R. Morris - The Cleansing Flames

‘That is because you do not really know me, Nikodim Fomich.’

‘But you are one of my oldest friends!’

Porfiry declined to comment; in fact, he scrupulously avoided looking at Nikodim Fomich. At last he muttered, ‘Because we have known one another for a long time, it does not mean. .’ But he trailed off without completing the sentiment.

Nikodim Fomich watched his old friend closely, uneasily. ‘What do they hope to achieve, Porfiry Petrovich? Can you tell me that?’

‘They wish to build a new world, a fairer, better world. But first, they have decided that they must destroy the old one.’

‘Even if that means killing women and children?’

‘The end justifies the means.’ After a moment, Porfiry added, ‘They would say.’ Porfiry considered the smouldering tip of his cigarette. ‘However, it is not our concern, Nikodim Fomich. Another department investigates such crimes, as you know.’

Nikodim Fomich nodded morosely. ‘The Third Section. Of course. I know you disapprove of their means, but I wonder, at times like this, perhaps their way is the only way?’

‘You cannot fight criminality with criminality.’

‘That’s rather strong, isn’t it?’

‘I speak only from experience.’ Porfiry Petrovich took a long draw on his cigarette.

Nikodim Fomich slapped his hands down on his thighs conclusively. ‘No one can deny that you have your fair share of that!’

Porfiry fixed Nikodim Fomich with a critical glare. ‘What do you mean to suggest by that?’

‘Merely that you are one of our most experienced investigators.’

‘In other words, that I am over the hill.’

‘Now now, Porfiry Petrovich! It’s not like you to take offence so easily! Experience is an exceedingly valuable quality in an investigator, as you know. When coupled with the energy of youth, which for you is provided by Pavel Pavlovich, the result is a formidable combination.’

‘Now you are saying that I have no energy of my own!’

‘Really, you are determined to twist my words. I wonder why you are so out of sorts.’

‘Perhaps I have simply had enough for the day.’ Porfiry stubbed out his cigarette. The vitality that he had absorbed at the fair seemed now to have deserted him. He closed his eyes for a moment, and saw once again Dr Pervoyedov’s long metal probe sink into the waxy mass where the unknown man’s heart had been.

When he opened his eyes, he could not say how much later, the room was in darkness and Nikodim Fomich had gone.

*

The following day, a Wednesday, and the third day since the body had come to light, Porfiry Petrovich left Virginsky to sort out the confusion over the posters and set out for a stroll along Sadovaya Street. He chose to walk as much to prove Nikodim Fomich wrong — He did not need anyone else’s energy! — as to take advantage of the continuing fine weather.

At Nevsky Prospect, Sadovaya Street kinked north and became Malaya — or little — Sadovaya Street. This took him to Bolshaya — or great — Italyanskaya Street, which ran parallel to Nevsky Prospect for a third of the latter’s length, one block to the north. Until the previous year, it had simply been Italyanskaya Street, without the aggrandising adjective. The Ministry of Justice, at number 25, was on the corner with Malaya Sadovaya Street, at the congruence of the great and the small, or so the respective street names suggested.

A former residence of the Shuvalov family, the ministry building was a pale-blue baroque palace, three storeys high, extending itself over an entire block of Bolshaya Italyanskaya Street. It was ironic to think that a scion of the Shuvalov family, Count Pyotr Andreevich, was the current head of the Tsar’s secret police, the notorious Third Section of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery. It was a department that, to Porfiry’s mind, had little to do with justice. Some dark exchange seemed to lie behind the coincidence. It was almost as if the Shuvalovs had vacated their home to justice, only to settle themselves into the seat of true power. It seemed to indicate a clarity of vision that was both blithe and ruthless, and therefore typically aristocratic.

The entrance was set in an imposing porch, banded with bone-white columns. It put Porfiry in mind of a general puffing out his chest to draw himself up to his full height: the usual baroque embellishments — festooned aprons, rusticated columns, three varieties of window styles — were the general’s decorations.

The great lobby, a full two storeys high and therefore with a double set of windows to illuminate it, was flooded with a hovering silvery light. Something about it made him want to hold his breath. It seemed to have the same effect on others too: the atmosphere was hushed, despite the confluence of lawyers and civil servants. A representation of the double-headed eagle of the Romanov family crest, carved out of black marble, was set into a niche, high in the facing wall, looking down on all who entered with its strange bidirectional gaze. The floor was given over to a monochrome mosaic of that same allegorical figure that Porfiry had seen unveiled in the Summer Garden: Nemesis. The axe head projecting from the bundle of rods of the fasces was more clearly discernible here. In her other hand, she held the flame of truth.

His gaze must have fallen on that image countless times in his life. Small wonder that when he had seen the statue in the park he had the sense that he had contemplated the figure before. And yet he was not aware of ever consciously considering it. It was simply the ground he walked on whenever he came to the Ministry.

He took the stairs to the second floor. His step was slow and plodding today, and fell with a heavy reverberation. The exertions of the previous day had taken it out of him. Naturally, it had not been the first time in his career that he had attended the forensic examination of a corpse, but for some reason this one seemed harder than usual to get beyond. The trip to the fair had not wholly succeeded in dispelling his gloom — or in taking the whiff of death from his nostrils, as he had put it to Virginsky. The disappointments of the afternoon, the non-appearance of his mysterious correspondent and the mistake over the poster, had set him back disproportionately. He was aware of a winter tightness lingering in his chest. He acknowledged that it was getting harder each year to shake it off. And yet the exercise, surely, must do him some good? Why then did he feel like a swimmer who has been carried too far out to sea and is in fear of not being able to regain the shore?

Porfiry looked down, as if he could no longer sustain the weight of his head. The black and white tiles of the corridor brought to mind Pulchinella, dressed in white, with his black half-mask. Porfiry smiled to himself at the memory of Virginsky’s bewilderment. It was simple really. Just the old antithesis: Death in life. Life from death. And why Petrushka as well as Pulchinella? Because life is abundant and excessive, and uncontrollably anarchic.

Porfiry lifted his head and quickened his step. He was picturing himself in Pulchinella’s costume.

It was not long before he reached the Ministry of Justice library. It took a moment for him to catch his breath, then he made his request of the librarian.

The silver-whiskered clerk observed him with a critical and unpromising eye. ‘You must fill in a chit.’

‘Of course, yes. The inevitable chit.’

The librarian handed him a small printed form and a pencil stub. ‘First, take a seat. Fill in your place number here. The date and title of the journal you require here.’

‘But I may require more than one issue, of more than one title.’

‘Then you will need more chits. Please help yourself to as many as you need.’