The Cleansing Flames pp-4

by R. N. Morris

  Virginsky’s heart was pounding hard. Surely he had not been mistaken? Porfiry Petrovich had promised him that there would be a man in place, through whom he would be able to communicate. This fellow had to be that man. But if he were not, Virginsky had just, in all probability, written his own death warrant.

  The man stooped and retrieved the dart, moving on without opening it. He glanced up at the window. Virginsky tried to interpret his look, for he felt that it must contain the secret of his own fate. But the look was all too brief and utterly inscrutable.

  Virginsky turned to the mantelpiece to consult the ormolu clock, wondering how much longer he would have to wait for something to eat. But he saw that Varvara Alexeevna had removed it. Its absence struck him as pointed, and yet he felt a strange sense of injustice at this. After all, it was Botkin who had threatened to smash the clock, not him. Whatever else she might think of him, she had no reason to believe he was a vandal, or a thief.

  *

  In the adjoining room, Varvara Alexeevna lay on top of the bed, overwhelmed by the sensation of her heartbeats resonating throughout her body. She felt as though her core had been drained from her, leaving a vacuum that seemed to be expanding all the time, pressing up against her epiglottis. It was as if she was on the brink of regurgitating her soul, or what her soul had become now that she no longer believed in it.

  She had delivered four babies that day, the first to a merchant’s wife in Vasilevsky Island, the second to a clerk’s wife in Narvskaya District, the third to a prostitute in Kazanskaya District, and the fourth to the wife of a factory worker, who already had six other children, huddled together in a damp cellar in Spasskaya District. Perhaps the strange physical sensations she was experiencing were symptoms of a kind of elation. She ought to be at least satisfied with a good day’s work. The babies had all been born alive, although she could not vouchsafe how long they would remain so. The mothers too had survived the trauma of childbirth. And yet she could not shake off the sense that she was helping to bring children into a terrible world, and therefore she was complicit in fashioning the joyless, loveless destinies that awaited them; in their oppression, in other words. Many of the babies she delivered were unwanted. They would grow up — if they survived infancy — experiencing only hardship and misery. In all likelihood, the girls would become prostitutes; the boys, drunken brutes, fathering more unwanted children. And so it went on. Ignorance breeding ignorance.

  She relied on two consolations to bring herself out of these depressive states: the first was her commitment to the revolution, her determination to do what she could to create a better world for the four babies she had delivered that day to grow up in; the second was her enjoyment of the small collection of fine objects she had managed to accumulate over the years. She was aware of the contradiction inherent in these positions. It had been pointed out to her enough times by Kirill Kirillovich and his friends. But as far as she was concerned, both were essential to her, and therefore she saw no difficulty.

  At times, however, the latter consolation, that of beautiful objects, was more compelling than the allure of a distant, unachieved future. There was so much uncertainty on the way to a better society, so much debate and disagreement, about methods and means, not to mention objectives, that it was hard to maintain her commitment to the cause at every minute of every day. The present was dominated by sacrifice, as the immediate future would be. There was the very real possibility that she herself would not live to enjoy the rewards that would one day come. In the meantime, all that was left to her was to obey unquestioningly whatever was asked of her by the central committee. But she had to confess, she found this harder than she might have hoped. For example, she had been called upon to harbour the man in the next room. She did not like him. She did not trust him. But it seemed that he was a hero of the revolution, or on the verge of becoming one. And so she must share her apartment, and her food, with him.

  It was hard to bear. And what was worse, her husband had left her alone with the interloper. The creak of the window opening in the next room reminded her forcefully of his presence. She sat up and turned her head, to indulge in the second of her consolations, which in this instance meant gazing across at the ormolu clock she had retrieved from the living room, now placed on her rococo dressing table.

  It was almost six o’clock. Kirill Kirillovich should be home soon. Varvara Alexeevna rose from her bed and crossed to the window to look out for him. As she reached the window, she noticed a paper dart drift down towards the courtyard. She instinctively pulled back. A man was standing near the entrance to the courtyard. At first, there seemed to be no connection between this man and the paper dart, which he seemed determined to ignore. Indeed, it was his insistence on not looking at the dart, or at the window from which it had been thrown, that convinced her he was linked to it in some way. At last, the man began to walk casually across the muddy space, pausing only to pick up the paper dart, which he pocketed without reading.

