The Gentle Axe Paperback (2 page)

P
ORFIRY PETROVICH TRANSFERRED
the cigarette from fingers to lips, a moment of intense anticipation. It was not pleasure so much that he anticipated as clarity. Porfiry always insisted that he smoked for rational—he would even say professional—reasons.

He closed the brightly colored enamel cigarette case with a soft click and returned it to the inside pocket of his jacket.

A copy of
The Periodical
was open on the desk in front of him. Porfiry flattened the pages, seeming to stroke the words in preparation to reading them. It was an article entitled “Why Do They Do It?” An introductory line promised: “A discussion of the motivation of educated, titled, and talented perpetrators of crime and injustice.” The author was given as “R.”

Porfiry struck a match and leaned forward to meet its flame. As he inhaled, his blood quickened, and he felt both absorbed by and in control of his mental and perceptual processes.

The elegant syntax of the article revealed its secrets to him. He experienced it as a dance of ideas, inevitable and inexorable. He frowned, not because he was confused but for the pleasure of frowning. He was acutely self-conscious.

Something began to impinge on his reverie.

Salytov.

He felt the catalyst of cigarette smoke lose its power. His entire being was no longer focused onto the pages of the journal. He was aware now of the green leather surface of the writing desk upon which it rested. And now the rest of the room came back to him, with its government-issue furniture, the imitation leather–covered sofa, the chairs, the escritoire and bookcase, all made from the same tawny wood. But more than anything he felt the looming presence of the doors.

Salytov was shouting. Again.

Two doors led off from Porfiry Petrovich’s “chambers,” as this modest room in the Department of the Investigation of Criminal Causes was rather grandly known. One was the door to his private apartments, provided for him, like everything else, by the government. The other was the door to the Haymarket District Police Bureau in Stolyarny Lane.

The doors symbolized Porfiry’s dilemma. Either he could take his journal and his cigarette and retreat into his inner sanctuary (although it was well past the hour when he was required to make himself available for his official duties as an investigator); or he could step out into the chaos of the receiving area of the police station and confront his colleague Ilya Petrovich Salytov.

Porfiry ground the stub of his cigarette into a crystal ashtray.

M
Y DEAR ILYA PETROVICH
—”

“Everything is under control, Porfiry Petrovich. There is no need for your interference.” Salytov jerked his arms as he shouted, as if Porfiry were a fly he was trying to swat away. His face was red. The veins on his temples bulged. He moved constantly but without purpose. He was starting to sweat and pulled at his collar.

“Of course, of course…But, you know, I don’t seek to interfere, merely to offer my assistance.”

“I am grateful to you. However…” Salytov had been a lieutenant in the army. Perhaps he had learned to bluster then. But Porfiry found it hard to believe he had ever commanded the respect of his men. He had a weak mouth. The bristles of his well-trimmed sandy mustache couldn’t compensate for this.

“How you scared us last time, Ilya Petrovich! We, your friends in the department, we were most concerned for your health. I’ve never seen such a shade of puce in nature before. And when you fainted.”

“That was in the summer. It was a fearful hot day, and the smell from the Ditch was overpowering.”

“But the doctor was clear that your temper had contributed to the attack.”

“It wasn’t an attack!”

“Were you not commanded—for your own good, of course, but commanded all the same—to avoid such excesses of passion by no less than Nikodim Fomich? Think what would happen if he were to come upon you now.”

“I’m not afraid of Nikodim Fomich.”

“I’m not suggesting you should be afraid of any man, Ilya Petrovich. Not even our esteemed chief superintendent. However, were you to be deprived of your position—”

“He can’t do that to me!”

“A transfer, it would be called, no doubt. A move into a less stressful position. For health reasons. I know how these things work. Believe me, Ilya Petrovich, I’m on your side. I will do all I can. But surely the best course of action is to avoid his attention in the first place. Isn’t there some way we can resolve this matter without all the, uh…” Porfiry smiled and whispered,
“Shouting?”

Salytov gave his reluctant assent with a flinch.

