases we might actually prefer a disinterested stranger to perform this ugly but necessary office. Would we be easy at the thought of our more intimate affairs being opened up, when emotions are still raw, to the unsuspecting gaze of a wife or a daughter or a sister? Better, in certain respects, that it be done by a stranger, someone who cannot be offended because we are nothing to him, and also because he is hardened, by the nature of his profession, to offence.

  ‘Of course this is, in a sense, idle talk, for in the end it is the law that disposes, the law of succession: the heirs to the estate come into possession of the private papers and everything else. And in a case where one dies without naming an heir, rules of consanguinity take over and determine what needs to be determined.

  ‘So letters between family members, we agree, are private papers, to be treated with the appropriate discretion. While communications from abroad, communications of a seditious nature – lists of people marked down to be murdered, for instance – are clearly not private papers. But here, now, here is a curious case.’

  He is leafing through something in the file, drumming on the desk with his fingernails in an irritating way. ‘Here’s a curious case, here’s a curious case,’ he repeats in a murmur. ‘A story,’ he announces abruptly. ‘What shall we say of a story, a work of fiction? Is a story a private matter, would you say?’

  ‘A private matter, an utterly private matter, private to the writer, till it is given to the world.’

  Maximov casts him a quizzical look, then pushes what he has been reading across the desk. It is a child’s exercise book with ruled pages. He recognizes at once the slanted script with its trailing loops and dashes. Orphan writing, he thinks: I will have to learn to love it. He places a protective hand over the page.

  ‘Read it,’ says his antagonist softly.

  He tries to read but he cannot concentrate; the more he tries, the more he sees only details of penmanship. His eyes are blurred with tears too; he dabs with a sleeve to prevent them from falling and blotting the page. ‘Trackless wastes of snow,’ he reads, and wants to correct the cliché. Something about a man out in the open, something about the cold. He shakes his head and closes the book.

  Maximov reaches across and tugs it gently from him. He turns the pages till he finds what he wants, then pushes it back across the desk. ‘Read this part,’ he says, ‘just a page or two. Our hero is a young man convicted of treasonous conspiracy and sent to Siberia. He escapes from prison and finds his way to the home of a landowner, where he is hidden and fed by a kitchenmaid, a peasant girl. They are young, romantic feelings develop between them, and so forth. One evening the landowner, who is portrayed as a gross sensualist, tries to force his attentions on the girl. This is the passage I suggest you read.’

  Again he shakes his head. .

  Maximov takes the book back. ‘The young man can bear the spectacle no longer. He comes out of his hiding-place and intervenes.’ He begins to read aloud. ‘“Karamzin” – that is the landowner – “turned upon him and hissed, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ Then he took in the tattered grey uniform and the broken leg-shackle. ‘Aha, one of those!’ he cried – ‘I’ll soon take care of you!’ He turned and began to lumber out of the room.” That is the word used, “lumber,” I like it. The landowner is described as a pug-faced brute with hairy ears and short, fat legs. No wonder our young hero is offended: age and ugliness pawing maiden beauty! He picks up a hatchet from beside the stove. “With all the force at his command, shuddering even as he did so, he brought the hatchet down on the man’s pale skull. Karamzin’s knees folded beneath him. With a great snort like a beast’s he fell flat on the scrubbed kitchen floor, his arms spread out wide, his fingers twitching, then relaxing. Sergei” – that is our hero’s name – “stood transfixed, the bloody hatchet in his hand, unable to believe what he had done. But Marfa” – that is the heroine – “with a presence of mind he did not expect, snatched up a wet rag and pushed it under the dead man’s head so that the blood would not spread.” A nice touch of realism, don’t you think?

  ‘The rest of the story is sketchy – I won’t read on. Perhaps, once the obscene Karamzin has been polished off, our author’s inspiration began to dwindle. Sergei and Marfa drag the body off and drop it down a disused well. Then they set off together into the night “full of resolution” – that is the phrase. It is not clear whither they intend to flee. But let me mention one last detail. Sergei does not leave the murder, weapon behind. No, he takes it with him. What for, asks Marfa? I quote his reply. “Because it is the weapon of the Russian people, our means of defence and our means of revenge.” The bloody axe, the
people’s revenge – the allusion could not be clearer, could it?’

  He stares at Maximov in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe my ears,’ he whispers. ‘Do you really intend to construe this as evidence against my son – a story, a fantasy, written in the privacy of his room?’

