The Gentle Axe pp-1

by R. N. Morris

  “Like a moment you passed,

  Night of gladness I knew…”

  The interlude was enough to give Virginsky pause. He remembered his original purpose and was amazed how close he had come to jeopardizing it. He was following the cavalry officers because he believed they would lead him to Lilya. The thought of Lilya in connection with these young men inspired in him an overpowering disgust. At the same time it confirmed him in his mission. He had to find Lilya, now. There were questions he had to ask her.

  He had come close to asking her questions before: “How many men? How many times?” And other questions, which he could barely frame in his mind. But her anguished reticence had always touched him. And yet if he was honest, he would say that part of what touched him was anger and part of that anger was directed against her.

  The musical soldier began the next verse:

  “She despises my grief,

  She is heartless and cold,

  She has bartered her youth

  For splendor and gold…”

  These men, these drunken, loathsome men, with their grins and buttons, to say nothing of their sentimental hypocrisy-it was men like these Lilya went with. (How he hated the euphemism-he knew full well what it stood for!) Perhaps tonight, this very night, they would be her customers. His mind forced an image of Lilya into the midst of these privileged hooligans, her clothes falling away beneath their manicured pawings. Her face fluctuated between childlike innocence and meretricious depravity. He had only ever seen the former expression on Lilya, his Lilya. He had seen it the first time he met her, even there, in the depths of Fräulein Keller’s establishment. But he did not doubt the existence of another Lilya, with another face. He hated that Lilya as much as he hated these men.

  The singer was hoisted to his feet and cajoled into moving on. His fellows were evidently impatient. Virginsky continued to track them as they made their veering way along the Prospect, the lyrics of the folk song trailing in the crisp air:

  “Earth and sky, fare you well,

  To the river I go,

  Where the waters are deep,

  O’er my heart let them flow…”

  Virginsky was disproportionately agitated by the words. Of course, the river was not flowing at this time of the year. But allowing for that one small change of detail, he could almost believe that the oaf had read his mind and sung his thoughts.

  It wasn’t long before they came to a stop again. A new tone to their laughter, a gunshot excitement, alerted Virginsky to a significant change in their mood and roused him from his preoccupations. He looked around to see hats floating in a callously illuminated shopwindow. He could hear the officers discussing money. Virginsky was in no doubt. This was the place. And there to confirm it was the wrought-iron stairway at the side.

  The financial negotiations became heated and drew in all the officers. Virginsky took the opportunity to slip past the jostle of smooth backs and down the stairs. He sank into darkness, stumbling the last few steps. Was this really the place? He heard the cavalry officers move on and felt the certainty drain from him.

  A paneled door formed itself in front of him as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom in the stairwell. He groped for and found the bellpull. There was no answering sound.

  He filled the silence with doubts. The questions now were for himself. Why had he allowed himself to be led by the cavalry officers? He saw that there was no logic or consistency to his behavior. This irritated him, and yet he got some satisfaction from the fact that he was still capable of objectivity in his self-analysis. If this did turn out to be the place, perhaps it would also turn out that he had always known how to get here. He had wanted to involve the cavalry officers in his own guilty knowledge; he had wanted, in fact, to pass it on to them and in so doing absolve himself. But it was possible that they had never had any intention of coming to Fräulein Keller’s. It was merely another coincidence that they had led him here. The sinfulness and hypocrisy were all his. They, perhaps, were as innocent as babes, at least in this respect. If so, he hated them even more.

  A panel in the door opened, and a beam of light projected into Virginsky’s face. There was a scornful cackle.

  “Hello?” Virginsky called out, shielding his eyes.

  “What you want?” came a deep, heavily accented female voice.

  “Is Lilya there? I must speak to her.”

  This was met with more of the same laughter. Virginsky suddenly felt that the beam of light and the laughter were one and the same. The laughter existed only inside the beam of light. With their harsh, corrosive force on his face, he had never felt himself more exposed.

  “Tell her it’s Virginsky.”

  The panel closed; a moment later the door itself was opened, and the small frail figure of a girl was pushed out.

  “Pavel Pavlovich, what are you doing here?”

  “Lilya? It is you, Lilya, isn’t it?” Virginsky had only caught a glimpse of her, momentarily silhouetted in the doorway. But even in that moment he had noticed something different about her appearance.

  “Yes, of course it’s me. What’s the matter? Why do you ask?”

  “You have a new coat.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s trimmed with fur.”

  “Yes. What of it?”

  “Business must be good.”

  “Please, Pavel Pavlovich. Please don’t be cruel. It’s not what you think.”

  “How does it feel when they touch you?”

  “Please, Pavel Pavlovich.”

  “You must get some pleasure from it. I can’t see that you would be able to do it at all if you didn’t get some pleasure from it.”

  “Why do you want to make me suffer?”

  “Nonsense! Can there never be candor between a man and a woman about such things? Can’t you see? It’s not my intention to judge you. I have no right. It’s just hypocrisy I hate. I want to understand. I want to know the truth. The truth about it all.”

  “And then? When you have the truth? What will become of me?”

