A Razor Wrapped in Silk (25 page)
The priest had to agree that these images were also in place.
‘Well then.’
‘But he says he will take them down!’ spluttered Father Anfim.
‘Did you, Apollon Mikhailovich?’ It seemed to Virginsky that the tone she adopted was the one she would use with a naughty schoolboy.
‘No!’ denied Perkhotin emphatically. ‘The subtleties of my position have been lost on the reverend father.’
An explosion of bluster escaped from the priest’s mouth.
‘Then what
did
you say?’ asked Maria calmly.
‘I said that there would come a day, before too long, possibly within our lifetime, certainly within the lifetime of the children we teach, when such symbols will not only be taken down, but also will be destroyed.’
‘Is that what you are teaching?’ screeched Father Anfim. ‘It is revolution!’
‘Nonsense. In the first place, I do not teach it. The inevitable cannot be taught. One may as well attempt to teach the tide to come in. Whether one likes it or not, these things will happen. And to observe as much implies neither approval nor its opposite. It is morally neutral.’
‘There!’ cried Father Anfim triumphantly. ‘Condemned by his own words … Morally neutral! It is not your place to be morally neutral, sir. It is your place to teach loyalty to the Tsar … and devotion to God, while you’re at it.’
‘But what about the principles of science?’
‘The principles of the One True Church. That is your priority. You are producing the Tsar’s future subjects. It is your duty to impose most emphatically upon them …’
‘To impose what, father?’
‘A sense of their place in his empire whilst assuring them of his fatherly love for them.’
‘Is it a father’s love that condemns them to a life of hellish drudgery and back-breaking toil out there?’ Perkhotin waved sweepingly at the casement window. The lights of the surrounding factories glowed dimly through the smog.
‘A father’s love may at times appear distant … his visage stern. But if those children place their trust in him … they will find … he will not let them down! Indeed, he is their best hope for protection. Was it not this tsar who lifted the yoke of
serfdom? Even you must admit that! Well, now, he applies the same zeal … the same loving diligence … to, to, to …’
‘To what?’
‘To the question of factory regulations.’
‘Another commission that will come to nothing, its findings hidden away in some dusty departmental cupboard.’
‘The Tsar will consider its findings carefully, as he always does.’
‘Before giving his order:
Bury it!
As he always does.’
‘Please, gentlemen,’ broke in Maria Petrovna desperately. ‘This is fruitless. Father Anfim, you have my assurance that I will never consent to the removal of the icon.’ She spoke at a racing lick, her fluency inspired by necessity. ‘The same goes for the portrait of the Tsar and the map. Not only that, I can assure you that Apollon Mikhailovich agrees wholeheartedly with me on this. Is that not so, Apollon Mikhailovich?
Is that
not so, Apollon Mikh—?
’ The final, repeated question fell away into tears.
‘Maria Petrovna! Whatever is the matter?’ Perkhotin took her hands in his. ‘If I have caused you any distress by my ill-judged remarks …’
‘My dear lady!’ cried Father Anfim, who appeared almost panic-stricken as he pressed in on her. The priest and the teacher jostled to assert their solicitude. ‘Do not upset yourself. I … I … Given your assurances regarding this individual … I accept unreservedly.’
‘Thank you, my friends.’ Maria Petrovna pulled her hands free from Perkhotin’s. ‘I must ask you to forgive my outburst. I assure you, it has nothing to do with either of you. It is simply that I must go with these gentlemen. They are magistrates. They have something they want me to look at.’
‘What’s this?’ Something sharper than concern, a look almost of cunning, pinched Perkhotin’s features as he considered Porfiry and Virginsky.
‘It’s to do with the children. The ones who went missing. There is the question of identification.’
‘I see.’ The words rasped at Perkhotin’s throat.
‘Oh my dear, how terrible for you. May God give you strength.’
Virginsky felt impelled to speak up. ‘Of course, there may be a way to spare Maria Petrovna from this ordeal. If either of you gentlemen would be willing to make the identification in her place? That is to say, if the children were known to you.’
‘They were my pupils,’ insisted Maria. A desolate calmness had entered her voice. Her eyes were fixed on a distant point.