“What is the situation here?” Porfiry’s gently amused tone mollified the demand.

“This young hussy—a prostitute, mind…” Salytov indicated a small, tired-looking girl. She was handcuffed to the black-uniformed
polizyeisky,
who maintained exemplary side whiskers and an outraged expression. The girl’s exact age was hard to say, but she was young. Her face was thickly made up, in the usual fashion of a streetwalker. Somehow this only made her seem more naïve. It was as if someone had explained the economic advantage of heavy cosmetics, and she had applied it in good faith. And she had donned the requisite costume too, by the looks of it handed down to her through the generations. In the glare of the police station, her red silk dress, so old and worn it was practically falling apart, appeared like a badge of poverty rather than vice. The oversize bustle and sodden filthy train invited ridicule, as did her frayed straw hat and tattered parasol. Pathetically at odds with all this, and undermining whatever effect she was aiming at, was the homely woolen shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her build was slight. Both Salytov and the
polizyeisky
loomed over her, though Porfiry was closer to her height. The chief clerk, a pale superior type with high cheekbones, was also in attendance, seated on a stool behind the reception desk. It was clear that the girl was exhausted. Her blue eyes stared wide open in the effort to keep awake. But her shoulders continually sagged. Once or twice she leaned forward onto the desk, causing the clerk to bang down the great admissions book. She would then shoot bolt upright, betraying neither ill will nor complaisance. Necessity drove her, that was all. Every now and then a convulsion of shivering gripped her frail form, each attack more extended than the one before.

Porfiry took her in with a glance as he finished his cigarette. “She carries the yellow ticket?” he asked Salytov.

“Yes.”

“And it is in order?”

“That’s not the issue.”

“But it is in order?”

“Yes.” Salytov almost spat out the word. His face became the battleground for contesting emotions: hatred and anger on one side, the desire not to be shown a fool on the other. It was always the same when he had dealings with Porfiry Petrovich. “She stands accused of stealing one hundred rubles from a gentleman. A search by the arresting constable discovered a banknote to that denomination on her person.”

“I see. And where did this alleged crime take place?”

“Alleged! Really, Porfiry Petrovich!”

“But where?”

“On Sadovaya Street.”

“I see. And when?”

“In the early hours of the morning.”

“Do we not know the precise time?”

“It was about four
A.M.
, sir,” put in the uniformed officer.

“I see. Is there a reason why it has taken so long to process the incident?”

“The gentleman making the charge went missing,” the head clerk supplied, his tone sarcastic and amused, making clear that it was nothing to do with him.

“How unfortunate. Has he turned up now?”

“We are still looking for him,” said Salytov quickly, flashing hatred at the clerk.

“Do we know his name?”

“She”—Salytov signaled the prostitute with a terse nod—“claims he was one Konstantin Kirillovich.”

Porfiry turned his attention to the girl. “So this man was known to you?”

“I had met him once before, your honor.” Her voice was that of a child. It was also polite—the voice of a well-brought-up child.

“Under what circumstances?”

The girl blushed and stared at Porfiry’s feet. Then she escaped into another of her shivering fits.

“He was a client of yours?”

The convulsion calmed. She met his gaze. “No. Not that.”

“A pimp then?”

The girl shook her head but would say no more.

“Do you know where he lives, this Konstantin Kirillovich?”

“No, sir.”

“And how did you come to have the hundred rubles that were found on you?”

“He gave them to me.”

“He gave you a hundred rubles? Why?”

“I didn’t want to take it, sir. He forced it on me.”

“He forced you to take a hundred rubles off him and then called a policeman to accuse you of stealing it? It beggars belief, does it not, child?”

“I can’t explain it, sir.”

“Did he want you to go with him when he gave you the money?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And did you go with him?”

“No, sir.”

“You refused?”

“I suppose so.”

“And yet you kept the money that he gave you. Perhaps that’s why he called the policeman?”

“I tried to give the money back to him. He wouldn’t take it.”

“Do you normally charge a hundred rubles for your favors?”