  “No, Lilya, you can’t ask me that. Or rather, you can’t hold me to my answer. But you must understand this: we cannot proceed on the basis of lies and hypocrisy. I must have the truth.”

  “And what do I get?” The force of her anger surprised him. “There’s only one thing I will tell you. This door has closed behind me for good. I am never coming back to this place or this life. I will kill myself and my darling Vera before I go back in there.”

  Her weight was nothing as she pushed past him, and yet he was buffeted by the force of her repulse. He noted, with that remarkable objectivity that he had already admired in himself, that he wanted to hurt her even more than before.

  “Goryanchikov!” he called after her.

  She was halfway up the stairs when she stopped to face him. Looking up, he saw her haloed by a streetlamp. “What of him?” she demanded.

  Virginsky did not know what he was going to say next. He wanted to tell her that he had seen Goryanchikov’s head floating in a jar. Instead he said: “He was one of them, wasn’t he? I saw it in your eyes when you were together. The look of fear that he would betray you. And in his eyes, something else, something nasty and possessive.”

  “All that has nothing to do with you.”

  “You’re right. None of this has anything to do with me. I have no right to interrogate you in this way. I’m surprised you allow it. It’s up to you what you do with your body, who you sleep with, for what reasons. It’s nothing to do with me.”

  “Very well then.” But she stood for a moment without turning from him.

  “Lilya.”

  “What?”

  “He’s dead. Goryanchikov is dead. That’s what I came to tell you.”

  He couldn’t see the details of her face as she took this in. “I have to go” was all she said. The tread of her galoshes set off a muted ringing.

  Virginsky hid his face in his hands.

  Beneath the Milliner’s Shop Again<
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  Porfiry Petrovich lit a cigarette. He was appreciative of the opportunity the flaring match gave him to take in his surroundings. The paneled door that briefly appeared was unexpectedly impressive. He shook the match out before it burned his fingers. The details of the door faded. Porfiry blinked, as if testing the darkness with his eyelashes. He coughed once as he waited for the unheard bell to be answered. He felt that he need not have coughed, or that the cough had a psychological rather than strictly physiological origin. The truth was, even in the impenetrable blackness of this night, he felt himself spied upon. And whenever he experienced this sensation, all his actions struck him as false.

  At last a small panel in the door opened. Light fled the interior as if scandalized.

  “Yes, mein Herr?”

  “Fräulein Keller?”

  “Do I know you?”

  “I would like to make your acquaintance.”

  Her laughter revealed the indecency as well as the absurdity of his idea. “I always like to make new friends, especially when they are a handsome gentleman like you.” She held the door open for him, treating him to a smile that was more ironical than coquettish. Even so, and despite her age (he judged her to be past the midpoint of her fifth decade), that smile set his heart thumping. It was not that he found it attractive. But there was knowledge in it, and experience. Her face was wearied by habits he could only guess at. Perhaps the most wearisome of all: this habit of opening the door to strangers, of assessing their predilections and facilitating fulfillment. Her smile stripped him bare but did not even show her teeth.

  There was nothing of the bawd or the courtesan about her appearance. Her dress was fashionable and tasteful, even demure. All that it revealed was that she had kept her figure. He sensed a certain affectation in the way she carried herself, but was almost reassured by that. It seemed only human and certainly was to be expected. If he slapped her once, very hard, she would perhaps be cured of it. But he knew that he would, on balance, regret its loss.

  Porfiry was admitted to a corridor decorated with more propriety than he had anticipated. He had expected crimson plush. The walls were in fact painted pale green, which struck an oddly prim note, as did the framed prints of racehorses. Only the narrowness of the corridor seemed indecent, due to the physical proximity it forced on those who passed in it.

  Fräulein Keller held out her arms for his shuba. Porfiry was shocked by the gesture. To take off one’s coat in such an establishment was not an innocent activity. It expressed a certain intention. Besides, the coat seemed to afford some protection, not least from that smile. It was strange too how he felt the need to escape from this place as soon as he had entered it. No, he would keep his coat on; he had a perfect right to, after all.

  He saw his tortured mental processes mirrored and mocked in her smile.

  “Fräulein Keller, I am an investigating magistrate.”

  “And so you cannot take off your coat. I understand.”

  “No, no. The point is I’m here on official business.”

  “A bird may be known by its flight. Is that not what you say?” Fräulein Keller laughed at her own cleverness, then, catching that Porfiry did not share her amusement, became serious: “But we are all legal. There is nothing to investigate here.” As if to prove her point, Fräulein Keller opened one of the doors from the corridor, seemingly at random. She showed Porfiry into a parlor paneled in highly varnished yellow wood. There was a hint of excess in the style of some of the furnishings. Porfiry was oppressed by the number of mirrors in elaborate frames. A fire was blazing, suggesting that someone other than the fleeting reflections on the walls had just occupied the room. “You will be too hot if you insist on keeping your furs on.”

  “I am looking for a girl.”

  “Of course.”

  “In connection with an investigation.”

  “Ja, ja, I understand.”

