R. Morris - A Vengeful Longing

It was impossible for Porfiry to resist looking at the faces of men who had just witnessed an unimaginable upheaval of their world and not to feel, seeing the extent and depth of their open-mouthed horror, a sense almost of privilege. Even so, he had no wish to linger. They swept Rostanev from the silenced room.

‘Empty your pockets!’

The first item Rostanev took out was a small ebony-handled penknife. The police lieutenant snatched it from him and examined it closely, opening and closing each of the blades in turn. While he was doing so, Rostanev cast his unconcerned gaze around the Haymarket District Police Bureau. His face opened up with wonder, as if he were watching the events of a dream unfold. Both hands were at his beard again.

‘Nasty,’ said Salytov, laying the knife on the clerk Zamyotov’s counter. ‘You could do someone a deal of harm with that. Note it down, Alexander Grigorevich. One knife.’

Zamyotov sighed and raised his eyebrows as he was compelled to record the knife’s existence.

‘It’s for the quills,’ explained Rostanev, with a slight smirk that was no doubt involuntary. Its effect on Salytov was unfortunate.

‘Quills?’ Salytov leant down to bark the question in Rostanev’s face.

Perhaps unwisely, Rostanev failed to flinch. ‘For sharpening them.’

Salytov straightened slowly, keeping his narrowed eyes fixed on Rostanev, on whom the menacing glare was wasted: he now enthusiastically produced a bundle of quills from inside his coat. He beamed triumphantly, as if he believed this would be enough to win the officer’s approval. Sensing Salytov’s obduracy, he placed the quills — about six in number — on the counter next to the knife, then plunged a hand into the other side of his coat. A dozen or so more quills were added to those already on the counter. After further searches in unexpected places, the total number of quills reached twenty-five, laboriously and ironically counted off by Zamyotov. So far Porfiry had been content to stand back and watch as Salytov processed the suspect but now he felt moved to intervene. ‘You will be given a receipt for everything. This is normal procedure. There is no need to be alarmed.’

‘I am not alarmed,’ said Rostanev with disarming simplicity, whiskers rotating under his grinding thumbs.

Porfiry smiled. ‘Good. Now, when you have finished giving Alexander Grigorevich your details, perhaps you would be so good as to join me in my chambers for a little chat.’

Porfiry drew Salytov to one side. ‘I want a search done of his lodgings.’

Salytov nodded without looking at the magistrate.

‘I also want Dr Meyer and Vakhramev brought in. And the old woman, Mikheyeva.’

Salytov could not now prevent himself from meeting Porfiry’s eye. He held the gaze for a moment, before his head twisted away, as though repelled.

‘There is a terrible smell in here,’ said Rostanev as he took the seat opposite Porfiry.

It was several moments before Porfiry was able to speak. He flashed his astonishment at Virginsky, who could not suppress a wry grin. ‘Yes. Quite,’ said Porfiry at last. ‘If you remember, I sent a letter saying as much to your department. And received the reply, signed by you, that I have already shown you. No action was deemed necessary.’

The small smirk that seemed to be Rostanev’s stock reaction to difficulty twisted his lips again. ‘That was the correct response. There was nothing that could be done. That is to say, no action was deemed possible. We are not required to do the impossible. The impossible is by definition unnecessary. One must take no action when no action can be taken.’

Porfiry’s eyes widened as he tried to unravel Rostanev’s argument.‘My friend, you might have surprised yourselves.’

Rostanev’s stifled brass chuckle sounded again. ‘It is not the policy of the department, of any department, to surprise itself. The ministry could not function if departments engaged in surprising themselves.’

‘But, the ministry does not function,’ Porfiry spluttered.

‘It is just that you do not understand what its function is.’

Porfiry realised that he had been blinking to excess because he saw the action mirrored in Rostanev’s face. He made a conscious effort to stop.

‘There are a lot of flies in here,’ observed Rostanev.

Porfiry glanced around distractedly. ‘Yes, that problem is not unconnected with the original problem.’

‘They seem rather lethargic.’

‘They are intoxicated,’ said Porfiry.

‘How did they get into that state?’ There was a note of disapproval in Rostanev’s question.

‘I fed them honey laced with kvas ,’ said Porfiry. It was galling to be on the receiving end of the look that came from Rostanev. ‘However, we are not here to talk about flies.’

‘My lips are sealed,’ said Rostanev, with a wink.

‘No,’ said Porfiry, momentarily bewildered. ‘Let us talk about Raisa Meyer instead.’

‘Who is Raisa Meyer?’

‘Are you serious? Do you really not remember? Earlier, I showed you another letter, this one. It concerns a woman called Raisa Meyer. You sent it to her husband.’

‘Did I?’

‘That’s what you said.’

‘I send so many, you see.’

‘How did you come to know Raisa Meyer?’

‘I don’t know her. I’ve never met her. Who is she?’

‘She is dead.’ Porfiry watched Rostanev closely. The information seemed not to permeate his consciousness at all. ‘You must have known her. How could you write such things about her if you did-n’t know her? Why would you?’

‘The voices.’

‘Did the voices tell you to kill her?’

‘No,’ said Rostanev flatly.

‘Then why did you kill her?’

‘I didn’t kill her.’ He made the statement calmly, without any of the defensive force that Porfiry would have expected; as one disputing a minor point of detail, in fact.

‘In this letter, you said that you had slept with Raisa Meyer when she was a prostitute.’

Rostanev stared open-mouthed at Porfiry. He then turned his incredulous glare on Virginsky and cried: ‘Prostitute! Prostitute!’

‘Please,’ said Porfiry. ‘Try to concentrate. Raisa Meyer was indeed once a prostitute. How could you have known that if you had never met her?’

‘The voices?’ A note of uncertainty had crept into Rostanev’s tone.

‘The voices will not help you. You cannot blame it all on the voices. Is it not true that you once visited a brothel with a former schoolfriend called Golyadkin? There were two other men in your party, one of whom was Vakhramev, to whom you sent another anonymous letter concerning his daughter and a man called Setochkin. It was in the course of that visit that you first made the acquaintance of Raisa Meyer.’

Rostanev became agitated. ‘No! It is most emphatically not true. I admit to sending the letters, but I have never visited one of those places. I am an official in the Department of Public Health. Am I likely to expose myself to the risk of contracting a filthy disease? Would I defile myself with women?’

‘A man may act under any number of compulsions,’ said Porfiry. ‘He may even be driven to do things that are not in his own or others’ interests. That is what it means to be human.’

‘Then I would rather be a fly,’ said Rostanev hotly.

‘Do you think that flies are any less subject to compulsion?’

Rostanev’s head bobbed and oscillated as he followed a drunken fly’s plummeting trajectory.

‘Who is Nikolai Nobody?’ demanded Porfiry.

Rostanev turned his gaze slowly on the magistrate. ‘No one?’ It seemed like a guess.