The girl made a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. There was outrage in it and suffering, yet acceptance.

“Forgive me. But let us face the facts. You are a prostitute. You don’t deny that?”

“I am legal. I have a license.”

She produced the yellow passport that was her license to whore herself. Porfiry read the name: Lilya Ivanovna Semenova. She was registered as working at a brothel called Keller’s at an address on Sadovaya Street.

“Of course. There is nothing to worry about as far as that is concerned. A man gives you a hundred rubles. You refuse the money and refuse to go with him. Was he very ugly?”

“It wasn’t that. That has nothing to do with it, after all.”

“So why wouldn’t you go with him? Why didn’t you want his money?”

“It was too much.”

“You are a strange prostitute, to have qualms on that front.”

“I was afraid of what he would expect in return.”

“Ah! There are limits then? Is that it?”

“Not in the way you think.”

“Please, tell me, in what way then?”

“He didn’t want me for himself.”

“I see. He was an agent in the transaction. And who—on whose behalf was he acting?”

“He didn’t say.” Her pupils, for a moment, oscillated wildly from side to side. Porfiry tilted his head to study her, a feminine gesture.

“But still it doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t you go with him? And why, on your refusal, wouldn’t he simply demand the money back? Why call a policeman? Why accuse you of theft? And why, then, run off?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“What has happened to the money now?”

“We’re holding it as evidence,” answered Salytov.

“Evidence of what? There is no complainant. We can’t charge her. We can’t hold her. Regarding her license, everything is in order. I suggest, therefore, that we release the girl. It is my opinion, also, that we must return the hundred rubles to her.”

“But she stole it!”

“So says a man who isn’t here. She says he gave it to her. There is no one to contradict that story. Perhaps it was a gift. Or we might refer to it as payment in advance for a service that hasn’t yet been rendered. We can’t give it back to him because he’s not here and we don’t know his address. There’s nothing to justify confiscating this poor girl’s earnings.”

“But she did nothing to earn it, even if you accept her version of events,” insisted Salytov.

“True. But who are we to make judgments on that account? We’re here to uphold the law, not our own notions of morality. I would like very much to talk to this Konstantin Kirillovich. My dear, you don’t know his family name, by any chance?”

“No, sir. I know him only as Konstantin Kirillovich.”

“Ah, well. But perhaps he has reasons of his own for not wishing to talk to us. I consider it very careless of you to have let him escape, Ilya Petrovich.”

“But I had no idea he would make off like that!”

“My dear fellow, can’t you recognize when you’re being teased? Of course I don’t blame you. After all, one normally only has to confine the accused.” Porfiry now turned to the head clerk. “Alexander Grigorevich, if you would be so kind as to get the money belonging to this young lady.”

Alexander Grigorevich treated Porfiry to a look of open incredulity; nonetheless he slipped from his stool and sauntered into a room behind the main desk.

A moment later he returned with a brightly colored one-hundred-ruble note. The girl, Lilya Ivanovna Semenova, protested, “I don’t want it. I don’t want his money. You keep it.” There was fear as well as disgust in her expression.

“It doesn’t belong to us,” explained Porfiry.

“But I don’t want it. I never wanted it.”

“Very well, Lilya Ivanovna. We can’t force you to take it. Officer, you may release the prisoner.”

The
polizyeisky
unlocked the handcuffs. Lilya Ivanovna’s face was lit up by amazement. Then she frowned at Porfiry, as though he were a puzzle she couldn’t solve, before turning to plunge herself into the loose crowd milling through the bureau. In her wake, she left a scent in the air.

“What do you want me to do with this?” asked Alexander Grigorevich, holding the banknote distastefully between the tips of his thumb and forefinger.

“Give it to the orphans,” said Porfiry, without looking at him.

L
ILYA SHIVERED AGAIN
as she came out into a freezing fog.

Restless splinters of ice penetrated her clothes and skin. Her feet were wet and numb with the cold. For a moment she had not the faintest idea where she was or how she came to be there. All she could remember was leaving Fräulein Keller’s basement. And everything that had happened since seemed to have happened in a dream.