  “Her name is Lilya Ivanovna Semenova. I believe she works here.”

  “No longer. She has retired from the business.”

  “I see.”

  “It happens. The girls find themselves a rich patron. They settle for a while, but it never lasts. Soon they come back, knocking on my door. ‘Fräulein Keller! Fräulein Keller! He has thrown me over! He has taken up with a dancer! Fräulein Keller, please! Let me in!’ They cannot escape the life. It is in their blood. They are born whores.”

  “When was the last time you saw Lilya?”

  “Today. She came back for her galoshes, the little fool. Does she not realize her new friend will buy her all the galoshes she desires?”

  “She told you of this…patron?”

  “She didn’t need to. It’s obvious. How else could she afford to retire?”

  “Perhaps she has found other employment.”

  Fräulein Keller laughed cynically. “It is a wonder you catch any criminals, you are so innocent.”

  “The girls who work for you-they live here in the brothel?”

  “And now you say dirty words to prove how worldly you are.”

  “Where is Lilya now, do you know?”

  “It is not my concern.”

  “She had a child, didn’t she? Who looked after the child when she was working?”

  “I know nothing about these things. Perhaps it would profit you more to talk to one of the girls. I can arrange for you to be introduced. It would be my pleasure. You may pick one to examine more closely, in private. And that will be your pleasure, I am sure.”

  Fräulein Keller once again held out her arms for Porfiry’s shuba.

  “What if I wished to talk to them all?”

  “That would be very greedy of you, mein Herr.”

  As if this answer decided him, he finally began to take off his fur coat.

  Even though the heat from the fire had dried his throat, Porfiry declined the champagne.

  “So the Widow Cliquot is not to your taste?” asked Fräulein Keller archly.

  Porfiry also refused the brocade-upholstered chair, with its ornately carved “Second Rococo” frame, ignoring the care with which Fräulein Keller had positioned it.

  “I will stand,” he said curtly.

  Four “girls” filed in through a second door in the parlor and stood in front of him. He did not step back or flinch under the force of their underdressed presence, but he wished he had accepted both the drink and the seat. His own breath seemed intoxicating to him. It accelerated and enlarged his pulse. A kind of heavy sickness seemed to have entered his being, as if his soul were solidifying. The cause of this strange excitement was the sudden knowledge of what he was capable of.

  He lit a cigarette without knowing he was doing so.

  Porfiry looked into the eyes of each of them in turn. And something about the way they returned his gaze suggested that he had broken the one taboo of the house. But in their eyes he saw no depravity, only detachment. This was all they had in common. In other respects, they presented different faces behind their makeup: boredom, fear, stupor, and desperation. They affected expressions of licentiousness, but mechanically.

  It was immediately apparent that Lilya Semenova would have been the youngest and prettiest of them.

  “This is all of them?” asked Porfiry, with an exhalation of smoke.

  “All that are available. Is none to your taste?”

  “You know it is not a question of that.”

  “If you say so, mein Herr. Who then will you choose? We have Olga. Nadya. Sonya. Raya.” A succession of ragged curtsies broke out along the line, the satirical nature of which was confirmed by a further embellishment from the final girl. She pulled down her chemise to bare one conical breast for Porfiry’s benefit.

  “Please. There is no need for such exhibitions.”

  “Raya is very exuberant. Everything is natural to her.” And yet it was Raya in whose eyes Porfiry had detected fear.

  Porfiry sighed heavily. “Very well. I choose Raya.”

  Her hands were on his face. He removed them method
ically.

  The bed filled the room, so much so that one was practically forced onto it as soon as one entered. There was a screen on the far side of the bed, embroidered with kingfishers in flight. A silk kimono was slung over the top of the screen.

  “Do I not please you?”

  He took in the fact of her naked skin. Her blond hair seemed distilled from its pallor. “You’re not Russian?”

  “I’m Finnish. I am sorry.”

  “There’s no need to be sorry. Do you know Lilya?”

  “Yes, of course. But she doesn’t work here anymore. Fräulein Keller says-”

  “How old are you?”

  “How old do you want me to be?”

  “I am a magistrate. You must answer honestly.”

  “I am twenty-seven.”

  “And how long have you been a prostitute?”

  “I can’t remember. I don’t count the years.”

  “Do you know Konstantin Kirillovich?”

  “What is this about?”

  “Have you heard the name Konstantin Kirillovich?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think carefully.”

  “I think perhaps I have.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A photographer. He takes photographs of the girls sometimes. And prints them up.”

  “Has he ever taken your photograph?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He likes them younger.”

  “Has he taken photographs of Lilya?”

  “Once, I think.”

  “It’s not so bad, having your photograph taken. There are worse things, I should imagine.”

  Raya shrugged. She did not give any indication of resenting his eyes on her.

  “Konstantin Kirillovich. Konstantin Kirillovich. What is his family name? I have forgotten.”

  “Everyone knows him only as Konstantin Kirillovich.”

  “That must be why I can’t remember it.” Porfiry smiled and blinked. “You touched my face. Why did you touch my face?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps it is because you wish me to touch your face?”