R. Morris - The Cleansing Flames

*

The ‘rooms’ that had been taken for them turned out to be one room on the fourth floor. To be more precise, it was a partitioned area within a larger room, which was subdivided into four small rooms in total. But at least they had a door, and therefore the possibility of privacy. The room was surprisingly clean, although sparsely furnished. There was a narrow bed, a deal table with two chairs and a small wardrobe. One half of a large, ugly stove butted through the partition, like a prurient intruder. The only other items were an icon of a grey-bearded saint and the icon lamp before it.

The occupants of the other rooms, the tenants from whom the central committee had rented Virginsky and Tatyana Ruslanovna’s lodging, were a couple of the merchant class. The husband — if indeed they were married — was much older than his wife, who had a submissive demeanour, as if she were in constant expectation of a beating. They greeted Virginsky and Tatyana Ruslanovna in silence, only bowing to them and averting their eyes immediately. The couple kept a servant, an ancient hunchbacked woman who spent all her time slumbering on the massive stove. It seemed to be to everyone’s relief when Virginsky and Tatyana Ruslanovna took themselves into their room.

Tatyana Ruslanovna opened the wardrobe, and closed the door on its emptiness immediately. Virginsky looked up at the icon.

‘How appropriate,’ said Tatyana.

Virginsky frowned.

‘St Nikolai. He is my favourite saint.’

‘I am surprised to hear that you have a favourite saint.’

‘Of course, it is all nonsense,’ said Tatyana, almost regretfully. ‘But as a child, a very young child, I was always attracted to St Nikolai. I was taken in by the stories, I suppose. The idea of his giving up his parents’ wealth and devoting his life to the poor and the sick struck a chord with me. It appealed to my undeveloped instincts for social justice.’ Tatyana Ruslanovna frowned. ‘Since then, I have learnt that the Church conspires in the oppression of the people and therefore no symbol or representative of the Church can truly stand for social justice. Still and all. .’ She smiled self-consciously and blushed as she met his gaze. ‘Yes, still and all , it is hard to shake off these childhood associations. The movement must learn to make use of them, I believe. It is the only way to bring the people with us.’

There was the smell of cooking from the next room. Virginsky found himself distracted by it. ‘Have they provided any food for us?’

‘The old woman will cook for us.’

He nodded tersely. ‘You knew all about this, this morning. .’

‘Yes, I knew. Does it matter?’

Virginsky shook his head, though without conviction. It was more as if he was shaking off his resentment than answering her. ‘All that matters is the cause,’ he said.

He looked down and saw that she was sitting on the bed, reaching out to him with both hands. ‘It’s not all that matters,’ she said.

There was a knock at the door. He turned from her open arms. It was the young merchant woman, who was now nestling a tiny baby, virtually a newborn, in the crook of one arm. Virginsky was disproportionately shocked by the sudden appearance of the baby, although the simple explanation must have been that it was sleeping out of sight when they arrived. He understood in a flash that the old man was not the girl’s husband, and indeed that their relationship and the existence of their child was in some way deeply problematic. He saw all this in the way her eyes steadfastly avoided his, and also in the uneasy, complicated gaze she bestowed on her child. ‘We are about to eat. Will you join us?’ Her voice trembled. It was almost as if she questioned her own right to speak.

Virginsky deferred to Tatyana Ruslanovna, her hands now folded demurely across her lap, apparently incapable of reaching out in longing to any man. Her nod was barely perceptible.

A meal of cabbage soup, beef and pirogi was laid out on a table in the main room. Virginsky and Tatyana Ruslanovna murmured appreciative comments, which were ignored by the old merchant and seemed to pain the young woman, who gave a small wince whenever she was addressed. And so the company quickly lapsed into silence.

Virginsky watched the baby grope the air, fascinated by its perfect fingers and minuscule fingernails. The young mother seemed strangely unwilling to engage with her child. The gently curving hands restlessly sought out something to grip, and it would have been natural for her to slip a maternal finger into their reach. It was an inclination she resisted. The baby’s innocent animation was in contrast to the adults’ stiff constraint and seemed almost to offend the old man. When it began to cry, the merchant set down his cutlery with a disapproving clatter and looked sharply up into the corner of the room, averting his gaze as far as possible from the sound. The child’s mother took this as her cue to sweep the child away from the table, carrying it off into the couple’s bedroom. The old man continued his meal as if the child, and its mother, had never existed.

*

In the night she answered all his fears with wordless consolations. And although their position was fraught with difficulties and deception, there was honesty in what they gave to one another in the darkness. And what they gave had a voice, a bleating presence ratcheting the infinite night, pulling it tighter around them, making a black blanket of the void.

Afterwards, he realised that the sound he had heard was the baby crying in the next room. He realised too that Tatyana Ruslanovna was also crying. He held her and was shocked by the tremors of her weeping, her tears damp on his chest. ‘What is it? What’s the matter, my darling Tanya?’

‘I’m afraid.’ Her voice was so small it was almost not there at all.

‘Don’t worry. I’m here. Nothing can hurt you.’ His eyes were wide open as he lied.

‘I’m afraid,’ she repeated. ‘What if. . what if we are wrong?’

The bleating of the baby had become something inhuman and incomprehensible. The old man shouted something that Virginsky could not make out. ‘What do you mean?’ His murmur was for Tatyana Ruslanovna.

‘I was thinking of the children who died.’

He thought of the answer he ought to give, the argument of social utility, of a price that has to be paid, of sacrifices that have to be made.

It was almost as if she had heard his thoughts: ‘Oh, I know what Botkin would say. But what if Botkin is wrong? Men like Botkin frighten me.’ For a moment, she allowed the child’s cries to speak for her. ‘Men like you frighten me.’

‘I?’

‘It frightens me that we need murderers. Somehow it seems to undermine every argument we make that we must have men of blood to put them forward for us.’

Virginsky tensed. He felt a reciprocal tensing in her body. Beads of sweat began to break out between them. ‘But surely I don’t frighten you?’

She did not answer. He frowned in the darkness, his brows compressing around the idea that it was fear that had prompted her to give herself to him; that the sexual act was, for her, a way of overcoming her fear.

‘You know what they are planning next?’ she continued.

‘An atrocity of some kind?’

He felt her head move in anguished confirmation. ‘What if other innocents die?’

A shudder of revulsion was the only answer he could give.

‘Sometimes,’ she went on, ‘I cannot understand how it came to be that I am involved with such men.’ She clung onto him, and the feel of her nakedness and need against him was enthralling. It empowered him.

‘But you were in Paris, in the Commune?’

‘Yes, I was there. And what I saw terrified me. And what I did — what I saw I was capable of — terrified me even more.’ Her body shook with what could have been laughter, the bitterest. ‘I sometimes think the only reason I was there was to shock my parents. It was an act of childish rebellion. And look where it has got me!’