‘It’s the boy, isn’t it?’ began Perkhotin hesitantly. ‘Mitka? I know him. I could identify him, I believe.’
‘There are other children missing too, whom I do not think you know.’
‘I would know their faces, Maria Petrovna.’
‘No!’ The force of her objection shocked them all. ‘I mean to say, yes, you would know their faces, I’m sure. But I cannot ask you to do this. No one knows these children as I do. No one else can do this for me.’
‘But there is something you should be aware of,’ said Virginsky, with a desperate look to Porfiry.
Porfiry shook his head warningly.
‘What? What is it?’ Her words came constricted by fear.
Virginsky fixed his gaze on Porfiry. ‘We told you that the bodies were received by the Medical-Surgical Academy, for the purposes of teaching. The students have been at work on them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The heads have been removed.’
The sound was something more than a groan. It was the throbbing churn of her living flesh.
‘I’m sorry,’ continued Virginsky. ‘There was nothing we could do about it. It was part of their studies. It is important, however, that you are prepared for what is to come. To expose you to this without warning would be cruel.’ He cast a significant glance towards Porfiry Petrovich.
‘I will not permit you to subject yourself to this,’ said Perkhotin grimly. Then, as if he sensed her inevitable intransigence, he added: ‘Or at least allow me to accompany you.’
‘No.’ This time, she uttered the word of rejection softly, and Virginsky marvelled at how quickly she had regained her composure. ‘Though I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your offer. You must stay here for the children. And for me. I need you to take my class.’
‘Then
I
will come with you,’ said Father Anfim, drawing himself up to his full height.
Maria Petrovna rewarded this quixotic offer with a smile of unbounded gratitude. ‘It will not be necessary, dear, kind Father Anfim. I will have these gentlemen with me. As well as being magistrates, they are also my friends, or so I consider them. I hope I am not wrong to do so.’
Absurdly, Virginsky felt himself blush, though whether it was out of pleasure at the favour shown him, or resentment at being grouped together with Porfiry Petrovich, he could not say.
‘It is as well your colleague came when he did. I was about to set the students the task of removing the facial epidermises.’
The professor, whose name, it turned out, was Bubnov, led the way by candlelight through the dark corridors of the basement, which like every basement in St Petersburg was permeated with the cloying smell of damp rot. His remark, intended for Porfiry Petrovich, was made a little too volubly. It drew a gasp from the darkness behind Virginsky. He turned and waited. Maria Petrovna’s face appeared, wraithlike. She seemed hardly there, the flickering intimation of a presence in the shifting darkness. Virginsky reached out a hand to console her, but lost faith in the gesture before it was completed.
Virginsky ran two steps to catch up with Porfiry. ‘Porfiry Petrovich,’ he hissed through clenched teeth. ‘We cannot, in all conscience, subject her to this.’
‘It’s all right, Pavel Pavlovich.’ Maria’s voice came deep and firm, as if something of the darkness had entered it and given it strength. He thought of her singing in the schoolroom. ‘I must do it.’
‘But you don’t know what it will cost you. You will never be the same after this. What you are about to see, it will enter you and take hold of you, and
never
let you go.’
‘You wish to spare me. I understand. But I do not wish to be spared.’
‘Pavel Pavlovich.’ Porfiry’s voice was stern as he cut in. ‘You must not presume that everyone will be affected in the same way that you were. Now, please calm yourself. This discussion is not helpful to Maria Petrovna.’
Maria’s presence faded momentarily as she reeled back from their attention. It was as if she could not bear even the feeble glow of the candlelight on her. The force of their dispute, and that she was the subject of it, seemed also to weigh heavily on her.
‘I just want to … get this over with.’ Two bright points glittered in the darkness, then flickered uncertainly before disappearing.
‘Take my arm, Maria Petrovna.’
The glittering points came back, their gleam directed at Porfiry Petrovich. He held out his forearm receptively. Her hand, like a timid creature venturing from its hiding place, bobbed tentatively towards it.
Virginsky felt the pivotal roll of defeat inside him.
*
As they entered the room, the smell of damp intensified, or rather it was overlaid with another smell in a similar register, but sweeter and somehow more insinuating. Professor Bubnov touched a taper to the candle flame and lit an oil lamp suspended from the centre of the ceiling. Its spread of yellow light seemed to take them all by surprise.
