R. Morris: A Vengeful Longing

‘Will you take it back?’

‘I don’t have time to take it back. Simply get out of my way and let’s have an end to this nonsense.’

The other man drew himself up. ‘Sir, we are coming close to the point where I will be compelled to demand satisfaction.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I am a magistrate. You are in a police station. You cannot possibly challenge me to a duel.’

‘Ah! You are admitting that one cannot expect honour from a magistrate!’

‘I am simply pointing out that duelling is against the law. Now kindly step to one side. You have made your point. You are my equal. You yield to no one. As far as all that goes, I agree in principle with your position. However, as a matter of practical necessity, I urge you to get out of my way, sir!’

The civil servant seemed momentarily confused by this. He frowned and drew in a deep breath, as if preparing to frame a question. But instead, the back of one hand shot up to his forehead, and a sinuous swoon seemed to come over him. He fell back against the wall.

Porfiry nodded tersely and stormed on, closely followed by Virginsky.

‘It is my vertigo!’ cried the civil servant. ‘I have not given way to you!’

Porfiry shook his head. ‘They are always hypochondriacs,’ he muttered. They reached the stairs. The soles of his shoes slapped rapidly as he skipped down.

They stepped out into a cloud of red dust, their ears assaulted by the clamour of destruction. A wall had just come down, on a site being cleared for building work. The gritty particles revolved in the sunlight, uplifted, celebrated, unstoppable. Porfiry coughed, and instinctively felt for his cigarette case.

‘What are they building now, I wonder?’

The city, in summer, was a transitional place. A temporary population of migrant labourers, peasants from the outlying country-side, displaced the regular inhabitants and reshaped the city’s fabric with casual vigour. Their indifference was brutal: without a flinch, hardly pausing to wipe the sweat from their eyes, they would tear down a house here, throw up a new one there, or mask familiar landmarks with novelty. There was the sense that there was no one to stop them; that the permanent citizens would return dismayed and disorientated by the changes wrought in their absence. And so, over the years, their city would become unrecognisable, and they would be left strangers in it.

The workmen whistled and shouted through the kerchiefs over their faces. Their eyes never sought to meet the eyes of any residents who were left to witness their vandalism. If accidental eye-contact was ever made, as happened now between Porfiry and one of the hammer-wielding demolition workers, a momentary flicker of defiance or suspicion was all that was exchanged.

Porfiry hailed an empty drozhki that was coming over Kokushkin Bridge. There was a flash of welcome and complicity in the driver’s sidelong glance as he half-turned to watch them climb in. His eyes were squeezed almost shut from blinking out the sweat and sunlight.

‘Petrovsky Island. As quick as you can.’

Porfiry fell back into his seat with a grimace of pain as the cab lurched away, the driver standing to whip and threaten his horse.

‘Does it not occur to him that his horse would live longer if he whipped it less?’ said Virginsky.

‘Be careful,’ Porfiry muttered warningly as he shifted his position on the bouncing seat.

‘What?’ Virginsky stiffened.

Porfiry raised his eyebrows and smiled, but wouldn’t be drawn.

It wasn’t long before they were driving alongside St Isaac’s Cathedral, whose gilded dome blazed in the sun’s profligacy. Virginsky turned a sullen gaze towards the church.

‘Imposing, isn’t it?’ commented Porfiry, smiling watchfully.

‘What has always struck me about it is its proximity to the War Office.’

‘It is just as well to have God on your side before you go into battle.’

Visible now ahead of them, the broad surface of the river glistened and beckoned, alive with teeming craft. A barge hugged the granite embankment, drawn by a team of peasants, who leant and strained and pushed into their harnesses.

As they passed the equestrian statue of Peter the Great, his great bronze horse rearing in the direction of the Neva, the serpent trampled beneath its hooves, Porfiry cast a provoking look at Virginsky, as if to say, ‘Well, and what do you have to say about him?’

The drozhki thundered on to the temporary pontoon bridge, its boards reverberating under the hooves and turning wheels. Porfiry felt a sudden lightening of his mood, an almost festive impatience. It was summer, and he was crossing the river to the islands. The cool breeze of movement, the water’s freshness, lifted him.

Two more bridges later, and they were on Petrovsky Island. As they raced through the park, Porfiry was aware of a desire to slow the drozhki . The easy, squandered greenness around him had a clinging appeal. He looked with an envious nostalgia at the parties singing folksongs around samovars and smiled at the couples strolling and the children chasing the breeze along the paths. He remembered the island’s winter desolation, and it seemed like a duty to make the most of these few green months.

They could tell which dacha it was from a distance: the only one in its group with a cluster of carriages and men around it.

Porfiry tapped the driver. The horse snorted and slowed, released from constant curses and lashes. Its gait became complicated and tripping.

Porfiry took in the details of the house. He saw the crudely rendered horse’s head, cut from a plank and projecting from the apex of the eaves. It was there both to celebrate and ward off the unruly forces of nature. To Porfiry’s eye, no doubt influenced by his knowledge of the two dead bodies within, the dacha’s prettiness was entirely without charm, though he acknowledged that the boards were well maintained.

The dacha creaked in protest as they set foot on the veranda.

The uniformed men there straightened protectively. Porfiry recognised a kind of jealousy in their faces. The scene, and its contents, belonged to them, and they resented the newcomers’ intrusion.

Porfiry noticed the smell immediately. It was that that drew his gaze down to the two bodies on the decking. He turned solicitously to Virginsky. ‘Are you all right?’

Virginsky’s nod was barely perceptible, a mere bob in the aftermath of closing his eyes. ‘You forget. I have seen the dead before.’

Porfiry regarded the young man closely, the face drained of colour, the line of the mouth thin and tight, his eyes held closed. ‘That’s what concerns me. You may wait outside if you wish. But I must go in.’

Virginsky’s eyes now flashed defiance. ‘I would not miss it for the world,’ Virginsky hissed through clenched teeth. He minutely signalled the other men watching them. Porfiry swivelled his body to follow his glance, then turned back and tilted his head away from Virginsky. His look was assessing, almost disapproving.

‘I understand. However. This is a serious business. There is no place for bravado here. We are all men, that is to say, human beings. No one will think any the less of you.’

‘It is something I have to do. And besides, if not now, when?’

Porfiry conceded with a nod.

A young politseisky whom Porfiry recognised had been following their exchange with interest. His face was open and bright, his eyes sympathetic.

‘Ptitsyn, isn’t it?’ said Porfiry, remembering the officer’s name.

‘That’s right, Your Excellency.’ He was all eagerness and energy, a puppy of a man.

‘So, who have we here, Ptitsyn?’ Porfiry’s face became duly solemn, indeed pained, as he looked down at the bodies. His eye in passing took in the pools of vomit.