R. Morris - A Vengeful Longing

‘Be careful, Ilya Petrovich,’ said Porfiry, smiling mischievously. ‘Such an outburst might be construed as treasonable.’

‘Nonsense.’ Salytov glared. ‘I am a loyal subject of the Tsar.’

‘Even when he listens to German counsel, and foists on us an alien flag?’ goaded Virginsky.

‘It was the Germans who made him do it.’

‘But he took up their suggestion readily enough, did he not? That was one reform he was not slow to implement in full — to put the Romanov family colours on the Russian nation’s flag. It shows quite clearly how he regards the country. As his personal fiefdom.’

‘I thought you liberals liked this Tsar,’ said Salytov. ‘He can hardly be described as lacking in reformist zeal.’

‘That is enough,’ interrupted Porfiry, regretting the attention that the hissed debate was drawing.

‘What makes you think I am a liberal?’ Virginsky had to get in.

‘Enough!’ Porfiry’s cry provoked a bubbling of shocked reaction around them. ‘May I remind you gentlemen that we are here on official business? Furthermore, this is hardly the place to engage in such discussions.’

Porfiry frowned distractedly as he looked about. Two staircases led up from the lobby. Numerous unmarked doors were visible in the corridors that fed into the hall. ‘Which way do you suppose it is to the Department of Public Health? In a building this size one would expect there to be signposts.’

‘Now it is you who are criticising the way our Tsar has ordered things.’

Ignoring Virginsky’s observation, Porfiry accosted one of the clerks hurrying head-down towards the door, a youngish man with a splenetic face. ‘Excuse me, sir.’ The clerk did not seem to have heard him. Just as the man was about to collide with him, Porfiry stepped sharply to one side. ‘Sir!’ he shouted. The clerk stopped in his steps and drew himself up. He glanced sharply towards Porfiry, his face crimped in displeasure.

‘Do you mind? I have a very important commission to dispatch.’

‘If you could only tell us where to find the Department of Public Health.’

The man’s eyes bulged. ‘There is a saying in the ministry that if you don’t know where an office is you really have no business going there.’ He brushed past Porfiry and was gone.

‘Really!’ said Porfiry, gazing in astonishment at the fellow’s wake. ‘These people.’

Now another one of the bottle-green-uniformed men was coming towards him from the other direction. A stooped, grey-whiskered relic, whose coat was nonetheless immaculately brushed, his buttons gleaming. He had the order of St Vladimir hanging from a ribbon around his neck. The old man looked straight through Porfiry, and though he moved with slow, small steps, it seemed that he too was bent on collision.

‘Sir!’ cried Porfiry. ‘If you please!’

The other man tottered to a halt as if he had been hurtling towards Porfiry at breakneck speed. His eyebrows bristled menacingly, with sinister abundance. He glared at Porfiry as if he believed him to be a dangerous lunatic.

‘What is it?’ His voice was edged with a panicked impatience.

‘Could you direct us to the Department of Public Health?’

‘The Department of Public Health?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll take you there.’ The old man began his tortuously slow step again, a gait in which neither foot ever once completely extended beyond the other. They waited for him to get ahead of them before following, at a funereal pace.

‘It really is not necessary,’ said Porfiry. ‘If you could simply give us the directions. .’

‘It’s no trouble.’ The old man began to wheeze heavily.

‘We are in rather a hurry.’

‘Yes,’ said the old man. ‘This way is quicker.’

Porfiry sighed. The old man had led them to the first flight of stairs; he paused for a moment at the bottom before ascending to the first step. Not before he had both feet planted on it did he attempt to scale the second.

He led them down a corridor, lined on both sides with mountains of files. These seemed to have grown out like crystal formations from the rooms along the corridor. Moving at their guide’s pace, Porfiry had ample opportunity to peer into some of these rooms, at least before the occupants, noticing his attention, closed a door in his face. The rooms were all of different sizes, some as dark and cramped as a cupboard, others extending beyond the reach of his gaze into shadowed edges. Sometimes he glimpsed rows of men sitting on high stools at ledger desks. In other rooms he saw no one clearly, but had the sense of a presence in there: perhaps he saw a vague shape move or heard the fall of a footstep, the riffle of paper or something scuttling out of sight; the door would inevitably be closed by an unseen hand.

The old man led them at last to a pair of closed double doors. He pointed with a crooked finger at the words ‘Department of Public Health’ etched on a small brass plaque, then continued on his way without a word, almost without pausing. Porfiry widened his eyes as he put a hand on the door handle.

The doors opened on to a large room, which even so felt cramped and stuffy. Piles of papers laid out in rows acted as screens, dividing it into smaller cells. In these, men — either individually or in groups of two, three or four — sat stooped over desks. Porfiry, Virginsky and Salytov were presented with a sea of rounded backs, which seemed to be bent under the oppressive menace of the room’s disproportionately low ceiling. There was a soft sound, a susurration mixed with an amplified scratching, the accumulated mouthings and pen pushings of this army of copyists and clerks. A hundred quills swished the air at once in a hypnotic dance that quivered with promised meaning. One man was moving between the desks. He looked across the room towards them as they came in and after a moment’s frowning hesitation approached them with an armful of files.

Porfiry had the vaguest sense that he recognised the man. One sees a thousand such faces in St Petersburg , he thought.

The man placed his burden of files on top of an already teetering paper tower and came up to them. ‘Yes?’

‘How do they do it?’ asked Porfiry, looking past the man at the seated clerks behind him. ‘How do they remain seated all day — every day? I know that I for one could not.’ Porfiry looked the other up and down significantly. ‘I imagine it is an occupational hazard here too? Haemorrhoids, I mean.’

‘I. . that is to say. .’

‘You need say no more. I understand. You have my sympathy. And now, to the matter in hand. We are looking for one Rostanev, Axenty Ivanovich. The writer of this letter.’ Porfiry handed the civil servant the letter about the Ditch.

‘But this is highly irregular.’ He scowled at the paper and shook his head. ‘I shall have to have a word with Rostanev about this. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.’ His tone was curt, however, and devoid of any real gratitude.

‘You misunderstand,’ said Porfiry. ‘I am Porfiry Petrovich, an investigating magistrate. This gentleman’ — Porfiry indicated Salytov — ‘is a police lieutenant. We are here to interview Rostanev on police business.’

The man touched the back of one hand to his forehead, a gesture that provoked an elusive sense of déjà vu, and a keen impatience, in Porfiry. ‘Is it really necessary?’ The man’s tone was whining. ‘I agree that he should not have written the letter. He has no authority to sign letters from the Department of Public Health. He is a mere scribe. However, I dare say that the details of the letter are correct. It is one I would have signed myself had it been put in front of me. Surely it will suffice if he is subjected to internal disciplinary procedures? Knowing Rostanev as I do, I feel that an official reprimand will certainly have the desired effect of discouraging him from ever committing such a foolish act again.’