  ‘The ruse’

  Porfiry Petrovich was sitting up in bed, a selection of newspapers spread out over him, as if the hospital had run out of linen and had resorted to these grubby paper sheets instead. He seemed unusually chipper, particularly for someone who had apparently been shot at close range. A small gauze dressing was fixed to his cheek with adhesive tape. His face around the dressing appeared tender and swollen. The room, of which he was the sole occupant, smelt of carbolic acid.

  A polizyeisky positioned outside his door had been authorised to admit only Nikodim Fomich and Dr Pervoyedov. Indeed, the polizyeisky himself had been forbidden from entering the room, although there was nothing to prevent him, other than his unquestioning instinct for obedience. The man had been chosen for his singular lack of imagination and curiosity.

  Porfiry looked up as the door opened and Dr Pervoyedov came in. The doctor’s expression had settled over the past day or so into one of determined, seemingly unshakeable resentment. The raw, heart-punching fear he had felt the day before, when he had first walked into Porfiry’s chambers to see his friend leaching blood from a chest wound, was still with him, a spur to his anger now. Confused and alarmed by Zamyotov’s panic, by his garbled talk of gunshot and blood, it had at first been impossible for Dr Pervoyedov to take in what Porfiry was saying to him: that there was no need to worry; that he was not hurt; that Virginsky had not really shot him. That it was all a ruse.

  ‘A ruse?’

  ‘Yes, a ruse!’ How infuriatingly pleased with himself Porfiry Petrovich seemed when he shared his secret. Only just released from the anxiety of thinking his friend injured, Dr Pervoyedov felt a powerful urge to inflict the pain he had imagined Porfiry to be suffering. In the event, his adherence to the Hippocratic Oath prevailed. That was when he first noticed the nick on Porfiry’s cheek.

  ‘Pavel Pavlovich discharged a blank cartridge!’ hissed Porfiry, between delighted wheezing gasps of laughter.

  ‘He did what?’

  ‘We plugged the cartridge with a wad of paper. This,’ said Porfiry, holding up the hand that had apparently been staunching his wound, ‘is pig’s blood!’

  Dr Pervoyedov’s face contorted into an expression of distaste at the memory, though all the pig’s blood had by now been cleaned up. His distaste was at the part he had been forced to play in the deception. It was all very well for Porfiry Petrovich to indulge in these pranks, but to involve others, such as himself and Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky — well, that was going too far.

  Of course, Porfiry Petrovich had insisted that it was not a prank. He preferred the word ‘ruse’, and had asserted that it was entirely necessary, if Virginsky was to be accepted as a committed revolutionist.

  At that point, Dr Pervoyedov had given vent to his feelings by indulging in a spate of unscientific language, briefly summarised by the question, ‘Have you any idea of the danger to which you are exposing that boy?’

  ‘But the whole thing was Pavel Pavlovich’s idea!’ declared Porfiry, as if that justified
everything.

  Dr Pervoyedov had shaken his head in exasperation. His anger at Porfiry’s recklessness — how could an intelligent man be so stupid? — distracted him from whatever duty of professional care he might have owed as a doctor. For although he had noticed the nick, and realised it was a genuine abrasion, he did nothing about it. In his defence, it appeared extremely minor. (But was there a desire to punish Porfiry in this trivial act of neglect? If so, the doctor never admitted it.) He ought perhaps to have intervened when Porfiry carelessly rubbed the graze with the hand that was stained with pig’s blood, but at the time he had been in full abusive flow. He had scarcely noticed the movement. Furthermore, he had been so caught up with Porfiry’s definition of the event as a ‘ruse’, which implied something harmless and even amusing, that it was almost as if he had developed a professional blind-spot.

  It was only later, when Porfiry was installed in the room at the Obukhovksy Hospital, that Dr Pervoyedov had remembered, and attended to, the cut on his face, at last cleaning away the blood, a mixture of Porfiry’s own and that of the unknown pig. He had rinsed the wound with a solution of carbolic acid, in keeping with the best advice of the renowned Edinburgh surgeon, Joseph Lister. ‘There must have been something lodged in the barrel, or perhaps it was a piece of the cartridge shell that broke off.’ He could find nothing of the kind in the wound now. Whatever had caused the injury was long gone.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Porfiry had protested.

