R. Morris - The Gentle Axe

“I know nothing of that.”

“Can you give me a description of him?”

The pawnbroker shrugged.

“Is he particularly tall or-how shall I put it? — diminutive?”

“Not particularly.”

“I see. So there is nothing especially distinctive about his appearance?”

“He has a pale complexion and a generally disreputable appearance. But among the students of Petersburg, I dare say there is nothing distinctive about that.”

“And from your familiarity with him, I take it he is a regular customer of yours?”

“Regular enough.”

“Do you happen to know Pavel Pavlovich’s address?”

“I do.”

Porfiry added another red note to the first still on the pawnbroker’s counter.

“You have only to go to Lippevechsel’s Tenements. And ask there for Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky.”

The pawnbroker picked up the two banknotes and held the second one out to Porfiry. “This is a legitimate credit business. The debt is paid.”

Porfiry bowed and held the bow.

“I am a Jew, yes, but I am also a law-abiding citizen.”

Porfiry lifted his head, looked the pawnbroker in the eye, and met the anger there without flinching. He took back the note that he had offered.

“Would you please tie up the books for me again?” he said, as he folded it into his wallet. The pawnbroker breathed out sharply through his nostrils before complying.

Lippevechsel’s tenements in Gorokhovaya Street was one of those sprawling apartment buildings that seemed to have grown like an organism rather than been built to any rational plan. Ramshackle and crumbling, its various fronts and wings clustered around a series of dirty yards into which sunlight never penetrated. When the wind blew through it, it was felt by every occupant, even those huddled around one of its stoves or samovars, even one buried under a mound of rags or bent double in a cupboard. Close to Kameny Bridge, the building overlooked the Yekaterininsky Canal, which was frozen now but in the summer served as an open drain. The stench, in those high hot days, seeped in through the gaping cracks in its walls and spread throughout the building. It mingled with the smells of cooking, insinuating itself into the lives of the residents, so that it shared their intimacies and infected their dreams.

The interior of the building was divided by flimsy partitions and lit here and there by oil lamps. Doors hung open or were lacking altogether. Families lived side by side and almost on top of one another, every room divided and sublet to meet the rent. From one side of a curtain came the cries and cracks of a beating, from the other the frenzied thump of copulation. Everywhere in the background could be heard a gentle snagging sound, as regular and constant as the lapping of the sea, an anonymous, muffled weeping.

Porfiry, still carrying the bundle of books in one hand, stood at the threshold of an endless twilit maze. He took off his fur hat and breathed in a damp atmosphere that was heavy with the smell of waste. Clotheslines were strung across the corridors. Ragged, shrieking children ran beneath them, without any sense of the invisible boundaries of so many abutting lives. Somewhere, out of sight, a card game was in progress. Porfiry could hear the laughter and abuse, the slap of the cards, the jangle of coins.

As he sought vainly for the source of these sounds, he saw a figure emerge from one of the crisscrossing corridors. It was a girl. He couldn’t be sure because she was moving briskly with her face angled down and swallowed by gloom, but he felt that he knew her.

He called out. His cry drew her gaze. But when she saw him, a look of panic came over her face. She turned and ran, disappearing from his sight. Porfiry cradled the books to his chest and gave chase. In the moment that her face had been lifted toward him, he recognized her. It was Lilya, the young prostitute who had been brought in to the bureau.

He followed the heel of her shoe and the hem of her swaying skirt, which was all of her he ever saw as she vanished around succeeding corners and even through vaguely partitioned rooms. His pursuit invaded privacy after privacy but without provoking a single complaint. It was almost as if he were invisible. The only time his presence was commented upon was when he stumbled into the table of card players, who swore at him for upsetting their piles of coins. His apologies delayed him long enough for the trail to go cold. When he peered around the next corner, there was no sight of any part of her, however fleeting, just her scent in the air.

He returned to the card players.

“Gentlemen, if I may interrupt your game for a moment.” A collective growl arose from the table. But no one looked up. They were too intent on their cards. There was a grumbled joke and a crackle of harsh laughter at Porfiry’s expense, but essentially this was a grim endeavor for them all. He had the sense that his use of the word game had been ill judged. “The young lady who just passed through here,” he pressed. “Did any of you happen to see…?”

But they were ignoring him now, not even bothering to make him the butt of their jokes. There was a nearly empty bottle of vodka on the table, and most of the men smoked pipes. Nothing outside the absorbing tobacco fug had meaning for them.

Porfiry pulled over a rickety chair and joined the table, placing the books on his lap. He waited for the game to play itself out, then said, “I’m looking for Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky.”

A significant look was passed around the table and settled on one of the players, a stubble-jowled man with silky black hair, a greasy frock coat, and dirty nails. He was the only one not dressed in workmen’s overalls. His sharp, calculating eyes assessed Porfiry for a good minute. “Do you know Schtoss?” said this man, at last.

“Schtoss? Who is Schtoss?”

Loud, unrestrained laughter erupted around the table. Some even banged their fists. The hilarity died down. They watched the man in the frock coat with nervous expectation.

“Schtoss, my friend, is not a man. Schtoss is a game.”

“I don’t know it,” said Porfiry. “I’m not much of a card player.”

“No matter,” said the other. “Schtoss is a game of luck. There is nothing to it but luck.”

“I see. How do you play it?”

“It’s very simple. Alexei, give the gentleman the pack.” A young painter, to judge by the specks of color on his overalls, handed Porfiry the cards. “You have that pack,” said the man in the frock coat, “and I will have this one.” He withdrew a second pack from one of his pockets. “First we must agree on the stake. The game is between you and me. If you win, I will tell you where you can find Virginsky.”

“And if I lose?”

“If you lose, you will swap your fur shuba for my frock coat.” There were murmurs of amused dissent. The feeling seemed to be that the man had gone too far.

“That is hardly fair,” said Porfiry. “This is fairer. If I win, you tell me where I can find Virginsky. If I lose, I send out for a second bottle of vodka to be shared among you all.” Porfiry’s view was that even if he lost the bet, he would win over the company. One of the others, looking favorably on his generosity, would be sure to tell him what he needed to know. The proposal was met with such a cheer that Porfiry’s opponent was forced to bow his agreement.

“Very well. We will play. Pick any card you like from your pack, and place it facedown on the table without letting me see it. Very good. Now then, this is my pack. Here, I want you to cut my pack for me. You know what it means to cut the cards, I take it?”

Porfiry nodded and obeyed.

“Thank you.” The other man put the two halves of the pack together. “In this game, the game of Schtoss, I turn over the first two cards from my pack. The first card goes on the right, the second on the left. Like so.” He dealt up the nine of hearts followed by the three of spades. “If the number of your card matches the first of my cards-that is to say, if it is a nine of any suit-then you lose. If it matches the second-the card on the left-then you win. If neither matches, we deal again, a third and fourth card, and so on until we encounter a match. Are you willing to play?”