R. Morris - The Gentle Axe

“What you want?” came a deep, heavily accented female voice.

“Is Lilya there? I must speak to her.”

This was met with more of the same laughter. Virginsky suddenly felt that the beam of light and the laughter were one and the same. The laughter existed only inside the beam of light. With their harsh, corrosive force on his face, he had never felt himself more exposed.

“Tell her it’s Virginsky.”

The panel closed; a moment later the door itself was opened, and the small frail figure of a girl was pushed out.

“Pavel Pavlovich, what are you doing here?”

“Lilya? It is you, Lilya, isn’t it?” Virginsky had only caught a glimpse of her, momentarily silhouetted in the doorway. But even in that moment he had noticed something different about her appearance.

“Yes, of course it’s me. What’s the matter? Why do you ask?”

“You have a new coat.”

“Yes.”

“It’s trimmed with fur.”

“Yes. What of it?”

“Business must be good.”

“Please, Pavel Pavlovich. Please don’t be cruel. It’s not what you think.”

“How does it feel when they touch you?”

“Please, Pavel Pavlovich.”

“You must get some pleasure from it. I can’t see that you would be able to do it at all if you didn’t get some pleasure from it.”

“Why do you want to make me suffer?”

“Nonsense! Can there never be candor between a man and a woman about such things? Can’t you see? It’s not my intention to judge you. I have no right. It’s just hypocrisy I hate. I want to understand. I want to know the truth. The truth about it all.”

“And then? When you have the truth? What will become of me?”

“No, Lilya, you can’t ask me that. Or rather, you can’t hold me to my answer. But you must understand this: we cannot proceed on the basis of lies and hypocrisy. I must have the truth.”

“And what do I get?” The force of her anger surprised him. “There’s only one thing I will tell you. This door has closed behind me for good. I am never coming back to this place or this life. I will kill myself and my darling Vera before I go back in there.”

Her weight was nothing as she pushed past him, and yet he was buffeted by the force of her repulse. He noted, with that remarkable objectivity that he had already admired in himself, that he wanted to hurt her even more than before.

“Goryanchikov!” he called after her.

She was halfway up the stairs when she stopped to face him. Looking up, he saw her haloed by a streetlamp. “What of him?” she demanded.

Virginsky did not know what he was going to say next. He wanted to tell her that he had seen Goryanchikov’s head floating in a jar. Instead he said: “He was one of them, wasn’t he? I saw it in your eyes when you were together. The look of fear that he would betray you. And in his eyes, something else, something nasty and possessive.”

“All that has nothing to do with you.”

“You’re right. None of this has anything to do with me. I have no right to interrogate you in this way. I’m surprised you allow it. It’s up to you what you do with your body, who you sleep with, for what reasons. It’s nothing to do with me.”

“Very well then.” But she stood for a moment without turning from him.

“Lilya.”

“What?”

“He’s dead. Goryanchikov is dead. That’s what I came to tell you.”

He couldn’t see the details of her face as she took this in. “I have to go” was all she said. The tread of her galoshes set off a muted ringing.

Virginsky hid his face in his hands.

Porfiry Petrovich lit a cigarette. He was appreciative of the opportunity the flaring match gave him to take in his surroundings. The paneled door that briefly appeared was unexpectedly impressive. He shook the match out before it burned his fingers. The details of the door faded. Porfiry blinked, as if testing the darkness with his eyelashes. He coughed once as he waited for the unheard bell to be answered. He felt that he need not have coughed, or that the cough had a psychological rather than strictly physiological origin. The truth was, even in the impenetrable blackness of this night, he felt himself spied upon. And whenever he experienced this sensation, all his actions struck him as false.

At last a small panel in the door opened. Light fled the interior as if scandalized.

“Yes, mein Herr ?”

“Fräulein Keller?”

“Do I know you?”

“I would like to make your acquaintance.”

Her laughter revealed the indecency as well as the absurdity of his idea. “I always like to make new friends, especially when they are a handsome gentleman like you.” She held the door open for him, treating him to a smile that was more ironical than coquettish. Even so, and despite her age (he judged her to be past the midpoint of her fifth decade), that smile set his heart thumping. It was not that he found it attractive. But there was knowledge in it, and experience. Her face was wearied by habits he could only guess at. Perhaps the most wearisome of all: this habit of opening the door to strangers, of assessing their predilections and facilitating fulfillment. Her smile stripped him bare but did not even show her teeth.

There was nothing of the bawd or the courtesan about her appearance. Her dress was fashionable and tasteful, even demure. All that it revealed was that she had kept her figure. He sensed a certain affectation in the way she carried herself, but was almost reassured by that. It seemed only human and certainly was to be expected. If he slapped her once, very hard, she would perhaps be cured of it. But he knew that he would, on balance, regret its loss.

Porfiry was admitted to a corridor decorated with more propriety than he had anticipated. He had expected crimson plush. The walls were in fact painted pale green, which struck an oddly prim note, as did the framed prints of racehorses. Only the narrowness of the corridor seemed indecent, due to the physical proximity it forced on those who passed in it.

Fräulein Keller held out her arms for his shuba. Porfiry was shocked by the gesture. To take off one’s coat in such an establishment was not an innocent activity. It expressed a certain intention. Besides, the coat seemed to afford some protection, not least from that smile. It was strange too how he felt the need to escape from this place as soon as he had entered it. No, he would keep his coat on; he had a perfect right to, after all.

He saw his tortured mental processes mirrored and mocked in her smile.

“Fräulein Keller, I am an investigating magistrate.”

“And so you cannot take off your coat. I understand.”

“No, no. The point is I’m here on official business.”

“A bird may be known by its flight. Is that not what you say?” Fräulein Keller laughed at her own cleverness, then, catching that Porfiry did not share her amusement, became serious: “But we are all legal. There is nothing to investigate here.” As if to prove her point, Fräulein Keller opened one of the doors from the corridor, seemingly at random. She showed Porfiry into a parlor paneled in highly varnished yellow wood. There was a hint of excess in the style of some of the furnishings. Porfiry was oppressed by the number of mirrors in elaborate frames. A fire was blazing, suggesting that someone other than the fleeting reflections on the walls had just occupied the room. “You will be too hot if you insist on keeping your furs on.”

“I am looking for a girl.”

“Of course.”

“In connection with an investigation.”

“ Ja, ja, I understand.”

“Her name is Lilya Ivanovna Semenova. I believe she works here.”