She ought to go back for her galoshes.

She walked without any sense of where she was going. She heard the lampposts singing, shaken by a wind that went straight through her, despite her shawl. Then she heard the jangle of a passing sleigh and the muted clip of hooves. The horses were almost on her before she saw them. The driver’s green caftan passed in a blur, his words—whether for her or for his team—stifled by the damp air.

It was the man’s eyes that had amazed her, Porfiry Petrovich’s eyes. Or more specifically his eyelashes, blond to the point of transparency. Once she had noticed them, she could not look away. He blinked a lot, and there seemed to be some point to his blinking. Expectancy, or cunning, but a peculiarly feminine cunning, somehow also benign. She’d found it hard to understand what he was saying, so fascinated was she by his lashes and the effect they had on his face. And of course, she was tired.

She blinked herself, as though by imitating him she would come to understand him. Was it really true that he had let her go? And had he really meant to have them return the money to her?

Perhaps it was all a trick. If so, it was just as well she had refused the money. Ah, but to go home with nothing, after a whole night! She couldn’t go home, not yet. She ought to go back to Fräulein Keller’s to get what was owed her.

Zoya had come to see her. That was what she had been told. “Zoya is here for you,” Fräulein Keller had said. “She wants to talk to you about your little one.” But it made no sense. If Zoya had come to Fräulein Keller’s, who was looking after Vera? And when she had gone out into the cold night, there was no sign of Zoya. Just him.

Lilya shivered and let the spasm take hold. She gave in to her weakness for only an instant, holding one blink of her eyelids longer than the others, and in that instant she was back home, cuddling her sweet-souled, beautiful daughter, kissing her cheeks, stroking her hair, whispering promises, never, never again will I leave you, this will last forever, this laughing, crying, clinging moment.

The fog was beginning to clear. Perhaps she had held the blink for longer than she intended. But she was relieved to find herself still standing.

Lilya pulled her shawl tight about her. She had come out into Sadovaya Street. To her right, dim shapes formed into the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary across the Haymarket, above the canvas-covered stalls. She felt comforted by the appearance of the church. A bustling crowd filled the cobbled square between. But in the same way that she was able to see more, so too was she more visible. Faces turned toward her, hostile, mocking, contemptuous. And yet some of the men who pointed her out for ridicule were among those who came to the basement of the milliner’s shop, at a different hour, for a different purpose.

She turned her back on the Haymarket, to face north, toward Yekaterininsky Canal, or the Ditch, as it was known. She crossed Kokushkin Bridge over the frozen canal back into Stolyarny Lane. There was the building that housed the police station ahead of her, and she remembered again his impossible eyelashes. His eyes, she now remembered, were the color of ice, but whether that color was black or silver, she could not say. She was tempted to go back inside just to find out. And while she was at it, she would demand the money after all.

Then without her thinking about it, the rest of him suddenly came back to her. Fat—that was it. He was a fat little man, with a proud paunch out front. But every part of him, almost, seemed to have something swollen about it, from his big, close-cropped head to his plump hands. How strange and improbable those eyes had seemed in all this. How calm and unexpected and alert, but above all how kindly.

Perhaps she would go back inside. And tell him everything. But then again, what was there to tell?

She kept on walking as far as Srednyaya Meshchanskaya Street. So she was going home after all, and with nothing to show for the night.

She could not face going back for her galoshes.

T
HE SNOW IN
the yard was stained with blood. A pig had been slaughtered there that morning. A peasant couple butchered the carcass in the open. They paused in their task to watch her across the yard. The two of them lifted their cleavers in warning, as if they suspected her of being intent on stealing their meat. Their expressions remained blank.

Lilya entered a narrow passageway at the rear of the courtyard. Its darkness shielded her from their scrutiny. She reached out one hand to grope her way along the wall, but with the first step she took, her foot kicked over an unseen obstacle, setting off an almost musical reverberation. A metal pail lay on its side, a dark stain hastening from it. Before she knew it, the peasant couple were at her shoulder, screaming abuse.