There was a glacial chill in the room. The floor was of trodden earth, the walls exposed brick, apart from one wall which was taken up with rows of small, square doors of varnished wood. These doors were numbered from one to twenty four, and had been constructed, Virginsky noted, with
evident care and craftsmanship, to precise specifications. The polished brass hinges and fastenings gleamed. A folded stepladder was leaning against this wall.
‘This is where we keep the body parts,’ said Professor Bubnov, placing his candle on a long table in the centre of the room. Virginsky noticed that the surface of the table was stained with blood. ‘Complete cadavers are kept elsewhere. As you may have noticed, the temperature here is several degrees lower than in the corridor, on account of the ice, in which the parts are packed.’
Porfiry addressed himself to Professor Bubnov. ‘We are looking for a boy of about ten years of age. He would not have come to you before, say, the thirteenth of September.’
‘We do keep a record of when we take possession of our cadavers.’ Professor Bubnov took up the candle again and crossed to a desk against one of the brick walls. There was a lamp on this too. He removed the cylindrical glass and lit the wick with unhurried methodical care. Replacing the glass seemed to take an age. At last the professor sat down at the desk, then opened a drawer and took out a ledger book. With the same slow meticulousness, he turned the pages, running his fingers along rows of numbered entries.
Virginsky craned his neck to peer over Professor Bubnov’s shoulder. ‘Does it tell you from whom the bodies were acquired?’
‘As I informed you this morning, we receive them from the police. There is no need to go into any greater detail than that, as all the bodies come from the same source.’
‘Of course,’ granted Virginsky, frowning enquiringly at Porfiry Petrovich. Porfiry smiled and nodded approval.
‘We did receive such a body, number four three six one, a
boy, estimated to be around that age. Received, let me see, on the twenty-third of September.’
‘And these letters here,’ said Virginsky, pointing to a column in the entry Professor Bubnov had his finger on. ‘I. P. S.? What do they signify?’
‘Do you wish me to show you the head of this boy?’ There was a note of aggression in the offer. ‘You will be interested to know that it was one of the heads the students were to have worked on this morning.’
‘I see each entry has a set of similar letters in the same place,’ persisted Virginsky. ‘I. I. D., P. P. Ch., S. D. L. They look like initials to me. Some of them occur more than once. This I. P. S., for example, occurs here, here and here.’
‘It is nothing.’
‘But it must mean something.’
Professor Bubnov closed the ledger. ‘I had the heads from this morning’s class placed in compartment seven. The head of four three six one should be with them.’ He turned sharply away from the desk, consigning the ledger and its contents to the past.
Porfiry treated Virginsky to a significant blink. ‘My dear Professor Bubnov,’ he began smoothly. ‘It really would be most helpful for us to know the meaning of those letters. Perhaps you are embarrassed because you do not know.’ This time, his facial contraction was without doubt a wink. Professor Bubnov’s eyes darted slyly, as he calculated his position. ‘Yes, that must be it,’ continued Porfiry. ‘I cannot believe that you would deliberately withhold information from the judicial authorities.’ The professor looked down in embarrassment. ‘In that case, if you need to consult with the person who entered these letters in order to learn from them directly what they
signify, and then pass on that information to us later, that would of course be acceptable. Do you not agree, Pavel Pavlovich?’
‘It will be acceptable,’ said Virginsky.
‘And now, professor, if Maria Petrovna is read y …’
Maria Petrovna bowed her head in heavy assent. Her face was ashen. Her lips were compressed and colourless.
Professor Bubnov rattled open the stepladder and positioned it alongside compartment seven, the first from the left on the third row. He climbed to the second step of the ladder and reached out to turn the brass handle. As the door swung open, Virginsky saw that the back of it was lined with a dull grey metal. A wooden panel came half way up the aperture of the door: the front of a deep drawer. A brass handhold had been inlaid into it. Again Virginsky marvelled at the care that had gone into creating these holding bays for dead matter. Above the drawer front, an impenetrable blackness squatted. It seemed to be an entity released by the opening of the door. But it did not burst out with boundless energy; rather, it began a slow, seeping infiltration of the room.