R. Morris - The Cleansing Flames

‘ With me? ’ His whispered consolation lacked conviction.

‘In the arms of a murderer. And now, you will betray me to the others. You will tell them of my fears, that I am losing heart, that I cannot be trusted. And so it will begin. They will come for me. .’ She seemed to see her comrades closing in on her. Her voice brimmed with terror.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You need not be frightened of me. I am not like them. I am not a murderer.’

‘But you killed Porfiry Petrovich.’

He shook his head. ‘It was staged. I. . I fired a blank cartridge. Porfiry is not dead.’

‘But they announced his death in the paper.’

‘Porfiry Petrovich has always been a great prankster.’

He sensed her relax in his arms. He had the impression that she fell asleep. He was alone with the crying of the baby, and the occasional incomprehensible barks of rage from the old man.

*

She was no longer in his arms when he awoke. It was morning. She was dressed and had opened the one low window to air the room, as if she wanted to dispel all trace of what had happened in the night. She seemed stubbornly reluctant to face him.

The intimacy of the first night was never repeated.

He dreamt one night that the merchant couple’s baby was dead. When he looked down, he saw that one of his hands was over the baby’s face. An atmosphere of unspeakable guilt pervaded the dream.

When he woke in the morning after the dream, he strained to listen for the baby’s cries. Instead he heard voices in the room outside. He sat up and pulled on his trousers, throwing the blankets onto the bed. Almost as soon as he had done so, there was a violent knocking on the door. Tatyana Ruslanovna admitted Botkin, Totsky and, to Virginsky’s surprise, Professor Tatiscev. Totsky was carrying a small suitcase made of polished steel, which he seemed reluctant to let out of his hands. The room was cramped with five people in it, and Botkin’s customary stench, of petrol and masculinity, was a sixth unwelcome presence, crowding them out.

Totsky and Virginsky remained standing, confronting one another across their rivalry for Tatyana Ruslanovna. Botkin pushed one of the chairs against the door and sat on it. Tatiscev took the other chair and Tatyana Ruslanovna sat on the bed.

‘Are you sure this is wise?’ began Virginsky. He glanced nervously towards Tatyana Ruslanovna, whose expression had become peculiarly set. ‘All of us here like this?’

‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said Tatiscev quickly.

For a moment, no one spoke. Virginsky found the brisk determination of the men ominous; he picked up subtly unnerving signals in the glances that passed between them. He felt that he ought to have been frightened on Tatyana Ruslanovna’s behalf, but a strange fixity had come over her face that was more chilling than anything he saw on the men’s. She was the first to speak, and the flitting of her eye just before she did so told him that he would do better to be frightened on his own account.

‘It’s as we suspected. It was all a pretence.’ She tilted her head dismissively towards Virginsky. ‘ He fired a blank cartridge. He is here to spy on us.’

Virginsky felt as if a cannonball had dropped inside him, forcing the wind out as it bounced into his solar plexus. She turned to face him with a look of brazen contempt.

Tatiscev merely nodded. Nothing Tatyana Ruslanovna had said seemed to surprise him.

Botkin leant forward in his chair, his heavy axe-shaped head looming towards Virginsky dangerously, as if even his consideration was something to be afraid of.

Totsky’s face lost what small amount of colour it had. His mouth was pinched into a disapproving dot. His hand tightened around the handle of his steel suitcase.

Tatiscev produced a small glass bottle from the inside of his jacket. He handed it to Botkin, who looked into it with an unseemly hunger, flashing a mocking grin towards Virginsky. ‘Come now, take your medicine like a good boy.’ Botkin took the stopper out and rose to his feet.

There was nowhere for Virginsky to go. Botkin was coming towards him, blocking the only way out. He climbed onto the bed. Botkin climbed up next to him. The mattress dipped and bounced like a stretch of river ice on the brink of cracking.

Tatyana Ruslanovna looked up at him. Her look was poised and finely balanced: some ravaged, pathetic part of him thought he detected a residue of love; but, of course, quite opposite emotions were also evident. Her expression seemed to fluctuate between one that believed in him and one that held him in utter contempt. He could not say in which manifestation she appeared more beautiful. All he knew was that her contempt cut him like a long blade driven beneath his fingernails.

He tried to struggle against Botkin’s grip but the man’s hand was locked around the back of his head, pulling him forward to the open bottle. The fumes rushed into him like wolves breaking cover. His head was the prey they ripped apart, tossing sloppy gobbets of his consciousness around the room. An expanding nothingness took over his insides. His limbs evaporated.

*

The emptiness inside him was being tightened, squeezed so much that it solidified into pain. His sides ached. His chest ached. Even his head ached, though there was no tightness there, just the dull pounding of a hangover. He did not want to be where the pain was. Perhaps if he opened his eyes he would escape it, but he could not be sure. There was always the possibility that he would open his eyes to even more pain.

He could hear voices, murmuring.

The voices sickened him. If he opened his eyes, he would have to face the voices. The more he listened to them, the more nauseated he felt. If he opened his eyes, he would be sick. The voices would draw the vomit out of him. Out of his eyes and his ears, as well as his mouth. He imagined the vomit pouring out of every opening in his body, so pervasive was his nausea.

Now it became important to him to keep his eyes closed.

But the voices were saying his name, calling his name. And one of the voices was hers.

He squeezed his eyes tightly, forcing back the nausea. Then, without realising that he would, he simply opened his eyes. So easy was it, in the end, to pass from one mode of being to another.

He saw the face of his old professor frowning at him. He felt inordinately saddened because it seemed that he had disappointed Professor Tatiscev. But then he heard a voice that matched the face say, ‘Good.’ The word seemed to come to him from far away, reverberating through an endless corridor that reminded him of his university days. The association brought with it an idiotic happiness that swept over him and lifted him to his feet.

It surprised him how far away his feet were, so far away that looking down at them brought on a wave of vertigo. He was surprised also to see that he was now fully dressed. He did not remember putting on the unbelted kosovorotka shirt he was wearing.

‘Steady,’ said another voice. He noticed for the first time that he was being held up by hands that didn’t seem to belong to anyone. ‘You have to be careful now. You must avoid any sudden movements or jolts — until we get you in the church. On no account must you fall over until you are inside the church.’ He had thought this man his enemy, and yet he was showing such solicitude towards him. It seemed he had misjudged him. He wanted to embrace the man, whose name had been swallowed up in the sweeping nothingness, to kiss him even. But the man seemed to be holding him at arm’s length.

He was aware of his mouth opening, and wondered if he was going to be sick. Instead, he heard something that surprised him: ‘Church?’