  ‘Oh dear, no, Fyodor Mikhailovich, you misunderstand me!’ Maximov throws himself back in his chair, shaking his head in seeming distress. ‘There can be no question of hounding your stepson (to use your word). His case is closed, in the sense that matters most. I read you his fantasy, as you like to call it, simply to indicate how deeply he had fallen under the influence of the Nechaevites, who have led astray heaven knows how many of our more impressionable and volatile young people, particularly here in Petersburg, many of them from good families too. Quite an epidemic, I would say, Nechaevism. An epidemic, or perhaps just a fashion.’

  ‘Not a fashion. What you call Nechaevism has always existed in Russia, though under other names. Nechaevism is as Russian as brigandage. But I am not here to discuss the Nechaevites. I came for a simple reason – to fetch my son’s papers. May I have them? If not, may I leave?’

  ‘You may leave, you are free to leave. You have been abroad and returned to Russia under a false name. I will not ask what passport you are carrying. But you are free to leave. If your creditors discover you are in Petersburg they are of course equally free to take such steps as they may decide on. That is none of my business, that is between you and them. I repeat: you are free to leave this office. However, I caution you, I cannot positively conspire with you to maintain your deception. I take that as understood.’

  ‘At this moment nothing could be less important to me than money. If I am to be harried for old debts, then so be it.’

  ‘You have suffered a loss, you are despondent, that is why you take such a line. I understand fully. But remember, you have a wife and child who depend on you. If only for their sake, you cannot afford to abandon yourself to fate. As regards your request for these papers, with regret I must say, no, they cannot yet be surrendered to you. They are part of a police matter in which your stepson is linked to the Nechaevites.’

  ‘Very well. But before I leave, may I change my mind and say one last thing about these Nechaevites? For I at least have seen and heard Nechaev in person, which is more – correct me if I am wrong – than you have.’

  Maximov cocks his head interrogatively. ‘Please proceed.’

  ‘Nechaev is not a police matter. Ultimately Nechaev is not a matter for the authorities at all, at least for the secular authorities.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You may track down and imprison Sergei Nechaev but that will not mean Nechaevism will be stamped out.’

  ‘I agree. I agree fully. Nechaevism is an idea abroad in our land; Nechaev himself is only the embodiment of it. Nechaevism will not be extinguished till the times have changed. Our aims must therefore be more modest and more practical: to check the spread of this idea, and where it has already spread to prevent it from turning to action.’

  ‘Still you misunderstand me. Nechaevism is not an idea. It despises ideas, it is outside ideas. It is a spirit, and Nechaev himself is not its embodiment but its host; or rather, he is under possession by it.’

  Maximov’s expression is inscrutable. He tries again.

  ‘When I first saw Sergei Nechaev in Geneva, he struck me as an unprepossessing, morose, intellectually undistinguished, and distinctly ordinary young man. I do not think that first impression was wrong. Into this unlikely vehicle, however, there has entered a spirit. There is nothing remarkable about the spirit. It is a dull, resentful, and murderous spirit. Why has it elected to reside in this particular young man? I don’t know. Perhaps because it finds him an easy host to go out from and come home to. But it is because of the spirit inside him that Nechaev has followers. They follow the spirit, not the man.’

  ‘And what name does this spirit have, Fyodor Mikhailovich?’

  He makes an effort to visualize Sergei Nechaev, but all he sees is an ox’s head, its eyes glassy, its tongue lolling, its skull cloven open by the butcher’s axe. Around it is a seething swarm of flies. A name comes to him, and in the same instant he utters it: ‘Baal.’

  ‘Interesting. A metaphor, perhaps, and not entirely clear, yet worth bearing in mind. Baal. I must ask myself, however, how practical is it to talk of spirits and spirit-possession? Is it even practical to talk about ideas going about in the land, as if ideas had arms and legs? Will such talk assist us in our labours? Will it assist Russia? You say we should not lock Nechaev up because he is possessed by a demon (shall we call it a demon? – spirit strikes a false note, I would say). In that case, what should we do? After all, we are not a contemplative order, we of the investigative arm.’

  There is a silence.