  ‘Tell me, did he really point the gun at your head?’

  ‘But it was loaded with a blank cartridge. There was no danger.’

  ‘Could he not just as easily have fired into the air?’

  ‘He had to make it convincing.’

  ‘But there was no one else in the room with you at the time. And your door was closed. Who was there to be convinced?’

  ‘Someone might have come in just as he was firing the gun.’

  ‘In which case, your ruse most certainly would have backfired. Pavel Pavlovich would have been detained.’

  Porfiry had pursed his lips as he thought about Dr Pervoyedov’s objections. ‘Perhaps he needed to convince himself.’

  Now, a day after ‘the ruse’, Dr Pervoyedov was less than happy with what that graze was turning into. The skin around the wound was red, the flesh swollen, and sore, judging by Porfiry’s winces when Dr Pervoyedov probed it. The wound itself was tiny. But it was moist and gaping, like the mouth of a small bloodthirsty fish.

  Porfiry himself, however, seemed little troubled by it, and so the doctor affected to be equally unconcerned. ‘I’ll just take a look at that cut,’ he said, avoiding Porfiry’s eyes, and still maintaining his pinched, resentful expression.

  ‘Stop fussing. It’s nothing, I tell you. It’s the way you keep pulling off that dressing that’s made it sore.’

  At Dr Pervoyedov’s smile as he studied the minuscule wound, Porfiry wondered if he had at last been forgiven. But the smile was a mask. The truth was that Dr Pervoyedov did not like what he saw at all. The flesh was angry and more inflamed than ever. And in the lips of the little fish, he saw morsels of yellow pus.

  The doctor felt a weight of shame and grief, his conscience pounding his memory with the sight of Porfiry’s pig-bloodied hand touching his face. He knew very well what they might expect if the infection took hold in earnest.

  And so his resentment vanished — what a trifling thing it turned out to be, after all! — and he was restored to Porfiry as the smiling friend of old. If Porfiry was suspicious at the speed of this transformation, he kept it to himself.

  As Dr Pervoyedov cleaned out the wound now, Porfiry’s winces were more deeply felt and longer lasting than they had been.

  *

  Porfiry let out a small wimper of protest as he slumbered, waking himself up with a start. His arms felt down the bed and pulled a sheet of newspaper up to read. He quickly tired of the paper and let it fall to the floor, casting a glance towards Dr Pervoyedov. ‘What are you doing still here? Don’t you have proper patients to see to?’

  For some reason, Dr Pervoyedov was grinning in a most unconvincing manner, affecting an insouciance that he clearly did not feel. ‘Oh, I have completed my rounds. I was just passing, and so I thought I would look in on you.’

  There was a diffident knock at the door. Porfiry looked up to see Nikodim Fomich enter.

  ‘How is our patient?’ Nikodim Fomich gave the last word an ironic emphasis. His face wrinkled with pleasure. He had never shared Dr Pervoyedov’s disapproval of ‘the ruse’, and had in fact given his secret assent to Virginsky’s mission beforehand.

  ‘The wound is not healing as cleanly as I might have hoped,’ said Dr Pervoyedov, who seemed to be irritated by Nikodim Fomich’s joviality.

  ‘Wound? But I understood the weapon was loaded with blanks?’

  ‘The good doctor has rather made a mess of my face with all his fussing,’ said Porfiry.

  ‘I. .!’ But Dr Pervoyedov decided against articulating his protest further.

  ‘Exercise more care, Pervoyedov! We must look after this man. He is the jewel in our crown.’ Nikodim Fomich patted Porfiry’s leg solicitously. ‘Now then, what do you think of this? We have received a message. From Pavel Pavlovich, our man in the field. The system you set up has worked, Porfiry Petrovich!’

  Porfiry waved away the compliment.

  Nikodim Fomich handed a much-folded sheet of paper to Porfiry. Porfiry looked briefly at the note but handed it back to Nikodim Fomich almost immediately. ‘Read it to me.’ His hands fell heavily when the note was taken from him and he closed his eyes.