“That was our blood, you careless bitch!”

“You’ll pay for it, whore!”

As she fled their stabbing fingers and careless blades, she felt a gob of hawked mucus strike her cheek. She could still hear their shouts as the door to the back stairs closed behind her.

The stench of cabbage soup and urine hung in the stairway. Even so, this felt like a refuge. The gloom welcomed and concealed her. The temperature, though chill, was a degree warmer than outside.

Lilya hauled herself up the stairs with both hands together on the grimy rail, her feet slapping on the worn-down wooden steps.

She heard the door she had just come through clatter in its frame, then hurried footsteps hammering. Somehow she managed to pick up her own pace. She did not look back.

But she was still four flights away from her landing and the footsteps were gaining on her. Then, unexpectedly, they stopped and a door below slammed.

She turned a corner and pushed her way through hanging laundry. It seemed to cling to her face, dragging her back and down. Doors stood open on this landing. Sullen, consumptive faces looked out, waiting for something but not her.

She trudged on, light-headed, her legs uncertain and aching. In a niche on the next half-landing she fancied she saw a figure hanging back, a dark shape in dark shadows. Were those eyes that flashed in the gloom, or white sparks firing in her brain? Dog-tired she was, so tired that it was not inconceivable that her nightmares had come ahead to meet her.

It felt as though the steps were moving beneath her feet now, swaying and sinking, their height increasing, so that it required the courage of a mountaineer to scale each one. And now they had no substance. Her feet sank into them. They were like the marshes the city had once been built on.

She found herself unable to go on. She looked down at her feet. The space between two boards gaped. She closed her eyes and teetered back, the wild lurch in her belly bringing her around. Her head was a dead weight. Somehow she found the strength to lift it and look up. There, ahead of her, was her own landing. The sight of her door spurred her on to a final push.

She fell into the room, gasping at the sudden heat here, but too exhausted to make sense of it. She simply allowed the hot dry air to enclose her in a swooning embrace. And now little Vera was rushing at her, cannoning headfirst in her shrieking delight at her mother’s homecoming. Her daughter’s unquestioning love overwhelmed her. She felt undeserving of it. At the same time she had a sense of the child, so fierce in her innocence, as being eternally closed to her, strange, other, and somehow out of bounds. And there did seem to be something different about Vera today. But again Lilya was too worn-out to pursue the impression. Instead she gave in to tears. She was wracked with the pain of pure feeling, of feeling too much for too long. She allowed herself no memories, no longer entertained dreams. She kept her ideas down to the most essential. Whole areas of moral and mental life were closed to her. All that was left was the intense feeling of the moment.

“Now, now! What’s this?” cried old mother Zoya rushing up to her. She added her own embrace to the tight little cuddles of the infant. “No tears, no tears, daughter. Yes, daughter. Yes, that’s right. Daughter. Don’t I always call you daughter? Zoya’s here. Mamma Zoya will look after you. We’ll be all right. Why, my child, my daughter, my lovely girl, why—everything will be all right now. You’ll see. You’ll see, my sweet Lilililyechka. My sweet child. No tears. Not now. Not today. Oh, my lovely lovely, you’ll see. Look! Look! Mamma Zoya’s taken care of everything! See! Only look, child, and you’ll see. All our troubles are over. Never again! You’ll never have to wear that dress again. You’ll never have to go to that place again. You can tell Fräulein Keller that you’re never coming back. Never! D’you hear? Never!”

Lilya pulled away, her face wet with tears. She shook her head and her eyes were tenderly accusing. She whispered her reproach: “No, Zoya!”

“Mamma, dear. Call me Mamma. Aren’t I a mother to you? More than a mother? Don’t I look after you better than any mother would? Haven’t I earned it?”

Lilya shook her head and murmured, “Cruel!”

“Don’t be afraid, Lilya. Don’t be afraid. It’s true, you see! That life is over!”