  ‘I by no means want to dismiss any of what you say,’ Maximov resumes. ‘You are a man of gifts, a man of special insight, as I knew before I met you. And these child conspirators are certainly a different kettle of fish from their predecessors. They believe they are immortal. In that sense it is indeed like fighting demons. And implacable too. It is in their blood, so to speak, to wish us ill, our generation. Something they are born with. Not easy to be a father, is it? I am a father myself, but luckily a father of daughters. I would not wish to be the father of sons in our age. But didn’t your own father . . . wasn’t there some unpleasantness with your father, or do I misremember?’

  From behind the white eyelashes Maximov launches a keen little peep, then without waiting proceeds.

  ‘So I wonder, in the end, whether the Nechaev phenomenon is quite as much of an aberration of the spirit as you seem to say. Perhaps it is just the old matter of fathers and sons after all, such as we have always had, only deadlier in this particular generation, more unforgiving. In that case, perhaps the wisest course would be the simplest: to dig in and outlast them – wait for them to grow up. After all, we had the Decembrists, and then the men of ’49. The Decembrists are old men now, those who are still alive; I’m sure that whatever demons were in possession of them took flight years ago. As for Petrashevsky and his friends, what is your opinion? Were Petrashevsky and his friends in the grip of demons?’

  Petrashevsky! Why does he bring up Petrashevsky?

  ‘I disagree. What you call the Nechaev phenomenon has a colouring of its own. Nechaev is a man of blood. The men you do the honour of referring to were idealists. They failed because, to their credit, they were not schemers enough, and certainly not men of blood. Petrashevsky – since you mention Petrashevsky – from the outset denounced the kind of Jesuitism that excuses the means in the name of the end. Nechaev is a Jesuit, a secular Jesuit who quite openly embraces the doctrine of ends to justify the most cynical abuse of his followers’ energies.’

  ‘Then there is something I have missed. Explain to me again: why are dreamers, poets, intelligent young men like your stepson, drawn to bandits like Nechaev? Because, in your account, isn’t that all Nechaev is: a bandit with a smattering of education?’

  ‘I do not know. Perhaps because in young people there is something that has not yet gone to sleep, to which the spirit in Nechaev calls. Perhaps it is in all of us: something we think has been dead for centuries but has only been sleeping. I repeat, I do not know. I am unable to explain the connection between my son and Nechaev. It is a surprise to me. I came here only to fetch Pavel’s papers, which are precious to me in ways you will not understand. It is the papers I want, nothing else. I ask again: will you return them to me? They are useless to you. They will tell you nothing about why intelligent young men fall under the sway of evildoers. And they will tell you least of all because clearly you do not know how to read. All the time you were reading my son’s story – let me say this – I noticed how you were holding yourself at a distance, erecting a barrier of ridicule, as though the words might leap out from the page and strangle you.’

  Something has begun to take fire within him while he has been speaking, an
d he welcomes it. He leans forward, gripping the arms of his chair.

  ‘What is it that frightens you, Councillor Maximov? When you read about Karamzin or Karamzov or whatever his name is, when Karamzin’s skull is cracked open like an egg, what is the truth: do you suffer with him, or do you secretly exult behind the arm that swings the axe? You don’t answer? Let me tell you then: reading is being the arm and being the axe and being the skull; reading is giving yourself up, not holding yourself at a distance and jeering. If I asked you, I am sure you would say that you are hunting Nechaev down so that you can put him on trial, with due process and lawyers for the defence and prosecution and so forth, and then lock him away for the rest of his life in a clean, well-lit cell. But look into yourself: is that your true wish? Do you not truly want to chop off his head and stamp your feet in his blood?’

  He sits back, flushed.

  ‘You are a very clever man, Fyodor Mikhailovich. But you speak of reading as though it were demon-possession. Measured by that standard I fear I am a very poor reader indeed, dull and earthbound. Yet I wonder whether, at this moment, you are not in a fever. If you could see yourself in a mirror I am sure you would understand what I mean. Also, we have had a long conversation, interesting but long, and I have numerous duties to attend to.’

  ‘And I say, the papers you are holding on to so jealously may as well be written in Aramaic for all the good they will do you. Give them back to me!’

  Maximov chuckles. ‘You supply me with the strongest, most benevolent of reasons not to give in to your request, Fyodor Mikhailovich, namely that in your present mood the spirit of Nechaev might leap from the page and take complete possession of you. But seriously: you say you know how to read. Will you at some future date read these papers for me, all of them, the Nechaev papers, of which this is only a single file among many?’