  Nikodim Fomich frowned distractedly at this unexpected reaction but did as Porfiry directed. ‘Have read Dolgoruky’s printed confession. He confesses rape of child. Child subsequently killed self. Dolgoruky makes no mention of suicide in confession. I believe this provides Dolgoruky with motive to kill Pseldonimov: to suppress the confession that he came to regret. Printing press at workshop off Kalashnikovsky Prospect. Also serves as bomb-making factory. Dolgoruky promised to introduce me to 1 known as “Dyavol.” Failed. I believe Dyavol head of cell including Pseldonimov, Rakitin, Dolgoruky, Kozodavlev and three others. My first contact, Botkin. Totsky = “Bazarov” from Affair. And Tatyana Ruslanovna Vakhrameva! (Remember?) If I can meet Dyavol, will find out more. Dyavol is key to it all. We could arrest Dolgoruky for child rape. He will confess. But if he remains at liberty for present he may lead me to Dyavol. Cell is planning major atrocity involving explosives. I need to infiltrate cell further find out what. Some suspicion (of me) by revolutionists. They would be more convinced if P.P. had died! (Consider announcement to that effect? Staged funeral?) If I am discovered, they will kill me. Botkin ruthless, Dolgoruky mad. Totsky angry. Vakhrameva damaged. Dyavol? Worst of all? I sincerely hope that I am not mistaken in the man I have chosen to deliver this message. (However, advise you change man as he is becoming conspicuous.)

  ‘P.S.: Tatiscev lied. Did know Kozodavlev. “Stole” K’s wife many years ago.’ Nikodim Fomich directed his attention expectantly onto Porfiry.

  ‘Pavel Pavlovich has done well,’ declared Porfiry without opening his eyes.

  ‘Shall we raid the workshop?’ asked Nikodim Fomich. ‘Seize the illegal printing press and whatever materiel is there? Virginsky has very helpfully drawn a map of the location.’

  ‘If we do that now, the members of the cell will without doubt vanish into the night. We must allow Pavel Pavlovich to continue his operation.’

  ‘With all respect, Porfiry Petrovich,’ began Dr Pervoyedov, ominously. The doctor had a tendency to formality when agitated. ‘With all respect, I say, would it not be wiser to extract him now before he comes to any harm?’

  ‘Extracting Pavel Pavlovich prematurely will only have the same effect. The terrorists will realise they have had an agent in their midst and, once again, disappear without trace. And so, we have no choice but to ensure Pavel Pavlovich’s further advancement in the movement.’
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br />   ‘You are not thinking — I hope to God you are not thinking this! — you are not thinking of taking up his preposterous suggestion?’

  ‘It may be possible to make an announcement along the lines that he has suggested.’

  ‘You would announce your own death? And would you also stage a funeral? Surely even you would hesitate to perpetrate a prank as tasteless as that.’

  ‘If it were merely a prank, then of course I would have nothing to do with it. And, with any luck, it will not come to that. However, if we time our announcements well, Pavel Pavlovich’s progression within the inner cabal will have reached its conclusion before there is need to go through with any such display.’

  ‘And what will that conclusion be, I wonder? His death?’

  ‘You may not believe this, Dr Pervoyedov, but I tried to talk him out of it, to no avail. I could see that he was determined to get mixed up with these people, with or without my support. I felt it better to put in place a channel of communication, should he need to contact us in an emergency.’ Porfiry’s eyes were still closed as he spoke. His weariness was such that it seemed as if the conversation, rather than his injury, was taking its toll on him.

  ‘You could have forbidden him.’

  ‘In which case, I would have lost him entirely. I fear that I may have half-lost him as it is.’

  ‘Oh? And what do you mean by that?’ said Nikodim Fomich.

  At last Porfiry opened his eyes to look at Nikodim Fomich. ‘I mean that Pavel Pavlovich’s loyalties are, at the best of times, difficult to pin down. The poor boy is deeply conflicted, and fluctuates dangerously in his convictions. If I had forbidden him from proceeding with his plan, I fear that he would have joined the revolutionists in earnest — out of petulance, as it were. He is quite often capable of acting in such an immature way. I sometimes think the only way to understand Pavel Pavlovich is in the light of the difficult relationship he has with his father. He is torn between the desire to assert his independence — in other words, to break free from authority — and his craving for authority’s approval. We may be sure that the same complex medley of emotions is present in the relationships he is forging with the revolutionists. That is to say, he will want to destroy them at the same time as wishing to be accepted by them. That is how he looks on everything — including the department, including me.’