“We’ll only make it worse for ourselves!”

Zoya made a dismissive noise and arched both eyebrows in gentle, mocking reproach. But Lilya was beyond such games, too tired even to be annoyed. She lurched past Zoya, toward the end of the room that housed the narrow bed she shared with her daughter. But felt a tight pinch of restraint on her arm. And cried out. Her eyes were pleading as she turned to confront Zoya.

“Look!” commanded the old woman, gesturing to the table. Lilya could not take it in. She saw but did not understand. The table was laden with pastries and loaves. There were sweets too, and candied peel. There was even caviar.

“Where did you get all this?”

“From the Shchukin Arcade, of course. Where else?”

This mystery reminded Lilya of another: “Did you come and see me last night? They said you were at the door.”

“And what kind of a mother are you, not to comment on her daughter’s new shawl?”

Lilya looked down at Vera’s beaming face and frowned at the unfamiliar
drap-de-dames
shawl around the child’s shoulders. Was this why her daughter had seemed alien to her? She stroked the white garment as if to question it with her fingers.

“And here! For you!” continued Zoya, holding out a dark and apparently ancient icon representing the Virgin and the infant Christ. The gold-leaf halos flickered in and out of brilliance. As if suspecting a trick, Lilya refused to take it. “It’s all right,” insisted Zoya. “It’s paid for. Everything is paid for.”

“But how?” whispered Lilya, afraid of the answer.

Zoya put down the icon. She bustled to the far corner of the room and disappeared behind the curtain that concealed her sleeping area. She came back with a padlocked tin box that Lilya had never seen before. As Zoya reached the table, she let the box slip out of her fingers in her excitement. It landed with a heavy clatter. Zoya fumbled with the key, grinning and chuckling, despite her wish to appear mysterious. At last the lid was open. Zoya pushed the box toward her young friend.

The warm colors of the banknotes drew Lilya’s face closer and closer. Then at the last, she recoiled, as if she were afraid of getting burned.

“Where?” she gasped.

“Petrovsky Park.”

“Whose is it?”

“Ours!” cried Zoya.

“No, no. You must tell me all about it, Zoya. You must tell me exactly where you found this money. It might belong to someone, Zoya. It must, surely it must belong to someone.”

“What if it does? What do we care? At any rate, the one it belongs to has no use for it now.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s dead!”

“Zoya! What are you saying?”

“He was a murderer and a thief. A big ugly brute. And a bully. That’s what he was. And he’s dead. No use crying for the likes of him. A murderer! The bloody axe still on him, still dripping with the little fellow’s blood.”

“Zoya, please! I don’t understand. You must start at the beginning. One thing at a time.”

“I found them both. Both dead. The little dwarf. And the other one, hanging. He’d hanged himself. Out of shame.”

“A dwarf, you said?”

“Tiny little man. With a tiny little suit.”

“No!”

“Both dead.”

“The dwarf was dead?”

“Murdered! His head bashed in. And the axe that did it was on the big one.”

“What did he look like, the dwarf?”

“Tiny! A tiny little fellow.”

“Was he dark? Dark hair with a beard?”

“Yes!”

“What else? Anything else about him?”

Zoya’s hands retrieved something from her apron, the pack of obscene playing cards.

“He was a randy little bastard, by the looks of it. I found these on him.”

Lilya gasped as if struck. “I know him! I’ve seen these before. He came to Fräulein Keller’s. Many times. He always asks for me. Zoya, did you come to Fräulein Keller’s last night? Was there something you had to tell me about Vera? Fräulein Keller said—”

“What are you talking about, child?”

Lilya took in the old woman’s good-natured incomprehension. She looked again at the money in the cash box. “Zoya, we must tell the police.”

“No! Don’t you see? They’ll want the money back.”

“But Zoya, it’s not ours.”

Zoya’s face became severe, her tone forbidding. “You must not say a word about this to anyone. Do you hear? You must swear to me on Vera’s life that you will not say a word of this to a soul.”

Lilya shook her head and whispered her refusal.